CHAPTER 3
The following morning dawned bright and cold while Clara stared, vexed, into the recesses of a cabinet. She’d woken early in the hopes of banishing the vestiges of her dream and tried to focus solely on baking.
“We need pecans,” she cried in sudden dismay to Blinks.
The goat lived up to her name and blinked in solemn acknowledgment.
“We have to go down to the store!” And I might see Daniel again. . . . The intensity of his forest-green eyes was fresh enough in her mind to make her distinctly uncomfortable, but she squared her shoulders. She could not allow the possibility of him outbaking her.
She rushed into the bedroom with Blinks at her heels and began to layer on clothing. “Sarah is right,” Clara grumbled aloud. “I should keep a horse and sleigh for emergencies.” She struggled to add a third skirt atop her normal dress and almost fell over. Then she straightened and gave her normally trim hips a ruthless pat. “Okay . . . so I look like a snowman. Who cares?” But she could not deny the little voice inside her head that mocked her words. You care . . . because you’d like to look your best in front of . . . him.
“Bah!” she exclaimed as she tugged on her bonnet and tied the strings with a jerk. Blinks echoed her sentiment. Baaaa . . . Clara rolled her eyes heavenward, grabbed her pocketbook, and opened the door with the goat following. She took one determined step off the front porch and fell flat on her face. She floundered and got to her feet, realizing that she had underestimated the depth of the snow that had fallen overnight. Even when she let Blinks out to see to the animal’s needs or to her milking, the powdery white was not usually so deep. She sighed, knowing she’d end up sodden and dripping by the time she got to Kauffman’s store, but the thought of the necessary pecans kept her moving at a slow but determined pace.
* * *
Daniel normally cut timber or worked in Joseph King’s furniture shop doing fine crafting of wood. But today he’d promised to help his daed for a few hours, decorating the store for Christmas. It wasn’t the tradition of his people to do much more than greenery and a tree with homemade ornaments, but Daniel knew his daed believed that the tang of pine and cedar was an aromatic balm to the senses and made for a better shopping atmosphere.
“Daniel Kauffman, you smell like Christmas.”
He turned, suppressing a faint sigh, his arms full of greenery, when he recognized the feminine whisper of Ruby Zook.
“Hello, Ruby.” He nodded, intent on getting to work, when she stepped closer, her long skirt touching his legs. Will the girl pursue me even in the middle of my fater’s store? But he knew the answer to his own internal question. Ruby was pretty and dead focused—that was being seventeen. He didn’t want to be rude, but he’d become weary of late when she approached him at every gathering.
“Do you need some help placing the greens?” she asked.
“Nee, danki, I—”
“Now, that’s a fine offer, Dan,” his daed boomed from behind him. “Especially coming from so pretty a customer.”
Daniel wanted to run. The dual implications of the customer always being of primary significance and his fater’s thinking that he should have long since been a grandfather could be heard in the expectant tone, not to mention the accompanying nudge to his shoulder.
Daniel forced a smile. How am I supposed to explain that I don’t want a pretty girl with eyes as focused as a cobra’s? How do I say that I’m waiting for Clara, that I need to . . .
“So, I can help?” Ruby reached for some of the boughs, her fingernails grazing his shirtfront. He wanted to roll his eyes but handed over a good number of pine branches instead.
His daed had backed off, and Daniel eased through the cheerful bustle of the store to the first deep-set windowsill. He’d started to lay the boughs, trying to ignore Ruby’s innuendo-filled chatter, when the shop doorbell jangled and he was struck by the odd cessation of conversation behind him. He glanced over his shoulder, then took a hasty second look as he recognized the beautiful face beneath the wilting black bonnet. Soaked didn’t even begin to describe the misshapen and dripping Clara Loftus.
He dropped the cedar branches into Ruby’s arms, ignoring her hiss of protest, and started toward Clara. She was breathing in gusty little gasps, clearly worn out.
“Widow Loftus? Are you—all right?” he asked quietly. “Clara?”
He was aware of his daed hovering on the periphery and the slow resumption of conversation, but all he could truly see were her gray eyes and their fringe of ridiculously long black lashes. Why haven’t I pursued her? Why did I let her go so easily? Turn me away? Gott . . . Help me. Help me, Seth. Help me know what to say to her here....
“Blinks is outside. I can’t take long. I need pecans.” She glared up at him, and he thought of a gray kitten he’d found once in a dim cellar as a buwe. The small creature had swatted at his attempts to help, but he’d gradually earned her trust with gentle hands and timely persistence.
Daniel smiled with tenderness into her pink, upturned face. “Daed, she needs pecans. I’m going to take her out to the kitchen to warm up.”
“I’m fine. I told you . . . Blinks—”
“We’ll bring her in. Clair Bitner always runs his goat, Benny, into the store when he drops off the milk we sell.”
She swallowed and he waited, wondering if he’d pressed too hard, suggesting he take her to the back kitchen.
“Well, I could use a bit of a rest, I guess, and—”
“Why, Daniel,” Ruby Zook said in a carrying tone. “What poor wet crow do we have here?”
Daniel didn’t miss the way Clara’s full lips set in a grim line as she swept a glance downward over her black garb, and he wanted to rap Ruby’s knuckles for her calculated comment.
Instead, he reached out and gently caught one of Clara’s small hands in its thin black glove and gave her an experimental pull. To his surprise, she moved, but her chin came up with determination as she passed Ruby.
Daniel was about to make some retort to the girl’s crow comment, when Clara spoke in a clear voice.
“Not a crow, Ruby Zook—a raven. With hard claws.”
Ruby looked abashed, and Daniel didn’t hide his grin as he led the dripping Widow Loftus down the center aisle of the store, heedless of his fater’s dazed expression and the sensation he knew he was creating among the customers. He understood that a young, single Amisch man didn’t make a show of holding a widow’s hand or suggesting that he take her somewhere private to seek warmth, but he didn’t care. For the first time, Clara was yielding to him and it felt more than gut. . . .
* * *
Clara resolutely took in the curious stares, the feeling of being frozen on the outside, and the warmth of her hand in Daniel’s as he led her like some sodden prize through the fragrant store. But she didn’t care . . . He’s touching me again. Why am I letting him? I’m letting him, Seth, and it seems like Christmas....
But she lost some of her nerve when he pulled her through the doorway that led to the family kitchen, fully expecting to be swarmed by the Kauffman family. She stopped still, and he seemed to understand.
“No one’s back here,” he soothed in a low voice that added to the sensation of water and new warmth running like a stream down the small of her back. “The kinner are all at school; Mamm’s gone visiting somebody, and Da is snoring in the sitting room. It’s just us.”
She nodded. Just us. Just us . . . when there’s been just me for so long. . . . That dream last nacht must have rattled me more than I thought.... She shook her head, feeling her bonnet sink farther onto her brow, and then he was taking it off with careful fingers. Her kapp came off with the wet wool, and she parted her lips to exclaim at the impropriety of a man other than her husband seeing her head uncovered. But then she stopped. My hair isn’t down, she reasoned. So it’s all right for a few minutes while I rest.
“You’ve got to get out of these wet clothes,” he murmured.
She blinked as his fingers sought the hook and eye of her cape, and she took a startled step backward. “I—I—um . . . can manage.”
To her surprise, his handsome face flushed and he half smiled. “Of course you can. Look, why not go into my mamm and daed’s room and undress? You can get into her housecoat and come out here by the stove while I go get Blinks.”
“Uh . . . nee. I need to start back soon. The trip down took me longer than I thought.”
“I’ll take you back,” he said a bit roughly. “I cannot think how you managed to hike that distance down in deep snow with a goat in tow.”
She straightened her chilled spine. “Well, I did it. Besides, I need pecans so I can bake today.” Her gaze inadvertently slid to the huge wooden table behind him; it had a mixing bowl, dark brown bottle of corked vanilla, and several wooden spoons, standing at the ready. She looked back up into his eyes and saw the amusement in their emerald depths.
“Jah,” he whispered, as if telling a secret. “I’m baking today, too . . . but I’m not doing anything until you are warm and dry. Perhaps I might get a woman from the store to help you with some of the—layers. I’m sure Ruby Zook wouldn’t mind. . . .”
Clara huffed at his poor joke, then nodded. She didn’t want to risk catching a chill and not being able to get on with her pralines. “All right. I’ll geh to your mamm’s room and, nee, I don’t need help.... If you’d just . . . point me to the right door.”
He touched her shoulders lightly and turned in the direction of the door off the right of the large kitchen. “Right in there, Widow Loftus . . . Ach, and holler, sei se gut, if you need . . . anything.”
She rolled her eyes and then hobbled off in the direction he’d indicated, hampered by her wet skirts and trying to ignore the unaccountable merriment she felt at his easy teasing. I do need to kumme down off the mountain more if it feels this nice . . . . Then she bit her bottom lip at the errant thought and concentrated instead on dismantling her many layers.