Gabriel's Bride by Amy Lillard

Author:Amy Lillard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Christian Fiction, General
Publisher: B&H Publishing Group
Published: 2013-12-16T05:00:00+00:00

11

Gabriel continued to fill her thoughts as she and the other women turned the benches into tables on which to serve the afternoon meal. Her motions were automatic, sure and true, but without thought as her mind was so occupied elsewhere.

Once the men had all been served, the women filled plates for themselves and the smaller children, and they too settled down—men on one side of the yard, women on the other—to fellowship and sup.

Rachel found a spot for herself and Samuel next to Katie Rose. Gabriel’s sister was looking as beautiful as ever as the date for her wedding drew near. Several times Rachel saw Katie’s green eyes dart to the opposite side of the yard. She knew by the softening look of love in them that Katie was staring at Zane Carson, the fancy Englisch reporter who had come to do a story on the Amish but fell in love instead.

Rachel fixed her gaze on the gnarled tree root running alongside her feet and took a bite of her meal. She would not look at the men, she would not look at her husband, for if she did she would gaze all moony-eyed at him and give away her secret for all to see. The thought brought heat to her cheeks.

“Rachel, are you allrecht?” Ruth asked. “You’re so very flushed.”

“I’m fine.” She choked on the lie, the bite of cracker she tried to swallow sticking in her throat. She grabbed a drink to wash them both down. How ever would she keep her feelings a secret from her husband if she couldn’t keep them from Ruth?

Rachel looked up to see three pairs of concerned eyes studying her. Change that: If she couldn’t keep her feelings a secret from Ruth, Annie, and Katie Rose.

“Really,” she said, sending a wavering smile to back up her statement.

Katie Rose seemed about to say something more when Annie let out a small gasp and pressed a hand to one side of her burgeoning belly.

“Are you okay, liebschen?” Ruth tuned her attention to Annie, and Rachel breathed a short-lived sigh of relief.

“Here.” She grabbed Rachel’s hand and pressed it to her mound of stomach. “The baby’s kicking.”

Tears sprang to her eyes, stinging with their intensity. Underneath her trembling fingers, the child moved. A miracle. A living miracle was growing, budding, stretching, preparing to come out into the world and amaze them with all the wonder that was life.

Oh, to have that joy as her own.

“Rachel?” Once again Katie’s voice was overflowing with concern. “Are you sure you are all right?”

Rachel blinked, sending the tears cascading down her already wet cheeks. She hadn’t even realized she had been crying. “Of course.” She swiped at the moisture with the back of one hand. She was fine.

“Don’t cwy, Wachel.” Samuel climbed into her lap and flung his thin arms around her neck. Until that moment he had been sitting quietly next to Katie Rose, playing with the hem of her apron.

She wrapped her arms around him in return and briefly closed her eyes.

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