Datt.” Her voice was firm.
“Joseph needs a father.”
Rosie could not argue. Her son needed a father, but that did not mean she needed a husband.
She stepped into the kitchen, smelling the homemade bread and hearty beef stew her mother had served for the evening meal. Her mouth watered and she realized she had been busy helping patients all day and had failed to take either her lunch or her evening break.
Food could wait. She quickly washed her hands at the sink and then hurried to where her son sat playing on the floor. She raised Joseph into her arms and smothered him with kisses until he giggled and nuzzled her neck. He was eight months old with a happy disposition and a laugh that drove away any thought of her problems.
Rosie’s heart soared. Nothing mattered except her child.
“Ach, what has happened?” Her mother’s eyes were wide as she pointed to the scrapes and scratches on Rosie’s face and hands.
“I fell from my bike.”
“You have a bad cut to your forehead. Sit.” She pointed to the kitchen table. “I saved a bowl of stew. You are hungry, yah?”
Holding Joseph in her left arm, Rosie slipped onto the bench at the table, bowed her head and offered a prayer of thanks for her safe return home before she eagerly lifted a heaping spoonful of stew to her mouth.
“After you eat and prepare Joseph for bed, then you will tell me what made you late coming home from work.”
Her mother had a keen sixth sense. Rosie would be careful not to reveal what really had happened lest Mamm worry too much.
“The uneven pavement on the road caused me to fall, Mamm. I was not hurt.”
“For this, I am glad, but the cut needs doctoring.”
Her mother retrieved a first-aid kit from a kitchen cabinet and dampened a cloth that she wiped over Rosie’s forehead. After cleaning the area, she applied ointment and covered the cut with a bandage.
“The town is decorated for Christmas, yah?” her mother asked as she returned the kit to the cabinet.
“Candy canes and snowmen hang from the streetlights.” Rosie smiled. “Joseph would enjoy seeing the hanging lights and evergreen wreaths.”
Although after what had happened today, Rosie did not want Joseph anywhere near town. She glanced at the end of the table, noting an envelope that had surely come in the mail.
In hopes of further distracting her mother from what had happened tonight, Rosie asked, “You received a Christmas card today?”
“From your cousin, Alice. She said baby Becca is growing and big sister Diane is almost as tall as their kitchen table.”
“Diane is a sweet girl. I am glad you cared for her when Alice was on bed rest before Becca was born.”
Mamm offered a weak smile. “She filled a void when you were gone.”
The pain in her mother’s eyes tore at Rosie’s heart. She dropped her spoon into the bowl and scooted back from the table. Mamm rarely talked about that time when Rosie was held captive, for which she was grateful. Perhaps her mother’s worry about Rosie arriving home late tonight had loosened her tongue.
“I will wash the dishes after I put Joseph to bed.”
“No need to hurry, Rosie. There is only your bowl. I will have it washed and back in the cabinet before you return.”
Rosie climbed the stairs with Joseph in her arms. She changed his diaper and dressed him in a fresh sleeper before they cuddled in the rocker. She crooned a lullaby as he nestled in her arms, her heart bursting with love for this sweet child.
His eyes drifted closed, but she continued to hold him, taking comfort from his precious closeness. His tiny hand clutched her finger, signaling their connection. Both of them had been through so much.
She thought back to Joseph’s birth as she labored alone in the dark and damp root cellar. She had prayed her child would be born healthy and without complication. Gott had heard and answered her prayer. Somehow she had given birth to sweet Joseph, and for his first month of life, she had kept him warm and fed and secure in spite of their dire circumstances. Finally, they had been rescued and returned home.
The look on her father’s face when he first saw them circled through her mind—it was one of relief, then shock when he noticed the baby in her arms. If not for her mother’s heartfelt cries of joy and her warm embrace, Rosie might have run away again. The truth was she had no place to go and no one to give her and her son shelter.
She kissed Joseph’s sweet cheek, laid him in his crib and covered him with a blanket.
Locking the door to the room they shared, she untucked the bottom edge of the quilt on her bed. Carefully, she worked her fingers along the stitched covering, and sighed when she felt the small toy and the money she had hidden there, both of which her father would not have approved. William had purchased the toy for their baby a few days after they learned Rosie was pregnant. She had secreted it away, knowing her father would not approve of anything William had given her.
Relieved that her secret hiding spot had not been discovered, Rosie slipped out of her torn dress and into her nightgown, but she was unwilling to go back downstairs. She did not have the energy to face her datt’s questioning gaze or the concern she had seen earlier in her mother’s eyes. Plus, she did not want to talk about her foolish mistake of falling for an Englisch man, which had caused her mother so much pain.
Rosie crawled into her narrow bed and extinguished the lamp. For these last seven months, since she and Joseph had been found, Rosie thought she had been safe, but the car tonight had run her off the road. The man demanded information Will had stolen.
Her stomach tightened. For her child’s sake, she needed to find out what Will had done. When Joseph was older, he would want to know the truth about his father.
Her eyes had not fooled her today. The man with the streak of white hair was the same man she had seen at Will’s trailer.
The man had killed the father of her child.
Now he was coming after her.
Ezra woke with a start the next morning and blinked, trying to distance himself from the dreams that had circled through his mind. He had tossed and turned all night as visions of a young Amish woman with golden hair and blue eyes disturbed his usually placid slumber. What was it about Rosie Glick that put him in such a state of flux?
With a heavy sigh, he rose from the bed, feeling confused and frustrated by the way his mind continued to focus on her troubled gaze that tugged at his heart. He poured cold water from the pitcher into the ceramic basin and washed with a vengeance as if to cleanse himself of any residual influence she might have on his life.
His father had called Ezra a dreamer who allowed thoughts of what could be to interfere
