Clara's a mail order bride whose been married about a week. She chose the first man who responded to her and moved to marry him.

I don't think I've read this author before though I have read other books that feature a mail order bride as a main character before. Most of those have dealt with the process of signing up to be a mail order bride, finding a suitor, getting to the location, meeting him in person, and getting married. This one starts after they are already married.

I do wonder why Robert wanted a wife since he seems so reticent to share anything with her. Perhaps circumstances changed in the time it took her to travel there and them to get married? I can understand that he was trying to keep the guard a secret since they didn't know who was passing information on to the outlaws, but did he really expect that his wife wouldn't notice that he wasn't sleeping in his bed? And how was he existing without sleep? Did he catch sleep in the bunkhouse so as not to wake her by coming in late? One can only go for so long with no sleep.

There were a couple twists in the story that I didn't see coming. ( )