Jonathan’s attention followed Laurel as she walked away from his cabin, the skin on his fingers still alive from her touch. He stared, the unidentified feeling fading to clear. He cared about her. But, of course he cared about her. She was a kind friend, but another awareness rose up against his mental justification. No, his affections warmed with more than friendship.

But it couldn’t be. He still had at least two years of university left, and Maple Springs was an opportunity, not a lifestyle. His pulse beat into his rib cage. His breaths as halted and jagged as his thoughts. But she was like no other woman he’d ever known, a kindred soul. She spoke to him without words, and he understood.

He blinked out of his stare and settled down on the step next to his uncle, placing the cup and saucer on the porch.

“Evangeline was very much like her.” His uncle’s voice smoothed into the evening, into Jonathan’s bewilderment. “A heart as fierce as her strength.”

His uncle’s profile turned pensive, sad even. He rarely spoke of his wife, the woman who’d entered Maple Springs with him eight years ago and became the spine of his mission, his love for these people.

“I would give everything I own to”—he grinned down at the cup between them—“share a spot of tea with her. See her smile.” His gaze met Jonathan’s. “Real love, like hers, was worth every sacrifice. I only wish…I wish I had more time.”

His uncle couldn’t have known Jonathan’s thoughts about Laurel, and yet, he seemed to speak to them. No, he was only reminiscing because of Laurel and Evangeline’s similarities, surely. Jonathan pulled his attention back to Laurel, her pale silhouette highlighted by the moonlight and cutting a fascinating figure in the middle of the empty field through the tree line. His chest squeezed with a deep longing, new and intense. What was he to do with it?

Suddenly, Laurel started at a run up the hillside, away from Mrs. Cappy’s store and toward the school. Jonathan stood. Her voice rang out. One word. What had she said?

He rushed forward. The word came again.

“Fire!”

He turned back to his uncle. “There’s a fire.” Jonathan didn’t wait for a response but set off in a run, his pulse hammering in his ears. He made it to the clearing in time to see Laurel round the corner of the school. Flames flickered through the middle window of his section of the school. No!

He crested the hill, and Laurel nearly collided with him as she exited the building, two pails in her hands, her face already smudged with gray.

“We need water.” She shoved a pail into his chest and rushed past him toward the water pump at the side of the school. He followed.

“They’ve piled them all,” she said, setting the pail down and pushing the pump as hard as she could. “All the books are in the middle of the floor.”

Jonathan placed his hands next to hers on the handle, adding pressure. “What?”

Her gaze met his, desperate, sad. “And the maps.”

He stared, unable to comprehend, but she wasted no time. Grabbing the full bucket, she raced back into the school. He followed with his own, and the scene inside ripped through him in agonizing reality.

The desks had been pushed back against the wall, and a circle of dirt formed in the center of the room. Every book, map, and piece of paper piled in the center, lit with wild flames.

A very deliberate message, directed at Jonathan.

“We don’t want you or your world in ours.”

Laurel’s water crashed over the burning debris, then she ran past him to the door for another. A copy of Great Expectations lay at the edge of the flames, as if to taunt him. He rescued it from the rest and placed it on his desk. He caught sight of another book, his grandmother’s copy of Sense and Sensibility, and he jerked it from the flames, heat scalding his hand. Laurel reentered with another pail of water, setting him back into motion. On their third run for water, his uncle came into the room with a large, heavy blanket dripping wet. Laurel rushed to him and took two edges of the blanket, carrying the dripping cloth to cover the last flames, leaving them in darkness. The white glow of moonlight shone into the windows, giving the scene a much nicer powdering of light than dawn would reveal.

The three of them stood staring at the blackened debris in the center of the room, their heavy breaths the only sound in the darkness. Laurel stepped to the shelf where he kept the oil lantern, and after a few moments, the soft glow of the light filled the room, highlighting the devastation.

The barren walls and bookshelves. The empty desks. And the black, charred remains of Jonathan’s intentions.

A new fire shot up through his chest. He fisted his hands at his sides, ignoring the sting on his skin.

“How…how could they do this?” His own voice sounded unrecognizable in his ears. Low. Deep. Menacing. It fueled the fury even more. “Many of these books were my own collection. Maps and supplies I purchased with my money to make a difference to these people, and this is what they do? Here is how they show gratitude?”

He shoved a desk back and stomped around the pitiful conglomeration of charred papers and curled bindings.

“Jonathan, it’s the minority who’ve taken this path.” His uncle’s words only stoked the flame in Jonathan’s chest. “Don’t lump them all together.”

“Nothing’s going to happen because of this, is it?” He waved a hand toward the ashes. “The clan leaders, Ozaiah Greer and his miscreants, will have their good laugh at my failure, and we’ll all be expected to go on as if nothing happened. As if they hadn’t destroyed years of book collecting and planning. And then I’ll still be expected to teach? To give my energies to this? As if I have the power to make bricks with no straw.” He kicked the ashes and growled, turning his full fury on his uncle. “How have you worked with these people for all these years? Stubborn, superstitious, bound to their own way of life, their own traditions, and no one is allowed in or they’re cut down.”

“You’re speaking from anger now.” The gentleness in his uncle’s voice only spiked his agitation.

“Of course I’m angry. Look what they did! I came here to do good. To make a difference. To bring help.”

Laurel stepped forward and set the lantern down on a desk near him, her ash-smudged face pale, round eyes glossy. Her look peered into him, hurt, angry, asking him questions he wouldn’t answer. With a deep breath, she turned and fled from the building into the night.

A gaping emptiness gouged through his middle. He stumbled back until he collapsed against his desk, weary, wounded.

“You may have come here, in part, to make a difference, but you were also running away, trying to prove yourself. Don’t lay your wounded pride on these people’s heads too. Be angry about the burning of your books, but also see it for what it is, a clear sign of the changes you are making here, that you will make.”

Jonathan shot his uncle a withering look. “My plans are in ashes, quite literally, Uncle. It’s another glowing example of my good intentions falling short as usual.”

His uncle surged forward, eyes glinting in the lantern light. “Are they? Were your intentions only made of paper after all? You came to me as a young man running away from disappointment and the failures of living with a man whose lofty expectations you’d never meet. You’re not a failure, but you must answer the question, Jonathan. Why are you really here?”

The words pierced through his fury. He winced and turned away, but his uncle continued, unrelenting.

“Did you come for them, those young people who need a vision of hope? Because if you came for them, then what happened tonight shouldn’t change your plans, but if you came for you….”

Jonathan looked up, his breaths shallow, his eyes stinging. “I…I don’t know if I’m strong enough.”

The lines on his uncle’s face softened. “You’re not, on your own, but the God within you is well equipped for the fight.” Laurel emerged in the doorway, satchel in hand, and his uncle tilted his head. “And He’s brought other fighters to stand beside you.” He cupped Jonathan’s shoulders, drawing his attention back to his face. “You were judged by what you did before tonight. You’ll be defined by what you do hereafter.”

The scene hadn’t changed since she’d run from the church-school to Mrs. Cappy’s. If anything, the damp, scorched pages and blackened floor looked even worse. Laurel pressed her palm to her stomach, pushing down the rising nausea.

Jonathan’s words echoed in her head. Many of the things he said were true—painfully true. Superstitious, stubborn. But not all. She stepped forward into the lantern light, the two men turning to look at her. Preacher bore the least brunt from the fire, wet clothes and a few ash stains, but Teacher’s white shirt wore the gray battle scars most. His face smeared with soot, his hair erratic, and, worst of all, those eyes, hard and distant from her.

Tears blurred her vision, stinging. “I’m so sorry, Jonathan.” His name slipped from her lips, almost like an unintentional attempt to close the distance she read in his eyes. Jonathan. Her friend. “I’m sorry they took your wonderful books,” she whispered and crossed the room to him, reaching into her satchel and tugging out the most recent book he’d loaned her. A hardbound and beautifully illustrated copy of Pilgrim’s Progress. “But they didn’t get this one.”

He sucked in an audible breath and reached for the cool, sturdy binding. It slipped from her hold. He stared down at the book, blinking and shaking his head. Her heart broke and the burning tears escaped her eyes. With a quick push of her hand to wipe them away, she reached back into her satchel, fingers wrapping around the jar of money she’d kept there since the barn incident. Daddy had gotten ten dollars from the savings, but there was still plenty more. Enough, she hoped.

College would have to wait another year. She pinched her lips together against the searing disappointment and shoved the jar into his free hand. “I don’t know how much it would cost for you to replace everything that was lost, but this can help.”

He looked down at the jar in his hands as if it were some sort of confusing puzzle, then his gaze came up to hers. Those eyes, so familiar to her she could see them in her sleep, stared back, searching, seeking, uncertain. “This…this is…” His whisper rasped. His vision seemed to clear. His eyes widened, softened, but his gaze wouldn’t release hers. “I’m not going to take your money, Laurel.”

She pushed the proffered jar back to him. “My people did this because they’re stuck and scared and they think they’re protecting their way of life. They can’t see that they’re hurting more than they’re helpin’.”

He dropped his head, shaking it, and pressed his lips into a firm line.

“Listen to me.” She took his face in her hands, forcing his attention to her, her words. “I believe in you. What you’re doing. What you’re gonna do. Who you are.” The intimacy in her touch shot a tremble through her, so she released her hold, stepping back, fighting for breath. She shrugged and offered a smile through her uncertainty. “And if you use my money, I’ll be here for at least another six months to try and earn it back, so I’ll get to witness more of what you do to change people’s lives for the better. To help them see beyond just today. To give them something to believe in for the future.”

His watery gaze searched hers, shifting through more emotions than there were sounds in the English alphabet. For a moment, his palm came up as if to touch her cheek but then dropped back to the jar in his hands. The tiniest grin pulled at his lips. “It will probably take me that long to master making biscuits and gravy.”

She released her breath on a sob and, without thinking, wrapped her arms around him, allowing her tears freedom to flow against his neck. After a moment’s hesitation, his hands came around her, and she felt the most beautiful sense of rightness. She’d never been the sort to fall victim to her emotions, and certainly not the kind of girl to go weeping on a man’s shoulder, but here she was, holding on to him and mighty grateful to have the chance.

She pushed herself back. “I’m sorry ’bout that.” She wiped at her eyes and offered a helpless shrug to the preacher. “I’m not one to fall on a man in an emotional heap. I’m just so…”

“Thankful?” Preacher offered, the word strangely surprising in the middle of the circumstances but fitting for the tangled-up feelings in her heart.

How could she feel thankfulness? She’d given away her college money, and Jonathan’s books were in ashes on the school floor. Yet, he was staying, and everything else could be replaced.

Laurel grinned from the preacher back to Jonathan, his eyes much clearer and brighter than before. She nodded. “Yeah. I’m thankful.”