“Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.”

• Isaiah chapter 41, verse 10.
  

Prologue

Oklahoma

April 13, 1851

Several miles east of Fort Gibson, Oklahoma, sat a small cluster of Christian families that had learned to tame the rough and wild terrain of the Midwest. Labor was shared. The fruit of such was equally divided. And love for God and one another had been felt by all. For a time.

Seventeen-year-old Hope Everly bolted upright; her dark lashes fluttering open just in time to see lightning lace through the night sky beyond her window. She drew in heavy breaths as her heart raced. A bead of sweat trickled from her temple, cooling by the time it reached the edge of her dark brow and making her shiver.

She drew her green gaze around the room she shared with her parents and eight-year-old little brother, Henry Jr., wondering what exactly it was that had woken her from her deep sleep. Like the rest of her family, her body followed an unseen clock. Peaceful sleep kept her resting through the night, every night, then when dawn began to eat away at the dark night, she’d wake up with a smile and a cheerful disposition, ready for the day.

Tonight was different, though. She felt wary. On edge. And the sun she kept time with was nowhere near close to rising.

Yet as she looked around, everything seemed to be as it was supposed to be. Even in the dim light of the new moon, she could see that. The bureau Mr. Baker, their neighbor and resident furniture maker, had made for her family stood tall and sturdy. The family Bible, along with the shared collection of other books, remained steadfast atop it. It was the same with her washstand, vanity, and the small table beside her simple wooden bedframe. Then thunder roared from outside so loudly that it shook the entire cabin, rattling not just the windows but her teeth. It was followed by a howling wind, and suddenly she knew. A tornado was coming.

Having grown up in such territory, Hope, her family, and the other four families that shared the land were used to such storms. Yet as she pulled the thin fawn-brown and soft blue patchwork blanket away from her and placed her bare feet on the cool wooden floor, another chill went up her spine.

She grabbed her red knitted shawl from her bedpost and wrapped it around her shoulders, cloaking her white nightgown, and moved in the darkness toward the curtain that separated her from her parents and Henry.

Hope opened her mouth to call for her mother, wondering if she, too, had been awakened by the thunder, and jumped as she pulled back the curtain to reveal her father.

“Papa,” she breathed, then laughed despite the growing howl of the wind. “You scared me.”

Henry Everly Sr. smiled, his white teeth flashing even in the dim light. His face, as usual, was a comfort. Where her mother’s appearance was sharp and lithe, her father’s was round and soft. Her mother had often joked while telling them fairy tales, saying that while she had come from fae folk, Henry Sr. had come from the gnomes. Hope enjoyed such folk tales, but her favorite stories, and the ones most often told, came from the Bible.

Hope had gotten her forest moss green eyes and chestnut hair from her father, but her slight, pixie-like figure and angular face had come from her mother, Ondine.

“Sorry to startle you, Peanut,” Henry apologized, reaching out to tug at one of her long chestnut braids, “Storm’s coming in. Strong one too. Got to get everyone to the root cellar. You know what to do.”

Pushing her wariness aside, Hope gave her father a nod as he pulled the curtain further back. The light of an oil lamp spilled into the darkness, then, revealing her mother, Ondine. She, too, was wearing a white nightgown, and her long, silvery-blonde hair was twisted into a braid that fell over her shoulder. Hope’s little brother was also awake and out of bed, his thick chestnut curls wild and unruly.

“Get Henry to the root cellar, child,” her mother gently commanded, her pale blue eyes flashing toward Hope.

“Yes, Mama,” Hope agreed, and another earth-trembling crack of thunder erupted as she reached for Henry’s hand. It was followed by a mighty gust of wind that made the entire house groan, and the four of them all looked up at the low wooden beams of the ceiling. A moment later, hail fell onto their home with a raucous noise.

“Henry,” Ondine called her husband’s name warily, her pale blue eyes peering up at the ceiling as the onslaught of sound grew louder.

“Those hail stones got to be at least three inches wide,” Henry Sr. said, his voice laced with panic as he looked out the window. “We can’t send the children outside. It’s dangerous. What if they got hit?”

Another flash of lightning illuminated the sky, and Hope’s pounding heart beat faster as she saw the outline of the twister. It was by far the largest one she’d ever seen in her seventeen years of life—and it was heading straight toward their little cluster of houses.

“God in Heaven,” Henry Sr. whispered.

“Hope,” Henry Jr. whimpered, his little hand wrapping tighter around hers.

Hope tore her eyes away from her parents and hunkered down by her little brother’s side. She looked directly in his green eyes—the same ones she shared with their father—and ruffled his unruly chestnut curls.

“It’s going to be all right, Henry,” she promised, trying to keep her own fear from pushing into her voice. “We’ve done this before. This one is just coming in a bit faster.”

As the oldest of the community’s children, it was usually Hope’s job to get Henry and the other twelve children to the root cellar that sat in the center of the five houses. While she would take care of the children, the parents of the community worked together to round up the animals and get them to safety. In the last seventeen years, they’d never lost a single life—neither human nor animal—from a storm. Now, though, with the tornado so close, Hope knew she’d have no time to gather the other children. Instead, she’d have to pray that their parents would get them to the safety of the underground room.

“Go with your sister, Henry,” their mother commanded. “There must be something they can hold above their heads? Something that will protect them from the hail?”

“We should all go,” Hope replied, standing back up, “Together. Right now. We can use a board to shield our heads and—”

“I said go, Hope!” their mother shouted.

Hope flinched at her mother’s sharp demand. Not once, no matter what, had Ondine Everly ever raised her voice like that before. As if her shout had frightened the entire house, the walls began to rattle as the wailing of the wind shifted into a howling scream.

“There’s no time!” Henry Sr. shouted, racing from the window. He grabbed roughly at Hope’s shoulder and shoved her toward the floor, the force of it tearing her younger brother’s hand from her grip.

“Get under the bed, Hope, Henry!” her father shouted as the walls began to groan from the force of the storm.

“Henry!” Hope screamed through the groaning storm encompassing them, reaching out toward her little brother as she was shoved under the frame of her bed.

Her brother’s eyes, wide and frightened, landed on hers as he got on his hands and knees, ready to join her under the bed—then a sharp pain blasted through Hope’s forearm as something heavy crashed down upon it, and her world went black.

Chapter One

Independence, Missouri

June 5, 1855

Hope spread the clean, white sheet out over the bare feather-stuffed mattress, breathing in the fresh scent of lye, lavender, and sweetgrass. She exhaled with a soft sigh, her plump lips pulling toward a smile as she smoothed the sheet into place. The boarding house she worked at near the trading post in Independence always kept her busy with various chores, but changing the bedding after their guests left was her favorite task to complete. She enjoyed taking the rumpled and used sheets and exchanging them for crisp new ones. It was strange, she knew, but the idea of having the same bed used again and again, but renewed each day with clean sheets, gave her hope.

One day, she’d do something similar with her life. Take away the old and worn, and replace it with something fresh and new.

Bam!

The sudden sound jerked Hope out of her thoughts, and she gasped as she dropped the half-finished pillow and cover and bolted upright. She then groaned, rolled her green eyes, and put a hand over her hammering heart as she saw one of the other boarding house maids, Millie.

“I’m sorry!” Millie exclaimed as Hope let out a small laugh and shook her head. “I didn’t mean to scare you, Hope! I think the wind just pulled it shut a little too quick.”

Millie, like Hope, stood at barely five-feet-five-inches. She also shared Hope’s thin figure, which the boarding house cook, Mrs. Ridges, constantly tried to make a little rounder.

Too skinny, the both of you! We need to put some meat on your bones!

Hope was thankful for the extra hearty meals. At home, with her Aunt Thelma and Uncle Jay, her ability to indulge was far more restricted. Still, no matter how much food Mrs. Ridges put in Hope’s bowl at lunch time, no extra ‘meat’ had been added to either her or Millie’s bones, confounding the curvy cook.

Presently, Millie hurried to Hope’s side and cupped her cheeks, smoothing her thumbs over the dusting of freckles that spanned over the bridge of Hope’s nose and under both eyes.

“I’m all right,” Hope promised, taking several deep breaths.

It’s fine. I’m fine. It was not thunder. It was not a storm.

She drew her focus away from her fear as she’d learned to do, and turned it toward her friend. Hope counted off Millie’s features. Brown eyes. Blonde hair tucked into a white ruffled cap, identical to the one Hope wore. Sharp nose. Small, smiling, pink lips. Dressed in the same dove-gray dress and white apron as Hope wore. Their uniform.

Then she darted her eyes around the boarding room, taking in those features next. Pale pine floors and walls scrubbed clean by her own hands. Two windows, both open to allow the warm, pine-scented late spring air to drift in. One bed. One wash stand. One bureau and one nightstand.

She was not caught in a storm. She was not losing her family. That had already happened.

“I’m better,” Hope sighed, stepping out of her friend’s touch.

A blush crept into her cheeks as she turned to finish dressing the pillow, hating how easily she was still startled by sudden, sharp noises.

Millie, who knew Hope’s story, took to the opposite side of the bed, gave her a small smile, and took the other pillow and clean case, helping Hope.

“Not that I’m complaining, but don’t you have your own rooms to finish?” Hope asked, fluffing the pillow before putting it in place.

“Already done,” Millie replied, setting her own finished pillow right beside Hope’s. Together, they reached for the clean white and dark blue checkered quilt sitting in the wicker basket on the floor at the end of the bed.

“Thought I would come help you finish up,” Millie explained, her lips perking toward a smile as they spread the quilt over the bed. “And maybe tempt you with a bit of gossip about our new guests.”

Hope huffed out a laugh as she smoothed her hands over the quilt, making sure it was perfectly fitted to the bed.

“You and your gossip,” Hope teased, knowing full well that it wasn’t really gossip, but Millie’s opinion on how handsome the men checking in might be. Like Hope, Millie was twenty-one and single, with no experience yet with courtship. Unlike Hope, though, Millie very much wanted to change that.

“No, you must see him, Hope!” Millie insisted as she picked up the wicker basket, then sighed dramatically as she leaned against the far right wall.

“He is the most handsome wagoner I have ever seen!”

“You say that about every wagoner that comes through here,” Hope said with a giggle as she tossed the used towel from the washstand onto the growing pile of dirty laundry. She walked over to Millie, booped her nose, then took a clean towel out of the basket she was holding.

“You do not understand, Hope,” Millie insisted with another dramatic sigh. “His features so… so… rugged. Sculpted. Stony.”

She accentuated the three words with a punch in her tone and a shimmy of her shoulder.

“Sounds like you’re describing a statue, not a man,” Hope teased. She pulled the doilies from the stands next, replacing them as she had the sheets and towels.

“Well, he is very statuesque,” Millie admitted, her gaze dreamy and far-off looking. “Tall. Muscular. The most beautifully carved jawline I’ve ever seen. Filthy, you know, from his long journey, but I swear he even makes dirt look good.”

Hope rolled her eyes as she shook her head, then smirked as she took a look around the room. Perfect.

“So, did you speak to him?” Hope asked, gathering the soiled linens in her arms.

Millie feigned a look of shock as she held the basket out for Hope.

“Of course not! A lady must wait for a gentleman to speak to her,” she replied, then both of them erupted in giggles.

Calling any of the wagon men that came through the boarding house gentlemanly was a stretch, and they both knew it. They all had a similar way about them. Rough but jovial, with a habit of looking a little too long and a little too hungrily at the maids and waitresses that the boarding house employed.

Hope bumped her shoulder playfully against Millie’s, then took the other handle of the basket. Together, they left the finished room and took the soiled linens down to the laundry.

“Heading home, girls?” Mrs. Bevers, the co-owner of the boarding house, asked as they passed her office.

“Yes, ma’am,” Hope replied, pausing in the doorway. “Unless you have something else for us?”

Even though she offered, Hope knew that the matron wouldn’t. She preferred her girls to arrive and leave precisely on time for their shifts so that she could pay them no more or less than what they were scheduled for.

Mrs. Bevers rose from her chair, adjusted the rounded spectacles that sat upon the end of her nose, and shook her head. Unlike the rest of the staff, Mrs. Bevers did not wear a uniform, though she always dressed in the same black, modest dress with a high collar and long sleeves, no matter how harsh or humid the Missouri heat grew. She wore her brown, gray-streaked hair in a high bun and never wore a cap.

“No, my dears. You finished at two on the dot, just as I like. I just wanted to give your pay before you go,” Mrs. Bevers explained, holding out a small envelope to each of them.

“Thank you, Mrs. Bevers,” Hope and Millie replied in unison.

“See you both tomorrow,” Mrs. Bevers replied, then turned back to her accounting.

“Where are you headed to next?” Millie asked, her tone playful as they head upstairs to the main floor.

Millie liked to tease Hope for the multiple jobs she held instead of gathering with the other girls their age for parlor parties or a bit of shopping. Not only did she work as a maid for the boarding house part-time, but she also performed closing cleaning for many of the shops in town whenever they felt the need for help. She washed floors, windows, organized shelves—whatever she could to make a few extra pennies.

“Nothing tonight,” Hope replied, “but the general store and post office have agreed to let me do their cleaning for them tomorrow. You know how it is once a wagon train pulls out. The stores always need a good sprucing up after.”

“So you can join me at Theresa’s tonight?!” Millie asked excitedly.

Hope gave her a sad smile as she shook her head.

“Sorry, Millie. My aunt and uncle want me home. I’m sure they’ll need my help with something or other.”

Millie let out an exasperated sigh.

“They never let you do anything but work!” She pouted. “You would think that they would allow you some fun at some point, after all you do!”

Hope gave a helpless shrug as they reached the main floor, which was bustling with the new guests that had come from the wagon train that had pulled into the trading post earlier that morning.

To the right of the servants’ staircase sat a dining room. It was small, but clean and quaint, with eight round tables covered with white tablecloths. Three large windows in the front allowed a view of the main street. To the left of the staircase sat the front desk and small lobby, where guests could sit on one of the many couches or plush chairs and take a moment of leisure.

Hope and Millie headed toward neither, but instead they turned the sharp corner that led to the kitchen and the small changing room for the staff. As Hope made the turn, however, she found herself bumping shoulders—or rather, her shoulder bumped into his ribs—with a tall man. It was not just his height or impressively large, muscular stature that surprised her—though it certainly did take her off guard. It was also the fact that most guests never came down this hallway. Still, he was a guest, so she bowed her head to him and apologized immediately.

The man grunted, dipped his cowboy hat-covered head, and continued walking as if completely unbothered by the run-in.

“That was him!” Millie whispered excitedly, clutching at Hope’s arm.

Hope tried to hide her wince as her friend accidentally bore down on the scar on her right forearm, where four years ago the heavy wooden frame of her bed had collapsed on it, cutting her off from her family and making her the sole survivor of that terrible storm. The bone and sinew and flesh had healed years ago, but still, for some reason, the scar, much like her heart, ached from time to time.

“Him who?” Hope asked, trying to ignore the throbbing in her arm.

“The wagoner I told you about. The handsome one!” Millie whispered.

Hope turned around, curious, and caught the flash of the giant man’s stormy blue eyes as he too turned to glance at her. It was only a second, maybe even less, that the two of them held eye contact. Even though it was brief, it was long enough for Hope to take in the sculpted curve of the man’s jaw, the dark scruff that handsomely covered it, and the emptiness in his gaze. Then his cowboy hat was tugged low, and he turned from her.

“Oh gosh,” Millie whispered. “Do you think he heard me?”

For a moment, Hope said nothing as she stared at the spot the man had paused and turned, even though he wasn’t there anymore, and felt a strange tingle move down her spine.

“No,” she said at last, turning back to Millie. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Oh, thank goodness,” Millie said as she opened the door to the changing room. “I was almost sure that when he stopped, he…”

Millie’s voice faded as Hope’s thoughts turned toward the man she’d brushed against. There was something about him, a quiet nature that seemed to radiate from somewhere deep within him.

That deep quietness was all Hope thought of as she changed into her plain brown and red checkered dress, as she muttered her goodbyes to Millie when they parted ways, and as she made her way to her aunt and uncle’s house.

She thought of it right up until she reached the front door of the plain clapboard house. For a moment, she just stood there, looking at the gray boards and gathering herself.

The clapboard house Hope’s guardians lived in was larger than the small cabin Hope had once lived in with her parents and little brother, but even so, there never seemed to be enough space. Right inside the door laid the kitchen, which, aside from a table, small stove, and cabinet, was bare. Beyond that sat a parlor with a fireplace that was never used; the furniture of such sold off long before Hope had arrived. Directly off the parlor was her guardians’ bedroom—a room she was never allowed in, save to clean. Then, off to the right of the parlor, was Hope’s room.

It was small, barely big enough to hold the cot she slept in, but it did have a door that Hope often pretended could seal her off from her guardians. Of course it couldn’t, and that door was thrown open any time her aunt or uncle needed something. Heavy curtains prevented any light from shining through any of the windows, creating a constant dingy darkness in the house, even when the oil lamps were lit.

“Well?” her uncle grunted as Hope pushed open the door to the house. “Where have you been?”

Chapter Two

Jay and Thelma Thorn, Hope’s uncle and aunt on her mother’s side, gave Hope expectant glares from their seats at the small kitchen table. Hope muttered a small apology, knowing that was the only acceptable answer.

The brightness of Hope’s day faded as she closed the front door behind her, sealing her into the darkened home of her aunt and uncle. While her parents had been loving, kind, and held a deep respect for a strong work ethic, her aunt and uncle were nothing of the sort. Hope had been told at one time that Jay had been a fur trapper, but he had given that work up before Hope had been sent to live with them after the tornado had wiped away the small community she’d grown up in.

Her aunt Thelma was not much for work either. Or manners, or kindness, for that matter.

“Your uncle asked you a question, Hope,” Thelma stated, her narrowed eyes focused on Hope’s face. “We’re hungry!”

“I will get started on dinner right away,” Hope answered, already moving toward the stove. She wasn’t late. As usual, she was right on time, but she knew there was no use arguing. With as drunk as they kept themselves, she had no doubt that her aunt and uncle had long ago lost the ability to keep track of time.

Longing for a life, a community she no longer had, Hope worked to light tinder in the heavy but small cast iron stove. The heat that poured from the metal beast only intensified the late spring warmth already trapped in the closed-off house, and as she set to boiling water for peas, she wished that, for once, her guardians would allow her to open one of the few windows in the house.

“Bring us another bottle,” Jay grunted from behind her.

“You ran out last night, Uncle Jay,” Hope replied in a beaten-down tone, lifting the heavy skillet onto the stove so she could fry the last of the chicken livers in the ice box. “Let me make you something to eat, then I’ll go to the general store and get you some more.”

“Already went this morning,” Jay stated. “Got more whiskey. Tobacco, too.”

Hope’s brows lifted in surprise as she turned to the waist-high wooden cupboard where her guardians kept their spirits. Sure enough, there were three new bottles of brown liquor sitting atop it, along with a tin of tobacco and a packet of rolling papers. She couldn’t believe it! Her uncle had actually left the house to get something!

“Did you happen to—?”