More Than Words Can Say by Karen Witemeyer

Author:Karen Witemeyer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical Romance;Love Stories;FIC042030;FIC042040;FIC027050
ISBN: 9781493418602
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2019-04-24T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

23

With nervous energy zinging through her at the prospect of actually planning to become a true wife to her husband, Abigail tossed her patriotic purchases on the kitchen worktable, paid the delivery boy for his trouble, then took the new pitcher and basin upstairs.

She stepped into the master bedroom, and a shiver danced along her arms. Don’t be a ninny. It’s not like you’re planning to don your nightclothes and wait for him under the covers. You’re just surprising him with a gift. A gift that might eventually lead to covers and what occurred under them, but she’d best not jump too far ahead on this planning thing. She’d lose her courage before she even began.

Bread won’t rise unless the baker first activates the yeast. Another of her father’s favorite sayings. In other words, take one step at a time and trust the process.

Only she didn’t know the process. Not for becoming a man’s wife. Nor for handling the arrival of children that might follow sooner than she’d like. Once she took this step, there’d be no going back. Changes would come. The bakery could no longer be the center of her existence. Her dreams would have to adjust. Could she do that?

Sophia mourned the future she’d lost so much that she’d let it embitter her. Would the same happen to Abigail if she could no longer manage the bakery? Would she come to resent her husband, her children?

There was no question in Abigail’s mind that Zach would be a good father. Just look at Evie. He’d raised his adoptive sister, and she adored him. And his treatment of Rosie only bore that out further. Protective yet at the same time empowering her to face her problems on her own. He didn’t see women as lesser beings. He respected their abilities and would defend them like a hero of old.

So it came down to trust. Did she trust God either to postpone pregnancy or to work out a way to preserve her career aspirations if she pursued intimacy with Zach? She knew what the right answer was supposed to be, yet she wavered, unsure of how reality would play out. Not only where children were concerned, but with the intimate act itself.

Abigail sat on the corner of Zach’s mattress, biting her lip when the bed frame creaked. If she knew more about what to expect or had a recipe to follow, it might be easier, but Mama wasn’t around to ask, and as frank as dear Lydia was, Abigail couldn’t imagine seeking such personal advice from someone outside of family.

She’d tried looking in the Bible, but the majority of the marriages chronicled there consisted of Husband X taking Bride Y into the family tent and—boom—wifedom. Sometimes on the very day the two met. There was the lovely story about Jacob loving Rachel and working for her for seven years, but nothing about courtship was revealed, only work. And the whole bride-switch trickery with Leah brought up too many uncomfortable notions about older, less attractive sisters.

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