Because she still loved her first husband, she wouldn’t crave the romance Tyler felt so disillusioned about. She’d already married for love once and wouldn’t need the devotion and fervor of a first relationship.
“It doesn’t hurt that she’s pretty,” Aden added.
“In other words, you’re still scheming to match me with your cousin.”
“It’s not scheming if you’re in on it. It’s more like a secret plan.”
Tyler chuckled. What would Beth think of their secret plan?
The more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea. Beth was certainly pretty. She didn’t need to be pretty, but Tyler considered it a nice bonus. And she could make him laugh. He’d laughed more in the last two weeks than he had in the last twelve months. She would keep him laughing, and he would keep her safe.
Chapter Six
Beth’s heart sank as she saw Alvin from the window. Another bouquet of flowers, another awkward conversation. Some men were annoyingly persistent.
She’d considered baking cookies yesterday with salt instead of sugar or offering him a bowl of Yankee bean soup with mushy beans and slimy ham. Since his first wife had been such a good cook, one fallen angel cake would surely chase Alvin Hoover away.
Instead, she decided the best course of action would be to tackle the problem head-on, without hesitation and without apology. Not waiting for Alvin to knock, she stepped onto the porch before he would have a chance to invite himself in and make himself comfortable.
“Gute maiya, Beth.”
“Gute maiya, Alvin.”
He marched up the porch steps and presented her with the flowers. “I gathered these myself. Shall we sit?” He hesitated as he glanced around the covered porch. The lack of a place to sit seemed to confuse him momentarily. “Oh. Never mind. I expected rocking chairs or a porch swing.”
Beth always felt more comfortable when the mood was light, although she hadn’t noticed if Alvin had a sense of humor. She smiled. “Mammi says porch rockers are for old people, and she doesn’t consider herself old yet.”
Alvin smiled weakly as his gaze swept the porch for a second and third time. Did he think a loveseat would appear if he wished hard enough? He finally gave up and stared at Beth as if the absence of a place to sit derailed all his plans.
“We can sit on the steps,” Beth suggested and sat before he had time to think of a better plan, like going inside. Keeping Alvin safely out of doors made for an easier getaway after she rejected him.
He smiled uncomfortably and grunted as he lowered himself to the step. Beth had forgotten that not everybody was as young as she, but he was only forty-five, for goodness sake. Was he too stiff to have a sit on the porch step?
He scooted to the middle of the step, cramming Beth tightly between him and the railing. “Beth, I have something very important to ask you.”
She thought of cutting him off right there so she wouldn’t have to sit in embarrassment while he professed his imaginary love. But she thought better of it. Let him say his piece so he couldn’t claim that she hadn’t given him a chance. That was what Wallace Schwartz had accused her of after she had refused him.
Wallace had been the first in Nappanee to propose to her once her mourning period had passed, but he hadn’t given her flowers like Alvin. She had gone to the market to do her weekly shopping, and in between ringing up a box of toddler cookies and weighing a head of purple cabbage, he’d mentioned that he needed a wife and she needed a husband and how about it?
Beth laced her fingers together and wrapped her arms around her legs, pressing her bouquet between her hands and knees. It would soon be over, and Alvin Hoover would never bother her again.
“Something to ask me? I hope you don’t want my recipe for bread pudding. My late husband took a match to it the last time I pulled it out of my recipe box.”
Alvin didn’t even acknowledge her joke. Okay. No sense of humor.
“Barbara has been gone three years. Alvin Junior and Maysie Lynn are a big help, but those kinner will get me laid down yet.”
Beth’s thoughts wandered, and Tyler’s face came unbidden to her mind. Tyler, unselfish to a fault, would never ask a girl to marry him simply because he needed someone to watch out for his children.
“I have a big farm and strong hands. My children will never go hungry.”
Beth did her best to be sensitive to the compliment of a good man asking for her hand in marriage, even out of convenience. She tried to have sympathy for his feelings, though she didn’t return them.
“The moment I laid eyes on you at gmay, I knew you were the one I wanted to share the rest of my life with. I know Barbara would approve.” He took off his hat and tried to grab her hand, but since she wasn’t about to unclasp her fingers, he ended up holding her wrist. “Will you marry me?”
Beth would suffocate if she didn’t put some distance between them. She stood and faced Alvin, holding her flowers like a shield. “Alvin, any woman would be pleased to have you for a husband. You are a fine man with much to offer. I am very grateful that you consider me a fit mother to your children.” She took a whiff of the flowers to give Alvin a moment to let her words sink in. “I am confident you will find a suitable wife, but I can’t cook and I have a very bad temper. I would not make you happy.”
Now he sprouted a grin. “What a tease you are. Your lightheartedness is one of the things I love about you.”
Blast! It was her own fault he didn’t take her seriously.
“Nae. You misunderstand. You will be happier with someone else, and I don’t ever want to marry again.”
This time, Alvin took her seriously, praise the Lord. He wrinkled his forehead in concern. “But you have a son to consider. You don’t want him growing up without a father.”
“The good Lord saw fit to take my husband. Perhaps it is His will that Toby grows up without a father.” She didn’t know why she brought God into it. God had done nothing to stop her from marrying Amos. She couldn’t trust what He saw fit to do with anybody.
“Not when He sends you a man to take your deceased husband’s place.”
Beth huffed in exasperation. How foolish to give him a reason he could argue with. She had wanted to make it quick and painless. “Alvin, truth be told, I don’t want to marry you.”
His countenance fell, and he stood more slowly than he had sat down. “I’m not so old, you know.”
“No, not so old.” She didn’t know how else to defend herself. Of course she thought he was too old, but that didn’t matter. She did not want to marry, period.
“If you’re holding out hope for a younger man, I fear you’ll never marry. No single man with a lick of sense will want to take on another man’s child, no matter how pretty his mother is.”
Beth tried very hard not to be offended. In his irritating way, Alvin only wanted to persuade her. “I know you’ll find a wonderful-gute woman to mother your children,” she said through gritted teeth.
Falling silent, Alvin folded his arms and shifted his weight from one foot to the other while glaring at Beth. Probably counting all the reasons she’d make a horrible wife. Would it be rude to urge him to go away?
Once again, Mammi saved the day. She threw open the door and gave Beth and Alvin that twinkly smile that diffused even the tensest situations. “Alvin, I have a favor to ask. I’ve been so busy with jam and huckleberries and grandchildren that I almost forgot a promise I made to Suvilla Mast.” She came down the steps and handed Alvin a white envelope. “She is learning how to knit and asked me for instructions for the honeycomb stitch. She’s been waiting on them for weeks, and if she doesn’t get them soon, her daughter will go without a Christmas present. Could you drop these off to her on your way home? She lives in the two-story clapboard house down the road from the Lampings’ gift shop.”
“It’s not really on my way,” Alvin stuttered. Mammi’s change of subject had caught him off guard.
“Oh, thank you. It would mean so much to both of us.
Knitting gives Suvilla such comfort. She’s so lonely with her husband gone and all her kinner grown and moved away. She’s not out of her forties yet and is still fit as a fiddle.”
Alvin glanced at Beth as if trying to decide if their conversation had truly come to an end. Narrowing his eyes, he tapped his hat onto his head and pulled his bouquet from Beth’s grasp. Without a word of good-bye, he stomped to his buggy and drove away with all the haste of a spurned boyfriend.
Beth bit her lip to keep from laughing. It was a virtue to be frugal. Lord willing, Alvin would find a gute home for those flowers.
Chapter Seven
Tyler scooped the last of the crispy bacon onto the tray and spooned half the bacon grease out of the pan. Then he poured pancake batter into the grease to form four perfectly round pancakes. Nothing better than pancakes flavored with bacon grease. He set the orange juice and bacon on the table and stepped back to admire his handiwork. Two crisp white plates sat on yellow placemats with a knife, fork, and spoon resting in their proper places. At home this morning, Mamm had helped him fold four yellow cloth napkins into the shape of flowers. He set two of them on the plates and the other two sat at the empty places at the table, in case Toby was extra messy. Toby’s high chair sat between the two chairs at the table, and his plastic cup and plate waited on the tray.
Girls liked to be a little fancy now and then. He hoped his table decorations would send Beth into fits of delight.
He quickly turned back to his pancakes and flipped them over one by one, each perfectly golden-brown and saturated with bacon grease. It had taken quite a bit of finagling to get Anna and Felty out of the house without Beth knowing about it. He’d hired a driver to pick them up early this morning and take them to the Denny’s in Green Bay. When he had told Anna that he needed to be alone with Beth, Anna had actually squealed with glee and wished him happiness.
Felty, on the other hand, had looked more concerned than Tyler had ever seen him—even on the night Lily had broken off their engagement. “Don’t get discouraged” was all Felty had said.
Tyler looked at the clock. Six-fifteen. Anna said Toby arose, without fail, at six. Hopefully, Beth would smell the bacon and emerge from her room at exactly the right time.
Toby toddled into the kitchen first. When he saw Tyler, he ran into his arms. “Mommy.”
Tyler threw Toby into the air three times while Toby squealed and giggled. Tyler plopped him into the high chair and poured some orange juice into his sippy cup.
He heard the sound of bare feet on the wood floor and looked up as Beth shuffled into the kitchen. She wore a lavender dress without shoes or a head covering. Her long chestnut hair fell gracefully over her shoulders and almost to her waist. He couldn’t help himself. Tyler stared like a hungry child in a candy shop. Beth’s hair shone like liquid chocolate, and he wondered what it would feel like to run his fingers through it.
Beth yawned and then realized that it wasn’t her mammi standing in the kitchen. She opened her eyes wide and took two steps back. “Oh.”
Giggling, she retraced her steps and disappeared down the hall. In less time than it would have taken Tyler to don his boots, she returned, wearing shoes and stockings and with her hair tucked into a prayer covering. Tyler yearned for another glimpse of that hair.
“You know,” she said, “you should really tell me when you’re going to show up in my kitchen. It is entirely your own fault that you saw me without a kapp.”
“Sorry. I wanted it to be a surprise.”
“You surprised me, all right, but there is a very thin line between a surprise and a heart attack. Are you trying to send me to the hospital?”
How come no one else could make him smile so easily?
Beth kissed Toby on the cheek and gestured to the table. “What is all this?”
“I wanted to make you breakfast.”
A shadow flitted across Beth’s face before she replaced it with a grin. “Are you trying to tell me that I shouldn’t cook for myself? Amos said I didn’t even know how to boil water. Once I knew he didn’t like the way I made it, I quit serving boiled water for supper.”
“It’s a special day. I wanted to make a special breakfast.”
Beth raised her eyebrows and showed that charming dimple. “Ooh. Special breakfast.”
He suddenly felt as if he’d been stricken with pneumonia and were struggling for every breath. He didn’t need to be nervous. Beth wasn’t intimidating in the least. Then again, it wasn’t every day a boy asked a girl to marry him.
“I have something I want to ask you.” He took the sunflower from the vase and handed it to her. Girls liked getting flowers.
Beth’s smile disappeared faster than a Popsicle on the pavement in mid-July. She looked at the flower as if he had given her a snake.
A feeling of dread washed over him. Maybe she didn’t like flowers so much.
Maybe he should reconsider.
He’d already told Beth today was a special day. He could pretend it was his birthday.
No, he had a plan. He felt good about the plan. This was not the time to abandon the plan.
He sat down and began his carefully rehearsed speech. “Last year at this time, I was published with Lily Eicher.”
She cocked an eyebrow. “You made me breakfast to commemorate your engagement?”
“No,” he stammered, “I want to explain . . .”
Her face fell. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make light of it. You must have been heartbroken.”
“I suppose I was. I thought I loved her, but looking back, I can see we weren’t right for each other, and she and Aden are so happy. The thought of it doesn’t hurt anymore. The thing that stung the most was my complete humiliation.”
Toby reached for a pancake. Beth cut one up and poured syrup on it. “I’m sure Aden would never embarrass you on purpose.”
“Of course not. He and Lily were both so nice about it. They even offered to postpone their wedding so people wouldn’t feel sorry for me. But they needed to be together. I wouldn’t ever want to stand in the way of real love.”
Beth twirled the flower with her fingers. “You’re quite noble, Tyler.”
“I got a valuable lesson from the whole thing. I was like a moony teenager with Lily. Her rejection made me realize that romance is fake—a trick to get people to marry each other.”
“You’re right. All a man has to do is behave well enough to convince some girl to marry him, and then she’s stuck for life.”
Tyler studied her face. Was she teasing him again? “But I still want to share my life with someone. What do you say?”
“About what?”
“Will you marry me?”
Beth looked as if he’d chewed up his napkin and swallowed it whole. “Wha . . . why? What are you talking about?”
“I need a companion and helpmeet who will work beside me and be my friend. I know you’d be a good wife.”
Beth slapped the sunflower against the edge of the table. Petals flew everywhere. “You think I’d make a good wife?” she said, her voice rising in pitch with each word.
Tyler flinched. Was she angry or just surprised? “Jah. The way you care for Toby and look after your great-grandparents—”
Petals kept flying. “What makes you think for one minute that I’d want to marry you?” she practically snarled at him as she reduced the sunflower to a barren stem.
He hadn’t expected quite this reaction. He’d bought yellow napkins and made bacon, for crying out loud. “You’re fun to be with. I think we’d get along very well together.”
She folded her arms and grunted her disapproval.
“If you think I’m expecting you to adore me, you don’t have to worry about that. It’s obvious you’re still very much in love with Amos.”
Pain darkened her expression.
“I can’t pretend to be able to replace the bond you shared with Amos, but we could at least offer each other companionship and comfort in our later years. Besides, I worry
about you and Toby. A widow’s lot in life is hard, no matter how young or old she is. I want to help you out.”
After tossing what was left of the sunflower on the table, Beth picked up a piece of bacon, ripped it into shreds, and deposited it on Toby’s tray. “So, you think I can’t take care of myself. That you’ve got to swoop in and rescue me.”
Tyler had never been thrown quite so far off-balance before. Thoughts and ideas flew around his head like a flock of birds, not the least of which was that Beth looked stunningly beautiful when she was angry. Not a gute time to mention that. “Now I’ve made you angry.”
Beth stood and began to pace. “You certainly don’t want to marry a girl with a bad temper.”
Toby, sticky with syrup and not in the least upset, pumped his little hands in the air and yelled, “No, no, no,” as if he were chastising Tyler and making his own arguments against him.
“I don’t mind a temper. It means you care about things.”
She threw up her hands. “Do you never have an unkind thought about anybody?”
“I try to be—”
“Because I am thinking some very unkind thoughts about you right now.”
“You have every good reason to.”
Tyler caught sight of a fleeting grin before Beth plopped into her chair and buried her face in her hands.
He bent over to peek at her. “Beth? Are you okay?”
He heard a muffled growl behind the hands. “You are the most frustrating person to be mad at. If you fought back, I’d feel a lot better about myself.”
Tyler didn’t know what to do. He didn’t have much practice at fighting back. “Okay. What do you want me to say?”
A giggle escaped Beth’s lips. “Just . . . just stop talking.”
“Can I just tell you—?”
“Nope,” she said, with her face still buried in her hands.
Tyler shut his mouth and tried not to move a muscle except when Toby pointed to the bowl of scrambled eggs. “Mommy.”
Huckleberry Christmas Page 5