Willow: Bride of Pennsylvania (American Mail-Order Brides 2)

by Merry Farmer

  “Thank you,” Willow mumbled pink-cheeked.

  For whatever reason, she wouldn’t meet his eyes. She whipped back to the counter where all of the breakfast things were laid out, including a plate she’d fixed for herself. In a tight whisper that Amos couldn’t quite make out, she murmured a list of instructions to herself, pointing at each of the pots and pans, the loaf of bread, and the jar of jam as she went. She then glanced up to the beams of the ceiling, counted something off on her fingers, and turned to nod to the stove. Only then did she let out a breath—her shoulders dropping with it—and bring her plate to join him at the breakfast table. They said a quick, silent prayer together over the food.

  “I think I might just be able to do this,” she said, treating him to a bright smile once the prayer was done.

  “Cooking?” Amos asked, savoring a bite of bacon. It was crisped to perfection and sliced just right. “I’ll say.”

  “Slice in one long stroke with a strong knife,” Willow replied, as though reciting instructions. “Then lay it in a pan near but not directly above the fire for as long as it takes to recite the twenty-third Psalm, on each side. And don’t worry about spattering bacon fat, I can always clean it up later. Messes are made for cleaning up.”

  She smiled to herself—as though reassured by someone else’s comments—then just as quickly, she caught her breath, lowering her eyes and stuffing a fork full of eggs into her mouth.

  A warmth that Amos never could have anticipated spread through his chest. Willow was the most charming woman he had ever met. She was so earnest in her desire to be a good wife, to take care of the house and of him. It was a shame he only got to spend time with her in the early morning and after a hard day’s work on the farm. It was too bad harvest season was still in full swing and he was needed in the fields. He would have liked to surprise her in the middle of the day by joining her for lunch. It was nice having someone else to include in your day.

  “You’re not too lonely here in the house by yourself all day, are you?” He brought a slice of toast to his mouth.

  “Oh no, not at all,” she rushed to assure him. “I have Dusty to keep me company, after all.” She glanced to the old, gray barn cat—grooming herself in a beam of sunlight as if she had always been part of the family. “Not to mention B—” Her face flared as red as ever and she reached for the mug of coffee above her place. After a long swig, she went on with, “Not to mention the fact that I’ve been writing to my friends who are still in Lawrence.”

  “Gillian, Emma, and Rose,” Amos ticked off their names, eager to prove he’d been listening to the things she told him when they were settling down for the night.

  “Yes.” She nodded, but there was something uncertain in her smile, something almost guilty. “They are my friends.”

  “And I’m sure you’ll make new friends around here as soon as we have the time to go into Strasburg to the market.” Not that he’d made many for himself over the years. But he was different. He didn’t need friends.

  The stray thought brought heat to his face, as if he’d lied to his mother.

  “Yes,” Willow repeated. “Strasburg.” She returned to her breakfast, that guilty look growing.

  Amos watched her as he finished his food. It was impossible to think that she was holding something back from him. She held nothing back in every other aspect of their fresh, new life together. She was honest and sweet. He’d laughed until his sides hurt the other day when she told him about her disaster with the chicken coop, Lily, the burned soup, and Dusty eating the butter. But even then, there were parts of the story where she’d had a hard time meeting his eyes, especially when it came to telling how she’d cleaned everything up so fast. She couldn’t be making up stories, could she? But no, he’d seen the burned soup, the cracked butter plate, and the blown-over chicken coop with his own eyes.

  He blew out a breath and let it go, sitting back in his seat. “What would you like to do today?”

  “Do today? Don’t you have to work?”

  “Not on Sundays. Sundays are for prayer and reflection, and for family.” Old, warm memories filled him at those words. Growing up, Sundays had been his favorite days. They were when his family went to church, visited their neighbors, felt like they were a part of something bigger than themselves.

  His smile faltered.

  Willow’s eyes, on the other hand, flew wide. For a moment, she glanced to the kitchen door in alarm. “You’re going to be here all day?”

  “Of course.” He laughed, but thought better of it. “Don’t you want to spend a day getting to know me? We’ve hardly had more than a few hours together on end up until now. Unless you count sleeping.”

  Her blush took on an entirely different, modest hue and she lowered her eyes with a secret smile that took his breath away. “Of course. And I suppose…I suppose everyone in the neighborhood will be attending church today and not visiting.”

  He frowned for just a moment. “I suppose.”

  With renewed energy and cheer, she shifted to face him more fully. “Do you go to church?”

  An uncomfortable prickle crawled down Amos’s back. “These days, I keep my observance by reading a bit from the Bible every Sunday.”

  “Then we should do that.”

  They finished their breakfast, and Amos helped her to clean up. Again as they put things away and washed dishes, Willow whispered instructions to herself. At one point, she reached into the pocket of her apron and peeked at something. Amos didn’t get a good look, but he thought he saw a slip of paper with some writing on it tucked away. It left him with the feeling that his new wife had more secrets than she let on. He would enjoy discovering all of them.

  “This is the perfect room for a Sunday service,” she said once they were seated in the large living room at the other end of the house. “It has such a homey feeling to it.”

  Amos cleared his throat as he took down his copy of the Bible from the shelf. “We used to be one of the families who took turns hosting church when I was growing up,” he answered, then rushed on. “Do you have any favorite passages?”

  Willow shrugged and settled herself on the sofa beside him as he sat. “I have a hundred of them, but today I’ll listen to whatever you want to read.”

  He smiled at her. The temptation to lean over and kiss her soft, pink lips was almost too much. Their relationship was still too fresh to know if she would welcome a show of affection or not. Instead he opened his Bible to a random spot and started to read.

  It took several sentences and a startled look from Willow to realize that she couldn’t understand a word he read—couldn’t understand it because he was reading in Pennsylvania Dutch. A flash of self-consciousness sent his blood pounding and heat rising up his neck. In all the years since he’d been turned out of Amish society, he’d never stopped reading God’s words in the language of his childhood.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, closing the book and standing.

  “No.” She rushed to her feet beside him. “I don’t mind. It’s not a problem.” She paused, glancing to the side. “Well, it is a problem in that I don’t speak any of the old languages my grandparents spoke, but I’d like to learn. Besides, I like the sound of it.”

  Deep, pulsing uncertainty filled Amos’s gut. “Are you sure?”

  She smiled and took the Bible from him, opening it to approximately where he’d been reading before. “Please.”

  They sat. Amos leafed through the pages of the old, well-loved book until he came to the chapter in Isaiah that he’d been reading from. He continued. All the while, Willow watched him, her face glowing with interest.

  When he reached the end of the chapter and closed the book, he sighed. “I do have an English Bible. We’ll read from that next Sunday.”

  She nodded, but then she frowned. “Amos,” she began slowly. “Do you miss being Amish?”

  Bit by bit, every nerve and muscle in Amos’s body stiffened. He clenched his jaw, hands gripping his Bible. She deserved an
answer to that question, so innocently asked. He deserved an answer himself. But now—like every other time he’d asked himself the same thing—he was reluctant to answer.

  No, he knew the answer, he just didn’t like it.

  He cleared his throat and stood so fast his head swam. “Sometimes.” He walked his Bible back to the bookshelf and slid it into its special spot. “Would you like to go for a walk? It’s a perfect morning. The trees are just at their peak, and the sun is still warm.”

  When he dared to look at her, she was studying him with a gentle frown. What did she think of him, of his weak answer to her earnest inquiry?

  On second thought, he didn’t want to know what she thought. They may have only been together for six days, but if she disapproved of him, if she pushed him away after feeling so close for such a short amount of time—

  “A walk would be lovely.”

  Whatever thoughts she’d fallen into, Willow pulled herself out and stood. She brushed a hand along her apron, retracing her hand’s path over the pocket that held those slips of paper. The charming color on her cheeks set Amos at ease, reminded him of his responsibility to make sure his wife was safe and content in every way. He stepped closer to her and offered his arm.

  “Let’s walk through the orchard and around the perimeter of the property,” he said as they stepped through the seldom-used front door and into the crisp, autumn morning. “I bet you’re ready to stretch your legs and see something other than the four walls of the house.”

  “Oh, I went for a short walk yesterday with—” She cleared her throat and went on with, “Dusty. Yes, Dusty and I went on a walk toward the woods yesterday.”

  Amos frowned. “I didn’t realize cats went on walks. Dogs, yes.”

  Willow responded with a hum, looking in the other direction. Prickles raced down Amos’s back.

  “Be careful about the woods,” he cautioned her. “It’s not that big, but there are a few dangers in there. The creek tends to flood in the rain, for example, and its banks get slippery.”

  “Yes, I noticed that the waterline was nearly up by the trees. Did it rain a lot just before I came?”

  He nodded. “For two days right before you got here. I was worried about the corn, actually.”

  They ambled on, taking their time as they crossed the yard and headed toward the long rows of apple trees that marked the eastern end of Amos’s property. He was certain that talking about corn—how much he’d planted this year, how well it had done, and what he expected the yield to be—would bore Willow to tears, but instead she hung on his every word, holding his arm as if it was a treasure. Each minute that passed between the two of them like that filled him with confidence.

  “I have to keep the yield on the farm down to reasonable limits, seeing as I’m the only one who can really work it,” he finished as they came to the end of the orchard. “Someday, it’d be grand to be able to expand. That is, if we have sons who could help with the work.”

  “Sons,” she repeated with a breathless sigh. “I can’t wait to hold a baby of my own in my arms, like little—” She stopped and swallowed.

  The itching feeling that she was holding back attacked Amos again. What wasn’t she telling him?

  “Guger mariye.”

  The call came from a buggy passing on the road beside the orchard. Amos’s heart skipped a beat.

  “Good morning,” Willow called in response to the woman who greeted them as the buggy passed. She smiled at the woman and her husband, dressed for church in bonnets and hats, and several sets of children’s eyes peeked back at them from around the corner of the buggy as it drove on. “I think they’re some of your neighbors,” she said, glancing up at him.

  Amos nodded, throat tight. “That’s Carl Yoder and his family. They’d better pick up their pace if they want to get to wherever church is being held in time.”

  Willow smiled as she watched them drive on. Amos gently steered her in the opposite direction from the road. That didn’t stop Willow from waving at two other buggies full of neighbors. She waved at the Englisch neighbors as well as the Amish. As fresh as the wounds of his past still were, it filled Amos with a certain pride that Willow was so open and friendly.

  Now if only she’d be open about whatever it is she was keeping inside.

  “So, are you really enjoying married life so far?” he asked her when they reached the opposite end of the orchard, where the lines of fragrant trees—branches heavy-laden with ripe fruit—bordered one of the corn fields that he’d already harvested. Stalks of rough green and brown stood drying and waiting to be gathered.

  “I am,” she answered with a happy sigh. “I truly am. I love this farm already. I think there’s something about the richness of the Pennsylvania countryside that runs deep in my soul. It’s like I’ve come home to the life that my ancestors lived, like this is where I belong.”

  She stopped, and Amos realized she must have seen the look of pinched regret that came to his eyes. Her ancestors. Her Amish ancestors. Every way he turned, his own past and his own heart’s longing was staring back at him.

  “It could just be the peace and quiet, the fresh air.” He shrugged, walking her up the strip of grass between the field and the orchard. “It must be quite a change from factory life.”

  “Oh, it is,” Willow laughed. “I don’t know how I endured all that noise and the heat of the work-floor and the constant demands to produce more and more. It was all just too much. There are times in this last week when I’ve actually been glad that I—”

  Amos swallowed hard. Every time she stopped herself in the middle of saying something and looked away, it became harder and harder for him to bear. He wanted her to trust him. He would do anything to prove to her that she could tell him everything, that he wouldn’t judge her the way he’d been judged.

  He stopped, facing her and resting his hands on her arms as they stood in a beam of sunlight slanting down between two apple trees. “Willow.” He fixed her with a serious look that he hoped was gentle and trustworthy at the same time. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed that you keep stopping yourself from saying things to me. Please don’t hold back.”

  “I…I’m not holding anything back.” Her eyelids fluttered as she looked away. Her shoulders were tense. And still she managed to look so charming that his heart wouldn’t stand still in his chest.

  “Willow?” He rested a hand on her cheek, stroking it with his thumb as he nudged her to look him in the eyes. “You can tell me anything. I promise.”

  “I don’t know,” she whispered. “Words can ruin things as much as deeds, and I’ve ruined so many things in my life. I don’t know.”

  Those three words filled Amos with bitter sweetness. At least she was open enough to confess that there was something she wasn’t saying, but he hated that her heart was weighed down. Maybe all she needed was the right motivation to put her faith in him.

  “Please trust me,” he said as tenderly as he could. He underscored his plea by bending forward to capture her lips with his. It wasn’t a demanding kiss, but rather one that was meant to make her feel at ease, cared for.

  When she swayed into him, he couldn’t help but close his arms around her and hold her close. A touch of heat infused their kiss, and Amos knew if he wasn’t careful, he would get carried away. They did have a parcel of sons to produce, after all.

  “Ooh, I can’t hold my tongue anymore.” Willow pulled herself away from him, biting her kiss-reddened lip and wringing her hands in front of her.

  Finally. Amos’s chest filled with confidence and affection. “Is there something you’d like to tell me?”

  “Yes.” She took a breath and then launched into, “I haven’t been completely alone when you’ve been out working this week. The day that the chickens got out and the cat ruined the butter, Beth Lapp came over to welcome me.”

  A rush of cold alarm spilled down Amos’s back.

  “She was the one who showed me how to get the chickens back in their hous
e and who fetched Lily for me. She helped me clean everything up and put the garden back in order. She and her little girl Sarah—who is adorable, by the way. And then she came back Thursday and Friday as well, and even for a little bit yesterday. She’s been teaching me how to cook, because I’m…I’m just not very good at doing anything but sewing on my own.”

  Her eyes had steadily lowered as she rushed through her confession. Amos’s throat went tight with each new bit of information. When she finally glanced up at him, his heart pounded at the helpless regret in her eyes.

  “She’s such a nice person, Amos. She knows so many of the things that I need to learn, and she’s a wonderful teacher. I never would have been able to bake bread or fry bacon without her help. She wrote everything down on cards so that I could remember, even without her.” Her hand went to her apron pocket.

  “I know you don’t get along with her or with Mark Lapp,” she went on, taking a tiny step closer to him. “But she speaks so highly of you. They even named their newest baby after you, Amos.”

  Amos gasped in surprise, numbness filling his fingers and toes, along with the sharpest stab of regret he’d felt in years. Willow charged on.

  “I don’t know why your parents leaving the Amish church affected your friendship with Mark and Beth so much, but it just seems sad to me. I hope you can forgive me for going against your wishes and making friends with Beth, but…but I like her. I think I might even need her right now.”

  She finished abruptly, lips pressing shut, and gazed up at him with anxious hope. In fact, she looked as though she might shrink back and run at any second.

  That timid look—mingled with the bravery of confessing so much all in one go—kept Amos from reacting out of ages-old hurt. He forced himself to take a deep breath and think about everything she’d said. Everything. She was struggling to learn all of the many things she needed to learn. Beth Lapp was helping her. They had become friends.

  Regardless of all the water under the bridge between him and Mark and Beth, Willow deserved to have friends. He’d just witnessed proof that she was friendly by nature.