twin never hesitated to say what was on her mind.
Deciding to be—for once—equally blunt, Leanna asked, “How long have you been eavesdropping?”
“Long enough to find out who moved into the empty house next door.” Annie stooped to give Grossmammi Inez a hug. “I came in to pick up a different pair of shoes.” She pointed to her paint-stained ones. “I put the wrong ones on when I left for the bakery this morning. Before I go, though, you haven’t answered my question, Leanna. Are you worried Gabriel Miller is here solely to find a wife to take care of his bopplin?”
Being false with her twin would be like lying to herself.
“Ja.”
She watched as Annie and their grossmammi exchanged a glance, but couldn’t read what message they shared.
Getting up, she hugged them. She retrieved her milch buckets from the sink and took them out to the shed before hitching the horse to their buggy. Today was her day to clean Mrs. Duchamps’s house, and she needed to hurry or she’d be late.
The questions her family had asked were a wake-up call. She must not let the lingering longings of her heart betray her more than Gabriel had.
* * *
What was he doing wrong?
Gabriel looked from the handwritten recipe on the battered wooden counter to the ingredients he’d gathered to make formula for the twins. Realizing he’d missed a step, he added two tablespoons of unflavored gelatin. As he stirred the pot, he frowned. Something wasn’t right. The color was off, and it was getting too thick too fast. He tried a sip. It tasted as it was supposed to, which was without a lot of flavor. He guessed, once they sampled this mixture, the twins would be more eager to eat solid foods.
A quick glance across the crowded kitchen reassured him the bopplin were playing on the blanket he’d found at the bottom of a box marked “kitchen” and “pots and pans.” Friends had helped them pack, and he guessed one person had filled the box and taped it closed before another person labeled it. Bath supplies had been discovered in a box marked “pillows.” True, there had been one small pillow in it, but the majority of the box had been stuffed with shampoo, toothpaste and the myriad items the bopplin required, including extra diaper pins.
The house, which would need his and his twin’s skills to renovate, was stuffed with boxes. He and Michael had brought the barest essentials with them, including their tools. However, two bopplin didn’t travel without box after box of supplies and toys and clothing.
He should be grateful the boxes covered up the deep scratches in the uneven wood floors. Other boxes were set to keep the kinder from reaching chipped walls and floor molding. An old house could be filled with lead paint.
Eventually, it would become a wunderbaar family home, because the rooms were spacious. Large windows welcomed the sunlight. There were three bathrooms, one on the first floor and two more upstairs amid the six bedrooms. One toilet upstairs had plumbing problems, but the water had been turned off before damaging the floors or ceilings. Some furniture had been left behind by the previous owners, but, other than the kitchen table and chairs, it needed to be carted to the landfill because it reeked of mold and rot.
Gabriel paused stirring the formula as Heidi began to clap two blocks together and gave him a grin. Her new tooth glittered like a tiny pearl. Beside her, Harley lay on his back, his right hand holding a teething biscuit while his other hand gripped his left toes. He rocked and giggled when his sister did. With their red hair and faint beginnings of freckles across their noses, they looked like a pair of Englisch dolls. Their big brown eyes displayed every emotion without any censoring.
Had he ever been that open with others?
It seemed impossible after the tragedies of the past couple of years.
“What a schtinke,” said his brother, Michael, as he walked into the kitchen through the maze of unpacked or half-unpacked boxes. Pausing to wave to the bopplin, who giggled, he added, “I hope it tastes better than it smells, or the kids won’t drink it.”
“I sampled a bit of it, and it doesn’t taste as bad as it smells.”
“I don’t think anything could taste that bad.” He reached for the kaffi pot.
Gabriel motioned for his brother to pour him a cup of kaffi, too. He was becoming dependent on caffeine. When was the last time he’d gotten a full night’s sleep? “If this doesn’t work for them, I don’t know what will.”
“Why not be positive? Isn’t that what you always say?”
He watched Michael fill the cups and add a touch of cream and sugar to each. He and his brother weren’t identical twins. There never had been any trouble telling them apart, but the physical differences had grown more pronounced as they grew older.
Michael’s hair wasn’t flame red. Instead it was a darker brown with a faint tinge of russet that became, in the summer sunshine, more pronounced. He was several inches taller than Gabriel and had a nose someone once had described as aristocratic. Gabriel wasn’t sure what that was supposed to mean, but he’d always admired his brother’s strong profile, which was not softened by a beard, for his brother remained a bachelor. Like Gabriel, he had hands calloused from work. His fingers, which were broader than Gabriel’s, could handle a plank of wood as delicately as if it were glass. He’d worked as a finish carpenter in Pennsylvania while Gabriel had focused on rough-in work.
There were more subtle differences, too. Gabriel was the steady one, the person anyone could go to when things were getting rough. He’d give them a well thought-out solution after deliberating on it. Michael jumped into any situation. As a boy, Gabriel had read comic books with an Englisch friend, and Michael had reminded him of a superhero who never hesitated to run toward trouble. Gabriel saw himself more as the person picking up the pieces after the super-villain had been defeated.
“Here you go,” Michael said, holding out a cup.
“Danki.” Gabriel continued stirring the goats’ milch formula while they talked about the job they’d been hired for next week.
The small project, rebuilding a garage in the tiny town of West Rupert, Vermont, about six miles east, was a beginning. They’d need as much work as they could get because they’d arrived too late to get a crop in this year.
Gabriel stared into the pot. “I don’t think it’s supposed to be this thick.”
“You should ask the person you’re getting the milch from. Maybe he’ll know.”
“She. Leanna Wagler.”
His brother’s brows rose in surprise. “The same Leanna Wagler you met in Pennsylvania?”
“One and the same.” He didn’t add she’d wandered through his daydreams almost every day since he’d last seen her. “I knew she’d moved with her family away from Lancaster County, because her brother was eager to get out of that meat-processing plant and wanted a farm of his own.”
“And she was eager to get away from you.”
“Ha ha,” he said without humor. He didn’t want to give his brother’s teasing comment any credibility although, with
