JOHN ENTERED THE home of his childhood friend and breathed in the familiar smells of soap scents and baking bread. His bleak gaze swept the neat living room, looking for an anchor of sorts for his thoughts about Tabitha, but he could find nothing but seeming condemnation in the casual indications that this was Rob’s home—a straw hat, a carved bear he’d whittled when he was twelve, and the family desk littered with Rob’s distinctive scrawl.
“Well, you both might as well sit down,” Ann Yoder muttered, breaking into his thoughts. “I’ve just been writing to Rob at my fater-in-law’s. The buwe’s been a big help, so I’ve heard.”
“That’s gut indeed,” John said, struggling to make his tone cheerful as he took a place on the quilt-backed couch and Tabitha sat down beside him. “When is Rob coming back, do you think?” Soon. . . soon, soon, soon. Let it be, Derr Herr, so that I do not dishonor our friendship by feeling this way.
Ann sniffed. “Hard to say. He’s still helping his da quite a bit.”
“John says you like pie,” Tabitha spoke up suddenly.
John watched the older woman swing her gaze in Tabitha’s direction and tried to remember that he was here to build Tabitha up for Rob’s sake.
“So I do, missy. But I’d imagine that I’d like some help with my soaps and oils a bit more right now since Rob’s not about to lift the kettles out back.”
Tabitha rose immediately, and John followed.
“Aw, sit down, the both of you do-gooders,” Ann bawled. “I don’t mean today. I haven’t got anything on the boil right now, but if you wanted to swing by, say next week sometime, that might be gut.”
John watched Tabitha bend to perch back on the edge of the couch and reluctantly did the same. Ann Yoder got up and crossed to the writing desk.
“Here, John, it’s Rob’s phone number should you ever want to sneak off to the shed and give him a call. There’s a few younger cousins running about who’d get him to the phone. I know you must miss talking with him.”
She went back to her chair, and John fingered the slip of paper between his thumb and forefinger. He knew, without looking at her, that Tabitha was desperately trying to see and memorize the numbers even if she never called. He passed her the paper when Ann Yoder was distracted by an apparent itch on her calf, then half closed his eyes when Tabitha’s fine fingertips brushed his hand in accepting the paper.
Ann looked up, and John felt the weight of her sharp gaze. “So, are you two courting, or what?”
Elizabeth held her younger bruder’s gaze as he poked a disinterested finger at the old recipe box on the table. He’d cooked his own breakfast and was making no bones about it, even though he’d left the kitchen in an uproar that she supposed he’d expect her to straighten.
“Lizzie, you haven’t changed a bit. Always willing to settle—for this tiny haus, barely three acres of land, and a tart miss of a niece who can’t bake worth a lick.”
Beth arched a brow and watched Fram squirm a bit. “Yet I think you’d be all too happy to have the haus, land, and a pie . . . or two.”
He pulled from the table to turn his back on her, and she suppressed a sigh. She was five years older than Fram and could remember, even when they were young, trying to help occupy him from her chair. He’d always been naughty as a child and later, as a teen, dissatisfied and cynical. Still, in memory of her mother, she loved him, though they’d both been raised by their grossmuder when their own mother had given up on Amish life and run away when their fater had died. Perhaps Fram had a reason or two to be angry, but no more than she. She wondered vaguely when he might be leaving even when he’d just come through the door.
“Are you planning on cooking anything else, Fram?” she gently plied his rude back.
He turned with a faint sneer. “Not very hospitable, are you, Lizzie? You can well and gut clean up this lot while I look over the outbuildings.”
“That’s fine,” she said, intent on keeping a serene tone.
She watched him pause halfway across the kitchen. “That kid who was here a bit ago—John Miller? It’s funny, but he reminded me in looks of the fool who once proposed to you . . . what was his name? Nathan something or another?”
Elizabeth felt her lips tighten. “Black. His name was Nathan Black.”
“Right,” Fram agreed. “Well, you can’t deny he dodged a bullet that time, huh, auld Lizzie?”
Elizabeth watched him cross to the door and close it with a distinct click behind him. Only then did she bow her head and allow the hot tears to spring up that seemingly had come from nowhere. Ach, to have such a bruder. She bit her lip, blew her nose in the handkerchief she’d drawn from her sleeve, and then began to pray with determination.
“How do you think she knew—er—suspected that you, that we . . .” Tabitha fumbled to a stop, watching Tudor’s backside jog in time to the movements of his powerful legs.
She glanced at John and watched him sigh. “Ann Yoder’s as sharp as a hawk. And she’s known me for—” He broke off suddenly, and Tabitha wondered what he’d been going to say.
He cleared his throat. “I’m glad you’ve got the phone number of where to reach Rob. Maybe you should try calling him.”
“Why?” she asked, surprised as the word popped out of her mouth. I should want to call Rob, be dying to hear his voice, shouldn’t I?
“Why?” John repeated in almost irritation. “Well, why not?”
She flashed him a look, feeling angry all of a sudden and with no idea why. “I don’t know,” she snapped.
“Well, don’t ask me,” he fired back.
“Are we fighting, John?” she asked, somehow bereft, all anger drained from her.
She watched his broad shoulders sag almost wearily. “I don’t know,” he muttered.
She sought to alleviate the moment and began to remark on the blooming roadside flowers and the white clouds in the blue sky. But all she got in return was a noncommittal grunt. Then he lifted his head.
“I’ve got to kumme over tonight and court you.” He said the words with abrupt surprise, and she looked at him, feeling wide-eyed and jittery.
“You do?”
“We’ve got to keep up appearances to make people believe our—intentions.” He was back to being gloomy again.
“Well, don’t sound so happy about it, John Miller. We certainly can call off the whole thing if only for Rob and . . .”
“Do you want to?” he asked.
“What?”
“Call it off?”
She felt her throat tighten with banked emotion and shook her head. “Nee—nee.”
“Gut,” he nodded. “Neither do I. It’s the best thing—for Rob’s sake.”
“Ya,” she agreed, though she knew a disquiet in her heart that belied the peace of the beautiful day.
Rob tucked his hands into the front pocket of his jeans and then came to a dead stop outside his grandfather’s room. I forgot to change, he thought blankly. He’d been running the gambit between English and Amish worlds, and today was the day that he was supposed to pick his da up to go to the rehab facility so that he could learn to use his prosthetic leg in a more capable manner.
Rob was about to turn from the door when his grossdaudi hailed him from inside the room.
“Rob?” the old man growl in a voice as gruff as a bear’s growl.
“Ya?” Rob replied automatically.
“Kumme in . . . I knew it was you standing out there. What’cha waiting for, buwe?” Rob sighed and reluctantly entered the room, denim jeans and flannel shirt to boot.
His da looked him up and down through minute spectacles, the same way he used to do when Rob had done something interesting as a child. Even now, Rob felt like squirming under the piercing gaze.
“You gone English, buwe?”
Rob sighed. It would be so easy to lie—to keep lying—to this man he loved. But then how could he share Katie and Clara, her daughter, with Da? He swallowed hard and suddenly thought of John—always stalwart, true, not given to lies. Yeah, all I have to do is be like John.
John was in the barn, running expert hands over Tudor, when Matt entered, whistling cheerfully.
“What’s up with Tudor?”
“We had a near miss with a minivan this morning. Tudor kept his feet, but I want to make sure he didn’t pull anything.”
“Who’s we?” Matt asked, moving to the other side of the horse with a brush.
John didn’t want to answer the question. It would only send off the train of thoughts again that made him feel like he was swimming upstream through molasses, and he didn’t like the accompanying painful pull on his heart.
“Tabitha and I,” he bit out.
Matt laughed. “Don’t you have your courting hours messed up, big bruder?”
“Nee.” John threw him a sour look over Tudor’s back. “We were paying a visit to Ann Yoder’s—I expect she’s been lonesome since Rob’s been gone.”
“But you haven’t been,” Matt quipped.
John splayed his hands across Tudor’s back and gave his bruder a grim stare. “Look, Matt, I—”
“You what? Want to be with her all the time? Feel lost when she’s not around? Can’t stop thinking about her when—”
“That’s enough. How did you become such an expert on—love—anyway?”
Matt handed him the brush and turned to go. “I read.”
“Ya, well, it better be the Bible that you’re reading.”
Matt grinned over his shoulder. “Haven’t you ever heard of the Song of Solomon, bruder?”
John snorted then turned back to the horse when the barn slid closed. “Song of Solomon,” he muttered to himself aloud. “Ya, so I need to read my Bible more . . .”
Tudor gave a low snicker, and John frowned as he began to gently brush the animal. But soon the soothing motion set his mind wandering. Suppose this is just what I did wrong with Phoebe Graber all over again. . . another misjudgment, and this time, it could hurt my best friend. . . and Tabitha herself.
The horse rumbled a sound of protest when John paused in his brushing.
“And I don’t need any comments from you.”