The Preacher's Daughter (31 page)

‘‘We checked the stitching, replaced what needed replacing, and made the harness as safe as possible,'' he said. ‘‘Here you are.'' He handed her the bill.

‘‘Oh, just put it on the tab . . . that's how Daed always does it.''

A dozen lines flew through his head. How to get her to introduce herself? ‘‘Who should I say made this request of the outstanding charges?'' he asked

Her soft blue eyes put darts in his toes. ‘‘Just tell Irvin his cousin's daughter was here . . . he'll know by that.'' She turned to head toward the door.

No . . . no, wait,
his brain was saying. But he refused to make a fool of himself. He stood and watched her push open the door and head into the daylight.

The thought crossed his mind that he might not see her again. So the memory of the jangling bell was all he had of her.

On the ride home, Annie considered Cousin Irvin's hiring someone outside of his own conservative circles. It made no sense, because she could see the young man wasn't even remotely Plain . . . no outward indication, at least. With her Mennonite cousins being devout in their strict beliefs, she was baffled why that would be.

The hired help had seemed to have trouble keeping his eyes off her, which was a bit surprising because she'd never considered herself pretty.
Maybe he hasn't seen many Amish before,
she thought.
But, no, how can that be?
He would have to wear blinders on those irresistible brown eyes not to have seen the likes of her . . . head covering, cape dress, apron, and all.

But even if her initial impression was correct, she had little hope of speaking with him again, unless she volunteered to run errands for Daed and maybe even her married brothers, too. But that was absurd.
Why should I be thinking this way? He's an Englischer, for pity's sake!

On the morning of January tenth, Annie sat straight and tall, keeping her full attention on the bride and groom as they stood before Bishop Stoltzfus.

Lou, who was feeling much better, sat next to her, far less fidgety than she had been during Preaching services. Annie guessed Lou found this wedding quite foreign to the extravagant plans made for her own wedding day last fall.

Mamm sat on the other side of Annie, nodding off from time to time, probably because the house was much too warm. Three hundred people provided too much body heat, packed in as they were.

At the feast, though, Annie was seated across from Obie Byler, the deacon's cutest son, but she did not care to engage in much conversation with him. Each time she looked up, he was smiling over at her, though, showing his teeth like he was proud of how straight they were . . .
like a horse, nearly
!

Truth was, she kept thinking back to her encounter with the new fellow at the harness shop, wondering what her father's cousins were thinking, being ‘‘unequally yoked'' as they liked to say, between themselves and a modern employee. Mennonites came in all shapes and sizes, just as there were a myriad of Amish groups. Maybe the young man with eyes as big as a cow's—and an intense gaze to match—
was
actually one of them.

Ach, maybe he's someone Lou would enjoy getting to know
. The thought crossed her mind just as she was putting her fork into her slice of apple pie. But perhaps Louisa was having more than her share of male attention presently, what with Trey's long messages on her cell phone every few days and Michael's enormously long letter through the mail.

Annie craned her neck to see where Lou had ended up, and when she found her, she wiggled her fingers in a quick wave and smiled at the interesting combination she witnessed down the table from her. Louisa was sitting across from Rudy's first cousin, Noah, who wore a noticeably deadpan expression, quite clearly aware he'd been paired up with a worldly girl in sheep's clothing.

Chapter 31

T
he clutter of her sketchbooks was beginning to annoy Louisa. She dry mopped the bedroom, and when that was done to her satisfaction, she sat cross-legged on the hardwood floor and began to organize. ‘‘Who would've thought I'd use up so many pages drawing here,'' she said more to herself than to Annie, who was cleaning her own side of the room.

Annie looked over, pushing several stray hairs behind her ears. ‘‘Is it more than you draw at home?''

‘‘Hard to estimate . . . besides it's been two months since I left.'' She continued what she was doing, glancing over at Annie every so often, wondering how she was feeling with Rudy having given his heart publicly to Susie Yoder a week ago. ‘‘You okay?''

Annie nodded, coming over to sit on her bed. ‘‘You're talking 'bout Rudy and Susie, ain't so?''

‘‘Whoa, that's scary. We're starting to think alike.''

Annie's face lit up. ‘‘I like that part of bein' sisters with you, Lou. So, I guess you can never go home.''

‘‘Hmm . . . I don't know about
that
.'' She studied Annie and decided she looked tired. ‘‘You didn't think you could keep me here forever, did you?''

Annie's eyes were bright with some help from the blue light of dusk shimmering through the windows. ‘‘We both know this isn't permanent. And I won't be sad when you say you've had your fill.''

‘‘Promise me that?''

Annie laughed right out. ‘‘Ach, I doubt I should say such a thing. Who's to know how I'll feel when that day comes, really.''

Before arriving here Louisa had never been much for asking pointed questions. Of course she had posed plenty to Michael the night of their breakup. But other than that, she hadn't recalled expressing herself so fully with another person. Not her parents and not even her almost-maid-of-honor, Courtney. ‘‘So . . . do you think Rudy and Susie are a good match?'' she asked.

Annie took her time replying, removing her head covering and pulling the hairpins out of her bun. ‘‘It's not so much 'bout them being suited for each other as whether Susie will be a good housekeeper and cook, and if Rudy will be a good farmer who can make some basic furniture for the house. That's the real question. And knowing Rudy, I'm sure he'll be all of the above.''

Louisa hadn't considered that the newlyweds might
not
be well suited. Wasn't everyone in the Amish community raised similarly, therefore a good match? She asked this of Annie, who was quick to shrug.

‘‘We don't ponder ourselves silly over personality types and such . . . I happen to know 'bout this from the magazines I sometimes read at the doctor's office or at the library . . . well, I did back when my father let us go and check out books.''

‘‘No more?''

‘‘Most everything's getting too worldly, he's decided.'' Annie's hair hung down over her shoulders, and she rose to get a brush from the top drawer of the bureau.

‘‘Well, those ‘winner's' art classes I took—thanks to you— weren't at all offensive. You easily could've gone.''

‘‘You know why I didn't go,'' Annie retorted.

‘‘Yep, and you didn't miss much, as far as I'm concerned.''

Annie frowned. ‘‘You must not have enjoyed it.''

‘‘Oh, I did. But I'm so not into abstract. You just never know, though. It might hit me someday.'' Louisa thought of Trey again. He adored abstract art—color-field painting and neoplasticism, especially Piet Mondrian's ‘‘Amaryllis.''

‘‘I would've been lost in a class like that,'' Annie admitted, staring at her now and then breaking into a big smile. ‘‘Do you realize you keep your head covering on till you slip into bed? And there's no need to, really. Once we're up here and the door's closed, it's all right to dismantle yourself back to bein' English.''

The way Annie said it struck Louisa funny, and both girls broke out in peals of laughter.

When they'd composed themselves, Annie said, ‘‘Here's something to think 'bout . . . but I doubt you'll even crack a smile.'' She looked more serious as she brushed her hair. ‘‘There's an interesting fella you ought to meet . . . workin' for my cousin Irvin, Julia's husband.''

‘‘Yeah, I'm laughing.
Not!
'' Louisa didn't care to tell Annie how weird it was to read a novella-sized letter from her ex-fiancé the same week as Trey's sweet-sounding words filled her voice mail.

‘‘I'm not kidding, Lou. There's something special 'bout the guy.''

‘‘What's his name?''

‘‘Don't even know.''

Louisa eyed her. ‘‘So . . . he's not
your
style, is that what you mean?''

‘‘He's English, that's all.'' Annie shook her head.

She's curious, though,
thought Louisa. ‘‘When do you want to go back over there? Huh . . . huh?'' She couldn't help it. Annie was so much fun to tease.

‘‘Well, maybe Daed will have another errand for us to run for him. I'll see.'' Annie said this with a straight face—as naïve and guileless as ever.

She does like him!
thought Louisa.

Her husband was in the process of rounding up the excess barn cats, and he might've shot them all in the head, in spite of what Esther had firmly suggested to do with them—put out a sign on the road:
Free Kittens
. And if Laura hadn't come wandering out to the barn just as he was loading his rifle, he might have done just that.

‘‘Dat? What's that you're doin'?'' their daughter asked.

The instinctive fright on her sweet face sent Zeke back to the ledge where he kept his gun. ‘‘Can you help me gather up some of the kitties to take to one of the farmers' markets—the Green Dragon, maybe?'' He glanced disdainfully at Esther.

She ignored his glare, focusing instead on Laura, who nodded her little head and beamed a smile. ‘‘I'll go right now, Dat.''

There was something that attracted cats to Laura. All animals, really. It was her gentleness and innocence, no doubt. Esther was secretly grateful Laura appeared when she had. Off Laura went to climb the haymow ladder, which was a good thing, because not but five minutes later, here came Deacon Byler in his family buggy, a long expression on his ruddy face.

‘‘Zeke . . . Esther,'' the deacon said, removing his black winter hat. ‘‘I'd like a word with yous.''

‘‘Right away,'' Zeke said. He was raring to go, she could tell . . . mighty ready to have his whippersnapper wife shamed into repentance for
‘‘all this twaddle about being called by the Lord Jesus,''
as he'd rudely stated right to her face a few hours before.

Ben Martin was unduly smitten. Preacher Zook's daughter, whoever she was, had his emotions by the throat, and he could only think of the next time he might glimpse her across the road, or far better, she might march back into the tack shop.

Or is there something I need from her father? I'll drive right over there. A good dose of religion, maybe?

He laughed at his own private joke as he worked, switching the hame strap on the front end of a harness. After all, if it was organized religion he was after, he would have nailed it by now.

During his short break time, he headed out through the snow to get a can of soda from the cooler he kept in his car. He inhaled deeply, taking the cold air into his lungs, totally jazzed to have signed a one-year lease on a 900-square-foot bungalow several miles from the harness shop.
Kentucky Ben walking on foreign but appealing soil, a long way from home,
he thought.

But where else could a guy work for an upstanding businessman like Irvin Ranck? Precisely the sort of man Ben had always wanted for a boss. None of the nonstop male chauvinistic blather punctuated by profanity, like at the last tack shop, his first job. Meek almost to a fault, Irvin was a man of few yet profound words . . . the most conservative man Ben had ever met. And he treated his wife like a queen.

Ben believed it to be sheer luck, among other things, that had brought him to work in this little harness shop in a Podunk place called Paradise.

Taking a swig of his soda, he recalled looking out at the Amish girl's horse and carriage, wondering which direction she was headed.
This is silly,
he thought, picking his way back to the shop. But he shook the door enough to jingle the bell repeatedly, for the pure adrenaline rush of it.

She was out on her ear, or so Zeke seemed determined to remind her. Even after Deacon Byler left, Esther sat alone in the stillness of the kitchen, tears refusing to dry up. She had fully known what was coming, for she had been raised in the strictest of households, her own parents most mindful of the Old Ways. To think she had turned her back on the rigid expectations of her own church . . .
my own people
. And just today she'd been given yet another chance to renounce her new walk with the Lord.
How odd that embracing the assurance of salvation through God's Son is so frowned upon!

Her lot in life, at least till such time as she ‘‘came to her senses,'' was for her to be separated from her own family while living under the same roof . . . here in this house where she and Zeke had made their home. Here, where she had been the ever-dutiful wife and loving mother.

She rose and moved slowly toward the stairs. Painfully she made her way to the bedroom where she'd shared all her married days with Zeke. But no more. If she was to be so arrogant as to declare herself ‘‘redeemed,'' then she was forbidden to engage in marital intimacy.
Who's going to check up on that?
She allowed the sarcastic yet comical thought to hold sway momentarily.
The deacon? Preacher Zook? Just who?

She sat on the bed, collecting her wits, not wanting to be seen moving her personal items and clothing to the far end of the hall, to the tiny bedroom set aside for a toddler's nursery . . . where her next baby would reside, along with its mother, as she did not see herself bending her knee before the People. Not when what she fully believed was ever so right and good . . . and heaven sent, just in time.