The Uncharted Beginnings Series Box Set

by Keely Brooke Keith

  “Even a girl you love?”

  Henry didn’t answer.

  Gabe tapped his fingers on the worktable. “You know how long I had to pursue Olivia?”

  How could he forget? He’d listened to Gabe moon about her through their school years and well after. “That was different. You wanted a wife and family.”

  “And you don’t?”

  The question set off a yearning in his soul. How could he answer a question he’d forced out of his own mind for weeks? Years? He rubbed his sore palm. “I used to. When Jonah was pursuing Marian and you were after Olivia, I thought I’d end up with Peggy. But she was too superficial. Then I was interested in Cecelia, but she was impossible to please. Now with Hannah… I want what every man wants, but I won’t spend my life pining over something I can’t have.”

  “Hannah isn’t like Peggy or Cecelia.”

  “You think I should pursue Hannah?”

  “I think you should give her grace.” Gabe tapped a knuckle on the surface of the table. “That’s the one thing Hannah deserves that you aren’t giving her. That and patience. I’ve seen her when she brings her writing to Olivia. She’s terrified having someone read her story. She probably felt the same way bringing it to you.”

  “And I crushed her.” The weight of his affection for her squeezed his chest. He looked at Gabe. “I was simply being forthright about her story. Women are impossible. How was I to know she couldn’t handle the truth?”

  Gabe shrugged. “If I knew the answers, it wouldn’t have taken me seven years to get Olivia to marry me.” He grinned as he stood to leave. “And women aren’t impossible. Not the good ones… girls like Hannah. If you love her, sacrifice your pride for her.”

  It was fine for Gabe to make it sound simple; he was happily married. Henry had been honest with Hannah and it separated them. And he wouldn’t lie. He pushed himself off the stool and paced the floor between the press and the worktable. “What am I to do now?”

  Gabe slapped on his hat as he walked to the door. “You’ll think of something.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Hannah squinted from the afternoon sunlight as she stepped out of the schoolhouse. With her chin raised, she strode down the sandy road toward the print shop. It took a month of late nights, but she’d rewritten her story, filling it with both romantic satisfaction and realistic loss. “Thank you, Lord,” she whispered toward the sky.

  Adeline had found her true love, but she would never see her family or homeland again. Aric was crowned king, but his father drank himself to death before they could be reconciled. Despite their losses, they could face the future because of what they had learned through hardship, because of their faith in God, and because they had each other.

  Olivia’s favorable opinion still rang in her ears. The depth of your characters made me feel like I knew them in real life.

  Hannah not only knew them, she’d seen them through their darkest moments. Creating their journeys had helped her on her own.

  She closed her satchel’s leather flap. Thanks to her father for trading with Mr. Roberts for paper and to Olivia for a final proofreading, Hannah held two handwritten copies of Between Two Moons, a story of worlds colliding as two hearts became one. She would wrap one copy for her father’s upcoming birthday. The other copy was for Henry—whether he wanted it or not.

  On the road ahead, Mr. Owens stopped his buckboard and climbed down to check a wheel. He crouched by the side and stuck his head under the wagon, muttering all the while.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Owens,” Hannah said as she bypassed him in the grass.

  Mr. Owens’s muffled response came from beneath the wagon, but he didn’t draw his head out to see who had spoken to him.

  Hannah marched on, determined to deliver the manuscript to Henry and leave the print shop before another argument broke out. If he tried to harpoon her verbally, it would be a one-sided argument though, as she would have none of it.

  Flecks of quartz glistened in the stone library’s stalwart facade as Hannah passed. So much work had already gone into the settlement’s library. Mr. Owens and his sons had spent months cutting and fitting the stone. Gabe and his father had built the walls and shelves inside. And Henry had been charged with filling those shelves with books. Since Hannah hoped to one day visit the library and read stories of love and adventure, she should do her best to make amends with the administrator.

  She gripped her satchel’s strap as she passed the front of the print shop and stood in the doorway. Her nervous feet paused at the threshold. Henry’s back faced the door. He was spinning a handle down a crank on the press. She waited until he finished the process before she stepped inside. “Henry.”

  He released the handle and spun on his heel. “Hannah.” His fingers combed his hair and straightened his collar, but his feet didn’t advance toward her. “What can I do for you?” A vulnerable catch in his voice betrayed his attempt at professionalism.

  She briefly considered making up some other reason for being there. Perhaps saying she needed paper for the twins. No. She came here with a purpose and wasn’t backing down now. She opened her satchel and withdrew his copy of the story. “I brought you this. It’s my revised and edited story. Olivia says it’s better than any story she has read.”

  Henry opened his mouth to speak, so she raised a halting hand before he could refuse her offering. “I don’t expect you to print it or bind it. I want you to have it in case you might like to read it someday.”

  As he accepted the twine-bound stack of pages, she rubbed her empty hands together and kept talking, not leaving him a chance to speak. “You were right about the ending. There are no happily ever afters in real love. It’s messy and complex because life is messy and complex. Falling in love is more rare than fiction would have us believe, and that kind of love isn’t what sustains a relationship. True love isn’t a romantic fairy tale. I understand that now.”

  After weeks of not speaking to him, being in his presence felt like going home and like being a stranger in a foreign land all at once. If she could say what she needed to say and leave quickly, he wouldn’t have the chance to reject her again. She closed her satchel and took a step back. “Anyway, I am sorry for setting your pages ablaze. I didn’t mean to. You had every right to be angry with me. I came to apologize for my behavior and also to thank you… for everything.”

  Her voice tightened on a swell of emotion. She should have turned and walked away, but every moment she’d spent with him flashed before her mind. The inspiration that sparked the night he’d danced her across the grass beside the schoolhouse. The surprise of his lips against hers when he’d kissed her on that sunny afternoon at the springs. The feeling of being special when he’d sat by her in church. The comfort of being safe in his arms after he’d saved her from the flood. She could only muster a fraction of her volume as she continued speaking. “You inspired me more than you will ever know, Henry Roberts. And I thank you.”

  His eyes widened, bringing light to his pale blue irises. “Hannah, I…” He looked down at the manuscript in his hands and pressed his lips together.

  She couldn’t tell if she’d shocked him or embarrassed him. He had never been wordless before. Maybe he was put off by her candor. Or embarrassed for her humility. He shouldn’t be; she’d put away her pride and embraced the life God had given her—talents and responsibilities and obstacles and all.

  Her feet scuffled backward to the door and her hand managed a polite wave. “I won’t take any more of your time. Good day.”

  Mr. Owens squeezed around her in the doorway. “Excuse me, young lady.” He held up a thin wedge of wood. “Henry, have you got a mallet I can borrow?”

  “Of course, Mr. Owens,” Henry answered.

  Hannah turned to leave, but Henry said her name. She stopped and looked back, hoping for a bent knee and pronouncement of love. “Yes?”

  Holding the manuscript in his good hand, he pointed at it with the other. “Thank you.”

&nb
sp; She gave a short nod and left with the image of Henry holding her pages. She’d said what she came to say, and he hadn’t argued. It gave her hope they could be civil toward one another, maybe even be friends again someday. But did he care enough to read her story?

  Chapter Twenty-five

  As soon as Henry helped to fix Mr. Owens’s wagon wheel, he sat at the worktable in his quiet print shop and untied the twine on Hannah’s manuscript. Written in ink, the measured scrolls of her delicate handwriting conveyed strength and intelligence.

  Henry remembered when she’d first asked him to print the story. He’d found her illogical and doubted she could finish writing it, though deep down he’d hoped she would so they could spend more time together. Then, when she’d finished it, he’d found it incompetent and had ruined their relationship before it had the strength to withstand its first storm.

  He couldn’t change the past, and wasn’t sure how he would if he could, but if the closest he would get to her was to read her writing, he would absorb every word.

  The afternoon slipped into evening as he turned the pages, unable to peel himself from the adventurous world Hannah created. He was immersed in life as a prince who was fighting to find his way in the world. With each chapter he wanted the maiden to want him more, but what she needed most was to complete her own journey victoriously.

  Hannah Vestal continued to be full of surprises, and each one made Henry love her more.

  As the sun set, Henry’s stomach grumbled, wanting dinner. Not even hunger could stop him from reading—nay, living—the adventure alongside Prince Aric as he fought insurmountable battles, both on the field and in his heart. There was something familiar about the prince and it drew Henry deep into the story. Needing more light, he reached for the oil lantern and turned the dial, increasing its flame.

  Hannah had been right in that she empowered her story with emotion, but he hadn’t expected it to affect him, to stir him, to give him the desires of the characters. But it did.

  While crickets and toads filled the warm air outside the print shop with their nighttime song, Henry turned to the last page in Hannah’s story. Alas, the prince had found Adeline. She was not helpless in the prison where she’d been in the original ending, but was tending to wounded soldiers in a makeshift hospital tent she’d erected outside the castle gates. She didn’t fling herself into the prince’s arm this time. Instead, she asked him to help her lift a patient from a gurney. Together, Aric and Adeline faced the future with hope.

  After Henry read the final sentence, he straightened the pages, squaring the corners with the worktable’s edge. He looked at his scarred hand and rubbed its sore palm. His missing fingers were no excuse for his inability to open his heart to Hannah. Nor was his desire for perfection. No matter how honest he thought he’d been, his claim of being incapable of loving well was a lie. And finding faults in others was a flimsy front.

  Hannah’s excellent story should be printed, if not only for her and her father, for the settlement, for the students, and for the generations to come.

  He thumbed through the manuscript, counting the pages then made calculations for printing and binding four copies. Why four, he didn’t know. She might not want that many copies, but he would give her the option.

  He checked the calendar that hung on the wall beside the window. Two weeks until Christopher Vestal’s birthday, which was when Hannah had wanted the bound book. Three weeks until the settlement’s eighth anniversary celebration, which was when the New Testament project was due.

  He noted the days on his paper and calculated the pages. It would not be easy to finish both in time; in fact, his calculations proved it impossible. But Gabe had been right: he needed to put off his pride and give himself up for Hannah. He loved her and had to try to meet her needs, even if it meant not finishing the elders’ assignment and ruining his chance at having a village-supported trade.

  As he glanced at the calendar once more, movement outside the window caught his eye. The village elders and their firstborn sons were walking from their homes toward the chapel for the weekly meeting. He checked his pocket watch. It was time for him to join them.

  His father was standing on the road, speaking with Mr. Foster. Christopher Vestal was walking with Mr. McIntosh. David Vestal was trailing behind them, looking sullen. When he spotted David alone, he rummaged through a stack of papers on a shelf by the letterpress and found the anonymous notes of warning he’d received earlier in the summer.

  Once he and Hannah had stopped speaking, the notes had stopped showing up. Still, he’d never confronted David, and if he was going to try to win Hannah back, he didn’t want to worry about her petulant brother causing them grief.

  A quick turn of the lantern’s dial put out the flame. He pulled the print shop door closed behind him. With a careful turn of the doorknob, he left its mark so he would know if anyone entered while he was away, though he hoped a conversation with David Vestal would end such intrusions.

  “David,” he called out as he crossed the street.

  The young man looked up. So did Mr. Vestal and Mr. McIntosh, but both of the older men looked away as they continued their conversation and walked toward the chapel.

  David didn’t advance to meet Henry in the road, as any considerate man might do, but at least he stopped where he was. He furrowed his freckled brow. “What do you want?”

  Henry stopped within arm’s reach of Hannah’s brother. He kept his voice quiet enough not to be heard by the other men, but forceful enough to let David know he was serious. “I need to speak with you about Hannah.”

  “Haven’t you caused enough trouble?”

  He had to ignore the young man’s insults if he was going to be heard. “I care about your sister very much.”

  “Did you care about Cecelia Foster too?”

  How did everyone in the settlement know about his failures? He drew a long breath. “I cared about her, yes. Still do, but not in the way I care about Hannah. Your sister is very special to me.”

  “Then why did you hurt her?”

  “I never meant to, and I will make it right.”

  “So?”

  “So, you should know I have your father’s blessing to court her.”

  “Well, you don’t have mine.”

  He almost chuckled at the young man’s ignorance. “I don’t need yours.”

  David propped his fists on his hips and leveled his gaze but said nothing.

  Henry opened the folded notes. “I know you don’t think much of me, and I don’t need you to. But trying to threaten me with these notes won’t make me ignore the fact that I love Hannah. And it will only upset her if she finds out you’ve been doing this.”

  David scowled at the notes as he read them. “I didn’t write that. I don’t like you, but I’m not a coward. I don’t write notes. I agree with whoever wrote them though. You should stay away from her. You aren’t any good for my sister. I’ve told her so.”

  Henry stared down at the slips of paper and slowly folded them. If David hadn’t written them, who had?

  He stuffed the notes into his shirt pocket along with his calculations to print her story. “I will make things right with Hannah. If she will have me, I’ll spend my life devoted to her happiness. I will love her until the day I die.”

  David’s brow relaxed. “She deserves that. But she’s busy raising the girls. She promised our mother she would take care of them, and you’d be a selfish fool to keep her from it.”

  The other men were filing into the chapel. Henry needed to join them, but not as much as he needed to make his point. “I will not lead Hannah to do anything that might hurt her family—and that includes you. I know you depend on her, but do you expect her to live with you forever?”

  David pushed a hand through his hair and looked at the sky. Finally, he returned his gaze to Henry and shook his head. “No. She deserves to have her own family, but only with a man who is good enough for her.” He took a step toward the chapel and pointed
at Henry as he passed. “You have a long way to go to prove you’re that man.”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Before daybreak, the glow of morning light turned Hannah’s bedroom curtains from a neutral tan to a warm rose. The house was quiet. She tossed off the bedclothes and opened the bottom drawer of her dresser. There beneath her woolen shawl was the handwritten copy of her story she’d wrapped in a scrap of muslin fabric and tied with ribbon.

  After a quick change into her day dress, she left the bedroom and carefully closed the door, hoping Doris wouldn’t awaken. She stood still for a moment and listened for any noise in the house. No one seemed to be stirring.

  If her siblings knew she was giving her father a story for his birthday, they would surely ruin the moment. David would mock the gift. Wade would get angry but not say if it was at her having their father’s approval or at David’s jesting. Doris would fill the air with her romantic suggestions without knowing the storyline. The twins would probably ask for paper so they could quickly scribble out a story and give it to him too.

  Hannah had worked too hard on granting her father’s request to have her efforts minimized by sibling rivalry. She hid the wrapped manuscript under a tea towel and set it in front of her father’s place at the kitchen table. Wanting today to appear like any other morning, she began her kitchen work by lighting the woodchips that waited in the stove’s firebox.

  A few minutes after sunrise, Christopher’s bedroom door creaked. He padded into the kitchen, hoisting his suspender straps over his shoulders. “Good morning, Hannah.”

  “Happy birthday, Father.” She lifted the tea towel and pulled her father’s chair out, inviting him to sit. “I wanted to give you your present now. Hopefully, it will start your birthday off right.”

  “How kind!” He grinned boyishly and hurried to the chair, sitting slowly with a stiffness that attested to his age. He rubbed his hands together rapidly and glanced at her over his moving fingertips. As he opened the cloth and revealed the manuscript, his eyes widened. “Hannah, is this your—”