“Yep.” He stood and sauntered to the window.
She watched how his lanky frame moved with natural ease, like river water flowing over rocks and pebbles. In the soft, muted light of the early morn, he looked especially handsome. He folded his arms and stared out the window, watching the sun rise in the misty morning sky.
“Not many grown men would have been able to do what you did.” When he looked at her, she knew he was serious. “Especially for a baby calf.”
“I thank God that sweet baby survived.”
Joseph’s eyes sparkled. “You want to see her?”
She nodded. “Yes. I do.” Rebekah ignored the bone-deep weariness that weighed her down like an anvil and started to get out of bed.
Joseph waved both hands at her and skipped sideways toward the door. “No, no, you stay there. I’ll be right back.”
Thank goodness.
She sank back into her pillow and quilt. Her tense muscles began to twitch and relax again.
I’ll leave my quilting ʼtill later.
The comfortable sounds of her brothers moving up and down the stairs had a lullaby effect. Her eyes fluttered, and exhaustion made her dizzy.
Joseph clomped in a moment later with Buttermilk nestled safely in his strong arms. This handsome man stood holding one of God’s most innocent creatures as though he would protect her from the world, should he have to. The sight was so moving that tears sprang up in her still-dry eyes.
“B-b-b-l-l-l-e-e-e-h-h,” Buttermilk bleated.
A smile flicked the ends of her mouth upward. “She still doesn’t moo.”
His voice was a whisper. “I told you she was all right.”
“I believed—” Rebekah began. But when she looked at Joseph, his eyes were on Buttermilk, not her. He bounced the baby cow gently in his arms, reminiscent of how a young mother bounced a newborn babe. A scarlet heat crept up her neck.
Without warning, her mind switched gears. “I will miss Bible study at the Yoders today.” She had looked forward to the impromptu gathering that had been planned the night before. “Their little puppy gets fluffier all the time.”
Buttermilk bleated again.
“Uh-oh, I believe she needs to be outside.” Joseph made it to the stairs in three long strides. “Rebekah, I’ll be downstairs helping your Pa with breakfast for the young ʼuns. He looked like he was having a hard time when I passed him a minute ago.”
“Thank you for taking care of me.” Her whisper hung in the empty room. Already gone, Joseph didn’t hear.
The gentle sounds of everyone going about their business in her childhood home rocked her, in her half-asleep state, much like a favorite rocking chair. She tried to pick out the sounds and guess who would be making them as sleep tugged at her eyelids.
There’s Jeremiah…he’s bringing in the milk.
That was Thomas…he just ran into the doorframe.
Her heart was light as bits of laughter from her Pa and Joseph floated up the stairs and sleep found her, snug, warm, and safe, in her bed.
***
Rebekah woke with a start.
Surely I’ve only been asleep a few minutes.
The sun told a different story. Orange rays entered at an angle through her window and splayed across the bed.
I should be up to my elbows in dinner preparations by now.
A rogue noise sounded from outside. It wasn’t one of the comfortable sounds to which she had grown accustomed. It was a pair of chattering voices that didn’t belong outside her window. The weighted curtain of sleep lifted as the voices continued and grew louder as the heaviness left her ears.
“Joseph?” she wondered aloud. “Is that Joseph’s voice?” It was.
But who is he talking to? Is Peter back for his wheel?
The song of a cardinal drowned out the other voice with its purty, purty, purty…whoit.
Rebekah rose and flung her legs over the side of her bed. When her feet touched the floor, the memory of her stubbed baby toe flashed to the front of her mind with white-hot precision. Tears sprang to her eyes and her stomach churned. She hiked her gown up. Sure enough, her tiny toe had taken on a hue of greenish-black. A purple bruise mottled the entire side of her right foot, clean up to her ankle.
She hobbled across the room and peered out the window. Down below stood Joseph, his arms folded as usual, with his trademark stem poking out from between his teeth. When he threw his head back to laugh, she saw whom the other voice belonged to.
It was Katie Knepp.
Chapter Five
Rebekah limped across her bedroom floor to the simple doorway. A jagged ache gnawed at her heart, blocking out the pain in her discolored foot.
Why is Katie here?
An unfamiliar feeling twanged in her gut.
And why is Joseph talking to her like a beau?
She maneuvered herself out her room and to the stairs with more than a little difficulty. Her stomach lurched as she looked down the steep staircase. Her sweaty grip tightened on the banister. “Well, here goes.”
Placing her good foot down first, she leaned on the banister and hopped down the first step.
Whew, that wasn’t so bad. Only twelve more to go.
Trying to be as quiet as possible, Rebekah leaned on the bannister and hopped down the rest of the wooden stairs. A thin film of sweat covered her face like a veil as she neared the floor.
Almost there.
As she hopped off the last step, her hands fluttered to her head to straighten her covering. Instead, her fingers brushed her singed mane. “My covering!”
A brief moment of panic brought on with the prospect of ascending and descending the stairs again was interrupted by the thundering of feet. Thomas skipped past, his heart and eyes set on the partially opened front door. Rebekah saw Joseph’s back come in and out of view as the door swayed in the breeze.
“Thomas.” She swiped at the beads of perspiration that dotted her forehead. “Help!”
Her youngest brother stopped just before he reached the front door. Ever slow, he turned to face her. A hunk of bread, swiped from the kitchen no doubt, protruded from his mouth.
