“It isn’t for me anymore.” His voice was deep and soft.
“Me, neither.” She swallowed. “I’m in love with you, too.”
Elias slid his arms tighter around her waist and touched his lips to hers. This time, she twined her arms around his neck and kissed him back just as ardently as he kissed her. His beard tickled her face, and his shoulders felt strong and reliable under her hands. This was nothing like courting as a young woman, shyly touching hands in the moonlight. This was entirely different—two grown adults who knew how courting worked, and marriage, too, for that matter, and her heart seemed to leap forward along with their life experience.
When she pulled back, Elias touched her chin with the pad of his thumb, and he looked tenderly down at her.
“I’ve been wanting to do that for a while,” he murmured.
She took a step back, and he reluctantly released her. Outside, she heard Moses’s voice as he headed past, talking to Ezekiel. Her boys were trusting her to tell them the truth. And they weren’t quite ready for a new stepdaet yet. Maybe soon...but not like this. She couldn’t damage their trust in her now.
“Are you okay?” Elias asked.
“Elias, we can’t do this,” she said quietly. “The kinner aren’t ready. At least mine aren’t. If you’d seen how they looked at me! Yah, I want to be able to move forward and get married again, but I need my boys in my life, too. If I rush this, I could lose them. This is pivotal. Moses is only eleven, and Thomas and Aaron might seem quite grown-up, but at fifteen and fourteen, they’re still just overgrown boys. Their hearts are so tender and sensitive. Ezekiel might be able to handle it since he’s almost old enough to marry, and I think Beulah might be the one—” She was rambling, and she knew it.
“They’re not ready,” he concluded.
“Is Violet?” she asked.
Elias licked his lips, then pressed them together in a thin line. “No, she’s not. She was so relieved it wasn’t real, and this morning she looked happier than I’d seen her in two years. She’s not ready for this, either.”
“You could lose her!” Delia said. “I know what it’s like to be a thirteen-year-old girl. Everything feels bigger and more painful than it does to anyone else. Something you think is small is truly large for her! You don’t want to push her away now.”
Elias nodded. “You’re right. I don’t... But I also know that something like these feelings between us doesn’t come along every day.”
Delia’s throat closed off with emotion. “I know...”
Because she’d known how special it was when she’d met Zeke. And she’d not felt that way again until she’d met Elias. But what about the kinner? They were the reason they’d come together to begin with, and they had to remain the priority.
“I wonder if they might get used to it,” Elias said.
“Do you want to risk that?” Delia asked, and her lips quivered. “If Violet left the faith, I wouldn’t forgive myself. If one of my boys left, or if my relationship with them suffered—” She could imagine how awful she’d feel if she’d put her own heart and companionship ahead of her children. “I know what it’s like to be the child in a home who feels like they’ve been pushed aside.”
“I wouldn’t do that to your boys,” he said earnestly.
“And I would never do that to Violet, either, but sometimes they feel it differently than we intend. My mamm married Joseph for herself, and I can see why! He loves her. He’s standing by her. They are very much in love. But it was different for us kinner living through it. We went from being the center of our parents’ world to our father being dead and our mother having another man to love. I’m not saying she was wrong, but it had far-reaching consequences.”
Elias swallowed, then nodded slowly. “I don’t want to pay that price, either.”
“We’ve told our kinner that this isn’t real...” she said. “I think we should stand by our word.”
Even though it had become very real! But how could she go to her children now and tell them that she and Elias had changed their minds? The boys needed stability, security. Her boys needed her to choose them.
“Mamm?” she heard Thomas call. “Mamm, where are you?”
The screen door from the house slammed shut. The boys must have gone inside. She sucked in a breath.
“I should go,” Elias said, his voice thick.
And Delia knew she must, but something tugged her back. She rose up onto her toes and kissed Elias on the cheek.
“If only things were different, Elias,” Delia said, but emotion choked off her voice. Then she headed for the greenhouse door and didn’t dare look back again.
This wasn’t about her own heart. After kinner arrived, it never could be again. But she now knew exactly how much she’d be missing out on, and she wished so deeply that it could be different.
As she emerged into the sunlight, she saw Thomas standing on the step. He looked at her in surprise, and his gaze went over her shoulder. She glanced back. Elias came out of the greenhouse at the same time. She respected him for that—no hiding or sneaking.
“Yes, son?” Delia said.
“We, uh—” Thomas stopped.
“I’d best get the buggy to my parents’ new place,” Elias said. “See you later, Thomas. Glad to see you all working so hard to help your mamm.”
But Delia could hear the sadness in his voice, too, even though he was trying to hide it.
“Anyway, we made peanut butter and jam sandwiches, Mamm,” Thomas said. “Do you want one?”
“Actually, I’m not hungry right now, son,” Delia said, and she forced a smile. “Why don’t you boys eat, and I’ll just finish up in the greenhouse.”
“Okay, sure,” Thomas said, then he paused. “Mamm, are you okay? You seem like you want to cry.”
“I’m fine, son,” she replied, blinking back a mist of tears that threatened to fall. “But thank you. Sometimes I just get emotional. That’s all. I’ll finish up in the greenhouse.”
“Okay...” But Thomas didn’t sound reassured at all.
And when Delia went back into the warm, humid greenhouse, she tugged the door solidly shut behind her and clamped a hand over her mouth. The tears started to flow, and she sank down onto the stool.
Delia loved that man. It was quick and crazy—he was right. But she’d already had one husband and buried him. She knew how this worked. There was no need to feel around and figure it out. She and Elias loved each other, and at their age, there were only two ways to go with those feelings. They either followed them and wed, or they broke things off and healed.
