A Noble Groom (Michigan Brides #2)(56)

With reluctance Annalisa gathered a few meager clothing items for Gretchen. She hugged her good-bye, lifted her into the back of the wagon, and watched her ride away. The sad eyes peeking over the edge of the wagon watched her too. Annalisa’s chest hurt until she could hardly breathe.

She was doing what was best. But why was the right thing sometimes the hardest?

Snowdrop’s head popped up in the back of the wagon next to Gretchen’s. The puppy licked the girl’s face. Gretchen put her arm around the dog, drew him into an embrace, and kissed his head.



At least Frau Pastor had insisted on letting Gretchen bring Snowdrop. Her daughter would find some comfort in him.

As the wagon rolled out of sight, Annalisa fought against a sob that pushed for release.

“Gott?” she whispered. Was Gott there? Or would He be too busy with more important people than her?

She bent, picked a blade of grass, and twirled it in her fingers. Hadn’t Carl said Gott clothed every piece of grass?

If He cared about something as small and unimportant as grass, wouldn’t He care about Gretchen?

“Gott,” she started again, “won’t you keep my liebchen safe?” The sob swelled again and hurt her chest. “Bitte.”

When she could no longer hear the rattle of the wagon, she let the blade of grass fall back to the ground, and with heavy steps she returned to the cabin and Carl’s side.



Over the next week, the fever raged with an intensity that made Carl delirious. When he wasn’t unconscious and prostrate, he thrashed in agitated agony.

For Annalisa, the days and nights blended, broken only by her attempts to care for the animals in between tending Carl. She had little time for anything else, and as much as she missed Gretchen, she was grateful the girl was somewhere safe.

She wanted to curse the unusually hot May that made the cabin unbearable. Each day she watched the sky for signs that the needed rain was coming to cool the air and drench the garden and crops that weren’t growing as they should.

Even with the door and window wide open, Annalisa slumped in overheated exhaustion in the chair, which she’d pulled next to the bed.

She fanned Carl with the edge of her apron and for a few seconds turned the fan upon herself. The tepid air was heavy with the sweet syrupy scent of the birch-bark mixture she’d concocted to fight his fever. She’d also tried boneset tea and yarrow. But nothing had eased his suffering.

“What more can I do?” She leaned forward and pressed her palm against his forehead, hoping for cooler skin. But he was as hot and clammy as he’d been since the first day he’d fallen ill.

Except now his breathing was shallow and his face pale.

She slid her hand to his cheek, to the dark stubble that had formed over the past week. “Don’t go,” she whispered as she’d already done a dozen times that day. “If you wake up, I promise I’ll make buttermilk biscuits to go with the dandelion jelly. I promise you’ll love them. Herr Pastor says my biscuits are the best he’s ever tasted.”

Carl’s closed eyelids didn’t flicker.

The stagnant fear and desperation that had been pooling in her stomach bubbled up. She let her fingers make a trail down his cheek to his chin and back up the other cheek.

She wouldn’t have taken such liberties if he’d been awake, but since he would never know, she’d lost her embarrassment at touching him. It seemed almost natural to let her fingers linger in the scratchiness of his cheeks or in the waves of his hair.

“Wake up.” Her fingers hovered above his lips, taking little comfort in the air that came out with each labored breath.

He was dying.

As much as she wanted to deny the truth, she knew it was only a matter of time before his fever-ravaged body would succumb to the weakness and fatigue and stop working altogether.

A cramp wound through her middle and pulled tight. She rubbed her hand over the hardness of her belly and tried to ease the discomfort the occasional contractions brought.

Although the cramping had been steadily growing, it was still too early for the baby to come. In fact, she couldn’t let the baby make an appearance until she was able to take down the white flag. She needed the midwife, and her mother, and her sister.

Even as she thought of her family, fear gripped her as hard as one of her contractions. Had Uri and Eleanor survived the typhoid? And what about Mutter and Vater? She hadn’t heard any more news.

Had they come all the way to America and worked this hard only to lose their lives to a fever?

Carl gave a soft moan and shifted.

She quickly brought her hand to his forehead again, knowing it was futile to hope the fever had broken. Yet she wasn’t ready to let go of him. Not yet.

She groaned and lowered herself to her knees on the floor. Was she falling in love with this man? She’d seen Gretchen’s love for Carl blossom, but had hers been growing too?

She reached for his hand and clasped it between both of hers. After the past several years of deciding that true love didn’t exist, that it was only a thing of fairy tales, how had she allowed herself to start hoping again?

A fresh tremor of fear rumbled through her. What had come over her? Why had she so foolishly allowed herself to care about this man? He’d made it clear that he wasn’t a farmer, that he was only staying until her groom came, that he’d rather move to Chicago and teach there. The truth was, he’d always been open with her about his intentions. He’d never led her to believe any falsehoods about who he was or what he wanted. And even though he was kind to her, he was probably treating her the way he did all women—with basic consideration.