A Time to Love (20 page)

"I don't know who talked more, them or me," she said, shaking her head. She fell silent.

"You didn't tell him."

She looked at her grandmother. "No. I don't really have anything to tell him yet."

"Lean on him," Phoebe said quietly. "He loves you. He wants to marry you."

"I know. And I want to marry him."

"Want to? You
are
marrying him."

Jenny stared at her hands. She felt rather than saw her grandmother get up and come to sit on the bed.

"You haven't changed your mind." It was a statement, not a question.

"I will if the doctor says there's a problem. Matthew doesn't need another wife who has health problems and could— could—" She stopped, unable to finish.

"Hold on to your faith in God," Phoebe said, taking Jenny's hands and squeezing them. "He won't fail you."

A few minutes later, an announcement came over the p.a.system that visiting hours were over.

"I'm sure I can stay a while longer if you want me to."

Jenny shook her head. "No, but thank you. It's been a long day for both of us. You go back to the hotel. Promise me you'll take a taxi."

Phoebe smiled. "I will." She bent and kissed Jenny's forehead, then tucked the quilt around her. "Is there anything you want me to get for you before I leave?"

"You already have," Jenny murmured. "I don't know what I did without you before I came here."

Phoebe smiled. "You're a strong young woman. You managed just fine. But I'm happy you came to visit me. And I'm glad you decided to stay. Sleep now. We'll be back home soon."

Just as she reached the door, Jenny thought of something."You know, I think I'd like to keep the cell phone tonight."

"
Schur.
But I don't have its charger with me."

"It'll be fine for a night without it."

Phoebe handed her the cell. "It'll be
gut
for you to have it if you want to talk to Matthew again."

After her grandmother left the room, Jenny got to work on her iPhone, looking up Web sites with information about bombing survivors. She knew she was fortunate in having Mac and Lannie on the job looking out for her. But she'd never been one to willingly be dependent on others, especially for something so important.

And she wasn't about to start now.

Mac came in bright and early the next morning. Hailey was right behind him.

Jenny waited for the fireworks.

"Nurse Hailey tells me I owe you an apology," he said, giving her a quick sidelong glance. "She's right. I should have been more careful not to let you go without a pain injection. Once pain builds I know it can be hard to knock it back again. In my defense, you were having coffee with that soldier and I thought you were doing better than you were."

"It's not an apology if you defend what you did," Hailey muttered.

Mac grimaced. "Sorry, Jenny."

"It's okay. I should have spoken up."

With a brief glance at the nurse, Mac took a seat beside the bed. "Maybe you can help me work on my bedside manner."

"Maybe." Her voice was stern, but Jenny thought she detected a twinkle in the woman's eyes. She handed him Jenny's chart and left the room.

Is that a smile lurking around the corners of Mac's mouth?
Jenny wondered.
Interesting.

Mac studied his notes, then looked at her. "I don't want to keep you in suspense. Lannie and I didn't find any evidence of anything toxic in your blood work."

Jenny felt an initial burst of elation and then she realized that Mac was sitting there, silent, avoiding her eyes. "Do you know what I did last night, Mac?"

"Watched television?" he asked, glancing at her warily."Went to bed early?"

She reached for her iPhone and held it out. "Great devices, these things. You can plan your day. Get concert tickets. Check your e-mail. And—"

"Do research on the Internet," he finished for her. He sighed heavily.

"I'm a reporter—used to be a reporter," she corrected. "I wanted to check things out for myself."

"I should have known." He sighed. "So what did you find out?"

"There've been some reports of toxicity appearing several years after the bombings. Victims have gotten sick."

"And most of the victims haven't."

"Ah, an optimist." Suddenly tired, she leaned back against the pillows.

Mac wrote more notes in her file. "I'm sending you home. Keep an eye on your temperature, and let me know right away if it goes up or you have any problems. I don't expect them."He closed the file and looked at her. "And send me a photo of you dancing at the wedding."

"No dancing. No photos."

"Huh. You don't say. Okay, well, then just enjoy yourself and have a happy life, Jenny." He shook her hand then strolled out of the room.

"Yeah," she sighed as she watched him leave. "I'll go do just that very thing."

T
his feels familiar," Jenny said as Matthew carried her into Phoebe's house.

"Except I'm even happier to do it this time," he told her, gathering her closer.

Jenny pressed her cheek against his and sighed. "What a sweet thing to say."

"I missed you very much." He set her down carefully on the sofa. "How is the pain?"

"Better now." She reached for his hand and squeezed it. "I missed you, too, Matthew."

Phoebe bustled in. She'd shed her coat and now she helped Jenny take hers off. "How about a sandwich and a cup of tea?"

"That would be wonderful. And then you need to sit down. You've been buzzing around me like a busy bee all morning."

Jenny looked at Matthew. "
Grossmudder
made sure all our luggage got on the plane and took care of me on the flight. And that was no small task. I got sick when we went through a patch of bad weather."

Matthew took a seat in a chair next to the sofa and they talked while Phoebe fixed the simple lunch.

"You need to rest," he said later, after they'd eaten. "I can see you're trying to stay awake."

She wanted to protest, but her eyes wouldn't stay open."Pain pills," she muttered. "I hate to take them." She remembered complaining about that very thing to David as he was bringing her here months ago.

"I'll stop by later with the
kinner,"
Matthew told her, and she felt his kiss on her forehead as she drifted.

Phoebe patted her shoulder and covered her with a quilt."Rest now. There will come a time very soon when you will not need them. And you will walk without pain to meet Matthew and become husband and wife."

She smiled, and then she slept.

Keeping his word, Matthew brought the children later that day. Annie wanted to climb into Jenny's lap, but he wouldn't let her.

"Remember, I told you we have to be careful not to bump Jenny," he reminded her.

Leaning over as much as she could, Jenny held out her arms and Annie went into them, hugging her. She closed her eyes and inhaled the clean scent of Annie's hair, washed with baby shampoo. Hannah said Annie always insisted that she was a big girl, but complained that the other kind stung her eyes. It felt so good to hold the child that Jenny didn't want to let go. Tears rushed into her eyes as Joshua and Mary took their turns hugging her, telling her how much they'd missed her. All three held cards they'd made for her from construction paper and crayons and glitter that fell all over her lap and made her laugh.

Oh, how she loved them. How she'd missed them. It wasn't surprising to her how quickly she'd bonded with them, for they were such loving, wonderful children. But part of the bond had come from her knowing what it felt like to lose a parent so early in life. They had their father, but they longed for a mother's touch and found it again in her.

Mother. When she sat back she felt a rush of tears she had to blink away. How could she risk becoming their mother and leaving them, not just Matthew?

"
Daedi,
Jenny's crwying. Why is she crwying?" the always observant Annie asked.

"They're happy tears," she lied, wiping them away with her fingers. "Your
daedi
knows about happy tears, don't you, Matthew?" But when she looked up at him, she saw him watching her with a concerned frown.

Supper wore her out.

Jenny sat with her leg propped up on a chair and listened to the happy chatter of the children ranged around the kitchen table.

Hannah tried to stop them from talking with their mouths full but finally gave up the effort and grinned at Jenny. She reached over and squeezed Jenny's hand.

"It's so good to have you back. You've been missed."

Joshua turned to Phoebe. "What was the big city like?"

"Lots of people," she told him fondly, using his napkin to wipe a smear of gravy from his chin. "Lots of noise. Nothing like here."

"Did they give you ice cweam?" Annie asked Jenny.

"One of her friends had her tonsils out last year," Matthew told her. "Annie thinks everyone gets ice cream at the hospital."

Jenny smiled at Annie. "I had it sometimes. My favorite's butter pecan. What's yours?"

"Stwahbewrry," Annie said, giving her a gap-toothed grin.

Instead of winding down as supper progressed, the children seemed to get more animated. Jenny shifted in her seat several times until finally Matthew quietly asked her if she wanted to go into the other room. Grateful for the understanding, she nodded and he helped her up and back to the living room.

The children were disappointed, but Phoebe brought out ice cream and they put their dishes in the sink and were happily waiting for it to be served as Jenny left the kitchen.

Settled down on the sofa with a pillow and quilt, Jenny nodded when Matthew asked if she'd like some coffee. The last thing she remembered was watching him leave the room to get it.

This is the strangest thing, she thought drowsily, brushing at her cheek. What are butterflies doing fluttering around my face at this time of the year? And since when did butterflies giggle?
She opened her eyes and stared into Annie's face. Annie's little mouth was still pursed in a kiss. She grinned at Jenny.

"
Kumm,
Annie, let Jenny sleep," her grandmother whispered. Smiling, Jenny dozed.

Waking a little while later, she blinked, wondering where she was and then realized. Sitting up carefully, she winced and glanced at the clock over the mantel. Time for another pain pill. She got to her feet, reached for the walker, and maneuvered carefully toward the kitchen.

Hannah was washing dishes as Matthew dried. She stood in the doorway for a moment and watched them, thinking how she loved this man. She'd come to love his sister like her own, too.

How was she going to tell him what Mac had said? She had to do it. There was no way she'd let him go into a marriage with her otherwise. What would his reaction be? Surely he would be afraid to become a widower again?

"Anyway, I wanted to talk to you about Jenny," Hannah was saying.

Jenny stopped dead in her tracks.

"When she first came, I told you that you shouldn't become interested in her."

Tears sprang into Jenny's eyes. Blindly, she turned to go back in the other room but moved awkwardly and her leg screamed in protest. She cried out and grabbed at the doorframe, but her hand slipped and she started to fall.

A dish crashed to the floor as she heard Matthew shout her name. He grabbed her before she hit the floor and gathered her to his chest. "Are you okay?" he asked, stroking her hair. "Tell me you haven't hurt yourself!"

"Let me go!" She pushed at him and teetered for a moment. But he didn't let go and held on to her forearms, staring at her in concern. "Just let me go, please."

"What's wrong?" Matthew asked her.

Hannah rushed over. "Don't you understand? She heard what I was saying." She turned to Jenny and laid a hand on her arm. "Jenny, let me explain—"

"What's to explain?" She pulled away from them and moved into the other room, barely seeing her way through the blur of tears.

But leaving the room didn't help. They followed her as she sank down on the sofa again, keeping the walker between herself and them as if she needed a barrier to protect her.

"Jenny, what I was saying was how I felt before, when you first came here," Hannah told her. Her own eyes were filled with tears as she sank down on the sofa next to Jenny. "Please, I feel terrible that I hurt you. I never meant for you to hear that. I love you like a sister."

Reaching into the pocket of her sweats, Jenny found a tissue and wiped her eyes. "Don't worry about it."

"I need to explain what you think you heard," Hannah insisted. "I didn't want Matthew to get involved with you because I was afraid he'd be hurt again. He'd lost one wife and here you were, so injured, hurting in your body and in your heart. I was afraid for him. I didn't want him to lose someone he loved again. But I was wrong."

"No, you weren't."

"What?"

Jenny wanted to pace but she couldn't. "I'm a bad prospect for marriage," she whispered, avoiding Matthew's intense scrutiny.

Matthew pulled the walker away from Jenny and set it aside. He knelt at her feet and took her hands in his. "What happened in New York City, Jenny?"

With an effort, she raised her eyes and looked at him."Mac—my surgeon—he was worried that some of the metal they removed might be toxic, might cause me harm someday. Might even kill me."

"You said 'was.'"

"Mac said he can't be sure. I'm fine now but . . ." she trailed off, afraid to put it in words. "I can't marry you, Matthew."

"Have you changed your mind?"

She stared at him. "Didn't you hear what I said?"

"I heard you. Did you hear me? Did you change your mind because there's some difficulty, Jenny? Seems to me you go in saying it's for better or worse or it shouldn't be at all."

"But—"

"Did you change your mind about loving me?" he persisted."Look me in the eye and tell me you don't love me."

"Of course I love you." Tears started sliding down her cheeks again. "I just can't saddle you with someone who might get sick, who might do just what Hannah said and make you a widower again."

"Amelia's dying like she did taught me something," Matthew told her quietly. "None of us knows when we'll join our heavenly Father. I might die before you. Besides, don't I get to have some say in this? I know you want to protect me just like Hannah. But I want you, Jenny. I want to marry you and be your husband and share my life and my
kinner
with you."

"I told you I don't know if I can have children because of my injuries," she said. "Now, I'd be afraid to even try to have them with this hanging over me. I couldn't risk a baby's health—"

"We already talked about
kinner,"
he reminded her. "I told you that I have three to share with you, Jenny. If it's God's will to have more, then it will be so."

"But—"

"I'm not losing you again, Jenny," he said. He took a seat next to her and gathered her into his arms.

Jenny realized that some time during their conversation Hannah had quietly gotten up and left them to talk privately.

"I don't know what to do," she told him, absorbing the strength and comfort of his arms.

"Trust in God, Jenny. He wouldn't have brought you back to me if we weren't supposed to be together again. Trust that we'll have a long, happy life together."

He brought out his pocket handkerchief and wiped away her tears. "I'm sure all of this has been hard on you. I should have gone there to the hospital with you, helped you through this. But you're home now. Everything will be fine again."

"You make it sound so easy," she murmured, exhausted from the day, from the worry.

"Rest now, dear one," Matthew told her as he stroked her hair. "Trust in Him that all is well."

Jenny woke when she heard the front door open and close.

Her grandmother came into the room. "Did you have a nice visit with Matthew and Hannah?"

Yawning, Jenny nodded. "It was nice of you to take the children home and put them to bed."

"I missed them."

"Me too. Then I fell asleep before it was even their bedtime."

"You've been through a lot. Your body needs sleep to heal."She gave Jenny a fond smile. "Are you ready to go to bed?"

"I shouldn't be, but I am." Jenny laughed and shook her head as she maneuvered herself up from the sofa. "I remember this funny writer, Erma Bombeck. She used to say that it was never too late to take a nap, that no one should have to go to bed tired."

"Sounds very wise," her grandmother said. She sighed. "It'll be good to sleep in our own beds tonight,
ya?"

"
Ya."