He was not unhappy with his business prospects, but lately they had grown thinner, making Rufus wonder what Karl Kramer was telling people about him. The Amish community was still small. Rufus needed jobs from the English to build a profitable business.
Rufus swung up onto the bench, picked up the reins, and directed Dolly into town. For a few minutes, he sat in the buggy in front of the coffee shop. He had heard of people who spent hours in coffee shops and could well imagine Annalise as one of them. After securing Dolly to a signpost cemented into the sidewalk, he reached under the seat for an item then pulled open the shop door.
She looked up almost immediately. And smiled.
Rufus pulled out the chair across from her and sat down. In his hand was his cell phone and the power cord. Behind a sober face, he gave in to amusement at her wide eyes.
“You’re using a phone and electricity?”
“I promised to tell you our views on electricity.”
“By using it in a public place?”
“Electricity is a useful form of power. We recognize that. We simply do not want electricity to become the focus of our lives by bringing it into our homes. That is the place of our families.”
“And the phone?”
“Our district has a generous position on phones because we are so widely scattered. We are permitted to use phones for business and safety.”
“But not convenience?”
“Convenience is for the individual. For us, the community comes first. If electricity or a phone carries us away from community, it also carries us away from God.”
“I never thought of it like that.” Annalise fidgeted with a pen on the table.
“You can ask any questions you wish.”
“Thank you. Maybe when I don’t have so much on my mind …”
“Of course. How did your business meeting go?”
She laid her head to one side, and her loose hair danced in the light as it fell away from her face. If he never married, he would never see a woman’s hair fall away from her ear in just that way and be able to reach out and catch it.
“It went well,” she said. “We have a plan of action.” As if she could read his thoughts—for the second time that day—she smoothed her hair close to her head and tucked it behind her ear.
“And will this plan of action carry you home—to your own community?”
She pressed her lips together. “I hope so.”
Annalise did not quite meet his eyes this time. “I promised Mo I would stop by the motel,” he said, “but I can enjoy a cup of kaffi first.”
They did not leave the coffee shop for another hour. When they reached the motel, Rufus helped Annalise down once again. Her pale complexion told him she was more tired than she would admit.
The door of the motel lobby swung open, and Mo emerged. “Well, if it isn’t our star guest. How are you?”
Annalise managed a smile, Rufus was glad to see.
“How is your mother?” Annalise asked.
“Cranky as ever, but the crisis is averted for now.” Mo turned to Rufus. “Just the man I want to see. I’ve had a vision of remodeling the lobby, and you’re just the person for the job.”
In the lobby, Annalise stood to one side and held her computer to her chest, glancing at him from time to time as Mo gestured and explained. Rufus hardly heard a word Mo said about the work.
“Do it!” Jacob urged.
Annalise grimaced. Rufus spread hay.
“Die Kuh,” the little boy said, “and it’s a very nice cow.” He leaned his head into the side of the cow, next to where Sophie sat on a three-legged stool.
“Her face is pretty,” Annalise said. Both of the animal’s pink ears stood up straight. Between her eyes a white stripe divided a mass of brown.
“Touch her nose,” Jacob said. “She likes that.”
“Jacob,” Rufus said softly, “if Annalise does not want to touch the cow, she does not have to.” It was, after all, a texture bearing no resemblance to her sleek laptop keys.
“It’s not that I don’t want to,” Annalise said. “It’s just not as simple as it sounds.”
“I must start milking soon,” Sophie said. “Please don’t startle her.”
Annalise’s hand moved, slowly, toward the white stripe. When the cow moaned, she flinched but immediately resumed her purpose.
Rufus smiled and tossed a pitchfork of hay into Dolly’s stall, glad to see Annalise’s determined spirit on display in a cow stall as well as a coffee shop.
Two slender fingers made contact in the space between the cow’s eyes and nose, and a moment later, a full hand began a soothing stroking motion.
“It feels harder than I thought it would,” Annalise said.
His sisters were giggling, and Annalise’s laugh blended with the sound.
She relaxed. He saw it. Rufus leaned on his pitchfork and savored this image of Annalise Friesen in his barn with members of his family. Even the denim bag slid off her shoulder and nested in the hay as she now rubbed the sides of the cow’s face with both hands.
Twelve
Annie wrestled dreams that night and woke more than once hoping for daylight to creep through the curtains in Ruth’s bedroom. Finally, she sat up and turned on the propane bedside lamp. She was beginning to miss the pillow-topped mattress in her condo, surrounded by familiar possessions.
She had spotted three thrift stores in Westcliffe—which she found curious given the insignificant size of the town—so she had some options to find more clothing. It looked as if she would be here another few days while Lee Solano conjured whatever kind of magic he had in his power. For now, his instructions were for Annie to lie low and not show any response to Rick’s legal maneuvers. Returning to Mo’s motel would at least put electricity on her side. She was taking a break, she told herself, a short break that would save her business.
She threw back the quilt and stepped to the desk four feet away to power up her laptop. For now she ignored her e-mail, but she could not resist checking her secure server. It looked as if Barrett had been knocking around the edges of the project but had not gotten through the barricades she had in place.
Annie smiled. All this time and he wasn’t making a dent. She touched a hand to her neck to finger the gold chain—and felt nothing but skin.
Panicked, Annie opened every drawer in the room and unfolded her paltry wardrobe. She dumped her denim bag onto the bed and separated the contents for inspection. Not finding the gold chain, she bolted to the bathroom across the hall, trying to remember everything she had touched in the last few days. Annie could not even remember the last time she had been sure the chain was around her neck.
She sank into the bed to wait for first light.
Rufus moved the envelope aside as he had done dozens of times already and rummaged for a pencil in his toolbox. The letter had arrived five days ago. Rufus was not sure he wanted to know what it said. Ruth repeatedly wrote to him in care of Tom and Tricia, so he could only conclude she did not want their parents to know of the letters.
What happened was between Ruth and Daed and Mamm. Rufus did not want to find himself in the middle. And he did not think it was a good idea to involve Tom and Tricia even just to deliver a letter that arrived at their home.
Ruth had taken almost nothing with her that day. Rufus was never sure if it was because she did not truly intend to go or because she did not want to be beholden to anyone, not even for a change of clothes.
Rufus missed her. Ruth was the sister nearest to him in age, though two married brothers filled the span between them. When he raised the question of moving to Colorado, Ruth was the first to say she wanted to go. His married brothers thought Rufus ought to at least find a wife before heading out for a new settlement. When his parents decided they were in favor of the move because it could mean land for their younger sons, Rufus’s determination set in.
In Colorado, the chances of finding a wife among the Amish—the only wife Rufus could accept—were far
from encouraging. He was already twenty-eight and was still required to keep his face clean shaven and sit in church with the younger unmarried men. If it was God’s will for Rufus to be alone, so be it. He would still work hard for the sake of his family.
Mo made it clear the previous afternoon that she was not looking for bids on the work she had in mind. She wanted Rufus. He had done enough odd jobs to prove he was dependable and honest, she said, and she had seen his cabinetry craftsmanship in the home of a friend. Mo was finished repairing falling shelves. She wanted new ones. A new reception desk. New cubbies behind the desk. Perhaps a new look for the small lobby that would appeal to more upscale customers.
In his workshop across the yard from the barn, Rufus sketched the lobby from memory before breakfast. A vision emerged as his pencil skittered across the page, shading in cabinetry and a desk with rounded, welcoming edges. The day before, Mo gestured widely with her own ideas, but they were vague. Rufus’s sketch would accomplish her objectives and improve the traffic flow through the lobby as well.
Engrossed in the task of putting his vision on paper, Rufus did not hear Annalise approach the open door of his workshop.
“Hi, Rufus.”
He turned toward her approaching brightness as he ripped the page from the pad in satisfaction. “Guder mariye, Annalise. Are you hungry for breakfast?”
“Famished,” Annalise said. She looked around. “So, this is where you work?”
Her shoulders and back looked less tentative. Her hair hung loose, cradling her face in softness before draping her shoulders with its sheen. Rufus turned his gaze away, abruptly aware of the effect she was having on him.
“I am a simple cabinetmaker and carpenter.”
She touched a small chest awaiting its lid. “It’s beautiful.”
Suddenly he wanted to give it to her, but he had promised it to Sophie.
“I’m missing the gold chain I always wear,” Annalise said, her hand at her unadorned neck. “I wonder if you’ve seen it.”
Rufus slapped his own head. “It’s not lost. They removed it at the clinic when they were doing X-rays. Sophie found it in the bag when she washed your things. She was afraid of losing it, so she brought to me.” Rufus suppressed the warmth that came with thinking about holding the chain in his hand.
“You have my chain?”
“It’s in the buggy,” Rufus said, “in a box under the bench. It did not seem right to have it in the house. Our women do not wear jewelry. I’m sorry I forgot about it.”
“Can I go get it?”
“I will get it. Just wait here.”
Rufus dropped his pencil and sketch into his toolbox and disappeared out the front of the building, leaving Annie standing alone in the workshop. She buzzed her lips and looked around for a place to sit down, settling on a low, rugged bench beside the door.
Curious, Annie tilted her head to try to look at Rufus’s sketch, but he had laid it facedown. All she could see were the impressions of the heaviest lines making slight ridges in the back of the paper. An envelope obscured the bottom of the page. Annie did not have to look too hard to read the writing on the sealed message. The top left corner clearly said “Ruth Beiler” with an address in Colorado Springs. Annie recognized the street name. It was just off a major intersection she drove through several times a week.
Rufus came through the door. Annie stood and moved toward him. He opened a small plastic envelope and poured the gold chain into her open hand. She closed her fist around the gold, brushing his fingers in the process. Was it her imagination, or did his hand quiver just once?
“Thank you!” She opened the clasp and raised the chain to her neck. Her hands met at the back of her neck and buoyed her hair for a moment while she fastened the clasp.
“You’re welcome.” Rufus closed his own hand over the small plastic bag, now empty. “I’m sorry I didn’t remember sooner. It seems to mean something to you.”
“It’s twenty-four-karat gold. I bought it when—” Annie stopped herself. Rufus would not be interested in how she celebrated making her fortune. “Never mind. Just thank you.”
“We should go have breakfast.”
“Yes.” Annie paused. “I do have one question, though.”
“Of course.”
“Why haven’t you opened that letter from your sister?”
Ruth Beiler flipped back to the beginning of the chapter in her textbook. After reading for forty minutes, she would be hard pressed to write a paragraph identifying the chapter’s main themes. In four hours she had to be in class ready to take a quiz. Starting over was the obvious choice.
Thinking coffee might help her concentrate, she rose from the chair and moved to the wide ledge under the window that held a small coffeemaker and an electric kettle. Ruth’s dorm room was compact, but it was private. When she first arrived, she tried living with a roommate, with disastrous results. The young woman assigned to share a room with her did not know what to make of someone with such conservative views and habits. Though they were both nursing students at the University of Colorado, they found little common ground.
In those days Ruth still wore her kapp. Now it hung on a hook by the door, and she had traded in her aproned dress for simple long skirts and high-necked solid-colored tops. Her hair was still in braids coiled against the back of her head. She stood out when she walked across campus or boarded a bus to go to her job at the nursing home, but becoming modern had never been Ruth’s intention when she left Westcliffe.
Ruth scooped coffee into a fresh filter and poured water through the small coffeemaker. In a few seconds, the familiar dripping began. She absently tapped the top of the pot while she pondered what really kept her from studying.
If Rufus had read her letter and answered it right away, she would have heard from him by now.
And what if he never read it?
Ruth wasn’t sorry. Her choice was not without consequence. She regretted the pain she caused. But she would choose the same again.
It was an impulse on his part to invite her, Annie was sure. And it was an impulse on her part to accept. Perhaps he regretted it. She would not blame him. Spiritual devotion had little to do with why she accepted, and neither did curiosity.
Little Jacob was glad to see her when Rufus brought the small buggy to pick her up on Sunday morning. The rest of the family would come in the larger buggy pulled by Brownie, the second Beiler horse. Jacob chattered away the miles between the motel and the farm where a cluster of six or eight Amish families would gather to worship.
Church, Amish-style.
Annie’s Protestant upbringing included more or less weekly church attendance. She carried fond memories of going to church and the people who cared for her there. In high school, though, training for track competitions dominated her schedule, and then she went away to college. As an adult, her churchgoing habit was a long way from regular. A few months earlier, though, she had attended a friend’s baptism. In her teen years, Annie always intended to be baptized, but the timing never seemed right.
She believed. Certainly she never decided not to believe. But getting an education and launching a career—and starting two companies—required focus. Time. Energy. Now she wondered if she had moved too far away from God for it to matter that she had not been baptized.
Supposing that God still spoke English, Annie decided to pray. After all, she was in church. Please, God, make this mean something.
Annie now sat on a bench in the back on the women’s side of the room. Rufus gave her enough notice that she was able to rustle up a modest skirt among her thrift-store finds. People around her spoke German, including Rufus’s mother and two younger sisters. The idea of going to church with Rufus should have made her think twice. If she had known the service would be in German and she would not even be sitting with Rufus, she might have thought three times.
Sophie leaned over and whispered into Annie’s ear. Annie quickly tucked her gold chain under the top of her blouse. She had a lot
to learn about Amish worship.
The women faced the men. Annie wanted to shift to one side and look for Rufus among the unmarried men—all of them younger than he was. Perhaps she could catch his eye. But she knew better than to wiggle in church. Rufus mentioned that the services tended to be long, but Annie never imagined he meant three hours and two sermons.
With no hint of modernity in the service, Annie supposed the Amish had always worshiped this way, even in the days of the first settlers to land in Pennsylvania. She made a mental note to do a fresh Internet search on “early Amish worship” as soon as it was appropriate to use her phone.
At last the final hymn began with a single male voice. Others gradually joined. Sophie shared a battered hymnal with Annie, but the page held only German words that meant nothing to Annie. Everyone seemed to know the tune.
Annie filed outside with the other women. It wasn’t long before the transformation was under way to accommodate a meal for sixty people. Annie just tried to stay out of the way as men rearranged benches and women arranged dishes on three serving tables. Sophie and Lydia greeted friends they only saw every two weeks at church before being prodded to help with the food. Annie watched the constant movement, but she was at a loss for how to step in and help. Instead, she wandered farther away, past the row where the horses were tied and out to a fence around a field. In a brief episode of English, someone had mentioned that the host family grew barley.
In the middle of the commotion, Annie was relieved to find Rufus walking toward her.
“You might have prepared me a bit more,” she said playfully.
“Would you have come if I had?” He looked over his shoulder, and she followed his eye toward men standing in a group.
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