The guilt that had been sitting on Moses’s shoulder since he met Lia slapped him in the face. Was he being untrue to Barbara by entertaining such feelings for Lia?
With his clenched fist, Moses pressed on the spot between his eyebrows. How true had Barbara been to him? She had crushed him when she left and then expected all the sacrifice on his part. She wrote every week, but she hadn’t visited once in three years. She had told him she thought of coming back to the community no less than a dozen times yet had registered for school in Minneapolis and bought a car.
Moses took a deep breath.
Barbara wasn’t coming back.
And he didn’t want her anymore.
He’d been so young when he’d fallen in love with Barbara. She now seemed like a wisp of smoke compared to the raging fire that was his love for Lia. He had wasted so much time pining for Barbara that he failed to acknowledge the girl right in front of him—the tall beauty who was his perfect match.
His perfect match.
Moses’s heart soared through the clouds as he felt the weight of Barbara’s expectations fall from his shoulders. He loved Lia Shetler!
He thudded to earth when he thought of Lia’s face that afternoon. She had been silent and withdrawn ever since his accident. Had she sensed his growing affection and didn’t return it? She always pushed Rachel forward and drew herself back.
Moses slapped his forehead and growled in frustration. Did Lia believe he loved Rachel?
What a ridiculous notion!
But maybe not ridiculous to Lia. Why else would she have left him at the mercy of Rachel when he recovered from his accident? She insisted that Rachel accompany him to the doctor. In her note she told him he could share the pie with Rachel.
Lia was trying to get out of the way.
Moses felt ill as the pieces of the puzzle came together. He had told Lia plainly that he had no interest in her sister. But Lia was so accustomed to people showering Rachel with attention and taking no notice of her, she would have naturally concluded that Moses had changed his mind.
He clenched his fists until his knuckles turned white. Lia, no doubt, had seen Rachel and him emerging from the woods on the day of the picnic. As he recalled, he had put his arm around Rachel and held her hand in plain sight of the house. His efforts to mollify Rachel had convinced Lia of something that wasn’t true.
But surely it wasn’t too late to persuade Lia he loved her. She’d only known Ben for a few hours.
He yanked the reins of his racing heart. What if Lia wasn’t interested? She had told him he was arrogant to think that she would want to marry him. What if she didn’t even like him? Considering that possibility made him feel as if a large hand had shoved him to the ground.
He breathed in the aroma of warm huckleberries. She had made a pie for him. His heart jumped around inside his chest. She liked him.
Could she love him?
Rachel burst into the room and slammed the door behind her. Her eyes grew wide. “What are you doing? Where did you get that?”
“Lia left it for me.”
She raised her eyebrows in surprise and tried to snatch the pie from his hand. He pulled it from her reach. “Did you steal this from the kitchen?”
“Nae. Lia made it for me. She left a note.”
Frowning, Rachel folded her arms and studied Moses’s face. “Why would she do that?” she said, more to herself than Moses.
“She wanted to be sure I got a taste.”
Rachel narrowed her eyes. “She wanted to take the credit and leave me out of it.”
Moses’s sigh came from deep within his chest. No matter the consequences, he had to have this talk with Rachel. Again. And he must have it now.
He stood up and hopped to the small nightstand next to the bed, where he placed his precious pie.
“I could have done that for you,” Rachel said resentfully.
Moses eased himself back onto the bed and patted the space next to him for Rachel to sit. She relaxed her posture and tweaked the corner of her mouth upward as she sidled next to him.
“Remember when I told you I wasn’t looking to marry?” he said.
Rachel’s eyes popped wide open and her smile spread so far it almost flew off her face. She nodded in anticipation.
Wrong thing to say. Moses slumped his shoulders. “Rachel, I told the truth. I do not want to marry you, and I never will.”
Rachel stiffened beside him. “Lia is not a better cook than me, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
Moses wanted to laugh. Oh, that choosing a wife were that easy. “It has nothing to do with the pie. I do not love you.”
“And I told you, if you are worried about Lia getting her feelings hurt, my dat will make her go back home.”
Could Rachel possibly perceive that a man might not be interested in her? He would have to be blunt. “No, Rachel. I am not going to marry you. Ever. Not in a million years. Never, ever. I-do-not-like-you.” He lengthened his syllables for emphasis, as she always did.
His using her own tone of voice caught her attention, and she fluttered her eyelashes in indignation. “You don’t even like me?”
Oops. He’d meant to say “love,” but his choice of words was accurate. He did not even like her. “Not in the way you want me to like you.” How could Lia not have recognized his dislike?
Rachel stood up with a huff and stared at Moses with fire in her eyes. “So, you love Lia?”
The pace of his heart quickened at the mention of her name, but Rachel would not be the first to hear his declaration of love. “This has nothing to do with Lia.”
Rachel rolled her eyes and threw up her hands. “Ha! It has everything to do with Lia. She’s been pushing herself on you all summer.”
“Rachel, I don’t want to marry you.”
“A man who lets a stupid pie sway his affection is not worthy of me.”
Moses gave up. “You’re right. I am not worthy of you. You deserve better.”
To his surprise, Rachel burst into tears. She put her hand to her cheek. “Is this the thanks I get for nursing you back to health? I stayed by your side even when I wanted to fall over with being so tired.”
“I never asked you to—”
“You held my hand. I wrote my dat that you loved me. I’ll be humiliated in front of my family.”
Her tears only served to heighten Moses’s agitation. “I’m sorry if I made you believe that.” Was it useless to defend himself? “And you held my hand. I never wanted to hold yours.”
“What a liar you are! You were teasing me because I’m so beautiful. You wanted all your cousins to see you with a pretty girl.”
“Another reason that you should never want a husband like me.”
She snapped her head up and glared at him. “Don’t make fun of me.”
She sniffled and cried while he sat in silence. He knew he couldn’t say anything to make her feel better. Moses had assumed that Rachel had no proper feelings, but she seemed genuinely heartbroken, and a broken heart didn’t heal overnight. He knew that from very personal experience.
“I’m sorry that I hurt your feelings.”
Rachel sniffed and seemed to remember that he was in the room. “You didn’t hurt my feelings. I’m crying because you’re such a liar. Liars go to hell, you know.”
All the fight drained out of him. He could never make Rachel see what she would not see.
Before he even registered what she did, Rachel snatched the pie from the nightstand and flung it to the floor. Moses called out in surprise as the glass pie plate shattered. Rachel stomped indignantly until huckleberry pie filling covered her shoe, and the pie and plate were beyond recognition. With that, she turned on her heels and stomped out of the room, leaving a trail of purple footprints behind her.
In mourning, Moses slid off the bed and knelt beside his pie. So much for trying to spare Rachel’s feelings.
Mammi came shuffling into the room, and her eyes grew big as buggy wheels. “I heard a noise and thought you had fallen.”
Moses looked up at Mammi with a guilty curve of his lips. “We had an accident with the pie.”
Mammi pushed her glasses up as her gaze fell on Rachel’s purple trail out the door. “Rachel must not like huckleberries.”
The quirky lift of her eyebrows and the pathetic mound of glass and pie tickled Moses’s funny bone. He couldn’t help it. Guttural laughter exploded from his lips and left him breathless. Mammi shut the door behind her, smiled, and let a giggle trip out of her mouth. Her whole body seemed to be laughing. She wrapped her arms around her stomach as she bobbed up and down.
After a few minutes of uncontrolled mirth, Mammi composed herself and wiped the tears from her eyes. “That girl is getting some valuable lessons. I hope she learns something from them.”
“It wasn’t really her fault—”
Mammi patted him on the shoulder. “Oh, Moses, I could write a book about all the things you think I don’t know.”
Bracing his arm on the bed, Moses stood up. “I’ll go get the mop.”
“You are helpless with that cast on. Rachel made the mess. She should clean it up.”
“She’s probably halfway to Wautoma by now.”
Mammi opened the door and gazed down the hall. “No, she’s left a trail to Lia’s room. Although if I were her, I’d get that shoe into a bucket of soapy water before it stains purple.” Mammi put her hand over her mouth to stifle a laugh. “I’ll see Rachel cleans it up. You go in the kitchen and be with your parents.”
“Okay,” Moses said, searching the room for his crutches. “I’ll have a piece of pie.”
The corners of Mammi’s mouth turned down. “Oh, dear. Lia told me she made a pie for you, so we finished the other three. Sorry. The pies are all.”
Moses huffed the air out of his lungs. “I suppose I should have expected that.”
“Max had three pieces.”
Of course Max had three pieces.
And Moses had none.
It had been an eventful day. He had gotten a cast put on, offended Rachel, and decided he finally wanted to get married. He had picked huckleberries, watched Lia ride away with his cousin, and realized that he loved her more than anyone ever loved before.
And he had still never tasted a piece of Lia Shetler’s pie.
The house was dark, except for the lantern hissing on the table in the hallway, and quiet, except for the sniffling coming from Moses’s recently vacated room. Felty tapped softly on the door. “Could I come in?”
He heard soft footsteps, and then Rachel cracked her door open. She made no secret that she had been crying. The tears glistened on her cheeks and her nose was moist and red. “I’m cleaning my shoe.”
“I can help,” Felty said.
Peering at him from under hooded eyes, Rachel opened the door wider and stepped back. Felty walked into the room towing a chair behind him. He placed the chair facing the bed and sat on it, breathless from dragging the thing from the kitchen. He felt his eighty-plus years more every day.
Rachel stared at him in puzzlement, clutching her light brown leather shoe in one hand and a damp towel in the other. The towel was already smeared purple with berry stains, but the shoe didn’t look any closer to being clean. Felty didn’t want to discourage her, but that shoe would never be the same. It would probably be easier to dip the other one into a huckleberry pie of its own. At least then she’d have a matching pair.
“Is Lia back yet?” Rachel asked, although she didn’t seem particularly interested in the answer.
“Nae. You know how long babies can take sometimes.”
“Jah, I’ve slept on one too many sofas.”
Felty held out his hand, and after some hesitation, Rachel gave him the shoe and the rag. He laid the shoe in his lap and began rubbing it vigorously. His efforts weren’t going to make a bit of difference, but at least Rachel would see that he cared.
Rachel slumped her shoulders and plopped onto the bed. “If Lia hadn’t been showing off with that ver-y spec-ial pie, this never would have happened. She’s always trying to make me look deerich.”
Felty dropped the shoe and rag into his lap, reached over, and patted Rachel on the knee. He tried to make his expression kindly as he pinned Rachel with an intense gaze. “Rachel, you’re a gute . . . a kind . . .” He cleared his throat. “You’re a pretty little girl, and you and I are soon going to be related.”
Rachel lifted her eyebrows and seemed to perk up a bit. “Related?”
“Can I give you some advice as if you was my own granddaughter?”
Rachel dabbed the tears from her face and exploded into a toothy grin. “I knew Moses must be teasing. Did he tell you he wants to marry me?”
Felty sighed and held up his hand to halt Rachel’s overactive imagination. “Not you, Rachel. Moses is not going to marry you.”
Suddenly cross, Rachel pursed her lips and folded her arms. “It won’t be Lia, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
Felty, not one to lose his temper, made his voice soft and comforting. “You’re a wonderful-pretty girl, Rachel. Your hair’s a pretty color and your eyes look as blue as the afternoon sky. It wonders me why someone as pretty as you wouldn’t want to be pretty on the inside. The Lord doesn’t see your outward appearance. The Lord looketh on the heart.”
Rachel waved her hand in dismissal. “That’s just a Bible verse to make ugly people feel better.”
“But not you?”
“The good Lord made me pretty for a reason. Queen Esther was pretty, and she saved her people.”
“You are no Queen Esther,” Felty said.
Rachel studied Felty and nibbled her bottom lip. “I’m pretty on the outside. And on the inside.”
“Pretty is as pretty does.”
“I hardly left Moses’s side for weeks. I served him food and kept him company. I went with him to the doctor and helped him make cheese. I’ve been an angel. What do you expect from me?”
“But how have you treated Lia—your own flesh and blood? And what about those boys who asked for your hand in marriage?”