The Heirloom Brides Collection (41 page)

Papa gulped. “Never mind. Take him out.”

She scooped the sleeping pup from his basket and stomped out the door with him, her nose in the air.

The week following the painting party proved miserable. The weather was lovely—clear skies and sweet-scented breezes tempted one to spend the entire day outdoors, basking in the pleasure of spring. But Clara couldn’t enjoy the fresh air and enticing smells because everywhere she looked, she saw Titus. He was in bodily form in the field, holding tight to the tiller’s handles behind the horse, and in spirit everywhere else she looked, both inside and out. She couldn’t walk to the chicken house without noticing the white paint and thinking,
Titus arranged that.
While preparing meals, she inwardly questioned,
Will Titus like this?
As she hung clothes on the line, she recalled his caution about the smoky smell. When she worked in her vegetable garden, she squinted at the sun glancing from the wire fence and remembered,
Titus built it.
She even thought of him when she approached the outhouse, astounded at him thinking to make the little necessary dwelling match the house.

For reasons beyond her understanding, he began staying in the evening after supper and engaging Papa in a game of checkers, jackstraws, or twenty questions. The two laughed and carried on like longtime friends, and Clara battled a fierce jealousy as she watched from the other side of the room. Not once did either Titus or Papa invite her to join them, and as the days progressed, her envy grew, as did her confusion. She didn’t want Titus to like her. Why, then, did it bother her so much that he ignored her? She didn’t understand herself at all.

On Friday evening after Clara cleared the dishes, Papa spilled the jackstraws in the center of the table and then said, “Clara Rose, join us for a game.”

She shot a startled look at him. “Me?”

“Why, sure.” He seemed baffled. “Three people can play this game.”

Then why hadn’t she been included on previous evenings? She opened her mouth to decline, but other words spilled from her mouth. “All right.”

She returned to her seat between Papa and Titus. She glanced from one man to the other.

Titus held his hand toward her. “Ladies first.”

Clara reached for a straw.

Titus stacked his forearms on the table and sighed. “Ezra, I wish you could help Mr. Wiens. He had to turn down a request for a loan this week because he couldn’t get out to the property and assess its value.”

Two straws rolled away from the one she tried to move. She sat up. “Your turn, Papa.”

Papa crouched and examined the pile. “I would be glad to help if I didn’t have a field to tend and a crop to harvest.” He managed to remove two straws before upsetting the stack.

Titus took his turn. “Even temporarily? While you’re unable to work in the field?” He huffed when straws went rolling.

Clara snatched up the single straws from the edges of the pile and then searched for a likely one to slip free.

“Oh, I’m not sure that’s a wise idea for me, Titus.” Papa chuckled, the sound rueful. “Put me behind a desk in a bank again and I might be tempted to stay.”

Clara jerked. Straws shifted. She gaped at her father. “Truly? You’d return to working as an accountant?”

Papa patted her arm. “Now, now, Clara Rose, no need to take on.”

She leaned toward Papa. “But I didn’t realize you missed your accounting job. I thought you wanted to try farming.” Tears clouded her vision, making Papa’s image swim. Had she forced Papa into something for which he had no desire?

“Of course I wanted to try something new, or I wouldn’t have come here. But wanting to try something new doesn’t mean I don’t still miss the old.” A sad smile formed on his face. “I enjoyed my job at the bank, talking with people every day, helping them. I suppose, even though I like our farmhouse and the openness around us, I will always look with fondness on the years I spent at the Minneapolis Bank and Trust Company.”

“Why not do both?”

Clara had forgotten Titus was at the table. At his comment, she jerked and sent her straws into the pile. Straws flew in every direction.

Papa laughed, scooping them back into a pile. “I suppose we’ll have to start this game again. Just as well since I wasn’t winning.”

Clara looked at him pointedly. “You didn’t answer Titus’s question.”

Papa raised his eyebrows. “No. I suppose I didn’t.”

Clara turned to Titus. “How could Papa do both?”

He scratched his chin, appearing to think deeply. “Well, your farmhouse isn’t so far from town that he couldn’t go in each day for a few hours at the bank. And if he wanted to raise and harvest a crop out here, he could hire someone to help him. Much the way you hired me.” He shrugged. “I could keep coming here… if you wanted.”

Clara aimed an eager look on Papa. “What do you think?”

Papa pointed at him. “You have your own farm, young man. You’ve done us a great service by helping during my convalescence, but when I’m on my feet again, you’ll need to see to your fields.”

“There are four other Klaassen boys plenty big enough to help my pa. Besides, our farms are side by side. It wouldn’t be difficult at all to work at both places if need be.”

Excitement raised the pitch of Clara’s voice. “Do you hear Titus, Papa? Remember what he told us about getting you to church—where there’s a will, there’s a way. If you want to work as an accountant again, we could find a way.”

Papa held up both palms. “You are getting ahead of my thoughts, Clara Rose. Slow down, please.”

The realization that Papa missed his former occupation stung her. He’d left Minneapolis for her, leaving behind his house, his friends, a job he enjoyed. She couldn’t make him give up everything. She took his hand and squeezed. “Won’t you talk to Mr. Wiens? Ask if you could be of help to him?”

“Well…”

“Please, Papa?”

Papa rolled his eyes and let out a huff of laughter. “Clara Rose, you know I can’t say no when you look at me with those big, pleading eyes.” He smiled. “All right. If you will drive me to town tomorrow, I’ll go to the bank and talk to Mr. Wiens.”

“Hurrah!” Clara’s face flamed with the unladylike exclamation. She turned a sheepish look on Titus. “Please forgive my outburst. I’m happy for Papa.”

He grinned.

She furrowed her brow. He’d worked as hard as ever this past week, but he’d hardly spoken to her. Maybe he’d rather not be her hired hand anymore. “Titus, did you mean it when you said you would continue to work here?”

He sobered, gazing intently into her eyes. “Do you want me to?”

As aggravated as she’d been with his distant behavior, she wanted to see him every day. Even if she couldn’t be anything more than his boss’s daughter or, at best, his friend, she wanted him here. She nodded.

Titus aimed his eyes upward and pinched his chin. “Well…”

She held her breath.

He looked at her. “I would be willing, but I don’t think I could keep doing it without pay.”

“Of course not!” Her lungful of air exploded with her answer.

“No, that wouldn’t do,” he went on as if she hadn’t spoken, “unless I was part of the family.”

Clara’s mouth fell open.

Titus sent a glance across the table to Papa. Papa nodded—one quick, almost indiscernible bob of his head. Titus slipped from his chair and went down on one knee in front of her. He took her hands in his, his grip strong and steady. And dry.

“Clara, our acquaintance is short, but I feel as though you’ve been in my heart for years. The minute I saw you, I knew you were the one I’ve waited for. As I’ve prepared your field to receive corn, I’ve imagined being here to watch the cornstalks grow tall and to harvest the ears. I’ve imagined working alongside you and your father, and the imagining feels so right.” His dear eyes glowed with love and desire. “Would you allow me to share the rest of your life with you, Clara? Would you become my wife?”

She’d received two proposals before, and her answer had caused the men to storm away. Even if it meant losing yet another beau, she had to be honest. “I love you, Titus, but I love my papa, too. This is his home. I can’t send him from it.”

“Not even to the addition Ma suggested and Pa helped me plan?”

“W–what?”

He released her to reach into his back pocket and withdraw a folded piece of paper. He laid it flat on her lap and pointed. “See? This is your house. There’s plenty of land on the west side to build a two-story addition. The bottom part could be more bedrooms for the children who come along—”

Clara covered her warm cheeks with her palms.

“And the upstairs could be an apartment for your father.” He lifted his attention from the paper. “Did you know that in Mennonite families, the grandparents often live with one of their adult children, bestow their wisdom on the grandchildren, and remain part of the family until the day God chooses to take them home?”

Clara’s chest fluttered as if a dozen butterflies had been freed from their cocoons. She shook her head in wonder.

“We couldn’t start building the addition until the area farmers have their fields planted, but after that, we could host a house-raising and have the walls and roof up in one day.”

Clara wouldn’t have believed such a thing if she hadn’t witnessed last Saturday’s transformation of the house.

“So what do you say, Clara? Will you marry me?”

He loved her enough to pour his sweat into her land. He loved her enough to share her with Papa. She hadn’t known such a man existed, and here he knelt before her with sweet beseeching in his eyes of sky blue. The Lord had blessed her beyond anything she could have imagined.

She melted from the chair into his embrace. “Yes, Titus. Yes.”

T
he summer months flew by, hot and humid but so busy and joyfilled Clara sang while she swatted mosquitoes and wiped sweat from her brow.

Her garden flourished, and Maria Klaassen helped her can the vegetables and line her cellar shelves with jars for the winter months. Together they picked apples and pears and dried the fruit on the metal roof of the barn’s lean-to. Clara grew to love Maria almost as much as she loved Maria’s son. She thanked God nightly for the chance to learn from another mother.

While Clara worked in the garden and house, Titus labored in the field and with the livestock. The pigs gained girth daily, and the cornstalks grew straight and tall and yielded a bountiful harvest.

Each day, Papa mounted Penelope and rode to the bank, where he quickly gained popularity with the townsfolk. Always cheerful, always helpful, he made himself as much at home in Wilhelmina as he’d been in Minneapolis, and Clara reveled in his happiness.

The first Saturday of August, townsfolk converged for the second time at the Frazier farm and constructed the addition Titus had lovingly planned. On this day, Clara didn’t stay in the house but milled among the workers, offering them glasses of cold water from the well and pausing to chat. Watching the walls go up was like watching her life being built strong and secure, and she couldn’t wait until the day when she and Titus would cross the threshold as husband and wife.

After the workers departed, Clara roamed the yard, whistling for Rowdy. The pup had grown so much during the summer, losing his baby look and becoming lean and handsome. But as he left babyhood behind, he gained independence, venturing out for hours each day, often returning with a gopher or rabbit in his jaws. Twice he growled at Clara when she tried to take the carcass, and Titus gently warned her to let him be—he was born a wild thing, and she needed to allow him to become what God intended.

She whistled several more times, pausing between the shrill blasts to search the area. He didn’t respond to her customary beckoning call, and her heart lurched in understanding.

Titus ambled from the barn, his stride long and his wind-ruffled hair shimmering in the evening sunlight. He crossed to her and slipped his arm around her shoulders. “He isn’t coming.” Not a question, but a statement.

Swallowing tears, she nodded. She rested her head against his shoulder. “I almost wish I hadn’t found him. It hurts so to lose him.”

“But you gave him something precious, Clara.” Titus tightened his arm, pulling her snug against his side. “You gave him the chance to grow up and live freely. I think God brought him to you to be your company for the time you needed him. But now it’s time to let him go.”

She sighed. “I’ll miss him.”

Titus kissed the top of her head. “We both will.”

Another month passed before the inside of the addition was finished and Papa moved his furnishings into his little apartment. As he carried his last box of belongings around the corner, he teasingly said, “All right, Clara Rose. Finish planning that wedding. I’m ready for grandchildren.”

Clara needed no further prompting. Two weeks later, on a sunny September Saturday, the townsfolk of Wilhelmina gathered at the Mennonite Brethren church to witness the union of Titus Klaassen and Clara Frazier.

Maria had spent weeks tatting a lovely veil in white silk thread, so frothy and delicate, it might have been spun of spider webbing. In the corner of the church’s foyer, behind a dressing screen that prohibited anyone from seeing Clara before she walked up the aisle, Maria arranged the veil over Clara’s flowing hair, then stepped back and sighed. “Perfect.”