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The house was in poor shape. Though the yard was neat and flowers had been planted by the front door, paint was chipped on the clapboards and the roof resembled a swaybacked horse. He frowned when he noticed several bricks had fallen off the chimney and tumbled partway down the shingles. Even from where he sat, he could see broken and missing shingles.
What had happened? This damage couldn’t have happened in the five months since Lloyd’s death. It must have taken years of neglect to bring the house to such a miserable state.
He stroked his beard thoughtfully as he looked at the barn and the outbuildings. They were in a little bit better shape, but not much. One silo was leaning at a precarious angle away from the barn, and a strong wind could topple it. A tree had fallen on a section of the fence. Its branches were bare and the trunk was silvery-gray, which told him it had been lying in the sunshine for several seasons.
Why had Lloyd let his house and buildings deteriorate like this?
Joshua reminded himself he wasn’t going to learn any answers sitting in his buggy. After getting out, he lashed the reins around a nearby tree and left his buggy horse Benny to graze on the longer grass at the edge of the driveway. He walked up the sloping yard to the back door. As he looked beyond the barn, he saw two cows in the pasture. Not enough to keep the farm going unless Rebekah was making money in other ways, like selling eggs or vegetables at one of the farmers’ markets near the tourist areas.
He knocked on the back door and waited for an answer. The door didn’t have a window like his kitchen door, but he could hear soft footsteps coming toward him.
Rebekah opened the door and stared at him, clearly astonished at his unannounced visit in the middle of a workday morning.
He couldn’t help staring back. Yesterday her face had been half hidden beneath her bonnet, and he’d somehow pushed out of his mind how beautiful she was. Her deep auburn hair was hidden beneath a scarf she’d tied at her nape. A splotch of soap suds clung to her right cheek and sparkled as brightly as her blue eyes. Her freckles looked as if someone had blown cinnamon across her nose and high cheekbones. There was something ethereal about her when she looked up at him, her eyes wide and her lips parted in surprise. Her hand was protectively on her belly. Damp spots littered the apron she wore over her black dress. He wasn’t surprised her feet were bare. Mamm and his sisters preferred to go without shoes when cleaning floors.
Then he noticed the gray arcs beneath her eyes and how drawn her face was. Exhaustion. It was the first description that came to mind.
She put her hand to the scarf. “I didn’t expect company.”
“I know, but it’s long past time I paid you and the boy a visit.”
For a moment he thought she’d argue, then she edged back and opened the door wider. “Joshua, komm in. How is Isaiah?”
“He was still asleep when I went over there this morning.” Guilt twinged in him. He’d been so focused on his own problems that he hadn’t been praying for his brother’s grieving heart. God, forgive me for being selfish. I need to be there to hold my brother up at this sad time. I know, too well, the emptiness he is feeling today.
“How’s your mamm? I have been praying for her to heal quickly.”
He stepped into a kitchen that was as neat as the outside of the house was a mess. The tempting scents of freshly made bread and whatever chicken she was cooking on top of the stove for the midday meal teased him to ask her for a sample. When Lloyd and she had come over to his house, she’d always brought cookies or cake, which rivaled the very best he’d ever tasted.
You wouldn’t have to eat your own cooking or Deborah’s burned meals any longer if Rebekah agrees to marry you, so ask her.
He wished that voice in his head would be quiet. This was tough enough without being nagged by his own thoughts.
Taking off his straw hat and holding it by the brim, Joshua slowly turned it around and around. “Danki for asking. Mamm is doing as well as can be expected. You know she’s not one for sitting around. She’s already figuring out what she can do with one hand.”
“I’m not surprised.” She gave him a kind smile. “Will you sit down? I’ve got coffee and hot water for tea. Would you like a cup?”
“Danki, Rebekah. Tea sounds gut,” he said as he set his hat on a peg by the door. He pulled out one of the chairs by the well-polished oak table.
“Coming up.” She crossed the room to the large propane stove next to the refrigerator that operated on the same fuel.
“Mamm?” came her son’s voice from the front room. It was followed by the little boy rushing into the kitchen. He skidded to a halt and gawped at Joshua before running to grab Rebekah’s skirt.
She put a loving hand on Sammy’s dark curls. “You remember Joshua, right?”
He heard a peculiar tension underlying her question and couldn’t keep from recalling how Sammy had been skittish around him at the cemetery. Some kinder were shy with adults. He’d need to be patient while he gave the boy a chance to get to know him better.
Joshua smiled at the toddler. It seemed as if only yesterday his sons, Timothy and Levi, were no bigger than little Samuel. How sweet those days had been when his sons had shadowed him and listened to what he could share with them! As soon as Deborah was able to toddle, she’d joined them. They’d had fun together while he’d let them help with small chores around the buggy shop and on the two acres where he kept a cow and some chickens.
But that had ended when Timothy had changed from a gut and devoted son to someone Joshua didn’t know. He argued about everything when he was talking, which wasn’t often because he had days when he was sullen and did little more than grunt in response to anything Joshua or his siblings said.
“Go?” asked Samuel.
Joshua wasn’t sure if the boy wanted to leave or wanted Joshua to leave, but Rebekah shook her head and took a cup out of a cupboard. The hinges screamed like a bobcat, and he saw her face flush.
“It needs some oil,” he said quietly.
“I keep planning on doing that, but I get busy with other things, and it doesn’t get done.” She reached for the kettle and looked over her shoulder at him. “You know how it is.”
“I know you must be overwhelmed here, but I’m concerned more about the shape of your roof than a squeaky hinge. If Lloyd hadn’t been able to maintain the farm on his own, he should have asked for help. We would have come right away.”
“I know, but...”
When her eyes shifted, he let his sigh slip silently past his lips. She didn’t want to talk about Lloyd, and he shouldn’t push the issue. They couldn’t change the past. He was well aware of how painful even thinking of his past with Matilda could be.
He thanked her when she set a cup of steeping tea in front of him. She went to the refrigerator, with her son holding her skirt, and came back with a small pitcher of cream. He hadn’t expected her to remember he liked it in his tea.
“Danki, Rebekah.” He gave her the best smile he could. “Now I’m the one saying it over and over.”
“You don’t need to say it for this.” She set a piece of fresh apple pie in front of him. “I appreciate you having some of the pie. Otherwise I will eat most of it myself.” She put her hand on her stomach, which strained the front of her dress. “It looks as if I’ve had enough.”
“You are eating for two.”
“As much as I’ve been eating, you’d think I was eating for a whole litter.” She made a face as she pressed her hand to her side. “The way this boppli kicks, it feels like I’m carrying around a large crowd that is playing an enthusiastic game of volleyball.”
He laughed and was rewarded with a brilliant smile from her. When was the last time he’d seen her genuine smile? He was sad to realize it’d been so long he didn’t know.
After bringing a small cup of milk to the table, she sat as he took one bite, then another of her delicious pie. Her son climbed onto her lap, and she offered him a drink. He drank but squirmed. Excusing herself, she stood and went into the other room with Samuel on her hip. She came back and sat. She put crayons and paper in front of her son, who began scribbling intently.
“This way he’s occupied while we talk,” she said.
“Gut.” If he’d had any doubts about her love of kinder, they were gone now. She was a gentle and caring mamm.
“It’s nice of you to come to visit, Joshua, but I know you, and you always have a reason for anything you do. Why are you here today?”
He should be thanking God for Rebekah giving him such a perfect opening to say for what he’d come to say. Yet words refused to form on his lips. Once he asked her to be his wife, there would be no turning back. He risked ruining their friendship, no matter how she replied. He hated the idea of jeopardizing that.
Samuel pushed a piece of paper toward him with a tentative smile.
“He wants you to have the picture he drew,” Rebekah said.
Jacob looked at the crayon lines zigzagging across the page in every direction. “It’s very colorful.”
The little boy whispered in Rebekah’s ear.
She nodded, then said, “He tells me it’s a picture of your horse and buggy.”
“I see,” he replied, though he didn’t. The collection of darting lines bore no resemblance he could discern to either Benny or his buggy. “Gut job, Samuel.”
The kind started to smile, then hid his face in Rebekah’s shoulder. She murmured something to him and picked up a green crayon. When she handed it to him along with another piece of paper, he began drawing again.
“You never answered my question, Joshua,” she said. “Why did you come here today?”
“In part to apologize for not coming sooner. I should have been here to help you during the past few months.”
Her smile wavered. “I know I’ve let the house and buildings go.”
He started to ask another question, but when he met her steady gaze and saw how her chin trembled as she tried to hide her dismay, he nodded. “It doesn’t take long once wind and rain get through one spot to start wrecking a whole building.”
“That’s true. I know I eventually will need to sell the farm. I’ve already had several offers to buy it.”
“Amish or Englisch?”
“Both, though I wouldn’t want to see the acres broken up and a bunch of Englisch houses built here.”
“Some Englischers like to live on a small farm, as we do.” He used the last piece of crust to collect the remaining apple filling on the plate. “My neighbors are like that.”
“I didn’t realize you had Englisch neighbors.”
“Ja.” He picked up his cup of tea. “Their Alexis and my Timothy have played together from the time they could walk.”
“Will Alexis babysit for you?”
Joshua shook his head, lowering his untasted tea to the table. “She’s involved in many activities at the high school and her part-time job, so she’s seldom around. I hear her driving into their yard late every evening.”
“Who’s going to take care of Levi and Deborah while you’re at work?”
God, You guided our conversation to this point. Be with me now if it’s Your will for this marriage to go forward.
He took a deep breath, then said, “I’m hoping you’ll help me, Rebekah.”
“Me? I’d be glad to once school is out, but come fall we live too far away for the kinder to walk here after school.”
“I was hoping you might consider a move.” He chided himself for what sounded like a stupid answer.
“I’d like to live in Paradise Springs, but I can’t think of moving until I sell the farm. A lot needs to be repaired before I do, or I’ll get next to nothing for it.”
“I’d be glad to help.”
“In exchange for babysitting?” She shook her head with a sad smile. “It’s a wunderbaar idea, but it doesn’t solve the distance problem.”
He looked down at the table and the picture Samuel had drawn. Right now his life felt as jumbled as those lines. He couldn’t meet Rebekah’s eyes as he asked, “What if distance wasn’t a problem?”
“I don’t understand.”
Talking in circles wasn’t getting him anywhere and putting off asking the question any longer was dumm. He caught her puzzled gaze and held it, trying not to lose himself in her soft blue eyes. “Rebekah Burkholder, will you marry me?”
* * *
Rebekah choked on her gasp. She’d been puzzled about the reason for Joshua Stoltzfus’s visit, but if she’d guessed every minute for the rest of her life, she couldn’t have imagined it would be for him to propose.
Her son let out a protest, and she realized she’d tightened her hold around his waist until he couldn’t breathe. Loosening her arm, she set Sammy on the floor. She urged him to go and play with his wooden blocks stacked near the arch into the front room.
“He doesn’t need to be a part of this conversation.” She watched the little boy toddle to the blocks. She needed time to get her features back under control before she answered Joshua’s astonishing question.
“I agree,” Joshua said in a tense voice.
She clasped her hands in her lap and looked at him. His brown hair glistened in the sunlight coming through the kitchen windows, but his eyes, which were even darker, had become bottomless, shadowed pools. He was even more handsome than he’d been when she’d first met him years ago, because his sharply sculpted nose now fit with his other strong features. His black suspenders drew her eyes to his powerful shoulders and arms, which had been honed by years of building buggies. His broad hands, which now gripped the edge of the table, had been compassionate when they’d touched hers yesterday.
Had he planned to ask her to be his wife even then? Was that why he’d been solicitous of her and Sammy? She was confused because Joshua Stoltzfus didn’t seem to have a duplicitous bone in his body. But if he hadn’t been thinking about proposing yesterday, why had he today?
The only way to know was to ask. She forced out the words she must. “Why would you propose to me?”
“You need a husband, and I need a wife.” His voice was as emotionless as if they spoke about last week’s weather. “We’ve known each other for a very long time, and it’s common for Amish widows and widowers to remarry. But even more important, you’re Lloyd’s widow.”
“Why is that more important?”
“Lloyd and I once told each other that if something happened to one of us, we would take care of the other’s family.”
“It isn’t our way to make vows.”
“I know, but Lloyd was insistent that I agree to make sure his wife and family were cared for if something happened to him. I saw the gut sense and asked if he would do the same for me.” He folded his arms on the table. “He was my friend, and I can’t imagine anyone I would have trusted more with my family.”
Rebekah quickly lowered her eyes from his sincere gaze. He truly believed Lloyd was the man she once had believed he was, too. She couldn’t tell him the truth. Not about Lloyd, but she could tell him the truth about how foolish he was to ask her to be his wife.
“There’s a big difference between taking care of your friend’s family and...” She couldn’t even say the word marry.
“But I haven’t even taken care of you as I promised him.”
“We’ve managed, and we will until I can sell the farm. Danki for your concern, Joshua. I appreciate what you are doing, but it’s not necessary.”
“I disagree. The fact remains I need a wife and you need a husband.”
“You need a babysitter and I need a carpenter.”
His lips twitched and she wanted to ask what he found amusing about this absurd conversation. Was it a jest he’d devised to make her smile? She pushed aside that thought as quickly as it’d formed. Joshua was a gut man. That was what everyone said, and she agreed. He wouldn’t play such a prank on her. He must be sincere.
A dozen different emotions spiraled through her. She didn’t know what to feel. Flattered that he’d considered her as a prospect to be his wife? Fear she might be as foolish as she had been the last time a man had proposed? Not that she believed Joshua would raise his hand and strike her, but then she hadn’t guessed Lloyd would, either. And, to be honest, she never could have envisioned Joshua asking her to marry him.
“Rebekah,” he said as his gaze captured hers again. “I know this is sudden, and I know you must think I’m ab in kopp—”
“The thought you’re crazy has crossed my mind. More than once.”
He chuckled, the sound soothing because it reminded her of the many other times she’d heard him laugh. He never laughed at another’s expense.
“I’m sure it has, but I assure you that I haven’t lost my mind.” He paused, toyed with his cup, then asked, “Will you give me an answer, Rebekah? Will you marry me?”
“But why? I don’t love you.” Her cheeks turned to fire as she hurried to add, “That sounded awful. I’m sorry. The truth is you’ve always been a gut friend, Joshua, which is why I feel I can be blunt.”
