With butterflies flitting wildly in her stomach, she glanced at Joseph to see if he’d witnessed the display.
He stared back, grinning.
Rebekah shoved her headpiece over her sizzled locks. “Thank you, Thomas.”.
“You’re welcome, sissy,” he yelled as he dashed away past Joseph and Katie without so much as a glance in their direction. Rebekah guessed his five-year-old heart and mind were already out the door, off the porch, and playing in the surrounding woods.
Katie turned as Rebekah finished straightening the gauzy white covering. She smoothed her nightgown.
“There she is now. The hero of the day.” Joseph stepped to her side. “Rebekah, come sit with Katie and me.”
He took her hand and led her across the living room as she tried to hide her limp.
She spoke first and tried to keep her voice even despite the sour taste in her mouth. “Katie, thank you for my pouch of quilting squares.” Despite their mutual object of affection, Rebekah was serious in her appreciation. “Did you piece them together yourself?”
Katie nodded. “I did. ’Fraid I’m not much of a quilter, so they’re a little uneven. Nothing like your ma’s.”
Rebekah shifted her weight on the seat. “My squares aren’t anything like Ma’s, either.”
She shifted her attention to Joseph. “How was breakfast?”
“Well, everyone was fed. If there were any complaints, I didn’t hear them.” He brushed the end of his nose with his thumb. “But then again, I made it a point not to listen.”
Katie giggled.
“I’m surprised to find you two here.” Rebekah didn’t mean for her voice to come out as harsh as it did. “What I mean is,” she sputtered to clarify, “I thought everyone was going to gather at the Yoders today.”
Joseph extended his hand to her. “There was a change of plans.”
She accepted it, stood, and hobbled toward the door. Needles of pain pricked her foot. She bit her tongue and squeezed Joseph’s hand.
He pushed the door open and revealed the busy scurrying of all the Gasthof Village families.
Mr. Yoder and Mr. Knepp were pushing up the new wooden frame of their barn as Mr. Raber and Mr. Odon steadied them from the top. They called out orders and requests in German, giving the clearing around their house the old-world feel that Rebekah knew only from her mother’s stories.
Her Pa, Joseph’s Pa, and Simon Wagler unloaded goods from the row of parked wagons. Piles of hay, animal feed, and tack were stacked about in an orderly fashion.
Tears welled in her eyes. “Everyone came here?”
Joseph nodded.
“Instead of going to services?” Her hand fluttered to her chest and grasped at her nightgown.
His voice was soft and warm. “Sometimes, the best way to love God is through action, not through talking.”
“Anyway, where else would we go?” Joseph’s tender voice was a whisper through her covering.
Katie coughed.
As he turned back toward the sitting room, he bumped Rebekah’s tender toe.
Stars filled her vision and doubled her over.
Worried creases pinched his eyebrows together. “What’s this?” His sapphire-blue eyes searched her face with such scrutiny that a sudden sense of self-consciousness forced her to hug her arms to her chest.
Joseph’s breath was warm on her ear. “Why can’t you walk?”
You’re not alone, Rebekah. You’re on display.
Rebekah’s gaze flickered to the ever-silent Katie. “I, well, I sort of—”
The contender for Joseph’s affections sat stock still, her hands clasped neatly in her lap as she took in the scene unfolding before her.
The burgundy color of Katie’s dress is remarkably similar to one that is folded in my own drawer upstairs.
Joseph’s fingers fell lightly on the crook of her arm as she wrung her hands at her waist. The brief, deliberate touch brought knots to her stomach. Rebekah let her sheepish gaze meet his and the world around them melted down, down, down until nothing remained except the angular, dimpled face of the man who had stolen her heart.
In that moment, only the two of them remained, their eyes locked together and his fingers still resting on her arm. She drew in a shuddering breath as Joseph wet his full lips with the tip of his tongue.
The overwhelming urge to seize the unanticipated moment and pull him close surged through her and left her feeling weak inside. And guilty.
Stop it, Rebekah.
She swallowed hard.
Save these urges for your husband. When you’re married. Not for brief moments such as these.
“Rebekah.” His voice bubbled into her daydream.
