Searching for You

by Jody Hedlund

  With quick steps she crossed the kitchen, flung open the door, and stepped outside. The morning sun blinded her for a few seconds, but at the sight of a bright yellow kerchief and a matching calico dress, Sophie felt like dropping to the ground and crying in relief. Euphemia was here.

  “Good morn, lass!” Euphemia beamed down at her as she brought the wagon to a halt. “I see you’ve just pulled yourself from bed. I take it the night went well?”

  Euphemia’s question made Sophie flush, and she shook her head in denial. “No, it’s not what you think. We talked in the barn while he worked. That’s all.”

  The older woman hefted herself from the wagon. “Och, that Reinhold. He’s a mite stubborn. But dinnae worry, lass.” She lumbered toward the wagon bed. “With the way he kissed you yesterday at the wedding, I doubt he’ll be able to keep his hands off you for long.”

  The heated flush sank deeper into Sophie. “He still views me as his friend.”

  “I guess you’ll need to show him you’re not just his friend.”

  “How do I do that?”

  Euphemia chuckled as she lifted a crate out of the wagon and set it on the ground. “Now, lass, the good Lord gave you the beauty of a dozen women. It shouldn’t be too hard to woo that husband of yours.”

  Woo her husband? Sophie shook her head. She couldn’t remember anything about the way her mother and father interacted with each other. And even though she’d lived with her uncle and aunt for a while, their relationship hadn’t been anything to emulate.

  Euphemia hefted out another crate. Seeing Sophie’s confusion, she chuckled again. “Find out the things he likes. Learn what pleases him.”

  Sophie nodded. “I know he likes his coffee strong and black. And that he favors your butterhorn rolls.”

  “That’s right. You’ll do fine, lass.” She pulled a third crate from the wagon. “And if he needs a little more encouragement, then you can always tempt him with what’s already his.”

  Sophie ducked her head at the bold plan, feeling the blush move all the way from her cheeks into her scalp. Since she’d trapped Reinhold into marrying her, she didn’t want to coerce him or trick him into having a real marriage if he didn’t want that. But maybe she could earn his love. Maybe over time, if she learned the things that pleased him, he’d eventually grow to love her.

  “Och, lass. He’ll come around.”

  Sophie hoped so. She hoped it more than she should.

  “Now help me carry these boxes inside.” Euphemia held out one of the crates. “We’ve got work to do.”

  As Sophie brought the crates and barrels into the house, she almost wept with gratefulness. Euphemia waved aside her words of thanks and set to work unpacking cleaning supplies, crocks of foodstuffs, and even a butter churn. Euphemia also produced bolts of material and spools of thread for making sheets, curtains, and rugs.

  “I can’t accept all this,” Sophie said as she stared at everything now spread around the kitchen in piles, already giving the place a homey feel.

  “Most of it is extra stuff I had lying around and don’t need anymore.”

  “But it’s too much.”

  “You tell Reinhold you’ll pay me back by coming over and lending a hand with the rest of the preserving.”

  Reinhold was a proud man and wouldn’t take charity—he never had, even in New York City when they’d been on the brink of starvation. Apparently, Euphemia had already anticipated Reinhold’s reaction to the gifts. “And when you come,” Euphemia added, “you bring anything left in Reinhold’s garden, and we’ll get it preserved too.”

  Euphemia showed her how to light the stove and set water to boiling. Then they scrubbed the kitchen, started laundry, and prepared a simple meal in readiness for Reinhold and Jakob’s return for the noon meal.

  When the two didn’t come in from the fields, Euphemia helped Sophie bundle up the meal into a basket. Then she set out for home.

  Sophie watched the wagon rumble away with a growing sense of trepidation. She wasn’t ready to be on her own yet. But she also realized how much Euphemia had sacrificed by coming over. With all that Euphemia had to do every day, she couldn’t afford to miss a minute, much less half a morning.

  Sophie headed in the direction Euphemia had pointed out for her. She passed a field that had already been harvested. Beyond that, the level plain stretched in a lovely patchwork of gold, brown, and bronze. A few trees stood a distance away, their leaves changing from green to gold. The low clouds that had rolled in brushed against the color so that the fields and trees seemed to touch the sky.

  In one field she caught sight of the sheaves—the oat stalks that had been gathered and banded tightly around their middles the way that Euphemia had described. As she drew closer, she finally saw Reinhold at work cutting the oats. Jakob was nearby, kneeling on the ground and binding the stalks into sheaves.

  At her approach, Jakob stood and said something to Reinhold. He nodded but kept cutting, swinging with smooth strokes that caught the stalks and felled them.

  “I brought you dinner,” she said to Jakob as her gaze followed Reinhold’s movements. Even with the cooler temperatures, he’d discarded his coat. His shirt was plastered to his back by perspiration, revealing every rippling muscle.

  She lifted out the crock containing the ham, boiled potatoes, and green beans. She filled a tin plate for Jakob, and he took it gratefully.

  “Reinhold,” she called, but he didn’t break from his steady rhythm.

  “He won’t stop until he reaches the end of the field,” Jakob said. He spooned food into his mouth and swallowed it all in one motion.

  Jakob was almost done with his second helping of the meal by the time Reinhold put down the tool and walked over.

  Feathery pieces of oats stuck to his forehead and nose, along with smudges of dust. His cheeks and jaw were covered in a dark shadow of stubble he’d neglected to shave. But she found that she liked the shadows, that it gave him a rugged appeal.

  “I’ve brought you a meal,” she said with a smile, realizing she was happy to see him.

  His return smile was tired, and she wondered how much sleep he’d gotten last night. Probably not much if he’d awoken before dawn to do chores and head out to the field.

  As she ladled food onto his plate, his eyes widened. “How did you manage this?”

  She laughed. “Are you telling me you don’t think I’m capable of cooking an edible meal?”

  His grin widened. “No. Not at all.”

  She liked the crinkles at the corners of his eyes, lines that his toil in the sun and heat had etched there.

  “It’s good,” he said after a bite.

  The compliment filled her with a sense of pleasure that was unlike anything she’d experienced before. She liked knowing she could please him and make him happy. And her conversation earlier with Euphemia rushed back. What were some other things she could do to woo him?

  “I’m guessing Euphemia paid you a visit?” he asked.

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “She brought the ham.” When his eyes met hers, they were full of questions.

  “I’ll repay her for everything she gave me.”

  He chewed slowly and stared off at the rest of the oat field still waiting to be harvested. A variety of emotions flickered across his face.

  As though sensing their need for a private conversation, Jakob handed his empty plate to Sophie, thanked her, and returned to the sheaf he’d been bundling before her arrival.

  For several minutes, Reinhold ate quietly. The breeze gently rattled the oats. Sophie soaked in the peace of the place, so different from the city life she’d known. She didn’t miss the noise and chaos, she realized as she breathed in the scent of grass and soil and wind.

  When Reinhold finished eating, he returned his plate to her. “As soon as everything is harvested and my debts paid, I’ll be able to do more for you. I promise.”

  His words surprised her. Did he think she was disappointed in his home
and what he was offering her?

  “Reinhold Weiss, don’t you think for a second that I care one bit about the material things you can give me.”

  He shifted to stare off into the distance again, his eyes troubled, his shoulders slumped.

  She wanted to say more, wanted to tell him that nothing else mattered, that he’d given her so much more than she’d had in a long time.

  She dropped his plate into the basket and reached for him. With one hand she tugged him near, and with the other she cupped his cheek, brushing her hand across the coarse stubble. Before she could rationalize or come up with excuses why she shouldn’t, she stood on her toes and lifted her lips to his. She let her fingers stroke his cheek at the same time that her lips stroked his in a kiss that left no room for hesitation.

  His eyes widened, and for a moment he didn’t move, as if too surprised to react. Then his hand slipped to the small of her back and he began to press her closer. But as the reality of what she’d done crashed into her, she broke her lips from his and stepped away.

  She dug her toe into the ground, too embarrassed to look at him. Finally she chanced a glance and found that his expression was unguarded, that he was studying her mouth as though he might grab her and finish what she’d started.

  She sucked in a breath, and his gaze lifted so that she found herself lost in the deep lush green of his eyes. For a moment she could only stare, the air between them strangely charged, just as it had been yesterday at the wedding after they’d shared the kiss. She’d never known kisses could be so powerful, so enticing, so bonding.

  With each thought of kissing him again, her breathing turned more shallow, until she took another step back, needing to put a boundary between herself and her desires.

  Even as she moved to leave, she knew she had to say something. “You’ve given me a home, Reinhold. I haven’t had that in a long, long time. As soon as Nicholas and Olivia are here, we’ll be a family. And that’s all I could ask for or want.”

  With that, she reached for the now-empty food basket, picked it up, and began to walk away. She sensed his eyes following her every move. And when she glanced over her shoulder at where she’d left him, he hadn’t budged. His eyes smoldered with something she couldn’t name but that sent her pulse skipping.

  The admiration she’d once felt for Reinhold as a girl couldn’t begin to compare to the new and thrilling feelings she had for him now. What was swirling inside her was so much bigger and more intense and beautiful that it made her chest hurt.

  She was falling in love with her husband.

  Through the darkness of the evening, Reinhold trudged wearily toward the house, following the bright light emanating from the kitchen window. He was tired down to his bones, and after finishing the chores he’d considered simply falling into a bed of hay in the barn and giving way to his need for sleep.

  But the growling of his empty stomach prodded him out of the barn. He wasn’t going to the house because he wanted to see Sophie, he told himself. It was only because he was hungry.

  His thoughts returned to the meal she’d brought out to the field earlier in the day. Although he’d eaten his fill, a different kind of hunger had gnawed his gut the rest of the day, a hunger he didn’t want to acknowledge.

  “Forget it, Reinhold,” he whispered to himself. If only she hadn’t kissed him. Yes, it had been brief. But it had knocked into him like a strong prairie wind, and it had stirred all the desires he’d worked hard to tamp down the previous sleepless night after he’d carried her back to the house. When he’d laid her on his bed in her silky nightgown, he’d never imagined the difficulty he’d face in walking away from her. He supposed the desires that had fanned to life during the wedding had only added to the temptation to lie down next to her and hold her in his arms.

  Only by sheer willpower had he forced his feet to exit the room. Rather than stay in the house anywhere near her, he’d returned to the barn, where he’d spent the remaining hours until dawn, rebuking and reminding himself of his resolve to keep their relationship platonic so he could eventually give her an annulment.

  As he opened the back door that led into the kitchen, he took a deep breath, willing himself to be strong and to follow through on his plan.

  She was sitting at the kitchen table, intently stitching a piece of fabric spread out before her. She held a thread between her lips and concentrated with a furrowed brow at pushing the needle through the edge of the material. A piece of her long blond hair had loosened from its braid and dangled over her flushed cheek.

  He didn’t want her to move so that he could go on looking at her all night.

  At the sight of him, she dropped her needle, pushed away from the table, and stood.

  “There you are,” she said with a smile that welcomed him, a smile he could get used to coming home to every evening. “Jakob has already eaten and gone to bed. I was just about to fill a plate with dinner and bring it out to you.”

  With one sweeping glance he took in the simmering pot on the stove, the new shelf on the wall that was organized with crocks, the crates stacked underneath like additional shelves, the neatly swept and washed floor, and even a jar of wildflowers decorating the middle of the table.

  In just a day she’d transformed his home from the dismal, dirty hovel it had been into a cheerful, even pretty, place that beckoned him to stay and sit and relax.

  She hurriedly started to fold up the material and clear the table.

  “Leave it,” he said. “Don’t pick up on account of me.”

  She paused as if debating the proper protocol.

  “You’re busy.” He moved to the stove. “And I don’t want to disturb you.”

  “You’re not disturbing me.” She crossed the room, grabbed a plate from a shelf, and motioned him back to the table. “I’m attempting to sew curtains, but who knew curtains would give me such a hard time? You’d think the material would be happy at the prospect of getting a home in the window and would cooperate a little bit more with my efforts.”

  The tension in his shoulders eased as he lowered himself into a chair. When she placed a plate in front of him of beets and turnips with ham, he relaxed even more, allowing himself to enjoy the pleasure of a delicious hot meal in his own home, in a bright and warm kitchen, with a beautiful and vivacious woman.

  For now, it wouldn’t hurt to pretend that all was right with the world, would it? That all of it was real, that this was what he had to look forward to every day of his future.

  So long as he kept his hands off Sophie and resisted the temptation to kiss her, everything would be fine. She was his friend. He simply had to keep that at the front of his mind at all times, and then he could make their living situation work.

  Chapter 17

  With feet freezing against the floorboards, Sophie forced herself to dress before dawn even though the chill in the unheated bedroom tempted her back to the bed and the warm covers she’d abandoned.

  She wanted more than anything to prove herself valuable to Reinhold. And she’d decided one way to do that was by providing Reinhold and Jakob with a hearty breakfast the same way Euphemia did for her men before they went out to the fields.

  Yesterday, Sophie fried eggs and bacon and slathered thick slices of Euphemia’s bread with butter for the two, though they hadn’t come up to the house after their chores but had gone directly to the fields.

  This morning she’d decided to take breakfast down to the barn for them. She made quick work of cooking the meal since she’d readied everything the previous evening before going to bed. Then she covered the plates and tucked them into a basket, along with the coffeepot and two empty mugs.

  The sky was devoid of stars as she crossed the damp grass on her way to the barn. And the farm was so quiet she feared she might have missed them, that they’d already left to begin their long day of work.

  When she entered the barn, she was relieved to see Reinhold in the horse stall, his broad shoulders showing above the railing from where h
e stood grooming and haltering the horse.

  At the sight of her, Reinhold started, clearly surprised to see her. And Jakob had popped his head out of the stall where he’d been milking the cow.

  “I won’t let you go out to the fields on an empty stomach.” She handed Jakob a plate first, hoping they weren’t avoiding the house because of her. Then she crossed to Reinhold.

  “We’re heading to the gristmill in Dresden today,” Reinhold said, taking the plate she offered him. “The oats need grinding.”

  She leaned against the rail, hoping he was pleased with her cooking. “What’s grinding?”

  “The mill breaks the grain kernels down and then bags them so they can go to market.”

  Between bites of breakfast and sips of coffee, Reinhold explained how the windmills harnessed wind power to operate the large grinding stones that were used in crushing not only oats but wheat, corn, barley, and rye, turning the grains into meal and flour that could then be shipped on the railroad to eastern markets.

  “It’s a busy time of year at the mill,” he said, handing back his now-empty plate. “We may have to wait a while before we get a turn and might be home late.”

  “Then I’ll keep dinner warm for you.”

  He nodded as he grabbed his coat from the pile of hay outside the stall. She couldn’t keep from noticing his blanket and the imprint from where he’d slept.

  He stuffed his arms into his coat and stepped past her, leading the horse.

  Seeing that Jakob had taken the milk pail to the house and that she had a moment alone with Reinhold, she stopped him with a touch to his arm.

  His muscles stiffened beneath her fingers.

  “I’m sorry for taking your bed. I didn’t mean to cause you trouble.”

  “You’re not causing any trouble.”

  She knew she ought to let him pass, that he was in a hurry to begin his trip to the neighboring town with the gristmill. But she let her fingers circle his arm instead.

  “I stuffed the mattress with fresh straw yesterday, so it’s plump and full.”