“What did he say?” Leah asked as Thomas came out of Breeze, a popular new eatery on Rehoboth Avenue. It was the last restaurant on his list for the day and she was eager to hear how it had gone.
Thomas smiled and nodded. “I think it went all right.” He glanced to the wooden bench on the sidewalk where David and Susanna were enjoying their cotton candy. “Those two good?”
Leah looked over her shoulder. Her sister and brother-in-law were safely where she’d left them, heads together, talking, so she turned back to Thomas. “They’re great. Enjoying their cotton candy. Don’t keep me in suspense. What did they say? Were they interested in buying your produce?”
He took her hand, guiding her away from the door. “A definite maybe,” he said in Deitsch. He switched to English. “The manager listened to what I had to say.”
“So a firm maybe?” she asked. They’d had two definite nos, restaurants that had other sources they were happy with, one yes and another maybe.
Leah had enjoyed seeing how much Thomas’s confidence had increased with each restaurant he walked into. Dealing with Englishers wasn’t always easy for the Amish and she understood his nervousness. But today everyone Thomas had approached had been kind, and they hadn’t treated him as if he were some quaint oddity or a nuisance.
He nodded. “A definite maybe. They’d like me to stop back when I have salad greens and berries to show them. Breeze is known for healthy food, but I wouldn’t have to have the certified organic vegetables. They wanted to know how many days a week I could deliver produce.” His expression was serious, but Leah could read the excitement in his eyes.
She smiled up at him, making no effort to free her hand. Vaguely, she was aware of passersby studying them with interest, but she ignored them. It was natural that they look. How often did you see such a good-looking Amish man in his best black coat, hat and trousers in the midst of a sea of tourists in flowered shorts, bright-colored T-shirts and oversize sunglasses? “What did you say?”
“I told him I could deliver every two or three days, depending on what was in season and how much they were willing to take. And I made it clear there would be no Sunday deliveries.” Thomas grimaced. “The big question is how I’m going to deliver.”
“You’re resourceful,” she answered. “I’m sure that if you can find reliable customers, you can find a way to get your produce here. Maybe you can hire a driver with a van or something.”
He smiled down at her. “I’m resourceful? If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have gone to see Richard’s farm or the asparagus fields. And I know I never would have thought to come directly to restaurants to find a market. You’re an amazing woman, Leah.” He grinned. “Not just a pretty one.”
She felt herself flush with pleasure. Thomas was a flirt, and he probably said things like that to girls all the time, but she was glad she’d taken the trouble to wear something nice today. She shouldn’t have cared so much what he thought, but for some reason, she did.
Confused and conscious of her quickening heartbeat, she pulled her hand from his and stepped away, putting distance between them. Thomas knew that it was unacceptable for the Amish to display affection in public. Even married couples were expected to refrain from holding hands or hugging, let alone kissing, as she’d seen an English girl and boy doing on the street just a few minutes ago. She put a hand to the back of her head, checking her scarf. “We need to get back to Susanna and David,” she said, to cover her loss of composure.
“They’re fine.” Thomas gazed intently at her, as if he was seeing her for the first time.
Leah’s heart fluttered again. It had been so long since she’d felt this way about someone. Too long.
When she realized the direction her thoughts were going, she reined them in. Thomas, she told herself, this is just Thomas. We’re friends, nothing more. He isn’t the man I’d want to spend the rest of my life with. But she found herself unable to break eye contact with his warm brown eyes. She couldn’t tear her gaze away. He took a step closer and, against her will, she felt giddy. The honk of cars, the voices, the clatter and hum of the busy street faded, as if in the midst of all this activity, they were the only ones on the busy sidewalk.
“Leah?” Thomas took her hand again.
She felt a tingling sensation that started at her hand where he touched her and drifted upward. She tried to say something, but her mind went blank. Her lips formed his name, but no sound came out.
“Leah, I...” He leaned toward her and she had the strongest suspicion he was going to try to kiss her.
And if she didn’t break this intimacy immediately, she was afraid she would let him this time.
“Leah—”
“We...we should go. You—you don’t know Susanna,” she blurted as she hastily backed away. “When she wants to, she can move as quick as a cat’s paw. You can’t imagine what mischief she can find to get in to.” The outer wall of the restaurant loomed behind her, keeping her from retreating any farther. “One time she snuck out in the middle of the night, hitched up the pony and cart and drove off to be with David.” Leah knew she was babbling foolishly, but it didn’t matter. She had wanted him to kiss her. She still wanted him to. She had to get control of her emotions before it was too late.
“They look innocent enough to me.” He took another step toward her.
Leah glanced at her sister. Susanna was still sitting on the bench, black stockinged legs crossed at the ankle and bonnet seated snuggly on her head. Apparently, she and David had finished every bite of their blue cotton candy and were well into their tub of Fisher’s caramel popcorn.
“I’m not sure what’s happening here between us, Leah,” Thomas murmured, searching her gaze. “But I think we should...talk about it.”
She shook her head, unable to break eye contact with him.
When he spoke again, it was a whisper. A whisper meant only for her. “What is it you want, Leah?”
“French fries!” The words just came out of her mouth. She blinked. “Ya, Thrasher’s French fries. You promised you’d buy us fries.” She could feel her cheeks flaming.
Thomas broke into a grin and took a step back. But Leah felt like she hadn’t fooled him. He knew what she’d been thinking. He knew she wanted to be kissed as much as he wanted to kiss her.
“I did, didn’t I?” He gestured toward the ocean, a few blocks away. “Let’s go. I’ll get you fries. And pizza, if you want it. Whatever you want, I’m your man.”
* * *
Once they’d purchased boardwalk fries, Thomas looked around for a bench where they could sit and enjoy them in the warm afternoon sun. There were a lot of people on the boardwalk: couples and families strolled down the noisy walkway amid the blaring music from the children’s rides and the calls of hawkers urging passersby to play their games, as well as the bustle of the many fast-food stalls. Seagulls added to the clamor with their squawks and diving forays to snatch fallen bits of pizza, popcorn and corn dogs.
David and Susanna walked just ahead of him and Leah, hand in hand. The boardwalk was too crowded for them to walk four abreast, and guiding David and Susanna was a little like herding cats. Distracted by the colorful sights and smells, both of them were apt to dart away in opposite directions without warning. Ten paces down the boardwalk, Thomas realized why Leah wanted to find a place to sit as quickly as possible.
Thomas spied a bench just being vacated by a family and was about to direct them that way when Susanna stopped short in her tracks.
“Ooh!” she cried. “King David! Look!” She pointed toward a booth boasting a wall of plush stuffed skunks with huge silky tails and enormous bows around their necks.
David slowly began to smile. He turned and walked toward the stall, followed by Susanna. Leah tried to hold her back, but there was no stopping her once she got something in her head.
“Susanna!” Leah hurried to catch up with her.
David came to a halt in front of the counter. He pushed his black-framed glasses up on his nose and studied the game. Thomas came up behind David and scanned the interior of the stall. Oversize white soda bottles formed a square, and stacks of colored hoops waited on pegs just out of reach. Strings of colored lights blinked on and off to the blare of music. The purpose of the game was to successfully toss the hoops over the necks of the bottles. It appeared simple, but Thomas knew better.
“Step right up! Try your luck! Win a prize for the little lady!” the attendant called.
“No,” Thomas said. “He doesn’t want—”
But David had already pulled a ten-dollar bill out of his pocket and handed it to the fortysomething sunburned man wearing a Dolle’s Taffy T-shirt and a straw cowboy hat. The man slid David’s money into the pocket of his canvas apron, but Thomas gave him a stern look. “Five dollars only,” he said. “Give him change from his ten.”
The man frowned. “It’s three throws for a fiver.”
Thomas stepped closer to the booth. “Change,” he said firmly.
With a shrug, the man did as he asked.
Susanna giggled and hopped from one foot to the other excitedly. “I want that one,” she said, pointing at the nearest stuffed skunk. “Please.” Susanna’s speech was difficult to understand, but it was clear to Thomas what she wanted.
“Ya,” David said, stroking his neatly clipped beard. “For Susanna.”
Thomas looked helplessly at Leah. She shrugged. Games of chance on the boardwalk probably weren’t what Hannah had in mind when she’d allowed Susanna and David to come with them to Rehoboth, but David clearly knew his own mind. His Down syndrome condition might be clear to anyone who looked at him, but after spending time with him, Thomas understood that, although speech was difficult for him, David was less challenged than Susanna in many ways. And the money was David’s. He had a right to try to win a skunk for his wife if he wanted to. Interfering might be worse than letting him lose his five dollars. Thomas glanced back at the attendant and nodded. Leah took David’s frozen lemonade.
“Win a prize with every hoop!” the man called out.
Several teenagers had stopped to watch. “You can do it!” one of them called.
“Yeah, go for it,” another chimed in.
David’s grin faded as he took the first hoop from the man. Susanna patted his arm and stood on tiptoe to whisper something to him. He pulled back his arm and threw the rope ring. It bounced off the lip of one bottle, seemed ready to settle onto another and then slid between them. David groaned.
Susanna put out her hands for the stuffed animal.
“Ne,” Leah explained. “David has to get the ring on the bottle.”
“’Nother one,” David said in Deitsch.
More fun seekers had stopped to watch. David suddenly had a cheering section of sunburned Englishers. Thomas was so glad that Leah had been able to convince David to leave his paper crown on the backseat of the car and wear his straw hat.
“Throw it easy,” urged one of the kids.
There was a general moan as David’s second attempt missed the bottles altogether. Susanna clapped. David looked at her and a smile spread over his round face. The man handed David his final ring. The onlookers grew quiet. Thomas wondered if God would forgive him if he prayed that David would make this one. David tossed the ring. Again, it struck the lip of a bottle, bounced and spun. But this time, the hoop flipped and settled solidly over the neck of the end bottle in the row.
“Winner!” the man cried. “We have a winner here!”
One of the teenagers slapped David on the back. “Way to go, bro!”
The crowd clapped as the attendant unhooked the stuffed animal skunk Susanna was pointing at and handed it to her. She clutched it and stared at David with shining eyes.
Thomas made eye contact with Leah. She was wiping away tears and smiling, too. “Thank you,” she murmured.
“Don’t thank me,” he said. “David made the winning throw. He won the prize.”
David beamed and threw back his shoulders.
“Try for a second one?” the huckster asked.
“Ne,” Thomas said as he ushered his charges away. “One skunk is plenty.”
David took Susanna’s hand in his and they walked together down the boardwalk until Leah spied two empty benches. She settled Susanna, David and the stuffed skunk onto the first one facing the boardwalk and then glanced at Thomas expectantly.
Thomas flipped the back of the other bench so that they could sit the opposite way, with a view of the ocean. Leah slid onto the bench and looked out at the waves. Thomas sat next to her. Neither of them spoke, but after a while he took her hand in his. He knew he was taking a chance, but he couldn’t help himself.
He saw her cheeks color, but she didn’t try to free her hand.
He sighed, content. The breeze off the ocean, the sun on his face and the smell of caramel popcorn and salt water... It was a glorious day. He couldn’t remember ever having such a good time.
“No kissing!” Susanna hollered suddenly in English. “No kissing, sister!” This time, to Thomas’s dismay, her words came out so clearly that a woman pushing a baby carriage heard her and laughed.
“Shh.” Leah raised a finger to her lips. “Church voice, Susanna.”
“No kissing!” her sister repeated just as loudly, falling into Deitsch. “King David and me can kiss. Mam says ‘married kissing.’ ‘Door-closed kissing.’ But you can’t kiss Thomas. You have to marry Thomas. Then kissing.”
“Thomas and I aren’t kissing,” Leah answered quietly, in Deitsch.
“Holding hands. I see you.” Susanna waved a chubby finger. “You like Thomas. But no kissing.”
“All right, no kissing,” Leah agreed. Chuckling, she looked at Thomas. “You heard our chaperone.”
Thomas gave her hand a squeeze. He was so happy he felt as if he’d burst with joy. I really am falling in love, he thought. Even Susanna can see it. I’m falling in love with Leah Yoder.
* * *
Carrying a willow egg basket, Leah climbed barefoot over the stile that led from Sara’s pasture to her aunt and uncle’s farm. It was a gorgeous May morning, and the fields and woods were tinted a dozen shades of green. It had rained the previous night, and the grass glinted with water droplets like so many diamonds. Her mother’s strawberries were ripe and promised a bumper crop. Hannah had invited her to come and pick some, and the back lane that ran through her mother’s orchard was the quickest way to get there. Leah wanted to pick several quarts and would surprise Sara with a strawberry shortcake.
As she crossed the lot where Sara’s mules were corralled and then the meadow, Leah let her thoughts stray. She’d dreamed of Daniel last night. Not a bad dream or a sad one, but she’d awakened feeling that there were things that had to be said between them.
After their baby had died of the fever, Daniel had lingered, his temperature soaring to dangerous highs and then receding, giving them hope that he would survive it. They’d had time to talk, time to say their farewells and time for Daniel to tell her that she must be strong.
She paused on the far side of the stile, her feet cushioned on the thick moss, a chorus of birdsong around her, and let Sara’s basket slip to the ground. She remembered every word that Daniel had said to her that last night. He hadn’t been afraid of death. He’d been secure in his faith. Daniel had been the strong one, and she’d clung to him, begging him not to leave her alone.
“But God is with you,” he’d whispered, his voice low and urgent. “Never forget that, Leah. God has a plan for you. All you have to do is let Him take control. Follow where He leads you.” She’d wept, telling him that she didn’t want to live without him, that life held nothing without him and their baby. But he’d refused to accept that. “I know you,” he’d rasped. “You Yoder girls are as solid as granite. You won’t crumple when storms batter you. Find a good man and marry again. Have more children. You have to promise me that you will.”
“I can’t,” she’d answered, but Daniel had insisted. How could she refuse him anything at that moment? And so she had agreed.
And now, finally, after more than a year, she could see that he’d been right and she’d been wrong. She only wished she could tell him.
Leah looked around. On a branch overhead, a wren scolded her, and, higher up, she caught sight of a squirrel. But there were no humans around, not a single person to hear her and think she’d taken leave of her mind.
She closed her eyes. She didn’t know if Daniel could hear her up in heaven, but she liked the idea that maybe he could. She certainly felt as if he’d been watching over her since he’d been gone.
“Daniel?”
She concentrated, trying to picture Daniel in her mind. She could summon a fuzzy memory, but nothing sharp or definite. “Daniel, if you can hear me, I want you to know that I’m all right. I’m doing what you said. I didn’t think I would ever laugh again or take pleasure in a hot cup of tea or the soft feel of a new-hatched chick. But I do. It hasn’t been easy. You know me. I hate to give up control. But I’m trying to just let go, to be a leaf in the wind, to see where God takes me. And it’s good, Daniel, really good.”
She opened her eyes. The love she felt for Daniel and her baby was still there. It would always be there. But so was God’s love. His mercy had set her free to live again...to seek a second chance at being a wife and a mother. She wondered if she should tell Daniel that.
But then she guessed he already knew.
A smile spread over Leah’s face as she picked up the basket, her heart feeling lighter. She had gone a hundred yards when she was startled by the crash of underbrush and a frantic bellowing. She looked up to see a brown-and-white cow come charging out of the woods straight at her.
“Stop her!” shrieked a woman. “Don’t let her get away!”
Leah jumped aside and the cow thundered past, a rope trailing behind her. The animal skidded on the path, pitched forward, scrambled up and continued on at an awkward lope into a huge open field.
Out of the trees came a disheveled and red-faced woman brandishing a broom. “You let her escape!” she shouted at Leah. “She ran right by you.”
“Nearly ran me down,” Leah agreed, trying not to smile.
Aunt Martha’s once-white apron was muddy, and her faded lavender dress had a three-cornered tear in the skirt. One sleeve had come unstitched at the shoulder seam and hung down, exposing six inches of her upper arm. A blue scarf and tangled lengths of gray-streaked hair dangled down her back, and a twig with three leaves sprouted from the crown of her head. She wore men’s rubber muck boots that came to her knees, probably not her own as they were several sizes too large. Worse, the boots were caked with something that smelled suspiciously of barnyard fertilizer, some of which had stained the hem of her dress.
“What are you staring at?” Breathing hard from the chase, Aunt Martha dropped the broom, scrunched her hair into a messy bun and tied the scarf firmly over it. “Why didn’t you catch her?” The twig with the three leaves still protruded from under the scarf.
“Sorry,” Leah mumbled, trying hard not to laugh.
“Worthless heifer.” Her aunt wiped her muddy hands on her skirt. “I told your uncle that she was nothing but trouble. She’d be more use if we sent her to Gideon’s butcher shop for hamburger.” She stopped her tirade, caught her breath and advanced on Leah. “Where are you off to? Your mother’s, I suppose. I’m sure you weren’t planning on stopping to spend time with me.”
“Mam’s expecting me,” Leah explained, still trying to control her impulse to giggle. She’d noticed a chicken feather clinging to her aunt’s scarf. A tall, thin scarecrow of a figure with sharp features and a narrow, pinched mouth, Aunt Martha could never be truthfully called more than a plain woman. This morning, however, she looked as though someone had put her in a burlap bag full of garden dirt and shaken her.
“Has ideas on her mind, that one,” Aunt Martha said.
“Excuse me?” Her aunt couldn’t be talking about Hannah, could she?
“The heifer.” Aunt Martha’s lips firmed into a thin line and her voice dropped to a whisper. “Those beef cattle of Samuel’s. He has a new bull. And that one...” She gestured in the direction the cow had gone. “Sweet sassafras, Leah, you were a married woman. I shouldn’t have to spell it out for you.”
“Oh,” Leah replied. “Your heifer is running after Samuel’s—”
“What did I just say? Some things shouldn’t have to be said straight out, should they? But then your mother always did let you girls run wild. When you married that Mennonite boy and went off to God knows where, I said to her, ‘Hannah, now you see what comes of it.’ Thank the Lord you’ve seen the error of your ways and come home to the faith. But had she listened to me, you’d have married your own kind to begin with.”
Leah didn’t know where to begin answering that and so she didn’t say anything.
Aunt Martha didn’t seem to notice. “And speaking of marriage, you need to remember what’s expected of one of our girls. I saw you and that Thomas walking home just about dusk the other night. Right down this path. I wouldn’t have noticed if you didn’t cut through my farm. I mind my own business, you know. Anyone can tell you that.” Her aunt gave her a probing look. “Seeing a lot of him, aren’t you?”
“I am, but...” Leah drew in a breath and prepared to defend herself. “But we were chaperoned. Anna’s son Peter was with us.”
“Saw the two of you. Didn’t see him.”
“But he was with us. Bishop Atlee said we needed a chaperone after dark or to travel out of Seven Poplars, and we’ve done as he asked.”
Martha nodded. “So you should. A widow or not, a young woman has to guard her reputation, and that Thomas, he’s always been a wild one.”
“Sara arranged the match,” Leah said. “She thinks—”
“Oh, I know what she thinks. And this time, I have to agree with her. You know Thomas’s name was mentioned for my Dorcas. Everyone said, ‘Thomas is going to come into a bit of land and he has a trade.’ But my Reuben and I, we thought she could do better. We told her to wait. The right man would come along.” She picked up her broom. “That heifer will be long gone by now. Reuben will have to send the hired boy to fetch her home.”
“Well, it was good to talk with you, Aunt Martha.” Leah shuffled her feet. “Sorry about your cow.”
“You go on, pick your strawberries. Ours haven’t come on yet. I expected your mother to invite me to come over and pick, but she hasn’t. Too many of her own to feed, I suppose, to think of a sister-in-law.” She sniffed. “But you mind what I said, Leah. Listen to the bishop and don’t do anything that could cause rumors of misbehavior between you and Thomas.” She smiled. “Come to think of it, I may have been the one to put a bee in Sara’s bonnet about the two of you. ‘That Thomas might be perfect for Hannah’s Leah,’ I told her. ‘Both of them being a little odd.’ And Sara took my advice and matched you up. I told Reuben that you were walking out together as soon as I heard. And he said, ‘You’re right, Martha.’” Martha walked away, talking to herself now. “I’m right so often about who should be courting whom, maybe I should become a matchmaker.”