“Who’s it from?” Uriah asked.
“It doesn’t say.” Beth looked sideways at Tyler and twisted her mouth just so, indicating she knew exactly where it came from.
His lips twitched ever so slightly, but she could see he was determined to play dumb. He sat next to her on the sofa and examined the pan as if he’d never seen it before.
“That’s a real nice pan,” Mamm said. “They say if you steam your broccoli, it has more vitamins.”
Another knock at the door turned their attention. Another mass exodus by the children. Uriah seemed to have dibs on the doorknob. Again he opened the door to nobody, but a tall, bulky package stood on the porch.
Beth set her first gift aside. “Tyler,” she warned, scolding him with her eyes.
He tried very hard not to smile. “What are you looking at me for?”
Uriah and three or four other children stepped outside to survey the package. Little Evie covered her mouth with her hands and giggled.
“Oh ho ho, Matthias,” Uriah said. “I need your help.”
Uriah’s eleven-year-old brother, Matthias Junior, joined him on the porch. Matthias lifted the bottom of the package, tilting it until Uriah could catch the top end. Matthias turned and walked backwards into the house. The new package had to be at least five feet tall.
Beth lifted her eyebrows and nudged Tyler with her elbow. What did he think he was doing? He swiped his hand across his mouth as if wiping off a smile.
Uriah and Matthias set the package in front of her as the children gathered around in enthusiastic curiosity.
“Open it,” said little Evie, practically squealing. A gift always held so much excitement for children. Okay, Beth admitted, at the moment, she felt pretty excited herself.
But she tried to act annoyed. Tyler should never have spent so much money on her.
She stood and started at the top, ripping the paper right down the middle. Uriah and Matthias pulled the thick folds of paper from both ends. “Oh my,” said Beth.
“It’s a girl with no head,” Evie exclaimed.
Beth grinned. “It’s a dress form. I can put dresses on it to make sure they are the right size when I am sewing them.”
A small note was taped to the front. A good seamstress needs her own model.
Beth ran her hand along the fabric that covered the dress form at the shoulders. This was not a casual, spur-of-the-moment gift. She looked up at Tyler. He studied her with those icy blue eyes that could have melted the North Pole. She formed the words on her lips without speaking them out loud. “Thank you.”
He shrugged and jiggled the bouquet as if he had no idea what she was talking about.
Choking back the tears that threatened to turn her into a Christmas Day spectacle, she climbed back onto the sofa and moved as close to Tyler as she dared without raising Mamm’s eyebrows. She didn’t deserve this, but her heart swelled at the thought that Tyler believed she did.
Her eyes almost bugged out when another knock came at the door, and she looked at Tyler as if he’d played a naughty practical joke. He looked away, suddenly very interested in who was at that door.
Uriah and Matthias and the other children crowded around as if a pile of candy waited on the other side. Uriah opened the door, and the cousins stuck their heads out and looked to their right. From where she sat, Beth couldn’t see any presents on the porch, but when the children jumped up and down and screamed in delight, she knew it had to be big.
Her little cousins disappeared, and it wasn’t too long before they heard Uriah call, “Dat, Uncle Titus, we need your help.”
Titus trudged out the door with Uncle Matthias. “Soon there won’t be room enough in this house for the people,” Titus grumbled.
Beth caught herself holding her breath. Whatever it was, he shouldn’t have.
Titus and Matthias each carried one end of the package wrapped in silver paper with the biggest Christmas bow Beth had ever seen. The bow itself had to be two feet in diameter. The way they moved, whatever hid inside must have been heavy. It looked almost like a small table.
Oh no.
Of all the outrageous things to do!
She gasped for air as her heart skipped several beats. She couldn’t accept this. It was too much. He was too wonderful for words.
Her hands trembled as she reached out and fingered the bow.
“Are you going to open it?” her cousin Rose asked.
Uriah stepped around the dress form and gazed curiously at Beth. “Do you want us to open it for you?”
Rendered speechless, all she could do was nod.
Rose carefully detached the spectacular bow; then six pairs of hands ripped at the paper to reveal a brand new batter y-powered sewing machine complete with its own cabinet.
The female relatives sighed collectively at such a wonderful sight.
The tears trickled down Beth’s face as if from a leaky faucet. Not in her wildest dreams had she ever hoped for a Bernina. She stood and ran her fingers across the top, admiring the smooth lines and crisp white knobs. She turned the handwheel just to see how smoothly it moved. The needle bobbed up and down effortlessly and without a sound. How many dresses could she make in a week with a machine like this?
She cherished the sight of it even as she grieved for its loss. She knew she couldn’t keep it. She could never accept something so extravagant. No matter how he protested, she would put her foot down and make Tyler take it back.
A small note sat underneath the presser foot. An expert seamstress needs a fine machine. You should find a place to put it, because I refuse to take it back. And then a postscript: The sunflowers are in case you’re irritated.
No wonder he’d brought an entire bouquet.
“That’s quite a machine,” said Mamm, whose practical side was her only side. “Does it cook pancakes and iron your clothes too?”
“Oh, Sarah,” said Aunt Ruth Anne. “Don’t be such a spoilsport.”
Beth wiped her eyes and glanced at Tyler. The way he smiled, as if he knew he was going to get his way, left her feeling all jumbled and annoyed. She snatched the bouquet from his grasp, took him by the hand, and pulled him outside where they could have a little privacy.
“Are there more presents?” she heard Uriah say as she shut the door.
She turned to Tyler, ready to deliver an impressive lecture on the follies of giving his fiancée expensive gifts. “Tyler Yoder, you are in trouble.”
He put up both hands as if stopping traffic. “Wait, wait. Use your flowers.” With a patient grin, he slipped one from her bouquet. “I am in trouble because . . . ?” He popped the head off the flower and tossed it out into the snow.
She huffed in exasperation. “You’re in trouble because you bought me a sewing machine.”
His blue eyes danced as he selected another flower. “The sewing machine is beautiful, but you can’t keep it because . . . ?” He decapitated that flower too.
She watched as the poor flower head fell to the ground. “Because it cost too much and . . . and nobody should get such a big gift at Christmas.”
Before she could move the flowers out of his reach, he snatched another one from her hand and plucked all its petals off. They fell onto the porch like snowflakes. His grin got wider. “I’ve milked cows for twenty years so that when the time came I could buy the woman I love a sewing machine, and she obviously can’t see how bad I want to give it to her because . . . ?”
“I don’t deserve it.”
“The woman who stays up all night sewing dresses so she can care for her son doesn’t think she deserves a new sewing machine because . . . ?” Another poor flower lost its head.
Beth giggled. “Stop this, right now. You are ruining a perfectly good bouquet of sunflowers.”
“I’m doing all the work here,” he said. “There’s plenty of flowers left for you to smash.”
He tried to grab another flower. Beth stretched her arm away from him so he couldn’t reach them. He pressed in on her, and she
moved backwards until the porch railing stopped her progress. They laughed like children.
She held the flowers close to her face and let the petals tickle her cheek. “Okay, okay. I’ll keep the sewing machine.”
She probably could have counted his teeth, he grinned so wide.
“But only because I’d rather not see another sunflower die needlessly.”
Crushing the bouquet between them, Tyler took the opportunity to wrap his arms around her and kiss her tenderly on the lips. She had no choice but to kiss back. He was too irresistible.
One kiss left her breathless. “This isn’t fair,” Beth said. “You caught me in a moment of weakness.”
His mouth was a whisper away from hers. “I’ve never seen you in a moment of weakness.”
“You’re seeing it now.”
“What weakness is that?”
With the bouquet in one hand, she slid her arms around his neck. “The weakness that I’m so out of my head in love with you that I am not thinking straight.” She used her kiss as an exclamation point.
He closed his eyes and smiled. “Hmm. I hope you have that problem for a very long time.”
“For as long as I live, Lord willing.”
Smiling jubilantly, he bent his head and kissed her again. Beth wished she could bottle this feeling and preserve it always.
“Denki for the sewing machine. It is truly a wonderful-gute gift.”
“My pleasure.”
Strains of “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” wafted from the house. The door opened, and Dawdi stuck his head out. It was the second time he’d caught them kissing, and he seemed as unruffled as ever. “Merry Christmas,” he said.
“Merry Christmas, Dawdi.”
Dawdi looked to the inside of the house. “He’s been asking for his mamm.”
A tennis ball flew out the door and bounced off the porch, followed by Toby with another ball held tightly in his fist. “Mommy,” he said.
Dawdi disappeared into the house and shut the door behind him. He’d probably seen enough kissing to last him a lifetime.
Tyler hefted Toby in one arm and put the other arm around Beth in a three-way hug. He kissed Toby on the cheek. “My darling family.” He brought his lips down on Beth’s and kissed her until she heard angels sing.
She felt something brush against her cheek. Toby had managed to pull a sunflower from her bouquet, and he was tapping it against her cheek. “No, no,” he said.
Beth covered her mouth to stifle her giggle. “You’re in for it now, Tyler, from both of us.”
Tyler eyed Toby in surprise, took his arm from around Beth, and buried half his face in his hand. “Oh, no.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Three days after Christmas, the sale seekers still flocked to the stores hunting for goodies. A perfect day to haunt parking lots looking for license plates.
Tyler sat in the backseat of the car with his arm firmly around Beth. He’d been through a lot to get her to agree to marry him. He wasn’t about to let go. Felty sat in the front with Max, the driver, where he could have a better view of every car they passed.
“I hear if you go to Yellowstone, in one hour you will see every license plate in the country,” Max said, as he steered the car down another row in the parking lot of the Mayfair Mall in Milwaukee. Tyler and Felty had decided that Green Bay wasn’t a big enough place in which to find the five rare and elusive plates Felty needed to win his game. So Mammi had agreed to care for Toby for the day so they could come all the way to Milwaukee. With only three days left to find license plates, it was an emergency.
“Next year, we should plan a trip to Yellowstone,” Felty said gripping his pen and notebook like a detective working on a case.
“Only two left to find, Dawdi,” Beth said, grinning and squeezing Tyler’s hand. It was gute Felty was looking so hard, because Tyler had been too fascinated by the beautiful woman sitting next to him to care much about license plates, even on this special trip to Milwaukee.
They had already found two of the four plates Felty needed to complete his collection. Delaware drove by them on the highway between Oshkosh and Fond Du Lac, and Hawaii sat in the parking lot of Wal-Mart on West Hope Avenue. Nevada and Rhode Island were proving difficult.
“Denki again for paying for the driver to get us down here yet,” Felty said.
Tyler shrugged. “You sacrificed finding your plates so I could fetch Beth from Indiana. It’s the least I could do.” He planted a kiss on Beth’s cheek. “I wouldn’t have my Beth if it wasn’t for you.”
“Thank Annie-banannie for that. I try to stay out of the goings-on at our house. But I know you’re glad for the opportunity to make googly eyes at my great-granddaughter today.”
“Very glad,” Tyler said.
Max checked his rearview mirror. “I think we’ve looked at every car in this parking lot. I’m not seeing Nevada or Rhode Island.”
“We’ve been to every mall and McDonald’s in the city,” Beth said. “Where else can we look?”
“Let’s drive to California.” Tyler scooted closer to his fiancée. “More time for cuddling.”
Beth giggled and nudged him away slightly. “Behave yourself.”
“I have an idea,” Max said, pulling the car back onto the main intersection. “There is another place we might find a lot of plates.”
Even with heavy traffic, it only took them ten minutes to get there. “Children’s Hospital,” Felty read. “Oh, those poor little kids who have to be in a hospital at Christmastime.”
They drove through the Children’s Hospital parking lots and then around all the medical center lots. Tyler pulled his undivided attention from Beth long enough to help look. They only needed two more, for goodness sake. They found another Hawaii and four Floridas, but no Rhode Island or Nevada.
After half an hour, they decided it would be best to look elsewhere.
“Let’s try over there one more time,” Felty said. He tapped his forehead. “I have a sense about these things.”
Max maneuvered the car down another row and slowly drove between cars. Felty called out as if he’d been struck by lightning. “There they are!”
It was good the car was crawling, because Max slammed on his brakes. Beth would have gone right through the windshield otherwise.
Felty unbuckled his seat belt and leaped out of the car like a twenty-year-old. The others followed. He rested his hands on his hips and stared at two cars parked right next to each other.
Rhode Island and Nevada.
“If that’s not a miracle, I don’t know what is,” Max said.
Tyler could think of a few, like the woman standing next to him, the miracle of love and laughter that had flowed into his life because of her.
But the license plates were good too.
Savoring the moment, Felty meticulously wrote them down in his notebook and then closed it with finality. “A Christmas to remember,” he said, smiling as if he would erupt into laughter at any moment. He clapped his hands together. “Now, if you will help me, I need to get a box out of the trunk.”
Raising his eyebrows, Max unlatched the trunk, and Tyler opened it and pulled out a cardboard box. “What’s in here?”
“Annie-banannie insisted I bring these today, just in case. That woman is smarter than all the presidents of the world put together.”
Felty opened the box. Inside, along with an impressive assortment of potholders, were four beautiful little baby blankets.
“Knitted by Anna?” Tyler asked.
Beth grinned. “With an extra dose of love.”
Felty was already halfway across the parking lot. He turned back to look at them. “Well, don’t just stand there. Let’s go do some good.” He sang as he marched away. “Each day I’ll do a golden deed, by helping those who are in need.”
Please turn the page for an exciting sneak peek of
Jennifer Beckstrand’s next
Matchmakers of Huckleberry Hill romance,
HUCKLEB
ERRY SPRING,
coming in February 2014!
Felty’s eyes did not stray from his newspaper as Anna Helmuth laid a four-inch stack of brochures on the table next to his recliner.
“Take your pick, Felty,” Anna said sweetly, plopping herself into her rocker and taking up her knitting. “What kind of surgery would you like to get?”
“Hmmm,” Felty said, not paying attention as he perused the death notices.
“Sometimes you squint. Maybe you’d like to get Lasik.”
Felty lowered The Budget so he could spy his wife over the top of it. “What are you saying, Annie-banannie? You think I squint?”
Rocking back and forth, Anna inclined her head towards the thick stack of papers without missing a beat in her knitting. “It’s that purple brochure on the top. I don’t know. You might be too old for Lasik.”
“I’m only eighty-four—not too old for anything.” The newspaper crunched as Felty set it in his lap. He stared curiously at Anna’s potpourri of brightly colored brochures. “What is Lasik, and why do you have a brochure about it?”
“I already told you, dear. You need to pick what kind of surgery you want. Lasik is just one of many choices.”
“Do I need surgery?”
“Of course you do, dear. Spring is the busiest time of the year on a farm, and I need you laid up and unable to work for at least a month.”
Felty took off his glasses and cleaned them with his handkerchief as if this would help him decipher what Anna was talking about. “You want me laid up for the spring work?”
“You’re squinting, dear. You need Lasik.”
“What will become of the chickens?”
Anna lifted her eyebrows, pursed her lips, and nodded as a gesture of reassurance. “I’ve got it all worked out. Our grandson Ben will take over the farm while you’re indisposed. And look after the chickens.”
Felty furrowed his brow as if someone had taken a plow to his forehead. “You’re not still scheming to get Ben and Emma Nelson back together, are you? It’s a lost cause, Banannie. A lost cause.”
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