John waited. Grace stared down at her hands...small hands, unpolished, but strong and graceful. Like she was, he thought. He loved Grace’s hands...wanted to take them in his and hold them and never let go.
Silence stretched between them. “That’s it?” he finally asked. “You weren’t married when Dakota was born? That’s what’s making you so unhappy?”
Her answer came in a small voice, the tones almost childlike. “You know what that makes my son?” She looked him in the eyes. “What people will call him if they know?”
“Mean-spirited people. But they won’t say it around me or Hannah or your sisters, I can promise you that.” He reached for her hand, but she shrank away, hunching against the door, clutching his coat around her. Her shoulders trembled. Was she crying? The instinct to protect her that he’d felt when they’d first met rushed back, a hundred times stronger. She was so young to have faced so many obstacles so bravely. But she wasn’t alone anymore, not if he could help it.
“Grace, look at me.”
She pressed her face against the glass. “I haven’t told anyone. Even Hannah doesn’t know.” A small sob shook her. “When I tell her, I’ll probably have to leave.”
“That’s crazy. Do you think that your family would turn against you for a mistake? That I would?”
Her breath fogged the window and she rubbed at it with a slender fingertip. “Because I lied...because I let everyone believe that I was a widow.”
“Dakota’s father abandoned the two of you?”
“No.” Her breath caught in her throat with a small sound. “He was a bull rider. He was killed in a rodeo accident.”
John couldn’t help feeling a little relieved that Grace hadn’t lied about her husband passing away, that she didn’t have an old love who could come back into her life to claim her and Dakota. He tried to tell himself that it was despicable to feel that for the passing of another human being, but all he could think of was that Grace and Dakota—his Grace and Dakota were free.
Hope replaced uncertainty as his heartbeat quickened. No matter what it took, he’d convince her that she wasn’t meant to be Amish. She liked riding in his truck and listening to the radio. She was friendly and outgoing with the people who came to the office, and she had a special way with animals. And no matter how hard she tried to convince him otherwise, he knew that she desperately wanted to further her education for her future and that of her son.
“Broncs, too.”
John snapped out of his thoughts. Grace was speaking to him. Had he been thinking of her so intensely that he’d missed something important? “Excuse me,” he said. “Broncs?”
“Bucking broncos. Rodeo horses. He rode them.” She half turned. Her voice was little more than a whisper, but huskier than a little girl’s. It resonated under his skin. “As I told you, Joe Eagle, Dakota’s father, was Native American.”
“Dakota’s a beautiful child, and his heritage is something to be proud of.”
“He looks different than his cousins. He always will.”
“He’s an individual, Grace, as are you. It’s a good thing.” He hesitated, and then asked the question that had troubled him the most. “Did you love him—Dakota’s father?”
“I thought I did.” She shivered, nearly lost in his big coat. “Yes, I did love him at first. I wanted so bad to have someone, a husband...a home. But Joe wasn’t an easy man to live with. He had his own demons to fight, and sometimes he took it out on Dakota and me. When Joe died, I think I was more sad than grieving. Such a waste...” Her mouth firmed. “And when—”
“It doesn’t matter,” John said. “That’s all in the past. You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.”
“But I want to.” Some of the spunk came back into her and she raised her pointed chin and met his gaze straight on. Her blue eyes glistened with tears. “It was wrong of me to deceive Hannah and...and everyone. You don’t know how many nights I’ve lain awake praying for forgiveness...praying for the strength to tell the truth. I did exactly what Joe did, deceived the ones I should have been the most honest with. But I was so scared...” A single tear welled up and splashed against a pale cheek. “We’re all alone, the two of us. I wanted someone...somewhere to belong.”
John fought the urge to pull her into his arms, to cradle her against his chest and promise to make everything all right. The desire to protect her, to make her his wife and to become a real father to Dakota was nearly overwhelming. But he could sense that like a terrified filly that had tangled herself in a barbed-wire fence, if he came on too fast or too strong, she’d panic.
Life had buffeted Grace Yoder until she was at the breaking point. If he reached for her, she might run, and he could lose any chance of making her understand that none of it mattered—that he could never judge her for the mistake of having a child out of wedlock. “Grace, it’s all right,” he soothed with the same tone he’d use on an injured filly.
“No! It’s not. You have to listen. I don’t know if I’ve got the nerve to tell this twice.”
He nodded, folding his hands to be sure he didn’t reach for her. “If you want to, but I’m here for you. Believe me, I know what kind of person you are. If you made a mistake—”
“My mistake was in being stupid. When I first met Joe, I was stranded in the middle of nowhere. I’d been walking for hours, and it was almost dark when he stopped to pick me up in his truck. They can say all they want about cowboys, but he didn’t come on to me like I was cheap.”
John shook his head. “No one could ever call you cheap, Grace.”
“Just listen, please,” she begged.
John nodded and Grace went on. “Joe drove me to the next town and introduced me to a retired Baptist minister and his wife who followed the rodeo circuit. Mrs. Bray had broken her hip and needed help. I stayed with them for two months until the season was over. Joe and I dated, but I never did anything to be ashamed of, not with him, not with any man. Then Joe asked me to marry him. I was afraid that he’d leave and I’d never see him again. I knew that it was too soon, that we hadn’t known each other long enough, but I said yes, anyway.”
“I don’t understand,” John said. “He asked you to marry him, but then went back on his word?”
“Oh, he married me, all right. Reverend Bray married us and Mrs. Bray witnessed it. I have a license from the State of Wyoming to prove it.”
“If you had a marriage ceremony, then...” His shoulders tightened. “This Bray wasn’t a real minister?”
“He was the real thing, all right. It was Joe who wasn’t the real thing.”
“I don’t understand,” John protested. “How could—”
“Shh.” She put her fingers over his lips. “I’m trying to tell you. After...after the accident, things were bad. There were so many bills. Joe had told me he was an orphan, that he didn’t have anyone like me. But when I was going through his things, I found a Christmas card from his mother, dated the previous December. I wrote to the address, but I didn’t get an answer. For Dakota’s sake, I had to try to make some kind of connection with her. I’d had to sell Joe’s truck for rent money, and it took me a long time to get enough money for another vehicle. When I did, we drove to the reservation. I just wanted her to meet her grandson.”
John winced at the pain etched across her face.
“I found her, but I wish I hadn’t. She called me awful names—told me she wished Dakota had never been born. She said that I’d tricked her son, led him to abandon his family—that we should be the ones dead, not Joe.” A sob shook her. “You see, I thought I was Joe’s wife, but I wasn’t. He already had a wife and two children on the reservation. He was married to a woman named Bernadette when he made his vows to me. So...so, I was never really Mrs. Joe Eagle. I was just Grace Yoder.”
She reached for the door latch, but John seized her arm. “It’s not your fault,” he said. “If there was wrong, it was Joe’s, not yours, and not Dakota’s. How could anyone blame you for—”
She whipped around. “For being stupid? For believing a good-looking rodeo rider with a two-thousand-dollar saddle and a mouthful of lies?” She pulled free. “It’s why I have to become Amish, John. It’s why I have to do this. If I accept baptism in the Amish faith, God will forgive me—the stain on Dakota’s birth will be wiped away.”
“Grace, listen to me!”
But it was too late. She flung open the door and jumped out. He climbed out the passenger door and followed her halfway to the gate. “Wait! Can’t we talk?”
She stopped and looked back. “Your coat,” she said, slipping it off and throwing it to him.
“Grace, listen, I know you’re upset. I can come back later. Tomorrow—”
“No.” She shook her head. “There’s nothing left to say. I’ve made up my mind, and you won’t talk me out of what I know is the right thing to do for me and my son.”
“Wanting God in your life is a good thing,” he said. “But your father’s path isn’t the only one.”
“It’s my business, John! Not yours. No one asked you to interfere in my life.”
He felt as though a hard fist had punched him in the gut. He stood there, coat dangling in his hand with the rain pelting his face. “All right, I’m sorry you feel that way. But maybe you’re right. Maybe it isn’t any of my business. I’ll pick you up Monday morning for work, and then we can—”
“No.” She started for the house again. “I can see now that I should never have taken the job in the first place. I have to be apart from the world. Being at the clinic—”
“I won’t let you quit,” he said, following her through the gate. “It’s not what you want—not what I want.”
“You can’t stop me from quitting.” She was shivering again. “Tell your uncle that I’m sorry to not give notice, but it’s best for everyone if I leave now without a fuss.”
“You’re making the biggest mistake of your life,” he said. “You think about it—about what you’re doing. About what’s best for Dakota. I’ll be here Monday morning.”
“Didn’t you just hear what I said?” she cried, stopping to turn around again. “I’m not coming. I’m not working for you anymore. Tell your uncle I appreciate the offer of the scholarship, but my new faith won’t allow me to accept. Give it to someone else, someone who will appreciate it.”
She ran up the steps and into the house, slamming the door behind her. John stood there, wondering what he could have done differently, feeling the woman he’d come to love slipping away from him. He got back into the truck, and tightened his fingers around the steering wheel, using every ounce of his will to keep from punching the dashboard.
Anger rode him as he started the engine and drove out of the yard and down the lane. Anger clouded his thoughts and made him doubt his judgment. Maybe his grandfather was right. Maybe he had fallen too quickly for Grace. Maybe he wanted her because Miriam had rejected him.
The wipers swished back and forth. He wanted to tramp down on the accelerator and put distance between him and Grace, but he didn’t. A lifetime of concern for other people was too hard to shake. Instead, he did what he always did when he was confronted with overwhelming problems. He found a safe place to pull off the road, put his truck into park, lowered his head and murmured the Twenty-Third Psalm aloud. And as always, he found comfort in the old words from the St. James version of the Bible. When he was done, he sat in silence for a long time before uttering a simple prayer.
“God, it’s John Hartman, again. I’d appreciate it if you could help me out here. I’m in deep water and I can’t even see the shore.”
* * *
When Grace reentered the kitchen, Hannah and Aunt Jezzy turned to look at her. “What were you thinking, child,” Hannah said, “to run out in this weather without your coat?”
Grace murmured something and hurried past them into the hallway, but she didn’t go to her bedroom. She wanted to be alone, and if she went there, Dakota—who was happily playing with Jonah and Katie—might follow her. Instead, she climbed the stairs to the second floor and then another flight to the attic.
The air was chilly up here, but one section was always kept as an extra guest bedroom. The space was whitewashed and tidy, the antique maple bed and stacks of quilts a welcoming retreat. She wrapped a blue-and-white quilt around her shoulders, removed her shoes and curled up on the bed. Two windows allowed light into the chamber, and even with the rain coming down, Grace could see well enough.
Telling John her secret hadn’t worked out the way she expected. Why was it that nothing in her life ever did? He should have been disgusted, repelled by her deceit. Instead, he’d made excuses for her, blamed Joe and tried to talk her out of the only plan that made sense. Why couldn’t John see that becoming Amish would cleanse her and secure her salvation? Why was he so stubborn? Why couldn’t he accept her decision and her resignation without driving her to say awful things that would end their friendship? And why did he believe that she wasn’t strong enough to renounce the world to save herself and her son?
John was the one who was in the wrong here. Why had he ruined such a beautiful day? Dakota had enjoyed the Christmas bazaar as much as she had. She’d loved the music, the decorations, the bustle of holiday shopping, and she’d been so happy with the barn set she’d found for Jonah.
When John had offered her the opportunity to become a vet tech, she couldn’t believe her good fortune. She’d forgotten what was important. She’d hoped that she could have both worlds, the peace she’d found here among her father’s family and friends, and the excitement of working at a job she loved.
John had meant well. She knew that. If things were different, having John in her life would have been...
No! She wouldn’t think about that. John Hartman wasn’t for her. All he was—all he could ever be—was a temptation. Letting herself fall in love with John would ruin everything. And she could...so easily...she could. She could imagine the three of them, John, her and Dakota, laughing together over the supper table, cutting down a Christmas tree and decorating it, singing along with the country and Christian artists on his truck radio.
She could choose John and his way of life...even now. She could go to him and say she was sorry, ask him if they could start over. And he would agree; she was certain of it. But in opening her heart to John and his world, she would be closing the door to what mattered most. Forgiveness.
The rainfall intensified, and big drops spattered against the windowpanes. The Lord had brought her this far. It would be wrong to abandon the plan now. Her mother and father had both been born into the Amish faith. She wasn’t doing anything radical, not really. She was simply coming home, where she belonged, where she and her precious little son would find peace and happiness. If the price of that was giving up John, so be it. This was her last chance to turn her life around.
Far better to choose a good man, even one like Lemuel Bontrager, and marry him. What had Hannah said? Marriage was bigger than two people. Surely, if she picked a solid Amish husband, one she could respect, love would follow. And if it didn’t, she’d married for what she thought was love once before, and that match had turned hollow.
She could never wish that she hadn’t met Joe. If not for Joe, she wouldn’t have Dakota, and life without her son was impossible to consider. She’d made a foolish decision when she married Joe Eagle, and she couldn’t make the same mistake again when it came to picking a husband. The Amish way, thinking of family and community first, had to be the wisest way. Amish marriages lasted. If her father had been alive, he would have wanted her to follow in his footsteps.
Hannah had joined the Amish faith, hadn’t she? She hadn’t rejected it. She’d had a good marriage and a good life because she’d become Amish.
How much easier things would have been if she, Grace, had been born to Hannah and Jonas Yoder instead of foolish Trudie Schrock. A feeling of guilt made her pause. It was unfair to judge her mother for the mistakes she’d made in her life. Trudie had tried her best. She hadn’t abandoned her when she was born, and she’d never been cruel. Grace was convinced that Trudie simply hadn’t been mature enough to have a baby, especially not alone, without family or friends to support her. And if Trudie had been unwise in her choice of boyfriends after Jonas, had Grace done any better?
She closed her eyes and prayed fervently. “Please, God, help me to do the right thing. Tell me what You want me to do.”
But as hard as she strained to hear His answer, the only sound that came to her was the steady downpour of rain against the shingled roof and windows.