A Noble Groom (Michigan Brides #2)(54)

Because the truth was, she wanted Carl to stay. Ja, she had to admit it to herself—she wanted things to go on the way they were. With Carl there.

She didn’t want her groom to come because that would mean Carl would leave.

Now that she’d gotten a taste of what life with a kind man was like, could she really marry a stranger, someone who might not respect her, someone who might be like Hans or Idette’s husband, Leonard?

Carl paused in his work, smiled down at Gretchen, and spoke in English.

She repeated his words with a return smile of her own—a smile filled with girlish adoration. And love?

Was Gretchen starting to love this man?

“God help us,” Annalisa whispered. By prolonging Carl’s time with them and allowing Gretchen to come to love him, was she only making his leaving more difficult for her daughter?

Gretchen had already lost her papa. Even though Hans had barely spoken a word to Gretchen, she’d still loved him. She didn’t need to lose another man she’d grown to care about. The loss would devastate the girl.

Annalisa turned back into the shadows of the cabin, the agony of the situation churning her stomach like strong vinegar.

The bubbling of the boiling dandelions called to her.

But she hesitated. What if she could change Carl’s mind about staying? What if she could make him want to marry her?

Even as the questions flitted through her mind, she tossed them aside. She was bound to Dirk, to her cousin. Vater had given the man his word. And she couldn’t disobey Vater’s wishes and cause trouble among her family. He’d done what he thought was best for her. He was only trying to help her.

Her head told her the best thing for both her and Gretchen was for Carl to leave soon, before it became even harder to let him go. But everything else within her urged her to hang on to him, to do whatever she could to prevent him from walking out of their lives.





Chapter

11





The sun burned the back of Annalisa’s neck as she knelt around the new hill of soil Carl had hoed. Sweat trickled between her shoulder blades, making her dress stick to her skin. And her lower back cramped with the weight of bending over for so long.

The work of planting the corn was more difficult this year than in the past. With the growing heaviness of the baby, she had a harder time getting up and down to move from one hill to the next. Even though she’d trained Gretchen to drop six of the dried corn kernels in each of the holes Carl had dug, Annalisa still had to shuffle along behind the girl and cover the seeds with the right depth of soil.

Annalisa brushed her fingers across the coarse, dry soil, covering the kernels before giving the ground a firm pat. Then she sat back and wiped her sleeve across her damp forehead.

Carl stopped and rubbed his fingers over his eyes. He swayed slightly but caught the hoe and leaned against it.

Annalisa glanced to the jug of water at the edge of the field. They’d been out in the sun all morning and it was past time for a water break.



It was also past time for more rain. So far, the other crops had been slow in growing due to the dryness of the past couple of weeks. But now that the chance of a frost was mostly behind them, they could plant the corn and the rest of the garden vegetables.

She had no doubt the rains would come. They usually did, flooding the river and turning the land into a lush, dense wilderness in spite of the lumbering that had taken the white pine years earlier.

Carl straightened and tipped his hat lower as if to keep the bright rays off his face.

Gretchen chattered behind him. For some reason, he’d been quiet today, his usual banter and smiles gone.

Annalisa had just assumed he was focused on the planting and too busy to pay attention to Gretchen.

But as he took a step forward and swayed again, this time like a man drunk on beer, Annalisa’s stomach lurched. Something was wrong.

“Carl, are you all right?” she called, struggling to stand to her feet.

He swiveled toward her and clutched the hoe as if it was the only thing keeping him from dropping to the ground.

“I think it would be good for you to rest now.”

“I’ll be fine in a minute.” His eyes were glassy, almost unseeing.

He rubbed his fingers into his eyes again and started around a stump to the place where he would form the next hill. Yet he only made it two steps before he crumpled to the ground.

A scream slipped from her lips, and she lunged forward, tripping over the clods of dirt. She scrambled next to him, her blood running as fast as a flooded river.

“I want you to take Gretchen and go away from here.” His breath came in labored gasps, and he pressed a hand to his forehead.

“Nein—”

“I’m sick.”

“Then you need help.”

“It’s typhoid fever.”

Fear gripped her—fear for him, for her, for Gretchen, and even for her unborn baby. They were all at risk now. And there was no way he could return to Herr Mueller’s where he’d been staying. Even if she could get him there, they wouldn’t take him in. Not when he was infected.

For better or worse, proper or not, he’d have to stay with her.

She reached for his arm. “You should be in bed.”

He lifted his head and scowled. His eyes were dark with an anger she’d never seen in him before. “Leave me. Now.”