Arms of Love (27 page)

They had reached the house, and Adam held the screen door open.

Lena passed under his arm, and he closed his eyes on the desire to kiss her, cajole her, whisper to her . . .
Nee, I will simply accept the situation
, he told himself as he headed for the kitchen.
How hard could it be
?

Lena noticed the seeming perfection of the Wyse kitchen and downstairs rooms. She supposed that since the advent of Faith she had let little messes run away from her. She resolved to do some spring cleaning when she returned home, waking the place from its winter’s sleep in preparation for the life of the seasons to come.

Adam hauled the bench over from the table and balanced easily atop it, stretching his long arms up for the platters used at special times. He handed them down, one by one, to Lena. She then passed them to Ellen, who busily scrubbed the dishes in a pail of soapy water and then rinsed them.

Standing so near to Adam put Lena about eye level with his lean hip, and she couldn’t help but notice the fine line of his body’s strength each time he stretched. She told herself that she was wanton, and when the last platter had been sent down and put back, she spoke out with abruptness.

“Uh,
Frau
Wyse . . .”

“Ellen, my dear,
sei se gut
.”

“Ellen . . . may I see Isaac for a moment?”

She felt Adam and his mother’s surprise and blushed a little, sensing heat creep into her cheeks.

“In his room, dear?” Ellen asked with hesitancy. “Or should I call him down?”

“Call him down,” Adam snapped.

“In his room,” Lena said.

Ellen shrugged with a frown on her face that Lena chose to ignore.

“Top of the stairs, dear. Last door to your left.”

“
Danki
.” Lena brushed past Adam, who still stood on the bench, and took to the stairs like a water bird in flight. She was determined to do right by Isaac and get her thoughts under control.

So she clambered up the steps, holding her skirts high, then smoothed them with some measure of decorum as she marched down the hall and knocked on Isaac’s door.

“Ya,
kumme
!”

He sounded faintly irritated, probably at being disturbed while he worked, but she slipped inside anyway, closing the door behind her with firmness.

Isaac turned from the desk that sat beneath his window and stared at her. “Lena, what is it?”

She swallowed and pressed her back against the sturdiness of the door, steadying her breathing. She allowed her eyes to soften as she looked at him. A one-eared cat on his bed regarded her with a lazy eye.

“Would you wish a moment’s rest from your studies, my betrothed?”

He shook his head. “I do not understand. I am deeply engaged in a particular passage, and I—”

He broke off as she advanced with coy steps across the room, coming to stand before him. The breeze from the window played against the back of her kerchief and neck. She studied him objectively. He was not unattractive, but he simply was not Adam. She suppressed the thought, then bent forward to twine her fingers in his dark hair.

“I would have a kiss, Isaac. If you would desire it also?”

She felt him stiffen with shock, but she didn’t care. She had to do something to banish thoughts of Adam from her mind. With a faint sound of despair, she bent and pressed her lips tight against his mouth, concentrating. After a few seconds he pulled away, sliding his desk chair back so that it screeched against the hardwood floor.

“Lena Yoder, what has come over you?”

“We’re going to be married. I would spend some time with you, ’tis all.” She advanced on him until he almost tilted backward.

“I think that you need to pray and ask
Derr Herr
to . . .”

She bent and kissed him again, trailing her fingertips down the back of his neck, closing her eyes. He made a strangled sound in his throat that might have been passion or outrage, but she could not let it matter. He scrambled away from her and stood up.

“Uh . . .
Mamm
is . . . calling . . . downstairs . . .”

“Oh no, I don’t believe she is.”

“Heard her . . . got to go . . . get help. I mean, go help . . .” He scooped up the cat, flew to the door, and was out within seconds, closing it behind him with a slam.

Lena began to laugh so hard she had to sink down on the edge of the bed. Then her laughter turned to weeping, and she held her head in her hands and sobbed.

Adam had left the kitchen once he was done helping his mother and gone back to stand along the fence, watching the mare. He could not fathom what it might be that Lena had wanted with such urgency from Isaac, but again, maybe it was not his business. Maybe he should simply relax and let peace reign in his body and mind.

“Adam!” Isaac puffed, coming up alongside him as if he were being pursued by a specter.

“What’s wrong?” Adam asked, trying to tamp down irritation at the interruption.

His brother hung over the fence and caught his breath. “I—I must ask you—rather a personal question, I think.”

“Well, do not think; ask.” Adam frowned. He was not used to Isaac being unnerved by anything, and he worried that Lena might have had her feelings hurt by his elder sibling.

“All right.” Isaac leaned closer. “It’s about . . . a girl.”

“You mean your beautiful betrothed?”

“Very astute.” Isaac patted his arm. “
Ya
, Lena. Well, did she ever demand . . . or insist that you . . .”

“What?”

“Well, kiss her,” Isaac hissed. “I mean, I have kissed her before, of course, but . . .”

Adam’s hands tightened involuntarily on the wood of the fence at this revelation, but Isaac rambled on.

“I am talking about demands for kissing, and then . . . well, she . . .”

Adam rounded on his brother with gritted teeth. “Isaac, if you do not get out what you are trying to say . . .”

“Right. She kissed me. Bold and full on the mouth. Two times, and I was not even willing.”

Adam relaxed a bit and tried to suppress a smile. “Scared you, did she?”

“
Ya
, in truth, she did.”

Adam nodded. “Well, she is a handful—there’ll be no taming her, I’m sure. Likely she’ll want kissing all the time, even when you’re trying to study. You will probably have to give up your books and your pets . . .” He let the idea drift with just the right amount of regret.

Isaac’s shoulders sagged. “Give up my books . . . my animals . . . for the sake of kissing? I cannot do such a thing. Why, ’tis not even right before the Lord.”

“
Ach
, I don’t know. I think the Lord means for a husband to tend to his wife,” Adam mused.

Isaac goggled at him. “Tend her, ya . . . but not . . .”

“All the time?”

“Ya.”

“I imagine you will grow to forget your books.”

“Forget my . . . Adam, I am going to have to pray very hard about this wedding.”

“You do that. Likely you’ll find comfort in prayer now. You won’t have much time later.”

Isaac groaned and turned to stagger from the fence while Adam struggled hard to contain his mirth. But then the reality of the proposed wedding, with all of its necessary intimacies, washed over him, and he was filled with a sorrow as vast as the sky above.

Chapter 23

J
oseph glanced down the table at Lena seated next to Isaac, directly across from Adam, and smiled with pleasure. He felt confident, given Adam’s moody manners during the meal thus far, that it would not be long before the boy would quit the farm and flee somewhere far away. He had come to the conclusion that Adam’s departure was the best solution to his own fears. Toward this end, the faster Isaac married Adam’s true love, the better.

“So how is our happy couple?” Joseph asked, reaching for his drinking glass with a smile. “I do hope that the bishop arrives soon. Of course, you’ve had little time to court, but that shouldn’t matter—you know each other well enough, I’m sure.”

He watched Isaac staring at his plate and wondered what addled the boy. His wife had served a traditional Amish favorite dish,
schnitz
and
knepp
, which was usually a fare of celebration, but Joseph noticed that only he himself seemed to be eating with any appetite.

“A
gut
meal, Ellen,” he said, and his wife nodded her thanks. Lena murmured her agreement.
At this rate
, Joseph thought,
I might as well be eating alone
. Yet Adam, although not happy, did not seem overly put out, and this too worried Joseph.

He decided he would enliven the group with a recitation or two.

He prided himself on his excellent memory and oration skills. It might not hurt to bring the table’s occupants back to a more pertinent domestic frame of mind.

“I’ve heard a new speaking in Lancaster as of late. ’Tis on the topic of the care of a home and marriage, so it is most fitting. Would you have me recite?”

Lena nodded almost frantically. “
Ach, yes
. . . please do . . . My fater often tells a
gut
story at dinner.”

“Very well, my dear. ’Tis called ‘Huswifery.’ Thoughts about the sharing of life’s work that must be done before the Lord.” He cleared his throat, then began:

“Make me, O Lord, thy Spinning Wheele compleat;
Thy Holy Worde my Distaff make for mee.