The Widow's Bachelor Bargain
Autor:in
Marta Perry
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Chapter One
Dorcas Bitler turned the buggy toward home while she stared at her ten-year-old son in dismay. She certainly hadn’t expected to be confronted with a challenge like this from the Englisch world so early in Timothy’s life. For a moment her heart yearned to have Luke there... Luke with his loving smile and his ability to steer his sons in the right direction with no more than a word or a laugh.
But Luke had been gone for nearly five years now, and decisions were her responsibility, even when they weighed heavy.
“When did Kevin’s father invite you? I didn’t know you’d seen them recently.” When the Amish school was in session, her boys didn’t see much of their Englisch neighbors except on Saturdays.
Timothy shrugged, his wide blue eyes avoiding hers. “I saw Kev when he was waiting for the bus. He said his daad was happy for me to go with them to the spring livestock auction out in Waynesburg.”
Timothy was supposed to take his two younger brothers directly to the Amish school by way of the lane. He was usually so reliable, but if he saw Kevin at the bus stop, that meant he’d detoured out to the blacktop road. She filed that away to deal with later.
“I’m sorry, Timothy. I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Waynesburg was a long way off, which meant they’d have to stay overnight.
“Mammi, please. Just because they’re Englisch...” Her son let that fade away at her expression, and his face set in a mulish frown. “It’s not fair. Daad would have let me.”
The words hung there in the air. Dorcas let the reins go slack in her hands. Sadie knew the way to the barn well enough without assistance. Nothing broke the silence but the clack of the mare’s shoes and the creak of the wheels. Silas and little Matthew stared, two pairs of blue eyes wide and shocked.
Dorcas had to handle this right, for their sake as well as Timothy’s. She took a deep breath, searching for the words.
“Timothy, when Daadi passed, we agreed we’d always try to do what he would want, ain’t so? Do you really think he would want this?”
Timothy held the frown for a second longer. Then it washed from his face, and his lips trembled. Tears welled in his eyes. He wiped them away with his hand, sniffing.
“N-no,” he mumbled, head down. He hesitated another moment and then slid across the seat to press against her. “I’m sorry, Mammi.”
Relief swept through her. She put her arm around him, and his head was hard against her shoulder. Timothy was so aware of being the oldest that he didn’t often seek a hug, and she treasured the momentary embrace.
“Yah. I know.” She patted him. “It’s all right.” She murmured a silent prayer of thanks as Sadie stopped at the hitching post. “Komm, now, let’s take care of Sadie and then take your school things inside, yah?”
Everyone seemed only too happy to leave the difficult moments behind. The three boys jumped down and began taking the harness off. Matty, who at six hated to admit to being the smallest, was determined to help. At a glance from her, Timothy lifted him so that he could unfasten the headstall. Matty beamed as it came free.
“I did it. See, Mammi, I did it!”
“You surely did.” She smiled, her glance meeting Timothy’s. Each time she saw the older ones helping Matty, she seemed to recall Luke showing them their baby brother, telling them that they were the big brothers now.
Timothy turned Sadie out into the paddock and then came back to the barn to help hang up the harness. Watching him, Dorcas thought again about the livestock auction. She’d heard good things about the Waynesburg auction, and given Timothy’s interest, she’d have been happy to say yes to any of their relatives. But she’d seen Jeff Brownlee with his own son, and she hadn’t been impressed. He yelled at his boy a lot, but as far as she could tell, he never followed through with anything.
Was she being overprotective? Perhaps, but...
Matty came racing out of the barn and grabbed her hand, tugging her toward the door. “Mammi, komm. Schnell! It’s Goldilocks. It is. She’s sleeping. Shh.”
Goldilocks? She remembered how he’d giggled at the picture of three bears standing around the girl in the tiny bed. But what did he imagine he’d seen in the barn?
She stepped inside, pausing for a moment to let her eyes get accustomed to the dim light. What...?
Timothy and Silas were standing in the loose straw in the nearest stall. Shushing her again, Matty led her to them, tiptoeing. “See?” he whispered.
A girl was curled up in the straw. Her kapp had tumbled off, and her corn-colored hair had loosened from its bun. Goldilocks, indeed. Dorcas had to smile, even though she was instantly concerned.
The girl was Amish, clearly. But Dorcas knew every young girl in the church district, and she’d never seen this one before. Had she? Something seemed slightly familiar, but she couldn’t put a name to her.
As if feeling their eyes upon her, the girl’s lashes fluttered. She stretched, reaching up as her eyes opened... Blue eyes, just as bright a blue as her boys’ eyes were. For a moment she just looked at them, and then she scrambled to her feet, a smile lighting her face.
“I’m here. I made it. Are you surprised to see me? Cousin Dorcas, don’t you know me?”
The question was directed at Dorcas, and for another moment her mind was blank. “I...don’t... It’s not Katie? Katie Unger?”
And then the girl’s arms were wrapped around her in a hug. “I’ve changed, ain’t so?”
Dorcas, her mind swirling, hugged her back. “Katie! I haven’t seen you since...” She hesitated.
“Since Mammi died,” Katie finished for her. “I’ve grown up some since then.”
“You certain sure have.” Holding Katie’s hand, she turned to the boys, who were looking on, their eyes bright with interest and curiosity. “Boys, this is your cousin, Katie Unger. Her mamm was like a big sister to me when I was a little girl. Katie, here is Timothy, and Silas, and Matthew.”
Katie’s smile seemed to envelop all of them. “My mamm told me about your family. She always said you were her little sister.” Her face clouded. “That’s why I came to you, Cousin Dorcas. Please, you have to help me.”
The girl’s voice had grown passionate with those last words, and she squeezed Dorcas’s hand tightly. “Please, please help me.”
“Yah, of course.” There was no question about that. But what on earth had brought the girl here? How did she even get here? So many questions had to be answered before she could begin to understand what was happening.
Still, first things first. She patted Katie’s shoulder, thinking of Mary Ann patting hers when she needed reassurance.
“Komm, let’s go inside and get you something to eat and drink. You must be hungry. And tired.”
While ushering all of them toward the door, Dorcas tried to push her thoughts into order. Mary Ann had passed away when Katie was only ten or so.
When Katie’s father passed in an accident, his older brother Jacob Unger had taken on responsibility for the child. What was Katie doing here? Surely she hadn’t come all the way from Ohio alone.
“Yah, let’s go in. But I don’t need to eat. I need to tell you.” Still holding Dorcas’s hand, Katie peered out of the barn as if looking for something. Then she hurried her toward the house, rushing her along.
Just as they reached the back porch, Silas, who was trailing behind, called out, “Mammi, there’s a car pulling in the lane. I don’t know who it is.”
Katie gasped, her rosy cheeks going white. “It’s Onkel Jacob. Hide me. Please, please hide me. If he sees me, he’ll take me back.” She bolted into the house, the boys with her, and all Dorcas could do was follow, her mind fumbling for answers.
She closed the door and tried to speak calmly. “Now, Katie, you have to sit down and tell me quietly what is wrong. How can I help you if you don’t?”
“No, no.” Katie was practically dancing with impatience. She turned to the boys. “Hide me, quick. It’s him.”
The boys apparently had no doubts. Grasping her hands, they rushed her up the stairs, with Matty pushing her from behind.
“Tell him I’m not here.” Katie threw the words over her shoulder, frantic.
As Dorcas tried to call them back, a car pulled up by the back porch. Even from here she could see that in addition to the Englisch driver, there was an Amish passenger. He got out, stretching. Big, broad, with a reddish-brown beard and a stern, determined face.
Jacob Unger. She’d seen him a few times over the years. He wasn’t a man who’d believe a lie, even if she were willing to tell him one, which she wasn’t. Dorcas took a deep breath, pressed her hands against her skirt to steady them and walked firmly toward the back door, murmuring a quick prayer for guidance.
Jacob glanced back at the driver who’d brought him this far, complaining most of the way. “This won’t take long.”
“Better not,” the man grumbled, leaning on the steering wheel. “I told you before, I have to be back by six, no later. You’re not ready in half an hour, I’m going.”
Finding a driver to take him in search of his runaway niece had been difficult, but he certain sure wouldn’t be calling on this one again. At least he’d finally reached Lost Creek. For sure Katie would be here. Her friend Julie had been only too ready to spill the information once she was confronted.
And what his cousin Ada had been thinking to encourage that friendship, he couldn’t imagine. Katie was flighty enough without getting ideas from an Englisch teenager.
A quick glance at the frame house showed no signs of life. Usually someone would look out a window when a car drove in. He strode up to the back porch firmly. The driver was no more eager to get home than he was. His business, making specialty metal parts for an Englisch company, needed his attention, to say nothing of his plans for expansion. This had been a bad time for Katie to act up.
Annoyance lent extra power to his knock on the back door. He caught a flicker of movement at the window, but no sound of footsteps approaching, so he knocked again. If Dorcas Bitler thought she was going to take Katie’s side, she’d have another think coming.
He raised his fist for another knock, and the door opened, leaving him with his fist raised in the woman’s face. Dorcas Bitler, naturally. He’d last seen her at Mary Ann’s funeral, and she hadn’t changed much—the same smooth, oval face and clear green eyes, but she wasn’t wearing her usual warm smile. He drew his hand back, telling himself he wasn’t embarrassed.
“I’ve come to pick up Katie. Send her out. Please,” he added.
Dorcas seemed to stiffen just a little. “Jacob. How nice to see you after all this time. How are you?”
The determined politeness was an obvious rebuke to his sharpness, and he clenched his jaw.
“I’ll be better once I’ve picked up my niece and headed for home. I assume she’s here.” He didn’t doubt it, or Dorcas wouldn’t be acting this way. “I don’t have time to waste.” He looked over her shoulder, but the kitchen was empty.
“Please, come in.” She stepped back from the door. “Would you like some coffee? Or a glass of lemonade?”
“Nothing. Denke.” He moved inside, taking another look. There was no sign anyone else was there. “I don’t mean to rush you, but Katie is my responsibility.” He had a quick flash of concern. “She is here, isn’t she?”
Dorcas’s expression eased a little, as if his concern pleased her. Well, she should know he was worried. Katie was his niece, after all.
“Sure you won’t have some coffee?” She gestured toward the pot on the stove. “It won’t take a minute.”
“That’s very kind of you, Dorcas, but delaying won’t help anything. The sooner Katie and I are on our way home, the better. She’s started enough talk already.”
Dorcas didn’t look impressed. If anything, she seemed a little amused. “I take it Katie is quite a handful, just like her mother was. Come, let’s have a talk about the problem.”
“I don’t have time.” Didn’t the woman understand that she had nothing to say in the matter? A sound from beyond the kitchen caught his ear. “Is Katie upstairs?”
He took two steps toward the hall that must lead to the stairway. Before he could go any farther, the door was blocked. Three boys stood there like identical stair steps, all blond and blue-eyed.
Fuming, he looked from them to Dorcas. Her boys, obviously. “You can’t keep me away from my own niece.”
He’d meant that to sound authoritative. People usually listened to that tone. But Dorcas’s lips quirked.
“Komm now, Jacob. You can’t really storm upstairs to my bedrooms without my permission, now can you?”
If he spent much more time with this woman, his jaw would tighten into this permanently locked position. What was worse, he had a feeling she was laughing at him. And even worse, that she was right.
He fought with himself for another moment. Then he shrugged heavily. “If you must, go ahead and talk.”
Dorcas’s face relaxed into the smile he remembered, and her clear green eyes seemed to lighten. “Gut.” She picked up the coffeepot again, giving him a questioning look. “Some coffee with the conversation?”
He jerked an impatient nod, yanking out one of the chairs at the kitchen table. Just as he sat down, a scraping noise sounded just above them. It halted him halfway down.
“That sounds like a window.” He glanced toward the ceiling. “If she’s trying to get out, it won’t help.”
“Then I guess we’d best go and see, ain’t so?” Touching his sleeve, Dorcas led him toward the door. A glance at her sons collected them. “You, too.”
Once out the back door, they walked a few feet out into the yard, past a row of bright yellow daffodils and purple hyacinths, before they had a view of the porch roof. Sure enough, Katie was balancing there, looking as if she didn’t know whether to go forward or back.
“Katie.” Jacob forced himself to remain outwardly calm. “Come down at once. Haven’t you caused enough trouble? It’s time to go home.”
Her response was predictable, her pert, lively face screwing into a frown. “I won’t. You can’t make me.”
The car horn blared, shouting the driver’s impatience, and whatever calmness Jacob had had disappeared.
“You’ll do as I say. I’m your uncle, and I’m responsible for you. Come down.”
“I won’t!” She backed away from the edge as if looking for another escape. “I won’t, I won’t!”
“Katie Unger, get down here this minute!” To his dismay he found he was shouting back. He never shouted. He never needed to. There was nothing in his well-ordered life to cause it.
Katie opened her mouth, probably to shout something else, but Dorcas spoke, her voice cutting cool and crisp between them. “Enough of that, both of you. Katie, stop being so foolish. Are you planning to spend your life on the roof?”
He was about to agree with her, but then her gaze cut toward him. “And you, Jacob, should act your age. You know perfectly well that even if you can take her back, you can’t keep her there.”
Jacob stared at her, feeling as if his mouth was hanging open. Then, unable to resist, he chuckled, and he saw her quick smile in response.
After a quick struggle with himself, he nodded. “Yah, all right. I admit it. We’re both being foolish.” He looked up at his stubborn niece. “Come down, please, Katie. Let’s talk about this, yah?”
The stubborn expression faded. She came to the edge of the roof and looked down. And took an abrupt step back, wobbling a bit. “I... I can’t.”
Dorcas let out a sigh and turned to her sons. “Go up and get her.”
They headed for the nearest porch post, and she sighed again, shaking her head. “Not that way. Go up the stairs and help her back in through the window.”
The two older ones hopped down at once. The little one hung on a moment longer before he, too, dropped down and charged after his brothers.
Jacob’s gaze met hers, and his lips twitched. “Now the coffee?”
Dorcas’s laugh seemed to bubble out of her. “I guess so.”
They walked together toward the back door. Well, he’d get back later than he’d intended. He could make some phone calls, be sure everything was going all right.
They rounded the house. The first thing he saw was his duffel bag, sitting at the side of the lane. The second was the car and driver disappearing down the road.
Temper flared. He took a few long strides after the car and realized how futile it was. He turned to Dorcas, ready to blame her, but realized in time how foolish that would sound.
A smile tugged at her mouth, but she didn’t let it loose. “Your driver seems to be impatient.”
Just like you. The words seemed to hang in the air.
He would not get into a shouting match with her the way he had with Katie.
“Yah.” He picked up the bag. They proceeded toward the kitchen where he could hear the boys and Katie, apparently helping themselves to something to eat.
He glanced at Dorcas’s unruffled face. “I hope you have some idea what I’m going to do with Katie now that I’m stuck here.”
“It will work out,” she said serenely. “No need to worry.”
He closed his lips on all the things he was tempted to say and followed her into the house.
One step forward, Dorcas thought. At least she’d gotten them to stop shouting at each other. That might give her a respite to think of something that could help. So far she’d just been trying to stay calm in the midst of the storm between two obviously self-willed people.
She ushered them all to a seat at the table, amused to see that Matthew had grabbed a chair next to his Goldilocks. Her sweet Matty had an open heart as well as a talent for wandering into mischief, but he was always well-intentioned. Just now he was pushing the plate of snickerdoodles toward his new cousin, ignoring the fact that Silas was reaching for it.
Katie was smiling, the dimples in her cheeks so like Mary Ann’s that it gave Dorcas’s heart a little jolt to see them. All the upheaval hadn’t affected the girl’s appetite—she downed three cookies before Timothy had gotten through one, and he was usually her big eater. Pleasant, smiling, chattering to the boys...and pointedly ignoring her uncle.
Jacob was scowling again, looking at the piece of shoofly pie she offered him as if it might be poison. Neither of them were behaving very well, but he was certain sure old enough to know better, to say nothing of being old enough to put on a pleasant front.
He just might be out of practice at that. From what she remembered of Mary Ann’s few letters, he ran his business and his life as if he expected everyone to fall in line, and for the most part, they did.
Get them talking, she told herself. But how?
“Are the Amish schools still open out where you are?” she asked. “Ours will go until the end of May, though the Englisch schools run longer.”
Nobody said anything. She wasn’t sure that Jacob had even heard her, his mind seemed so far away.
“I like getting out in May,” Timothy said, and she gave him a look of thanks. “I’d hate to ride that noisy school bus that Kev takes.”
“Not me. That would be fun.” Matty produced a zooming sound, mimicking a driver steering.
“You’d be scared,” Silas retorted. “Wouldn’t he, Timothy?” Silas, always in the middle, bounced back and forth between siding with one brother and then the other.
“Would not,” Matty said, but he didn’t sound as if he wanted to get into one of their endless rounds of yes you would, no you wouldn’t.
Maybe he hadn’t liked hearing it between Katie and Jacob. She couldn’t help glancing at Jacob. She found him looking at her as if he’d been thinking exactly that, and she flushed.
Don’t be ferhoodled, she told herself. He couldn’t know. He was too busy trying to decide how he’d get his own way.
Jacob seemed to make an effort at a pleasant expression. “Katie...” he began.
“I’m not going back to Cousin Ada,” she said quickly.
“There’s nothing wrong with Ada. She’s a good woman.” His tone was controlled, maybe a little defensive. But his brown eyes had darkened until they were almost black, probably a sign of temper.
“How would you know? You’re never around.” Katie’s voice started to go up, and just like that, Dorcas saw the situation going out of her control.
Before she could say anything, she heard a buggy in the lane. Matty hopped off his chair and headed for the window.
“It’s Onkel James and Aunt Sarry.” He bolted for the door, and Dorcas felt like racing him out...anything to interrupt the tension.
“My brother and sister,” she explained to Jacob. “We’ll have to help bring the grocery order in.”
She glanced at the boys, but they were already on their way, taking Katie with them.
“I thought you were going to help me talk to Katie...” he began, but she gestured toward the door before he could go any further.
“Come out and meet them,” she said. Without waiting, she hustled out, trusting an inspiration was going to strike.
They looked like a swarm of bumblebees around the buggy, which was always the impression when her lively family gathered in one place. Her brother James snatched Matty from a standing position on the buggy seat, tucking him under his arm like a parcel. Sarry, her younger sister, climbed down and then trotted to Dorcas to envelop her in a hug.
“Home,” she announced, grinning. Then she spotted Jacob and headed for him.
Dorcas usually judged people by their first reaction to her sister, who had Down syndrome. Sarry loved everyone, and she didn’t hesitate to show it. Dorcas didn’t have much hope of a good response from Jacob Unger, but to her surprise, he didn’t bat an eye when Sarry hugged him.
“I’m Sarry. Short for Sarah,” she said as always.
“I’m Jacob.” He gave her a real smile, not just a polite one.
Taken aback by the genuineness of that smile, Dorcas blinked. If Jacob could be persuaded to show that side of himself to Katie and maybe even to her, this situation might not be as challenging as she’d thought. But that would make him a very different man than she thought he was.
Still, her task was clear. Whatever it took, here was the one last thing she could do for her dear cousin. It wouldn’t be easy, but somehow she had to make peace between Katie and her Onkel Jacob.
Now Jacob’s smile was gone, and once again he was frowning at her. No, it wouldn’t be easy at all. In fact, it might be impossible.
