His wife touched his arm.
"A stallion no one had been able to control kicked her to death."
Tears formed in Lydia's rich, dark eyes.
Jakob knew it wasn't his fault, wasn't anyone's fault. It had been a horrible accident. But in the far recesses of his heart, he'd hefted a load of guilt. Sylvie had been in love with him—fearful, yet eager to please. At his insistence, she'd been on her way to meet him. In a hurry, and hiding in the darkness, she'd made a fatal mistake.
"I waited for over an hour," he said softly. "I thought maybe she'd fallen asleep, or that her father had found her out." He shrugged. "I didn't find out what had happened until the next day."
"I'm so sorry," Lydia whispered.
He wiped a tear from her cheek with his thumb.
"I'll never let anything happen to you, Lydia. I thought you were safely tucked away at home while I was gone. Now I find out you were riding all over the county, putting yourself in danger." He glared up at the afternoon sky. Mad at himself, he had taken his anger out on her.
Catching him by surprise, she stepped forward and pressed her face against his damp shirtfront. A little sob escaped her. "Why didn't you tell me?"
He felt her hands clutch at his waist, and he wrapped his arms around her, in spite of the blistering heat. "What's done is done," he said at last. "We won't talk about it again."
"Then you forgive me?"
He couldn't help but smile, knowing he'd forgive her anything if she smiled or touched him or turned that liquid gaze upon him. "If you forgive me."
She smiled. "Ja."
"Let's get out of the sun." Handing Lydia the reins, he knelt and made a cradle of his entwined fingers. "Step up."
Lydia obeyed, settling on Carolina with a natural grace and spurring the animal. Jakob found himself strangely impressed. She accomplished everything she set out to do, from the complete upheaval of her life to the simplest chore. He admired her. What measures would she take to get to him if someone kept them apart? Her loyalty and love for her grandmother was obvious. If only she felt that way about him. He snorted in self-derision. If only he'd given her reason to. He prompted Blaze with his heels and caught up to her.
It soon became apparent that Emily was pregnant. Annette had figured it out, noting her fatigue and the way she often pressed her hand to her lower back.
"You can tell us, you know," she'd said one afternoon as Lydia rolled pastry crust and Annette simmered a pan of spiced peaches. "I won't break if you tell me another baby is on the way."
Lydia looked up, surprised at Annette's words.
Emily appeared decidedly uncomfortable. "I—I didn't want to...."
"Hurt my feelings," Annette finished.
Emily nodded.
Lydia glanced from one woman to the other.
"It's no secret to anyone that Franz and I haven't had a baby." Annette took the pan from the stove and set it on a metal trivet. She faced Emily. "It's a disappointment I am learning to live with," she said. "And it hurts. I wish I had the same blessing as you." Her voice quivered. "I do see your happiness and I envy it. But I don't begrudge you one moment of your happiness."
Lydia got tears in her eyes.
"I love Nikolaus as if he were my own," Annette continued, "and I will love this new baby as well. I'm grateful to you for sharing your children with me."
Lydia had realized she'd been holding her breath, but she released it on a little sob and quickly raised her wrist to cover her mouth.
"If God never gives us children of our own, we will have nieces and nephews."
Annette looked to Lydia and Lydia nodded. "Yes, of course," she whispered.
The thought of being unable to conceive a child had never occurred to her. She ached for Annette's disappointment. Please God, give Jakob and I children.
After that Emily grew more animated. The loose attire she'd taken to wearing didn't dim her look of pleasure. She spoke cheerfully and made a point to help serve and clear the table.
While cutting the wheat and hay, the men didn't return to the house at noon. While Emily stayed at the house with Nikolaus, Lydia and Annette took turns carrying meals to the fields, giving themselves an opportunity to watch the progress of the harvest.
Chaff filled the air, their noses, their clothing. The men's skin dried out; their hands blistered. They worked their backs and muscles to the limit and ate cold suppers. Franz and Lydia milked, the others returning to the fields while daylight lasted. All the Neubauers slept hard and wakened early.
Annette and Lydia worked as hard and long as the men. Even Emily assumed more of the tasks, though they saw to it she was never overtaxed. In huge kettles of boiling water, they blanched corn on the cob, cooled it and cut it off, then spread it in thin layers on framed sections of screen wire. They covered the corn with cheesecloth and allowed the sun to dry it. The kernels had to be stirred and brought in at night until completely dry. Then they were funneled into cloth table-salt bags and the bags sewn shut.
The women picked the remainder of the apples, though there were already bushels stored in the fruit cellar.
"Do we have to peel and dry all of them?" Lydia asked.
The look on her face made Annette laugh. "No. I'll show you."
They poured bushel after bushel into a shallow depression in the yard. Johann brought a bundle of hay and spread it over the pile, then covered it with boards for weight.
"When it snows," Annette informed her, "they'll keep all winter."
Noon meals were of sumptuous fare—Lydia's fresh fruit pies, corn on the cob, sliced tomatoes, fresh vegetables and cabbage slaws.
Late one afternoon, Lydia was churning butter in the shade of the side porch. A putrid smell wafted across the dooryard to her nostrils. "What are you doing out there?"
Standing at a rough-hewn worktable in the yard, Annette looked up from the lard tin she'd been peering into. She measured a powdery white substance and added it, stirring with a stick. "It's an old recipe of my mother's. I always keep it on hand. This'll do everything from shampooing hair and removing grease to killing bedbugs."
"Bedbugs?" She wouldn't care to shampoo her hair with it!
A cloud of dust and chaff appeared to the east. Minutes later, a wagon became visible above the churning haze thrown up by galloping hooves. The horses were moving so fast! It wasn't nearly time for the men to eat or milk. Apprehension tugged at the hollow between Lydia's breasts.
"Annette?" she called, her breathing shallow.
Her sister-in-law followed Lydia's gaze, reached for a rag and briskly dried her fingers.
Lydia ran down the porch steps. Their eyes met and exchanged a wordless message. Something was wrong.
Chapter 18
The wagon barreled up the drive, Johann driving the team, urging them on with a leather whip. Behind him, in the wagon bed, two fair heads bobbed. Where was the third?
The wagon drew to a halt in the dooryard, and the women ran around the horses. Franz knelt on a layer of hay, and Anton held his hat to shield the sun from Jakob's face. Jakob lay flat on his back, one knee raised, a broad hand splayed on his chest.
Lydia hitched up her skirts and climbed the wheel spokes, clambering over the side. Frantically she searched for the life-ebbing blood she expected to see flowing from her husband. There was none. What was wrong?
His dungarees were covered with chaff and dust, and his shirt was missing. His brothers helped him sit, revealing the damage. Red, swollen welts massed his face, neck and chest. "Jakob?" she asked, fear in her voice. "How—?"
"I can stand myself," he grumbled, and did. Lydia ached to touch him, to assure herself of his safety, but his surly manner held her in check.
"Bees, fraulein," Johann explained.
Anton leapt over the side of the wagon bed and took off at a dead run for the corral. Lydia and Franz flanked Jakob as he stepped over the box down to the ground. With a shaky stride, he made his way, unaided, into the house.
Annette pumped water and rattl
ed pans, her familiar efficiency comforting Lydia.
"Upstairs," Franz urged.
Lydia ran ahead and pulled back the coverlet. Like an arthritic old man, Jakob sank onto the bed's edge. His face had swollen more in the time it had taken to climb the stairs. The welts on his chest had erupted into an angry red. He bent to his boots and grimaced.
Franz aided him, and Lydia propped both pillows behind her husband's head, urging him back. He lay down and looked up at her. One eye had disappeared behind the puffy flesh of his eyelid, and the other threatened to do the same. Seeing him that way twisted something undeniably painful inside her chest. She hid her distress with a tender smile.
Annette bustled in with a bucket and cloths. "Well water is the coldest we have. I hope Anton thinks to get ice while he's fetching the doctor."
How long did it take to ride to town and back? Johann handed Jakob a glass and uncorked a bottle with his teeth. Amber liquid jerked from the bottle into the glass. The potent smell of the liquor reached Lydia's nostrils; she hoped it brought relief. Jakob drained the glass in seconds. Johann refilled it, and Jakob drank again, more slowly, grimaced and exhaled.
"How bad is he?" Jakob asked from between puffed lips.
"Pretty bad, son."
Lydia grabbed Johann's wrist. Who else had been stung? All the Neubauers were accounted for. "Who was Jakob asking about?"
"Blaze. Jake was pullin' the mower. Cut right into a nest in a fence row. Them bees swarmed all over the team. They was squealin' and tryin' to run away. Jake stood up and held on. Nothin' more terrifyin' than a team of fine horses out of control with a machine in gear! Only Jake's gumption in standin' all them stingin' bees kept that from happenin'. You did fine, son."
Jakob's prized horses! Lydia's agonized gaze took in the knotted, swelling skin of Jakob's bronzed chest. "You didn't have your shirt on."
Jakob moved his misshapen lips, but his father spoke for him. "He had it on. We used it to squash and scrape off the bees."
Lydia fought a wave of nausea.
"Let's see to the horses, Pa." Franz coaxed Johann from the room.
Annette and Lydia bathed Jakob's swelling flesh. On her way out the door, Annette pushed a foul-smelling concoction at Lydia. "Cover the stings with this."
Alone with him, bowl in hand, Lydia regarded his shirtless chest and was reminded of how he'd tended her minor bites without hesitation. She steeled herself and masked her apprehension, dipping a cloth in the bowl.
"Lydia?"
"Ja."
"I haf bites on my legs." He gestured with one swollen hand. "You'll haffa hep me outa my pants."
Thus far, their intimacy had been in spontaneous bursts of passion, and nothing had prepared her for this. Lydia blushed furiously, but set the bowl on the bedside stand. With trembling fingers, she bent and fumbled with his belt and his button fly. Hands lying useless at his sides, he lifted himself, and she struggled with the well-worn denims. She discovered, as she had only surmised on laundry days, that he didn't wear his drawers on sweltering summer days. She discovered, too, that his golden brown tan ended in a definite line; the skin below his navel was as pale as her own.
Her fingers innocently brushed him, and they both discovered that a sizable amount of pain and fever was no deterrent to his ardor. Lydia's face flamed, probably as red as the welts on his chest. Her first glimpse of his distended manhood expanded her chest and set her fingers trembling. Heart thumping a hard, fast beat, she yanked the denims off the end of the bed, draped the sheet over him and turned away to pick up the bowl of poultice.
After a full minute, she forced herself to turn back to him. His eyelids were closed. His ears and his beloved face were swollen almost beyond recognition. A tiny sob escaped her throat. "Oh, Jakob..."
"Is's awright, hon," he told her comfortingly.
Gently she spread the cool poultice. Few spots, mainly on his lower body, remained unscathed. By the time she finished, he'd broken into a sweat and lay shivering. Wiping her hands on a towel, she knelt at the side of the bed and prayed, hands clasped, head bowed, until the door opened an hour later.
The doctor, a beefy Norwegian in his early fifties, walked with a marked limp and spoke in a voice too mild for his abrupt manner. He washed his hands in the bowl, plopped his bag down next to Jakob's leg and leaned over him.
He dipped a finger in the poultice Annette had prepared and tasted it. Grimacing, he nodded his approval.
He produced two corked brown bottles from his bag. "This is for the infection," he pronounced, "and this is for the pain. Every four hours. Where's the horse?"
Lydia's chin dropped. She watched him prepare to leave. "Herr Doktor?" She stepped between the doctor and the door. "How is he? What's wrong—exactly?"
"Poisoned."
"Is he—Will he be all right?"
"Some folks get a bad reaction and die. Then again, I've seen others keep working like nothing happened. Depends on the body's tolerance." That said, he snatched up his bag and left.
Shocked by the doctor's careless attitude, Lydia blinked. She glanced at Jakob. His face was a grotesque parody of its usual handsome self. Die? Her Jakob could die? She refused to give the paralyzing thought credence. Tears gathered in her throat, but she swallowed them and unconsciously wadded up fistfuls of her skirt.
Jakob squinted through his slit of an eye. His lips barely moved when he spoke. "Thum bedthide manner, huh?"
She relaxed her hands and blotted the corners of her eyes with her apron. "Don't talk. It hurts your mouth."
"I've been thtung before, and I'm thtill here."
Not this badly, Jakob. "I'll get a spoon for your medicine."
He slept then, awaking an hour later. She leaned forward in the rocker Johann had carried in and studied him with concern. What little she could see of his eyes, they were focused and clear. "Are you hungry?"
Jakob nodded and swallowed. His lips had cracked and bled, the tender skin stretched beyond endurance. Lydia dabbed them with a soft cloth and coated them with petroleum jelly.
She fed him soup and a glass of milk. "Wha' did the others haff?" he grumbled.
"Don't think about them. Think about getting this inside you." She wiped his chin and held a napkin underneath for the next spoonful.
He turned his head. "You're treatin' me like a baby."
"Do you want to do it yourself?"
"Yeth."
He did, making a worse mess than she had. His bloated fingers refused to hold the spoon, and soup dribbled across his chest. Lydia took the bowl, wiped his chest with a washcloth then dried it.
She fed him the last spoonfuls. Jakob started to object, but the look in her eye warned him off. She tended his lips again and cleared away the tray.
Jakob spent a bad night. In the depth of the night Lydia changed the cold cloths on his head by the soft glow of the lantern. By morning his fever had broken. The day that followed went much as the evening before had.
Unused to idle time, Jakob grew surly. Lack of activity kept him from sleeping well, and by the third day he was refusing the medicine. His crossness wore Lydia's patience thin.
Midmorning on the fourth day, Lydia entered their room carrying a pitcher of water and his shaving gear. From where she was seated at the foot of the bed, Emily glanced up.
Lydia tried to cover her surprise. "Hello, Emily."
"I thought Jakob might like some company," she said. "And Nikolaus is napping."
The door hadn't been closed. It was clear they'd been talking. Lydia didn't know why it bothered her finding Emily in here, but it did. She didn't like the seed of mistrust that finding them together had planted in her heart.
"Well, I'm glad you're feeling better, Jakob." Emily paused in the doorway, studied them both a brief moment, then quit the room, the scent of her floral perfume lingering.
She still thought Emily was the most beautiful person she'd ever seen. And she wore those dresses that showed too much of her—endowments. Lydia tried to shak
e her unease.
She laid out a towel and handed Jakob his shaving articles. She observed his long, bare form under the sheet. Emily had to have noticed, too. The muscles of his wide shoulders and arms undulated beneath the bronze skin as he lathered his face and neck. What business did another woman have in her husband's room?
Holding a mirror for him, she perched on the bed's edge. He tilted his head back and peered at himself. "I look terrible."
"Not so terrible."
Emily had been here before Lydia. It wasn't so strange that they spoke. "Do the two of you talk often?"
"Two of who?"
"You and Emily."
"We live in the same house. We're bound to talk once in a while."
"In here?"
He glanced at her from the corner of his blue eye, which was bluer than ever against the white lather on his cheek. Turning his attention back to his task, he drew the razor up his neck. "She just asked how I was feeling."
She perused his golden shoulders and broad chest, and she wondered at the uncomfortable feeling Emily's presence had evoked, wondered why the thought of her sister-in-law looking at his unclothed body irritated her so.
Returning her attention to his face, she found him looking at her. He'd caught her studying his body. He winced, and a spot of red grew on his chin.
Lydia removed the towel and razor against his grumpy protests. "You look better," she said, as if she'd been appraising his stings.
He tilted his chin and assessed her with his head tipped back while she applied the razor to his neck. "The way I looked bothered you?"
"Yes." How could he think not?
"I thought it didn't matter what we look like on the outside. All that matters to God is on the inside, remember?" His breath fluttered the hair on her forehead.
"That's different," she replied, and glanced at his lips.
"You even said that there's nothing wrong with squinty eyes."
"You know perfectly well that I meant however one looks naturally is unimportant."
"And I've looked unnatural?"
She didn't reply. His pulse beat at the base of his throat. She loved his eyes, his chin, all of him. She loved him. She'd wanted to cry at his disfigurement. Now he was teasing her.
Cheryl St.John - [Neubauer Brothers 01] Page 20