Sonoma Rose: An Elm Creek Quilts Novel by Jannifer Chiaverini Page A

and wife someday?”
    “Then either I’m going to have to meet your parents andwin their blessing or we’re going to have to marry without their approval,” he said. “It can only be one way or the other. Which way is it going to be?”
    Rosa desperately wanted to marry Lars in the church where she had been baptized with her family proudly gathered around them, but when she imagined introducing Lars to her parents, all she could envision was her mother’s anger and her father’s bewilderment, tears and shouting, accusations of betrayal and banishment from the only home she had ever known. “I don’t know,” said Rosa, her voice breaking. “I don’t know what to do. I promise I will marry you someday, Lars. I want to with all my heart. I just don’t know when and I don’t know how. Don’t you see how impossible this is for me?”
    “I do, I do. Please don’t cry.” He put his arms around her. “I didn’t mean to make you cry. Your promise is all I need. It’s enough. We can figure out the rest later.”
    He embraced her gently, but although she held back her tears, she was not comforted. She wanted nothing more than to marry Lars and live with him happily for the rest of her life, but she could not see how to do that without losing her family. When she was younger, she had chosen her parents, and a few years later she could not have chosen between them, and now she had chosen Lars—but the severing of ties with her mother was a sacrifice she would delay as long as she could, as long as Lars was willing to wait for her.
    Rosa woke to a soft rapping sound and light streaming through the gauzy curtains, and for a moment she was sixteen again, in the bedroom of her childhood home, warm and safe beneath a quilt her mother had made. Disoriented, she sat up and found herself in an unfamiliar bed with her two youngest children,and in a flood of awareness she remembered all that had happened the day before. The rapping came again, louder, and in the other bed Marta mumbled something, rolled over, and flung an arm around Ana. Rosa carefully climbed out from beneath the covers, but when she stood, the pain in her side stabbed so sharply that it left her breathless. Bracing herself against the edge of the bed, she waited for her head to stop spinning before she forced herself upright and went to answer the door. Her hand was on the bolt before she remembered the danger. “Yes?” she called through the door, low enough not to disturb the children.
    “It’s me,” said Lars.
    Quickly Rosa drew back the bolt and beckoned him inside. He carried a pink-and-white striped bakery box, which he set on the coffee-stained bureau. “I forgot milk,” he said apologetically. He glanced at her and then looked away, as if he was embarrassed to be caught watching her in her nightgown. He had seen her in far less, but the last time had been more than five years before.
    “That’s all right,” Rosa quickly said, smoothing over the awkwardness. “This will hold the children over until we can get them a proper meal.” She lifted the lid, smelled sugar and pastry, and smiled. “Donuts. I never get them donuts.”
    “I could go out and find something else—”
    “No, no, I only meant that this will be quite a treat. They deserve something special after all they’ve been through.”
    Lars grimaced, took off his hat, and sat down on the wooden chair, watching the children as they slept. He had showered but had not shaved, and he was clad in the same denim trousers, blue-checkered cotton shirt, and coat he had worn the previous day. He had brought nothing but the clothes on his back, Rosarealized, dismayed. Of course he had not packed for travel. He had raced to the adobe expecting to find her murdered, perhaps the children as well. He had not planned on an overnight stay—and the Jorgensens had surely expected him to return before nightfall. They were probably sick with worry, wondering what had become of him.
    “You should