8

Anna reached for her coffee mug without looking at it, and while skimming an order on the computer, she raised it to her lips. Instead of soothing warmth, her lips met only air.

She lowered the mug and looked up at the clock. Like yesterday, she didn’t know where the day had gone, but it was nearly time to go home.

This was now the second week without Ted, and things were going well—so well that Bart had only been in for an hour yesterday and today he hadn’t been there at all. Bart’s confidence in Chad felt reassuring. William also seemed comfortable with Chad, which said a lot, because William had always been cautious.

The other employees also felt it, because all the work had continued with a minimum of disruption as Chad continued to learn Ted’s job.

Tonight, however, she knew they would all be staying late. They needed to complete a quote for a new client, and they needed to prove to each other they could carry on with a minimum of disruption.

Anna picked up her mug and stood. She reached for William’s mug, but he covered it with his hand and shook his head.

Anna had learned quickly that her new boss was a heavy coffee drinker, so she turned and stepped into his office, knowing she didn’t need to ask if he wanted more coffee—he always did.

Again, Chad was concentrating so much on the computer screen that he didn’t appear to notice her enter the room. Not wanting to disturb him, she stepped beside the desk and reached for his mug while he continued typing a long e-mail.

She nearly dropped the mug. This was the first time she’d seen him type long sentences instead of notes or numbers. Ted had complimented her on her typing because even though Ted had gone to college, Anna could type just a little faster than Ted.

She almost expected to feel a wind pushing her out of the office door at the speed of Chad’s typing. She didn’t know a person could type so fast.

Even though she probably shouldn’t have looked at the screen as he typed, she couldn’t help watching the words form on his computer monitor. No mistakes and his sentences were complete and coherent thoughts, including correct capitalization and punctuation.

Chad stopped typing in the middle of a sentence and looked up at her as she stood beside him. “Yes? Do you need to ask me something?”

“I came to get your mug so I may bring you more coffee, but I have become distracted watching you type.” She wouldn’t say it out loud, but her boss appeared to type at least double or triple her speed. Maybe even faster.

He turned his chair so his whole body faced her. “Speaking of that, I’ve been meaning to ask you, do you have any idea what your typing speed is?”

“I do not know.” She’d always felt a good sense of accomplishment because she’d learned to type and use the computer when no one else she knew, except William, could use more than two fingers to type a short message.

“I know you don’t have a computer at your parents’ house. Would I be correct to assume the only time you type is here, at work?”

She nodded. “Ja. That is correct.” She would have liked to type at home, but her father would not allow a computer in the house.

“Please take this only in the right way it’s meant, but I’ve been watching you type, and I’d like to see you improve your speed. Also, if you really want to move to Minneapolis and find a job there, you’re going to have to improve your speed significantly. Watching you, I doubt you’re typing any faster than twenty words a minute. Even for an entry-level position, you’d be expected to type at least thirty-five words a minute.”

Anna tried to imagine calculating how many words she could type in a minute.

Chad swept one hand in the air to encompass his own typing on the computer. “That means without mistakes. No going back and making corrections.”

She turned to look at Chad’s monitor, which was completely filled with sentences and paragraphs in the e-mail he was typing to a client. “How fast do you type?”

Chad shrugged his shoulders. “Last time I took a test, it was seventy-eight words a minute. I know I’m faster now. It’s a skill you’ve got to have if you work in an office.” He reached under his desk and pulled out a small, thin satchel that looked almost like a miniature suitcase. “I’d like you to improve your typing skills, so I’m going to loan you my laptop. Take it home and practice, and I’m sure you’ll see an improvement real soon.”

“What do I type?”

He looked around the office. “I’m not really sure what I can give you to practice on. Letters probably wouldn’t be the best to practice with because they’re short and concise. What you need is something with lots of words.”

One eye narrowed and his lips tightened. “I know. Take your favorite book, and copy-type the book.” He grinned. “Just don’t get distracted with the story and lose track of what you’re trying to do. Although, if you pick a good book, then it will be an incentive to type faster, so you can read faster and see how the story goes. Do you read a lot? Do you have books at home?”

Anna nodded. “Ja. Many books. I like to read.” What she liked to read were romance novels, where the man and woman in the book always fell in love and were either married or engaged by the end of the book. Such a thing would never happen to her in Piney Meadows. But when she moved to the cities, she would be able to join a big church, and if it were God’s will, she would meet a good Christian man to fall in love with on her own, a man whom her parents had not previously chosen for her. Of course, she would need her parents’ approval for such a relationship, but they couldn’t refuse if he were a man of faith.

One day, that would happen.

Chad grinned. “I was going to ask you to pick a book you don’t necessarily like, because you’ll need both hands to type so you can’t be holding a book open. You’ll have to rip the binding to lay the pages flat.”

“Nein! I cannot destroy a book!”

“I guess you can use an e-book reader, but you won’t have as much to type before you turn the page, because they only show one page at a time, not two.” He shook his head. “Forget I said that. You don’t have a computer, so you wouldn’t have an e-reader.”

Anna knew she wouldn’t feel right about destroying a good book, or any book. Wasting things or destroying something someone else could use was wrong. But she had a goal that could not be reached any other way; therefore it would be a tool, not willful destruction.

Knowing her boss typed faster and better than she did was humiliating. It was her duty to type for him, but his typing was far superior to hers.

“I will do it.”

Chad ran his fingers through his hair. “It’s been a long time since I learned to type. It’s something I’ve just always done. There might be a better way, but I can’t think of anything. It’s different typing words as you think than copy-typing something you see, but it gives you volume to blast through, so this will help.” He checked his watch. “I need to get this sent in a few minutes if I want to catch him before the close of business today.”

Anna picked his cup up from the desk, which was why she’d come into his office. Standing beside him, she looked down into Chad’s face, her fingers wrapping around the cup’s handle. With Chad occupying this chair, she realized for the first time that this was Chad’s office and Chad’s desk, not Ted’s.

He leaned back in the chair and tilted his head slightly to one side. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Anna could feel the warmth of a blush on her cheeks. “I was wondering when Ted will be coming back. I know he will be able to show you things that Bart cannot.”

“I got an e-mail from him about an hour ago. He says he’ll be coming back this weekend. The flight times weren’t the best, but he can’t wait any longer because he’s paying a fortune for parking his car. I know he put it in the long-term parking lot before he left, but that still is going to add up.”

Anna nodded. Their people learned to be careful stewards from an early age.

She backed up. “I will go get you more coffee so that you may finish your e-mail.”

As she walked to the lunchroom, she felt her heart quicken. Chad taking over Ted’s position no longer worried her. Chad appeared to be a good manager, and nothing in the business had suffered. In fact, the opposite had happened. She’d helped Chad put together some new quotes that would probably get them additional customers. All the people who worked at the factory had accepted him.

However, he wasn’t having the same success in the community because not many people had met him yet. Last weekend he hadn’t been at church; he’d gone back to Minneapolis to move his belongings and say goodbye to his friends. Very similar to Ted, Chad had not been very cheerful for a couple of days after his return, but she didn’t know him well enough to ask why.

This weekend he would be able to attend church. Ted and Miranda would be back, which could be both good and bad for Chad. It would be good for him to have Ted help introduce him to everyone, and Ted showing his support and approval of Chad would help others get to know him.

On the other hand, with Ted and Miranda coming, everyone’s attention would be on them, especially since their engagement. She worried that with all the excitement, Chad might get lost in the crowd when instead he needed to make a good first impression on so many people.

It also meant that in the evening, when all activities were done, Miranda would go back to Lois and Leonard’s home for the night and leave Ted and Chad together at Ted’s house without distraction or interruption, allowing them time to talk.

Now that she’d thought about it, this was exactly what Chad needed to fit into their community.

This worked well both ways—Chad was helping her gain some skills for moving to the cities, and Ted would help Chad with his move to Piney Meadows.

Anna smiled. Everything was falling into place.

Chad shook hands with Ted. “Congratulations. I must say this was a surprise.”

Not that Ted and Miranda being there at 5:30 a.m. surprised him. The only flight they could get left Seattle late in the evening. Adding the late hour to the flight time, then the time change between Washington and Minnesota, plus the drive from the airport to Piney Meadows, they’d made good time.

The surprise was the matching wedding bands on their fingers. He hadn’t heard they’d already had their wedding. Anna hadn’t known, either. No one did. In fact, when he’d talked to Ted less than twenty-four hours ago, Ted had told him they hadn’t set a date yet, and Miranda wanted to have a spring wedding. It was a long way from spring.

“I didn’t know, uh . . . Mennonites eloped.” It wasn’t as if they’d run away from disapproving parents. They were both adults, and they’d been living in the home of Miranda’s father, who was the pastor of a large and established church.

If it wasn’t Chad’s imagination, Ted blushed. “Miranda’s father had made a joke about this trip being like a honeymoon, except we were not yet married. We already had our marriage license, then Miranda made a joke about running away to get married, and our trip here could be our honeymoon. We all got carried away, because before we thought about it very much, we went to the church and were married by Miranda’s father. Let me say that it is very easy to get married on short notice when your future father-in-law is a pastor.”

Chad grinned. “I guess it was a small wedding.”

Ted grinned back, and this time, Miranda broke out into a blush.

“Not as small as anyone would think,” Ted said. “Word spreads just as fast in Miranda’s church as it does here. Many people were at the church before we were.”

Beside Ted, Miranda sighed. They dropped each other’s hands, Miranda leaned into Ted’s chest, and Ted wrapped one arm around Miranda’s shoulders. “It was soooooo romantic,” Miranda murmured, then pressed herself more firmly against her new husband. “One of the ladies who rushed to the church brought her wedding veil from when she was married forty years ago. Another lady works at a florist. She brought some flowers for a bouquet. Everyone was taking pictures. My best friend was there, crying her eyes out, and someone even took pictures of us with my cell phone. We showed everyone on the plane.”

Ted grinned. “Nein. You are the one who showed everyone on the plane.”

Chad stared at the barely married couple. On the outside he grinned, but on the inside his heart sank.

He’d planned to stay at Ted’s house while Ted and Miranda were in town, but he wasn’t going to sleep in the same house as a newlywed couple. Even though it would be daylight in a few hours, it was still technically their wedding night.

They looked happy but had circles under their eyes. “You both look exhausted. I guess you didn’t sleep on the plane.”

They turned their heads and grinned at each other like . . . a couple of newlyweds.

“Nein,” Ted said, still smiling, his eyes not leaving Miranda’s. “We did not.”

“Then you haven’t slept all night, have you?”

Both shook their heads, without commenting.

Chad forced himself to smile. “How about if I quickly change the sheets and you two have a nap?” He would find something to do outside the house for a few hours, despite the fact that it wasn’t dawn yet. At this time of year, the sun wouldn’t rise until a little before 8:00 a.m. Piney Meadows didn’t have a twenty-four-hour convenience store, but he could go to the office, get some work done, make himself a pot of coffee, and then drink the whole thing himself. His only other choices were to drive around the town until he ran out of gas or walk around until he froze to death.

Compared to that, work wasn’t so bad.

“If you’re hungry, there’s lots of food in the fridge. Anna’s mother invited me over for supper yesterday, and she gave me some great leftovers to take home. There’s plenty, help yourselves. While you grab a snack, I’ll go change the bed.”

It didn’t take long, and Chad was out of the house and scraping the car windows before Ted and Miranda were out of the kitchen.

He had a lot to think about, mainly where he could stay for the weekend in a town that had no hotel or motel. He wouldn’t intrude on a couple of newlyweds, especially since this was going to be a very short honeymoon, with both of them having to go back to their jobs Monday morning.

As he drove toward the factory, Chad’s heart quickened.

Inside the building, a light shone. They never left the lights on at night. William counted every penny of the money spent on electricity.

Someone had broken in.

His jaw tightened, and he clenched his teeth. Anna had laughed at him for locking his car, saying there was no crime here. Their people were not like that, and people did not steal from others here.

However, someone would apparently steal from the biggest business in town.

He slowed the car, trying to think of what to do. This town was too small to have a 9-1-1 service, and he didn’t have the number for the police station on his cell phone. Even if he did, there wouldn’t be anyone there at this hour.

Besides, even if there might be a police officer on duty, he couldn’t go back to the house to look up the number. He refused to take the risk of walking in on Ted and Miranda’s honeymoon, because he doubted they were sleeping.

Chad wasn’t a fighter, but if he found some kind of weapon, he could at least scare off a midnight bandit. Although really, there wasn’t anything worth stealing inside a business that made furniture. There was no money, only raw materials inside. No one was going to just walk off with a heavy wooden dresser, which was the bulk of the product line.

However, they did have three computers. They weren’t new or high quality, but they were computers, and they had no security cables like many offices back in the city used.

Monday morning, he was going to change that.

Chad pulled his car into the single parking spot beside the building, which was a mystery, because as far as he knew, no one ever brought a car to use the space.

The only thing in his car the least bit intimidating as a weapon was the metal bar from the jack in the trunk, but it was better than his bare hands.

He closed the trunk as quietly as he could and ran to the door.

It opened without a key.

His teeth clenched. The crime rate in Piney Meadows was obviously low and the riffraff inexperienced if a thief would leave the door unlocked while he ransacked the place.

Closing the door with the softest click, he shuffled through the lobby, his heart pounding, and tiptoed toward the office.

He heard a noise.

The boot-up tones of the operating system.

As he suspected, the thief was after the computers. A foolish thief who took the time to make sure they worked before he ran off with them. If he was checking to see if they used a current Windows operating system, he was going to be seriously disappointed.

Chad sucked in a deep breath and stiffened, gathering his strength and courage. He mentally counted to three and jumped into the open doorway. Holding the metal bar at his side, ready to strike, he deepened his voice to sound as intimidating as possible. “Freeze!” he yelled.