The Baby Next Door

by Vannetta Chapman

  And in that moment, Grace did something she hadn’t been able to do since the day she’d first learned that she was pregnant with Nicole.

  She stopped being scared.

  She let go of her regrets.

  She allowed herself to be happy.

  When Adrian pulled away and sat up, she opened her eyes, looked around, then also popped up beside him.

  “What’s happening?”

  “I don’t know.” Adrian cocked his ear toward the roof. “I think it’s here.”

  “What’s here?”

  “The worst part of the storm. The part my bruder warned me about.”

  The rain against the roof was setting up quite a ruckus, and the day outside had turned significantly darker. Funny that she hadn’t noticed any of those things while Adrian was kissing her.

  “Let’s go check it out.” He stood and reached for her hand.

  Grace froze because it occurred to her that she was doing more than putting her hand in Adrian’s. It seemed like she was finally stepping back into the stream of her life, the part that moved forward, the part that would keep her from being alone. Which was all something that up until now she’d dared only to dream of.

  It was risky, she realized. She could get hurt again. She didn’t believe that Adrian would hurt her. She thought the risk was worth taking.

  * * *

  Adrian stood, waiting, holding out his hand to Grace.

  She seemed to hesitate, and he wondered if he’d gone too far. Perhaps he shouldn’t have kissed her so boldly. But being around Grace and not kissing her seemed a terrible thing to ask of a guy.

  Then Grace slid her hand into his, and she smiled, and something clicked inside of Adrian. Something that was missing had suddenly, undeniably been found as he pulled her to her feet.

  The goats were no longer frantic. Even Nelly had calmed down. Hand-in-hand, Adrian and Grace made their way across the loft and down the stairs, into the main part of the barn, and over to the windows.

  “Wow.” Grace stepped closer and pressed her nose against the window. “That’s a crazy amount of rain.”

  “Ya.”

  “Are we...are we okay here?”

  “Oh, ya. This happened before, maybe a year ago. I guess it was when you were gone.”

  “Your property flooded?”

  “Sort of. The barn is on enough of a rise that it doesn’t easily take on water, but my bruder and I decided to cut some trenches around the barn to make it even more secure.”

  “I’d wondered about those.” Grace again pressed her nose against the window. “It’s like there’s a moat around your barn.”

  “Exactly. Timothy said that when considering your land, you have to think like water. Where do you want it to go? Where do you need it to go? And how can you get it there? We worked on those trenches for a few weeks, but as you can see, it was a gut idea. The heavier rain should push through in an hour or so.”

  “Should I be worried about Nicole or my parents?”

  Adrian squeezed her hand. “Their place is a little higher than mine, but let’s go and see.”

  He led her back upstairs and to a window that faced her parents’ farm. Even through the darkness of the downpour they could see a single light in the kitchen window.

  “See? One light means all is fine.”

  “You know the signal?” She turned and looked up, studying him. He wanted to kiss her again, but he stopped himself when she started laughing. “Of course you know the signal. My mamm probably made sure you knew about it the first week you moved here.”

  “Pretty much.”

  “We should put one light in the window here so they’ll know we’re okay.”

  They found an old battery-operated lantern on the shelf and put it in the window. One home assuring the other that all was fine. One group calling out to the other as if to say you aren’t in this alone. And once again, Adrian realized that was what he wanted more than anything else. He wanted Grace right here, by his side, every single day. He wanted her and Nicole to be his family.

  “Marry me.”

  “What?” They were sitting among the pygmy goats, and she had Heidi in her lap. She’d been rubbing the goat’s silky ear between her thumb and forefinger. Now she looked up, the expression on her face saying she must have misheard him.

  “I love you, Grace. I know... I know things have been crazy the last few weeks. My dat’s illness sort of interrupted our courting, but I care about you...about you and Nicole. I want us to be a family.”

  “Adrian—”

  His mouth went suddenly dry when he saw her hesitation, but he’d jumped into it now. There was no backing out, and he didn’t want to. He wanted to move forward, into their future, not backward where they had been. So he reached for her hand. “You don’t feel the same?”

  “I do. I care about you. I care about you very much.” She pulled her hand away and resumed petting Heidi. “But there are things...things you don’t know about me. Things that I need to tell you because they might change how you feel.”

  “Then, tell me.” He’d been sitting beside her, but now he scooted around in front, so they were knee to knee, so he could look her in the eye. “Tell me anything and everything, but I promise you that it will not change how I feel.”

  She pulled the goat closer, held it in her arms as if it could give her the courage that she needed, and in that moment, Adrian’s heart broke for Grace. What had she been through that frightened her still? And did it have to do with Nicole?

  “Nicole isn’t my cousin’s child.”

  “Oh.” His mind tossed about in an attempt to respond to that. “A friend’s? Because it doesn’t matter to me. She’s your family now, and I want you both to be my family.”

  “She’s my doschder, Adrian.”

  “Of course she is.” He felt his head nodding like a bobble head toy. “And I will treat her the same, too.”

  “Adrian, look at me.”

  He raised his eyes to hers and waited.

  “Nicole is my doschder, my flesh and blood. I met a boy...an Englisch boy who was working on one of the farms.” She bit her lip, glanced down at the goat, then back at Adrian. “I fancied myself in love and he said he cared about me, and I... Well, I made some foolish choices.”

  A tear slipped down her cheek. Adrian longed to brush it away, but he sensed that if he moved now Grace might run away, run out into the storm and not return. So he waited, though it took every ounce of willpower to do so.

  And while he waited, several things slipped into place. He remembered the way that friends and family would look at him when he’d praise Grace for raising another’s child. He thought of how Grace’s parents doted on Nicole—on their granddaughter. He recalled the moments that he’d seen Grace and Nicole together and how he’d wondered that they favored one another so much. He thought of his schweschder warning him to not be didactic, to not judge.

  Of course Nicole was Grace’s doschder.

  He’d been blind not to see it, and though it was a testament to her youth and immaturity that she had stepped outside the rules of their Ordnung, a wayward teenager wasn’t who was sitting in front of him now. The woman he was weathering the current storm with was older, wiser and confident. She was also loving and kind.

  “I don’t regret my mistakes.” She raised her chin defiantly, but her voice... Her voice remained a whisper. “How can I regret those mistakes when the result is Nicole? I can’t imagine my life without her.”

  “Of course you can’t.” He reached for her hand now, no longer worried about if he was being careful enough. He needed to assure her that this thing, this part of her past, didn’t matter. “Nicole is a blessing, Grace...regardless the circumstances she was born under.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “Ya. Of course. None of us are perfect.�
� He rubbed his thumb over hers. “The fact that you made a mistake, that you misstepped... Well, it seems to me you paid for that with your time away. And now you’re home, with your doschder, and I’ve fallen in love with you.”

  “What about what you said before, the afternoon that Nicole was attacked by the ants? You spoke quite strongly about not being a hypocrite, about not having a foot in both worlds.”

  He had said those things. He wanted to slap a palm to his forehead. How could he have been so coldhearted? How could he have been so sure?

  “Because that’s exactly what I did, Adrian. And if that makes you think less of me, then our being together can’t possibly work.”

  “It doesn’t make me think less of you. How could I ever think less of you?” He looked down, turned her hand over and ran a fingertip across her palm. Then he looked up at her and smiled. “What I said that afternoon, it only proves that I still don’t know it all and that I can be wrong. Can you live with that?”

  “Of course I can.”

  She struggled to her feet, and he popped up beside her. But instead of moving into his embrace, she paced away from him, walked back over to the window. The rain was lessening, and the sky had lightened up enough that he could look past her and see the swirling waters racing away from his barn.

  “I can’t... I can’t have everyone believing that Nicole is my cousin. I need to make a confession in front of the church.”

  He was shaking his head before she finished speaking. “Bishop Luke won’t require that. You weren’t a member of the church when you became pregnant.”

  “You’re right.”

  She turned toward him now, looked up into his eyes, and Adrian felt himself falling more thoroughly in love than he’d thought possible.

  “Luke has already told me that it’s something I don’t have to do, but I want to do it. I’m tired of living under a pretense, a lie, really. I want people to know that Nicole is my doschder, and if that makes them think differently of me—”

  “Of us, Grace. You’re not in this alone anymore.”

  “Okay. If they think of us differently or treat us differently in any way—”

  “Then it will be their loss.”

  He pulled her into his arms, kissed her gently and then held her. But Grace wasn’t done yet.

  “There’s something else.” She stepped away, pulled him toward a bench. “The reason I was so worried about the tours, about the Englischers, is that I’m worried Nicole’s father will show up and want custody of her.”

  “Can he do that?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve been afraid to ask anyone.”

  Adrian ran a hand up and down his jawline. Then he snapped his fingers. “I’ve got it.”

  “You’ve got it?”

  “George has an Englisch friend who is a lawyer. We’ll go to town as soon as we can and ask his advice.”

  “I’m so afraid of losing my baby.”

  “You’re not going to lose Nicole. You’re a gut mamm. There’s no reason to lose her. As far as her father... It’s better that we know what the Englisch laws say. We don’t want to live with this hanging over us. We don’t want to live afraid of what might happen.”

  “You’re right. I know you’re right.” She covered her face with her hands. “Every time I think of Nicole staying with someone else, with a virtual stranger, I feel sick.”

  “Hey.” Adrian pulled her hands away from her face. “We’re in this together, okay? And Gotte didn’t bring us this far to leave us. He didn’t bring you home and put the two of us in each other’s paths if there wasn’t a way forward. He didn’t do all of that only to abandon us now. Right?”

  “Yes. Yes, I think you’re right. I hope you are.”

  “The important thing is that we’ll go through this together, not just you and me and Nicole, but both of our families, too. We’ll stand together, Grace. And we’ll find a way through this.”

  She snuggled into his arms, and Adrian said a silent prayer of gratitude that Gotte had brought her into his life. Then he realized she still hadn’t answered his question.

  He held her at arm’s length and asked again. “Do you love me, Grace?”

  “I do.” Tears shone in her eyes, but she was smiling.

  “Will you marry me? Will you and your doschder be my family?”

  “Yes. Yes, I’ll marry you. Nicole and I will be your family.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  The next day the storms had pushed through, and they were able to meet with George’s friend, Jason Stromburgh. He seemed to enjoy being a small-town attorney, and he assured them that he could investigate Nicole’s father. Finding Kolby would be the first hurdle. Depending on where he was and his response to initial inquiries, they’d decide together how to proceed.

  Grace expected to be a bundle of nerves in the days that followed, but she wasn’t. Somehow, knowing that she wasn’t in this alone, that Adrian was at her side supporting her gave her the courage to believe in herself. She’d handled being alone and pregnant, she’d handled being a single mom, and now she would handle this. Gotte would give her the wisdom and strength that she needed. Gotte had given her Adrian and Nicole and gut parents. She could trust that He wouldn’t desert her now.

  Six days later, they once again were ushered into Jason Stromburgh’s office. He was probably the same age as Grace’s father, with gray hair and a slim build. Like the last time they’d visited his office, he was wearing blue jeans and a snap-button western shirt.

  Grace and Adrian sat side by side, with Nicole on Grace’s lap. Her baby was a little girl now, a staggering eighteen months old. The days and weeks and months had flown much faster than Grace had thought possible. Certainly it was time to move on from the shadow that Grace had allowed to color her world.

  “Good to see you both again. I trust you are well.”

  They both nodded, and Nicole stuck her fingers in her mouth and buried her face in Grace’s dress.

  “I suppose you want to skip the chitchat and get right to it.” The attorney had a single file centered on the desk in front of him. He opened it, read through the first sheet, then smiled up at them. “I think you’re going to like what I found.”

  Grace couldn’t imagine that. She couldn’t imagine anything on that sheet of paper that would make her feel happy.

  “The person that you thought was Grace’s father doesn’t exist.”

  “I don’t understand.” Grace glanced at Adrian, who also looked confused.

  “Kolby Gibson doesn’t exist. I checked with the ranch where he supposedly worked.”

  “I’m sure he did work there. We drove by a couple times. We even stopped in to pick up his pay once.”

  Stromburgh sat back and steepled his fingers. “Do you remember if he received a check or cash?”

  “It was cash.”

  “Makes sense. Apparently the name he gave to his employer was Kolby Gibson, the same name he gave you. He also told you he was born in Indianapolis and that he was twenty-five years old, correct?”

  “Ya.”

  “There is no public record of a Kolby Gibson who was born in Indianapolis in 1996. I expanded the search by five years in both directions. All that inquiry yielded was one young man who was born in 2001, but he died in a traffic accident five years ago.”

  They all three looked at Nicole. The Kolby Gibson born in 2001 couldn’t have been her father.

  “Nein. That can’t be him.”

  Stromburgh sat up straighter and closed the folder. “Look, I know you’re trying to do the right thing here, but you’ve met your legal obligation. You’ve attempted to find Nicole’s biological father. The fact that he was working under an alias and that the information he gave you can’t be corroborated, it means you’re off the hook.”

  “He can’t...” Grace felt suddenly light-headed. Could
it possibly be this simple? She looked at Stromburgh, who smiled and waited patiently. Then she glanced at Adrian, who had sat back and breathed out a deep sigh. Finally, she looked down at Nicole, kissed her on top of the head and found her voice. “You’re saying he can’t come back and ask for his parental rights?”

  “No. I don’t believe he can. After all, he deceived you, and he made no attempt to follow up after your relationship ended.”

  Stromburgh tapped his fingers against the desktop. “I admire your desire to pursue due diligence, Miss Troyer. We’ve done what we can, and you can rest assured that I have been thorough in my investigation. Now, I suggest you move on.”

  “Move on?”

  “If I’m not mistaken, you two are...”

  Grace blushed, but Adrian smiled as if he’d just been handed the gift of a lifetime.

  “Ya. We plan to marry, but Grace wanted to take care of this first.”

  “Then, I wish you both the best.” Stromburgh stood, walked around the desk and shook hands with Adrian and Grace.

  Nicole had recovered from her shyness and held out her doll to the attorney, who declared it beautiful. They stopped at the front desk to pay their bill, which was a staggering one hundred twenty dollars for what amounted to less than two hours work. Grace would have gladly paid double that for the peace of mind that Stromburgh’s investigation had given her. She counted out the bills—money from the tour groups—and attempted to keep from laughing.

  They stepped out into a perfect August afternoon.

  “Something funny?” Adrian cupped a hand around her elbow.

  “I was just thinking that the tour money helped to pay for the lawyer.”

  “I’ve heard those tours can be a real financial blessing for folks willing to participate in them.” He ran a hand up and down her arm, then reached for Nicole. “I’m wondering if my two favorite gals would enjoy some ice cream.”

  “Ya. I think ice cream would be perfect.”

  It was while they were sharing their cups of strawberry and vanilla with Nicole, sitting at a picnic table, that Grace seemed able to speak of what they were to do next.