Roberta: Bride of Wisconsin (American Mail-Order Bride 30) (7 page)

He heard the crunch of the leaves behind him, and then felt a hand on his arm. He knew it was Bobbie without even looking. "It can't happen, you know."

"Why not?" she asked, her voice soft. "When I first arrived, I didn't think it could happen, but now I'm starting to think maybe it could. Am I so hideous that you could never see having a real marriage with me?"

"No, I wish you were," he said. "I would feel like I was betraying Erna if I allowed that to happen, though, and I can't see betraying her. I loved her with everything inside me, and we had two children together. Do you know I married her when I was only eighteen? And she was sixteen? She had Konrad before her eighteenth birthday, and we were sure our love would last forever. We talked about our grandchildren and our great grandchildren. We both loved the idea of watching them play."

"I hope you know I'd never try to replace Erna. I know she was too important to you for that. I just want to have a place in all your lives as well. For more than my cooking and cleaning." Bobbie felt like she was pathetic, begging for his love. She hadn't even known him for a week.

He shrugged. "I don't know that it can ever happen though. I said I'd love her until I died."

"If you're talking about the wedding vows, you didn't. You said you'd love her until death parted you. It has. She's dead, and you're alive. You have the right to have a life without her, you know."

"I don't think that's true. I have the right to keep going and be there for my sons, but not to love again."

Bobbie sighed. "All right. I can understand that." She started to turn away.

"I think if I could love someone again, it would be you, and that makes this so much harder."

"Why? Shouldn't that make it easier?"

He shook his head. "No. If I thought I could never love you, it would be easy to take you to bed. It would be easy to let you in my life. But knowing I could love you? It's harder, because I can't betray her that way. It would break my heart."

"So instead you'll break mine. I understand." She turned and walked back to the quilt, where the boys had left their empty plates. They were back to throwing the ball she'd brought back and forth.

She stretched her legs out in front of her, leaning back on her palms, enjoying the feel of the sun on her face. Her eyes were closed, and she breathed deeply of the autumn air, trying not to dwell on the conversation she'd just had with Jakob. At least he felt like he could fall in love with her. That was a good thing, right?

She heard the sound of leaves crunching, and a hand touched her arm. "I'm sorry, Bobbie."

"No, you're not. You've made the choice to live the rest of your life grieving. I can understand that. You told me that's how it would be the day I arrived. I never should have gotten my hopes up that anything would change."

He frowned. "Walk with me. Please."

She opened one eye and peeked at him before getting to her feet. He seemed sincere.

They'd walked at least a quarter of a mile before he spoke. "I am attracted to you, whether I want to be or not."

"Is that so terrible?"

He shook his head. "It could be. I promised Erna on the day we buried her that I would never love a woman the way I loved her."

"That's my whole point here, Jakob. You wouldn't love me the way you loved her. You would love me the way you love me. I'm a different woman than Erna was. I have a very different background, I'm sure. I'm already twenty-two. I'm a strong independent woman, and I don't plan on that changing. Already, I'm trying to think of something I can do to make money. I'll get caught up on everything around the house. I'll get you three men ready for the whole winter with your clothes, but I'll have that done within the next couple of weeks, and then I'll start looking for something else to do. We may not need money, but I can't sit idly. I need to constantly be doing. I need to be earning."

He frowned. "I don't want you making money. Erna never did any kind of work."

"And that's proving my point. She was a woman content to lean on a man. She was willing to be a wife and a mother and no more." She turned to him, catching his hand in hers to get his full attention. "I'm a woman who needs and craves a way to be my own person. I have to be more than Jakob's wife. I have to be more than the frog-
mutter
. I need to be me. Roberta! If you ever loved me, I wouldn't be loved like Erna, because I'm not like her. I'm me."

"I'm not sure I follow your reasoning."

"You promised you would never love another woman the way you loved her. You couldn't love me how you loved her, because I'm not
her
!"

He smiled slightly. "So what you're saying is that if I ever did love you, I'd be loving you differently than I loved Erna."

"That's exactly what I'm saying. I don't think you should love me today, or even tomorrow. I'm asking you to give me a chance. To take the time to get to know me, separating me from who Erna was, and get to know Bobbie, your new wife. I'll do things differently. Some of the differences you'll like, and some you'll hate. Regardless, I'll do things my way. I'll be the strong independent woman that I am, not the woman she was."

"So, when I kiss you, I'm not kissing Erna's replacement, I'm kissing Roberta, my new independent wife."

"Yes. Please don't think of her. Think of me."

Jakob understood her reasoning, but he wasn't sure if he could do it. "I will try. I can't promise that I will be able to ever kiss you without feeling like I'm betraying her, but I will try."

She took a step toward him, her hands going to his chest. "Try now."

"You want me to kiss you here?" He looked back toward the boys who were still playing ball, but they were within sight of them.

"Why not? There's nothing wrong with kissing your wife in front of your sons."

He put his hands at her waist, pulling her toward him. "I have wanted to kiss you again since that first kiss in the parlor. I've laid awake nights, thinking of kissing you."

Roberta rested her hands on his shoulders, lifting her lips to his. "Then do it. Kiss me."

He lowered his head, blocking out all thoughts of his first wife, and concentrating on the beautiful woman in front of him. His lips brushed hers softly at first, and then more insistently. She parted her lips for him, clinging to his shoulders.

His kiss made her knees weak and awakened feelings she didn't know existed. She wanted him to never let her go.

When he raised his head, he looked down into her eyes, lost in them once again. "Have I mentioned how beautiful you are to me?"

She shook her head. "Have I mentioned how handsome you are?"

He knew he shouldn't, but he couldn't resist lowering his head again, this time to string kisses along her jaw to her neck. "We have to stop," he said finally, putting her at arm's length.

They were both breathing heavily as she stood looking up at him. "Why?"

He grinned. "Because if we don't, I'm going to drag you back to the quilt and make love to you on the ground with my sons watching, and I don't think either of us are up to explaining that to them or any passerby."

She looked over and they were standing in front of a farm house and a bright red barn. This wasn't the time or the place. "I'm not sure I'm ready for that anyway."

He nodded, slipping an arm around her shoulders as they walked back toward the quilt. "I'm not sure I am either, but that doesn't mean my body isn't."

"Maybe eventually. I
—
I want to get to know you better before we take that step."

"I agree. I want to make sure that I'm willing to take that step emotionally before we make love. I don't want to feel as if I'm betraying my first wife, and I don't want to feel like I'm using you to replace her. I think you're right. I can love you in your own way, but taking you to my bed before I do would be wrong."

"One step at a time. One day at a time." She rubbed her cheek against his shoulder.

They reached the picnic quilt and she packed up the things she'd taken out earlier. When she was done, she looked at him. "Do you want to stay for a little longer and let the boys play?"

He nodded, reaching out a hand to her. "Come, sit beside me, and we'll talk. It's a safe place, because it's so public."

She understood what he meant immediately. It was safe because they could let nothing happen here. Whether they wanted to or not.

Life was different for Jakob and Bobbie after the picnic. They continued to have their separate rooms, but they both looked forward to spending time together in the evenings.

During the day, Bobbie worked hard to get the sewing done. By the end of the first week, she presented him with three pairs of work pants and four new shirts. She had even made him several pairs of socks.

He looked down at the garments in disbelief. "It would have taken Erna a month to do this much sewing. And she would have ignored all the cleaning to get it done so quickly."

"She didn't use a sewing machine, though. The sewing machine makes everything much faster."

"She said it slowed her down!"

"That's because she didn't take the time to learn to use it properly. I had to learn in the factory where I worked. I made sure I was the fastest at everything, so I would never have to worry about losing my job."

"And then a fire destroyed everything?"

"I was the manager of the entire factory by then," she said. "I managed it for two years before it burned."

"What happened? How did it burn?"

She frowned. She had deliberately not told him the full story, because she didn't want him to get angry about it. "I found discrepancies in the books. We were missing some money, and I couldn't figure out why. No one had access to the office but me. I was starting to believe one of the girls was stealing from the factory, but no matter what I did, I couldn't get the cash on hand and the books to balance."

"So do you think one of the women did it to hide the fact that she was stealing?"

"No. I know who did it." Bobbie frowned down at the scarf she was crocheting for Konrad for Christmas. "I called the owner of the factory in and he told me that he knew about the discrepancy before I could tell him why he was there. He was the one taking the money." She sighed. "He said he was going to close the factory. I was trying to figure out how I was going to tell over one hundred women they were losing their job when I heard a crash and screams. Someone threw stones through the window and deliberately started the fire."

"The owner? He destroyed his own property?"

"Yes. I don't understand why he did it, but I know it was him." She sighed. "I felt responsible for everyone there. I'm the one who found a matchmaker and suggested that we could all become mail-order brides. It was a frightening time for a while. Some of the women were married and able to do without the extra income, but there were a great many of us who had nowhere to go and no way to support ourselves."

Jakob shook his head. "I wondered why a woman would marry a total stranger. That makes a lot of sense to me now."

"People become mail-order brides for all sorts of reasons, but a lot of us jumped at the chance, because it gave us somewhere to go."

"You did a good thing, helping the women find something. Did anyone die in the fire?"

She shook her head. "There were a couple of minor injuries, but nothing major. It was very frightening, but not fatal for anyone." Frightening was putting it very mildly. She remembered the sheer panic that she'd felt when she realized the factory was on fire, and all the women she felt responsible for needed to get out. She still had nightmares about it on occasion.

He put the clothes he'd been holding down and moved over to the couch, putting an arm around her shoulders. "And you had to be strong for all those people? That must have been hard for you."

"I had my friend Sarah, and the two of us were strong for each other. What I really needed for a while was someone who would just hold me while I cried, but that didn't happen of course." She shrugged. "It was my job to hold everyone else while they cried."

"You are a very strong woman. God knew what he was doing sending you to me."

She smiled at him. "You need me to be strong?"

"Not really, but I needed someone who could show me that burying myself with my first wife was not what God would want of me." He put a finger under her chin, tilting her face up to his. "I needed you to tell me that kissing another woman wasn't a sin."

"I sure hope it isn't, because I don't want you to ever stop!"

He chuckled, lowering his head to hers and kissing her gently. He hated that she hadn't really had anyone to lean on through the whole thing back in Massachusetts, and he wanted her to know that he was there for her now. "You know you can stop being strong, right? It's my job now to be strong for both of us."

She smiled. "Why can't we be strong for each other?"

"I suppose we can." He kissed her again, lingering a bit longer this time. "You're an amazing woman, Roberta Muller."

"I've never heard my full name pronounced that way before. I guess I still think of myself as Roberta McDaniel."

"Well, you're going to have to stop that, because I'm not going to let you run off and not be mine any longer. You are my vife." His accent struck her with the last word. It was still heavy, but she'd gotten used to it.

"I think I am going to like being your vife," she said, mimicking him slightly.

"You'd better." He gripped her shoulders as he kissed her one last time. "If I keep doing that, I'm going to drag you off to my bed, and I don't think either of us is ready for that yet. I will see you in the morning. Sweet dreams."

Bobbie watched him go, a slight smile curving her lips. "Good night."

*****

When Konrad and Lukas got home from school the next day, she gave them each a pair of pants. "Try these on."

Lukas frowned, but headed for the stairs to go put them on. Konrad folded his arms. "I don't want them."

"Your pants don't fit. You need bigger."

"But
Mutter
made these pants."

It was the first time Konrad had been defensive of his mother like that. "I understand that. I made these the same style your
mutter
made, but these will fit. You can't keep wearing pants that are too short. Your ankles will get cold when winter comes."

He snatched the pants from her with a frown. "I'll try them, but they'll never be as good as what
Mutter
made for me."

Bobbie frowned. She couldn't keep competing with a ghost every day of her life. They were all driving her crazy.

The pants fit beautifully, and both boys reluctantly agreed to wear them. When Jakob got home, she met him in the parlor. "The boys don't want to wear their new pants, because I made them and not their
mutter
."

"That's silly. The old ones don't fit."

"I realize that. Maybe you could tell them you're wearing pants that I made. Convince them that it's okay."

He sighed. "I'll go talk to them."

She went back to the kitchen and set the food on the table, ready for them to serve. She'd made something new that night, a recipe she'd found that Sarah had written for her. It was more complicated that what she usually made, but she was certain the family would love it.

Jakob came down a few minutes later with both boys trailing behind them.

"I'm sorry, Bobbie," Konrad told her. "The pants are very nice, and I thank you for making them."

Lukas looked at his father and then at her. "Yes, thanks, Frog-
mutter
."

Jakob smiled at her, as she nodded at them both. "It's all right. I understand you both love your
mutter
and don't want to forget her."

She had made a cake for dessert, and she knew the boys would be pleased by that at least. She just wished she could keep them all happy in a way that didn't involve food.

The boys sat down and frowned at the potatoes she'd made. "What's that?" Lukas asked.

"Scalloped potatoes," she told him. "They're good." She knew because she'd taken a little bite before putting them on the table. They were very tasty.

All three of them put pork chops on their plates, and a tiny little bite of the potatoes. She wanted to roll her eyes. They were all against eating something new.

She watched as they took tentative bites of the potatoes. "This really is good," Jakob said, surprised. He put a big pile of the potatoes onto his plate.

Bobbie had to bite her tongue to keep from saying, "I told you so." Why couldn't they ever take her at her word? If it was something Erna hadn't cooked, then it wasn't good enough for them.

*****

By the end of her second week of marriage, Bobbie had caught up on sewing projects. She looked around the house all morning Saturday, trying to figure out what to do next. She enjoyed reading, but not enough to do it eight hours per day. She could knit more, but there was no one else to knit for. Finally, it came to her. She sat down with one of Jakob's gloves and she made herself a pattern.

By the time he came home, she'd made three pairs of gloves that only went up to the first knuckle, effectively leaving the part of the finger that was most needed bare, but providing warmth.

She put them in her bedroom before going to finish making supper, a new food called chili that she'd heard was all the rage in Texas.

Her family reacted predictably to the new food, all of them making faces. "Try it before you complain," she told them. "I tried a bite earlier, and it was good. My friend sent me the recipe."

Jakob was the first to try a bite, and he nodded after he'd chewed and swallowed it. "It's delicious, boys. Maybe we need to trust your new frog-
mutter
a little more."

Bobbie sighed at Jakob's use of frog-
mutter
. She feared she would never escape being called by the ridiculous name.

After she'd finished the dishes that night, she went into her room and brought him the first pair of gloves. "Try these on!"

Jakob smiled at her enthusiasm, pulling the gloves over his hands. "They're odd." He flexed both hands, clapping them together. "They're tight around the wrist and knuckle so I don't think air would get in. They feel good, though."

"Do you think they would help you work on colder days in the winter?"

"Definitely. How many can you make? I'd like a pair for each of my men."

"How many men do you have?" she asked, thinking about it. She could make at least ten pairs a day now that she'd gotten the hang of them, and never slow down on her housework.

"Fifteen."

She frowned. "Is that all? I thought I'd found a project to keep me busy for a while. I'll have them done by Tuesday evening."

"Make just as many for my brother's men."

"I'll do that. I wonder if Mr. Jensen at the general store would sell some for me."

Jakob caught her around the waist and pulled her down into his lap for the first time ever. He cuddled her to him, pulling her head to his shoulder. "Is there a reason you're trying to make money?" he asked.

She shook her head. "Not really. It's just that I'm not used to sitting idle. I want something to do."

He chuckled. "I've never seen anyone who needs something to do so badly. You're going to work yourself to death."

She grinned. "No, but I might be bored to death if I don't find a way to occupy my time. Is there an orphanage where I can volunteer?"

He sighed. "You could come to work with me for a half-day every week. I hate doing the books, and you have experience with that."

"I do have experience. Sure. What day?"

He shrugged. "Maybe Wednesday mornings?" She would be appalled when she saw how behind he was on them, but it would give her a way to keep busy.

"That would work. And the gloves? Do you think Mr. Jensen would sell them?"

"He probably would. He'd rather get flannel shirts in for the men, though. Could you make shirts in a variety of sizes?" He didn't really want her working, but she was determined to do something, so he would let her.

"I could! That would keep me busy."

"You realize we don't need the money, right?" he asked, feeling honor-bound to tell her. He may not be the richest man in town, but he was certainly one of the five richest. The money she made from making shirts would make no difference to their income at all.

"I guessed that, but it's better than doing nothing. I'll give my earnings to the poor, if you'd like. Or give it all to the church. It'll just be something to keep me busy for a while. If I had a baby to take care of, maybe it would be different."

He looked at her for a moment. Was she asking him to cross the line they'd drawn in their relationship? "Are you saying you're ready for a baby?"

She blushed. "I'm ready for a baby, sure. I'm not sure I'm ready to make a baby, though."

"That's the part I'm looking forward to," he said, knowing he shouldn't. He did love to see her blush, though.

Her eyes met his shyly. "Really?" She'd thought he didn't care to have that kind of relationship with her, so she was surprised.

He nodded. "I think I'm ready for that step whenever you are."

She buried her face in his neck, trying to keep the blush from her face, but knowing she'd never be able to do it. "I don't even know what to say to that."

"Yes or no. Either would work. I'd be happy to show you how babies are made if you'd like." He laughed when the blush crept all the way down to her neck.

"I
—
Can I have a little longer?" she asked. "Maybe a week? Or two?"

He groaned. "Sure. I can wait. Maybe next Saturday we can send the boys to stay with their grandparents? Erna's mother has been begging to take them for a while now."

Erna's parents?
"I
—
Erna's parents are still alive?"

He nodded. "They go to the German speaking church, so I haven't had the chance to introduce you yet."

"I see. You want the boys to stay there so we can
—
." She couldn't finish her sentence.