by Kelly Long
Tabitha let her eyes bore into Sam Fisher’s whiskered face, wishing she could will him to look up from the money box and face the accusation in her eyes. But the man went on, calmly pricing things and asking for the total, which Anke drew from the household purse. How could he be such a hypocrite, pretending that all was well? The question plagued her as they left the store. There was no sign of Grace Fisher, and once again Tabitha longed to geh and find the other woman, but decided to share the story with Matthew instead.
* * *
Matthew turned the wood in his hands, feeling with pleasure the weight and balance of the piece. He ran his thumb down the edge of the shelf and was once more amazed that he had tooled the wood himself. He’d kumme to realize that the gentler he was, the better the wood responded. Now he understood what Abner had said about the wood being like a woman, and he felt himself grow hot when he considered whether he might touch Tabitha with the same confident gentleness.
He snapped back to the moment, though when Jim asked him if he would help bring in one of the heavy logs of cedar that were stockpiled under a shelter a hundred feet or so from the mill operation itself. Matthew pulled on his gloves and went outside with his friend. Each man grabbed a hook from the outside wall and went to the log pile to hook the ends of the closest log.
The pile was held in place by peglike stakes at the base, and it felt good to Matthew to hoist the heavy wood out of its place. But then there was a rumbling sound, and Matthew watched in horrified fascination as the head-high pile of logs began to move. He dropped his end of the log and jumped over it, intending to knock Jim out of the way. Then he realized his mistake as he was caught in the middle of the falling roll of wood. He heard Big Jim’s shout and thought briefly of Tabitha’s bright smile before he felt an unbearable weight and then everything went dark.
* * *
“I tell you, John, one of the pegs that held up that log pile was split.” Abner spoke in hoarse tones as they waited outside Aenti Fern’s cabin.
“It couldn’t have been; it probably happened in the crash. Ach, the poor buwe. . . .”
“Jah,” Abner whispered savagely. “He’s blessed to even have a spark of life left in him yet. I’d like ta get my hands on the murderer, because that’s what this amounts to—somebody wantin’ Matthew dead.”
“Don’t say that. Besides, it was Big Jim himself who asked for Matt’s help and we know how gut a friend he is to—”
Abner turned away as the door to the cabin was opened from the inside. Aenti Fern stood there, looking worried. “If I didna think there was a chance we’d hurt him further, I’d say he needs ta be carried ta the hospital in Farwell.”
“He needs a doctor then?” Abner asked. “I’ll geh and git one and bring him back.”
“He might not kumme,” Aenti Fern observed.
Abner gave her a grim smile. “He’ll kumme all right.”
* * *
Matthew drifted in and out of a vast dream forest. He could see great cedars in sunlight and felt as though he need merely touch a tree and it would fall across his path. But he leaped over each log, heading ever deeper into the bright woodlands. The fall of light on the forest floor, rich with wild ferns and blackberries, was enticing. And then he saw the red oak; looking up, he saw it crack—a widow-maker. But someone pushed him out of the way. He knew, somehow, with stark clarity, that the flash of sapphire-blue eyes belonged to his wife and the gray fur was the great wolf dog belonging to Aenti Fern. Tabitha had dived at him like a fury and saved his life. Saved his life . . . but now he couldn’t see her, and the call of the glowing forest seemed to lure him. An enticing call . . . but he wanted his wife even more than the light....
* * *
Tabitha leaned forward to dab at the cut on Matthew’s face—a wicked gash that ran from one high cheekbone to beneath his chin. It was the only injury that she could see, but she knew in her heart that he was badly hurt inside. She moved to shift her weight away from his hip on Aenti Fern’s bed, fearing to bump him in case it was his pelvis that was broken. He moaned faintly, and she dipped her cloth into the wooden bowl of water and pressed it to his lips.
She realized in those moments, when spilled blood and broken bone could separate her from Matthew forever, that she had kumme to care deeply for him. In truth, she had never felt this way before and she marveled at the awakening that seemed to spread from her mind to her breast. He is such a gut man—so strong and full of truth—it’s almost as though I—
Her thought was lost as Abner banged on the door and entered with a harried-looking Englischer in tow.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Well?” Abner asked brusquely, unwilling to admit to himself how much the buwe’s survival meant to him.
“Hmm . . . could be worse, all things considered.” The auld doctor paused to listen once more to Matthew’s lungs with his stethoscope, then straightened his back.
“What does that mean? His frau here wants the truth straight.” Abner slid his hand to Tabitha’s shoulder to brace her for what might be coming.
He had crossed the two-mile trail to Farwell and marched as fast as he could into the small hospital. Nurses had fluttered at him, trying to herd him into the waiting room, but he’d set eyes on the gray-bearded doctor and decided he’d do just fine. If the man hadn’t been able to keep pace with him back to Blackberry Falls, Abner felt as though he would have carried him. But they’d gotten there....
Now, Abner waited as the doctor made his pronouncement.
“Broken ribs. Can’t do much about those; we don’t set them anymore. Right arm broken. I’ll put on a cast for that. Concussion. That gash on his face will take a stitch or two—probably will scar. Various bumps and bruises. It’s a miracle, but I don’t believe there are internal injuries. He’ll be sore, but he should be up and around in a few days. I gave him a shot for the pain.”
“That’s all?” Tabitha’s dawning cry made Abner swallow.
“That’s enough, young lady. But all in all, he’ll do.” The doctor closed his case and glared up at Abner. “Now, sir, do you mind if I go back to the hospital when I’ve finished here?”
“I’ll walk with ya.”
“No need. I know this mountain, and you can—uh—call on me anytime. I’m Dr. Carmen, by the way.” He held out a hand and Abner wrung it with silent gratitude.
Once the Englisch doctor had gone, after a brief consultation with Aenti Fern, Abner turned back to the room to find Tabitha with her face in her hands. Her small shoulders shook as she sobbed.
“Kind,” he said roughly, hurt to see her cry. “He will be well. Ya heard the doc.”
“I know. I know. It’s a relief, that’s all.”
“Jah, but remember, ye’ve got a lifetime together, Gott willing.”
She nodded, and he left the room with a last look at the buwe.
* * *
Anke did what she always did when she was worried—she cooked. The Stolfus kitchen brimmed with a mélange of gut smells, cooked to ward off bad news. But she looked up from peeling apples for a strudel when the back door was flung open.
It was Abner, and she waited, searching his face.
“The buwe will survive.”
She dropped her spoon and raised her apron to her eyes. “Ach, thanks be ta Gott.”
She rocked from side to side, and then she felt Abner’s great arms around her as he made awkward sounds of comfort from the back of his throat.
She let herself lean against him a little and heard the groan that was wrung from him. She would have backed away, but he caught her close, slowly pulling down the apron from her face. She knew that she must look a sight—red, blotchy skin, no doubt, and her nose still damp. But he kissed her. Once. Twice. Again.
“Abner, we cannot. . . .”
“Stop saying that,” he rumbled, and she looked up to see a devastating smile on his handsome face.
It would be so easy to give in to his kisses, but her mind screamed in memory. She wrenched
herself backward. “I won’t!” she cried fiercely. “I tell ya, I won’t again.”
“Anke?”
She looked up in surprise to see that it was Abner and not her wicked oncle who towered over her. “I—I’m sorry,” she whispered.
She felt him let her geh and she wanted to run from him once more, but his blue eyes spoke of trust and caring and all those things she knew she didn’t deserve to have in life because she was dirty. If Abner only knew . . .
She straightened her spine and shook her head at him resolutely. “Ya will jest have ta understand. I cannot ever—have a relationship. Never.”
Abner continued to smile down at her. “I am very strong, Anke. Please, won’t you tell me what scares you so?”
“Nee, I—”
She broke away from him abruptly when the swinging wooden door between the kitchen and living area was pushed open.
John Stolfus entered and looked at them curiously, then seemed to refocus. “Anke . . . Matt’s going to be fine! Let’s bake a cake!”
She was only too glad to agree, avoiding Abner’s eyes and going to fetch her cake pans.
* * *
Matthew opened his eyes and felt as if he’d been on the losing end of a terrific battle. It seemed an effort even to breathe.
“Matthew?” Her voice was honey soft and it enticed him to turn his head, though the effort cost him.
He blinked at her; her beauty was so bright, it seemed like gut medicine to his soul. “You’re so lovely . . . How is Big Jim?”
“He’s fine,” she said, then bent and placed a soft kiss on his mouth.
“Mmm. . . . Wish I could do something about that kind of kiss.”
“What would you do?” She leaned forward to press her mouth along the arch of his throat, kissing him with burning little sucks of her lips.
“I’d thank you, for saving my life.”
She pulled back. “What do you mean?”
“You and that great gray hound. You were there somehow that day in the forest with the widow-maker. I saw you—in my dream.”
She stared down into his eyes. “Gott must have revealed this to you.”
He smiled. “Maybe. Maybe he wanted me to know how fierce a wife I have.”
“And do you like—fierce?” Her voice sounded tentative, and he longed to pull her into his arms.
“Jah, I think I lo—”
He broke off in frustration as Aenti Fern admitted Bishop Kore into the room. Tabitha got to her feet and moved aside.
“Ach, Tabitha, my dear maedel . . . If I could have a few moments alone with the groom?”
Matthew tried to throw her a don’t-leave expression, but she was already slipping into the other room.
He stared up at Bishop Kore and wondered what the auld man would say.
“So, my buwe. Abner says someone wants you dead. How do ya feel about it?”
Matthew considered the ominous words spoken in light tones. “I’m against it.”
“Me too.”
Matthew nodded. “Gut.”
“How do you feel about groundhogs?”
“Gut.”
“All right, then. I’ll leave ya with that.”
“Danki.”
“No trouble at all, sohn.” Bishop Kore left the room and Tabitha soon returned.
“What did he say?” she asked in confidential tones.
“Death. Life. Groundhogs. Pretty much the usual.”
* * *
Tabitha slipped through the woods, ignoring the fine drizzle of rain that pattered on the leaves overhead. She had left Matthew sleeping in Aenti Fern’s care. And now she left the trail and continued on another three-quarters of a mile, then skirted around the creek bank and moved to a rocky outcropping, and then a cave that was once a bear’s den, now long deserted. She moved aside some brush and entered the cave, reaching automatically for the lantern that was kept high on the right side of the rock.
Turning up the light and holding it aloft, she nearly jumped out of her skin when Christi, Big Jim’s dochder, stepped out of the gloom.
“What are you doing in here?” Tabitha demanded. “You nearly scared me to death.”
“I’m sorry . . .” the young girl said contritely. “I followed you here the other day and just figured you might kumme back today. I’m also sorry about your mann.”
Tabitha slowly regained control of herself. “Danki, Christi. And I know you’re here about the wood. . . .”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Well . . . kumme on back.” Tabitha led her young friend deep into the recesses of the cave. She lifted the oilskin tarps that covered her work bench and revealed her tools and her most recent carving, a small eagle poised in midflight.
“Ach, my,” Christi murmured in delight. She inched forward and gently put a fingertip to the nearly finished bird. “Your work is beautiful.”
“Danki. He’s still got wing work yet,” Tabitha offered. “It’s another creature for Abigail’s shelf at the pottery.”
“Don’t folks wonder where she gets ’em?”
Tabitha shrugged. “You know how private she is—probably no one is willing to ask. Anyway, I’ve told her what I’ve told you. I make them. I’m glad to own up to that—shunning or nee.”
Christi shivered a bit in the shadowed light. “I wouldn’t like ta be shunned, but it’s in me—ta work the wood. I feel it.”
“Well, I feel it too,” Tabitha said, patting Christi’s shoulder. “Now, let me show you what a tiny lathe can do.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Matthew had been up and around for a week when he decided to go back to the mill. He went, of course, while Tabitha was off doing some errand for Anke.
He had kumme very close to telling his frau that he thought he was in love with her . . . but there had always been some interruption. And now, the more he considered, the surer he was that being in love and loving were two very different things. He wanted to get past the raw emotion and find something that would endure for all time. He thought about the fossil rock that Bishop Kore had given them his first day at Blackberry Falls; it certainly was something that endured....
He broke off in midthought when the mill came into view. Even from a distance, he could tell by some men’s postures that he was not the most welcome person at their workplace. But he moved on and felt better when Big Jim called to him, then drew him aside.
“Hey, Matt, gut ta see ya up and around.”
“Danki, but I think Tabitha would have a fit if she knew I was down here.”
Jim nodded. “Well, ta tell ya the truth, Matt, there are some fellas who think ya might be bad luck, seeing how you were almost hit by that widow-maker and then the log pile falling . . . ach, and the fire.”
Matthew shrugged. “Bad luck? Don’t tell me some men believe in that superstitious nonsense?”
“Blackberry Falls is a back hollow, Matt. There’s things that geh on back here that probably don’t happen in yer neck of the woods. Ya gotta understand. Mebbe it would be better if ya took another couple days off.”
“Maybe I will, Jim, but first I’ve got to talk to John.”
He shook his friend’s hand and made his way past the other men at the mill, coolly meeting the eyes of each who would look at him. He gave a brief knock on the office door, then walked in. John looked up from his desk with a bit of surprise showing on his broad face.
“Hiya, Matt! Didn’t know you were coming in today.”
“I just thought it would be a good idea to get back into a routine. I could still stack wood with my broken arm.”
“That’s true. True indeed. But what do you say to us staying in here and looking over the books and the operation for a few days?”
“John, do you believe I’m bad luck?”
“Bad luck? Nee, but you make the mill a more dangerous place because someone wants you gone. I can’t take that kind of risk around my workers.”
“But you do realize that the would-be murderer is one of you
r own men?”
Matthew watched his fater-in-law sigh. “There’s another possible explanation for the accidents. I’ve considered that you might be a bit lacking in cautiousness—never having worked wood before.”
Matthew opened his mouth to protest, but then remembered no one here knew about his experience in furniture making. Closing his mouth, he had to agree to work the books with John. But he was determined to find out who it was that wanted him dead, and soon....
* * *
Anke had sent Tabitha over to Cubby’s to get some mushrooms for the cubed steak supper she wanted to slow cook all day. And after dredging the meat in flour and panfrying it, she added it to the greased pan and cut up a whole onion to place on top. Then she mixed her own brown gravy into the pan and sat down to wait for Tabitha to return.
She sighed aloud in the empty kitchen, not wanting to admit that she missed Abner’s company. He hadn’t been around much during the past week, and she decided that he must have finally taken her seriously when she’d told him she could never have a relationship with him. At the thought, and much against her will, she found her eyes swimming with tears, which she hastily brushed away. The screen door banged open and she looked up, expecting Tabitha.
But it was Abner, and her heart began to pound in her chest as if she were a maedel. All the same, she kept her face calm and composed. “Abner. There’s fresh coffee or tea if you’d like.”
He grunted and sat down at the well-scrubbed table opposite her. She folded her hands neatly in front of her, not wanting to reveal their faint shaking. But then she saw how work-worn her hands appeared, showing her age in a bad light, and she almost slid them into the folds of her apron. But Abner suddenly reached out with lean-fingered hands and covered hers with his own.
“Anke . . .”
She watched him struggle over what to say, and she waited, irresistibly fascinated.
“Anke, I . . . My cabin needs a woman’s touch. I mean—it’s not as clean as it might be. Do you think you could . . . would you please . . .”
“Clean it?” she asked flatly.
He appeared deflated. “Jah.”
