Arms of Love (14 page)

Lena snatched off her work hat and pulled on the town straw, tying it neatly beneath her chin. She adjusted her apron and sighed aloud.

“It is my
fater
. He’s to stand trial at noon. A—man brought news.

I am going with him to town to see the outcome.”

“A man, dearie? Do you think you should go alone with him?”

“Is it Adam?” Abigail asked matter-of-factly, looking up from scraping carrots.

Lena flushed against her will. “
Ya
.” She looked at Ruth. “Adam Wyse is . . . well, I thought once that we might build a life together. But he feels differently of late . . .” She trailed off lamely.

“What do you mean, Lena? We all love Adam,” Abigail chirped.

“Except maybe
Fater
. . . but I don’t know why.”

“Well, anyway, I will be safe,” Lena declared, wishing she could silence her sister. She was not yet ready to talk about Adam with Ruth, or with anyone for that matter. And yet she knew her words to be true. She would always be safe with him.

She shook herself mentally for such thoughts while her father awaited his fate, then nodded to Ruth, patted Abby, and flew back out the door.

She came to an abrupt halt on the top step when she realized she’d have to ride with Adam in relentless proximity. He looked unconcerned at the prospect though.

“We must hurry, Lena. Do you wish to ride in front or behind?”

His innocent words conjured up images of herself in his grasp, his strong hands steadying her, the sinews of his arms encircling her . . . Or would it be less treacherous for her to place her own arms around his lean waist, to feel the warmth of his body through the linen of his shirt . . .

“Lena?” There was a faint tone of impatience in his voice. “We must not dally.”

“Of course,” she murmured, recovering some composure and uttering a silent prayer for forgiveness for her thoughts, only to allow herself to be engulfed in them once more. “I’ll ride behind.”
Where I’ll be more in control of the contact . . .

He shrugged and reached an arm out to her. “Fine, but astride,
sei se gut
. We must travel fast, and I’ve no time for you to slip off in a tangle of skirts.”

She opened her mouth to protest, then closed it with a quick snap. She had ridden astride with him plenty of times in the past, and she could always have him deposit her at the edge of town where she could make a more proper arrival at the trial. It would most likely be held in public, in the town square.

She caught his arm and felt herself pulled upon the steady horse with ease.

“Hold tight. I intend to go as fast as possible,” Adam warned as he turned the beast. Lena reluctantly let her hands slide along the thin linen of his shirt. He wasn’t wearing a vest, so he must have been caught working when he heard the news of her father.

She tried to let the pacing of the horse beneath her soothe her tired mind. She felt torn inside between having very human emotions of passion yet feeling as stricken as an invalid in the face of her mother’s death and her father’s imprisonment. It seemed that life was to go on and that
Derr Herr
was carrying her, perhaps literally, through days that might have been slow and monotonous without the advent of Ruth and Mary and the tumult of Adam’s rejection. Now, with her arms locked around him, she could not deny the effect he had on her any more than she could her own breath. She wondered if it would always be thus and tried to imagine some other man, a tall mysterious stranger, who might sweep into her life and wipe away the imprint of Adam from her consciousness. But try as she might, there was only the dark-haired man whom she held and with whom, she reminded herself, she should be very angry for his abrupt ending of their relationship.

“You are quiet,” he said over his shoulder, offering her a glimpse of his tanned, perfect profile.

“As are you,” she returned with conscious diffidence and a sniff.

“You think of your
mamm
.”

It wasn’t a question, just a simple statement of fact. His words dissolved the walls she had constructed surrounding her
mamm’s
loss and left her heart and mind exposed and vital.

“
Ya
. . . I can scarce believe she is gone. I was—so scared. When she was dying, I mean. I had seen
Grossmuder
Yoder after she died, but this was so different. Her breathing—she labored so at the end.” Lena sighed, realizing she had longed to express these small intimacies with someone, and now here she was, telling Adam, who had blantantly rejected her.

“I am sorry,” he said after a moment of silence. “And that is sparse enough in its good, but my heart beats for you in what must have been a terrible situation. You did all that you could, I know. I would have . . . well, I would have been there with you if I could.”

“Do you still have bad dreams?”

She was surprised at her own boldness in asking so intimate a question in the face of his rejection. But she felt the lean muscles beneath her hands grow tense and alert. She had often fretted when his eyes lost some of their glimmer and bruiselike shadows hollowed the contours of his face, knowing it was because of his dreams.

“Always,” he finally returned.

The horse picked its way through an encroaching thicket where leaves and blackened walnut hulls were strewn across the road.

Lena drew a deep breath. “Before . . . when we . . . Well, you would never allow me to ask more than you were willing to offer. But I risk it now, since I have nothing to lose. Why is it, Adam? Why do you dream?”

She thought that he would cut her off in cold silence or with a clipped response, but instead his voice when it came to her was soft and husky with emotion.

“I do not know why it is that I dream, Lena. I—I have tried to wrestle with it within myself, before the Lord even, and I—”

The sudden and terrifying sound of a woman’s scream echoed from the overhead tree branches above them.

Adam managed to hold Tim to a quick rear and simultaneously slid his rifle from the side of the saddle. Lena’s heart beat with wild force in her throat. She knew that scream. It was the hungry battle cry of a mountain lion that had found easy prey.

Chapter 11

T
hat’s not the way
Mamm
did it.”

Ruth heard the treble threat of tears in Abigail’s small voice as the child stared into the vat where old cooking grease and creek water needed to be rendered for the making of soap.

“Aye, she was bound to do it in the fall at butchering time, is that not so, dearie?”

The child nodded but didn’t look up, and Ruth felt her heart more alive than she would have guessed it could be as she reached a gentle hand to the pale brow of the little girl, then went back to moving the paddle in the odorous mass.

“Soap making is as different as one woman to the next, Abby. Will you tell me how else your mum did it?”

In answer, Abigail turned and ran to a small barn where Ruth had seen earlier that tools and such were kept. The child soon came scampering back with a long, thin stick in her hand.

“It’s a sassafras stick,” she explained, holding it up to Ruth for inspection. “It’s the only thing that you can stir the soap with proper, and you always have to stir in the same direction.”

“Ah, I see now the error of my ways.” Ruth smiled as she pulled the paddle from the vat and laid it aside to take the stick from Abigail.

She knew there were many superstitions as far as soap making was concerned, but this must be one peculiar to the Amish.

“You know, Abby, my mum died when I was a mite younger than you. I remember she always smelled like the sweet violets of England’s vales. I can smell her still if I try hard enough.”

“
Mamm
smells—smelled like herself. I cannot say a flower, but sweet. I can never smell her again, I think.”

The needed tears spilled over onto the rounded cheeks, and Ruth waited. She knew from experience that there was no replacing a mother’s touch when it was wanted.

She continued to move the stick in a careful pattern of direction, taking a step back from the open flame beneath the vat. She had no desire to singe her only remaining skirt. She thought about the fire that had claimed her home and knew that local farmers would sometimes let a fire burn an area of land the better to cultivate it.
Cultivate
. The words of the verse that Lena read echoed in her mind, and she tried to dismiss them. How could God possibly be “for her”? For any of this little family she had landed herself and her babe with? She shook her head and turned to the child whose tears had dwindled.

“Want to try and stir a bit, Abby?”

The girl gave an eager nod, and Ruth turned her mind to learning what else the Amish did in their soap preparations.

“If I let Tim run, the cat will only give chase through the treetops,” Adam said, struggling to control the panicky horse. Adam’s heart hammered in his chest, though his movements with the gun were slow and easy. He could feel Lena’s hands digging into his sides, and he pushed aside the sudden graphic image of the cat leaping upon them. He didn’t bother trying to get an accurate shot off; instead, bundling the reins around one wrist, he fired straight ahead, the sound a snapping echo. The responding telltale growl of the cat’s shrill, shortened cry was followed by a heavy rustling overhead as the animal leapt away, deeper into the trees. Then Adam gave Tim his head, and the horse was off.

The whole occurrence took less than a minute, but Adam felt as though he’d been moving through dark molasses. It was normal for panthers or mountain lions, as they were called, to hunt closer to dusk. This was a bold animal indeed and probably should be dealt with by a hunting group.

“Are you all right?” he said to Lena, his throat dry.

“
Ya
.” Her voice held a tremble, though, and he let Tim run on for another half mile before reining in at a local spring. He offered an arm to Lena, then fastened his rifle onto the saddle and jumped down beside her.

“Come, let’s give the horse some water and have a quick drink ourselves. You need to calm down, and so do I.” He let her fall in behind him as he led Tim to a place to drink from the nearby stream. Adam then cupped his hands to the bubbling wooden spout that someone had placed in the rock face and washed his face before taking a drink of the cool and refreshing water. He automatically scanned the ground for snakes, which often sunned themselves on the rock ledges, then turned to make room for Lena.

She brushed past him, and he caught her scent, like wild roses in the twilight, and he reminded himself that it was no longer his right to touch her. She bent and drank, then lifted the hem of her clean apron to her lips. She stepped away from him without meeting his eyes.