“Annie, did you wash the kitchen curtains?” Mam asked the following Friday.
“Ja, Mam. And hung them on the line.” Annie smiled. “And I dusted all of the furniture, and Barbara did the floors,” she said, anticipating her mother’s next question. Her mother and sister and she were preparing for this visiting Sunday’s company.
Annie could tell that her mother was running a list of chores through her mind. She approached, put a hand on her shoulder. “Mam, what’s wrong? You know that we’re always more than ready whenever we host visiting Sunday. It’s not as if our entire church community will be visiting. Only some of our closest friends and neighbors.”
Mam sighed and rubbed a hand across her eyes. She appeared worried as she met Annie’s gaze. “I’m concerned about your grossmudder. She hasn’t been herself again lately. Earlier this morning, she fell.”
Annie became alarmed. “Did she hurt herself?”
“She’s bruised and sore. I fear she is failing again.” Mam captured Annie’s hand with her own. “I think she needs to see a doctor.”
An Englisher, Annie thought. After her father’s accident, her mother would be as worried about the expense of the doctor’s visit as she was concerned about Grossmudder’s health.
“Things will be fine,” she told her mother. “The Lord will watch over Grossmudder and all of us.”
Mam’s expression softened. “Annie, you are a joy to me,” she said. “All of you kinner are.” She squeezed Annie’s hand and then released it. “But you have been the strength in this family since your vadder’s accident. I shudder to think what might have happened if not for your quick thinking after he fell.”
Annie waved away the praise. “I ran for help. It was Jacob Lapp who got Dat the help he needed.” Jacob. She hadn’t seen him since he’d come into the house when Ike King had stopped by to return her mother’s soup bowl. Had he worked in the shop yesterday?
Did she care? In truth, she was still angry with him. He had embarrassed her in front of Ike, much as her mother had done with Joseph, Levi and Reuben. And he’d kissed her simply because she was there and available. That’s what hurt the most. That he could so easily play with her emotions and then dismiss her.
Anger is a sin. She said a silent prayer, asking for the Lord’s forgiveness, seeking His guidance with Jacob.
Her thoughts turned to Barbara and Levi. She and Barbara had encountered Levi in town when they’d run an errand for Mam. She had made all of the purchases while her sister and Levi had spent a few precious moments together. Recalling her sister’s expression during the ride home, Annie grinned.
Her mother, she realized, was studying her carefully. “Why are you grinning?”
“Barbara and I saw Levi Stoltzfus in the store yesterday. I’m remembering how happy Barbara looked on the way home.”
Mam looked pleased. “Levi is gut for your sister.”
Annie nodded. And me? Who is the man for me? “About Grossmudder, I think we should bring her here.”
“She’ll want to clean haus with us,” Mam warned as she rubbed her temple.
“The haus is clean,” she reminded her. “She can arrange the desserts on plates for us.”
Her mother smiled. “That’s a wonderful idea.” She paused. “Annie—” Mam added as Annie opened the back screen door.
She halted and faced her. “Ja, Mam?”
“Jacob Lapp is a fine, young man,” her mother said, surprising her.
“He’s been kind to all of us.”
“And you especially,” she said softly.
Annie felt a flash of heat. “He’s just a friend.”
“Ja. A friend.” Her brow furrowed as Mam looked contemplative.
Annie sensed her concern. “Ja, he is.” Was, she thought. And she was foolish enough to want him to be more. She released a breath. “Ike King will be coming tomorrow. He, too, is a gut man.”
“It was kind of him to return my soup bowl before Sunday,” Mam said.
“Ja,” Annie agreed as she continued on. “I’ll be right back with Grossmudder.”
As she walked the distance between the main farmhouse and the dawdi haus, Annie thought of Jacob Lapp. Her mother suspected that there might be something more than friendship between her and Jacob. How wrong could she be? Jacob had been right when he’d told her that her mother wouldn’t approve of him as anything more than her friend. Mam saw Jacob only as a man without the financial means to support a wife and family.
Annie swallowed hard. He had asked if she trusted him. She had trusted him, but no more. He had played with her affections and then...nothing.
If only things were different... She released a small sob as she reached the grosseldre’s house. Annie paused on the front steps to wipe her eyes. After several deep breaths, she stood up straight, then knocked on her grossmudder’s door.
* * *
“Annie says she likes Ike, but I’m beginning to think she prefers Jacob.” Miriam Zook looked worried as she confided in her husband.
Horseshoe Joe shrugged. “What’s wrong with Jacob?” He rose from his chair and noted that his previously injured leg felt stronger. “Jake is a hard-working, young man who loves our daughter, and Ike— Well, he is a kind man, but he is too old for Annie.”
“But she wants an older husband.” His wife reached out to steady him.
Joe shook his head. “I need to learn to get around on my own, Miriam.” When his wife nodded and stepped back as if stung, Joe softened his expression and his tone. “’Tis not that I don’t need you, but I need to do this by myself.” He gazed at her lovingly. There was no one else in the house at the moment, a rare thing when parents had teenage and older children who lived with them.
Miriam smiled and walked with him as he hobbled to the kitchen.
“Does Annie really want an older man? Or does she want young Jacob?” Joe asked as they entered the room. “She can’t want both.”
“She needs someone who can take care of her.” She put the coffeepot on the stove to heat. “Jacob cannot provide for her.”
Joe lowered himself gingerly into a kitchen chair and watched her work. “You underestimate him, Miriam. He is a Lapp, after all.”
She set out two cups and waited by the table for the coffee to percolate. “Ike has a haus and farmland, and he needs a wife and a family. Annie would be gut for him,” she insisted.
Joe grabbed her arm as she moved toward the counter. “But will Ike be gut for Annie? Would she truly be happy as his wife?” He released her and she stared at him. “She doesn’t look at Ike the way you gaze at me, dearest.”
She scowled, although she seemed pleased by his endearment. “She will learn to love him.” She reached for the sugar and then fetched the cream from the refrigerator.
“And that is what you want for her? Someone she must learn to love?” He sighed. “Annie is afraid to love. Whether or not the man is older makes no difference. If she loves again, she will be hurt if things don’t work out as they should.”
“What would you have me do?” she asked.
“Allow things to take their natural course. If Annie is meant to be with Ike, then so shall she be. If she wants Jacob, then let God’s will be done.”
As his wife poured his coffee, Joe hoped that Miriam would stop interfering in his middle daughter’s love life. Jacob had become a fine man, and Joe loved him as one of his own. He’d cautioned his wife about playing matchmaker to any of their children, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t ask the Lord for a little help. Jacob and Annie had barely spoken to each other. That had to change soon.
While he drank his coffee and enjoyed time alone with his wife, Joe pushed an idea to the back of his mind. Later, after supper, Joe stepped outside for a breath of fresh air. Soon, the winter weather would set in, and they would be locked inside the warmth of the house except for those times when farm chores drove them into the bitter cold.
November was the month of weddings. He would enjoy seeing Annie happily wed, but to only one man. Jacob Lapp.
His leg pained him, a sure sign that it was going to rain or that a full moon was imminent. Joe moved from the porch railing and limped over to sit on a rocker. Weather is about to change, he thought.
“Lord, what do You think?” he said. “Could You help me make two young people happy?”
Joe knew with certainty that Jacob Lapp was in love with Annie, despite the fact that Jacob had gone out of his way to avoid her in recent days. And somehow he knew that Annie loved Jake, despite her willingness to spend time with Ike King.
When it came down to it, if Ike proposed, would Annie accept and follow through?
Joe put it all in God’s hands.
* * *
On Sunday morning, Annie came out of the house as the first visitors arrived. She smiled at her father, who sat on a porch rocker watching as a buggy pulled into the yard. “’Tis a lovely day,” she said.
“Ja. Hope the weather holds out. Hard to tell with the way this leg is hurting me.”
Annie frowned. “Do you need a pain pill?”
“You know I don’t like to take pills. I had to after the surgery, but this—” He rubbed along the area of the repaired bone. “I can deal with this ache. Might have to learn to live with it. Only the Lord knows if it will fade in time.”
“Dat,” Annie said with concern, “it will get better, I’m sure of it.”
Joe regarded her with affection as he reached over to pet Millie, who rested near his chair. “If you’re sure of it, then I believe.” He jerked his head in the direction of the Hershbergers—Annie’s aunt and cousins—who had left their buggy and were approaching the house. “You’d best put Millie upstairs,” he said, and Annie hurried to obey, returning in time to greet her aunt and cousins.
Her Aunt Alta was a gut soul, but at times, she could be trying, Annie thought. She didn’t always think before she spoke and when that happened, someone’s feelings were often unintentionally hurt.
“Alta,” Dat greeted as Annie waved her cousins inside. Neither daughter was wed or being courted. Annie wondered with amusement if the men who liked her cousins feared having Alta as a mother-in-law. “Mam has tea and coffee ready. Would you like a cup?”
“I’ll have coffee,” Mary said.
“Make that two,” Sally replied.
Annie looked at her cousins and thought how much they resembled their mother, as Alta might have been when, as a young girl, she’d fallen in love with Mam’s brother John. From what her grossmudder told her, Alta’s love for John had made her breathtakingly lovely in her joy. But after John died tragically at the young age of twenty-eight, Alta had been devastated. She had gone into mourning, from which she nearly hadn’t emerged. It was only the fact that her two fatherless daughters had desperately needed her that Alta had pulled herself from the depths of despair and gone on to care for them with love and affection. The loss of her husband had stolen something vital in Alta’s life. She had not remarried and had become a busybody, eager to gossip about neighbors and friends. The nattering wasn’t malicious, not intentionally, Annie thought, but everyone knew not to tell Alta anything in confidence.
Annie smiled inwardly as she gave coffee to each of her cousins. On the other hand, if there was news that someone was eager to share, Alta was the one to tell, for then everyone in Happiness would know within forty-eight hours.
“Do you know who’s coming today?” Mary asked. She sipped from her coffee as she waited for Annie’s reply.
“The Kings, the Lapps and the Bylers,” Annie began. “Ach, and the Masts and the Troyers.” Annie tried to think of who else had promised to visit, but couldn’t recall.
“Will the preacher come?” Sally asked.
“Ja.” Of that, Annie had no doubt, especially when she thought of the last time she’d seen Barbara and Levi Stoltzfus together. She didn’t believe that Levi would pass up an opportunity to spend time with her sister.
“Why don’t we go outside while the weather is still warm?” Annie suggested.
After agreeing, Sally and Mary took their coffee and followed Annie out onto the covered front porch. A large family buggy had parked next to the Hershbergers, and Abram and Charlotte Peachy along with their children stepped out.
“Ach, ja!” Annie exclaimed. “And the Abram Peachys.”
Sally grinned. “Obviously.”
Another gray buggy pulled up in the yard. “Isn’t that Ike King?” Mary said.
Annie nodded when the kind man took notice of her and waved. “Excuse me, cousins,” she said, forcing herself to greet him with a smile. “Hallo, Ike.”
* * *
Samuel Lapp drove his family buggy down the dirt lane toward the Joseph Zook farmhouse. “Do we have everyone?”
“A little late to ask, don’t ya think, Dat?” Eli sounded amused. “We’re already here.”
As his mother and siblings chuckled, Jacob exchanged smiles with his twin brother. His amusement promptly faded as he recalled seeing Annie with Ike King, laughing and talking in Miriam’s kitchen the other day. Seeing Ike sitting so comfortably at the table had made him realize that Annie might have found her match.
The teasing comments between his family members continued, but Jacob was lost in his own thoughts. Eli tapped him on the shoulder through the open window. Jacob was surprised to realize that everyone had left the vehicle except him.
Eli eyed him with a frown. “What is wrong?”
Jacob shook his head. “I shouldn’t be here.”
“Annie.” His brother sighed. “I told you it was dangerous for you to be in her company. You love her, and now you’re hurting. What has she done now?”
He paused. “She’s decided on Ike King.”
Eli raised his eyebrows. “Amos’s brother?” He gestured toward the door, reminding Jacob that he needed to get out of the buggy.
Jacob took the hint and climbed down. “Ja, Amos’s brother. A widower.”
“I find it difficult to believe.” Eli started toward the house, and reluctantly, Jacob fell into step with him.
“Believe it,” Jacob said. “I’ve seen them together—more than once.”
Eli shrugged. “You’ve seen me with Mary Hershberger, and there is nothing between us.”
Jacob felt as if his feet were made of lead as he continued on. “Mary is not interested in you. She likes Joseph Byler, and you know that. Ike is interested in Annie Zook, and Annie seems to be comfortable with him. She wants to marry an older man.”
Eli was shaking his head. “Nay, I think not.”
“You wait and see for yourself,” Jacob challenged him. “I know Annie Zook.”
“How often have you seen her since you hurt your hand?” Eli asked.
“The past couple of times I worked, she never once came out to talk or visit.”
“You haven’t exactly encouraged her.”
Jacob readjusted his hat. “I kissed her.”
“You what?”
“It happened after the singing. The time seemed right, but then it all went wrong.”
“What did she say afterward?” Eli asked.
Jacob frowned. “Nothing. We didn’t have a chance to discuss it.”
“You kissed her and then stayed away? That was foolish, Jake.” His twin knew him too well.
“I know.” He spied a group of men in the side yard and switched directions. Eli followed his lead. “But it’s too late now.”
“Is it? You love this woman, but you avoid her after one kiss. What are you waiting for? To be miserable after she marries someone else?”
The thought of Annie marrying Ike made Jacob sick inside. “I can’t tell her. I missed my chance.” He felt as if he were twelve again and heartbroken after having learned that Annie was in love with Jedidiah, his eldest brother. “If I’m wrong about her feelings for Ike, I’ll know soon enough and then I’ll tell her how I feel. If I’m right, I’ll keep my distance. I want her to be happy, even if it means losing her.”
“You’re a fool, Jacob.”
A fool for Annie, Jacob thought. “Wait until you fall in love, Eli. Until then, don’t judge me.”
Eli halted, put a hand on Jacob’s shoulder. “I’m not judging you, Jake. I want you to be happy with her. It frustrates me that you won’t do anything, and I can’t help you.”
Jacob gave him a wry smile. “I’m sorry, Eli. I’m not myself.”
“Ja, you are, and I admire you for it. You think I don’t want a wife of my own? A home? A family? I want all of those things, but I’m not ready yet.”
“When you meet the right woman, you’ll be ready,” Jacob said with conviction.
His brother grinned at him. “Then what are you waiting for?”
As they joined the men, the back door to the farmhouse opened and Annie Zook stepped outside with Ike King. Jacob elbowed his brother, nodded in the couple’s direction.
Eli frowned. “Maybe it’s not as it seems.”
Jacob felt a burning in his stomach. “And maybe it is.” He couldn’t tear his gaze away. Annie happened to glance over in his direction, and their gazes locked a moment before she looked away.
“There’s Dat,” Eli said, grabbing hold of his arm. “Let’s join him and the others. It looks like we’ll be dining outside today since the weather has taken a delightful turn.”
He knew his brother was trying to distract him. Jacob tore his gaze away, feeling battered and bruised. His heart was aching. How could he have allowed it to happen?
Because love just happens. Love was a gift from God, which should be cherished for all the small, memorable moments he’d enjoyed with Annie, even if he wasn’t meant to have her for a lifetime, as his wife.
“Come on, Jake,” Eli urged.
He hadn’t realized that he’d hesitated. Jacob nodded and continued on.
Eli looked at him with concern. “You will find some other woman to make you happy.”
But would he? Jacob didn’t think so. He believed he’d never love anyone as much as he loved Annie. If he didn’t act now, he would lose all hope of having her. He had to do something, but what?