CHAPTER 4
“Whose goat is that, Dan?”
Daniel spun from untying Blinks to stare down into the face of his ten-year-old bruder, Paul.
“Why aren’t you in school?”
The buwe rubbed the outside of his black coat. “Bellyache.”
Daniel wanted to laugh. “Bellyache, hmm? How about that fractions test you were studying for last nacht after dinner?”
“That’s why I got the bellyache. I’m goin’ in ta see Mamm.”
“Whoa, little bruder. Mamm’s out and we have a guest.” Daniel caught the buwe’s shoulder gently.
The little pug nose turned up suspiciously. “A guest? Like the goat here?”
“This is Blinks. She belongs to Frau—uh—Widow Loftus, who is our guest. I was taking the goat in just now.”
Paul giggled. “Into Mamm’s kitchen? She’ll whoop ya fer sure. I gotta see this.”
Daniel ignored the premonition that his bruder was right and reasoned he’d have Blinks out as soon as he could. He led Paul and the goat around to the back entrance and carefully eased open the door, not wanting to startle Clara in some state of imagined undress . Stop the fantasies, Kauffman. . . . Isn’t it enough that you think she’s beautiful, that you’re doing the right thing for Seth, that you more than lo—He silenced the voice in his head. What was I about to say to myself? That I love Clara Loftus? I’m keeping a promise, that’s all... a promise. . . . He was so distracted by his thoughts that he let go of Blink’s lead rope, then promptly tripped over it, to fall sprawling in his own kitchen, right at a pair of delicate, feminine bare feet....
* * *
Clara had struggled out of the wet layers of clothing, discovering that she was soaked to the skin. She bit her bottom lip and considered opening one of the finely carved cedar dresser drawers and borrowing a shift, but then decided on simply binding herself up in Frau Kauffman’s housecoat, which happened to be a startling shade of pink. She tugged it off its peg on the wall and wound its voluminous folds around her waist, finding she could tie the long belt three times about herself. Thus girded, and feeling fairly confident that she could make it to the chair by the woodstove before Daniel got in, she tiptoed barefoot out of the bedroom.
She heard a sudden tussle at the back door, and Blinks’s baaing, and then Daniel came through the open wood to fall at her feet. Blinks neatly jumped over his sprawled form, and Clara froze as her bare toes nearly came in contact with his long chestnut hair.
Daniel lifted his head and looked up at her, and she wrapped her arms about herself, feeling as though his keen emerald eyes might see through the bulk of the housecoat. “Are you all right?” she asked, automatically reaching down to stroke Blinks’s stiff fur with nervous fingers.
Then she watched as Paul Kauffman jumped on his bruder’s broad back. “Gimme a ride, Dan!”
Clara stepped back as Daniel got to his hands and knees with a chuckle, then rose to his full height, his shoulders easily supporting the weight of his younger brother. He’d make a gut fater. . . . She took another step backward, horrified at her thought, and felt her face suffuse with color.
She saw Daniel eyeing her quizzically, one dark brow raised in question, even as he jostled Paul and she sank into the chair she felt at the backs of her knees.
“What is it?” he asked, and she shook her head in mute appeal.
He slid Paul to the ground, then came forward to hunch down at her knees. “Clara, really, are you all right? You look as though you might be starting a fever.”
Jah . . . this is a fever . . . in my blood . . . for you. . . . She stared helplessly at his mouth, wondering how it would be to test the contours and firmness of his perfectly shaped lips, then hastily looked away at the cream-colored wall.
She almost jumped when he laid a firm hand against her brow and then her cheek.
“Hmmm . . .” he murmured. “You are hot. Perhaps we should call for your sister to kumme and check you over?”
Clara swallowed and smoothed the fabric of the robe over her knees. “Nee. I’m fine. Um . . . maybe just . . . a glass of water?”
He frowned. “Of course. I’m being thoughtless.... I’ll make you some tea.”
He got to his feet, and she watched him out of the corner of her eye as he easily navigated the kitchen as if it was second nature to him.
“I’ve heard some folks say you’re odd, Widow Loftus. What’s that mean?”
Clara turned to look at Paul and took in his wide, innocent green eyes and gap-toothed mouth. She was about to respond when Daniel snapped at his bruder.
“Paul—let her be. Go on out to the store and help Daed for a bit.”
“Nee,” Clara countered with a half laugh. “He’s fine. Let me answer. After all, how many women kumme to the store with a goat?”
“Not many,” Paul concluded, reaching out to pet Blinks.
“You’re right,” she said softly, liking the child’s forthrightness. “I’m not odd, really, Paul. I’m just . . . lonely at times.”
“Then why do you stay up in that cabin all by yourself ’cept for the goat?”
She wet her lips, aware that Daniel was listening as he waited for the kettle to boil. “Because it’s my home and I like it—sort of. I can talk to the trees and listen to the snow fall.... It’s beautiful really.”
Paul scrunched up his pert nose. “Mebbe you are odd, after all—talkin’ ta trees.”
“All right, little bruder,” Daniel said. “Out.” He handed her a cup and saucer of fragrant lavender tea and sighed as Paul scampered off. “I’m sorry about that. He means no harm.”
“I know,” she said, taking a quick sip of the hot tea. She choked and he patted her back. She could feel the warmth of his large hand even through the thickness of the pink fabric. Her cup rattled in its saucer and she set it on the table carefully. She was about to suggest that she had dried enough when the back door banged open once more.
Clara heard Daniel’s faint groan; then he spoke.
“Hello, Mamm. You know Clara Loftus. . . .”
Clara rose and tried to smile into Frau Kauffman’s kind but speculative eyes. “Hello.”
The older woman nodded, then frowned at Daniel. “Why is that goat in my clean kitchen?”
* * *
“All in all, I think that went rather well. Don’t you?” Daniel tightened the reins a bit, and the cheerful jangle of sleigh bells rang out in the snowy afternoon. He glanced at Clara and hid a smile. Her beautiful mouth was set in a straight line, and she was studiously glaring at the landscape in front of them.
“Nee,” she said finally. “I do not think it went well.”
He laughed then, a full belly laugh that made him feel good for the first time in a long time. She turned baleful gray eyes upon him, and he hastily contained his mirth.
“You enjoyed that,” she accused.
“What? You mean, you sitting in my mamm’s pink housecoat in the middle of—how many people was it?”
“Six,” she snapped tightly. “Not counting us.”
Blinks grunted from her position beneath the lap robe, and Daniel had to stifle another laugh.
Clara’s frown deepened. “Blinks is correct. Six people and three—unusual—goats. I cannot begin to think what your mamm must feel about me.”
“Ach, so Clair Bitner came around the back of the haus for once with his goat’s milk to sell.... Of course, it makes sense that Benny, Scruffy and Teddy smelled one of their own kind and had to make an appearance. I think Blinks enjoyed the company. Besides, my mamm likes you.”
“How do you know?”
He waved a dismissive hand. “She likes everybody.”
Clara sighed aloud and he leaned over to give her a spontaneous nudge with his shoulder. “And you know your sister, Sarah, was just concerned for your well-being.”
“Ach, sure, and Edward, her big-bodied husband, simply had to kumme along.”
Daniel nodded. “And they couldn’t leave the kids at home. Then Sarah must have mentioned it when she passed Bishop Umble’s, who himself only wanted to ask again for some of your, um—second best—I mean, pralines.”
She ignored his teasing. “Which, come to think of it, your fater wouldn’t let me pay for when he came in.”
“Yep, and the whole crowd was bound to have woken Da on the couch, and what’s a rousing lunch party without Auld Sol Kauffman, I’d like to know?”
He saw the corner of her mouth lift a bit, and his heart kindled inside his chest. “Ach, don’t smile, Clara Loftus. That would truly be a crime after the way you held sway in my mamm’s housecoat. You were . . . captivating.”
He saw her smile edge back into a frown, and he could have kicked himself. “Slow . . . Gotta take it slow with Clara. . . .”
He cleared his throat in the cold air. “So, since you reassured the bishop you’d bake for his gathering tomorrow nacht, I was wondering if I might kumme pick you up.” He paused, thinking fast. Riled. Get her riled up. . . . “Unless you plan on backing out? I mean, my raisin-filled cookies, when warm, are absolutely the best things you’ve ever—”
“Six o’clock will suit me fine.” She sniffed. “But only because I want my praline cookies to be at their . . . I mean . . . Jah, danki, in advance, for the ride.”
He hid a grin and eased the horse and sleigh around a snowdrift. “No thanks needed. It’ll be my pleasure.”