Faithful to Laura (19 page)

“Sawyer will be home this evening.”

She angled her head toward Anna, all thoughts of spa treatments fleeing her mind. “Are you sure?”

“Lukas will make certain of it.”

That changed everything. If she had access to Sawyer again, she could apply more pressure. Hopefully gain the upper hand. She’d learned that skill not only in her business dealings but in her personal life. Always stay one step ahead of everyone else. The one time she hadn’t, she’d lost Kerry forever.

She wasn’t going to make the same mistake with Sawyer.

Anna didn’t say a word the rest of the drive home. Cora preferred it that way.

Emma gazed out the window of her bedroom, blinking back tears. She couldn’t believe Adam had told her about that Ashley girl and what happened between them in Michigan. She paced across the room and back again. And paced some more. With each step she prayed for clarity, for the pain of yet another betrayal to cease.

But had Adam really betrayed her? They hadn’t been a couple when he was with Ashley. They hadn’t even been friends at the time. He had turned his back on everyone and everything in Middlefield for those two years. So why did she feel so hurt?

She flopped down on the bed. The strings of her
kapp
bounced against the front of her dress. She knew why she was hurt, if she was just honest enough to admit it.

She wasn’t his first. His one and only. Like he would be for her. That special, intimate moment, that first time, he had already experienced. With another woman.

Adam knew so much, and she knew nothing.

What if she disappointed him? What if she didn’t measure up?

What if he wishes he’d married someone else?

Emma tried to push the anxious thoughts away. But she couldn’t. She wasn’t one of the pretty girls. Her hips were too wide and her face too plain. But since Adam’s return, he had helped destroy the self-doubt that had always plagued her. When she was with Adam, he made her feel like the most beautiful woman in the world.

Now all those old insecurities came rushing back, smashing her confidence to smithereens. She didn’t know if she could regain it again.

“Emma?”

She heard her grandmother’s muffled voice outside the door. She wiped the tears from her eyes and stood.
“Ya?”

“Are you okay? It’s nearly suppertime.”

Emma opened the door. “I’m fine. I’m sorry, I just . . . lost track of time. I’ll be right there.”

Her grandmother peered at Emma’s face and frowned. “You aren’t all right.”

Emma started to deny it, but she couldn’t fool her grandmother. She never could. “
Nee
, I’m not. But I will be.”

“
Lieb
, talk to me. You’ve been so happy the past few weeks.” She smiled. “It’s been so nice to see. What happened to change that?”

The old woman leaned heavily on her cane. Emma opened the door wider. “Please, come sit down.”

Grossmammi
shuffled to the bed and sat. She put the cane in front of her and placed both hands on the handle. She didn’t say anything, just waited.

And suddenly Emma didn’t know what to say. She walked to the window again. Dried raindrops smeared the window pane. She’d always confided in her grandmother. But how could she tell her grandmother about Adam and Ashley?

“Adam has something to do with this, doesn’t he?”
Grossmammi
asked.

Emma nodded but didn’t turn. She traced a line on the window ledge. Dust. She’d have to clean it later.

“Emma?”

Emma leaned her head against the window. “Adam . . . he told me something.” Her cheeks heated. “Something I didn’t want to know. I didn’t need to know.”

“All right.” Her grandmother spoke the words in a measured tone.

She turned around. “The odd thing is, he told me because he thought he was doing the right thing.”

“And was he?”

“I don’t know.” Emma crossed the room and sat next to her grandmother. She leaned her head on
Grossmammi’s
shoulder. “Part of me believes he was right in telling me his . . . secret.”

“But you don’t believe that completely.”

She lifted her head and looked at her grandmother, thankful the woman didn’t press her for the details of her and Adam’s conversation. “
Nee
, I don’t. I’m so confused.”

“Love is confusing, especially in the beginning.” Her grandmother patted her knee. “Emma, you and Adam have been through a lot together. And not just in the past few weeks. You’ve been together almost your entire lives. As friends. Now as something more.”

Emma nodded, close to tears again. “I wanted him to notice me for so long,
Grossmammi
. Then he left and I thought I’d never see him again.” She looked at her hands, her fingers trembling.

“But he came back. He fell in love with you.”

“And I love him.”

“You always have.”
Grossmammi
smiled.

“I didn’t do a
gut
job hiding it, did I?”

Her grandmother shook her head. “
Nee
. But it doesn’t matter now. You’re together. You’re getting married. This is what you prayed for,
ya
?”

“Ya.”
She looked away. “And then he had to tell me about Ashley.”

Grossmammi
paused. She nodded in her wise, knowing way. “I see. But, Emma, surely you aren’t letting his past direct your future together?”

“I thought I came to terms with everything. I thought I was finally happy. And then he had to ruin it.”

“So this is his fault.”

“
Ya
, it is!” Emma jumped up from the bed. She put her hand against her chest. “I didn’t leave Middlefield. I didn’t date a Yankee
bu
. I didn’t—” She turned away, unable to bring herself to say out loud what Adam had done.

“Goodness.”
Grossmammi
tapped her cane against the floor.

“If only we could all be as
perfekt
as you.”

Emma spun around. “That’s not fair. You know I don’t think that.”

“I do. But you would judge the man you love as if you have no blemishes of your own. That,
lieb
, isn’t fair.”

She drew in a long breath. “So I’m supposed to forgive and forget what he’s done.”

“
Ya
, Emma.”
Grossmammi
stood. “You know that as much as I do. You know it here.” She tapped Emma’s temple. “And here.” She touched Emma’s heart.

“That’s supposed to make it easier?”

Grossmammi
shook her head. “It often makes it harder. The easy way is to hang on to the pain. Because it makes us feel better.”

“
Ya
. I feel so wonderful right now.”

“It makes us feel better because it lifts us above another. It protects us from further hurt.” She moved closer to Emma.

“And it drives a wedge between us and the people we love.”

Emma thought about Adam’s parents. How separate they’d been from each other. There was something unsettled between them. She didn’t know what it was, but it made both of them miserable. Now she could see Adam was trying to avoid that in their relationship.

And she would hold his honesty against him.

“I have to see Adam.” She headed for the door but stopped short and looked over her shoulder at
Grossmammi
.

Geh
on,” her grandmother said. “I’ll make a sandwich. I “wasn’t that hungry to begin with.”

Emma smiled. Then she turned and went to her grandmother, wrapping her arms around
Grossmammi’s
frail shoulders.
“Danki,”
she whispered in her ear.

Her grandmother stepped back. “
Geh
see your
yung mann, lieb
. He’s waited long enough. You both have.”

Sawyer paced the length of the bedroom at his grandparents’ house. He’d gone into the first one at the top of the stairs, which happened to be Lukas’s old room. As a teenager he’d spent the night here several times, when the family would get together for church, picnics, singings, and other gatherings. It had taken him a couple of years, but he eventually became a real part of this family.

Then here came Cora Easley. How could she, a stranger to him, expect him to just leave everything behind and follow her to New York? He knew nothing about her, other than he would bet his pickup truck that she was hiding something. Maybe a lot of things.

A knock sounded on the door. “Sawyer?”

Get it together, Sawyer
. He’d acted like a child since Cora Easley showed up. Time to man up. He opened the door and looked at his father. “I’m sorry about all this, Dad. Don’t worry, I’ll be right down and back to work. There’s so much we have to get done. We didn’t need this interruption.”

Lukas shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. I closed the shop for the day.”

“What?” His father never closed the shop, except for Sundays, holidays, and weddings.

“After what happened today, we can’t
geh
back to work and pretend everything is normal. We need to settle some things,
ya
?”

Sawyer turned around and went to the bedroom window. He looked at the backyard, now cloaked in darkness. Memories poured over him, and he sank down on the bed. How many times had he played baseball and volleyball here at the Bylers’ with his friends? Watched over his young nieces and nephews as they learned to walk and toddle around in the thick green grass?

“There’s nothing to talk about,” he said. Then, with a sudden desire to prove he belonged here, he added,
“Nix.”

“Sawyer.”

He felt his father’s strong hand on his shoulder. The strength of his touch broke something inside of Sawyer. “Why?” He swallowed, nearly choking on tears. “Why did they lie to me?”

“I don’t know.” Lukas squeezed Sawyer’s shoulder. He let go. “But from everything you told me about your parents, they were
gut
people. I’m sure they had a sound reason for not telling you about Mrs. Easley.”

“Is there really any reason for lying? For letting me think I didn’t have any other family?” He gritted his teeth, then rolled up his shirtsleeve and pointed to the burn on his forearm. “I wouldn’t have this if—” He covered his face. “I just don’t understand.”