Love's Dwelling Read online

  Dedication

  To my Kansas family,

  love always.

  Epigraph

  My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.

  John 14:2–4

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Featured Haven Families

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Discussion Questions

  Acknowledgments

  Glossary of Deutsch*

  About the Author

  Acclaim for Kelly Irvin

  Also by Kelly Irvin

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  A robin perched on top of the empty bird feeder outside the kitchen window. Cassie Weaver paused, a package of pork chops in her hand, to study it. Didn’t the dandy with his red-breasted plumage know he was early? Spring wouldn’t show its face in southern Kansas for another month. February was an in-between month when Mother Nature couldn’t seem to make up her mind. Five inches of snow had fallen since dawn, and the fluffy wet stuff continued to accumulate.

  Working for Dinah Keim, who was fast losing her eyesight, made Cassie acutely aware of the blessing of sight. Not to be able to see a ruby-throated hummingbird clothed in delicate, shimmering greens and blues, sipping nectar from purple, pink, and red pansies, would diminish her world. Having seen it and now to be bereft of it only made matters worse. Cassie stopped to count her blessings. She could see, which meant every day was a beautiful day, beginning with a brilliant sunrise and ending with her sister sunset.

  Life was good.

  “Cassie? Are you there?”

  Dinah’s arrival signaled that the time for gathering wool had ended. Cassie forked the pork chops into a cast-iron skillet on the stove and turned. “I’m here. I’m making pork chops and fried potatoes for lunch. Did you check your blood sugar?”

  Her wooden walking stick making a thunk, thunk on the oak floor, Dinah trotted to the kitchen table with a sure step. Every piece of furniture in the house remained in the same resting spot it had occupied for years, so she never had to worry about colliding with a misplaced chair or table. “I feel light-headed.”

  “The potatoes are done. The slaw is on the table. All I have to do is fry the pork chops. Check your blood sugar while I finish.” Cassie turned up the gas flame under the skillet and strode to the propane-powered refrigerator. The never-ending balancing act between too high and too low blood sugar had become more difficult as Dinah’s frail body failed her. “I’ll get your shot ready.”

  When she started working for Dinah and Job Keim six years ago, Cassie had been squeamish and then timid about the shots. Not anymore. Were she not Plain, she might have been a nurse or even a doctor. Snorting under her breath at the fanciful thought, she took a tiny bottle of insulin from the box on the refrigerator shelf, placed it on a saucer, and added a syringe. The cotton balls and alcohol were already on the table.

  “Something smells gut.” Job barged through the back door and stamped snow from his enormous work boots on the rug. Her employer had the biggest feet Cassie had ever seen. But then, he stood well over six feet tall. The feet matched the man. “I shoveled off the walk, which makes no sense, I know, fed the animals, fixed that hole in the fence, and chopped wood. Now I could eat an elephant.”

  “No elephants on the menu today.” Cassie smiled as she set the saucer in front of Dinah. “But I can see if the meat market offers it next time I go into Yoder. It’s probably more tender than the last chuck roast I bought from them.”

  Job’s belly laugh always made Cassie laugh with him. His smile wide over a long black beard shot through with silver, he slapped his broad chest and let one rip. “You tickle my innards, girl.”

  “Someone’s coming.” Her head cocked, forehead furrowed, Dinah leaned forward in her chair. Her thick-lensed black glasses magnified her blue eyes. Failing eyesight had amplified her hearing. “Sounds like a van or an SUV coming up the drive.”

  “Somebody has gut timing, fraa.” Job squeezed his wife’s shoulder as he walked past her. “They managed to arrive just in time for lunch. I’ll meet them at the front door.”

  If they wanted lunch, Cassie was in trouble. Six thin pork chops wouldn’t go far—especially with Job’s insatiable appetite. The man didn’t have an ounce of fat on his sixty-seven-year-old frame, even though he inhaled all the food Cassie put in front of him.

  “I wonder who it could be.” Dinah took care of her finger poke, used the test strip, and handed it to Cassie to read. “How am I doing?”

  “Time for the shot and then some food. Guests or no, you need to eat.” Cassie administered the shot with an ease that her sixteen-year-old younger self would not have thought possible. “There you go. I have some sugar-free banana pudding with vanilla wafers and banana slices for dessert.”

  That drew a delighted whoop from Dinah, who barely seemed to register the injection anymore. The dessert was a favorite. Her sweet tooth seemed to grow in direct proportion to her disease. She preferred chocolate-frosted brownies or apple pie with ice cream, but even those made with sugar substitutes had to be saved for special occasions. Her thin body was just what the doctor had ordered.

  “Fraa, come out here.” Job no longer sounded jovial. “Now.”

  “She just had her shot,” Cassie called back. She shook her finger at Dinah. “I’ll go. Start with a roll. They’re in the basket on the table, along with the butter.”

  She turned off the stove and moved the skillet to a back burner.

  “Dinah, you need to get out here.”

  Something akin to bewilderment mixed with panic reverberated in Job’s deep voice. He didn’t rattle easily or at all. Cassie raced down the hallway to the living room. Job stood in the foyer. He’d taken off his black wool hat. He kept running his big hand through curls more silver than black so they stood up all over his head.

  Lined up in front of the fireplace stood five English children in stair-step fashion. The oldest one, a boy, held the youngest one, a girl whose red cheeks and wet face told the story of recent tears. A gray-haired lady in a green pantsuit, a worn leather satchel in one hand, joined them.

  In the doorway loomed one more visitor. A tall, muscle-laden man with charcoal-black hair and blue eyes who methodically wiped his muddy work boots on the rug. He wore faded jeans with holey knees, an untucked red plaid flannel shirt, a fleece-lined jean jacket two sizes too big, and a Kansas City Royals baseball cap. Everything about his stance said he’d
rather be sitting on a doctor’s exam table than standing in the Keims’ living room.

  “I only have six pork chops.” The words came out of Cassie’s mouth of their own accord. Embarrassment flooded her. “I mean, I can heat up the leftover roast from last night’s supper—”

  “They’re not here for lunch.” Job settled his wide-brimmed hat back on his head. His cheeks were damp and his face ashen. “They’re—”

  “Perry? Suh?” One wrinkled hand outstretched, Dinah tottered past Cassie, heading for the man standing on the welcome mat. “Is that you, Suh? Where have you been? I’ve missed you so much. Where’s Georgia? Is she with you?”

  “I’m not Perry. He’s my uncle. I’m Mason. Mason Keim.” The man’s big hand sought the doorknob. He took two steps back. “I’m Georgia’s son.”

  “Georgia? Our dochder’s suh? Gott has answered our prayers.” Dinah’s face brightened as if a lamp’s oil had been replenished and light restored. “Where is she? Where’s my dochder?”

  Mason Keim’s jaw worked. His gaze went to the children who stood oddly silent, too still for kids. The girl with a tangled dark-brown ponytail that reached her waist grabbed the smaller boy’s hand. Finally, Mason spoke. “She died.”

  Confusion clouded Dinah’s face, extinguishing the light. “Died?”

  The smallest girl buried her head in the boy’s shoulder and sobbed.

  The walking stick clattered to the floor. Dinah crumpled in a heap beside it.

  Chapter 2

  The girl dressed in an old-fashioned dress and apron directed a troubled frown at Mason. That said it all. He’d messed this up big-time. Just like he did when he told his half brothers and sisters. At twenty-two he had no experience delivering death news. The police officer who’d told him about his mom and Clayton’s deaths had been kind but quick. “Better not to beat around the bush,” he’d said, with a quick man-pat on Mason’s hunched shoulders. Apparently that didn’t work with everyone.

  Mason dropped to his knees next to the prostrate woman—his grandmother, Dinah Keim, according to the caseworker. Dinah and Job Keim were his grandparents. He’d never had grandparents before and he’d practically killed one of them already. He dug his cell phone from his pocket. “Is she all right? Should I call 911?”

  The girl in the dress and apron shook her head. “She fainted, that’s all. It was a terrible shock. You should’ve waited until she sat down to give her such grievous news.”

  “Let me at her.” Job scooped up Dinah—Mason’s brain couldn’t cope with calling them Grandpa and Grandma—like she weighed no more than a baby. He carried her to the couch and sat down beside her. “It’s okay. You’re fine.”

  The naked love on his grizzled, whiskered face was too much to bear. It only existed in cheesy movies, didn’t it? His mom and her one-after-the-other husbands sure never stared at each other like that. Leastways not where others could see. Mason stood.

  The girl brushed past him. “I’ll get her some orange juice, Job. She already took her shot. Her sugar is bound to be low.”

  Dinah stirred and moaned. “My bopli, my bopli.”

  What was a bopli?

  “I know.” Job wiped tears from her face with the back of his hand. His thin cheeks seemed to crater under high cheekbones, and his blue eyes shone with unshed tears. Those brilliant blue eyes had been passed down to Mason’s mother and to all of his siblings. “But she was gone long ago for us. Dead to us.”

  Such harsh words. Did he really mean that?

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset her—”

  “When?” Dinah strangled the single syllable. “When did she die?”

  “Three weeks ago.” Mason cleared his throat. “January nineteenth. Just before midnight.”

  “Where is she now?” Job’s arm slid around his wife. She leaned into him. He stared at Mason with despair in his eyes. “When was the funeral?”

  A dark, cold, snowy landscape and the images of kids standing around two holes in the ground haunted Mason’s dreams. Jennie was so heavy in his arms. Her screams visited him at night. How did a person explain to a four-year-old that Mommy’s body had to be put in the ground?

  “She’s not in her body anymore. She’s in heaven with Jesus,” he’d whispered over and over again as he stroked the little girl’s silky dark-brown hair and tried not to lose his mind.

  Bobby’s doubtful scowl almost undid Mason. Yeah, right, it said. Mason’s knowledge of heaven and a guy called Jesus was garnered from the occasional excursion to the closest church with a candlelight service on Christmas Eve.

  A white lie to comfort a child. Surely God understood that. “She’s in a cemetery in Wichita, close to where we live. Her and Clayton both.”

  The bills kept coming—ambulances, ER, doctors, two burials. Every effort had been made to save his mother and Clayton. For which Mason was deeply grateful. But they had no insurance and had made no arrangements in event of their deaths.

  “We would’ve liked to have been there.” Job’s arms hung slack at his side. Bleak sadness made his face ancient. “She was our daughter.”

  “We didn’t know about you then.” They hadn’t even known the Keims existed until Mason found a safe-deposit box key in Mom’s jewelry box. That led to the living will. But that was another story. “We thought Uncle Perry was our only family.”

  He might be their only family, but Perry hadn’t let that influence his decision not to take them into his home. His reasons had been plentiful—not enough money, not enough room, not enough experience with children. “You can handle it, Mason. You’ve been taking care of them for years.”

  He’d actually been able to say that sentence with a straight face.

  “Maybe I should take it from here.” Delores Blanchard, the caseworker assigned to his half siblings by the Kansas Department of Child and Family Services, made a tsk-tsk sound. Her doughy double chin shook like it always did when she was stressed. Which was most of the time. “Mrs. Keim isn’t the only one who’s upset. Why don’t you calm down your brothers and sisters?”

  Mrs. Blanchard was right. The kids huddled together in a tight cluster, faces worried, full of fear and uncertainty. They’d lost their parents. Now they were being forced from the only home they’d ever known to live with strangers. They were perfectly capable of taking care of themselves. As Uncle Perry had pointed out, they’d been doing it for years.

  Mason trudged over to them. Bobby, the oldest at sixteen, shushed Jennie, the youngest at four. Even though they were the product of two different fathers, his siblings had a strong family resemblance—blue eyes and various shades of dark-brown to black hair. Like their mother, when she didn’t treat herself to one of a rainbow of hair colors.

  “There’s nothing to be afraid of, Jennie. You didn’t do nothing wrong.” Bobby rubbed his sister’s back with a practiced hand. Like Mason, Bobby had a lot of experience parenting. He scowled at Mason. “Can we go home now?”

  “This is what Mom wanted.” Mason took Jennie from him. She immediately wiped her runny nose on his coat and wrapped her arms around his neck in a stranglehold. He smoothed her tangled brown curls. “It’s okay, sweetie. She’ll be okay. She was just surprised to see all of us. Like a really big surprise birthday party.”

  “I want to go home too. I promise to be good. “ Donny, who was six, tugged at Mason’s arm. “I’ll remember to put my dirty clothes in the basket, and I’ll wash all the dishes every night. I’ll be good, I promise.”

  “You’re not being punished. These folks are family. Mommy wanted you to get to know them.” Mason sucked in a breath. Why hadn’t she introduced them to the Keims years ago? It would’ve been nice to have family. To have grandparents. Finding that living will had been the sucker punch that kept on giving. “You’ll be better off here.”

  A six-year-old couldn’t begin to understand the logistics of single parenting five younger kids. The cost of day care, food, clothing, medical bills, utilities, and rent. Mrs. Blanchard a
nd the advocate appointed by the judge to make sure the kids’ best interests were safeguarded had helped him fill out mountains of paperwork to get government assistance. Otherwise he’d still be drowning in red tape. Until he found the will, he’d had everything under control. Almost.

  “Mason’s right. We need to honor your mother’s wishes.” Mrs. Blanchard’s head bobbed in agreement, which meant her double chin bobbed too. She’d made it clear from the get-go that the will gave the Keims legal standing with the children—whether he liked it or not. “You’ll love it here out in the country with all this fresh air and farm animals.”

  As an adult, he could sue for custody. If he could afford to hire a lawyer, which he couldn’t. The bigger question—the one he’d wrestled with every day since he’d discovered the will—revolved around what was best for them. He hadn’t wanted to show it to Mrs. Blanchard, but it didn’t seem right to hide it or destroy it. To deny them the chance to have grandparents would be wrong. “That’s right. I saw horses when we pulled into the yard, and chickens and a cat.”

  Mrs. Blanchard edged closer to the couch. She settled in a straight-back chair on the other side of a thick, homemade coffee table. “Mr. Keim—”

  “It’s Job.”

  “Mr. and Mrs. Keim, I’m sorry we had to come to you in such unfortunate circumstances. Your daughter left a document that specifically stated that she wanted you to have custody of her children should anything happen to her.”

  The girl was back with a glass of orange juice. She turned and smiled for the first time. She had dimples. She didn’t dress like any girl Mason had ever known. No makeup, no bling. Every bit of her arms and legs was covered by her long dress. Yet this girl was far prettier than most. “Welcome, Georgia’s children, welcome.”

  Her face still lit up like she’d just received a new car for her sixteenth birthday, the girl helped Dinah with the glass of juice. “Drink it all up, Dinah. You’ll need your strength. You have five new grandchildren to get to know.” Her smile tentative, she glanced at Mason. “Or is it six? Dinah thought you were her son, Perry.”