A Home for Lydia (The Pebble Creek Amish Series)

by Chapman, Vannetta

  Remembering when she was a young girl, thinking back to the previous year, those things brought a lightness to her heart. When she’d first married Gabe, it had been so exciting just to walk by his side. Being in the fields with him again reminded her of who she had been. It helped her feel rooted, and it made her feel carefree once more.

  She continued to sew, even found herself humming one of the hymns from Sunday’s service, and her worries slipped away with the light summer breeze.

  The afternoon passed more quickly than she would have thought possible. She was surprised when Gabe pulled the horses to a stop and jumped down to join her.

  “Rachel looks happy.”

  “Ya. I guess the fresh air agrees with her.”

  “Looks like it agrees with you too.”

  Miriam tucked her sewing into the basket she’d brought, and then she gave her full attention to her husband. “Danki for sitting on the ground, Gabe.”

  “Are you saying I’m too dirty to sit on your blanket?”

  They both looked down at his pants, which had started out black but were now a solid brown. He began laughing before she did, but soon Miriam found she couldn’t catch her breath. Their laughter felt good.

  “You were right. I needed to get out of the house. The breeze, it feels nice. I think it blew some of my fears away.”

  When he reached for her, he kissed her lightly at first, but it quickly grew in intensity until she found herself wishing they had more time and he wasn’t quite so dirty.

  “It’s the sweat,” he said, jumping to his feet, reaching down, and pulling her up. “Makes me irresistible.”

  “Is that so?”

  “You watch. Tonight, you’ll fill Grace up with extra dessert so she’ll fall asleep early, and you won’t have any sewing because you finished it here. Rachel will sleep well, and then I’ll be proven correct.” He held Rachel as she folded the blanket. “You won’t be able to resist me.”

  “So you’re promising to stay awake.”

  “If you’ll make me a pot of strong kaffi with dinner—ya! I promise I can stay awake.”

  He draped the blanket over his left arm and switched Rachel to that side. She squirmed but didn’t waken. “Mind if I walk you back?” he asked, snagging her hand.

  “Mind?” Miriam picked up her sewing basket, feeling like the character in Little Red Riding Hood.

  “We don’t even need to rush. We’ve several minutes before Grace comes, and the horses can use the rest. It will give us time to talk.”

  So she told him about the thoughts she’d been chasing round and round in her mind, about how the radioactive iodine Abigail would be taking worked best with patients whose symptoms were mild. To her, Abigail’s symptoms seemed severe.

  They spoke of his hopes for the summer crops, and how their donkey, Gus, had settled down—temporarily, at least.

  Both expressed how happy they were that business at the cabins had picked up.

  “Which reminds me.” Miriam stopped walking. “I meant to tell you about the Englischer who was there.”

  “Englischers are supposed to be at the cabins. Hopefully more than one.”

  She nudged him with her hip. He slipped an arm around her waist as they resumed walking up the back porch steps and sat looking out over the fields.

  “It seems he’s bought some property nearby, and he wants to learn how to farm.”

  “So?”

  “He wants to learn how to farm the Amish way.”

  “Huh.” Gabe leaned back against the porch post and closed his eyes.

  “Don’t you think that’s rather odd?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Gabe?”

  “Ya?”

  Miriam nudged him with her foot. When he didn’t respond, she reached over and took Rachel from his arms.

  “Why did you do that?”

  “Because you were sleeping, and you were going to drop her.”

  “I’d never drop her. What kind of dat do you think I am?”

  Miriam stood and walked toward the back door. “A very tired one, and one who probably will not be able to keep his eyes open past dinner.”

  “That’s why I need a small rest now.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Miriam?”

  “Yes, Gabe?”

  “Did the Englischer worry you?”

  Now he was wide awake and studying her. Miriam realized that once again she’d misjudged her husband. When would she learn not to do that? It was a good thing he was a patient man. Even now, he watched her, waiting for an answer.

  “It seemed odd, and when I walked up—at the same time that Lydia and Clara walked up—he stopped talking at all, which seemed even more suspicious. Clammed right up. Why do you suppose he would do that?”

  “Could be he didn’t know what to say to three Amish women.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe he was up to no good and actually has no intention of farming like Plain folk. Seemed an unlikely story to me.”

  “I’ll speak with Aaron about it next time I see him.”

  Miriam nodded and went into the house as Gabe stood and walked off to fetch his team and finish his day’s work in the fields.

  She did feel better for her afternoon outside. The hours there had helped in more ways than one. They’d helped to uncover the little thing that had been bothering her memory—the strange visitor at the cabins and his odd request.

  Farming the Amish way, indeed.

  She wasn’t one to think badly of people, but she suspected that man was up to no good.

  Chapter 27

  Aaron frowned at the growing crowd of Englisch vehicles in the parking lot of the cabins.

  “It’s gut, Aaron. It’s what we wanted. What we needed.” Lydia stood beside him, a broom in one hand and a dust cloth in the other. She had a smudge of dirt across her right cheek from cleaning up his cabin—his cabin that a guest needed. He’d be sleeping somewhere else tonight.

  Aaron realized it was gut, but he was not feeling happy.

  He wanted to reach out and wipe the smudge off her cheek. He wanted to tell Lydia that she smelled of fresh-baked bread and the flowers growing by Pebble Creek. He wanted to ask her to the singing Sunday night—he’d heard it was going to be held in the bishop’s barn. But he had no business doing that. He wasn’t staying, and he had no business pretending he was.

  So instead he hollered about the cars. “At this rate we’re going to need to expand the parking lot. Did you see the folks in cabin two? Three people—parents and one child, but they brought two cars. Where is the sense in that?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “It’s wasteful.”

  “Actually, they explained—”

  “Makes me narrisch.”

  “You are acting a little—”

  “I’m going to work in the barn.” He stomped off before he was tempted to peer into her beautiful brown eyes. Those eyes were going to trip him up and make him forget his fields and his family back in Indiana.

  He needed to stay focused.

  “What about the extra shelves you were adding in the shop?”

  Aaron shook his head but didn’t turn around. The last thing he needed was to spend more time in the shop—it was full of Englischers and Clara.

  They had moved Clara there and set up a small desk for her to work at. She’d be filling out postcards for at least another week, probably longer since she had to keep stopping to ring up sales for customers.

  That wasn’t the reason he was avoiding Lydia’s younger sister. Wherever Clara was, Aaron was sure to find Seth. Those two seemed to think that the month was February instead of late May. Hearts practically popped up in the air around them. Normally Aaron would laugh about such things, but currently he wasn’t in the mood.

  He’d caught Lydia staring at her sister during one of Clara and Seth’s moments of playful teasing. The expression on Lydia’s face had scraped across his heart like splinters across his hands.

  Why the look o
f envy? Why the expression of sadness?

  Did Lydia not realize how beautiful she was, how lucky any man would be to have her for a wife?

  He opened the door to the first horse stall and began mucking it out. The work was smelly, tiring, and exactly what he needed.

  His shirt was drenched in sweat and the stall was cleaned when he heard someone enter the barn.

  “Hello? Aaron?”

  Laying aside the apple picker, he stepped out and saw his neighbor, Tim Elliott. In his early forties, the man was probably five foot eight and wore coveralls. He was balding and without facial hair—though he’d mentioned a wife and children. His blue eyes twinkled as he stepped forward and shook hands.

  “Tim. How are you?”

  “Good. Fine.” Tim looked around the barn, his eyes assessing what he saw.

  Aaron wanted to laugh, but he pushed it down. Did the man expect that an Amish barn would look so different from an Englisch one?

  “Actually, I’m not fine,” he admitted. “That’s why I came looking for you. The tilling isn’t going so well.”

  “Huh. Suppose not if you took the time to drive over here.”

  “Any chance you could come take a look?”

  Aaron glanced toward the next horse stall and out of the front door of the barn. Suddenly, staying in the barn on such a gorgeous May day seemed foolish. He was, after all, a farmer. Perhaps a few hours at Tim’s place would improve his mood.

  “Sure. I’ll just put Seth to work on these stalls.”

  Seth wasn’t too happy with the assignment, but he’d taken to complaining less and working harder since he’d become enamored with Clara. He’d been using a push mower to cut grass around the office and shop. When Aaron told him to finish cleaning the stalls, he frowned, shrugged, turned the mower around, and moved slowly toward the barn.

  “Boy moves at the identical pace of my teenage son.”

  “Ya. Some attitudes are the same whether they’re Amish or Englisch.”

  When Aaron stopped in the office to tell Lydia where he was going, she was on the phone taking more reservations. He was relieved he didn’t have to explain. She’d questioned him once already about Tim. What made women so suspicious?

  Five minutes later they were in Tim’s truck, headed toward his farm. They could have walked, but Aaron didn’t point that out. Tim would learn if he was intent on living the Amish way.

  Only one piece of property separated Tim’s farm from the cabins. The walk would have been less than a mile.

  “Who owns that home?” He’d passed the two-story farmhouse to the south of the cabins several times since coming to Wisconsin, but he’d never paid it any mind. The property appeared almost deserted. Today, the laundry hanging on the line seemed to indicate otherwise.

  “Julia Beechy. You haven’t met her?”

  “Possibly at our church service. There were a lot of new names to remember.”

  “But you haven’t stopped by to introduce yourself?”

  “Nein. The river divides our property from hers, the way it twists and turns here.”

  “And you’ve been busy.”

  “True, I have.” Aaron stared out the window. “I’ve been here for weeks, though. I should have taken the time to meet our neighbors, but—”

  Tim waited, and the sound of the asphalt against the tires as they turned into his place hummed, reminding Aaron of the bus he’d ridden, of the trip he needed to be taking home.

  “But I’m not staying. Meeting neighbors has been low on my list of things to do.” Aaron shook away the questions that seemed to plague him with every thought. “So Julia must be who you bought your place from.”

  “Yes. This land was part of her property. I don’t think the fields have been farmed in years. I learned a little about her situation when we completed the sell. Apparently, she’s not married and cares for her parents, who are elderly and in poor health. I’m not sure what this smaller second house was used for.” Tim pulled up to a one-story frame home. It probably had three bedrooms, and Aaron could see the standard wraparound porch stretching across the front and disappearing around the side.

  “This would have been the children’s home,” Aaron explained. “In Amish families, when the oldest son decides to marry, often he will build a home on his dat’s property, especially if there is land that needs working.”

  “And the parents stay in the big house? The one Julia is in?”

  “Ya, until the son and his wife start having kinner and running out of room. Then they change places. At some point this house would have become a grossdaddi house.”

  They both stared out over the fields that had filled with weeds. Tim’s two workhorses stood resting in the shade. Three bicycles lay discarded beside the barn—from the sizes, Aaron would guess one teenager and two smaller children.

  “Let’s have a look,” Aaron said, unbuckling his seat belt. As soon as he’d stepped out of the truck and slammed the door shut, Tim’s wife walked out onto the porch.

  Shorter than Tim, she was very thin and wore her red hair in a short cut. She walked down the steps, and Aaron saw she had on blue jeans and her top was also denim, with bird houses stitched into the material.

  “You must be Aaron. My husband told me about you. I’m Jeanette.”

  “Pleased to meet you.” Aaron stuck his hands in his pockets. Sometimes Englisch women liked to shake hands, but he never felt comfortable with the gesture.

  “Thank you for coming over. I guess you think we’re crazy for moving here and trying—” Her hands came out and waved toward the fields and the barn. “This.”

  He noticed she wore only one ring, a wedding ring, and her nails weren’t painted. Her eyes crinkled into a smile behind purple glasses.

  “Nein. Folks have reasons for what they do.”

  Jeanette glanced at her husband. “Yes. Yes, I suppose that’s a good way to put it. Can I offer you a glass of iced tea or something else to drink?”

  “I’m good, but danki.”

  “All right. I’ll go back to my work while you two do your farming thing.”

  As they moved toward the fields, Tim explained, “Jeanette’s a blogger.”

  “Logger?”

  “Blogger. She blogs on the Internet.”

  “I know what the Internet is, though we don’t use the computer often—maybe occasionally when we stop by the public library to research something. There are a few businesses that have exemptions from the bishop. At least in Indiana they do. Here, I’m not sure. What is blogging?”

  Tim stopped beside the plow, which he’d incorrectly harnessed to the draft horses. “It’s similar to writing news articles. Instead of appearing in newspapers, though, her writing appears on people’s webpages on the Internet.”

  “And she gets paid for this?”

  “Yeah. Pays pretty well once you’ve established a name. She hopes to write a novel one day, but that’s a hard thing to break into.”

  Aaron stepped up to one of the big horses and placed his hand on the animal’s neck. “Can’t say that I pick up a lot of novels. I read a few in school. Now I mostly read the Budget if I can keep my eyes open at night.”

  “I’ve seen that in town.”

  “You might want to snag a copy whenever you have a chance. You’ll see where Amish folks will be selling animals, farm tools, and all sorts of things that you could use around here.” He took a long, slow look around the farm. “You’re going to want to keep an eye out for good deals.”

  “Yeah.” Tim’s voice dipped as he ran his hand over the top of his head.

  Aaron spent the next hour showing him how to properly hitch the Belgians to the plow. He stayed and watched him work the first few rows, making sure he could properly guide the animals. Seeing him in the fields intensified the desire in Aaron to be home, back on his own place in Indiana.

  But that wasn’t quite right, either. When he glanced up, past Tim’s fields, and saw Pebble Creek in the distance, he felt something very close to
desire. This was rich land. It was gut land, though some of it—like Tim’s—would require many months of backbreaking work because it had been neglected.

  And what was he to do with those feelings?

  He didn’t belong here, not for any amount of time. But he wasn’t sure he belonged back home any longer, either.

  When he felt that Tim had the hang of it, he raised a hand to slow him. “I’m walking back. You’re gut now.”

  “Don’t you want me to drive you?”

  “Nein. It’s a mile. I can walk it. But if you have an emergency, I’ll be at David King’s home tonight—the cabins are full.”

  “You’re welcome to stay here.”

  “Danki. I might take you up on that sometime.”

  Tim nodded as he called out to the team and continued plowing in the noonday sun.

  With a smile, Aaron turned and headed back away from the fields.

  Jeanette walked out of the house as he was leaving.

  “I wanted to give you these to take back to the cabins.”

  He looked down at the plate of M&M cookies.

  “Is it okay? Do you eat M&M candies?”

  “Ya. I love them,” he assured her with a smile. “I may not even share them with anyone else.”

  Jeanette cocked her head, unsure how to take his joke. “Maybe I should make a bigger batch next time. We appreciate your help very much.”

  “No problem. Farming is a gut thing to do.” As an afterthought, for no reason other than he could remember his dat saying it, he added, “If you tickle the earth with your hoe, she will laugh with a harvest.”

  Instead of smiling, Jeanette sat down on the top step of the porch. “I’m not sure about that. I think my husband may be having a midlife crisis. He could have a heart attack out there. Where I come from, in Oklahoma, we use tractors to do this sort of thing.”

  “Ya. Some Englischers here use tractors.”

  “But not Amish?”

  “Nein. Amish don’t.”

  “Why is that?” Jeanette took off her glasses and rubbed them gently with the hem of her blouse.