Jakob inhaled deeply and pulled his face away with an audible hiss. He breathed against her ear, held her head resting lightly against his hammering chest. "I thought I was so tired that nothing would keep me awake, but you're doin' a good job."
She leaned back in his arms and patted his rib cage. "Why, Jakob," she teased, attempting to break the tension. "Didn't you forget something at supper tonight? Where's your holster? What if my mother hadn't passed the corn bread? You could have pulled your gun on her."
Contrite, he leaned back from the waist. "I thought about it, but I forgot to bring bullets, anyway."
Her mouth fell open. "Empty it was!"
He nodded with a lopsided grin.
"Why, you... you... scoundrel!"
He laughed and released her, bringing her hand to his mouth again. This time he opened it and pressed a moist kiss into her palm. He folded her fingers as if she held something precious. "Keep that with you tonight."
Accustomed to his secure presence, Lydia realized the harshness of being separated for the night. She stepped back and glanced apologetically at the narrow cot. The thought of Jakob's bed, which had once seemed immorally self-indulgent, now seemed practical, as well as comfortable. "Sleep well."
"Gute Nacht. Weib."
Her heart warmed at the word. How glad she was to be his wife. "Gute Nacht. Mann."
The next morning, the Neubauers' windows were steamed over, and the kitchen was warm and inviting. Annette turned from the breadboard and wiped her hands on her apron. She gave Lydia a welcoming hug. She looked different this morning. Softer somehow, less tense. "I missed the two of you."
For once Lydia appreciated the steaming mug of black coffee placed in front of her. Her calves and thighs tingled from the cold. "I missed being here." She told Annette about her grandmother's death.
"I'm glad you got to see her."
"Thanks to Jakob. He held my father at gunpoint."
Annette's eyes widened in disbelief. "Lydia, you're smiling!"
"The gun wasn't loaded, but none of us knew that."
"What must your family think of him now?"
"They're all quite enamored. Except my father, of course. I think he expected as much from a heathen."
Annette laughed.
"What's so funny?" Franz and Jakob entered, allowing a cold draft in.
Annette scurried to pour them coffee. "Your little brother has some imaginative ways of getting what he wants. Lydia must bring out the desperado in him."
"Or the gentleman," Lydia hastened to add.
Jakob met her eyes. He would do anything for her.
"Is someone going to tell me?" Franz asked.
"I coaxed her pa into lettin' her visit," Jakob explained undramatically, enjoying drawing out the tale.
"How?"
"With my Peacemaker."
His matter-of-fact delivery even tickled Lydia into a giggle. Franz laughed uproariously.
Jakob stretched a long leg under the table and kicked Franz's bench off kilter.
Franz caught his balance with a slap of his palms on the table. The commotion pulled in Johann and Anton, and Annette made another pot of coffee. Emily must have still been upstairs with Nikolaus.
Franz told his version of the story, expanding it to outlandish proportions. Annette stood behind him and rested her hand on his shoulder. At her touch, he covered her fingers with his and looked up into her face. They shared a secret smile.
Lydia relaxed and sipped the bitter brew. The men's laughter wrapped her in a welcome cocoon. The meal she helped prepare was punctuated by bursts of laughter, and the now-familiar drone of male voices.
Later, turning from the dishwater, she met Jakob's blue gaze. His look warmed her like the summer sky on an August day, and held silent promises. Promises only he could keep.
That night, Nikolaus pounded Jakob's worn fiddle case. Johann carried it to his son. Grandfather and grandson watched Jakob snap it open.
He tuned by ear, then stood and pulled the bow across the strings. For a change the tune wasn't frivolous, but a floating, passionate melody. Lydia had never heard him play so beautifully or so intensely. Gooseflesh rose on her arms.
"What's this song?" she whispered to Annette.
Annette, sitting with her fingers entwined through her husband's, replied, " 'Beautiful Dreamer.'"
The notes died away, and Jakob returned the fiddle to its case. He sat on the floor at Lydia's feet.
"We have some news." Franz gathered everyone's attention. The family turned expectant gazes their way. Franz rested his other hand over their clasped fingers and looked at his wife. "We're going to have a baby."
Unimaginable joy lit both their faces and softened their eyes as they looked at one another. Johann beamed. Jakob clasped Lydia's hand and squeezed. A chorus of congratulations filled the parlor.
Emily got tears in her eyes and Lydia's own vision blurred. She couldn't have been happier for her bother- and sister-in-law. They had waited a long time for this blessing.
"Looks like Lydia and I moving to our own house will make room for more babies," Jakob said.
"I've been thinking we should have our own place, too," Emily said. Anton cast her a surprised look.
Jakob excused himself to go check the horses and Lydia carried cups to the kitchen before heading up the stairs. She was overly tired and feeling emotional. As she prepared for bed, she heard again the magical notes of Jakob's violin.
Once changed, she opened her Bible and read the passages her father had read at her grandmother's burial. Ready tears flowed at the beautiful words of the psalms. Reminding herself of Jakob's words, she cried only for herself. Grandmother was exactly where she wanted to be. Shamelessly Lydia grieved for herself and for the desolation of losing her best friend.
Jakob entered their bedroom, immediately recognizing her grief. He undressed and perched next to her on the bed. "You all right?"
She nodded.
He smoothed hair from her temples. "Want to talk?"
She shook her head. He lifted the coverlet and urged her beneath it. His chest hair tickled her nose as he hugged her. He kissed her and caressed her limbs, and she cried again.
Initially, touching him had not come naturally, but now that she had discovered the sensitivity of his skin, she knew she would never stop. The muscles beneath his sleek skin were pure pleasure. She ran her hands along the planes and contours of his strong arms and shoulders. Numerous times she had admired his molded strength as he lifted, chopped wood, or simply moved in his own masculine way. He was contained strength, a phenomenal example of God's finest handiwork, the very air she hadn't realized she needed, the nourishment her body had never known it lacked.
Jakob rested his weight on top of her, his warm breath sighing in her ear, sending shivers dancing along her shoulders. He stroked her, drawing expectancy and a bittersweet yearning from every cell and tissue, just as they'd coaxed the sad-sweet melody from his violin. Lydia reached for him, impulsively guiding him to the consummate degree of oneness she craved. Jakob filled her, and she gave herself up to the sensations he created with each kiss, each movement, each sigh against her mouth and chin. Her awareness sharpened until she feared she would burst into a thousand shattered fragments if the exquisite torture didn't end soon. She needed it to end, but wanted it to last forever.
Jakob rolled and urged her astride him. She ran her hands over the hard muscle of his shoulders, felt them tense as he guided her movements, lifted her weight, easily, rhythmically.
Suddenly there wasn't enough oxygen in the room. Jakob's endurance wore thin. After a rapturous pause, he turned and drew her beneath him, and they shared the gift of heavenly release.
Emily tucked a blanket around Nikolaus. Annette and Franz having their own baby would change things around here. They deserved happiness. She suspected she would love Annette's baby as much as Annette had always loved Nikolaus.
Jakob and Lydia would probably be next. Their newfound bliss was no s
ecret. The looks they exchanged were enough to blister the enamel on the cookware. And they'd be moving to their own home soon. A curl of envy wound inside, and she tamped it down. It was easier sharing the chores, and truthfully, she wouldn't know what to do keeping house on her own, but if they moved, she would have Anton all to herself. Why didn't he want to give her a house?
The door opened, and Anton entered. He removed his boots, and kicked them under the wardrobe, then tossed his shirt into the basket.
The baby rolled inside her. Emily knotted the belt of her satin gown over her distended abdomen and sat at her dressing table, brushing her hair.
Dressed only in his unfastened dungarees, Anton leaned over the side of Nikolaus's crib and touched the baby's soft cheek with one long finger. He was so natural and loving with Nikolaus. She appreciated how much he loved their son, but she resented it too. All the attention he lavished on the baby was love he didn't give to her. And soon there would be another. How could she make him crazy for her the way Jakob was crazy for Lydia? Jakob was possessive and jealous. He showered Lydia with gifts... and he was building a house for her.
Anton straightened, stepped behind Emily and, in a rare gesture, fingered the golden hair she'd brushed until it shone.
"Your hair is so soft and shiny," he said.
She met his eyes in the mirror and set down the brush.
"Have you been feeling all right?" he asked.
She couldn't help admiring the width of his chest, the crisp hair covering it, and the golden path narrowing into his gaping fly. "I'm fine."
"You keep our room nice, Emily."
"I make sure things are clean and tidy."
"When Annette has her baby, she might need a little more help. With cooking and laundry. I know Lydia helps, but I was thinking you might want to help more too."
He was suggesting she work harder? No gifts, no house, just more expectations. "You don't think I do enough?"
He let go of her hair. "I didn't say that."
"It's what you meant."
"I didn't. I just suggested you might want to help out more once her baby comes."
"I'll have a new baby too."
"Yes, of course."
"Two children then."
He nodded. "I wasn't criticizing."
She was hurt though. He expected her to know how to do more, and she'd never learned how. She'd lived in a boarding house from the time she was young, taking care of her own room and eating meals with the other boarders. She knew how to do factory work and that was about it. "My father was wealthy," she lied. "We had people who did the housework. I can sew, but everything else is unfamiliar."
"Lydia only knew how to be a baker, but she's learning."
Hurt curled into Emily's belly and settled there. She slammed her hairbrush on top of the dressing table.
Anton raised both hands and backed away. "Here we go. Calm down."
"How can I be calm, when you're always comparing me? I can't do anything as well as someone else. I guess you're sorry you married me."
He turned toward the bed and walked away from her, which added insult. She got up, sending the stool sliding across the wood floor with a loud scrape. "Now you can't look at me?"
"I can look at you, but I don't want to argue."
"How would you like someone comparing you all the time? Finding you don't meet their standards?"
He turned back. "My expectations are not all that high, Emily."
"Obviously, since you settled for me."
"That's not what I meant. Why do you have to read more into everything I say?" He gestured with one hand. "If you just made an effort, you could learn to do a few of the things you say you don't know how to do."
"I don't fit in, that's it, isn't it? I never have." She stared at him, not knowing if she loved him or hated him. He infuriated her. He hurt her. She needed him, but he didn't need her. He probably thought her desperation in marrying him and coming to this place made her less appealing.
He studied her, his frustration plain, but she didn't know what to do about it. Didn't know how to change. Sometimes it felt as though she didn't try so she couldn't disappoint him. But he was already disappointed. Or he simply didn't need her the way she needed him. Not desperately. Not greedily. Not jealously.
Do you love me, Anton? The question was on the tip of her tongue, but she was too cowardly to hear the answer—and she couldn't bear to hear him lie. She raised both hands and let them fall to her sides. Hurt and anger at her helplessness turned to something else... something terrible and ugly. She was hurt and she wanted to hurt him back.
She spun and glanced around the room. Her gaze fell on Nikolaus's crib. He loved that boy more than anything else. His love for their son was the only emotion she ever saw in him. One hand crept to her belly. He certainly loved this child just as much already. Why not her?
Men want women they're jealous of. She'd seen possessiveness more than once. Her mother's callers. Jakob. "I guess you're pretty proud of yourself for fathering children," she said.
He looked at her. "I'm proud of Nikolaus. I'll be proud of this baby too."
"What if...?"
"What?"
"What if this baby wasn't yours?"
His brows came down in a scowl. "Who else's would it be, Emily?"
Her mind grasped for the most effective weapon. "Someone who wants me more than you do."
Anton gaped at her in the silence. He shook his head as if to clear it. "You can't be saying what I think you're saying."
A light pattering of rain sprinkled against the window.
"I'm saying it," she said.
"Who? Whose baby is it?"
Emily's head spun with panic, but she pressed on, wanting a reaction from him. "Well... it's Jakob's."
Chapter 22
Lydia sprinkled sugar and cinnamon on long strips of dough and twisted them into perfect knots. "Has Anton ever missed breakfast before?"
Putting water for starch on to boil, Annette shook her head. Everyone had heard raised voices the night before. "I think he slept in the barn. I heard him go out."
Lydia opened the oven door and slid the tray of pastries in. She pulled on a coat and picked up the scrap tins. "These are beginning to smell. I'll be right back."
A rhythmic pounding came from inside the barn. Thinking the men had all gone to winterize the stock tanks, she entered the building to investigate. In the tack room, she discovered Anton heedlessly hammering a pile of splintered boards on the workbench.
"Anton?"
He jerked around. "Lydia!"
Stepping closer, she saw the remains of a cradle, smashed beyond repair. She placed her hand on his shirtsleeve, and he averted his face. "Anton, let me help."
He shook his head. "You can't."
She couldn't bear the anguished look in his eyes. "I don't know what's bothering you, but I could pray with you."
"I've prayed so hard I don't know what to say anymore. If God's listenin', He's chosen to look the other way."
"Don't say that," she said. "God never looks the other way. He's working on an answer right now."
Anton's broad shoulders caved forward. He hung his head over the worktable, and his body quaked.
A startled minute passed before she realized he was weeping. She hated to see him so despondent. "Oh, Anton... Anton."
She urged him backward, and he sat heavily upon the stool. She took his head against her breast and comforted him in the only way she knew, rocking him gently, kneading his back.
Minutes later he spoke against her coat. "I'm at the end of my rope."
"I'm sorry. I don't understand."
Despite his sorrow, he chuckled and lifted his head. "I always forget. Picture someone hangin' suspended over a black, bottomless pit. His arms get tired, but there's nowhere to go. Nowhere but down."
"A vivid expression."
"Yeah." He sat back, and the stool creaked. "She doesn't love me, you know." Tears filled his eyes again. He pressed his
knuckles against them. "I don't think she ever did. I can't fix things. Nobody can."
"God can."
"Not this time, He can't."
"Anton, what is so terrible? Tell me."
"I've been betrayed." He let his hands drop and tried to look at her, but couldn't meet her eyes. "I'm waiting to get angry enough so I can just beat the hell out of—"
She perceived his hesitation. "Out of who?"
Anton shook his head.
"Anton, what are you talking about?"
"If I tell you, you'll feel the same way I do. And there's no need for both of us to be miserable." He sighed and drew an unsteady breath. "But I don't know how I can not tell you."
"Tell me what?" She gripped his shoulders and turned him to look her in the eye.
"I'm sorry, Lydia."
"This is your fault, then?"
He shrugged. "Maybe. In some roundabout way."
She waited.
"Emily's baby isn't mine."
Stunned, Lydia tried to absorb his words. Of course Emily's baby was Anton's. They were married. Who else's would it be? "I don't understand."
"They betrayed me, Lydia." Desperation rose in Anton's voice.
"Who?"
"Jakob and Emily." He struggled with the words, the thought. "She said the baby is Jakob's."
Anton was delirious! He couldn't know what he was saying! "But that's... impossible."
"Is it? She's not happy with me, that's for sure. Maybe she wanted him all along."
Lydia tried to comprehend. Emily had brought up women in the cities to Lydia. Why would she mention that?
But Lydia had believed Jakob when he spoke his wedding vows. She knew he hadn't taken that promise lightly. "Jakob wouldn't be unfaithful to me," she said firmly.
"He probably hasn't been unfaithful to you since, but she's over six months pregnant, Lydia. It happened before you were married." Anton raked his hands through his hair, kneaded his neck and tipped his head back. He gazed morosely at the rafters. "I don't know. I don't know anything anymore."
Cheryl St.John - [Neubauer Brothers 01] Page 25