Jacob's Return (27 page)

After she’d put the twins down and said a quick goodnight to Jacob, whose eyes showed love even though his words could not, Rachel had gone downstairs to do the final stitching on the Rose of Sharon quilt for Emma.

Simon had come to sit with her. And watch her. “This child of yours is stubborn. He will be like his mother, I fear.”

With only a moment’s worry over the root of his comment, she had spoken. “Do not assign the child faults before you even know him, faults you will tend to punish him for all his life.”

“Like I punish you for yours?”

She saw, from the narrowing of his eyes, he wanted her to argue with him. Like old times. “I only mean you should judge him for himself not for who his mother is.”

“Or who his father is?”

Her heart had leapt in fear and she was certain she’d paled. Though she tried to make a quick recovery, she feared she did not fool him. “You might just like this child. He could be like Aaron.”

But Simon had said nothing.

“Aaron is more like Levi,” she said. “More than either you or Jacob. And Emma is like Anna, Jacob says. Do you think so, Simon? Do you remember your sister, Anna, very much?”

Pain changed Simon’s face then, making her think there might be some emotion in him. He showed his feelings rarely, and only, it seemed, with Aaron. And this was not mild, either, it was torment … soul deep. Raw and bleeding.

He brought his face close to hers. “Whenever this child is born....” He let the words linger before he continued. “Do not forget there are two other children who need your attention. Do not set those babies out in the cold to face life alone.”

As had happened to him, he had not said, but she knew. Oh, she knew.

After that, and until this moment, her heart would not calm.

Whenever this child is born, he’d said. Whenever....

If Simon’s patience ran out before her child’s birth, which it was likely to do, how could she keep her baby safe? “
Ich liebe dich
,” she said smoothing her gown over her belly. “I love you.”

Sleep would not come.

Unable to lie still any longer, Rachel got out of bed and went to her window to look toward the barn. Lights she saw there, spilling onto the ground’s hard crust of snow, bright then dim, from one window to the next as if someone prowled, lantern in hand.

The light stopped moving and remained in the corner window near the Gutenberg. Becoming agitated, Rachel went down to the kitchen and threw her cape over her robe and nightgown, and slipped her feet into her heavy outdoor shoes.

Moving as quickly as her ungainly self would allow, she made her way to the barn and entered through the open side door.

The cows were shifting and lowing, too much for this time of night. Even with someone moving around inside, it wasn’t normal. She made her way down the row of them and stopped when she saw empty places along the stall line.

How could two cows get loose and Simon not see them?

A loud crack turned Rachel around. Cautious, heart racing, she moved toward the corner where her printing press sat, where the sound had originated.

From behind the buggy, Rachel could see Simon’s arm, hammer in hand, bear down; she heard the same resistant, shattering sound, then a splintering. She bit her lip to stifle a shout and grabbed a post to keep from rushing forth. She could not place her child in danger. She knew Simon’s fury well. He could as easily direct those blows at her.

Slapping the cow’s rump, made it back-kick the press.

“
Goot
,” Simon said. “Do your worst.”

Rachel inched back, step by step, a full-body trembling overtaking her. Only when she got far enough away that Simon could not hear her, did she run outside and back to the house.

She shut the kitchen door and leaned against it to catch her breath. The accidents were not accidents. The cats, the lamb, they did not damage the press.

Rachel closed her eyes, took a deep breath.

Simon had only changed the face he showed the world. He’d smiled and laughed and pretended to care about her at the same time he’d damaged her press, mistreating it because he could not mistreat her.

In his heart, if he had one, Simon had never changed at all.

Again she’d believed.

Again he’d betrayed.

But this time, there was some validity to his rage because of what he suspected.

How much more fury would he command, how much more harm would he do, once he was certain he had cause?

In three weeks, she would know.

Her own safety worried Rachel not at all. But her child … “Dear God,” she whispered, overwhelming fear, apprehension, and alarm … rising within in her.

Only one person could keep their child safe. She needed Jacob. Now. Perhaps more at this moment than at any other time in her life.

The sound of his door opening woke Jacob, and he rose on his elbows trying to make out the form in the doorway. For a minute, he feared Simon was looking to do mischief, but he realized, with Aaron nearby, it was unlikely.

Then he knew and sat up. “Rachel. Are you all right? Is it the baby?”

Emma stirred and mumbled her brother’s name, then quieted.

He threw off the covers and made to get up, but Rachel placed her hand on his shoulder to calm him. “I’m all right Jacob,” she said. “It’s not my time.”

In her virginal gown, hair cascading down her back, she stood trembling beside his bed, but even in the middle of a cold, and lonely night, Rachel was a whisper of sunshine. She had always been so for him. His dream. His life.

Always.

Jacob covered himself with the corner of the quilt, his heart still racing. He kept his arms firmly by his sides, his need to pull her down and into his bed almost frightening.

When she wrapped her arms around her child, cradling and protecting it, and whispered, “But my baby, Jacob. My baby needs very badly to be held right now,” Jacob tried to remember that what they both wanted, and what was best, were not one and the same.

“Please, Jacob,” she pleaded. “My baby wants holding.”

Jacob lost the battle. He rose to kneel on the edge of the bed facing her, trailing a finger down her neck to the edge of her nightgown. “And this beautiful vessel nurturing such a needy baby, Rachel, does she want holding right now too?”

When Rachel nodded, he lay his head on her breast and slid his hands down the sides of her belly to meet under the child who bid him welcome by settling in.

He felt Rachel sigh and know that emotion sought escape. Such intimacy as this, they craved like the drowning crave air. “I will always be here for you and our child, Rache.”

“I did not say—”

He silenced her, his finger crossing her lips. “Shh.” He began, slowly, to undo the buttons at the bodice of her gown, waiting for her to stop him. He moved close enough to feel the child push against his abdomen and he placed his palm over the movement with a chuckle. “We have awakened him, I think.”

Rachel placed her hand over his, her look joyful and nodded at the cribs by the far wall. “I fear we will awaken them.”

“A tornado would not awaken them. Such sleep habits have been a blessing.”

Rachel turned her smile on him, bringing a quickening to his soul, and his body.

He unfastened more ribbons, and she did not stop him.

The placket on the bodice of the gown fell open revealing the rounded top of an ivory breast. Jacob savored the sight and stroked it with exquisite leisure, wanting, more than his next breath, to make love to her.

He lifted a rich blackberry curl and brought it to his cheek, then his lips for a kiss. He inhaled its rain-fresh scent, and floated to heaven.

Placing his hands on each side of Rachel’s beautiful face, her look open and filled with love, he combed his fingers back, weaving his hands through her hair until the silk filled his palms and her love filled his soul.

Her heart sought communion with his.

Her lips parted and he accepted.

He drank her contented sigh and matched it, serenity swelling to perfect happiness. This long-awaited kiss, reflecting months, years, of love and need, became an act of spiraling erotic bliss.

Heaven and eternity both.

Jacob’s hands shook, his legs too, as he pulled away. Reaching for the skirt of Rachel’s gown, he raised it slowly to allow her to put period to their extraordinary madness … and he waited on the brink of either heaven or hell. Her choice.

Whichever, he would respect her decision.

Long moments passed. Their gazes locked, held.

“I will not be the one to stop this, Rachel,” he said.

“Neither I.” She raised her arms.

Elation made Jacob dizzy.

Rachel trembled with joy when Jacob pulled the gown over her head and tossed it to the floor. He examined her swollen body with a heated look, and held out his hand. “Come.”

She placed her knee on his bed, her joy almost too sharp, and again destiny came to mind. Their first time had been for soothing and healing. This was for loving and pleasure giving, for rejoicing.

Then she was in his arms, where she was meant to be, skin to skin, her body swollen, yet beautiful to him. She had seen that in his look.

“I will love you and our child until the end of my days,” he promised.

And her heart skipped. “Jacob—”

“Do not mar the night by denying it,” he pleaded. “In my heart, you are my wife and carrying our child, and I am going to love you until the moon seeks rest and the sun’s glow pinks the horizon.”

Rachel arched into his hands as they sought remembrance of her every curve and hollow. “Yes,” she whispered, allowing herself to become Jacob’s wife in heart, mind and body.

Closing her eyes, she savored each touch, as with hands and heart, her body memorized his. Here was a dear sun-roughened face, a wiry-soft beard, a warm mouth, with smooth parted lips, pleasure-pulling and deep.

Jacob’s Adam’s apple rose as she caressed his neck and he shuddered as she ran her hand along his torso, parting chest hairs, budding a hidden nipple.

And he whispered love words as he kissed her face, her neck, while her hand made its downward descent, testing, stroking, learning — hard and soft, sinew and bone, muscle and throbbing man.

He took suckle as she closed her hand over him and he touched her. Soft. Wet.

Thunder roared. Hot. Loud.

Lightening struck in short, fast bolts.

Rachel urged Jacob to enter her.

He was hard. Ready. But he pulled away and lay back, taking great draughts of air, his arm at his brow. “Rache,” we have to stop.

“No, Jacob. I need you inside of me.”

He shook his head. “The babe. You’re too far along.”

Minutes. A heartbeat of time in a universe of time … a step into eternity....

“Aren’t you?”

Rachel closed her eyes.

Inevitability. Fate. Overwhelming. Ordained.

Rachel took his hand, sliding it over their child. “In the darkness of this one night,” she said, “when, in our hearts and minds, we are man and wife and free to be together forever, I tell you, Jacob Sauder that my child was conceived in love … with your love did you give me our child.”

Jacob buried his face in her neck, and they held each other so intimately, so close to being one as two could be, Rachel thought she might bleed if they separated.

He raised his head and looked into her eyes. “Thank you,” he said, and kissed the haven of their child with reverence.

How could God see this all-encompassing love as sin?

Then with sudden clarity, as if God spoke to her, Rachel realized that this child was God’s blessing.

Now Jacob hovered above her, the moment too perfect to be earthly.

“I will love you slowly and tenderly,” he said, as if she had not known it. “But you will stop me if you are uncomfortable. For I would not hurt either of you for the world. He kissed her belly again and again, chuckling as their child seemed to push wherever his kiss landed. He gazed at her, his look awestruck and reverent.

She raised her arms in welcome and sighed in contentment when Jacob slid gently inside her.

This was true loving, Rachel thought, sweet, heart-whole love-making, the way it was meant to be. Like the love given and shared when this child between them was conceived.

With each thrust, each soothing stroke and reverent kiss, and with each vow to cherish, Jacob told her how much he loved her.

He raised her to heights she remembered from their first loving as glorious, and realized the word did not do the tumult justice. No words could.

It was higher than the moon and brighter than stars.

Heaven, but better.

Afterward, when he lowered himself to her side and pulled her against him, stroking her sweat-slick body with wonder, Rachel realized their ecstasy had not been merely physical, but a communion, both emotional and spiritual, a melding of souls rising together toward a hallowed place. Blessed.

To tell Jacob now, of Simon’s treachery seemed misplaced. Cruel. And so Rachel did not. Instead she lifted her face for his kiss and allowed herself to glide peacefully to earth … and rest.

* * * *

Rachel tossed upon a raging sea, gulls squawking in the distance, and wondered how the dream could seem so real when she had only ever read about such a thing.

A dear, beloved chuckle touched her ear and the sea raged the more. She opened her eyes.

Aaron and Emma were jumping on the bed. When they saw she was awake, they pushed their way between her and Jacob offering morning kisses, calling, “Pa-pop,” and, “Momly.”

Pudgy fingers poked her eyes to be certain they stayed open.

And Rachel laughed. If God took her at this moment, she would die happy, she thought, kissing two small sleep-warm faces.

Jacob sat up and tried to remove his children to his other side. “Are you all right?” he asked her.

“Come here scamp,” he said to Aaron, who was proving more difficult to catch than his sister. “Momly is in no condition for you to be using her as a stairway.” When he got Aaron settled, he gave her his lopsided smile. “You’ve already been badly used.” He ran his hand through his sleep-tousled hair and Rachel knew this moment would be etched in her memory forever. “I never meant—”