Christmas at Rose Hill Farm (14 page)

T
he next day, Friday, midmorning, Billy stormed up the driveway of Rose Hill Farm and marched into the barn where Frieda stood in the cross ties as Bess brushed her down. “Tell me you didn't do it. Tell me you didn't leave Amos standing at the altar!”

Bess blinked and looked again and it was still him. “Who told you?”

“Maggie.” He frowned, hands on his hips. Maggie had actually called the Extension office and left a message for Billy:
Billy
Lapp! Bess left Amos at the altar. Come quick!
“Is it true?”

She didn't stop brushing the horse's long neck. “Maggie always tells the truth, even though no one ever believes her.”

Billy dropped his head. “Why would you do such a thing?” He kicked a bucket so hard that Frieda skittered. The old horse's ears sharpened to a point.

Bess paused and dipped her head. “I . . . don't know. Everyone thought I was sick, even Dad and Lainey. But the truth is that I just . . . panicked. I couldn't go through with it.”

“Amos is as good a man as ever lived and better than most. The best.”

“I know he is.”

“You'll never do any better than him.”

Their gazes met momentarily. Her eyes were so sincere and her mouth trembled as she stood a heartbeat away. Once again he was assaulted by a sense of things missed, a yearning, a desire to reach out and touch her, to hold her close to him. When her gaze dropped to his lips, his pulse beat thudded out a warning.

He took a careful step back and pointed at her. “No. No way. Don't even start thinking that you can bat your big blue eyes at me and I'll buckle. It's too late for us, Bess.”

Her chin snapped up at the tenor in his voice. “What did I do?” she demanded angrily. “What did I do to ruin our friendship?”

His jaw bulged. He glared straight ahead. Finally he bit out, “Nothing. You didn't do a thing. Not a thing. Not a blessed thing.”

Bess unhooked Frieda from the cross ties and led her into the stall, then swung the door shut behind the horse and latched the hook. She walked up to Billy. Her breath came in quick, driving beats. “Billy, why do you fight it?”

His throat seemed to close. “I don't know.”
Yes you do, Lapp
, he thought. Everything hung too heavy and silent between them. He slipped his hands into his coat pockets and did his best to look platonic.

“Is it so hard to admit that you care about someone?” she questioned softly. “Would that be so terrible?”

“It's not going to happen, Bess. You and I . . . it's never going to happen.” His voice was husky, gruff, as if the effort of expressing deep emotion snagged his words like barbs on wire.

She reached for his left hand and turned it over, caressing it softly, drawing her finger lightly over his scar.

For a moment he found it impossible to move. He closed his eyes to gain control, then jerked back and pulled his hand out of her grasp. “Bess, don't.” He stepped away from her. “Go
back to Amos. Make things right between you. He deserves that much.”

She let out a puff of air. “He does. That's true.” She looked away.

He gave her a hard, thoughtful stare, then grabbed her shoulders to make her face him. “Don't throw away your future.”

Bess shrugged his hands off her shoulders and took a step backward. “I think that I just had a hope for a different future.”

She turned to head out of the barn, and the door slammed abruptly, leaving an absence so profound it seemed to swallow Billy.

Halfway to the farmhouse, Bess stopped and tipped her chin to the sky. Gusting winds had swept away gray clouds, leaving a wide swath of brilliant blue that was almost piercing. Her cheeks tingled, and then her eyes, and she knew tears weren't far behind.

It was partially, if not entirely, her fault that Billy left Stoney Ridge the way he did. When his brothers had insinuated that something was stirring between him and Betsy Mast, he had looked to Bess and saw that she doubted him, his honesty and integrity. It had lasted only a matter of seconds, but that's all it had taken to turn Billy icy. She had seen and felt his withdrawal like a cold slap in the face. That look on her face was the final straw for him. Billy left Stoney Ridge without a glance back.

She had known before he had reached the road that she had made one of the gravest mistakes in her life. She and Amos set out to find him, but every hunch, every lead, was a dead end. It was easier to find Betsy Mast living in Lebanon with her new boyfriend than it was Billy, and Betsy had no clue about Billy's whereabouts. It was as if Billy didn't want to be found.

She could well imagine what he must have suffered after he
left; loneliness and desperation sharper than physical pain. A vision of that scar on his wrist brought on a wave of nausea. She had only herself to blame.

She would be expected inside soon, but first she needed to calm herself with sensible thoughts. She could hear her grandmother's husky voice, “Mer muss es nemme wie's gemehnt is.”
Take things as they are meant to be
.
But how was this situation meant to be? A sudden wind made her shiver, so she took in a deep breath, then dipped her head and hurried across the yard to the kitchen door.

Silence fell in the kitchen as Bess walked inside and hung her coat and mittens on the wall peg. She knew that Lainey and her dad, seated at the kitchen table, had been talking about her. About the wedding. About the non-wedding.

Yesterday, they had been gracious to her, giving her plenty of space and time alone. Now and then, Lainey checked on Bess, brought her a plate of food that remained untouched on her dresser, but never questioned why she acted like a silly fool and ran away in the middle of the wedding ceremony.

But that was yesterday. Today, they wanted answers. Her father sat at the kitchen table, a half-empty mug of coffee in his hands and an open newspaper fanning across the table. He looked up when she came inside. Lainey was washing breakfast dishes at the sink, the little girls played with tin measuring cups at her feet. Bess could feel their eyes on her as she crossed the kitchen to fill a mug with hot water from the teapot on the stove and add a tea bag. She'd just as soon get this conversation over with.

Tea bag infused, she turned to face her dad.

“You're feeling better today?” he asked.

The sight of her dad's dark eyes, brows knitted with concern, nearly overwhelmed her. Against her will, tears sprang up again. “Much better.” She went to the table to sit down, and
blew on her tea, then swallowed, buying time until she felt her emotions were under control. “Dad, I'm sorry. For all the work you and Lainey did to prepare Rose Hill Farm for the wedding. For all the cooking done by the relatives. For the benches that were brought in.” They were still all over the living room. “I am . . . so sorry.”

He reached a hand out to cover hers, warmed from his coffee mug. “You don't need to apologize for anything.”

“All those people watching me . . . I . . . panicked.”

Her father nodded, understanding. “I just wondered if . . .” His voice drizzled off and he exchanged a look with Lainey.

“You wondered what?”

“Was your panic really because of nerves?”

She bit her lip. “I think so.”
I hope so.
“Amos and I, we'll set another date soon. I'll make it through the next wedding.”

Lainey came to the table and sat down. “Bess, maybe you should hold off on setting a date. Take a little time to think it over. Be absolutely sure you and Amos are meant for each other.”

Bess gave her a shaky smile. “There's nothing more to think about. I just felt overwhelmed. You know how I can be. Next time I'll know what to expect.” Her fingers were curling the edge of her apron. “At least I'll be able to fix that iron mark on the dress. I'll have to buy more fabric.” She let out a half moan and clapped her hands on her cheeks. “Everyone must have seen that burn mark when I pulled my apron over my head.”

“No one noticed,” Lainey said. “Or if they did, no one commented.”

“Just Edith Stoltzfus,” Jonah said with a grin. “She noticed
and
commented.”

And with that, Lizzie bonked Christy on the head with a tin measuring cup. Christy screamed and pulled Lizzie's hair, Lainey jumped up to quiet the ruckus, Jonah finished the last swallow of his coffee and left the chaos of the kitchen to flee
to the barn, as men do. Bess let out a sigh of relief. Everything was back to normal.

Everything except for her and Amos.

For the next few days, Amos stayed close to home, expecting Bess would come seek him out, explain what had happened during their wedding to cause her to panic, and set a new date. Hoping, hoping, hoping she would. But she didn't.

So he worked. And worked and worked. Sunup to sundown, he never stopped.

The one who did come seek him out was Maggie Zook, fresh as a daisy from her nonworking days spent avoiding her father. She was worried about Amos, the way his mother was worried about him—but his mother understood what he was going through. Similar to him in temperament, she let him work out his conflicted feelings in peace. He knew Maggie wanted him to talk it out and share his feelings, but he'd never been good at that kind of thing.

Maggie Zook, she was something else again. Forever babbling, bubbling. She sure didn't know how to put a button on her lip. Spending time around her made him feel like he was bouncing from season to season: she was bright, bubbling spring, and he was deep winter.

On Wednesday, Maggie stopped by Windmill Farm yet again and trailed along behind him as he did his barn chores. She was named well, he decided. A chattering magpie.

He was cleaning the frog of a horse's hoof in the middle of the barn, half listening, as Maggie stood nearby with her hands on her hips, loose strands of her curly brown hair tucked behind her ears, her glasses slipping to the end of her nose. “Do you think these glasses are too big for my face?”

The question caught Amos by surprise and tipped up the
corners of his lips. “They seem fine,” he answered quietly. He couldn't imagine Maggie without her glasses.

She had first starting wearing glasses when she was in second grade; Amos was in seventh grade. Amos remembered the morning when Maggie walked into school with her new glasses, passing them around for other girls to try on. All the girls went home that day squinting like newborn owls, insisting they couldn't see well and needed spectacles. Suddenly, the Stoney Ridge optometrist had eight new customers—though, as it turned out, all the girls had perfect eyesight. What was it about Maggie that made everyone want to imitate her?

“Amos, we need to do something to get your mind off your troubles.”

We.
He made note of her word choice but merely said with a hint of stubbornness in his tone, “My mind is on my work.” He hadn't asked her opinion, but she was, with her usual exuberance, giving it to him anyway.

“Well, didn't you say you were out of liniment? Let's get out of this stuffy barn and go down to the Hay & Grain. You need a change of scenery. I need some fresh air.”

The horse did need liniment before he wrapped up her ankles. Why not? He threw the brush in the bucket. “Let's go.”

Ten minutes later, they were in the buggy heading into town. It was a sunny winter day, the air crisp and sharp. Maggie pointed out the winter birds in the trees—a red cardinal male, a pine siskin. “Look up there. Is that an American sparrow?”

“Close. It's a white-throated sparrow.”

“Have you ever had a pine siskin eat out of your hands? I have. Twice.” Her eyes scrutinized each passing tree as the buggy rumbled down the road.

A smile lifted the corner of his mouth at her delight in each bird sighting. Maggie's face radiated more than the reflection of sun through the buggy windshield. She loved birds like he loved birds.