The Christmas Quilt: Quilts of Love Series by Vannetta Chapman Read Free Book Online Page A

in her throat, but Leah pushed forward. She didn’t want to worry over this all day. “I’m asking because I didn’t know if I should keep your dinner warm or throw it out. I didn’t know if I should stay up or go to bed. What am I supposed to do when my husband hitches up the buggy and takes off late at night? Can you tell me that?”
    They’d arrived at Annie’s, but Adam had stopped their buggy halfway down the lane.
    “I don’t want to fight again today.” He picked up his hat, glanced at her, and resettled the hat on his head. “Please. It’s the Lord’s Day. I know carrying the twins is difficult—”
    “Do not blame this on the bopplin .”
    Adam closed his eyes, and she knew, absolutely knew then he couldn’t stand the sight of her. Did he need to shut out the image of her completely?
    “Turn around,” she said, trying to sound firm, trying to sound like she wanted to spend the entire day at home alone.
    “What?” His eyes opened and he gawked at her as if she’d sprouted corn out of the top of her head.
    “Turn around. I want to go home.”
    “ Nein. ”
    “Yes. I want to go home.”
    “Well, you will have to walk because I’m not taking you.” When it seemed they would glare at one another until the snow began to fall, Adam added, “You don’t always get what you want, and now is not the time to throw a tantrum like a child.”
    She had been leaning forward, gesturing toward the reins to make her point. At the word tantrum , she pulled back as if he had slapped her.
    Adam’s jaw clenched and he snapped the reins, signalling to their pretty black gelding to continue down the lane. “ Ya. We’ll be staying and you’ll act like a happy fraa , whether you feel like it or not. I might not be able to satisfy you in any way Leah, but we won’t be upsetting our family over this. They have enough worries.”
    She stared straight ahead as he directed the gelding around the bend and into view of Annie and Samuel’s home—a picture-perfect house with two stories. A garden bed neatly cleaned for the winter surrounded the front porch, and to the southwest, tucked behind the house, sat the traditional red barn.
    Leah peered ahead. She could barely make out Annie and Samuel walking from the barn to the house, arm in arm like two young people still courting!
    Annie, who had married a man over ten years her senior, a widow with a broken heart. Is that why they were still in lieb ? Because he had suffered so much? And Annie had spent her time away, among the Englisch , earning her nursing certificate. It was a career she gave up to come home and nurse her father. That had led to her joining the church. She seemed so content now. Perhaps after her time away, she more fully appreciated being home.
    Annie wasn’t the only Weaver child who had spent time away on a rumspringa . Adam had too, although he’d never spoken of it in detail. Sometimes Leah worried he would rather still be there, where life was easier, where he wouldn’t have three additional mouths to provide for.
    Adam brought the buggy to a stop near the back door. When Samuel heard them, he turned with a smile, to help her out. For a moment, a fleeting second or less, she thought something passed between Samuel and her husband. It seemed they shared a look of concern, for the smile almost slipped off Samuel’s face. Or she could have imagined it.
    Because then he was at her side of the buggy, helping her down, smiling and laughing as he accepted the casserole dish from Adam and helped her into the house. Pretending, as they were, there wasn’t a thing in the world wrong.

    Leah tried not to grimace as she set her huckleberry pudding o n the kitchen counter. Her dish was so small and insignificant among all the others. A sigh escaped before she could stop it, but Annie seemed not to notice, or pretended not to notice.
    “Berry pudding? Are these from the patch in your south field?”
    “They are. We put them up in the summer, and I