Chasing Fireflies: Book Five (Jacob's Daughter, an Amish, Christian Romance)

by Samantha Jillian Bayarr

  “How dare you take advantage of mei aenti after proposing to Rose! What kind of mann are you?”

  Noah held Jessup against the wall with his forearm pressed against his chest. Bess tried to get between them. “Let him go, Noah.”

  Jessup fought to catch his breath. “I didn’t ask Rose to marry me. I asked Bess to marry me.”

  Noah released him. His heart was beating so fast, he had to take a deep breath to calm himself.

  Caleb stepped forward. “What are you talking about? We saw you yesterday at the diner in town with Rose. The two of you seemed pretty cozy. She told Katie you proposed to her and then took it back.”

  Bess cupped her arm in Jessup’s and held a warning hand out to her nephews, letting them know to back off. “I was with them at the diner yesterday. I must have been in the bathroom when you walked by. I’m not sure why Rose would say that Jessup proposed to her, because he proposed to me.”

  Caleb reached out a hand to Jessup. “I guess congratulations would be in order here. Sorry for the misunderstanding, but what about…” he lowered his voice to a whisper. “The age difference between the two of you.”

  Bess pursed her lips, and eyed Noah who’d stood by without uttering a word.

  Jessup cleared his throat. “I know that Katie thought I was in my mid-thirties, but I’m really in my mid-forties. I led her to believe I was younger than I am because I was embarrassed about the age difference between the two of us. But now I don’t have to hide my age anymore. Bess is only a few years older than I am, but I find that comforting. We are happy, and I hope in time you will be able to accept our union. We are to be married at the end of the week when I return with my kinner. We will be living at the B&B.”

  Caleb’s heart softened at the look of love in his aenti’s eyes. It was obvious she was happy, and he had no right to judge her for wanting what everyone wanted. It was her choice and he would respect it. “I hope you will extend us an invitation to the wedding.”

  “I was going to tell everyone at dinner on Friday at your daed’s haus.” She aimed her statement at Noah.

  Noah relaxed at the thought of his daed inviting him to a familye dinner. That meant he was finally ready to mend the rift between them.

  Caleb pulled off his hat and scratched his head as though deep in thought. “There’s one thing I don’t understand. If Jessup didn’t propose to Rose, who did?”

  Noah swallowed the lump of nerves constricting his throat and looked into his cousin’s waiting eyes. “I did.”

  Chapter 29

  “What?” everyone, including Jessup, asked in unison.

  Caleb raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean? You did? You’re the one that proposed to Rose and broke her heart? Why would you do such a thing? You don’t even know her.”

  A honk sounded from outside. Jessup picked up his suitcase. “As much as I’d like to stay and hear all about this, I must go. I’ve got a lot of packing to do in the next two days before I return. Gut daag, I’ll see the two of you later.”

  Caleb and Noah ignored Jessup as Bess walked him out to the waiting taxi-cab.

  The two of them sat down on the landing of the wide stairwell, Noah on the upper riser.

  “I do know Rose, and I love her. I don’t know why she would think I took back my proposal. She’s the one that walked away from me without giving me an answer. For the past two days I thought she didn’t want anything to do with me. And after the fun we’ve had in each other’s company, I’ve felt awful about not seeing her. Then when I saw her with Jessup yesterday at the diner, I thought it was over between us for certain.”

  Caleb shook his head, still trying to process this new turn of events. “How did the two of you meet? Have you been seeing her all summer?”

  “We met at the pond one night. She fell in and I pulled her out of the water. She thinks I saved her life, but it was my life that was saved that night. If not for her, I’d still be wallowing in the self-destructive pity that took me from the community. I owe her my life.”

  “So you asked her to marry you?”

  “I asked her to marry me because I fell in love with her. We have fun together, and we can talk about anything. She understands me and accepts me with unconditional love.”

  “Noah, she thinks you took back your proposal.”

  Noah sighed. “I apologized for blurting it out. I think I told her I proposed to her because I was caught up in the moment of our kiss—that it spurred the proposal. She must think I didn’t really mean it. I have to talk to her and get her to understand that I didn’t take it back.”

  Noah jumped up and walked over to the check-in desk in the front parlor of the B&B and grabbed a notepad. He scribbled a quick note on the page, folded it and handed it to Caleb. “Will you make sure Rose gets this? I’m going to stay here and wait for Aenti Bess to come back in and talk to her. I think I have a way to make things right with Rose.”

  Caleb slapped his cousin on the back. “I’ll do whatever I can to help. I will be praying for you. Don’t mess it up this time. Rose is a gut match for you.”

  “Danki. That means a lot that you support me on this.”

  Caleb and Noah walked back to the kitchen. Caleb left, and Noah poured himself a fresh cup of kaffi. It was going to be a long day.

  ****

  Caleb knocked on the back door and waited for Katie to answer. Instead, she hollered that it was open. As he entered the kitchen, Rose and Katie sat at the table eating breakfast.

  “Won’t you join us?” Katie asked him.

  “Nee. Noah asked me to give this to you.”

  He handed the note to Rose. She opened it and read the contents, a smile forming on her lips.

  Katie looked between Rose and Caleb. “Why is Noah sending notes to my schweschder?”

  Rose jumped up from the table happily and bolted from the room. Katie cringed at the stomping she’d made as she ran up the stairs.

  Katie turned to Caleb. “Are you going to tell me what is going on? What happened with Bess? And why is your cousin, Noah, sending notes to Rose? He doesn’t even know her.”

  Caleb found it difficult to hide his smile.

  “Jessup didn’t propose to Rose. Noah did.”

  Chapter 30

  Katie spit her kaffi across the table. Choking and coughing, she tried to speak.

  Caleb patted her on the back. “Are you alright?”

  Katie nodded her head. “Why did Noah propose to her? What about Jessup? Why didn’t she deny it when I asked her about Jessup?”

  Caleb took the cup from Katie’s hand and set it aside. “There’s more. Are you ready for it?”

  Katie nodded. How much more news could there be?

  “Jessup asked Aenti Bess to marry him.”

  Katie pushed back her chair, scraping it against the wood floor. “We have to go to the Bishop. We can’t let him take advantage of that poor woman. Doesn’t Jessup King know how to prey on anyone his own age?”

  Caleb suppressed a smile. “Turns out, he’s only three years younger than my aenti. He led you to believe he was in his mid-thirties, but he’s about eleven years older than he told you he was.”

  Katie couldn’t breathe. If what Caleb said was true, she’d nearly been tricked into marrying a mann twenty-one years her senior. Leaning over the sink, she turned on the faucet and splashed cold water over her face several times. Was it possible to wash off disgust?

  She looked back at Caleb, her face dripping.

  “Do you have anything else to tell me as long as I’m hanging my head over the sink? I think I’ll stay here just in case I lose my breakfast.”

  Caleb stepped up to the sink and placed a comforting arm around his betrothed. He understood how she was feeling. He remembered how sick he felt when he found out she was promised to Jessup. But that seemed like a million years ago now. “I have no more shocking news to tell you. That was it.”

  Relieved, Katie wiped her face on the linen tea-towel hanging from the handle on the s
tove.

  “Tell me about Rose and Noah.”

  Caleb pulled Katie into his arms and kissed her lightly on top of her head. “I will later. Right now, I just want to hold you.”

  Chapter 31

  Rose lay across her bed staring at the words on the note from Noah. He’d requested a meeting with her on the dock at the B&B at nine o’clock. Several thoughts ran through her head; everything from Noah declaring his love for her all over again and asking her to marry him, to the possibility that he wanted to see her so he could break things off with her. At first, she’d thought the letter to be a positive one, but now she couldn’t be sure. The only hint she had was his signature: Love, Noah.

  Had it meant that he loved her, or was it simply a polite salutation? Either way, she would find out at the end of the day. Since today was her day off at the B&B, Rose decided to spend the time finishing her dress for Katie’s wedding. She’d promised her schweschder she would have it done by the end of the week, and there would not be another day when she would have the entire day to fill. If she didn’t keep herself busy today, it would drive her mad thinking about her meeting later with Noah. Whatever his intentions were, she would not let him go without telling him how much she loved him. She would risk everything on the chance that he truly loved her in return.

  ****

  Noah lit the candles in the Mason jars he’d used to line the dock at the B&B. Bess had loaned them to him, stating it would create a romantic walkway for Rose to meet him at the end of the dock. Stars twinkled in the black, cloudless sky, and the thumbnail moon angled itself amidst of the canopy of stars. Noah couldn’t have asked Gott to provide a more perfect setting for this special night with Rose.

  ****

  Rose pulled her neatly-pressed, pink dress over her head. It was the prettiest color she owned. She didn’t twist her hair up in the back, and she left her kapp on its hook. She looked into the oval mirror that hung from the back of her bureau admiring her long hair. She hoped Noah would approve of such boldness since he didn’t seem to mind the previous times they’d spent together. For her, it was a way to relay the message that she was giving herself to him.

  After learning of Jessup’s proposal of marriage to Bess, Rose felt more confident than ever that love was in her own future as well. She was happy for her friend, and knowing that if even Bess could find love at such a late stage in life, surely Rose had an even better chance for the same in her own young life.

  Rose tip-toed down the stairs in her bare feet. She didn’t want Katie to stop her and reprimand her for not wearing her kapp. She knew her schweschder was getting ready to take a buggy ride with Caleb, but she couldn’t wait for them to leave or she would be late for her special meeting with the mann she loved.

  Breathing a sigh of relief at having made it out of the haus without being seen by Katie, Rose walked swiftly through the cool grass toward the B&B. The closer she came to the dock, she noticed the lighted jars along the edge of the dock. Her heart leapt with joy, for she knew that he loved her. He wouldn’t have gone to the trouble to create something so romantic if he didn’t want the night to be more special than the previous nights they’d spent at the dock.

  Then she saw him standing at the end of the dock. His smile told her he’d been waiting for her. She walked between the candles that flickered in the Mason jars, keeping her focus on Noah, who stood patiently waiting for her. Neither of them spoke for fear of breaking the romantic spell between them.

  Rose stood before him suddenly feeling shy and unsure of herself. Was she really bold enough to get what she wanted? She had to be. Even though she was scared of rejection, she couldn’t let anything stand between them any longer or it would destroy her.

  Closing the space between them, Rose coiled her fingers in his royal blue shirt and used it pull him low enough until his lips met hers. She deepened the kiss when she wrapped her arms around his neck. Noah held her close, lifting her slightly until she stood on her tip-toes.

  “I love you, Rose,” Noah said between kisses. “I want to marry you.”

  Happy tears formed in Rose’s eyes. “I want to be your fraa.”

  Noah let out a heavy sigh of relief. “I’m so glad. I’ve been here for more than an hour going over what I would say to convince you in case you said no.”

  “How could I say no to you? I love you.”

  Rose looked down at their feet where a jar of fireflies was glowing brightly. She reached down to pick it up and examine the contents.

  “How did you manage to get so many?”

  Noah chuckled. “Like I said, I’ve been here for over an hour.”

  “One is trying to escape. It looks like you twisted the lid on crooked. The cheesecloth is loose at the top.”

  Rose strained to untwist the lid, which seemed to be stuck, when her elbow knocked into Noah’s chest with enough force to make him lose his balance. He teetered backward and then fell into the pond with a big splash.

  Rose held her breath until he surfaced.

  She reached a hand out to him, but he boosted himself up from the end of the dock.

  “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to push you in.”

  Noah laughed heartily. “Maybe I should throw you in and then we’d be even.”

  Rose squealed.

  “You’re lucky I’m a gentleman, or I would.”

  Not caring that he was dripping wet with pond water, Rose pulled Noah into another deep kiss, and his response to her was just what she’d hoped for. Magically, fireflies swarmed around them, but Rose noticed they’d come out from the jar she still held in her hand.

  “Oh no. They got away. I didn’t mean to let them go. You worked so hard to catch them.”

  Noah leaned in and kissed her ear and whispered to her. “It’s alright, we can catch more. Don’t you know, Rose, there is no place I’d rather be than here with you, chasing fireflies.”

  The End

  Don’t miss the sneak peek chapters of

  A Sheriff’s Legacy: Book One

  (Christian, Historical Romance)

  Please turn the page to read the two sample chapters.

  A Sheriff’s Legacy: Book One

  WRITTEN BY

  SAMANTHA JILLIAN BAYARR

  *************************

  CHAPTER ONE

  *************************

  May, 1885

  Tombstone, Arizona

  Wells Fargo stage robbed. Stop. Outlaws unaccounted for. Stop. Clayton Fisher gunned down. Stop. Critical condition. Stop.

  Marshall Tucker.

  Logan Fisher held the telegraph in his trembling fist as he exited the train onto the platform near Tombstone, Arizona. Although he’d said a quick prayer for his estranged father’s recovery, he was still reluctant to go to the dying man’s bedside. To be honest, he couldn’t even be certain which side of the law his Pa had fallen on, and he was more interested in hunting down the outlaws than seeing his Pa again. He hadn’t seen the man for over fifteen years after he’d been dropped at the doorstep of his Aunt Mirabelle and Uncle William just after his Ma had died from a rattlesnake bite.

  Pa had blamed him.

  He’d even blamed himself.

  The only one that hadn’t blamed him was Ma.

  She’d been bitten out on the prairie where she went searching for him that stormy afternoon in June. Pa had warned him time and again to stay away from the small cave etched into the rocky cliffs that bordered their spread of land, but he’d only ducked inside when the storm began to stir up into a thick veil of dust that shielded the distance between him and the ranch.

  When he heard Ma’s cry straining against the dust storm, his emotions flared. He was twelve years old, and didn’t want to be followed like a small child. But Ma knew him too well. She knew exactly where to find him, and now she was in distress from the storm. When he reached the mouth of the cave, he spotted her petite frame lying on the ground some distance from him.

  Pulling up his kerchief from around h
is neck to cover his mouth and nose, he stretched his spindly legs toward her. As he came upon her, that’s when he saw the snake. It reared its head only for a moment before slithering away.

  Logan knelt at his Ma’s side looking for the bite. Blood stained the dust-covered bloomers that modestly disguised her calves.

  Then he saw the bite marks.

  Both of them.

  Logan reached for the pocket knife that Pa had given him for his twelfth birthday and scored both bites. After sucking the venom from the wounds and spitting it on the ground, he lifted his canteen to his mouth to rinse the venom from his lips, and then offered a drink to his weak mother.

  She looked up at him; her hazel eyes had gone dark.

  “I love you, son.”

  He grabbed her limp hand in his. “I’m so sorry Ma. I’ll never disobey you again. I promise. Please don’t die!”

  Her eyes fluttered. “It’s not your fault, Logan. You’re a good boy. Just promise me you’ll take care of your Pa.”

  “I will, Ma. But you promise me you won’t die.”

  “I promise.”

  Her eyes closed and her breathing was shallow. She didn’t even cough against the dust swirling around her cheeks. Logan pulled his kerchief from around his neck and covered his Ma’s face against the dust whirling around.

  Knowing the doc’s cabin was on the other side of the rocky ridge; he judged the distance to be shorter than that of his own cabin. He hoisted his Ma’s thin frame into a sitting position and cupped his arms under her armpits and began to drag her backward in the loose clay toward the doc’s cabin. Each laboring step filled his lungs with more dust, but he didn’t stop to cough; he knew his Ma was failing fast.