Rolling over toward the window, Katie peered out at the full moon.
Maybe you’re to blame! I’ve heard people act strange during a full moon.
Katie sighed. She couldn’t blame her mistake in judgment on the moon. That was narrish. She dreaded having to face Caleb tomorrow at school. They’d ridden in silence the rest of the way home. He’d uttered a faint guten nacht to her, but she’d ignored him out of embarrassment. Why didn’t she just tell him how she felt?
Because I’m engaged. If only I could love Jessup. Then I wouldn’t be in this predicament. But maybe nothing could change the way I feel about Caleb.
Sometime in the wee hours of the morning, Katie had finally drifted off to sleep. She’d still tossed about in her sleep, making for a very tough time getting up on time. Knowing she’d be late again, she readied herself quickly and ran down the stairs, taking them two at a time. In the kitchen, her aenti sat at the small table sipping her morning cup of kaffi. She wasn’t prepared for the inevitable confrontation from the woman. Grabbing a few things out of the refrigerator, she threw her cloak over her shoulder and started for the kitchen door.
Her aenti’s voice stopped her.
“Katie, can you spare me a minute? I’d like to talk to you about something.”
Katie didn’t dare turn around and look her in the eye. “I know we need to talk, Aenti. But it’s going to have to wait until after school. I’m late.”
With that, she closed the door behind her. She was sure she would be in for an even bigger lecture once she returned from school at the end of the day, but for now, she had managed to avoid what was sure to be a heated conversation. If only she could avoid the same with Caleb.
****
Nettie heard a light knock at the kitchen door.
“Kume. It’s unlocked.”
Hiram poked his head in the door. “I just stopped by to make sure you haven’t changed your mind about marrying me.”
Nettie chuckled. “What if I have?”
Hiram didn’t let her teasing rattle him. He walked over to the stove and poured himself a cup of kaffi from the pot.
“I guess I would have to say maybe I beat you to it and changed my mind.”
Nettie lurched forward in her chair almost spilling the kaffi down the front of her.
Hiram picked up her hand. “Relax, Nettie. I haven’t changed my mind. I would never want to hurt you again.”
Nettie smiled nervously. “I knew that.”
Hiram suppressed a smile. “Is that why you practically fell off your chair just now?”
He pulled her hand to his lips and kissed the back softly. Sitting down across from her, he leaned forward, a serious look on his face.
“I want to marry you soon—before you change your mind, Nettie.”
She smiled thoughtfully. “There’s no chance of that. How about as soon as the doctor removes my cast?”
Nettie crossed her arms over her ample chest waiting for Hiram to answer. He simply nodded, causing her heart to do another somersault.
****
Katie threw leftover chicken from the previous night to the hounds before they had a chance to bark at her. She was determined to make her day go more smoothly than the day before. Despite the fact she was late, she tried to keep in gut spirits. If she were to let one thing disturb her, it might ruin her entire day.
Before she even opened the door, she could hear the kinner laughing heartily. Upon entering the back room of the school, Katie could see Caleb at the front of the classroom. He was telling them a story of two kinner falling into Goose Pond while trying to catch pollywogs. It was a story about him and his cousin. Katie admired the way he held the attention of the entire class that ranged in ages between six and fourteen. He was a natural with the kinner, and Katie wondered why he didn’t have any of his own.
When he saw her, he smiled, putting Katie at ease. Maybe things wouldn’t be so awkward between them after all—she could only hope.
Neither of them said a word to each other, but went to work on the things they needed to do. Caleb climbed the ladder to finish plastering the holes in the ceiling, while Katie took over at the front of the classroom. Once again, Caleb stared as she gave the reading lesson to the younger students. He’d learned the first half of the alphabet before they broke for lunch.
The kinner gathered in the back room without any effort, while Katie remained at her desk grading the spelling lesson for the older students.
“I have to admit, I was a little worried about seeing you today. I wasn’t sure if you’d even speak to me after last night.”
Katie searched her words carefully, not wanting to mess things up between them. “I’m sorry for allowing things to get weird between us. The last thing I would want to do is lose your friendship.”
“Nothing you can do would cause me to stop being your friend.”
She smiled, unaware that the door to the school had swung open.
“Katie Graber.” A familiar voice startled her.
“Jessup!”
**********************
CHAPTER 18
**********************
Katie’s heart nearly jumped from her ribcage. Caleb quickly excused himself, though she’d wanted him to stay. She wasn’t ready to face Jessup, and certainly didn’t want to do it alone. But here she was, looking into his disapproving eyes, and wishing she’d stayed in bed today.
“May I have a word with you?”
Katie allowed her eyes to drift over to Caleb, who had joined the kinner in the back room. When their eyes met, he looked away, seemingly disgusted. Her heart fluttered haphazardly as she wondered how to get out of talking to Jessup.
“What are you doing here?”
Jessup narrowed his eyes. “I should ask you the same thing, but you never bothered to ask me if you could come here.”
Ask you? I don’t have to ask your permission to live my life the way I want to!
“We’ll have to talk later,” she said firmly. “I’m teaching, and I can’t leave my students to have a personal conversation.”
Jessup looked back at Caleb. “You didn’t seem to mind having a personal conversation with him.”
Katie fumed as she pointed to the holes in the plaster. “He’s making repairs to the school.”
Jessup’s brow creased with irritation. “I’ve taken a room at the Miller Bed & Breakfast. I’d appreciate you joining me for dinner this evening.”
“I don’t understand why you came all this way, Jessup. I really cannot meet with you this evening. I have some things to take care of with my aenti. It will have to be another time.”
Jessup pursed his lips. “I wasn’t asking, Katie. I will expect to see you precisely at six-thirty.”
He leaned in to kiss her on the cheek, and she froze. She didn’t respond as he turned sharply and left the building. In fact, she didn’t move for several minutes. She swallowed the lump in her throat and pushed back tears that threatened to spill if she blinked.
Caleb hadn’t missed her comment about him. Was that all he was to her? Just the mann who fixes things around here? Or was she too frightened of her betrothed to stand up for herself? He also hadn’t missed the look of fear that shrouded Katie, or the control Jessup seemed to have over her.
“He’s kind of old for you, don’t you think?”
Caleb’s teasing startled Katie out of her state of shock.
“Please excuse me.”
Katie ran to the bathroom, closed the door behind her, and began to weep.
How could she marry such a controlling mann? Especially when she would rather have Caleb, who was so gentle and caring. She hadn’t realized until Caleb said it just how old Jessup looked. His beard had bits of gray—a beard he’d grown for his first marriage. Did she really want to marry a mann who still wore the badge from his deceased fraa? She wanted to court a young mann with a clean-shaven face—one with no past to remind her she wasn’t his first love.
She wanted Caleb.
>
There had to be a way out of this mess. She couldn’t talk to her aenti, who would surely side with her parents. She could never ask Caleb to help her—it would make her sound desperate in his eyes. Rachel was the only one who might be able to give her sound advice—except that she was only around sixteen, and didn’t seem to have a beau of her own for comparison.
It’s hopeless. I have no one to turn to.
Wiping her eyes on the corner of her apron, Katie cleared her throat, pushed up her chin, and walked out of the bathroom prepared to teach.
Caleb was gone.
****
Caleb could hear Katie crying in the bathroom as he packed up his things and prepared to leave. He’d felt bad for teasing her and making her cry, but he didn’t know how to help her either. He could apologize, but he had the feeling their friendship was not strong enough yet to withstand this kind of setback so early. Not to mention, he felt it was a waste of time to pursue a woman who had given her heart to another. He wanted to be the only one she wanted—the only one she loved.
When he reached the bakery, he went straight to work finishing the porch. He was already cold, and nothing, it seemed, would warm him.
Rachel opened the door and handed him a cup of hot kaffi. “You looked like you could use something to warm you up. But I’m afraid I don’t have anything to help that long face of yours. What’s wrong?”
Caleb thought about it for a minute. “I don’t want to talk about it. Don’t you have something burning in the kitchen?”
Rachel smirked. “I just took the last batch of cookies out of the oven, so I’ve got plenty of time. It must be something serious if you’re trying to get rid of me.”
Caleb sighed. “It’s something serious alright. Jessup King showed up at the school.”
Rachel’s eyes widened. “Katie’s Jessup?”
Caleb wished she hadn’t said that. He nodded sadly.
She reached inside the door and grabbed her coat off the hook. “I’ve got to borrow your buggy. Stay here and hand out the last five orders for the day. I won’t be long.”
Rachel was in his buggy before he had a chance to say anything. Was she going to help Katie? He hoped so, because he didn’t know what to do.
**********************
CHAPTER 19
**********************
Katie’s head hurt. She found it difficult to concentrate and didn’t feel like going over the same lessons, reviewing what her students already knew. She felt as though she’d been repeating herself for the past hour, and all she wanted to do was go home and forget about what had just happened.
“I’m dismissing class early today so I can get caught up on grading your homework.”
The class shouted all at once.
Katie put up a hand to quiet them. “I’m giving you homework, though.”
“Awww,” her class said in unison.
She put up her hand again. “Your assignment is to come up with an idea for our spring festival.”
Smiles abounded as they rushed to the back of the classroom to gather their things.
Katie knew the festival was more than a month away, but she didn’t have the heart to pile homework on them when she knew most of them had an abundance of chores waiting for them when they returned home.
As she was wiping off the chalkboard, Rachel walked in the door. The kinner had all left, and she was just beginning to feel sorry for herself all over again.
She rushed to Rachel and hugged her. “I’m so glad you’re here. I need someone to talk to.”
Rachel showed genuine concern. “Caleb told me about your visitor. Did you tell him it’s over between the two of you?”
Tears pooled in Katie’s eyes. “I didn’t get the chance. My parents must have told him where I was. He’s angry with me. He demanded that I have dinner with him tonight at six-thirty. I can’t go. I will crumble under his authority and probably agree to marry him now. I don’t have the strength to stand up to him.”
Rachel smiled. “Yes you do. You are stronger than you think you are, Katie Graber.”
Katie shook her head. “He’s angry with me for not telling him—no, asking him—if I could come here to teach. If I’d mentioned it to him, he’d have forbidden it. The only reason my parents consented was because of something my aenti Nettie said to them. I’ll probably never know what she said because she’s probably never going to speak to me again. Ach, I’ve made such a mess of things. What am I going to do?”
Fresh tears ran down Katie’s cheeks.
“I’ll tell you what you shouldn’t do, and that is to show up to dinner tonight. You’re in no shape to have dinner with that mann. Especially if he’s going to order you around like you’re one of his kinner. You’re a grown woman, Katie, and you have to learn to stand up for yourself.”
A hiccup escaped Katie’s lips. “I was in such a state of shock over seeing him here that I didn’t even introduce Caleb as my friend. I told Jessup he was only here to fix the holes in the ceiling. I’m sure your bruder hates me now.”
Rachel put a comforting hand on Katie’s shoulder. “He doesn’t hate you, but I can see how that might upset him. But probably not more than seeing your betrothed show up here unannounced.”
Katie sniffled. “I don’t know why I let my parents push me into this marriage with Jessup in the first place. My schweschder, Rose, would never put up with such a thing. She’s a year older than I am. She’s stronger and more independent. She would never let my parents force her to marry Jessup. I wish I could be more like her.”
“Is Rose married?”
“Nee, Jessup chose me over Rose because he thinks my schweschder is strange. She’s smart is all, and he knew he wanted a fraa that he could boss around. I’m the weak one, and he knew that when he chose me.”
They had slowly made their way to the back room where they sat down at the lunch table.
“I think you’re selling yourself short. You have a lot more to offer a mann than being his weaker half. My bruder would never make you feel like that, and I think you two are made for each other. If it is Gott’s wille, then it will be so. But it can’t happen as long as Jessup thinks you are to marry him. We have to find a way to break it to him so he will finally accept it.”
“I believe any woman dumm enough to marry Jessup will be nothing more to him than a mamm to his kinner. I don’t want to be that woman.”
Rachel needed to understand something. “Why did you agree to the arrangement in the first place?”
Katie cried even harder. “Because mei daed threatened to put me out of his haus. That’s when I decided to ask for a long engagement. I thought that if I had time to save money from my teaching salary, then I could eventually be able to support myself, and I wouldn’t have to marry Jessup. If I know Jessup, he’s here to force me to go back to Nappanee so he can marry me immediately.”
Rachel crossed her arms over her chest. “Well, he’ll have to go through me to get to you, and I won’t let him take you back. I’m sure when Caleb knows the whole story, he will help.”
Katie jumped out of her chair. “Nee, don’t tell him about this. It’s embarrassing enough just to have you know about it. It would lower his opinion of me if he knew how dumm I’ve acted.”
Rachel took Katie’s hand and guided her back to her chair. “You’re not dumm. What you’ve done is very smart. You did what you had to, and no one can blame you for that. I will keep your secret if that’s what you want, but we need to think of a plan to get Jessup to go back home—without you.”
“I could tell him I’m in lieb with Caleb.”
“Katie, that’s a brilliant idea!”
**********************
CHAPTER 20
**********************
Katie dreaded going home and facing Aenti Nettie. Jessup was sure to have already made his appearance to the ornery woman, and she probably directed him to the school. How else would he have known where to look for her? She supposed it was well-deser
ved since she’d ambushed her aenti by forcing her to go to a dinner with Hiram Miller—her biggest enemy.
As she approached the haus, she wondered what her aenti would say when she heard of her feelings for Caleb. In a community this tightly-knit together it wouldn’t stay a secret for long. But hopefully she would be long gone from her aenti’s haus by that time.
There was no way her aenti would permit her to marry Caleb anymore than her parents were going to permit her to get out of marrying Jessup. She was stuck. There was probably nothing more she could do but to leave her aenti’s haus and spend her salary on room and board. Thankfully she’d had the presence of mind to bring her box of earnings with her when she left home. But even with that money, she would only have enough to get her through the summer. She would need to find another job since the teaching position would end in just a few short weeks. And given her tardiness all week, it was unlikely that the Elders would offer her the job on a permanent basis.
Ach, I’ll worry about that when the time comes. For now, I need to worry about what I’m going to say to Aenti Nettie so she won’t put me out by my ear. The longer I can stay here, the better it will be for my savings.
Before she approached the kitchen door, she could smell fresh-baked bread and several other delightful aromas coming from the kitchen. Taking the cowardly approach, Katie decided she would try to sneak in though the front door to avoid her aenti, who was obviously in the kitchen cooking a feast of a meal. Glancing at the pendulum clock over the hearth, she realized that she’d spent so much time talking to Rachel that she had gotten home half an hour later than usual.
As she closed the front door quietly behind her, Katie could hear her aenti in the kitchen humming, and the haus smelled wunderbaar. Something was amiss. She didn’t know her aenti very well, but humming and cooking anything that wasn’t simple seemed out of character for her. The ornery woman didn’t hum, and she had already made it clear to Katie that she hated to cook. So why the sudden change? Was it possible that this was Katie’s last meal with her, and she’d cooked it as a means of breaking the news to her that she’d be kicking her out?
Amish Winter of Promises: Book Four (Jacob's Daughter series, An Amish Romance) Page 6
