Authors: Promised to Me
Robin Lee Hatcher (17 page)
J
akob was drowsing in the afternoon heat when Tulley burst into the bedroom.
“There’s himself, lyin’ about like a man o’ leisure.”Jakob sat up, blinking away the fog of sleep.
Tulley settled onto a chair near the bed. “The doctor says you’re doin’ well, all things considered. ’Tis glad we are to hear it.” He frowned. “Though I’d not know you were improvin’. You have the look of a man who’s been on the receivin’ end of a prizefighter’s gloves.”
“Thanks.”
Although Jakob still suffered from too-frequent headaches and had to move with care, he
was
much better. The most frustrating thing about his recovery was the persistent weariness that dogged him. He supposed it had a lot to do with the blazing heat of the past few days, but that didn’t make it any easier to endure. He wasn’t used to being idle. He hadn’t spent this much time in bed since those robbers in Wyoming nearly killed him.
At least he was more mobile than right after the accident. He was grateful for that. He’d even eaten his breakfast downstairs this morning, despite Karola’s objections.
Tulley gave his head a slow shake. “Father Patrick says we must take the little potato with the big potato in this life.”
Jakob knew he was supposed to gain encouragement from that bit of Irish wisdom.
“Sure, and I’ve been sent to bring the wee ones back to town with me for a few days. Laura’s missin’ their company, she is. She’s told me I’m not to be takin’ no for an answer.” Tulley raised a hand. “I’ve already talked to your missus—she was hanging out the laundry when I rode up—and she had no objection, so there’ll be no arguing from you now, will there?”
Jakob glanced toward the window. The curtain had been drawn in a futile attempt to keep the room cool—and so he couldn’t see outside. Even so, he could imagine Karola in his mind’s eye, standing at the clothesline, the large wicker basket at her feet, her apron pocket filled with clothespins, her hair caught beneath a kerchief.
The image changed suddenly, and he saw her as she’d been last night. Clad in a prim, white nightgown, her hair loose and flowing about her shoulders. She’d stood near the window, bathed in the light of a full moon, holding the kitten near her cheek, murmuring softly to it, loving it. Her expression had nearly broken his heart, it had been so wistful.
He’d wondered what she was thinking, if she longed for another place. He remembered wishing she would hold him and whisper to him and love him like that.
“Would there be anything you’re needin’ to say, me boy? You have the look of a man with much on his mind.”
Jakob turned his gaze on his good friend. He was tempted to pour out his confusion and frustration. After all, it was Tulley who told him he was in love with Karola before he knew it himself. Who better to help him make sense of things?
But Jakob wasn’t the sort to share confidences easily, and so he let the moment pass.
Perspiration trickled down Karola’s spine and dampened her bodice beneath her arms as she hung the last load of laundry on the line. Long strands of hair had slipped free of the kerchief she wore on her head and were now plastered against her neck. The glare of the relentless sun, reflecting as it did off the white bed-sheet, nearly blinded her.
She hoped Jakob would give his permission for the children to return to town with their uncle Tulley. She was exhausted from long days and relatively sleepless nights, and she would be thankful for a brief reprieve of even a few chores.
Oh, but that was terrible. The children weren’t a chore. They were a delight, and she loved them with all her heart.
She turned from the sheet on the line, wiping her forehead with the back of her forearm before bending to lift the basket. As she straightened, she saw a horse and buggy approaching up the drive. She assumed it would be the doctor. He’d promised to look in on Jakob today.
But it wasn’t Dr. Cooper. It was Charlotte White, looking as fresh and pretty as wildflowers in a mountain meadow.
If she’d felt exhausted before, now Karola felt old and dowdy.
“Hello,” Charlotte called as she drew in on the reins, stopping beside Tulley’s carriage.
Karola set the basket on the ground, then walked toward the buggy
.
“
Guten Tag,
Miss White.” With her fingertips, she pushed damp hairs from her face.
“My mother sent me with a cake. She thought Mr. Hirsch might enjoy it. She said to apologize because it won’t be as good as one of yours.” As she disembarked, Charlotte glanced at the other carriage. “Is Laura here? If I’d known she was coming, I would have joined her.”
“
Nein.
It is Mr. Gaffney who came. He is with Jakob now.”
Charlotte’s gaze scanned the barnyard until it came to rest on Lance’s gelding in the corral. With feigned nonchalance, she asked, “Is Mr. Bishop with them, too?”
Amazing, how that one question—and the apparent motive behind it—served to brighten Karola’s mood. “
Nein.
He is in the fields.” She turned toward the house. “Please come inside, Miss White. It is too hot to stand here in the sun.”
She returned to where she’d left the basket, lifted it, then waited for Charlotte to catch up so they could walk to the house together.
“How fortunate you are to have Mr. Bishop’s help,” the younger woman said as they stepped onto the back porch.
“
Ja,
he is a good friend to us.” Karola set the basket near the door, then motioned for Charlotte to enter the kitchen before her.
“And how is Mr. Hirsch feeling?” The question seemed almost an afterthought.
“He is better.”
Charlotte handed the cake plate to Karola. “You will give him my regards.”
“Of course.”
“We were all very frightened for him when he fell.” Charlotte glanced toward the back door. “I don’t suppose Mr. Bishop will be back anytime soon.”
“I cannot say.”
Charlotte looked crestfallen.
Karola hoped for Lance’s sake that Charlotte’s feelings for him were genuine and lasting. Lance had his heart set on this young woman, and Karola knew only too well how it felt when one’s heart’s desires were shattered by unrequited love.
“Please, sit down, Miss White, and we will become better acquainted.
Ja?”
Jakob thought the house too quiet without the children. The silence left him too free to ponder his troubles. He hadn’t enough cash reserves for the doctor bills and the extra work Lance was putting in. And the weather. If they didn’t get some rain soon …
Then there were his feelings for Karola. One moment, he was confident he could win her love and trust. She’d kissed him, after all. But then he’d begin to doubt. After all, why should she love or trust him?
No reason I can think of.
Yes, it was too quiet, and definitely too hot. He couldn’t bear the upstairs bedroom another minute.
Moving slowly, he shucked his nightshirt and struggled into a clean, sleeveless undershirt and a pair of trousers. He was winded by the task, like an old man who’d smoked one too many cigars in his lifetime.
He rested a few moments, seated on the side of the bed, then rose and shuffled toward the door. He paused when he caught sight of his reflection in the dressing table mirror.
Tulley was right. He looked like a prizefighter had worked him over good. The stitches the doctor had taken in the cut above his left brow looked like barbed wire poking out of his forehead. He was overdue for a haircut, his cheeks were gaunt beneath nine-day-old stubble, and dark circles underscored his eyes.
With a grunt of disgust, he moved on. Out of the room. Down the stairs. Along the hall and through the dining room.
Just before he reached the door into the kitchen, it swung open and Karola stepped through, stopping the instant she saw him.
“Jakob, what are you
doing?”
“Coming to the kitchen.”
“You should have called for me. I would have brought you whatever you needed.”
“What I need is a change of scenery.”
Karola pushed the kitchen door open again. “Are you hungry? Miss White brought a cake.”
“She was here?” He moved forward, anxious to reach one of the kitchen chairs.
“
Ja.
She came while Mr. Gaffney was with you.” Karola took a pitcher of tea from the icebox and poured some into a glass, then brought it to the table and set it before Jakob.
“Thanks.” He took a long drink of the sweetened beverage.
She moved to sit across from him. “Lance will be sorry he missed her.”
“Better if that courtship doesn’t work out. She’d make him a poor wife.”
“That is what I thought, too, at first. But now …” She shook her head. “I think perhaps Lance sees something others do not.”
“You’re too generous, Karola. Charlotte White thinks only of herself and what’s best for her. Besides, she’s been unkind to you since you got here.”
Karola shook her head slowly.
“How can you deny it?”
“Perhaps I understand her. She is young and headstrong. Not unlike I was at her age.”
“You were never anything like her.”
“Was I not?” A gentle smile curved her pretty mouth. “I think you have forgotten, Jakob, the girl you knew in Germany. I was willful, stubborn, and impatient. And most determined to have my own way.”
Jakob studied her a few moments—the delicate curve of her small ears, the rosy blush in her cheeks, the calm light in her blue eyes. “You
are
different.” He leaned forward, wondering at the change. “Even from when you came to Shadow Creek.”
“Ja.”
It was her turn to study him in silence.
He felt as if she were able to look past the surface into the darkest corners of his soul. He couldn’t say he liked the idea.
“Jakob, why are you angry with God?”
He started at the question. “What do you mean? I’m not angry with God.”
“But you are.”
He scowled.
“Jakob …” She leaned forward and touched the back of his hand that still held the glass. “I am your wife. You can tell me what is in your heart.”
My wife …
Yes, she was married to him, but she didn’t love him. She’d married him out of obligation, perhaps pity.
“Tell me, Jakob.
Bitte.”
“Well, if I’m angry, can you blame me?” Was it pain or the heat or his own frustration that caused him to snap at her? He didn’t know. Didn’t even know if he cared. “Don’t I have good reason? Look at what’s happened. I just start getting back on my feet after a bad year, and
this
happens. Why can’t I have a long stretch of good luck for a change? Don’t I deserve it? And what about you? You came all this way from Germany, only to end up in a marriage that makes you more servant than wife. Don’t you deserve better than that?”
“Nein.”
Karola withdrew her hand. “I used to think as you do, but I have come to understand the only thing I deserve, all anyone deserves, is eternity in hell. That I will not get what I deserve makes me grateful to God for everything I receive.” Her gaze dropped to her hands, now folded in her lap. “Because of Christ, I am grateful even for the hard things, Jakob. Or at least, I am learning to be. I am trying to be.”
“I’m one of those hard things, aren’t I?”
She didn’t answer, only watched him with sadness in her eyes of blue.
He felt condemned by the look. “I’m going back to bed.” Jakob turned toward the door.
Stop him!
Karola thought, and the urgency of those two words, heard so clearly in her mind, caused her to jump to her feet. “Jakob, wait!”
He hesitated, but didn’t look over his shoulder.
“Do you know how often you do that?” she asked, pulse pounding in her ears.
Now he turned. “Do what?”
“Walk away rather than talk to me. Or get angry and change the subject.”
He opened his mouth, as if to object, then closed it without speaking.
Ask him,
that small voice demanded, and she felt compelled to speak the words that formed suddenly in her heart.
“Jakob … where do you stand with Jesus?”
He frowned. “I don’t know what you mean.”
She hadn’t known the answer for herself until she came to Shadow Creek. How could she explain it to him?
He shook his head. “I’m too tired for this conversation.”
“But it is important.” She took a step toward him. “It is the most important thing of all.”
Even more important than you learning
to love me.
“Later, Karola—” He turned again to leave. “We’ll talk about this later.”
Not later, Jakob. Talk to me now. Do not turn your back on
Christ. Do not turn it on me.
But he had already disappeared through the kitchen doorway, and Karola was left with a disquieting sense of failure.
L
ance sat on his horse, stopped in the shade of a large cottonwood, his gaze grimly locked on the water flowing in the canal. It was too low. Much too low. They were only halfway through the growing season. If they didn’t get a break in the weather soon …
“Lord, I reckon we could use some of that rain you pour on the just and the unjust.”
He turned his mount’s head and started toward the house.
He was bone weary. There was no denying that. He was putting in twice as many hours at the Hirsch place as he usually did. Other neighbors had pitched in, too, of course. Folks were like that in this valley. They helped when they were needed. Lance had seen it time and time again. God-fearing folks they were. Most of them lived the gospel message rather than just listening to it on Sundays.
His thoughts turned to Charlotte. Not that thinking about her was anything out of the ordinary. He thought about her real regular like, and he felt more than a little impatience about getting their courtship started.
Last night, before Lance returned to his own place, Karola told him Charlotte had been to the Hirsch farm and had asked about him.
“That’s a good sign, isn’t it, Lord?”
Lance had to confess he was finding it more and more difficult to listen for God’s still, small voice over the hard hammering of his heart. He couldn’t rightly say what the Lord was telling him to do next about that girl. He was certain she was meant to be his wife—what he couldn’t be sure of yet was the timing of it. He’d like it to be sooner rather than later. Didn’t the Bible say it was better to marry than to burn?
His gaze moved across his neighbor’s fields to the two-story house in the distance.
Lance wondered how long it would have taken Charlotte to forget her silly crush on Jakob if not for the pretense Karola had concocted. And it had worked, too. Charlotte hadn’t paid Lance any mind until she’d thought somebody else might be after him.
Suddenly, he frowned.
Wasn’t that the same sort of wrong thinking that got Abraham and Sarah into trouble? They accepted God’s promise, then took matters into their own hands to make it come true. He felt a pang of apprehension. Was that what was going on? Was he trying to help God along, making things happen when he wanted them to?
“Lord, if that’s what I’ve done here, I reckon I’m sorry. It wasn’t what I meant to do. It—”
He stopped himself, knowing the words weren’t true. It was exactly what he’d meant to do. Hadn’t Karola expressed doubt and remorse almost as soon as she put the ball into motion?Hadn’t she realized it was a lie and said so to him? It had been Lance who wanted to continue.
Well, it wasn’t like they’d done anything inappropriate. He hadn’t kissed her or even pretended to court her outright. They’d been friendly with each other, and in the course of it all, they’d become real friends. If some folks took that to mean more than was there, was that his fault?
Yes
Remorse swept through him.
“Are you sorry you got caught,” his father would have asked him, “or are you sorry you done it?”
Sorry I done it,
he answered silently as he reined in his horse. Then he tilted his head and stared at the blue heavens.
“I mean it, Lord. I’m sorry. I know what I want, and that’s Charlotte. But I want you more. I want your will to be done. So don’t you let me go runnin’ down my own path. I’m askin’ that, Lord. Help me stay on the straight and narrow and not go givin’ in to my own desire. I reckon that’ll be best for everybody concerned. Forgive me for makin’ Karola my accomplice. Bless her and Jakob and help them find happiness together.”
He looked straight ahead, nudging his horse with his heels.
“And send rain, Lord. Please send the rain.”
“Well?” Jakob stared hard at the doctor.
“You’re doing better than I expected,” Dr. Cooper said, still holding the stethoscope against Jakob’s chest. “But you’ve got a ways to go.” He straightened, then leaned back on the chair beside the bed.
“I’m tired of just lying here.”
The doctor freed the stethoscope from his neck and dropped it into his black bag. “Jakob, it takes a good six weeks for bones to mend, longer for them to heal completely. If you do too much too soon, you’ll pay for it with pain for a longer period of time.”
“I’ve got a farm to run! I can’t keep depending on neighbors to do things for me. I’ve already done too much of that over the last year.”
“Nobody’s doing anything you wouldn’t do if it happened to one of them.”
“Can I or can’t I get back to work?”
Dr. Cooper sighed as he stood. “I suppose there’s no reason you can’t do what your body will tolerate, long as you stop when it gets to be too much.” He squinted at Jakob. “Do you understand what that means? It means
stop
when you know you should.”
“Will you tell Karola what you said? She has a tendency to … want to do everything for me.”
“Doesn’t hurt a man to be coddled by his wife now and again.” Dr. Cooper grinned. “You should be enjoying yourself.”
Maybe he should be, but he wasn’t. Lying here in this too-hot, all-too-quiet bedroom gave him too much time with his thoughts. Time to think about all the things that had gone wrong and were still going wrong. Time to consider the mistakes he’d made, the opportunities he’d missed, the people he’d failed. Time to worry about the weather and the bills. Time to—
“I’d best be going.” Dr. Cooper gripped the handle of his bag and lifted it off the foot of the bed. “I’m on my way to the Ferguson place. Lettie’s expecting again. The baby could arrive any day.”
“What is that? Number five?”
“Six.”
“That’s a lot of mouths to feed off that little patch of land of Quinn’s.”
“Indeed. Well, they seem to manage.” The doctor stepped away from the bed. “Remember what I said. Don’t rush what you’re not ready to do. And make sure that binding stays tight.”
“I’ll be careful.”
“See that you are.”
Jakob lay still, listening to the descending footsteps until they faded into silence. Then he pushed the sheet aside and rose from the bed to dress. Better to get a few chores done now, before the heat of day settled over them. Even without the children to care for, Karola had been up at the crack of dawn.
He closed his eyes.
Things weren’t good between them, and the fault lay squarely on his shoulders. It wasn’t how he’d meant things to be. He’d had some sort of notion that he’d be able to win her love once they were wed.
More than once he’d thought about telling her he loved her, but those words kept sticking in his throat. He even knew why. If he didn’t say them, if he didn’t confess his love to her, then it wouldn’t hurt if he lost her—or if she couldn’t love him in return.
“Do things seem as hopeless to you as that?”
He remembered the night she asked him that question, the night Woodrow Mason was killed by lightning. He remembered the moonlight breaking through the clouds, illuminating the path before them, as he escorted Karola to the cabin. He remembered the soft quaver in her voice when she spoke.
“There is safety in God, Jakob. There is hope in him.”
What gave her that kind of assurance? What made her so confident? Maybe she hadn’t suffered enough, lost enough, to have her confidence shaken. Maybe life hadn’t dealt as harshly with her as it had with him. Was that why she could be so sure?
“Where do you stand with Jesus?”
For some reason, he knew that question also held the answer. Therein lay her confidence and her hope. He knew it, but he didn’t understand it.
He took his shirt off the hook and put it on, moving stiffly and not without discomfort. His trousers were next, and then his boots.
“Where do you stand with Jesus?”
What kind of thing was that to ask a person? What did it mean? Standing with Jesus. As if that were possible.
Lucky—as the kitten had been dubbed—suddenly announced it was feeding time, and for a change, Jakob was glad for the noisy cry. It broke the chain of his thoughts, rescuing him from further uncomfortable contemplation.
He went to the basket and lifted the kitten from the bed of towels, holding it in the palm of one hand. With his other hand, he grabbed the eyedropper, then headed out of the room and down the stairs. In the kitchen, he put a small amount of milk into a saucepan on the stove.
Lucky protested the delay in feeding by raising the volume of her meows.
“Keep up that racket, cat,” Jakob grumbled, “and your luck’s gonna change.”
But in contrast to his harsh words, he gently pressed the kitten into the curve of his neck as he’d seen Karola do numerous times in the past few days.
Lucky immediately quieted.
Did love often hurt like this? Karola wondered as she watched her husband from the doorway.
Tears stung her eyes, and she backed out of the room before he could see her, carefully closing the door as she went. She turned, walked to the porch steps, and sat on the top one.
“O God, what am I to do? My heart is breaking.”
A soft answer drifted to her, as though carried on the gentle breeze.
Trust me
.
She covered her face with her hands, her elbows resting on her knees, and fought down the myriad emotions threatening to swamp her. She was a failure as a Christian, let alone as a wife. She never seemed to react as she was supposed to. She was impatient and impulsive. Every time she read her Bible, words would pierce her heart, and she would be certain they’d changed her. And then she’d go right out and behave the same old way.
Even now, she was thinking more about herself than about Jakob. That’s why she was crying. Because she wanted him to hold her as tenderly as he’d been holding Lucky. Because she wanted him to desire her the way a husband was supposed to desire a wife. It didn’t matter to her that he was injured and in pain, that just breathing was difficult for him, that he had come within mere inches of death’s door less than two weeks before. All that mattered to her was what
she
wanted.
Trust God.
Be patient.
Wait.
Some days, she felt she could do those things. But at other times …
“At other times,” she whispered, “I want to be loved.”
You
are
loved, my daughter.
She no longer fought her tears. It would have been useless to try.
The doctor was right, Jakob decided as he lay in bed that night. It had been too soon for him to return to farmwork. Even doing the simplest chores had caused an increase in pain that was nearly unbearable.
But there was something worse than physical pain, and that was the memory of Karola, sitting on the porch step, her back to him, weeping into her hands. Of course, when she finally came into the house, she hadn’t let on she’d been crying. She’d smiled at him, albeit sadly, pretending nothing was amiss.
And he’d pretended, too, never telling her he’d seen her grief. What a pair they were, Karola so sad, and Jakob the cause of her unhappiness.
Things just kept going from bad to worse.
