A Hope Remembered by Stacy Henrie

should require anything else, please let me know.” He tucked his hands into his pockets, a habitual gesture she already identified as his. “I’d like to be friends, Nora.”
    Gratitude for his honest admission lifted her mouth into a smile, though the tiniest sliver of disappointment cut through her at what might have been. Nora ignored it. She could offer him friendship, nothing more.
    “I’d like that, too.”

Chapter 4
    A loud knock at the back door the next afternoon startled Nora awake. She studied the clock on the bureau through blurry eyes. It was already five minutes after five. After a busy day cleaning and weeding the overgrown garden, she’d stretched out on her bed, intent on a short nap. Instead she’d slept for two hours. It didn’t help that sleep hadn’t come easily the night before; she missed having a dog beside the bed.
    She took a moment to rearrange her hair, then she hurried downstairs to answer the door. Jack stood on the stoop, his weight bouncing from one foot to the other.
    “Ready for our walk?”
    “Yes.” Nora eyed the gray sky. “Let me grab my coat.” She pulled it from the peg by the door and joined him outside. Pushing her arms through the sleeves, she drew the material around her as she shivered.
    “We’ll head up through the inbye to the fell.”
    “The inbye?” Another word she didn’t know or recognize.
    He motioned to the field ahead of them. “The fields by the farms are the inbye. And the fells are the mountains.”
    “Colin told me what fell meant.”
    Jack pulled his cap lower. “You sweet on him?”
    “Hardly,” she managed to get out past her startled laugh.
    A smile appeared on Jack’s face, though he made no comment. They entered the field through the gate and Jack shut it behind them. Nora studied the stone fence bordering the field. How many hours had it taken her ancestors to build the fence, stone by stone?
    “The sheep,” she asked, “what kind are they?”
    “Herdwick. The Vikings are said to have introduced them to the Lake District.” His pride was unmistakable.
    Nora glanced at the mountain ahead of them. Its grassy skirt gave way to craggy rock and stubs of green higher up where the gray clouds hugged the mountain peak. Moving gray specks, which she suspected were the sheep, dotted its side.
    She and Jack came to a set of small, wooden steps straddling the fence at the foot of the mountain. Before Nora could move or speak, Jack seized her hand and helped her up and over the fence. She quickly pulled her hand from his grip once her shoes were back on the ground. While she appreciated his attempt at being a gentleman, she preferred Colin’s more subtle approach.
    There I go , she thought with a frown. Thinking of Colin again.
    She didn’t want to think of the puzzling but kind baronet’s son. Or the way he made her laugh with his jokes. Or the way his dark eyes glowed with interest when he looked at her. These were things she’d loved about Tom, too. She was simply missing him, in this place so far from their memories. Loving someone new wasn’t an option. The potential for pain if she opened her heart all over again…Nora shuddered and drew her coat closer. Inhaling a deep breath of the damp air, she pushed aside the reminders of fear and heartache.
    Her lungs and legs soon burned from the sharp ascent up the mountain, but Nora welcomed the exercise and the chance to stretch her limbs. Despite all the cleaning and weeding she’d done, she still felt a bit idle. She missed pushing herself through long, hard tasks as she’d done nearly every day on the farm back home.
    After a time, Jack stopped. “Take a look. Prettiest sight in the world, if you ask me.”
    Nora turned from the mountain to face the valley below. Emotion stirred deep inside her at the sight. The deep blue lake, the imposing turrets of Elmthwaite Hall, the farms and partitioned fields—all of it spread out before them like a living, breathing canvas painted by the