Sarasota Dreams (34 page)

After Mr. O’Reilly finished helping William get set up in his new work space, he joined Shelley. “I feel bad that happened in front of you.”

“Oh, don’t feel bad. I’m flattered that my brother said what he did.”

Mr. O’Reilly gave her a curious glance. “And I’m sorry about what Myra said about you. She apparently doesn’t understand your style of dress. And by the way, I don’t think you’re ugly. You’re actually rather attract—”

“That’s okay,” Shelley said, interrupting him before he said something to embarrass himself. “I’ve been laughed at before. People do that when they don’t understand things, and unless they’ve been around plain people before, there’s no way they would understand.”

“You are a very wise young woman, Ms. Burkholder. May I get you something to drink?”

“No thank you. I’ll just go outside and wait for my brother. The van driver said he had room to take me home.”

“I have a better idea,” Mr. O’Reilly said. “Come with me to the employee break room. We have magazines and comfortable seating.”

“That sounds good.” She followed him back out into the hallway and into another room—this one smaller and very cozy. It had thin carpet but a couple of plush couches on one side of the room, a coffee area with a refrigerator and small stove in the center, and on the other side a Ping-Pong table.

“I’ll let William know you’re here. He gets one very short break during his afternoon shifts.”

Shelley leafed through a couple of cooking magazines. She’d never seen so many unusual foods. She closed a magazine, added it to the stack beside her, and was about to carry them back to the magazine rack and pick up a few more when William walked in.

“I’m sorry about what Myra said, Shelley.”

“Don’t worry about it, William. You had nothing to do with that.”

He closed the distance between them and hugged her. “No one will ever be allowed to talk to my sister like that as long as I’m around.”

Shelley’s eyes misted. Having William protecting her warmed her heart and filled it with love.

“Want to play Ping-Pong?” he asked.

“I don’t know how.”

“Come on. I’ll show you. But I only have a few minutes before I have to go back to work. Mr. O’Reilly let me take my break first because you are here.”

Shelley tried to listen to her brother as he explained how to hit the ball and make it bounce to the other person, but her mind kept popping back to how quickly he did an about-face with Myra on her behalf. William was the most loyal person she’d ever known, and she was honored to be his sister.

The rest of the week went by quickly for Shelley. Her mother’s eyes glistened with joy as she learned how William had stuck up for Shelley and not given it a second thought. Nothing else was mentioned about Myra, and William seemed fine with that.

As the days went by and Shelley didn’t see Jeremiah, she tried to accept the idea that he might have given up. That was probably for the best, she thought, since her parents would probably never accept him.

Then on Friday, Jocelyn came up from behind her as she jotted down a big order and whispered, “Don’t look now, but that cute guy who likes you just walked in.”

Shelley felt her cheeks flame, but she did as Jocelyn told her and avoided looking toward the door. After she finished taking a late breakfast order, she scurried back to the kitchen without looking up.

“I’ll take that,” Mr. Penner said as he snatched the order slip from her hands. “Now go see what Jeremiah wants.”

She opened her mouth to say Jocelyn could take his order, but Mr. Penner leveled her with a no-nonsense look. She clamped her mouth shut and nodded. She could tell Mr. Penner’s attitude toward Jeremiah had changed.

As she approached Jeremiah’s table, her heart hammered so hard she was certain he’d be able to hear it. She stopped beside his table, her pen poised above the order pad, and waited.

“Hello, Shelley.”

He didn’t say anything else, so she glanced up and met his gaze. His smile warmed her, but her mouth went dry.

“I’ve missed seeing you,” he said. “But it takes quite a bit of time to work two farms.”

“I can imagine,” she said softly. “Would you like some coffee?” He nodded. “Yes, please.”

“I’ll go get that for you right now while you decide what you’d like to eat.”

“Sounds good.”

Jocelyn met her at the beverage station. “I have to run to the courthouse to take care of a speeding ticket. Mr. Penner said I could go if I can get back in an hour, so I’d better run.”

That left Shelley covering the entire dining room. “Can you be back before the lunch rush?”

“That’s the plan.” Jocelyn tweaked her on the arm and winked. “Better not keep the guy waiting.” She laughed as she walked away.

Shelley carried a cup, a saucer, and a carafe filled with coffee over to Jeremiah. “I’ll be back with the cream,” she said.

By the time she put the cream in front of Jeremiah, he had closed his menu. “Can you join me?”

“No, I’m sorry. I’m the only person serving at the moment.”

“Too bad. I was hoping I could tell you all about my new crops.”

“Maybe another time,” Shelley said. “What would you like to eat?”

Jeremiah leaned back, folded his arms, and looked directly at her. “How about some pancakes and sausage?”

Fortunately, Jeremiah had worked hard all morning, so he’d worked up an appetite to eat another breakfast. Abe had wanted to talk to him when he’d first arrived at the Glick farm, so Mary had fed him eggs, bacon, hash browns, large buttermilk biscuits, and homemade marmalade, but then he’d done a couple of hours of hard manual labor.

He watched Shelley move around in the kitchen area doing whatever she did when she wasn’t waiting on tables. The restaurant wasn’t crowded because it was late for breakfast and early for lunch. He thought he’d timed his visit perfectly for Shelley’s break, but with Jocelyn gone, he understood why she couldn’t join him.

His order only took about ten minutes. Shelley had barely placed it in front of him when Mr. Penner came out of the kitchen, his face pale and his forehead scrunched with concern.

“I just got a call. There’s been an accident,” he said, his voice gravelly. “Jocelyn was taken by ambulance to the hospital.”

C
ome on, Mr. Penner,” Jeremiah said as he rose from the table. “I’ll take you to the hospital.”

Mr. Penner glanced at Shelley. “Can you handle the dining room all by yourself?”

“Of course,” she said. “Go on and see about Jocelyn.”

Shelley remained standing beside the table as the two men left for the hospital. Then she bowed her head and prayed for her coworker with a bad driving record.

The restaurant wasn’t so crowded that Shelley couldn’t handle it alone. She even had a little bit of time between taking orders and delivering meals to straighten the beverage and prep area.

Mr. Penner and Jeremiah came back right when the lunch crowd started to roll in. “How is she?”

Mr. Penner smiled. “She has a mild concussion, so they’re keeping her overnight for observation. She wants to come back to work tomorrow, but I told her absolutely not. I want her to take better care of herself.” He gestured to Jeremiah. “Let’s get this boy some food so he can get back to the farm.”

Shelley had cancelled Jeremiah’s breakfast order, and now he wanted lunch. It didn’t take long for the kitchen staff to prepare the food. When she delivered it to his table, he told her more about Jocelyn’s accident.

“Apparently, she ran a red light and hit a truck, according to what she remembers.”

“Oh no! Was anyone else hurt?”

Jeremiah shook his head. “Fortunately, she tried to stop, so the truck driver is okay. Jocelyn really does need to slow down.”

“Thank you for taking Mr. Penner to the hospital. He cares about people.”

“Yes, I know,” Jeremiah agreed. “Including you.”

“Ya. I’ve been working for him since I was in high school. I feel like part of his family.”

A family walked into the restaurant, so Shelley left Jeremiah’s table to take care of their order. For the next several minutes she was busy, but Jeremiah waited.

When he lifted his finger to get her attention, she went to his table. “May I have my check please? I need to get back to the farm.”

“Neh. Mr. Penner said you don’t need to worry about paying for lunch. He’s thankful you were here to help him.”

Jeremiah hesitated for a second and then nodded. “I’m happy to do it. Tell him thank you from me. I’ll be back soon, and I’d like to talk with you.”

Shelley opened her mouth, but she couldn’t think of anything to say, so she smiled and nodded. After he left, she tried to get her mind off Jeremiah, but that was impossible. She could see that he’d truly changed since he’d come back to the church, and she liked what she saw. She’d secretly liked him when they were children, but he’d pulled so many pranks and teased her that she couldn’t bring herself to let on how she felt. They’d actually started getting along as teenagers, and she’d harbored thoughts that perhaps he was the boy she’d wind up with. Then he’d turned his back on the church, leaving little hope that he’d ever come back. That was when she’d turned to Peter, who’d seemed safe.

As Shelley and Peter had seen more of each other, she’d placed all her hopes on a future with him. He’d acted as though he wanted more, but when he’d shocked her with the news he was engaged to Clara from Pennsylvania, she’d doubted she would ever find a man to spend her life with.

“Shelley,” Mr. Penner said from behind her. “I just got a call from Jeremiah. He offered to take you to visit Jocelyn after work if you are able to go.”

She thought about how her mother wouldn’t approve, but then she really wanted to let Jocelyn know she was praying for her. “I would like that,” she said softly. “But I offered to help the kids at the school get ready for the singing on Sunday.”

“How long will that take you?”

“Maybe an hour?”

“I’ll let him know to pick you up after you are finished at the school.”

Her thoughts collided and then swirled in her head. She wanted to see Jocelyn, but her parents wouldn’t approve of her riding with Jeremiah.

Mr. Penner studied her face. “Jeremiah likes you very much, Shelley. At first I worried that he would be bad for you, but he seems to be a changed man.”

Shelley glanced at him and saw the twinkle in his eyes, so she quickly looked away. “I hope so.”

“May I tell him you will accept the ride to the hospital?”

She nodded. “Ya, I would like to see Jocelyn, but I have to go to the church and help out with the children first.”

“I will let him know you said yes. Abe told him it was okay to take the time off, so I will let you leave early, and maybe you can get a head start with the children.”

“Thank you.” As soon as Shelley could walk away from Mr. Penner without being rude, she did.

The combination of her growing feelings for Jeremiah and the desire to see Jocelyn had Shelley swirling in a current of emotions. She needed to settle her mind before she could hope to make sense of all the changes going on. If Jeremiah truly was a changed man, she thought about whether or not she could be with him. Her mother’s lack of acceptance combined with her own fears of having something else taken away made her wary. Keeping trust in anything outside her faith, family, and work was becoming more difficult by the day.

The lunch crowd kept her busy for a couple of hours, so when Jeremiah arrived to take her to the school and hospital, she wasn’t quite ready. “I thought you were picking me up at the school.”

“I finished early.”

“It’ll be a few minutes before I’m done here.”

“I’ll wait,” he said as he stood by the door. “Take your time, and finish your work.”

She was wiping a table clean when Mrs. Penner walked in the front door. “Go on, Shelley. I’m taking over for you.”

Shelley knew it had been years since Mrs. Penner had waited tables at the restaurant, so she hesitated. “I don’t—”

Mrs. Penner made a shooing gesture, shushing Shelley. Jeremiah stood to the side, observing everything.