Chapter 40
Lilly and Abel were already tucked snug and waiting in the sled when Seth motioned Jacob back inside the barn.
“Here,” he said, “before you go. I’ve got your present.”
“You didn’t have to get me something.”
“You always say that. Just open it.”
Jacob tore the brown paper off the large rectangle, then stared in amazement at the running herd of wild horses that seemed to breathe across the canvas.
“Seth, it’s remarkable. I’ve never seen anything like it. I feel like I can hear them running.”
“That’s what your fraa said when I showed her the painting. Remember? Upstairs? When I was a little too interested in my schweschder-in-law.” His voice lowered with regret.
Jacob held the painting close to his chest, then reached out and gave his brother an honest hug.
“All right. Come on,” Seth said, pushing him away. “Hallich gebottsdaag tomorrow.”
“Danki. Oh, and how was Abel?”
Seth looked at the ground. “He’s a great kid. Hidden, you know, like a pool in the woods. But great.”
Jacob nodded. “You would see him that way—as a wonder to be discovered. You’ll be a gut father one day, little bruder.”
“I’ll wait for you first.”
Jacob laughed and felt something tingle in his belly when he thought of having children with Lilly. It was a primal, instinctive feeling that triggered a flash of heated longing to see a baby of their making and to discover what hazel eyes would look like washed with those as blue as the sea.
So, what are you going to give him?” Alice asked with interest as she poured them each a cup of cinnamon tea.
Lilly shrugged. “I don’t know. I want it to be something memorable, but I’m not sure that I’m going to find that in a store. Seth gave him a beautiful painting of horses.”
Alice stirred sugar into her cup. “Well, you can’t top that.”
“You are very helpful, Alice.”
“I try to be.”
Both of them stared at the table a few moments.
“Okay,” Alice said. “I know this doesn’t sound like much. But why not make him a card? I actually prefer a homemade card with someone’s special note for me in it rather than a present.”
Lilly frowned, remembering the valentine she’d tossed away in her youth.
“Ach, never mind,” her friend said hastily, as if reading her mind. “Though you have to admit that it’s odd that you tried to give him a valentine that long ago and now he is your husband.”
“It is strange. It’s clear I don’t know him any better than I did as a maedel. He’s—he’s like something wild, you know? Like a storm coming over the mountain and you can feel that charge in the air.” She lifted her cup to her lips and blew across the hot tea. “I guess I sound silly.”
Alice patted her hand. “You sound like you’re in love. So, he’s wild, hmm? Maybe you could think of something along those lines.”
On the morning of Valentine’s Day, Lilly was up at three o’clock, sitting in bed, waiting for her husband to stir from his nest on the floor. Her heart pounded with excitement as she considered what she planned to give him for his birthday—if he would accept.
Soon, the telltale rustle of the quilts and the sound of his sigh let her know that he was waking. She waited a minute more, then spoke softly in the still dark room.
“Jacob?”
“What? Yes? You scared me.”
“Sorry. I wanted to wish you Hallich gebottsdaag.”
“It couldn’t wait?”
“I wanted to tell you what your present is going to be. Will you come here?”
She heard him fumble with the quilts a bit.
“Uh … sure.”
She felt him feel his way along the side of the bed, then sit down next to her. The clean smell of his skin came to her in the dark, fresh like Christmas pines. She reached out and made contact with his shoulder, letting her fingers smooth up and down the muscle. “I thought I’d give you a gift that you might remember.”
She felt him tense and she smiled at her devious ways.
“All right …”
“So, you agree to accept?” She slipped her hand to the base of his throat and then up around the back of his neck.
“I agree.” His breathing changed.
“Then, for your birthday, I’d like to give you—twenty-six kisses.”
“Twenty-six kisses?”
She wasn’t sure if she heard relief or disappointment threaded through his voice.
“Jah. Twenty-five for your age, and one for the coming year.”
“Do I … uh, get them all now?”
She laughed and let her hand caress his chest. “No, throughout the day. Anywhere, anytime that you ask or I choose.”
She closed her eyes against the boldness of her own words. She couldn’t quite believe she was talking this way.
“I think I’ll start now.” She felt for the spot on his body that she was envisioning in her mind. It was the underside of his upper arm, that silken play of tanned muscles just inches from where he’d been shot. She rubbed her fingers against the spot, and hearing his faint gasp, decided that rumspringa or not, no one had probably ever kissed him there before.
She flicked her hair over her shoulder and leaned forward, letting her mouth follow her hands until she drew her fingers away and then let her lips discover the spot in a long, heated breath. She felt him shake when she moved back and was more than a little shaken herself at the same time, but she kept her voice level and low.
“That was one. Hallich gebottsdaag.”
“Uh … okay … thanks … I think I’ll just get dressed … and go … somewhere … To, uh, work, I mean.”
She felt him start to rise from the bed and slipped out from beneath the quilts. “Jacob?”
“Yes?”
“Would you like your second kiss? Because I can smell your hair—it’s just like soft pine. And I can picture it shining in the sun, with the blond and chestnut highlights mixed together.” She ran her fingers down the length of his hair and felt him shudder. “Will you turn sei so gut, so that I can kiss you at the back of your neck?” He made a small sound, then she felt him shift on the bed. She stretched out her hands and the width of his bare back felt tense and drawn beneath her touch. She knelt behind him and lifted the back of his hair. She sensed when he bent his neck forward and then she was kissing him again … this time in two quick nips.
She sank backward. “That makes three I’m afraid. I guess I forgot myself.”
“Me too,” he mumbled. “Are you … done?”
“For now. Do you like your gift so far?”
He gave a hoarse laugh. “I love it. I’d say it’s the best birthday present I’ve ever had.”
“And your birthday’s hardly begun.” She trailed her fingertips down his arm and delighted in his shiver of response.
Jacob swung the axe with ruthless precision in the early morning light, setting wood chips flying. He felt restless and frustrated and upside down inside. He loved Lilly’s surprising gift, and his scalp tingled at the thought of the remaining kisses. He found himself trying to figure out how she’d work them all in before the end of the day.
“Think that’s enough wood, son.” His father spoke from behind him, and he almost dropped the axe.
“Daed, don’t come up behind me like that! I could’ve taken your ear off.”
His father laughed. “Don’t forget who taught you to cut wood. I’d say you’ve cut enough to last for the next three weeks.”
Jacob glanced at the pile, amazed at how much he’d worked through.
“Put your coat back on, son. You’ll catch a chill sweating like that in this cold.”
Again, Jacob hadn’t even noticed the cold; he’d been so occupied with his thoughts. Now he shivered in his light-blue, long-sleeved shirt and reached for the black coat he’d flung over a stump. He bent and gathered an armful of wood and turned with his daed to walk back toward the house.
“So, were you working off your first Valentine’s as a married man or the fact that you’ve turned twenty-five?”
“No. I was just thinking. Uh, Daed—do you understand women?”
His father choked on a laugh. “Nee, that would be their Creator who best understands them.”
Jacob tried to smile and his daed went on.
“Let’s sit down for a minute, son.”
Jacob sank down on the cold back porch step and moved to make room for his father. He stared at the wood in his arms. “Things are so much easier when you’re working outside. I know what to do, how to behave—because you taught me all that, Daed.”
“Then try and learn from what you know. Look, Jacob, nobody’s born married. You have to work at it. Think about how long it took you to know everything that you do about horses. Pour that kind of interest into your wife. And remember, the family is the center, the place of true treasure.”
Jacob was quiet.
“You think on it, son. Pray and see what comes to you.” His daed patted his arm and rose to go inside while Jacob hugged the wood and bent his head to do as his father suggested.
Lilly had difficulty concentrating at school, so she did what she’d never done before in all of her teaching. She took the liberty of calling an early dismissal on account of the holiday. The children stared at her at first as if she were narrish but soon gave way to clapping and whoops of joy. Even Abel smiled.
“So,” she encouraged them, “go home … give your family their valentines, and remember Who it is who loves us all.”
John Zook caught Abel’s hand, and the rest of the group soon fled with them. She had no idea what the school board would say, but today she didn’t care. She had twenty-two kisses left to give to her husband.
Jacob saw her buggy turn down the lane along the main fence and automatically started to head for the barn.
“Hey, where you going?” Seth called. “That’s your fraa.”
“Yeah … uh, I know.”
“Fighting on your first Valentine’s Day? What’s wrong with you?”
Jacob turned on his heel and strode back to the fence as Lilly pulled up, her beautiful smile lighting up her face as she peered from the buggy.
“Hello,” she called. “I’ve given myself the afternoon off.”
She slipped down and came over to the fence while he stared at her in wonder.
“You let the kinner go home early?”
“Yes. Hi, Seth.”
“Hiya.”
“Why did you do that?” Jacob asked, though there was something in her eyes that told him the answer.
“You know,” she murmured.
He reached to cup her chin across the fence. She yielded to his hand, a smile playing about her lips.
“Two,” he murmured, nuzzling closer to her.
“What?”
“Two kisses. Right now, if you would so please.”
She leaned forward, careless of Seth, and let her hands slide up to his shoulders.
“All right, if you insist.”
She kissed him twice, but he felt so enraptured that he couldn’t tell where one kiss ended and the other began. Then she drew back and he gripped the fence hard.
“You did say two, right?”
He nodded weakly.
Seth cleared his throat. “I’m sorry for staring but odd behavior has always fascinated me. I mean, not that you look odd, but, well, I haven’t seen kissing like that since … I don’t think I’ve ever seen kissing like that.” His voice took on a forlorn note.
“Go away, little bruder, and find your own fraa. Mine owes me some more of my birthday gift.”
Seth grinned as he started past them. “I see, well, I bet that was a pretty present to open.”
“I’m still unwrapping,” Jacob confessed as he lowered his head to claim yet another of his sweet gifts.