Uncharted Destiny (The Uncharted Series Book 7)

by Keely Brooke Keith

  Sophia and Connor were already grooming their horses. Revel calmly talked to his horse as he brushed it. He kept one hand on the animal’s hips when he walked behind it. Bailey copied his movements as she groomed Gee.

  The horses seemed to enjoy being brushed, and she wondered how much the animals understood. If they knew where this journey would lead, they might act more like Lydia had at breakfast.

  Connor took Bailey to the tack room. He gave her a saddle blanket and showed her which saddle would fit her and the horse. She carried the saddle to Gee and hoisted it onto the blanket the same way Connor did with his horse. She watched what he was doing, but when she looked back at her saddle’s straps, she got confused.

  Everyone else knew what they were doing. She didn’t want to ask stupid questions, so she started to buckle two straps together. Revel took them out of her hands. She hadn’t realized he was watching her.

  He kept his voice quiet as though he knew instruction would embarrass her. His hands moved quickly. “Always fasten the front cinch and then the back cinch.” He explained the process in an abbreviated lesson as he did the work himself.

  She was overwhelmed by how much she didn’t know and also excited to learn something new. “I might not remember all of that tomorrow.”

  He offered a charming grin. “You’ll do this process so many times over the next couple of weeks, you’ll have it memorized in no time.”

  After loading the gear onto the horses, they led them down to the driveway between the big house and the medical cottage. The sun had yet to rise, but the eastern sky glowed with soft morning light.

  Connor walked into the house with Lydia, and John carried out their packaged rations. He loaded some of the packages into Sophia’s saddlebag then whispered something to her.

  She smiled prettily. “I will, I promise.”

  John opened one of the bags Connor had attached to Bailey’s horse and filled it with packages of food. “That should sustain you until you get to Woodland. My two eldest daughters, Maggie and Adaline, live there. You will be staying with them and their families tomorrow night.” He checked the buckles beneath Gee then stuck two fingers under the saddle blanket, testing something. “Everything seems to be in order.”

  “Hopefully, I’ll be able to stay on the horse…” She tried to make a joke, but John didn’t laugh.

  His knowing gaze intensified. “Be safe, Bailey. Trust Connor. It is difficult for you, but he has proven to us he can handle any situation. He cares about you.” He glanced over Gee at Revel who was strapping more gear to his horse, then he looked back at Bailey. “We all care about you more than you might realize.”

  Connor and Lydia emerged from the house a moment later. Lydia wrapped a shawl over herself and Andrew. She paused outside the door and wiped her wet eyes. Connor kissed Lydia and the baby, then walked toward Revel, holding a map. While the men talked, Sophia gave Lydia a long hug. Both women dabbed the tears from their cheeks when they pulled away.

  Gee shuffled a little, getting Bailey’s attention. “You ready to go, girl?” She petted the horse then noticed the stirrups. She would have to watch the others mount their horses first so she would know what to do.

  Three men on the road turned onto the Colburns’ property. As they got closer, she could see Levi, Everett, and Nicholas clearly. They stopped near Revel. Levi and Everett stayed on their horses, which had as much gear strapped to them as Connor’s and Revel’s horses did. Nicholas didn’t have anything loaded on his horse. He jumped down and ran to Sophia.

  The lovebirds embraced, and Sophia wept as she said goodbye to her boyfriend. After she hoisted herself onto her horse, Nicholas handed her a small pouch. He wrapped both hands over hers as though whatever he’d given her was sacred. She smiled and opened the pouch, then held up a little carved wooden cross attached to a thin leather cord. He tied the cord around her wrist as a bracelet and whispered something to her.

  Bailey wasn’t sure if she was repulsed by or jealous of the sweetness of their courtship. If asked, she would say she didn’t need a man to romance her. She’d decided long ago that a relationship was out of the question for smart women in wartime. But for some reason, her eyes refused to look away.

  Connor mounted his horse, drawing her attention. Revel was about to do the same, so she watched his method intently. Copying him, she reached for the top of the saddle and stuck one foot in the stirrup. “Here goes nothing,” she mumbled as she started to pull herself up. Someone’s hands gripped both of her hips and gave her the needed momentum to reach the saddle. She balanced herself then looked down at John. “Thanks for the boost.”

  He whispered, “Add a little jump next time instead of trying to pull yourself up. You will be fine.”

  He was right. A woman’s strength was in her hips, not her chest like a man. She’d learned that through years of martial arts training—often the hard way. If it worked in sparring, it should work in horseback riding. It was only logical to apply what she knew to what she didn’t.

  Gee stood as still as a boulder while John prayed aloud for the group’s safe journey, success finding Tim, and speedy return. As soon as he said amen, Connor clicked at his horse and pulled on the reins to direct the animal toward the road. “Let’s do this.”

  Revel rode beside him, but Everett and Levi stayed on the driveway. Levi resembled John, only younger and more stout. He motioned for Sophia and Bailey to go next. “Everett and I will ride behind you.”

  Everett flipped his dark hair off his forehead while Bailey passed. Last time she saw John’s youngest son-in-law was when she exercised with the security team in the barn one night. He was a busy man with a farm to run and a new wife, yet he was willing to go with them to find Tim. Levi too. He’d left Mandy and their infant son for this.

  She glanced back at the two men behind her and Sophia then at the two men in front. Their shared motivation wasn’t just to save Tim’s life. They were fiercely protective of the Land and she’d witnessed them in action the night her group came ashore. No matter how much confidence her martial arts training gave her, she was glad they were now on her side.

  When they reached the road, Bailey looked back at the big house. John and Lydia stood in the middle of the dirt driveway—Lydia with Andrew on her hip and John with his hands folded calmly. Both looked as if this were a final goodbye.

  * * *

  Revel stayed by the campfire long after the others had gone to bed. A single gray leaf log burned in the fire pit at the center of the circle of stumps travelers used when they stopped for the night midway between Good Springs and Woodland. He’d slept at this campsite countless times back when he worked for the traders, but tonight he couldn’t sleep.

  A baritone snore came from Levi and Everett’s tent. There was always one in a group. Still, the sound wasn’t what kept Revel awake. He glanced at the center tent in the group’s line of three canvas shelters and wondered how Bailey was feeling after her first day in the saddle.

  He’d thought about her too much already today. Why couldn’t he focus on the mission the way Connor commanded? He tapped the gray leaf log with an iron poker. Flecks of orange embers sparked at its tip but burned out before hitting the ground.

  Early this morning in the Colburns’ barn, Bailey hadn’t known what to do with her horse. The anxiousness Revel had felt about having to stop at Falls Creek instantly settled while he helped her brush and saddle Gee. But as soon as they rode out, she didn’t need him again.

  Every time he checked on her while they rode, she said she was fine. Every time he offered her assistance when they set up camp—whether it was with hammering a tent stake or unloading her horse—she said she could manage by herself.

  And she could. Maybe that’s what was so frustrating.

  He looked away from her tent and sent the glowing end of his iron poker into a bucket of water that was waiting to extinguish the campfire. It hissed loudly. The snoring paused for a long moment.

  He hadn’t meant to w
ake anyone. He should put the fire out and go to bed. Just when he shifted his weight to stand from the stump he was using for a chair, the girls’ tent door opened.

  Bailey closed the tent flap behind her and raised her hood over her head. The firelight brightened her face angelically, but a scowl marked her expression as she walked toward the campfire. Toward him.

  Revel’s mind cleared of every other thought. He stood and whispered, “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. Couldn’t sleep.” She retracted her hands into the sleeves of the oversized sweater she’d brought to the Land. On the front of the sweater, block letters spelled out the name of the university she’d attended in America—the school where Timothy Van Buskirk had been her professor and then became her friend. What kind of friends were they?

  Revel ignored the thought. The goal of this mission this was to save the man’s life. Tim mattered to Bailey, and she mattered to Revel.

  He stepped to the side and opened his hand to offer her his seat. As she sat on the good stump, he lowered himself to the unlevel stump next to it. He kept his voice quiet as not to wake anyone and lose the opportunity to speak with Bailey alone. “Did the snoring keep you from sleeping?”

  Just as he asked the question, a particularly raucous rumble came from Levi and Everett’s tent.

  Bailey smiled. “Is that Everett?”

  “No, it’s Levi.”

  “Goodness!” She quietly chuckled. “I’m glad Sophia is a silent sleeper.”

  The fire’s soft glow highlighted her features, making her seem delicate and defiant all at once. He tried not to stare. “Why couldn’t you sleep?”

  She gave her tent a sidelong glance. “I have a thing with being in tight spaces.”

  He liked the odd expressions she used. “You have a thing?”

  “Yeah. Claustrophobia.” She poked her ring finger out of her sweater cuff and started biting her nail. “The tent is a little cramped with two people in it.”

  He pointed in the direction of the snoring. “I’m sure Everett would agree with you right now.”

  “Guys can sleep through anything.” Her amber eyes peered out from under her hood. “So, why couldn’t you sleep?”

  He almost claimed he could sleep just fine if he wanted to, but he was already hiding too much from her. He drew the iron poker out of the water bucket and let it hang over the fire. Water droplets evaporated before they hit the burning wood. “Just thinking about what I have to do.” And what he’d done, but he kept that part to himself.

  She looked at him and said nothing. The longer she studied his face, the more his stomach tightened. He both wanted her attention and wanted her to look away before she saw too much. The crackling fire and rhythmic snoring faded into the distance. What was she thinking?

  At last, she broke her gaze. “Yesterday, when we were talking before I… heard from Tim, you were telling me about the Land. You said you hoped you’d never have to go near the mountains. And here I am making you go there.”

  His trepidation over going to the mountains had ended in Lydia’s office when Bailey had said she would go alone if she had to. “It’s not the mountains I’m worried about.”

  “Oh.” She spoke the one syllable and stared at the fire.

  He waited for her to pry the way his sisters used to, but she didn’t. The more he got to know her, the less she was like anyone he knew. Yet something in him trusted her more than everyone else. He drew a circle in the dirt with the poker. “Tomorrow, we will stay the night at John’s daughters’ houses in Woodland. You girls will probably stay with Maggie and her family and the rest of us will stay at Adeline’s. Her husband converted a room in the barn that they let the traders use. Then on Monday we will ride all day to Falls Creek.”

  He paused waiting for her to gasp in horror for him, but she wouldn’t know anything about his past. “The inn… that is why I couldn’t sleep.”

  “Ah. Family baggage.”

  “Baggage?”

  “Yeah, junk from your past you carry with you wherever you go. We all have it.”

  “I suppose so.” He touched the folded envelope inside his coat pocket. Eva’s last letter hadn’t been addressed to him but to John, demanding the overseer of Good Springs send Revel home to the inn at once. The oldest of his two sisters was always making demands, but this time she’d made him look bad in the process. She was good at that too.

  Bailey spoke, breaking his thoughts. “It’s only one night.”

  “I tell myself that every time I have to stay there. I can put up with it for one night.”

  She pushed her hood off her head and dark strands of short hair fell onto her face. “It’s all in the mind.”

  “Not with my family.”

  “No, I mean with you—how you perceive the situation.” She shifted a quarter turn toward him. “It’s like on the mat in martial arts competitions, if I go into a match thinking it’s going to hurt if I get hit, I’m preparing myself to get hit. But if I go into a match envisioning the punches I’ll land, I’m preparing myself to win.”

  “I’m not going to punch my family.”

  That got a quick smile out of her. “No, please don’t. I’m saying it’s all about mindset. Everyone was freaking out about the mountains because of old rumors about the area being dangerous, but that just makes it more of a challenge for me.”

  “And you enjoy a challenge?”

  She straightened her posture. “I live for a challenge.”

  “No wonder you said you would search for Tim even if we didn’t go with you.”

  “I wasn’t about to leave him out there.”

  “I don’t doubt it for a minute.”

  “But I’m glad all of you came with me.”

  Levi’s snoring rumbled across the camp. Revel lifted his poker toward the sound. “Even though you have to listen to that every night?”

  She chuckled. “Yeah. Even with that.” Her smile slowly faded and she leaned forward. “Listen, Revel, thanks for all your help today with the horse… and for coming on this trip. And for standing up for me last night when Connor was mad about the radio and all that. You really put yourself out there for me. It wasn’t lost on me.”

  Her sincerity touched his heart. “You’re welcome.”

  “I mean it.”

  “So do I. That’s what friends are for.”

  A little grin curved her lips. “You might not say that once we get to the inn and you realize that because of me you’re in the one place you try to avoid. That might kill our friendship.”

  Somehow, he had a feeling that their young friendship was stronger than any he’d ever formed. He returned her grin easily. “I believe our friendship can survive even that.”

  “Yeah,” she went back to biting her nails, “so do I.”

  Chapter Four

  Bailey craned her neck to see around Connor and Revel as the group rode up another hill. When she crested the top, the low sun gleamed from the western sky straight into her eyes. About an hour until sunset, which was when she’d promised Tim she would call him over the radio if she could get a few minutes away from the group. A second call in a day broke Connor’s rule, but Tim was sick and needed to hear her voice as much as she needed to hear his.

  She shielded her eyes from the sun with one hand and loosely held Gee’s reins with the other. Shifting her weight did little to relieve her tired thighs, but the view from the top of the hill was worth every hour she had spent in the saddle.

  Tree-dotted wilderness rolled with golden-topped grasses from the edge of the dirt road to the distant mountain range. A silvery stream ran through the shallow valleys between the hills like a reflective ribbon, its surface rippled by the cool wind.

  Bailey twisted to look at the land behind them. Levi and Everett both met her gaze expectantly, but all she wanted was to see the view to the east. The farther west they rode, the hills grew higher, and the gray leaf trees became fewer. The Land’s topography had changed as they moved away from Good Spr
ings’ forest-flanked coast, but its majesty only intensified.

  Riding next to her, Sophia hummed. “It’s more beautiful out here than I imagined.”

  “Yeah, definitely.” The reply came out of Bailey’s mouth without any thought to the words. Somehow the Land was both everything she’d ever dreamed of and nothing like what she’d imagined. It was wild yet peaceful, welcoming but reclusive, both full of possibilities and timeless.

  Between the villages, wildlife filled the sparsely populated wilderness. Some animals were similar to those found around the globe—rabbits, deer, squirrels. Some creatures were peculiar variations of species she studied in biology classes, especially the plethora of unusual birds.

  She rode Gee down the hill and toward the next. When they were almost to the top, several startled deer dashed from the edge of the road. They bound over the tall grass and raced to catch up with their herd.

  Connor made a pretend gun with his fingers and popped his lips as if shooting at them. Revel chuckled at Connor. Behind her, Levi and Everett argued over how many points the buck had and which one of the men would have been able to shoot it first if they’d had their crossbows ready.

  She glanced at Sophia, who rolled her eyes at the men’s comments. For the first time in years, Bailey was glad to have another woman around.

  “There it is,” Connor said, pointing ahead. “The Inn at Falls Creek.”

  Revel mumbled something indecipherable in a flat tone.

  Ahead, a white two-story farmhouse gleamed in the late afternoon sunlight. Bailey’s breath caught on an exhale, not because of the inn’s beauty, but because she’d seen the house before. “It’s the same.”

  Revel glanced back at her, making her realize she’d commented aloud.

  Sophia furrowed her porcelain brow. “But you’ve never been here, have you?”

  “No, of course not. It looks exactly like another house I know.” She scanned the buildings beside the clapboard-covered inn. “The stables, the barn, the windmill. It’s even laid out the same.”