Lilly's Wedding Quilt (18 page)

The opposite page displayed a couple in a kindled embrace. Her hair was undone and fell over the strength of his arm, while his mouth hovered a mere pencil stroke from the parting of her lips.

Lilly watched as Jacob shifted on his long legs and noted the pulse that beat in the strong line of his throat. “Kiss?” he queried, then looked at her fully. His eyes glowed like golden embers and she suddenly wanted to run. She snatched the primer from his hand and took a step backward, clutching the booklet behind her back.

“I … I suppose that’s enough for one lesson. Three new words.”

“Words I’ll never forget,” he confided. “When’s my next lesson?”

“Well—sometime?” she asked, rather helplessly.

He reached behind her back and gently pried the primer loose from her fingers. “Fine, but I’ll keep my wedding gift, if you don’t mind.”

She felt a mixture of gratitude and disappointment when he let the moment pass without fuss.

Then he caught her hands.

“Come on. Put on your cape. We need to go outside for your gift.”

She smiled in pleasant confusion, but allowed him to help fasten her cloak and settle a shawl about her head.

She drew a deep breath of the crisp mountain air then took his arm as they slipped and crunched across the snow-covered ground. He led her to the barn, and she felt her heart begin to sink as she realized what her gift probably was.
But I don’t want a horse
. She immediately squelched the ungrateful thought and kept a smile on her face as he slid the door open.

The barn seemed to have taken on a new appearance. It had been ruthlessly cleaned and stacked with plenty of fresh bales of hay and bags of seed. Stray cobwebs were gone and the mellow light of a kerosene lamp played across a new worktable where unfamiliar tools were arranged in careful order. Even Ruler had obviously been groomed well for the day, a black ribbon cleverly threaded through his now silky mane.

“The barn is one of my favorite places.” Jacob smiled at her. “Seth came over sometime before the wedding. He probably worked for hours to do all this.”

“It looks beautiful,” Lilly replied, amazed at the transformation from what had felt like a dark and gloomy place since her
daed’s
passing.

“Well, I hope you’ll find your gift beautiful too.” He walked to the far end of the barn to a newly framed stall. He snapped a lead on a horse, but Lilly could only glimpse the head. All horses looked alike to her somehow and she curled her toes inside her shoes at her disappointment over the present.

But then Jacob led the animal into the light of the lamp and Lilly blinked in realization. “Why, it’s—it’s the mare, from that day.”

Jacob brought the gentle beast close and put the lead in Lilly’s cold hand.

“Her name’s Buttercup. She looks much better now.”

“
Ach
, she’s a beauty.” Lilly admired the now-healthy sheen of the reddish coat and the bright yellow ribbons which trailed from a few braids in her mane. She looked deep into the animal’s dark eye and knew that this creature was one who’d suffered much but had come through with dignity and quietness. She felt her fear melt away and reached a tentative hand to stroke the mare’s forehead.

Jacob cleared his throat. “I thought—well, that she was sort of our matchmaker, in a way, and she’s truly gentle, Lilly. I think she suits you and will be a great horse to work with while you’re learning to ride.”

Lilly slowly slid her hand away from the mare and glanced away from Jacob’s warm eyes. “Do I have to keep that promise— to learn how to ride?”

He stepped closer to her, so that she could feel the warmth of his long legs even through the thickness of her cloak. “Lilly,” he whispered. “Look at me.”

She darted a glance up at his face and then let her gaze drift to the clean, swept floor. She felt him move. He caught the edges of the shawl wrapped under her chin and worked the knot with gentle fingers, lifting the cloth up and away so that she felt the chill of the air on her ears. He bent his head and put his mouth close to her neck. She shivered with the curious sensation of his warm breath competing against the cold.

“Lilly,” he murmured, “you’re so strong, but there’s so much more to you than just strength. There’s passion. And because of that”—he trailed his lips along the line of her throat and she raised her hands to touch his chest, the lead still in her hand—“you can learn to ride; you can do anything. I believe that of you, but you don’t have to do it alone anymore. I’m here.”

Her eyes filled with tears at his words; it was like he could see inside her heart. “
Ach
, Jacob,” she whispered. He caught the tear that spilled over the curve of her cheek with his mouth and moved as if to kiss her lips when the mare gave a sudden snort. Lilly startled, dropping the lead and moving away from his warmth.

Jacob laughed. “There’s a jealous girl.” He bent to pick up the lead. “She just wants a little attention too.” He made odd deep sounds from the back of his throat, and the horse shifted with visible good humor, as if he’d actually touched her. Lilly pressed her hands into the folds of the cloak as she realized that this was Jacob’s element, his classroom. She found herself watching him with intense interest.

Jacob moved abruptly, reaching a hand to rub Buttercup’s neck. “I’ll put her back. Go on in—it’s too cold out here for little seashell ears like yours.”

She nodded, feeling unaccountably dismissed, and caught up her shawl, hurrying out of the barn and into the night air.

J
acob moved mechanically as he led the horse to the stall and swung the door closed after ushering Buttercup inside and removing her halter and lead. It was so easy—in a way—to do and say the right things, the things expected of a husband. A casual caress here, maybe a kiss there, but his eyes burned as he acknowledged the truth to himself. When he touched Lilly, thoughts of Sarah still came to him. Even with the incredible primer that had so stirred him, he couldn’t help the passing thought of what it would be like if it were Sarah who longed for his touch instead of Lilly. He put the heels of his hands to his eyes and bent his head. The two women had become tangled in his mind like knots in a chain, and Seth’s words came back to haunt him. He couldn’t fool himself. He drew a sobbing breath and started to pray.
“Please, Father. Help me not to sin by coveting another man’s wife. Help me to choose. To choose my wife’s love. To decide to love her
. Sei so gut,
answer that prayer I said at my wedding today and sweep the past away; drive it away. Make my heart new
. Ach
, Lord, please
.”

C
HAPTER 21

L
illy startled a bit when he opened the master bedroom door a crack.

“Can I come in?”

“
Jah
, of course.”

She’d taken off her cloak and shoes, and now she stood in the light of two lamps, surveying the wedding gifts which lined the bed and decorated the floor of the room.

“So, what did we get?” he asked with a smile, hoping the residue of his tears didn’t show. She returned his smile. “Many
wunderbaar
things. I especially love the painting … no guessing who that’s from.” She lifted a small watercolor of the schoolhouse in winter from the foot of the bed and held it out for his admiration. None of the gifts had labels on them; they were meant to be given to the bride and groom as representations of the goodwill of the community as a whole. But the painting could have been done by no one else.

Jacob nodded at the art. “I guess you’re officially in the family now if Seth’s letting you see his work.”

“I’m honored.”

Jacob bent to admire a new leather bridle on the floor while she put the painting back and fingered the clean steel of a teapot. “There are linens too and a lot of canned goods. And I’m not sure, but I think that the leather tooling kit is from Sarah and Grant Williams. I saw her entering the bedroom before the wedding with something about its size.”

Jacob nodded, not speaking, and she went on in a hurry.

“
Ach
, and the schoolchildren, or perhaps their mothers, made this.” She held up a square of fabric.

“A square?” he asked with good humor.

“No … not just a square.” She moved closer to him and displayed the quilt square which had all the children’s names embroidered on it with a delicate border of hearts and vines and the wedding date. “There was a little note with it. I’m to use it when I have my wedding quilting … I mean … if I do.”

“Is a wedding quilt that important to you? Isn’t this one beautiful enough?” he asked, placing his hand on the quilt Edith had brought the day before.

“Well, yes, but …” Was it wrong for her to long for a wedding quilt? For something made especially—and only—to cover her and her husband on a cold winter’s night? Something done together with other women as a gift of love for her and an encouragement for the marriage?

“I guess we missed some things in all the hurry. If it’s really that important …” He looked at her with seriousness.

She shook her head. “
Nee
, I have everything I need.” She realized, as she spoke the words, that she badly wanted for them to be true. She wanted to find complete contentment in the belief that
Derr Herr
had given her Jacob to stand by her in life. For what more should she ever want? She was ashamed that she longed for the validation of a wedding quilt. How could it be so important? She swallowed and glanced at the bed.

“I guess we should clear things off so that we can get some sleep,” he remarked casually.

“
Jah
,” she agreed and moved to help him start placing the gifts on various bureaus and side tables. When the bed was clean, and Edith’s angel quilt folded back, they both stood and stared at what now seemed like a very small space of pillows and linens. Jacob cleared his throat and then regarded her directly.

“All right, so we’ve talked about this before. No expectations of a real wedding night until we’ve had some time to—um, court. I think I can trust myself to stay on my side of the bed. What about you?” He grinned and she flushed, looking away.

“Of course,” she said in a prim voice.

“
Gut
. I’m tired.” He reached for the opening of his wedding coat and slid it down his long arms while Lilly tried to concentrate on the stitching of the quilt’s edge.
Did he mean to simply undress in front of her? What was she to do?

“Just my shirt, Lilly. Is that all right?”

She turned at his question to see his suspenders about his waist and his fingers poised at his collar. She nodded and watched him from the corner of her eye, unable to contain her curiosity. His chest was well tanned and deeply muscled. She let her gaze slip up to his shoulder and was surprised at the minimum of puckered red skin left from the gunshot wound. He must have felt her watching because he half turned.

“It’s worse on the front—the exit wound, you know. Grant Williams took out the stitches awhile ago.”

She was once more amazed at his perception and looked fully at his broad chest, marred only by what looked like a starburst of sore tissue on the splay of his arm. He moved toward her to give her a chaste kiss on the cheek. She longed to turn her head to meet his lips.

“Goodnight, Mrs. Wyse. I’ll turn off the lights and you can do whatever you usually do for bed. I’m so tired that I’ll probably be asleep before you’re done. I’ll take the side nearest to the window.”

She watched as he walked to the dresser and extinguished the lamp, then sensed him as he felt cautiously for the bed and slid in. The room lay in utter darkness; she couldn’t even see her hand in front of her face. She stood frozen, not sure what to do, until the deep, even sound of his breathing told her that he was asleep. She put her hands out to feel for the edge of the bed, stubbing her toe on something and swallowing a squeak. She decided she’d sleep with her hair up and her clothes on and make sure that she was awake before him so he wouldn’t know. She didn’t want to appear overly shy, but she wouldn’t have been able to find her brush or nightgown in the deep dark anyway.

She slipped beneath the mound of linens and quilt and turned away from him, but it was difficult not to feel the warmth that seemed to radiate from his body. She closed her eyes with reluctance, not wanting to accidentally touch him, and certain that she’d get little to no sleep on her wedding night.

J
acob turned in the bed, still half asleep. He wondered how far he could actually stretch out without touching his wife. He let a cautious hand trail across the bed and came in contact with her hip, then jerked his hand back. Stifling a sigh, he fell back to sleep. Soon he was dreaming, and it felt comfortable and familiar.

He was walking across a newly plowed, sunlit field and Sarah was beside him. They were talking, just like always, easy talk that came as naturally as the rain. But something pulled at his consciousness, an awareness that across the field there was a deep copse of trees. He felt drawn to it for some reason, but when he turned to go there, Sarah walked on ahead without him. He stopped in confusion, then returned his attention toward the trees. A tall, slender girl with long dark hair danced in the shade of the woods. He could only catch glimpses of her. He hurried his steps, drawn with irresistible attraction to the dancing girl. He turned back to call to Sarah, wanting her to know about the beauty of the dancer. But Sarah kept moving ahead, and he let her go.