“I didn’t want him to surprise you.” Her voice shook, just a little. Adrenaline, she told herself. “You might have hurt yourself if you were using a saw.”
For a moment, he only looked at her. Shy, she let her own gaze lower to her hands.
“Thank you,” Luke said. “Denke.”
“Gern schehne.”
He openly grinned. “You are learning our language.”
Julia wrinkled her nose. “I’m trying. It’s not easy. I had a year of German in college, but you don’t pronounce letters the way I remember.”
“No, Deitsh started as a German dialect with its own idiosyncrasies, but has changed through the years. You notice how many English words find their way in.”
“Ja. Like pizza.” She bit her lip. Would he retreat from a question? He certainly didn’t invite them. “You don’t speak English as if it’s a second language for you.”
And . . . bang. He might as well have lowered a steel helmet over his head, so impassive had his face become.
“I’ve been away enough years to be fluent.” He stepped back from the counter. “I have work waiting.”
The phone was ringing and she hadn’t even noticed. “I do, too.” She reached for the phone, but it fell silent before she could lift it. He’d turned to walk away, so she spoke to his back. “Thank you.”
Luke stopped where he was, finally turning slowly. “No, Julia. I thank you.” A tip of his head, and within a few strides, he disappeared into the workshop.
Employees Only. She wished she felt more like a real employee, one who wouldn’t need to mumble an explanation for her intrusion every time she stepped through that doorway.
* * *
* * *
FOR ALL THE work waiting for him, Luke was doing nothing when his father came in the back door.
“Are you thinking deep thoughts?” Daad asked with humor.
Heat crept over Luke’s cheeks. He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt self-conscious enough to flush. It didn’t help that he required too long to reset his brain to Deitsh from the English he used with Julia.
“Ja, certain sure.” He shrugged, looking down to see a marker in one hand, a measuring tape in the other. He lifted it. “I’m measuring.” As if that wasn’t obvious.
“Except you haven’t started.” Crinkles had formed beside his father’s eyes.
Luke gusted a sigh. He’d never been good at lying to his father. “I need to go choose some wood for the inlay on that desk.”
Daad nodded.
“But something happened a few minutes ago, and I wanted to be sure I was near enough to hear voices in front.” He nodded toward the sturdy door separating them from the display area.
Any hint of amusement left his father’s face.
Luke told him as much as he knew about what had occurred.
Daad listened in frowning silence. “Lucky we are to have so little trouble from the moderns.”
“Ours is not the kind of business that attracts troublemakers,” Luke said.
Pursuing his own thoughts, Daad said, “Sometimes our picture is taken.” He shrugged. “It’s disrespectful, but preventing that happening isn’t worth getting hurt.” He paused. “Or hurting anyone else.”
“The only one hurt was Julia.” Luke’s jaw tightened. “She said she was fine, but I saw red marks on her arms.” He gestured at his own to indicate where those incipient bruises in the shape of fingerprints had been.
“You don’t like having her here,” his father said unexpectedly.
Shame might not show in heightened color this time, but Luke felt it. “I was wrong. She tries hard to do a good job. She frees us up to make furniture. I no longer have to waste time talking to foolish people.”
Eli’s gravity relaxed into a smile. “Glad I am to hear you say that. I think this job is good for her, too.”
“Ja,” Luke agreed, if reluctantly. Why couldn’t they have hired an Amish maidal who needed work that would help her gain confidence?
Because that maidal wouldn’t have been computer literate, or so fluent in English.
“Was she frightened?”
“I’m sure she was.” Luke hesitated. “More angry, she said.”
His father nodded, as if Luke had confirmed a suspicion of his. “She wanted to take care of us.”
But she wasn’t Amish. Aloud, he said, “Perhaps she is more like her brother than she knows.”
His father’s eyebrows rose. “Did she strike that man?”
“No. She stood against the door so he couldn’t open it and take a picture.”
“As one of us might have done.”
It was true. The police chief would have threatened, perhaps even gotten physical. Julia had been trying to protect him, Luke, for all that she was outmuscled by a mean excuse for a human being.
Whom Luke needed to forgive. The flip side of his too-ready temper, his ability to forgive was stunted. Perhaps forgiveness depended on his understanding that aesel more than forgiving him. Ja, “jackass” was a good word for that fellow, but it was also true that nobody who had been raised with kindness, patience, and a good example would turn out like that. He might have been hit or belittled as a child and now felt a need to puff himself up like one of those creatures in nature frightening off a predator.
But Luke saw in his mind’s eye what would surely be black marks on Julia’s creamy skin by tomorrow, and any sympathy he had tried to make himself feel for the man who’d dug his fingers into her flesh dissipated.
He became aware of his father’s stare. Bishop Amos at his most unnerving had nothing on Daad, who relented enough to say, “I’ll go speak to her.”
Luke murmured something, he didn’t know what, dropped the marker, and started toward the lumber room. Once he was caught up in his work, he’d quit thinking about the Englisch woman. For all the fine motives Daad wanted to ascribe to her, Julia Durant wasn’t Amish.
* * *
* * *
HEARING A CLATTER in the kitchen, Julia winced. Why was Nick home so early, today of all days? She’d intended to dash upstairs and change to a shirt with longer sleeves so her brother wouldn’t see the bruises. In his need to keep her safe, he was likely to blow up an unpleasant episode into the crime of the century.
She paused to marvel that she could think of what happened that way. Why wasn’t she shaken to her core? Afraid to go back to the store for fear that man would return? Was she truly healing?
The water in the kitchen came on, drawing her back to her present problem. Maybe she could slip by . . .
The minute she opened the back door, her brother turned to face her. Of course, his gaze went straight to the bruises.
Eyes narrowed, he began, “What the—”
“It’s nothing,” she said hastily. “I tripped and—”
He cut her off. “Was it that big brute of a carpenter?”
“If you’re talking about Luke, he’s Amish. He would never hurt me.” If only she could convince her subconscious so that she quit shrinking in his presence. “And he’s a fine craftsman, not a carpenter.”
“You’re trying to distract me. It won’t work. Who did that to you?”
She sighed. “A man came into the store determined to take pictures of Amishmen and -women. He was mad because I’m not one, and went straight for the employees-only door. I told him that would be trespassing, but he didn’t care. I stepped between him and the door, because I was afraid if he went in using the flash on his phone, Eli or Luke might be startled enough to hurt themselves with a saw or other tool.”
Nick was steaming. “He assaulted you?”
“He moved me to one side.”
Her brother muttered some profanities. “Then what?”
“Luke must have heard us, because he came out and insisted the man and his friends l
eave.”
Sounding disbelieving, Nick said, “He let them take pictures.”
“No.” She explained how she’d taken the phone, and that Luke promised to return it as soon as those people left the store. “I was a little nervous that they’d come back, but they didn’t.”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“You know that’s not the Bowmans’ way. Anyway, the guy was a jerk, but he didn’t break the law.”
“If he laid his hands on you without your permission, he did.”
“Nick, I can get bruises in a crowd watching the Fourth of July fireworks. These”—she touched one lightly—“will fade in no time.”
It took a minute, but he finally gusted out a sigh. “I guess I have to accept your judgment.”
Julia burst into laughter. “That was almost as hard as admitting I’m right and you’re wrong, wasn’t it?”
Had she been anyone but Nick’s sister, she’d have found his grin as devastatingly appealing as Luke Bowman’s. Tipping her head to one side, she asked, “Why aren’t you married?”
Though the smile still lingered on his face, his brown eyes became as devoid of expression as Luke’s entire face had when she asked a question that was too personal.
“Too many fish in the sea,” Nick said lightly.
Unconvinced, she could only scrunch up her nose and say, “Dinner won’t take me long.”
He put an arm around her shoulders. “Why don’t we go out for once?”
“That sounds good,” she admitted, then hesitated. “We can drive by a couple of places for rent that I’m considering. I’d like your opinion.”
“I think you can guess—”
Julia laughed again. “Since you’ve already made up your mind, we don’t have to bother.”
Her brother mock glowered.
She rose on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “I’m hoping you’ll help me look for a used car, too. I asked Mom to sell my Volkswagen.”
“Good riddance,” he muttered. “It’s been ready to be put out to pasture for years.”
She just laughed at him. “At least I’m not going back to Cleveland.”
He offered a twisted smile. “You win. I’ll look.”
She had won in many ways today. Proud that she had scraped up enough of her tiny sum of courage to stand up to an aggressive man, Julia felt light as air. The Amish would say God had been with her. She’d never felt as though she had such a personal relationship with the Lord, but . . . was it possible?
Luke and Nick both had secrets, or at least tender places; she’d seen the walls they used to protect themselves. She understood, because her own walls were higher yet, thicker. Necessary, she had always believed.
Had she lowered them enough today to hear a voice long shut out?
Chapter Five
THE MOVING TRUCK was two days late. She’d planned to move in on Monday since that wasn’t a working day, but no. Now it was Wednesday, and already the eighth of July. Julia would have feared losing all her volunteers with the delays, except she really didn’t need that much help. Of course it didn’t work that way. No one, and especially the Amish, quite believed the moving company workers would bring furniture and boxes into her second-story apartment and put them down wherever she told them to.
Standing on the sidewalk outside the building, clutching her phone, she watched two buggies proceed down the street toward her, their steel tires a drone on the pavement that had become a familiar sound to her. The first buggy drew to a stop at the curb so close to her, she could stroke a hand down the horse’s sleek brown neck. Polly’s lips quivered and she leaned into the caress, making Julia smile.
Offering a chorus of cheerful greetings, a good part of the Bowman family spilled out of this buggy and the second one, which belonged to Luke and was pulled by his black gelding. The fact that both men were here meant they’d closed the store to help her, which was astonishing.
Eli’s wife, Deborah, was joined by Miriam, of course, and another young woman who looked enough like Miriam that she had to be a cousin. Carrying a stepladder, Elam appeared less enthused but obedient. Two other women were introduced as Deborah’s sister Barbara and a young cousin on Eli’s side of the family named Jane.
“It’s so nice to meet you,” Julia said helplessly. “Thank you. I don’t think there’ll be that much to do, but—”
“Ach, windows are never clean,” exclaimed Barbara. “And the cupboards, you’ll need shelf paper.” She brandished a roll from the hefty bag she carried.
“Oh, but—”
The women told her of the many things that would have to be done for this apartment to be livable, as Eli grinned and even Luke smiled.
“It’s brand new!” she pointed out.
Deborah only shook her head. “Workers won’t have cleaned up the way they should have. They never do.”
Luke cleared his throat.
She sniffed. “Amish workmen might, but Englischers? No.”
“Oh! Here comes the moving truck.”
Indeed, it lumbered around the corner, aiming for the very spot occupied by the two buggies.
“Are there hitching posts in back?” Eli asked, seeming unconcerned by the approaching behemoth with wheezing air brakes. “Or a shed for the horses?”
She should have thought to look. “I . . . don’t know.”
“Ach, we’ll find someplace.” He lifted the reins and clucked to Polly, who started forward.
Luke’s gelding laid his ears back, bunched his muscles, and shifted those huge hooves until the harness creaked and the wheels of the buggy rolled a few inches forward and then back. Luke murmured to him in Deitsh and persuaded him, too, to start forward without kicking the buggy to pieces.
Watching, his aunt Barbara said, “Not so trustworthy, that one. It’s like Luke to take him on.”
Julia couldn’t decide if that was said disapprovingly or not.
“You know Charlie was on a racetrack not so long ago,” Miriam reminded her. “He’ll settle down.” She flashed a grin. “Luke has, ain’t so?”
Nobody else commented. In fact, there was an odd moment of silence until the enormous truck stopped right in front of them. The uniformed driver hopped out, scanned the crowd of Amish on the sidewalk with incredulity or even alarm, and then focused on her. “Julia Durant?”
She stepped forward. “That’s me.”
Obviously relieved, he gave her a brisk smile. This was undoubtedly only one stop among many for him today. “Tell us where to take everything, and we’ll start unloading.” In fact, his partner was already heaving up the heavy metal door at the back of the truck.
“Second story. Number 204.” She pointed up at the converted old school behind them.
“Elevator?”
“Yes. I don’t think it’s big enough for the sofa, though.”
“Hardly ever is. At least you don’t have a piano.”
If she had, she’d have rented a ground-floor apartment, or even that small house on Sycamore Street, like it or not. She felt safer knowing no one could break a window and climb in, so she’d allowed her fears to make her decision for her. As she always did.
Not always, she reminded herself, thinking again of the scene at Bowman & Son’s Handcrafted Furniture. Every time she did, she felt a tinge of hope.
She unlocked the lobby door and braced it open, then went upstairs to unlock the apartment door. The women all trooped after her.
She’d fallen in love with the apartment at first sight. It had gleaming, wide-plank wood floors that had to have been original to the school, high ceilings, and white-painted woodwork to set off the cream color of the walls. Whoever had chosen the kitchen cabinets had done so wisely; they were designed to be simple, with rectangular inset panels, and also painted white.
“Ach!” Deborah exclaimed, looking around. “This
is very nice. Except for the electrics, it could be one of our houses.”
Julia hadn’t thought of it that way, but Luke’s mother was right. With no wallpaper, no fancy flourishes on the mantel or woodwork, the apartment would be comfortable for any of them. Except, of course, for the refrigerator, microwave, and dishwasher, all hooked up to the electric grid. The stove was gas. And she intended to hang artwork on the walls, something they never did. Or display family pictures on the mantel, as she would.
Twittering like birds, the women stayed in a clump as they inspected the two bedrooms, walk-in closets, large bathroom, and linen closet. There was even a pantry closet here in the kitchen.
Within minutes, Deborah had them organized, scrubbing shelves and countertops whether they needed it or not, measuring for shelf paper—white, of course, no flowers or fancy designs for them—and directing the men from the moving company as well as Luke and his father, who brought up boxes with the help of a wheeled dolly.
“Bathroom.” Barbara would point. “Linen closet—set that here so it doesn’t block the hall.”
Luke rolled his eyes when his aenti wouldn’t see him, but set down the box where ordered.
All that was left to Julia was to decide where she wanted her sofa and upholstered rocking chair, which lamps went where, what wall would be best for her bookcases.
Luke paused beside her. “I didn’t see a TV.”
“The one I had was practically an antique, so I threw it out. I suppose I’ll buy a flat-screen one to hang on the wall.”
She’d sounded unsure, presumably the reason for the odd look he gave her. Truthfully, she hardly ever bothered turning the thing on. She read a daily newspaper, and intended to subscribe to either the Kansas City Star or the St. Louis Post-Dispatch now that she had an address.
She directed the bed to be set up in the larger of the two bedrooms. The quilt frame would go in the smaller bedroom, rather than the middle of her living room as it had been in her last apartment in Cleveland.
Knowing the women had brought food, Julia popped into the kitchen. Not sure if they’d want to use her electrical appliances, she asked permission to warm fried chicken in her microwave.
Turning Home Page 5