Uncharted Destiny (The Uncharted Series Book 7)

by Keely Brooke Keith

  “Woman power,” he repeated to himself. He’d never considered the power of women until he met Bailey Colburn from Virginia. To keep from staring at her, he walked between the rows of soil-filled planters. Piles of dead seedlings and dried bits of bark were scattered on the greenhouse floor. She must have cleaned out the old plants, which hadn’t been tended to. As he turned to walk back to the front of the musty building, he remembered when Bailey had been in the captain’s cabin on the ship. “Doesn’t the smell in here bother you?”

  She sniffed the air. “I smell dirt.”

  “And mildew.”

  “Yeah, maybe a little of that too.” She shrugged. “I guess I got over that when I had to help Tim out of the mountain cave.”

  That brutal day had helped them both overcome some of the haunting difficulties from their pasts. Maybe he was right about her being ready for more than friendship. There was only one way to find out. “I’m glad you—how did you put it—got over that.”

  She tossed the sponge into the water pail with a splat and pointed at the empty pots. “This neglected greenhouse smells like potential to me. I’ve always dreamed of having a greenhouse and when Eva told me the elders from Pleasant Valley had built this here a few years ago but no one had time to take care of it, I couldn’t resist cleaning it up. Now, it will be ready when someone does have the time to start planting.”

  He continued walking toward her, measuring his pace as not to arrive before he planned his words. “I’m sure Eva is most grateful for your kindness.”

  “She said Sybil would love an herb garden, which is totally doable in here. I think they should start some gray leaf saplings too.”

  “Gray leaf saplings?”

  A loose strand of sable hair fell in front of her eyes. It was getting longer and he hoped she would trim it soon to keep her unique look. He imagined being the man married to the exotic beauty everyone stared at.

  She flipped the hair off her face. “Tim has an interesting theory about the gray leaf tree. He thinks it releases a substance that reacts with the atmospheric radiation to help keep the Land hidden—probably the same substance Lydia isolates for the medicinal vapor. Tim also thinks the gray leaf is allelopathic, which means it produces biochemicals that target other species, either to benefit or to harm them. In this case, the gray leaf harms the poisonous vines. And that’s why the vines only grow on the mountains where there are no gray leaf trees. He said we need to plant more gray leaf trees from here to the mountains to ensure the vines are held back for generations to come.”

  He scanned the barren planter pots. “That would be a laborious undertaking.”

  She lifted an undaunted hand. “If each village planted a few gray leaf trees every year and kept the deer from eating the saplings, it might help to protect the Land.”

  “You sound like Connor.” He cringed the instant his words hit the air. “I’m sorry if that offended you.”

  She grinned and started scrubbing the next piece of glass. “Nope, it didn’t. Connor and I understand each other. I know he’s just being protective of his family and the Land. He knows I’m starting to feel the same way about this place. And he knows I could kick his butt if I wanted to.”

  Her boldness never ceased to shock him. Some dumbfounded hum slipped from his throat. She glanced back at him. “You know I’m kidding, right?”

  “Sure. Of course.”

  “Well, I’m mostly kidding.”

  “Right.”

  “Anyway, I’m grateful for Connor. This trip would have turned out differently if he hadn’t come with us and brought Levi and Everett.”

  “I’m grateful for him too. You found Tim and have him back in your life.”

  She rinsed the sponge in the bucket, and the water turned from brown to black. “I don’t feel like I’m the same person I was when we left Good Springs,” she said, as she carried the bucket to the door and paused.

  “You aren’t. You learned who your father is, saved his life, and almost lost your own.”

  She tossed the filthy water out the door then set the bucket down and wiped her hands on her denim pants. “It’s more than that. When I came to the Land, I wanted to be part of a family. Through all of this I came to realize that the people God puts in my life are my family.”

  “You’ll think differently when you have a family of your own.”

  “You mean, like, a husband and kids?”

  Hoping her sentimental side would make her more receptive to what he needed to say, he took a step closer. “Sure. Someday.”

  “That isn’t going to happen for me.”

  “Maybe if you met the right man—or found yourself loving a man you already knew—maybe then you would indulge maternal notions.”

  “Indulge maternal notions?” Her hopeful grin faded, yet she didn’t look sad. “I can’t have kids, if that’s what you mean. I was sterilized at eighteen.”

  His mental picture of a cozy house filled with little Revels and Baileys shattered. “What? Why?”

  She shrugged again. “It was a simple transaction. Our government awarded tuition grants to incoming students who volunteered for permanent sterilization. Since I didn’t want to bring kids into this world and I did want a university education, I signed up.”

  She said it all in such a matter-of-fact way, but surely the decision troubled her. What kind of a world had she come from? How could any governing authority offer such a life-changing bribe to its young citizens? And he couldn’t bring himself to imagine how such a procedure was performed on a female. He was too stunned to reply.

  She rubbed his arm, somehow knowing he was the one needing consolation. “Are you okay?”

  “Hm? Yes. I’m just sorry for you.”

  She furrowed her brow. “Don’t be. I’m not. Just because I’ll never carry a baby doesn’t mean I’ll have a miserable life. In fact, I’m looking forward to my future in the Land.”

  She was right; he simply hadn’t thought it through. And if she ever felt so inclined, there were other ways to become a mother.

  He was beginning to see her story was more complicated than simply leaving a war-torn world to find the Land. Connor had tried to warn him. Even still, it wouldn’t change his feelings for her. She had a past, but she was moving forward.

  “It seems we’re both looking to the future now.” He opened his arms and she came to him. As he embraced her, he absorbed her warmth and feminine scent. She laid her head against his chest, giving him the last nudge of encouragement he needed.

  He pulled back and gazed into her captivating eyes, trying with a look to convey all that he wanted to say. A slight grin twitched her lips. He took it as an invitation and leaned down to kiss her.

  She instantly pulled away before his lips could touch hers, but she left one hand on his chest. “Oh, Revel. I’m sorry but no.”

  “No?”

  She tilted her head. “I’m not in the same place you are... not like that. Not yet.”

  All he could do was repeat her words. “Not yet?”

  “Maybe never. I don’t know.”

  Connor had been right about everything, and deep inside Revel always knew it. He and Bailey both had a long way to go before they were ready to start courting. He covered her hand with his. “Please pardon my misstep. I’m the one who should apologize.”

  “No, you shouldn’t. I understand how I might have… not that I was thinking that way, but I can see where…” She rubbed both hands over her face, which was growing redder by the second.

  How had he made this powerful woman blush? Even if she wasn’t ready to court, he did have an effect on her. And for now that would satisfy him.

  He grinned to make sure she knew he wasn’t offended, then he lifted her chin with a finger until she met his gaze. “If that kind of love isn’t what you want right now, then it isn’t what I want either. I care about you, Bailey. A great deal.”

  “I care about you too.”

  He chuckled at himself. “Do you think ou
r friendship can survive even this?”

  She laughed. “Yes, even this.”

  “Good.” As he took a step back, Sybil threw open the greenhouse door, startling them both. Her eyes were wide and her face pale. He met her by the door. “Syb, is everything all right?”

  She raised a thin hand to cover her quivering mouth then looked at Bailey. “Sophia sent me to find you. Mr. Van Buskirk has passed away.”

  “Tim.” Bailey breathed the word as she dashed out the greenhouse and ran toward the house.

  Revel wanted to run with her, for her, but he stopped himself. He had to give her the space she needed, then maybe someday when she felt secure in her life in the Land, she would be open to the love he had to offer her. And he would be ready.

  * * *

  The light rain dwindled to a stop while the inn’s guests were eating lunch in the dining hall. Bailey skipped the meal and stayed upstairs, sitting on the edge of Tim’s vacant bed, thinking of those first few weeks after the water poisoning in America that killed her friends and his family.

  She and Tim had been two of the few survivors at Eastern Shore University. Once classes were canceled and all hope of earning her degree was gone, Tim still met her in the botany lab for private lessons.

  She held his lucky hat, mindlessly feeling the threads of the little embroidered giraffe. The bucket hat’s once white fabric was now stained with seawater and salt and dirt, all elements they had worked with in the lab. He taught her everything she needed to learn for her degree, then introduced her to a whole new level of plant biology research when a Virginia–based pharmaceuticals company contracted them to research therapeutic biochemicals.

  Through that work Justin Mercer found her and introduced her to the gray leaf tree and the Land. When she told Tim, he suggested they try to find the Land. And against all odds, they had. She would always be grateful to him for that and always feel a mixture of joy and sorrow when she thought of him.

  She had mourned his death once before and was plagued with uncertainty since his remains weren’t found then. Then she’d heard his voice over the radio, and later he told her he was most likely her father. After a race against his disease, she’d found him, she’d found her father. And now she’d lost him again. This time, permanently.

  In this life, anyhow.

  Sophia stepped into the open doorway, interrupting Bailey’s thoughts. “Are you sure you don’t want me to bring you something to eat, a sandwich perhaps?”

  She began to reply but paused when her dry voice cracked. If she could make herself simply do the next thing, she would survive this like she’d survived everything else thus far in life. She cleared her throat. “Maybe after the—” She couldn’t get out the word funeral. “When will the guys be done out there?”

  Sophia cast her gaze to the window even though the Roberts family’s graveyard wasn’t visible from this room. “Revel and Connor didn’t come in for lunch. They’re still digging. Levi and Everett ate quickly then went back to the barn to finish building the coffin.” When Bailey didn’t speak, Sophia pointed toward their room. “I’m taking my dirty clothes out to the laundry house. Do you need anything washed for the trip home tomorrow?”

  Bailey didn’t want to think of meals or laundry or anything until the afternoon was over, but that wasn’t the mind of a survivor. If she started doing the next thing now, she might not lock up in despair like last time. It would be hard, but she was always up for a challenge. “Yes, all of my clothes need to be washed.”

  Sophia held up a hand. “You’re busy. I’ll get them.”

  Sophia had proven herself to be more mature, gracious, and necessary than Bailey thought possible. She looked Sophia in the eye. “That would be great. Thank you.”

  After Sophia left the room, footsteps ascended the stairs. Revel rounded the doorway with his hat in his hands. “The men and I have given the body to the earth. On such occasions, it is our custom in the Land to say a few words before the grave is closed.”

  Bailey forced herself to stand. “Yeah, ours too.”

  Revel drummed his fingers on his hat’s brim. “You knew Tim best, so Connor said the honor is yours.”

  When they thought Tim had died on the shore of Good Springs weeks ago, John Colburn had asked her if she wanted to have a memorial service and give the eulogy. She’d refused, not wanting to tell a bunch of people whom she didn’t know how much her former college professor meant to her. Now, she knew the people better and Tim meant even more to her.

  She folded his glasses and laid them on his lucky hat on the nightstand then followed Revel downstairs and out the side door. Everyone who had come on this journey with her, plus Revel’s family and the inn’s other workers and guests all stood on the brown grass under the tall gray leaf tree beside a mound of soil and an open grave.

  Leftover droplets of rainwater fell from the tree’s silvery leaves at random, dripping down on the Roberts family’s gravestones and the iron bench where they probably came to remember their departed loved ones. Perhaps one day, Bailey would return to the inn and sit there in the sunshine, remembering Tim.

  All at once, she realized this was the first funeral she’d even attended. There hadn’t been a funeral when her mother died, and even though she’d lost everyone she knew except Tim to the water poisoning and plague, the bodies were immediately trucked out of town by the authorities.

  She could feel all eyes on her as she approached the semicircle of people gathered around the open grave. Her empty hands tingled. Before she could ask what she was supposed to do, Mr. Roberts hobbled over and took her hands in his. His leathery palms squeezed her fingers and then he let go. “Would you say a few words, dear girl?”

  “I will.” She glanced from one friendly but somber face to the next, letting them all know they were a part of Tim’s story.

  She told them about how she met him, his skill as a teacher, and his kindness as a mentor. When she spoke of their friendship during the war, his helping her to find the Land, and discovering he was most likely her biological father, she managed to keep her voice steady even with a knot of emotion under her tongue. But then her gaze met Revel’s and warm tears wet her cheeks.

  “Because of Tim I know who I am, and I know my purpose is to use all that he taught me to somehow serve the Land.”

  Mr. Roberts held an open palm to the mound of soil beside them. She looked at it, then back at his eyes, hoping he would give her a hint as to what she should do. As if sensing her trepidation, he bent his crooked back, gathered some dirt in his weathered hand, and sprinkled it into the open grave.

  “Thank you,” she whispered, and did the same. It was only a pinch of dirt, but it was so much more than that. It was the earth that would entomb her father until he was one day resurrected in a new body. It was the closing of a door, the locking of a gate, the final closure of a long-open wound, but not the end of their friendship. Because of his newly found faith, she would see him again one day.

  She brushed her hands on her jeans, wishing she had worn something nicer, maybe borrowed a dress from Sybil. The rest of the mourners lined up behind Revel, each stopping by the grave, one at a time, and dropping a handful of dirt onto the coffin below. When it was Eva’s turn, she held her son’s hand and silently showed him what to do.

  Little Zeke picked up a chunk of soil and tossed it into the grave. When his contribution landed on the wooden box with a loud thump, he looked up at his mother apologetically.

  “It’s all right, son,” she whispered with a warm grin.

  Bailey walked toward the iron bench, and Revel met her there. Without a word he wrapped a caring arm around her back, and they stood close to one another.

  As the last person left the grave and joined her and Revel near the bench, Mr. Roberts began singing a hymn. Bailey recognized the song from the country church where the Polk family had taken her on Sundays when they fostered her many years ago. Soon, everyone joined in as the older man led the singing. Bailey added her voi
ce to the melody as much as her quivering chin would allow.

  Chapter Fifteen

  A fresh breeze flowed across the Land, sweeping over the fields and sending the golden-topped grasses rippling with an elated dance. It meandered between the inn’s outbuildings and through the stalwart limbs of the old gray leaf tree, and filled Bailey’s lungs with the scent of the Land and the peace of knowing her purpose.

  The cloudless sky allowed the morning sunshine to warm her for the first time in what felt like an eternity. She pushed up the sleeves on her freshly washed sweatshirt so the sun could shine on her skin. Her rested body wanted to run across the yard to the inn’s greenhouse, but the perfect autumn weather assured her there was no need to hurry.

  The guys’ voices carried across the property from where they were readying supplies for the trip back to Good Springs. She would join them soon and tack up Gee for a day of riding, but first she had one last chore in the greenhouse. She found the broom where she’d left it behind the greenhouse’s door and got to work.

  As she swept the dead plant matter from beneath the risers that held dozens of planter pots, Eva marched from the inn toward the greenhouse. The elder of Revel’s two sisters walked in, sidestepped a pile of twigs and roots, and planted her thin fists on her hips. “What an incredible job you’ve done out here!”

  Bailey waited for the hint of a smile on Eva’s lips to materialize before she responded. “I’m glad you like it.”

  “You didn’t have to do all of this, especially after…” Eva pointed her chin at the graveyard, which was visible outside the greenhouse’s now clear windows, “after what yesterday required of you. I certainly didn’t expect you to do all of this work.”

  Bailey crouched to sweep beneath the next riser. “It’s how I burn off energy.” And sorrow, but that was more information than she wanted to volunteer.

  “You must have tremendous energy.” Eva wiped a finger down a glass pane. “I couldn’t believe my eyes this morning when I looked outside and saw the greenhouse’s windows.”