“Emma’s expectant look, her open and trusting countenance, all said, “What? I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”
That emboldened Sara. “I have no family … of my own, that is, and I … I always wanted a sister.”
Still Emma waited, as if she did not understand the direction of Sara’s thoughts, which discomfited Sara, though she forged on. “Will you be my sister, too?”
An array of emotions flitted across Emma’s face. Surprise, definitely, but not loathing, and yet no real answer lit her eyes, leaving Sara embarrassed by her request. She gazed away from her sister-in-law and toward the filling bucket. Why? Why had she dared such a question? Lord she hoped Emma would not be annoyed by her foolishness.
In her head, Sara went over the words that led to this uncomfortable turn. She wished she had remained silent on the subject. Then she wondered if she might have phrased it differently … until a milk-stream pierced her cheek and dripped down her face.
With a gasp, she reared back … and fell off the milking stool, regarding her sister-in-law with amazement … only to receive another face-squirt.
Sara shrieked.
Emma emitted a gurgle, and an all-out chuckle, as Sara wiped her face, then she demonstrated her ability to direct the milk in any direction she chose, sending the barn cats another treat, shooting her milking partner once more.
Sara tried getting Emma back, but her misfire into her own face had the girl doubled over with laughter.
As frustrated as she was charmed, Sara retaliated in the only way she could think of; she emptied her bucket over Emma’s head.
With a screech, Emma stood.
Sara laughed so hard, she could barely breathe.
Then Emma was kneeling beside her, kapp soaked, ribbons dripping, and hugged her. Laughter fled as they gazed at each other, Sara in surprise and inquiry, Emma silent with purpose.
She touched Sara’s heart with the tip of her fingers, then she touched her own. She placed Sara’s fingers on her heart and then hers on Sara’s. All the while she did that, she looked into Sara’s eyes begging her to understand.
“Sisters,” Sara whispered, almost in awe, afraid if she said it too loud, it would not be so, and she wanted this sister very badly.
Emma nodded, eyes glistening, and hugged her.
Adam opened his bedroom door appalled that he’d awakened late for milking, only to find Sara and his sister laughing as they came in from outside, arm-in-arm and soaking wet.
He stepped back into his room, so as not to frighten Emma, and observed them from the shadows. How happy and excited Emma could be if he were not present. While it pleased him that she was not all sadness and fear, it bothered him a great deal that he was no longer her protector but—to her mind—a threat to her safety.
Even their mother’s scolding, because Emma was drenched, failed to dim his sister’s smile.
He would have to ask Sara later how they both got so wet.
Emma did a funny thing then. She touched Sara’s and his mother’s hands to each other’s hearts, making Sara laugh as she regarded his mother. “She is telling you that we’ve become sisters,” Sara explained.
No, no, no, Emma was saying with her hands and her expression, despite the fact that she was saying nothing at all.
“Oh,” Sara said, clearly embarrassed as she turned back to his mother. “I hope you do not mind, Mrs. Zuckerman, but I think ... I think Emma is trying to say that—in the same way she and I are sisters—you and I ... might be ... mother and daughter.”
Something lodged in Adam’s throat—at Sara’s words, at the need in her eyes—because he knew, he knew, how much having a mother would mean to her. And he made a promise right then, that if his mother gave Sara that one gift, the gift of a mother, he would bury his anger and resentment against her, no matter how difficult it would be.
But he needn’t have worried. “A new daughter,” his mother said with a joyful smile, opening her arms to Sara. “Welcome, mein lieb.”
There and then, Adam Zuckerman discovered that forgiveness held the same power to speed a heart and knot a stomach as did hate, though the one uplifted and the other did not.
* * * * *
Life fell into a reasonably comfortable routine after that. Adam was able to be polite to his mother, if not loving. To his sorrow, he could be neither to his sister, because she remained distressingly fearful of him, even though Sara had tried to tell him she was not. Eventually, even Sara had to admit she was wrong about that. As to where Sara’s notion that Emma ‘said’ she wasn’t afraid of him had come from, Adam did not know.
His girls got so much attention from their grandmother, their aunt, and Sara, that they rarely sought him out now. Adam found that when they did, he didn’t mind it as much as he used to. He wondered if his mother had taken upon herself the role of protecting his girls; she, of all people, would realize the necessity. If so, the unspoken arrangement contented him.
Sara had become a somewhat sought-after midwife, and Adam could hardly complain about her going off on a delivery, even though he wanted to, when his mother and sister were so good about caring for the girls. Still, he wished Sara would just stay home, where she was safe. With him.
Was she safe with him? Even he did not know the answer to that.
In the days that followed, he turned his attention to hard work—ignoring his aching thigh—and to making his farm thrive again. And if Sara sleeping beside him at night disturbed his rest, he decided that not having her there would disturb him more.
If only she would not keep crowding him in bed. If she would stay on her own side. But inevitably in the morning, he would find her tucked against his eager body. Most often, her nightgown had ridden up and her bare bottom nestled against him, like now, flesh to flesh, a torture of the most incredible sort.
Randy goat that he was, he throbbed eagerly. If he did not know better, he would think Sara was deliberately testing his ability to resist her. But that could not be. Leave it to him to blame her for his own weakness. If Sara was anything, she was innocent.
No, the fault was his. Even now as she slept blissfully on, unaware of danger, he had awakened to find a lush breast filling his hand, it’s nipple peaked and eager. As if reading his mind, Sara turned in his arms and thrust that rosy, ripe morsel of temptation into his face.
Well, damn; what else was a man to do?
Adam fit his lips there, lightly for a moment, and then more firmly, his body taking instant and hard notice. Even through her gown, suckling Sara felt incredible. Then he received a jolt. He could forget the gown coming between them, even here. The blessed thing fell open, practically to her waist, her other breast exposed and eager as well.
Adam fingered its pouting nipple, budded it, traced its dusky ring. Unable to wait, he tongued the bud to a perfect peak and suckled it, until Sara’s moan shot lightening-bright and sharp to every fiber of his body.
His focus and their positions changed, to Adam’s surprise, and before he knew what happened, Sara began to move against him, in the world’s oldest and most perfect rhythm. Hard and needy parts of him now nestled perfectly against warm, moist parts of her.
Adam closed his eyes to savor the torture for a second, then a minute, a few more….
Sara moved one of her legs, unconsciously opening to him, and Adam slid into her before he realized what he was about, a cry of exultation on his lips ... until he reached her barrier.
Shocked, trembling, glistening with sweat, he froze, took a breath and turned his brain, rather than his nether parts, to working.
He tried to absorb his surroundings: his bedroom, his bed, a woman in his arms. Sara. His Sara. His wife ... whose life lay in his hands.
A heartbeat from completion, Adam took a breath, swore, firmed his resolve and began to withdraw, but Sara cried out and surged against him, tearing that delicate barrier, impaling herself.
“No!” Adam shouted, pulling away and spilling his seed against her belly.
> Time passed with only their harsh breaths to mark the seconds, but Adam knew that as soon as he could get air into his lungs, he was going to beat his wife.
She had done this on purpose. She had—
Sara was crying. She was sobbing against his neck, holding him so tight, he could feel her body shudder. His strong, unflappable wife was crying, and trembling. Well, he was trembling too, but….
Adam felt as if he had beat her. He knew, as much as he knew his own worthlessness, that his wife was shaking with unsatisfied desire.
He, at least, had found relief, though much less satisfying than he knew it would be with Sara, especially after her determined seduction.
He forgave her. He hurt for her.
“Shh, mein lieb, shh.” Adam rocked his wife in his arms. “Tell me, Sara. Tell me what you want.”
She lifted her face from his neck to look at him. Embarrassment, he could see. And he believed he was right; she had set out to make him break his vow. Except, of course, she did not know he’d vowed not to get her with child. She was only a woman who wanted release, as he had been a man who wanted the same, but received it.
“I don’t know what I want,” she whispered in despair.
“But I know,” Adam said, turning her on her back, pillowing her head with his arm. He knew then that God intended her for him, so ideally did she belong in his arms and his bed. “I can give you the release you seek, mein lieb, but no more than that. He cupped her breast and thumbed her nipple bringing her hips off the bed. “Ah, you are far ahead of me, I see.” Ach, Sara, such a bright pupil. “Though I suppose I should say I was ahead of you. Here, sweet, here; this is what you need.”
Sara gasped with shock and elation when Adam touched her in that place that ached, there where she was wet with wanting. She raised her head, looking down to where his hand separated and stroked her.
However shocking the sight, Sara knew it was right with Adam. Her husband. Her love. She lay back and closed her eyes, feeling him stroke every slick inch of her, exactly where she ached for him.
Aware, somehow, of his gaze on her face, she opened her eyes.
Adam. This was her Adam gazing at her with ... caring. Yes, he did care, and the realization transported Sara, his touch the sweeter because of it. When he lowered his head, she raised hers and their lips met for their first stirring kiss since their wedding day.
Like starving souls, they drew manna from each other’s lips.
Sara closed her eyes and floated.
Adam encouraged her, in gentle German. She could barely understand him, but his tone, oh Lord, his tone was sweet and coaxing, and that aching spiral at her core tightened, almost beyond bearing, but she did not know what she was supposed to do. In near-panic, she looked to her anchor, and he smiled and kissed her again. “Let it happen,” he whispered against her lips. “I want to see it happen.”
See what happen? she wondered, but for the life of her, she could not speak the words to ask. She knew only that the threat and fear of shattering was not as great as the knife-sharp pleasure infusing her, raising her toward a summit never imagined.
“It is good,” Adam said. “For a husband to raise his wife thus, and a pleasure beyond words to watch her embrace the journey. Soar, my butterfly. Kiss the sun, my Sara.”
With his claim, Sara gave herself over to his touch, to pleasure, sweet and raw, hot and shivering, to an intimacy so stark and all-encompassing, she was transported to that place where butterflies kiss the sun.
She called her husband’s name as she lost herself in the wonder of it.
Adam experienced, for the first time in his life, an emotion that frightened him—happiness, untainted and pure. Unworthy though he was, he accepted the gift of Sara’s release with the greatest humility. And once he admitted to himself that he would seek this intimacy with her again, that he must or perish, he held his wife in his arms and fell into the best, most restful sleep he’d had in months.
* * * * *
Lena Zuckerman saw a difference in her son and daughter-in-law that morning, as they sat down to breakfast, though she could not imagine what caused it. Adam’s limp seemed more pronounced, and as usual, he evaded her questions about his leg. Yet, despite that, an ease emerged in the way he moved today, in his response to little Katie’s barrage of questions. Lena even noticed, in her son’s usually pain-blanked eyes, a softening, barely-acknowledged appreciation for life. Such an expression she thought never to see on such a hard and rugged countenance, neither his nor his father’s.
It frightened her how much Adam resembled his father, even in personality. Yet it seemed possible that the wife he’d chosen—his second, Lizzie said—was strong enough to counter his hard edge, perhaps in time, even to dissolve it.
Though she knew nothing about Adam’s first wife, Lena was glad he had chosen his second better than his father had chosen his first and only wife. Lena would be eternally sorry her children had suffered from her husband’s poor choice of wife and from her own lack of strength.
And yet, she did not know what she could have done differently. If she had dared to speak against her husband to the Elders, and reveal the horrible truth, their high holy leaders would have brought her before the district as a liar. No one would have believed such accusations against the fine, upstanding, God-fearing Amos Zuckerman.
If she had been shunned, she would not have been there to turn Amos from punishment, not that she had succeeded as often as she would have wished.
Yes, Adam was like his father, yet he was not. And poor Emma, she could only see the physical resemblance between son and father, not the difference in spirit, though Adam was a hard man, harder than Lena would like.
Still, she’d been glad enough for it when he was young. Adam’s strength had been what kept her sane through everything … until she’d lost him. She’d not been quite sane for a long time after that. Perhaps, she was not, even now.
Yes, Emma had always been afraid of men; she had reason to be. Lena feared Emma thought Adam was his father. No matter how often she explained that he was not, Emma refused to listen. Her daughter could shut out talk on any subject she chose, almost appearing deaf when she wanted to.
It was that ability of hers to seem totally deaf that made Lena wonder about what the doctor had said; that she must be able to speak. Lord, was the girl so good an actress that she could pretend such infirmity? Had the skill been refined as a necessity to her daughter’s survival?
If so, what skills did Adam possess? What fears?
Lena didn’t know she had been crying until Sara bent to kiss her brow. “Don’t be sad, Mutter. You are home now.”
* * * * *
Adam got an incredible amount of work accomplished that day. If he fixed the windmill’s broken blades too, so it would pump more water into the trough, he would be able to attend the horse auction tomorrow in Sugarcreek. He needed to get Sara a younger carriage horse to replace tired Old Joe.
He realized two hours later that he had wreaked havoc with his leg climbing to the top of that windmill, but only because he’d already done three days worth of work, and it was only four in the afternoon. He admitted he might have overdone it when he dropped one of the new blades for the second time and had to climb down the fifteen-foot-high windmill and back up again. But finally, when he went inside for supper, the job had been completed.
He had washed in the barn thinking about the night to come. If he wanted to surprise Sara with the horse tomorrow, he supposed he needed a different excuse to go to the auction, but he’d think of something.
Right now, he could think of nothing but getting his wife into bed. How foolish of him not to realize, sooner, that they could satisfy each other, at least. This way, he could keep to his vow not to risk Sara’s life in childbirth, the way he had risked and killed Abby.
An emotion, reminiscent of guilt, but more like sorrow, filled Adam. Had he ever anticipated a night with Abby? Beyond his wedding night that was?
Accept
ing his touch had always seemed a stalwart duty to Ab; he’d suspected that right off. There’d been no pleasure, ever, for her. Had there been, she would have expired of shame. Often, he’d thought it just as well, because he might have allowed himself to love her, if—
Adam raised his head and swore. He would not love Sara. No matter the shaft of overwhelming and frightening ... sensation ... that filled him when he held her in his arms and brought her release. No matter that she made him feel—
Nothing. She made him feel nothing. He would not have it. He would not. He did not need Sara.
He entered the house to the sound of laughter. It was always so with Sara around, and yet it was Emma who laughed ... until she saw him.
He swore and Emma rose to flee.
“Stay,” he ordered in harsh frustration.
She backed away instead.
“Honestly, Adam, why do you frighten her that way?” The English snapped.
And what was he doing here? Again.
“Because it gives me great pleasure to see my sister run from me,” Adam snapped back, swallowing his curse.
“Come,” The English said to Emma, holding out a hand, making Adam chuckle, until he saw that his sister’s stance changed. Her shoulders relaxed enough so they were no longer touching the wall she had backed up against. And she watched the doctor’s face as though waiting for something, her fear replaced with ... anticipation.
Adam swore again. Emma stiffened again, her fear back in place.
The English rose and dared to step toward the skittish girl. Stupid move. Foolish man. Now, he would see, Adam thought, how fast the girl could run, which she poised to do.
Still, The English took one slow step after another.
Even Katie became quiet as a mouse while everyone watched the man approach her frightened doe of an aunt. “I’m not going to hurt you,” The English promised. “I want you to trust me, Emma. Can you?” The man turned to Pris, the child gifted with a whine that could send a braying mule for cover. “Pris, come and show your Aunt Emma that you trust me?”
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