“If you say so,” Lilly Ruth grumbled.
Reba kissed each one of them on the cheek, counting her blessings as she went. “I say so.”
* * *
Half an hour later everything was in place.
The bishop stood in the living room ready for Jess and Bernice to come down together to be married. Reba stood to his right, waiting there in front of all the friends and family. This was Jess and Bernice’s big day. A day that, a year ago, no one would’ve dreamed was coming. And her brother deserved all the happiness he could get.
She looked to her mother and father sitting there, their pride shielded but not dimmed. And next to them, Hope, Constance, and Lilly Ruth . . . should’ve been sitting. But the bench was empty. She had told them to sit there. So where were they?
Hands trembling, Reba scanned the crowd looking for the three little girls. They couldn’t be far. Not in a house full of guests. But considering the fact that they were only as high as most people’s waists, they could be anywhere.
Somehow she caught her mamm’s attention. She nodded toward the empty bench, raising her eyebrows, hoping her mother understood.
Where are the girls? she mouthed.
Mamm looked at the empty bench, then back to Reba. The fear in her mother’s eyes made Reba’s stomach sink all the lower. Something was wrong. Where were the girls?
Mamm leaned in and said something to Dat. He shook his head. Something was terribly wrong. Her father got up and headed to the back of the house.
Reba turned to the bishop. “I’ll be right back.”
“What?” he asked, but Reba was already gone. She had to find the girls, and she had to find them now.
* * *
Of all the things Abel thought he’d be doing on the first Tuesday in June, crashing a wedding was the last thing on his mind. But what else was he to do, really? He had tried four separate times to go visit with Reba, and she was never around. After the second time, he got the feeling her family was telling him lies about where she was. But it took another visit and another denial for him to realize it was Abigail. Reba had misunderstood what was happening between him and Abigail. And now he had to find Reba and tell her the truth before everything was ruined.
He pulled his buggy to a stop, not even bothering to unhitch his horse. There were enough horses in the pasture that he would have to worry about finding his when the dust cleared. And he was just late enough there were no more attendants to take his buggy and give him a number. It didn’t matter. He had to find Reba as quickly as possible. But the way his luck was going, the wedding would have already started and she would be up in front with the bishop and unavailable to Abel until after the service. He started up the steps to the Schmucker house only to have the front door open. Reba barreled into him.
He staggered backward, grabbing ahold of her arms to steady them both.
“Abel? What are you doing here?”
“I’ve come to talk to you. I need to tell you something.”
She shook her head. “It will have to wait. The girls are missing.”
* * *
After two hours of searching the farm, one thing became abundantly clear. Constance, Hope, and Lilly Ruth were nowhere around. They checked the hayloft, the basement, the attic, every stall in the barn, and every one of the buggies belonging to the wedding guests. And the longer they looked, the more worried Reba became. “Where could they be?” She looked from Abel, to Bernice, to Jess. And she knew all of their expressions were mirrors of her own. Worry mixed with worry and accented with worry.
Jess held up his hands, the picture of calm, so unlike his redheaded nature. “We’re not going to panic. If they’re not on the farm, then they’re off the farm. Where could they have gone?”
Members of the family and the immediate wedding guests standing around started tossing out ideas on where the girls could’ve gone.
“Where were they last seen?” Bernice asked.
“I had them in the back sewing room,” Reba said. “We were getting changed into our dresses. They were talking to me about . . .” She turned. “About you, Abel.”
“Me?”
“No time to explain.”
“Why were you talking about me?”
Reba closed her eyes and tried to remember the exact conversation they’d had and if that had anything to do with their disappearance. “I think I know where they’ve gone.”
Jess gave a quick nod. “Lead the way.”
* * *
“I’m not sure this is the best idea.”
Reba shook her head at Abel’s words. It was the best idea they had. And since Abel’s buggy was still hitched to a horse, they had taken off down the road. Bernice and Jess were walking the cornfield along the side, but Reba had another idea.
“It’s simple, really. I think they were going to your house to invite you to the wedding.”
He frowned. “O-kay.”
“I know. They don’t know where you live. But if they went to the schoolhouse, they might be able to figure it out which direction to go.”
He gave a quick nod. “And they might still be there.”
It was all they could do. And hope and pray.
“There!” Reba pointed to the edge of the cornfield. In the shade of the tall stalks, three little girls lay in the cool grass. They looked to be asleep. “Please let them be asleep.” Not hurt or worse.
Abel pulled the buggy into the packed gravel drive as three mischievous, sweet, beautiful little girls sat up and rubbed their eyes.
Reba stumbled down out of the buggy, somehow managing to catch herself even with her booted foot before she hit the ground face-first.
“Girls! Girls!” She ran to them as fast as she could, falling onto her knees and scooping them up into her arms. She kissed their hands, their faces, their noses, anyplace she could reach. She was so happy to see them unharmed and well.
Lilly Ruth frowned and pushed her away. “What’s wrong?”
Reba laughed through her tears. “What’s wrong? You’ve been missing for hours.”
Constance’s eyes grew wide. “Oh, no. We just stopped to rest for a minute to try to figure out where Abel lived.”
Reba tossed a look over her shoulder. Abel skidded to a stop next to her.
“You had everyone worried sick,” he said.
“Abel!” The girls jumped to their feet and threw their arms around him.
Reba tried not to be hurt. She had been searching for them, looking for them, worried about them, and they were happier to see Abel than they were to see her. Must be those dimples.
“We’re sorry,” the girls said.
Reba pushed to her feet. “Why would you run off like that?”
“We were trying to find Abel. We wanted him to come to the wedding, too.”
“I told them not to meddle,” Hope said.
Constance pinched her sister, and Reba let it go. She would let them have a pinching brawl if they wanted to, as long as they were okay.
“No fighting,” Abel said. “Why were you coming to my house?”
“How can you fall in love with Aenti Reba if you’re not at the wedding?”
Reba ran her hand over Constance’s sweet blond hair. “Oh, honey, love doesn’t always work like that.”
“It worked like that for Dat and Bernice,” Constance said.
“You should call her Mamm,” Hope corrected.
“I’ll call her Mamm after they marry. Right now she’s Bernice.”
“I want to call her Mamm,” Lilly Ruth said.
“Girls.”
The world didn’t work like that. Love didn’t work like that. And that was something Reba knew firsthand. Just because she was falling in love with Abel Weaver didn’t mean he was falling for her in return. Maybe if they had a little more time. Maybe if Abigail hadn’t come back and claimed his heart for her own.
Abel cleared his throat. “That’s right. Sometimes people want you to love them, but it doesn’t work that way.”<
br />
Reba closed her eyes as her heart leapt into her throat. It was one thing to know it to be the truth and another to hear it from his lips.
“But I thought you and Reba liked each other.” Lilly Ruth bounced on her toes.
“We do,” they said together. They stopped. Reba looked at Abel. Abel looked at Reba. They both turned back to the girls.
“But if you like each other, why can’t you fall in love?” Constance asked.
“It takes more than that to fall in love,” Reba said. At the same time, Abel asked, “Who said we weren’t in love?”
They stopped. Abel looked at Reba. Reba looked at Abel.
“What do you mean?”
“Who said we aren’t in love?”
She shook her head.
“How much more does it take to fall in love?” he countered.
Reba closed her eyes and held up her hands. “Okay, everybody, stop.”
She opened her eyes and trained her gaze on Abel. “I saw you with Abigail.” There. She said it. Right out loud for everybody to hear.
“Me too,” Lilly Ruth chirped.
Abel shook his head. “It’s not what you think.”
Reba knew what it looked like. But if it wasn’t what she thought... “Then tell me what it was.”
Abel sucked in a deep breath and propped his hands on his hips. He stared out over the cornfield as if the words were somehow hidden there. Then he turned back to Reba. “Before I tell you what Abigail was doing here, I need to tell you this.”
Reba’s breath hitched as she waited for him to continue.
“When I came here, I wanted to heal my broken heart.”
She nodded. That much she’d known from the start.
“And that night, when we were talking and . . .” He cleared his throat. Reba blushed. Thankfully the girls didn’t notice. Or they didn’t say anything if they did. “I told you that I couldn’t fall in love until my heart was healed. And that might take some time, jah?”
Reba nodded again.
“Abigail came to tell me that she thought she’d made a mistake.”
Reba swallowed hard. Why was she even listening to this? Every word was chipping off another little piece of her already broken heart.
“Once I saw her again I knew. My heart is already healed.”
“It is?”
“Well, it’s further along than I thought.”
Reba shook her head. Was he saying what she thought he was saying? “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying, Reba Schmucker, that it might not take quite as long as I thought to be ready to love again. Except.” He paused.
“Except what?”
He shook his head. “You’re confusing.”
She stared at him, mouth agape. “I’m confusing you? How about you with a broken heart, that may or may not be badly broken. Or maybe it is? Or maybe not. Or maybe it won’t ever heal?”
He laughed. “Okay, I’ll give you that one. But I don’t know who the real Reba Schmucker is. One day you’re wearing bright green, the next day you’re in gray. After that, you’re wearing a watermelon-colored dress, the next after that you’re in some brownish-burgundy color.”
“It’s puce.”
“Puce?”
She nodded. “I had to ask the clerk, but that’s what color it is.”
Abel shook his head. “What’s wrong with what you have on right now?”
She looked down at the dress that Bernice had picked out for the wedding colors. “Nothing.”
“What’s wrong with that bright green? I like the green.”
“Most of those colors are a little bright for the bishop.”
“What about something like what you have on now? Why does it have to be one or the other? Why does it have to be gray or bright pink?”
Why did it have to be?
“Are you saying that you would love me even if I never were puce again?”
“I’m saying I hope you never wear puce again.”
The girls cheered. “So, we get to have another wedding?” Lilly Ruth asked.
“Not yet,” Reba said.
“Maybe soon,” Abel said at the same time. They stopped. Abel looked at Reba. Reba looked at Abel. They both shrugged.
“We can figure it out all out later,” Abel said. “Right now we have a wedding to get these girls back to.”
* * *
Reba stood next to Bernice and across from her brother, so proud for him in this moment. No one deserved happiness more than Bernice and Jess. No one except for maybe her and Abel. She glanced out to the crowd where Abel sat in the front row. He wasn’t exactly dressed for a wedding. But no one had the heart to tell him that he had to go home. Not that Reba would have stood for it if they had. Next to him were three little mischievous girls who somehow knew that love could be found in the most special places. He smiled, showing her those wonderful dimples. And she wondered then if she would have an opportunity to look at them for the rest of her life. She had often wondered why God never sent someone just for her. And then she realized He did. And that someone was Abel Weaver.
Amish Brides Page 29