Arms of Love (2 page)

reebs
– beets

schnitz
– traditional Amish fare

schwester
– sister

sei se gut
– please

sohn
– son

tzellar
– cellar

wunderbarr
– wonderful

ya
– yes

Author’s Note

P
ost-traumatic stress disorder can affect veterans, police officers, and anyone who has seen or been involved in a potentially violent event or trauma. Sometimes survivors, especially children, will block out the event from their minds but can still experience nightmares, stress, and anger. It may take years before a survivor can confront or admit the event and its effects in life.

This book is respectfully dedicated to all of those who struggle with PTSD, especially my father-in-law, who was a “tunnel rat” in Vietnam, and my brother, who served valiantly for seven years as a police officer, lost his partner on duty, and still fights for recovery and peace . . .

Chapter 1

March 1777

Lancaster, Pennsylvania

I
am going to die with the birth of this child, Adam.”

Twenty-one-year-old Adam Wyse stared at the older woman, his mother’s best friend and the mother of the girl he loved. He had little doings with the ways of women and understood the bearing of offspring better in terms of the horses he raised. But there was something calm and certain about the statement Mary Yoder had made, and he sought to turn her from such premonitions.

“You are anxious, ’tis all, as any . . . woman would be near her time.” He had almost said
mare
. He cast about the room in hopes that inspiration would come to him. Instead, the bright sun of spring beguiled through the windowpanes. He longed to be outside, holding hands with Lena.

“Adam. This is not the fancy of some nervous horse; I have given birth to three other
kinner
with no problem. But this time—well, the Lord has revealed it to my heart, and I must make preparations now, especially with Samuel absent.”

The past three weeks had been a hard time for the Yoder family. Samuel Yoder had been hauled off to jail after refusing to give up his last cow to the Patriots’ cause of revolution, and there was no telling when he would be released.

Adam chafed a bit under Mary’s scrutiny and tried to look anywhere but at the mound of bedclothes covering her abdomen. “Would you like me to send Lena to you?”

“Nee. I would like you to make a dying woman a promise.”

“Mary . . .”

“A promise, Adam. But some questions first, if you will?”

He nodded, resigned. “Of course, but I—”

“
Gut
. Tell me, have you kissed my daughter?”

“What?”

“You heard me well.”

“
Nee
. . . Of course not.”

Mary laughed. “But not for lack of wanting, eh?”

He felt himself flush like some green lad, knowing he had held himself off like a wolf on a leash for want of kissing Lena in the past, convicted by her youth and delicacy.

“I wanted,” he said, unable to keep the roughness from his tone.

She reached to pat his hand. “As is normal. But I am glad that your relationship has not progressed that far—it will make things easier later.”

“Later?” he asked, but she was on to another question.

“I know how your
fater
abuses you, Adam. I have seen the scars on your back. Why have you not left his home?”

“I—” He broke off in confusion. He’d never been confronted by the truth of his private life in so forceful a manner, even by Lena. It was not so simple a question to answer. His father did see fit to discipline him harshly, careful not to “spare the rod,” but he hadn’t actually beaten Adam in several years. It was more torturous games of the mind now.

“Well?”

He swallowed hard. “I stay because . . . because I am bound there. I cannot easily go out into the world without my father’s blessing, and— well, perhaps I deserve what I get from him.”

Mary snorted. “You deserve to be hurt, Adam? And your
mamm
standing by, helplessly? She can do nothing. She is a victim too, as is Isaac.” She covered his hand with her own.

He thumbed the contours of her fingers and shook his head, thinking of his older brother. “Not Isaac . . . He gets away from it somehow. He has escaped.”

“
Nee
, ’tis not true. He’s lost himself in his own world, in his books and studies and animals, but he won’t walk away free. No one who lives in that house will ever be free.”

Adam felt unexpected tears burn at the back of his eyes. He swallowed hard. “
Ya
, there’s truth in that.”

“I believe that no one should have to live under such oppression of the spirit.”

He smiled then. “You sound like a Patriot.”

He was surprised when a thoughtful look crossed her face. “Well, maybe I am.”

“What?” No Amish person would ever admit to supporting the cause of the Revolution—except for a few men, mostly young, who had done so outright by enlisting . . . as Adam himself had secretly considered. But to hear a woman, a neighbor he had known all his life, speak in such a way was confusing, especially with her husband jailed.

“
Ach
, do not worry, Adam. I am not being unfaithful about Samuel’s plight. But there is in me something that believes there are things worth fighting for. Do you agree?”

He thought about the bondage his mother was in to his father.

“
Ya
, some things.”

“Is my
dochder
one of those things, Adam?”

He met her eyes, confused. “Lena? I know ’twill sound forthright,

but she loves me true, and I her.”

“
Ya
. . . this is so.”

“Then why would I have to fight for her?”

Mary withdrew her hand from his to rub absently at her belly.

“Because of the promise I mentioned before.”

“I will do whatever you ask.”

She looked at him, her eyes the bright turquoise blue of Lena’s own. “Will you, Adam?”

“If it is within my power, and with the Lord’s grace,
ya
.”

She smiled faintly. “Grace?
Ya
, that you will need . . . for I ask you to promise, Adam Wyse, to give up Lena’s love, to give her up, until you are free from your
fater
’s rule and are ready to build a new and free life for the two of you. I cannot die knowing that you would take her to your home as our custom decrees.”

“Of course I would take her to my home; it is our way. But
Fater
would never harm her.”

“And what of your
kinner
, Adam? Can you be so sure? What of your sons? And, Adam, it hurts me to speak thus, but do you trust yourself? What if you gave into a rage like your father’s?”

“Mary, I would never—”

“Perhaps I overstep . . . but I would still have your promise.”

Inwardly Adam reeled as though he had been struck; he could not fathom the request. “I can build a new home—away from my father’s house—farther out into the community.”

“If this were your intent, you would have done so by now.”

He bowed his head and felt a thickness in his throat. “You ask too much.”

“With the Lord’s grace, Adam . . . remember? You said that.”

“But I . . .” He stopped. He would not give in to the sob that beckoned from the depths of his heart. Give up Lena? How would he even go about it? He could not imagine breathing without her, let alone living out a life until he could do what Mary asked.

“My time is short, Adam. Do you promise?”

He stared at her. Was she mad? He was a man of his word, but Mary was near her time and probably not thinking clearly. He could promise and give her the comfort she wanted, and then they could resolve things later.

He took her hand. “I do so promise, Mary Yoder.”

She sighed, a restless, broken sound. “
Gut. Danki
, Adam. You will see . . . Your arms will be full of love again before long.”

He nodded, watched as she drifted off to sleep, and then left the quiet room, deep in thought.

“What did
Mamm
want?”

Lena Yoder looked up into the face of her beloved and couldn’t help but think how beautiful he was. His dark hair hung heavy to his shoulders, and the strong bones of his face were the perfect frame for his strange golden eyes.

He looked down at her now as they stood in the early garden and gently ran the back of his hand across her cheek. She shivered in delight, longing to lean into his touch.

“She wanted to talk, ’tis all.”

Lena ignored the prick of conscience that saw something hesitant in those golden depths. “She loves you, Adam.”

“And I her . . . and her
kinner
.”

“I am sure that John and Abby will be glad to know that,” she teased, giving him a bright smile.

But he didn’t smile in return. Instead he drew close to her, bending so that his breath brushed her ear. Her heart stopped when she thought he might kiss her . . . but he merely stood close, tantalizingly close, and then drew away.