The Hearts of Middlefield Collection

by Kathleen Fuller

  Someone knocked on the front door, but she didn’t move to answer it. She didn’t want to see anyone else. She couldn’t take another blow. 2

  Gabe knocked on the wooden screen door again, more firmly this time. Maybe Moriah was in the back of the house or upstairs where she couldn’t hear him, which was why she wasn’t answering the door.

  Halfway down her street, Gabe had realized it was a mistake to leave Moriah alone with Taylor. He’d hurriedly turned his buggy around. What had he been thinking? He should have stood his ground, or at least stayed in another room. But Moriah had been insistent that he leave. Her tone of voice had been polite, but he saw it in her eyes. She wanted him to go. He supposed his nicked ego had led him to agree to her request. When he pulled in her driveway, he was glad to see Taylor had left.

  He knocked for a third time. Drops of water plinked against the roof of the Bylers’ porch as a rumble of thunder sounded in the distance. His horse would appreciate the cool shower.

  Where was she? Worry shot through him. Lifting his hand to rap on the front door one more time, she finally opened it.

  “What do you want?” she said dully.

  Gabe discerned instantly that whatever Taylor had said to Moriah had upset her. He’d been afraid of that. Clearly she had been crying. Her eyes were swollen, her nose rosy as if she had been blowing it. “I came to see if you’re okay.”

  “I’m fine.” She moved to shut the door.

  He laid his palm on the frame, preventing the screen door from closing. “I can see you’re not.”

  “Leave me alone, Gabriel.” She sounded on the verge of sobbing.

  No way was he going to leave now. He pushed against the door with his hand, gently, but with enough force to show her he wasn’t going anywhere. “What did Taylor say to you?”

  Moriah looked at him, her eyes consumed with defeat, then turned and walked away.

  A knot formed in his gut as he followed her inside. The air felt heavy, sticky, as the sky darkened and rain pelted harder outside. Sweat broke out on his forehead. He took off his hat and laid it on the table. Her back was still to him, and despite the hot July temperature, she hugged her shoulders. “Moriah, I can’t help you if you won’t talk to me.”

  Whirling around, she said, “Did you know? Did you know about her and Levi?” Before he could answer she added, “Never mind. I can tell by your face that you did.”

  “I’m sorry, Moriah.” Gabe took a step toward her. If only he could pull her in his arms. He could soothe her, explain why he didn’t tell her.

  But she moved away from him. “You knew, and you didn’t say anything.” She sniffed and wiped her nose with the tissue in her hand. “You lied to me.”

  He shook his head, trying to close the distance between them. “Nee, Moriah. I didn’t lie to you.”

  “You weren’t completely honest. That’s the same thing.”

  Raking his hand through his hair, he said, “I couldn’t tell you. What gut would it have done? I didn’t want you to hurt any more than you already were.” He dipped his head so he could look directly at her. “I wanted to protect you.”

  Her shoulders slumped, and he could see the strength drain from her. She gazed at him with weepy blue eyes, eyes that he had fallen in love with more than six years ago. “What else are you hiding from me, Gabriel? What other secrets do you have? Or will I have to wait until someone else dies to find out?”

  He froze, as if her words had been a physical blow. “That’s not fair, Moriah.”

  She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “Nee, I’m sorry.” A flash of lightning lit up the sky. “You’re right. I haven’t been honest with you. Not completely. And you have a right to know why.”

  His somber countenance stunned Moriah. She’d never seen him so serious, even when he had told her about Levi leaving her. Dread pooled inside her, and she wished she hadn’t questioned him. Hadn’t she had enough?

  “There is something I need to tell you,” Gabriel said. “It’s something I should have told you a long time ago.” He gestured to the sofa. “Can we sit down?”

  She nodded, knowing they had both come too far in this conversation to turn back now. Outside a boom of thunder shook the house, much the same way her life had been rocked to the core. They sat down together, and she could see the sheen of perspiration on his forehead. The room had become unbearably hot and humid, the afternoon thunderstorm doing little to cool things down.

  “Moriah, I only want you to be happy. You have to believe that. Everything I’ve done has been driven by that desire.”

  The irony of his statement struck her. She’d never been so miserable in her life.

  “Remember when we were in school, the day you and I first walked home together?”

  She nodded. “Levi was sick and stayed home. We were in fifth grade.”

  “Sixth. We took the long way home. Remember how we talked about everything?”

  “We even went and sat by the creek for a while. Just talking.”

  “I got in trouble for being late.” He grinned, but the expression was tempered with solemnity. “That’s when I knew.”

  “Knew what? Gabriel, what does this have to do with anything?”

  “It has to do with everything.” He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “I—Moriah, I love you.” He let out a long breath.

  “I know,” she said wearily. “I love you too. You’re my husband’s brother, and the uncle to my child. Of course I love you.”

  He shook his head, his brown hair flopping against his ears. “Nee, you don’t understand. I love you. Not like a schwester.” He took her hand in his. “I love you like a man loves a woman. Like a husband loves his wife.”

  When his gaze locked with hers, her heart stopped beating. She could see that his words were true. It was evident in his eyes. As he looked at her with such warmth and love, she wanted to weep. It was obvious in the way he held her hand, gently, almost reverently, like he never wanted to let her go. “Gabriel,” she said, almost unable to form his name. “I . . . I . . .”

  “Shhh.” He brushed the top of her hand with his thumb. “Let me finish. I wanted to tell you, but I was afraid. Afraid you’d reject me, or laugh in my face.”

  “I would never have laughed at you.”

  “I know that now. But my twelve-year-old heart didn’t. Then by the time I had found my courage, you were in love with Levi, and he loved you. I didn’t want to stand in the way of that. So I kept my feelings to myself. At least I tried.”

  Moriah felt like a fool. How could she have been so oblivious to everything? Memories flooded her mind—how reticent Gabriel had become shortly after she and Levi were together. How kind he’d been to her after Levi left. How he had been so attentive to her since his brother’s death, so loyal . . .

  So loving.

  “Did anyone else know?” she asked. “Did Levi know?”

  “I didn’t think so. I had tried so hard to keep it inside and thought I had. But the day I went to Johnston’s Farms, I found out Levi did know. And that leads me to the second thing I need to say.”

  “There’s more?” Her mind and emotions were swirling in a cauldron of confusion.

  “In the hospital, Levi asked me to take care of you.”

  She jerked her hand out of his and stood up. “What?”

  He stood and faced her. “He made me promise that I would take care of you.”

  “Why would he do that? He loved me and wanted to come home. Taylor told me.”

  Both surprised and elated to hear this news, Gabe asked, “She did? What else did she say?”

  “That he was coming back to me . . . to home . . . to the Amish.”

  Gabriel smiled. “Daed was right. Levi had come back to God. And he was coming back to you.”

  “So why would he tell you to take care of me?”

  “Because he knew he wouldn’t make it. He knew I loved you, and he knew I would take car
e of you.” Gabriel went to her and covered her shoulders with his large palms. “And he was right. Moriah, my love for you hasn’t changed. It’s only grown stronger over the years. I would care for you, and for this child”—he nodded at her tummy—“for the rest of my life.”

  Moriah couldn’t speak. She couldn’t think, and she didn’t know what to feel. It was all too much to take in at once—too many secrets, too much betrayal. Too much confusion. She wrenched herself from his grasp. “Leave, Gabriel.”

  “Nee. I don’t think you should be alone.”

  “I want to be alone.” She looked up at him, a vortex of anger growing inside her. Anger at Levi for leaving, for dying, for putting her through all this. And anger at Gabriel for not telling her the truth about her husband or about his feelings. The blade of their betrayal cut at her heart and her soul. “Get out,” she said, clenching her hands together.

  “Moriah, please.”

  “I said leave!”

  “What’s going on here?” Tobias stood in the doorway of the front room, his clothes damp from the rain outside. Obviously he had entered the house from the kitchen and she hadn’t heard him come in. “Moriah,” her brother said. “Is everything all right?”

  “Nee,” she said, unable to hold back the flood of hot tears any longer. “It’s not all right. I don’t know if things will ever be right again!” With that she flew out of the room and headed for her bedroom upstairs, far away from Gabriel Miller.

  “What did you do to her?” Tobias entered the room, anger sparking in his blue eyes.

  Gabe didn’t blame him for being upset. He wanted to kick himself for upsetting Moriah. He’d gone about it all wrong, he could see that now. He told her too much, too soon. Now he wondered if she’d ever speak to him again. “I made a mistake,” he told her brother. “A huge mistake.”

  Tobias stared at him for a moment, his hardened expression softening a bit. “You want to tell me what’s going on?”

  Gabe started to say no, but then changed his mind. He needed someone in the Byler family to know his side of the story. Maybe he would have an ally in Tobias. “I told your sister I loved her.”

  Tobias sucked in his breath. “Ach. That was a mistake, Gabe. What did you do that for?”

  “You don’t seem surprised.”

  He shrugged. “I heard Mami talking to Daed about it.” Then he let out a small chuckle. “What can I say? Mei schwester is loveable.”

  The tension drained from Gabe’s body at Tobias’s levity, though Gabe also knew Tobias meant it. “That she is.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you, Gabe. Feelings are funny things. You can’t always choose who you love. Sometimes love chooses you, whether you want it to or not.”

  “You sound like the voice of experience.”

  “Eh, maybe. Let’s just say I’ve learned a few things lately.”

  Gabe went to the table to get his hat, then nodded good-bye to Tobias. When he stepped out on the front porch, he saw that the rain had stopped. A bright rainbow arched in the sky for a brief moment, only to disappear behind the clouds.

  A sign. Perhaps the flood of pain they’d all gone through would soon come to an end. At least he hoped.

  Chapter 15

  As Rachel pulled her buggy up to Eli Yoder’s barn, she could hear the hum of talking and laughter coming from the front part of the large white building. She hadn’t attended a Sunday night singing in a long time, since she and Christian had started dating. But Christian hadn’t returned from Charm yet, and it was the middle of summer. Maybe this was his way of telling her that their relationship was over.

  Surprisingly, she was only mildly irritated with him and actually felt more than a small amount of relief. Truth be told, Christian hadn’t been on her mind much lately. Not as much as Tobias had. She still couldn’t get him out of her thoughts, and she couldn’t help but look for him at church on Sundays even though they’d rarely said more than a couple words to each other. She seemed to pine for him more and more.

  Her feelings didn’t make sense. Christian was the perfect man for her, at least in theory. The other day she had taken out a sheet of paper and divided it down the middle, creating two columns. One she labeled Christian, the other Tobias, and from there she proceeded to list their positive points. Christian’s list dwarfed Tobias’s, even with Christian being gone for so long. Logically she should be in love with him, not Tobias.

  Love? The prospect of her loving Tobias was preposterous. And thrilling. And ridiculous. And dreamy.

  She groaned. Even her thoughts were contradictory and confusing.

  After tying up her horse to the hitching post, she jumped down from her buggy. The sun had started to dip in the horizon. The Yoders had set up a volleyball net and several young people were deeply involved in a game. She half expected to see Tobias in the midst of the action, and she was disappointed when she realized he wasn’t there.

  “C’mon, Rachel!” One of the girls yelled from the other side of the net. “We need you on our team.”

  Rachel shook her head. Normally she would have jumped at the chance to play, but she didn’t feel like it tonight. “Maybe next time.”

  The girl shrugged, and the game resumed.

  She walked into the barn, and several more friends greeted her. The scent of hay hung in the air, and against the wall she saw a table laden with cookies, potato chips, and peach and blueberry fry pies. She looked around the room and saw three of her girlfriends standing in the corner of the room, whispering and laughing. She started over toward them, eager to find out what was so funny.

  Halfway to her destination, someone tapped her on the shoulder. Turning around, she was surprised to see Tobias Byler standing behind her.

  “Hi, Rachel,” he said in a soft voice.

  “Tobias.” A tingling sensation coursed through her stomach.

  “Can I talk to you for a minute?” he asked, glancing at the door behind them. “Privately?”

  She surveyed the large expansive barn, which had been cleaned especially for tonight’s gathering. Square bales of hay were pushed against the wall, their sweet, dusty smell overpowering the scent of horses. The bales were used as seats, but there were also about a dozen or so chairs spread out in the room, a few of them already filled with people talking and laughing. Since she had arrived early, there weren’t too many people inside. “We can’t talk here?”

  “I’d rather not.”

  His serious expression alarmed her, so she agreed. “Where should we go?”

  “Just outside.”

  “All right.”

  When they reached the outside, they didn’t stray too far from the barn. They had just enough privacy to be hidden from everyone else, but not so much that they wouldn’t be discovered if someone walked to the back of the building. A waist-high, white fence surrounded the property. She turned around and leaned against it, looking up at him.

  Without much fanfare he said, “I just wanted to tell you that I appreciated you visiting Moriah a couple weeks ago.”

  She lifted her brows. “How did you know about that?”

  “She told me.” He looked out over the pasture, where a small herd of black and white cows were feasting on the tender blades. The tangy scent of freshly mown grass drifted through the evening air. The clip-clop of a horse and buggy sounded in the distance. “My sister has been through a lot, you know. We’re all pretty worried about her.” Clearing his throat, he continued, “I’m glad you were able to be a friend. She needs as much support as she can get.”

  His appreciation elicited a smile. It hadn’t been much of a sacrifice on her part, just a simple visit to an old, if not close, friend. But to hear Tobias talk, to see the mix of gratitude in his eyes, made her feel like she’d done something amazing.

  “I’m glad I could spend some time with her.” Rachel tried to keep the emotions bubbling underneath the surface from shining through her voice. “She’s a gut listener.”

  “Ya. She is.” He tilt
ed his head at her. “How’s Christian doing?” he asked, turning from her and leaning his back against the fence.

  “I wouldn’t know,” she said, suddenly forgetting her practiced response for that very same question.

  Surprise flickered in his eyes. “You haven’t heard from him?”

  “Nee, not much anyway. But I’m sure he’s having a marvelous time with his aunt and uncle in Charm.”

  “Have you been down there to visit him?”

  “What’s with all the questions?”

  “I’m just asking. Making conversation.”

  “Well, I don’t want to talk about Christian.” A warm breeze swirled around them, lifting up the ribbons of her kapp. She pressed them down. “Especially not with you.”

  “Suit yourself. I just thought maedel always liked to talk about their beaus. And I’ve been told I’m a good listener.” He gave her a crafty look. “If you ever want to talk.”

  She didn’t understand his sudden interest. She also didn’t like the way his sly smile made her feel. All tingly and giddy inside. Actually she didn’t mind the feeling; she just didn’t appreciate that Tobias was the cause of it. “I’m a very private person. I’m not like the other maedel.”

  He turned and faced her, his grin fading. “You’re right,” he said softly. “You are different from the other maedel. It’s what I like about you.”

  Rachel’s mouth almost dropped open. Did Tobias just admit he liked her? She gazed directly at him, noticing the short blond whiskers on his chin. He noticed, and his lips parted into a grin, one that made her heart melt like ice on a summer day. This couldn’t be real; it couldn’t be happening. The urge to touch his cheek with her palm almost overwhelmed her as his gaze held her in a gentle caress. “You like me?” she whispered.

  He looked away from her, his expression a mix of surprise and confusion. For the first time she saw past his charming, careless façade; he was fighting to put it back in place. “I . . . I—”