Uncharted Hope

by Keely Brooke Keith

  Lydia stopped writing. She gave Sophia a quick glance then asked Bethany, “James the shepherd at the Foster farm? He has a brother coming to Good Springs?”

  Sophia dropped her gaze to the table, hoping not to be drawn into a conversation about James or her time with him in the cottage. He’d been a patient, nothing more. No one need ever know he’d kissed her.

  Bethany answered Lydia. “His brother’s name is Revel. He and Everett are friends, so he’s coming to the village for the wedding. The Foster house will be full with Roseanna’s relatives before the wedding, so I offered for Revel to stay here.”

  John nodded. “All right. He can have the guest room and the kids can sleep in the parlor.”

  Bethany raised her fork. “And Roseanna wants to stay here on the wedding night and maybe a couple more nights.” Her face reddened. “She said Everett and I should have the house to ourselves for a few days.”

  Connor chortled. Lydia shifted in her seat. Levi groaned. Mandy twirled an auburn curl and winked at Bethany.

  John drummed his fingers on the table’s edge. “Very well. Roseanna may have your room after the wedding, so you and Everett can… enjoy your honeymoon. Before we take in any more guests, please think of where they might sleep.”

  Connor grinned. “We could put a mattress in the bathtub.”

  Lydia laughed. “How about the pantry? It’s dark and cozy in there.”

  Sophia waited for some disagreement to form and dinner to end by a person stabbing the tension with hateful accusations as it always had in her family. Instead, pleasant conversation flowed through the Colburn kitchen, even as they began clearing the table together.

  Mandy braced one hand on the table and one on the chair as she prepared to lift her pregnant frame. Before she exerted the power a full-term woman needed to stand, Levi rubbed her back. “Stay there and relax.”

  Connor wiped food from Andrew’s cherubim-like cheeks. “Yeah, relax while you can, Mandy. You’ll have plenty of work soon enough.” He lifted the baby from his highchair. “This little guy keeps us busy.”

  Lydia was pressing a wooden lever beneath the double-basin sink, filling one side with steaming water. The Colburns had everything.

  Sophia carried her plate to the sink. She didn’t want dinner to be over. While the water level rose, she stayed nearby hoping to help but unsure how to jump into the action of a large family accustomed to their routine.

  A wooden bowl hit the floor near the highchair, and Andrew let out a happy squeal. Lydia glanced over her shoulder, smiling at her son. She squeezed the water out of a wet rag and went to clean the mess.

  Sophia took Lydia’s place at the sink and started washing dishes. John grabbed a tea towel from a cupboard. He reached for a clean plate as Sophia set it on the drying rack. “I will dry.”

  “You will?” She regretted the surprise in her voice. “I mean—”

  He chuckled. “Of course.”

  She tried to cover her embarrassment with a quick smile, but realization had already changed his expression. She stared at the bubbly water. “I’m sorry. It’s just that my father never helped in the kitchen, so I was surprised that you would.”

  “Every family is different, Sophia. In this house, we strive to serve each other to honor Christ who came to serve us.”

  She nodded and wiped the sudsy rag over a plate, unable to imagine growing up in a family who lived like that.

  He leaned in slightly. “You do not have to stay out there in the cottage by yourself all the time. You can eat here with us whenever you like.” He glanced at the flurry of activity behind them. “It is not always this… lively, but you are welcome at my table anytime.”

  Chapter Five

  The porch creaked as Nicholas climbed the steps to his newly inherited house. Warm wind blew through the surrounding woods, filling the air with the scent of gray leaf and sage and soil. The breeze brought a copper wind chime to life with a monotone dirge. Nicholas remembered the eerie sound from the one time he’d visited the cabin as a child. He would remove the chime later.

  He’d never owned anything bigger than a chest-of-drawers before, and now he’d inherited a one-room house on four acres of overgrown land. His Aunt Vestal had kept up her parents’ home as best she could over the decade since their passing. Still, a house that wasn’t lived in was a dying house. Nicholas began making a mental list of needed repairs.

  He cleared a cobweb from the keyhole and unlocked the door. A sagging floorboard groaned as he stepped to the kitchen area and checked the iron stove. The oven had been scrubbed clean long ago, but it had since housed a family of mice. He wiped a finger through the dust layer on the sink and walked toward the fireplace.

  The grate overflowed with ashes left by the cabin’s last tenant, Justin Mercer. Aunt Vestal had graciously allowed the outsider to live in the cabin during his time in the Land almost a year ago. In Mr. Mercer’s rush to leave their quiet world, he’d repaid the kindness by leaving a mess.

  Nicholas examined the bedstead in the corner of the room. It would need a new mattress, but the sturdy frame made from gray leaf lumber would last his lifetime. Their lifetime… if his dream of marrying Sophia came true.

  He stepped back to a round top table and sat in one of its two chairs. The other chair would be hers. Someday. Maybe. He felt like he’d lost her even though he never had her. The pit in his chest ached. He folded his hands. “Thank you, God, for this home. I promise to take care of it, and if You allow, I will make it her home too. If I was mistaken though, and she’s not the woman for me, please take away this longing.”

  The porch squeaked as footsteps ascended the stairs. Nicholas crossed the small house in a few quick strides. He met Connor at the doorway. “I would invite you in, but this place isn’t fit for company quite yet.”

  Connor glanced over Nicholas’s head into the one-room cabin. “Yeah, I spent enough time in there when Mercer was here last year.”

  Nicholas walked out to the porch and down the steps. “I understand why someone from outside the Land would come here, but I never could figure out why Mr. Mercer was in such a fired-up hurry to leave.”

  Connor followed him into the yard. “The quiet way of life here doesn’t suit everyone. The Land wasn’t what Mercer was looking for after all.”

  “His loss,” Nicholas mumbled. He knocked the brim of his hat higher with a knuckle and looked up at the roof. Moss grew where the roof sagged in the middle. “Half of those wooden shingles are rotten. I’ll have to replace the whole roof.”

  “I can help with that.”

  “Much appreciated, but I won’t get around to it before the school year starts and you have to return to teaching.”

  Connor sank his hands into his trouser pockets. “I won’t be teaching school this year.”

  Nicholas studied Connor. Though from the same country as the founders of the Land, Connor was different from the men in Good Springs. He stood unusually straight with his long neck stiff and his eyes scanning his surroundings. He ran for exercise, had a nickname for everyone, and frequently suggested ways to make things more efficient.

  People liked Connor and liked him teaching at the secondary school. But he’d married one of village overseer’s daughters and had proven his leadership skills, so the elders of Good Springs had selected him for a weightier position. Nicholas nodded his approval. “I suppose your training to be the next overseer takes all of your time now.”

  “No, not all of it.” Connor glanced over his shoulder in the same vigilant way Everett often did. Whatever they had both been through defending Good Springs in the past had heightened their vigilance. Connor spoke with a more relaxed tone than most men in the Land. “My chief concern is the Land’s security. After Justin Mercer came here last year, John Colburn agreed we need a defense plan in case others hear of this place.”

  Whatever they had discussed didn’t concern Nicholas. He had a flock to earn and a house to renovate and a young lady to impress. Outsiders findin
g the Land didn’t worry him so long as they behaved better than Mr. Mercer had. He reached for a broken limb in the high grass and looked around the yard for the best place to start a burn pile. “Everett said you were coming to talk about my request for more land. No one owns the property to the west. It would require clearing for the sheep, but I’ll need the space to keep a healthy flock.”

  Connor crossed his arms and gave Nicholas an appraising stare. “How old are you?”

  “Almost twenty and six. Why?”

  “I’m putting together a security team. I need more men. You look like you have what it takes. Levi and Everett both think you’d fight well.”

  Nicholas tossed the limb to the side of the cabin near the overgrown plot that was once a vegetable patch. “Fight whom?”

  “Whoever we must.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I plan to start with six men. Once they are trained to fight as a unit, we will expand and train teams in other villages.”

  “I know nothing about fighting. I just need land.” And a flock and Sophia.

  Connor’s gaze narrowed. “You need more of Good Springs’ land, and Good Springs needs able-bodied men to be ready to defend the village. We train one night a week in John Colburns’ barn and one weekend per month. We think you’d be a good fit for the team. I’m allowed to offer you forty acres for a five-year commitment. What do you think?”

  Nicholas stepped back and looked at the house. It needed work. He already had a job. He wanted to build a relationship with Sophia, and that would take time too. But if he were successful, he would need the house and the land. He’d never fought anyone nor considered training to defend a village. If someone tried to attack his family or village he would fight, trained or not. Just imagining someone trying to hurt Sophia made his blood run hot. Maybe he was the type of man they needed. And Connor had said Everett and Levi had approved his joining the team.

  He looked to the west. His new property would stretch to the horizon. If he accepted the offer, he was committing the next few years of his life to the security team of Good Springs. It might take that long to win Sophia’s heart. “Forty acres for one night per week for five years?”

  Connor nodded once.

  “And Everett and Levi are a part of the team?”

  Connor’s confident gaze held steady.

  Nicholas thrust out his hand. “You have a deal.”

  Chapter Six

  Sophia clipped the leaves from the long stem of a white rose and slid it into a vase with two dozen other flowers. She passed the vase to Lydia. “If we stirred a little sugar into the water, the petals would still look fresh on Sunday.”

  Lydia pursed her lips. “I’ve never thought of that. It makes sense, though.” She nestled the vase between two others in a wooden crate. “I’ll get sugar.”

  While Lydia left the flower-filled medical office, Sophia surveyed the baskets of flowers still needing to be sorted and clipped. Bethany had requested floral arrangements made of every variety of white flower found in the Land for her wedding. Her father had coordinated with multiple traveling traders to make it happen.

  John Colburn could make anything happen.

  Sophia stood from the worktable and paced to the open door. The last slip of sunlight streaming across the yard faded as afternoon rainclouds blew in from the ocean. A warm breeze carried the scents of pine and sea. The filtered light and the salty air stirred memories of when Sophia first came to Good Springs.

  Her sister, Alice, had convinced their parents that Sophia should finish her studies in Good Springs because students were flourishing under Connor Bradshaw’s teaching. Sophia’s father had said she wouldn’t amount to anything, but he’d let her go to relieve himself of the burden. That’s what he called her most of her life—the burden. Her mother only murmured, “It’s about time you found something to do with yourself,” when Sophia said goodbye. No warm embrace or mother’s kiss.

  She’d left her parents’ house knowing it was farewell forever to her life in Woodland. They had finally gotten rid of her, and she was fine with that. At last, she could discover her purpose and make the world better for everyone—for respectable citizens as well as the cruel parents of lonely little girls stuck on isolated farms who dreamed of something more.

  During the two-day journey while Alice’s husband, Hubert, had driven Sophia through the gray leaf forest to Good Springs, she’d prattled on about her future in Good Springs. Hubert had barely glanced at her. He knew what Alice had planned and seemed rather fond of the plan himself.

  None of that mattered now. Sophia was securing her own life apart from her miserable family. But every time she smelled the pines that stood between the shore and the Colburn property, it brought back the memory of the first moment she’d felt the hope of change.

  She’d never dreamed it would be the gray leaf tree that sparked a desire to do research or she’d be given the chance to train as a medical assistant. Now her work in this cottage was all that mattered. As she returned to the flower-covered worktable, a light knock rattled the window of the open door.

  “May I come in?” James Roberts asked from the threshold.

  Sophia turned to see the shepherd, who had been her patient only a few nights ago, standing in the doorway. “Of course. Hello, James. How are your hands?”

  He looked down at where the blisters had scarred the skin around his thumbs. “They’re fine.”

  Seeing his healed skin and calm demeanor gave her a sense of accomplishment. Perhaps she could be good at patient care after all. But she hadn’t healed him. The gray leaf and Lydia’s quick care had. “Have you come to see Dr. Bradshaw? She went to the house and should be back any moment.”

  “No. My brother, Revel, arrived today. I brought him here.” James stepped inside and left the cottage door open. “He is staying at the Colburn house while he’s in town for the wedding.”

  “I look forward to meeting him.”

  James glanced back at the house. “It feels odd calling it the Colburn house since John will be the only Colburn living in it after Bethany moves out. Connor, Lydia, and the baby are Bradshaws.”

  “Mr. Colburn told me the original portion of the house was built by his ancestor in the eighteen sixties—Reverend William Colburn, one of the founders. Even if Connor and Lydia fill the house with Bradshaws babies, the house will always be the Colburn house.” She picked up another flower and trimmed its stem. “I’m glad your hands are better. I’ll see you at the wedding.”

  James took off his hat, and his eyes cast downward. “Actually, I need to talk to you, if you can spare the time.”

  The somber edge of his expression gripped her heart. She set down the flower and touched his arm. “What’s wrong, James?”

  “The other night…” He pointed at the vacant cot with his hat. “I wasn’t myself. I could blame it on the fever and the gray leaf medicine and the way it harassed my spirit, but that is no excuse. I’m a better man than that. I swear I am.”

  Sophia recalled his quick and awkward kiss. She’d resolved to think nothing of it and certainly never to speak of it. She withdrew her hand. “You needn’t apologize. You were ill and going through such torment. I would never fault a patient for his anxious behavior.”

  He shook his head, and chin-length strands of hairs fell around his face. “I shouldn’t have behaved the way I did. I talked too much and said things I shouldn’t have. I took advantage of your kindness and,” he looked at her lips, “your company.”

  A figure neared the doorway behind James. He kept talking. “When I kissed you, I wasn’t—”

  She shushed James, but it was too late.

  “What’s this?” Nicholas barged in behind James, his voice stern. “You kissed her?”

  James flinched. “What? No… yes—”

  “How could you?” Nicholas’s voice dropped an octave and his fists stiffened at his sides. “You had no right to touch her!”

  “Gentlemen, please!”
>
  Both men looked down at her. Nicholas’s dark eyes bulged with anger, while James’s gaze continued his unfinished apology.

  “Please, don’t argue, especially in—”

  Nicholas cut her short. “Is that why you turned me down, Sophia? For the likes of this scoundrel?”

  “No… I…”

  James frowned at Nicholas. “Scoundrel?”

  Nicholas ignored him. “Was I not good enough to court you but he is?”

  “You’re making a fool of yourself.”

  “Shut it!” Nicholas said to James while still looking at Sophia. “I want her to answer.”

  “She isn’t to blame.”

  Nicholas removed his steely gaze from Sophia and turned it to James. “That’s right. You are!”

  “I didn’t mean for it to happen.” James raked his hand through his hair. “I meant nothing by it.”

  “So you accidentally kissed the woman you knew I wanted to court?”

  Sophia stepped forward. “Nicholas, please listen. Let’s all just calm down. James wasn’t himself that night. He—”

  “He took advantage of you, is what he did!”

  James cocked his head. “Don’t say something you will regret.”

  “The only thing I regret is trusting you.”

  “That’s enough,” James said. He thumped Nicholas’s chest with the back of his hand.

  Nicholas glared down at James’s hand, which was still pressed against his chest. His face reddened and with one fluid motion he knocked James’s hand away and shoved him against the wall. The thud shook the windows.

  James’s nostrils flared.

  Nicholas raised his fist, and the air ignited with the energy of men poised to fight.

  Sophia grabbed Nicholas’s arm. “Stop! This can’t happen—not here. Not blood shedding in the place where people come to be healed.”

  Before anyone could utter a word, Lydia tore through the doorway, holding a cup of sugar. “What is going on in here?”