Gabriel's Bride (9 page)

“Rachel Yoder?” the man asked.

“Jah.”
She nodded.

“I believe I have your goats.”

She clapped her hands in excitement, like she hadn’t just seen the creatures a few hours before when she left her
aenti’s
house. Well, the bank’s house.

“Gut, gut,”
she said, taking the clipboard and signing her name by the
X
.

Good, except she didn’t know where to put them. She and Gabriel hadn’t talked about that. She bit her lip and gazed around the outbuildings trying to figure the best place for her goats. She couldn’t leave them in the trailer for long. Sadie was bound to lose her spirited temper soon and there was no telling what would happen after that.

Then she spotted the perfect place, just on the other side of the chicken coop. A pen filled with bright green grass for them to eat and just enough room for her seven does and one buck. For a while at least. “There.” She pointed out the way as the young driver nodded. He tucked the clipboard under one arm and went to the back of the trailer to unload the first of her sweeties.

Half an hour later, the goats were settled, and the big truck rambled back down the drive.

The only problem with the new goat pen was the fact that there was no water trough inside. Surely Gabriel Fisher had something she could use to make sure her goats had fresh water to drink. With a glance back at her herd, happily munching on the sweet green grass of their new home, Rachel headed toward the barn hoping to find a makeshift trough.

“Is it time for lunch yet?”

Gabriel looked down into Samuel’s questioning smile.

He’d kept the child away from the house for far too long, but he had so much that needed to be done. It had been such a burden off him to know that Rachel Yoder was working in his stead, cleaning the kitchen and making them a healthy, filling lunch. Catching up the laundry, sweeping the floors, and in general making his life easier.

He checked the sun and nodded. “
Jah
. Let’s head back.”

Samuel took up the reins and clicked the horses into motion. He had so many limitations, but driving the wagon back to the house was a chore he had been doing for the last few months. Gabriel was happy to give him something that he could accomplish. The child had realized this year that he was different from the other children, though Gabriel was certain he didn’t know to what extent. But with the new teacher not being able to help him or willing to have him in her classroom this year, Samuel had determined that he was not like the other children his age.

Still, Gabriel held hope for his youngest. Hope that soon he would catch up to his peers and be able to attend school like his brothers.

“Look,
Dat
. Goats!”

At his squeal, Gabriel scanned the yard until he found the spot where Samuel pointed.

Sure enough there were goats. In his experimental patch of hybrid red and gold wheat! The beasts were munching on the tender stalks pulling them up by the roots and chewing them to bits like there was no tomorrow. Even worse, someone had dragged a number 10 washtub into the fenced-in area crushing even more of the wheat sprouts.

He snatched the reins from Samuel, not even taking the time to apologize as he spurned the horses into a faster trot. He had to get to the house and as fast as possible before they ate every last bit of his experiment.

But by the time he hollered, “Whoa,” he feared he was too late.

With a small grunt he swung down from the wagon and raced toward the goats. “Hiyah,” he said, waving his hat at them to shoo them from the tender wheat. They stared balefully at him. Not even one of them stopped chewing long enough to pay him much attention.

He slapped them on the rumps with his hat, but a lot of good it did. They just moved further away from him and resumed their eating on the other side of his wheat patch.

“Rachel!” he bellowed, starting for the house.

The urgency in his tone must have done the trick for she slammed through the screen door, wiping her hands on a dish towel as she came to a halt.
“Was iss letz?”

“Your goats are eating my wheat! That’s what’s wrong.”

A confused frown puckered her brow as she looked from him to the eating machines. “Wheat?”

He slammed his hands on his hips. “Do something with them!”

Her eyes widened, and she turned on her heel and ran back into the house.

He stared after her in disbelief. “Rachel Yoder!”

But she was gone.

Gabriel dashed past Samuel who stood as if in a trance looking from the porch where Rachel had been standing to him, then to the goats and back to the house again. He had a length of rope in the basket near the front door. He could loop them together and get them out of the test area. Or he could tie the rope into a noose and hang the blasted creatures from the roof of the barn.

He snatched up the rope and said a small prayer to help him keep his temper. He’d worked long and hard on the wheat hybrid and to see it ruined in one morning. . . . He bounded off the porch just as Rachel came barreling out of the house. She held dog leashes in one hand, and it took Gabriel several long seconds to figure out what she intended to do with them.

Then he could only stare as she clipped the leashes to the fancy collars the goats had around their necks, and pretty as you please, she led the goats out of the wheat.

Gabriel sucked in a deep breath as she came near, leading the goats behind as one would a stray horse.

She opened her mouth to speak, but he was one ahead of her. “What were your goats doing in my wheat field?”

“Wheat field?”

“
Jah.
Now answer.”

She pressed her lips together. Her brown eyes were as hard as root beer candy. “I have never seen such a small planting. Nor do wheat fields require fencing around them.”

“It’s my field, and I will do with it as I please.”

She lifted her pointy chin in the air, a small muscle in her jaw jumping. “I thought it was a pen.”

“You thought wrong.”

“Then I must apologize.”

She didn’t look like she wanted to apologize. She looked more like she wanted to dump a soup pot full of gruel on his head and leave him in the sun to dry.

“I didn’t see another place to put them.”

“They’ll be fine in the main pasture.”

A look of horror flashed across her features. “
Nay
. My goats cannot be kept with the other animals. They have to be milked twice a day. Fed premium hay and organic food in order to produce quality milk for the cheese.”

She was pulling his leg. But the serious tilt of her jaw stated otherwise.

“Samuel, go on into the house and get you something to eat.” He said the words without taking his eyes off his housekeeper.

“Jah, Dat,”
Samuel said before running to the porch and disappearing inside.

“It seems we have a misunderstanding.” Rachel Yoder’s words had lost their previous edge. Her breathing had returned to normal, though her cheeks still held a bright pink flush that seemed to make her eyes appear even more bottomless than before. If that were even possible.

“
Jah
, it does.”

She looked back over to the patch of wheat now mowed nearly to the ground by her ravenous goats. She bit her lip and looked back at him, apology flooding her features. “I didn’t know the grass was special.”

“Three years’ worth of work,” he said. “My own blend of red and gold wheat.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t know.”

At her quiet tone, Gabriel felt his anger subsiding. They should have talked more about this from the beginning. Too late for that now. “I think we should sit down and set some guidelines for our arrangement.”

She nodded.

Who knew hiring a live-in housekeeper would require so much effort? “Will your goats be okay on their leashes for a time?”

“For a little while,
jah
.”

“Then let’s go inside,” he said, with a nod toward the house. “We can discuss our plans over a good meal.”

She nodded, then tied the goats to the hitching post. With a jaunty air, she stuck her nose toward the sky, turned around, and marched back into the house.

“Where’s the food?”

Rachel turned to Gabriel.

He stared at the table now freshly cleared and cleaned.

Surely he hadn’t expected her to . . . She stood a little straighter. “I usually have sandwiches for the noon meal.
Jah
?” She nodded toward Samuel who sat at his place at the table swinging his legs and waiting on one of them to feed him. He was such a sweetheart, and Rachel felt a warm rush of affection every time she was near the youngster.

“Sandwiches?” Gabriel repeated the word with such disbelief that she had to bite back the urge to explain to him what a sandwich was.

Instead, she nodded slowly. “Peanut butter with strawberry jelly is one of my favorites.”

He just stared and suddenly she got the feeling that he expected her to make the sandwiches. Then again she was the housekeeper.

She shook herself free from her stupor and opened the pantry. But after a quick scan of the shelves, there was no peanut butter. She walked to the cabinets opening each one in turn. Cups and glasses, plates and bowls, pots and pans, but no food, and more important, no peanut butter.

Rachel bit her lip and turned to face her employer.

Gabriel Fisher stood, arms slack at his sides, mouth hanging open as if he could not believe what his eyes were seeing.

Samuel looked from one of them to the other, still patiently waiting for his meal.

“And what do you have for supper?” he asked.

Rachel shrugged. “Usually a bowl of soup.”

He adjusted his stance and crossed his arms over his massive chest. “Homemade soup.” He announced the words like he’d won a prize.

“Sometimes,” she hedged, having the awful feeling that this wasn’t the answer he wanted to hear.

“And the other times?”

She dipped her chin unable to keep staring into those intense green eyes. “The kind from the grocer is quite delicious as well.”

He shot her a dubious look.

“And quick,” she added.

He took a deep breath and she had the strange feeling that he was calming himself. “But you can cook.”

“Of course,” she scoffed, not admitting that it had been years since she had made more than a pot of stew and a pan of cornbread. But that was cooking, right?

“Tomorrow, I expect you’ll plan better.”

“Oh. Yes, of course. It’s just the dishes and the goats and the—” She stopped at his frown. Maybe she shouldn’t bring up the goats right now. She needed this job. She needed this place to stay, and she would do anything necessary to keep it.

Even tell a little white lie.

She added her shortcoming to her mental prayer list and hustled over to the refrigerator. A couple of minutes later she returned to the table, a container of her garlic and chive
chevre
and a loaf of sourdough in her arms. She should have thought of this sooner. Peanut butter and strawberry preserves might be her one of her favorites, but this topped the list by far.

She smiled at Samuel, then shot a cautious glance at his father as she sliced the bread and smeared it generously with the cheese spread. “There,” she said with a grand flourish, offering the open-faced sandwich to the boy. He studied it for a moment, then cast a questioning glance back at his father.

Gabriel nodded, that frown still pulling at his mouth. Honestly, did the man never smile?

At his father’s “okay,” Samuel began to eat. He smiled. “It’s
gut, Dat
. You should try it.”

“Remember your manners,” Gabriel said sternly. “We don’t talk with our mouths full.”

“Jah, Dat,”
Samuel mumbled. Then he swallowed and crammed in another enormous bite.

Perhaps her employer expected her to correct the children as well when they were in her charge, but she was so happy that Samuel liked the meal, everything else flew from her head. After the morning she had, what with the dishes, the goats, and then botching up the noon meal, she was just glad to have one success under her belt.