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How could a woman alone with four children possibly manage such a farm? How could she care for her family? Why had Silas brought his young bride here? Fixing up this place would have been a huge undertaking for a healthy man, not to mention one who’d suffered from a chronic disease since he was born.
The wind shifted and the intermittent rain dampened Luke’s trousers and wet his face. He pulled the brim of his hat low to shield his eyes as the mule plodded on up the drive, laying her ears back against the rain and splashing through the puddles. As the buggy neared the farmhouse, Luke noticed missing shingles on the roof and a broken window on the second floor. His chest tightened and he felt an overwhelming need to do whatever he could to help Honor, regardless of how she received him.
As they passed between the gateposts that marked the entrance to the farmyard, Luke could hear the rusty mechanism of the windmill creak and grind. The gate, or what remained of it, sagged, one end on the ground and overgrown with weeds and what looked like poison ivy.
“If I’d known things were this bad here, I would have asked Caleb to organize a work frolic to clean this place up,” Sara observed. “Caleb’s our young preacher, married one of the Yoder girls. You know Hannah Yoder? Her daughters are all married now, have families of their own.”
“Knew Jonas Yoder well. He was good to me when I was growing up.”
“Jonas was like that,” Sara mused. “Hannah and I are cousins.”
Luke continued to study the farm. “You’ve never been here before?”
“Ne, I haven’t. She’s been to my place, though. I’d heard Honor doesn’t have church services here, but I always assumed it was due to Silas’s illness and then her struggle to carry on without him.”
Luke didn’t know how long Honor’s husband had been sick before he’d been carried off by a bout of pneumonia, but either he’d been sick a long time or he hadn’t attended to his duties. The state of things on this farm was a disgrace.
A child’s shriek caught his attention, and he glanced at the barn where a hayloft door hung open. Suddenly, a squirming bundle of energy cannonballed out of the loft, landed on a hay wagon heaped with wet straw and then vaulted off to land with a squeal of laughter in a mud puddle. Water splashed, ducks and chickens flew, squawking and quacking, in every direction, and a miniature donkey shied away from the building and added a shrill braying to the uproar.
The small figure climbed out of the puddle and shouted to someone in the loft. Luke thought the muddy creature must be a boy, because he was wearing trousers and a shirt, but couldn’t make out his face or the color of his hair because it was covered in mud.
“What are you doing?” Sara called to the child. “Does your mother know—”
She didn’t get to finish her sentence because a second squealing child leaped from the loft opening. He hit the heap of straw in the wagon and landed in the puddle with a satisfying splash and an even louder protest from the donkey. This child was shirtless and wearing only one shoe. When a third child appeared in the loft, this one the smallest of the three, Luke managed to leap out of the buggy and get to the wagon in time to catch him in midair.
This little one, in a baby’s gown, was bareheaded, with clumps of bright red-orange hair standing up like the bristles on a horse’s mane and oversize boots on the wrong feet. The rescued toddler began to wail. With a yell, the shirtless boy launched himself at Luke, fists and feet flying, and bit his knee.
“Let go of him!” the leader of the pack screamed in Deitsch. “Mam! A man is taking Elijah!”
Luke deposited Elijah safely on the ground. “Stop that!” he ordered in Deitsch, lifting his attacker into the air and tucking him under one arm.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
Luke turned toward the back porch. A young woman appeared, a crying baby in her arms, wet hair hanging loose around her shoulders. “Let go of my son this minute!”
For a moment Luke stood there, stunned, the boy still flailing against his arm. Luke had been expecting to see a changed Honor, one weighed down by the grief of widowhood and aged by the birth of four children in six years, but he hadn’t been prepared for this bold beauty. He opened his mouth to answer, but as he did, a handful of mud struck him in the cheek.
“Put Justice down!” the biggest boy shouted as he scooped up a handful of mud and threw it at Luke. “You let my brother go!”
The little one did the same.
Luke spit mud and tried to wipe the muck out of his eyes, only succeeding in making it worse.
Sara, now out of the buggy, clapped her hands. “Kinner! Stop this at once! Inside with you. You’ll catch your deaths of ague.” She reached out for Justice, and Luke gladly handed him, still kicking and screaming, over to her.
Honor came down the steps, carefully stepping over a hole where a board was missing. “Sara? I didn’t realize—” She broke off. “You?” she said to Luke, raising her voice. “You dare to come here?”
He sucked in a deep breath. “Goot mariye, Honor. I know you weren’t expecting me, but—”
“But nothing,” Honor flung back. Red-haired Elijah’s cry became a shriek, and a dog ran out of the house and began to bark. Honor raised her voice further to be heard over the noise. “What are doing here, Luke?”
“Calm down,” he soothed, raising both hands, palms up, in an attempt to dampen the fire of her temper. “Hear me out, before—”
“There will be no hearing you out,” she said, interrupting him again. “You’re not welcome here, Luke Weaver.”
“Now, Honor—”
“Why did you bring him here, Sara?” Honor demanded.
To add to the confusion, the rainfall suddenly became a downpour. Sara looked up at the dark sky and then at Honor. “If you’ve any charity, I think we’d best get under your roof before we all drown,” she said.
Honor grimaced and reached out for the child struggling in Sara’s arms. “Could you grab Elijah?” she asked the matchmaker. “Stop that, Justice,” she said, balancing her middle child on one hip and the baby against her shoulder. “Why are you half-dressed? Where’s Greta? And where’s your coat?” She glanced up. “Ya, come in, all of you. Elijah! Tanner!” She rolled her eyes. “You, too, Luke. Although it would serve you right if I did leave you out here to drown.”
Chapter Two
Honor set Justice down on the top step and herded him and the other two boys into the narrow passageway that served as a place to hang coats, wash clothing and store buckets, kindling and fifty other items she didn’t want in her kitchen. “Watch your step,” she warned Sara. “The cat had kittens, and they’re constantly underfoot.”
Her late husband had disliked cats in the house. The thought that this was her house and she could do as she pleased now, in spite of what he thought, gave her a small gratification in the midst of the constant turmoil. “Tanner? Where’s Greta?” She glanced back at Sara who was setting Elijah on his feet. “Greta’s Silas’s niece. She helps me with the children and the housework.” She raised her free hand in a hopeless gesture. “She was supposed to be checking on the sheep. She must have taken the little ones outside with her.”
Kittens, sheep, Greta and the condition of her kitchen were easier for Honor to think about than Luke Weaver. She couldn’t focus on him right now. Barely could imagine him back in Kent County, let alone in her house. What had possessed Sara to bring him here?
Queasiness coiled in the pit of Honor’s stomach and made her throat tighten. It had taken her years to put Luke in her past...to try to forget him. And how many hours had she prayed to forgive him? That was still a work in progress. But she wouldn’t let him upset her life. Not now. Not ever again. And yet, here he was in her home. God, give me the strength, she pleaded silently.
Confusion reigned in the damp laundry room where the ceiling sagged and the single window was cracked and leaked air around the rotting frame. Her baby daughter, Anke, began to wail again, and Justice was whining.
“Inside,” Honor ordered, pointing. “You’ll have to forgive the state of the house,” she said over her shoulder to Sara. She chose to ignore Luke as she led the way into the kitchen. “The roof has a leak. Leaks.” Her cheeks burned with embarrassment. Water dripped from the ceiling into an assortment of buckets and containers. Not that she had to tell Sara that the roof leaked. She could see it for herself. She could hear the cascade of falling drops.
Honor gazed around the kitchen, seeing it as her visitors must, a high-ceilinged room with exposed beams overhead, a bricked-up fireplace and cupboards with sagging doors. She’d painted the room a pale lemon yellow, polished the windowpanes until they shone and done her best with the patchy, cracked linoleum floor, but it was plain that soap and elbow grease did little against forty years of neglect. What must Sara think of her? As for Luke, she told herself that she didn’t care what he thought.
But she did.
“Tanner,” Honor said brusquely. “Take your brothers to the bathroom. Greta will give you all a bath and clean clothes. As soon as I find her,” she added. “But you’ve not heard the end of this,” she warned, shaking a finger. It was an empty threat. She knew it and the children did, too, but it seemed like something a mother should say. She put the baby into her play yard and looked around. Where was that girl? Greta, sixteen, was not nearly as much help as Honor had hoped she would be when she’d agreed to have the girl come live with her. Sometimes, Honor felt as if Greta was just another child to tend to. “Tanner, where is Greta?”
Tanner flushed and suddenly took a great interest in a tear in the linoleum between his feet.
Justice piped up. “Feed room.”
Tanner lifted his head to glare at his brother.
“What did you say?” Honor asked.
“Feed room.” Justice clapped his hands over his mouth and giggled.
“What’s she doing in the feed room?” Honor frowned, fearing the answer as she spoke.
Justice shrugged. “Can’t get out.” He cast a knowing look at his older brother, Tanner, whose face was growing redder by the second.
Honor brought the heel of her hand to her forehead. “Did you lock her in again?”
Tanner’s blue eyes widened as he pointed at Elijah. “Not me. He did it.”
“And you let him? Shame on you. You’re the big boy. You’re supposed to—”
“Wait, someone’s locked in the feed room?” Luke interrupted, using his handkerchief to wipe the splatters of mud off his face.
“Tanner, you go this minute and let Greta out,” Honor ordered, still ignoring the fact that Luke, her Luke, was standing in her kitchen. “And the three of you are in big trouble. There will be no apple pie for any of you tonight.”
“I’ll go,” Luke offered, shoving his handkerchief into the pants he’d borrowed from Sara’s hired hand. “Where’s the feed room?”
“Barn,” Tanner supplied.
“The’th in the barn,” Elijah lisped.
Luke turned back toward the outer door.
Honor watched him go. The way it was pouring rain, he’d get soaked. She didn’t care. She turned back to her boys. “Upstairs!” she said. “Go find dry clothes. Now. I’ll send Greta up to run your bath. And you haven’t heard the last of this. I promise you that.”
They ran.
Honor exhaled and glanced at Sara. “I’m not as terrible a mother as I must seem. I was changing Anke’s diaper. I thought Elijah was in his bed napping and the other two playing upstairs. Fully dressed. They were dressed the last time I saw them.” She pressed her hand to her forehead again. “Really, they were.”
Sara looked around the kitchen. She didn’t have to say anything. Honor wanted to sink through the floor. Not that her kitchen was dirty. It wasn’t, except that she’d been making bread. Who wouldn’t scatter a little flour on the counter or floor? There were no dirty dishes in the sink, no sour diaper smell, and if her boys looked like muddy scarecrows, at least the baby was clean and neat. But the buckets all over the room...
“I hired someone to fix the roof and make the repairs to the house,” Honor explained. “But—” She gave a wave. “It’s a long story, but basically, it won’t be happening anytime soon.”
“I know,” Sara supplied. “I heard. Robert Swartzentruber fell off a ladder and broke his ankle. A pity.”
“Ya, a pity. Poor man. I’ve been looking for a replacement, but—” she opened her arms “—I’ve been a little busy.”
“Which is exactly why I brought Luke Weaver,” Sara said smoothly.
Honor studied her. Did Sara know about her and Luke? She must know. But it had all happened before Sara came to Seven Poplars. Maybe she didn’t know. “Why him?” she asked.
“He’s a master carpenter. And he’s new to town and looking for work.”
“I’m sorry. No, that’s not possible.” Honor picked up a small tree branch, brought in by one of her boys, and tossed it in the trash can. She checked her tone before she spoke again, because she’d been accused more than once of speaking too sharply to people. Of having too strong an opinion. “Luke Weaver is not working on my house,” she declared. “I don’t want him here. He’s the last carpenter I’d—”
“Honor.” Sara cut her off. “Think of your children. If you have a leak in the kitchen, you must have them elsewhere in the house. And your back step is broken. And you’ve got a cracked windowpane in your laundry room and another on the second floor. And the bad winter weather hasn’t even set in on us.”
“Half the house is broken,” Honor answered honestly. Her late husband had bought the farm without her ever seeing the place. He’d promised to fix it up, but he hadn’t kept many promises. And now she was left to deal with it.
“Don’t let pride or an old disagreement keep you from doing what’s best for your children,” Sara cautioned.
So she knew something. The question was, what had he told her? “Just not him,” Honor repeated. “Anyone else. I can pay. I don’t need...” It was difficult to keep from raising her voice. Sara didn’t understand. Couldn’t understand. Honor didn’t need Luke. Couldn’t have him here. Why would he ever believe she would let him walk in and then hire him?
“I’m not asking you to marry him,” Sara said with an amused look. “I know you have a history—”
“A history?” Honor flared, feeling her cheeks grow warm. “Is that what he told you?”
“The details aren’t my business.” Sara’s face softened. “Honor, I know how difficult it can be for a widow alone. I’ve been there. But you have to make choices that are in your best interest. And those of your children. If Luke’s willing to make the repairs you need and you pay a fair wage, you’re not obligated to him. He’s an employee, nothing more. He could do the job and then move on. And you and your children would be much better off.”
Honor shook her head. The insides of her eyelids stung and she could feel the emotions building up inside her, but she wouldn’t cry. There was no way Luke would make her cry again. “He didn’t tell you what he did to me, did he?”
“He wanted to, but I wouldn’t hear of it,” Sara said. “As I said, I don’t need to know. What I do know is that he seems to be a good man.”
“I believed that, too. Once, a long time ago.” Honor gripped the back of a chair. “But then he walked out on me nine years ago.” Against her will, tears filled her eyes. “The morning we were to be married.”
* * *
As soon as Luke walked into the barn, he could tell where the feed room was by the muffled shouts and thuds. He found his way past a dappled gray horse, a placid Jersey cow, stray hens and a pen of sheep to a door with a wooden bar across it. He swung the bar up, and the door burst open. Out spilled a slight, sandy-haired, teenage girl with tear-streaked cheeks.
“They locked me in again!” she declared. She seemed about to elaborate on her plight when she suddenly saw him and stopped short in her tracks, eyes wide. “Atch!” she cried and clapped a hand over her mouth.
“I’m Luke,” he said. “Honor sent me to let you out.” That wasn’t exactly true, but close enough without going into a detailed explanation. “Are you all right?”
“They are bad children! Bad!” she flung back without answering his question. “And that oldest is the worst. Every day, they lock me in the feed room.” She thrust out her lower lip, sniffed and began to weep again. “I want to go home.”
“Don’t cry,” Luke said. “You say they lock you in the feed room every day? So why...why did you give them the opportunity to lock you in? Again and again?”
“Aagschmiert. Tricked. I was tricked.” She wiped her nose with the back of the sleeve of her oversize barn coat. “And it’s dark in there. I hate the dark.”
“Ya.” Luke nodded. “I’m not overly fond of it myself. At least I wouldn’t be if someone locked me in.” He reached out and removed a large spiderweb from the girl’s headscarf.
She shuddered when she saw it. “Wildheet,” she insisted. “Wild, bad kinner.” She pointed at a chicken. “See? They let the chickens out of their pen, too. And yesterday it was the cow. Everything, they let loose. Me, they lock in.”
Luke pressed his lips tightly together and tried not to laugh. “As I said, I’m Luke. I came to make repairs to the house. And who are you?”
“Greta. Silas’s niece. From Ohio.” Another tear rolled down her cheek. “But going home, I think. Soon.”
“Well, Greta from Ohio, best we get back in the house before they send someone else out in the rain to see if I’m locked up somewhere, too.”
Still muttering under her breath about bad children, Greta led the way through the cluttered barn and, hunching her back against the downpour, made a dash for the house.
They went inside, leaving their wet coats and his hat hanging on hooks in the laundry room, and made a beeline for the woodstove in the kitchen. Greta’s teeth were chattering. Luke had the shivers, but he clamped his teeth together and refused to give in to the chill. He put his hands out to the radiating heat, grateful for the semidry kitchen, and glanced sideways at Honor.
In the time since he’d gone to the barn and returned, she’d twisted up her hair and covered it with a woolen scarf. Her plain blue dress had seen better days and her apron was streaked with flour and mud. Her black wool stockings were faded; her slender feet were laced into high black leather shoes. Honor had always been a small woman, and now she was even more slender and more graceful. Life and motherhood had pared away the girlish roundness of her face, leaving her stunning to his eye, more beautiful than he’d dreamed.
“Again?” she said to the girl. “You let them lock you in again?”
Greta began to sniffle.
“None of that,” Honor said, not unkindly. “Go change into dry things and then find the boys. They need a bath and clean clothes.”
“The wash is still damp,” Greta protested. “I hung it in the attic like you said, but it’s still wet.”
“Then bathe them and put them into their nightshirts. I won’t have them running around the house in those muddy clothes.”
“They won’t listen to me,” Greta muttered. “Justice won’t get in the tub and the little one will run off as soon as I turn my back to him.”
“Never you mind, child,” Sara said. “I’ll come along and lend a hand. I’ve bathed my share of unwilling kinner. And, I promise you, they won’t get the best of me.” She fixed Luke with a determined gaze. “Honor and Luke have some matters to discuss in private, anyway. Don’t you?”
He nodded, feeling a little intimidated by Sara. She reminded him of his late mother.
“I wrote to you,” he said when they were alone, as he held out his cold fingers to the warm woodstove. “I wrote every month since I heard that...that your husband passed. You refused my letters and they were returned.” He searched her face, looking for some hint that she still cared for him...that she could forgive him. “I apologized for—”
“I didn’t want to hear what you had to say then or now,” she answered brusquely.
He exhaled. “Honor, I was wrong. I regret what I did, but I can’t change the past.” Only a few feet separated them. He wanted to go to her, to clasp her hands in his. But he didn’t; he stood where he was. “I’m sorry, Honor. What more can I say?”
“That you’ll go back to Kansas and leave me in peace.”
“I can’t do that.” He gestured to the nearest leak in the ceiling. “You need help. And I’m here to do whatever you need. I’m a good carpenter. I can fix whatever’s broken.”
“Can you?” she asked softly.
And, for just a second, he saw moisture gleam in her large blue eyes. Emotion pricked the back of his throat. They weren’t talking about the house anymore. They were talking about their hearts.
“I can try,” he said softly.
She shook her head. “It’s over, Luke. Whatever we had, whatever I felt for you, it’s gone.”
He stared at the floor. Despite her words, he still felt a connection to Honor. And he had a sense that what she was saying wasn’t necessarily how she felt. So he took a leap of faith. He lifted his head to look into her eyes. “I’ll be here first thing tomorrow morning with my tools. I know you hate me, but—”
“I don’t hate you, Luke.”
“Good, then we’ve a place to start. As I said, I’ll be here early in the morning to start patching your roof.”
“Patching won’t do,” she said, looking up and gesturing. “Look at this. The whole thing needs replacing.”
“We’ll see. If it can’t be patched, I’ll find a crew and we’ll put on a new roof.”
She faced him squarely, arms folded, chin up. “I want no favors from you.”
“Then you’ll have none. You can pay me whatever the going hourly wage is. I’ll start in this kitchen and go from there. I’ll mend whatever needs doing.”
She pursed her lips, lips he’d once kissed and wanted desperately to kiss again. “You will, will you? And what if I lock the door on you?”
“You won’t.”
Darker blue clouds swirled in the depths of her beautiful eyes. “And what makes you so certain of that?”
“Because you’ll think better of it. You didn’t expect to see me here, and you’re still angry. I get that. But you always had good sense, Honor. When you consider what’s best for you and your children, you’ll decide I’m the lesser of two evils.”
“Which is?”
“Putting up with me doing your repairs is better than living with a leaky roof and a fallen windmill.” He smiled at her. “And you will agree to let me do it. Because turning me away isn’t smart, and you’ve always been the smartest woman I’ve ever known.”
Chapter Three
Honor pulled back the curtain and peered out the kitchen window. Maybe he won’t come, she told herself. By this morning, he’s realized he doesn’t belong here. He’ll give up and go back to Kansas. Go somewhere. She certainly didn’t want him here in Kent County. She didn’t want to take the chance of running into him at Byler’s Store or on the street in Dover. Luke Weaver was out of her life, and there was no way that she would ever let him back in again. She couldn’t.
“Mam!” Elijah wailed. “My turn. My turn!”
“It’s not!” Justice countered. “He went first. I want to feed the lamb. I want to feed—” with each word, her middle son’s voice grew louder until he was shouting “—the lamb!”
“You already did. He did,” Tanner said. “Besides, he’s too little. They’re both too little. It’s my job to—”
“Please stop,” Honor admonished as she turned away from the window, letting the curtain fall. It was foolish to keep looking for Luke. He wasn’t coming. She didn’t want him to come. She didn’t know why was she looking for him. “I warned the three of you about fighting over the bottle.” She crossed the kitchen and took the bottle out of Tanner’s hands. “If you can’t get along, none of you get to feed her. Go and wash your hands. With soap.”
The children scattered. The lamb bleated and wagged her stub of a tail. The old wooden playpen that had once confined her oldest son had been pressed into service as a temporary pen for the orphan lamb that had been silly enough to come into the world the previous night. It wasn’t really an orphan, but the mother had refused to let it nurse, so it was either tend to it or see it die.