Rosemary Opens Her Heart: Home at Cedar Creek, Book Two (37 page)

“As long as you stay out of Titus’s way—and let him think he’s in charge—everybody’ll
be happy,” her mother agreed.

When Rosemary reached the porch, there was a moment of awkward silence as the three
of them looked at one another. “Well,” she murmured, “I’ll go upstairs for a moment,
and then I’m off. No tears,” she agreed, echoing her mother. “No reason to act like
it’s the last time we’ll see one another.”

Rosemary entered the house where she’d spent most of her life and took a slow, sentimental
journey. She’d been born in the downstairs bedroom…had eaten her meals and learned
to cook in this kitchen…had listened to countless Bible readings in the front room…had
shared the north-corner bedroom first with Malinda and then with Joe—and had given
birth to Katie there, too. As she entered the room, the morning light glowed on the
butter-colored walls and she drew in a deep breath.

“Joe?” she whispered.

She waited, gazing out the window toward the land that was no longer hers…And that
felt all right, didn’t it? No regrets about selling it, no what-ifs about the house
she wouldn’t build there. Her pulse thrummed in spite of the finality she felt while
standing in this room.
You were taken from me too soon, Joe, but your love made me strong enough that I can
stand on my own now.
She ran her hand over the quilt Mamm had made for her wedding gift, content to leave
it here with other mementos of her marriage and childhood.

Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.

Rosemary let out the breath she’d been holding. It seemed to her Joe had murmured
these words from the gospel in her ear as a blessing—a benediction. No matter where
life took her, she would never be alone.

When a little sob escaped her, she blinked away her tears. Hadn’t she just received
the highest promise that everything would work out if she believed it would? Rosemary
smoothed the purple dress with a sense that the best was yet to be. It was as Abby
had told her weeks ago. If she opened her heart, all things were possible because
she loved the Lord.

And I love Matt, too!

Finally, after everyone around her had told her how she should feel about him, the
words rang true. Rosemary turned and went downstairs. “Don’t be strangers,” she said
as she passed through the kitchen where her mamm and Malinda were washing the peas
they’d picked earlier. “I’ll let you know when we’re ready for a visit.”

“Jah, and we’ll be there, too,” her sister replied.

“Have a gut moving day!” her mother chimed in.

As Rosemary climbed back into the buggy, her mother and sister were putting on a cheerful
front—too cheerful—yet it had gotten them all through a potentially difficult visit
that could have left her feeling blue all day.

Hadn’t they given her the best gift of all? The gift of their acceptance and best
wishes as she moved on?

Rosemary drove off with hope riding high in her heart.

A few hours later, Rosemary pointed toward the longest wall in the freshly painted
front room as Matt and Mose Hartzler carried the couch inside. “Right there will be
fine,” she said. The room was stacked high with boxes and the chairs weren’t placed
just right, but all the main furnishings were accounted for. “That’s the last of this
truckload, ain’t so?”

“Jah, we’ll take a breather and help Dylan when he gets here with the stock trailer.”
After he and Mose scooted the long sofa into place, Matt grinned at Katie, who was
climbing on each piece of furniture to check it out. “Did I see a plate of fried pies
in the kitchen before we piled so much stuff in there?”

“Jah. Abby brought them over before she opened the store, bless her. Your family’s
been so gut to us, Matt.”

“Fried pies?” Katie piped up with a hopeful expression.

“Jah, you can share one with me, punkin.” Rosemary slipped between the stacked boxes
into the kitchen, which was an obstacle course of opened crates and tables covered
with unpacked dishes. “We’ll set you in your high chair—”

“Big chair!” her daughter exclaimed. “I’s a big girl now, in the new house.”

Rosemary offered the tray of fried pies to Mose and Matt. “We’ve been talking all
week about how, at the new house, big girls pick up their toys and eat with a fork
and spoon. So far, she’s doing pretty gut at it.”

Matt took a bite of a pineapple-lemon pie, and then he placed a small box on a chair
and lifted Katie onto it as though accommodating her was second nature to him. “We’ll
find the booster chair and bring it over,” he said as she smacked her hands happily
on the tabletop. “It’s held a gut many little Lambrights up to the table, so it’ll
work just fine for you, too, Katie.”

Rosemary felt another flutter inside. What with all the details of getting out of
one house and into another, it hadn’t occurred to her that her daughter might be ready
to advance to the table, yet Matt had seen that immediately.

“Jah, won’t be long before you’ll be scurryin’ around with my little ones and the
Detweiler girls after church,” Mose remarked as he chose a cherry pie. Then he glanced
toward the road. “I hear that big red truck pullin’ in out front.”

“Titus said he was loading the bedroom sets this go-round,” Matt remarked, “so you
might want to point us toward which rooms each piece goes in, Rosemary.”

“Beth Ann’s upstairs hanging her curtains, so I’ll let her help you with that.” She
led the two men between the boxes in the front room, where Dylan and Titus were coming
in with a headboard.

“This walnut set’s going to the rooms in the back,” her father-in-law was saying as
he walked backward in that direction. “Decided I was done with going up and down the
stairs to eat and get myself to bed. Preacher Paul had the right idea about that.”

“Fine by me,” Dylan agreed. “This set’s by far the heaviest.”

Rosemary blinked. This was the first she’d heard that the stairs were becoming a problem,
as Titus still got around quite well.

“We’ll be right behind you with the dresser,” Matt said as he and Mose headed out
the front door.

Was that a secretive smile she’d seen on Matt’s face? Or was she keeping track of
so many men moving so many pieces of furniture, asking her so many questions about
where to put it all, that she was imagining that part? Rosemary climbed the steps
and headed toward the farthest bedroom down the hall. “How’s it going, Beth Ann?”

“I’m as far as I can go until my bed gets here.”

Rosemary smiled. Beth Ann was so excited about her new room, ready to use the colorful
new Friendship Star quilt she’d gotten for her birthday as well as the rag rug she’d
finished. As she stepped into the room, Rosemary couldn’t help but throw her arms
out and spin in a circle. “What a fine room! Look at those curtains—and your dresses
are in place already,” she exclaimed. “How about if you point the fellows toward where
all the bedroom pieces go up here? It seems your dat is taking his set to the dawdi
haus.”

Beth Ann’s eyes widened. “When did he decide that? I mean, he’s not
that
old!”

Rosemary wandered into the hall. “So…if he’s not taking that big room at the other
end of the hall—”

“You should have it! Katie’s crib would fit in the alcove by the window, so you won’t
be nearly so crowded,” Beth Ann pointed out. “And when she’s ready for a regular bed,
she can have that smaller room next door.”

And when did my baby get so big that we’re talking about a regular bed?

Rosemary ambled into the larger bedroom, as the men would soon need her to point the
way for more large, packed boxes. The room looked too big for the furniture she’d
been using in Titus’s house, but it made sense for her to be next to where Katie would
eventually sleep, didn’t it? She hadn’t wanted to ask Mamm for her furniture from
home, for that would have left an empty room there.

Downstairs, Mose and Matt were hoisting the box springs toward the dawdi haus while
Titus and Dylan followed with the mattress. The men had arranged the contents of the
livestock trailer in a logical order, and they’d put flattened cardboard boxes on
its floor to keep any animal odors from getting on the furniture. Rosemary glanced
around for the boxes of bedding, figuring to make up the beds as soon as they were
assembled.

Matt returned to the front room. “Did I see a cooler of lemonade?”

“Another generous gift, from the Grabers,” Rosemary replied as she led him to the
kitchen.

Matt frowned and then jogged to the window. “Oh, but this has to
stop
!” he declared as he hurried toward the back door. “Katie’s just slipped between the
boards of the pasture gate. I’ll take care of it.”

Alarm rose within her, and Rosemary hurried outside in Matt’s wake. A loud bleating
caught her attention. Sure enough, Katie was toddling toward a lamb that had gotten
its head caught between a trough and the pipe of the pump used to fill it. As it cried
out pathetically, its mother approached at a wary gait. In the distance, Rosemary
spotted the border collies, but they were too far away to prevent Katie from approaching
the crying lamb and causing a crisis at the water trough.

What had possessed her daughter to dash off yet again? At Titus’s, Katie hadn’t shown
any inclination to get past a fence, yet she’d clambered down from the elevated chair,
moved the box she’d been sitting on so she could reach the doorknob, and then let
herself outside. Yes, this
did
have to stop.

Rosemary watched as Matt nimbly scaled the gate and within seconds he’d grabbed Katie.
He pivoted, unlatching the wide, heavy gate with one hand as he held her daughter
in the crook of his other arm. He was a man on a mission, his expression taut, yet
he showed no sign of losing his temper as he closed the gate and then set Katie firmly
on the ground. As Matt crouched in front of her little girl, Rosemary stayed out of
Katie’s sight. The way Matt handled this moment might determine a lot of things, as
far as how Katie reacted—and how
she
felt about it, too.

“Katie, this is not a game,” he stated sternly, “and those sheep are not like puppies.
And you are
not
to run off by yourself ever again. Understand me? Big girls stay where their mamm
puts them—because once you’re a big girl, you can be punished for not behaving. When
I was your age, my mamm whacked my bottom with her wooden spoon and stood me with
my nose in the corner.”

Katie’s eyes got wide and her face fell. She looked away from Matt’s intense gaze,
but she knew better than to try to escape. She hadn’t been talked to this way by a
man…Joe had died before she was steady on her feet, and she was intimidated enough
by Titus’s gruffness not to follow him around outside.

Rosemary smiled in spite of the situation’s seriousness. She could well imagine Matt
standing with his nose in the corner as Barbara scolded him, just as she had received
similar discipline from her own mother. Plain parents believed in nipping misbehavior
in the bud and impressing their children early on when it came to the dangers of living
around livestock and machinery.

“I’m going to help that little lamb now,” Matt continued, pointing to the bleating
animal, “and you’re going to sit right here on this stump and wait for me without
moving. Ain’t so?”

Katie glanced at the stump beside the gravel driveway, which was just the right height
to make a seat for her. She sat down without protesting and then clasped her hands
in her lap.

“Gut girl. I’ll be back in a few, and then we’ll go back to the
house.” Matt still spoke in a no-nonsense tone of voice, but he had relaxed some.
“Your mamm’ll be real glad you listened to me and that you won’t ever, ever run off
from her again. Ain’t so, Katie?”

The little girl’s face remained somber as she considered what Matt had said. She nodded.

“Tell me that part, Katie, about what you won’t do ever again.”

Katie focused intently on Matt, whose eyes were on the same level as hers. “I…won’t
run off no more. I a big girl now.”

“Jah, you are. I’ll be right back.”

As Matt returned to the pasture, Rosemary remained on the back side of the nearest
tree, watching her daughter. As she had promised, Katie sat absolutely still on the
stump, watching Matt approach the lamb and the ewe who waited close by the water trough.
In a low voice, he spoke to the fluffy, fleecy mother while his two dogs sat alertly
on either side of her, trained not to interfere unless she charged.

“We’re gonna get this busy baby of yours out of this hang-up,” he said in a low singsong
voice. “You’re Titus’s ewe and you don’t know me yet, Mama, but you will. I can see
how your little one’s head is stuck where it was never intended to be…”

Rosemary listened closely. If the ewe perceived Matt as a danger to her lamb, she
would attack him. Indeed, the fluffy sheep stood stiffly, not at all confident about
what he intended to do to her baby. As he reached into the narrow space between the
trough and the water pipe, the lamb squirmed and freed itself. Matt took hold of it,
chuckling.

“Jah, see there,” he said, “you got to climbing around when your mamm wasn’t watching—probably
ran off, just like our Katie over there,” he added as he massaged the little lamb’s
neck and checked its windpipe. “And you see what sort of trouble it got you into,
ain’t so? Little ones were meant to stay with their mamms while they learn how to
be big girls.”

Rosemary covered her mouth so Katie wouldn’t hear her chuckling. Matt had not only
gotten the lamb out of its predicament, he
had turned the situation into a fable for her little girl to follow. And follow him
Katie did, watching between the gate slats from her seat, not missing a single word
as Matt soothed the little lamb.

And what a picture, when he took the lamb in his arms and held it to his chest to
let it become accustomed to his voice, his scent. The little ball of fleece pressed
its head against the strong, gentle hand that still caressed it. Then it turned to
gaze at Matt full in the face with a look of such utter love and trust that tears
sprang to Rosemary’s eyes.