A Winter Heart, Sexy Amish Historical Novella

by Annette Blair

  The easy clarity of her expression seemed as pure and refreshing as a dipper of spring water on a hot summer day. “I will come, only if you and Susie share my supper. Seems I never lost the habit of making enough food for—I cook too much. I will see you at six?”

  “I thought you would never offer,” Caleb said, bringing her first near-smile.

  At six that night, with an efficiency of movement and knowledge of her surroundings, Hannah Peachy took a battered blue enamel coffee pot from the bottom of an old oak corner cupboard and shut the door with her hip. “When will Susie awaken from her nap?” Hannah asked, scooping coffee from a jar in the pantry. “I cannot wait to meet her. Does she always nap during the day?”

  “She sleeps when it is light. Rarely in the dark. Do not be in such a hurry; she will blister your ears with her crying when she claps eyes on you. You will not take it personally, please. She has been this way ever since—” She found her mother’s body floating in the pond, he could not say.

  Caleb gave a half nod, hating that he could still tear up. “We both have our ghosts and our regrets, you and I, Hannah, but for Susie’s sake, if not our own, we will not let them get us down, yes?”

  “No. Yes? I am hoping she will awaken soon. I want to meet her.”

  He sighed. “And the longer she sleeps now, the less sleep I will get tonight,” Caleb said, looking for movement on the kitchen’s daybed. He got up to take matters into his own hands.

  Hannah watched her new neighbor lift his daughter into his arms and kiss the shell of her ear peeking just beneath her tiny prayer kapp, amazed at the rare surge of anticipation she experienced, almost as if she’d come alive again, despite her hopes to the contrary.

  In a twinkling, life could change, she remembered. Sometimes . . . for the better.

  Caleb and Susie had dragged her too easily into a plane of existence where lack of feeling was not allowed, a place less comfortable, perhaps, but more expectant. More painful in some ways, but far less grim.

  While Hannah pondered it, the remarkable mix of brawn and gentleness that was Caleb Skylar crooned to his daughter in Penn Dutch. He called her his liebchen, his little love.

  At such gentleness, emotion, untamed and all-encompassing, swamped Hannah. It clogged her nose, blocked her throat, and threatened to spill onto her lashes.

  To keep her new neighbor from noticing, she turned to fill the pot from the pump at the zinc-lined dry sink while she took several deep, calming breaths.

  How could so simple a thing as a man’s tenderness do this to her?

  Because she had been proved unworthy of receiving and incapable of giving love by her father and her husband. Because with the parents Gracie would have had, Hannah feared her babe fared better with Anyah in heaven.

  Suddenly her throat worked convulsively while grief stung her eyes and tightened her chest, the surge threatening to overwhelm her.

  Then Caleb crooned her name, one brawny arm turning her into him, her face pressed against his broadfall jacket, keeping her there when she would pull away, saying without words that life must go on whether we want it to or not.

  She never cried. She had never cried for Anyah and Gracie. Now a stranger comforted her, and her sobs hurt, they grew so harsh. When a small, stroking hand touched her kapp, Hannah stepped back, afraid to frighten the child.

  Grief passed that fast, because it must, but the battle against Caleb’s embrace and Susie’s touch left her weak, battered, and staring at her shoes as she floated in a wasteland of hopeless need.

  If she were not careful, Caleb Skylar and his little Susie would destroy the peace she worked so hard to attain. Hannah ran her hands down her apron, pushed longing aside, stepped back, and came face to face with a pair of big cinnamon eyes, as bright, inquisitive, and all-seeing as Caleb’s.

  “Hello there, Susie-Q,” Hannah said in Penn Dutch, her arms aching to hold the sleep-warm child to her heart. “You want some goot schnitz pie for dessert?”

  Caleb stiffened, as if for the worst but Susie failed to cry, nodding instead. “Yes please.” Then she reached out and caught a tear on Hannah’s cheek, her touch like a blessing.

  Caleb regarded his daughter with wide, amazed eyes.

  Hannah was sure she did the same, then she turned to Caleb. “Life changes in a blink,” she said, “and we seem never to be prepared, good or bad.”

  Chapter Three

  Hannah could not draw Susie out during supper, but neither did Susie scream as Caleb predicted. She did, however, sit quietly in his lap throughout.

  Hannah poured Caleb a second cup of coffee to go with his second piece of pie. She liked his hearty appetite, his warm appreciation for her cooking. She liked the way his long hair waved away from his square jaw, the red lights in his beard twinkling almost as bright as the mischief in his wise brown eyes. She liked that within that large, capable body beat a good and gentle heart.

  She’d liked him on sight, the way he cuddled Susie. A man who could love a child and still act the man; something new to her—a wonder. “What did you intend to do, Caleb, if I had not been willing to move right out? Hannah asked. “Had you a place to stay tonight?”

  “I would have gone back to New Philadelphia to stay with friends until I could move in.”

  Because she could not bear not to connect with Susie, Hannah tapped the child’s pert little nose. “Sugarcreek to New Philadelphia is a long trek. Ohio is not as civilized as where you came from. Some places are more like wide, rutty paths than roads. Besides, you seem to have everything you own in your buggy.”

  “Only enough for a hasty departure. I packed without thought and left the same way. I cannot say I did not hope to stay,” he admitted.

  His sheepish grin warmed a heart she would prefer to keep frozen. “It is good for a change,” she said, “to fulfill a man’s hope.”

  The words hung between them, and she stood so fast, she knocked over her chair. “I will accept your offer and leave you with the dishes,” she said, bending to kiss Susie’s cheek. “Bye, Susie-Q. Goodbye, Caleb. The leftovers are yours.”

  “Goodnight,” he said, rising and extending his hand. “Neighbor.”

  Hannah stared at the big clumsy thing for so long, Caleb wanted to reclaim it, until she finally slipped her hand into his, and reclaimed it as fast. Only once before had he felt shock at first touch, with Naomi, the woman he loved . . . until he did something unforgivable, and now she was dead.

  But life was for the living, he must remember. For Susie, if not for him.

  After Hannah left and he gave Susie a quick, messy bath, her head cleared the neck of her white cotton nightgown. “She smells like a just-for-pretty garden, Datt.”

  Caleb did not need to ask who. Half an hour after she had left, and Hannah remained on his mind as well, gentle and frightened, sad and sweet, gardening in the snow and tucking her dead child into the earth for a good eternal sleep. “You like her then?” he asked, caring more than he should about his daughter’s answer.

  He pulled Susie’s hair from the neck of her gown as she swiped it from her face

  “You like her, yah?”

  “No.”

  Always, she answered “no” since her mother died.

  He knelt beside her at the side of her new bed while she blessed Mommie in heaven—and the flower lady—Hannah—too. Then he kissed his daughter’s nose, her ears, her elbows, and by the time he kissed her toes, he’d reduced her to giggles of the sweetest kind.

  He cleared his throat when she held his cheeks with her tiny spread hands and kissed his lips. Then she huffed. “Your beard, it tickles. I always itch myself there.”

  His eyes twinkled as he tucked her in. “You will marry a man whose beard tickles.”

  “The boys I like do not have beards.”

  “That will change, and so will you, but you will stay cuddling size for a while, please.”

  “Yes, Datt. Datt?”

  “Yes, Susiekins?”

  “The flower
lady’s goodnight kiss made me feel good as purring kittens—a shivery, all-over kind of heart-soft and easy-sleeping nice.”

  “Ach, she makes me feel that way, too.” God help him.

  His perceptive daughter sighed and snuggled beneath the quilt Hannah probably made. Even her name slipped heart-soft and sweet off the tongue.

  Smoothing the quilt’s fabric, Susie closed her eyes and sighed, and Caleb dared hope for a good night’s sleep for them both.

  Before going to bed, he went outside to sit on the porch and enjoy a pipe. Maybe the ghosts of Dovecrest Farm would rest now that Hannah had moved on. He glanced at the stately cedars across the road marking the entrance to the grabhoff and wondered how he could help Hannah get on with her life.

  One day in her company and such thoughts should have him running for the hills, so why did the notion not frighten him?

  Caleb walked around his house until, from out back, he could see Hannah’s cottage, half-way down to the Hollow, one window bright with the light from a kerosene lamp.

  “’Night, Hannah Peachy,” he said. “Dream happy.”

  Chapter Four

  Hannah liked the newborn hope of early morning, the way the air crackled with possibilities, her heart beating apace, as she made her weekday trek down Juniper Hill.

  She liked the smell of chalk dust and transforming freckled faces. Teaching gave her life purpose; well, her students did. They were not hers to love, so they were not hers to lose or fail.

  In the one-room schoolhouse, she lit the pot-bellied stove and passed letter-practice slates for grades one, two, and three. Multiplication tables went to grades four and five. Grade six got geography books, seven, history, and eight, The Martyr’s Mirror for High German lessons.

  The children’s running feet erased thoughts of her neighbor, thoughts she was both pleased and loath to shed.

  After they hung hats, bonnets, frock coats, and capes on the double row of pegs around the room, they stood for prayer. They’d barely started when a rare sound brought all heads up.

  A knock on the schoolhouse door?

  The children tittered as she called, “Come in?”

  Caleb felt foolish. Late for school, like the old days. He’d barely slept when Susie came screaming into his room. It took more than an hour to calm her. Then, as he predicted, she wanted to play when he wanted to sleep. A fear of her dreams kept her going, dreams she would not share. She slept around four, as did he, and they overslept. Good thing no cows heavy with milk suffered for his laziness.

  Hat in hand, Susie by the other, he entered prepared to face a ham-fisted, sour-faced spinster. But the woman who occupied a good many of his thoughts smiled a true welcome. “She did not sleep well, after all, did she? Neither you, I think.”

  Caleb sighed. “Neither me.”

  “First grade?”

  “Yah, first day of first grade . . . with everything going on.”

  “Shame on you!”

  “Want to rap my knuckles?”

  “Later,” Hannah promised, sending a shot of anticipation through him.

  “Susie, you may take this empty seat up front.”

  To Caleb’s surprise, Susie sat, so he grabbed his hat and turned to go.

  Susie started screaming.

  Caleb turned back to Hannah. “Ear-blistering, like I said.”

  Susie quieted.

  Hannah smiled like a friend who shared such things. He might like having her for a friend. He enjoyed sharing with her—except for the as-yet-unspoken guilt and sorrow they also shared.

  At the same time, a friendship with a woman, any woman, unnerved him. “I will take her home,” he said, when he realized the class watched him watch the teacher.

  “You most certainly will not. Not one more day of school will Susie miss.” Hannah pointed toward the back of the room. “Take that empty seat in the last row, Caleb, where Susie can see you.”

  And like a ten-year-old, Caleb squeezed his six-foot-two frame behind a desk built for nurslings, because Hannah was suddenly all-teacher, pushy and in charge. And despite his foolish offer, he did not want to get his knuckles rapped.

  Going back to childhood, he was. Good place for such nonsense, with twenty or so children, half white-kapped, the others hatless, watching.

  Susie, three rows up, regarded him, too, and in her, he saw the anxiety of new beginnings. To put them both at ease, he winked, and when he did, she let out the breath he did not know she had been holding. She stood to come to him.

  “No,” Hannah said, stopping her in midstride. “You will return to your seat and stay there. Your Datt will stay, too.”

  But his stubborn daughter hesitated.

  “If you do not do as I say, Susie, I will make your Datt leave until school is over. It would not bother any of us to hear you scream all day, though it might hurt your throat some.”

  Wide-eyed, his daughter regarded her teacher and returned to her seat, almost docile, though she sneaked a peek at him. “Datt?” she called in a whisper, as if no one else could hear. “Her flowers have thorns in them this morning.”

  Caleb covered his mouth and wiped away his smile with a hand down his beard.

  At recess, the boys played corner ball, and Caleb did, too. Susie watched his every move, the only one who did not laugh when Junior Elam Yoder bounced a ball off his head, though Hannah laughed harder than anyone.

  At noon, Hannah offered to share her lunch with him, and when she saw the mess he had made of slicing last night’s bread and ham for Susie’s lunch, she shared with Susie, too.

  “What?” Caleb asked. “It is still tasty.” He ate a mangled clump of both and rubbed his middle. “Goot.” He did not know then whose eyes twinkled more, Susie’s or Teacher’s, but it brought out Hannah’s dimples. He fell into a little bit of trouble then, because of how much he liked seeing Hannah happy. She weakened his vow to avoid the kind of kinship that could cause pain.

  Hannah Peachy’s smile was that dangerous.

  “Where is her mother?” Hannah asked, suddenly beside him, while Susie washed her hands at the pump.

  His scowl made her step back. “I am sorry,” she said. “I did not mean to pry.”

  “I will tell you, maybe, another time. But her mother is gone. Right now, it is Susie I am worried about.”

  “Gone,” Hannah whispered. “What does that mean, exactly?”

  “It means, I need to protect her,” Caleb said.

  “From what?”

  “Everything.”

  Chapter Five

  During his second week of first grade, second time around, Caleb wanted to go to the livestock auction in Mount Hope come Monday rather than attend school.

  Interrupting his reverie, Hannah placed a picture to paint on the desk before him. “We need to talk about Susie’s dependence on you,” she whispered.

  Ignoring the skittering inside him that this woman’s nearness caused, Caleb glanced at the picture, then up at her, one brow raised. “I forgot my paints.”

  A twinkle lit Hannah’s eyes. “For today, you may use mine. Come for supper tonight,” she said, more and less of an invitation than he wanted. “So Susie can get to know me better. Maybe when she sleeps, we can talk.”

  “When she sleeps, I will sleep,” he said, to diffuse his anticipation. But he nodded, ignoring the skip of his heart at her smile.

  What harm could it do to have Hannah’s company for another meal?

  That night, she made pretzel soup and schnitz un knepp, and Susie became more relaxed in her presence.

  “Do you like it, Susie?” Hannah asked as Susie gathered bits of ham and apple in her plate with her last bite of dumpling.

  She nodded. “Datt’s bratwurst catches fire, and from noodles, he makes mush.”

  With a belly laugh, Caleb pulled Susie’s kapp string. “Don’t tell my secrets, Susiekins.”

  His daughter patted his face. “I like Teacher’s cookin’, Datt, but I love you more.”

  Caleb regarde
d Hannah. “She intended no slight.”

  “I understand. She does not really know me. I loved my grossdaudy more than anybody,” she told his daughter.

  “Is your grossdaudy here?” Susie asked. “Can I say hello to him?”

  “No, liebchen. He has gone to walk with God.”

  “Did he drown in a pond like Mommie? Do you see his blue face coming for you in the night? Are you afraid, though you loved him, that he will pull you into that water with him, then beneath the dirt in the grabhoff?”

  Caleb took his daughter’s revelation like a knife to the chest.

  “Oh. Oh, no, sweetheart,” Hannah said. “He was old and ready to go.”

  “Mommie was ready. She told me so when she came to say goodbye.”

  Caleb blanched and grasped his daughter’s arms. “You did not tell me that. What did Mommie say?”

  Susie swallowed hard. “That she would . . . “ His daughter’s words trailed to nothing. Tears filled her eyes.

  “Easy, Caleb,” Hannah said, covering his hand on Susie’s arm, her touch getting through to him. He relaxed his grip and brought his daughter close. “What did Mommie say, Susiekins?”

  “That she would watch over me from heaven.”

  Hannah jumped when Caleb stood, knocking his chair to the floor. He pushed Susie her way, ignoring his daughter’s sobs, and made for the door. “I have to—” His voice broke. “I need to . . . walk.”

  Hannah thought he should have said “run.” Panic, she read in him. Horror. Fury.

  Before she had a chance to respond, he was gone.

  Hannah understood. She did not even mind that Susie’s weeping got louder.

  “It is all right, Susie. Your Datt just needs . . . a minute. He will be back.” But Susie did not calm. Her screams escalated, instead, as did Hannah’s worry for the girl and her father. She wanted to go outside and look for Caleb, but Susie’s wailing would only make him feel guiltier. He needed time to absorb what he had just learned.