Heart in Hand: Stitches in Time Series #3 (7 page)

“Bring me a glass of water. Please,” she added.

He rolled his eyes and then left the room. When he returned, he brought her a glass of water, but he also carried something that made her eyes grow big. Setting the glass on her bedside table, he sat down on the bed.

“When Anna showed me the thimble, I recognized it,” he said, opening the little wicker sewing basket. From it he withdrew the thimble and held it out to her. “This was your
mamm’s
. I was going to give it to you when you got older. But Anna said I should give it to you now.”

He placed it back in the kit, closed the top, and held it out to her.

Sarah Rose took the basket and hugged it to her chest. “
Danki, Daedi
.”

“Just take good care of it.”

She nodded, then slipped out of bed and set the basket on top of her dresser. When she returned to bed, she didn’t get in but instead threw her arms around him. “I love you.”

“I know. I love you, too.”

“I’m sorry I’ve been bad. I don’t know why I do things sometimes.”

“Maybe it’s time for you to go talk to somebody who can help you understand.”

She pulled back and frowned. “Like who?”

“Like a counselor.”

Her bottom lip jutted out, and she frowned. “I’m not crazy.”

“People aren’t crazy because they see counselors.”

“David Stoltzfus says they are.”

“David Stoltzfus is something else,” Gideon muttered.

“What?”

“Nothing. Come on. Get back in bed and let’s read our story and get some sleep. Monday’s going to come awfully early.”

“Why do people say that? It comes at the same time, doesn’t it?”

Gideon rolled his eyes. “
Ya
. Bed, Sarah Rose. Now.”

She climbed into bed and he tucked the quilt around her, then he kissed her forehead and rose.

“I like her.”

He stopped and turned back to look at her. “Who?”

“Anna. She doesn’t pretend to like me to be near you.”

Gideon walked back to the side of the bed. “Who does that?”

“All the ladies who aren’t married.”

5

Naomi got into the van, gave Nick a quick kiss, then turned around to stare at Anna. “So what happened?”

“Well, that was romantic,” Nick said wryly.

Embarrassed, she turned around, put her hands on his face, and looked him in the eye. “Sorry,” she told him, and this time she gave him a proper kiss.

Then she turned around and stared at Anna again. “Tell me what happened.”

Anna met Nick’s gaze in the rearview mirror, and a little exasperated, Naomi looked at Nick again. “I don’t think I should be expected to give you a better kiss than that in front of my grandmother and Anna.”

He laughed and shook his head. “Of course not. I’m waiting for you to buckle your seat belt.”

She rolled her eyes but complied. “Are you going to make us do that when you drive a buggy?”

Pulling down the visor on the passenger side, she narrowed her eyes at Anna. “Now tell me. I saw you leaving with Gideon after church, and I didn’t have a chance to call you last night.”

“He gave me a ride home.” Then she bit her lip. “Well, we went to his house for lunch. Sarah Rose, too,” she added quickly. “He wanted my help with something.”

Naomi turned to their grandmother, but before she could ask the question, Leah shook her head.

“I don’t know more than you do,” Leah said.

“Come on,” Naomi said. “You’ve always been so nosy about our lives.”

“Why that’s—” she cast a glance at her grandmother—“absolutely true.” She grinned.

Then she told the story as quickly as possible but without the mention of the way Gideon had looked at her a couple of times. That was absolutely no one’s business. And she wasn’t even sure there was anything to it.

All she knew was that it was the first time that she’d even remotely been interested in being around a man, let alone a little attracted to him.

Besides, what had struck her was the way she had felt an unexpected bond with his little girl. She loved children and babysat often for her twin siblings, but it was usually younger children that she related to best.

“Oh, somebody got quiet and thoughtful and in her own little world.”

“What?”

“Is it possible that you’re interested in Gideon?” Naomi wanted to know.

Anna caught the look she got from Nick in the rearview mirror.

“What?”

He shook his head and grinned. “I just remember how you were like an Inquisitor with Mary Katherine and then Naomi about their dating,” he said. “It’s nice to see the shoe on the other foot, so to speak. Turnabout’s fair play.”

“Any other clichés you want to use?” she muttered.

“No, two a day is my limit.”

“Thank goodness.”

Laughing, he flicked on the turn signal and pulled in front of the shop. “Have a good day, ladies.”

Anna and Leah climbed out, letting Nick and Naomi say good-bye. Well, kiss good-bye was more accurate. Anna had teased them a couple of times about it, but she really was so happy that they’d found each other and were getting married that she tried to hold back the teasing.

As she walked to the back room to put her things away, she passed the shelf with the knitting kit Gideon had bought his daughter.

She found herself remembering what she’d said to Sarah Rose after church. She’d really meant what she said about how her moods were still up and down and she wasn’t always so pleasant with the people around her.

Anna had hesitated about sharing something so personal with a child, but it had seemed right when Sarah Rose had been so upset. She hadn’t experienced losing someone she loved as a child, but it didn’t seem to her that it was much different from losing anyone important to you. Sarah Rose had listened but hadn’t said much so she didn’t know if she’d helped at all. But it didn’t really matter. Anna had felt moved to say what she had, and that was all that mattered to her.

The morning moved slowly because it was raining.

So they sat in their chairs in the circle before the crackling fireplace and worked on their respective crafts. Mary Katherine sat weaving a beautiful blanket in earth tones of russet, gold, pine green, and burnt sienna, and Leah sewed and stuffed her little Amish dolls. Anna’s needles clacked as she knitted a new cupcake hat for a baby—it was hard to keep them in stock this time of year. Naomi stitched on a quilt and occasionally
stopped to scribble something in a notebook she was using to plan her wedding.

Naomi didn’t talk much about wedding plans in front of her. Anna had noticed that Mary Katherine hadn’t, either.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out that they didn’t want to upset her, but it was time to stop that. She’d been so self-involved she hadn’t noticed Mary Katherine doing this, but now, as time had passed and the grief wasn’t quite as raw about Samuel, she realized Naomi seldom talked about wedding plans.

Well
, Anna told herself,
I’m not fragile and even if I was, Naomi deserves to have every minute of joy talking about her wedding in front of me
.

“Not much longer now, is it?”

Naomi glanced up, and when she realized that Anna was looking at her, she frowned. “Not much longer for what?”

“Your wedding.” She shook her head. “You haven’t forgotten it, have you?”

“Of course not!” Naomi bit her lip. “I just—well, I—”

“You don’t have to hold back from talking about it because of me.”

“I’m not doing that.”

“Liar.” But she smiled to show she wasn’t being mean.

Naomi set her quilt down. “What do you want to know?”

“Anything—everything.”

Naomi’s cheeks bloomed with pink color as she talked about the upcoming wedding. Anna had already heard about the color of the dresses she, Mary Katherine, and the others would wear because they’d had to pick out the material to begin cutting it and sewing the dresses.

The food would be simple for the wedding meal and the evening supper but all wedding favorites: roast—roasted chicken and filling, vegetables, salads, rolls. Pies and cookies
and cakes galore. And, of course, the wedding cake. All of the food would be made by friends and family with loving hands. She couldn’t wait to surprise Nick with the flavor of the wedding cake; she’d narrowed it down to three choices.

Anna let her cousin’s words wash over her as she knitted, determined to concentrate on them and not let herself drift away into a daydream about how she’d felt planning her own wedding years ago.

“So you think he’ll like the flavor of the cake?” Naomi asked a little loudly.

“Yes, of course,” Anna said. “Why wouldn’t he?”

“Most people don’t like to eat mud cake with dandelion frosting.”

She stood staring out the window of the shop with a pensive expression on her face.

Although the day was a bit chilly, Gideon used the excuse that Sarah Rose wanted to look at the display window to give himself a few minutes to study Anna.

Gone was the carefree expression she wore so often when he saw her. Once, when he’d had a particularly difficult night thinking about Mary, he’d been a little resentful of her healing from her loss. It didn’t seem to him that she could be feeling what he’d been feeling, seeing his late wife everywhere he looked.

Even looking at his daughter had been painful. Sarah Rose was the image of her mother from her daintily pointed chin to that funny little frown she’d get when she concentrated on something.

Today, not knowing that someone looked upon her, he saw the vulnerability, the shadow in her eyes. Maybe his assumption
that she’d been recovering from her loss faster than he had was wrong.

When she moved and caught sight of him, he looked away quickly, pretending to study the window display. Somehow he didn’t think that she would appreciate him seeing her having a private, thoughtful moment. Anna had always been friendly, but there was a reserve about her since Samuel had died.

He raised his hand and waved, and she waved back, smiling as she glanced down and saw Sarah Rose.

Anna opened the door. “Well, hello.”

“Are we in time?”

“In time for what?” she asked.

“The knitting class,” Sarah Rose said, looking around her. “There’s nobody here.”

“We’re early,” her father told her. “I told you that I needed to ask Anna if we could join it, remember?”

Sarah Rose shifted the handles of the cloth tote bag on her shoulder. “I think we’re going to be the only oneses,
Daedi
.”

“They’ll be here,” Anna told her. She looked at Gideon. “Would you like some coffee?”

He nodded and rubbed his hands. “
Ya
, it’s a bit chilly today.”

“Black, right?” She poured him a mug. “Sarah Rose, would you like some hot chocolate? It’s not homemade—it’s a packaged mix—but it’s good. It even has mini marshmallows.”

She looked to her father for permission. Then when he nodded, she said, “Yes, please.” They went into the kitchen, and Anna made it for her.

“Gideon! How nice to see you,” Leah said as she entered the room. “And Sarah Rose as well.”

Anna set the mug before the child, cautioning her to wait until it cooled to drink it.

“We’re here for a knitting lesson,” Sarah Rose told her, swinging her legs under the table as she stirred her hot chocolate, making the mini marshmallows bob in it.

“I’m probably the only man who’s ever taken the class, right?” Gideon asked, his mouth quirking in a grin.

“
Nee
, Daniel Yoder was in here last year,” she said, pouring herself a cup of the hot water Anna had just boiled on the stove.

She took a seat at the table and reached for a tea bag. “He came in intending to just take the class for some therapy—he hurt his hands in an accident on his farm, remember? Then he decided he liked knitting mufflers for a charity project, and he came for quite a long time.”

“We’re just here to learn how to make our project,” Gideon told her. “Although the coffee is worth coming for.”

Sarah Rose took a sip of her hot chocolate and licked at the white marshmallow mustache that appeared on her upper lip.

“May I see the yarn you dyed?”

Taking a ball of raspberry-colored yarn from the tote bag, Sarah Rose handed it to Anna.

“So this is the color you chose,” she said, looking at Gideon.

He gave her a look. “You know I chose the blue that matches my hands so well,” he told her. Reaching for the tote, he pulled out the ball of blue yarn and tossed it to her.

She examined the ball. “Turned out nice.”

He held out his hands. “And fortunately the dye wasn’t permanent.”

“I like it,” Sarah Rose said suddenly. “Mine’s the kind my
mamm
used to make me.”

Anna smiled. “My favorite was grape. My
mamm
would make it for me sometimes in the summer.”

She looked at Gideon. “What about you?”

His eyes were warm on her. “Grape. Always grape.”

Mary Katherine poked her head in the door. “Your class is here.”

Gideon stood. “Well, I’m going to go brave the ladies.”

“You’ll be fine.”

There was a loud slurping noise as Sarah Rose drained the last of her hot chocolate.