by Trisha Telep
“I am a zebra who cannot change my stripes,” the bishop said. “It is either black or white for me . . . most days, but I know my girl. You will make truth of that lie you two just told, or I will know the reason why.”
Ach, and this father-in-law of his was human after all. Caleb did not dare smile. Besides, he heard talk that Enos was trying to make the bishop pay Gideon’s debts, or he would refuse to marry Hannah. So, his father-in-law was not only stern but cheap.
Caleb did not care; he got Hannah, though she might have preferred her freedom to marrying him. No, that did not wash; her father would never let her have her freedom. He, Caleb, was the lesser of evils. Good enough.
“Daughter,” the bishop said with a nod as Caleb drove the buggy from the yard.
“Father,” she replied with the same lack of affection, and Caleb wanted to whoop he was so proud of her.
They rode in silence for some time, her staring ahead, chewing her lip with nervous energy. She finally turned his way. “How do you feel about wedding nights?” she asked.
Caleb bit his own lip to tamp down his enthusiasm. “You may as well ask how I feel about breathing, Hannah. I was drawn to you from the first. I am for wedding nights, and every night, come to that, if you get my meaning?”
Hannah’s face grew pink. She got it.
“About the wedding night . . .”
“Yes?” he asked. Here it came. She would now tell him that their marriage would be in name only. Caleb closed his eyes to await the horrific verdict.
“I hate the lie, so I would like—” She cleared her throat. “I would like for the lie not to be.”
“Behold your confused bridegroom.”
His bride huffed. “I want to make it true, what we told my datt, what we confessed. I have to get with child and fast, starting tonight.”
He stopped the buggy, carried Susie to the back and covered her warm with blankets. Then he climbed to the seat and looked into his bride’s eyes. “Starting now,” he promised, then he opened his mouth over hers, showing his willingness, his hunger for her, and she did not stiffen or pull away.
His Hannah – yes, his now, and after tonight, his in every way possible – sat closer, her body moving in rhythm with his kiss. Mutual hunger, happy need; a mating of minds and bodies. Caleb pulled away first, caught his breath. “I am not sure I can wait for tonight.”
“Yah, I can tell. But a man’s body is not under his control, is it? How do you feel in your mind? In your heart? Willing? Or grumbly unwilling?”
“I feel, Hannah mine, as if I have just been given the greatest gift of all.”
“But love is the greatest— What are you saying? I do not understand your jest, Caleb.”
“Well, let me be clear. Loving you will be a burden—”
The color left her face.
“No, no! Another jest, liebchen. I thought you would know by my kisses.” He slipped his hands up her body, cupped her breasts and tested their weight. “I am very willing. Eager. As a matter of fact, we should wake Susie and keep her very busy today, get her so tired she cries for sleep. Yes?”
Hannah’s eyes brightened. “You do not seem as though you would turn from me,” she said, almost to herself. “It will not be a burden for you to get me with child?”
“A burden? You are quoting Gideon again. I, your husband, want you something wonderful, every night. With or without the task of begetting. While you are big with our children, I will want you. I fear, in time, that you will run from me, Hannah Skylar.”
“I could not run, because I will want you to catch me, Caleb Skylar.”
Eleven
Caleb tweaked Hannah’s rosy cheeks after what she admitted. “Pink cheeks mean a big temper or an embarrassed bride,” he said.
“Pink cheeks mean a nip in the air.”
“Nip, nip. Nip, nip, nip,” Susie said, from behind them, making a pinch-bug with her thumb and forefinger, nipping at Hannah’s cheeks, then Caleb’s.
Hannah nipped Susie back, making her grin. Then his bride made to nip at him, but he anticipated her and caught her fingers in his teeth.
Hannah shrieked and tried to pull back, but Caleb acted like a pup who would not relinquish his bone.
Susie laughed, a rolling sound from somewhere deep in her belly, a sound of pure joy that Caleb had not heard from her for a long, long time.
He placed his hand on either side of Susie’s face and kissed her nose. “Ich liebe dich,” he said. “I love you.” Then he did the same with Hannah, kissing her nose and looking deep into her eyes, sensing that she was not ready to hear that he loved her, too. “The both of you make me very happy,” he said, and then he started the buggy again.
He peeked at his bride. “You do not believe you are lovable, do you? Every time I compliment you, you color up, as if you could not possibly believe me, or you are sorry I am such a liar.”
Hannah shrugged.
At Dovecrest Farm, he carried Hannah inside to Susie’s delight. When he set her down, he said, “I like you, Hannah Skylar.” Then he took her into his arms and kissed her. “You are good and kind and loving.” He kissed her again. “I . . . more than . . . like you, but I am afraid just now to say so.”
Her eyes widened.
“What? You do not like my kisses?” he asked.
She tilted her head, considering. “I . . . more than . . . like them.”
Caleb ran an impatient hand through his hair. “How do we make Susie tired enough to sleep deep tonight?” he whispered.
Hannah’s eyes brightened with a new twinkle. “I will teach her first to bake cookies, change the beds, clean the kitchen. Then she can help make our wedding supper, all the trimmings, like Christmas. She will learn to help clean up after, too.”
She took his shoulders, which Caleb liked, and turned him toward the door. “Go. Work our farm. Your presence is requested at 5.30, not before.” She laughed without reason.
Caleb turned back to her. “What is so funny?”
“I made a good Amish deal. I sold you this farm for two hundred dollars and now I have it back. Shrewd, I am.”
For that, he kissed her again, and left the house thinking night would never come.
Hannah worked beside Susie and worried. She feared that just punishment for lying about bearing a child would be that she could never bear a child again.
Other than that, she enjoyed working and laughing with Susie’s lessons, and looking out the window to see Caleb working the farm. It seemed so real, as if she deserved it.
During dinner, she could barely look at Caleb without a shiver of expectation. When their fingers touched, even to pass a dish, pinpricks ran from that touch to all parts of her body. Her breasts became achy and tender, her woman’s center, ready, like never in her life.
Embarrassed, she was, and aching for her husband.
Caleb would be appalled if he knew.
Twelve
Welcome to my wedding night, Caleb thought.
Hannah lay in their bed, arms at her sides, stiff as butchered beef. But her nightgown told a different story. It revealed swollen, ready breasts, budding nipples aching for his touch.
God, let her want him as much as he wanted her.
Seeing her concern – the way she bit at that lip – he crawled beneath the quilt in his nightshirt, and placed his arms around her. He would gentle her like a skittish colt, and pray he could last.
Already, he could not seem to get enough air. Or enough Hannah.
The flare of her hips beckoned, so he tested them with the palms of his hands. As he did, the air in the room thinned, and he became less patient, more ready. “Hannah,” he whispered, a plea for her to join the exploration.
She rubbed her face against his, her parted lips at his ear, breathing warmth there and everywhere. She combed her fingers through his beard and, God help him, he found even that arousing.
“Having you whisker my skin feels nice, Caleb.”
“Susie hates getting whiskered
.”
“A woman will change her mind with a man as gentle and kind as you.”
“Love, it is called, Hannah.”
She hid her face against him, her body trembling, her tears soon forming a trail down his neck, branding him.
He waited patiently, his body cooling, praise be, and eventually Hannah looked up at him. He kissed her tears and wiped them away with his fingertips.
She sighed. “We tried . . . sometimes . . . for children,” she confided, “but he never looked at me, or held me. I have never been kissed, but for you. ‘Too flighty’, not a proper Amish wife.”
“Then he never made love to you? You have a treat in store, if I do say, and I am humbled – no proud, blast it – to be your first.”
Caleb stood and offered his hand. “Come to the bed in the daudyhaus; tomorrow we will switch them. I want no past memories in our bed, just us, Hannah. I say goodbye to Naomi at this moment. Say your goodbyes.”
“I did that a long time ago, Caleb.”
“To the man, maybe, not the scars. Them, you will send to perdition. You are my wife. Grab the quilt, though, because I want to do the things I dreamed of doing to you beneath it.”
“This is a new quilt,” she said taking it. “I washed the old one and gave it to the needy.”
“It is not your original wedding quilt?”
“Susie sleeps beneath that. It never deserved to be put on my former marriage bed.”
Caleb lifted her in his arms, carried her to the addition used for ageing in-laws, and lay her on the bed. He donned the quilt like a cape, and lowered himself over her, pulling the quilt over them both.
“You are mine, Hannah, and flighty is my favorite way for us to be.”
“I don’t need false compliments, Caleb.”
“I never lie, er, except to marry the woman I love.”
Hannah bit her lip. “I should not smile at a lie.”
“We will make it true, starting now, yes?”
“Yes, please.”
“Then, it’s off with the nightclothes for us.” He rose to straddle her and remove her hands from the tie at her neck. “Let me.”
She rose on her elbows. “You will let me remove your nightshirt?”
His body rose to attention. “I thought you would never ask.”
He could barely keep up with his bride’s eagerness. “Your breasts, Hannah, they are so beautiful, rosy, tight, and standing as if calling to my hands.” He demonstrated how that would work.
She raised her chin, her whole body, so his sex touched her center, and closed her eyes in ecstasy. If she were half as ready as him, nothing they did tonight would take long, not the first few times, anyway. “I want your breasts against my bare chest,” he said, and that quickly – skin against skin – they were, her breasts crushed gloriously against him, her bare foot stroking his bare legs.
He kissed his way to her nipples, while she held her breath. When he closed his mouth around one, she gasped and let her hands learn him, everywhere.
She shocked him when she took his length in her hand, and he knew that not only did he have the bride God intended for him, but a lifemate, the kind every man dreams of, but rarely gets.
“I never knew,” she whispered against his ear. “You do wonderful good things to me, Caleb. Outside and deep in. Maybe I should not talk of such things.”
“With me, your husband who loves you, sweet Hannah, you will speak of these things. In our marriage bed, we will be wonderful good, naked and frisky as spring lambs. Flighty and full of life, we can talk and laugh, close as honeybees in spring. No words barred. Everything said. Even of the most intimate things – like the growing length of my rod in your hand, and the warm, wet center of you – we will speak. Because such is good between a husband and wife, yes?”
She hid her face for a warm blushing minute, then she moved her body so as to accommodate his length at her center.
Caleb pulled her into his arms, opening his mouth over hers like a man starved. This kissing with the mouth open was new to her, but Hannah followed Caleb’s lead to learn what he liked.
And learn she did.
She learned his hard muscle against her eager lips caused them both shuddering pleasure. She learned to make him shout with need, while he begged her to stop, and go, and more, and, “Again, Hannah. Do it again!”
She learned to feel more than she thought she could, and that he would let her rest and make her ready again.
She acquired a taste for his flesh against her tongue.
Caleb groaned. “I do not know for certain who gentled who this night.”
“Either way,” she admitted, “we both win.”
Her husband laughed. A blessed beginning to their life together.
Closing her eyes, Hannah savored every touch. With hands and heart and body, she memorized Caleb. Here, his sun-rough face, his wire-soft beard, a warm mouth that knew how to smile and laugh, cool lips, all pleasure-pulling and dear.
She stroked his neck and downward, and he shuddered as she parted chest hairs and budded a hidden nipple.
He whispered love words while she made her downward descent, one hand testing, stroking, pleasuring. At the same time, she held his manhood, moved it to his bidding, tried a few moves of her own. Hard inside; soft silk outside. She learned sinew and bone, and hard throbbing man. She found in Caleb a shelter from storms, a mate made of flesh and caring, eager and ready.
Her husband. Hers, to cherish. To . . . love. Did she dare?
He took a breast in his mouth, suckled her, as he found her center, and unfolded her like petals coming to flower. Soft. Wet. Ready. She should be embarrassed but she was not. He brought her to life, burst pleasure inside her. Waves and waves of it.
Thunder roared. Hot. Loud. In her head. In her heart. Instead of hiding, she looked straight at him, and saw the fire in his eyes. The caring. Hunger too. A manly hunger that would be sated. “I am as hungry for you,” she admitted.
He groaned. “I planned to love you slowly and tenderly,” he said. “Your body is ready, but if you are not, for whatever reason, you will stop me, please, and be frank, brutally frank, loud even, because I am losing myself in you, I do not quibble to admit.”
She raised her arms in welcome and sighed in utter, unapologetic contentment as her bridegroom slid finally inside her. No pain, she felt, no bruising, no worry, no need to pretend indifference.
Pleasure bright and alive she welcomed. A wonder of pressure, like a volcano, built inside her, though she fought the eruption.
“Ich liebe dich,” Caleb said against her lips. “I love you. Let it happen. Let yourself go. Feel the pleasure. It will come again and again if you let it. Give me the gift of your release. I will give you mine.”
He was, indeed, loving her, Hannah thought. Sweet, heart-whole lovemaking, this was. The way it was meant to be.
God help her, she loved this new husband of hers, the way he loved her, though she dare not tell him so. Not yet.
With each thrust, each riotous stroke and bliss-making kiss, and with each vow to cherish, Caleb loved her and, in doing so, he brought her higher than the moon, in a place brighter than the sun.
Heaven on earth, with nothing to mourn and everything to celebrate.
Afterward, he lowered himself to her side and pulled her against him. No moment had ever seemed so ordained.
Thirteen
Nine months later, a veneer of snow blanketing the earth, his love made true the lie they told her father.
With Anyah at her side, and Ida Hershberger to help, Hannah gave birth to not one baby, but two – twins, like her and Anyah, with one difference. Boys, the both of them, squeaking, and squirming, and looking around like they’d been waiting for ever to see all this.
“They are so loved,” Caleb said, kissing Hannah’s lips, stroking her hair, “I ache with it. With love for Susie, and for them, and especially for their mother.”
“Shush, not in front of Ida.”
“And in
front of your datt. Turn your head.”
Hannah squeaked at her father bending toward her. For what, she wondered. But she knew soon enough. He kissed each baby boy on the head.
Yes, well – boys. He would.
Then he did something wonderful rare. He kissed her brow, too. “Thank you,” he said. “For my grandbabies.”
Hannah had lost her voice, but her tears stayed at the ready.
Caleb gave one baby to Ida and one to their grossdaudy, then he wrapped Hannah in the quilt and lifted her into his arms.
“Caleb, where are you taking me?”
“I have a surprise for you.”
“What? Outside, already? It is winter, still.”
“Spring. I watched you planting bulbs a year ago today.”
He kicked open the kitchen door and took her to the porch. “Look, across the way, at the grabhoff.”
Life had not only been stirring inside Hannah, but forgiveness as well. “I think every bulb you ever planted grew a hundred blossoms.”
“Jonquils, Caleb? They are everywhere. In patches of snow, even.”
“As far as the eye can see. The neighbors have been driving by since you went into labor, just to see the blossoms. Never so many jonquils has anyone seen in one place, and so early in the season.”
“Oh,” Hannah said, her eyes bright.
Anyah appeared at the base of the steps then, with that glow she got when she wanted Hannah to see her. This time, she carried baby Grace, raising the babe to show Hannah. Gracie wiggled as if with a wave goodbye.
“Oh,” his wife said again. Not too good with words today.
With a nod, Anyah Peachy, sister, best friend, aunt, smiled and skipped down the road to disappear into the mist.
“We will never stop loving them,” Caleb said.
Hannah cupped his face. “Ich liebe dich,” she said, actually telling him for the first time. “I love you, Caleb.”
“It’s about time.”
“You knew,” she said.
“Aye, I did. You show me your love all the time. Still, it’s nice to hear the words.”
She winced. “Maybe I learned the silence from my father. Sorry. I guess we are both growing, though.”
