“That is none of your concern.”
She noticed that while his words were firm, his tone wasn’t quite as sharp.
“Maybe I know where it is. I was in here quite a bit in your absence, you know.”
Stepping forward, she picked up a sack that was now half empty. The grain that had once filled it now littered the floor. “Daniel, what is this? The grain here is being wasted. And mice will surely feast on the mess.”
“I’ll worry about the mice.”
When yet another crash of lightning illuminated the barn, she met his gaze, noticed the faint gray rim around the deep brown of his irises.
Had that always been there? Had she always been so wary around him that she’d never fully met his gaze?
“Daniel, sometimes you seem so different.”
He blinked. Looked away. “We’ve already been over this.”
“I know, but sometimes, I just can’t reconcile the man you are now with the one I knew.”
“You mean the one you thought you knew.”
“Perhaps,” she murmured. But she didn’t agree. Crossing to the other side of the dusty room, she picked up a small broom. “I’ll clean this up. Maybe we can save some of the grain.”
“Leave it alone.”
“But we can’t just leave it—”
“We can and we will.” His voice was strained. “Listen to me, Sarah. I want you to go back to the house, dry off, and go back to sleep. Now.”
She wasn’t sure what propelled her, but she pulled her shoulders back and stared him down. “Nee, Daniel,” she retorted. “I will not go back to the house. I am going to stand right in this spot until you tell me the truth about what you are doing out here in the barn.”
The moment the words left her mouth, the shock of what she’d just done left her dumbfounded. Her body reacted by trembling. A cool line of sweat trickled down her spine. Never before had she ever dared to speak in such a fashion to Daniel. Not since their one and only argument during the first week of their marriage.
Warily, she stared at her husband, waited for his temper to finally erupt.
He was staring at her like she was a stranger. Seconds flickered between them fast, then slow. In uneven beats, keeping time with her erratic heartbeat. She felt like she was out of breath and panting at the same time. Fear coursed through her as she gazed at him, no longer seeing the scarred man with the hurt eye who limped in front of her.
Instead she was envisioning the man he used to be. The one with the perfect features and the kind brown eyes. The one who could smile to strangers yet raise his hand to her.
Mesmerized, she watched him step forward and raise his hand.
Her body tensed, anticipating the pain. This, she knew. With this, she was familiar.
Then, to her dismay and relief, he stopped a mere foot in front of her. His breathing seemed as labored as hers was.
She dared to lift her chin, to stare at him. But instead of seeing the flash of anger, she saw that his expression was filled with pain.
And, perhaps, disappointment?
Slowly, as if he feared she was about to bolt from the barn like a scared animal, he pulled a chunk of hair back from his face.
She exhaled. Realizing only then that he’d never intended to hurt her.
“Sarah, I will speak to you about all of this later. Tomorrow,” he clarified, his voice husky. “Now is not the time. Not here, either.” He ducked his head, as if he couldn’t bear to look her in the eye. “Please, go.”
Her pulse pounded. Her mouth went dry. Emotions warred inside her. The desire to flee was strong, but in the midst of it was another wish—a yearning to stay by his side and offer support.
That was far more confusing, far more surprising. In many ways, her desire to stay near him was more frightening than any pain he’d ever inflicted. It was unexpected. Unfamiliar.
Therefore, without another word, she rushed back outside.
And once she was away from her husband’s direct gaze, she gasped and simply stood. Uncaring of the rain, she lifted her head to the heavens and closed her eyes and let the raindrops pelt her skin, splash against her eyelashes, her cheeks. The wind blew her skirts close to her body, pushed against her skin, almost knocked her down. But still she stood, almost as if she needed to feel the elements, almost needed to feel the evidence of something far stronger than herself.
When she finally got her bearings, Sarah strode into the house, but she didn’t feel the cold, didn’t feel chilled, didn’t care how wet she was.
After lighting a candle, she went through the front room, into her bedroom, stripping off her boots, her shawl, her kapp as she went. Stood next to her bed, tore off her nightgown.
And stood, almost naked. Almost bare. Shivering in the dark. She wrapped her arms around herself and at last steeled herself to the new truth. To her new truth.
And with that new truth came a curious sense of peace. She hadn’t been addled, hadn’t been so overcome that she’d forgotten the most basic things about Daniel Ropp. If she knew anything, it was that the man she’d married wouldn’t have been looting his barn in the middle of the night. He wouldn’t have allowed a single speck of grain to fall to the floor, unaccounted for.
He wouldn’t have rolled up his sleeves and allowed her to see the scars on his arm without an ounce of shame.
He would never have listened to her demands.
He wouldn’t have allowed her to raise her voice at him.
He would never have stopped himself from hurting her.
And he would have absolutely never held himself in control before quietly telling her to go back to the house.
At last, she knew what the Lord had known all along.
The man in her barn might answer to Daniel, might want her to believe he was Daniel. But he was assuredly not Daniel Ropp. That she now knew without a shred of doubt.
All this time, she’d been living with a stranger.
A shiver ran through her. With shaking hands, she pulled on another nightgown over her head, crawled under the covers, lit a fresh candle, and waited.
Eight
The Confession
OUTSIDE, THE STORM continued. The door that Sarah had run through swung haphazardly on its hinge, squeaking from the effort. The dust and dirt surrounding John grew moist from the raindrops blowing in through the door’s gap, making the air damp. Cloying.
It was a perfect mate to the complete disarray of items littering the floor.
John rubbed his arms, attempted to breathe deeply. Inwardly, he groaned.
Without a doubt, the cluttered barn had become a metaphor for the mess his life had become. And he? He felt just as useless. How else could he describe the sad, vacant feeling that had consumed him as he’d watched Sarah run away?
Picking up the lantern, John turned away from the search, choosing instead to look for someone who had become more precious than a hidden container of money. Sarah.
How had that happened? When he’d first devised his plan he hadn’t thought much about Daniel’s widow. He’d hoped to simply steal Daniel’s private stash and leave with Sarah none the wiser.
And if they had happened to meet? That was when his likeness to Daniel was going to come into play. He would pretend to be her husband for mere days—until he had located the money.
He’d naively assumed that Sarah would be at the very most a minor, temporary barrier keeping him from what he wanted. He had planned to lie to her and keep as distant as possible. And then leave in the middle of the night, much like the way he’d arrived.
Now he wondered how he could have ever been so shortsighted. Nothing about his feelings for her was simple and nothing about the knowledge that he’d eventually leave her gave him any sense of peace.
Still contemplating everything that had happened—and the unexpected effect she had on him—he leaned against the open doorway of the barn and watched the shadows cast by the faint flickering of her candle make its way through the house. The illuminatio
n practically begged his eyes to follow her movements into the kitchen and beyond to the small bedroom.
Through the curtained windows, he watched the blurred shadows of her movements, watched her change out of her wet gown into something dry. As each second passed, he felt like more of a fraud. More of a disappointment to himself.
No man should be filled with so many lies.
Tomorrow, he decided, would be the day. Tomorrow he would go to Sarah and attempt to explain himself. Being Sarah, she would undoubtedly listen patiently, looking at him in that calm and careful way of hers. Then, in short order, he would summon the courage to tell her all his secrets.
Perhaps she wouldn’t erupt into tears and anger before he finished.
Maybe she would believe him.
Who knew? Maybe, somehow, she would even find it in her heart to not make him leave that very moment. Maybe she’d say that she could almost understand. That she could see why a man like him had chosen the path he had. And if that happened, he knew he would find redemption for his sins. Maybe even the blessed peace of freedom.
Oh, he didn’t imagine that she would forgive him. He didn’t deserve that. But he hoped they could come up with something to help her regain her dignity when she explained that she was all alone again. Maybe she could tell her community that he’d gone mad from the ugliness of his scars? Or, perhaps, that he’d suffered too much anger and fear from his time at the battlefield and it had altered him?
That wouldn’t be a complete fabrication. He did, indeed, fight going to sleep, dreading the dreams that haunted his very being, the images that reappeared in his head and heart. Reminding him that no matter how hard he attempted to forget the past, it was always there, always lurking in his periphery.
All he had to do now was wait for her candle to extinguish. Wait for her to fall asleep so he could enter the house without fear that she would pester him with yet another question he couldn’t easily answer.
With his eyes still trained on the faint light shining through the window, he devised his plan, formulated the conversation in his head. How he would take everything one step at a time. How he would carefully lay out his reasons and offer no excuses. He could almost see them having the discussion. Almost as if he had a stack of daguerreotypes before his eyes and they flipped through in slow motion.
As the seconds passed and the light still didn’t disappear, his thoughts turned away from the future and settled back to the present.
And he began to worry.
What was keeping her awake? Was it the smattering of raindrops on the roof of the house? The wind that still hadn’t abated?
Or were her thoughts filled with more personal concerns? Was Sarah worried about him? Was she, too, haunted by regrets and loss?
Or had she fallen asleep with the candle burning?
That seemed a more fitting scenario, though it didn’t make him feel any better. If she’d fallen asleep with the candle burning, he was going to have to enter her bedroom and extinguish it. And that, of course, would bring forth a whole host of new worries and discomforts.
But surely she wouldn’t have done anything so foolhardy?
After he watched for another ten minutes or so, true panic set in. Something had to be wrong. If he’d learned anything about Sarah Ropp, it was that she was a woman of habit. She liked toast with a thick pat of butter in the morning. She enjoyed sweets in the afternoon. She was altogether neat and organized. And calm, though a hint of sadness always seemed to envelop her. She also woke at the same time each day . . . and went to sleep the same time each evening.
For her to venture out to the barn and search for him was noteworthy. For her to still be awake for so long in the middle of the night was alarming.
He closed the wide doors of the barn, then walked to the house, stopping every few steps to look at the bedroom window. Checking to see if the light was still burning.
When he entered the kitchen, he extinguished the lantern, choosing to let the faint flicker of candlelight shining through the slim gap under the bedroom door guide him. But when he stood at her doorway, he wondered if he was making a terrible mistake.
It seemed an inexcusable invasion of her privacy to open her door uninvited. To enter her bedroom, pretending to have that right, when tomorrow they would both know he’d never had it to begin with.
Gazing at the handle, he wondered if he had finally crossed the line between selfishness and despair, and on into a darker territory. Maybe his desperate need to form a bond with someone had finally ruined the last bit of decency he possessed. All his life, people had told him that he was worthless, not good enough. When he’d been so badly burned, he’d overheard more than one nurse proclaim that he would have been better off dead.
Perhaps they were right. He wasn’t much. He never had been. However, Sarah’s safety couldn’t be ignored. If he gave way to his fears and never opened the door, never checked on her, and something happened to her? Well, he would finally realize that everyone had been right, after all. He was unworthy of life on this earth.
He made a quick plan. He would turn the knob, pick up the candle, quickly take it out of her room, and close the door again. At the most, his raid would take a mere ten seconds, less if he kept his gaze averted and didn’t give in to the temptation to watch her sleep.
Steeling himself for whatever he found, John opened the door and finally stepped inside.
The bedroom was cool. Muslin curtains covered the window. The room smelled of lavender and other herbs, and that strange, elusive scent that women had, of cotton and rose and everything tender. The things that men used to talk about on the battlefield.
Finally, he faced the bed, ready to extinguish the candle and make a hasty retreat.
Except he drew up short, seeing her sitting on the edge of the bed, dressed in a voluminous white cotton nightgown. Her usual head covering was gone and her hair hung loosely down her back.
And just like that, his mouth went dry. Her hair, a golden brown falling in waves past her shoulders, was glorious, transforming her from merely lovely to exceptionally beautiful.
Making him realize all he was losing—not that she’d ever truly been his, except in his dreams.
Sarah was staring at him, her blue eyes sharp. Assessing.
Obviously, she’d been waiting for him to enter. It seemed she must have known that he’d stood outside her door for five long minutes like a coward.
He measured her expression and was relieved to see that it held no fear. At least she no longer looked like she expected him to hurt her.
“You’re still up,” he said.
“Jah.” Her gaze was fixated on his own. “I found myself unable to sleep. And then I realized you were standing outside my door.”
“I, um, was trying to find the nerve to enter.”
“I figured as much.”
“Oh?”
“Why have you come in?” Her expression was solemn. Curious, not frightened.
And though she didn’t seemed pleased that he was in her room, she didn’t seem bothered by it, either.
Like a fool, he gripped at the door frame, unsure what to do. Did he dare step forward? Retreat? Look at her? Look at a spot on the wall above her head? He shook his head, disgusted with himself. In the service of a grateful nation, he’d risen through the ranks as a lieutenant. He’d become an officer through bravery and determination.
But in this moment, he couldn’t find a way to speak to this woman in the dead of the night.
She’d become too important to him, and now he knew he had too much to lose. If he ruined this moment with the wrong words, he’d lose everything: a home, a chance for happiness. Her.
He felt tongue-tied and embarrassed. And, for the first time in recent memory, frightened.
Deciding it was best to explain himself, he murmured, “I saw your candle burning. I . . . I thought you had gone back to sleep and had forgotten it. I opened the door only to extinguish it.”
She tilted her hea
d as she continued to stare. “So you were concerned about a fire.”
The very fact that it was a statement concerned him. “Yes.”
“Obviously, your concern was unfounded.”
“Yes. Ah. Thank goodness.” With effort, he lifted his gaze and concentrated on keeping it trained to the wall. That was what a gentleman would do.
But obviously he was no gentleman. It was as much of a figment of his imagination as his hope for willpower. Yes, it seemed both had abandoned him, along with the last dregs of his honor.
Sarah continued to say nothing. Merely sat still and straight. Watching him.
Before long, he found himself darting glances everywhere in the room like an insect caught in a jar. Looking anywhere but directly at her. Though was he more afraid to view her in her prim white nightgown, or to see the look of unease in her eyes?
“I found I am unable to sleep,” she said at last.
“I am sorry to hear that. The storm, it is a frightful one. To be sure. But it will pass, it always does.” He ran a weary hand across his brow. Prepared to step backward and at last leave their conversation. Leave the room.
“It wasn’t the storm. I fear it has something to do with your presence in the house.”
He couldn’t help but raise his brows at that. “My presence? Forgive me, but I don’t quite understand what you are referring to.”
“Jah. I fear I am unable to fall asleep in the company of a stranger.”
He felt like he’d been sideswiped. “Pardon?”
She coughed delicately. “Come now, Daniel. Isn’t it now time we were honest with each other? Oh, forgive me, I misspoke. Isn’t it time that you were honest with me, and I was honest with myself?”
This time, he did back up. He couldn’t help himself. Neither could he continue to look anywhere but at her. But the glare that greeted him nearly took his breath away. He’d honestly never imagined that she could look like the way she did. Or that she could speak so bitterly. “I fear I am not following . . .”
“No?” she snapped. “Then pray allow me to speak more plainly. You might be many things, sir. You might have been a soldier in the war—”
Redemption Page 7