God's Gift of Love Read Online Free Page A

Zachary again.”
    “Yes, at the service, you will.” Gabe put his hands in his pockets. “You can meet their wives and children, too.”
    “They married as well?” Katie asked.
    “ Jah .”
    “So much has changed in these few years,” she said quietly.
    Gabe didn’t respond at first. He finally said, “ Jah . Some things haven’t, though.”
    Katie smiled. “ Nee ? Like what?”
    “I still love being with you.”
    Katie’s smile faded from her face. She knew what he meant, but she tried to pass it off casually. “I enjoy being with you, too. I’m glad I have a friend here.”
    “Shall I accompany you home?”
    Katie knew it wasn’t far and she would be fine, but she said yes, anyway. He smiled and climbed into her buggy, "I shall walk back for mine later."
    “Are you sure?” she asked. “It’s cold and far without a buggy.”
    “I’m sure,” he said. “I’d rather be with you.”
    Her cheeks warmed. He shouldn’t be so bold, and she shouldn’t be so taken with his warm compliments. She steered the horse onto the road.
    “It’s been so long,” Gabe said, “and I keep wondering what your life has been like since we last saw each other.”
    She’d wondered the same thing about him. He had watched his three brothers marry, had taken over his parents’ farm. “I wonder the same about you.”
    Gabe chuckled. “I asked first.”
    Katie’s hands gripped the reins tightly and she tried to make herself relax. “You know already. I got married, I moved to a new district, I had a new family, and then Mark died.”
    “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have pushed.”
    “It’s all right.”
    “It must be painful to think about,” he said softly.
    “It is. . .” she trailed off. “But not for the reasons you might think.”
    She kept her eyes on the road, but from the corner of her eye, he was turning toward her. “I hate to think of you in pain.”
    She bit her lip. Then he wouldn’t want to hear anything of the last two years, most of which had been a pain. When she didn’t get pregnant as soon as Mark wanted her to. When she made friends with Sarah, who Mark didn’t trust. When she would forget things he told her to do. When he found her crying. “Then don’t,” she finally said to Gabe. “Think of me here, because I’m not in pain anymore.”
    She told herself that, and it was almost right. She had a new home, she was with May and closer to the rest of her family. But she still carried around all that Mark had done to her.
    “Not at all?” Gabe asked as though he knew what she was thinking.
    “Not as much. And it’s a different kind of pain, one that’s in the past.”
    “What. . .” He shifted in his seat. “What happened to you, Katie?”
    She shook her head but found she was unable to say anything.
    “I know I’m being bold, and I shouldn’t push things, I know that. But being around you is... and to think that someone might have hurt you... I don’t know what else to do.”
    “You don’t have to do anything, Gabe,” she whispered. Her eyes stung with tears, blurring her vision, and she squeezed the reins, slowing the horse just a little. She looked away to wipe her face.
    “Katie,” he whispered his voice reverent.
    The way he said her name made more tears come, and she wanted to fight them off. She bit down on her lip hard, trying to blink her tears away.
    “I was going to propose to you,” Gabe said, “two years ago. But you were gone so quickly.”
    A small sob escaped her lips. He was right, it had all happened so fast. What if he had proposed before Mark’s parents arranged things with her parents? What if she’d married him instead and the last two years had been with him and his warm, loving family?
    But no, things wouldn’t have been perfect. She would have forgotten important things; she would have displeased him; she would have ruined everything.
    And she would again if she tried to be with him now.
    Or maybe he would be cruel like Mark. Maybe she