A Stranger's Gift (Women of Pinecraft)

by Anna Schmidt

  Arlen sighed. “Ja. The man is in danger of becoming a lost soul. I can’t order you to stay away from him, but I would prefer that you give me time to speak with him before you get involved with him any further.”

  “And if he won’t talk to you?”

  “Then you must let this go, Hester. Clearly his community and church have dealt with the matter in their own way. It is out of our hands, and I am asking you to stay away from the man.”

  “Are we to shun him as well, then?”

  “Hester, can you not understand that my concern must be first for you? John Steiner—whatever his sins may or may not be—has made it clear that he does not seek or want our help. You said it yourself when Grady first asked you to go see the man—there are others in greater need who need you.”

  “But he seems so lost.”

  “Only God can find him and lead him back into the fold, child. You can do much good, but only God can truly rescue a soul in peril.”

  Hester reluctantly agreed, but the saga of John Steiner still troubled her after she had stopped by to take Rosalyn some lunch. And then later as she pedaled her way across town to deliver the crib quilt she’d made to Amy and Grady, she silently prayed for guidance, for some sign that she was to either let the matter rest or pursue it. She believed God had given His answer when she entered Amy’s hospital room and found John’s aunt Liz cooing over the baby. Here was the one person who might tell her the whole story without her having to disrespect her father’s wish that she stay away from John.

  Samuel was deeply troubled. He had always thought of himself as an honorable man, and he was well aware that in coming to work for Arlen Detlef, he had not only agreed to apply his skills as a carpenter and furniture maker; he had also agreed to consider asking Hester to be his wife. Arlen had made little secret of his wish for that.

  “I know that you can only do what God leads you to do,” Arlen had told him. “Only God can guide your heart, and Hester’s, but I do pray that a union between you two will be His will.”

  It couldn’t get any plainer than that. Now that he’d gotten to know Hester and watched the interaction between her and her father, he had decided that Arlen probably had not been quite so direct with his only daughter. Hester had a strong will and a streak of independence. It was those two characteristics that made her the community leader whom she had become. It was also those two traits that had made Samuel question whether or not he could ever make her truly happy. And in the meantime, he had fallen deeply in love with Rosalyn.

  After taking Rosalyn back to the doctor and then seeing her home to the small cottage he’d helped restore following the hurricane and flooding, he had gone to the park and walked along the banks of the creek, sorting through his feelings and trying to decide what to do. After an hour and with no real answers, he headed back to work. Arlen was bent over his workbench, carving the molding for a china cabinet.

  “Is Rosalyn all right?” Arlen asked.

  “She will be once she has a few days to rest and heal,” Samuel said as he hung his wide-brimmed straw hat on a hook near the door and put on a carpenter’s apron.

  “Hester stopped by.”

  “Ah,” Samuel replied and gathered the tools he would need to attach the hinges for the cabinet doors that Arlen had finished staining.

  “She was at the hospital overnight with the Forrest couple. They had a baby boy.”

  “That’s good news.” Samuel barely heard Arlen’s conversation, his mind was so troubled.

  “John Steiner was there as well.”

  “Ah,” Samuel murmured as he measured once and then again and thought about the fact that he loved working here with Arlen.

  “You may expect a visit from Olive Crowder,” Arlen added. “Apparently she saw Hester and John having breakfast after they’d stayed all night at the hospital with Grady and his wife. It upset her.” When Samuel said nothing, Arlen asked, “Does it not upset you?”

  Samuel looked up from his work and saw that the older man had turned away from his workbench and was watching him closely. “Rosalyn says that Olive is often upset with Hester,” he replied evenly.

  The shop was silent for a long moment. Samuel laid down his screwdriver and the hinge and turned to face Arlen. “I have something to discuss with you.”

  Arlen folded his hands in front of him and waited.

  “I do not think that Hester and I…I am in love with another woman.” There, it was said. Samuel pictured himself packing up his camper and heading back to Pennsylvania. Rosalyn would be loyal to Hester, he knew that—loyalty would win every time.

  “I see. And this other woman returns your feelings for her?”

  “I believe she does, but I also believe that she would deny her feelings as I have—until now.”

  “Have you spoken to Hester of this matter?”

  “Not yet.”

  Arlen closed his eyes, a habit that Samuel had noticed whenever the minister was faced with a dilemma. “How do you think my daughter will take this news?”

  “I believe that she will be relieved,” Samuel replied without a moment’s hesitation, and because he hadn’t so much as considered the possibilities, he was certain that he had spoken the truth.

  Arlen nodded. Then he opened his eyes and smiled. “You are probably right,” he said and turned back to his workbench and resumed carving a piece of trim for the cabinet.

  “I will stay until the end of the week, if that’s all right. We can finish the orders by then—”

  The carving knife that Arlen was holding clattered into a pile of wood shavings that littered the floor around him. “You are leaving?” He clutched the now-ruined piece of wood.

  “I thought that you would…I cannot marry your daughter, Arlen.”

  “One thing has nothing to do with the other. We work well together, and …” Arlen fumbled for words. It was the closest that Samuel had ever seen his employer and friend come to being concerned for himself instead of others. “I am asking you to reconsider and stay on here with me as my partner. I’m hoping that one day this business will be yours.”

  Samuel felt his heart swell with the possibilities Arlen had just offered. If Rosalyn would agree to marry him, they would have a secure future.

  “I would like that,” he said, “but I cannot give you my answer until I’ve spoken with Hester. She has a right to be part of any decision I might make to stay on here.”

  “Of course,” Arlen said. “She’s gone to the hospital to visit the Forrests and their new baby. Perhaps this evening? Come for supper.”

  “I’ll stop by,” Samuel promised, and as he took the damaged molding from Arlen and went to find a matching piece, he couldn’t seem to stop smiling.

  Chapter 19

  Well, Johnny,” Margery said as she leaned the kitchen chair she’d carried out to John’s porch back on two legs and braced her feet against the porch railing, “what are you going to do with this place? I mean, you’ve got the main floor here and the packinghouse pretty well back in shape, at least until the next storm comes by. But the grove there?” She shook her head. “That’ll take years, if you can get anything to grow.”

  John knew she was right. In fact, he’d been thinking the same thing before she’d stopped by with a cooler filled with her southern fried chicken, potato salad, and fresh sliced tomatoes. She’d been stopping by a couple of times a week ever since he’d helped out with the refurbishing of the marina. Sometimes she read his mood and simply left him the food and headed back to her place. Other times, like tonight, she seemed to instinctively understand that he would welcome her company. On those occasions, she did not hold back, but said whatever was on her mind.

  “Maybe the experiment has run its course,” he said.

  Margery snorted. “This is life, Johnny, not some lab research. Are you saying you’re giving up after everything you’ve put into this place?”

  “I’m open to suggestions.”

  “Well, there’s a first,” Margery
muttered.

  John ignored her sarcasm. “I don’t want to give up, but what choice do I have?”

  “What choice did you have when you packed up and left Indiana? What choice did I have when I walked down to the marina and found it in ruins? What choice did those folks over in Pinecraft have when the creek washed through their homes? Start over or give up. You’ve got your quirks, but I never figured you for a quitter, Johnny.”

  “I could sell the place, I suppose.”

  “And then what? What are you going to do with your life? You’re neither here nor there—not Amish but not one of my world either. Who are you, John Steiner, and what are you planning to do—not just with this place but with the rest of your life?”

  “I don’t know—on either count,” he admitted.

  Margery pushed herself to her feet and slapped at a mosquito on her arm. “Well, the clock’s ticking, son.”

  She could have been saying that it was getting late and time for her to head home, but he understood that she was issuing a warning. John walked with her down to her boat and helped her in.

  “Careful there,” she said with a teasing grin. “You’re coming mighty close to becoming a real gentleman. Next thing I know you’ll be out courting the ladies.” She gave the pull cord on the motor a brisk yank and it fired to life. “Hester Detlef might be a good start since you two seem to be getting along so well these days,” she called out as she putt-putted her way back toward the mouth of Philippi Creek.

  Instantly he regretted telling Margery about the previous night’s reception and the trip to the hospital. He groaned. How many times over the course of the evening had he uttered the words “Hester and I,” or “Hester thinks,” or just plain “Hester.” Margery was a romantic and would take such things as a sign. But he could not deny that his opinion of Hester Detlef had changed. He stood on the shore where he had stood weeks earlier and watched her wade through the murky waters with her father and Samuel. He remembered how her manner had been brittle, but her touch when she tended to his cuts and other injuries was gentle, even tender. He also remembered how she had tried to reassure him. He wished she were here now. There was something about her, a unique combination of practicality mixed with just a pinch of the whimsical. Somehow it made him think that she would see possibilities for this place that he no longer could.

  He started back toward his house, although he wasn’t ready to settle in for the night. He was restless, his mind racing with the details of the work yet to be done and the costs still ahead of him. Costs he could not afford.

  True, he wasn’t homeless, and he was a far sight better off now than he had been right after the hurricane. Despite the dire predictions of others, he had been able to move back into his house and so far no one from the government had come around to ask if he’d filed the required paperwork. He hadn’t and had no intention of doing so. This was his land, his home. He did his cooking—what little he did—over a camp stove that Zeke had rescued from a Dumpster; the two of them had managed to rig the stove to the propane gas line that ran to the house. He had water and a bathroom, although no shower or tub. Those were in the full bath on the second floor, or at least they had been. All in all he had what he needed. But he lived under a makeshift roof, and the second floor of the house was still a disaster.

  He wandered between what had been a grove of orange trees—several dozen of them that he had salvaged from the grove Tucker had originally planted. There had also been a grove of lemon and key lime trees that he had planted and nursed as if they were his children. They weren’t his children, but they had been his future—the source of income he would need if he hoped to keep this place running. That ship had sailed, as his aunt Liz was fond of saying. The soil was completely ruined by the salt water. Even if he could afford to replant, there was no way anything would grow.

  He considered the ruined beds of celery, tomatoes, beans, and other vegetables he had planted. In spite of the fact that the salvaged cypress beams he’d used as borders had been ripped free and scattered across the property during the hurricane, Zeke had worked for days gathering them and putting them back into place. The problem was that the rich, fertile soil that had filled them, along with the plants themselves, had washed away. It would take several truckloads of soil to refill them, and that would cost a lot of money. On the positive side, the toolshed and chicken coop were restored and ready for use. The problem was use for what?

  Depressed and defeated, John walked back to the house. The sun had set, and the last rays of light were waning. Wearily he climbed the porch steps, picked up his and Margery’s glasses, and went inside. He lit the battery-powered lantern and pulled a chair up to the kitchen table that was littered with drawings he had created when he first bought the Tucker place and kept stored in a metal box. Dreams he had allowed himself to entertain as if they were fact.

  He swept them off the table with his forearm, in the process uncovering the two books he’d managed to salvage after the hurricane. Walden lay next to his Bible. He picked up the paperback volume and paged through it; then he tossed it onto the pile of papers littering the floor. He had walked with Thoreau for two long years, and where had it gotten him?

  He pulled his Bible closer, cradling it with his folded arms as he rested his forehead on its crackled leather cover and prayed. From this night forward, he would walk with God, listening for His still, small voice and opening himself to the kinds of messages delivered by couriers like Margery and Zeke—and perhaps even Hester. No, not Hester. He thought of how he had left her sitting there in the restaurant earlier that morning. He had told her the truth that his mother’s death had been his fault. And then true to form, he had run away, hopped a city bus without explaining the details. He had assumed that she would judge him, as others had and as he had judged himself. And who would blame her?

  And yet he missed her, missed talking to her, missed her no-nonsense ways, her wisdom. He realized that for most of the day he’d been watching for her, listening for the crunch of her bicycle or Arlen’s car tires coming up his lane. But she hadn’t come.

  “She’s to marry Samuel,” he reminded himself. Samuel was a good man, a far better man than he was—and besides, the carpenter could offer Hester a secure future. What did he have to offer her? He was broke and living in a half-finished house on land that would not yield even so much as a kitchen garden for some time to come. Perhaps once she and Samuel had married, the three of them could be friends.

  “Perhaps you ought to stop daydreaming and face reality,” he growled. He had few choices. He could stubbornly refuse to change and end up like some of the people whom Zeke had introduced him to at the bay front. Or he could face facts, sell the property, and use the money to start over once more. He thought about the farm he’d sold in Indiana, the land where his father had worked such long hours. The place where for so many years he and his mother had lived. The place he had planned to bring his bride and raise his family. Could he go back there and start again, asking forgiveness, admitting the error of his prideful ways to the congregation in which he’d been raised?

  He closed his eyes and silently prayed for guidance. When he opened them minutes later, he knew that he had made his plan. Tomorrow he would go to Arlen and ask for help getting the rest of this place restored, and then he would put it up for sale.

  Hester stayed at the hospital longer than she’d meant to. But when she’d seen Liz Carter-Thompson handing Amy and Grady a huge gift basket that was filled to overflowing with items for baby and mother, she had seen her opportunity to find out once and for all how John had been involved in his mother’s death. It took close to half an hour for the new parents to properly exclaim over each item and hold it up for Hester as well as Harley’s two sets of grandparents to admire. But Hester was determined to stay, hoping that she and Liz might take their leave at the same time and that she could perhaps suggest they share a cup of coffee before the congresswoman hurried off to pack for her flight home.

 
; After the grand finale of the gift basket was unveiled, a cashmere shawl for Amy to wrap herself in while she nursed, Hester waited for Grady to place all the items back in the basket and set it on a side table already filled with vases of flowers. Then she handed him her package.

  “Congratulations,” she said.

  “Oh, Hester, you made this yourself, didn’t you?” Amy exclaimed as Grady spread the crib quilt over Amy’s bed. “It’s lovely. His room is blue and it will be just perfect. Thank you.”

  Hester fought against a swell of pride. “You’re welcome. Nelly helped with the actual quilting,” she added.

  “Hester’s grandmother,” Amy explained to the others as she lifted a corner of the quilt to show her mother the tiny stitches.

  Hester saw that Liz was watching her closely as if trying to figure her out. “You are a most remarkable young woman,” Liz said with such genuine admiration that Hester felt herself blush. “The reports about the work you and your community have been doing in helping others to get back to normal are impressive.”