Robin Lee Hatcher - [Coming to America 02] (8 page)

With a shake of her head, she hurried toward the piece goods, where she selected a skein of yellow yarn and another of black. Then she continued to move through the aisles, selecting the cooking and baking supplies she would need for the coming holidays.

Fortunately, by the time she reached the counter, Martha had dragged her uncle and sister over to a toy display near the entry, giving Inga an opportunity to speak privately with Sonja Dolk.

“I will offer my quilts for sale in your store,
Fru
Dolk,” she told the proprietress, “if you will allow me to take this book and the yarn now, to be paid for out of my first earnings.”

Sonja didn’t hesitate. “Agreed. You will make far more than the price of those things, I promise you.”

Inga thought the woman was being overly optimistic but didn’t say so.

“How soon can you deliver the first one?”

“I will have Mamma bring one tomorrow.”

Sonja beamed. “Wonderful!”

“Please, could you wrap the book and yarn so they will not be seen? They are for Christmas.”

“Ah, I understand.”

But Inga was quite certain Sonja Dolk did not understand. Not really. And it was for the best that she didn’t, because when the day came for Inga to return to the parsonage, she would just as soon her love for Dirk Bridger not make her the subject of gossip or ridicule.

A broken heart would be enough for her to deal with.

Thea stared at the half-written letter on the table. There was so much she wanted to say to Karl, but all she seemed able to write was how very much she missed him.

Then the bedroom door opened, and Inga stepped into the room. Thea immediately laid the pen aside and rose to give her sister a hug.

“Have you come up with a plan for me?” she asked the moment she released Inga.

“Nej,
not yet.”

Thea felt her heart drop. She sank onto the edge of her bed. “What am I to do? I must be there when he arrives. He is coming all this way just for me.”

“Do not despair, Thea. We will get you to New York City in time.”

“It’s easy for you to believe all will be well. It isn’t your heart that is breaking because you are kept from the one you love.”

Inga sat down beside her. “Perhaps not,” she whispered, sounding sad.

Thea regretted her snappish retort. Still, it was true. Inga couldn’t know how terrible it was for Thea to be separated from Karl. Inga had never had a beau.

She felt her skin growing hot with frustration. She had to get to Karl. She had to be with him. Nothing else mattered. Not obedience to her parents. Not her close ties to her sisters. Nothing and no one mattered except Karl. She didn’t care if Pappa said she had a rebellious spirit. She knew what she wanted, and she meant to have it.

“Thea?”

She didn’t look at Inga.
“Ja.”

“How did you…When was it you knew you loved Karl? Was it after he kissed you?”

Thea knew her cheeks were flaming for a different reason now. “I knew even before that.”

“Did he guess how you felt when the two of you first kissed?”

She remembered that furtive exchange in the hallway of her parents’ house in Jönköping. Their lips had scarcely brushed, but her palms had been sweaty and she’d giggled nervously. She remembered the way Karl’s blue eyes had seemed to look right into her heart afterward. “I suppose he did.”

“Oh. I see.”

Thea turned and grabbed hold of both of Inga’s hands. “You mustn’t think badly of me, Inga, for letting him kiss me.
I love him so much. Oh, how can I expect you to understand what it’s like?”

For what seemed an endless moment, their gazes locked, but Inga’s eyes were so serious, so searching, that finally Thea had to look away.

“You might be surprised what I understand,” Inga said gently. “I would never think badly of you for loving Karl.” She squeezed Thea’s hands, then released them and stood. “Now, I must speak to Mamma about some of my quilts that are packed away in trunks in the attic.”

It wasn’t until after Inga left the room that Thea wondered at her sister’s comment. Then she forgot it as she returned to her letter to Karl.

After all, it was impossible Inga could understand, having never been in love.

D
irk wasn’t unaware of the changes Inga’s presence had made in the Bridger household. Laughter seemed to linger in the halls, like a breath of warm summer air. The children blossomed a little more every day in the loving atmosphere she’d created, Martha becoming less serious, Suzanne no longer throwing tantrums. Even his mother, while growing more frail due to her illness, had an aura of peace about her, perhaps even joy.

Dirk knew it was because of Inga Linberg.

Often he would enter the house to the sounds of singing. Usually the songs were Christmas carols or hymns. Inga had a sweet, clear voice, but it was often obscured beneath the boisterous and occasionally off-key caroling of his nieces.

The kitchen became the center of activity. Martha and Suzanne were often seated at the table, working on some project or another. When he came into the room, Martha would demand he cover his eyes. Christmas presents, his mother explained to him with a smile. They were secret, these things, and he mustn’t peek. So he didn’t.

While the children and Hattie worked on those secret gifts, Inga cooked and baked. Delicious scents wafted through the house. Smoked sausage, limpa and saffron breads, coffee and spice cakes, gingersnaps and crullers. Dirk gladly sampled
everything that was offered to him, and he proclaimed each new dish better than the last.

Inga was never idle. No matter when he saw her, she was busy: washing, ironing, cleaning, sewing, baking. Regardless how early he arose, she was up, too. When he went to bed, there was usually a sliver of light showing beneath her bedroom door. He wondered when—or if—she slept.

Now, in addition to everything else, Inga went with Dirk to the barn to help with the milking. He was amazed by how much faster the job was accomplished with two of them working. It didn’t make him any more fond of the cows or the chore itself. It didn’t make him dislike dairy farming any less than he had before, but he didn’t seem to dread the start of each new day quite so much either.

Dirk would always remember the morning of December thirteenth of that year. Although he was awake, he was still in bed, for it wasn’t yet time for the milking to begin. It was black as pitch outside his window, and a cold, mournful wind whistled around the eaves of the house. Suddenly, his door opened and flickering candlelight spilled into his bedroom. He sat up, surprised and thinking something must be wrong.

Then in walked Martha, swathed in a shimmering white ankle-length robe. A wreath of greenery sat atop her head, and in that wreath were lighted candles. The child’s smile, however, outshone the tapers a hundred times over. She walked toward his bed, smiling all the while, carrying a tray with coffee, buns, and cakes on it.

“Happy Saint Lucia’s Day, Uncle Dirk.” Then she giggled as she glanced over her shoulder and back at him.

Her enthusiasm was infectious, and he returned it, grinning at her. He leaned against the wall at his back and let the pageant play out.

“I’ve brought you Lucia cats,” she told him. “See? The buns are shaped like a cat’s head. That’s what they do in Sweden. And the gingerbread is in the shape of a goat. See?”

“I see.” He looked toward the doorway where Inga stood. She was holding Suzanne’s hand in her own, and her other arm was draped lightly around Hattie’s shoulders. All were smiling as broadly as Martha.

“I’m the Lucia bride ’cause I’m older’n Suzanne.”

He looked at her again. “And a pretty bride you are, too.” He reached out and took the tray from her, then rested it on his lap. “Mmm. Did you help make these?” he asked after taking a bite of a warm slice of gingerbread cake.

“Me and Suzanne did.”

“I didn’t know you were such a good cook, Martha.”

“Miss Inga showed me how.”

Once again his gaze flicked to the doorway. “She’s pretty good at showin’ us new things, isn’t she?”

Inga’s smile dimmed, but she didn’t look away as she so often did when their glances met. Dirk found himself wondering how his family had managed without her. She’d brought Christmas back into their lives, and Dirk, despite his best attempts to avoid it, had caught some of her excitement. He hadn’t felt this way in a long time. Too long.

“I think today’s the day we oughta go lookin’ for that Christmas tree,” he offered.

Hattie clapped her hands together, drawing his gaze from Inga to her. “A tree? Oh, son! How wonderful!”

He should have done it for her last year, he thought when he saw the joy on his ma’s face. For an instant, he caught a glimpse of a younger, healthier Hattie Bridger.

“Of course, a tree,” he answered. “I know where there’s a small stand of conifers not too far from here. Just the other side of the river and south a bit. If we get an early start, I reckon we
can get one chopped down, brought back, and decorated in no time at all.”

“Oh, boy!” Martha exclaimed as she looked behind her. “You hear that, Suzanne? We’re goin’ after a tree, like the ones Miss Inga told us about.”

Once again, he looked at Inga, and once again, he wondered what they had ever done without her.

Bundled snugly in their coats, hats, and mittens, Martha and Suzanne settled onto the backseat of the sleigh, then lifted their arms as Inga tucked several blankets over and around them. Already their cheeks and noses were rosy with the cold. Their green eyes sparkled. Inga understood, for she felt the same excitement bubbling up inside her.

“Ready?” Dirk asked.

Her pulse jumped as she turned to watch him walk toward the sleigh.
“Ja,
we are ready.”

“Then let’s go. That Christmas tree’s just waitin’ for us to find it.”

This smiling, carefree-sounding Dirk Bridger was a stranger to Inga, but she liked him a great deal. She hoped he would stay. She hoped…

He stopped in front of her, then took hold of her arm. “Here. Let me help you in.”

She could scarcely hear him over the beating of her heart. She tried to smile, but she was certain the look she gave him was more daft than pleasing in appearance.

As he sat on the seat beside her, taking up the reins and looping them through his fingers, he said, “How about some of those carols you’ve all been singing lately?”

“Which one?” Martha asked.

“How about ‘God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen’? I know that one.”

“We do, too,” his niece answered.

Dirk glanced at Inga. “Can you get us started on key?”

She nodded. “I think so.” She forced herself to concentrate on the melody, then hummed the first note and began.

It was the first time she’d heard Dirk sing, and if she hadn’t loved him already, she would have fallen in love with him at that precise moment. His was a deep, resonant voice, welling up from his chest and bursting forth with confidence.

The journey seemed to take no time at all as the team of horses trotted along the road, big clouds of steam in front of their nostrils, their tails flowing out behind them like banners, snow crunching beneath their big hooves. The runners glided over an alabaster landscape, whispering their passage, the faint sound drowned out by the joyous singing of the sleigh’s passengers.

Going west, they crossed a wooden bridge high above the river. The surface was frozen solid, hiding the swift-flowing water from view. After crossing the bridge, the road turned south.

Dirk drove the horses into a densely wooded area with sloping hillsides and a spectacular view of the river valley to the east. All around them rose elm trees and maples, oak trees and hickories, although it was difficult to distinguish one species of tree from another, dressed as they were in their wintery garb. Bare, snow-laden limbs glittered gaily in the sunlight. Interspersed among the tall broad-leaved trees were small copses of conifers, their evergreen branches also blanketed by snow.

Even in the dead of winter, wildlife was in evidence in this woods. Before Dirk had a chance to stop the sleigh, they had
spied three white-tailed deer bounding off into hiding and two blue jays watching them from a high branch. A moment later, several squirrels jumped from another tree, startling the blue jays and sending them flying into the sky while a sifting of snow floated to the ground.

“How about that one over there?” Dirk said, pointing with one hand while looping the reins with the other.

Inga’s gaze darted in the direction he’d indicated, and she immediately found the tree he meant.
“Perfekt!”
she exclaimed.

He hopped out of the sleigh, then turned back to help her. She didn’t hesitate before putting her hand in his. For today, at least, she allowed herself to pretend this was her family, that she belonged with them and to them, that Dirk loved her as much as she loved him. It was a wonderful fantasy; she didn’t care that it wasn’t sensible, realistic, or prudent. God had given her this day, and she was going to revel in it.

As soon as Inga was out of the sleigh, Dirk released her hand and reached for the children. Before long, all four of them were trudging through the snow toward a small juniper, Dirk with an ax resting on his shoulder.

“Wait here,” he said when they were about ten feet away, then he moved on.

Inga found immense pleasure in watching him chop down the tree. Even layers of winter clothing couldn’t disguise his strength. It was easy enough for her to imagine the flexing of his muscles as he swung the ax in a smooth rhythm, notching out tiny chips of wood, first from one side, then from the other. His breath formed in tiny clouds before his slightly parted lips, and before he was finished, trickles of sweat streaked the sides of his face.

With a loud crack, the trunk split and the six-foot tree toppled to the ground, a puff of snow rising around it.

Martha cheered, hopping up and down and clapping her hands, and Suzanne mimicked her.

With a grin, Dirk turned and looked toward Inga and the girls. “We have a Christmas tree.”

How very much she loved this man. She had no right to love him, but she did anyway.

Suddenly, a snowball struck Dirk in the shoulder. His attention shifted to Martha, who was wearing a proud expression.

“Why, you little—” Dirk began, grinning wickedly.

The girl threw another one, barely missing his head. She squealed as her uncle leaned down and scraped snow into his hands, patiently shaping a perfect ball in his palms. Martha spun around and tried her best to run away. His snowball struck her between her shoulder blades. Quickly, he shaped another.

Before Inga knew what was happening, she found herself in the middle of a free-for-all. She tried to shield a giggling Suzanne from the flying spheres. Finally, in an act of self-preservation, she tossed a few snowballs of her own. Her aim was atrocious. Neither Martha nor Dirk were in any danger from Inga, and when they both realized it, they turned upon her with glee.

“Run, Suzanne!” she shouted, grabbing the child’s hand.

Before she could take more than a couple of steps, she was pelted from behind. She stumbled to her knees. She started to rise, and suddenly, she felt Dirk’s hand beneath her elbow.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to knock you down.”

She looked into his face as she rose to her feet. Despite the cold, she felt overheated. He was so close. Too close. Her heart began to race. Her laughter was forgotten.

As his gaze met hers, his smile faded. His brows drew together in a puzzled frown. Time stood still, and Inga wondered what he could read in her eyes. Would he guess—

“We’d better get home,” he said, his gaze still locked with hers. “Don’t want you takin’ sick from the cold.” He released her arm, took a step back. “I’ll get the tree while you put the children in the sleigh. Come on, Martha. Time to go.”

“Aw, Uncle Dirk. Can’t we—”

“No argument. Let’s go.”

Inga was sorry she’d fallen into the snow, sorry she’d caused the playful Dirk to go back into hiding. She wondered when she might see him again. She hoped it would be soon, then she hoped it would not. For seeing this happier side of him only made her heart love him more.

And that she did not need.

The trip home was more quiet than when they’d set out. Dirk knew he was responsible for the solemn mood, but he made no effort to change it. To be honest, he didn’t know how.

He glanced at the woman beside him. She was a mystery. One moment he thought there was nothing particularly attractive about her. And then, he would look at her again and think…

He set his jaw as he stared at the snowy road before him.

Only a fool wouldn’t realize Inga was not like the women in his past. She was sweet and wholesome, good and kind. A man couldn’t dally with her for a few hours and then forget her. Especially not when she had a minister for a father!

Only a fool…

Dirk slapped the reins against the backsides of the horses, hurrying them along. He must have been crazy, taking the time away from his chores to go after a Christmas tree. A tree, for pity’s sake!

But the idea had pleased his ma. He would long remember the look on her face when he’d mentioned it. And Martha and Suzanne had enjoyed themselves today, too. He supposed it was worth the time he’d taken from his chores.

Like it or not, his thoughts circled back to Inga, because it was she who had brought so many smiles into the Bridger household. He owed her his thanks and a lot more.

He glanced her way a second time. She was staring into the distance, her expression pensive, her thoughts taking her far away. Dirk studied the lines and angles of her fine-boned features and decided it was the sort of face that grew on a person, the sort that got prettier over time. He felt another twinge of unwanted attraction and was once again surprised and angered by it.

After all, he had more than his fair share of troubles as it was.

Monday, December 13, 1897

Uppsala, Iowa

My dear Beth,

I write to you in need of advice. I cannot go to my family. Certainly not to my parents, and my sisters would not understand. So I turn to you for help.

I have fallen in love with my employer, Dirk Bridger. It is an impossible situation, I am afraid. His heart yearns for many things, but a wife is not one of them.