Uncharted Hope

by Keely Brooke Keith

  He offered his hand as she climbed up to the bench seat. “It’s over now,” he said confidently.

  It was never over.

  While Nicholas sat beside her and released the brake, she stared at the bay gelding. The horse’s back twitched, unsettling a pair of flies. Alice would be watching through a window, no doubt. Sophia squared her shoulders as if she belonged on the wagon, sitting beside the man who had come to her rescue. She no more belonged up here than she did at Alice’s house or in Woodland or in the medical cottage assisting Lydia. She didn’t belong anywhere.

  Nicholas snapped the reins, and the horse pulled the wagon through the village. Though he drove at an unhurried pace, the wheels rattled over the cobblestones as they had when Revel drove her in the Colburns’ wagon last week. Her teeth chattered as she craned her neck to see the desk.

  “Will it be all right?” Nicholas asked.

  “It seems to be holding on.”

  “No, not the desk. I meant with your family?”

  She studied his profile. He cared about her. He’d told her as much and was proving it even now. But why did he care? Because he was attracted to her? That could be nothing more than lust. Because he felt God wanted them together? That could be nothing more than wishful thinking.

  He seemed too practical, too robust, to be led by fanciful feelings. Perhaps it was as simple as James had said—once a man was sure about a woman, his heart took it from there.

  She wiped her sweaty palms on her skirt. “I’ll have no place to go if I lose my position with Dr. Bradshaw.”

  “You can’t return to Woodland?” He briskly lifted his hand as if startled by his own words. “Not that I want you to go.”

  She shook her head. “My father doesn’t want anyone around. He never cared for people much, especially me. Alice says I’m not even his child.”

  Nicholas gave her a quick look, but she didn’t make eye contact. He was quiet a moment before he spoke again. “Where is your mother?”

  “Gone.”

  “Deceased?”

  “No. I don’t think so anyway. Alice says after I left home, Mother went to Northpoint, to a lover there.” She rubbed her throbbing temples. “That might not even be true, knowing Alice.”

  The cobblestones ended at the edge of the village, and the smooth road allowed her to lower her voice. “Alice and I will never have a peaceful relationship. I don’t know why I tried so hard. It shouldn’t upset me that we aren’t friends. I should be relieved to sever ties with my dreadful family, but it’s just that now… now I have no family at all. That’s why it’s important I secure the position with Dr. Bradshaw. I’ll be homeless if I lose my job.”

  “That’s not true. The Colburns would never let you go homeless and neither would I.” He slowed the eager horse and turned onto the Colburn property. “I recently inherited a house in the village. It’s small and needs repair. I’m working on it while I live on the Foster farm. You’re welcome to stay there if you should ever need to.”

  His generous offer held more charity than anyone had shown her, except the Colburns. He was like them in many ways. His kindness wrapped around her heart like a gauzy bandage, tight enough to keep her from bleeding to death but loose enough to allow love to flow in and out.

  Ahead of the horse, the dirt road’s two sandy brown stripes led out of the village. The tree-lined lane disappeared past the Colburn property where it stretched for miles and miles between each village in the Land. What if they stayed on the road, not stopping at the Colburns’ or at the Fosters’ but kept going through the forest, through Woodland, onward to the villages farther inland and farther still from their relatives and responsibilities? What if she scooted closer to Nicholas on the bench and rested her head against his strong shoulder and forgot all about the work and worry of trying to forge a new life by herself?

  No. She snapped herself from the fantasy. This was her new beginning—her life in Good Springs. She had received more than she deserved from the people of this village, including the kindness of this charming man beside her. She smiled as they neared the medical cottage. “Thank you for your generous offer. But it’s more than the boarding that I need here. I need all of this.” She looked up at the towering gray leaf trees as they drove under them. “The Colburn family, the job, the chance to study the gray leaf. That’s my true purpose.”

  “So you’ve said.”

  She held up a finger. “Rest assured, I’ll make my great discovery, and that will show them.”

  He looked troubled rather than amused. “Show whom? The Colburns?”

  “No, my family.”

  Nicholas pulled on the reins, stopping the horse near the cottage. He set the wagon brake and looped the reins around it. Then he turned to her. “Last week, you told me you were studying the gray leaf to find new ways to help people. Now, after a spat with your sister, you say you’re trying to prove yourself to your family.”

  What did her reasoning matter? Her purpose was the same whether she was motivated one day by her love of the plant and the next by her desire to prove herself to her loathsome relatives. She clambered down from the wagon. “I will find what makes the gray leaf powerful, and I will use it to help people, and I will—with great delight—make sure my parents and my sister hear of my achievements.”

  Nicholas blithely jumped down from the bench. He held up both hands in surrender as he rounded the wagon. “I didn’t mean to rile you.” He lowered the tailgate. “Just be careful.”

  “Of what?”

  “I want to see you succeed, but for the right reasons.” He reached for the desk, his taut muscles rising and contracting with each movement. “You’re upset with your family right now. That’ll pass if you let it go. If you don’t, you’ll end up bitter too. Bitterness wouldn’t suit you.” He grinned slowly, melting her heart. “You were made for so much more.”

  Instead of letting him lock her gaze, she looked past him at the Colburn house. The stately brick structure blocked the sunshine, but the people inside it brought more light to her life than the sun ever had. They had endured hardship and family squabbles and even the murder of Mrs. Colburn long ago, yet carried on with gracious hearts and dignified attitudes.

  She wanted a gracious heart, not one clogged with bitterness. Surrounded by people like the Colburns and Nicholas, it seemed possible. She returned her attention to him and reflected his smile. “I want so much more.”

  * * *

  Nicholas ran his fingers through his clean, wet hair as he crossed the road between the Foster farm and Levi and Mandy’s house. The cold bath he’d taken after work washed the dirt from his skin, but the balmy night air already had him sweating again. With only a month left until the autumn equinox, surely this would be the last heat wave in Good Springs for the summer.

  A mantle of stars smudged the darkness above, each one’s light blending into the next. The oval moon shone across Levi’s yard, giving Nicholas a clear view as he strode through the freshly mowed grass toward the porch. As the front door opened, the anguished wail of a labor-pained woman flowed from the house.

  Connor stepped outside and closed the door, muffling the throaty cry. He shuffled down the porch steps and lifted his chin at Nicholas. “Hey, man. What’s up?”

  Unaccustomed to the outsider’s phrasing, Nicholas shrugged. “How is Mandy?”

  Another cry bellowed through the walls, seeming to come from the bedroom on the west side of Levi’s house.

  Connor gave a half-grimace half-smile. “It sounds like she’s exactly how she’s supposed to be right now.”

  “Yes, I suppose so.” Nicholas had witnessed the birth of more sheep and cattle than he could count but never a human. “Who’s helping her?”

  “Levi and Roseanna are with her. My wife is delivering the baby.” Connor arched one eyebrow slightly. “And Sophia is assisting Lydia.”

  Nicholas looked away, sensing he was being baited. “Well, I came to see if there was any news yet.”

  �
�Nope, not yet. Soon though. Everett and Bethany are in the living room, debating whether the baby is a boy or girl.” Another bellow came from the birthing room. Connor leaned against the porch railing and crossed his legs at the ankle. “We’ll know in a few minutes.”

  Crickets chirped rapidly in the heat. Nicholas turned his face toward the sky and rubbed the back of his tired neck. “When do I start training for this security team?”

  Connor shot away from the porch railing, his attention fully ignited. “Thursday night—sundown in the Colburns’ barn.”

  “I’ll be there.” He hadn’t thought he would enjoy physical confrontation until he felt the primal burn that rose inside him when he thought he’d have to fight for Sophia. Though he longed for more, he would never say it aloud. “We train every week, right?”

  Connor nodded. “That’s the plan. Unless I’m not back from Woodland in time next week.”

  “Woodland?” He stepped closer. “Why are you going to Woodland? That is, if you don’t mind my asking.”

  Connor flashed him a look that mixed regal authority and raw amusement. “No, Nic, I don’t mind. I’m going over weapon prototypes with a craftsman there.”

  “Weapons?”

  “The security team will need more than fists.”

  “Right, well…” He sank his hands into his trouser pockets. “I’ve been meaning to make the trip back to Woodland to… get some things I left at my parents home… for my new house.”

  “I see.”

  “Might I make the trip with you?”

  “Yeah, Nic. No problem. We’ll take the Colburns’ wagon to haul your stuff back.” Connor crossed his arms loosely. “On one condition.”

  “What condition?”

  “That you be honest with me. In fact, that’s the biggest requirement of the security team.”

  “Of course.”

  “So, why do you really want to go to Woodland?”

  Nicholas drew his hands from his pockets and brushed his fingertips together. “I must speak to Sophia’s father. She doesn’t want me to, but I must.”

  “Why doesn’t she want you to?”

  “She says she has severed ties with her family. Called them dreadful.”

  Connor shrugged, casually. “Women do that. They’ll have a fight with their mom or sister or whatever, and suddenly it’s the end of the world. I saw the end of the world during the war, and it was bigger than girly squabbles.”

  Nicholas recalled the sadness in Sophia’s eyes when he found her huddled over an old desk on her sister’s porch, and the pain in her voice as she’d told how her family had mistreated her. “I think it’s more than a girly squabble.” He glanced at the curtained window as a cry of labor pain then cheers of joy resonated from Mandy’s bedroom. “Regardless, I want to court Sophia, so I have to speak to her father.”

  Connor gave him a stiff pat on the back. “You’re doing the right thing. We’ll leave at dawn on Saturday.” He walked back up the porch steps. “Come on. It’s time to meet the newest Colburn.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Bailey rubbed the edge of a gray leaf between her thumb and forefinger then jotted a note in her notebook. The gray leaf left a trace of oily residue on her skin. It tingled but why? Without the right lab equipment, her questions would go unanswered and she wouldn’t be able to put together the molecular analysis Justin had requested.

  Her feet felt prickly after being crossed for so long beneath her on the closet floor. Justin wouldn’t let her take the saplings out of the closet and he only allowed her to turn the grow light off for one hour a day.

  As she stood to get circulation back to her feet, she breathed in the scent released by the gray leaf saplings. The aroma seemed stronger from above the plants. A long inhale of it filled her with an inexplicable sense of peace.

  Justin opened the closet door and grinned at her. “You don’t have to lock yourself in there, you know.”

  “I kind of like it in here.”

  “Well, it’s freaking me out a little.” He chuckled. “Come out for lunch.” He held a soup bowl in one hand and waved her out with the other. “Beef vegetable stew.”

  She accepted the bowl and sat on the edge of the bed. Justin lowered himself into the chair at his desk. It squeaked as he spun it around to face her. “So how’s it going in there?”

  She glanced at the saplings in the closet. “The gray leaf tree isn’t like any plant I’ve studied. Until we get the saplings to a lab, I won’t be able to analyze their pharmaceutical potential.”

  He shook his head as he swallowed a bite of food. “The saplings aren’t going anywhere. I will get the equipment soon.”

  “I’ve made sketches and noted my observations, but I can’t do much else until you do.”

  “Like I said, don’t worry about it.”

  “You hired me to do a job. I want to do it right.”

  “And you are.” He lifted his chin at her. “Eat up.”

  She stirred the chunky stew and steam rose from the bowl. “Smells good.”

  He smiled. “Only the finest for my star employee.”

  “Your only employee.” She filled her spoon with broth and sipped it. “From a can?”

  “Where else does stew come from?”

  She chuckled at his joke. Even though she knew he was playing her somehow, he was still a fellow survivor. “Few people have a sense of humor anymore. What’s your story?”

  He finished his meal without answering. Her question hung in the air like an open door. After a few minutes, he set his empty bowl on the desk and stretched his hands along the arms of his chair. “I don’t have a story.”

  “You do. Everyone does.”

  “Fine then. What’s your story?”

  She allowed his question to go unanswered as she ate. Two could play this game. When her bowl was empty, she passed it to him. “I have a story, but something tells me you already know it.”

  A cocky grin creased his face. “I know where you’re from, what foster homes you lived in, what classes you lacked to earn your degree—”

  She shot to her feet. “Classes were canceled because of the water poisoning. Most of my classmates died. I waited at Eastern Shore for a year for something to happen, for life to go back to normal. By then, the United States was the Unified States and we were at war.”

  Justin raised both palms. “Whoa, beautiful. I wasn’t trying to tick you off.”

  She blew out a deep breath to ease her frustration. It wasn’t her fault she didn’t have the degree she needed to secure a good position at PharmaTech. She’d still been able to take care of herself as always.

  Her story didn’t matter to her as much as his did right now. Whatever his game was with her and the gray leaf, clues would hide in his words. “Where were you when the war started?”

  “I had just finished flight training and signed my first contract with the navy.” He stared at a poster of an F-18 Hornet on the wall over his headboard, but his fingers played with the flap of the sunglasses case on his desk. “I was ready to fight for my country. Still am.” He went quiet. The only sound in the room was the repeated opening and closing of the sunglasses case.

  “Then why did you leave the military?”

  He pressed his lips together and shook his head. “I didn’t. They left me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He snapped his gaze away from the poster as if being jarred from a daydream. “You can go home, if you’re done for the day.”

  She wanted to ask again. Why had she allowed herself to care? Her heart ached to care about someone, something bigger than herself, something more than survival, but caring only led to pain. She’d already experienced more than a lifetime of pain in her twenty-six years. Still, if she were going to figure out Justin’s plan, she had to get him to talk. “And so you moved back in with your mother?”

  “I brought her here to live with me. She was a different person before…” His gaze returned to the poster.

  �
�Weren’t we all?”

  “Not you.” He angled his head a degree. “You’ve been fighting your whole life.”

  How did he keep turning the conversation back to her? He knew this game better than she’d expected.

  She shrugged off his comment. “What is it they say? What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.”

  “Is that what it did? Growing up in foster homes, your mother dying in prison, missing out on earning your degree? Those things strengthened you?”

  “Those and six years of martial arts training.”

  He blew out a breath and crossed his legs. “Yeah, something tells me you didn’t need training.”

  “Sorry about that.”

  “No you’re not.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  His cocky grin returned and he leaned forward. “So what’s the deal with you and Van Buskirk? Are you guys a thing?”

  “What? No!”

  When he laughed, her anger dissipated. She playfully threw her pencil at him. “Is that all you think about?”

  He caught the pencil and held up both hands in surrender. She laughed and took it from him. “Professor Tim is a close friend. Actually, he’s like a dad to me. Always has been.” She thought of the data Tim had sorted through for her. Justin hadn’t answered her the first time she’d asked, but it felt like a good time to try again. “Why did you send Tim the file of records about my ancestors?”

  He spun his chair to face his computers, putting his back to her. “We’re done for the day. You can go.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Sophia blinked and her lashes brushed the microscope eyepiece. The faint swish was the only sound in the blissfully quiet medical office. Morning sunlight poured through the window, brightening her view of the gray leaf specimen on the microscope slide. She pulled back from the eyepiece long enough to make a note. As she leaned back to the microscope, movement outside the Colburn house caught her eye. John stepped out of the back door, wearing a flour-splotched apron.

  It must be Saturday.

  Sophia glanced at the calendar pinned to the diagonal stair wall behind Lydia’s desk to confirm the day. John spent every Saturday morning baking bread and every Saturday evening studying his Bible as he prepared for Sunday’s sermon. And he spent every Sunday afternoon at the Foster farm, having lunch with Mrs. Roseanna Foster.