A Time to Love Read Online Free Page A

your brother and sister?" Phoebe called from the kitchen.
    The child looked at Matthew, and when he nodded, she ran from the room.
    "You'll be all right now?" he asked her.
    She nodded, avoiding his gaze, and drank some water.
    "Jenny? There is no need to be embarrassed."
    Lifting her eyes to his, she looked for pity and found none.
    "From what your friend said, you have been through a lot."
    "David talks too much."
    Matthew grinned. "He's a good friend. When you were hurt, he came all the way here to tell Phoebe what had happened."
    Wrapped, cocoon-like, in the quilt, Jenny stared at him."He never told me that."
    She'd wondered how he'd seemed to know how to get to her grandmother's last night with nothing more than the address. He hadn't used the GPS in the SUV. But David was a terrific investigative reporter. She'd assumed he'd looked it up somehow.
    "We'll be going then," Matthew said.
    She nodded. "Thank you."
    " Du bischt willkumm."
    Getting stiffly to her feet, she walked into the kitchen behind him. He carried his little girl out to the buggy, set her on a seat, then climbed inside. The Amish love children, and Matthew obviously adores his little girl, thought Jenny. She smiled as he kissed Annie on the forehead before he tucked a blanket around her.
    Jenny stood at the window, watching the buggy roll down the road until she couldn't see it anymore.
    When she turned, she saw that her grandmother was watching her.
    "What is troubling you, Jenny?"
    "I was remembering the last time I saw Matthew. I had a crush on him."
    Jenny gazed at the winter-bare landscape, the trees void of leaves, their branches black against the gray sky. Barren, she thought, like me. She wrapped her arms around her waist, suddenly cold.
    Her grandmother touched her shoulder. "Why are you so sad?"
    "His little girl is so beautiful."
    Phoebe pulled a clean handkerchief from her pocket and gave it to Jenny. She stared at the snowy square, not sure when she'd last seen such a thing. For a moment she didn't know why her grandmother handed it to her, then realized that she had tears on her cheeks.
    "Talk to me, tell me what's wrong, liebschen."
    "I don't want to burden you."
    "Why should talking burden me?"
    Her legs were shaking from standing so long. Jenny walked slowly to a kitchen chair and sat. "You've been so kind to have me stay—"
    "I haven't been kind, Jenny. You are my grossdochder."
    "One who hasn't been the best at keeping in touch."
    Phoebe's eyes were kind as she spoke. "Sometimes there is distance in families."
    Jenny knew she meant more than the physical miles. Once her father had decided not to be baptized when he turned sixteen, he'd left the Amish community and never looked back. He'd only visited after his father died, and then he let Jenny come during those two summers years ago.
    "I loved your letters, especially the ones from overseas. You described everything so that I could see it."
    Not everything, thought Jenny. There had been a desire to protect this woman who lived the Plain life, as the Amish called it, from the terrible things she saw over there.
    And yet, from the brief time she had visited here, she knew that life in an Amish community wasn't idyllic. Life was still life. Bad things happened, like when a farmer's tractor overturned and crushed him or a hit-and-run driver had killed a little boy walking a country road to school. Matthew's wife had died young; she remembered that Phoebe had written to her that the woman had been a victim of cancer. Not even the best treatment from the local Englisch hospital had been able to save her.
    Life was life, after all, wherever it was lived.
    "Jenny?" Her grandmother's voice was gentle but determined.
    "The doctors say I might not have children. I had infernal—" she stopped, searching for the right word—"internal injuries."
    Actually, she thought bitterly, I might have gotten the word right the first time.
    Phoebe took her hand. "If it's God's will, you'll have them," she