Choices of the Heart

© 2013 by Laurie Alice Eakes

Published by Revell

a division of Baker Publishing Group

P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287

www.revellbooks.com

Ebook edition created 2013

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

ISBN 978-1-4412-4063-7

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

Scripture is taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Published in association with Tamela Hancock Murray of the Hartline Literary Agency, LLC.

The internet addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers in this book are accurate at the time of publication. They are provided as a resource. Baker Publishing Group does not endorse them or vouch for their content or permanence.

“The gifted Laurie Alice Eakes has done it again with a page-turner romance straight out of the Hatfield and McCoy feud. The wonderful period detail sucked me into 1840s Appalachia, while the realistic characters and tender romance kept me reading late into the night.”

—
Linda Goodnight
, Carol and Rita Award–winning author

Praise for the Midwives Series

“Laurie Alice Eakes pens another novel that keeps the reader turning the pages with her expert knowledge of the time period and her skill with language. If you want to read a historical with romance, intrigue, and mystery all rolled into one,
Lady in the Mist
is a book you won’t want to miss.”

—
Golden Keyes Parsons
, author of
In the Shadow of the Sun King
and
Prisoner of
Versailles

“I loved, loved, loved this book. Laurie Alice is a master storyteller. Her book grabbed me by the heart and held on. I loved the characters and the plot, which was full of delicious romance and dark mystery. Authentic historic details brought the setting alive. I can hardly wait for her next book.”

—
Lena Nelson Dooley
, author of the McKenna’s Daughters series and
Love Finds You in
Golden, New Mexico

“The first book in Eakes’s new Midwives series is filled with secrets, a budding romance, and mystery with characters who have their doubts about themselves and those around them. Readers will not be able to put this gem of a novel down.”

—
RT Book Reviews
, 4-star review

“In her delightful and descriptive style, author Laurie Alice Eakes has once again crafted a story that will capture readers’ hearts from the first page. Her tales are both exciting and tender, and her characters speak to us right where they are, despite the different cultural and time settings.
Heart’s Safe Passage
may well be her greatest offering to date.”

—
Kathi Macias
, author of
Deliver
Me from Evil
and
A Christmas Journey Home

“I’m still thinking about the characters in
Heart’s Safe Passage
. Her turn of phrase and twist of a plot had me smiling long after the last page was turned. Eakes has crafted a don’t-miss story. Well done!”

—
Kathleen Y’Barbo
, author of
The Inconvenient Marriage of Charlotte Beck

For my mother. To say why would take at least a chapter’s worth of words.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Page

Endorsements

Dedication

Author’s Note

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Books by Laurie Alice Eakes

Back Ads

Back Cover

Author’s Note

Although most of the feuds of the Appalachian Mountains started after—and because of—the Civil War, not before (when my story is set), the practice of fighting between families came over from the Old Country, where warring clans were still the norm when many of these people immigrated to America.

This location is fictitious, but the beauty and wildness of the mountains in western Virginia are not. The reason for the beginning of this family feud happened in Kentucky. As I mention in these pages, local sheriffs and federal agents discovered that finding and arresting the perpetrators was nearly impossible. Getting lost in “hollers” or over a ridge was just too easy, and people didn’t tattle on their kinfolk. Some feuds lasted for thirty years or more. For all we know, some are still going on.

When I was a graduate student at Virginia Polytechnic and State University in the late 1990s, a friend from the area I’ve written about told me that some roads you come across you just don’t go down without an invitation. Of course, he might have been pulling my leg.

I lived in Appalachia for many years and still have family there, and I can imitate the dialect. For ease of reading, I have kept idiomatic expressions and spellings to a minimum. The one I employ here the most, I still use myself upon occasion—the insertion of “right” as an adjective, adverb, or whatever one needs it to be. I figure if it charmed me as a younger, single female, it would charm my heroine.

There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.

Romans 8:1–2

1

Seabourne, Virginia
April 1842

Esther Cherrett removed the sketchbook from her satchel and lifted it to the highest shelf in the armoire. She didn’t need pictures of men whose form existed simply in her imagination’s portrayals, in colored chalks—not where she was going. And drawings of her family would only make her sad. Make her feel guilty.

She didn’t need the satchel either. Its packets of herbs, rolls of bandages, and canvas apron for protecting her dresses during a lying-in would be of as little use in her new position as were the drawings. She started to hoist it up to the shelf too, but her arms shook as though the black leather bag weighed a hundred pounds instead of ten, and she let it drop.

It landed on the blue floral rug with a thud. The latch sprang open and poked up like an accusing finger.
You shouldn’t be doing this
, it seemed to say in the voice of Letty O’Tool, the eldest congregant in the church.
You aren’t answering to your calling.

Esther snapped the latch back into place, then popped it open again, retrieved the sketchbook from its shelf, and shoved it amongst the instruments of the profession she had determined to leave behind in Seabourne. Leave behind with the scorn and ridicule she’d faced over the past four months.

“I’m ready now.” She glanced around the room growing dim in the April twilight to see if she had forgotten anything essential for a 350-mile trek across the mountains and her new life beyond the Blue Ridge. Nothing on the dressing table, inside the armoire, beneath the bed. She had squeezed all she could manage into two carpetbags and an oilskin pouch. Everything else must remain behind.

“Except—” She dove beneath the bed and reached up between headboard and wall. Her fingers encountered stiff paper, and she yanked at it.

A bundle of foolscap and fine stationery tied together with a black ribbon dropped into her hand. She should either take the letters or burn them before she departed, whatever necessary so her parents didn’t find the condemnatory, derisive, even threatening words from people they thought they knew well—her father’s parishioners, her mother’s patients. People her parents thought liked them and respected them, but who condemned them as well in the missives.