Arms of Love (26 page)

“
Ach
, Adam, look. A faerie circle.” She gestured to the ring of violets, vibrant purple with yellow throats, surrounding her. Of course, she was too old to believe in faeries, but the beauty of the place was mesmerizing.

Adam stepped into the ring of flowers very near her, and she almost moved away, but he caught her hand. “Tell me the old story about the faerie circle, Lena,” he cajoled with a smile.

She looked down. “You already know it.”

“
Ach
, but I would have it again from someone who can still find wonder in such things.”

“I do not . . . ,” she started to protest, then sighed. He knew her too well for her to lie. She lifted her gaze and met his strange golden eyes, shrouded now by some emotion she couldn’t quite fathom, but it absorbed her, drew her, like a moth to flame. She wet her lips. “Superstition says that if you stand in a faerie circle with a man . . .”

“Just any man?” he prompted.

“The man of your heart,” she said. “That time will stand still for you both, that you will have all of eternity to be . . . together while the rest of the world goes by.”

Adam smiled. “Would that we could live in faerie circles forever.

You will make a
gut
mother, to have such fancies to spin into tales for your daughters.”

It was too much to imagine daughters with eyes that did not glow like the light of a candle, and she stepped out of the ring of violets, breaking the clasp of his hand, intent on hurrying back through the pines.

But Adam caught her back. “Lena—tell me another story.”

“What?”

“A new story . . . about a
mawd
who follows her heart and not her head. Who carries the scent of roses and dew about her like the charm of a spring eve. Who is strong but soft, tender but—”

“Adam, stop.” She shook her head, trying to shake away the spinning of his words. She’d even taken a few steps back closer to him, led by his gentle hand. “I have no new stories to tell, no myths to believe anymore. I know what is real.”

He bent his head, drawing her even nearer. “Do you, Lena? Do you know reality beyond the flame of fear, the touch of death?
Ach
, let your heart sing and find hope once more.”

He moved as if to kiss her, and she drew back sharply, the tension of the webbed moment snapping when he spoke of hope. How could she hope, knowing that he might enlist? It was he himself who had broken what they might have been.

“Nee, Adam. I have no song to sing nor story to tell, none but what you have taught me yourself. And I will not dance to that tune again.”

She turned from him, not caring if he followed, and made her way back to the picnic spot.

“Ah, we’ve just finished,” Dale called when he saw her.

“You will have to hear the story one night at home,” John said, his face alight with a smile.

“That will be
gut
,” Lena murmured, trying to regain her composure.

Adam brushed past her with a grin as he went to help gather up the picnic. “Keep your pretty fancies, Lena, no matter the denial of your lips. Some fantasies may yet turn out to be real.”

Chapter 22

T
he week waned to Friday, and Lena rose from the floor of the keeping room where she had been cutting out the pattern for one of Ruth’s dresses. She enjoyed sewing with Ruth, finding her to be a nimble and jolly seamstress who was capable of talking as well as keeping her needle flying.

“Did you sew much with your mother, luv?” Ruth asked as Lena stretched her back.

Lena smiled. “
Ach
, all the time. One of my earliest memories is carrying a swatch of fabric around and practicing my stitches. I remember being close to the floor as I walked, so I must have been very young. I was so proud of the little pinpricks on my fingertips.
Fater
would kiss each one at night and tell me that I would be an excellent
hausfrau
.”

She paused then, wondering if Isaac would kiss her fingertips.

And then, like the sudden flush that companions a fever, she imagined Adam kissing her fingertips. They would be outside, the green of the burgeoning land a backdrop for the senses, and he would press long, slow, heated kisses on her fingers that would send triggers of sensation from her hands to her heart.

“
Your fingertips only will I kiss, my sweet, this day
.” She imagined his deep voice and how he’d bend his dark head to make good his word and send her heart pounding. “
Not your full lips
,
nor your white neck, nor the blush of your cheeks or the sweep of your brows . . . just your fingertips.

Denial is good for the soul.”
Then he would grin at her and she’d slap playfully at him and they’d run together, hand in hand, through the trees. They’d come breathless upon a patch of dark blackberries, full and ripe with summer’s sun, and Adam would catch her fingers to his lips and select a fine, moist berry and . . .

“Be ye all right, child?” Ruth’s voice broke into her thoughts just as the sound of a wagon approaching reached her ears. For a brief moment, she wondered if it might be Adam, then blushed at her thoughts of a moment ago.

She peeped out the window and recognized Isaac and told herself that she was not disappointed to see her betrothed. She forced a smile to her lips and turned to Ruth.

“I am well, Ruth, but ’tis Isaac. I would run and change my gown, if you do not mind seeing him in?”

“Go on, dearie,” Ruth said with a comfortable nod.

Lena stepped with a light foot to her room and pulled out her best dress, a rich burgundy weave. She’d finished pressing a fresh kerchief and apron only that morn, and she knew that she would be looking her best. Isaac deserved that, she told herself stoutly. She dressed in a hurry, knowing his lack of desire to be kept waiting, even if he was dropping by unannounced. Then, noticing her pallor in the small bureau mirror, she pinched her cheeks to bring forth color and straightened her prayer covering. She was back down the steps in minutes, finding Isaac standing stiffly, with his back turned, while Ruth nursed Faith.

“
Ach
, Isaac . . . I am so glad to see you. Come, let us walk outside for a bit.”

He glanced at her over one shoulder. “Actually, I have come in hopes of bringing you home with me for a meal.
Fater
suggested that he would enjoy your company, and
Mamm
is making
schnitz
and
knepp
that we might all celebrate our engagement. I will, of course, bring you back before dark.”

“Go on, dearie,” Ruth called. “It will be just the thing.”

“Well,” Lena said with some reluctance. “All right.” She did not want to deny Isaac, but the thought of breaking bread with Adam made her both nervous and excited. She decided she needed to spend more time in prayer on the matter.

Ruth agreed to let her father know, and Lena followed Isaac to the wagon, where he helped her up with a decorous arm. She held on, wondering if she should sidle closer to him as he drove, but decided from the set look of his face that he must be concentrating fully on driving.

She felt anxious to create a peaceful atmosphere between them and cleared her throat.

“Um, Isaac . . . now that we are engaged . . . perhaps you might . . . let the horses graze a bit, and we could walk together.”

He glanced sideways at her. “Whatever for?
Mamm
can use your help in the kitchen, I am sure, so we should get home as fast as we can.

And I hope to finish a certain translation of the Book of James that I’ve been puzzling over. There is no need for a walk.”

And that is that
, she thought, put nicely in her place. She patted absently at the rough-headed dog that nosed its way up from the wagon back between them and tried not to notice the soothing tones Isaac used as he spoke to the animal—much more soothing than he had ever used in speaking to her. She wondered how she would ever spend a lifetime with the man who was beside her, but in no way
with
her . . . then told herself that all things were possible through Christ.

Adam watched Isaac drive in with Lena and felt a jolt of jealousy stab through his chest. He tried to concentrate on the mare that he was training, but he couldn’t help but glance at his brother and then at the woman he loved as she clambered lightly from the wagon. He had a sudden and deep longing for peace in the whole situation. Peace for once with Isaac, an understanding and acknowledgment of the differences between them. Peace with his father, which seemed so very much out of reach, and more than anything, peace in his heart when he thought of Lena.

He had not yet made any move toward enlisting, toward seeking out that new life that would supposedly allow him, by his own word, to court her again. But the engagement between Lena and his brother had been a shock too heavy to comprehend, and every time he prayed about joining the army, he encountered again and again that still, small voice from
Gott
that told him to wait. But wait for what?

He brushed his hand down the mare’s side and considered that love had to have something more to do with freedom than cost, had to be something that liberated and did not hold with crushing power. He did not understand why it was not as simple as crossing the paddock to Lena and taking her in his arms . . .

And then the Lord spoke to him again, softly, tenderly, and Adam thought, for the first time in a long while, beyond himself. Perhaps love really mattered in terms of how he responded to it, how he received it, and not by his trying to force what he wanted onto situations, onto others. It was an idea that he knew he should cling to . . . and then his mother hailed him from the edge of the grass, with Lena standing tentative and still in the background.

“Adam! Lena’s kindly offered to help with the dinner preparations. But we cannot reach those upper shelves of the cabinet. Would you mind?”

Would I mind
, he wondered curiously,
being so near to Lena in such close proximity as the kitchen
? Maybe he could try out his new thought and relax, be in Lena’s presence without wanting, without pushing . . .

He turned the horse to run loose in the field and accompanied the two women back to the house. “Where is Isaac?” he couldn’t help but ask.

“Working,” Lena replied stiffly. “On a translation of the Book of James.”

“Ahh,” Adam said softly. “James . . . the brother who did not believe in his older sibling, did not find Him special . . . until after the cross.”

Mamm
nodded. “That is so. And so should we learn to look for what is God-given and special in each other before time on this earth runs out and we must give account for our actions in heaven.”