Levi pulled his car in front of the old brick house that must have been eighty years old. But the style and the aging red brick were the only clues that the house was so ancient. The trim had a shiny coat of paint, and the shingles on the roof looked brand new. The front walkway, paved with flagstones, wound through rosebushes and huge pots overflowing with hostas and impatiens. The yard was shaded with trees and teeming with flora and felt twenty degrees cooler than the rest of the neighborhood.
Levi turned off the car and caressed Rebecca’s cheek then wove his fingers through her hair. Warmth pulsated through her body like a cup of hot cocoa…with marshmallows. She closed her eyes and savored his smell, just for a moment.
“You okay?” he said.
“I am sure I will be. Someday. Maybe next week.”
He grinned reluctantly. “One of these days, you’re going to push me past my ability to endure, Rebecca Miller.”
“
Your
ability to endure? Those rides don’t even scare you.”
“No.
You
scare me when I’m on those rides.”
She shook her head. He was teasing again. He grabbed her hand, sending a wave of sparks up her arm.
“I’m okay,” she said, trying to ignore the sensation of his hand touching hers.
“At least one of us is.” He came around to her side and opened the door. He put his arm around her waist and supported her as they walked to the porch. Her legs still shook after that last ride that catapulted her and Levi into the air and whipped them back again in a matter of seconds. She honestly thought the entire seat was going to come loose from the cables and she and Levi were going to crash into the parking lot at the other end of the park. When they got off the ride, Rebecca felt lucky to have escaped death. Compared to the waterskiing, the roller coasters, and the movie, the catapult had been the worst experience of her life.
Except for losing Dottie Mae. Nothing compared to that.
After Levi peeled her off the sidewalk at the amusement park, they had taken a short twenty-minute drive west into a tree-lined neighborhood.
Rebecca breathed in the fresh air of trees and flowers. “Where are we?”
The door swung open, and a large man with a deeply wrinkled face greeted them with his arms spread wide.
“Levi Cooper! Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle.” His booming laughter could probably be heard the next block over. “I guess I am.” He attacked Levi with a smothering hug, and Levi barely had time to hug back before the large man released him and turned his attention to Rebecca. “And who is this?” He smiled warmly and held out his hand. “A cute girl. Levi, I didn’t know you had such good taste.”
He kept hold of Rebecca’s hand and pulled her into the entryway. “Come in, come in.” Ushering them into his kitchen, he invited them to sit on padded bar stools. He sat next to Levi, and Rebecca couldn’t help fearing that the stool would collapse any minute under his significant frame.
“Rebecca,” Levi said, “this is my dad’s uncle Joe.”
Uncle Joe squinted and studied her face. “Rebecca. I have a granddaughter named Rebecca. They call her
Reba
.” He waved his hand. “She’s their kid. I guess they can call her what they want.”
Uncle Joe bounced his fist on the bar. “So, what brings you to my neck of the woods? Come to get my permission to marry?”
Rebecca felt a blush move up her face, but Levi simply flashed his teeth while his eyes danced. “No, not yet. We came from the amusement park, and she feels a little sick. I thought you might let us rest here for a minute or two.”
“Amusement park, huh? I haven’t been there. Too afraid I’ll get stuck in the turnstiles going in.”
“It was fun,” Rebecca said.
The laughter bubbled out of Levi’s mouth. “Yeah, fun. And anyway, Rebecca loves flowers. I wanted her to see your yard.”
Uncle Joe smiled big and clapped Levi on the shoulder. “All Tillie’s doing. She tells me what to plant and where to move the rocks. I just do what she says.”
“It is beautiful,” Rebecca said. “I love the climbing roses on the fence out front.”
“I built that trellis about six years ago. Tore it down twice because Tillie said it leaned to the left. Now it leans to the right.” He slid off his stool. “Come on. I’ll show you around.”
They went out the back door and stepped into a carpet of impatiens. Rebecca caught her breath at the sight.
“Good shade flowers,” said Uncle Joe.
He took them down a path with moss growing between the flagstones. A small pond fed by a trickling stream graced the back of the property, while a gazebo almost completely enshrouded with ivy and clematis straddled the stream. Three benches covered with overstuffed pillows sat in the gazebo, forming a semicircle along the short walls.
Rebecca stepped reverently up the stairs to the gazebo, ran her hands along the ivy, and took a whiff of a purple flower twined around the post. Levi, with his hands in pockets, stood staring at her with an unreadable expression on his face.
Uncle Joe clapped his hands together. “I’ll go get some lemonade.”
He hurried back to the house with the agility of someone much younger, and Levi slowly walked up the gazebo’s steps. He took Rebecca’s hand, and they sat on one of the benches. He didn’t take his eyes from her face. “
This
is how I want to see you.”
“In a garden?”
“Jah,” he said, slipping into Pennsylvania Dutch and lowering his voice to a whisper. “This is what you love. You are so beautiful here.”
Rebecca hardly had time to realize how close his face was to hers was before he abruptly pulled away, stood up, and moved to the bench across from her. He shook his head and frowned wistfully. “This is going to be the death of me. The death of me.”
Uncle Joe came tromping up the steps of the gazebo with two glasses of pink lemonade. He handed one to each of his guests. “You got some color back, Rebecca. In fact, now you look flushed. Have a drink.”
“Aren’t you having any?” Levi asked.
“Mine’s in the house,” Uncle Joe said. “You two don’t need me out here to ruin your fun. I’m making jambalaya. You wanna stay for dinner?”
Levi looked to Rebecca. She smiled. “Sure we would,” he said.
“Okay, good. Tillie will be home at six.” He whisked a leaf off the gazebo with his foot. “Sit out here as long as you like. Although, if I were you, Levi, I’d be sitting a whole lot closer to your date.”
“I’m trying to be a gentleman,” Levi mumbled.
Uncle Joe looked from Levi to Rebecca. “That’s the most refreshing thing I’ve heard all day. Your dad was like that. A good boy, always a gentleman.”
Levi rested his elbows on his knees and looked at the floor.
Uncle Joe glanced at Levi. “He still in Chicago?”
Levi nodded. “With Bunny.”
Uncle Joe’s booming laughter shook the ivy growing up the gazebo. “Bunny. You always knew how to hit my funny bone.” He turned toward the house. “Let me know if you need anything else. Do you like your jambalaya spicy?”
He kept talking—to himself or Levi, Rebecca couldn’t tell—but his voice disappeared with him into the house.
Rebecca studied Levi, who still had his face pointed to the floor and his elbows planted on his knees. “You do not like to talk about your dad.”
“I probably shouldn’t have said that about his new wife.”
“Said what?”
“Her name is Sherry.” Levi stood and paced around the gazebo. He tried to smile at Rebecca, with little success. “I get so mad whenever anybody mentions my dad. His new wife is a bleached blond who gets her nails done twice a month and wears skirts so short, they’re almost invisible. She’s the complete opposite of my mom. It’s like my dad parked my mom in a used car lot and bought a different model. Like Mom doesn’t even matter.”
“Like you don’t even matter.”
Levi plopped himself onto a plump pillow. “Yeah, that’s how it is.”
Rebecca put her legs up on the seat of the bench. “Okay, let’s talk about something less upsetting. Like roller coasters.”
“Hah,” he said. “That’s only slightly less painful.”
He came over to her again. She swept her legs off the bench and he sat next to her. “I told you, Rebecca, I can’t stand it.” He rubbed his forehead. “You might think this sounds insincere, but it’s not. Everything in my life revolves around you.”
She wanted to laugh it off, to tease him about shoveling manure, but the intensity of his gaze made her pause.
“When I’m with you, my protective instincts kick into high gear. Then you force me to watch as you attempt to kill yourself. It ain’t fun, kid.”
“It’s less fun for me, champ.”
The ghost of a smile passed over his face. “Like Mohammed Ali.” Levi reached out his hand and stroked hers. “I’m asking you to go home and rethink your list. I don’t think Dottie Mae would want you to die in the attempt to finish it.”
“Dottie Mae would scold me for not having a sense of adventure. She had so much energy. It was like all the lights went out when she died.”
“She meant a lot to you.”
Rebecca nodded.
“Why don’t I ever see you cry?”
“About Dottie Mae?”
“About catapults or lakes or Dottie Mae.”
“Crying is weak.”
Levi shook his head. “It means you’re brave enough to show how you feel. Even if you look like a fool.”
“I’d rather show that I’m in complete control of my life.”
He maneuvered his arm around her shoulders and stared at her lips.
“Don’t kiss me,” Rebecca said. “If you kiss me, I’ll forever associate kissing with the nausea of the Catapult.”
He released his hold, stood up, and started pacing again. “I won’t kiss you,” he said. “I’m trying to be mad at you.”
Had
he been about to kiss her?
Gute thing he didn’t try. She would never dream of letting Levi Cooper kiss her, no matter how handsome, no matter how kind or generous or wonderful he was. Rebecca frowned at the twinge in her heart that felt something like regret.
“Everything in my life revolves around you.”
Rebecca sighed and looked away. Levi had an adorably infuriating habit of holding nothing back. She knew exactly what he thought every minute—exactly how he felt about her. That boy took too many risks with his heart. How did he know that Rebecca wouldn’t drop him like a hot potato tomorrow?
He didn’t.
He was willing to let his heart get stomped on.
Why?
She was nothing special—a penniless Amish girl who bossed her siblings around and caused nothing but trouble and expense for Levi. And yet he kept coming back for more. The sudden gratitude and tenderness she felt almost took her breath away—gratitude for his caring about her, for being her champion when no one else even noticed. She had a sudden urge to fly into his arms and promise him that she would never shatter the heart he had so freely given her.
But that would mean she would have to show vulnerability, and Rebecca couldn’t bring herself to do it. If she loved someone that much, she gave them the power to hurt her. No one would ever gain that much power over Rebecca. Not even Levi.
New and interesting varieties of flowers were much safer. “Can I go look at the roses over there?” she said.
Levi glanced to the side of the house where a jumble of roses burst from the bushes standing in the sun. He snapped out of whatever contemplative mood he was in. “Okay. I’ll come with you to make sure you don’t prick your finger on a thorn. With your track record, you’d probably bleed to death. I know how to make a tourniquet.”
“Are you a doctor?” she said, happy to be on safe ground.
“Nope.”
“Then you are not touching my finger.”
Rebecca dribbled the last of the paint onto the roller tray and handed it to Levi. “This is it,” she said.
Levi looked at her measly offering. “Perfect. Enough to touch up two or three spots and then we’re done. I can’t believe how precisely you calculated the paint we would need. You got it right, down to the last drop.”
“The paint is all!” Max yelled from his ladder.
Rebecca handed the empty paint bucket up to him. “Here, get what you can out of this. That is all we’ve got.”
The barn stood two stories tall, a good stretch for their ladder, but at least it wasn’t like some of the barns in the area that towered three or more stories into the air. Max and Levi could reach everything with the ladder and a roller extension.
Mamm sat under the shade of the porch, watching them finish up the painting. A pleasant breeze teased wisps of Rebecca’s hair away from her face and kept the painters relatively comfortable in the late August sun. Linda, Levi, and Max each positioned themselves on their own sides of the barn, busily painting, while Danny and Rebecca worked on the fourth wall. They wore painting clothes, and Danny managed to cover more of himself than the trim with bright white paint.
“Cum,” Levi said, slipping into Deitsch, as he so often did when he worked on the farm. “Walk around with me and see if there are any spots we missed.”
He put down the tray and his brush, and they strolled around the corner of the barn to the side Levi had been painting where they were all alone. Levi slipped his hand into hers with an easy, relaxed motion that seemed as natural as breathing. Hand in hand, they examined the north wall and trim for any flaws.
He pointed to the barn wall. “We patched a hole up there before we painted.”
For some reason, Rebecca found it difficult to concentrate on paint coverage after the touch of Levi’s hand. She chided herself and pulled away from him. He seemed bent on stretching the bounds of propriety every time he got a chance.
He simply smiled, put his hands behind his back, and kept walking. “This side look okay to you?”
Rebecca nodded.
“And the trim?”
“Jah, very nice.”
“Gute, because nothing is finished until it passes your approval,” Levi said. “I want this barn to make you smile every time you look at it. Like a picture right off a Hallmark Christmas card. You like it, don’t you? The cardinal red with the white trim?”
“The trim makes it look crisp and clean. Like a true Amish barn.”