the kitchen but stood watching from the doorway. A breeze rustled the leaves of a nearby apple tree and blew the sweet scent of blossoms Rebecca’s way. The strings of her kapp lifted in the wind and danced around her shoulders. Quickly, she clipped the dress onto the line before it could blow away. If a clean garment touched the ground, Maummi would make her wash it again.
“When you are finished there,” her grandmother called, “come and help me in the kitchen. I want you to make snitz pie for Emma’s table. A treat for the little one.”
The reminder of their plans to visit her sister and brother-in-law’s farm for the midday meal brightened Rebecca’s mood considerably. The day was warm enough that she could romp outdoors with her nephew. At nearly three years old, little Lucas was a precocious bundle of energy, and Emma, who was expecting another child in a few months, was only too happy to turn him over to Aunt Rebecca for a spell.
One day I’ll have children of my own.
Her daydream returned with the thought. She lifted one of Papa’s shirts from the basket, but in her mind it belonged to a tall, handsome man whose blue eyes lit up when he came in from the fields at the end of the day. She could see him just rounding the barn, his gaze searching for hers. He would catch sight of her, and his stride would lengthen as he hurried across the grass that waved gently in the Kansas breeze. When he reached her, he would thrust aside the laundry, gather her in his arms, and—
“Rebecca!”
With a jerk, she tossed the shirt across the line. “I’m hurrying, Maummi.”
She brushed a crease out of the shirt, her hand lingering on the damp fabric. If only her one true love were more than a memory. She could see him so clearly in her mind’s eye, sitting tall atop his horse, the brim of his Englisch hat shading his eyes from the glaring sun. Four years had passed since she last saw Jesse, and yet she remembered every detail. Not a single day had gone by that she hadn’t thought of him.
An apron followed the shirt on the line. Of course, the Jesse in her mind was a little different from the real one. Hers was dressed in Amish trousers, suspenders, and a proper round-brimmed straw hat. Jesse becoming Amish was a matter of expediency because she could only marry an Amish man. Papa had already lost one daughter to the Englisch, and he wouldn’t stand for the second one to leave the church as well. Once Jesse understood that, she was sure he wouldn’t mind becoming Amish.
The sweet-smelling breeze whisked away a wistful sigh as Rebecca clipped a pair of Maummi’s bloomers on the line. Sometimes she worried her dreams were nothing but fancy. What if Jesse had forgotten all about her in the four years since their adventure on the cattle trail, the one where Emma had met her husband, Luke? After all, Rebecca had been little more than a child then, and Jesse a handsome cowboy, a man.
And oh, what a man!
A familiar tickle fluttered in her belly. She had given her heart to that drover, and time had not diminished the strength of her affections. If only he would return to Apple Grove and see that she was now a full-grown woman of seventeen. One look at her, and he would realize God had made them for each other, of that she was certain. He would join the church and they would marry, and he would help Papa on the farm until the day Papa decided to hand the reins over to him. Rebecca turned and gazed at the house where she had been born and lived her entire life. One day the house would be hers and Jesse’s, and they would fill it with children. They would build a dawdi haus for Papa right next door so she could care for him in his old age.
She hung the last apron on the line and picked up the empty basket. The hem of her black dress brushed the grass as she crossed the yard toward the house. Her plans had been laid in painstaking detail over four years of wishing and hoping and straining her eyes toward every Englisch stranger on horseback who passed by on the road.
But Jesse did not come. In fact, no one had heard from him since he returned to