CHAPTER 10
Daniel was waved off by Edward when he would have helped carry wood to the bonfire setup.
“Geh make out with Clara,” Edward suggested with a grin, and Dan rolled his eyes in response. He’d forgotten that Edward had spent some time in the Englisch world working on the gas rigs, so his vernacular was just a bit inappropriate.
“Yeah,” Daniel replied. “Like you wouldn’t kill me for that.”
“I wouldn’t,” Edward said in a surprisingly level voice. “My sister-in-law needs a gut kiss, I think. And Sarah agrees. Tonight while you’re skating together might be the right time.”
Daniel shrugged, watching the smoke from the fire mingle with the cold of his breath in the dusky air. “Sometimes I think I’m getting close and then—well, she’s off like some wild thing that I cannot ever hope to match.”
“You’ve been listening to Clair Bitner, haven’t you?” Edward asked.
“Well, it’s true either way, and I—” He broke off as the women and children started coming from the cabin.
Soon, many others from the community had gathered, holding the young kinner back from the allure of the fire and busily tying on skates to the soles of their solid boots and high black shoes. Daniel realized that old married sweethearts and young couples as well as children were taking to the large space of clean ice, and he automatically scanned the dimly lit crowd for Clara.
He finally saw Sarah, holding little Anne up on double-bladed skates. “Sarah,” he called. “Do you know where your sister is?”
“Inside. Alone. She wanted to finish the last of the cookies.” She gave him what appeared to be an encouraging smile and he nodded and turned toward the cabin.
He walked up the back steps quietly and then gave a soft knock on the door. He heard her footsteps as she crossed the kitchen, and he whipped his hat off.
She looked up at him blankly, obviously surprised, and he smiled down at her. “You’re missing all the fun.”
“Kumme in. I’ve got to get the last lot of the sand tarts out of the oven before they burn.” She turned away from him and hurried to grab a pot holder from the table. He came in and shut the door, hanging up his coat and hat as she pulled the cookie sheet from the cookstove.
He gazed with some astonishment at the array and number of cookies she’d managed to bake with Sarah—gingerbread men with raisin eyes, almond shortbread, jam thumbprints, pinwheel cookies, sea foam, and Amish snowballs. “Wow,” he said in open admiration.
She smiled at him then, blowing at a tendril of loose blond hair that had worked itself loose from her kapp.
He walked toward her, moving slowly, and reached out to tuck the loose curl of hair behind her ear. Then he gently traced the shell-like contours of her small ear with his fingertips, lightly touching her until her gray eyes half closed and her breathing came rapid and shallow.
“You touched me like this today,” he murmured. “Do you know what that did to me?”
Her eyelids flew open and she took a step backward, but he wasn’t going to let that stop him.
“Ne—ee,” she stuttered.
“It turned me upside down inside, Clara. I felt like I was coming apart and didn’t even remember how to breathe. Why did you do that, hmmm?” He stepped closer to her once more, and he watched her swallow, a gentle movement down the ivory fineness of her throat.
“I—you were in pain.”
“And you didn’t want that?” He lifted his hand to stroke down the line of her throat, stopping at the collar of her dress but so wishing that he might go further.
“Nee.”
“Then don’t let me be in pain now, sweet Clara.”
“What—I mean—does your arm hurt?”
He smiled at her tenderly. “Nee, but I hurt. . . .”
Her beautiful cheeks pinkened; she obviously knew what he meant and yet she stood steady.
“Clara, let me kiss you. Just one time. Please . . .”
She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue, and he made a choked sound from the back of his throat. He didn’t care that he was begging; he felt as if he’d die from want if she denied him. But she lifted her chin slightly, a faint permission—and he took it with frantic movements, slanting his head, deepening the kiss; he drank from her like summer dandelion wine, all sweetness and wet heat.
The cabin door banged open, bringing in a rush of cold air and his bruder Paul, bawling like a young calf. Daniel broke away from her in mute frustration, torn between the dazed expression in Clara’s eyes and the obvious immediate need of his younger sibling.
Paul’s tears won out based on pure insistence. “What is wrong?” Daniel asked above the din.
“My skate broke and now I can’t skate and I cried in front of the other fellas. They’ll never let me forget that and—”
“Wait.” Daniel put up a weary hand. “I bet Sarah’s got extra skates lying around, and I’ll take you out to your friends and have a word with them. Okay?” He looked at Clara. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
She nodded and Daniel went out to help his little bruder.
* * *
Clara touched her lips with shaking fingertips. She was staggered by the intensity of Daniel’s kiss and felt shaken to the core.
She understood the kiss of a man and had enjoyed kissing Seth a great deal, but she’d never known herself to so hungrily return a kiss. I’m wanton, she thought frantically. Wanton . . . wanton . . . wanting the touch of a man who is not my husband and—
“Clara, geh on outside,” Martha Umble ordered, closing the door behind her. “I’ll see to passing out the cookies. You have some fun and skate. I’ll be joining you later.”
Clara agreed, still feeling rather dazed, and went outside, carrying her skates. Many folks were still on the ice, skating in the cheerful glow of the bonfire, while still more were heading in, seeking a cookie and some hot cocoa.
She was debating about actually going out on the ice, not wanting Daniel to think that she was pursuing him in any way, when he skated up to where she stood in the snow.
“Need some help with your skates, Clara?” he asked in a perfectly natural tone so that she wondered if the kiss in the kitchen had actually shaken him as much as it had her.
But then he bent to help her on with her skates, the firelight playing on the dark sheen of his hair, and he looked up at her. She saw the slow simmer of heat in his green eyes and bit her lip in uncertainty, but he quickly took her hand and pulled her out onto the ice. For all his size, he was a masterful and easy skater, guiding her effortlessly out beyond where the kinner were darting to the shadowed outskirts of the frozen field.
They skated in pleasant unison for a few moments, and as she listened to the movement of their blades on the ice, she thought back to all the times she’d skated as a younger girl, longing for someone to want her and to skate with her as a sweetheart. Seth had died before they could ever skate together as a couple, she thought, and was about to speak when Daniel brought them to a gliding standstill.
She looked up into his handsome face, illuminated by the light of the moon and stars. “Look, Clara, I’m sorry about earlier with Paul. I couldn’t let him cry. . . .”
“I like you all the more for helping him,” she said in a sudden burst of honesty.
He smiled at her. “Danki . . . and I—uh—wanted to say that I thought it was perfect that our first amazing kiss was in a kitchen surrounded by cookies.” He shrugged his broad shoulders. “It seems to suit us, I think.”
“Daniel, I want—”
“Another kiss, perhaps? I do, too, my sweet Clara.” He bent his head but she stopped him with a hand on his chest. “What is it?” he asked.
“Daniel, I can’t do this. It’s not fair to you. I—our first kiss will have to be our last. I’m sorry. . . .” She turned and skated quickly from his grasp before she could change her mind, then gained the bank on the far side of the field. She stumbled into the snow, and Sarah caught her arm.
“Clara, what is it? Why are you crying?”
“Crying? I’m not.” But then she reached to feel the tears that were quickly changing to ice on her cheeks. “I—Sarah, can we just geh inside? I’m rather tired.”
“Of course,” Sarah said in a bewildered tone.
All Clara wanted was to get away from the ice and the haunting emerald eyes that she knew followed her through the firelit nacht.