Rosemary Opens Her Heart: Home at Cedar Creek, Book Two (32 page)

Matt was already heading for the door. “Check the house and yard,” he suggested, “while
I look outside. Could be if she’s seen folks still visiting up at the Grabers’, she
went to find her grandpa.”

Rosemary nodded, keeping a purposeful calm about her. After all, the first time Matt
had met her, she was looking for the pixie who had considered it a game to get away
from her mamm. This time, though, they had no idea how long Katie had been gone. And
once Matt stepped outside, he realized how many hiding places the empty outbuildings
offered an inquisitive little kid.

Puppies! Play with the puppies!
As Matt heard Katie’s excited voice in his mind, he circled Titus’s new house and
then looked across the road toward his own pastures. The redbud blooms had almost
all changed to green leaves. Katie was wearing a dress the color of a thistle, with
a white pinafore, so she should be easy to spot.

Matt jogged across the blacktop ahead of Mervin Mast’s carriage. “Seen Katie?” he
called out.

Mervin and Bessie shook their heads. “We’ll keep an eye out,” Bessie replied. “Can’t
have her on this road now that everybody’s driving home.”

The thought of a horse spooking, maybe trampling the little girl who was unaware of
the damage such large animals could do, sent Matt’s heartbeat up a notch. How far
could Katie possibly have gone in such a short time? Had she slipped down the stairs
while he was kissing Rosemary? Surely those unsteady, dimpled legs couldn’t have carried
her much beyond the yard. Yet, as he recalled the toddler’s agility when she’d darted
away from Rosemary at Zanna’s wedding, he realized he could take nothing for granted.

Matt reached the fence at the edge of the Lambright property and ran faster, toward
the barns. Maybe Katie had headed this way, thinking to play with Abby, or—

Where are the dogs?
Ordinarily Pearl and Panda rushed out to greet him, barking and wagging their tails.
Once past the sheep
barn, Matt clambered over the wooden gate and sprinted around the barnyard. “Panda?”
he called out. Then he whistled between his two fingers. “Pearl! Come on up here,
pups!” he hollered.

No sign of movement. He’d never thought about it before, but Matt was now aware of
how far their pastures spread in every direction…how easy it would be for a little
girl to wander along Cedar Creek and stumble on tree roots before falling into the
water. Or if she went up to one of the ewes, thinking it was an oversized dog…

Matt gazed back toward the Bontrager place. Rosemary and the two girls were out in
the yard, calling Katie’s name, and even from here he could read the fear on their
faces. Should he bridle a horse and go looking along the front fence line? Should
he run to the Grabers’ and form a search party while some able-bodied fellows were
still there? Truly worried now, he let out another loud whistle.

A single
woof!
made his head swivel. Matt didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, to run or stand stock-still.
Tiny Katie was toddling through the lush spring grass with Panda on one side and Pearl
on the other, blissfully unaware of the turmoil she’d caused. She was over where the
lambs liked to play, not far from the feeders and watering troughs. However, a handful
of ewes stood off to the side, where they could charge over at the first sign that
Katie intended to handle their offspring.

“Thank you, Lord,” he murmured. For a moment he watched his wonderful dogs escorting
the little girl across the green pasture dotted with dandelions. “And a little child
shall lead them” from the Book of Isaiah came to mind.

But Rosemary’s little girl wasn’t out of danger. Had it not been for his dogs instinctively
flanking her, keeping the contrary ewes in their places, Katie might well be a lavender
heap in the grass, mauled by those protective mother sheep. Matt stepped slowly toward
the trio, signaling to the dogs to keep them from running toward him.
Their tongues lolled and their tails wagged as though they knew they were the heroes
of the moment. When Katie saw him and cried out in delight, Panda and Pearl remained
beside her as she walked faster, her little arms extended toward the sky in excitement.

“Matt!” she squealed. “Katie play with the puppies!”

Matt swallowed a big lump in his throat and strode toward her, his arms outstretched.
What was this crazy sensation crackling through him, as though he’d been struck by
the arc from a welder? For a fleeting moment, Katie was
his
child and he’d nearly lost her in a dozen potentially hazardous ways and places.
But she was safe! Happy to see him and at ease with his dogs, even though Panda and
Pearl stood taller than she did. He covered the last ten feet in a rush and grabbed
her up.

“Katie, you gave your mamm and me quite a scare,” he said sternly, yet he couldn’t
be angry with her. He held her sweet weight against him, nuzzling the flyaway tendrils
that had escaped her pulled-back pigtails. “When we get you back to your mamm, I wouldn’t
be surprised if she swats your bottom—”

Katie clapped both sides of his face between her chubby hands. “I love you, Matt!”

So much for lecturing her about the dangers of running off and the punishment that
might follow. Once again her words rendered Matt speechless, head over heels in love…awash
in the wonder of having a child declare him worthy of her affection. Katie looked
so much like Rosemary, with intensely green eyes and a turned-up nose, that he already
knew she’d have fellows seeking her out sooner than he cared to think about.

“You say it, too, Matt!”

His breath stuck in his chest. Was it putting the cart before the horse to say those
three little words to this pixie again before he’d said them to her mother? Was she
manipulating this serious situation with her affection? Yet if he didn’t respond…

Katie’s eyes coaxed him.

“I love you, too, Katie,” he whispered.

“Jah, I know it.” She giggled before nuzzling his nose.

Matt wasn’t aware of crossing the road. He surely must have floated, for his feet
didn’t seem to touch the ground as he made his way between the buggies pulling away
from the Graber place. Folks he’d known all his life called out relieved greetings
when they saw who was in his arms.

Rosemary ran toward him, followed by Beth Ann and Ruthie. “You little imp! I was worried
half out of my—”

“Jah, I know it.” Katie’s matter-of-fact tone made Matt shudder with trying not to
laugh while Rosemary disciplined her. “How much do you love me, Mama?” When Rosemary
stopped beside him, reaching for her daughter, Katie threw her arms around his neck.

Matt’s heart danced. This moment, this memory, would live on through his lifetime…this
sweet scene in which Rosemary stood looking up at him with such relief and gratitude
while her child clung to him as though she’d never let go. What kind of love was this
that held him so close, so effortlessly as mother and daughter staked their claims
on his heart?

“Oh, but you’re a sly one, buttering us up so we won’t punish you,” Rosemary murmured.
“But you’re not to run off from Beth Ann—or any of us—ever again. Understand me, Katie?
You could’ve gotten hurt or lost. We didn’t know where to find you.”

“Those big sheep could trample you,” Matt joined in. “They get really mean when strangers
come too close to their babies.”

“But they
know
Katie now,” the little girl murmured. “Like the puppies do. Like Grandpa’s sheeps
do.”

I am the good shepherd…I know my sheep and am known of mine…and I lay down my life
for the sheep.

The familiar Scripture came to Matt out of the blue and drove home a point in a way
nothing else could. This lamb in his arms was
a precious gift, and she had just become
his
lamb in an inexplicable, irrefutable way. So as Beth Ann and Ruthie gathered around
them to complete the circle, what else could he do but treasure this moment of closeness
they all shared? The Good Shepherd had watched over them from above—thanks in part
to the four-legged shepherds Matt particularly cherished.

Life—and love—simply didn’t get any better.

A
bby settled herself on one of the tall stools at the workbench in James’s carriage
shop, clearing a space for her writing tablet. Ordinarily she wrote her letters for
the
Budget
before she went to bed, but she craved the sound of James’s voice…a different inspiration
for this piece. It wasn’t easy to come up with something fresh and interesting to
say each week as she reported the news of Cedar Creek.

She smiled at James, who was working with his shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows on
this warm evening in late May. “You’re sure you don’t mind me keeping you company?”
she asked. “I haven’t seen nearly enough of you this week.”

James looked up from the bright red open carriage he was constructing. “That’s not
going to change for a while, either,” he remarked ruefully. “Just when I’d had ideas
about disappearing with you on Saturday nights, I got all those extra orders. Then
Perry left me shorthanded. Can’t expect Leon or Noah to work much overtime—”

“Jah, when you’re the boss, you keep the show running.”

“—and when you’re single, you’re not giving up as much family
time as your employees with kids, or so it seems to me. I feel bad about Emma having
to spend the evening with the folks after tending them all day, but bless her, she’s
not one to complain.” James picked up a shiny black wheel and slipped it onto the
front axle of the carriage.

Abby slid down from her stool. She placed her hands on his shoulders from behind him
and began to massage the stiff muscles. “They were well into a game of Settlers of
Catan when I stopped by a few minutes ago,” she said as she kneaded the tightness
between his shoulder blades. “Your dat was all excited about the bricks and wool he
was collecting as resources. Said it brought to mind the way Titus Yutzy would be
pasturing his flock next door by the end of this week—almost like we’re playing a
real-life game of Settlers of Cedar Creek.”

James laughed. He flexed his shoulders as she continued to rub his muscles. “It’s
gut he sees it that way. Gives him something to focus forward on instead of thinking
about his best buddy Paul being gone.”

Abby enjoyed the warmth that came through James’s twill shirt as she pressed her thumbs
in circular motions at the base of his skull. For several moments they stood that
way, giving and receiving comfort by sharing each other’s company. Not a romantic
Saturday night, but it was an improvement over staying home while Phoebe, Gail, and
Matt went out on dates, wasn’t it? Certainly better than that evening she’d cried
after James hadn’t kissed her.

“And how are things at the store, Abby?” James asked as he turned to face her. “It’s
not like I’ve seen a lot of you, either, since the lot fell to Sam last week.”

She drank in the timbre of his voice…the way his hair looked rumpled and needed cutting…the
shine in his chocolate-brown eyes as he gazed at her. “Jah, there’s that. Even with
the girls helping, sometimes we’re stretched pretty thin without Sam,” she replied.
“He’s set aside a few hours on weekday mornings for studying his Scriptures and meeting
with Vernon and Abe. I suppose there’ll
come a time when preaching will be second nature to him, but he still feels overwhelmed
by what he doesn’t yet know.”

“Any fellow would,” James agreed. “But truth be told, I was glad your brother was
chosen—not just because he was my choice, but because Carl, Zeke, and Mose aren’t
as…seasoned.”

“I picked him, too.” Abby climbed back onto the stool. “He’s the wisest man I know,
now that Dat’s passed. Not that I go around telling him that!”

James’s laughter echoed in the upper spaces of the workshop. He gave her a quick peck
on the cheek. “His sister Abigail would make a gut preacher, if she were a man. But
I’m glad she’s not.”

And wasn’t that a fine thing to say? As James returned his attention to the red carriage
he was working on, Abby opened her notebook and picked up her pencil.