Arms of Love (12 page)

“Is that why you seek me out at this hour? To show me a raccoon?”

Isaac smiled. “Nee. I saw your light, and it disturbed me.” He reached beneath his shirt and produced two crusty rolls of bread. “Here. I thought you might be hungry.”

Adam sat up and wolfed down the rolls, not caring for a moment what would happen if their sire heard the doorway conversation. When he was done, he eyed his elder brother speculatively. “I thank you, Isaac.

’Twas good. But you’ve seen me go hungry before and seen my light burn in the wee hours. Why bother now?”

Isaac shrugged. “I fed the coon; I could do no less for you.”

“Ah.”

“And I thought that perhaps something besides
Fater
troubled you. Do you want to talk about it?”

There was just enough diffidence in his brother’s tone to make Adam want to pour his heart out. If Isaac had been sympathetic, curious, or simply nosy, he would not have talked. But he longed to share the truth of his loss of Lena with someone.

“I gave up my relationship with Lena.”

“What?” Isaac’s question was a low roar, and Adam looked at him irritably.

“Come in here and shut the door before
Fater
is up.”

Isaac shut the door and turned to lean against it, stroking the raccoon in his arms. For once, Adam noted, his brother’s dark eyes were anything but sleepy; there was an interested speculation there that was enough to give him pause.

“Why would you give her up?” Isaac asked. “I will admit that she is stubborn and willful, but she is by far the most beauteous lass about.”

“How do you know she is stubborn? And I thought future Amish bishops should not care about such earthly things as physical beauty.”

“I tried to offer her spiritual counsel, but she refused it. She said that you were her spiritual bedrock.”

Adam ducked his head as if he’d been struck a physical blow.

“Go on.”

“As for her beauty—’tis a gift from
Gott
, is it not? I would have to be blind not to admit that I have thought upon her on occasion with some—chaste—interest.”

Adam looked him in the eye and had the unnatural feeling of wanting to strangle someone. Was Isaac suggesting that
he
would want to court Lena? And how would that play into his promise to Mary, who could not have possibly foreseen a potentially meddlesome older brother.

“
Ya
, well—keep that interest chaste,
bruder
.”

“But you said you have given her up. Surely I will not be the only man who might seek to have a role in her life. She needs a man badly at this time.”

Adam gritted his teeth. What could he say? He couldn’t have it both ways—be apart from her and then still want her as far as the rest of the world was concerned. It was an impossible dilemma. He flung himself backward on his bed and drew a bare arm across his face.

“
Danki
for the bread,” he said in a tone of dismissal.

“Adam, I—”

“Good night.”

He heard the door close gently but stayed awake ’til dawn, wrestling with the haunting thought of Lena’s heart falling prey to another.

Lena rolled over in the bed and remembered the previous night. She felt bruised from the inside out . . . raw and hurting. She sat up with caution, and from long habit made sure not to elbow Abigail in the process. She gazed down with bittersweet pleasure at her
schwester’s
sweet, freckled face in the play of morning’s light and knew that she had overslept. She should have been up as
Mamm
would have been, long before daybreak. She swallowed hard at the thought of the terrible previous day of death, new life, and Adam’s horrible visit, but she was determined to move onward. She slid upward with care, her plain white linen gown caught round her legs beneath the wool coverlet. She felt her ruffled nightcap askew, so that her long blond hair brushed the tops of her hands as she pressed against the strawfilled mattress.

An image of what it might feel like to have Adam kissing her came to her in a sudden rush, and she clenched the mattress. It was as if her mouth stung with sensation from the very idea of his kiss. But she was being foolish. She knew Adam well enough to understand that he meant what he said, and he had meant it last night. It felt like her arm had been cut off abruptly, leaving a jagged and painful injury that would require long recovery.

Yet even now a moment of concern wrung her heart when she thought of his sometimes-odd behavior, and she slowly unclasped her hand and smoothed the mattress cover.

She wondered if moments like last night, when Adam did not seem to be fully in control of himself, had frightened him in regard to her, made him worry that he might hurt her in some way without thinking. But no. Surely it was his interest in the war, something she had not sensed in great depth about him before, that stood between them.

She bowed her head to begin her morning prayers with Adam on her heart when her thoughts were interrupted by John slipping into the room without knocking. He was fully dressed for the day, but his hair, brushing his shoulders as the Amish men’s did, was slightly askew.

“I cannot abide her,” he announced, and Lena felt Abigail stir against the pillow.

“Shhh,” Lena said, then went on in a whisper. “What is the difficulty?”

“That woman, Ruth Stone,” John hissed back fiercely, his hands pressed against the wood of the oaken door. “She orders me about as if, well, as if she were
Mamm
. And she ain’t.”

“Is not,” Lena corrected absently. She slipped from the bed and went to her brother, laying a firm hand on his shoulder. It amazed her that he was so tall for ten years; he barely had to lift his head to meet her gaze. “John, you are the man of this house while
Fater
is gone. There is no one who doubts that. But
Derr Herr
has sent Ruth to us to feed baby Faith and help us out. And I need the help. I do not know how
Mamm
did it all, to tell the truth.”

“She has already had me to the smokehouse, out for firewood and water, and now she wants me to milk the single miserable goat that the scum who took Fater left behind.”

Lena’s eyes widened in shock at the boy’s language. It was one thing to disagree with the taking up of arms, but quite another to describe human lives, created by the hand of
Gott
, as “scum.”

“John, where have you learned such words? And why would you choose to use them?” She had never known her
bruder
to be anything but reticent. Had their mother’s death unleashed some hidden anger in the boy?

He shook off her hand. “ ’Tis true, Lena. They are scum, and you know it.” He blew out a breath of disgust. “Tories, Brits, and now a Continental army formed from a miserable local militia. Have you seen their flag? A piked soldier holding back a lion.” He snorted. “Better that they chose a half-loaded musket and a stolen cow!”

“Why are you shouting, John?” Abigail asked sleepily from the bed.

Lena rolled her eyes, then glared at her brother. “See, you’ve woken Abby. And I would like to remind you that there have been any number of Amish boys who’ve left home and our way of life to join that army and fight for free— Well, to fight.”

John met her eyes. “Too bad you have not always been so understanding when it comes to the war . . . and to Adam.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You heard me,” he said. “I was outside last night when Adam came over. I heard what was said.”

Lena felt her eyes sting with furious tears. “You are old enough to know that it is wrong, John Yoder, to listen to others’ conversation. Besides, I thought you came in here to complain of Ruth Stone.”

“I’m sorry, Lena. Forgive me. I shouldn’t have said all that.” John was back to his normal self, but his angry, adultlike comments had made Lena uneasy as well as hurt.

He put his hand on the door latch. “I’ll go milk the goat and try to praise
Gott
for Ruth Stone.” He was gone before Lena could speak, closing the door behind him.

Lena just stood, staring at the closed door, unsure of what had occurred except that her normally placid brother, the one she had considered a child still, was having some very manly thoughts. She could not resist the clutch of fear at her heart that he might try to join the fight somehow. Boys as young as ten had been known to run off, never to be heard from again. She pushed aside his insinuations about her attitude toward the war . . . and Adam.

“Is John angry, Lena?” Abigail asked.

Lena pivoted on her bare feet and stared at her innocent, tousledhaired sister. She thought of her
mamm
and went back to the bed, catching the child close for a hug.

“
Nee
, Abby. He is . . . becoming a man.”

Abigail giggled, and Lena suppressed a troubled sigh.

Chapter 9

I
t had been two days since the night at Lena’s, and Adam’s mind still burned with the memory despite the cool spring breeze that lifted his long hair from the back of his neck. The days had seemed an eternity. She was not only his love but his best friend, and the loneliness he now felt cut him to the core.

His face was flushed from the heat of the smithy where he was shaping new shoes for the chestnut mare in the far pasture. He had left the barn doors wide-open and relished the scents and sounds of spring. He hated winter, with its unrelenting cold and the rigors of the snow—the bleakness of this thought made him wonder how Samuel Yoder would eat this day in prison. Adam could, of course, walk the coin and bread into town, but there were dangers in being afoot. He considered the situation with a prayerful bent and was about to strike the shoe with the anvil again when the sound of rapidly approaching hoofbeats caused him to look up.

He gazed in amazement at the laughing apparition of Major Dale Ellis, blond hair askew, blue frock coat and lace collar intact, as he came to a rushing halt in front of the barn. Dale was mounted on a fine bay gelding and led Tim, saddled but riderless, directly behind him.

Adam put down his tools. Dale laughed again and let go of the lead, leaving Tim to come directly to Adam’s hands.

“I believe, sir, that I return something which rightfully belongs here, on this no doubt fine farm.”

Adam said the first thing that came to mind. “You are not permitted to go beyond the city limits of Lancaster—you could be hanged.”

Dale waved an airy hand. “Aye, I know. Death and dismemberment and all that hoptrop—just what one of your earthy Patriots would love to dish out to an Officer of the Realm.”