New Beginnings Spring 20 Book Box Set

by Hope Sinclair

  “She was just twelve years old when it happened,” Sally narrated from the front of the room. “Her father was crushed in an industrial accident, and with him, the walls of her sheltered life fell as well. The world was no longer the beautiful place that a child is meant to see it as. It was now something threatening, something that took as much, if not more, than it gave. The world was scary. It was ugly.

  “This man—this girl’s father—wasn’t the only one to die an untimely death, he was only one of many. And that made the girl very afraid. All the beauty she saw, all the people she loved, were sure to leave her, like her father had done. She was a child no more.”

  Herb’s heart ached in his chest. He knew this story had to be about Sally, even though it was written in a different person, using “she” instead of “I.” He didn’t know very much about her past, mind you. But he knew that her father had passed away when she was younger, though he’d never even tried to imagine the impact it must have had on her. But now that he saw that impact, he could relate to it. It was exactly how he felt after losing his loved ones. He felt a deep connection to her that she could understand his suffering.

  “The girl came to miss the beautiful world she’d once known, and as time passed, she came to worry that she might forget things about her father or the other people and things she loved,” Sally continued. “She wanted more than anything to preserve them—and she decided to do exactly that.

  “The girl picked up a brush, dipped it in paint, and took it to a canvas. She pained portraits of her father from memory, and portraits of her mother and friends from sittings. She painted landscapes and still lifes. She painted whatever she thought was interesting, whatever she wanted to remember and preserve. She made a permanent record of what would otherwise be lost over time.”

  Even though Sally’s story was about a painter, Herb still knew it had to be about her. She was no less an artist than a painter was. Whereas a painter stroked her brush across a canvas, Sally wrote her words on paper—they were both creative endeavors, utilizing different mediums. She was the girl in the story. Herb was sure of it. And when he saw a single tear fall from her eyes as she finished her story, there was no question about it.

  No sooner than the audience was done cheering, Herb rushed over to his wife.

  “You sure painted one vivid picture with your brush tonight,” he said with a broad smile.

  Sally bowed her head and giggled. She’d finally made room for laughter—and love—in their relationship.

  “You’d be surprised how many people can’t figure out that story is about me,” she said, looking up again and gazing into Herb’s eyes. “So you liked my story then?” Sally asked.

  “Yes,” Herb replied. “And I could relate to it… Well, at least to the first part. I could understand your suffering, the way you saw the world after your father died. But unlike you, I never found a paintbrush after my tragedy. I turned to diligent work to distract me, but it did nothing to soothe me like your writing has soothed you. It never eased my mind or helped my heart heal. If anything, it only made me suffer all the more.

  “But now I think I’ve finally found my paintbrush. I think I’ve found the thing I need to help me get over my dismal outlook and enjoy the world I live in. I’ve found my purpose.”

  “Which is?” Sally asked curiously, arching her eyebrow.

  “Loving you and being the true husband you deserve,” Herb answered.

  Sally’s heart fluttered, and she felt dizzy. But it felt wonderful, and she remained clearheaded throughout it.

  “I’d like to give this marriage a real try,” Herb continued. “I’d like to get to know you, love you more than I already do, and be your husband… if you’ll have me.”

  Sally smiled and bobbed her head slowly. “Yes, Herb,” she answered. “I do believe I would like to have you as my husband.”

  The two of them bowed their red faces, and Herb reached out and took Sally’s hand into his. They were a married couple, after all, and such displays of affection were part of the package. Anyone looking on would expect to see such affection between a husband and wife, though they’d hardly expect the reaction it stirred in Herb and Sally. They weren’t as accustomed to such acts as an actual couple would be, and for their first time, they both fully embraced what they felt for each other, which made their touch all the more intense and special.

  SEVEN

  “I’d like to do this properly,” Herb said. He was sitting at the dining room table, across from Sally and Mrs. Sugar, and there was a pot of stew between them.

  “We may already be married,” he went on, “but we owe each other the benefits of a proper courtship. For all intents and purposes, we should go about things as a couple not already married would. We must build up to the relationship we already have in place.”

  Not even six weeks ago, the same three people sat at the same table as Sally presented her plan for their businesslike marriage. Now it was Herb laying out the plan, and it was for the personal relationship they’d decided to pursue. It was a much more promising, exciting conversation, as far as dinner conversation went.

  “I couldn’t agree more,” Sally replied. “It’s only right that we take a few steps back and start at the beginning.”

  “At least for a short while,” Herb added. Once he said it, his face turned red, and his heart started racing. Sally felt a tickle in her tummy.

  That night after dinner, Sally and Herb went on their first official outing as a couple. While Mrs. Sugar sat back on the porch and kept an eye out as chaperone, they strolled around the front yard together and talked.

  Sally opened up and told Herb more about her background. But she still kept some things to herself, the things that were too painful or revealing for her to discuss with anyone at this point in her life. So too, Herb opened up to Sally and told her more about his life experiences. He, however, was as open with her as possible and held nothing back.

  The two of them kept strolling and chatting until Mrs. Sugar had to call for them to come in, as it was getting late. They bid each other goodnight in the living room, then went their separate ways, to each fall asleep reminiscing about the time they’d just spent together.

  The next morning, they both woke up feeling happier than they’d felt in a long time. When they encountered each other in the kitchen, they looked at each other in a way that made Mrs. Sugar’s heart swell. She thought she’d seen her daughter in love before. But she realized now that what she’d seen before was nothing. This was the real thing. And she saw it in Herb’s eyes too. He looked back at Sally the way her late husband had looked at her.

  After breakfast, Sally went to work on her stories, and Herb went to tend to her accounting. But their thoughts remained with each other. When they finally got together again at lunchtime, they were more excited to see each other than to see the food, and Mrs. Sugar realized she had her job cut out for her as chaperone.

  When they were done eating, Herb asked if he could take Sally on another stroll through the yard. Sally was all for it, and Mrs. Sugar couldn’t help but allow it. She perched herself on the chair on the porch again and watched out as her daughter and Herb made their way around the land and further forged their connection.

  “For the longest while, I was afraid to love again,” Herb admitted. “I’d lost my wife and child and couldn’t bear the thought of something like that ever happening again. But then, when I heard your story at the entertainment hall that fateful night, I was reminded of how fleeting life is, for all of us, and how I—and you—deserve the kind of life that’s filled with the kind of moments that are worth preserving, the kind of things a girl would want to record, whether with a pen or a paintbrush.

  “I want to live a life where I can be the loving father painted in a portrait, where you can be the strong woman who lives the kind of life that makes for a compelling story. I want to love again… and I already do.

  “I love you, Mrs. Evans.”

  “And I love y
ou, Mr. Evans,” Sally answered.

  The couple continued to stroll for a bit longer, until Mrs. Sugar was forced to call for them again and set them back to their work schedules.

  Three days later, in the middle of the night, Herb Evans collected the things he considered most valuable and stuffed them into his suitcase. He climbed out of his bedroom window, leaving much of what he’d brought with him behind, and he ran off into the darkness.

  EIGHT

  “I hope he’s all right,” Sally said, nervously drumming her fingers against the kitchen table. She and her mother had waited for Herb to join them for nearly thirty minutes before starting their breakfast, and they’d finished it over ten minutes ago. But still, Herb hadn’t come out of his room to the kitchen, and it wasn’t like him to sleep in or pass on Mrs. Sugar’s cooking.

  “I’ll go check on him,” Mrs. Sugar said, standing up from her chair. She left the kitchen and headed toward Herb’s bedroom—and about thirty seconds later, she called out for Sally to join her.

  “I’m so sorry, my child,” Mrs. Sugar said as Sally came near the door. Sally had no idea why her mother was apologizing, but she prepared herself for the worst. And when she got to Herb’s bedroom, she got it.

  Herb wasn’t in there. His things had been rifled through, as if in a hurry, and the window was left open. Sally didn’t need to call upon her private investigator to figure this one out. Herb was gone. He’d run away, probably during the night—and he’d probably taken something with him. He’d probably robbed her.

  Sally ran away from the bedroom and went to the dining room, to check the new wall safe they’d had installed. It appeared untouched, and she opened it to verify that fact. Indeed, everything was there. She went around the rest of the house to places where certain valuables were displayed and kept. But she found nothing missing. She knew Herb had to have taken something with him, but she couldn’t figure out what, and she wasn’t going to give up until she did.

  In a last-ditch effort, Sally went back to Herb’s bedroom. She quickly examined it, and lo and behold, she saw something that she hadn’t seen earlier when she’d first come to his room. There was a folded piece of paper on the ground, near the bed. Perhaps he left a note, Sally thought to herself, and wind from the open window blew it over.

  Sure enough, when Sally picked up the piece of paper, her suspicions were confirmed. It was a note from Herb. It read, I saw you in town with another man. This arrangement is over.

  Sally felt a sharp pain in her chest, as if her heart had been turned to glass and shattered into a thousand pieces. She dropped the note to the ground, brought her hand to her face, and fell on the bed in a fit of tears.

  Mrs. Sugar was still nearby, and she rushed into the room when she heard her daughter crying. “What’s wrong? What have you found?” the mother asked her daughter.

  “Herb left a note,” Sally sobbed, glancing toward the note on the floor. Mrs. Sugar went over and picked it up, and her eyes widened as she read it. “What man?” she asked. “Whom did Herb see you with?”

  Sally closed her eyes and took a very deep breath. “Mr. Trent,” she answered.

  “Thomas Trent?” Mrs. Sugar asked, astounded.

  “Yes,” Sally replied. “But, please, let me explain.” She straightened up her posture to sit upright on the bed and folded her arms across her chest. “Two days ago, I was in town, talking to Mr. Henry about some changes I needed to make to my schedule,” she said. “Herb was back here, going over my expenses for the month.

  “When I left the entertainment hall, as I passed the bakery, a hand came out of nowhere and grabbed me. Someone was pulling me into the alley. I was very scared—and even more so when I realized who it was. It was Mr. Trent, and he threw his hand over my mouth and told me not to scream, else he’d do something to silence me. ‘You have no idea what I’m capable of,’ he told me. ‘Robbing you was only beans compared to what else I can do.’

  “I nodded to let him know that I wouldn’t scream, and he let his hand down from my mouth. But he still remained very close to me, nearly on top of me. I guess he wanted to trap me in place, to keep me from running.

  “In any event, he reached into his pocket, to pull something out. Again, I was scared. I feared he was about to pull out a pistol or some other type of weapon. But instead, he pulled out a book—though, sure enough, that book went on to hurt me.

  “He handed it to me and told me to skim it. It was titled Short Stories, a Second Volume by Thomas Trent. But when I opened it and started reading it, I found my stories. He’d published my stories under his name! I opened my mouth to yell, not to scream, but the look on Mr. Trent’s face quieted me, and I bowed my head. ‘I’ve come to pay you off,’ he said. ‘I’ve brought some money for you, to compensate you for your stories so that you can lay no claim to them.'

  “I spoke quietly, but I clearly voiced by objection. I told Mr. Trent that I didn’t want compensation for my stories, I wanted my stories themselves. He laughed at me and added another threat to his offer. ‘Take the money, sill girl,’ he said. ‘Should you try to lay claim to these tales, I’ll do whatever I must to defend them, even if it means coming after you, your new husband, or your sweet old mother.’

  “I was appalled, and I didn’t want to cave to Mr. Trent. But I felt that I had no choice. For too long my career has meant too much to me, and it means nothing in comparison to the life and well-being of you and Herb—so I reluctantly told Mr. Trent to give me the money. He shoved it in my skirt pocket, kissed me on the forehead without my permission, then left me with another warning about what would happen if I tried to do anything about the situation.

  “And I guess that Herb saw me and Mr. Trent together at some point during this unsavory exchange. Perhaps he saw how close we were, or saw Mr. Trent put his hands on me or kiss my forehead, and assumed it was something it was not. Whatever he saw, it was reason enough for him to leave.”

  Sally took another deep breath and shifted on the bed. She’d maintained her composure throughout her account, but now she couldn’t hold in her tears any longer. “Thomas Trent has managed to break my heart yet again, Mama,” she said, looking over at her mother. “He’s taken the love of my life away from me, and I don’t even know how to go about getting him back… if I even can get him back at this point.”

  Mrs. Sugar was alarmed by all that her daughter told her, but she didn’t let that show through. Instead, she remained steady, walked over to Sally, and placed her hand on her shoulder, and the two of them went on to pray together, asking God for guidance and the strength to get her through this.

  NINE

  Sally spent the next few days holed up in her room. But she wasn’t in there in a depressive stupor. She was in there… writing.

  After praying to her Heavenly Father and asking him to show her a way to make things right with Herb, she realized that He’d already given her that way. He’d given her great skill as a writer, and she decided to use it to reach Herb and tell him her side of the story. Granted, she had no idea where he was—whether he was still in Carson City, or if he’d returned to Golden Gorge or elsewhere—but she knew that he had a fondness for reading newspapers. So she spent those few days in her room writing a story to be published in any and every newspaper she could send it to throughout the country.

  This story wasn’t an easy one for Sally to write. She couldn’t hide behind fiction this time. She had to write fact, something honest that effectively conveyed everything she had to convey in a compelling, believable manner.

  Sally spent countless hours over those few days writing and rewriting her story. She edited it down so that it wouldn’t be too long, and so that it got straight to the point and used powerful words to stir the emotions of her readers. She wrote about how a man named Thomas Trent had tried to seduce her some time ago, only to rob her; of how he’d stolen her stories, among other things, only to publish them under his name; and of how he’d come back to Carson City to bribe and threaten he
r, forcing her to give him the rights to her stories so as to prevent any harm from coming to her, her husband, or her mother. And she wrote of how Thomas was nothing but a criminal, and of how she suspected that his other stories published in his first book were also stolen, possibly from numerous other storytellers, as evidenced by the way they seemed disjointed from each other.

  What’s more, to prove her own case, she pointed out how the stories in Thomas’s recent book were similar to her own, including the ones she’d previously had published in well-known newspapers. And to top it all off, even though she was not a visual artist like the young woman featured in a good number of her stories, she sketched an image of Thomas Trent’s face, offering a private reward of $5,000 to anyone who could capture him alive and bring him to law enforcement, so that he could be brought to justice for the crimes he committed against her and any other unfortunates he’d crossed.

  As if Sally’s story alone wasn’t compelling enough, the fact that she was offering up such a hefty reward made it something that no newspaper she sent it to could refuse running it, and it made it impossible for any reader to resist inspecting it. Who wouldn’t want to find out a way they could earn $5,000? Or at least, who wouldn’t want to find out what the face staring back at them had done to warrant such a hefty tag on his neck?

  It took Sally a great while to disseminate her story to newspapers across the country, but she committed herself to it tirelessly. She had come to love Herb in a way that she’d never even thought possible, and she wanted to make sure the truth got to him about who Thomas Trent was. And she wanted the truth about what he’d done to get out to anyone who was willing to read it.

  Approximately two months after Sally’s story started running in various newspapers, something good finally happened. But alas, it was not what Sally had most wanted. Late one afternoon, the sheriff appeared at her house to tell her that he’d just received word from a lawman in California.