by Jo Ann Brown
Gabriel straightened and faced her. “How is Inez?”
“As tart as a barrel of dill pickles.” She smiled as she shared the amazing news. “She’s stronger and acting more like herself than she has in a year. With the new heart valve, it’s almost as if she’s a brand-new woman. I’d say she’ll give a woman half her age a run for the money by the end of the month.”
“That’s wunderbaar.”
Though she wanted to ask why he hadn’t answered her question, Leanna looked at the crib where Harley was motionless. “How’s he doing?” she whispered.
“Sleeping, which the nurses tell me is the best thing for him. The procedure went even better than they’d hoped, and they told me there’s gut reason to believe it’ll be the only one he’ll ever need. Like your grossmammi, he’ll have to see a cardiologist at least a couple of times a year.” He gave her a half smile. “Maybe we can arrange for them to go together.”
“She would love that. You know how she adores bopplin.”
“As you do.”
“Ja. I...” She clasped her hands behind her before she could reach out to take his. While she walked over to the window that gave a view of the building across the street, she knew he was watching her. He was waiting for her to continue, but she wasn’t sure what to say.
Footsteps, hushed but assertive, came into the room, and Leanna saw a trim dark-haired woman dressed in scrubs with the some of the same cartoon characters as on the walls in the hallway.
“Hi! I’m Sally.” She glanced toward the crib. “I’m the RN for that handsome young man over there.” She was careful not to use Harley’s name so she didn’t rouse him from his healing sleep. “I’ll be here for you and for your son tonight, Mr. Miller. If you’ve got any questions—any questions at all—don’t hesitate to ask. Or ask Alan. He’s the LPN here tonight.”
“Dan—thank you,” Gabriel said as he stepped aside to let Sally examine the sleeping boppli.
When she was finished, she said, “He’s doing well. You’ve got a beautiful son.” She checked the computer she held before adding, “And he’ll be more beautiful and strong now that his heart isn’t fighting against him.”
“What happens now?” Leanna asked.
Sally glanced at Gabriel, who nodded that it was all right to answer Leanna’s question. “Children with his condition live long and normal lives. There may be a few things you’ll want to check with his doctor about before he does them, but moderate exercise and play shouldn’t be a problem for him. The important thing is to keep in touch with your son’s cardiologist through the years, so the problem doesn’t become serious again.”
Leanna moved closer to Gabriel and put a hand on his shoulder. He glanced at her before looking at Sally and asking when his son would be able to return home.
“You can discuss that with his doctors when they make rounds in the morning. With little ones, we have to be more patient, because they can’t tell us if they’re feeling better. We need time to observe how he’s doing before we can make that decision.” She gave them a warm, professional smile. “Don’t hesitate to call if you’ve got any questions.”
* * *
Gabriel thanked the nurse. He’d lost count of how many people he’d thanked since he’d been taken to the pediatric recovery unit. The staff had been kind and explained everything to him about the surgery, which hadn’t been so different from Inez’s, though more delicate because Harley was such a young kind. There had been talk of putting him in the pediatric ICU overnight, but his vital signs had rallied and he’d been brought to this room, which contained the monitors and other devices he needed.
As soon as he’d had a chance, Gabriel had written a note to send to Leanna. He’d been reluctant to take her away from her grossmammi, but knowing how worried she’d become if he waited any longer, he’d arranged with one of the staff to have it delivered to Inez’s room. That had been almost three hours ago, so he guessed the note had gone a roundabout route to reach her.
Now she was here, and he couldn’t imagine anyone else he’d want beside him.
“Leanna,” he said at the same time she murmured, “Gabriel.”
“Go ahead,” she urged.
“Let’s sit over by the window so we don’t disturb him.” Like the nurses, he didn’t use the boppli’s name. “It’ll be better to talk there. The nurse said he’ll sleep through the night, even when she comes in to check him, but I don’t want to risk waking him.”
He let her take the rocking chair while he got a folding chair from the hall and set it beside her. Though he wanted to hold her hand as he had in the waiting room, he didn’t reach for it.
“I’ve had a lot of time to think about a lot of things,” he said. “Mostly I’ve been thinking about how you deserve to know the truth.”
“What truth?”
“All of it.” He leaned toward her. “I know you realized after Michael’s remarks at your sister’s graduation that Freda was pregnant when we got married.” He looked toward the crib, then at her. “What I’m about to tell you nobody else alive knows. Not even Michael. I made Freda and her daed a promise that I wouldn’t ever speak of why I married her.”
“You told me she was pregnant, so I guess you married her to protect her family name.”
He gave her a sad smile. “That’s true, but there’s more to the story than anyone, other than me, knows. I want you to know, too.”
“You said you promised not to speak of it, and you always keep your promises.”
“I do, and I promised to keep this one so it wouldn’t hurt the Girod family, but after I prayed on it—”
“You prayed to find the answer? You reached out to God?” Her face lit with pure happiness. “Oh, Gabriel, I’m so happy you’ve found your way back to God.”
“I am, too. I’m thrilled all I had to do was open my heart to Him, and He was there.”
“He always was.”
“I know.” Awe warmed his voice. “Or I should say, I know that now. It’s such a blessing God has patience with His most stubborn kinder.”
“With all of us, whether we’re stubborn or not.” She set her hand on his arm. “Gabriel, I’m happy for you.”
Placing his hand atop hers, he was amazed how right it seemed to be sitting with her. “It was through talking to God that I realized telling you the truth won’t break the promise I made. Nothing I say to you will wound either Aden or Freda, because they are safe from pain with our Heavenly Father.”
“I’m listening,” she said as she took a deep breath. She was, he knew, preparing herself for whatever he had to say.
He sandwiched her hands between his. “What I did was for love, but not the love of a man for a woman. I never saw Freda that way. She was always like a little sister to Michael and me. Aden made us feel a true part of their family from the day he opened his door to us. Not once did he do or say anything to make us feel that he loved us any differently than he did Freda.”
“That’s how it’s been with Grossmammi Inez. She believes she’s been blessed to raise another family when she could have stepped aside.” She swallowed hard. “She refused to let us be sent to different family members because she wanted us raised together.”
“I think that’s why Aden took us in, too. Though I was very young, I seem to remember people talking about which family should take Michael and which should take me. I was terrified because I couldn’t imagine growing up without my brother.” He glanced toward the crib. “I pray Heidi and her twin never have to know such fear.”
She drew one hand from between his and cupped his cheek. “Don’t falter in your belief that he’s going to be fine. The doktors have fixed him up as gut as new. Better. That’s what the nurse said.”
He took a jagged breath, knowing his faith needed time to grow as strong as hers. For so long he’d been hiding from people, not trusting even God, never knowin
g who might convince him to break his promise to Aden. With God freeing him and Leanna believing in him, he was sure he’d found the right way to go.
“When Aden came to me and asked his favor, I knew I had to agree,” he said, watching her face.
“A favor? I thought he would have been upset because you and Freda had...” She colored prettily.
“We didn’t, Leanna.”
“But she was pregnant!” She clapped her hands over her mouth as her voice rose.
“Ja, she was, but I’m not the bopplin’s daed.”
“What? They live with you.”
“I’m raising them, but I’m not their...what’s the word? I’m not their biological daed.”
“But they’ve got your red hair.”
“Which is why no one’s questioned that they’re my kinder. I never knew Aden Girod’s wife, but I’m guessing she was a redhead, too.”
“I don’t understand. Why did you marry Freda, then?”
“Because the Englischer who is the twins’ actual daed refused to marry her. Once we were married, the kinder would be seen by the community as belonging to me. Aden thought that would protect his daughter and his kins-kinder. He knew he didn’t have much more time to live, because his lung cancer had spread throughout his body.” He held his breath as he waited for her answer.
He needed her to understand why he’d made the decision he had. If she didn’t, he wasn’t sure he could stay in Harmony Creek Hollow and be near her day after day and never have a chance to hold her. In the past few days as she’d treated him like an employer and nothing more, the idea of watching her marry another man had become a burning poison in his gut.
“Oh.” She clasped her hands in her lap. “That makes sense.”
He laughed with relief. Of all the answers he’d anticipated she’d give him, that hadn’t been one of them. It sounded like Leanna, sensible and caring and empathetic.
“I hope I’m as gut a daed to these bopplin as Aden was for me and Michael. We might not have shared a blood relation, but he was a true daed to us.”
“As you are for Heidi and that sweet boppli over there.”
“I wish I could have told you the truth in the letter I sent you.”
Her eyes widened. “The letter?”
“I explained as much as I could within the constraints of the promise I’d made. I’d hoped you would read between the lines and know that I hadn’t made the choice without realizing how much it would hurt you. Did it help you?”
* * *
Leanna cleared her throat, but had to fight to get her words to emerge as she whispered, “I never read your letter.”
“What?” His eyes grew wide as his brows shot upward. “Didn’t you get it?”
“I did, but I didn’t read it. I threw it away unopened.”
He stood and shook his head. “You threw it away unopened? I spent hours on it. I wrote and rewrote and crossed out and started over from the beginning while I tried to find the right words to ask for your forgiveness, though I couldn’t tell you the whole truth.” He jammed his hands into his pockets. “All this time, I’ve been thinking that I must have written something so terrible there was no chance you’d ever forgive me.”
She gazed at him, her voice breaking. “I couldn’t read it, Gabriel. To read you didn’t love me as I loved you would have been like rubbing a file across sunburned skin.”
“I didn’t write that.”
“What did you write?”
“It started out this way. ‘My dearest Leanna,’” he murmured as he leaned forward and ran his fingers against her soft cheek. “I wrote at least a dozen pages, though I sent you only two. Nothing I wrote could say what I wanted to.”
“And that was?”
“How sorry I was I never had the chance to ask you to marry me.”
She gasped. “You were going to ask me to marry you?”
“Ja.” A shy smile eased the lines of worry from his face. “I’d hoped that once I’d bought you a big dish of ice cream—”
“I planned on having a hot-fudge sundae.”
“And I was planning to ask you as you finished the last bite if you’d sweeten my life by becoming my wife.”
She bit her bottom lip to keep it from trembling. “I’d hoped you might, but then you married Freda, and that changed everything.”
“You’re right. Nothing is the same as it was the day we were supposed to meet for ice cream.”
“We have moved far from Lancaster County, and you’ve been blessed with two bopplin.”
“And you’ve become more beautiful and your heart warmer.” He walked away to look into the crib. “I know I can’t ask you to be my wife.”
“Because you don’t love me?”
Shock emblazoned his face. “I’ve loved you since the night you first let me drive you home. I’ve never stopped loving you, and I never will. You’re a wunderbaar woman. You deserve a man who’ll be a gut husband for you. That’s not me.”
Getting up, because she was too shocked to sit, she asked, “Why would you say something like that?”
“I failed Freda by not being there when she needed me.”
“You did what you could. You spoke with her doktor, and you listened to advice. You offered her your name and a life together.”
“I couldn’t offer her enough.”
She crossed the room and put her hand on his arm. Stroking those strong muscles, she whispered, “You’re right.”
“I am?” His face lengthened again.
“Ja. Nothing you could have done was enough because her heart was broken, and you weren’t the one who could repair it. Trust me on this, Gabriel. I know far too much about broken hearts.”
Again he walked away from her, but this time she didn’t follow. She watched as he paced. He must be trying to sort out what were new ideas for him. When he stopped, he stood right in front of her.
“I’m going to have to get used to you being right all the time, Leanna.”
“I’m not right all the time. Nobody is.”
“You’re right about this. Freda had a picture of an Englisch man lying beside her when she died. I think it was the twins’ daed.”
“You can compare it to Harley when he’s grown. Maybe you’ll see something in the photo to confirm your guess.”
“I can’t.”
“You got rid of it?” She could understand why he would have thrown away the picture of the man who’d hurt Freda so much.
He shook his head. “No, I slipped it into Freda’s coffin just before the top was closed. I knew she would have wanted the man she loved with her forever as he was at her last breath.”
Tears fell from her eyes. How could he think he wasn’t a gut man? How could he believe he hadn’t been the best husband he could have been to Freda, who had longed for another man? Gabriel’s final loving act for the woman he’d described as his beloved little sister was to give her in death what she couldn’t have in life.
Leaning her head against his arm, she whispered, “Ich liebe dich, Gabriel Miller. I have from the moment I first saw you and I won’t ever stop.”
“You’re a fool to love a man like me.”
“Ja, I’m a fool if loving a man who has opened his heart to two adorable bopplin and their mamm is foolish. I’m a fool if loving a man who honored the daed who raised him by granting him one of his last wishes is foolish. I’m a fool if loving a man who loves me is foolish.”
“I do love you. I’ve never stopped loving you.” He gathered her into his arms.
His lips found hers as easily as if he’d kissed her as many times as she’d dreamed he had, warm and gentle and persuasive and filled with longing. Their second kiss, which had been so long delayed, put her dreams to shame, and she melted against him. Her breath caught as he deepened the kiss. She had waited so long for this k
iss, and she knew every moment of the uncertainty and sorrow had been washed away by the love swelling through her.
“Will you marry me, Leanna Wagler?” he asked. “Will you be my wife and the mamm of my kinder?”
“You know that’s the first time I’ve heard you call the twins ‘my kinder.’”
“Are you avoiding giving me an answer?”
She smiled as she locked her hands behind his nape. “Now you know how it feels!”
“Leanna!”
“Of course, I’ll marry you. How could you doubt that for a second?”
“Because I’m always surprised by you.”
A soft sound came from the crib, and they turned as one to look at Harley, who was shifting in his sleep.
Though she wanted to stay with the man she’d never believed would be hers, she said, “I should go and see how my grossmammi is. The doktor wants her to rest tonight, and she won’t if she starts wondering why I’ve been gone so long. I don’t want her heart to get beating too fast.”
“Then you’d better not tell her about this.” He drew her into his arms and kissed her again.
She locked her fingers behind his neck as she gazed up at his beloved face. “I’m going to tell her and the whole world about this. No more secrets for you and me, Gabriel. We’ve had too many for too long.”
He grinned broadly. “I agree, and, to be completely honest, I don’t think I can keep how much I love you a secret from anyone anyhow.”
Her laugh faded as he drew her closer again. As he kissed her, she knew he was right. Something as amazing as their love could never be a secret.
Epilogue
Leaves crunched beneath Leanna’s sneakers and the wheels of the red wagon as Gabriel pulled it along the twisting road that led to the far end of Harmony Creek Hollow. Inside the wagon, the twins chortled as they tossed leaves at each other. Harley had grown faster than his sister in the past three months, and they were almost the same size. He’d surprised everyone by walking before Heidi had.