Katie's Way (22 page)

“And that would be as offensive as calling it Catholic Sale Days or Episcopal Sale Days.” Cliff Wainwright, who owned the bookstore, shoved his wire-rimmed glasses in place and looked at Sullivan as if he were studying him. “I for one would not be comfortable trading on someone else's faith to make a few dollars. What about Pennsylvania Dutch Days? That might work.”

There was a murmur of agreement from the other merchants, Amish and Englisch alike. Katie darted a quick smile at Caleb, as if wanting to share her pleasure in the quick resolution with someone. With him.

He met her gaze for a moment and then looked away. And found himself looking straight at Ruth Weaver, Mattie's mother. The unexpectedness of it shocked him, and it took a moment to gain his balance. Ruth had quite a little business in hooked rugs, selling them out of her home, so maybe that was why she was here. But that didn't explain why she was looking at him.

He didn't see any of the Weaver family often, managing to sit in church where they weren't in his line of sight and steering clear of coming too close. For their part, they usually did a fine job of looking right through him when they did happen to meet. But now ... well, maybe it was because Ephraim, her husband, wasn't with Ruth, but she sat there, her gaze on him, almost as if she wanted to say something.

“Well, that sounds like a majority,” Lisa announced briskly, pulling Caleb's attention back to her. “I've already volunteered to handle publicity, and if anyone would be willing to help me or has any ideas, do please get in touch with me.”

“Is anyone else going to be selling food?” Paula Schatz put the question. “I'll have baked goods and coffee, of course, but it seems to me this is an opportunity for more than that. A hot dog stand, maybe, or some other sort of sandwiches.”

“And soup,” someone else put in. “Especially if it's not a real hot day, homemade soup goes real good.”

That opened the flood gates. It seemed everyone was willing to talk about food, and soon folks from the Volunteer Fire Company to the Ladies Circle at the Methodist Church had offered to set up food stands.

Caleb leaned back in his chair. This wasn't so bad. Folks were really getting involved, and that would be what it took to make something like this work. Whatever awkwardness had remained after the discussion of the name was swamped in a flurry of ideas.

He glanced at Katie. She'd been in on the plan from the beginning, thanks to her friendship with Lisa Macklin, and she looked pleased. More than that—glowing, lit up with enthusiasm. Sometimes he forgot how pretty she was when that light was in her face.

He sat back again, forcing himself to focus on the meeting. He had no right to be thinking about Katie that way.

But who was he trying to fool? Himself? If so, it wasn't working. He had feelings for Katie Miller. He might not know what to do with them, but they were real, and growing stronger all the time.

“Well, I think that's about it,” Mrs. Macklin said after the last detail had been ironed out. “There is just one other thing. A few merchants couldn't be here today. Would someone be willing to call on them and try to get their support?”

Cliff Wainwright raised his hand. “I'll be glad to touch base with people,” he said. “But I think the Amish would respond better to another Amish person.”

Silence fell for a moment. Bishop Mose nudged Caleb. He kept his gaze in the other direction. Whatever the bishop thought, he wasn't the one to take on this job.

Unfortunately, looking away from the bishop meant he was looking straight at Katie. The appeal in her deep blue eyes was far more potent than the bishop's nudge. She wanted him to do it. He could read that in her face.

He didn't want to. But he raised his hand, because she was just too hard to resist.

 

 

Caleb
was very quiet as they walked back toward their shops. Katie glanced at his face, searching for some reaction on his part to the meeting. His lips were set, his eyebrows drawn down slightly, giving nothing away.

Well, she was not one to be silent, was she?

“Denke, Caleb. It was ser kind of you to offer to help.”

He blinked, as if that were not at all what he'd been thinking. “It wasn't exactly my idea.”

Now it was her turn to be surprised. “But . . . you offered. You must have wanted to, ain't so?”

“I knew . . .” He paused. “Bishop Mose nudged me. I knew that was what he thought was best.”

She was conscious of a vague sense of disappointment. Surely she hadn't been thinking he'd done it for her, had she?

“Ja, it is not easy to turn down the bishop. Of course you would do it for him. I just thought you looked unhappy about something.”

“Ruth Weaver was at the meeting. Mattie's mother.” He chopped off the words.

She tried to read through the words to the feeling behind them, wanting him to say more. “You must see her from time to time, don't you?”

He jerked a short nod. “Ja. But she always acts like I'm not there. I don't blame her for that. But today . . . today she was looking at me almost as if she wanted to say something.”

“Maybe she does.” Katie prayed she wasn't saying the wrong thing. “Maybe you should give her the chance.”

They'd reached her shop door. He grasped the knob to open it and then paused, hand on the knob, looking into her face. Then he shook his head and opened the door.

Before he could cross to his own shop, they were set upon by both of the girls, bubbling with enthusiasm.

“Katie, at last you are here.” Rhoda's eyes danced. “I can't wait to tell you. I'm so excited.”

“Ja, tell her.” Becky looked almost as exuberant as Rhoda. “Tell her.”

“Tell both of us,” Caleb said, clasping his niece's hand. “So far all Katie knows is that you are both babbling.”

Becky giggled. “It's the best thing.”

“Well, what is it?” Katie took off her bonnet, amused by the girls' reactions. “Don't keep us in suspense.”

Rhoda took a deep breath. “I sold a quilt!”

“You did?” Her surprise was surely all that Rhoda could wish. She hadn't expected that on such a quiet Friday afternoon. “Rhoda, that is wonderful gut. Which one? Who bought it?”

Rhoda clasped Katie's hand and swung it, reminding Katie of her sister's smaller self on the first day of school. “I don't know who she was. Englisch. A stranger, I think. Not anyone I'd seen around town.”

“Someone driving around who saw your sign,” Caleb guessed.

“Ja, or maybe someone I talked to at the Mud Sale,” Katie said. “A couple of women said they'd stop by one day. So which quilt did she buy?” It was good news anytime a quilt sold, and especially nice that Rhoda had been the one to make the sale.

“It was the one . . .” Rhoda hesitated. “You know, the one that was in the box we brought up when the cellar flooded.”

The one Katie had made for her marriage. That was what Rhoda was trying not to say—the quilt that had represented her broken dreams was gone now.

Well, Naomi had advised her to sell it, and she'd been right. Now Katie would not look at it and remember.

“That's fine, Rhoda.” She tried to sound as if that quilt meant nothing more than any other. “I'm ser glad you sold it.”

The faint worry in Rhoda's face was wiped away. “Me, too. I never made such a big sale before. She was looking and looking, and I tried to find out what colors and patterns she was interested in, like you taught me, but it seemed like she just wanted me to let her alone, so I did. I figured she was just a looker, but then she brought the quilt to the counter and said she'd take it! I was so surprised. Becky will tell you.”

Becky giggled. “Rhoda's eyes got all round. I'll bet the woman knew it was the first quilt she'd ever sold.”

“I thought you were supposed to be watching my shop.” Caleb flicked her cheek with his finger, smiling.

“I was, honest, Onkel Caleb. I just stepped over to see what Rhoda was doing. I'd have been back the minute the bell rang, honest.”

“I know. I'm teasing, that's all.”

“When the woman handed over the money, all in tens, my hands were shaking,” Rhoda confessed. “Two hundred dollars, just like that.”

Katie stared at her, feeling the color drain from her face. “Two hundred? Rhoda, that quilt was priced at six hundred.”

“Six—no. No! The price tag was right on it. I peeled it off myself.” Rhoda whirled, running to the counter where the quilt book was kept. “Look, here, here is the tag. I took it off just like you showed me, and I stuck it to the cover because I thought you'd want to enter it yourself.”

Katie could only stare numbly at the tag stuck to the front cover of the notebook in which she kept careful notes, a page for each quilt, who made it, a description of the quilt, and any other information she had about it. The tag said two hundred dollars, but that wasn't the price she'd put on the quilt.

“Maybe . . .” Becky's voice was very small. “Maybe you were thinking six hundred, but you wrote two by mistake.”

“No.” Katie tried to soften that with a smile at the girl. “It's a gut thought, Becky, but I know it was correctly marked.”

“Was there anything else in the shop that was marked two hundred?” Caleb asked, in the tone of one determined to get to the bottom of the situation.

“Ja. Some of the bigger wall hangings, and the crib quilts.”

“But . . . but how could they get mixed up?” Rhoda was on the verge of tears, all her earlier happiness wiped away, and Katie realized she minded that even more than the loss of the money.

“I doubt it was a mix-up.” Caleb's expression was grim. “I think the woman probably switched the tags herself. Komm, let's see if we can find a piece without a tag.” He gave the two girls a gentle push.

Gratitude pierced Katie's hurt. Caleb was helping the girls by giving them something to do. While they were busy playing detective, they wouldn't be grieving about what had happened while they were in charge. She went quickly to join the search.

“It has to be one of those two things.” She knew exactly what the price was on every item in the shop, but she could hardly expect Rhoda to be that well-informed, could she? “A baby quilt or a wall hanging.”

The two girls started on the baby quilts, while she went through the wall hangings. But each one seemed to have the original tag she'd put on it. “Nothing here,” she said. “These are all right.”

“The baby quilts all have their tags, too,” Becky said. “I don't understand.”

“I do.” Rhoda fairly flew across the shop to the archway, where Naomi's baby quilt hung on the quilt rack. She shook the quilt out, looking in every corner. “The tag is gone from this one. I saw her looking at it. She must have taken the tag off.”

Katie found she didn't want to believe it. “Maybe we're wrong. Maybe the tag just fell . . .”

“And then it ran across the room and attached itself to the quilt?” Caleb was bending over the bed where the quilts were displayed. He straightened, something in his hand. He held it up. “Here's the proof, I think. The price tag from the quilt, stuck to the back of the bed post.”

Katie stared at the tag, accepting the truth. “She planned it. She deliberately switched the tags.”

“She wouldn't have gotten away with it if you'd been here,” Rhoda said, her eyes filling with tears again. “She probably figured I was just a dumb kid who wouldn't know the difference. And she was right!” The tears spilled over.

“Hush, now.” Katie put her arms around her sister. “It's not your fault.”

“You'd have known,” Rhoda said, her voice choking.

“I would have, ja.” Katie put her palms on Rhoda's cheeks, so that Rhoda was forced to look into her face. “But I never expected you to know that much. How could you? I was the one who priced everything. It's not your fault.”

“She was a bad woman.” The words, coming from sweet Becky, startled all of them. “She ought to . . . to go to jail.”

Katie's gaze met Caleb's, and she knew he was thinking what she was. This was one of those moments an Amish parent used to teach the difference between the world's ways and the Amish way.

“I will not go to the law over this,” Katie said gently. “It is only money, and at least the quilt was one of mine, not one on commission. No one is hurt.” Except Rhoda, but the law wouldn't fix a sixteen-year-old's feelings.

“We don't go to the law,” Caleb said. “We live separate, remember?”

“Ja.” Becky still looked a little rebellious. “But the woman was Englisch. So the Englisch law . . .”

“The Englisch law will catch up with her sooner or later,” Caleb said. “And if not, God still knows what she has done.”

“We forgive.” With one arm still around Rhoda, Katie drew Becky close with the other. “God forgives us, and we forgive others. That's what God offers us, ain't so?”

“Ja,” Becky said, perhaps a little reluctant still. Rhoda nodded, wiping tears away with the back of her hand.

“Gut. Now why don't you two go upstairs and have a snack. There are some Whoopie Pies that Molly made waiting to be eaten.”

The two girls started toward the stairs, but Rhoda turned back and seized Katie's hands. “I will learn the price of every single thing in the shop,” she said fiercely. “I promise.”

Katie nodded, her throat tight, and watched as they ran up the stairs. Then she glanced at Caleb. His face was filled with sympathy.