The Uncharted Beginnings Series Box Set

by Keely Brooke Keith

  Olivia stabbed a finger toward Peggy. “I don’t believe you anymore.”

  “He tried to kiss me.”

  “Ha! That’s definitely a lie. Gabe doesn’t try to kiss.”

  Peggy’s eyes widened. “Well, it doesn’t matter. He won’t want you when he finds out you can’t read and you have been faking it all this time. What man would love a woman who lives a lie? In fact, I think the elders need to know about this. The little teacher girl who has been challenging all the parents over education can’t even read.”

  “I can read… I can’t always see letters, but I manage just fine.”

  Peggy tapped a finger to her lip, faking deliberation. “Still, I should probably do my civic duty and let the elders know the truth about you.”

  Nervous bile bubbled up in Olivia’s throat. Her mouth opened and she feared she might retch across the Cotters’ kitchen table. Instead, her voice filled with the strength of anger. “You do and I will expose your mother for the thief she is.”

  Peggy gasped and stepped backward with her lace-covered wrists propped on her hips. “She is not a thief! My mother has never stolen anything in her life.”

  “I saw her,” Olivia hissed, finally having leverage. “Mr. Vestal and I watched her try to break into their barn. When she couldn’t get in, she went for their chicken coop. She’s been stealing from them and did the same to us for months.”

  Peggy picked at her fluffy cuffs. “Ah yes, you and Mr. Vestal. I’ve seen you two strolling along the lane together. He is probably waiting on the road for you now. He seems quite smitten with you.”

  “I’m teaching his children.”

  “Does Gabe know?”

  “Of course.”

  “That Mr. Vestal is in love with you?”

  “He isn’t… not like that…” So much for leverage. Why had she thought she could beat Peggy at her own game? The more she tried, the deeper she sank. She gave Peggy a solid stare and walked out. “Just keep your mouth shut.”

  Peggy squared her shoulders with smug satisfaction. “Then you had better forget what you think you saw my mother do.” Her voice returned to a feminine but fake politeness before she closed the door. “You have a lot more to lose than I do.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Olivia lost a full night’s sleep. She yawned as she gouged her chignon with hairpins to secure it for an afternoon of teaching. Faint circles haunted the skin under her eyes, attesting to her insomnia. She could make it through her afternoon lessons with the McIntosh children then get a quick nap before dinner.

  Icy wind whipped into the Owenses’ kitchen and up the stairs. Olivia ran down to the open door and almost yelled out to her young brother, but Richie was already halfway across the frozen yard.

  She draped her winter shawl over her shoulders and grabbed the strap of her satchel. She didn’t have time for this, but no one else was left in the house, and she couldn’t let Richie get away with leaving the door open when it was below freezing outside. She affected her voice with the schoolteacher tone she’d been practicing. “Richard Junior, get back here this instant!”

  Richie halted in the yard and turned back, eyes downcast.

  Olivia’s cold toes curled in her socks. She stepped away from the threshold as Richie approached the porch. “You left the door wide open.” She reached for her boots. “You must close the door behind you or the warm air escapes.”

  Richie licked his chapped lips and stared at her feet. “Sorry.”

  She had to get to the McIntosh house to teach, but her little brother’s nose was running. She waved him inside. “Where is your handkerchief?” she asked as she sat to pull on her boots.

  He didn’t answer.

  She dropped her boots without looking at them and felt his coat pocket. It was empty except for a hard lump with a pointed end. She stuck her hand into his pocket and pulled out their mother’s sewing scissors. “What are you doing with these?”

  Richie’s chin scrunched into a dimpled mass, and his bottom lip began to quiver. He pointed at her boots on the floor. “I’m sorry, Livy.”

  Her leather shoelaces had been cut clean through. She fingered the nubs of leather cord poking uselessly from the lace holes on her boots. “What have you done?”

  “I said I’m sorry.”

  She slapped the scissors onto the table. “Richie, it is freezing outside and I still have to walk to the McIntoshes to teach. I don’t have any more cord to use for laces. How could you do something so harmful? If you keep this up, we won’t have anything left in this house. Have you cut anything else I need to know about?”

  When he looked up at her, speechless, she touched her hair and gasped. “It was you!”

  Richie backed away and his face reddened. “Please don’t be mad at me, Livy. I can’t help it.”

  Olivia dropped into the chair, exasperated. Her little brother had been the one who cut her braid while she had slept that day. He was her assailant.

  While Richie sobbed like any nine-year-old caught in his mischief, Olivia’s tears welled up too. She covered her face with her hands. “I can’t believe this. On top of everything else I have to deal with, I can’t trust my little brother.”

  “I’ll never do it again.” Richie inched closer. His young crying voice sounded like their sisters. “Please say you forgive me.”

  She blinked away her tears to clear her vision. “Richie, I forgive you, but I don’t understand why you did that to me… to my hair… and my boots.”

  “I don’t know why. I just like to cut things.”

  “I must tell Father and Mother.”

  “No, please no. I’ll stop.”

  “We can’t trust you.” She pulled a kerchief from her sleeve and wiped his nose. “We didn’t bring much with us from America. There are no mail order companies here or stores where we can purchase more goods. We must take care of everything we have and be diligent to make more. Everyone is working as hard as they can. You can’t ruin things that don’t belong to you.”

  “I won’t do it anymore. Am I going to be in trouble?”

  “That is up to Father.”

  “Can I still go to school on Monday? I won’t cut things in class, I promise.”

  “In class…” She hadn’t thought of that. He would have to be watched constantly to make sure he wasn’t playing with scissors or knives or whatever implement he found to satisfy his destructive compulsion. What if he cut one of the other students’ hair or chopped up the pages of their precious books?

  This was sinister behavior for an otherwise normal boy. He needed to be counseled and disciplined beyond her ability. What if the other children brought problems like this to class too? How could she possibly teach a school full of misbehaving children? What had she been thinking of working so hard for a responsibility she wasn’t prepared for?

  “I don’t know if you will be allowed to go to school or not.” She pulled on her unlaced boots. “Father is in the barn. I’ll take you to him then I have to get to the McIntosh house for lessons. No matter what Father says, you promised me you would stop cutting things that don’t belong to you, and I expect you to keep your promise.”

  * * *

  Olivia’s unlaced boots flopped as she trudged through the cold wind to the McIntosh house. The afternoon sky darkened more by the minute, promising icy rain, maybe snow. As she approached the house, Gabe stepped out to the porch, and everything felt right again. Even Richie’s behavior couldn’t suppress her smile now. “Hello,” she said.

  Gabe gave a short nod, but no smile or greeting.

  Olivia raised one floppy boot to the porch step and stopped short. “What’s wrong?”

  Barnabus stepped out the door behind Gabe. He waved to Olivia. Gabe signed wait inside to his younger brother. The little boy looked to her for confirmation. Olivia signed one moment. Barnabus nodded and went back into the house to wait for his lessons. Warm air escaped the house before the door closed and he slipped inside.

  Olivia want
ed to follow him into the cozy house, but something wasn’t right with Gabe. Once the door closed, she stepped close to the man she loved. “Has something happened?”

  Gabe sank his hands into his coat pockets. “You tell me.” His gruff voice betrayed his anger.

  She glanced into the house through the window behind him. Barnabus and the other McIntosh children were inside, getting their books and slates ready. Nothing appeared to be wrong. “I don’t understand.”

  Gabe spoke quietly through barely parted lips. “After all of these years that I have pursued you… and loved you… it is unfair to make me compete with someone else for your affections.”

  “Compete for my affections?”

  “I know about you and Mr. Vestal.”

  “Christopher?”

  Gabe’s nostrils flared. “Yes, Christopher. Peggy told me all about it. Your long walks together and how you…” his Adam’s apple raised and lowered as he paused to swallow, “you stay at his house late into the night.”

  Though only the icy wind moved through the porch, the earth seemed to spin around her. Her chest tightened, stealing the air from her lungs. Everything seemed to be in motion at once.

  Everything but Gabe.

  He stood straight and tall like a boulder in a raging torrent. He had built desire in her just as he’d built the schoolhouse and his home and he’d assured her it could be hers with every nail he’d driven. He’d promised she wouldn’t disappoint him and with one word from Peggy, it was all washing away.

  She wanted to reach out and hang onto him and allow his strength to sustain her as her world melted, but he was the one eroding the earth from beneath her feet. She couldn’t touch him, so she leaned a gloved hand onto the porch railing to steady herself. “It’s not like that… Christopher and I…”

  He flinched. “Are you in love with him?”

  “No. Why would you—”

  “Is he in love with you? That would certainly explain why he praises your teaching so highly during the elder meetings.”

  She drew her head back. “So the only reason a man might say I’m a good teacher is if he is in love with me?”

  “You tell me. How long has this been going on? Has he told you he loves you?”

  His questions came faster than she could think. She opened her mouth to speak but couldn’t answer.

  “Well?” He probed. “Has he asked you to marry him?”

  It was true that Christopher had proposed marriage—not because they were in love, as Peggy had made Gabe believe, but it was still true. Olivia had to be honest. If the truth had the power to set her free, why did she feel like she was opening a vile of poison? The truth would kill her and she had no choice but to drink it.

  Her answer came on a hopeless whisper. “Yes, he asked me to marry him.”

  The cavernous space between them grew. Gabe’s blue eyes darkened to gray, matching the dark clouds billowing over the settlement. “What was your answer?”

  “I refused him.”

  “Have you been toying with his affections?”

  “No. Of course not.”

  “Are you toying with mine?”

  “No.”

  Anger emanated from him like the heat off a toxic flame. Everything in her body told her to step back from this hurt and angry man, but there was nowhere to go from here. If he believed Peggy over her, their relationship was hopeless. She’d never wanted to fall in love, and she’d once thought she could end this herself if she had to. Standing before him, faced with the possibility of losing him, she knew there was no turning back. It was either a life with Gabriel McIntosh or a life spent in misery. Her love for him had broken her ability to hope for anything else.

  Her feet wanted to turn and run home in her unlaced boots. Her pride told her to square her shoulders and go into the house to teach the McIntosh children. But her heart kept her there. No matter how angry he was, he wouldn’t hurt her. Ever.

  She stepped closer. “Christopher Vestal wanted a replacement for his wife. I have no intention of being her. He asked me to marry him to help take care of his family. He said he admires me and could see himself falling in love with me if I married him. He is grieving and lonely, and I felt very badly for him when I refused his proposal. He didn’t know about you and me.”

  Gabe raked his fingers through his hair and his expression softened slightly. “He cares about you, Liv, and he is an elder. I have to work with him on village business for the rest of our lives. I don’t want there to be animosity between us.”

  “We’ve spoken frankly about his proposal and my relationship with you. He understands. He wishes me the best… with you.”

  Icy rain began pelleting the ground behind her. Gabe cast his gaze across the wet yard. When he drew his hands out of his pockets, she took another step toward him. “You have no competition for my affections. You told me you love me, and I love you too. I should have told you sooner. It’s not fair that I’ve kept my feelings hidden from you, but I learned a long time ago it’s sometimes better to hide things than to be hurt.”

  A faint grin deepened the lines in the dark stubble around his mouth. He shook his head slowly with his eyes lightening. “No, Liv, it’s not better to hide anything—not from me.”

  The constriction in her chest began to release. “How long have you been stewing over this?”

  “Peggy came to me last night.”

  “Why did you believe her?”

  Gabe shrugged and took one of her hands in both of his. “I knew you were hiding something. I used to think it was just some girlish insecurity, but when Peggy came to me about this… it made sense. She has a convincing way of lying.”

  “Doesn’t she though! She told me you tried to kiss her.”

  His grin disappeared. “She’s got it backward.”

  “Oh?”

  “She tried to kiss me.” He groaned and rolled his eyes. “Why would she do this to us?”

  “Because she wanted to try to ruin me first.”

  “First?”

  She had to tell him about Mrs. Cotter. He’d said not to hide things from her, so she wouldn’t. She tightened her shawl around her cold neck. “Christopher and I discovered Mrs. Cotter has been stealing. He wanted time to think and pray about how to approach her, so we haven’t said anything to anyone. But when Peggy discovered my secret yesterday and threatened to tell the elders, I said if she did, I would expose her mother. I guess Peggy thought if she came to you first, no one would believe me.”

  “When she discovered your secret? Do you mean about Mr. Vestal?”

  “No, about… something else.”

  He gave her hand a light squeeze. “I don’t want to hear any more about you from other people, Liv. Tell me now what you’ve been hiding.”

  “I can’t.”

  “I love you.” He took both of her hands in his. “You can tell me anything. You said you wanted to be fair with me. Since I want to spend my life with you, you have to tell me what is going on. If it affects you, it will affect me.”

  She stared at her hands, which were swallowed by his. Could she tell him? Trust him? Since someone deceitful in the village already knew her secret, it would be comforting to have someone who loved her on her side. She closed her eyes. “My eyesight is sometimes sort of… impaired. There is no medical term for the condition. I can see everything clearly, but sometimes I cannot see letters or words. I’ve had it my whole life, but it comes and goes. When I was a child, I imagined there was a monster that put its hand in front of words so I couldn’t see them. It took me twice as long as the other children to learn to read, and I was only able to because when I could read, I worked twice as hard.”

  She opened her eyes and studied Gabe’s expression. Where she expected to see disdain, she only saw concern. “What did your parents say about it?”

  “I never told them. My father always acted like he was disappointed in me anyway because I wasn’t a boy, so I didn’t want to give him more reasons.”

 
“What about your mother? She was the teacher.”

  “She was too busy to notice.”

  His voice filled with compassion. “Did you ever talk to the doctor about it?”

  “When I was ten, I finally got the courage to go to Doctor Ashton. He said there was nothing wrong with my eyes or my vision. He assured me it was no monster, but I still think of it that way sometimes. He is the only person who knows. He said he’d read of things like it and it’s just how my mind behaves. He said people would treat me differently my whole life if they knew and it was best if I keep it to myself.” Her shoulders rose to her ears as she waited for Gabe to reject her. “It’s just how I am. I’m a schoolteacher who can’t always read. If the elders find out, they will end my teaching career. Peggy said the same thing, but instead of being my confidant, she’s decided to try to ruin me.”

  Gabe pulled her into his arms. “This isn’t your fault and certainly nothing to be ashamed of.”

  “You’re wrong. They wouldn’t let me teach if they knew. Teaching is all I want to do. I worked so hard for this. I don’t want these children to grow up uneducated or to take their sight and ability to read for granted. People who don’t have this difficulty have no idea how grateful they should be. They can’t imagine what it’s like to be able to read one minute and not the next.” She let her face rest against his lapel. “No one can ever know about this.”

  “They don’t need to know. You’re a good teacher, and you have proven it.”

  “Peggy will tell.”

  “I won’t let her.”

  She pulled back and looked up at him. “Don’t go to her about this. Please.”

  “I don’t want her coming between us ever again. I will protect you. I will stand up for you, through this and whatever lies before us.”

  “You don’t have to fix this for me.”

  He lowered his chin. “Do you trust me?”

  “Yes, but please don’t go talk to her alone. I don’t trust her.”

  “All right… but I must go to Christopher Vestal.”

  “About me?”

  “No, about Mrs. Cotter stealing. Look at the division this is already causing. Her sin must be exposed. If Christopher agrees with me, we will go to Teddy Cotter together.”