Caroline's Secret (26 page)

“He could still make their lives hard if he is against it.”

“Why would he be against it?”

She shrugged. “It’s hard to explain, but the church does not take well to members leaving. It shows bad for the ones who stay if others come and go as they please.”

Trey shifted his weight, shoved his hands in his pockets, and tried to understand. “If you leave the church, they will
bann
you.”

“It’s like being excommunicated.”

“And your parents will not be able to see Emma because of what you’ve done?”

She swallowed hard. “
Jah
, that’s right.”

Trey stared at her for a moment, then finally asked, “Why are you doing it then?”

Her mouth pulled into a shape that wasn’t quite a smile or a grimace, but somewhere in between. “Because it is the right thing to do. She is your daughter, and you deserve to share in her life.”

He took her hand into his and squeezed her fingers gently. “Thank you,” was all he could say.

Caroline’s words haunted Trey all through the evening and on the drive home. They echoed through his dark, empty apartment and seemed to mock him as he wandered from room to room. Even as they planned their vows for the following week. Just a quick trip to the courthouse. Hasty vows and the rest of their lives stretching out in front of them.

She would marry him and give up everything so he could raise Emma.

He flipped on the lamp beside his big leather couch and sat down. His gaze flickered around the room. He couldn’t imagine Caroline here in this apartment, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, hair cut like the girl down the hall. He couldn’t see Emma playing on the big gray rug, toys scattered across the floor.

He picked up his phone and dialed.

“Mom,” he greeted her, thankful that she had answered and not his father. He needed her gentle ways tonight.

“Hello, dear.”

“We’re all set for next week.”

Even as he said the words, doubts and disbelief filled him.

“Do you want me to come home?”
Me, not us
. Trey wondered if his father would ever accept Caroline into the family. Would Duke Rycroft eventually come to adore Emma the way Hollis Hostetler did?

Trey pushed away the thought that his father had given Caroline money to “take care of” the pregnancy. That was old news and could be forgotten, but could there be a healing?

“No,” he finally said. “Don’t come. It’ll be small and—” “Average” almost slipped out of his mouth. But was any marriage average? “I’d rather you visit when you can spend time with Emma and get to know her.”

His mother sighed. He knew she thought she was too young to be a grandmother, but once she saw Emma, any reservations she had would disappear. How could anyone
not
love Emma?

“I’ve got to go now, Mom.” He didn’t really, but what should have been an encouraging phone call had turned downright morose. “I’ll call you after the ceremony.”

“You can call if you need me.”

He needed her tonight. “Okay.”

“I love you, Trey.”

“Love you too.” He hung up the phone and leaned his head back against the couch. He closed his eyes, but the image of the kiss he’d witnessed was there to greet him. Caroline had gently rebuffed his touch since they had met back up with each other, and yet it seemed to him that her kiss to another was filled with longing and love.

He hadn’t bothered to ask her what she had been doing for the last two years. If she had met someone or fallen in love. He’d been so busy with school that he hadn’t had time for romance. But Caroline wasn’t in school. She had been working, living, raising their daughter as a widow.

Did she love this Amish man who had come hundreds of miles to see her? Did she want to marry him? Why else would a man travel that far other than love?

Were Trey and his proposal standing in the way of Caroline and her happiness?

So many questions and not enough answers.

Caroline took a deep breath and stepped out onto the porch as Trey got out of his car and came toward the house.

“Hi,” he said, giving her a tiny wave and an even smaller smile.

“Guder mariye”,
she replied. “Good morning.” Why did she feel so awkward around him these days? There was a time when she had caught sight of him and launched herself into his arms like a regular
Englisch
girlfriend. But it seemed these days the sight of him only represented the sadness that was to come.

She said a small prayer. She shouldn’t be so negative. It wasn’t fair to Trey. She had made the choice to be with him all those months ago. She had known what he was when she lay with him. Sin wasn’t without price.

She had loved Trey once upon a time, but that was before she met Andrew. Trey represented the taboo, and she wondered if she truly loved him or the freedom he’d offered.

“Can we go for a walk?”

She agreed, though his request surprised her. Trey was more apt to ask to go for a drive instead of a walk. Perhaps this was a
gut
sign that their marriage would be a compromise of worlds. She could only hope.

Together they headed off around the house and toward the pasture.

Trey reached for her hand, and Caroline had to resist the urge to pull back from him. They were about to be married. And for sure, holding hands was an accepted form of publicly shown affection.

“You don’t want to hold my hand?”

She looked at him then. His gray eyes were studying her as if he could peel back the layers to the truth beneath her skin. “Amish don’t usually hold hands.”

He gave a nod of understanding, though his jaw muscles seemed bunched and strained. “A few more days and you won’t be Amish.”

“Jah,”
she said, her voice tinged with more sadness than she had intended. “I know.” She tried to relax her fingers in his grip, but it seemed as if every nerve in her body was on alert.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

She indicated the crop of trees about a hundred yards away. “There’s a pond just on the other side of the trees. My
dat
used to bring me down here to fish.”

He didn’t say anything, just kept walking until they cleared the trees and came upon the idyllic pond.

She was going to miss this place. “Just to the other side there is the bishop’s
haus
.”

An old plastic chair sat off to one side, dirty and neglected, just another reminder that her life had changed and was about to again. But the old fallen tree trunk looked sturdy enough to hold them both.

Trey sat down, and Caroline sat next to him, trying to seem at ease when she was anything but.

“Do you love him?”

“What?” It was perhaps the last thing she had expected Trey to ask her. They were to be married in a matter of days.

“Do you love Andrew?”

Her heart gave a painful lurch at the sound of his name. “Does it matter?” She stared at her hands in her lap. She had twisted her fingers into the folds of her apron. Why would he ask her this now?

“I think it does.”

She turned to him, her eyes surprisingly dry. There had been so many lies told over the years she could not bring herself to say another. “I’m sorry, Trey. I don’t want to hurt you, but
jah
, I do love Andrew Fitch.”

Trey sighed and bowed his head. Then he turned her hand loose to rub his eyes as if his head was beginning to hurt. “Knowing the truth now hurts a lot less than marrying you and not knowing the truth until after.”

It was Caroline’s turn to sigh. She had messed up this time, messed up bad. “I care for you, you know.”

“Yeah.”

“I loved you once.”

“Yeah.”

“Love isn’t the only reason two people get married.” Even by
Englisch
standards this was the truth. “Just because . . .” She swallowed hard and started again. “Just because we don’t love each other doesn’t mean that we can’t have a
wunderbaar
life together.”

“What would happen if you were to marry Andrew?”

“Marry . . . Andrew?”

“I saw him kiss you yesterday. He’s crazy about you. And he’s Amish. What would happen if the two of you were to get married?”

Caroline bit her lip, her thoughts going in circles. “I suppose we would go back to Oklahoma.”

“And Emma? Would she be able to see your parents?”

“Once the
meidung
has been lifted. The shunning.”

“They’ll still shun you?”

“
Jah
. I sinned against the church. The bishop here is obligated to tell the bishop in Wells Landing that I have not asked for forgiveness. I would have to serve my shunning there.”

“And after that?”

Caroline shrugged. “I suppose we would just live.”

He grew quiet, the only sounds around them were the ones of the farm. The lowing of the milk cows, the tweeting from the birds. Every so often she could hear the purr of a faraway engine.

Then Trey’s mouth pulled into a thin line. “If Andrew wants to marry you, he can.”

“What?” she asked, sure the wind was playing tricks on her hearing. “What did you say?”

“If Andrew wants to marry you, adopt Emma, make a family, then I won’t stand in your way.”

As she studied his face, twin tears fell from his eyes and slid down his cheeks to drip off the edge of his jaw.

She had never seen a man cry before. Never seen Trey display so much raw emotion. She brushed away a new tear before it could fall.

Trey clasped her hand into his own and pressed a chaste kiss to her palm.

“I’m not sure if what we had together was really love or merely the allure of the forbidden. But Emma . . . I would do anything in my power to give her the best life possible. I can see now, that life isn’t with me.”

Caroline’s heart pounded loudly, painfully, in her chest. Her mouth was too dry to speak, not that she would have been able to get words past the lump in her throat.

“If I . . . step aside, then Emma can have everything. A mother and a father who love her, grandparents who adore her. A good life. That’s all I could ever want for her.”

Andrew’s hands shook as he put the car into park and got out. One more day and he could pack up his cursed driver’s license. He hated driving. Or maybe he just hated the nerve-wracking situation he found himself in.

He wasn’t sure what to expect, whether Caroline would be there or not. But seeing as how he parked behind the shiny black car he knew belonged to Trey, she most probably was. Not that it mattered. This visit was for him to see Emma one last time. He retrieved the doll from the backseat of the car and shut the door.

Normally an Amish girl got her first doll on her first birthday and her second, bigger doll when she turned three. Emma still had well over a year before she turned three, but Andrew wanted to give her something to remember him by. Even if the faceless doll would get lost among the
Englisch
treasures that Trey’s family could bestow upon her.

Coming here was a stupid idea.

He fisted his hand around the doll, suddenly not caring if he wrinkled the dress. He was a sentimental fool, buying a present, insisting that he see Emma one last time.

He should get back in his car and drive straight to the bus station. Forget Emma and Caroline, forget he ever had his heart broken in Tennessee.

“Andrew?”

And there she was. Caroline came around the house, Trey at her side. They held hands, each one looking a bit teary-eyed through their trembling smiles.

Beyond stupid. Coming here was beyond stupid.

“I’m sorry,” he said, unable to meet her gaze, unable to look at either one of them. “I shouldn’t have come here. I brought this for Emma.” He thrust the doll toward Caroline. “Give it to her, and tell her that I love her.”

But Caroline didn’t reach for the doll.

He shook it at her, but still she remained where she was.

Trey cleared his throat. “I’m not sure how to say this—”

“It’s
allrecht
,” Andrew interrupted. “I’m leaving.”

“Please don’t leave,” Caroline said.

“I’m stepping aside,” Trey added.

Andrew wasn’t sure if he could trust his ears. They had started to hum. “What?”

“Caroline and I have talked, and we feel that it’s best for everyone involved if I step aside.” Trey’s voice was thick with some unnamed emotion.

“I don’t understand,” Andrew managed to say. Hope rose in him like the swells of the ocean, but he couldn’t get lost in the sensation.

“We’re not getting married,” Caroline said.

“What about Emma?” It wasn’t the most intelligent thing to ask, but now that it was out there he wanted to know. “I thought this was to give her a family.”

Trey and Caroline both nodded, but he said, “That’s where you come in.”

“Me?”

“Emma is still going to need a father. An Amish father. I was hoping that would be you.”

“I don’t understand.” Technically, he supposed that he did, but Andrew was too leery to take the words at face value.

“Perhaps we should go inside and talk,” Caroline said.

Andrew shook his head. “Are you telling me that I am free to marry Caroline?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“I thought she was marrying you.”

A concerned frown puckered Caroline’s brow. “Do you not want to get married? I mean, yesterday you said you did.”

Forgetting all the unanswered questions asked and all those still unspoken, Andrew took a step toward her and dropped to his knees. He wrapped his arms around Caroline and pulled her close, knocking his hat to the ground as he pressed his cheek into her apron.

He felt her fingers in his hair as he continued to hold her, unwilling to let her go in case this was all some horrible joke. Or a dream.

“It’s not a dream,” Caroline murmured.

He must have said those words aloud. He pulled away to stare at her through his tears.

She brushed back his hair, tears of her own sliding silently down her cheeks. “Come on in the house. We have a lot to talk about.”

It was hours later when Trey finally left. There were so many decisions to be made. Since Trey had never been listed on the birth certificate, Andrew was free to adopt Emma. Against their protests, Trey insisted that he would give financial support. In the event that Emma ever asked, they agreed to tell her the truth about her birth father and would allow her to contact him at that time. Trey was stepping aside because he loved her that much. It was the least Caroline could do to support him in that decision.

Sometime after several cups of coffee and a piece of her mother’s buttermilk pie, Trey said good-bye. It was a teary farewell for them both. He would never know what his decision meant to her. He had given her Emma, and now he’d provided her with the family she’d always hoped for. He brushed aside her tears with his thumb and kissed her cheek. Then with a small wave, he drove away.

And the planning continued. Caroline and Andrew would be married once they returned to Wells Landing. It would be so much easier to bring her parents out to Oklahoma than all of their family and friends to Tennessee.

But still one problem remained.

“I know the bishop here will have to write Bishop Ebersol and tell him what he knows.” Caroline kissed the top of Emma’s head. She was perched in Caroline’s lap as the three of them—Caroline, Emma, and Andrew—watched the sun go down from the front porch.

He would call them “her sins,” but Caroline could only see Emma as the blessing she was.

“
Jah
. Then what?” Andrew asked.

Caroline shrugged. “I suppose I will have to serve a shunning period.” Most likely lasting at least six weeks, perhaps longer. But it would be worth it to have the burden of her secret lifted from her shoulders.

“And then we get married.”

Caroline smiled. Andrew as her husband. It was a dream come true. “Where will we live?” She had been so caught up in the idea of marrying the man she loved that she hadn’t given a second thought to where they would live. Until now.

“On the farm, of course.”

She tilted her head to the side to study his handsome features. She couldn’t wait until he started to grow his beard. How good-looking he would be. “You don’t want to go back to Missouri?” She didn’t care where they lived as long as they were together.

“
Nay
. I like living in Oklahoma, don’t you?”

“Jah.”
She loved everything about Oklahoma. After all, it was where she had met Andrew. Where they would raise their children together.

“I was thinking about buying a few horses of my own. Maybe farming a bit.”

“Really?”

He took her hand into his as the sun eased down the horizon. “How do you feel about being married to a farmer?”

“That sounds
wunderbaar
, as long as that farmer is you.”

It was without a doubt the hardest thing he had ever done.

Trey sat back on his couch and laid his head back. He closed his eyes and said a quick prayer that he had done the right thing. But the peace that had settled in his heart was enough to let him know this was the best decision for them all.

It still hurt, the pain bittersweet. He knew it would be with him for his entire life.

There would be days when he would have doubts. But in those times he vowed to take a page from Caroline’s book and say a prayer. Perhaps God was truly the answer he needed when times got tough.

Caroline would be proud, he thought, and reached for the phone to call his parents.

The Mennonite driver met them in Tulsa and drove them to Wells Landing. They arrived just before lunch, having traveled through the dark hours of the night.

It was hard going riding all night, but with Andrew there to help her, Caroline made it just fine. So strange how another set of hands provided so much, or maybe it was the knowing that she had a partner, someone who cared about Emma as much as she did, that made her burden seem lighter.