Authors: Promised to Me
Robin Lee Hatcher (15 page)
With a nod, Karola rose to her knees and began to put away the remains of their lunch.
“Karola?”
She looked up to find him kneeling, too, their faces mere inches apart.
“I knew the lunch with the red ribbon tied around it was yours.”
She felt a tiny flutter in her heart. “You did?”
“Yes.”
Her mouth was suddenly dry.
“Karola”—his voice had deepened—“I’d like permission to kiss you, if you have no objection.”
She nodded, then shook her head, then nodded again, unsure which response meant she had no objection. She
did
want him to kiss her.
He leaned forward.
Karola closed her eyes, feeling dizzy—and when their lips met, it seemed all of nature held its breath. The creek ceased to gurgle. The birds ceased to chirp.
I love you, Jakob. I love you. I love you. I love you.
She didn’t
want
her feet firmly planted on the ground. She
wanted
her head in the clouds. She wanted to dream and to hope and to soar!
Jakob drew back and sat on his heels, his hands resting on his thighs. He stared at her, a strange fire in his hazel eyes.
Karola’s lips tingled from his kiss, and she touched them with her fingertips—just as she had done the last time he kissed her.
“Now I
know
we’d better get back.”
His voice was husky; she felt it vibrating in the marrow of her bones.
Moving deliberately but without haste, they reached for their stockings and shoes and put them on. Then they rose in unison. Karola picked up the box that had held their lunch. Jakob folded the blanket and draped it over his arm.
Karola wished he would kiss her again, but instead he led the way along the path back to town.
G
o?” Lance looked at Jakob over the back of his black gelding. “How was your lunch?”
“Fine.” Jakob didn’t want to discuss what happened with Karola. Especially not with Lance. Better to change the subject. “I hear you ended up with Miss White’s lunch. How’d that go?”
“I think she likes me.” A silly grin split Lance’s face. “A lot.”
Bending down, Jakob reached for the cinch beneath the sorrel’s belly.
Lance appeared at the mare’s head. “You should thank me.”
“For what?”
“For keeping Miss White occupied so you could enjoy your time alone with Karola.”
Jakob frowned as he tightened the cinch.
“You know as well as everybody else in this town that Charlotte was all set on bein’ the next Mrs. Jakob Hirsch, what with you havin’ the nicest house and the biggest farm in this valley. Now I mean to change her mind. I mean to help her see she’d much rather take care of a smaller place so she has more time to spend with me. After we’re married, of course.”
“But I thought you—”
“Are you
blind,
Jakob? Karola and me are friends. That’s all. Just good friends. She’s easy to talk to, you know.”
Karola had told Jakob she was glad he, rather than Lance, had placed the highest bid for her boxed lunch, but he hadn’t believed her. Not really. He’d thought she was trying to make the best of the situation.
And the kiss we shared? What did I think that was?
He’d been trying
not
to think about it. When he did, his brain turned to mush.
“Well, I’ll be jiggered,” Lance drawled. “You’ve got it as bad as I do.”
“Got what?”
Lance’s answer was a soft, knowing chuckle as he returned to his gelding.
Jakob jerked on the stirrup. “Got
what?
”
All right. He
was
attracted to Karola. He’d admitted as much this morning before they left the farm. All right. So he was wondering if he might change her mind about not loving him. She had, after all, let him kiss her. Come to think of it, she might have even kissed him back a little bit. What did that mean? What did he want it to mean?
He pictured Karola seated on the creek bank, her bare feet dangling in the water. He imagined her removing her hat and tossing it behind her. He saw those ever-present stray wisps of pale hair feathering around her face.
He should have kissed her right then.
He’d like to be kissing her right now.
“Quit your woolgathering, Hirsch,” Lance said, shattering the images in Jakob’s head. “They’re about ready to start the race.”
I guess Lance is right. I do have it bad.
Balancing Aislinn on her hip, Karola stood near the finish line with the two older children and the Gaffneys—Tulley, Ian, and Laura. She leaned forward, bending over the rope, and glanced up the straight length of road, trying to spot Jakob among the milling horses and riders at the starting point.
“Sure, and you needn’t worry your pretty head,” Tulley said. “Jakob’s mare has won this Independence Day race every year since he brought his family to Shadow Creek. Exceptin’, of course, for last year when he hadn’t the heart to even try.”
Karola felt a sudden shiver pass through her. A year ago, Jakob had been in mourning for his deceased wife. A year ago, he hadn’t wanted to race or to celebrate Independence Day because his heart had been broken.
Could Karola find her own place in his life, or would the memory of Siobhan remain foremost in his mind? She didn’t want to take second place to a memory. Perhaps that was her pride rearing its ugly head, but it was the truth nonetheless.
“Karola, I’d like permission to kiss you, if you have no
objection.”
Why had Jakob kissed her? Was it because he—
“The flag is up,” someone cried.
Karola saw the white flag fall. The riders raised a shout as they dug in their heels. The horses shot forward, and the ground vibrated with the thunder of their hooves.
At first, Karola could make out no one in particular. But then two horses began to pull away from the others—a sorrel mare carrying Jakob, and a black gelding carrying Lance.
Voices were raised all around her, people shouting for their favorites. She was shouting, too. “Come on, Jakob! Come on!”
“Faster, Da!” Maeve and Bernard screamed in unison. “Faster!”
Karola saw Jakob and Lance look at each other, their horses neck and neck. She saw the men smile in challenge, then lean forward, urging their horses on. Dirt and dust flew up behind them into the faces of those who followed.
“Come on, Jakob!”
Suddenly, a small boy pitched forward out of the crowd, falling to his knees right in the path of Jakob’s mare. A horrified gasp rose from the crowd. A woman screamed. A man grabbed for the boy’s arm.
A look of horror on his face, Jakob reined in hard, yanking the mare’s head to one side, throwing the horse off balance. As the mare fell, Jakob pitched head over heels to the ground. Then he disappeared from view, swallowed by a cloud of dust raised by the racing horses that had followed him.
“Jakob!” Karola thought her heart would stop.
The horses thundered past her.
“Da!”
At Maeve’s terrified shriek, Karola grabbed the girl’s shoulder with one hand. “Stay here, Maeve. Don’t move.” She passed Aislinn to Laura. “Keep them here.”
Laura nodded.
Karola wasn’t alone as she rushed toward the place she’d seen Jakob fall. Many had done the same thing, and she had to shoulder her way through. “Please let me pass. Let me
through.
Please. Please let me pass.”
Dr. Cooper was kneeling beside Jakob by the time Karola broke through the gawking crowd. The doctor held Jakob’s wrist between his fingers, checking his pulse.
“Jakob?” She knelt on his other side.
His eyes were closed, his face ghostly pale. There was a gash on his forehead above his left eyebrow, and blood ran from it into his hair.
He lay so still. So utterly still.
She looked up. “Doctor?”
Dr. Cooper’s gaze met hers briefly, but he ignored her unspoken question, saying to the crowd in general, “I need to get him to my office. Somebody get a wagon.”
God, please do not take Jakob from his children.
She quelled her tears.
Please do not take him from me.
Jakob groaned.
Karola swallowed a sob as she leaned forward. An arm went around her shoulders, and she looked to find Lance kneeling next to her. His expression mirrored her feelings.
Please, God.
She turned her gaze back to Jakob.
Please.
His eyes fluttered open, then closed, then opened again, squinting against the bright sunlight.
The doctor said, “Don’t try to move.”
Another groan slipped through Jakob’s parted lips.
Dr. Cooper put a hand on his shoulder. “Lie still. We’re getting a wagon so we can take you to my office for a closer look.”
“The boy?” Jakob’s voice was weak.
“He’s okay,” someone in the crowd answered. “His pa pulled him out of the way in time, thanks to you.”
Jakob focused on Lance. “My horse?”
“Can’t say for sure, but I think she’ll be okay.” Lance attempted a grin. “I was winning, you know. Fair and square, too.”
“Next year.” Jakob let his eyes drift closed. “Wait until next year.”
Alone in the doctor’s examination room, eyes closed, Jakob lay on the table, trying not to take any deep breaths. It hurt too much when he did.
“Cracked a few ribs,” Dr. Cooper had told him as he’d stitched the wound in Jakob’s head.
Not to mention a dislocated shoulder, plus a sprained wrist and ankle. And if the room didn’t stop spinning and pitching, he was going to lose Karola’s boxed lunch all over the doctor’s pristine floor.
He heard the door open. Just the notion of looking to see who it was seemed too much to bear.
“Jakob.” It was Karola’s soft voice.
“Yeah.”
“May we come in? The children need to see you.”
“Sure.” With effort, he willed his nausea to stop and his eyes to open.
Karola entered the room, holding hands with Maeve and Bernard.
“Hi.” Jakob managed a wooden grin. “Some spill, huh? Wish I could have seen it.”
“Are you okay, Da?” Maeve’s voice quavered.
“Sure. No worse than that time you fell out of the tree. Remember?”
Maeve nodded but looked unconvinced.
Another wave of dizziness made his stomach roll, and he had to fight to keep his eyes focused on the children. “Isn’t it about time for the watermelon-eating contest?”
Bernard glanced at Karola. “Is it?”
“I do not know.”
Jakob clenched his hands into fists. “Karola, maybe you should take them back to the park. Bernard had his heart set on entering. I’ll be along as soon as the doctor’s done with me. You know how long that can take.” With his eyes, he tried to communicate the urgency of his request. If he got sick, he didn’t want the children to see it. They were scared enough as it was. “No point the kids being stuck here when they could be having fun with the others.”
She seemed to understand. “Come, Maeve, Bernard. We will go now.”
“Don’t worry about me. I’m fine. Just a little shook up.” Jakob swallowed hard. “Bernard, you eat lots of watermelon.
Hear?”
“I will, Da.”
He was relieved when the door shut behind Karola and the children. He didn’t have enough strength to pretend any longer.
He closed his eyes and, forgetting himself, took a deep breath. The pain in his side was sharp and as hot as a red poker.
Why couldn’t this have happened
after
the harvest? He couldn’t be laid up now. There was too much work to be done.
One bad year. It only took one bad year to lose it all.
Tulley Gaffney insisted that Jakob, his children, and Karola stay overnight at the hotel.
Relief swept through Karola when Dr. Cooper agreed with Tulley. “Better not subject him to that ride home just yet. Tomorrow will be soon enough.”
“I’ve got work to see to,” Jakob argued, wincing from the effort.
Dr. Cooper gave him a pointed look. “You’ll be lucky if you can walk by tomorrow, my friend. You can forget any farmwork for a few weeks. Get what rest you can for tonight.”
Lance settled matters by offering to see to the evening and morning chores.
And so, after the fireworks display, Karola put the children to bed in one of the second-floor rooms of the Shadow Creek Hotel, across the hall from the one occupied by their father. Karola shared the room with them, though she slept little, her mind replaying again and again the horrible moment when Jakob had tumbled to the ground and disappeared beneath the racing horses.
That horrible moment when she’d feared she might have lost him forever.
B
y morning, the pain in Jakob’s head had intensified rather than lessened. His cracked ribs made every breath torture, and the crutches the doctor gave him were of little use since his dizziness made standing upright impossible. His right hand was useless as well, too weak from the sprained wrist to hold on to the crutch.
Dr. Cooper frowned as he cleaned his eyeglasses on a cloth. “I’d like you to stay in town so I can observe you for a few more days.”
“We can’t stay. I’ve got a farm to run.”
“Jakob, you can’t take care of yourself right now, let alone see to the farm chores.”
“We’re going home,” he replied through clenched teeth.
Dr. Cooper sighed. “You’re making a mistake.” With that, he left the room.
Jakob closed his eyes as despair washed over him. He knew the doctor was right. He was as helpless as a newborn kitten, but he couldn’t stay in town. Able or not, the animals had to be fed and the cows milked. Lance could keep up with many of the chores, but he couldn’t be expected to do them all. Not and run his own place, too.
Jakob must have drifted into sleep, for when he opened his eyes again the light in the room had shifted and he found Karola seated beside his bed, watching him with a worried gaze.
“The doctor says you insist on returning to the farm?”
“Yes.”
“You cannot even stand yet.”
“I know, but it’ll pass.”
“He says your recovery will take time, and that you need rest. You cannot be alone, Jakob. You cannot see to your … personal needs.” She sat a little straighter in her chair. “I have given this matter some thought overnight. I have prayed about it, and I believe there is only one answer.”
He frowned.
“I will move into your house so I may be there when needed, by you and the children.”
Jakob remembered Dorotea Joki’s indignation on their erstwhile wedding day. He could imagine the hue and cry if Karola moved in to nurse him.
Karola was one step ahead. “We will marry first. Then no one can think ill of the arrangement.”
“Marry?”
The room spun again, and he was forced to close his eyes to fight back the accompanying nausea. “You said yourself we don’t love each other …” The throbbing pain in his head and in his side made it difficult to think straight, made it hard to figure out what more he should say. It seemed he should argue with her, that he should set the record straight, that he should—
“Jakob, you cannot manage alone. I can help you. You brought me to America to marry you, to tend your home and your children and to be a wife to you. Is that not right?”
“Yes, but …” He opened his eyes for a moment, but his vision was blurred and he couldn’t make her out clearly.
She rose from the chair. “Then it is settled. I will tell the Gaffneys, and then I will send for Pastor Joki.”
“You said yourself we don’t love each other.”
Ja,
Karola had said such a thing, but the words were no longer true. Not for her. She loved Jakob desperately. She had even accepted that if he could never love her in return, if she always took second place to the memory of Siobhan, then so be it. She would learn to be content with things as they were, not as she wished.
Wasn’t that as it should be? Didn’t the Bible talk of living for others rather than for self? Didn’t it speak of learning to be content, no matter the circumstances of life? Wasn’t her joy to be found in the Lord and not in the world?
Such were her thoughts on that Sunday afternoon as Rick Joki spoke the marriage vows. Jakob hadn’t the strength to go to the church, but he’d been adamant about not lying in bed like an invalid while he took a wife. So they were married in the lobby of the Shadow Creek Hotel, Karola looking slightly rumpled in the same white blouse and red-and-white striped skirt she had donned before leaving the farm the previous morning. Their witnesses were Jakob’s children, the Gaffneys, Lance Bishop, Dr. Cooper, and Dorotea Joki, who had accompanied her brother across the street, invited or not. Except for Maeve and Bernard, who were wiggling with excitement—“You’re gonna be our new ma!” Maeve had exclaimed when she heard the news—the mood was solemn. No rings were exchanged, the ceremony was brief, and when it was done, the groom was quickly assisted out the door and into the back of the wagon before he lost consciousness from the pain.
Laura gave Karola a hug. “Will you be all right?”
“Ja.”
Laura wiped tears from her cheeks as she stepped back. “Oh, Karola, this wasn’t the wedding you should have had. I wish—”
“We are married,” Karola interrupted quickly. “That is all we wished to be.”
“He cares for you. Remember that.”
Karola nodded, then turned away before her own tears could form. To her dismay, she made immediate eye contact with Dorotea.
“Mrs. Hirsch.” The woman made the name sound more of a condemnation than a congratulation.
Karola lifted her chin slightly. “It was good of you to come, Miss Joki.”
Dorotea
harrumphed,
then turned on her heel and marched out of the hotel lobby.
“I apologize for my sister,” Rick Joki said as he took hold of Karola’s hand. “She gets moodier as she grows older.”
“It is all right.”
“No, it isn’t, but I thank you for being forgiving.”
Karola nodded, then turned toward Tulley, who was next in line.
Like the pastor before him, Tulley took hold of Karola’s hand, but he added a kiss on her cheek. In a low voice, he said, “Sure, and I knew the moment I laid eyes on you that you were going to make Jakob a fine wife. A fine wife.”
“I hope so.”
“I’ll have you listening to me now, Karola Hirsch. I loved my niece, don’t you know, but Siobhan was no saint. She was a woman, subject to the same faults as the rest of us. I’m glad for the time she had with Jakob. I’m glad for the children that were born to them. But ’tis after being time for Jakob to find happiness again, and I’m thinkin’ you’ll bring it to him. I’m thinkin’ he’ll bring you happiness, too.”
I will be happy.
Her vision blurred with tears.
If only he can
love me.
Charlotte saw Lance standing beside the wagon, holding the reins to his sleek black gelding in one hand. She quickened her footsteps, wanting to reach him while no one else was around.
When he saw her, he bumped his hat brim with his knuckles, pushing it higher on his forehead, and grinned. “Afternoon, Miss White. I didn’t figure on the pleasure of seeing you today.”
“Is it true? Did Mr. Hirsch really marry Miss Breit?”
Lance’s smile faded. “It’s true.”
Charlotte glanced toward the hotel entrance, trying to ascertain her feelings. Not all that long ago she’d thrown a fit when she heard Jakob planned to marry Karola. But after yesterday …
Well, it was too confusing. That was all she could say.
Lance took a step toward the sidewalk, drawing her gaze. “I don’t reckon I’ll make it into town for a spell. I’ll be helping out extra at the Hirsch place until Jakob’s back on his feet.”
“Oh?”
Slowly, his lopsided grin reappeared. “But maybe you’ll come callin’ on Mrs. Hirsch, and I’ll happen to be there at the same time.”
“Maybe.” Her heart pitter-patted in her chest.
“Then I’ll look forward to it, Miss White.” He tugged on the brim of his hat, pulling it down on his forehead so that it shaded his eyes again. “I’ll look forward to it.”
Merry voices spilled through the hotel doorway, growing louder. Charlotte took a quick step backward, then turned toward the sounds as Karola stepped into view.
“I just heard the news,” Charlotte said with a smile. “I wish you happiness.”
Karola hesitated briefly, then returned the smile. “
Danke,
Miss White.”
Charlotte looked beyond Karola’s shoulder. “Where is Mr. Hirsch? I’d like to give him my congratulations.”
Lance chuckled. “He’s been right here all along.”
“What?” She turned, saw Lance motion toward the wagon with a jerk of his head, then peered over the side of the conveyance to see Jakob lying on a bed made of blankets, his eyes closed. He looked ghastly.
In contrast, there stood Lance … tall and lean and strong.
Suddenly, Charlotte didn’t feel the least bit confused.