Adam's Bride (3 page)

He pulled her Bible out of his pocket. “I almost forgot. You dropped this in the snow. I discovered it after you’d left, and I didn’t know where to find you.”

He handed her the book, feeling like an awkward schoolboy. A part of him had wanted to find her again, but now that she was here, he felt as if his emotions were piled in a jumbled heap around him. If only he could see her in a different light. If only being Polish didn’t matter to him.

“I can’t thank you enough.” Her smile broadened as she took the book. “It was a gift from my parents. I thought I’d never see it again. I guess I’m doubly indebted to you now.”

“It was nothing, really.” Adam fidgeted, not knowing what to say. Maybe there was nothing else that needed to be said.

“All the same, I do appreciate it.”

He tipped his hat and took an awkward step back. “I’m on my way home, so if you’ll excuse me.”

Lidia nodded solemnly, her stomach churning as she continued toward the outskirts of town. Fingering the smooth cover of her Bible that she’d stuffed inside the pocket of her coat, she felt tears well up in her eyes. She wiped them away with the back of her hand and took a deep breath, determined to control her spiraling emotions. She’d been a fool to let herself daydream about the handsome stranger who’d rescued her from that rabid mutt. Adam Johnson had been right. He’d done nothing more than any other person in the same circumstance would have done. She foolishly misread the looks of attraction in his eyes as he’d helped her down from the tree.

The fact was he was no different than any other man she’d met. Either they wanted her for affections she’d never give a man until she was properly married, or they wanted nothing to do with her because of her heritage. The same was true with most of the women. Both the well-to-do immigrants and the Yankees looked down at girls like her who were forced to work because of their financial situation. She’d seen the same condescension reflected in Adam’s eyes. It was a look that made her feel like a second-class citizen. As if being Polish meant that she wasn’t a true American. But she
was
American—she would show everyone that Poland was nothing more than a distant memory to her. A story like her babcia’s stories. Nothing more.

Pulling her coat closer around her, she shivered against the icy wind. For years, she’d worked to ensure that she never spoke with an accent. She strived to demonstrate the refined characteristics of a lady. Her hard work had paid off—she’d made a few friends who hadn’t noticed how different she was. Life had become almost normal. Then her parents’ death a year ago changed all of that. No longer was there time for fancy frivolities like tea parties with her friends and picnics on lazy Sunday afternoons. She had to support not only herself but her brother, as well, and the only time she was allowed to escape the confines of the mill was for church or when her boss, Mrs. Moore, sent her to town on an errand.

Hurrying through the snow, Lidia let the tears run freely. Her brother had just turned thirteen. God hadn’t meant for a boy his age to be raised by his older sister who had yet to turn twenty. He needed a mother to love him and a father to teach him the Word of God and how to act like a man—something she could never do for him.

Sometimes it’s just so hard, God
.

She tried to swallow the lump of pain in her throat. When she’d met Adam Johnson, something about him had reminded her of all she yearned for in life. Foolish notions of falling in love and living happily ever after were not luxuries she normally allowed herself to indulge in. They were nothing more than silly dreams of being rescued from the life she was trapped in. That would never happen to her.

Instead, she would spend her days working long hours at the mill. Every spare moment was used reading from the Bible or works of poetry such as N. P. Willis and John Greenleaf Whittier, graciously lent to her by dear Mrs. Gorski from church. If she wasn’t reading, she spent those brief moments filling the pages of her blank notepad with her own poetry, wondering all the time if anything better lay ahead of her. Wasn’t there more to life than tediously attending to the looms for ten hours each day?

For a moment, Adam had made her forget. Her breath had caught as she’d looked into his dark eyes, and when he smiled at her, he’d left her speechless. Lidia’s foot plunged into a crusty pile of snow, bringing her back to reality. She shivered as the icy crystals tumbled into her boots. It was a chilling reminder of the truth of her situation.

Obviously Adam was no different from the scores of folks who disliked her simply because she was Polish, and now, without a family of her own, she had little interaction with others like her who had emigrated from her homeland. No matter what she did or how hard she worked to be a true lady of quality, things would never change. There was simply no place for her to find love in this New World.

three

The eighty-foot maple soared above him. Adam pressed the palms of his hands against the ridged bark of the tree and smiled, ready to continue the tradition of harvesting sap that had been done by men and women for centuries. A brisk westward wind blew, ruffling the hair on the back of his neck. Above him the sun shone bright, warming the day, but not enough to thaw the ground. The conditions were perfect.

For five winters he’d worked beside Old Man Potter, a no-nonsense codger who’d taught Adam everything he knew about the tedious process of gathering sap and the final process of turning the sap into syrup. After suffering from a bad case of pneumonia, Mr. Potter hadn’t made it through the winter. To Adam’s surprise he had left the entire farm to him.

This was the second year Adam worked the sugar brush alone. By next year, he hoped to be able to afford to hire a handful of men to gather an even larger amount of sap. And that wasn’t all he planned. He was studying the profitability of using a portion of the land for horse breeding, or perhaps dairy farming. Something that would make the acreage self-sustaining.

Water dripped from an icicle at the top of the sugarhouse, then slid down the side of Adam’s face. He shivered, not certain if it was from the cold or from the infection he’d been fighting for days. He simply didn’t have time to be sick. He’d spent the past month repairing the furnace, vats, and other supplies at the sugar camp that was situated beside a small stream. Now that those preparations were finished, it was time to begin tapping the maple trees. Already he’d placed the taps into the trunks so he’d be ready for his first run tomorrow. The only thing left to do was to finish hanging the buckets that would in turn collect the maple sap.

He could almost taste the spread of sweet treats his stepmother would serve at the upcoming sugaring off, the annual celebration of the maple sugar harvest signaling the end of winter. Maple sugar on pancakes, maple cream, and caramelized sugar on snow would be plentiful as long as the weather cooperated. A bird chirped in the distance, and Adam sent up a short prayer that the Lord would hold off the warm weather this year. Spring might be coming, but not before his harvest had been collected.

He grabbed the last of the buckets from the back corner of the sugarhouse, pausing when he noticed a scrap of paper lodged in a crack in the wall. Curious, he knelt to pick it up. His heart sank when he realized what it was. Fingering the tattered photograph of Mattie was like a jolt from the past. He could still see the faraway look in his brother Samuel’s eyes the day he’d sat on the stump down by the creek, the image of the girl he loved in his hands.

“I think I’m in love, Adam.” Samuel had gazed at the photo like an infatuated schoolboy.

“You’re too young to be in love.” Adam’s voice rang sharp with a note of truth, but he couldn’t disguise his amusement. At sixteen, Samuel’s head was in the clouds more often than not—and Mattie helped to keep it there.

“What about your dreams of becoming a doctor?” Adam leaned back against one of the maple trees, its flaming scarlet leaves reflecting its Creator’s glory.

Samuel shrugged. “Mattie and I’ve talked about staying right here in Cranton and farming a bit of land once we’re married—”

“So you’ve already talked about marriage?” Adam teased.

Samuel jumped from the stump, tackling Adam to the ground in one swift motion. Adam might have had the advantage of height as well as ten extra pounds, but Samuel was quicker. They rolled down the embankment, stopping only when they slammed into the side of a tree.

A wave of nausea swept over him, jerking Adam from the memories of carefree days that were no longer. With the image of his brother’s lopsided grin still fresh in his mind, familiar feelings of anger seared through Adam’s body as he stuffed the photo into his pocket.

Why did You let him die, God?

He pounded his fist against the wall of the sugarhouse. It was the question he longed to ask God face-to-face. If anyone should have died, it should have been him. As the eldest son in the family, he was responsible for his siblings. Failing to save his brother’s life was worse than losing his own life.

Trying to ignore the growing dizziness, he yanked the last four buckets off the ground and headed for the maple grove where he would hang them. He had no choice but to make it though the next few weeks of the harvest. Maybe it was pride, like his father said, that had stopped him from accepting help from his family, but this was something he needed to do. A chance to prove to himself that he could succeed.

Five minutes later Adam hooked the last bucket onto one of the spouts he’d tapped into the tree. He took a staggering step, his vision blurring as he stumbled up the slight rise toward his cabin. He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hands then stared into the distance at the glistening snow. Maybe if he went to lie down for a few minutes he’d feel better. He shouldn’t be surprised at how tired he felt. Besides preparing to harvest the sap, it had taken weeks of backbreaking work to make Old Man Potter’s two-room cabin livable, and there were still a dozen things he planned to do once the harvest was over.

Like make it livable for a wife and a family
.

The thought caught him off guard and brought with it vivid images of Lidia. Her long auburn hair and those sad eyes that made him long to find out what heart-wrenching secrets they held. Trying to erase the memory of holding her in his arms at the base of the tree, he tugged at the collar of his shirt and made his way up the hill. The temperature had gradually warmed throughout the afternoon, but not enough to cause him to break out into a sweat. If he could just get to the cabin …

He stumbled toward the porch and tripped on a scrap piece of wood. Falling onto the ground, he felt the sharp impact of something hitting his head. He cried out in pain and watched the flow of crimson spill across the white snow.

Lidia shivered as she tramped through the snow, wondering what she could say to Koby that would knock some sense into him without deepening the silence that separated them. Her brother shuffled beside her, a sullen expression on his boyish face. At thirteen, he was as tall as she, and noticeably heavier. No longer a boy, yet still not a man.

She watched as he kicked the ground with the toe of his shoe. White powder flew in every direction. He might be mad at her for making him return to the mill, but she was furious that he’d run away. After a coworker informed her that Koby had left his work post in a huff, she’d spent two hours searching the surrounding woodlands. Just before the last curtain of night had fallen, she’d found him trudging down a narrow road.

Lidia worked to control her unsteady breathing. She was angry with him for jeopardizing their jobs. Angry with him for putting her in the position where she had to risk her life searching for him. The incident with the rabid dog had proven to be a reminder that it wasn’t safe to wander these roads alone. It was time he thought about someone besides himself. Life might not be easy, but they were family. In order to survive, they were going to have to stick together.

“Why did you leave?” she asked, breaking the silence between them.

“What does it matter to you?”

She decided to ignore his defiant tone for now and worked instead to keep the frustration out of her own voice. “We’re family. We have to be there for each other.”