If only her mamm wasn’t needed to stay with Lucy, then Nathan would be in more capable hands. She couldn’t bear the thought of having to care for another woman’s kinner.
“I need Steve on the job this week since Lucy had the boppli, and he can’t take his…Nathan with him.”
Go ahead and say it, Liam. His son,” Lydia said. “Don’t walk on eggshells for my sake. My betrothed has a son with another woman, and I’m the one left feeling the shame for it.”
Liam pulled her into a hug. “I wish you’d talk to him about this, dear schweschder. Steve is having a hard time with this, and he doesn’t need you to shut him out right now.”
Lydia pulled away from him. “He’s having a tough time with this?” she practically shouted. “What about how I’m feeling? He’s been lying to me since I’ve known him! I feel so stupid for trusting him.”
Liam grabbed her hands and held them to get her attention. “Steve is not the type of mann to lie, and you know it. He didn’t know about Nathan any more than the rest of us did. I went to school with him, remember? I didn’t know about him either. If Steve had known about the child, he would have taken care of him all this time. He would never abandon his own flesh and blood.”
Lydia bit her bottom lip to stifle angry tears that burned the backs of her weepy eyes. She knew her bruder was right about Steve. He wasn’t the sort of mann to abandon his responsibilities, but that didn’t mean she was ready to talk to him about his betrayal of her trust. He should have told her he’d been with another woman that way. She needed time to sort out her own feelings, and to decide if she could still marry him now that the circumstances had changed.
Looking over Liam’s shoulder at Nathan, who stood patiently in the kitchen, Lydia felt a twinge of sympathy for him. It wasn’t the child’s fault that he’d been thrown into this situation.
“I’ll watch him,” she relented. “I just don’t understand why Steve couldn’t ask me himself.”
Liam forced a smile. “Most likely because he knew you would react exactly the way you did. I know this isn’t easy for either of you, but try not to let your own feelings get in the way of doing what is right. You and Steve need to talk this out and settle it. After all, your wedding is at the end of the month, and beginning your marriage on a note of discord is no way to start your life together.”
Liam was right again, and Lydia wasn’t happy about it, even though she knew she was being selfish.
She just couldn’t help it right now.
Chapter 7
Steve sat across from his dad in the dining room of his childhood home, while his mother placed the dishes filled with pasta and asparagus in the center of the table. The silence in the room was only interrupted by Nathan’s constant squirming in his chair. Steve couldn’t blame him; he had to keep himself from squirming in his own chair.
Though his parents adored Lydia, they didn’t completely understand Steve’s devotion to her Amish faith or the community. They constantly questioned why he had to adhere to what they referred to as the “Amish dress code” in order to marry Lydia. He’d been dressing in the Amish clothing since he’d moved to the community, even though he wasn’t required to do so since he’d not taken the baptism. He did it out of respect, rather than as a rule the way his parents thought.
Now as he sat at his parent’s table, he represented an even bigger weight for them to bear—becoming instant grandparents. They stole glances at the child, who was dressed in Englisch clothing, and refused to give up his iPod, despite prompting from Steve to put it away while they ate.
Steve looked and felt out of place in this picture, but he tried not to let it weigh on him. He’d not yet had the heart to transition Nathan to Amish clothing yet, fearing he would only rebel if pushed too soon. It was tough enough that he’d had to give up his school and his friends. He didn’t want to push the child into too much change all at once, especially since he’d woken up crying for his mother every night since he’d come to live with Steve.
Eyeing him from across the table, Nathan reluctantly pulled the ear-buds from his ears and switched off the music. He’d charged the battery in the barn for the child since he’d hooked up electricity. Widow Yoder wasn’t keen on having electricity come into the house, as she was used to the ways of the Ordnung, but she’d allowed it for the barn to facilitate her son’s business once he and Steve had begun to reside there.
Steve knew the music itself was very much in disobedience of Amish ways, but since they weren’t part of the Ordnung, he wouldn’t push the child into giving it up. If challenged by the new community of ex-Amish that they associated with, he would probably try to argue that the boy wasn’t Amish and was too young to commit to the Amish ways. He knew that wouldn’t last long as an excuse, especially if Lydia would still have him in marriage. He had seen the disapproving looks she gave him regarding the child’s electronic device.
Steve let his thoughts drift to Lydia, who sat quietly next to him. Being too far to take the buggy, they’d taken Steve’s truck, but Lydia knew that Steve wasn’t comfortable having his parents know that he drove the buggy in the first place. Steve was erratically out of place in Lydia’s world, but he hadn’t noticed it until just now. She was clearly Amish and he suddenly challenged their perfect fit.
Lydia hadn’t said more than a few words to him the entire trip to his parent’s home, other than to discuss how her day had gone with Nathan. She’d watched the boy for half the day while Steve had finished the porch repair at the Graber farm. It hadn’t been much of a discussion since Lydia sadly reported that Nathan sat in the corner reading and listening to his music most of the time. She’d only gotten a response out of him after she offered him warm-from-the-oven cookies and a glass of fresh milk.
Reaching for Lydia’s hand during the prayer over the meal, Steve felt the tension in her grasp. He wondered if she would go through with the wedding, or if she would end their relationship over Nathan. He prayed she would forgive him as he clung to her reluctant hand.
Chapter 8
After the meal, Steve excused himself from the table and went upstairs to his childhood room to look for the letter he’d gotten seven years ago from Harmony. It was the reason behind his visit to his parent’s home, but he hadn’t wanted to say anything to Lydia about it until he’d had the chance to read its contents. He’d thrown the letter in a box and tucked it away in his closet when Harmony had sent it since he was still too bitter to open it at the time. Now as he searched through the box of high school memorabilia, he hoped he wouldn’t be filled with regret for never opening her letter. At the time Harmony had sent it, his unforgiving heart was still too broken and unwilling to hear anything the cheerleader had to say. Now he feared it may have contained information about the son he never knew he had.
After sifting through old school papers, he located the worn letter and held it in his trembling hands. He stared at it, knowing that if she’d sent him word of the child, giving him a chance to be a part of Nathan’s life, it would be his fault alone that he’d never been able to help raise him. He thought about how different his life would have been had he known about the child. He would have been married to Harmony instead of getting ready to marry Lydia.
Steve opened the letter, fumbling as a photo slipped from the folds of the page. It was a picture of a baby, but he could tell it was Nathan because it looked nearly identical to his own baby picture.
He studied it for a moment.
“It’s all my fault,” he whispered over the lump in his throat. “If I’d opened this letter, I would have married her and taken care of her and Nathan. Then she wouldn’t have had the accident on her way to work. She wouldn’t have had to work! At the very least, I should have paid child support.”
Steve stared at the baby picture of Nathan. He’d abandoned his son by not opening Harmony’s letter. He had a son who didn’t know him, and he was to blame. Guilt tore at his heart, making it difficult to breathe.
He imagined how Har
mony must have felt when she’d received no response from her letter. Steve didn’t want to think about how much it must have hurt her. Tears streamed down his cheeks and dripped onto his navy shirt sleeve.
The site of the Amish shirt suddenly angered him. Who was he kidding by dressing like the Amish when he wasn’t? What had he been trying to prove for the past year with Lydia? His place had been with his child and the mother of his child. All three of them deserved better than the kind of man he was, and he wouldn’t blame Lydia if she changed her mind about marrying him.
Chapter 9
A faint knock brought Steve out of his reverie. Stuffing the still-unread letter into his shirt pocket, he quickly wiped the tears from his face before turning around. Nathan stood in the doorway, and Steve felt the urge to pull the child into his arms and beg his forgiveness. But the relationship was already strained, and Nathan would have no idea the meaning of the guilt that plagued Steve.
“That Lady wants to go home,” the boy said casually.
“Lydia?” Steve asked.
Nathan nodded, and then returned his focus onto his iPod. Steve rose from the edge of his bed and placed a hand on Nathan’s shoulder, guiding him down the stairs to where an impatient Lydia stood near the front door, her sweater wrapped snugly around her unyielding shoulders.
Steve bid a quiet farewell to his parents who stood by awkwardly waiting for him to take his family and leave their home. After putting Nathan in the back of the cab of his truck, Steve stood aside to let Lydia into the passenger side, but she ignored him.
“I thought you wanted to go home, Lydia,” Steve said gently. “Why won’t you get into the truck?”
She looked up at him, her eyes outlined in pink. He could tell she was about to cry, but he didn’t dare reach out to her, fearing she might reject him.
“I don’t think I can be Nathan’s mamm,” she said quietly.
Steve’s expression fell. “I don’t blame you if you don’t want to marry me. I messed everything up for my son and his mother, and now you’re agonizing over my mistake in judgment.”
Tears pooled in Lydia’s eyes. “I do want to marry you, but I can’t raise another woman’s kinner. That buwe will only serve as a reminder of your betrayal of my trust, and for that reason, I can’t marry you. It isn’t fair to him.”
Steve’s heart constricted in his chest, and then struck his rib cage with such force he had to cough to catch his breath.
“You want to marry me but you can’t? That makes no sense, Lydia.”
Lydia crossed over to the large oak tree at the base of the paved driveway, and Steve followed her.
“You lied to me,” she said as she turned around to face him. “How many other women have you been with in that way?”
Steve knelt at her feet in a desperate attempt to disguise his weak knees that nearly gave out. He looked up at her thoughtfully. “None other than the one night with Nathan’s mother. That experience left me with such guilt and shame I wanted to wait for the right woman. You are that woman.”
Rage filled Lydia’s eyes. “You left her after defiling her?”
Steve reached for her hand, but she pulled away from him. “She left me! She ordered me out of her life like a dog! I was young and stupid, and I thought I loved her! I offered to marry her, but she laughed at me. If either of us was defiled, it was me!”
“I’m sorry she treated you that way, but I can only worry about how your decisions have affected me. I’m sorry if that seems selfish to you, but I can’t help that right now. I wasted seven years of my life being on hold between mei daed dying and mei bruder leaving me and mamm. Now, it seems I’ve wasted an entire year waiting to marry you, only for everything to be ruined because of your lies and mistakes.”
Lydia regretted the words as soon as they left her lips, but there was no taking them back. She’d told him exactly how she was feeling—feelings that had been festering in her wounded heart for the past few days—a wound still too fresh to heal properly.
“I know this looks bad, but it doesn’t change how I feel about you. I love you, Lydia, and I pray that you will still marry me. I’ll wait on you forever if that’s what it takes.”
He turned around and walked toward his truck, his words hanging in the air so thick she could almost see them taunting her.
Chapter 10
Lydia sat quietly in the back room of her mamm’s quilt shop listening to the distorted sound coming from Nathan’s ear-buds, while he sat eyeing her from across the room. She made a motion with her hands for him to remove his ear-buds and he complied.
She set aside the quilt squares she was working on. “I could use a break,” she said softly. “Would you like some hot cocoa and warm cookies?”
He nodded.
Lydia promptly went next door to where her cousin, Leah, was running Lucy’s bake shop while she was out for maternity leave. Lydia was almost grateful for the break from Nathan, rather than from her sewing. She didn’t know how to relate to the child that she was still considering raising, and she was still undecided if she would go through with the wedding that was to take place in just a few weeks.
While Leah filled her order, Lydia stared at her reflection in the bakery window. She’d seen the pictures of Harmony that Nathan had brought from home.
She was beautiful.
Lydia, on the other hand, felt very homely in comparison. She knew her true beauty was what came from the inside, and her humble, quiet nature, but she was also aware that Steve had been attracted to a very worldly woman.
Suddenly, her choice of mate seemed more worldly than she’d ever thought of him. Had Steve changed, or had her perception of him changed? Perhaps he’d been the same, worldly person all along, but she’d been blinded by his charm—mesmerized by the allure of his gentle voice. When he spoke, she had a tough time controlling her desire to be in his arms, and that had made it difficult to listen to his explanation of his relationship with Harmony—as if his voice had suddenly changed, and she could no longer tolerate the sound of what was once one of the qualities that caused her to fall in love with him in the first place. Could it be that she would never again be able to listen to that voice she loved so much? He’d promised her a future that he was no longer able to give her.
“I see you brought Steve’s kinner with you to the shop. Does this mean you’re planning on becoming his mamm?”
Lydia wasn’t ready to answer that question to anyone—least of all to her chattering cousin. Whatever she said to the girl would be spread like fire by the next day to every friend and familye member in the community.
Lydia shrugged without answering.
Leah handed her a cardboard drink tray to support the hot cocoa, and a small box filled with warm cookies, and she was on her way back to the quilt shop where Nathan waited for her.
Chapter 11
Awkward silence separated Lydia from Steve as he leaned up against the large oak tree in the side yard that stood between the main haus and the dawdi haus. She knew Nathan watched them from the window in the front room, and she tried not to let it bother her. Every thought that entered her mind wasn’t fit to escape her lips without hurting the mann she loved so much it caused her heart to ache. She wasn’t certain she was ready to talk to him; she wanted to be left alone to sort it out, but he insisted on taking care of things before too much time had passed.
She was still angry over his betrayal and didn’t want to take her anger out on him. As he stood so near to her, it was easier to look off in the distance at the clouds rolling in from the north—clouds that looked like snow. She feared if she looked at him she would break down, and she was not ready to be so vulnerable with him.
She wasn’t certain she ever would again.
“Tell me how to fix this, Lydia,” Steve finally begged in that sultry tone that made her feel weak in the knees. “I’ll do whatever it takes.”
“Can you turn back time?”
She hadn’t meant for her tone to snap the way it did
.
“I wouldn’t want to,” he barely whispered. “If I did, then Nathan wouldn’t be here with me now. If I could turn back time so I could have helped to raise him, then I would, but things have a way of working out the way they’re supposed to. I’m sure if I’d have married Harmony, we’d likely be divorced by now. We were never right for one another, but that doesn’t change the fact that we had a child together.”
She didn’t like his answer, but she knew he was right, and she wasn’t too happy about that either.
“I belong with you, Lydia.” He said, interrupting her thoughts. “That’s the only thing I’m certain of anymore. I don’t want to do this alone without you. That child doesn’t like me, and I have no idea what I’m doing. I’ve seen you with him. You’re good for us. We need you. Please don’t make me do this without you by my side. I love you, and can’t imagine my life without you.”
She almost wished he’d stop talking long enough for her to gather a coherent thought about the situation. His raspy baritone soothed her into submission. It was a sound she wanted to hear every day for the rest of her life. She couldn’t imagine going a single day without hearing his voice, but right now it almost set her teeth on edge to listen to him.
He wasn’t playing fair.
He knew she couldn’t resist his voice or the way he looked at her with those mesmerizing blue eyes of his. He was truly beautiful—inside and out. He was the only mann she could ever love, and knowing that gave him the advantage.
“Stop talking for a minute so I can think,” she blurted out.
His smirk told her he knew he was getting to her. He didn’t have to stand so near as to tempt her to kiss him, but he was enjoying driving her mad with his charm. Steve suddenly closed the space between them and pulled her into his arms unexpectedly. When his lips touched hers it was as if a fire had started in her, the flames so insatiable she couldn’t have extinguished them even if she had wanted to.
The Quilter's Son: Book Two: Lydia's Heart (Amish Romance) Page 2
