An Amish Christmas Quilt (14 page)

C
HAPTER
8

“Kumme
in, Luke Lapp. I've been expecting you.
Kumme
and close the door. You're blowing half the mountain in!”

Luke stood tall and uncertain inside the cabin and looked down at Grossmuder May through the layer of snow topping his muffler. “Is she here then?” he asked, his heart beating fast.

“Sleeping like an angel in my bed.”

“Praise Gott. I would see her . . .”

“
Nee
, the child is fair worn out and bundled beneath the quilts. Let her sleep while you take your own rest here before the fire. There's no sense trying to get down the mountain until daybreak and the storm passes. Are you hungry?”

Luke realized he was ravenous after his hazardous ascent. “
Jah
, but I don't want to trouble you.”

He watched her sweep a bright quilt off the kitchen table and then she brushed away his words with an unladylike snort. “Sit, Luke Lapp. There's venison stew and dumplings. Though I'll put this quilt away first.”

His stomach rumbled as he began to undo the layers of his coat and scarves, thanking Derr Herr for Laurel's safety and the coming food.

Laurel jumped and sat up straighter in the comfortable bed as the curtain was briefly drawn aside and Grossmuder May entered, carrying the Christmas-roses quilt. Laurel had put the bundling board in place and bolstered it with two pillows. But the board provided little true division, rising only a few inches, so that Matthew seemed incredibly close, even though she lay fully dressed atop the quilts.

Grossmuder May came to stand at the foot of the bed. “Your first wedding present,” she whispered in her aged voice. And she flung out the Christmas-roses quilt so that it covered Laurel and added another layer atop Matthew.

When Laurel opened her mouth in amazement, Grossmuder May gave a warning frown and Laurel smiled in bewildered, grateful thanks
. If my
dat
finds out that Matthew's in here, there'll never be a wedding....
But such thoughts seemed of little use, especially when the old woman left them alone once more.

Laurel reached to run her fingertips over the quilt top, touching the petals of a single rose in dreamy fascination. It seemed that when Grossmuder May covered them with the quilt, she was blessing them and their lives together.
And how like Derr Herr to give hope for the future . . .
Laurel relaxed her posture and leaned over in the bed to rest her chin atop the quilt-covered bundling board. She forgot for the moment that her
fater
was only a few feet away when she gazed into Matthew's warm green eyes.

“I love you,” he whispered. Laurel felt her cheeks heat with his words, but she knew joy in her spirit that she could shape the words back to him with certain truth.

“I love you too.”

 

John Beider turned his empty coffee mug around, and the light of the kerosene lamp caught on the creases in his aging hands. The storm still howled outside and he sat alone, waiting and praying for Matthew. He looked up when Ellie appeared from their bedroom, her comfortable form wrapped warmly against the chill that permeated the room now that the fire was banked.

“You should come to bed, John.” Her voice was tender, mournful.

He gave her a rueful smile. “You know, Ellie, it's strange how usually I can't stand to be alone, but sitting here now—waiting—I find myself thinking back over my life and I can't seem to get away from the mistakes I've made.”

Ellie turned to lay a hand on his shoulder, and he caught her fingertips in his own. “You're worried, John. That's all.”

He shook his head.
“Nee
, I don't think that's it. I can't get it out of my head that maybe if I hadn't—well, stole that dollar when I was eight from Kauffmann's or sassed my
mamm
before she died . . .” His voice lowered. “Or fought with Luke—maybe, maybe Matthew wouldn't be out in this right now.”

He felt Ellie draw him close. “John, you know that Derr Herr came into this world to take away our sins, to give us relief from the shame of things we've done or should have done. Matthew's out—or not out—in the storm because he is finding a home for a stray kitten. A kind act—a kind choice, like we raised him. Your past has nothing to do with it.”

John nodded. He knew what his wife said was true. “
Danki
, Ellie.” He rose and pulled her near for a sweet kiss.

“Now
kumme
to bed. It will be morning before we know it.”

John lifted the lamp and followed Ellie out of the kitchen, but not before turning once to see the circle of light reflected against the glass of the window and the driving snow.

 

Matthew tried to fall asleep, but the sensory overload of Laurel's nearness and the cacophony of loud snoring coming from Grossmuder May and Luke Lapp barely allowed him to close his eyes. And, he was thirsty.

He considered climbing out of bed and getting the tantalizingly close water pitcher on the nearby dresser, where a single lantern burned low. But he couldn't risk Laurel waking and seeing him undressed. And, his clothes were nowhere in sight.

“What's wrong?” Laurel whispered, startling him. She gave a hushed giggle and leaned farther over the bundling board near his ear. “Don't worry, Matthew. The way those two are snoring, they'll never hear. What do you need?”

He stared up at her, her innocent question provoking stirrings of desire in his mind.
What do I need? You . . .

He reached up a tender hand to tease a strand of red-gold hair from beneath her
kapp
, coiling its length around his still reddened fingers. He pulled gently and she stretched even nearer to him, her red lips parted in breathlessness.

“Water,” he muttered, trying to get a rein on his thoughts.
Water and your sweet mouth on mine like spring rain . . .

Laurel frowned in concern and turned to slide with visible caution off her side of the bed. She moved in the shadows like a slim wraith, and he couldn't ignore the swing of her skirts as she stretched to reach a glass tumbler on a shelf above the dresser. He shifted restlessly, painfully aware of his state of undress. Then the gentle trickle of water filling the glass absorbed him and she came back to the bed.

She perched atop his mound of quilts, but he could still feel the press of her hip against his side as he eased himself up a bit to drink. He reached to hold the glass, but she gently pushed his hand away and pressed the rim to his lips.

“Drink,” she whispered.

The icy water quenched his hot throat, but the scent and nearness of Laurel sent fresh heat to his bare shoulders and chest. He couldn't stop himself when she pulled the drink away. He caught her mouth in a languorous kiss, slanting his head to deepen the intensity until he lost all sense of reason.

 

Laurel responded to his kiss with equal desire and only realized that the glass had slipped from her tingling fingers when it shattered on the floor with all the seeming intensity of an unpredicted earthquake.

She froze as the male snoring from the other room came to a sudden, coughing halt and then the unmistakable sound of heavy footsteps pounded across the cabin floor. She felt the slight breeze on her cheek as the curtain was flung aside and longed to lose herself in the intense green eyes staring in mixed determination and desperation up into hers.

“Laurel, are you well?” her
dat
asked, rubbing his eyes as she turned.

She watched her
fater's
eyes adjust to the dim light as he approached the bed and then blaze out with incredulity and fury at the sight before him.

Luke Lapp could not have been more confused and dazed if someone had struck him broadside with a two by four. But there she was—held protectively against a bare male chest. Luke lurched forward another step, crunching glass beneath his thick socks, then blinked as he recognized John Beider's eldest
sohn
.

Luke struggled to get a word out, any word, but all he heard coming from his throat, as if from a distance, was a low growl of white-hot rage. It surprised him for a second, long enough for him to realize that his hands were clenched in fists and he knew a desire to strike something, break something.... He let out a ragged breath. His people were peaceful in nature and he had never struck another human being, and he realized that, by some tenuous thread of control, he was not about to start now.

He lifted a hand and pointed his finger at the young couple, looking past Laurel to meet Matthew Beider's resolute green eyes. “What—is going on?”

“It's my fault, sir,” Matthew said quickly. His deep voice was very much like his
fater's
had once been, so that Luke had the eerie feeling that an embodiment of the past had somehow come to meet him in the confines of the small room.

The
buwe
continued to speak, his strong, cleanly muscled arms visibly tightening around Laurel—as if . . .
As if I'd hurt her
. A vein in Luke's forehead pulsed fiercely and a sob caught at the back of his throat as the dissolution of his daughter's honor seemed to stare him in the face.
What would Meg have said?

“I know how you feel about my
fater
—how you each feel. I sought to court Laurel anyway in deep secret. It is all my doing. I—I came after her here when the storm started because I feared for her. I love her, sir. I want to marry her.”

“By your teeth, you surely shall marry her, or I'll . . .” Luke caught a winded breath.
What will I do? The
buwe
will do the right thing or else....
He ground his jaw in mute frustration.

“Fater, please do not be hurt or upset. I love Matthew. I would make him a
gut
wife.”

“You're a child,” Luke choked.

“I'm eighteen—older than Mamm was when she married you.”

“Don't—don't you dare bring up your mother here. If she could see you . . .”

“What is all the fuss about? I was dreaming deep.” Grossmuder May hobbled into the room and poked Luke with her cane. “Luke Lapp, so your daughter bundled with a
buwe
. So, what? You know it was common practice not that long ago on this mountain.”

“You would have hid this from me,” Luke accused the elder with a catch in his voice.

“
Jah
, and for your own
gut
. Because you're acting exactly like I know you would have, had you known from the outset.”

Luke shook his head and swung his glare back to the young couple. “Get out of that bed,
buwe
. The sun is beginning to rise and the storm has passed. You and I are going to see the bishop and then your
fater
. You'll marry before this day is out, so help me. Now, get up.”

“Fater
. . . sei se gut
, let Matthew have some privacy.” Laurel protested weakly.

“What?”

“
Ach
,” Grossmuder May snorted. “She's trying to tell you that the
buwe
's not dressed.”

Luke's mind boggled. “Not—dressed . . .” He took an involuntary step nearer the bed.

“Luke Lapp, he was nearly frozen through.” Grossmuder May dismissed the issue with a wave of her wrinkled hand. “And the girl intends to be his wife.”

“But—virtue—chastity—pureness—only pureness before her eyes before . . .” Luke heard himself rambling but couldn't stop.

“Fater, please,” Laurel began to sob.

“There, now you've done it,” Grossmuder May snapped. “A cryin' on her first wedding gift. There should be no tears on that quilt at the beginning. Now we will all step out and let the lad get dressed.
Kumme
!”