by Jo Ann Brown
“Are you okay?” Jeremiah asked, his ruddy brows lowering.
“Fine. Or as fine as I can be, under the circumstances.” That was the truth, and she wasn’t going to spill why she couldn’t accept God’s will as easily as Jeremiah seemed to.
He scanned her face, puzzled and looking for answers. She wasn’t going to share the details of her time in foster care when it’d seemed as if God had abandoned her. She’d told Graham about that, and he’d been shocked at first. Later, he’d acted as if her failed adoption was somehow all her fault.
Only much later had she realized he was repeating exactly what his mother had said. The woman had always been quick to point out what she saw as Mercy’s shortcomings. Everything that went wrong, even rain on a day when they’d planned to go to an outdoor concert, was, in his mother’s eyes, Mercy’s fault. It made no sense, but Mercy would have endured it if Graham had—just once—stood up for her.
He hadn’t.
Not once. He quickly agreed with Mrs. Rapp, no matter how ridiculous the older woman’s opinions were.
If Graham had been willing to get out from under his mother’s thumb, Mercy might not have rushed to Harmony Creek before she realized Grandpa Rudy had put the farm up for sale.
Her best friend, Erika, had warned Mercy to consider Graham’s proposal very, very carefully before agreeing. “If it’s a choice between what his mother wants and what you want,” Erika had told her more than once, “you’re going to lose every time.”
“But I love him,” Mercy had argued, “and he loves me.”
“I’m sure you’re right, but he’ll always side with his mother. Be careful.”
She hadn’t been. She’d given her heart totally, believing if she loved Graham enough, he’d change.
He hadn’t. When the tough decision had to be made of where they’d live, he’d listened to Mrs. Rapp instead of doing what was best for his future wife and stepdaughter. His assumption Mercy was wrong for not understanding his mother’s needs were most important hammered the final nail in their relationship’s coffin, killing hopes she’d had of a future with him.
He hadn’t come to say goodbye after she’d left a message on his phone that she and Sunni were moving to Harmony Creek. He’d never returned her call, making her feel like a fool.
One thing she knew for certain. She wasn’t going to be a fool for a man ever again, no matter how handsome or nice he was.
* * *
Jeremiah couldn’t help being curious what Mercy was thinking. Her face was clouded with strong emotions, which he hoped had nothing to do with the arrival of the cows he’d planned to be the beginning of the farm’s dairy herd. Every instinct urged him to ask her how he could help. Even more, he yearned to pull her into his arms and offer her comfort for whatever was hurting her.
He couldn’t do either.
Not letting the frustrated sigh sift past his lips, he waited for Mercy to say something.
When she did, he wasn’t surprised it was a lame excuse to end their conversation. His frown returned when she mentioned going into Salem to pick up groceries.
“The roads aren’t plowed yet,” he said.
“Oh.”
Her face was so dejected he hurried to say, “You could take the sleigh.”
“Sleigh?”
He nodded. “There’s one in the big barn. It’s half-hidden under a blanket, but other than being covered with dust, it looks in gut condition. The runners may have some rust. If they do, I can sand it off, and you’ll be on your way as soon as we hook up Hero to the sleigh.”
“Your horse’s name is Hero? Isn’t that an odd name for an Amish horse?”
“It’s the name he had when I bought him, and he’s been my hero more than once when he got me home during a storm.” He grinned. “He’s very even-tempered, so you shouldn’t have any problem with him.”
She backed away slowly. “Thanks, but I’ll make up something out of whatever is in the kitchen.”
He was baffled again, but comprehension burst through him like a shooting star on a summer evening. “You don’t know how to drive a horse, ain’t so?”
“I never have.” She glanced out the window toward where her car sat beneath deep snow. “I’ve been able to depend on my car to get me where I need to go.”
“But you want to live on a farm with horses.”
“For the children to ride.”
Spying her daughter, who was peeking through the kitchen doorway, clearly eavesdropping, he acted as if he hadn’t seen the kind. He didn’t want to send her scurrying away again. “Wouldn’t those kinder enjoy rides in a wagon, too?”
She folded her arms but laughed. “Jeremiah Stoltzfus, has anyone ever told you that once you get an idea in your head you hold on to it like a snapping turtle?”
“I’d like to think I have more sense than a turtle that won’t let go even to eat.” He hooked a thumb toward the door. “Might as well get started with your lessons.”
“Not now.”
“Why not? I’ve got the time, and today isn’t going to be the only day you’ll need the sleigh before the snow melts.”
Again, she paused. Was she looking for an excuse he’d have to accept?
He realized how much he’d misconstrued her silence when she said, “I can’t go outside to take driving lessons and leave Sunni alone in the house.”
“Bring her along. I’ll teach her, too.”
“She’s only seven years old.”
With a laugh, he said, “I was younger than she is the first time the reins were placed in my hands.” He looked straight at Sunni. “Do you want to try?” He cut his eyes to Mercy. “What do you say?”
He wasn’t sure if he or Mercy was more shocked when Sunni stepped into the room and asked, “Can we, Mommy?”
Chapter Six
Mercy wanted to say no to driving lessons, but how could she when Sunni was opening up to Jeremiah for the first time? Though he might not be in their lives for long, it was good to see her daughter begin to trust another man.
But was Mercy ready to trust another man?
You’re agreeing to learning to drive a sleigh, not accepting an offer to go on a date with him. That little voice was becoming more annoying, but it also was correct. He’s trying to make you less dependent on him during these storms.
She was shocked the thought irritated her more. Poor Jeremiah! It seemed she could find an ulterior motive in whatever he did. Not his ulterior motive, but hers.
“Mommy, can we drive the sleigh?” asked Sunni, warning Mercy she’d been lost in her self-recriminating thoughts too long.
“All right.” She didn’t get a chance to add more before her daughter let out a cheer and began singing “Jingle Bells.”
Jeremiah was grinning as broadly. “Let me get Hero hooked up to the sleigh. It may take fifteen minutes or more because I need to get the sleigh out of the barn.”
“It’ll give me time to make up a thermos of hot cocoa and get us bundled up,” she said, excitement bursting through her. Hadn’t she come to the farm to try new things? Learning to drive the sleigh would be a great place to start.
“Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way,” sang Sunni at the top of her lungs as she spun about like a flat-footed ballerina.
With a wink, Jeremiah put on his hat and left. He called back that he’d pull the sleigh up to the door.
Mercy worked around her jubilant daughter and delighted in Sunni’s joy. She hadn’t seen her daughter so elated since before Grandpa Rudy’s funeral. And Mercy was happy, too. The idea of speeding over the snow in a sleigh was exciting.
She was about to wrap a scarf around Sunni’s neck when her daughter pulled away and ran to the door.
Mercy wasn’t surprised to see the sleigh looked as if it’d been hit by an avalanche and buried under boulders. The p
aint was scraped off the dented side, but the runners were straight, and Jeremiah’s horse was pulling it without too much effort.
“Ready?” she asked Sunni as she reached for her own scarf and the thermos and trio of cups.
Sunni threw open the door, then halted. “Where are the jingle bells?”
“All I could find,” Jeremiah said, “was this harness.”
Sunni whirled. “But, Mommy, the song is ‘Jingle Bells.’ We have to have jingle bells.”
Before Mercy could reply, the little girl whirled and ran up the stairs at a dangerous speed for a child wearing two leg braces.
Mercy steeled herself, praying she wouldn’t hear the dreadful thump that meant Sunni had fallen on the steps.
“Are you okay?” asked Jeremiah from right behind her.
She turned to discover he’d come up on the porch. “She shouldn’t go so fast up the stairs.”
“Words every mamm has said for as long as there have been stairs. We all take a few tumbles in life and are not much the worse for it, ain’t so?”
“Certainly.” She appreciated how he acted as if Sunni was like every other child.
“Why does she wear those braces...if you don’t mind me asking?”
“I don’t.” She smiled. “But I don’t know. We’ve gotten as many different opinions as we’ve had doctors for her. Most recently her pediatric orthopedist said we should worry less about what caused the weakness in her legs and concentrate on helping her walk better.”
“And run.”
Her smile broadened. “She’s learned that well.”
When Sunni came down the stairs at the same pace she’d gone up, both Jeremiah and Mercy jumped forward as the little girl stumbled three steps from the bottom. Between them, they caught her and set her on her feet.
“I know, I know,” Sunni said before anyone could speak. “I need to go more slowly and use my crutches, but we have jingle bells.” As she began singing the song again, she held up her right hand and shook it.
Jeremiah’s eyes grew wide at the sound of bells jangling.
Taking the toy from Sunni, Mercy held it out to him. It was a wooden half circle into which was set a half dozen tiny metal bells.
“What is it?” he asked beneath the little girl’s enthusiastic singing.
Mercy answered as softly, “A toy. Kids use them to make music in school. We got it as a therapy tool for Sunni last year. It helped strengthen her grip.” Showing him how fingers wrapped around the wooden handle while the bells were shaken, she smiled. “I didn’t realize she still had it.”
Jeremiah raised his voice to include the little girl. “We’ve got our jingle bells and our cocoa, so let’s go.”
Mercy watched as he went outside. Sunni followed, and he swung her up onto the sleigh’s bench. He sat beside her. They looked back in a silent urging for Mercy to hurry up.
She did and laughed as she hadn’t in longer than she could remember when Jeremiah reached to assist her into the battered sleigh. At his touch, even through his thick gloves and hers, the day suddenly had seemed warmer.
When she sat beside him, he unlashed the reins from the dash and showed her how to hold them. He told her to loop the reins up between her pinkie and the next finger, grip them in her fist and let them go out between her thumb and first finger.
“That gives you the most control,” he said, adjusting her hands slightly. “Hero is well trained, so call his name, and he’ll go.”
“And to stop him?”
“A simple ‘whoa.’ You don’t have to tug on the reins. He’ll stop right away.” Again, he aligned her fingers. “There you go. Whenever you’re ready.”
She made the mistake of looking at him to ask another question. His face was so near to hers their misted breaths mingled in the cold air. As her gaze locked with his lustrous blue eyes, she knew she should look away before he got the wrong idea.
Or the right one.
Even that thought couldn’t convince her eyes to turn from his handsome face. As close as they sat, she could see the faint shadow of whiskers along his jaw. Her fingers tingled, teasing her to tear off her gloves and stroke that firm line. She caught a motion from the corner of her eye. His hand was rising to cup her cheek. She leaned toward it, eager to feel him against her.
“Jingle bells! Jingle bells!” sang Sunni abruptly.
The cheerful song brought Mercy to her senses. Jeremiah, too, she guessed, because he quickly slanted away from her and urged her to give the command to go.
She did, and the horse moved at a walk toward the road. Her thoughts sped far faster as she pondered what would have happened if Sunni’s innocent singing hadn’t intruded. Trying to convince herself it was better she didn’t know, she wondered when she’d started being dishonest with herself.
* * *
“Hold that board right there,” Jeremiah urged Sunni, who kept a suspicious eye on the hammer and nail he was positioning. It was the first board for the roof of a chicken coop. After finishing his barn chores, including milking and feeding the calves delivered earlier in the week, he’d wanted time outdoors.
He smiled at Sunni. The little girl didn’t trust him completely, but she didn’t scurry in the opposite direction when he approached as she had before they drove the sleigh along the twisting creek that slept beneath a sheet of ice. When, during her midmorning break from her schoolwork, she’d come to watch him building the chicken coop, a simple box with a door and shelves for the hens to lay on, he’d pretended as if nothing significant had happened. Maybe if he acted as if she’d sought him out right from the beginning, he wouldn’t send her fleeing again. He kept up a steady narration of everything he did, and Sunni had inched closer and closer.
Then she began asking questions, barely giving him time to answer before she fired another one—or two—at him. She asked about the coop and the chickens that would live inside. She wanted to know what color he planned to paint it and what he intended to name the chickens. He answered questions about what the chickens would eat and where they would sleep and when the rooster would crow.
Asking her to balance the board might threaten the status quo, but Jeremiah kept reminding himself with God’s help, anything was possible. Even persuading a kind he didn’t mean her ill will. He was curious if Sunni’s skittishness was for the same reason as Mercy’s.
What do you know about women? he asked himself. He’d believed Emmarita when she said she was coming back. He hadn’t guessed she was seeing her Englischer at the same time Jeremiah was escorting her home from youth events. She’d jumped the fence, and unlike two of his brothers’ wives who had done the same, she hadn’t returned...though he’d waited several months to make sure. When he heard she’d married her Englischer, he knew he needed to put the past behind him. He listened to the hopes of having a farm of his own, the hopes God had put inside him. It was easier to heed that portion of his heart when he closed off the part filled with pain at Emmarita’s betrayal.
Focusing on his work, Jeremiah made sure Sunni’s fingers weren’t close to where he was hammering. She’d become silent, but the fact she was standing there seemed like a precious victory.
“Mommy!” Sunni suddenly shouted and released the plank.
Jeremiah grasped the board to keep it from swinging out and striking the kind. His heart hitched, and he knew he couldn’t blame his heart’s reaction totally on fright for the little girl.
His gaze riveted on Mercy as she walked toward them. Her cheeks were burnished by the cold to the same shade as her lips, which appeared delightfully kissable. The image of his hands framing her face while he sampled her mouth was so real he lowered his eyes and swung the hammer, barely missing the nail and his thumb in his work glove. He set down the hammer, knowing, when he was that distracted, he might not miss next time.
“What are you making?” Mercy’s tone hinted that
she hadn’t noticed how distracted he was by her.
He wasn’t sure if that was gut or annoying.
“It’s a chicken choop,” Sunni answered.
“A chicken coop,” he corrected with a smile.
“But...” Mercy looked hastily away, but not fast enough because he saw her cheeks redden more.
He wasn’t going to pretend not to understand. She’d agreed on the day he taught her to drive not to look for secret intentions behind every word or deed. He wished she’d trust him.
Though he wanted to ask why she always painted him with such negative intentions, he said, “Mercy, didn’t your daed tell you it may be several weeks before he gets an answer from his siblings?”
“He did.”
“But you are working to fix up the main house. Sunni was telling me that you’re painting the living room.” He saw mamm and daughter exchange a glance, but couldn’t guess what it meant. He hoped nothing. “Like you, I don’t want to wait until everything is decided. If I do and they sell me the farm, I must not be so far behind on fixing up the place I can’t get a decent crop in the fields or have a place to put it when it’s harvested.”
“I know.” She raised her eyes to meet his, and he realized he’d misjudged her reaction. She wasn’t angry. She was frustrated her family hadn’t made their decision. “I’m sorry this is dragging on.”
Stepping around the coop so it wasn’t between them, he put his hands on Mercy’s shoulders. “It’s not your fault.”
“Thanks for saying that, but every time the phone rings, I hope it’s my father with news.” She grimaced. “I’m tempted to silence it and let the answering machine get the calls. That way, I’d only have to check once a day.”
“Why don’t you?”
Her eyes brightened. “I think I will. I’m tired of being on a ladder and having to rush down to answer it. In case it’s Dad.” A smile played at the corners of her mouth. “I almost tipped over the paint can yesterday. If I had, Sunni and I would be green now.”
“It wouldn’t be a bad color on you two,” he replied in mock seriousness. “And we could use a bit more green with this snow.”