"We intended to go this afternoon, anyway, to help with ch.o.r.es and take them a meal." They would still do that. "We'll feed them before you take them."

"That's a good idea."

Sighing, Rebekah trudged back up the steps to the screen door. She paused. The sound of sobs so mournful they seemed wrenched from the depths of the very soul wafted from the inside. Rebekah bowed her head. Mudder's invincible front had been broken by a little girl with ma.s.ses of dark curls.

She slipped through the door and followed the sound into the kitchen. Mudder sat at the prep table, Gracie on her lap. The little girl, her chubby face smeared with cookie crumbs and spit, offered a cookie to the crying woman. Mudder gave a shuddering sigh and accepted it with a watery smile. "Danki."

"Mudder, it's time for us to go."

Mudder looked up. She shook her face, tears running down her cheek and onto her neck. "I know it's Gott's will. I know my brain isn't capable of knowing or understanding the big picture He sees."

"Yet you can't help but wonder how this can be right?"

Mudder nodded and hiccupped another sob. She wiped at her face with the back of her hand. "Ach, this is ridiculous. I just had a weak moment."

"You are human."

"Gott's will be done."

"I feel the same way."

"You shouldn't."

"Ever since Leila left, everyone has looked at me funny as if they're waiting for me to bolt."

"Nee."

"Jah. You most of all."

"I couldn't bear to lose another daughter."

"That's not going to happen. Not with me. Not with Hazel."

Mudder shifted Gracie to her other knee and handed the girl a piece of broken cookie. "I'm more certain of that now than I was before."

"Why is that?"

"Tobias Byler."

"Mudder!"

"You don't have to talk about it. I'm just saying I have eyes in my head and I can see."

"Nothing has happened."

"But you would like for it to happen."

It was a statement, not a question. Rebekah held out her hands. "Come on, pumpkin. We have to go find your mudder and daed."

Gracie would never need to know those German words. They weren't used in her world. In Dallas she would grow up without wood-burning stoves and canning frolics and church services in High German. She wouldn't know her aentis and onkels and groossmammis and groossdaadis. Rebekah buried her face in the girl's yellow cotton sundress to hide the tears that threatened. Her mudder's touch on her shoulder forced her to look up. "It will be as Gott intended. Her life and yours."

Mudder's tearstained face and the way she held on to Gracie's chubby body a few seconds longer served as a testament to the strength it took to accept such a world as that. Rebekah prayed she had the fort.i.tude to do the same.

TWENTY-FOUR.

The shop or the farm? Tobias felt split in two. Without Daed and David, ch.o.r.es at home were piling up, as much as Rueben, Micah, Liam, and even the girls tried to help. The air was heavy with heat and humidity, making his shirt stick to his back. He smoothed the sorrel's leg and lifted it to examine the hoof. The horse needed a new shoe. Teeth gritted, Tobias straightened and patted the poor creature's long neck.

The sky glowered overhead, matching his mood. They needed rain, but rain would keep them out of the fields. They were already behind planting the onions and broccoli that the grocery-store chain bought from the others. And b.u.t.ton could not continue to pull the plow with his shoe about to come off. Tobias would have to ask Jeremiah where the closest farrier was. Unless the Glicks did their own shoeing. Which was possible. He'd never done it, and now wasn't the time for trial and error.

The sound of an engine drowned out the shrill conversation of two wrens roosting in the nearby live oak tree. He wiped sweat from his face with the back of his sleeve and turned to look.

A blue minivan like the one that had been parked outside the church last week putted along the road that led to the house. Jesse. The time of reckoning had come. Martha had Lupe in the kitchen, teaching her how to make bread. Diego had taken to following Rueben around, mimicking his every move. At the moment they should be mending the fence around the chicken coop. The coyotes were making off with more than their share of the hens that provided the Byler family with an important part of their breakfast.

In a short time Lupe and Diego had become part of the family. Keeping a distance from kinner simply wasn't possible. Maybe for others, but not Tobias. His heart didn't have an Off b.u.t.ton, it seemed. Teeth gritted once again, he strode from the corral and made his way to the road.

The minivan slowed, stopped, belching fumes and smoke near the hitching post. Seconds later Jesse emerged along with Leila. Thunder rumbled in the distance as the back door slid open. Rebekah popped out, Gracie in her arms. Tobias forgot to look at Jesse and Leila. All he could see was this young woman with a baby on her hip. She looked exactly as a fraa should look. As a mudder should look. The baby had Jesse's dark, curly hair, but Leila's fair complexion and blue eyes.

What would Tobias's bopli look like, his and Rebekah's? The thought sent a wave of heat through him. Such a thought. He hadn't even asked her to take a ride with him. Doing so would mean he had one more person to protect. A person who might leave him.

His heart intended to ask her to take a ride. His brain didn't have the wherewithal to stop it. How could he be thinking of himself at a time like this? He had no time for mushy stuff. He took a breath and turned to Jesse. "You have something to tell us?"

"This is my wife, Leila." Jesse took Leila's hand. "Rebekah has my daughter, Gracie."

"We've met." Tobias tried to keep his gaze on Jesse, but it kept wandering to Rebekah. "What did you find out?"

"That's right. I forgot. At their secret meeting." Jesse shook his head as if to say, Women. "We need to take Lupe and Diego in to be processed so they can set up their hearing. That way the government can start looking for their father. He could be in the system. They could be reunited that way."

"What if he's not?"

"Then we'll ask for custody until their case goes to court. That could be months or years."

"We could go to San Antonio, try to find their father on our own. Then they could stay here."

"San Antonio is too big. Where would we start?" Leila stepped between Jesse and Tobias. "We have to have faith in the system. The kinner will be safe with us until their hearing. No one will come looking for them at our house."

Rain plopped on his nose. Up north, rain cooled the air. Here, it didn't seem to do much but create more steam and humidity. Did Rebekah like this plan? Tobias glanced at her. She looked so motherly. So like a fraa. More drops splatted in the dirt, leaving wet blotches that looked like a child's drawings. "What do you think?"

Emotions flitted across her face. Fear mixed with sadness. Determination. "I want what's best for them. I don't know what that is, but I trust Jesse."

Jesse, but not Leila? An interesting omission. If she trusted her brother-in-law, he would have to do so as well. He studied his shoes, not wanting to see the pain on her face. "Lupe is in the kitchen. Diego's working on the chicken-coop fence or getting in the way more likely."

"We'll tell them together." Her dirty sneakers appeared in his view of the ground. "Tobias?"

He looked into her face. Her lips trembled with the effort to control her tears. She didn't want Lupe and Diego to go either. He straightened. "They'll be okay with your sister and brother-in-law. I trust them."

Rebekah nodded but sniffed. "I don't want them to go."

"Me neither. But they'll be in good hands."

"Lead the way."

He tromped toward the house, paused to knock dirt from his boots by the front door, and then led them to the kitchen, all the while listening to Gracie's high-pitched babble and Rebekah's amused responses, a sort of music that soothed the soul of any family man.

He stuck his head in the doorway. "Lupe."

Martha turned, her cheeks red from the heat, a bread pan in one hand. The heavenly scent of fresh-baked bread wafted on the air. "She went to see who's out front. We heard a car."

"We were out front." Tobias jerked his head toward their guests. "They've come about Lupe and Diego."

"She said something in Spanish I didn't understand. Like hombre malo." Martha shrugged. "Then she went out the back door. She let the screen door slam, which wasn't like her at all, but I figured she was excited about visitors."

"We didn't see her."

She plopped the pan on the counter. "I have peanut b.u.t.ter cookies and tea, if anyone is interested."

"Maybe later." He brushed past Jesse and the others. "Let me see if we missed her out front."

No sign of Lupe by the front porch. He surveyed the yard. No little girl who insisted on wearing a red, white, and blue T-shirt with faded jeans every other day. "Lupe? Lupe!" He cupped his hands to his mouth to make his shout carry. "Lupe, we have company here to talk to you."

No answer.

Tobias plodded down the stairs and headed for the backyard and the chicken coop. The baby chatter behind him told him the others followed.

Rueben looked up as they approached, a little ragtag group. "I'm almost done. Good thing too. It looks like the sky is about to open up. Again. It seems the drought is over."

"Where are Lupe and Diego?"

"Lupe came by a few minutes ago and said she wanted to talk to Diego." Rueben pointed with his hammer. "Then she started talking a mile a minute in Spanish. They went off yonder."

Hombre malo. On the day he'd first met Lupe, she'd thought he was an hombre malo. Bad man. She had seen Jesse and been afraid of the bad man. Tobias turned to the others. "She may have seen you drive up and taken off."

"I told you she was scared." Rebekah hitched Gracie up on her hip. "She doesn't trust men she doesn't know."

"I'll go after them." Tobias glanced at the sky. Thunder rumbled in the distance. Lightning crackled across threatening clouds that hung so low it seemed he could reach out and touch them. "We need to find them before the storm hits."

Rebekah handed Gracie to Leila. "I'll go with you."

"Nee, not necessary. It's about to storm."

"A little water won't hurt me."

"I should go." Frowning, Jesse looked from Rebekah to Tobias. "It would be more proper."

That he should be the one to worry about what was proper made Tobias want to snort, but he didn't. "Whatever you think."

"Nee. That's the whole point. She's scared of men. Hombre malo. That's you." Rebekah pointed at Jesse with an accusing finger. "She'll come to me."

Her obstinate tone told him it was useless to argue. "Fine. Jesse, come or not come, it's up to you."

Leila put a hand on her husband's arm. "Let them go."

"Fine."

"Y'all wait inside. Keep Gracie dry." Rebekah headed toward the dirt road that meandered deeper into Byler property. "We'll be back."

It only took a minute or two for him to outpace her. She didn't say anything, her breathing soft, her dress swishing around her legs as she skipped to keep up. He took pity on her and slowed.

"Are you mad about something?" She sounded breathless. He slowed some more. "Did I do something?"

"Nee. What makes you say that?"

"You keep frowning and you look like you have a headache. You're grumpy."

He had reason to be grumpy. He found himself caring about her, when he hadn't wanted to care about a woman again. "I'm worried about Lupe and Diego."

"You looked that way before you knew they'd run off-"

"We don't know they ran off."

"She knew. Lupe's a smart girl."

"She couldn't know."

Rebekah pressed her lips together and flounced ahead.

"Where are you going?"

"They couldn't have gotten far. Their legs are short."

"Not much shorter than yours."

"My legs aren't short. I'm tall for a girl." She whirled and glared, dirt making tiny plumes around her black sneakers. "Are you anxious to argue?"

"Nee. I . . ." He stopped. "I'm short on patience these days."

Her glare melted. "I imagine so. Sorry for making it worse."

Her tone was soft, her face anxious. She had such a good heart and he was making her miserable. "You didn't." He shrugged, struggling for words. "We have a lot of work to do."

"Without your daed, you feel lost."