A Place of His Own (18 page)

“You don't know what you're talking about,” Rachel snapped. The two had turned the kitchen into a battle zone. The petite nineteen-year-old cast a glance toward Moriah, irritation splashed across her delicate features. “Tell your
dummkopf
brother to stay out of the kitchen. He keeps adding more spices to my cauliflower casserole.
Unnecessary
spices.”

“That's because it tastes like wet cardboard smeared with moldy cheese.” Tobias, who at five feet ten was a good six inches taller than Rachel, reached around her slim body and shook some salt on the steaming casserole.

“You're going to ruin it!” She swirled around until she faced him, then grappled at the salt shaker he held over her head.

“Too late for that.” He put the shaker behind his back and taunted her with a mocking look.

Moriah watched the two of them with amusement. Tobias and Rachel had grown up together, just as Moriah had grown up with Levi and Gabriel. But unlike the easy friendship she'd had with the Miller brothers, Tobias and Rachel could barely abide each other's company. Though Moriah thought that lately it seemed her brother enjoyed teasing Rachel a little
too
much and that Rachel didn't seem as put out by him as she had in the past.

“Are you two at it again?” Emma Byler, Tobias and Moriah's mother, entered the kitchen. She readjusted her apron around her trim waist and scowled at Rachel and her son. “We still have much to do, and I can't have you two bickering the whole time. Behave yourselves.”

Tobias set the salt shaker back on the table, a lock of dark blond hair slipping across his forehead. He looked appropriately contrite. “Sorry,
Mami.
”

Rachel apologized as well, but Moriah didn't miss the quick, triumphant look the girl shot at Tobias, as if she'd won their little spat.

“Tobias, you shouldn't be in here anyway,” Emma added.

“That's what I said,” Rachel muttered.

Emma walked over to her son. “I need you to see if we have enough chairs and tables for everyone. Also, help your
daed
and brothers in the barn. He's making sure there's enough hay and feed for the extra horses.”

Tobias nodded and headed out the back door of the kitchen and toward the barn, without giving Rachel a second glance. Moriah thought she detected a slight frown on the young woman's face in response to being ignored, but she could have been imagining it.

Turning, Emma gave Moriah a look of surprise, as if she'd just noticed her standing nearby. “What are you doing down here?”

“Offering to help.”

“
Nee
,” clucked Emma. “Not on your wedding day. You've done enough this week already. We have everything under control, and there are plenty of people giving a hand. Rachel is finishing up her casserole, and her
mudder
will be here shortly. Now, you go upstairs and relax. You have a big day ahead.”

For the first time since Levi had proposed, she felt anxiety seeping into her. Not about marrying Levi, but about the wedding itself. The focus would be on her and Levi, and she wasn't comfortable with that realization. She preferred to be involved, helping with preparations in the background. Somehow she had to keep busy, as she couldn't imagine pacing the floor of her room upstairs for the next couple of hours.

As if sensing her daughter's apprehension, Emma put an arm around Moriah's shoulders and spoke in a soft voice, “Go upstairs and read your
Biewel
. Pray for Levi, for your marriage, and for God to bless you and give you a family. I can think of nothing more worthwhile than spending time with the Lord before your wedding.”

Moriah nodded, comforted by her mother's wise suggestion. “
Ya, Mami
. I will do that.”

“
Gut
.” Emma kissed her daughter on the temple. “I want this day to be
fehlerfrei
for you.”

“It will be,
Mami
. I'm sure of it.”

Emma playfully shooed Moriah from the room. “Now,
geh
!”

Just then Joseph, Moriah's father, walked into the door. He took off his hat and ran his hand through his dark-brown hair liberally streaked with silver. He placed his black hat back on his head and eyed Moriah with a slight smile. “What are you doing in here?”

“I already told her she wasn't needed,” Emma said, moving to stand by her husband. She glanced up at him. “Have you enough chairs?”

“
Ya
,” Joseph said, looking down at his wife. He leaned down and whispered in her ear. Emma smiled and gave him a lighthearted pat on the arm. “
Geh!
I've enough work to do without you messing about in here.”

Joseph chuckled and walked out the kitchen door.

Moriah grinned. For as long as she could remember, her parents had been like that—playful, in perfect partnership, and totally in love. If her marriage was half as wonderful as theirs, she would be a blessed woman indeed. Her thoughts filled with Levi and the love they shared, she turned to go back upstairs, but not before she caught Rachel discreetly adding a dash more salt to her casserole.

Gabriel Miller tugged on the neck of his collarless shirt; the growing warmth of the crowded house grated on him. He could bear the heat if he weren't watching his twin brother, Levi, standing only a few feet away, speak his wedding vows to Moriah Byler. Gabe tried to keep his focus on his brother, but he had never seen Moriah look as lovely as she did today. Her simple sky-blue dress accentuated her round, blue eyes that, as she looked at Levi, shone with evident happiness. She was a beautiful bride. But she wasn't his.

Guilt stabbed at him. Once again, he was coveting his brother's woman, and he didn't know how to stop. When Levi and Moriah had started courting, he fought against his attraction to Moriah, begging God to take it away, to make his heart pure. He'd hoped when he joined the church last fall, months before Levi, he could relinquish his sin forever. Yet since then, his feelings hadn't ebbed. Instead, they had only grown stronger.

It was torture, witnessing Levi marry Moriah. He should be happy for his brother. He
wanted
to be happy for his brother. But his intense jealousy clouded any other emotions. Why Levi and not him? Did Levi know what a precious woman she truly was? Gabriel wondered if he did, especially after catching him trying to sneak into her bedroom right before the wedding, an act that showed a lack of respect not only for her but for her family. What had his brother been thinking? But Gabriel knew the answer to that. As usual, Levi hadn't been thinking at all. Just doing whatever he wanted, never mind the consequences to anyone else. Gabe was only two minutes younger than his twin, but many days he felt years older.

His gaze strayed to Moriah again, and another surge of emotions swelled within him. It wasn't just her outer beauty that drew him. Moriah Byler possessed a humble, gentle spirit and an unmatched generosity that plucked at the strings of Gabe's heart. How many times over the years had he witnessed her offer to help an overwhelmed mother with her children, or go out of her way to care for an elderly member of their church? He couldn't bear to see her hurt in any way. All he wanted was her happiness, and if she found that with his brother, than he would have to learn to accept it.

Levi uttered more words, promising to care for her, to be a loving spouse. The same thing all Amish husbands pledge to do. Gabriel shifted in his chair and tugged at the neck of his shirt again. When would the ceremony
end
?

Finally, after three and a half hours had passed, Abel Esh, the gray-haired bishop, gave the couple his blessing. His beard, nearly down to the center of his chest, bobbed up and down as he spoke. Gabe glanced at Levi and Moriah's hands, their fingers intertwined.

As soon as the wedding ended, he shot out of the house into the cold winter air. He breathed in deeply, the crispness prickling his lungs. A pretty good snow had fallen a few days ago, the second in the month of November, but most of it had melted, leaving small piles of white slush and bigger pools of muddy water behind. The bright glare from the overhead sun added to his agony, its light betraying him as it seemed to bestow approval on Levi and Moriah's union.

He stuffed his icy hands deep into the pockets of his black trousers. He'd left his overcoat in Tobias's room, upstairs in the Byler's huge farmhouse, but Gabe wasn't ready to go back inside. Wearing only his thin dress shirt and a black vest, he figured he deserved to shiver in the cold for his sinful thoughts about his brother's wife.

Inside, the women and young boys were readying the front room for the wedding supper. He usually loved the food: the stuffing, creamed celery, fried and baked chicken, rolls, and probably twenty different types of casseroles and pies. Everyone in the community brought a dish to share among the almost two hundred guests in attendance. Even his father, who had become an excellent cook since their mother had passed away four years ago, had brought German potato salad, the twins' favorite. But Gabe doubted he could eat a bite.

A few more men braved the chill and came outside, but they had the good sense to wear their coats. Tobias and a few of his friends held baseball gloves and started a game of ball in the sprawling front yard. Rachel Detweiler appeared, dressed in her Sunday best—a dark, plum-colored dress with a black cape for an overcoat, complete with a stiff, white prayer
kapp
. She was a little thing, but not afraid of the boys, or of the muddy ground serving as their ball field. Slipping her hand in her own well-worn mitt, she intercepted a ball intended for Tobias, then whipped it back to Christian Weaver, who caught it cleanly, taking a step back due to the force of the throw.

“Go inside, Rachel,” Tobias yelled at her, clearly annoyed that she had horned in on their game. “You should be in there helping the women get dinner ready.”

“Go soak your head, Byler.” Rachel looked up at him, one hand on her slender hip while the other slapped her mitt against the side of her thigh. “They've got plenty of help. If I wanna play ball, I'm gonna play ball. I don't care what you say.”

Tobias looked at the other guys as if searching for backup, then shrugged his shoulders in defeat. Score one for Rachel Detweiler.

Gabe's lips twitched in an almost smile. Rachel was close to marrying age. It would take a strong fellow to deal with such a spitfire. He briefly questioned if there was a man in Middlefield who would be up to the challenge.

“They're serving the food.” John Miller, Gabe's father, sidled up to his son. He put his huge hand on Gabe's shoulder. “You should go inside and eat.”

Staring down at the smooth stones of the sidewalk, Gabe replied, “You go ahead. I'll wait until the next shift.”

“Your brother is expecting you. Wouldn't be right not to be one of the first people to congratulate him.”

Gabe turned and looked into his father's brown eyes, eyes that were similar to his and Levi's, except there were deep crinkles at the corners, new crevices he hadn't noticed before. Although a widower of four years, his father kept his marriage beard, which had reached to the front button of his shirt, with only a few strands of brown nestled within the gray. He had vowed never to remarry; his love for Velda remained as strong as it had been before she had passed away from cancer. Eternal, as he referred to it. They had been together over forty years, having the twins late in life. Their “miracle children,” Gabe's mother had often called them. Their family had been an anomaly, a small one in the midst of many large ones.

Taking in the disapproval glinting in his father's eyes, Gabe relented. “I'll be in shortly.”

“See that you are,
sohn.
” White puffs emitted from John's mouth as he said the words. He squeezed Gabe's shoulder once more, then turned away, his shoulders stooped from years of hard labor at the blacksmith's anvil.

Steeling himself, Gabe followed his father's footsteps into the house. He could handle this. He was skilled at masking his emotions about Moriah. He'd been doing it for so long. No one knew of his secret love for her.

Only God knew what was festering inside him. He aimed to keep it that way.