Brave Beginnings by Ruth Ann Nordin Read Free Book Online

Chogan...”
    She shook her head. “He’s married,
sweetheart.”
    “Married?” she dumbly asked, suddenly unable
to compute exactly what that word meant.
    When her aunt motioned to the letter in her
grip, she reluctantly relaxed her hands and smoothed out the
wrinkled paper so she could read it. Her heart raced with a mixture
of dread and horror as she scanned the contents. Gary wrote that he
would bring Woape and Penelope by in two weeks since the tribe
would be done with the harvest. Then he rambled on about some of
the exciting things he was learning, but she skimmed through that
section. She flipped the letter over and that’s when she read
it.
    Chogan’s married.
    It was all her brother wrote. There was no
other explanation. He just continued on with some of the other
things happening in the tribe, but Julia couldn’t make out any of
the words through her tears.
    “Julia?” Erin whispered.
    “I never should have said no when he
proposed,” she managed before she collapsed into her aunt’s arms
and cried.
    Erin hugged her. “I’m so sorry, honey. Come
on.” She gently led her to the bed and sat next to her, holding her
and running her hand up and down her back. “Chogan didn’t say
anything about marrying anyone when he was here. I thought he came
here to see you. I don’t know what happened.”
    “Ernest happened.” She pulled away from her
aunt and searched for the handkerchief she’d recently packed in the
bag next to her. “Ernest showed up, and Chogan assumed the
worst.”
    “You might be right.”
    She pulled out the handkerchief and wiped her
eyes. “I should have gone after him when he and Gary left. I just
didn’t know what to do. It all happened so fast. And I didn’t have
to wait a week to get the ticket.”
    Her aunt continued to rub her back. “You’re
not one to act on impulse.”
    “That’s because I let fear hold me back. All
of my life I let fear hold me back. It’s why I didn’t marry Chogan
when he asked. I didn’t think I could fit in with his tribe. I was
too scared to leave everything I knew.” More tears fell and her
lower lip quivered. “I was afraid, and now I missed the one chance
I had to be with the most wonderful man I’ve ever known. I’ll never
find anyone like him again.”
    Her body shook as another onslaught of tears
overtook her, and all she could do was cry while her aunt continued
to hold her.
     
     
    ~~********~~
     
     

Chapter 5
     
    Julia had a hard time sitting through the
meal at the Freeman’s residence. She glanced across the table at
her aunt who managed to talk up a storm, and Julia said a silent
prayer of thanks for the fact that the woman was longwinded. It was
a mistake to come here. Just as it had been a mistake to turn down
Chogan’s proposal a year ago. Just as it had been a mistake to let
him leave when he saw Ernest standing too close to her. Just as it
had been a mistake not to find a way to get to his tribe before he
got married to someone else.
    It seemed to her that her life had been
composed of a series of mistakes, and for the past week, that was
all she could think of. Missed opportunities. Times she wanted to
do one thing but did another. There had only been one time she
didn’t analyze everything through before she did it, and that was
when she went on a search for her brother. Looking back and knowing
her brother and Woape were alright, she had to admit those days
hunting rabbits with Chogan were the best of her life.
    And now he’d take another woman hunting for
rabbits. Her fork clattered to the plate as she gave up on eating
any more of the pot roast in front of her. She had no idea who the
woman was, but she hated her. Though she knew she had no claim on
Chogan, she couldn’t imagine him with anyone else.
    “Julia, are you alright?”
    Her aunt’s worried tone broke her out of her
thoughts. She looked across the table at Erin. “I’m not hungry.”
She glanced at Ernest who sat next to her and his parents