Will read a copy of The Cedar Rapids Gazette almost every week. He knew all about Senator Hoffman and his opposition to the new labor unions for coal mine workers. But why was Senator Hoffman here?
Perhaps he wanted to stop the Amana people from hiring his miners.
Will hurried toward the back of the wagon, holding out his hand to introduce himself to the man, but Senator Hoffman didn’t shake it. “Why are you carting my men all the way from Des Moines?”
Will forced a smile. “Actually, we took the train.”
“They are supposed to be at the mine.”
“Not today—” Will tried to explain. “They’ve decided to work in our mill for a decent month’s wage.”
Senator Hoffman looked back at Henry. “How long have you been working in my coal mine?”
“Ten years.”
“And the wages are suddenly too low?”
“I have four children, Senator,” Henry said, slipping his hands into the pockets of his overalls. “And they all eat.”
“They will eat more if you keep working.”
“Mr. Keller used to say that we miners have to protest together before we get paid fair wages.”
“Blast, Conrad,” Mr. Hoffman muttered.
Will heard Sophie slide up beside him. “Conrad didn’t do anything wrong.”
The three men turned to look at Sophie. Her arms were folded into the sleeves of her coat, and her blue eyes flashed with a determination that Will hadn’t seen since they were children.
Will turned back to the senator, wondering how he knew Conrad.
“I didn’t mean to dishonor Mr. Keller’s memory,” the senator said. “But his rhetoric continues to stir up discontent among my miners.”
Sophie’s eyes flashed again. “Conrad fought for anyone who was being mistreated.”
“These men are paid a fair wage for their work, Sophie.”
Will cringed when the man addressed Sophie in such a familiar way.
“I’m sorry, we haven’t officially met,” Will said, not bothering to extend his hand again. “I’m Will Kephart, the manager of this mill and Sophie’s friend.”
“John Hoffman,” the man across from him replied curtly. “I’m a US Senator and Sophie’s fiancé.”
When Sophie didn’t say a word to deny or acknowledge John Hoffman’s words, Will curled his fingers into fists, praying for self-control. He could pummel this guy in a second, send him right back to Des Moines, but in Amana, they didn’t solve their problems by fighting.
Nor did they allow themselves to daydream about another man’s future wife.
Perhaps he should pummel himself for his renewed pining.
John glanced over at her then looked back up at Will. “Are you married?”
Will wanted to tell him it was none of his business, but there was no reason to hide anything from him. “No,” he said slowly. “I’ve never been married.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Sophie staring at him, but he didn’t dare return her gaze. She might guess at his feelings, at the reason he never married. And by all accounts, the reason he probably never would.
John took a step closer to him. “As Sophie’s friend, I hope you will come to our wedding.”
“I don’t leave Amana very often.”
The man’s eyes narrowed again. “Except to round up my employees.”
“It seems to me that you haven’t been taking very good care of those in your employ.”
When John lurched forward, Sophie stepped in between them. “Why don’t we finish this discussion inside?” she said, her voice soft but strong. Like a spider’s silk.
When John moved back, Sophie motioned to the men in the wagons. “Let’s get you settled in your rooms before we show you the mill.”
As Will watched her walk away, he wondered how she could consider marrying such a proud, spiteful man.
He hadn’t wanted her to marry Conrad more than a decade ago, but at least Conrad was a good man. He’d taken care of Sophie and their daughter.
The familiar ache clenched inside him. The frustration at himself for his lack of courage. Perhaps Sophie would have considered returning to the colonies for good, but once again he was too late—Sophie already belonged to someone else.
The new workers trailed Sophie toward the basement of the Saal, which had been converted into a bunkhouse for the thirty men. They would be working nights inside the mill and then sleeping at the bunkhouse during the day. Liesel and the other kitchen bosses had already arranged to provide extra food as long as the men were here. In fact, it seemed the entire community was rallying together to help the mill succeed.
Will nodded toward the front door of the woolen mill. “Do you want to continue our discussion inside?”
John shook his head. “I have nothing left to say to you,” he said before he turned, following Sophie as well.
♦ ♦ ♦
Sophie walked briskly down the street by herself. Her heart raced, but it wasn’t from the exercise. It was from the startling revelation that Will Kephart had never taken a wife.
Over the past week and a half, she’d assumed that he was married, like most of the men in Amana, but here in the colonies it was often hard to tell who was married to whom since men and women sat separately at both mealtimes and in church. And no one treated either men or women who chose not to marry with scorn.
She’d often wondered if any of the women at her table was Will’s wife. Several times she’d almost asked Liesel directly about Will’s family, but it didn’t seem appropriate to inquire. But then today, when John decided to announce to all the men that he and Sophie were to wed, Will had looked devastated by the news.
Ever since he’d found her in the pine trees, watching their baseball game, he’d been cold to her. Distant. So very different from their youth.
Was it possible that Will once cared about her as more than a friend? Could he still be angry at her for marrying Conrad? In hindsight, perhaps he did love her, but in her youth, she hadn’t recognized it.
Long ago, when they were about nineteen, Will had brought a bouquet of freshly picked daisies to the kitchen house. When he handed her the flowers, he’d said that one day he wanted to marry her.
She’d thought he was teasing her, waiting to see how she would react to the joke, so she’d laughed like she always did at his teasing, said she would enjoy the flowers even if he was being insincere.
She had few memories of Will after the flower incident. When Conrad came to visit her a few weeks later, he held no flowers in his hand, but he had a head full of dreams about their future together. At the time, neither of them realized that his dream to become a lawyer would take them away from Amana, but it wouldn’t have mattered. She wanted to spend her life with him.
Was it possible that, after all these years, Will might still care for her?
Her heart somersaulted at the thought.
After stepping into the kitchen house, she stood at the doorway to the kitchen and watched her daughter and Cassie laughing as they rolled out dough for a pie. She and Liesel used to laugh like that, before they grew up. Full of joy and life.
Then she heard Liesel laugh nearby and realized that she was the one who had lost the laughter.
“Mama!” Meredith exclaimed, running toward her. Sophie relished her hug. “I thought you were at the mill.”
“Something has come up.”
Fear darkened Meredith’s eyes. “What happened?”
Sophie took her hand, and Meredith clung to it. “Nothing bad, sweetheart,” she said, trying to reassure her. “Senator Hoffman has come to visit us.”
“That’s not good,” Meredith said, her hand trembling.
“It will be fine.”
Meredith glanced toward the doorway. “Where is he?”
“At the hotel.”
Meredith shook away her hand. “He’s come to take us back to Des Moines, hasn’t he?”
“He would like us to spend Christmas wit
h his family,” Sophie tried to explain.
Tears formed in Meredith’s eyes, the first of her tears that Sophie had seen since Conrad’s funeral.
“I don’t want to spend Christmas with his family,” Meredith said, stepping back toward the kitchen. “I want to spend Christmas right here.”
“You want to work on Christmas Day?”
Meredith nodded slowly.
“What about spending time with Rose and Clara?” John’s two older girls.
“They think I’m strange.”
“No, they don—”
Meredith stopped her. “You don’t know what they say when you’re in the next room. How they look at me.”
She wanted to tell her daughter that she was imagining things—that the girls would learn to love her like Cassie did—but she’d seen John’s daughters snickering together at dinner. She’d thought them silly, but perhaps it was more. Perhaps they were mocking Meredith.
Her stomach rolled.
“You go back to Des Moines,” Meredith continued. “Liesel will let me stay with her family for the winter.”
Sophie’s heart felt as if it might split into two. She couldn’t bear to leave her daughter behind while she was in Des Moines. The only reason she’d ever agree to a marriage with John was so Meredith would have a respectable man for a father. A man she could admire.
But looking back on the afternoon at the mill, at the way John treated the miners, she didn’t know if she would ever be able to respect him again. How could she ask her daughter to respect a man that she herself no longer admired?
Meredith wiped her sleeve over her eyes. “Cassie needs me to finish the crusts for the pies.”
“Of course.”
“I want to stay here, Mama,” Meredith said. “And I want you to stay here with me.”
With those words, Sophie felt the warmth of healing well inside her, as if her heart were being stitched back together. “I won’t leave without you,” she promised.
Back outside, her warm coat buttoned high on her neck, Sophie leaned back against a fence post. What if she and Meredith stayed here in Amana longer than January? What if they stayed for months? Or even stayed for good?
In order to return, she would have to give up everything Conrad had worked so hard to secure for them. Her fine dresses. The chinaware. Their carriage. What remained of their household staff after she found a smaller house for her and Meredith.
She missed having a sense of purpose in her life, a community who cared for each other, a faith in God more than the reliance on things that money could buy.
Was it too late to gain back all she’d lost when they left?
Here she and Meredith were both beginning to find peace. Perhaps they could savor the gift of joy as well.
If she didn’t accept John’s proposal, he’d probably find someone else to marry soon. He needed a wife—and she happened to be available—but she wasn’t the only widow in Des Moines.
Turning away from the kitchen house, she rushed toward the hotel, up to the third floor where John had secured a room for the night.
When she knocked, he opened the door, a tight smile straining his lips. “I’ve been anxious to talk with you,” he said.
She stood tall beside the doorpost. “I wish you had been kinder to the people at the mill.”
“I don’t have to be kind,” he said flippantly. “No one in Amana votes.”
His rudeness made her cringe at first then spurred her on. “Meredith and I aren’t going back to Des Moines for Christmas.”
The smile faded from his face. “What do you mean?”
“I mean Meredith and I are staying here through January,” she said. “And perhaps longer.”
He crossed his arms. “You may have grown up in these colonies, Sophie, but you don’t belong here anymore.”
His words stung her. She’d begun to feel as if she might still belong in Amana even after all of these years. “I don’t belong in Des Moines either.”
“That’s not true,” he said. “You belong with me.”
A picture flashed into her mind, of her and John twenty years from now, after their three daughters were married. The years when John was no longer the esteemed senator from Iowa, traveling for months at a time. It would be just the two of them, living in his massive stone mansion built and maintained with the money from his coal mine. There would be no home. No peace. No laughter between them. If Meredith didn’t feel welcome in their house, she might not even return for a visit in her adult years.
The thought of it was more than she could bear.
“I’m sorry, John,” she said. “I can’t marry you.”
His mouth gaped open at first, and then his lips pressed together in another hard line. When he finally opened them again, his voice was harsh. “You’ll regret that decision, Sophie.”
“You need a wife who loves you, John. Who will make a home right beside you for the rest of your life. Now that Conrad is gone, my heart doesn’t know where it belongs.”
He glanced at the clock by the door. “I don’t think I will spend the night here after all.”
She stepped back into the corridor.
“I’m going to start driving toward Des Moines tonight,” he said, turning to close his valise on the bed. “I’ll spend the night at an inn along the way.”
She nodded as he carried his bag out into the corridor. Then she followed him down the stairs.
Standing at the parlor window below, she watched him drive away in her Christmas present. And she didn’t feel a single regret when he was finally gone.
Chapter 8
Sophie wiped the sweat off her forehead and glanced toward the frosty windows of the woolen mill. It might be freezing outside, but the interior of the mill was quite warm this evening. Snow caked the bottom of the glass, and in the lamplight she could see it piling up below, covering the ground in a soft layer of down.
Thankfully, she didn’t have far to walk tonight. Matthias had arranged for her and Meredith to live in a room across the street while they worked in Amana, on the floor above the Hirsch family. Meredith had gone to pray with Liesel and Cassie at the Saal while Sophie worked at the mill. Once Will returned from the evening prayer service, she would join Meredith and the Hirsch family in the rooms on the second floor.
The carding machines drummed a new rhythm in the background, rattling the floor as the new workers began the night shift. The Saylorville miners had learned the woolen trade quickly, and they had increased the mill’s production by more than a thousand yards a day. The elders were thrilled that they were back on track to fulfill their Sears order along with another ten orders they needed to ship out before the end of January.
“Happy Christmas Eve.”
She jumped at the sound of Will’s voice, spinning around on her heels. “I thought you were at the Saal.”
He cleared his throat, stared down at the toes of his boots. Ever since John had announced that he and Sophie were to marry, Will seemed to be avoiding her. He worked nights, overseeing the new workers, while she assisted Matthias during the day. She’d wanted to tell Will that she wouldn’t be marrying John, but there had been no opportune time to deliver this news. And she wasn’t certain that Will even cared whether or not she married again.
“The meeting ended early,” he said. “I thought you might want an escort home.”
She glanced over at the machines. “One of us should stay here.”
Will nodded toward the door by the steps. “My grandfather said he would take the night shift.”
Turning, she watched Matthias emerge through the doorway. “Go on,” he said, shooing them. “Celebrate for a few hours tonight.”
“I’m only going to walk her home,” Will replied.
“Jacob and Liesel have invited you over for Christmas Eve,” Matthias said as he sat down on a chair. “You’ve both done a fine job with the mill. Go enjoy your friends.”
Downstairs, Will helped Sophie into her coat, and she wrappe
d her new blue scarf, made from Amana’s wool, around her neck. The winter night was cold, and yet beside Will she felt strangely warm. Even though things were awkward between them, she hoped he would stay tonight and celebrate with the Hirsch family.
As they started their walk across the street, the heel of her boot slipped on the ice, and she almost fell. Will reached out, catching her before she landed in the snow.
“Are you all right?” he asked, helping to steady her.
“I’m fine,” she said, though all her limbs were shaking.
He gently tucked her hand in the crook of his arm, and they proceeded again toward the warm lights in the house ahead.
“What do you usually do on Christmas Eve?” she asked, trying to calm the tremor that had traveled to her voice. “When you’re not at the mill—”
“I attend the service in West Amana with my parents and sister’s family,” he said. “Then I help fill the children’s shoes with gifts from Sankt Nikolaus.”
“Meredith says she has outgrown visits from Saint Nicholas.”
He laughed. “I don’t think anyone’s ever too old for his gifts.”
She joined in his laughter, like they were children again. Snow fell on her scarf, clotted in her hair, and she wondered at the beauty and simplicity of this Christmas Eve with Will at her side.
If only they could don ice skates and head out to Lily Pond, skate alongside each other instead of slowly slipping across this street. If only they could steal away for an hour or two by themselves, reminiscing perhaps about the days gone by.
Will opened the heavy front door, and they entered the large house. A small choir of voices, singing “Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht,” drifted down the staircase. Together she and Will climbed the gas-lit steps, but instead of knocking on the Hirsch’s door, Will lingered in the corridor on the second floor.
“Before we go inside,” he started. “I wanted to speak with you.”
She smiled. “I was hoping to talk to you, too.”
He leaned back against the whitewashed wall. “A long time ago, I asked you to marry me,” he said quietly. “Instead of answering, you laughed.”
She swallowed hard, trying to fight back the butterflies winging their way around her stomach. “I thought you were teasing me.”
A Plain and Sweet Christmas Romance Collection Page 24