by Lenora Worth
“This is confusing,” he finally said. “A lot to take in.”
Josie sat with her hands clutched in her lap. “I have caused a lot of people so much heartache,” she said. “I acted out because I was angry that Josiah had left me in that house. But I had no idea what that had cost him. He went to Ohio, seeking help from my mamm’s family. At first, they believed he had just run away and wanted to be free. But Josiah stayed Amish. Barely had a rumspringa. But they treated him, and later me, very badly. After the barn fire, he came back and took me with him, and for a while life was better. But they blamed us for not telling them about how cruel our daed had become.”
Tobias tried to imagine what she’d been through. “So your daed was mean?”
“Ja,” she said. Then she sat silent for a moment. “He would pick fights about anything. Our mamm shielded us from his wrath, but...he took it out on her. So many times.” She looked up and to the east, where her old home was located. “I used to show up at the Bawells’, making excuses. We needed sugar or flour or I fell and scratched my knee and I didn’t want to wake my mom.”
Tobias couldn’t imagine a little girl living like that. “You were brave, Josie. You’ve always been brave.”
She turned and stared over at him, her eyes brimming with pain and dark memories. “I am not so brave, Tobias. It is my fault that my parents died.”
Tobias didn’t think this day could get any worse. “What do you mean?”
She kept her gaze on him. “They were fighting out in the barn. My mamm went out there to tell him supper was ready. He wanted supper on the table at a certain time. I don’t know what happened, but he became angry and started shouting at her.” Josie took a long breath and clutched her hands tighter together. “I grabbed a lamp since it was getting dark and ran out to the barn, but when I saw him grabbing her, I tripped and dropped the lamp. The hay caught on fire and then my mother screamed for me to run. I stood and called for her. ‘Mamm, Mamm!’”
Tobias took her hand. “Josie, you don’t need to tell me.”
“No, I do. I have to. No more secrets, Tobias. No more.”
He held her hand, his eyes following the panic rising up in her like a dark cloud. “Josie—tell me, then.”
“I called for her and she tried to run to me, but he held her there. He held her with fire all around them. I ran for help, but when I got back it was too late. Too late to save either of them.”
Tobias pulled her close. “You never told me. I am so sorry.”
“It is hard to see it all again. But in my mind, late at night, I see it and then I dream that horrible dream of hearing my own screams, of watching that fire surround my mother.” She sobbed against his shirt. “I ran to the Bawell house, and Mr. Bawell and his son went over to help. But it was too late. I stayed there until Josiah could come and get me.”
Tobias held her, his heart beating along with hers. “You have suffered enough, Josie. Enough.”
She pulled away and wiped her eyes. “Now you know my secrets. Josiah didn’t even know about me dropping the lamp. I came home after Josiah found me in the hospital, but I couldn’t take being back in Campton Creek and seeing Dinah being raised by someone else. I tried to take Dinah and run again, but I wound up hiding upstairs at the old place. Josiah found me and that’s when I told him the truth. I blamed myself for the deaths of my parents.”
“But he did not send you away. He understands it was not your fault.”
“He got me help,” she said. “Judy Campton helped me understand that I cannot carry that blame for the rest of my life. But after Drew, my blame and the shame of what he’d done to me almost did me in forever.”
She touched a hand to Tobias’s jaw. “I stare at that house every evening when I’m sitting on the side porch. Stare and remember things I’ve tried to forget. And one night a few weeks ago, I thought I saw you standing there on the porch and now I know it was you.”
Tobias could see how that had caused her to have a setback of massive proportions. “That is part of why you don’t want me living next door. That and...Dinah. You knew I’d see Drew in her features.”
“I did not want you living there because I did not want you to know all of the awful things I’ve done.”
“Things that were done to you, Josie. People who were cruel to you. How can I blame you for that?”
She dropped her hand. “But you do blame me for not being honest with you, don’t you?”
Tobias couldn’t deny that. “It’s not blame. It’s regret.Regret that you could not trust me enough to tell me what had happened. We could have worked through this together, for our purpose, for Gott’s purpose.”
A blush moved over her face. “Could have? But not now. Now it’s over for us, isn’t it, Tobias?”
Tobias couldn’t answer that question. “I have much to think about, Josie,” he admitted. “I came here with one purpose, to find you and hear what had happened.”
Her eyelashes fluttered as she blinked away tears. “And now that you’ve accomplished that?”
Tobias stood and paced underneath the sheltering oak. “Now I want to buy that house and...be near you. That is what I want right now.”
Josie stood and gazed into his eyes. “I won’t stop you buying the house if that is truly what you want. Why you’d want to stay after all of this, I cannot understand.”
“I’m staying because I have no one waiting for me back in Kentucky, and I have nowhere else to go.”
“I hope you won’t regret that.”
The disappointment and despair in her eyes ripped through his heart. “I regret that I wasn’t able to protect you. I will be here, waiting, whenever you feel that you can trust me and love me again.”
“What if that never happens, Tobias? I am damaged, scared, afraid to leave the house most days. I don’t know how I could be a wife to any man.”
“Then I will still be near you. And that has to count for something, ain’t so?”
Josie bobbed her head and didn’t speak.
“I will take you home now,” he said. “You must be tired.”
“I am,” she said. “And I want to talk to Josiah and Raesha. They cannot lose Dinah. None of us want to lose Dinah.”
Tobias could see that Josie loved the little girl.
But that would always be between them. The reminder of the boy he’d considered a friend doing such a vile thing to the woman Tobias loved.
They might not ever get past that, but with Gott’s grace, Tobias planned to try.
* * *
Exhaustion tugged at Josie as she went to open the back door to the main house. Knowing her family would be waiting for her, she almost turned to go back to the grossmammi haus. The old Josie would have done that, but today she’d become a new person. A person who’d been through the worst and was still standing. Tobias knew all of her secrets, and he’d seen all of her flaws. Maybe he’d decide he needed to move on.
She’d stood up to Drew’s parents, the people who’d scorned her and accused her of only wanting their son’s prestige and money. Now they’d been forced to see him for what he was, the same way she’d seen him from the first time she’d met him.
She’d never dreamed his ways would ruin her life with such terrible destruction. But now she had family to protect her. Maybe she’d be able to forgive him and let her faith carry her through. Stopping, her hand on the doorknob, she couldn’t help looking over toward the old place. When she saw a horse and buggy in the winding drive, she knew Tobias was there. He walked up onto the porch.
And waved at her.
So close she could run over there and hold him in her arms.
So far away she couldn’t touch that place inside his heart that she had pierced and shattered with her fears and deceit.
“I will find a way to win you back,” she whispered, thinking she’d been foolish to fight
this. “No matter what.”
Then she went inside to face her family.
They were waiting, a plate of uneaten sandwiches on the table, a pitcher of fresh lemonade on the sideboard.
“I’m not hungry,” Josie said.
“Neither are we,” Naomi replied. “Your brother told us what happened in town. How are you dealing with this, Josie?”
Josie poured some lemonade into a glass, her hands trembling. “I’ve had to relive all of the worst times of my life, so I’m not great.”
She sank down on the high-backed chair next to Josiah. He hadn’t spoken a word to her. “I am so sorry that I brought this on all of you.”
Naomi held up a finger. “You did not bring anything on anyone. You were betrayed and wronged, your life ruined. Maybe you didn’t make wise choices, but Gott always knows the outcome. He brought you home, Josie. Home, where you need to be.”
Josiah nodded, his dark eyes full of pain. “He also brought Dinah to us and, now, Tobias. This is something we should consider.”
Josie glanced at their faces. “You have been discussing this, ja?”
Raesha glanced at her husband. “We have enough to worry about right now. These people could take Dinah away.”
Naomi shot Josie a warning glance. “We will not fret about that. She belongs here with us and we will pray on that.”
“Isn’t that what you’ve been discussing?” Josie asked, confused and weary. “I don’t want Dinah to go away. You all must know that.”
“We do,” Raesha replied. “We all love her.”
Josiah stood up. “I talked to Tobias briefly after he dropped you off earlier. He still wants to buy the house, Josie. How do you feel about that?”
“We talked about it,” she said, “and I told him I would not stop him. But he has accepted that he and I can never be more than friends.”
“Accepted?” Naomi looked skeptical.
Josie set down the half-finished glass of lemonade, the syrupy, honeyed sweetness of the drink making her feel ill. “I think I’ve lost Tobias. I knew this would happen and now it has. I should be glad that he finally sees me for what I am. He might still want the house, bruder. But he does not want me anymore.”
* * *
He wanted this house and he wanted Josie here with him. Hopeful after he’d talked to Josiah in the driveway of the Bawell property, half an hour later Tobias found himself at the Fisher house and wondered if he truly still wanted the same things he’d come here to find.
A home to call his own? Yes, he still wanted that.
A family of his own? No doubt about that.
Josie?
He’d stopped there on the porch when he caught a movement on the breezeway across from the footbridge.
Josie, headed to the main house. How did his heart always sense her presence before his head caught up?
She stopped and stood so still she could have been a dream only.
But she was real and she had been through the kind of trauma that most did not return from.
Gott’s will, he reminded himself.
In an instant, she had gone inside. Tobias stood there in the sweet wind and wished he could go back in time and change all the things that had brought him here.
But he couldn’t erase becoming Drew’s friend or falling in love with Josephine Fisher. And he couldn’t erase the awful consequences of talking her into going to that fancy Christmas party when she had not wanted to do so.
He had caused this turn of events, maybe because he had turned away from his faith in the blink of an eye and, just like that, bad things had begun to happen.
Gott’s will or his own selfish pride?
Tobias watched the Bawell house, the afternoon sun radiating through the trees like a beacon, the hot wind moving over his skin while he remembered that chilly winter when he’d lost the woman he loved.
When he saw Josie running out of the main house, her head down, his first instinct was to go to her and comfort her.
But he held back, remembering the revelations this day had brought. Did she blame him for everything that had transpired since the last time he’d seen her? Was that why she’d told him to leave when she’d found him here in the house?
Tobias watched as she went straight into the grossmammi haus, and then he reluctantly got back into Abram’s buggy and headed toward town. By the time he got back, the day would be almost done. And he might be out of a job.
Defeated, Tobias had a feeling he’d be moving on soon enough anyway. He couldn’t make Josie love him if she could never forgive him for taking her to that party. If her family lost little Dinah, none of them would ever get over it.
Chapter Fifteen
“So now you know the whole story.”
Tobias waited for Beth’s and Abram’s reactions as they both sat quietly in their favorite chairs, Beth knitting and Abram tugging at his beard.
Tobias sat across from them, wondering how he’d managed to mess things up so badly. He should have stayed in Kentucky, unknowing and lonely. That which he’d believed to be hurt could not compare to the jagged, sharp pain of despair he now held in his heart. The blame of his part in Josie’s tragedy held him like a prison, causing him to stare at a piece of wood for ten minutes and then not be able to create anything out of it.
What right did he have to create anything meaningful in this world? He’d failed the woman he planned to have a life with. He should have protected her and kept her safe.
Beth put down her knitting and glanced at her husband. “Are you going to speak or should I?”
Abram’s eyebrows formed a V over his nose. “What would you have me say?”
Tobias braced himself. Was he about to be kicked out of their home and be out of a job again?
Beth made a clucking noise. “Tobias, we had heard things about the babe that was found on the Bawell porch and how Josie came to be here. But the blabbermauls soon quieted down once Josie confessed all and asked for forgiveness. Forgiveness that she didn’t actually need since this happened against her will. But she wanted a fresh start, and so she confessed to taking a wayward path. We refused to spread any rumors since she has returned to the fold and she seems to be putting her life back together.” Beth worked her knitting needles. “Dinah is a beautiful little girl.”
Tobias saw the sincerity in Beth’s gray eyes. “Denke,” he said. “Josie has been shamed enough. She has been hiding away at the Bawell place, and then I showed up and scared her back into hiding even more.” Shrugging, he dropped his head. “She’d finally begun to attend gatherings more, but this latest might set her back. I feel like I’m to blame for that.”
He wanted to add he was to blame for all of Josie’s troubles.
“You came for all the right reasons,” Abram pointed out. “Everything has brought you to this moment. So don’t go blaming yourself for anything.”
Tobias shook his head, wondering if Abram could see his guilt. “Ja, but look at me. I’m a for-sure mess and I messed up things for Josie when I made her mingle in the Englisch world.”
“Josie has a mind of her own,” Beth said. “She didn’t have to go to that party.”
“She is strong now, but back then she was searching for something, and she was innocent and naive. I tried to change her and I made a big mistake. We would be married today if I had not tried so hard to blend in with the Englisch.”
Abram removed his reading glasses. “I believe you have both learned a hard lesson, but you are also both more mature now.”
Tobias tried not to let his frustrations show, but he must have made a horrible frown. Beth sent her husband a worried glance. “State your point, Abram.”
Abram took his time while seconds ticked by. “Josie is here and single. You are here and single. I’d say Gott worked to bring you both together again, because now you’re both done with r
unning-around time, and you are mature and wise beyond your years.”
“Wise but not together, Abram. I doubt we will ever be together again.”
Abram shook his head. “You are together—you are both together here. If you buy the Fisher place, you’ll be almost as together as two people can be.”
“But not really together,” Beth cautioned, “although I do see your point, husband.”
Tobias stood and shook his head. “I’m confused.”
Beth gave him a sympathetic glance. “Life is confusing at times, but you have everything you want right here. Do not waste any more time filled with regrets and doubts, Tobias. Fight the good fight. Make Josie love you again, despite the guilt you both carry. Why come all this way just to give up now?”
“Ja, that is what I was trying to say,” Abram agreed, proud of himself. “You two belong together.”
Tobias went to his room and thought about how Beth and Abram had taken him in and fed him. They’d also nurtured that empty spot in his soul. He could never repay them, but he thanked Gott he’d found them.
Keeping thanking Gott.
The voice in his head told him he might be moving in the right direction even if everything felt wrong. How could he be sure? He wondered if the Beningtons would make trouble for them. Tobias didn’t see any way out of that.
Chalking up Beth’s and Abram’s determined suggestions as just wishful thinking, he decided he’d bide his time and see what happened next. Josie would have to make the next move, but with all of this going on, he was afraid she’d shut down again. She had shut him out completely and now he understood why.
Her memories of their time together were tangled up with the pain of how her life had turned out. How could they ever find their way back to each other?
* * *
Two days had passed and no one had heard a word from the Beningtons. Josie wanted to take a breath of relief, but she feared this was the quiet before the storm.
She wondered about Tobias. She had not talked to him since that awful morning in the sunroom. Should she reach out to him?
