Never Far From Home (The Miller Family 2) (39 page)

But Joseph Kauffman did not find it so meaningless. Without warning, he leaned over and kissed her—not on the forehead or cheek, but squarely on the mouth.

She was so shocked the kiss was over before she could respond. Then Emma’s reaction was sheer terror. She had played her friend falsely, somehow giving him the impression that she wished to be courted. “Nooooo,” she moaned. Her hands flew to undo her skates’ laces, and then she pulled off her skates, tugged on her boots, and ran pell-mell away from the pond.

“Wait, Emma. Stop, please,” called Joseph.

Emma ran wildly, stumbling and almost falling in her untied boots. She didn’t stop until she reached a stand of pine trees, far from the skating party. Panting and with her nose running, she threw herself against a tree trunk and sobbed.

One or two minutes passed before she heard his tender voice. “Forgive me, Emma. I had no right to behave so boldly. Please, slap my face or kick my shins, but I beg you not to cry. I’m so sorry.”

Emma pulled her wet face from the pine bark and turned to face him. He stood with his hat in hand, looking like a condemned man.

“No, Joseph. It’s me who’s sorry. I should have told you the truth right away and we wouldn’t be in this predicament. I’m in love with the
Englischer
. I honestly tried not to be, but I still am!” The tears resumed like a waterfall in spring. “I haven’t been kind to you, and you’re…a…very…nice…man.” Her declaration sounded like a string of hiccups.

“
Ach
, Emma, I’m not that nice a guy or I wouldn’t have stolen that kiss. Cry your eyes out on my shoulder if you like, and then we can go back to being what we were—friends. I can still use a few more of those.” He drew her to his chest while she buried her face in his soft wool coat. When the crying stopped, she stepped back and wiped her face with his hanky. “
Danki
, Joseph.”

“Okay, what do you want to do now? Get something to eat?”

Despite her misery, a smile she couldn’t resist began in the corner of her mouth.
We’re back to the topic of food again
. “No, not yet. I want to skate and skate and skate…all the way until dark.”

And so they did, but eventually they ate sloppy joes and sat around the bonfire sipping hot chocolate for him and warm cider for her. It felt good to have a friend, and Emma felt an enormous weight lift from her shoulders. Despite the stolen kiss and emotional upheaval, she had enjoyed herself at the skating party.

But Joseph didn’t ask to take her home. And Emma knew he never would. He was looking for a wife and it would not be her. One day he would find the perfect one, while she faced a lonely lifetime of spinning wool into yarn, hidden away in her barn loft like some fabled storybook character.

Late February

“I’ll take that egg if you don’t mind,” Hannah said to the chicken. After a ruffle of feathers and a loud cluck, the hen rose from her roost and strutted toward the ramp. She marched from the henhouse without a backward glance.

“
Danki
very much.” Hannah placed the egg with the others in the basket and then grabbed for the support post. A wave of dizziness overtook her as her stomach churned and somersaulted. The taste of bile inched up her throat as Hannah tried steadying herself with deep breaths.

Inhaling deeply in a henhouse was always a bad idea. Hannah set down the basket and ran for the door. Something she ate at breakfast had upset her stomach, so she hurried toward the house. Maybe it was the scrambled eggs or the fried bacon playing havoc, but Hannah didn’t make it to the bathroom. She doubled over, gripped her knees, and vomited into the bushes on the side of the henhouse. When the wave of nausea finally passed, Hannah sucked clean cold February air into her lungs and waited for her head to clear. From the branches overhead, she heard the distinctive chirping of songbirds heralding the return of spring to Holmes County. The early birds were back. She spotted thickening buds on the rhododendron bushes and turkey vultures soaring high in the wind currents.

Spring couldn’t arrive soon enough for her.

When she felt better, she fetched paper towels and a bucket of water from the pump house to clean up and then went indoors. Seth would have to retrieve the basket of eggs later. This was the third time she’d been sick this week. She prayed over and over in her head:
If it be Your will, Lord, please let it be.

She dared not name her heart’s desire. God knew she yearned for a
boppli
of her own to love in the
wunderbaar
home Seth had made for her. She had all but given up hope, remembering with shame her initial reaction of envy upon hearing that Catherine was pregnant. Now Hannah couldn’t wait for her
bruder’s
blessed event, only a couple months away. Seth promised they would travel back to Lancaster once the baby arrived and spring planting was finished. Would she have news of her own to share with Thomas and Catherine?

Walking through her warm kitchen, smelling faintly of cinnamon and spice, Hannah headed for the bathroom to wash her face and hands and then brush her teeth. Feeling refreshed, she went back to the kitchen and knelt by her chair and bowed her head. Her prayer was simple and earnest. She prayed for a safe delivery of Catherine’s child, a lifting of Seth’s worries over family finances, a salving of Emma’s wounded heart…and that she might, indeed, be pregnant.

Seth found Hannah still kneeling, with her head bent in silent prayer, when he returned from town twenty minutes later. He walked quietly to her side and laid a large hand upon her shoulder. “What troubles you,
fraa,
that you would seek counsel in the middle of the day? Has something happened? Are you ill?”

His tender words soothed her nerves like nothing in the herb book ever could. “Not now I’m not. It has passed. But I have much to pray for and to be thankful for. Didn’t want to save it all up for evening.” She struggled to her feet, feeling clumsy and stiff.

Seth lifted her up effortlessly. When they both settled themselves at the table, he asked, “Tell me, Hannah, what is bothering you. I’m worried.”

She remained mute for several moments, while insecurity and fear over voicing her hopeful speculation surfaced. “I’m afraid to speak,
ehemann
. I don’t want to seem prideful or overly confident and ruin my chances of it being true.”

Seth laughed. That wasn’t exactly the response she’d expected. “God doesn’t punish us for boldly speaking that which is true and just. If you have good news, be brave. Speak up and share it with me. I think I have an idea what this is about. I haven’t been living in China for the past few weeks.” His grin crinkled the skin around his eyes.

“Seth Miller! You’re impossible.” She playfully slapped his arm and then rose to her feet. “I’m getting our sandwiches for lunch. If you don’t mind, I’d like to wait a couple more months just to be sure, so please don’t tell your
bruder
or my sister about your…suppositions.”

“Hannah—”

She raised a palm to stem his protests. “Only two months, Seth, and then I promise—you’ll be the first person I tell the good news. After that, I don’t care if you take out an ad in the
Daily Journal
.”

He sneaked up from behind as she searched the refrigerator and hugged her waist. “It’s a deal. Then I tell the world.”

While they ate lunch, Hannah thought it best to change the subject. “How did it go in town? Were you able to order the feed that we’ll need?”

“
Jah
, they will deliver it tomorrow.” Seth set his sandwich on the plate and pushed it away.

“Something wrong?” she asked. “Too much mustard?”

“The sandwich is fine, but I heard some talk at the elevator today that got me worried.”

“Go on,” she prompted, not liking his change of mood.

“Many that had been in the corn alliance are still talking big. Some want to go to the bishop to demand that certain machinery be permitted to speed up planting and harvesting. They are upset about our financial straits. Apparently, we’re not the only ones with money difficulties.” He met her gaze. His dark cool eyes did not look happy.

“And what did you say to these hotheads?”

“I said it was bold talk like this that got us into this predicament. We need to let the bishop guide us through the crisis instead of causing more dissension.”

“You have no desire for additional machinery?” she asked.

“None. I intend to bow my head in prayer after lunch and ask for guidance. This time I plan to listen to what He tells me.”

Hannah saw some of the uneasiness in Seth drain away. She reached for his plate and pushed it in front of him. “Then I suggest you finish eating your lunch. It’ll help keep up your strength.”

Late April

E
mma decided that even a hermit must come out of her cave on a day like this. By eleven o’clock, the sun had burned off the morning dew and had risen high enough for temperatures to reach sixty degrees. With no wind and not a cloud in the sky, the little hermit decided it was a good day to go to town.

Mamm
was hobbling around well enough to not need her help fixing lunch. Leah, Matthew, and Henry were at school—soon to be a distant memory for Matthew, who would graduate in a couple weeks.
Daed
was busy with spring planting and would stay in the fields until supper. Considering she had caught up with her spinning and carding and had just completed a piece on the loom, Emma felt she deserved a day off.

Her
mamm
had even encouraged her to go, supplying a list of items she wanted from the bulk food store with additional money for a rare family treat—take-out pizza. When Emma reached the barn, she unexpectedly found Simon hitching up the pony cart.

“
Danki
for getting Maybelle ready to go, but you shouldn’t have taken time away from planting. I know how to hitch a horse into the traces.”

“
Ach
, I needed a break from plowing. Too much dust. Anyway, I rarely get to see you, daughter. You’re always working so hard in the shed or barn, or you’re up in your room.” Simon smiled at her, looking rather sad.

Emma didn’t mention the fact she sat at the dinner table each evening, because she knew what he meant. She had spent little time with her family, seldom rocking on the porch or sitting in the front room, never lingering over coffee after supper. She’d been wallowing in loneliness, and her father’s expression almost broke her heart. “Sorry,
daed
. This morning I came to the same conclusion that I spend too much time alone.”

She grabbed the seat back and stepped into the cart. “That’s why I decided to drive to town—to look at something other than the walls of my loft. And I promise to stop being such a stranger.” She took the reins from him and then clucked to Maybelle.

But Simon held tight to the bridle. “Do you want your
mamm
to ride along for company? Or maybe your old gray-haired
daed
?”

Emma was taken aback.
Taking a day from chores during the busiest time of year? Unheard of!

“No,
danki
. I won’t be gone long. Just a quick trip.”

“Oh, I saw Amos Kauffman from Berlin yesterday. He seems to think his boy, Joseph, is courting Martha Hostetler.” Simon clung to Maybelle’s halter.

Emma lifted an eyebrow. A deacon never discussed who was courting whom, at least not until today anyway. “
Jah
, I heard the same from Sarah.”

Father and daughter locked gazes—Simon’s watery gray eyes with Emma’s cornflower blue. “Did you two have a fight?” he asked. “I thought you liked him. Your
mamm
said you stopped going to singings again.”

Emma felt no anger with the question, only an odd sense of pity. She answered softy, “I still like him. He’s a nice young man and we’re friends. Martha Hostetler is a nice person too, so they sound perfect for each other,
jah
?”