When I brought my face up again, I found Timothy watching me. His expression moved from anger to concern as his hardened eyes softened. He raised his eyebrows as if to ask whether I was okay. I gave the smallest of nods, yes.
I sat the rest of the service, hyper aware of Curt’s proximity to me. I scooted closer to the woman to my right. She set her purse, which could have passed for a saddlebag, between us to stop my encroachment on her space. Curt didn’t seem to notice. He watched the front of the church with studied attention.
Finally, the pastor gave the benediction and filed out, followed by the choir. Timothy paused beside Curt.
“Nice dress, Buggy Boy,” Curt said just loud enough for both Timothy and me to hear.
The choir member behind Timothy tapped him on the back with his bulletin, urging him to start moving again.
Curt leaned against the back of the pew. “Guess Buggy Boy’s not too happy about us being together.”
“We aren’t together,” I shot back.
Curt sucked on his front teeth. “That hurts. It really does.”
I almost apologized, but I stopped myself. The pew emptied out into the side aisle, and I stood. “What are you doing here? Really?”
“Can’t a man celebrate the birth of Baby Jesus?”
“Yes. I—I didn’t mean—”
He stood and was inches from my face. I smelled the chew tobacco on his breath. “Merry Christmas, Red.” Then he melted into the line of parishioners leaving the church. I fell back onto the pew bench stunned. What just happened? Had I just spent my first Christmas Eve service in Appleseed Creek sitting next to Curt Fanning, my arch enemy?
I whispered a prayer. “Dear Lord, what is going on?”
Five minutes later Timothy slid into the pew next to me, his brow furrowed. “What was that?”
I shrugged. “I wish I knew.”
“What did he say to you?”
“Not much. A few snide comments, but I’ve heard much worse from him.”
Timothy’s fingers intertwined with mine on the pew’s smooth wooden seat.
“I think he was just here to go to church.”
Timothy snorted. “I don’t believe that for a second. If that’s true, why’d he seek you out? He wanted to scare you, like before.”
I didn’t feel scared, only confused by Curt’s action. “When I saw him earlier, he was alone just like tonight. This is the second time I’ve seen him without Brock.”
“Maybe they had a falling out.”
“Maybe . . .” my voice trailed off.
Timothy clenched his jaw. “There is something more to this. He wants to torment you. That’s all he’s ever wanted since the day you met him.”
I frowned, remembering how Curt was so embarrassed about standing up at the wrong time and so grateful I stood beside him. I shook my head. Maybe I imagined his grateful attitude. Maybe Timothy was right. Curt was trying a new way to torment me. He’d tried everything else. Why not bother me in church too?
I sighed and glanced around the sanctuary. Ladies from the church were up front watering the poinsettias on either side of the altar. “Where’s Becky?”
Timothy stood and pulled me up beside him. “Handing out invitations to her Christmas party tomorrow.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “I thought she already sent invitations.”
“She has. Twice. This is the third set she’s passing out. She’s also begging for RSVPs. I’ve never seen her so excited about something like she is about this party.”
Hannah walked up the aisle with a companion and stopped at our pew. “Timothy, I’d like you to meet someone.” Her too-sweet voice set my teeth on edge.
Hannah and a dark-haired young man stepped in front of us. The guy was tall. Timothy was six foot one and the guy with Hannah had five inches on him.
Timothy and I slipped out of the pew.
Hannah looped her arm through her companion’s. “This is Justin. He’s my boyfriend.”
Boyfriend? The last time I checked, Hannah had been determined to give Timothy that title. By the way both of his eyebrows rose, Timothy appeared surprised too.
Hannah gazed up into Justin’s face. “He’s home from college for Christmas. He plays basketball for the University of Kentucky.”
The basketball I could understand, considering his height.
Timothy held out his hand to shake Justin’s. “Nice to meet you. Are you from Knox County?”
“Mount Vernon,” Justin said, his voice deep and rumbling, but his eyes wide in a semi-stunned expression.
Hannah flipped her silky brunette hair. “Justin’s mother and mine are old friends. We’ve known each other since we were children.” She leaned her head against Justin’s shoulder.
I tried not to gag. “That’s so nice for you both.”
“It is.” Hannah removed her arm from Justin’s. “Go get my coat.”
The basketball player leaped into action and hurried out of the sanctuary.
Hannah stared at Timothy. “He’s everything I ever hoped for and could never find in anyone else.”
Timothy just smiled at Hannah’s dig. “He seems to be very attentive.”
“He is,” she said smugly, half-turning toward me. “Merry Christmas to you both,” she said, and then left the sanctuary.
Timothy’s eyes twinkled. “Hannah finally found the perfect boyfriend.”
“I hope so. It would be the best Christmas present that I could ever receive.”
Timothy led me down the church’s center aisle. “Even better than the necklace that I gave you?”
I winked at him. “A close second, at least.” Together we collected Becky in the greeting hall as she passed out party invitations by the fistful.
I grimaced. The Quills had been gracious and told us we could throw a small holiday party in their home. I suspected that our landlords’ interpretation of small varied greatly from Becky’s.
“Okay, okay,” Timothy said as he approached his sister. “Everyone here has heard about the party. Stop pestering people.”
She narrowed her bright blue eyes at her brother. “People need to know about it. I put a lot of time and energy into planning this.”
Timothy stacked the remaining invitations in his hand and gave them to me. “Trust me, we know.” Before she could argue, he added, “And the party will be great. Full of special surprises.”
Becky’s scowl evaporated, and her face broke into a grin.
I dropped the invitations to the bottom of my purse. “Special surprises? Like what?”
Becky started to laugh and then hurried to the cloakroom to collect our coats.
A mischievous twinkle lighted Timothy’s eyes in a way I hadn’t seen before. I gaped at him.
“What?” he said.
Becky came back with our things, and Timothy helped me into my winter coat.
I wrapped my scarf around my throat. “You’re not going to tell me?”
Becky bounced up and down, and Timothy reached over and covered her mouth as if afraid she’d burst out and share the secret.
“I’ll figure it out for myself,” I huffed. “I am a detective of sorts. Ask Chief Rose.”
That only made Timothy and Becky chuckle.
We stepped out into the cold, snowy Christmas Eve night, and I was left hoping for a good surprise—and no more bad surprises like the one we found behind the Gundy barn just the day before.
Chapter Thirteen
On Christmas morning my eyes opened automatically at six a.m., as if my alarm clock had rung, and I still had no idea what the big surprise was. Laying in the bedroom of one of the Quills’ grown daughters, I had to remind myself where I was and that today was Christmas morning. Back in Shaker Heights there would have been little doubt. Tanisha’s younger brother Tyson always ran around the house at fiv
e thirty a.m., trying to convince the adults to wake up because it was time to open presents. Usually, Tanisha and I took little coaxing. I thought of my friend in Italy realizing her Christmas was half over by the time I had opened my eyes.
Gigabyte circled my head and yowled. As long as I was awake, he saw no reason why he shouldn’t be entitled to breakfast. I ran my hand along the coarse hair of his tawny-colored back. From the bookshelves, dozens of pairs of eyes watched me. Growing up, the Quills’ daughter had been a collector of porcelain dolls. Since she left them here when she moved out, I could only assume she was over her doll phase. That or her husband refused to let them in their home. If that’s how he felt, I agreed with him. Fifty or so dolls sat on specially made shelves directly across from the bed. It had taken me a few weeks to be able to sleep in the same room with all those staring eyes.
I slid my feet into my blue fuzzy slippers. “Is Becky awake?” I asked the cat.
He gave me a haughty look, as if to say, “If she were awake, do you think I would be talking to you?”
Becky spoiled my cat with bacon and sausage in the morning, and tuna and hamburger in the evening. The best I could offer was a can of cat food. I poked his belly with my index finger. “You’re getting a little round around the middle. If you’re not careful, the vet’s going to make me put you on a diet.”
He swiped at my hand with claws out.
I retracted my finger. “Okay, okay.” I guessed no one appreciated criticism about their waistline—even a cat.
I grabbed my hoodie off the carved, pink provincial desk chair and slipped it on.
In the kitchen, I stared out the back window that faced east and opened into a view of lush farmland. No partition divided the Quills’ property and the farm more than a mile away. The sky had that gray quality that promised dawn and perhaps more snow. It was a beautiful Christmas morning. Perhaps the most naturally beautiful I had ever seen.
There weren’t sunrises like this in Cleveland, yet still, I felt hollow. Happy as I was to be in Appleseed Creek with the Troyers, for the first time, I wondered if I should have gone home for the holidays and spent Christmas with the Greens. The Greens were my home. Tanisha’s mom invited me several times, but I’d insisted that I wanted to stay in Appleseed Creek. Was that a mistake? As much as the Troyers included me, here I was still separated by language, by tradition, and by the past.
Thoughts of Christmas traditions made me think about my parents, about Christmas before my mother died, before my father turned cold. I remembered my mother, who loved Christmas as much as a kindergartner, and how she would wake us up at five on Christmas morning to open gifts. I remembered the homemade French toast my father made for breakfast while Mom and I cleaned up the wrapping paper scattered around the living room floor.
Did my father, Sabrina, and the children like the Christmas gift cards I sent them? Gift cards seemed so generic, but I learned from painful experience that it was better to do that than to pick something out myself that Sabrina would complain about having to return to the store.
I glanced at the stack of Christmas cards on the kitchen counter. A card was all I received from my father’s family this year. My stepmother had signed the card simply, “The Humphrey Family.” The signature came off as a pointed insult, a marked exclusion. The urge to rip the card in half was almost overpowering when I read it. Instead, I buried it in the stack of more sincere holiday greetings.
I touched my cell phone in the pocket of my hoodie. Should I call Dad and Sabrina and wish them a Merry Christmas? Isn’t that what a good daughter would do? The clock on the microwave read six thirty a.m. It would only be three thirty in California—far too early to call. Relief and guilt mingled in my stomach. I filled a glass with tap water and drank it down.
Gigabyte gave my ankle a small nip to remind me of the business at hand.
“Ouch!” I lifted my foot up in the air.
He sniffed at the other exposed ankle.
I knew I should have remembered to put on socks before coming downstairs. “I think we should buy you one of those automatic feeders. It might save me some bloodshed.”
He eyed me as if my joke wasn’t the least bit amusing. I reached into the overhead cupboard and removed a can of cat foot. “Yum, tuna and liver.” I opened it and gagged at the smell. Too early for cat food. With a spoon, I dished half a can into his dish that said Man of the House on the side. Wasn’t that the truth?
He sniffed the cat food with disdain.
“Don’t worry. You will have a second breakfast when Becky wakes up, you little hobbit.”
He took a small bite and hunkered down with his face buried in the dish.
Becky walked into the kitchen rubbing her eyes. “Merry Christmas,” she said with a yawn. She had been up past midnight cleaning and preparing for our party that evening. I begged off at twelve.
I rummaged through the cupboard for coffee mugs. “Merry Christmas. How late did you stay up?”
She squinted at me with bloodshot eyes. “Two. Do we have any kaffi?” she asked, using the Pennsylvania Dutch word for coffee. That told me she was especially tired. Becky always made a conscious effort to use only English words.
I opened the refrigerator and pulled out the coffee and half and half. “I was about to make some.”
Gig wrapped himself around her legs and pleaded in his high-pitched Siamese voice.
“Oh, Gig, did she give you that muck for breakfast? You poor thing.”
That muck was mostly gone.
I poured water from the carafe into the coffeemaker and hit the power button.
He yowled, pleading his case. Becky picked him up and scratched behind his ear. “Don’t worry. I’ll make you a real breakfast. What do you want—bacon or sausage patties?”
Gigabyte gave me a triumphant Siamese smile over her shoulder.
“Showboat,” I muttered as I headed back upstairs to shower.
By the time I got back downstairs, Gigabyte had polished off his luxury breakfast, and Timothy and his housemate, Danny, sat at the kitchen table, eating scrambled eggs, bacon—apparently that had been Gig’s choice—and pancakes. A smile broke across my face and my melancholy from the morning faded away. “Merry Christmas!”
“Merry Christmas, Chloe,” Danny said. He was a lanky guy close to my age. Like Becky and Timothy, he grew up Amish and left during his rumspringa, but he was from a stricter district in New York State. His family refused to see him, even though he’d never been baptized.
Timothy smiled. “Frehlicher Grischtdaag! We need you to practice saying Merry Christmas in Pennsylvania Dutch. Grossdaddi will be impressed.”
Becky handed me a plate of pancakes. I took it and said. “Frelick Grisdaag.”
Becky, Danny, and Timothy started to laugh.
I put my hands on my hips. “Okay, my pronunciation isn’t that great. Eat your breakfast, so we can go to church and then the farm. Grandfather Zook will appreciate my effort.”
Danny forked a bite of pancake and changed the direction of the conversation. “Tim told me about you two finding that girl. I was sorry to hear that.”
“Did you know Katie?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Not really, but I gathered that a kid at one of my stops knew her pretty well. When he found out that I used to be Amish, he asked me if I knew her. I was sorry to disappoint him.”
For one of his many jobs, Danny drove a truck delivering produce from the farm to local restaurants and grocers in the area.
Timothy’s glass of orange juice stopped halfway to his mouth. “You didn’t tell me that.”
“I just remembered when Chloe said Katie’s name.”
“What’s the kid’s name?” Timothy asked.
“Jason. I don’t know his last name. I only know his first because that was what his name tag said. He works at that Appleseed Marketplace right h
ere in town.”
“Jason?” I poured myself a mug of coffee. “That doesn’t sound like an Amish name to me.”
“The kid is definitely an Englischer.”
Becky flipped another pancake on the stove. I didn’t know who she thought was going to eat it because Timothy and Danny both had stacks in front of them that were eight pancakes high. She waved her spatula. “Why would Katie Lambright be friends with an Englischer?”
I took one pancake from the serving dish and sat at the table. “It strikes me as odd too, especially since Jason is a guy.”
Danny snorted. “He’s not much of a guy. A real skinny kid, who looks like he spends most of the time playing video games.”
“I bet Chief Rose doesn’t know about Jason.” I stirred half and half into my coffee. “I want to talk to him before I tell her.”
Timothy broke a strip of bacon in five small pieces. “I don’t think Greta’s going to like that. She’ll want you to tell her right away.”
I cut my pancake. “She’ll scare him off.”
Danny laughed. “Let Chloe talk to him first. She’s not the least bit scary.”
I swallowed my bite of pancake and rolled my eyes. “Gee, thanks, Danny.”
“Anytime,” he said with a smirk.
Chapter Fourteen
Later that morning the church bells rang joyfully overhead as Timothy and I walked down the church’s front steps after the Christmas morning service.
Danny clapped Timothy’s shoulder. “Hey, let’s go. I want to get to the farm. I can hear your mom’s bread pudding calling my name. Do you think she made the date-flavored one?”
Timothy smirked. “Probably since she knows that you’re coming.”
Danny rubbed his chapped, bare hands together. “Excellent. Let’s hit the road. Where’s your sister?”
Timothy shook his head. “Inside. Reminding people about the party.”
I suppressed a sigh. If everyone that she invited showed up, we would be in violation of the fire code.
Appleseed Creek Trilogy, Books 1-3 Page 66