Arms of Love (9 page)

He reached and grabbed up a candle, then shuffled back to the coals of the small, self-contained smithy and waited until the light flared. He heard a sound behind him and turned, the flame held high, and peered into the gloomy stacks of hay.

“Betty?” he called, not in the mood to play a game. His pulse began to race. He was never sure why, but he was nervous when he was alone sometimes, as though he expected danger and had to be prepared for anything.

The hired girl didn’t answer, and Adam went back to the workbench, laying his shirt on the dark wood and setting the candle down in its holder. “Betty. Just come, please, and tend my wounds. I want nothing else from you.”

“What else would you want from her?”

The female voice was clear, melodious, and caused him to swing back around with such force that he gasped aloud in pain.

Through the light and shadows of the open barn door, Lena Yoder rose up like some beauteous apparition from between the haystacks.

“Lena?” he asked, appalled that she might have witnessed his punishment.

“
Ya
,” she whispered, moving out from the hay and coming close to him.

Her plain cloak did nothing to hide the beauty of the young girl who was his friend and neighbor. Even through the haze of pain, he couldn’t help but admire the golden strands of hair that peeked from beneath her round, flat-crowned beaver skin hat, which was tied neatly beneath her chin. Her lithe form seemed to sway as she moved, and when she got closer to the fall of candlelight, he could see that her turquoise blue eyes were wide with sympathy. He thought with shame that he’d rather take ten strokes more than have her look on him with pity.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, his voice coming out rougher than he’d intended.

“
Mamm
sent me with some extra eggs. I heard your father’s voice raised in ire, so I slipped into the barn.”

“You—saw, then?”

“I had no idea that your
fater
. . . that he . . . Is this the first time?”

Adam wanted to laugh. “
Nee
, but it’s nothing.”

She reached out a small hand and touched his bare arm. He shuddered and she immediately withdrew. “I’m so sorry. Your back must burn like fire.”

Truthfully, Adam had not thought of his back for a
gut
full minute. He was only aware of Lena’s scent, like wild roses, and her nearness. He’d fantasized about the girl more times than he cared to recount. She was well within marrying age in their society; still, she was so young. He caught an iron grasp on his emotions and was turning back to the workbench when her voice came again, thrumming across his mind and sensibilities.

“
Ach
, Adam, let me help you.”

Let her help
? He couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have her delicate fingers against him. He wet his lips and shook his head.

“
Nee
, Lena, you’d best go home. I’ll be fine.” He wanted to kick himself for uttering the lie, but the situation didn’t warrant any more trouble.

“So, ’tis Betty you want to tend you.” Her young voice rose a bit. He blinked. “Betty?”

“
Ya
, and you never answered my first question, Adam Wyse. What else would you want from her?”

He heard the wounded pride in her voice and longed to soothe it, but her question had him treading deep water. He wasn’t sure that Lena even knew what she was asking. “Nothing,” he murmured, risking a brush of his knuckles against the hands she held clasped in front of her belly. “I want nothing from Betty.”

Something flared then in the depths of her eyes that sent his stomach churning; it was the beginning of instinctual knowledge, an understanding of the power that a
mawd
might hold over a man. She stepped closer and looked up into his face, letting one hand rest against the front of his rib cage.

“Then do you want something from me?” she murmured, and Adam felt a roaring in his ears. His own breath magnified, his own heartbeat grew louder. Her pink lips parted, and he felt himself move, almost as if he were watching from a distance, and bent his head. She stretched on tiptoe, light as thistle against him, and then he caught himself—one exquisite breath from her mouth.

“Lena,” he gasped. “I—cannot.”

She smiled then, he felt more than saw, as she inched the lapse between them. If she put her mouth to his, he knew he could not have stopped kissing her in return had it meant another hundred strokes of the lash. He kept a furious grip on the workbench behind him and let his eyes drift shut.

“Adam? ’Ere now, where are ye?”

Lena pulled away as the strident voice of Betty shattered the moment. “Dearest Adam,” Lena whispered. “Remember—a first kiss will be forever . . .”

He shook himself from the heated memory now as he landed a foot in a splay of mud. “
Ya
, right . . . ,” he muttered aloud, shaking his shoe. “Forever.”

Chapter 7

P
lease, Deacon Wyse—will you come and bless Dan’s grave?”

Joseph stared down into the anxious blue eyes of the young Amish boy who had his little sister in tow. They had hailed him from alongside the road while he managed the wagon.

“You’re the Kings’
kinner, ya
?” he asked, trying to recall if Dan was a family name.

“
Ya
. I’m Abram, and this is Martha. But, ach, if you’d come quick . . . We want the burial done right, and
Mamm
doesn’t know we come to find you.”

Joseph sighed inwardly. The Kings lived on the opposite side of Lancaster, away from his home, and perhaps they had been meant by fate’s hand to detain him. He was not sure that he could have borne to see Adam walking alone along the dangerous road and pass him by. As always, his feelings wavered like a giant pendulum in regard to his second son, who looked so much like his own father—with those unusual, all-seeing golden eyes.

He swallowed when he considered Adam’s offer of “any punishment.” The last time he’d whipped the boy had been years ago, and it had shaken him to his core. He hadn’t wanted to stop, hadn’t wanted the lash to cease hissing against the still starkness of the fallen snow. But he had stopped, gone inside, then went to the bedroom and dropped to his knees, sobbing aloud for what he’d done to his boy.

“
Sei se gut
, will you come?” Martha piped up, breaking into his thoughts, and he nodded. The child smiled, though her face was tearstained, and she moved forward to slip a hand into his. He was jolted by the gesture, by the feel of the tiny fingers curled so trustingly into his palm, and he hauled her up beside him on the seat. Then he turned to look down at the boy. “How old are you,
sohn
?” he asked.

“Eleven this March.” The boy had followed his sister onto the seat with ease.

Suddenly Joseph remembered Adam at this youngster’s age. He grunted as he took the reins of the wagon with one hand. “A fine age. A fine age to be alive.”

He ignored the curious look Abram gave him and had to concentrate hard on the road as Martha again placed her hand on his, leaning her slight weight against him. How long had it been since he’d ridden with one of his boys thus? Or with Ellen even? The road became blurry for a few moments.

They arrived at the King farm and the children scrambled down, leaving Joseph to follow, deep in thought. He saw a small mound of dirt, freshly turned, near the back porch of the house, and decided that Dan had been a child. The thought made him sick to his stomach for some reason. But when he came upon the open grave, it was to find the still, small form of a golden puppy, curled up as if asleep.

“It’s a dog,” he couldn’t help but exclaim.

Frau
King had come off the porch and heard him speak. “
Ya
. ’Tis sorry I am to trouble you, Deacon Wyse, for such a small matter. I didn’t know
mei kinner
had gone to find you.”

“It is fine,” he soothed, though his insides churned. “All of
Derr Herr’s
creatures are valuable.”

“That’s what I told Abram,” Martha whispered.

Joseph braced himself for the onslaught of emotion as the child once more trustingly touched his arm, one finger in her mouth.

“He said it don’t matter, but it do.”

It don’t matter . . . It does not matter
. . . The words began to beat a swirling tattoo in Joseph’s brain, and he had to blink to stop the refrain. Why was he so upset over a dog, over a child’s mere touch?

“
Ya
, it matters,” he heard himself respond. “Now let us pray in silence for Gott’s grace in giving life to—Dan.”

Joseph removed his hat and bent his head, trying to detach himself from the panicky feeling in his chest. The death of the wee dog seemed to overpower him, oppressing his senses, ’til he thought he might not be able to draw another breath. He raised his head abruptly and jammed his hat on.

“A
gut
day to you, and a better tomorrow,” he said as he brushed by Martha, nearly gasping in relief to be out of sight range of the dog’s shiny-coated body. He got up onto the wagon seat and nodded to
Frau
King while avoiding looking down at the children. He hauled on the reins and turned the horses without looking back.

Ruth laid the babes in the carved wooden cradle near the tiled fireplace and sat down to look about the room. The “keeping room,” the little Amish girlie, Abigail, called it. A sitting room is what Ruth might have said in her own home. She pushed aside memories of the rather small but comfortable house she’d had in the countryside and tried to concentrate on the austere but functional room of the Amish farm. Trying to garner peace from the simplicity of everything being in its place, she closed her eyes, exhausted. A shadow crossed her face, and Ruth looked up in surprise.