Adam’s Bride Page 2

  It wasn’t as if he didn’t love his family, or that he was in any way opposed to the idea of marriage, but at the present he viewed the issue as personal. When it was God’s timing to marry he had no doubts that he’d know it and act upon it. So far, he hadn’t found the person he intended to spend the rest of his life with. And until then, he was content to wait.

  “It was just an innocent question.” Rebecca tasted her drink, then added another dash of milk. “You are considered one of the most eligible bachelors in town by most of the single women, and you saved someone’s life, so … I’m interested.”

  Adam knew his sister well enough to know that her questions ran far deeper than simple curiosity. He was quite certain that if he’d rescued his neighbor’s plump and prim daughter, who was well past the age of marrying, the subject would not have been worthy of resurrecting again.

  He strummed his fingers against the table. “She’s beautiful—is that what you want me to say?”

  “That’s a good start.” Rebecca leaned forward, a calculated smile on her lips. “What else?”

  He squirmed under her scrutiny. How could he admit that he’d dreamed about Lidia every night for the past week? That he’d seen her face every time he closed his eyes. Those soft brown eyes framed with long lashes … creamy white skin … captivating smile …

  Then he would remember she was Polish, and his foolish daydreams would vanish. That was something he could never forget. It was why he intended to forget her.

  He shoved his hands into his coat pocket, only to be reminded of her Bible that he’d been carrying with him all week. “Her last name is Kowalski.”

  “I know. I saw it on the Bible.”

  “She’s Polish.” He hated the way his clipped words sounded, but that didn’t take away the truth—Samuel had been killed by a Pole. Rebecca hadn’t seen the vacant look in their brother’s eyes as Adam had held him, his chest covered with blood—

  “Adam?”

  “I know what you’re thinking.” His stomach clenched at the memories. “Why can’t I get over Samuel’s death? Why can’t I forgive those involved? You weren’t there, Rebecca. You didn’t watch him take his last breath.”

  His sister’s eyes reflected his own pain. “We all miss Samuel, but Lidia’s not responsible for his death. She wasn’t the one who took his life. If he’d been named Rudolpho or Tazio would you hate all Italians?”

  The muscles in his jaw tensed. “That’s not fair. It’s not that simple—”

  “Sure it is.” The intensity in her voice increased. “You’ve let your hatred for one man spread to an entire nationality.”

  He shook his head and let his hands coil into tight fists as a searing rage rippled through him. “You just don’t get it, do you?”

  “I want to understand. We all do.”

  Why was it that when this vein of conversation erupted he always ended up being the bad guy?

  Adam worked to relax his muscles but found it impossible. “You don’t know how many times I’ve begged God to take away this anger that burns inside me, but I’ll never forget what happened.”

  And that I never stopped it.

  The thought was sobering. None of them had this mountain of guilt to carry the rest of their lives. He closed his eyes, trying to erase the scene he knew would be forever imprinted on his mind. It had all happened so fast that he hadn’t even seen it coming. He hadn’t seen the gun until it was too late and Samuel lay dying in a pool of his own blood.

  Adam wrapped his fingers around the smooth cover of the Bible and drew it out of his pocket. “I’m not sure what to do with this.”

  “Don’t you plan to return it?”

  “I don’t know where she lives.” He had a dozen excuses ready to throw at her. He had too much work to do at the farm, and the weather was getting worse. …

  “It can’t be too complicated to find her, Adam. After all, Cranton isn’t Boston.” Rebecca’s eyes lit up, and he could see an idea formulating in his sister’s mind. “She was walking from town which means she can’t live very far away. Maybe she lives on one of the nearby farms.”

  Rebecca sounded like a detective out to solve a mystery. She had definitely been reading too many of those dime novels. Life was different. It didn’t always have a simple storyline that neatly wrapped up at the end of the book. Look at Samuel. Sometimes things went wrong in real life that would never turn into a happy ending.

  Clearing his throat, Adam glanced at his pocket watch. He needed to get back to his farm before dark. “Can I take you home?”

  “Thanks, but I’ll wait here for Luke.” Her brow puckered when he changed the subject, but thankfully she seemed ready to leave it alone. “He’s planning to meet me here in about twenty minutes.” She leaned across the table and took his hand. “I’m glad I ran into you. With you not living at home anymore, I don’t see you nearly enough when I’m back for a visit.”

  “You’re the one who moved to Boston.”

  She squeezed his hand. “Thankfully, Luke’s willing to bring me home once or twice a year.”

  “That’s not enough.” Despite her constant prying, he still missed her when she was gone. He laid a few coins on the table to cover the drinks, then leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.

  “I’ll see you Friday night?”

  It had become tradition for the family to get together on Friday nights. And the family was growing. His father had married Michaela, Rebecca married Luke, and before long, no doubt, there would be other spouses and grandchildren.

  Adam picked his hat and gloves up off the table. “Promise not to bring up the subject of Lidia or any other female you think might make the perfect match for me?”

  “We just want you to be happy, Adam.”

  “Promise?”

  “I promise.”

  He couldn’t help but smile at her insistence. It felt good to be cared about. “I’ll see you Friday night.”

  Adam said good-bye then stepped out into the cold wind, thankful for the warmth of his coat and heavy gloves. Snow began to fall, the thick flakes covering the icy ground with a white blanket. His sister was right about letting go, and he knew it. But knowing what was right and actually doing it were simply not the same thing.

  Sneezing twice, he tried to ignore the growing ache that was beginning to spread across his body. He didn’t have time to be sick. Tapping his sugar maples was going to take every ounce of energy he had. He could ask for help from his father and his younger brother Mark, but this was something he wanted to do on his own. To prove to himself that he was capable of running this farm.

  The silhouette of a familiar figure yanked him out of his thoughts. He stopped abruptly in front of the sheriff’s office and stared at the young woman leaving the mercantile. The hem of her dark blue dress fluttered in the wind beneath her threadbare coat as she hugged a thick package to her chest. Even before she turned, he knew for certain it was Lidia. He wasn’t sure how, but he’d memorized every detail of her face after their one brief encounter. The slight lilt in each step and the way her smile lit up her face. He’d seen her over and over in his dreams at night, but today he was awake and this was real.

  Her gaze met his, and she narrowed the distance between them until she was standing in front of him. “Mr. Johnson, how good it is to see you again.”

  “Please, you can … you can call me Adam.” He didn’t get tongue-tied in front of women. It had to be all the nonsense of Rebecca’s matchmaking attempts. Lidia didn’t affect him that way. She couldn’t. She was Polish.

  “I was hoping to run into you again.” Holding the package with one hand, Lidia pushed back a long strand of dark hair the crisp wind had blown into her eyes. “I wanted to thank you again for coming to my rescue.”

  “It was nothing, really.” He kept his sentences brief, determined not to notice her wide brown eyes or the sweet curve of her smile. “Nothing any decent person wouldn’t have done for someone else.”

  She frowned, and
he wondered what he’d said to take away the sparkle in her eyes. Just because he was attempting to keep his distance from her didn’t mean he had wanted to be rude. Besides the fact that they were strangers, what he’d said was true. Any decent man, or woman for that matter, would have done exactly the same.

  He pulled her Bible out of his pocket. “I almost forgot. You dropped this in the snow. I discovered it after you’d left, and I didn’t know where to find you.”

  He handed her the book, feeling like an awkward schoolboy. A part of him had wanted to find her again, but now that she was here, he felt as if his emotions were piled in a jumbled heap around him. If only he could see her in a different light. If only being Polish didn’t matter to him.

  “I can’t thank you enough.” Her smile broadened as she took the book. “It was a gift from my parents. I thought I’d never see it again. I guess I’m doubly indebted to you now.”

  “It was nothing, really.” Adam fidgeted, not knowing what to say. Maybe there was nothing else that needed to be said.

  “All the same, I do appreciate it.”

  He tipped his hat and took an awkward step back. “I’m on my way home, so if you’ll excuse me.”

  Lidia nodded solemnly, her stomach churning as she continued toward the outskirts of town. Fingering the smooth cover of her Bible that she’d stuffed inside the pocket of her coat, she felt tears well up in her eyes. She wiped them away with the back of her hand and took a deep breath, determined to control her spiraling emotions. She’d been a fool to let herself daydream about the handsome stranger who’d rescued her from that rabid mutt. Adam Johnson had been right. He’d done nothing more than any other person in the same circumstance would have done. She foolishly misread the looks of attraction in his eyes as he’d helped her down from the tree.

  The fact was he was no different than any other man she’d met. Either they wanted her for affections she’d never give a man until she was properly married, or they wanted nothing to do with her because of her heritage. The same was true with most of the women. Both the well-to-do immigrants and the Yankees looked down at girls like her who were forced to work because of their financial situation. She’d seen the same condescension reflected in Adam’s eyes. It was a look that made her feel like a second-class citizen. As if being Polish meant that she wasn’t a true American. But she was American—she would show everyone that Poland was nothing more than a distant memory to her. A story like her babcia’s stories. Nothing more.

  Pulling her coat closer around her, she shivered against the icy wind. For years, she’d worked to ensure that she never spoke with an accent. She strived to demonstrate the refined characteristics of a lady. Her hard work had paid off—she’d made a few friends who hadn’t noticed how different she was. Life had become almost normal. Then her parents’ death a year ago changed all of that. No longer was there time for fancy frivolities like tea parties with her friends and picnics on lazy Sunday afternoons. She had to support not only herself but her brother, as well, and the only time she was allowed to escape the confines of the mill was for church or when her boss, Mrs. Moore, sent her to town on an errand.

  Hurrying through the snow, Lidia let the tears run freely. Her brother had just turned thirteen. God hadn’t meant for a boy his age to be raised by his older sister who had yet to turn twenty. He needed a mother to love him and a father to teach him the Word of God and how to act like a man—something she could never do for him.

  Sometimes it’s just so hard, God.

  She tried to swallow the lump of pain in her throat. When she’d met Adam Johnson, something about him had reminded her of all she yearned for in life. Foolish notions of falling in love and living happily ever after were not luxuries she normally allowed herself to indulge in. They were nothing more than silly dreams of being rescued from the life she was trapped in. That would never happen to her.

  Instead, she would spend her days working long hours at the mill. Every spare moment was used reading from the Bible or works of poetry such as N. P. Willis and John Greenleaf Whittier, graciously lent to her by dear Mrs. Gorski from church. If she wasn’t reading, she spent those brief moments filling the pages of her blank notepad with her own poetry, wondering all the time if anything better lay ahead of her. Wasn’t there more to life than tediously attending to the looms for ten hours each day?

  For a moment, Adam had made her forget. Her breath had caught as she’d looked into his dark eyes, and when he smiled at her, he’d left her speechless. Lidia’s foot plunged into a crusty pile of snow, bringing her back to reality. She shivered as the icy crystals tumbled into her boots. It was a chilling reminder of the truth of her situation.

  Obviously Adam was no different from the scores of folks who disliked her simply because she was Polish, and now, without a family of her own, she had little interaction with others like her who had emigrated from her homeland. No matter what she did or how hard she worked to be a true lady of quality, things would never change. There was simply no place for her to find love in this New World.

  three

  The eighty-foot maple soared above him. Adam pressed the palms of his hands against the ridged bark of the tree and smiled, ready to continue the tradition of harvesting sap that had been done by men and women for centuries. A brisk westward wind blew, ruffling the hair on the back of his neck. Above him the sun shone bright, warming the day, but not enough to thaw the ground. The conditions were perfect.

  For five winters he’d worked beside Old Man Potter, a no-nonsense codger who’d taught Adam everything he knew about the tedious process of gathering sap and the final process of turning the sap into syrup. After suffering from a bad case of pneumonia, Mr. Potter hadn’t made it through the winter. To Adam’s surprise he had left the entire farm to him.

  This was the second year Adam worked the sugar brush alone. By next year, he hoped to be able to afford to hire a handful of men to gather an even larger amount of sap. And that wasn’t all he planned. He was studying the profitability of using a portion of the land for horse breeding, or perhaps dairy farming. Something that would make the acreage self-sustaining.

  Water dripped from an icicle at the top of the sugarhouse, then slid down the side of Adam’s face. He shivered, not certain if it was from the cold or from the infection he’d been fighting for days. He simply didn’t have time to be sick. He’d spent the past month repairing the furnace, vats, and other supplies at the sugar camp that was situated beside a small stream. Now that those preparations were finished, it was time to begin tapping the maple trees. Already he’d placed the taps into the trunks so he’d be ready for his first run tomorrow. The only thing left to do was to finish hanging the buckets that would in turn collect the maple sap.

  He could almost taste the spread of sweet treats his stepmother would serve at the upcoming sugaring off, the annual celebration of the maple sugar harvest signaling the end of winter. Maple sugar on pancakes, maple cream, and caramelized sugar on snow would be plentiful as long as the weather cooperated. A bird chirped in the distance, and Adam sent up a short prayer that the Lord would hold off the warm weather this year. Spring might be coming, but not before his harvest had been collected.

  He grabbed the last of the buckets from the back corner of the sugarhouse, pausing when he noticed a scrap of paper lodged in a crack in the wall. Curious, he knelt to pick it up. His heart sank when he realized what it was. Fingering the tattered photograph of Mattie was like a jolt from the past. He could still see the faraway look in his brother Samuel’s eyes the day he’d sat on the stump down by the creek, the image of the girl he loved in his hands.

  “I think I’m in love, Adam.” Samuel had gazed at the photo like an infatuated schoolboy.

  “You’re too young to be in love.” Adam’s voice rang sharp with a note of truth, but he couldn’t disguise his amusement. At sixteen, Samuel’s head was in the clouds more often than not—and Mattie helped to keep it there.

  “What about your dreams of
becoming a doctor?” Adam leaned back against one of the maple trees, its flaming scarlet leaves reflecting its Creator’s glory.

  Samuel shrugged. “Mattie and I’ve talked about staying right here in Cranton and farming a bit of land once we’re married—”

  “So you’ve already talked about marriage?” Adam teased.

  Samuel jumped from the stump, tackling Adam to the ground in one swift motion. Adam might have had the advantage of height as well as ten extra pounds, but Samuel was quicker. They rolled down the embankment, stopping only when they slammed into the side of a tree.

  A wave of nausea swept over him, jerking Adam from the memories of carefree days that were no longer. With the image of his brother’s lopsided grin still fresh in his mind, familiar feelings of anger seared through Adam’s body as he stuffed the photo into his pocket.

  Why did You let him die, God?

  He pounded his fist against the wall of the sugarhouse. It was the question he longed to ask God face-to-face. If anyone should have died, it should have been him. As the eldest son in the family, he was responsible for his siblings. Failing to save his brother’s life was worse than losing his own life.

  Trying to ignore the growing dizziness, he yanked the last four buckets off the ground and headed for the maple grove where he would hang them. He had no choice but to make it though the next few weeks of the harvest. Maybe it was pride, like his father said, that had stopped him from accepting help from his family, but this was something he needed to do. A chance to prove to himself that he could succeed.

  Five minutes later Adam hooked the last bucket onto one of the spouts he’d tapped into the tree. He took a staggering step, his vision blurring as he stumbled up the slight rise toward his cabin. He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hands then stared into the distance at the glistening snow. Maybe if he went to lie down for a few minutes he’d feel better. He shouldn’t be surprised at how tired he felt. Besides preparing to harvest the sap, it had taken weeks of backbreaking work to make Old Man Potter’s two-room cabin livable, and there were still a dozen things he planned to do once the harvest was over.