A Dream of Family

by Jill Weatherholt

  His wasn’t the only grief he had to consider. Maisie had lost a beloved sister. Her twin. The blow must have been devastating, but she was offering to help him, a man her sister couldn’t bear to stay married to.

  Did Maisie wonder what he had done to drive Annie away from her family and her faith? Did she blame him, as others had? After trying to push these questions out of his mind for months, he suddenly wanted answers.

  “Did you know Annie had planned to leave me?”

  Maisie glanced at the child she held. “Can we talk about this later? I’m tired and I think they need to be fed.”

  She looked so much like Annie. She was a painful reminder of the woman he’d loved and lost...twice. A woman who had betrayed her wedding vows and destroyed the love he’d once had for her.

  When Annie left him she’d done more than break his heart. She’d taken away his dreams of a family. There was no divorce allowed in his Amish faith. He would have remained married but alone, until his death. That was why he had retreated to the wilds of Maine six months ago. He was used to being alone. He’d been alone his whole life until he’d met Annie.

  Nathan belatedly recalled his duty as a host. He couldn’t send Maisie away tonight. Unless her driver was waiting outside. “How did you get here?”

  “I came on the bus. I was walking this way when a kindly woman stopped and offered me a ride in her car. She said she was a neighbor of yours, Lilly Arnett.”

  Lilly had a home about three miles down the road. She wasn’t Amish but she was a good neighbor. She’d gone out of her way to bring Maisie up to his remote cabin. “Is she still outside?”

  “Nee. She said she had to get back to do chores. Do you have bottles and formula for them?”

  “The hospital sent some supplies when they dismissed the kinder. Formula, bottles, diapers, a couple of blankets that the nurse said she wasn’t supposed to give away, but she couldn’t see sending me home without a way to keep them warm.”

  “Clearly a woman with a good heart. I’ll fix some formula if you will hold...what is his name?” She looked at him.

  Nathan hadn’t decided yet, for either babe. Annie should have told him what she wanted to call them. Annie should be here taking care of them. Maisie had the same flame-red hair, the same bright green eyes, and freckles across her nose. She even had the same dimples in her cheeks when she smiled. It was painful to see her and know she wasn’t the woman he’d married.

  He changed the subject. “Would you like some tea or hot chocolate? The water on the stove is hot. There’s some bread and blueberry jam in the cupboard.”

  “I’ll fix it. Do you want something?” She got up and settled his son in his free arm.

  “Nee.” He wasn’t hungry.

  She crossed her arms and gazed at him with her eyes full of sympathy. “When was the last time you ate?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Then you should at least have some toast.” She went into the corner of the cabin that held a wood-burning cookstove, two cupboards, a sink and an icebox. She located the bread, then put it in the oven to toast. Next, she fixed hot cocoa for herself and opened two small bottles of premade formula the hospital had sent home with Nathan. She had a few bites of toast and a sip of the cocoa, then took the baby from Nathan and sat down to feed him.

  Nathan’s daughter made short work of her bottle. He glanced over to watch Maisie cooing at his son. Why couldn’t it be Annie holding her own baby? Why did it have to be Maisie, who looked like Annie in every way? It was heartbreaking to see her and know she wasn’t their mother.

  “Don’t forget to burp her,” Maisie said.

  He had forgotten. He took the bottle away from his daughter and shifted her gingerly to his shoulder. She burped twice and then began bobbing her head, looking for more to eat. He settled her in the crook of his arm and let her finish. When the bottle was drained, he looked at Maisie. “Should I burp her again?”

  “Ja.” She had his son cradled in her arms, gazing at his face, then she put him in his basket. To Nathan’s amazement, the baby went straight to sleep.

  Maisie turned to Nathan. “I’ll put her down if she is finished.”

  “I think she is.” He handed the babe to her and sat back, rubbing his hands on his thighs. Maisie was good with the babies. He wasn’t. It was hard to imagine he was now the father of two. Nothing had prepared him for this, but he would manage. He had always managed alone.

  He’d built this cabin with his own two hands. He would find a way to raise his children. Annie had at least given him back the dream of having a family. He would be grateful for that when he wasn’t so exhausted.

  Maisie took his daughter and laid her down. She fussed for a moment but then quieted and went to sleep.

  Maisie covered a yawn. Nathan nodded toward the small loft at the far end of the cabin. “There’s a bed and extra blankets up there. You’re welcome to them.”

  Maisie scanned the rest of the one-room cabin. “Where will you sleep? I don’t want to put you out of your own bed.”

  “I have a cot in a room down in the barn. I’ll sleep there. The barn was here when I bought the place. I slept in it until the cabin was finished. It’s comfortable.” He didn’t like being in the same room with her. She was a distressing reminder of what he’d lost.

  “All right. Would you like to talk now?”

  Talk about Annie and her death? He suddenly realized he wasn’t ready for that. “Tomorrow.”

  He got up and left the cabin.

  * * *

  Maisie watched Nathan walk out of the house with tired, stumbling steps. She had no idea what to make of him. Like everyone in her community, she wondered what had driven Annie to leave her new husband. Why had her sister stayed away from her family and the people who loved her? From Maisie, the person who knew her best in the whole world?

  The answers to those questions may have died with Annie, but Maisie wasn’t ready to give up. Nathan had to have some idea of what went wrong in their marriage. Maisie needed to know the truth from him now that she couldn’t learn it from Annie.

  After making sure there was enough formula to see the babies through the night, she walked outside. She was tired from the long trip but too wound up to sleep. Her grief was too new and sharp.

  She had boarded the bus in Springfield, Missouri, filled with joy and hope for the first time in almost a year. She was going to be reunited with her beloved sister, to meet her sister’s babies and help take care of them. She was going to learn the reason why Annie had left Nathan and disappeared, something Annie said she couldn’t tell Maisie over the phone but had promised to reveal when they were face-to-face again. She had no way of knowing her sister was already with God. Ten hours later, when Maisie changed buses outside of Philadelphia, she had enough time during the layover to call Annie and see if she had delivered her babies yet. Instead, a social worker at a hospital in Portland, Maine, told her that Annie was dead.

  Maisie still couldn’t absorb the fact that she would never see her sister again. Never hear her voice, never laugh at the same things or finish each other’s sentences. It was if she had been cleaved in two and half of her was gone.

  The loneliness and sorrow of those remaining horrible hours on the bus had been almost too much to bear. Only her faith and the thought of holding her sister’s babies got her through the ordeal. Now she was here in Maine at last. Her life had purpose again. Nathan and the babies needed her.

  The warm night air was thick with the scents of wood smoke and pine trees, and the sound of droning insects. The sky was overcast, with the drifting clouds hiding the moon and blocking out the light from the stars. When her eyes adjusted to the dark, she could just make out the outline of the barn and corral fence across the way. Two horses stood at the fence. She saw a shadow move beside them and knew Nathan hadn’t gone to bed. She walked toward him, wond
ering what she was going to say. Buddy followed at her heels.

  The awkwardness of the situation had her on edge. She wanted...no, she needed to help care for her sister’s babies. They were her last and only connection to Annie. Holding Annie’s child in her arms tonight had eased the hurt Maisie carried in her heart. Only, Nathan didn’t want her here. How could she make him see it was best for all of them if she stayed?

  He didn’t seem surprised when she walked up beside him. Her head was level with his shoulder. She felt small beside him. One of the horses reached over the fence to nudge her arm. She rubbed his forehead. “Who is this?”

  “Mack.”

  “And the other one?”

  “Donald.”

  She chuckled. “You’re joking.”

  “I didn’t name them. That’s what they were called when I bought them.” His dry tone said he didn’t find it funny.

  “Someone had a good sense of humor,” she finished lamely.

  “I asked you a question earlier.”

  He was angry and bitter. She couldn’t blame him. She had been angry at Annie, too. She still had a hard time believing her sister had done such a terrible thing. Now Annie was gone before she could explain. Maisie sighed deeply. “I didn’t know my sister had plans to leave you.”

  “Do you know why she left?”

  “I don’t.” It was the truth. All Maisie had was a vague suspicion—that Annie had left to be with another man. Telling Nathan would only heap more pain on a man who was already hurting, and maybe plant a seed of doubt that the children weren’t his. Maisie couldn’t do that to him. Like her, the children were all he had left of his love for Annie.

  “How did she know to send you here?” he asked.

  “She left a message with her cell-phone number on the answering machine at the phone shack of our bishop. You had told him you were moving to New Covenant. You had given him the name of the man you planned to work for so he could contact you in case Annie came back to our community. He told me and I called her.”

  “What did she say? Did she explain herself? Did she know the harm she caused? I couldn’t even stay in Seymour.”

  “She said she would explain everything when she saw me in person. I’m sorry some people in Seymour were unfair to you.”

  “Unfair?” The single word was almost a snarl. “They thought I killed my wife. They sent the sheriff to search my property with dogs. They didn’t believe the note she left had been written by her.”

  Maisie flinched away from his anger. “None of the Amish community thought that, Nathan. We were all shocked to learn of her disappearance, especially me and Daed. It was only some of Annie’s Englisch friends who suspected foul play.” The Porters, the influential family both she and Annie had once worked for. Wealthy people who didn’t understand Amish ways even though they hired them. Maisie had married and stopped working in their home, but Annie stayed another four years, until the oldest son and his children moved away after his wife’s death. Then Annie abruptly married Nathan.

  “The Porters were the same people who stopped buying the lumber I cut. They stopped others from buying from me or hiring me to clear land. I couldn’t make a living.”

  “Edward Porter and his wife loved Annie like a daughter. She was more than a nanny to their grandchildren. She took care of their daughter-in-law while she was dying.”

  “And I loved Annie like a wife!” he shouted.

  Maisie stayed silent. Finally, he drew a deep breath. “You said the hospital told you that she had passed away. How?”

  “As I said, I had Annie’s cell-phone number. We exchanged a few phone calls while I was preparing to travel here. She wouldn’t talk about the past, only about how she hoped to make up for the pain she had caused everyone. She was excited about having twins. She wanted daughters. She said they would be as close as she and I had been.” Only they hadn’t been close enough.

  “Did she have names picked out?” His voice broke and he bowed his head. It was too dark to see his face, but she knew he was crying.

  Maisie laid a hand on his arm, fighting back her own tears. “She wanted you to name them. I know you loved her, Nathan. I know you love her children. You will give them the life she wanted for them. Gott will show you the way. Trust Him. Draw strength from His love.”

  Nathan straightened and pulled away from her hand. “Gott hasn’t done much for me lately. Go on with your story.”

  There was an edge to his voice now. Was he angry with God, as well as Annie? Maisie couldn’t have made it through the last two days without God’s comfort and the thought of holding Annie’s babies.

  Nathan needed God. He would come to see that when his grief wasn’t so sharp.

  “I hadn’t talked to my sister for over a week so I called Annie from a bus stop in Pennsylvania yesterday to let her know I was on my way. A woman who said she worked at the hospital in Portland answered the phone. She told me Annie had...died of complications following childbirth, but the babies were fine and with you. Apparently Annie was able to tell them how to contact your bishop and have him deliver a message.”

  Nathan sighed heavily. “She must have been the same woman who tried to give me the phone along with Annie’s things when I picked up the babies. I had no use for a phone. I told her to keep it. She said she would hold on to it for a while in case anyone tried to contact Annie then she would donate it to a charity. I didn’t care what she did with it.”

  “I’m grateful she answered even though the news she delivered was heartbreaking.”

  “If I’d known you were coming, I could have delayed the burial.”

  “I would like to visit her grave soon. To say my goodbyes.”

  “I’ll take you tomorrow. Then I’ll take you into town and get you a bus ticket home.”

  Startled, she shook her head. “Nee, I’m here to care for my sister’s babies. I already love them. I did from the moment I learned they were coming.”

  “I can take care of them. I want you to leave.”

  “Nathan, be reasonable. You need help.”

  He faced her with his arms crossed over his chest. The moon came out from behind the clouds, bathing his face in its cold light. “It can’t be you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because every time I look at you...I see Annie. I don’t want you here.”

  The bitterness in his clipped words left Maisie speechless. He walked away into the darkness.

  “But they’re all I have left of her,” she whispered as a deep ache filled her chest. “Please don’t make me leave them.”

  She felt Buddy lick her fingers. He whined as if he knew she had been hurt by Nathan’s words. She dropped down to hold the big dog close and draw some comfort against the yawning hole of new grief she saw opening before her. How could she change Nathan’s mind?

  Copyright © 2021 by Patricia MacDonald

  Love Harlequin romance?

  DISCOVER.

  Be the first to find out about promotions, news and exclusive content!

  Facebook.com/HarlequinBooks

  Twitter.com/HarlequinBooks

  Instagram.com/HarlequinBooks

  Pinterest.com/HarlequinBooks

  ReaderService.com

  EXPLORE.

  Sign up for the Harlequin e-newsletter and download a free book from any series at

  TryHarlequin.com

  CONNECT.

  Join our Harlequin community to share your thoughts and connect with other romance readers!

  Facebook.com/groups/HarlequinConnection

  ISBN-13: 9780369715074

  A Dream of Family

  Copyright © 2021 by Jill Weatherholt

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodie
d in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

  For questions and comments about the quality of this book, please contact us at CustomerService@Harlequin.com.

  Love Inspired

  22 Adelaide St. West, 40th Floor

  Toronto, Ontario M5H 4E3, Canada

  www.Harlequin.com