An emotion almost like regret washed over Lydia. While having their own home would be wonderful, she knew she'd miss the warmth and congeniality of the extended family.
As if sensing her feelings, Jakob wrapped his arm around her shoulder and hugged her. She smiled up into his handsome face.
Later that evening, after the others had gone to bed, they lounged on the floor before the fireplace, watching the last log disintegrate into ashes.
"Next winter we'll be sitting in front of our own fireplace," Jakob said.
Wondering if they'd have a new family member by then, Lydia murmured, "Mm-hmm..."
"We'll build a roaring fire and lay naked."
Lydia laughed, but warmth beyond that which the fire created glowed inside her at the image.
He tucked a long strand of hair behind her ear and kissed the hollow under her jaw. "Funny how a fire pushed us together in the first place, isn't it? I wonder if we'd have ended up together if the bakery hadn't caught fire."
"I don't know." She drew a line along his lower lip with her finger. "I've thanked God many times for our meeting. And thanked Him no one was hurt in that fire. You were very brave."
"Shucks, ma'am. T'weren't nothin'."
She laughed again and tipped her head to accept the kiss he offered.
Their shadows were barely outlined by the dwindling fire. Emily listened to their words. Silently she stepped back against the hallway's papered wall, her hand automatically caressing her belly. That's what had done it then. Danger—the risk had brought them together.
What if Anton thought he was going to lose her? What if her life was in jeopardy? Would danger ignite his passion? All she wanted was to see a little emotion. That wasn't too much to expect, was it?
The idea had merit. She liked it. She rolled it around and savored it. Emily's head lolled against the wall. The child inside her moved. She was more than a vessel to grow children. She was a person with feelings and needs. She had to make him see that.
Smiling, she tiptoed across the hall and up the stairs. She lifted the glass lamp from her bedside table and struck a match, staring at the tiny flame. Reverently she touched the flame to the wick and watched it flare into a searing, dancing solution. Anton turned and blinked.
"You're still awake. Are you all right?"
"I'm fine. Didn't you hear me go down for a cup of milk?"
"No."
She removed her robe and padded to his side of the bed. "Do you find me attractive even with this belly?"
"Undeniably so."
"Do you think we'd be happier with our own house?"
Anton wasn't keen on the idea, especially now that she was behaving so peculiarly. He wouldn't leave Nikolaus or the baby alone with her until he was sure she was lucid and thinking clearly.
He'd heard cases of women losing their sanity alone on the plains or at the ceaseless sound of the wind, but Emily had plenty of company.
"Let's pretend we're all alone," she said. "We're in a big fancy hotel and we can order room service any time we like."
"I wouldn't mind the room service. What would you order?"
"Champagne. How about you?"
Her playfulness seemed out of character and not at all like their usual interactions. "Champagne sounds good. I didn't know your liked champagne."
"I'm only guessing I do." She moved onto the bed and straddled him. "No, wait. I'm the maid, and you think I'm beautiful."
"You are beautiful."
"But we don't have any children or anything. It's just the two of us and you don't really know me."
Her pretending they had no children made him uneasy.
Emily removed her nightgown. Anton's heart ached. He was a man, and his wife aroused him, but she was deeply troubled. He couldn't get her help soon enough. He'd go into town in the morning and talk to the doc.
She leaned close and kissed him.
Opportunity didn't always knock. Sometimes a person had to get out and take the situation in hand. And Emily wanted what the others had. She dreamed about it and woke to the silence of the house. This was the perfect time. Annette would be getting up to make breakfast and the men would be waking soon.
Writing a note and leaving Anton sleeping, Emily dressed in her favorite bright pink dress and went out to survey the barn and set her plan in motion. Perfect.
This was it. There was no time left. She couldn't take the emptiness any longer. The pity. The lack of feeling.
Sometimes she was so tired she could barely move and other times, like now, she had so much energy she couldn't hold still. She must do something to incite Anton's passion. This time, she would succeed.
Lydia rose early to make her first batch of soap in the sideyard, boiling down caustic soda and fat. She cut it into uniform pieces, pleased with her accomplishment. In the full pantry, she made space for the new supplies by rearranging jars and crocks. The room was cool and dim, dominated by the earthy smells of the potatoes and onions filling the barrels crowded together under hanging clusters of dried peppers, herbs and tulip bulbs. She paused a moment to rest, enjoying the smells, reveling in her newfound sense of belonging.
The stove lid clanged, a sign Annette was up and ready to make breakfast.
She'd been so lonely at the boarding house in Butler. The Neubauers had welcomed her back like the prodigal son in the parable. After three seasons, she at last felt like part of the family, and she looked forward to a long, cozy winter, and a new house in the spring.
"Lydia, is that you?" Annette called.
"I made soap and I'm putting it away."
Annette stepped into the pantry. "Already this morning? Goodness, everyone seems to be early birds today. Anton came through looking for Emily a minute ago. She left him a confusing note."
"I'll clean up my mess and help you with breakfast."
"Or keep an eye on Nikolaus while I get it ready."
"I'd love to."
She was tidying her supplies when a scream sounded from the direction of the barn.
Instantly Lydia dropped the scrub bucket and ran into the kitchen, wiping reddened hands on her apron. "Someone is screaming—it must be Emily! Get the men."
She ran for the barn.
Emily stood in the doorway, breathing hard. "Go get Anton!" she shouted. She turned and ran toward the tack room.
Lydia caught a whiff of kerosene and hesitated in the doorway. Something wasn't right.
Emily ran forward past full oat bins, her shoes clattering down the center of the barn. "Go back and tell Anton there's a fire. Hurry."
"Emily, don't go back there. Come outside with me."
"No, send Anton. I need him to come. Hurry!"
"No, Emily! Come back here!" She ran after and attempted to grab Emily's arm. Lydia didn't know what was going on, but she didn't like it.
Emily pulled away and entered the tack room.
Lydia followed hesitantly, her eyes adjusting to the semidarkness. "
Apprehensive of the odor and the excitement on Emily's face, Lydia stopped in the doorway. Oiled harnesses hung neatly from nails and pegs; saddles and blankets rested on their wooden forms. A hot fire danced in the stove. A bale of hay, broken open, lay scattered across the floor. The heavy kerosene smell, almost overpowering, burned Lydia's nostrils.
Heart hammering, Lydia stared at the other woman. "Emily, come out of there at once."
"Get Anton! Tell him I'm trapped." Emily pushed Lydia out, slammed the door shut and slid the bolt into place from the other side. Jessie had shown up and now barked furiously from beside Lydia.
"Emily? What are you doing?" She pounded on the door and heard a sound she recognized—the sound of fire igniting.
Lydia turned and ran frantically back toward the front of the barn. What had Emily done? Her mind wouldn't accept what had just happened.
Anton and Jakob were already closing the distance.
"She's started a fire!" she screamed. "Emily's started a fire and she shut herself in the tack roo
m."
Anton shot past her, Jakob on his heels.
Still she couldn't make sense of it. Emily had started a fire in the storeroom. The hay strewn on the floor had been so saturated, the oily odor stung her eyes.
"Jakob, be careful!" Icy fingers of dread gripped her with fear. She'd experienced a fire. She knew the intense heat and the unexpected speed of the enveloping flames.
"Anton!" Emily screamed from the other side of the door. "Help me!"
"Open the door, Emily!"
Franz showed up carrying an ax and joined his brothers. "Stand back!" he shouted.
Lydia stood in the open doorway. Wood splintered.
"Something's blocking the doorway from the other side!" one of them shouted. Together they chopped away at the wood.
The screams grew louder. Lydia covered her ears, dropped to her knees and, heart hammering, prayed. The storage bins brimmed full of oats and hay, nearly the entire year's harvest was in this building.
Emily shrieked again. Images of the burning bakery in Accord flashed before Lydia's eyes. She relived the terror of being trapped and choking for air, felt again the fire's consuming heat. She scrambled to her feet and ran outside, nearly running into Annette. "We must pump water!"
Franz and Jakob ran back out, Franz with a pick and Jakob with a shovel. "What are you doing?" she called.
"Going around to the back. Anton got through a hole in the door, but the fire's too hot now." Jakob paused only a second. "Stay put, Lydia. The fire's spreading."
"Anton is in that room now?" She turned to spot graceful long-stemmed flames dancing across the end of the barn, a myriad of formless colors shimmering and reflecting their dazzling heat. The blaze hissed, crooked a sulfurous finger and spat hungrily.
Gooseflesh erupted on her neck and arms. Blood pounded in her ears. She ran to help Annette pump and carry water.
Once inside the tack room, fierce heat met Anton. Black smoke and enveloping flame had transformed the room into a nightmare.
Emily's screams prodded him forward. Eyes streaming, he peered through the smoke. A spot cleared momentarily. Emily flapped the flaming hem of her skirt. He grabbed a horse blanket from a nearby saddle rack and beat down the flames licking nearby to get closer. His wife coughed and disappeared in the thick smoke.
"Emily!"
Dirt and splinters drifted down over his shoulders as the rafters split and caved downward.
The wall of leather harnesses smoldered, the acrid smell searing Anton's lungs. He bent at the waist in a painful spasm of coughing.
Overhead, wood splintered in an earsplitting crack as the weakened support beams buckled. A flaming rafter fell, blocking his view of Emily. His heart wrenched painfully.
He choked and knelt, blinded. "Emily!"
There was no reply. No more screams.
Helplessly, he pounded the floor with a fist.
The sound of wood splintering, rhythmically, repeatedly, combined with Jessie's incessant barking, floated through the flames. Fire filled his lungs. Each excruciating breath ripped through his throat and chest. He fought for consciousness, but disorientation overcame him.
Planting both feet solidly, Jakob raised the ax and swung. Again. And yet again. Smoke billowing black smoke belched from through the hole he chopped in the barn wall. How long had Anton been in there now?
Annette, Lydia and Franz carried pails of water and threw it ineffectually through the hole he created and on the side of the barn. Determinedly he continued the assault on the wall until he broke into a sweat and the opening grew wide enough for him to climb through. "Anton! Emily!"
Yipping shrilly, Jessie leapt through the hole ahead of him. Blindly Jakob followed her frantic barks until he stumbled over a soft form on the floor. "Anton."
Eyes streaming, he dragged his brother out into the fresh air. Lydia met him. At the blackened form in his arms, her eyes grew wide with horror. "Is he—?"
Jakob didn't stop until he reached a spot of ground safely away from the building. A cough racked Anton's body.
"Oh, thank God." Annette joined them and blinked at Jakob, tears in her eyes. "Tell me what to do."
"Get water and rags. Wash him and see if he's burned."
Johann and Franz blocked his way back toward the barn.
"It's too late, son." Johann said. "You can't get back in there. She's gone. There's been no sound from her."
"She could be unconscious."
"The room's engulfed in flames," Franz said. "There's no way she could have lived. You were lucky to get Anton out alive."
Jakob stared at the smoke belching from the hole in the side of the barn, knowing they were right, feeling he'd failed all the same. Behind him Anton coughed. He turned and moved to stand over his brother. "It's his lungs," he declared quietly. "The fumes he inhaled. Hurts something fierce."
Annette touched his arm. "I'll stay with him. You help with the barn."
Franz and Johann hadn't paused in their struggle to quell the flames. Johann tossed bucketfuls of water on the side of the barn and Franz had made the opening larger and shoveled dirt through the gaping hole.
Anton managed to get to his feet.
"Emily's in there! he croaked. He picked up a bucket.
Franz laid a hand on Anton's shoulder. "It's too late for her."
Anton lunged toward the opening, but Jakob stepped in front of him, blocking his way. "You can't do any good. It's too late."
"But the baby." Anton broke past him, but Franz seized him around the waist. Anton swung at him in a frantic attempt to dislodge him. Jakob grabbed Anton's leg, and together the brothers dragged him back.
Annette sobbed against her fingertips.
Johann gripped his son's jaw and spoke into his face. "Anton. It's too late. Don't risk yourself. Think o' Nikolaus."
Anton's rigid body went limp. He covered his face with his hands. "Maybe from the other side?"
Johann shook his head. "Other side's worse."
Helplessly the family watched flames consume the side of their barn.
"C'mon," Jakob said to his father and brother. "We can still save the grain bins. We'll shovel dirt in from the other side."
Anton slumped on the ground. He choked and coughed up black mucus.
Lydia filled a pail and got a rag and soap and patiently washed his face, arms and hands. His grief was so deep, he didn't speak. She forced him to drink water.
Eventually she left Annette with him and went to check on Nikolaus. Annette had left him in his crib, where he remained, having fallen asleep. Her chest ached at thoughts of Emily's horrible death.
Why had she done such a thing?
She sat on the edge of the bed and prayed for Anton and this child who would grow up without his mother.
The entire time he shoveled dirt, Jakob thought of Lydia following Emily to the barn, of the peril she'd been in. Emily's tragic death made everything come into focus.
All along he'd plotted and planned his life just so. He'd thought he needed all his ducks in a row and had gone about it. Find a wife, bring her home, build a house... But a house was just rocks and wood and glass. A house would mean nothing without... Lydia. Nothing would have meaning without Lydia.
He'd wasted so much time working on the bridge and making his plans fit together. Why had it taken something like this to make his future—and his feelings clear?
It was late afternoon by the time they had every last cinder smothered and had recovered Emily's body. The men took Anton to the creek, where they saw to it he bathed and washed his hair. And then Jakob and Franz made him get into his bed. He closed his eyes immediately.
Jakob found Lydia in their room, playing with Nikolaus on the floor.
"Did you find her?" Lydia couldn't help wondering.
"Yeah. Pa's building a box for her—" He glanced at Nikolaus. "Burial."
He knelt and ran a trembling finger across his wife's lips. "Lydia. I love you so much."
Instantly she turned her head, her ga
ze lifting to his. She could barely see him through her tears. She opened her mouth, but no words came out.
"It's okay. This probably wasn't the right time to say it. Just know that I love you."
Lydia nodded. Her sudden lightheartedness felt inappropriate, considering what had happened to Emily. The horrifying experience was cheerless, but irrepressible elation bubbled in her heart.
Jakob loved her.
He loved her! Tears streaming down her cheeks, Lydia turned into his arms. He loved her.
He had bathed in the creek before coming to their room. Now he heated water and filled a tub for her. She took Nikolaus to Franz and Annette's room, where Annette tucked him into their bed.
Jakob brought soap and water, helped her out of her clothing and insisted she bathe. Washed and dressed, she perched on the bed's edge.
"I came so close to losing you again." Jakob's voice rumbled from deep within his chest. He sat and wrapped his arms around her. She shared the tremor that rippled through his body. "I feel so..."
"What?" Lydia asked.
"Bad that we didn't know how disturbed Emily was. I feel bad that we couldn't save her. "
"None of us knew, Jakob."
"Why did she do this this awful thing? You rushed after her and you could have been trapped in that tack room with her." He raised his gaze to hers, and she could see clear to his soul. "You might've died."
She couldn't bear his anguish. "Jakob. I don't understand why she did this or what she was thinking. I don't think we'll ever know for sure."
"I'm sick for Anton." Agonized blue eyes stared into hers.
"I know. And for Nikolaus."
He took her hand. "If you're ever unhappy about anything, you have to tell me. I've taken you away from your family and—"
"Anything I left behind has been replaced a thousand times over by what really matters," she interrupted. "I'm nothing like Emily."
"I know." He managed a smile. "But surely you're sad about things, like your birthright gifts."
"Jakob, you love me." She still marveled at the fact, and she knew she would forever. "I belong here—with you. I don't have an empty place inside anymore." Lydia laid her palm along his jaw. "That's all that matters. My Mitgift was only material things... things that can be replaced. I know now that my real birthright isn't my father's blessing or the wedding quilt and dishes. I had it in here all along." She placed her hand over her heart. "The capacity to love and be loved." Tears filled her eyes. "My grandmother tried to tell me."
Cheryl St.John - [Neubauer Brothers 01] Page 29