He brushed the snow from his hair and crammed his hat back on his head, his eyes never leaving the fields and lanes of the Plain farms he rode past. The evergreens in the Slabaugh sisters’ windbreak were taking on the lace of a snow cover, and as Jude glanced at their white farmhouse, he thought it appeared as tightly fastened and austere as the maidels themselves. Beyond the house sat a prim white barn and another outbuilding—and then a flash of red out in the stubbled cornfield made Jude suck in his breath.
“Leah!” he hollered as he nudged Rusty into the Slabaughs’ lane. “Leah, please wait!”
All Jude could figure was that Leah was trying to find a shortcut home, rather than following the roads—and at that moment he didn’t care. The only thing that mattered was that he’d found her, and that she’d stopped Mose to look at him. He urged Rusty into a canter, thankful that his bay seemed to realize they’d fulfilled their mission and would soon be returning home to the warm barn.
Jude’s heart was hammering as he sped across the closely cropped cornfield, his gaze fixed on Leah. Never mind that she sat hunched against the wind and snow and that her hair hung in wet, uneven clumps around her neck. To him, she’d never seemed more beautiful or a more welcome sight for his worried eyes. Only when he was a few yards away did he rein in the horse. When Rusty came up alongside Leah and Mose, Jude slung his arm around his wife’s shoulders and pulled her close for a clinging, desperate kiss.
“I thought I’d lost you—couldn’t understand why you’d—” Jude rasped before he kissed Leah again. “My stars, woman, don’t ever scare me this way again! What would I do if you didn’t come home?”
When he felt her shiver, Jude shrugged out of his barn coat and wrapped it around her shoulders. Still holding her as close as the two horses’ bodies would allow, he gazed around them. “Let’s head for the barn. We’ve got to get you out of this snow, sweetheart.”
* * *
Leah let out a sob and allowed Jude to take her reins and lead Mose to the barn. She’d been five kinds of foolish to rush off without a coat, and two kinds of stupid to allow Alice’s and Adeline’s cutting remarks to get the better of her. When Jude hopped off Rusty to slide the barn door open, she was grateful that Mose had enough sense to get in out of the nasty weather and that Rusty immediately came inside with them. Because she’d left home in a silly, mindless snit, she’d caused two fine horses—and her wonderful husband—needless pain and exposure to the cold. It would serve her right if she caught a horrible cold for running off like a goose.
Behind her, Leah heard a pffft! A glow lit the shadowy barn as Jude hung the Slabaughs’ lantern from a long nail in the barn wall. He closed the big door and came up beside her, opening his arms. She fell into his embrace and began weeping against his shoulder like a woman who’d lost her last friend.
He came after you. He thought he’d lost you. Leah’s thoughts spun in circles that slowly began to unwind, and she became aware that Jude was shaking, too, wrapping his arms around her beneath the coat as though he never intended to let her go. Don’t ever scare me this way again! What would I do if you didn’t come home?
When Leah raised her head, she was stunned to see that Jude’s face was wet with tears. “I’m sorry,” she whimpered. “I should’ve known better—”
“What happened, sweetheart?” he whispered urgently. “You’re the bravest woman I know, so I can’t imagine what upset you so badly.”
Leah wiped her face against her arm. Her clothes were soaked and clinging to her, chilling her to the bone. Her hair had come undone and was hanging in wet bunches around her shoulders—and somewhere along the way, her kapp had blown off. Jude’s dark eyes searched hers relentlessly, yet desperately. . . lovingly. When he took the bandanna from his shirt pocket and began to blot her face and hair, Leah began to cry again—but this time it was love rather than fear driving her emotions.
And when have you ever allowed your emotions to get so far out of control? You could’ve told Jude about the twins’ remarks in the barn at home and saved him a lot of bother.
Leah sighed and took a couple of deep breaths. Bless him, Jude spotted a barn coat hanging on a peg near the door and he brought it to her . . . eased his own soaked coat gently off her shoulders and helped her into the dry one. He wasn’t pushing her for answers, or chiding her for riding off in such a huff. He simply waited for her to regain her mental balance, rubbing her chilled, raw hands between his large, warm ones. The horses wandered back into stalls, following their noses to hay and water and a Slabaugh horse that whickered a welcome.
At last Leah cleared her throat. “The frolic was going like it was supposed to—unless you count the way I was so clueless as to carry food out to the ladies who were quilting,” she added with a sigh. “But when Anne remarked about how I was handling Betsy as though she were my own child—”
“Jah, the two of you together make a sweet picture,” Jude agreed, encouraging her with his loving gaze.
“—Alice announced that she believes Betsy is my baby,” Leah continued, closing her eyes against the pain of the twins’ accusations. “And of course, Adeline chimed in, and between the two of them they—they speculated that I’d had Betsy out of wedlock and hidden her at Mama’s while you were courting me, so you wouldn’t know about
