But Adam Zuckerman was something different and everything Doctor Jordan Marks was not. Male to his marrow, Adam stood too tall, too wide, too hard, and too imposing — body and spirit — for Sara’s peace. He was, in fact, the most disquieting man it had ever been her misfortune to stumble upon.
For a year, she had tried, with little success, to conquer her mind-tripping confusion around Abby’s husband. In the attempt, she had served him and joked with him. But now she had no choice but to conquer her uneasiness, for if she failed in this task she set herself — to teach Adam to know and love his children — he would best her in their nameless battle, the loss of which four little girls would suffer.
Wits sharp, Sara hoped, bravery in place, she approached her quarry, and saw the exact moment stubbornness transformed him. Though not by so much as a blink did he move, he mentally folded his arms in defiance. When the snarl came, Sara was so prepared, she surprised them both with a laugh, lessening the tightness in her chest as well as the certainty in his look. Good.
To bolster her swelling confidence, she took a breath and squared her shoulders. “I am going to shave you and give you a bath,” she declared, trembling inside at the thought of touching his warm skin with all that hard muscle beneath.
Adam’s eyes narrowed even as his pupils grew larger.
Feeling alarmed, as if she should not be close enough to notice, Sara trembled to her kneecaps but stood her ground.
His caught breath hitched her own. “Don’t need a bath,” he said.
“Tell my nose that!”
For a blink, the set of his mouth softened, a rare smile hovering, but Adam masked the slip with a curse. “Damn it, Sara, I’m clean enough. I’ll wash when I can wash myself.”
“Tomorrow is Christmas. You’ll wash today.”
“Give me the cloth, then.” He tore it from her hand, splashing water in his lap, sending the bar of lye soap skittering across the floor. He cursed again.
Sara sighed and fetched the soap. She was going to give the ornery bear a bath if it killed them both, which it just might do.
She brought the washstand closer and filled the basin with hot water from the pitcher, then she lathered the cloth until she was ready to face him.
When she did, she nearly gave up. Stubborn mouth, firm lips. Male. Thick brows shadowing hard eyes gone soft but wary still. Pain she had read in them the night Abby died, though she’d not been able to read much more than fury there since.
Hands huge and callused. Male. Hands capable of controlling a team of six Belgian horses with a flick of the wrist ... of washing and dressing his wife for her final journey.
“It makes you cry, this chore?” Adam’s words wrenched Sara from the image of him sponging blood from Ab’s legs, the grief in his eyes so plain, she had gasped. He’d hated her for walking in on him then, for catching him at a weak moment. When he’d handed her the baby clothes she had gone to fetch, he looked as if she saw his soul, read its secrets ... as if he would never forgive her for it.
“It’s the stink makes my eyes water,” she said, wiping them with the back of her hand. “You smell worse than usual.”
When indignation narrowed his own eyes, and she could tell from the spark in them that he was about to argue, Sara slapped him in his big mouth with the soapy cloth. And while he spit suds and cursed a blue streak, she gave his face and neck a vigorous and thorough wash.
Adam had never felt anything as blessedly wonderful as that warm cloth against his sweaty skin. He needed a bath so bad, he itched in places he couldn’t reach to scratch, and it was driving him crazy. “Long as you’re gonna keep up that fool scrubbing, might as well wash my hair.”
Sara stilled like a doe in lantern-light, Adam thought, then she nodded as if she’d given herself a talking to, and lathered his hair.
Heaven. He had gone to heaven. And when Sara reached over to lather the length in the back, and her breasts filled his face, so close he might touch a pouting nubbin with his lips, his body agreed. In fact it made its wholehearted delight known in a blatant and uncomfortable fashion.
Adam could not cross his leg for the splint, never mind the pain, so he bunched the blankets in his lap, as if by accident, which was not easy, since they were wet from the spill, and he had only one good hand after all.
Fortunately his embarrassment tempered his body’s betrayal and he was able to relax a bit. After Sara rinsed and combed his hair, he was grateful for a shift in position as she washed his back and unbroken arm. She spent a long time washing where God’s good earth had etched his callused palms and lined his knuckles, and she was gentle, almost soothing in her ministrations, where his nails were misshapen and scarred.
Adam wondered how a hand-washing could make him want so much. Then she started on his chest and he came face to face with a hunger that made all needs previous seem weak, an urgency bordering on pain.
Sara must be as aware as him of the shift, because for once, she did not scold or lecture. And when their eyes met, where moments before hers had seemed just plain green, they were now more like a forest at dusk, flecked in brightening gold. Adam read need there, the likes of which he had not thought any woman capable.
For the life of him, he could make no sound. He could barely breathe. He did not like seeing Spinster Sara’s need, despite the odd sense of satisfaction it brought. But his aversion did not last, because as Sara worked her way from his chest to his belly, with those slow, warm strokes of hers, she washed everything but the physical from awareness, his eager body pulsing in blatant expectation.
“I’ll take it from here,” Adam croaked. But it was too late, for Sara had stopped to gaze in fascination at where he stood the sheet erect. “I said, ‘I’ll take care of that!’”
Eyes big and round, she looked at him, and as quickly looked away. Face red as the setting sun, and probably as hot, she turned her attention to washing his big clumsy feet, another pleasure as keen as the hand-washing, though infinitely more humbling. When she washed his broken leg, he felt as if she were piercing it with a pitchfork, though her touch was light as butterfly wings.
But her gentleness did not last, and Adam about died when she turned him to wash his backside. And when she lost the cloth and grazed him with her hand, he nearly jumped from his skin. But she was as quick and silent as she was rough, and before long, she handed him the lathered cloth and fled the room.
Hard as a pikestaff, he thought in disgust, when he began his task and it did not get any better for imagining Sara performing it for him. Despite his trying to ignore it, when he was so aroused he was in pain, worse than he ever remembered being, even as a randy boy, Adam knew he was in big trouble.
If Spinster Sara kept giving him baths, she was gonna be a whole lot wiser than most spinsters, because he was gonna spill his seed every time she picked up a wash cloth.
His father was right. He was a stupid, worthless piece of farm dung. He could not stay on a ladder without breaking half the bones in his body, when he should have broken his pizzle instead. His wife dead four months, and here he sat, aching for another woman.
“Sara,” he called, noting the thread of forbidden yearning in the word, almost as disgusted over his physical reaction to her as over the rest of his sorry life.
She was paler and calmer when she returned, but as she cleared the washstand, he touched her hand and she jumped like a scared cat. “You have to take them away again.” He hated begging, but if it would get her the blazes out... He looked straight into her eyes, hoping she could see his desperation. Yes, for once, he hoped she could read him. “For their good. And yours,” he added.
Sara stiffened and shook her head. “If you’re talking about your children, I can’t. I can’t go until you’re better. They belong with you, Adam. I’m leaving them here when I go. So it’s best that I stay till you’re better.”
“Get somebody else to take care of me.”
“Idiot.” Sara’s expression revealed a struggle Adam did not understa
nd. “You’ve scared everybody else off,” she said. “And don’t tell me you did not know you were doing it. Sometimes I think you’re ornery on purpose.”
Adam chose not to reply to such a clever remark. Damn the sassy scrapper, anyway. “All right, blast it. If getting better will get you out of here, I’ll be walking again so fast, The English will think he performed a miracle.”
“Call him Doc Marks or just Doc, but don’t call him The English like the others do. You may be more surly than the rest, but I don’t think you’re as ignorant for all you pretend to be.”
That bit of wisdom surprised him as much as it worried him. Scrapper Sara was a whole lot smarter than anybody gave her credit for, him included, though he would not make that mistake again. “And you’re bossier.” He cleared his throat to keep himself from revealing his admiration for her strength, noticing that his comment seemed to cause her pain, which frustrated him further. “You have to take them ... as soon as I can walk.”
“If not for that leg, I’d be returning them to your care the day after tomorrow. I said I’d keep them until Christmas, and you’ll have them returned to you as soon as you’re up and about, so you had best learn to care for them while I’m here to help you. I’ll not be taking them away again.”
“Sara—”
“If you want to discuss this, Adam, then behave tomorrow.” She regarded him for too long. “I want to see joy on those babies’ faces tomorrow, not sadness. Just one day, Adam. Christmas Day. Be nice. And later, I’ll listen to what you have to say.”
Sara had never bent the truth in her life, not until lately. She’d told Adam she did not want to come and care for him, when she knew very well, she considered it a God-given opportunity to teach him to love his children. She’d tried to give him the impression she wanted to leave the girls with him, when what she wanted was to raise them herself. She told him they’d discuss her decision, when there was nothing to discuss. She would not change her mind.
The next morning, Sara dragged furniture around, so she and the girls could eat their Christmas dinner in Adam’s room with him.
She hoped that since today was the most holy day of the year, that He whose birth they celebrated would help her find the strength she would need to give Abby’s girls the father they deserved.
During dinner, Katie was too taken with her doll to eat. She even ignored her favorite cinnamon pears, so Sara suggested her doll be put down for a nap. Katie slid off her chair and trotted over to her father, where she lay the doll beside him, covering it with her new little quilt. Then she kissed the doll, and to her father’s shock, she kissed his hand.
With his kissed hand shaking, Adam speared a bite of turkey, but not before Sara saw the raw fear in his eyes, and she stilled. Big, bad, Mad Adam Zuckerman, afraid of his children? More afraid than they were of him? But why?
* * * * *
Adam did not much like Christmas. Never had. Neighbors visited on Christmas, which, as a boy, meant he’d had to stay inside, under his father’s steely eyes, where, for some reason, he made one mistake after another, and paid dearly later for each.
No. He did not like Christmas.
Especially not this one.
Before Adam could register the sound of carriage wheels on the drive, someone was opening the outside door. And before Sara could rise, that interfering English doctor was entering Adam’s room.
The English smiled at Sara in a way he had no right to do, while he rubbed the cold from soft hands with trim fingernails, hands that had never worked the sweet moist earth. “Ah,” he said, unbuttoning his coat, examining their Christmas meal. “In time for dinner. Just as I planned.”
Sara laughed and stood to take his coat. “As you always plan.”
Adam’s growl did not begin to express his anger. Not only did The English embrace and kiss Sara, but Lizzie, Katie and Pris jumped from their chairs and lined up for kisses too. His girls.
Adam bristled. “What do you mean by—”
“Thanks, don’t mind if I do,” The English said with a wink, making Sara giggle.
Adam could not believe it. Practical, determined, headstrong Spinster Sara had giggled. “Sara, you know how the Elders feel about your consorting with The English,” Adam said. “Mind, now, no good will come of such a friendship, no nor of that midwifing nonsense, either.”
The English laughed.
Sara did not.
Adam guessed it would take more than his threats to turn her away from the man. Adam’s stomach tightened and what little appetite he had, fled. She must really like the doctor, then.
“I taught Sara midwifing, Adam, and we became ... friends.” The English cleared his throat, looking embarrassed, and Adam enjoyed his discomfort, though he did not care to examine it. Was there something more than friendship between them?
“It was Sara who talked me into settling here in Walnut Creek,” The English went on. “So the community would have a doctor.”
“Except they won’t call him for birthings,” Sara Said. “So I became a midwife.”
“They won’t call you either,” Adam muttered. “Except Roman, for strangers, and everybody knows he’s—”
“You called me,” Sara said, “for Abby.”
“I did n—” Adam swallowed. “Roman talked me into it.” Adam did not want her to know that he’d thought of calling her only after Abby died. Yes, he should have called her to deliver the baby, but how was he to know Abby would need help after three easy births? If only she’d told him she was in trouble; he had been right outside her door. He shivered, thinking of Abby’s miscarriage the year before, which she had made seem so natural and unimportant.
He would have called Sara if he realized, but ifs were poor and painful company, he knew very well. And why Sara should have a good opinion of him, he did not know, because that was already water over the dam.
Sara shook her head as if Adam’s silence was proof of his witlessness and her low opinion. “Jordan, do sit down and share our Christmas dinner.”
Adam grumbled about people with no more sense than to barge in on dinner, and after Sara told him to be quiet, he brooded while the girls took turns showing The English the dolls Abby had stitched and the quilts from Sara. He was surprised when Lizzie said the cloth in Sara’s little quilts were from Mommie’s dresses, sorry he hadn’t noticed that, himself, and ashamed for the first time ever, that it was not to their father his girls flocked, but to a stranger with city words and gold buttons on his coat.
Sara called their little blankets ‘memory quilts’ and asked each of his girls to tell a ‘smiling’ story about their mother that the cloth squares made them remember. While they did, Adam had to remind himself why they could not come to him, that Spinster Sara must leave and take them with her — for their own good.
Having Sara around was confusing him, poisoning his resolve. “When can I get out of this bed and get on with farming,” Adam demanded of the man who was rocking a fussy baby girl he had no right to soothe. “And when can Sara take my girls home?”
The English raised a brow. “Your girls are already home.” The medical man shook his head gravely. “You’ll need Sara’s care for weeks and weeks.”
“Weeks!” Adam and Sara shouted together, and with the same troubled pitch.
The English seemed to struggle with a smile, but he grew serious too quickly to be certain. “That leg’s got the worst kind of break,” he said, which Adam knew to be true. And yet, in his rioting gut, despair was the least of his emotions.
He closed his eyes, almost dizzy. Sara was staying. She was staying. His girls were staying. For a while, at least. Weeks. A long time. Too long.
Not long enough.
They heard another carriage come into the yard, and everyone, even The English, stopped to listen. This time, as should be, Sara was allowed to go to the kitchen door and open it. Then Bishop Weaver was entering Adam’s room. “Guten morgen,” he said. “Blessed Christmas.”
The first thing the
Bishop did was give Lizzie, Pris and Katie a handful of wrapped treats. “Christmas sweets from Mrs. Weaver,” he said. “Mondel schnits and Peanut Mojhys.”
A raised brow from Sara, and the girls put the candy by their plates and went back to their dinner. Adam could not believe Sara made them mind with just a look when Abby had always needed to shout.
Bishop Weaver rocked on his heels and surveyed the room with an eagle eye. Adam imagined a dozen breaches of their rule of life. Non-attendance at Christmas Service for a start. Consorting with The English. Remaining in bed when chores called. Worse, an unmarried woman in the room with him in bed. Adam hardened his features and thought about ... the baths.
The Bishop nodded. “You are broken in many places, Adam, the good doctor tells us. But not your head, says he. That’s too hard to break. So you need a nurse.” The Elder looked at Sara.
She swallowed and gave a weak smile. “He is a cranky patient.”
The English chuckled and took baby Hannah, who was working herself into a good and loud show of temper, into the kitchen. Adam’s girls followed, grabbing their candy before they left. Adam wanted to swear, for many reasons.
Bishop Weaver sat in the rocker Sara indicated and nodded at her. “And how do you manage to care for this big ox?”
Adam fisted his hands. In other words, how closely goes this care?
Sara swallowed. “He needs to eat, of course, to get strong again, so I cook for him and the girls. Someone has to bring him his food when it’s ready. Sometimes I feed him, if it’s soup. He can’t balance his broth and hold a spoon at the same time. Sometimes the girls help with that. He cannot get up to tend the fire or keep the house warm, as you can see, so I do that too. I mix unguents for the cuts and brew teas for the pain and swelling. I change his bandages and fetch him the Bible and Martyrs Mirror to read.
Adam grunted. His reading tastes had not run to the holy books, farm catalogues and newspapers more like.
“Sometimes, he asks me or Lizzie to read—”
“Sara, you are unmarried,” the Bishop said, interrupting her. “So I beg you will not be insulted by my question—”
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