The Wood's Edge by Lori Benton

He's fighting a losing battle against the Indians and his wife is having an awful time with her pregnancy.  When she passes out from loss of blood, he discovers their new baby has already died.  He takes the small body and wonders how he can possibly tell his wife after all that work, the baby is dead.  When he sees a white woman wearing Indian clothes who has twins, one darker toned and one white toned, he substitutes his dead baby for the white one and returns to his wife.  It's just a matter of minutes before they have to leave the fort and they take the live baby with them...

I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review (thank you).  It has been published, so you can buy a copy now.  It includes a Reader's Guide.

That simple act of mercy for his wife caused him years of grief worrying about the other family and if they would come after him for the baby.  He raised him as his own son, along with the girl that survived an Indian attack.  His wife thought her boy was without fault but offered no love to the girl.  He worried about that, too.

Stone Thrower is consumed by anger.  He wants to find his son and kill Aubrey.  Years go by and the children grow.  William, the white son, goes overseas to live with his mother go to school.  Anna stays with Papa and meets Two Hawks, William's twin brother.  No one knows of the falsehood Aubrey is hiding until he gets very ill and confesses to the person nursing him.  Lydia doesn't tell anyone what she heard but now she knows the truth.  She also knows what a burden it is for him.

Stone Thrower gets drunk, is mean, and has nothing to do with his family anymore.  His wife ends up divorcing him by putting his belongings in a pile outside the teepee.  

This is a complex story of two families intertwined by one child.  The complications that arose through time could not be foreseen.  The final confrontation was nothing I was expecting.

This book kept me reading from beginning to end with each revelation making you surge forward to see how that's going to influence the story.  It was well worth reading and a fascinating tale.  There's positive hope at the end and the ghosts have been buried.  Ms. Benton writes a good story.