The cry came again. Closer.

Jonathan ran up the hill, his lungs ready to burst and his body screaming for relief. Dusk crowded his vision, overshadowing the trail as he stumbled for the tenth time. Bushes snatched at his clothes like hundreds of angry claws to slow him down, but he couldn’t stop. He had to get help for Laurel. He mounted the hill and chanced a look back the way he’d come. Whatever hunted in the forest had probably reached the spot where he’d left Laurel. Pain knifed through his chest—whether from exhaustion, fear, or the fact he was a complete and utter coward, he wasn’t sure.

What sort of gentleman was he? He turned back toward the trail and almost retraced his steps to rescue her and regain his honor, but the urgency in her voice and expression halted his return. Classes on the Pythagorean theorem and early eastern civilizations hadn’t prepared him for this. Medical courses? Doubtful. Dickens’s novels? Maybe.

He stumbled against a rock and slammed his knees into the ground. The cry echoed toward him again, deeper and with a growl in it. Pinpricks tingled up his neck to his scalp and ushered a shiver through his body. Dear God, what is it? The trail was silent except for the eerie rustle of dry leaves—and no sign of Laurel.

He had to get help.

He pushed himself off the ground and ran forward….

Directly into the barrel of a shotgun.

The second time in as many days.

“Mighty late in the evenin’ to be sneaking ’bout the woods, boy.” A sturdy man, medium height, emerged from the thicket like a shadow, his gun trained on Jonathan’s chest.

Jonathan’s knees, already weak from his flight, almost gave way altogether. Maybe he was in a Dickens novel. Or worse. Edgar Allan Poe.

He instinctively raised his arms and stepped back.

The man moved slowly, his leathery hand pinched near the trigger. Eyes narrowed just behind the sight of the gun, he tilted his head to the left and spit into the forest. “What’s yer business?”

Jonathan swallowed to wet his dry throat. “I need to find Mr….” His mind went blank. What was Laurel’s last name?

The cry split into the silence of their conversation and shocked Jonathan out of his inertia.

“McAdams. Mr. McAdams. I’m the new schoolteacher, and his daughter Laurel is down…” Jonathan looked back down the trail. “Down the…the path.”

The man measured Jonathan with a long stare, then without so much as a glance back, he marched down the trail at a rapid pace until he disappeared into a coat of dusk and forest. Jonathan’s legs gave way. He collapsed to the ground and released a long breath. Ghosts? Men lurking in the shadows with guns, ready to kill?

Oh yes, this was much more reminiscent of Poe. Jonathan preferred lighter, less life-threatening reads.

Darkness crowded the last remnants of sunset back into the pitch black of the forest, and the sounds around him grew increasingly less familiar. The eerie call of an owl, he knew, and…something akin to a cricket noise? Perhaps even a frog. An explosion of gunfire shook him to a stand, and he turned to stare in the direction of the sound. With the events of this evening, he may never sleep through the night again.

As if to confirm his conclusions, a movement down the path caught his attention…and turned his blood cold. Approaching, cast half in moonlight and half in shadow, came an apparition in white. A gown fluttered around it as the specter closed in on him like a vampire. If Jonathan could have felt his legs, he would have moved, but numbness stole through him, paralyzing him in place.

“Teacher?”

Jonathan blinked. Was it Laurel’s ghost? Come to exact revenge upon his cowardice?

“Teacher?” Her pale face came into view, concern crinkling her brow. “Are you hurt?”

Well, he doubted a banshee or vampire would ask about his welfare before killing him. Laurel drifted forward, barefoot and in nothing but her under dress. The thin white material did little to hide the curves of womanhood he’d failed to notice upon their first acquaintance. No, she most certainly was not a little girl. A surge of heat warmed him from his toes to his forehead.

“Wha…what happened?”

She crossed her arms in front of her and rubbed her hands against her skin as if to keep warm. “Daddy’s been trying to get that nasty lion for ages. I hope he won a good shot.”

“Lion?” Jonathan loosened his collar from its choke hold on his throat and stepped forward, slowly unbuttoning his shirt. “There are lions in the Blue Ridge Mountains?”

Laurel’s attention went to his open shirt and then shifted back to his face, confused. “Mountain lions. You ain’t heard of them? Cougars?”

“Cougars?” He slid his arms from his shirt and draped the material over Laurel’s shoulders, pulling it tight around her. “You have cougars in the Blue Ridge Mountains?”

She studied him, then looked down at the shirt, before returning her attention to him. “What in the name of Sugar Loaf are you doing givin’ me your shirt?”

“I…I thought you may be cold, and this was the very least I could do.”

Laurel’s gaze searched his, the confusion dissipating into understanding. Streams of moonlight sliced through the trees and haloed her wild golden curls. The faintest hint of a smile touched her lips, and she tilted her head ever so slightly to the right, a sweet look of trust on her face. It was one of the most beautiful sights he’d ever seen.

“Thank you, Mr. Taylor,” she whispered and pulled the shirt more closely around her shoulders. “That’s awful nice.”

She didn’t move closer, but she didn’t step away either. They both stood, suspended in the moment—both holding on to the front of Jonathan’s shirt, fingers inches from touching. Something powerful and pleasant swelled up through his chest. Perhaps it was mere gratitude at her being flesh and blood, and alive. Whatever the feeling, the shock of it pushed him back a step and broke the moonlit spell.

“I should have stayed behind to protect you. I’m sorry.”

One of Laurel’s hands flew to her hips while the other pinched his shirt in place. “You’re talking crazy now. You did the right thing.” She pointed her finger and grinned. “You listened to me. Shows you’re smart.”

He couldn’t help but return her smile, his pulse slowing back to a normal rate. “After tonight, Miss…Laurel, I’ll heed any advice you give me.”

“Is that so?” She gestured with a nod up to the right. “Then let’s get out of the dark and move on inside so the whole family can lay eyes on you.”

Jonathan hesitated, a little mesmerized by the innocence and beauty of this foreign creature before him. She’d risked her life for him, unwaveringly so.

Laurel stopped in her turn and studied him. “You’ve had a humdinger of a day, ain’tcha?”

“Quite.” An understatement of the decade. He drew in an unsteady breath and pushed a palm through his hair, his gaze traveling back down her body as she moved ahead of him on the path. “Might…might I ask what happened to your clothes?”

Laurel shrugged, face forward. “It’s one of the first things you learn when you know a cougar’s got you in his scent. You try to slow him down.”

“By removing your clothes?”

Her grin hitched up on one side again, her humor marker. “Well, I’d rather learn another way, ain’t no mistake, but it’s all I got right now. If the cougar has to stop and sniff each piece of clothing, then it will—”

“Slow him down.” Jonathan felt his own smile bloom. “That’s brilliant.”

“Book learnin’ ain’t the only kind of smarts you need, is it, Teacher?” Her brow lifted to match her smile. “Come on. My house is at the top of the ridge.”

“What about your father?”

She sent a look back down the path and sighed. “I almost feel sorry for that cougar.”

Jonathan shook his head, still trying to convince himself that he was awake…and alive. His sister would take the entire account of his day as if pure fiction in his next letter. In truth, if he hadn’t lived it, he’d probably not believe it either.

A shadowy structure rose before them, hugging the mountainside with various rooflines jutting into the night. The sight of smoke and flickering light through a window promised heat against the evening chill in the air, Jonathan hoped.

“You got ’im?” a young voice called through the shadows. The silhouette of a child shuffled across what appeared to be a front porch.

“All in one piece too,” Laurel called back, then shot a grin over her shoulder and tapped the shirt she still had draped around her shoulders. “Well, mostly.”

His lips relaxed into another smile, effortlessly. Her easy comradery and humor provided a buffer against the residual shock of the past hour. His sister would find Laurel McAdams fascinating.

He followed Laurel up steep stairs onto a porch and toward a dimly lit entry.

“We thought that lion done got you and Teacher,” the young voice said from ahead of them, stopping in the doorway to reveal a sunny-headed youth. “I was lookin’ forward to eatin’ your portions for supper.”

Laurel tousled the boy’s thick head of curls and pushed him through the door. “We got fried chicken and taters. You really think some mountain lion’s gonna stop me from those vittles?”

Even in the pale light of the moon, Jonathan could see the simplicity and aged wear of the log house. Eight people, or more, in this home? His uncle’s letters had detailed the economic differences of the Appalachias, but seeing the truth in flesh, wood, and stone made a humbling difference. No, he knew nothing about this world. The scene continued his mental comparison to some fictional world in Dickens, unreal. Yet, a warm swell of laughter tumbled from the front door—a type of laughter he rarely heard in the grand halls of his family’s town house. Heartfelt.

The lantern lit their way into a large front room, alight with a fire’s glow from a massive stone fireplace. The air tinted with the thick scent of something frying. Jonathan’s stomach answered the call.

Log walls framed the room patched with bits of…newspaper. Newspaper? As wallpaper? Two beds stood at each corner, and a wooden rocker along with a few ladder-backs surrounded the fireplace. Did everyone sleep in this one room? Surely not.

A doorway opened into another room, where he caught sight of a long table surrounded by chairs. At one side of the fireplace, a narrow staircase disappeared out of sight.

“This here rascal is Isom Tarleton McAdams.” Laurel’s words brought his attention back to the lad at her side. “He’s in Miss Simms’s class right now, but if there’s ever any help you need navigatin’ these mountains, he’s the best.”

The tow-headed boy stood a little taller, a similar spray of freckles dusting his nose like his older sister’s. “Know every cave and holler from here to Yella Hill.” Then his eyes grew wide. “What in blazes happened to yer shirt, Teacher?”

Laurel laughed. “He was bein’ all gentlemanly when I had to skin down to outwit the mountain lion.” She shrugged out of Jonathan’s shirt and passed it to him.

Isom’s nose crinkled. “I don’t think I wanna be no gentleman, if ’n it means you have to give your clothes away. I’d have to wear my Sunday shirt ever day.”

Jonathan’s mouth slacked. Did the boy only have two shirts? More information from his uncle’s letters surged to the forefront of his mind. Large families. Hardworking. Poor.

Jonathan removed his hat and took inventory of the room again, following Laurel over the threshold into a brighter space, alight with lanterns.

“You look plumb dumbstruck, Teacher,” Laurel whispered.

“I just can’t imagine how all of you can sleep in one room.”

“Gracious sakes, we don’t all sleep in there. That’d be a crowd, wouldn’t it?” Laurel gestured toward the larger bed to the right. “Mama and Daddy sleep there, with Suzie. The twins are in the other bed. Isom shares the lean-to with my brother Jeb usually, but tonight I reckon he’s gonna be sharin’ it with you.” She nodded to the stairway. “Me and Maggie take the loft. Don’t you share with your brothers?”

He didn’t meet her gaze, the image of his immaculate space almost shameful in the sight of the surroundings. “We have our own rooms.”

Laurel’s chuckle brought his gaze back to hers. “Shucks, Teacher, I ain’t never had my own bed, let alone my own room, ’cept when I stay at Mrs. Cappy’s, and then I’m living high.” She dropped her voice again. “I ought to warn you. Isom is as rowdy at sleep as he is in wakin’ hours, so I’d scooch to the far side of the bed if I was you to keep from gettin’ bruised.”

After last night on a cot on the floor of the derelict mission house, sleeping in an actual bed, with or without a rowdy bedfellow, sounded like an improvement.

She led him through the doorway into what appeared to be the kitchen. A woman stood by the stove, cutting up some golden breadlike food. A girl, not much younger than Laurel, waited near the table, plates in hand. A small girl with braids the same gold as Laurel’s stood beside her, and two boys sat at her feet playing with spoons. Their matching mass of red curls and dark eyes marked them as “the twins.”

“Look who I found.”

All eyes turned to the doorway.

“Well now.” The woman at the stove smiled, hair a little darker than Laurel’s and pinned back in a tight bun. She stepped forward, wiping her hand on her apron before presenting it to Jonathan, her blue eyes blooming with the same welcome as Laurel’s. “Pleased to meet ya, Mr. Taylor. Welcome to Maple Springs.”

Poor Teacher looked paler than a ghost. No doubt he was still addled by the incident with the mountain lion and who knows what other shocks since arriving at Maple Springs. She’d read a host of books, and none of them came close to describing her world.

Laurel studied him from across the table as she placed the bowl of mashed potatoes in the center. He sat talking to Mama, his manners as kind as anything she’d ever seen, and even with his pale complexion, he wore handsome like a prince…or at least how she imagined a prince must have worn handsome. Refined. Clean. Smelled like spring.

What on earth was he doing in Maple Springs? His welcome had been a hard one. She worried the collar of her dress, having run upstairs to get respectable. Would he return to England as soon as daylight touched the trees? She frowned at the thought. The last thing they needed was another quitter.

Half the young’uns in the lower school couldn’t even read letters, and most of the upper-school students kept their heads full of courting, proof they’d been without a teacher for much too long to remember how to dream bigger than the next day. Since Miss Brackston left in early April to get married to her Asheville sweetheart, Miss Simms had about lost her head trying to teach all the grades. She sure could scream better than any mountain lion.

“Maggie here”—Mama placed her palm on Maggie’s shoulder—“she’ll be in your class.”

Maggie barely lifted her eyes to the teacher, in her usual shy way. “Good evenin’.”

“I look forward to getting to know you better, Maggie.”

Maggie’s face turned plumb crimson.

“And this is Suzie.” Mama touched the head of the youngest girl in the McAdams family. With her regular cheerfulness, the golden-haired cherub sent Mr. Taylor her widest grin, double dimples and three front teeth missing.

“You tawk real purty.”

Mr. Taylor’s smile spread wide and he knelt to meet Suzie at her level. There was something sweet about a man down on his knees with a young’un. Laurel hadn’t seen a whole host of gentlemen. Most of the menfolk in these parts couldn’t afford to be gentle, except Mr. Ward with his wife and daughters. Heaven and all its angels, that man could melt away a storm when he smiled at his family.

Laurel hadn’t reckoned there were too many men like Mr. Ward in the world, but Mr. Taylor might be one of the few. Jeb had said a gentleman was a weak man. Laurel’s gaze shot to Jonathan’s leg. Was he? When he’d had his shirt off, he’d looked about as stout as her brother.

“Well, I like the way you talk too,” Mr. Taylor said, his soft voice dripping over the words.

Maggie looked at Laurel, her eyes wide as saucers, most likely envisioning a little bit of a fairy tale.

“You done met Isom,” Mama continued. “But these two on the floor here are James and John.”

Mr. Taylor’s smile spread into a chuckle as one of the boys threw a spoon at him. “Sons of thunder?”

Mama nodded. “And maybe a hurricane or two.”

Laurel walked over to the shelf and took another plate to add to the table. “Mama’s people are from the English way, ain…aren’t they, Mama?”

Jonathan slipped his soft brown gaze from Laurel back to Mama. “Your people?”

“My granny. She come over with her daddy from Derbyshire, but he died real soon after gettin’ here. Her mama remarried rather quick to a mountain man, ’cause he’d help provide for the young’uns. Settled in Maple Springs and that’s where we been ever since.” She nodded toward her special cabinet. The one with the curved glass and the wood carvings. “That’s from my granny and so is the tea set inside.”

“Mrs. Cappy even special ordered some English tea one time for Mama’s birthday as a thank-ya for sending me and Maggie down to stay with her.” Laurel sighed at the memory. “It was the best thing I’ve had to drink in my whole life. Do you remember the sugar cubes, Maggie?”

Maggie almost smiled.

“Mmmhmm, sweet and creamy.” Laurel closed her eyes for a minute to savor the recollection.

“It’s nice to know you have one good thought about England, Miss McAdams.”

Laurel’s eyes flew wide. “Well, now I have another.” She gestured toward him with the plate before setting it on the table. “’Cause I just know you’re gonna work wonders with our school.”

Mr. Taylor stood slowly, clearly uncomfortable but determined not to show it. “I certainly hope you’re right.” His gaze flipped to Mama. “Because I want to be of service.”

A loud commotion came from the front room. Butter, their greyhound, entered first and went directly to Teacher, sniffing for trouble. Daddy marched in behind, a bundle of cloth in one hand, his gun in the other, and a thundercloud on his brow. He tossed the cloths to Laurel. “I wisht I was as smart as that dad-blamed cat.”

He released another growl, set his gun against the wall, and then turned to offer Teacher his hand. “Sam McAdams.” Her daddy stood about as tall as Teacher but was an extra few inches thick in about every direction. “I bet you never hunted a mountain lion before, have ya, boy?”

Teacher took Daddy’s hand without flinching. “No sir, but after tonight, I’m keen to learn.”

Her daddy stared at Teacher for a good five seconds and then burst out with the loudest ruckus of a laugh one ever did hear. He smacked Mr. Taylor on the back and nodded. “I reckon you are.” He gestured toward the table. “Come on. Let’s eat before all this hard work gets cold.”

Two hours later, as Laurel lay in her bed, she stared out the tiny window toward the barn. The light in the lean-to had gone out half an hour ago. Perhaps Teacher would get some sleep since Mama made Isom sleep with the twins. She snickered. Well, she knew a nine-year-old who’d wake up bruised in the mornin’.

And even though Mr. Taylor nearly fell asleep in the rickety old rocking chair as they’d played music after supper, she could tell he’d liked listenin’. He’d smiled several times at the words to the songs.

He wasn’t afraid to ask questions either. Unlike Mr. Davis, the teacher from five years ago who talked more than he listened, Mr. Taylor seemed to thirst for information about the mountain people and their ways. And Daddy loved giving it.

“He does talk purty,” Maggie’s voice whispered into the cool air of their room. “And he smells good too.”

Laurel rolled her eyes but couldn’t deny it. When he’d wrapped his shirt around her shoulders, he’d left the scent of sweet leather behind, made her want to hold on to his shirt a little longer.

“Kizzie would have been undone at the sight of him,” Maggie whispered, shifting to snuggle against Laurel’s warmth.

Laurel pinched the quilt close to her chest against the ache that always accompanied the thoughts of her sister. “Well, he’s definitely a sight prettier than most fellas she ogled over.” Oh Kizzie. She’d love a handsome face and sweet talker. She wouldn’t have heard one word Mr. Taylor taught in school for pining away after him.

“You reckon he’ll stay?”

Laurel drew in a long, quiet breath, weighing her reply. As kind and interested as Mr. Taylor seemed, he wasn’t fit for these mountains, but voicing the thought wouldn’t help anybody, especially her sister who desperately wanted to learn more about science and nature. She had a curiosity about it all and a unique gift for drawing what she saw. “If Daddy and that mountain lion didn’t scare him off, I think we got a good chance to keep him awhile.”

Silence whispered with the wind over the wooden rafters.

“Do you think she’s alive?”

Laurel pressed her eyes closed, forcing the burn away. “I hope so.”

“Me too.”

More silence as Maggie pushed closer into Laurel’s back for warmth. “Do you think Daddy will ever let us talk about her again?”

Laurel hesitated. Down deep, their daddy was a good man, but the betrayal of family was the worst kind with certain expectations she knew her daddy wouldn’t shake. Laurel squeezed the quilt around her body like a hug, adding a prayer to her thoughts. “Maybe so, Maggie. Maybe one day.”