Read Robin Lee Hatcher for Free Online Page A

breath, as if fighting for control of his temper. “Perhaps not, but that would change with time.”
    “How can you be sure?”
    He scowled. “I just am.”
    “Because you learned to love Siobhan?”
    “Karola, we—”
    “Is that not true? Is that not what you said to me?”
    With a sigh, he answered, “Yes … but I don’t see what—”
    “I do not wish to marry for other than love, Jakob. You know nothing of me or my life since you went away.” She gave her head a slow shake, only now beginning to understand her reasons for stopping the ceremony. “When, since I arrived, did you ask one question about me or what’s happened to me or what I might want or hope for? When did you ask about my parents or the people you used to know in Steigerhausen? We have scarcely talked at all.” She might have been angry over his lack of interest, she supposed, but she wasn’t. Only sad.
    “Look, I never meant to make you think—” He stopped, rubbed a hand over his face, then tried again. “It isn’t that I don’t care. But after I found out you didn’t get my letter telling you about the children and everything …” He let his explanation trail into silence.
    Karola swallowed a sudden lump in her throat. “It is not entirely your fault, Jakob. I am as guilty as you. I believed what I wanted to believe. I even pretended I still loved you after all those years of silence just so I could get away from those who felt sorry for me and those who laughed at me behind my back. I did not know that was why, but it was. Jakob, I did not love you when I left Germany, and I do not love you now. I do not know you, and I do not love you.”
    Jakob supposed a woman couldn’t speak any clearer than that. She didn’t love him and she didn’t want to marry him. Period. He wasn’t sure how he felt about any of that. All he knew was he’d spent hard-earned money to bring her here—money that couldn’t easily be replaced—and now he was still without anybody to watch over his children while he worked the farm.
    “Jakob?” Pastor Joki’s hesitant voice pulled him back to matters at hand. “Miss Breit?”
    They both turned to find the pastor walking toward them.
    “The wedding’s off.” Jakob knew he sounded harsher than he intended, but he couldn’t help it.
    “Off?”
    Jakob felt heat rising up the back of his neck. “Yes, off.” So much for not being sure how he felt. He was frustrated, and he was angry. With Karola. With his circumstances. With God.
    “I am sorry.”
    Jakob didn’t know if Karola spoke to him or the pastor. He didn’t rightly care. “Maeve, you and your brother take Aislinn out to the carriage. We’ll be there straightaway.”
    Dorotea appeared beside her brother. “What will you do now, Miss Breit?”
    Karola looked at Jakob, her blue eyes filled with questions. Obviously, she hadn’t considered anything beyond her refusal to marry.
    “We’ll figure it out later,” he said gruffly. “Right now, we need to be on our way.”
    “Good heavens!” Dorotea exclaimed. “You can’t mean to take her back to your farm, Mr. Hirsch. Now that you’re not to be married … Well, what would people say?”
    Tulley spoke up. “I’ll be offering her a room at the hotel.
    We’ve plenty to go around.”
    Jakob turned, saying in a low voice, “Tulley, I can’t afford—”
    The Irishman flicked his hand, waving away the words of protest. “We’re family, after all. Sure, and it will be our pleasure to have her stay with us.”
    “Well, then”—Jakob looked at Karola—“I guess it’s settled.”
    In the small parlor of the White home, Charlotte White shrieked with delight. Her best friend, Emma Shrum, had just told her the news about Jakob Hirsch and that German woman. Emma had heard it from her mother, Theodora, wife of the Methodist minister, who had heard it from Laura Gaffney, Tulley’s daughter-in-law. In fact, by this time, everyone in Shadow Creek had probably heard the news.
    “I