Marrying Jake

by Beverly Bird

  Jacob was nowhere to be seen.

  Panic seized her. She cried aloud and rushed outside, then she hovered there, uncertain what to do next. The horse appeared to be fine. He wasn’t able to get into the barn because the wagon still attached behind him was too wide. But he was complacent, unperturbed, nibbling bark off a tree.

  Where was Jacob?

  She whirled back into the house. She went inside just long enough to grab her coat and shawl off a hook inside the rear door. Then she raced to the wagon and clambered up onto the seat, gathering the reins..

  “Come, Goliath. Where did you leave him?” She closed her eyes briefly. What a dumb question. Stupid mouse. A horse was not even as bright as a dog. Goliath would never be able to lead her to Jake.

  The Lapps, then. She would find Sugar Joe. He was their closest neighbor, and he would know what to do.

  She set the wagon to rolling, biting her lip. She cracked the reins a little, urging the horse faster. “Please,” she said on a whisper, not sure whom she was pleading with.

  She careened into the Lapps’ driveway a few moments later. She jumped down and looked about. She did not see either Sugar Joe or Nathaniel, their oldest son, who still lived and worked at home. She turned for the house and ran that way.

  No one answered her knock.

  She could feel her heart start booming against her chest. She wondered if Jake was lying unconscious in the snow somewhere. And if he was, she thought of things like pneumonia, bronchitis, all the nasty infirmities that would befall him from lying wet and injured in the bitter cold.

  She should never have let him drive off in that buggy. She groaned aloud and banged her fist on the door again. Why had she? She had guessed that he couldn’t drive the conveyance. Something about the way he had gathered the reins...

  Shame blasted through her, hot and almost unbearable. She had let him drive off because she was afraid to mention right out that no matter what he said, he didn’t appear to be able to. Because although she was far from worldly, she had learned one painful truth over the years; the male ego was a frightening thing. It was delicate, vulnerable, unpredictable. She had not insisted that Jake couldn’t drive the buggy because she had been terrified of his temper. She had been purely afraid that he would lash out at her if she embarrassed him.

  Silly, stupid mouse. She chided herself, near tears, and waited for Sarah Lapp to answer the door. If something had happened to him, she would never forgive herself for her cowardice.

  “Sarah, please!” she all but shouted, then, beside herself, needing to do something right if only this once, she barged in without waiting any longer.

  The entry was silent. Sounds of weeping came from the kitchen. Katya raced into it and found Sarah at the table. She was more alarmed than ever now.

  “Sarah!” she cried. “What is it?”

  The woman came to her feet so quickly the chair toppled behind her. She looked embarrassed and horrified. “Katya! What are you doing here?”

  “I knocked. I...” She didn’t finish. She understood a woman’s tears better than she understood anything else in life. She moved instinctively to the other woman, holding her arms out. “What is it?” she asked again, enfolding her.

  “Nothing.”

  “Is it Bo still?” Sarah and Sugar Joe had raised and loved little Bo for four years before Adam had found him. Katya knew the loss of the boy to his true father—no matter how right that was—still had to leave a painful hole in the fabric of Sarah’s life. The whole situation was made even sadder by the fact that Sarah couldn’t have any more children of her own. An anner Satt Leit doctor had told her that if she tried, she would probably die.

  But Sarah shook her head. “It’s not Bo.” She pulled away, shoving a hanky into the pocket of her apron. “I didn’t hear you knock.” Her voice had become stronger. “I should be asking you. What’s wrong?”

  Katya had been momentarily distracted—distracted, while Jake was out there, perhaps really dying this time. “It’s Adam’s brother!” she gasped. “He took the buggy out to see the parents of the missing children, but Goliath came back without him.”

  Sarah’s own panic lasted no longer than a commendable heartbeat. “I’ll get Joe and Nathaniel,” she decided. “And Adam is straight across the woods at the Stoltzfus place today. That’s where they’re building the last new school to replace the ones we lost when we left the new gemeide. Why don’t you go find him?”

  “Yes, yes...I’ll do that.” She knew where Adam was today. Why hadn’t she thought of that?

  Because she fell apart in times of trouble.

  Katya raced out the back door. She gathered her shawl more tightly about her shoulders and ran for the creek, then for the long tree line behind it. It truly wasn’t so far. The spreads beyond the woods were invisible because Shaker Hill rose right on the other side. The treetops were deceiving, giving the impression that the woods rose straight up without a break, but there were actually two more spreads tucked in there.

  She made it through the woods and onto the fringes of the Stoltzfus place. As soon as she waved for Adam, she saw Jacob. He was coming up from the road. Walking. Not lying unconscious somewhere. But he was limping. She cried out and ran for him.

  Jake saw Katya approaching and it took everything he had not to turn around and disappear the other way. Her skirt whipped around her legs, outlining them clearly. Her hair was coming undone again. This time the bonnet was in place, but shimmering white blond strands slid down her back and forward over her shoulders, bouncing as she moved. Behind her neck, what little remained of her tidy bun slid lower and looser with each step.

  He jerked his eyes away from her. “I’m fine,” he snapped as soon as she got close enough to hear him and before she could even ask. “This was the last place I had to go today, so I just decided to walk.” Even he realized how inane that sounded. God, how he hated that horse.

  Katya’s steps faltered as she reached him. “You’re not fine,” she said. “Jacob, you’re bleeding.”

  “The hell I am.” Blood dripped from the gash on his forehead squarely onto his nose. He scrubbed it away with the heel of his hand, angry. And embarrassed. He looked up and saw people streaming toward them through the trees. “What did you do?” he demanded. “Call the whole damned county out for this?”

  “No, I...” she began, then stopped. Her chin came up in a show of courage. “Yes,” she breathed. “Yes, that’s exactly what I did. I got help.” Then she braced herself as though, despite everything he had said, she was sure he would hit her or yell.

  Well, he thought, she had good reason to expect the yelling part.

  “Damn it,” he groaned, then before she could react, he hooked one shaky arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer. He smelled the flowers, the springtime. It was just that she was so urgent, so damned sweet. “I’m all right,” he said, and he thought his voice sounded odd. “You didn’t need to worry.”

  “But the horse came back—”

  “Too bad. I was hoping he’d play in traffic.”

  Her eyes widened. “What happened?”

  “He started bucking like a fool and took off.” At which point, Jake had somersaulted right into the back of the wagon and out again onto the road. He was really taking his lumps on this trip and was only grateful there hadn’t been anyone around to see the spectacle.

  “What did you do to him?” Adam demanded from behind him.

  Jake turned to glare at his brother. “Maybe you ought to go ask that cantankerous beast what he did to me!”

  “Cantankerous?” Sugar Joe Lapp asked, catching up with them from the other side of the property. “Goliath? He used to be Abe Miller’s horse, the one he loaned out with buggies to novices. That gelding doesn’t have a cantankerous bone in his body.”

  “He does now,” Jake snapped.

  He had met Sugar Joe Lapp on his last trip. He liked the man. Now, as usual, there was a lingering humor in Joe’s eyes. He was as tall as Jake was
, as big as Adam, and his face was tanned and rugged, even in the winter.

  Suddenly, Jake heard himself laugh—actually laugh. Adam cracked a smile.

  “Where is he?” Adam asked again. “He’s the only horse I’ve got.”

  “Beats the hell out of me,” Jake muttered.

  “He’s in Joe’s barnyard,” Katya offered. “I drove him here. The wagon is fine, also.”

  Jake glared at her. “Thanks a lot.”

  Her jaw dropped. “For what?”

  “You might have lied and said it was battered all to hell. You could at least make this whole thing look good, earn me some pity.”

  “But that’s simply not true!” she protested.

  She was absolutely guileless, he realized as she blinked at him in clear consternation.

  “Come on inside,” the other man said, the one Jake didn’t know. He had arrived with Adam. “Katya can neaten up that mess on your forehead.”

  “I’m fine,” he grumbled.

  “No,” the man said, “you’re not. You’re bleeding.”

  Jake thought about it. “You’re Simon Stoltzfus?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You were next on my list anyway. To talk to.”

  “About what?”

  “Your daughter, Lizzie.”

  The pain that flashed across the man’s face was so real, so deep, Katya felt it herself. She tugged on Simon’s arm to get his attention. “Jacob is here to help. And I just know he’ll find them, all the children. He’s very smart. You just need to talk to him.”

  And just like that, Jake was angry at the same thing that had touched him a moment before. At her innocence. Her urgency.

  She was tying him in knots. He wanted to grab her and shake her. He wanted to tell her that she had no way of knowing that he could find those kids. Damn it, he wasn’t a god. He was just a man, and not an altogether good one at that.

  She looked at him with an appreciative smile that grew even as he watched, and he felt the air leave him. Damn it, don’t look at me like that. But he heard himself say, “I’ll try. It’s all I can do, but I’ll try.”

  Simon studied his face a moment. “I’d be obliged. But let Katya fix you up first. Don’t reckon you’ll be much good to anybody ’til then.”

  Jake looked down and realized that the whole front of Adam’s borrowed shirt was marked with ample red droplets. He just managed to refrain from swearing again.

  They all trooped into Simon’s farmhouse. Into another kitchen nearly identical to Adam’s. The unrelenting sameness of this place would make him crazy, Jake thought, if he were already crazy enough to stay here longer than a week. There were the same hardwood floors, he noted, the same white walls. The same miles of counters, the hum of a hydraulic motor just outside, a flame flickering in the lamp hung over the table. There were green things growing, and he felt something inside himself die a little.

  This was the way other people lived.

  He sat at the table. Katya busied herself at the counter, then she descended upon him. He couldn’t quite see what she had in her hand, but it smelled like a submarine sandwich. He reared back. “What are you doing?”

  She stopped just short of him. “Stopping the bleeding,” she explained nervously.

  “With what? What is that?”

  She looked at the towel in her hand. “Minced onion. A poultice.”

  “Onion,” he repeated.

  “It will clean the wound out nicely, and it helps the blood clot.”

  “It’s going to sting.”

  She blinked. “Well, yes.”

  “Take it away.”

  She started to step back, then she stopped and frowned, unsure if he was serious or not. “But—”

  “Let me drip, Katya. I promise to wipe up anything I get on the floor.”

  “I can’t do that!”

  “Why not?”

  “You’re bleeding!”

  “We’ve established that. It’s my blood. I can put it anywhere I like. I’m not going to let you sting me.”

  He was serious, she realized. “Why, you’re nothing but a big baby!”

  His eyes narrowed. “Watch yourself there, woman.”

  “You’re going to bleed rather than succumb to a little bitty sting?”

  “How little bitty is it?”

  “Very. And I’ll do it quickly.”

  Jake shook his head. “No. You won’t do it at all.”

  He was more than a little aware of her faint blush. In fact, he was playing with her, enjoying her. He had a pretty high pain threshold, though he never went out of his way to inflict any upon himself. He tried to remind himself again that there were easily a million reasons he had to leave this woman alone. She thought he was a good man. She thought he was worthwhile. She thought he was wonderful.

  She couldn’t be more wrong.

  “Give me that,” he snapped suddenly, snatching the poultice out of her hand. As he had known she would, she jumped. He took no gratification from it, though he’d been hoping he would. He looked at Simon Stoltzfus and deliberately, with great effort, shut her out. “Go ahead and tell me what happened to your daughter while I sit here reeking,” he went on, slapping the onion-y towel to his head. “Please,” he added, biting the word out carefully.

  The man stared at him uncertainly. “You need a pen or something to write all this down?”

  “No, he’ll remember it,” Adam muttered.

  Katya smiled whimsically, almost proudly. Jake caught the expression out of the corner of his eye and swallowed another growl. “Here’s the thing,” he said, pulling his attention off her again. Then he couldn’t for the life of him remember what he had been about to say next. She’d returned to the counter, but now she was coming at him again with a handful of something white and powdery. His eyes narrowed. “Now what?”

  “Alum.”

  He relented because he knew it would help the situation. God knew he didn’t want the fuss of stitches or an unsightly scar on his forehead.

  He turned his attention back to Simon and let her work on him. “Something changed during the days immediately preceding your daughter’s disappearance,” he declared. “Something had to have happened. Someone was here in this settlement, someone who wasn’t supposed to be here, either with the intention of taking Lizzie, or looking for the first available baby to take. Can you think of anything?”

  His eyes cut to Katya again, then away. He was having a damned hard time concentrating. Her fingers brushed his cut, touched as gently as a whisper. Then—God help him—she blew softly on the wound.

  Her breasts were inches from his nose. He thought of clasping his hands around her waist, of putting her bodily away from him, but that would involve touching her. So he simply sat. And he felt her instead.

  She combed his hair back from his forehead with her fingers, keeping it clear of the cut. And when she did, she leaned into his shoulder. Soft. She was soft. As tiny as she was—and she was definitely too thin—her body gave, yielding to the solidity of his shoulder. He felt his own body reacting. Impossible. He had never before in his life gotten...well, turned on by a woman just leaning into his shoulder.

  He shifted uncomfortably in the hard chair. Katya was looking into his face now as though whatever came to his lips next was going to be a nugget of wisdom far beyond comparison to all nuggets that had ever come and gone before. He cleared his throat.

  “Uh, Lizzie is our best bet for getting to the bottom of this because her mother was right there with her when it happened, right? In Lizzie’s case, we know exactly when and where this abduction occurred. The others were...uh, in crowds.” He dragged his gaze to Simon again. “I’ll need to talk to your wife. I’ll need her to show me exactly where this happened. I want to cover that ground tomorrow. Damn it,” he snapped suddenly at Katya. “Will you stop touching me?”

  Katya jumped back, clear of him.

  “She’s quilting with her sisters today,” Simon answered. “But she should
be home shortly to make supper.”

  Jake looked at his watch and decided he was too hungry, too tired—and too sore—to wait. “Could you ask her to hang around here in the morning? I’ll come over around eight o’clock and she can show me to the site.”

  “How?” Katya asked. She sat primly in the chair beside him now, clasping her hands in her lap.

  Jake scowled. “What do you mean, how?”

  “How will you get here?”

  “In the buggy, I guess. Or I’ll walk.”

  He watched her actually seem to brace herself. She drew herself up. Squared her shoulders. No good that, he thought, because it made her breasts thrust toward him a little, and he was angry not only that he noticed but also that he knew he would have been worried about himself if he hadn’t.

  It was her fault that he had had this mishap today, Katya thought. She’d known earlier as well as she knew right now that Jake was not able to drive that buggy. She had let him go off on his own because she was afraid of confronting him over it. As she was afraid now. He would certainly be angry with her for embarrassing him in front of all these people, but she wouldn’t be able to live with herself if he tried again and was hurt even worse.

  She stood and leaned into him again. “I’ll take you,” she whispered in the direction of his ear.

  He scowled up at her, tilting his head back. “What?”

  “I said I’ll take you,” she whispered again fiercely. “I’ll drive.”

  Distance. He couldn’t be amused by this. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to start spending his days with her.

  “No,” he said shortly.

  “But—”

  “I said no!”

  She jumped back. He saw immediately that her blush had become one of anger. It was fascinating. He stared.

  Just yell back. He’d told her that. Katya gathered herself for it and thrust her chin out. “You’re as stubborn as a mule!” she cried.

  “And it’s gotten me this far through life in one piece,” he remarked.

  “Because God protects drunkards and children and idiots!”

  He continued to stare at her. “Are you calling me an idiot?”