Robin Lee Hatcher (4 page)

But I’m wondering if you’re after bein’ the right one, Karola
Breit? It’s an odd choice you seem to me now. Will you be
bringin’ happiness into Jakob’s heart?

The priest offered his hand—and a smile—to Karola Breit. “I’m Father Patrick. Welcome to Shadow Creek, Miss Breit.”

“Danke,”
she replied as she placed her gloved hand in the priest’s.

“We only learned of your coming a few days ago.” Father Patrick looked at Jakob. “Though why you’d want to keep this lovely young woman a secret from your friends is beyond me. The townsfolk would have welcomed her in style if we’d been given a chance.”

“We didn’t want a lot of fanfare,” Jakob answered.

“Maybe not you”—Father Patrick’s gaze returned once more to Karola—“but every bride hopes for some. Isn’t that true, Miss Breit?”

It seemed to Tulley that Karola grew even more pale as her gaze lowered to the bouquet of flowers she held in her free hand. Her seeming meekness gave him a moment’s pause. He couldn’t imagine Jakob married to a shy, retiring mouse of a woman.

Dorotea played a sour chord on the organ. “Rikkard, may we proceed? I have other things to tend to at the parsonage.”

Faith and begorra
, thought Tulley, his attention momentarily diverted from the bride.
That is one cantankerous woman. I’ll
not be knowing how Rick puts up with her, brother or no.

Rick Joki—only his sister called him
Rikkard—
cleared his throat. “Yes, shall we proceed?”

“I’ll be asking you not to be in such a hurry,” Tulley interjected, Dorotea forgotten. “Not until I’ve said me welcome to the bride.” Like the priest before him, Tulley thrust out his hand toward Karola. “Me name’s Tulley Gaffney. I’m by way of being a granduncle to the wee ones there.” He jerked his head toward the children in the pew behind him.

“Guten Morgen,”
she said, accepting his welcoming gesture.

Her hand was small within his, as fragile, he thought, as a bird’s wing. She didn’t seem the type to come from halfway around the world alone. Yet she had. He liked her for that. And if he weren’t mistaken, there was intelligence in her gaze—and a bit of gumption in the set of her back.

Aye, I’m thinkin’ you’re the one for Jakob after all.

Chapter Five

K
arola clasped the bouquet of wildflowers in both hands as she faced Pastor Joki. Jakob stood at her side.

“Into this holy estate this man and this woman come now to be united. If anyone, therefore, can show just cause why they may not be lawfully joined together”—Pastor Joki paused and glanced toward the witnesses—“let him now speak, or else forever hold his peace.”

Karola felt as if her high-collared blouse were choking her.

After another moment’s pause, the pastor continued. “Jakob Hirsch, wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded wife, to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony? Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honor and keep her in sickness and in health, and, forsaking all others, keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live?”

“I will,” Jakob replied.

But he does not love me. How can he promise that when it is
not true? It is
not
true. He cannot love me because he does not
know me. And I do not know him. Mother was right, and Father,
too. I do not know this Jakob Hirsch. He is not the young man
who left Steigerhausen. He is someone else.

“Karola Breit, wilt thou have this man to thy wedded husband, to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony? Wilt thou love him, comfort him—”

“Nein.”

At her strangled whisper, the pastor glanced up from his prayer book.

“Nein.”
She shook her head, repeating softly,
“Nein.”

“Karola—,” Jakob began.

She looked at him, eyes wide, feeling almost as surprised as he sounded. “I cannot.”

“Excuse us, Pastor Joki.” Jakob took hold of her arm and steered her toward a corner, away from the others. “What do you think you’re doing?” Though he spoke in a low voice, his irritation was apparent.

“I cannot marry you, Jakob.”

“But yesterday you said—”

“I was wrong.”

She couldn’t tell if he was confused or frustrated. Probably both.

“So you want to go back to Germany after all? Is that it?”

She shook her head.

“Then what in heaven’s name
do
you want?” His voice rose, his patience clearly stretched to the limit.

“I do not know.” Karola’s heart hammered in her chest at the admission.

Jakob muttered something beneath his breath, then glanced behind him.

Reluctantly, Karola looked too. The pastor, his sister, the priest, and Tulley Gaffney were all watching them, waiting to see what the outcome would be.

She touched his forearm lightly. “Jakob.”

He met her gaze again.

“You do not love me, Jakob, and I do not love you.”

His eyes narrowed as he drew in a deep breath, as if fighting for control of his temper. “Perhaps not, but that would change with time.”

“How can you be sure?”

He scowled. “I just am.”

“Because you learned to love Siobhan?”

“Karola, we—”

“Is that not true? Is that not what you said to me?”

With a sigh, he answered, “Yes … but I don’t see what—”

“I do not wish to marry for other than love, Jakob. You know nothing of me or my life since you went away.” She gave her head a slow shake, only now beginning to understand her reasons for stopping the ceremony. “When, since I arrived, did you ask one question about me or what’s happened to me or what I might want or hope for? When did you ask about my parents or the people you used to know in Steigerhausen? We have scarcely talked at all.” She might have been angry over his lack of interest, she supposed, but she wasn’t. Only sad.

“Look, I never meant to make you think—” He stopped, rubbed a hand over his face, then tried again. “It isn’t that I don’t care. But after I found out you didn’t get my letter telling you about the children and everything …” He let his explanation trail into silence.

Karola swallowed a sudden lump in her throat. “It is not entirely your fault, Jakob. I am as guilty as you. I believed what I wanted to believe. I even pretended I still loved you after all those years of silence just so I could get away from those who felt sorry for me and those who laughed at me behind my back. I did not know that was why, but it was. Jakob, I did not love you when I left Germany, and I do not love you now. I do not know you, and I do not love you.”

Jakob supposed a woman couldn’t speak any clearer than that. She didn’t love him and she didn’t want to marry him. Period. He wasn’t sure how he felt about any of that. All he knew was he’d spent hard-earned money to bring her here—money that couldn’t easily be replaced—and now he was still without anybody to watch over his children while he worked the farm.

“Jakob?” Pastor Joki’s hesitant voice pulled him back to matters at hand. “Miss Breit?”

They both turned to find the pastor walking toward them.

“The wedding’s off.” Jakob knew he sounded harsher than he intended, but he couldn’t help it.

“Off?”

Jakob felt heat rising up the back of his neck. “Yes, off.” So much for not being sure how he felt. He was frustrated, and he was angry. With Karola. With his circumstances. With God.

“I am sorry.”

Jakob didn’t know if Karola spoke to him or the pastor. He didn’t rightly care. “Maeve, you and your brother take Aislinn out to the carriage. We’ll be there straightaway.”

Dorotea appeared beside her brother. “What will you do now, Miss Breit?”

Karola looked at Jakob, her blue eyes filled with questions. Obviously, she hadn’t considered anything beyond her refusal to marry.

“We’ll figure it out later,” he said gruffly. “Right now, we need to be on our way.”

“Good heavens!” Dorotea exclaimed. “You can’t mean to take her back to your farm, Mr. Hirsch. Now that you’re not to be married … Well, what would people say?”

Tulley spoke up. “I’ll be offering her a room at the hotel.

We’ve plenty to go around.”

Jakob turned, saying in a low voice, “Tulley, I can’t afford—”

The Irishman flicked his hand, waving away the words of protest. “We’re family, after all. Sure, and it will be our pleasure to have her stay with us.”

“Well, then”—Jakob looked at Karola—“I guess it’s settled.”

In the small parlor of the White home, Charlotte White shrieked with delight. Her best friend, Emma Shrum, had just told her the news about Jakob Hirsch and that German woman. Emma had heard it from her mother, Theodora, wife of the Methodist minister, who had heard it from Laura Gaffney, Tulley’s daughter-in-law. In fact, by this time, everyone in Shadow Creek had probably heard the news.

“I knew he wouldn’t go through with it!” Charlotte pressed her hands to her breast as she leaned back in the brocade-upholstered chair. “I
knew
he wouldn’t get married like this.”

Charlotte sounded as if she’d believed that, but in truth, she’d spent the morning in her room, weeping into her pillow. The very idea that Jakob Hirsch would send away for a bride when he had to know—

Emma lifted her teacup from the saucer. “Laura Gaffney said it was
Miss Breit
who couldn’t go through with it.” She paused to take a sip. “Her father-in-law was there to see it all. He said Miss Breit stopped Pastor Joki right in the middle of the ceremony.”

Charlotte’s eyes widened. “I don’t believe it.”

“It’s true, whether you believe it or not.”

Charlotte considered this news a few moments, then gave a sniff of disdain. “That’s what he gets for sending for a mail-order bride.”

“But haven’t you heard, Charlotte? She isn’t a stranger to him. They grew up together in Germany. Laura says they were sweethearts before Jakob left to come to America.”

That news caused a sick feeling in Charlotte’s midsection.

“Mr. Gaffney has given Miss Breit a room at the hotel until it’s decided where she will go. Mother says we must call on her tomorrow. Mother says we must make her feel welcome in Shadow Creek.”

“I, for one, have no intention of calling on her.” She tilted her chin. “I don’t care a whit if she feels welcome.”

Emma laughed. “But that’s because you’re sweet on Jakob Hirsch, and you’d just as soon Miss Breit left town as quickly as she came.”

Charlotte
harrumphed,
choosing silence for a change.

Karola sat in the chair near the window of her second-story hotel room, looking out at the steeple of the Holy Shepherd Lutheran Church.

Jakob was so angry.

Could she blame him?

Nein, I cannot.

Nor would she blame herself. Not marrying Jakob was perhaps the first truly sensible decision she’d made in a long while.

But what am I to do now? I did not think of that.

She had no money to speak of, and she didn’t want to be sent back to Germany. She knew no one in America except Jakob, and she certainly couldn’t ask him for help. Nor could she live forever in this hotel room, depending upon the charity of strangers. So what
was
she to do? Where was she to go?

Her mother’s words on that last night at home came to her again:
“Have you asked God what he wants you to do?”

Someone tapped on her door, interrupting her troubled thoughts, and Karola rose to see who it was. Opening the door, she found Laura Gaffney—whom she’d met when Tulley brought her to the hotel that morning—standing in the hallway, a hesitant smile curving her mouth, a tray covered with a white cloth in her hands.

“I thought you might be hungry.”

Karola wasn’t.

“Miss Breit, you didn’t join us for lunch and supper is still two hours away. You really should eat something.”

As much as she wished the young woman would leave her alone, Karola stepped back.

Laura walked to the small, round table beneath the window. After setting down the tray, she turned and regarded Karola, her eyes kind. “Is there anything I can do to make you more comfortable?”

Karola shook her head.

“Papa Tulley should be back with your things soon.” Laura offered another gentle smile. “He left for the Hirsch farm about an hour ago. My father-in-law never lets grass grow under his feet if he can help it. He has a heart of gold, that man.”

“Mr. Gaffney has been very kind to me, offering me a place to stay.”

Laura laughed, a sweet and melodious sound. “He’ll want you to call him Tulley. He isn’t a man who stands on ceremony.” She motioned toward the table with one hand. “Won’t you sit and eat while we become better acquainted?”

Karola had hoped Laura would put down the tray and leave, but it seemed that wasn’t to be. With an inward sigh, she closed the door, then walked to the chair she had vacated a short while before and sat down.

Laura sat in the opposite chair. “I know what it’s like to come here, a stranger. I grew up in Chicago. That’s where I met Ian when he was there on business. He swept me off my feet, and we were married in a matter of weeks, much to my mother’s dismay.” Her gray eyes sparkled. “The Irish do have a way about them. Full of charm and blarney. I found it impossible to resist him.” She laughed again. “Although, to be honest, I didn’t really try to resist.”

Is that what happened to Jakob? Is that why he forgot me?
Because of Siobhan’s Irish charms.

“I’m sorry,” Laura said softly. “Have I said something to upset you?”

Karola realized that her eyes were brimming with unshed tears. She blinked them away, at the same time shaking her head, trying to deny their existence.

“Please forgive me, Miss Breit.” Laura rose. “I was thoughtless to barge in and start chattering like a blue jay. You must be exhausted from your journey, and on top of that, you’ve had a distressing morning.”

“You have been very kind.”

“Please eat a little and then get some rest. We’ll have plenty of time to become acquainted later.” With those words, Laura Gaffney hurried out of the room, closing the door behind her.

And good riddance,
Jakob thought as he watched Tulley Gaffney’s buggy disappearing up the road, Karola’s trunk and suitcases strapped to the back.

He turned on his heel and headed for the barn.

What on earth had possessed him to think he should marry someone he hadn’t seen in over a decade, all because of a stupid dream? He supposed it served him right, what had happened this morning. The truth was, Karola had done him a favor. She’d saved him from his own stupidity.

Jakob paused as he stepped into the shadowed light of the barn, allowing his eyes time to adjust. The mare in the far stall stomped a hoof, and her filly released a high-pitched whinny. Moving toward them, he felt some of the tension leave his neck and shoulders.

There was something about farming, whether working the land or tending the livestock, that brought him a sense of peace. There was plenty he didn’t know in this world, plenty of things that were hard for him to understand. But this he knew: Here was where he belonged. When he stood in this barn and breathed deeply of the familiar scents—the dust and the hay and the animals—he knew he belonged. When he observed the rolling wheat fields, swaying in a late summer breeze, looking like the swells of the ocean, he knew he belonged. Whatever else might be wrong in his life, this much was right.