Threads of Grace (21 page)
“I’ll go and check on the boy.”
W
ell, well, what do we have here?”
Grace looked up to see an
Amisch
girl—a beautiful blond
Amisch
girl with green eyes—headed down the aisle toward them. The girl’s voice dripped with sarcasm, a distinct and unattractive contrast to the beauty of the young face.
“Kate, good morning,” Seth said easily. “Do you know my wife, Grace?”
Grace nodded to the younger girl. She had met Kate Zook at church Meeting but had never had any real personal contact with her.
She watched as the girl laid a proprietary hand on her husband’s arm. “Seth, I’m thinking about buying the new mare that I saw running about in your pasture—the palomino.”
“Then talk to Jacob. He’s handling that horse.”
A nervous discomfort flooded through Grace and she turned to leave. But Kate Zook blocked her path. “Running away,
Fraa
Wyse?”
Grace didn’t respond. Seth cleared his throat. “Kate,” he said in a warning tone. The girl laughed and left them with a lingering look at Seth.
Grace sighed and turned to him. “How old are you?”
“What?”
“I asked you how old you are.”
“Why?”
“Because Kate is a young girl and I—I—”
“Twenty-four.”
“Oh.” She looked up at him with some alarm.
“Disappointed?” There was an edge to his voice.
“No, I—it’s only that I’m twenty-seven.”
He crossed his arms over his chest and looked at her. “A nice number.”
“Seth, I—”
“Look, can we drop the whole age thing? It doesn’t matter one bit. There’s always going to be someone older or younger. I don’t care.”
Grace drew in a deep breath, then straightened her spine. “All right. No more age worries, young girls or old.”
“Gut!”
He laughed out loud, only to be shushed by Viv.
“Tell me one thing, though,” she whispered. “Was Kate Zook part of your . . . past?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. No. She wasn’t. And let’s just admit that we’ve had very different pasts. I was making out in buggies while you were trying to survive.”
She nodded. “It’s true.”
“Well, it’s also true that I haven’t so much as looked at another woman since we married.”
She shrugged. “I haven’t looked at another man either.” Then she started to laugh at the sheer absurdity of her response.
“Why are you laughing?”
“Because I only look at you.”
“Now that, my sweet, I can live with.” He reached down and caught her hand. “Come on. We’d better find Alice before she picks all the Amish romances.”
She gave him a shy smile. “She could look right here,” Grace said, echoing Alice’s earlier words.
“So she could, my
fraa
. So she could.”
L
uke King suppressed a groan when he recognized the voice of Violet Beiler behind him. Did the girl have some sort of sixth sense? Here he was, loading feed bags into the back of a wagon. It was hot, heavy work, and he was soaked with sweat. He tried to concentrate on counting the sacks as he lifted them, but her voice distracted him.
“Hello there, Mr. King.”
“Three . . . four . . . five.”
“Be polite, now,” she said.
He turned. “When are you going to act like a proper girl? I tell you, I don’t know what to do with you.”
It was true. One minute he wanted to turn her over his knee, and the next minute he wanted to kiss her. Unfortunately, he’d had little experience in either.
She stood there looking at him, saying nothing, her blue eyes wide and innocent. He never thought he understood women, but in that moment, he understood
her
. She wasn’t playing games with him. She wasn’t being coy. She wasn’t flirting.
She genuinely wanted him. This beautiful woman with the clear blue eyes and dazzling smile wanted him, Luke King, bachelor farmer.
He couldn’t help himself. Despite his best intentions, he stepped forward and put his hands on her shoulders. Filthy as he was, sweaty with work and covered with grain dust from the feed sacks, he pulled her close and kissed her.
She didn’t move away. Didn’t turn up her nose at his smell. Didn’t shrink from the dirt.
She kissed him back.
How long they stood there, Luke had no idea. He finally pulled away when he heard the distant sound of a wagon. He stared down at her beautiful face and saw unshed tears in her blue, blue eyes.
He thumbed his dirty hands across her cheeks and exhaled heavily, trying to slow his breathing.
“You . . . you can call me Luke.”
And then she smiled.
S
o,” Grace asked in the sweetest tone she could muster. “Is there anyone else I should be prepared to meet? I mean, there’s a girl on the other side of the street . . .”
He glanced across the way.
“Nee,”
he murmured. “I don’t know her.”
She gave in to the giggle that bubbled from deep inside her and elbowed him hard in the ribs.
“Are you laughing, Grace?” He rubbed his side and peered down at her from beneath the brim of his straw hat.
“
Jah
, I guess I am.”
“Well—” He seemed at a loss for once. “I praise the Lord for that.”
She laughed again. “Me too.”
A
s they neared home, Grace seemed to be pressed closer to him on the buggy seat than she had been on the way in. Seth was about to remark on this proximity when he looked up to see Jacob riding fast toward them on Thunder, his black gelding. Immediately Seth had a gut feeling that something was wrong, and he started to pray beneath his breath.
Jacob drew up alongside the buggy. His face was angry and flushed.
“What is it?” Seth asked.
“I was coming into town to find you. You’d better follow me. There’s been a break-in at the house. Your house.”
Seth didn’t waste time with talking. “We’re behind you, let’s go.”
Abel was half drowsy but he perked up at Jacob’s words. “What’s wrong,
Mamm
?”
Seth caught Grace’s hand and then spoke to Abel. “It’ll be all right,
sohn
.”
“It’s likely some teenagers fooling around,” Alice muttered.
Seth nodded, hoping what they were saying proved true in some regard. The look on Jacob’s face was ominous, and he knew his brother too well to not understand what was left unsaid. They’d never had a break-in, or trouble of any sort. One face came to Seth’s mind: the leering countenance of Tobias Beiler.
G
race turned to Alice and Violet as the buggy approached the farm. “Please,” she whispered. “Take Abel down to see the horses or for a little walk while we see what’s to be done.”
She saw her son off with a quick hug, then followed Jacob and Seth up the steps to the porch. Mary and Samuel Wyse stood in the light of a lantern and looked hard at Seth.
“Sohn,”
Samuel said. “Maybe Grace might wait here with us—”
“Nee
,
danki,”
Grace replied before Seth could answer. “I would see,
sei so gut
.”
Samuel nodded and held the screen door wide. Grace entered with Seth’s hand on her waist. Everything in the living room and kitchen seemed in order.
“It’s the master bedroom,” Jacob said in a grim voice as he entered close behind them.
Grace swallowed, and they moved as a group to survey the normally pristine master bedroom. There was chaos everywhere. Furniture splintered, glass shattered, and Seth’s clothes and personal possessions strewn everywhere. Grace’s clothes hung untouched.
“Well,” Seth said. “I suppose my stuff needed a good airing. It’s nothing that can’t be fixed, Grace.”
She shook her head, her eyes filling with tears. “You know it was him, Seth. Maybe we should call the police.”
“Nee,”
Seth said. “Jacob and I will talk with the bishop. We will handle this.”
Grace felt a sick knot forming in the pit of her stomach. But she nodded in agreement and set about helping the others put the room to rights.
T
obias looked down at the page in his journal:
She dances and I pull the string
Bald choruses while the wolf waits
Again the feast, for one
And love garners richer hate
After today, she knew he was close. Close enough to do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted to do it. All he had to do now was keep up the tension, tighten the circle, and wait for her to come to him.
W
hat we need around here is some cheerfulness of the spirit,” Alice announced one morning, a few days after the break-in. She sat at the kitchen table sniffing Pink Lady cologne samples while Abel lay on the couch next to the dog and Grace puttered at the quilt frame. Violet sat staring at nothing in particular.
“How can we be cheerful?” Abel asked suddenly. “Somebody bad came here.”
Alice considered. “True, but we were not at home, and that’s a blessing. We’re all fine, Abel. God is good.”
“Jah,”
Grace sighed. “Alice is right, Abel. Listen well.”
“I’m going out,” the child replied.
“You may,” Grace said, a gentle reproach. “But play near the house, all right?”
“Why?”
“Because your mama says so,” Alice said.
The screen door banged behind the boy, and Pretty followed him to the door. Alice watched Grace go and let the dog out, then turned from her fragrant samples.
“Grace, it may not be my business, but your husband’s been looking glummer than a kid who has to celebrate a birthday and Christmas at the same time. All right, Seth isn’t saying it, but we know that crazy Tobias is probably somehow involved. He always made me feel weird when I worked at your old home. And now you’re starting to fret and worry—and you and Seth are newlyweds, for heaven’s sake! Act like it! Pull your man up a bit, why don’t you? It’s what I did with Bud when he’d come home late from the railroad. I’d have a nice dinner waiting for him, maybe some kissing—”
She stopped and shook her head. “I’m being foolish, I suppose, but I don’t want to see you waste any time that you have together—none of it.”
Grace stood up and came over to give her a big hug. “You’re right, Alice. God doesn’t want us to live in fear.”
“Amen to that.” Alice smiled. “Now, how about testing some of this honeysuckle piña colada cologne?”
G
race decided that Alice might have a point. She made an especially good lunch for Seth: mayonnaise cake, potato salad, grilled pork chops, and fresh chopped broccoli, with a mason jar of wild roses in water, all waiting for him on the table.
“Well.” He smiled. “What’s the special occasion? And where are Alice and Violet and Abel?”
“They ate earlier,” Grace said. “Alice offered to go on a hunt for baby frogs with Abel. I wanted some time for us to talk.”
“Okay,” Seth said, washing his hands at the sink. “Are we talking about something serious?”
“Well, I wanted to thank you again for doing all of that paperwork to set up adopting Abel.” Grace paused, remembering the day at the courthouse in Lockport. “I thought perhaps it would do us both good to have some time . . .” She paused. “Alone.”
Grace saw a genuine smile on his face for the first time in days.
S
eth finished his meal and pushed aside his plate. “Let’s talk about kissing,” he said.
She ducked her head. “I’d rather not.”
“I know,” he said. “But sooner or later we’re going to do it again. And trust me, we’re going to
want
to do it again. God designed our bodies and minds to want to kiss, to show affection, tenderness . . . maybe to heal.”
She put a hand to her lips, her eyes far away, as if seeing something dark and hopeless.
Seth steeled himself to go on. “Did Silas Beiler kiss you?”