A Family for Gracie Read online

  Matthew watched them, trying to form the words in his mind. The baby’s sobs turned to hiccups as Gracie continued to rock her from side to side. The baby was happy once again. Well, maybe not happy, but at least she wasn’t screaming, and that alone was enough reason to marry Gracie as far as he was concerned. He was having a hard time with the four boys and a baby who cried all day.

  “There,” he said, gesturing toward Gracie and the baby.

  “There what?” Her forehead puckered into a frown.

  “That just proves it.”

  She shook her head and kissed the baby’s crown once more. The baby was wearing a prayer kapp so her lips landed on the dark gray fabric, but the sentiment was there. “I don’t understand.”

  “That right there proves that your idea is a good one. Maybe we should get married.”

  The minute the words left his mouth he knew he had said the wrong thing. Her face crumpled a bit, then smoothed out into a too-calm expression. He had hurt her feelings. Something he hadn’t meant to do.

  Matthew frowned, trying to come up with something to repair the situation, but his mind was a fallow field.

  “I mean, you came and asked me and I’m giving you my answer.”

  That calm expression never wavered.

  “Did you see my cast?” Henry grinned from beside him, holding up his arm for Gracie’s perusal.

  “Oh my,” she said, the too-calm expression becoming a smile. “That certainly is yellow.”

  “I thought I told you to stay in the buggy.”

  “I wanted the orange, but they were out.” Henry chattered as if Matthew hadn’t spoken.

  To her credit, Gracie didn’t blink an eye. “I heard about your big day yesterday.”

  “Henry,” Matthew rumbled in warning.

  “I even got a shot.”

  “Back to the buggy now.” His voice dropped into the range of a growl. He did not like being disobeyed, and he didn’t like to be interrupted, especially when he was trying to find a wife!

  She adjusted the baby and leaned a little closer to Henry. “I think you better get back into the buggy like your father said.”

  Henry smiled at her and Matthew could see the love blooming in his eyes. “Okay.” He turned and started back to the buggy, but turned before climbing in. “Next time I’ll show you my loose teeth.”

  Her mouth twitched, but she held in her laughter. “I’m looking forward to it.”

  Once Henry was back in place, she turned to Matthew. The smile she had bestowed on his son was gone, only to be replaced by that too-calm look from before.

  Matthew sucked in a deep breath. He needed to get this done before he ruined it all. “What I mean to say is, you seem really good with the kids and you’re right. I do need help.” Yesterday just proved it.

  She shook her head. “I withdrew my proposal.” She hesitated slightly before saying that last word.

  And that left him only one option.

  “Gracie Glick, will you be my wife?”

  Chapter Four

  It took all her energy to stand there, holding his baby and keeping the wild collection of emotions from dancing across her face.

  There but for the grace of God I go.

  “You want to marry me?” She even managed to keep her voice steady and stronger than the squeak of a mouse.

  “Jah.” He heaved in a deep breath but continued to scowl at her. Why was he scowling?

  “I—I—” She didn’t know what to say. Jah, she wanted to marry him. Sort of. She wanted a family and he seemed to be the means to get one. If she said yes, her life would change forever. If she said no, she would go on being dependable Gracie Glick, the one you can always count on in a pinch.

  She looked back to her cousins. They stood huddled together, arms around each other and identical grins on their faces. She needed them to direct her, nod or something. Let her know that she was doing the right thing. But they just stood there watching and waiting. She was on her own.

  Gracie turned back to Matthew. “Jah. Okay.” Her answer was as odd as his proposal.

  He nearly crumpled with apparent relief. “Good. Good.” The scowl became a smile, then turned back into a scowl again. “Can I ask what you’re getting out of this?”

  “A family.” Her answer was simple. She wanted a family and had for a long time. Once she married Matthew she would have his children to care for and—she gulped at the prospect—maybe soon a baby of her own.

  He nodded in an understanding way, but his scowl remained.

  Gracie had no idea what to do next. Should they shake hands? Maybe a kiss on the cheek? How did one seal the promise of marriage? Most likely with a sweet buss on the lips, but that was when two people were in love and couldn’t wait to start their lives together. She and Matthew. . . well, that was far from the case.

  She looked at him.

  He looked back.

  Someone had to make a move.

  “Da-at,” Henry called from the buggy. “Thomas won’t stop pinching me.”

  He turned toward his son, then swung back again.

  “You had better go,” she said quietly.

  He nodded.

  “I need to get back to work anyway.” She tilted her head toward the table covered with bowls of goat-milk lotion, bottles of essential oils, and empty bottles for once everything was mixed together.

  “Jah.”

  “Uh, here . . .” She moved toward him, holding his baby out for him to take. It was a warm day, but she instantly felt cold where the baby had been against her. She took one last breath of baby-scented air, then handed the child back to her father.

  Not even a heartbeat later, the baby Grace began to cry.

  “Da-at!” Henry again. “Now he’s pinching Benjamin.”

  Matthew tried to soothe her, but her wails only intensified.

  Gracie almost forgot. “When do you want to do this?” she asked loud enough to be heard over the baby, but hopefully not so loud to alert her cousins. “Get married, I mean.”

  “Da-at!” Henry yelled.

  What must have been Benjamin’s cries joined those of his sister.

  Matthew turned back to her, his face creased with tired lines. “As soon as possible.”

  * * *

  Two weeks, they decided in that small window of time between her asking when and Henry calling for his father once again. They would go to the bishop tomorrow and ask for special permission to marry.

  Gracie had no doubt that Amos Raber would grant them consent, even out of season. Some things just couldn’t wait.

  Now all she had to do was break the news to her family.

  “Well?” Hannah asked once Gracie had watched Matthew’s buggy disappear, taking with it the terrible sounds of children crying. Was that something she was going to get used to? Everyone just seemed so unhappy.

  Gracie shrugged away the thought and turned her attention to her cousin. “We’re getting married.”

  Leah raised her hands in the air and whooped. Then the twins did some kind of Englisch dance where they locked arms and skipped in a circle.

  “In two weeks,” she added.

  The celebration instantly stopped.

  “Two weeks?” Leah screeched. “That’s not enough time.”

  “Like you have reason to talk,” Hannah chided.

  “Hey, at least I gave you a month.”

  “Two weeks,” Gracie stated. Two weeks was all she could afford. Any longer and she might change her mind. Even though she wanted this. She really did.

  Hannah and Leah stopped their bickering at the sound of her emphatic tone.

  Easygoing Gracie was serious about this one.

  “Well,” Hannah said. “The house is pretty clean since we just had church.”

  “It’ll need a few touch-ups,” Leah added. “It always does.”

  “And we can get the Widow Kate to help us sew the dresses. She usually needs the money.”

  Gracie listened as they started making the
plans. They would need to decide if someone was standing up with her. Second weddings didn’t normally have attendants, but this was her first wedding. She wanted to keep a few of the traditions. But if she had attendants, then who was standing up with Matthew? Then the conversation switched to whether or not Matthew’s family would be able to make it down for the service and whether or not he had any brothers to serve as witnesses if Leah and Hannah stood up with Gracie as they had just planned.

  “We need pen and paper,” Leah squealed.

  Actually Gracie needed to lie down. This was all happening so quickly it was making her dizzy.

  “Wait till Mamm hears,” Hannah added. “She’s going to love this.”

  Gracie wasn’t certain if she was being truthful or sarcastic. With Hannah you never knew. She had definitely spent too many years with the Englisch.

  “Because Gracie caught the bouquet at your wedding,” Hannah was saying. Gracie had missed whatever had led them down this road.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t remember,” Leah said with an apologetic twist of her mouth. “The whole day is mostly a blur.”

  “Well, you looked beautiful and Gracie caught your bouquet.”

  “Which is supposed to mean she’s the next one to get married.”

  “And now she is.” Hannah all but hopped up and down and clapped her hands. “Too bad she can’t carry it at her service. That would be so sweet.”

  “Maybe we can use it as a centerpiece.”

  “Or the cake topper,” Hannah suggested.

  “The cake!” Leah exclaimed. “Who’s going to make the cake?”

  “Mamm, of course.”

  “We better go tell her the good news,” Leah said.

  Neither one seemed to notice her silence. She was fine with whatever plans they wanted to make. The wedding wasn’t that important. There had been a time when she had thought so, but now she knew better. It was what happened after the wedding that truly counted, and that part had her a little worried.

  “Are you coming, Gracie?” Leah asked.

  The twins had somehow gathered up all their lotions and bottles and essential oils and were about to head up the wooden steps that led into the house.

  “Jah.” She stirred herself out of her thoughts and followed behind them.

  * * *

  “Two weeks!” Eunice’s screech was almost as loud as Leah’s had been.

  “I think it’s best to ge—have the wedding as soon as possible.” She had almost said get this over with, but stopped herself just in time. She didn’t want Eunice to get the wrong impression.

  Her aunt threw her hands into the air, then bustled over to the sideboard and started looking for a pad and pencil in one of the drawers.

  “Leah? Hannah!” she called.

  The women came out of the kitchen carrying glasses of milk and slices of banana bread.

  “We figured we would need something to help us keep our energy up.”

  “Good plan.” Eunice settled her reading glasses low on the bridge of her nose and started to write. “Dress, cake, attendants, shirts.”

  “Isn’t that Matthew’s responsibility?” Leah asked.

  “He doesn’t have any family here. So I suppose we should help him with that.”

  Hannah nodded in agreement. “And clothes for the kids.”

  Eunice jotted that on the growing list. “Tomorrow we should go into town to pick out the colors. They may have to special order.”

  “Just blue is fine,” Gracie said. Stick to the basics and hopefully everything would turn out just fine.

  “Gracie, there are a hundred different shades of blue.”

  “Maybe more,” Hannah added. She turned to her sister. “Google it on your smartphone and see.”

  “I will not.” Leah frowned at her. “First of all, the service is bad out here and secondly that’s not something truly important.”

  Hannah sighed. “You’re right. Guess I just got overly excited there for a moment.”

  “Focus,” Leah commanded. Gracie had heard her say the same thing to Brandon a hundred times. And she didn’t need anything called google to help her know that. “You’re freaking Gracie out.”

  “I’m not freaked out.” Another phrase she had never heard until the twins came back to Pontotoc. Okay, so she was a little freaked out but not about the things they thought.

  She mentally shook herself and tried to center her attention on the matter at hand. She needed the women to help her figure out all the details that came before the wedding. There would be plenty of time in the next two weeks to find out what to expect after the vows were said.

  * * *

  With the four of them working together they hammered out most of the plans. Eunice had said simple was best, and anything that could be delegated to another family member would be to help ease their load. But Eunice promised she would make the cake herself. After all, she made the best cake in three counties.

  “You okay?” Eunice asked, peeking out the screen door, then coming out onto the front porch next to where Gracie sat on the big wooden swing. The days were starting to get longer. It was almost eight and the sun had just begun to sink in the west.

  “Jah. Of course.” She pasted on a bright smile and beamed it at her aunt as solid proof.

  Eunice stepped a little closer and eased down next to her. “Tell the truth,” she said in that easy, urging voice that had done her in many times as a child. How could she even think about telling a lie when she knew that voice was coming?

  “It’s all just happening really fast.” Self-preservation, that’s how. She needed to talk to someone about the wedding night, but she wasn’t ready. Not just yet. The questions were eating up all her thoughts. She just couldn’t bring herself to ask those burning questions.

  She had heard talk and whispered speculations. She was almost twenty-six and knew the basics, but she didn’t know. And the unknown was hard to live with.

  “Do you love him?” Eunice asked.

  The question took her completely off guard. “Do I love him?” She repeated it more to make sure that’s really what her aunt asked than to stall for time. “No,” she said truthfully. One lie a night was enough.

  “Then why are you marrying him?” Eunice held up one hand to stop a quick reply. “And don’t tell me anything about Amish marriage being only about convenience and property.”

  “I want a family.” Surely she could say that without all the wedding-night questions escaping before she was ready.

  “You have a family. You have us.”

  Somehow she knew that Eunice was going to say that. But Gracie had lost the rest of her family. Her mother, father, and two brothers. All in terrible random accidents. Those times when God closed His eyes and tragedy struck. Her brothers had been racing buggies on a moonless night on a back road in nearby Randolph. And her parents had died from carbon monoxide poisoning. Gracie had long since come to terms with the idea that she should have been there too, but it was hard being an orphan, even at almost twenty-six.

  “I want . . . my own family.”

  Eunice nodded. “You should have love too.”

  It was a beautiful sentiment. But a luxury that she couldn’t afford. “With who? There are no eligible bachelors my age in Pontotoc.” There were even fewer in Adamsville. Her only hope for finding love would be in the parent community of Ethridge near Nashville, Tennessee. But even then, it was a gamble. They married early in these parts, and most men over twenty-six had already settled down and started their own families.

  Eunice opened her mouth to correct her, then shut it. She opened it again and shut it again, then shook her head. “I understand. But is this really what you want?”

  “Jah.” But the word had trouble getting out. Was this what she wanted?

  Yes and no. She wanted a family, that much she couldn’t deny, but she couldn’t say that she wanted it with Matthew Byler. Not that there was anything wrong with him. He was handsome. And sort of grumpy. But he seemed
to be a good father. Her mind flashed back to the day she had delivered the casserole. His boys had been sitting on the couch, looking almost afraid of him. And his scowl followed soon after. That day she had been sort of scared of him too.

  Then she remembered the way he had cradled his baby close to him.

  Then shoved the baby at her.

  But he was caring. Wasn’t he? Worried that his daughter wasn’t getting enough rest.

  Or maybe he just wanted her to stop crying.

  “Gracie?”

  She jerked as Eunice touched her hand.

  “You were deep in thought there.”

  “I’m okay.” Was she? Maybe she should ask around, find out a little more about him. But that felt dishonest. Like she wasn’t trusting him. Like she wasn’t trusting God.

  “You can still change your mind,” she said gently.

  Gracie shook her head. There was one thing she knew for certain about Matthew Byler: He needed help, and she was just the person for the job.

  * * *

  But once she closed the door to her room and turned out the light, the doubts flooded in once more.

  There, in the darkness, she lay on her small bed and her thoughts swirled around her like some out-of-control dust storm.

  She was doing the right thing.

  Wasn’t she?

  Yes, of course.

  She thought so anyway.

  So she might not know him that well. How much did a person really know about another? And she had already recounted everything she knew about him. What was the use in starting all over? She didn’t know anything new about him.

  Maybe that was the key! She should go to his house and spend the day with him. Talking, getting to know each other. They could cook and eat. Maybe sit on the porch and watch the children play under that big shade tree in his backyard. She could help him plant and just . . . talk. And if she didn’t like him after all that, she didn’t have to marry him.

  She breathed a great sigh of relief. A plan. She always did better when she had a plan. And this one was perfect. Except...

  If she discovered that she didn’t like him before they got married and she called off the wedding, that would mean no more family. No more options. She would die a spinster.