When she heard the knock on the apartment door, Abby emerged from the tiny kitchen into the not much bigger living room. She smiled when her brother opened the door to reveal David and Mikayla on the other side.
“Komm in!” she called. “You’re right on time.”
Her cheery tone seemed to fall on deaf ears because Isaac scowled as he let their guests in. David sidled past her brother, acting as if he anticipated an attack at any moment. Mikayla hurried across the small living room to stand beside Abby, apparently hoping to be out of the way of any angry words.
For a moment, Abby was tempted to tell Mikayla not to worry. Isaac had assured her less than five minutes ago he’d say nothing to David about her participation in the youth group. As she watched the two men eye each other, she wondered if she should have asked her brother to act as if the conversation at the school had never happened.
Isaac saw the whole world in black and white. Trying to convince him to be any other way would have been futile.
“Supper is ready,” she said to break the silence. “Mikayla, why don’t you and David take off your coats and leave them on the sofa? Then you can join us in the kitchen.” She hooked a thumb over her shoulder. “Right through this door.” Without pausing, she said, “Isaac, I could use your help in getting the roast on the table.”
Her brother looked at her, startled. An Amish kitchen was a woman’s domain and a male entered it only to eat.
“I was going to get the extra chairs...” he began.
“That can wait. Lots to do before we’re ready to sit down, and I could use your help.” She did need his cooperation to make the evening pleasant.
She let a soft sigh drift past her lips as her brother went into the kitchen. Isaac was going to try his best to make their guests feel welcome. Again, she should have expected that. Being hospitable—even to outsiders—was an essential tenet of the plain people.
Mikayla asked question after question about the process of making gravy, and Abby answered each one. She guessed Mikayla was wary of letting silence fall again.
Abby was, too, which was why she kept up a steady monologue. “Mikayla, will you get the butter out of the fridge? It’s on the top shelf of the door. The bread was made today. Not by me. I picked it up at the diner. You know they have a nice selection of breads there. Do you know what chowchow is, Mikayla? It’s in the clear bowl with the dark blue top, on the second shelf in the fridge. Will you put it on the table, too? I’ll get the mashed potatoes into another bowl and then I’ll pour out the gravy, and we’ll be set to go. We...”
Her voice trailed away when she saw regret in David’s eyes. His gaze was on his daughter. He looked at Abby and quickly away. Sadness sifted through her. David and Mikayla led overlapping lives but had raised barriers between them. She prayed they’d find a way to break through.
“Where do you want the roast, Abby?” asked Isaac, drawing her attention to him.
She flinched, knowing he’d been aware of that fleeting moment when her eyes and David’s had connected.
“On the table anywhere,” she answered, the raw heat of tears filling her throat.
Had this been the worst idea she’d had since the night of the buggy race accident? It was unlikely anyone would be injured tonight, but the tension in the room was strangling her.
When Isaac went to get extra chairs from the garage downstairs, David moved closer to the stove.
“Maybe we should go,” he said. “Your brother is unhappy about us being here.”
“No,” she said, not giving herself the opportunity to admit he was right. “We invited you for supper, and I doubt you’ve got much of anything in the house to make a meal for yourself and Mikayla.”
“We can order pizza.”
She looked into the living room, where the girl perched on the well-broken-in sofa, paging through the latest copy of the Budget. Abby doubted the teenager was pausing to read news from plain communities published in the letters the newspaper’s correspondents had submitted from around the world. The girl was hunched into herself.
“Did something happen to her?” Abby asked, not wanting to alert the girl that they were talking about her.
David’s mouth hardened. “Those bullies went after Mikayla and Lily DeMent today on their way home from the site where they’ve been volunteering.”
She gasped. “Are they okay?”
“So far the bullies are using just words.”
“Words hurt.”
His expression eased. “That sounds like the voice of experience.”
“I’ve seen this happen to others.” And to myself, she added silently.
“I wish I knew how to halt this. I keep a close eye on her and the other kids, but somehow the bullies find out when I’m not around. Same with the other kids’ parents.”
“I’ll keep praying that a solution will be found.”
“Thank you, Abby.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “I appreciate that more than I can say. I—”
David pulled back from her as the outer door opened and Isaac walked in. She realized how close they’d been standing. If her brother had seen, nothing she said would persuade him that she and David both understood they could be no more than friends.
Abby ignored her anxiety when Isaac set the chairs by the table. Mikayla came in to join them. When Abby motioned for them to take their seats, she was glad to see David and his daughter sitting side by side. The other side of the table was left for her and Isaac. Her brother hesitated for a long moment, and she knew he was trying to decide what was worse: him sitting across from David or her. When he pulled out the chair opposite Mikayla, she wished she could reassure her brother that he had nothing to worry about.
She couldn’t. Not when her heart jumped for joy at something as silly as being able to face David throughout the meal. Silencing that thought, she set the mashed potatoes and a big bowl of dark gravy on the small table before she pulled out her own chair.
“We pray silently,” Isaac said after she sat, “but you’re welcome to say grace aloud if you wish.”
Mikayla leaned forward. “What do you pray?”
“My gratitude for the food on our table and those around it,” Isaac said in his most pompous tone.
When the girl quelled, Abby jumped in to say, “Ja, but when I was a little girl I used to say the Lord’s Prayer as many times as fast as I could before Daed gave us the signal to begin eating.”
She was amazed when Isaac asked, “You did that?” She didn’t want him to scold her in front of their company. Then he grinned. “I did the same thing. I got up to four repetitions completed one time when Grossdawdi Kauffman was at the table.”
Laughing, she looked across the table at David and Mikayla. “When we were young, we loved our grossdawdi. Our grandfather. However, he took the longest time to say grace. If one of us became antsy because we were hungry, he’d take longer because he thought we should be focused on gratitude, not the delicious food Grossmammi put on the table.” She winked at her brother. “Four, huh? That’s got to be a record.”
“Haven’t heard of anyone who’s ever done more.” He puffed his chest out in a false pose of pride. That brought laughter from them.
As they bent their heads for grace, the first thing Abby thanked God for was how the conversation had turned so that the glowers and silences had become gut humor. The distrust Isaac had for David wasn’t gone, but she hoped, for the next few hours, it could be forgotten.
Abby rose before the sun the next morning to have kaffi brewing while she cooked breakfast for Isaac. Though he didn’t have to milk while he was in the village, he kept the same hours he did up north.
Isaac said nothing more than a mumbled gute mariye as he sat at the table now edged again only by two chairs. He’d waited until she’d put their eggs, bacon and toast on the table along with the pot of kaffi and had pulled out her own chair. Bending his head for grace, he remained silent. That silence she understood.
As she did almost every time she prayed, she began by thanking the gut Lord for His kindness in bringing her to Evergreen Corners, where she could do His work. She’d asked for healing for her battered heart and He had led her to a place where she was kept so busy she seldom had time to think about the past and the mistakes she’d made.
Isaac cleared his throat, raised his head and reached for his fork. Before he took a single bite, he said, “After hearing you and David Riehl talk about your plans for the youth group last night, it’s clear to me you’re spending too much time with this Englischer.”
Her relief at how well the previous night had gone sifted away. “I spend lots of time with lots of Englischers. There aren’t many plain folk in Evergreen Corners. Even the Mennonites here aren’t conservative. They drive cars and have TVs and computers.” She knew she was avoiding the conversation about David that she didn’t want to have, but she also was aware of the fact her brother wouldn’t be put off any longer from saying what was on his mind.
“Abby, you should be more serious.”
“I’m serious about helping people get back into their homes and businesses.” She picked up a piece of toast and buttered it, though her appetite had vanished. “As you are, Isaac.”
“You need to think of your future. You don’t want to become an alt maedel.”
She wasn’t bothered by his concerns about her never marrying and being labeled an old maid, but she wouldn’t say that to Isaac. If she did, he’d try to find another way to convince her to heed his worries about her future if she didn’t wed.
“Of course, I don’t,” she replied, putting the toast next to the rest of her untouched breakfast, “but for now, I’ve committed to helping here.”
“Someone else can step in to do your job. You must never forget how important it is not to create gossip about yourself.”
“Wouldn’t I create more gossip if I walked away from what I’d promised to do?” Getting up to put the kaffi pot on the stove, she kept him from seeing her grimace.
She could imagine how he’d react if she said the same thing to him. Though with her brother’s skills as a mason and being able to lay out a foundation with square corners, he might not be as easy to replace as a cook.
“Isaac, you asked me to come with you and our cousins to Evergreen Corners.”
“I did, but I didn’t think you would want to stay for months and months. I’m beginning to wonder if you ever intend to come home.”
She faced him and saw disconcertment lining his forehead. If she’d needed proof he cared about her, there it was. However, she couldn’t let his sense of obligation for her future persuade her into doing something that would ruin the rest of her life.
“Of course, I intend to come back to our farm.” She let her own devotion to her family fill her voice. “My home is with you and the rest of our family, but right now, helping here is where I can best serve God and His people. He has led me to guiding a group of teenagers closer to Him. How can I walk away from that?”
“You’re changing the subject again.”
“I thought what I’m going to do in the future was the subject.” She came to the table and sat beside him.
“David Riehl is the subject. I don’t like how much time you’re already spending with him. You should be enjoying the company of young men who might be willing to marry you.”
This time Abby couldn’t hide her frown. “Willing to marry me? Do you think I’m such an alt maedel that someone has to settle for me?”
“No, no.” Issac had the decency to appear embarrassed and she hoped he’d realized he shouldn’t be harping on the subject. He hadn’t announced any plans to wed, either. “But, Abby, it’s an older brother’s place to look after his younger sister.”
“If you’re worried about anything between David and me, stop. David is an Englischer. I’m plain. We can be friends but nothing more. We’re working together to help the teens learn to trust God will guide them to know how to deal with these bullies.” She was glad he couldn’t hear her thoughts because a pinch of sadness warned her that, in spite of her words, she’d thought about sharing more with David than friendship. No! She was trying to help him build a better relationship with his daughter, not with her! Annoyance at her own thoughts sharpened her tone. “You know I know that, Isaac. Why are you acting so anxious over this?”
“Because I know your heart hasn’t given you the best advice before.”
She froze, horrified that Isaac would throw the past at her now in an effort to prove his point. Didn’t he realize that every day, every decision she made was colored by what had happened the night Bert Fetter was almost killed during the buggy race?
“Es dutt mir leed,” he said, breaking the silence.
“I know you’re sorry.”
“I didn’t say that to hurt you, only to...” He sighed. “I want to make sure you don’t get hurt again, little sister.”
She continued to stare at her plate and her untouched breakfast. The eggs had congealed. No matter, because she doubted she could eat a single bite anyhow. “I understand that, but I also know how hard I work so I won’t make the same mistake twice. I’ve learned my lesson, and listening to my heart is the last thing I’m ever going to do again.”
Had that been a knock at the barn door?
David switched off the battery-operated screwdriver he’d been using to open the underside of a toaster. Looking over his shoulder, he saw a silhouette in the doorway of the old barn he’d turned into a repair shop.
Sunlight streamed through the translucent shape of a heart-shaped kapp atop a head that was the right height to belong to Abby Kauffman. Of course, it was Abby. Why would any other plain woman be standing by his shop door?
Why was Abby there?
He grimaced. What had her brother said to her after he and Mikayla had left? David doubted Isaac had been as uncommunicative as Mikayla after supper last night. Every attempt he’d made to get his daughter to talk about the incident with Hunter Keyes and the other bullies had been fruitless. She was upset, but she didn’t want to tell him what had occurred.
Had Mikayla spoken to Abby about it? Was that why Abby was knocking on his door now?
“David, are you inside?” she called as she rapped her knuckles against the door again.
Knowing he was lost in the shadows because the barn’s few windows were draped with dusty spiderwebs, he brushed crumbs from the toaster off his hands. He opened the door and drew in a deep breath when he saw how the spring sunshine shone off her golden hair. She looked the embodiment of spring with her crisp white kapp and pale pink dress that was the color of the hearts of the apple blossoms that soon would burst open.
“Come on in,” he said once he got both his breath and voice back, though he wanted to ask if she’d talked to Mikayla about the bullies. “How are you today?”
“I’m fine. I wanted to let you know that I spoke with Doris Blomgren. She’s agreed for the two of us to come to her house the day after tomorrow. I’ve got time after lunch. Would that work for you?”
“Let me check.” He ignored his disappointment that Abby hadn’t come to talk to him about his daughter. He went to a simple plank stretched across two sawhorses. Opening a calendar on top of it, he flipped the page to the new week. “Michael Miller asked me to stop by his building site that afternoon to look at a circular saw that isn’t working. It shouldn’t take long. How does two work for you?”
“I need to be at the community center by three at the latest.”
“We’re just looking at her sewing machine, so it won’t take long.”
“Sounds gut.” She smiled, and his center melted.
Why did the first woman who’d made him react like that in years have to be Amish? She’d never given him any suggestion she was open to any relationship other than friendship. It was good that at least one of them had their head screwed on right.
To cover up his hesitation, he asked with what he hoped sounded like irony, “Do you think I can make hundred-plus-year-old parts appear when I snap my fingers?”
Abby smiled, and he was delighted to see a dimple on either side of her mouth. How had he missed those before now?
“I’ve heard you’re the best in town,” she replied in the same teasing tone, “at repairing anything. Maybe you can make parts appear as you need them.”
He laughed and was surprised when his shoulders eased from the taut line they’d assumed the night he’d heard of Boyd’s death. They’d grown more rigid when he’d discovered Boyd’s house had been washed away by the flood. Had they been so stiff for almost a year?
“I’ll do my best,” he said, “but I’m not that good.”
“I don’t think you’ll need to. Doris may be stubborn and more than a bit old-fashioned, but she seems kind.”
When she started to turn to leave, he heard himself asking, “Would you like a tour of the shop?”
Had he lost the last vestiges of his mind? He should be relieved she wasn’t planning to linger. She hadn’t flirted or led him on. She was being the friend she wished him to be. He knew she was smart, but, for a moment, he wanted to be foolish.
He almost laughed again. Foolish? His ex would have snorted in derision if he’d described himself that way. Chelsea’s favorite words for him had been dull and boring and stick-in-the-mud. And maybe he had been when he was with her, because, in retrospect, he’d come to realize they’d had too little in common. She’d wanted to go barhopping, and he’d liked to spend a quiet evening with a close friends.
“Danki, David,” Abby said, bringing his attention back to her. “But what I’d really like is a tour of your big barn.”
“The big barn?”
“Ja. Barns here in Vermont are different from the ones I’m familiar with in Lancaster County.”
“I thought you lived in the Northeast Kingdom.”
She smiled again when he used the common term for the section of the state that bordered both New Hampshire and Canada. “Our dairy barn is a bank barn like the one we had in Lancaster County. Your barn isn’t built into a hillside like those.”
“All right. C’mon.” He opened the door. The fresh breeze refused to surrender its chill and he zipped his light brown barn coat and closed the snaps along the front.
Walking beside him, Abby wrapped her arms around herself as if she could hold off the cold. Her black coat was made of thick wool, and she wore thick socks beneath her dress that peeked from beneath the hem of her coat. Her bonnet protected her from the wind, but he guessed it became a wind tunnel when they turned into the breeze.
“Whew,” she murmured once inside after he’d opened the small door next to the huge sliding one on the front of the barn.
Dust motes danced in a crazy swirl as the wind found every crevice in the barn’s walls and around the windows. A miniature tornado twirled, raising remnants of hay and chaff off the concrete floor. Overhead came the sound of swallows disturbed by the eddies of air reaching into their haven in the hayloft.
Abby scanned the space. He watched as she turned around, taking in everything. When she took a deep breath, he did the same. It was flavored with the aromas of a barn, the dry odor of the hay as well as the lush scents of oats and other grains.
“You don’t keep any animals in here?” she asked. “I don’t smell them.”
“I used to have a few chickens, two horses, a donkey and an ornery old goat when I was a kid. When my repair business started to consume my time, it wasn’t fair to animals not to be fed and cared for on a regular schedule.”
“True.” She faced him. “So you grew up on this farm?”
“From the time I began school. My parents sold it to me when they decided they wanted to live somewhere else.”
“It’s interesting to see how much is the same about this barn and the ones I’m familiar with.” She walked to a ladder that was made of thick pegs set into two uprights supporting the roof. Touching them, she said, “I’ve seen something that looks like this in almost every barn I’ve been in. Is this ladder the only way to reach the hayloft?”
“No, but the hay had to be pulled up to the hayloft.” He gestured for her to follow him over to a nearby window. Wiping the dust off the panes with the elbow of his coat, he pointed upward. “See that small extension sticking out from gable end? It’s above a door on the upper floor. It’s called a hay hood. A pulley was attached there to lift the hay up to the loft. That door is nailed shut now because I didn’t want any kids trying to sneak in. Plenty of the boards in the loft floor are rotted. One of these days, in my spare time, I’ll look into replacing them.”
“What would you use the space for?” She edged back from the window and looked up again.
“Apartments are always at a premium around here, especially ones for families with lower incomes. There’s enough room upstairs for a couple of two-bedroom apartments. I’d add extra windows so the renters could enjoy views of the mountains.” He gave her a crooked smile. “Sometimes I think I should talk Mikayla into helping me, so we could work on the project together. But first, I’d have to convince her to say more than two words in a row to me.”
“She will.”
“I wish I could be as sure of that. The few times I’ve gotten her to talk to me, she says no to anything I suggest. I know she’s grieving, but I don’t want heartache to be her life.”
“It won’t be, David.” She wiped dust off the sleeve of his coat. It was a motion he could imagine her doing with the teens, but he was riveted by the craving to pull her closer. He longed to know how she would feel in his arms, how her soft mouth would taste, the sweet scent of her hair.
He was saved from his own thoughts when she said, “Give Mikayla time, David. Each of us mourns differently.”
“I wish she’d be more positive about the things I suggest.”
“She’s a teenager. Give her the benefit of the doubt and stay optimistic that things will work out. She’s grateful to you, though she seldom shows it.”
Mikayla was grateful? That was news to him, especially after last night when the only thing she’d said had been a grudging good-night before she’d gone upstairs to her room the minute they’d returned home.
He wanted to believe Abby, but everything in his world had turned upside down in the past year. First, he’d become the father of a teenager. Now he’d met a woman who made him question everything his parents had ever told him about the Amish.
After he walked out of the barn with Abby, he told her he’d see her in a couple of days at the Blomgren house. She gave him a quick wave and hurried down the drive between his house and the shop. He wished there was a reason to ask her to stay longer. It didn’t have to be a good reason.
But not the truth that he couldn’t stop thinking about: how much he wanted to kiss her.