Marrying Matthew

by Kelly Long

  “Jah, her room. But I’d guess not yours together. Tabitha Stolfus is too much of a cold witch to ever give a man like you what you need. Why, I bet she doesn’t even—”

  “Doesn’t even what, Amy?” Tabitha’s strident voice whipped across the room, and Matthew took an automatic step away from the other girl. “What exactly don’t I do for mei husband? I suggest you geh home and consider your childish words or . . . try to find your own mann. I can tell you, though, that little sneaks with mean mouths rarely get what they want because they’re never happy with what they have.”

  Matthew watched Amy flounce back across the room and sidle past Tabitha as if she was a wild cougar. The door slammed behind her and Tabitha met his gaze with glittering, sapphire-blue eyes.

  “Amy Dienner? She’s all of nineteen.... Is that what you want in a woman?”

  He sighed, glancing at the dresser top. Where were the pins . . . “Tabitha, she came in while I was changing my shirt—that’s all.”

  “And yet she somehow found a way to get her hands on your bare skin.”

  He shook his head. “She’s young; it meant nothing.”

  “You know, I never have considered what your personal experiences have been with other women back home. Perhaps that is something we can talk about tonight while you are sleeping on the floor?”

  She whirled away and flung open the door, only to slam it behind her again.

  “Spitfire,” Matthew said with a smile when she’d gone. “Beautiful little spitfire.”

  * * *

  Abner had sought the refuge of his small cabin after the frolic moved to the Stolfus haus. He had no desire to see Anke at the moment, though he could still feel his mouth burn from the heat of kissing her.

  He had no idea what was going on with Anke and he suddenly felt very auld and tired—too tired to consider the labyrinth of a woman’s mind. He leaned back in his comfortable chair near the woodstove and was about to have some more blackberry mead when there was a quick knock on his door.

  For one moment he thought hopefully that it might be Anke but then dismissed the idea as being foolish.

  “Kumme in!” he called.

  He was surprised and not a little concerned when Tabitha slipped inside. His charge looked ruffled, as if she’d had a gut tussle with someone. There was a hectic color in her cheeks and golden-blond tendrils escaped her kapp to fall on the shoulders of her damp dress.

  “You’re goin’ ta catch pneumonia,” he observed. “Why didn’t ya change?”

  She sighed and sat down in a chair opposite him. She’d sat in the same spot many times when she’d had some problem to work out or some secret to confide that she didn’t want her fater to know.

  “I didn’t change because I caught a girl in mei room with mei husband, and he didn’t seem to be protesting all that much.”

  “What?” Abner choked on a swallow of mead.

  “Jah . . . well, it’s true that he wasn’t the one touching her, and I did take all of the hook-and-eye closures out of his shirt . . .”

  “Was the buwe, uh . . . dressed?” Abner trailed off, uncertain as to how to proceed short of giving Matthew a gut shake.

  “Of course he was.... Nee, I probably reacted a bit too fast.... Why are you sitting all alone here in your cabin?”

  He blinked as he tried to adjust to the change of topic. “I—I’m a bit tired. That’s all.”

  She looked at him carefully, and he wanted to squirm in his chair. The child always had had a way of seeing right through him. . . .

  “Poor, dear Abner. I suppose that I’ve led you a merry chase these past years, and I’ve never said how grateful I am to you for fetching Matthew here.”

  He almost sighed in relief. “It was my pleasure, kind. I wanted ta see ya married and happy.”

  “Well,” she said meditatively, “I guess I’ve discovered that planning to marry and actually being married—really understanding and knowing Matthew—are two different things.” She smiled. “But I think it will be worth it in the end.”

  Abner took a long pull of his mead and nodded in agreement, glad that any mention of Anke had been avoided.

  * * *

  Late that nacht Matthew lay on his quilt on the floor, staring up at the beamed ceiling while listening to his wife get settled in bed. Suddenly, she spoke from above him, and he thought sleepily that even her voice seemed beautiful in the quiet darkness.

  “So,” she said with obvious interest. “Tell me.”

  “Tell you what?”

  “About your women—back home.”

  He laughed and flung his arm over his eyes. “I didn’t have any women.”

  “You did,” she insisted. “Unless I will be the first you’ll ever—”

  “You don’t need to finish that thought.”

  “Aha! So, I’m right, aren’t I?”

  “You’re not going to let this geh, are you?” he asked.

  “Nee,” she said, and he heard the steel in her tone.

  “Ach, what do you want to know?”

  “Everything.”

  “Like what?”

  “Who was the first woman you . . . ach . . . made love to?”

  He shook his head against his pillow. There is nee way that this can turn out gut. “It was a long time ago.”

  “How long?” she demanded.

  He gave in to an impulse and got to his knees at the side of the bed. Tabitha lay still, watching him. He reached out a hand to trail down the gentle curve of her throat, twining her honey-gold hair about his fingers. Then he looked into her eyes. “It was during my rumspringa.”

  “Oh.” Her pink lips parted.

  He nodded, then loosed her hair to continue trailing his finger downward to the deep valley between her breasts. “She was Englisch. An aulder woman if you must know.”

  “I must know,” she whispered, and he could feel her breathing change, becoming more erratic as he traced with tender fingers the upward slope of one breast and then the other, going back and forth.

  “She taught me how to kiss, how to touch, what to do. . . .”

  By now Tabitha moved restlessly beneath his touch, but after a moment more, she looked at him and gave a slight nod. “I understand and am glad to be the beneficiary of your—experience.”

  “Anytime, sweet.” He gave her what he knew to be a lopsided grin, finding himself painfully caught in his own sensual web. “Anytime.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Anke finished the breakfast dishes while Tabitha dried the blackberries that had been picked in the rain the day before. She set them out carefully on long, white tea towels and picked out any hulls. Blackberries could turn soft very easily and had to be treated with care.

  As she turned the berries, Tabitha thought of her husband’s touch the nacht before. She felt herself blush when she thought of how caught up she had become in the sound and the spell of his voice.

  “Are ya dryin’ those berries or feelin’ ’em ta death?” Anke’s voice broke into Tabitha’s thoughts, and she hastily refocused on her task.

  “I’d like to churn some fresh ice cream tonight for dessert and make blackberry-vinegar caramel sauce for Matthew to try.”

  “Hmm . . . if ya like.” The sheer lack of enthusiasm that Anke displayed in Tabitha’s rare interest in food caused the younger maedel to look at her friend in surprise.

  “Anke? Are you all right?”

  “Of course, I am.” But, as if to disprove this statement, Anke dropped the butter crock as she turned to the table, and it shattered with a crash.

  To Tabitha’s surprise, Anke began to cry, something she’d never seen her do before.

  “Here—” Tabitha knelt with a towel to where Anke had slid down next to the splat of butter and shards of crockery. “You’re going to cut yourself, Anke. Let me clean it up.”

  “Ya can’t,” Anke wailed. “No one can clean it up.”

  Tabitha put her arm around her friend’s shaking shoulders. “Please don’t c
ry, Anke. It’s all right.”

  But it was a long while before Anke’s sobs died away and Tabitha was able to begin on the blackberries.

  * * *

  Matthew watched Big Jim expertly turn the lathe in the center of the green butternut wood in preparation for hollowing out a dough bowl. Matthew was to follow, in theory, with the piece of red oak Tabitha had pronounced a dough bowl.

  A dough bowl was used for bread making. Once the ingredients were mixed and kneaded in the bowl, the dough was covered with a kitchen cloth and left to do its rising. Wooden bowls held the heat created by the fermentation of the yeast.

  Big Jim paused in his carving to eye Matthew’s bowl and shook his head. “Mebbe we should’ve started ya out with buckeye wood—it carves easier.”

  Matthew rolled his eyes. “I can’t seem to get the motion down.”

  “Takes practice, Matt!” John Stolfus joined the conversation, and Matthew felt himself flush at his fater-in-law’s words. “Besides, I’d like you to kumme into the office, sohn.”

  “Danki, Jim, for the training,” Matthew said to his friend, then followed John into his office.

  “Take a seat, Matt. I actually wanted to tell you that I think you should spend half your time working the wood and the other half learning the business with me. After all, it will be yours to run and guide one day.”

  “About that—”

  “Nee, Matt. Nee need to thank me. Just the fact that, Gott willing, you and Tabitha will soon produce kinner is enough to make me want to give you my best hammer!”

  “Jah, but—”

  “So, let me explain the operation side of things to you a bit. We may be remote here in Blackberry Falls, but we run a strong business. Elam Smucker is the post office around here and routinely walks to Farwell, then brings back orders. We get orders from all over and, in fact, I was surprised when Tabby told me that you hadn’t heard of Stolfus Lumber and Woodworking, but that’s gut. I’ve often worried that some outsider might marry Tabby with an eye to gaining the business and not so much a frau.”

  Matthew sat, miserable at the lie he was perpetrating—not just on his wife but on her fater as well. On everyone he’d met in Blackberry Falls—the whole community that had been so kind to him. He sighed inwardly and wanted to begin to tell the truth, but just then, a worker from the mill burst through the door.

  “Fire, John! Main shop!”

  Matthew jumped to his feet but had to follow his fater-in-law, who was around the desk in seconds. They ran to the main shop, where Matthew had been working with Big Jim. The acrid smell of smoke pervaded the air, but the flames had been extinguished. The remains of Matthew’s dough bowl made it easy to see where the fire had started. It seemed a clear message of evil intent against him.

  John shook his grizzled head, then bellowed out to those workers who were standing by, “Men, a single match can take down our livelihood as well as our lives! I offer a thousand-dollar reward for any information about who started this. Big Jim, did you see anyone pass by?”

  “Nee, but I had my back turned.”

  “Well, think on it, men. This was no accident, and the kind of a worker who would do something like this is a danger to us all.”

  Matthew let his eyes roam over the grim expressions on the men’s faces, then thought about Asa’s cold words in the dead of nacht. Then and there, Matthew promised himself that he would pay a visit to Asa and Micah to see what the bruders might be planning.

  * * *

  Tabitha cooked the granulated sugar until it turned a nice, golden brown around the edges. She’d learned the trick of not stirring until the browning occurred, so the caramel wouldn’t be ruined. She tapped her foot on the hardwood floor while waiting for the deep, amber color to appear in the pan. As soon as it did, she pulled the pan from the heat and carefully added a tablespoon of vinegar to the caramel. The vinegar caused the mixture to bubble vigorously, then seize. She returned it to the heat and added two handfuls of fresh blackberries to the melting caramel and cooked the whole thing until the berries were softened. She sighed to herself, glad that she’d been able to make the sauce without Anke’s help.

  Still, she was worried about Anke, who had complained of a bad headache after she’d cried. Tabitha had convinced her to lie down—something that Anke never would have conceded to do normally. Tabitha considered going for Aenti Fern for some headache tea leaves but was distracted by Abner hovering at the kitchen door.

  “Abner, whatever are you doing? Kumme in!”

  Abner slunk in the door and cast his eyes about the kitchen. “Anke’s not here?”

  Tabitha stared at him. “She’s not feeling well. If you’d like, you could geh to Aenti Fern’s and fetch her some headache medicine.”

  Abner was back out the screen door with an alacrity that caused Tabitha to wonder if he’d lost his wits. “Jah,” he snapped. “I’ll geh.”

  Tabitha shook her head as she went back to the blackberries, thinking that the world seemed upside down, judging by Anke and Abner’s behavior.

  * * *

  Abner set off for Aenti Fern’s cabin with hurried steps. He felt his heart pound in his chest. He realized that he was deeply concerned about Anke and feared her being ill. It’s almost as though I love her. . . . The thought made him nearly trip over an exposed root, and he tried to push the idea away.

  He finally gained the path to Aenti Fern’s and nearly burst through the wooden door after only the briefest of knocks.

  “Aenti Fern?” he hollered without preamble.

  “Nee,” came a panting voice from the small back room. “It’s Mary Lapp. My water broke and I’m gonna have my boppli—right now!”

  Abner froze, and the unholy desire to back out the door suddenly filled his mind; then Mary groaned and he threw off his hat. He tiptoed to the other room, knocking down herbs and drying flowers from overhead as he went.

  “Mary? Where’s Aenti Fern?”

  The young woman in the bed threw him a desperate glance. “Ach . . . I don’t know! I just kumme here ta wait and things started happening fast.... Accchhhh! You’re gonna have to help me, Abner!”

  He swallowed and felt as if he’d like to throw up, but he took another step nearer to the bed where Mary was writhing in pain. Her belly looked enormous beneath her blue dress, and he tried once more to make sense of the situation. “Maybe I can find Aenti Fern or some other woman. . . .”

  “Abner,” she panted. “Noooowwww!”

  “All right.” He nodded. Then he went to the bowl and pitcher that were on a nearby table and was glad to see a big bar of lye soap. He washed his hands as Mary’s cries escalated and tried to think how he might help her.... He was mumbling prayers beneath his breath as he dried his hands and then approached the bed.

  “Abner, it don’t matter that ye’re a man . . . I—Ach! You’ve delivered lambs before, right?”

  “Lambs,” he muttered. If only it was a lamb delivery. . . . Gott help me! “All right, Mary . . . all right now. . . .” Kumme on, Abner . . . ya can do this!

  He lifted the hem of her wrinkled dress with reverent fear. He could see the crown of the baby’s wet head. “Dark hair, Mary!”

  He was almost shouting, and Mary was pushing and crying, and suddenly, he held a screaming, slippery boppli buwe in his large hands.

  “Ach, Mary—he’s beautiful!”

  “Abner,” she cried. “I forgot ta tell ya. . . . Aenti Fern said it was twins!”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Matthew entered the Stolfus haus alone. John had wanted to keep an eye on the shop, so he’d sent Matthew ahead.

  Tabitha took one look at him and must have read the concern he was feeling. She put down a dishcloth and came forward to greet him.

  “Matthew, what is it? What’s wrong?”

  He caught her hands in his and gave her a brief smile. “There was a small fire at the mill.”

  “What? Where’s Fater? Was anyone hurt?”

  “Nee, no one hurt. But
I wanted to tell you, before it gets around, that the fire was set in my sad excuse for a dough bowl.”

  He watched her pretty brow wrinkle in confusion. He had no desire to worry her, but he felt she deserved the truth—even if I don’t give her truth in other ways....

  “I’m sure it was a beautiful dough bowl,” she said finally. But he could see realization dawning in her blue eyes and he gently pulled her close.

  She was so small but so very, very strong. It was bad enough that he was bent on finding out whether Asa Zook had had anything to do with the fire; he didn’t want Tabitha to try doing the same.

  “No worrying, sweet. Now, tell me what smells so gut.”

  * * *

  Anke paused in the doorway to the kitchen and looked furtively about to see if Abner was there. He wasn’t, and she felt both relief and regret. Perhaps I’ve scared him off. . . . She came back to the moment when Tabitha gave her a strong hug.

  “Anke, are you feeling better? I’ve been so worried about you.”

  “I feel fine now, kind. Did the blackberry sauce kumme out right?”

  “Better than all right,” Matthew said appreciatively from the table. “I’ve never had it before and it’s great.”

  Anke noticed Tabitha blush at the compliment from her mann. Ach, what was it to be so in love, to openly praise each other?

  John Stolfus came through the door at that moment, carrying a batch of fresh-churned ice cream. “Hello, Anke. Are you well?” He put the churn down on the table, and Anke hesitantly took the seat that Tabitha drew out for her.

  “Jah, John. I be—”

  She broke off as Abner suddenly staggered in the door. He looked like he’d been on the losing end of some kind of wild fight. His hat was missing and his hair was awry. His shirt was pulled sideways out of his dark pants and his face was a blank stare of fright. He collapsed into a chair at the table, then buried his face in his hands.

  “Abner,” Anke cried in alarm, reaching to touch his arm. “What is it?”

  He looked up at her then. “Mary Lapp was in labor,” he groaned. “Twins . . . Aenti Fern wasn’t there. I—I delivered ’em.”