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  Christina squeezed Miriam’s hands, her own getting covered in flour as she did so. “Junior is so handsome. He has such blue eyes, too.”

  Miriam nodded. Though her eyes were also blue, they certainly weren’t the bright blue shade his were. “I know.”

  “And his hair is so blond.”

  “I know.” She’d always thought his blond hair was attractive. Much better than her mousy brown.

  “I’m not sure who he is,” Ruth admitted. “Maybe I should go out to the dining room and get a good look at him.”

  “Nee!” Miriam protested. “If you go out there you’ll stare at him. I know it.”

  “I’m not that bad.”

  “Yes, you are,” Marla said.

  Still so happy to share her news, Miriam almost squealed. “I could scarcely believe it when he motioned me over to his table. I thought he only wanted kaffi . . . but he wanted to chat with me!”

  “I’m so happy for you,” Marla said. “You’ve got such a good heart. I’m glad Junior has finally taken notice of you.”

  “Me, too,” Miriam whispered to herself. Now that her big news had been shared, the four of them went back to work, Miriam still feeling like she was on cloud nine.

  Then the kitchen doors opened and Jana glared at them all. “I could hear your laughter from the dining room! Just because Valerie is here to wait tables, it doesn’t mean you all can do nothing in here.”

  Before any of them had a chance to point out that they’d been working, Jana snapped, “Whose turn is it to clear tables?”

  Miriam raised her hand. “Mine, I’m afraid. I’m sorry. I’ll go right out and do that.”

  “Honestly, Miriam, I don’t pay you to come in late and stand around the kitchen chatting. I suggest you get yourself together before you lose this job.”

  Stung, Miriam rushed out to the dining room and hastily started clearing the tables.

  Normally, the harsh words from her boss would have rattled her more. But today, nothing could spoil her good mood.

  She hoped the day would fly by, since she was certain that the evening was going to be special.

  At last, her life was going to change. She was sure of it.

  chapter three

  The doctor glanced at Judith in obvious sympathy. “I truly am sorry to have to give you this news, Judith. Though the tests we ran do indicate that your body has recovered from the miscarriage, I cannot in good conscience recommend that you attempt another pregnancy. It would be too dangerous for you. And, I’m sorry to say, your chances of carrying a baby full term are slim.”

  Judith Knox’s heart felt like it had broken into a million pieces. Reaching out, she gripped her husband’s hand as hard as she could.

  Perhaps if she never let Ben go, she could make it through the next few minutes without completely falling apart.

  Ben tensed. “But Judith is all right? I mean, she is going to be all right?”

  Dr. Wallace nodded. “Yes, Mr. Knox. Your wife will be just fine, once she recovers completely.”

  Around a ragged sigh, Ben whispered, “Danke, Got.”

  Judith knew her husband was grateful, and that his prayer was a good one. She was glad that her body was healing like it should.

  But that didn’t change the truth, the only truth that Judith could hear right now. Forcing herself to meet the kind English doctor’s gaze, Judith murmured, “So, it’s over.”

  “There are other ways to have a family, Judith,” the doctor said kindly. “When you’re ready, we can talk about that.”

  “That’s not what I want.” Looking down at her light gray dress and apron, she squeezed her eyes shut and prayed for strength. She felt so shaky and uneasy she wasn’t sure she was even going to be able to continue the conversation without dissolving into tears. Once she regained her balance, she murmured, “Dr. Wallace, please forgive me. I don’t mean to make things harder for you.”

  “There’s no need for you to apologize. I understand. This is a difficult time.”

  Ben gently wrapped his free arm around her, holding her in the most comforting of embraces. “Doktah, are you sure about this? I’m no doctor, but it seems to me that many women are still able to have babies after a miscarriage.”

  “That is true, Ben, but Judith has an unusual situation.” In the blink of an eye, Dr. Wallace once again started spouting scientific data and percentages. Enzymes and something about scar tissue, too.

  It was much of the same information the doctor had just said a few minutes before, but even the second time, it was just as confusing and difficult to hear.

  Judith let the words flow over her, barely listening to the doctor’s answers to Ben’s carefully thought-out questions.

  All she really cared about was the doctor’s conclusion—that she would never have a baby of her own. As the eldest girl of seven children, she’d been anticipating motherhood all her life. Now she was going to have to let that dream fade away.

  And worse, she was unable to give Ben the perfect family he’d always longed for. A chance for him to be the father his father never was.

  Her body had failed them both.

  At long last, Dr. Wallace walked to the examining room door. “I am very sorry, Judith. I cannot tell you how much I wish I had different news to tell you.” Pausing with her hand on the door handle, she added, “I believe God has a reason for everything. Perhaps one day we’ll know why He made this decision.”

  When they were alone in the room, Ben quietly got to his feet, crossed the room and plucked a pair of tissues from the box next to the sink. After handing them to her, he held out his hand. “Let’s go home, Judith. You’ll feel better once we’re back in Sugarcreek.”

  She wiped her eyes and followed him out the door. She kept her composure as best she could, while he paid the receptionist, then guided her down the quiet hall.

  When their English driver arrived, she allowed Ben to help her into the back of the van. She looked out the window while he told the driver that they’d changed their minds about going out to lunch. That it would be best to simply return to Sugarcreek.

  When they got to their home, the two-story house that Ben had grown up in but was now theirs, Judith attempted to smile politely while the driver chatted about the weather and the opening of the new ice cream parlor next to the library.

  Once inside, she did her best to pretend that she wasn’t devastated. She knelt down and patted their two cats and let the dog outside. She opened the refrigerator, pretending that she actually cared what she was going to make for lunch.

  But before she could pull out the fixings for chicken and dumplings, Ben pulled her into his arms. “Leave it,” he said. “Come here and let me hold you.”

  “Oh, Ben.” Then, at last, the dam burst. Her tears flowed, and she let herself cry.

  After a bit, he guided her to their couch, the one they’d inherited from her parents, which had more than a few lumps. Pulling her close, she rested her cheek on his chest.

  And then, to her shame, she cried some more.

  “It’s going to be all right, Judith,” he murmured as she cried and cried. “We’ll get through this, I promise we will.”

  “It’s not going to ever be all right.” Pushing herself backward, she scooted a little away, far enough away so that she could see his face while she whispered what was in her heart. “Oh, Ben. I am so sorry. I’ve failed you.”

  Those hazel eyes she’d always loved blinked in confusion. Then he shook his head as he gently wiped her damp cheeks with yet another tissue. “Never that. You make me happy, Judith. Always.”

  “But I know you wanted a baby.”

  “Stop apologizing. All I care about is you. Jah, I did want a boppli. But when you miscarried? All I worried about was you. After loving you most of my life, finally you are my wife. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

  “I am going to be fine.”

  “And I am mighty glad for that. Judith, your happiness is all I care about right now.
If I had lost you? Why, I would have been lost myself. . . . ”

  Two weeks ago, when she’d started bleeding it had been terrible. And losing their baby had been the worst of situations. But through it all, she’d held tight the knowledge that one day they would hold a baby of their own. She knew several women who had suffered miscarriages but had eventually had perfectly healthy babies.

  But now that dream was gone.

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do now,” she whispered.

  “We don’t need to decide anything right now. All we need to do is rest for a bit.”

  Decide? There wasn’t anything to decide. The decision had been made. What Ben didn’t understand was how this changed everything.

  With a shaky voice, she finally admitted the awful truth. “Ben, all my life I’ve wanted children. I’ve wanted to be a mother.”

  “I know.”

  Lowering her voice she finally found the courage to whisper, “I truly have no idea what is going to become of me if I’m not a mother.”

  “You’ll be my frau. My partner. All I’ve ever wanted was for you to be mine.”

  His words were wonderful, and she knew he meant every word. And, of course, she loved him, too. But that didn’t stop the ache she felt. “What if that’s not enough for me? What am I going to do then?”

  He stared at her in shock, tears filling his eyes as he slowly comprehended just how lost she was. “We’ll just have to make sure it is,” he stated.

  “But—”

  His voice hardened. “Judith Knox, you listen to me. You need to put these doubts away. For now, I’ll do the thinking for both of us.” When she tried to draw farther away, he pulled her closer and wrapped his arms around her back.

  “I will do the thinking,” he repeated, his voice hoarse with emotion. “I will do the thinking and the worrying and the planning. All you have to do is rest and lean on me.”

  “For how long?”

  “For as long as it takes for you to feel better,” he said fiercely. “That’s how long.”

  Because he needed her to, she leaned against him and closed her eyes. She rested her head against his firm, solid chest and attempted to breathe slowly and evenly.

  After a minute, as if he realized that she wasn’t going to leave their embrace, his hands gentled. He sighed and pressed his lips to the top of her head. Little by little, she felt his muscles relax.

  Because she knew him so well, she knew he was hoping things were better now. That she was going to follow his advice and lean on him. That one day soon she’d be back to her regular self.

  She dreaded the moment when he realized that wasn’t going to happen.

  chapter four

  Albert Beiler had been called Junior all of his life. He’d been called Junior for so long, he’d even stopped wondering where the nickname came from. He wasn’t named after his father, so he wasn’t a “junior” anything.

  At least, not that he could figure out.

  He was the eldest boy in a family of eight children. He was child number two, stuck in between Claire and Beverly. After Beverly, there was a two-year gap, then came Micah, Randall, Neil, and Levi. Eight years younger than Levi was little Kaylene.

  Kaylene was his parents’ surprise, and her eldest brother’s heart. Actually, she was most everyone’s favorite, and it was no secret why.

  After Kaylene’s birth, their mother had never really recovered. She’d refused to go to the doctor, refused to accept her weakness postdelivery. Then, one sunny day in July, she’d collapsed.

  She’d passed away soon after at the hospital.

  Then, when Kaylene was just four years old, their father had died from a heart attack, forcing Junior to become the man of the house.

  That was four years ago.

  Now, he and Claire and Beverly had become something of a triumvirate. Together, the three of them did their best to guide their brothers and raise their sister.

  Luckily, all of the boys were now out of school and doing various jobs . . . enabling Junior to not feel the complete burden of providing for the family.

  He’d always thought the Lord had provided little Kaylene with her own set of guardian angels. There was really no other reason that he could think for her to be so well-adjusted.

  Though a little shy, she was a sweet child, and seemed to lean on each of them in different ways.

  But it was generally agreed that she depended on him the most.

  He’d never minded that.

  If he was around, Junior made sure Kaylene never had to wait too long to be noticed. He’d taken it upon himself to look out for her. To make sure she got her hugs and ate her supper. He made sure she’d gotten a kitten to cuddle at night since she had a room all to herself.

  And that she always knew he was on her side. No matter what.

  Which was maybe why it was she who rushed out to see him the moment he’d finished putting Princess—the somewhat homely horse with the fancy name Kaylene had given her—in her stable. If Kaylene knew anything, it was that her eldest brother always had time to spare for her.

  “Hiya, Kay,” he said as he picked up the currycomb. Pushing aside his thread of worry about his upcoming visit to Miriam, he smiled at his littlest sister. “How are you today?”

  “Gut.” Walking closer, she raised her hand to give Princess a gentle rub on her muzzle. “Where have you been?”

  “I had some things to take care of in town.”

  “I didn’t know you were going into Sugarcreek.”

  “That’s because you have more important things to think about.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like school.” Taking a deep breath, he braced himself to ask her least favorite question. “So, how was shool today?”

  As was her habit, she started twirling one of the ties from her kapp around a finger. “I don’t know.”

  He glanced her way as he carefully worked on Princess’s coat. The mare enjoyed the attention, tossing her head a bit as he gently combed her mane.

  And still Junior waited. His sister had something on her mind, and she was obviously biding her time until she said her piece.

  Giving her a prod, he asked, “What have you been doing since you got home this afternoon?”

  “My chores.”

  “Did you get them done?”

  “Uh-huh.” After releasing the tie, she kicked at the dirt under her foot.

  He moved around to Princess’s other side and started brushing her coat in earnest. “I know sweeping the front porch didn’t take too long. What else have you been doing?”

  She wrinkled her nose. “My homework.”

  “And what is your homework?”

  “Reading.”

  The word was uttered with such disdain that Junior was tempted to grin. At last, he’d discovered what had made her so upset. “And how is that going?”

  After a moment’s pause, she looked at her feet. “You know, Junior.”

  She was right, he did know.

  “Come on. Let’s go sit down.” After giving the mare one last friendly pat, he guided Kaylene to a bench next to the back door of the barn. He liked sitting out there because it was out of the line of vision of the house. One could sit there for a few minutes without being detected—which was no small thing in a house of eight.

  With a sigh, his little sister scrambled up beside him and tried to look very brave.

  Which melted his heart, of course. “Reading ain’t getting any easier for you?”

  After a pause, she shook her head. “We have to count the pages we’ve read and write them in a notebook. And then we have to write a sentence about what we read.”

  “That doesn’t sound too hard.”

  Lowering her voice, she said, “Junior, I have the smallest amount of pages in the whole class. Everyone knows it, too.”

  Kicking his feet out, he tried to think of the best way to approach her problem. On one hand, he was proud of her honesty. Any one of her older brothers would have s
imply fibbed about the number of pages read.

  And if she had done that, it would have certainly spared her the embarrassment. But of course that wasn’t the problem. Her problem was that she’d always struggled with reading.

  “Have you talked to Beverly or Claire about this?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Hope filled him. “And? What did they say?”

  Kaylene averted her eyes. “That I need to try harder.”

  “Ah.” He was a bit surprised, though he shouldn’t be. Claire and Beverly had always excelled in school and had never been known for their patience. They were wonderful women, and looked out for the rest of their siblings like formidable mother hens.

  But neither was the type to coddle Kaylene or her older brothers about school. Beverly and Claire, like him, had a fairly vivid memory of their parents. Though they’d been very kind and had enjoyed spending time with their children, neither had been especially cuddly people. They’d had high standards for the Beiler children and little patience for excuses.

  And that had probably been a good thing, especially for his four younger brothers, who were a handful even on the best of days. But with sweet Kaylene? He tended to think that was the wrong approach.

  She was different from the rest of them. She was a lot more hesitant. Needed a lot more hugs and gentle words.

  And with school, she needed lots of reassurance; otherwise her doubts and worries got the best of her.

  Though most of his friends growing up would have been surprised, Junior was the one in the household who had a seemingly endless supply of patience with the littlest member of their family.

  “Kay, what do you think we should do?”

  “I got to learn to read better, Junior.”

  “Your teacher can’t help?”

  After another pause, she shook her head. “Miss Mary Kate says I’m just slow.”

  “She said that?”

  “Uh-huh. She said even though I do things a little later than most, she thinks one day I’m gonna be just as smart as the rest of you. That is, if I try real hard.”

  Inwardly, Junior winced. He was surprised Mary Kate would say something like that. Though he was just getting to know her, he would have thought a teacher would be a bit more understanding about one of her students’ reading problems. Or at least a little more tactful. “What do you think about what she said?”