by Adina Senft
She gazed at him over the rim of her glass. “You should have told his parents about the pottery lessons, Henry.”
On a sigh, he said, “I know. There is a whole raft of things I don’t know about kids, and how much their parents get involved in their lives is one of them.”
“I don’t think those two are super involved in the boys’ lives. But after the initial heads-up, they would have gone about their holiday and been happy he was occupied. As it was, they felt hard done by and deceived. I tried to tell them you didn’t have ulterior motives where their son was concerned, but you could tell that’s what was in their minds.”
This had never occurred to Henry, not even once. “You must be joking.”
A single shake of her head made her curls dance all around the yellow cotton bandeau she wore in her hair. “It’s a nasty world out there, in case you didn’t notice.”
“I know that, but not here in Willow Creek.”
“I don’t think evil pays any attention to social demographics. And besides, even though they weren’t the best parents I ever saw, they have a right to know who their kid is with. I did my best to tell them you were all right, so you can relax about that.”
“Do you think I should write and apologize?”
“I think you should send the package and chalk it up to a learning experience. And be glad Sarah doesn’t have the same kinds of feelings about Caleb working for you.”
Henry felt a jolt in his solar plexus at the mention of Sarah’s name so soon after a similar jolt down there in the creek bottom. He took a long drink of tea, the cold liquid splashing into his stomach and giving his nervous system something else to think about.
“Speaking of work, I have something to show you.” He took the new mug out of its wrapping—an old jacket he’d used as packing material during his move. “What do you think?”
She turned the mug over in her hands. “Henry, it’s beautiful. It’s like those old—oh, what do you call it—back at the turn of the last century when artists made things look like plants.”
“Art Nouveau.”
“That’s it. And this is a…rosebud?”
“Exactly.”
“But it’s not quite. It’s a mug obviously, but these lines here, they suggest petals, and the way they unfurl at the top, and then the glaze does the rest…it’s beautiful, Henry.”
“I’m using the same style on the mugs I’m doing for D.W. Frith, and maybe just a hint of a leaf shape on the handles of the batter bowls. This was an experiment. I wanted your opinion.”
“My opinion is that I want you to change what you’ve been doing for me and make the house mugs like this from now on. No one else is going to have anything like them.” Then she looked up. “Oh, but they’ll be more expensive, won’t they?”
“They will, but you can make up the difference in the room rate if the guests choose to keep them.”
“Or I can trim costs out somewhere else. Can I keep this? I want to drink my coffee out of it.”
“Sure. I have more at the studio, but I thought you’d like the pink.”
She put the rosebud mug on the coffee table and unfolded herself from the chair. She dropped a kiss on his cheek as she snuggled up beside him on the couch.
“You’re getting to know me well enough to know that I like bright flower colors.”
“I’ve noticed that.” Though she didn’t seem like a flower, not the way the Amish girls did with their graceful long skirts and crisp Kapps. She seemed more exotic, like a bird of paradise in a garden where hummingbirds typically lived. “Are you happy in Willow Creek, Ginny?”
She leaned away a little to examine his face. “Most of the time. I like what I do, and I love my house. My neighbors are far enough away to give me privacy when I want it, and close enough and nice enough that I can walk over and get a cup of sugar when I run out. I have friends here, and interests, and I just joined the quilting guild, though when I’m going to have time to sew is a mystery. Why do you ask?”
“It’s a nice place to try to be happy in.”
“My house, or Willow Creek?”
“Your house is great, but I meant Willow Creek.”
“So you’re settling in, are you?”
“I think so. I’m finding my groove, as you would say, with the clay and the things I can do with it here. And like you say, friends and interests. If it wasn’t for you and the Inn, I wouldn’t have gotten that contract with D.W. Frith. I should pay you a finder’s fee.”
“Or make the new mugs for the same price as the old ones.”
He laughed, and she adjusted her position against his side. It seemed natural to move his arm around her shoulders, and she tucked her bent knees up against his thigh.
“You drive a hard bargain.”
“I have to, a woman alone running her own business.”
“Don’t push the damsel in distress routine too hard. I can see right through it.”
“Hey, if it saves me a couple of bucks, I’ll do what I have to.” She grinned at him and leaned over to swipe a couple of cookies. “Here. Have one. I just made them this afternoon. A peace offering for being so cranky the other day over those people.”
“Your crankiness was on Priscilla’s behalf, so I don’t blame you—or take it personally.” He had, a little, but he wouldn’t tell her that.
“I do get cranky over stuff, Henry,” she said. “If you’re going to be around, I want you to know that. I have a bit of a temper, but the good thing is, it always blows over fast.”
“I’m the opposite,” he admitted, since she seemed to be in the mood for confidences. And she did feel really good against him. It had been a long time since he’d sat and cuddled with a woman and had the kind of intimate conversation that cuddling led to. “My temper is the kind that simmers for days and then blows up over something completely unrelated.”
“That’s worse.”
“Don’t I know it.”
“But there’s a cure for it, you know—communication. How about we make a deal. If we get mad at each other, I’ll stomp and yell and you make sure you stand up to me and say what you have to say. Then I’ll simmer down and you won’t withdraw and it’ll all get resolved.”
“You’re such an adult. Where’s the fun in that?”
“It ain’t fun, believe me. I was married, remember? There’s nothing harder when two people can’t say what’s on their minds. I need that now, so consider yourself warned.”
What a difference between this woman and the Amish woman he’d just left in the creek bottom. Ginny talked things out beforehand, like a blueprint of what to do once they got there. With Sarah, things just happened and she managed to say what needed to be said and so did he—sometimes awkwardly, sometimes clumsily.
And why was he comparing the two of them? Talk about a pointless exercise—unless it was to show Ginny in the best light. Which she was quite capable of doing on her own.
She was looking up at him, soft and curvy and smart and probably the best Englisch cook in the entire countryside.
None of which mattered a bit as he lowered his head and kissed her smiling mouth.
Chapter 21
An inn with no Parkers in it was a clean and happy place to be.
Priscilla left the Rose Arbor Inn on Friday afternoon with the sound of Ginny’s singing in her ears. It was one of the fast songs she sometimes heard on Ginny’s radio, which she called “contemporary worship,” but to Pris’s ears it sounded like rock music most of the time. Ginny was in a very tuneful mood, and her voice was pretty—husky and melodious at the same time.
She wouldn’t say what she was so happy about, but Pris’s sharp eyes hadn’t missed the rosebud-shaped mug on the kitchen counter that hadn’t been there Wednesday, nor the initials pressed into the bottom of it.
She could add one and one to make two as well as anybody.
It was none of her business if Ginny was divorced and Henry was ex-Amish. They had no Ordnung to tell them that courtshi
p or even marriage was wrong, and so Ginny added up the accounts in her office while she sang, and no doubt Henry was in his studio making some other beautiful thing for her.
And meanwhile, Pris was free and her week’s pay was in her pocket and town was just a short walk down the road.
At the fabric store, she discovered that Amanda and Miriam had received some pretty new fabric, which Amanda was busy draping in the window.
“Hallo, Pris, wie geht’s? Are you here for dress fabric so soon?”
“Hi, Amanda. Neh, not this time. I need some fat quarters. It’s Mamm’s birthday soon and I want to make her some pot holders. I just saw a picture of a log-cabin quilt, but each square was a chicken. The quilter made triangles at the top of each block so they look like a chicken’s comb.”
Amanda laughed. “How cute! Miriam even has some little black buttons on the button rack that you could use for eyes, if you wanted. Help yourself to the basket on the counter—she just filled it yesterday and the weekend tourists haven’t got to it yet.”
At the cash register Miriam was ringing up Evie Troyer, the bishop’s wife. “Hallo, Pris. Is this what you’re looking for?” Evie pushed the basket toward her. “What’s this about pot holders and chickens?”
Quickly, Pris described what she’d seen in one of the brochures Ginny kept at the Inn for the quilt hunters. “I thought I could use the same idea of the squares to make pot holders.” She unrolled a quarter. “Doesn’t this black-and-white look like a Barred Rock’s feathers? And this red one with the paisley could be her Red Stars.”
“What a good idea.” Evie’s keen gaze took in the contents of the basket. “You could shade the logs in the cabin block from bottom to top, so it looked like wings and breast feathers.”
Evie was so smart. There was a reason she had a countywide reputation as a quilter. Her designs were simple, but she put colors together in combinations you’d never think of, and they came out looking incredibly complicated. Her quilts were always the first to go at the auction, and brought in the most money, too.
“I like that,” Pris said happily. “These will be fun for me and Katie and Saranne to make, and Mamm will love them.”
“Why don’t you make a few extra, and I can sell them at my booth at the Amish Market?” Evie said. “I bet you could get ten dollars apiece for them.”
“Ten dollars!” Pris fumbled some butter-yellow cotton that would be perfect for beaks, and caught it before it dropped. “Nobody would pay ten dollars for a pot holder.”
“You would be surprised. Make up a couple, and I’ll see if they sell. If they don’t, I’ll mark them down to half price and then they will.”
Half her pay went to Mamm for household expenses, but that still left Priscilla with enough to buy quite a few fat quarters, some tiny black buttons, and a length of ribbon to cut up for hanging loops. And she still had enough to go to the Amish store tomorrow to order a couple of fresh new Kapps from the Grossmammi of the lady who ran the store, who made them in all sizes.
She was standing at the corner outside the fabric store with her bag of purchases, waiting for the light to change, when a horse and buggy rattled up beside her.
“Hey, Pris,” Benny Peachey said through the open door.
She turned in surprise. “You have a buggy.” It was second- or maybe even third-hand, and it didn’t look like there was a shade in the back window anymore, but it had wheels and axles and Benny looked as pleased with it as could be.
“Me and Leon found it and fixed it up. Looks pretty grand, don’t it?”
Found it? “How do you find a buggy, Benny?”
His face was as open as a daisy. “You’d be surprised what you find back there in the woods. Looked like someone got stuck in the mud out there and never got back to get their rig. It’d been there over a winter, looked like. Say, your light’s green. Need a ride?”
“I—”
Behind his shabby rig, a shiny Englisch car with a bunch of kids in it not much older than themselves rocked forward and back as the driver gunned the ignition and braked immediately after.
“Benny, get out of the way before they run you over.”
“Not until you get in.”
Vroom. “Benny!”
The driver laid on the horn and Benny Peachey didn’t move, though his horse tossed its head and skittered and the buggy rolled into the crosswalk.
There was going to be an accident unless she did what this crazy boy wanted. Priscilla dashed around the horse’s head and leaped into the passenger side, hanging on to the bench while her shopping bag slid to the floor. Benny flapped the reins and the horse leaped away from the noise behind it. The horn blared as the car passed them and flew down a side road and over a hill.
“Good grief, Benny. You could have hurt your horse.”
“Naw. He’s steady as a rock.” He grinned at her, sunburned and freckled and completely careless about causing a scene and making people stare. “What’cha up to in town?”
“Buying fabric for Mamm’s birthday present. And trying not to be killed at traffic lights.”
“You take life too seriously, Pris. You’ve gotta have more faith.” He held the reins loosely, his body relaxed and one foot outside the door on the running board. Benny Peachey, it was clear, had faith to spare, while she felt rattled and upset.
“I don’t like being forced into things. You can drop me at the end of our lane, denki.”
“Aw, c’mon. Let’s go for a ride.”
“I don’t want to go for a ride. I want to preshrink this cotton and get it drying on a line in my room so I can sew tomorrow.”
“Plenty of time. Besides, I have something to show you.”
“Show me?” What could he possibly have to show her? Another abandoned buggy?
“It’s on the way to your place, Pris—simmer down.”
At the pace he was driving, she couldn’t very well jump out, and at least he was going generally in the right direction. When he took her down Twelfth, curiosity finally got the best of her.
“Are you taking me back to work? Because I just finished for the day.”
“Close.”
He guided the horse into the parking lot of the Rose Arbor Inn, where a pair of weekenders were just getting out of their car. “Honey, look, an Amish buggy,” the man said to his wife, who looked to be about six months pregnant.
As Benny and Pris got out, the man gave a friendly wave, but he didn’t ask to take their picture. He must have stayed here before. Pris waved back and they disappeared from view under the climbing roses over the gate. Benny tied up the horse and pointed toward the creek with his chin.
What on earth could he want to show her? A nest of baby birds? Had a fawn lost its mother? Was some Englisch movie star down there having a swim?
Priscilla gave up and followed him down the slope to what Ginny laughingly called her boathouse. It was more a storage shed on the bank for an ancient canoe that Priscilla wouldn’t trust if she were caught in a flood, some coiled-up rope, and a jumble of those rigid Styrofoam noodles that children used to swim with.
Benny opened the door and whistled softly.
A lost puppy. This was what he’d dragged her across town for? He couldn’t have just taken it home himself?
Benny stepped back and the door opened wider. A dirty sneaker appeared, then a skinny leg in jeans.
A boy stepped out of the shed and lifted his head to meet her gaze, his eyes defiant and scared and slowly filling with tears.
Priscilla completely forgot how to speak English. “Eric Parker!” She lost her breath and started again. “Was tutsch du hier? Sei du narrisch? ”
His face slackened with incomprehension, and she gathered what few brains she had left and tried to remember the words she needed. The polite ones. “What are you doing here? Did your parents come back?” Their big SUV hadn’t been in the tiny lot, but with Eric’s ability not to be where he was expected, that didn’t mean anything. They could be parked outside the
Sleep Inn in Willow Creek.
“Do you have anything to eat?” he said.
Her heart melted. “Benny, go back up to the buggy and bring my cloth bag. I have half a sandwich in there and some pickles.”
When Benny was gone, she took the boy in from head to foot. His T-shirt looked as if it had been slept in, and his hair hadn’t seen a comb that day, at least, and maybe the one before. One side of his face was dirty, and his eyes were red. “What happened to you?”
“I—I ran away.”
Pris drew in a shocked breath. “Why?”
“Because they wouldn’t let me stay here. With Henry. And Caleb and his mom.”
“But Eric, we have to obey our parents. I’m sure they meant what’s best for you.”
“No, they didn’t. They just care about what’s best for them. As soon as we got home, they said they were sending me and Justin to our grandparents in California, like, this week. I told them I wanted to come back here and they said no. So I left.”
Left from where? “Where is your home, Eric?”
“Connecticut. I bought a train ticket online with my Christmas money and then took a bus to the station. Then when I got to Lancaster, I didn’t know what bus, but a bunch of kids was there with a church group and they were coming to Intercourse, so I went with them on their bus. And then Benny drove by and I remembered seeing him down here, so when he stopped at the light, I asked if I could get a ride here.”
He ran out of breath, while she tried to take in the magnitude of this journey—and the sheer courage and stubbornness and disobedience it had taken to go through with it.
“When did you leave?”
“Yesterday, right after they told us. Justin is probably in California by now.”
“With you gone? Eric, do you know your parents are probably frantic and have called the police?”
He just shrugged, and then Benny slid down the last of the slope and thrust her bag at her. She gave Eric all the food she had in it, and he wolfed it down as though he hadn’t eaten since…well, he probably hadn’t eaten since he’d left, unless he had money for something out of a vending machine.