The Way to a Man's Heart (The Miller Family 3) (38 page)

It wasn’t Emma’s habit to look out the window the moment she awoke, but she did so the next morning. A shiny green truck stood parked in the turnaround. “Oh, good grief,” she muttered under her breath. “Jamie and Kevin must have left the house before dawn to be here already.” After washing and dressing, she threw her things into her overnight bag as quickly as possible and hurried downstairs. Her stomach churned, not from hunger but from nervous apprehension. Her one-day visit had turned into three. What if Jamie was angry with her for fleeing their home without explanation? She loved him so much and had thought about little other than her marriage since she arrived in Winesburg.

Emma inhaled a deep breath and walked into the kitchen. Jamie sat at the table drinking coffee. “Hello,
fraa,
did you miss me? I sure have missed you.” His sea-blue eyes sparkled to match his brilliant smile.

“Jah,
I have.” Emma ran and threw herself into his lap.

“Hey, Em, what’s new?” asked Kevin, in between bites of bacon and scrambled eggs.

“Hi, Kevin,” Emma managed to say.

“Does this mean you’re not staying for day two with the pears?” Julia asked from her position at the stove.

Jamie tried to turn in his chair to gaze around the room. “Don’t you ladies think you’ve canned enough yet?”

Julia set a plate of food in front of her son-in-law. “Oh, no. We have four more bushels of fruit to go.”

“Can you manage without Emma? I can’t live another day without my wife.”

Emma, whose face was buried in his neck, thought her heart would burst.

“It’ll be a struggle, but Leah and I will manage.” Julia smacked Emma’s head with her pot holder. “Sit in your own chair, daughter, and let this man eat his breakfast before it gets cold. And I want you to eat too so you don’t get carsick. How about more sausage, Kevin?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Kevin held up his plate with both hands like a character in a Charles Dickens novel.

“We’re starving,” called Henry and Matthew, stomping in from the back hall. Simon followed on their heels. With their ruckus Emma was able to extricate herself, fetch more chairs, and sit down to her own breakfast without anyone noticing her reddened eyes.

She and Jamie left soon after the meal. Leah still hadn’t come downstairs yet. Emma wrote Leah a quick note to say goodbye, kissed everybody else, and then climbed in Kevin’s truck. Wedged in between the two brothers, she chewed on her lower lip. With Kevin driving, they couldn’t very well air their marital laundry.

After a few silent miles, James had his own ideas. “Speak your mind, Em. Tell me what’s bothering you. I know you stayed to help your mother with canning, but that’s not why you left in the first place. My mom said you were homesick and needed a day with your family. Is there more than that?”

“Shouldn’t we wait to have this conversation?” She angled her head toward Kevin, who seemed amazed by the passing scenery out the window.

“No,” Jamie said. “My brother thinks you’re practically an angel sent from heaven. He’ll have a hard time finding a wife and will be doomed with unrealistic expectations if we don’t disabuse him of that notion.”

“Disabuse
him? You’re no longer on the campus of OSU,” she said and they all laughed.

“Just tell me what’s wrong.” He slipped his arm around her shoulders to offer encouragement.

Heartened by his touch, Emma forged ahead. She realized they would find little more privacy at the Davis home. “It’s me, Jamie. I get really out of sorts with your family. I wasn’t exactly a model of cooperation with your
mamm,
and I picked an argument with Lily over what she does for a living, of all things. I can’t seem to get along with anybody.”

“You haven’t fought with me yet,” Kevin said quietly.

“Only because you’re almost never home. Just stick around a while and see what happens.”

The Davis brothers laughed, but Emma folded her hands in her lap. “It’s true. I’m a crabby old woman.”

When the snickering died down, Jamie said, “Why do you suppose that is, Em?”

She didn’t answer right away but thought carefully and chose her words, “I’m frustrated. We have so little time alone. We rarely share a quiet dinner, and at lunch it’s hard to track you down for a picnic. Your farm is so large I never know where you are. Even when your
mamm’s
at work the kitchen is never without people—friends, relatives, workmen, horse buyers, trainers, church folk, vets, deliverymen. Once I was in the Akron train station and it wasn’t as busy.”

With that much off her chest she relaxed against his shoulder. “I hope I don’t sound like a spoiled little girl, because I’m not. I was raised in a family of six with one bathroom, but somehow we weren’t always in each other’s way. I feel like I’m always in your mother’s way…and I don’t like it.”

There it was—the honest truth. Maybe Jamie would regret that he didn’t postpone the conversation.

Kevin looked over at her with sympathy. After another moment, Jamie said, “That’s it? That’s what’s making you unhappy?”

Emma peered at him suspiciously.
“Jah
…”

“You aren’t sick of my snoring, or the way I smell like farm animals most of the day? Or tired of my habit of lateness, or the way I wolf down food like I haven’t eaten in days?”

She smiled. “No, none of the above. I’m used to my
bruders.”

“Well,
fraa,
your days of misery are numbered. That’s all I have to say.” He stared out the window until Emma slapped his knee.

“What are you talking about? Please tell me.”

“I wanted this to be a secret, a surprise for you, but with you running away from me, I’d better not wait another day.”

She choked back the taste of guilt in her mouth. “Go on.”

“My father had a surveyor stake out a nice eight-acre homesite for us. When you drive up Hollyhock Lane, you’ll turn down a road on the right and drive up close to that pinewoods you’re so fond of. We’ll start building our new home next week. The foundation walls have already been poured; the well and septic are in. We should have it framed, exterior walls and windows in, and the roof on by December first, unless we get an early blizzard. My dad hired two farmworkers who know carpentry to help me all winter until spring planting. What do ya think?”

Emma had to swallow twice. “You were going to surprise me? But then your spoiled brat of a wife threw a fit and ruined everything?” she asked, burying her face with her hands.

James gently pulled her hands down. “I prefer to phrase it as my dear wife couldn’t wait another day to have me all to herself.”

“Oh, Jamie.” She blushed as joy surged through every blood vessel down to her toes.

“Oh, Emma!” He tugged one
kapp
string.

“Well, you two haven’t exactly disabused me of any notions. You’re still tops in my book, Em.”

“Just stick around a while longer,” they both said together.

From the moment the eleven new horses marched down the trailer ramps at the Miller farm, Matt had his hands full. Simon insisted they be kept separate from his horses until checked out by the vet. Then Simon had begun to suggest potential diseases no one had heard of in twenty years. Not only did the new arrivals have to be segregated from Simon’s stock, they didn’t seem to care much for each other, either. To prevent confrontations, Matthew and Henry erected temporary pens within the paddock until temperaments could be assessed. That would have to wait until they were groomed, had their hooves trimmed, sores salved, tails clipped, infected eyes and ears medicated, and in most cases, fed plenty of quality grain to fill out bony frames.

But Henry’s enthusiasm knew no bounds. At first Matthew couldn’t leave Henry alone with them or he would have been knocked down, bitten, or gut-kicked. But once Henry learned how to approach wary beasts, how to read body language, and employ some basic safety rules, he proved to be a natural. His sensitivity and gentleness seemed to be recognized by the neglected horses. Matthew knew he’d found the perfect partner when the horses began to respond as well to Henry as to himself.

Even Simon warmed up to the forsaken lot—once the initial shock of Matthew’s impetuous purchase wore off. Up until then he walked around muttering, “I would’ve expected such a stunt from your Aunt Hannah, but not from my two practical sons” at least half a dozen times.

Henry didn’t think much about practicality.

And by the following week Matt no longer viewed his action as the sentimental whim of a spoiled
Englischer.
He began to see potential in every one of his acquisitions. With patience, some could be retrained as buggy horses, while others would make acceptable riding stock for those not interested in looks or blood lines. Others could become pets to a family who couldn’t afford worthier horses, while the three elderly mares could live out their days in the company of old Belle.

But in the meantime the Miller brothers worked from before dawn until well after dusk. They still had their regular chores, such as mucking stalls, milking cows, feeding chickens, and harvesting the last of the garden. Their father needed help with the repair of buildings and equipment, besides fertilizing the fields to prepare for winter. So when Saturday dawned clear and bright, Matthew and Henry marched out of the house early with buckets, scrub brushes, and the garden hose. The newcomers would get baths in the warm sunshine. Nobody would refer to them as smelly old nags ever again. With their concentration fully on the skittish horses, neither young man heard the sound of footsteps.

“Say, I’m looking for the Matthew Miller Horse Rescue Society. Have I found the right place?”

Matt dropped his brush into the bucket of sudsy water and pivoted around. He recognized immediately the grinning face of the local veterinarian. “Dr. Longo, what are you doing here? Did my pa call you?”

“Nah, I heard about what you did in Sugar Creek and thought you might need some help.” Longo rested one boot heel on the fence rail.

Matt tried not to let his face give away his disappointment. Farm calls by veterinarians didn’t come cheap, and as vets were concerned, Longo was the best. Buying the herd had already crimped his budget, so he couldn’t afford treatments and therapies. Especially as they didn’t exactly own Kentucky Derby bloodlines. “That’s mighty nice of you to stop by, but I’m in no position…”

“I cleared my schedule for today and brought everything we might need, including boxes of pharmaceutical samples that those salesmen keep dropping off at my office. The only payment I will accept is a sandwich at lunchtime and, if I’m still here, maybe supper with your family. Nothing else.” He held up both palms.

Matthew pulled off his hat and ran a hand through his untamable hair. “Shucks, I couldn’t let you do that. You haven’t even seen the state some of these critters are in. I’ve got cracked hooves, mange, and infected fly bites. And that’s just what we can see.”

“In that case, I better get started if we plan to turn any of them around by winter. You’re not the only horse lover in this county, Matt. It would be my pleasure to support your project.”

“Then it’s time you know who’s responsible. Henry, come on up here.”

Henry had been pretending he wasn’t listening while working knots out of a mare’s mane. He shuffled over to the fence, looking shy and somewhat nervous.

“Henry is my new partner in equine rehabilitation. Buying these eleven challenges was his idea.” Matthew slapped Henry on the back.

“Danki
for coming out to help us today.”

Longo gazed skyward at a crystalline blue sky dotted with lace-work clouds and then looked from one Miller to the other. “On a day as gorgeous as this? I couldn’t imagine a better way to spend it.”

N
ovember had a bad reputation for cold, damp, rainy weather. Even a snow flurry wasn’t out of the question. And overnight frost was practically assured. So when Leah received the subpoena to appear in district court, she wasn’t surprised when the weather turned dismal to reflect her mood.

She had had three weeks to consult an attorney. Or prepare financial statements to support her innocence in the crime of tax fraud. Or at least discuss the matter with her former business partner, April Lambright. Yet she had done none of those things. She had no money for lawyers and neither did her parents after they had generously paid off the remaining names on her list. She had no financial records to assemble because the books for Leah’s Home Cooking had never been available to her. And she wasn’t about to call April from the neighbor’s phone and voice her grievances where she might be overheard.