LITMIR.BIZ

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tonight.” A woman followed the man into the hallway. She was plump and wore her dark hair in a ponytail. Dressed in a flowery bathrobe and fluffy slippers, she looked ready for bed. “Are you okay? Is Rascal all right?”

      “We’re fine. I left him tied out by the driveway,” Micah answered, and Katie Kay realized Rascal must be his horse. An odd name for a buggy horse, but maybe the beast wasn’t plodding and slow when the weather was gut. “Sean and Gemma Donnelly, this is my...friend. Katie Kay Lapp.”

      Did the others hear his hesitation? It made her sad, though she wasn’t quite sure why. She’d treated him poorly, so she should be grateful he attached the word friend to her name. She needed a friend.

      “Come inside,” Gemma said with a welcoming smile. “What a horrible night to be out! Can I get you something hot to drink? I think there’s cocoa left in the cupboard.”

      “Perfect,” Katie Kay said at the same time Micah replied, “No, thanks, we don’t need anything.”

      He frowned at her, and she wanted to ask why. Gemma had offered, and she’d accepted. She understood when Gemma turned, revealing the unmistakable outline of a very pregnant body. In a few months, she could look the same. Her fingers went to her belly. Was it as flat as it’d been a few weeks ago?

      “Actually,” Katie Kay hurried to add, “I’m fine. Being inside and warm is helping. I’ll skip the cocoa.” She hoped her stomach wouldn’t growl and betray the fact she hadn’t had anything to eat since noon, when she’d finally been able to hold down food. All morning, she’d been sick...as she had for the past week. She’d had to accept the possibility she was pregnant.

      “Are you sure you don’t want anything?” the woman asked.

      “Ja.” The Deitsch word slipped out as it hadn’t in months. She was exhausted. That had to be the reason. It couldn’t have anything to do with the brooding man beside her.

      Such a description of Micah astonished her. Micah usually had been the one getting everyone to laugh. He and his brothers always teased each other, and if they could draw others into their sport, all the better. Yet, he stood like a disapproving Old Testament patriarch, not a hint of humor on his face.

      The red-haired man asked, “What’s up, Micah?”

      “Katie Kay needs a place to stay tonight. Can she stay here with you?”

      Questions flickered across both Englischers’ faces, but she was relieved when, after a glance was exchanged, Gemma said, “Certainly. There’s an extra bed in Olivia’s room.” She smiled at Katie Kay. “Olivia is our four-year-old daughter. I don’t think she’d mind sharing her room as long as you’re okay with sleeping with a chatterbox. She talks all day, as well as half the night in her sleep.”

      “That will be fine.” What else could she say? She’d rather sleep in the rain? No, she was glad for the chance to be under a roof and warm. It hadn’t been warm the past week in the apartment she shared with Austin and his friends. There hadn’t been money to pay for heat, so they’d used what blankets they had and hoped the winter wouldn’t be bad. “Is Olivia your only child?”

      She ignored the look Micah fired at her when she didn’t use the common Deitsch word for child. Why would she say kind? The Donnellys weren’t Amish, and she had no idea how much of the language they understood. Probably some, because they were Micah’s friends.

      “No,” Gemma replied with another warm smile. “We have two sons. DJ, which is short for Sean Donnelly Junior, is going to turn six in January, and Jayden is almost two.” She laced her hands together over her distended belly. “And this is son number three. Dylan. He’ll be here in a couple of months. His due date is Christmas, but he’ll come when he wants. As they all do.” She laughed, but a hint of fatigue slipped in. “Sean, why don’t you help Micah get her bags?”

      “I don’t have any,” she said.

      “Oh.” Gemma regained her composure. “Well, then we won’t have to worry about Sean clomping up the stairs and waking the kids. Come in and sit down. We just finished watching the news.”

      As they walked into a comfortable living room with bright green-and-white wallpaper on one wall and a fireplace on another, Micah glanced at Katie Kay, this time with an expectant expression. What did he want? Ach, he wanted her to thank his friends, and he believed she’d left her manners behind in Lancaster. As she started to express her gratitude to Gemma, feeling the familiar ripples of rebellion rising at his silent chiding, her hostess waved aside her words.

      “We’re more than happy to help any friend of Micah’s,” the woman said but glanced at him with an unsteady smile.

      No doubt, Gemma wondered what Micah, so Amish with his broadfall pants and straw hat, was doing with a woman who wasn’t wearing plain clothes and who had no luggage other than a drenched purse.

      “We appreciate that,” Micah said, saving her from having to explain. “When I come in the morning, we’ll figure out what she’ll do next. Okay, Katie Kay?”

      Regarding her without a speck of emotion, he held her gaze. She might as well have been a plank of wood or a shingle. A shiver ran along her as she wondered if he despised her as much as he acted. Tears clogged her throat. She was more alone than she’d ever been.

      She looked away first. She didn’t want him to see her eyes fill. She wasn’t going to cry as she had out on the road. Somehow she had to be strong. If not for herself, then for the boppli she might be carrying.

      Though Katie Kay hadn’t replied to Micah’s question, everyone acted as if she had. Micah took his leave, and Gemma showed her to her daughter’s room. Her hostess explained that Micah and her husband owned a company together, so Micah came over every morning to catch a ride with Sean to work.

      Trying to act as if she’d been in a house like this many times before, she knew the Englisch habits she’d tried to adopt still looked unnatural on her because Gemma asked if she was familiar with how to switch on electric lights in the nearby bathroom. Austin had teased her about being too “dumb-dumb Dutch”—his derogatory term for plain people—each time she made a mistake. She had tried to appear sophisticated and Englisch in the hope he’d notice her.

      He had one night, the one she didn’t recall much about. The result of it was the reason he’d thrown her out of his car and his life.

      Why didn’t she remember more of what had happened a couple of months ago? She’d been drinking, as she often did with the roommates, but she usually was careful, never having more than one drink because even that could make her head swim. The others would have can after can of beer until they passed out. She hadn’t. Having finally gained a little control over her life, she didn’t want to chance losing it again.

      But one night she hadn’t been cautious because she wanted to forget the bad day she’d had at work waiting tables at a diner. Nothing she’d done had been right, and when she got back to the apartment, she’d given into Austin’s urging to keep drinking. Now she was paying the price for believing he wanted to comfort her. She couldn’t blame him for her stupidity, but she did for his callous expulsion of her from his life.

      Taking the nightgown Gemma loaned her as well as a toothbrush, she skipped the hot shower she wanted desperately. The Donnellys were ready to call it a day, and she didn’t want to keep them up. She thanked Gemma, slipped into the little girl’s room and got ready for bed.

      It was far softer than any bed she’d slept on since leaving her own comfortable bed at home. Instead of a handmade quilt, the blanket and freshly laundered sheets were covered by an afghan. Its extra warmth would be welcome.

      From the other bed, Olivia mumbled something. Katie Kay moved to check the kind and bumped into the table between the beds. Something fell off it and bounced on the floor. She realized it was an inhaler. She looked from it to the kind. Olivia must have asthma.

      She put the device on the table and moved to Olivia’s bed. In the faint light from a night-light shaped

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