Gabriel's Bride (17 page)

“Jah.”
She gave him a serious nod. “I have too many leftover cookies. I need someone to help me eat them all gone.”

He smiled, the gesture lighting up his entire face as well as her heart. “I can do that.” He gave a small hop of joy, and Rachel laughed at his antics. If only she could win the other Fisher boys over with such ease. Or even half. Especially the oldest in the
haus
.

Her cheeks filled with heat at the thought. She had agreed to a marriage of strangeness, but she was human. She knew the rules of the
Ordnung
. Amish married for life. This was her one shot at happiness. Was it wrong of her to want some for herself?

Maybe.

She added the thought to her mental prayer list. She shouldn’t be selfish or greedy. She had agreed to marry Gabriel so she could stay in Clover Ridge and keep her goats. In turn she had promised to take care of his children and household. Falling in love and bringing other children into the world was no part of their agreement.

“Wachel?” Samuel brought her out of her thoughts.

“Jah?”

“Can I eat those cookies now?”

Nothing like a six-year-old to keep a body on task. She got down the cookies and poured him a glass of milk.

“I’m going to clean some upstairs,” she said. “You stay here until I come back down,
jah
?”

He nodded, his mouth already full of yesterday’s baking.

She smiled and ruffled his hair before starting up the stairs. Her afternoon chore time was dwindling away as she stood and mooned over love and trivial matters. It was time to get to work.

She’d promised the
buwe
that she would clean out from under their beds today. She had suspected that they weren’t too happy with her addition to their household, and she had done everything in her power to make them like her. Then she realized that they most likely felt threatened by her presence in what they saw as their mother’s house. Rather than tell them outright that she had no intentions of taking their mother’s place, she had opted to show them.

What a breakthrough that they had asked her to help with this chore.

Rachel grabbed the broom from the hall closet and started for the room that Simon and Joseph shared with David. It was the largest of the bedrooms with three twin beds and a couple of propane lamps. Each boy had a set of pegs to hang their clothes on and a different color quilt on their beds. Rachel wondered if their mother had made the covering or if they had been gifts from Ruth.

She ran her hand over one of the quilts, a beautiful crazy covering with the brightest fabrics imaginable. The colors had faded a little over time from being washed and hung in the sun to dry, but the vibrancy was still there. Each stitch was tiny and perfect, blending in with the material until the stitches nearly disappeared.

A flash of jealousy shot through her. She had never been the best seamstress. She had practiced and practiced for as long as she could, but as she stitched, she found her mind wandering to other tasks that needed to be completed. Next thing she knew, her stitches were crooked, not at all the same size, and in general, just not up to standard.

She shook her head and made a mental note to pray for inner peace and more pure thoughts. It was terrible to be envious over something as simple as a quilt. Yet she knew deep down that it was more than that. She wanted the boys to accept her into the house, not as their mother, but as perhaps a friend, another adult who cared about them and wanted the best for their everyday lives.

She’d start that process by cleaning their rooms from top to bottom, though she had to admit the more she cleaned, the more it seemed there was to clean. She supposed that was the nature of a house with so many people living in it. But it felt as if she swept a floor one day and it was dirtier than before on the next.

She blew a wayward curl out of her eyes, then tucked the strand under the edge of her prayer
kapp
. She got down on her knees and ran the broom under the bed that David slept in, surprised for sure when she pulled a small cardboard shoe box from underneath, dust bunnies dancing around it.

A treasure box? Or long forgotten trash? She scooted it closer, feeling weight shift inside. Her curiosity piqued, and she lifted the lid. She couldn’t stifle her scream when the big bullfrog leapt out of the box and landed squarely on her chest.

She scrambled to her feet, squealing all the while. “Get it off, get it off, get it off!” She brushed her hands down the front of her dress time and time again, though the frog was long gone hopping through the house unchecked.

Gut himmel!
That thing was loose in the
haus
free to jump all over everything.

She raced down the stairs, scooping Samuel into her arms and depositing him into the yard before he even had the chance to ask what was wrong.

“
Was iss letz,
Wachel?” he finally said.

She gulped at the air, trying to fill her lungs and tamp back a scream all in the same motion. “I don’t. Like. Frogs,” she wheezed.

Samuel turned his redhead this way and that, finally giving an understanding nod. “Frogs jump.”

Rachel shuddered.
“Jah,”
she said. “They do.”

“I’ll take cawe of it.”

Then her brave little man marched into the house, returning a few moments later with the blasted shoe box knocking around in his small hands. “Hewe, Wachel. I got it fow you.”

She shook her head, unwilling to even hold the vile creature in a box. “How did that get in the house?”

The words were more of a question to herself, but Samuel answered. “Simon caught it at the creek yesterday.”

Oh, he did, did he?

She thought she heard a laugh from somewhere behind them, but when she turned toward the path that led to the creek, she saw nothing. But they were there, she was sure of it. After all, what good was a practical joke if the mastermind was nowhere around when it happened?

She was certain of one thing: She had been set up from start to finish. Simon had wanted her to find the frog. He knew that she was afraid of things that jumped. What better way to scare the prayer
kapp
right off her head than to plant a frog in the house in the one place she was sure to find it? The very place that she had been asked to clean.

“Samuel, I want you to take the . . . ahem,
frog
to the edge of the woods. I’m sure it can find its way back to the water from there.”

He gave a small nod. “
Jah
, Wachel.”

“Then I want you to return to the house and wash your hands.”

He nodded once again.

“And Samuel, you are not to say anything to your
vatter
concerning this matter. Do you understand?”

“Take the frog to the woods, wash my hands, and don’t tell
Dat
.”

She smiled, though her lips trembled with the movement. “That’s right. Now run along, I’ve got brussels sprouts to cook.”

She supposed that it was childish of her, but she was doing it anyway. Brussels sprouts were about the most vile vegetable known to man. Personally she hated them, but had learned to eat them for nutrition’s sake. Well, that and the fact that her
aenti
—Rachel shuddered—actually liked the things.

A dinner with brussels sprouts was as good a payback as any for little boys who needed to be taught a lesson.

She should probably tell Gabriel about what happened, but she felt that if she went to their father, then the
buwe
had won. She wasn’t about to be run off. She was tougher than that. So she’d take a deep breath and put on her big girl panties, as she had heard some
Englisch
girls say, and fight back in her own way. Sooner or later the boys would give up and all would go back to normal.

Such as it was.

She set the steaming bowl of brussels sprouts on the table and bit back her smile as the boys all groaned.

Gabriel’s head snapped up and Rachel carefully avoided his gaze as she took her seat. There was no way she could look into those green eyes and not confess everything right down to her desire for him to kiss her the other night.

She made a big deal out of smoothing her napkin over her lap as he continued to look at each one of them in turn.

“Let’s pray,” Gabriel said. He braced his elbows on the table and bowed his head.

Everyone bowed their heads.

Rachel dipped her chin, closing her eyes and thanking the Lord for wonderful food and a safe day at the farm. She also asked for forgiveness for her retaliation and for patience when it came to the children. But she reined herself in before she asked God for help with her relationship with Gabriel.

First of all, there was no relationship. Just an agreement.

Second, there seemed to be so many
real
things to pray about—Ruth’s health, Katie’s wedding, Annie and Gideon’s baby—that it seemed self-absorbed to pray for love.

She added her selfish behavior to the list and uttered
aemen
just after Gabriel signaled that prayer time was complete.

“So,” Gabriel said as he took a piece of oven fried chicken from the platter and passed it to his left. “Anything interesting happen today?”

Matthew lifted a piece of chicken with his fork to examine the piece just underneath. “
Onkel
wants everyone to get together before the baby comes.”

Rachel bit back a gasp. Such matters were surely not appropriate for
natchess
table talk, but it wasn’t hers to correct Gabriel’s oldest
sohn
. She turned her gaze to her husband, but he was more concerned with picking the too-dark spots of breading off his meat to correct Matthew.

Still, he shook his head. “It’s too close to Annie’s time for her to be going about feeding everybody.”

Or maybe they just viewed her as furniture.

“Jah,”
Matthew agreed. “She’s as big as a
haus
.”

Definitely furniture.

“I’ll be sure to tell her you said as much the next time I see her.”

Matthew’s fork clattered onto his plate. “
Dat
! Please don’t.”

Gabriel chuckled, and Rachel hated that she liked the sound. He should use it more.

“Then mind what you say about your kin.”

“Jah, Dat.”

For a moment or two the only sound was the clink of forks and spoons against plates.

“I could cook.” Even as she said the words, she wished to call them back. She certainly had a thing or two to learn about cooking for a large group. She could barely feed the seven of them without burning most of the offering.

She had to give her husband credit, though, because he didn’t even choke on his bite of extra-brown cornbread. “I don’t think that will be necessary. I’m certain
Mam
will cook for everyone.”

He was sure, but Rachel had her doubts. She hadn’t been able to talk to Ruth alone since her confession concerning her health. More than anything, Rachel wanted to talk to her and try once again to convince her to go on to the doctor and have the new lump checked out. Just because it had been cancer once before didn’t mean that it was cancer again. It was in the Lord’s hands, for sure and for certain.

Rachel took a big bite of the candied sweet potatoes she made as her consolation for having to eat brussels sprouts. Yams were her absolute favorite, the one thing she managed to cook to perfection every time.

Well, it wasn’t like they were difficult to make or anything. Or that they required a skilled touch, but she enjoyed them just the same.

“
Buwe
, eat your brussels sprouts.”

“Awh, do we have to?” David asked, his tone nearing a whine.

Rachel felt almost sorry for them. Almost. Then all she had to do was think of the—shudder—frog they left for her and all sympathy flew out the window.

Gabriel shot them a stern look, the one that had her running for cover on a regular basis.
“Jah.”

Joseph gulped, then picked up one and popped it into his mouth. Rachel didn’t see him chew even once before he swallowed again and quickly reached for his milk.

“I said eat, not swallow whole.” Gabriel pointed his fork at each
bu
in turn. “Rachel went to a lot of trouble to cook this fine meal. You will honor her by cleaning your plates. Every one of you.”

She bit back her smile as Simon threw a smoldering look in her direction. He knew she had found the frog. If he was a smart kid—and he was—he knew that tonight’s meal had been a culinary retaliation. Now maybe things could go on as normal. Well, at least as normally as possible given their unique situation.

Simon shot Joseph a look, and the two boys gave a silent nod.

Then again, maybe not.