Her Fear

by Shelley Shepard Gray

  But not enough to pass up this opportunity. “I’ll be happy to take her home.”

  “Danke,” Esther said.

  “Wait a minute!” Sadie interjected. “I can go home on my own.”

  “Nee, you can’t,” Noah said. “You’re new here. It would be better for you to be walking with someone who knows the area.”

  “I’m afraid I have to agree,” Esther said. “Please, Sadie?”

  Lowering her voice, Sadie said to Esther, “Your father won’t be happy.”

  “He’ll be fine. Won’t you do this for me?”

  Sadie darted a look his way. “All right. But . . .”

  “Danke. Tell Daed I’ll be home by five, if he asks.” And with that, she turned away and trotted off.

  Sadie groaned. “I’m real sorry about this. I don’t know why Esther was acting like that.”

  “I’m not upset.”

  “Are you sure? I feel like you’ve been taken advantage of.”

  “I don’t. Not at all.” He gestured to the restaurant. “Are you ready to go inside?”

  “We don’t have to do that.”

  Noah knew he needed to say something fast to set her at ease or he was going to lose her. “Ah, it looks like you went shopping at Ada’s Fabrics.”

  “I did. How did you know where I was? Did Esther tell you?”

  “Nee. I recognize the bright-yellow shopping bags. My mother has brought home her fair share over the years.”

  “Oh. It’s a gut store. And the lady who runs it is nice.”

  “She is.” He smiled at her again. “You know what? Penny’s has really good pie. It would be a shame to be so close and not get a slice. Want to go in? I have it on good authority that pretty much everyone thinks she makes the best fruit pies around. What do you say?”

  “Do you think she’ll have peach?”

  “In the middle of July? I reckon so.”

  “Well, all right.”

  There he went again, smiling like a fool. What was it about this woman that caused him to rethink everything he thought he was attracted to in a girl?

  SADIE KNEW SHE shouldn’t be standing with him.

  She knew she should’ve started back home by herself. No matter what he or Esther said, she knew she wouldn’t get lost and would be just fine.

  But no matter what she thought she ought to do . . . here she was.

  What was it about Noah Freeman that made her want to reexamine everything she thought she wanted or knew about men? Was it his looks? His ready smile? The fact that her first impression of him was of a rescuer?

  Or maybe it was because he didn’t know about her secret or her past and wasn’t gazing at her through that lens. Being around him did make her feel fresh and easy. Almost like she used to be, before she’d realized just how narrow and confining her life had been destined to be.

  “Hi, may I help you?” an English woman in her early thirties greeted them.

  She had bright-pink hair, and was wearing a uniform like a waitress back in the 1950s would have worn, along with high-top tennis shoes.

  Sadie couldn’t help but stare.

  Noah, on the other hand, didn’t seem to find her appearance strange at all. “A table for two,” he said easily.

  The hostess looked at them both and smiled. “I’ve got just the spot for y’all. Come right this way.”

  It was obvious that the woman thought they were on a date. Sadie glanced at Noah to see what his reaction was. He didn’t look embarrassed.

  She supposed she needed to stop being so skittish, too. It didn’t matter what this woman thought of them. She certainly wasn’t going to be running to her relatives’ house to inform them of Sadie’s latest indiscretion.

  “Sadie, are you ready to sit down?” Noah called back.

  With a start, she realized that she’d been standing there in the middle of the restaurant, lost in her own daydreams.

  “Jah. Of course.” Quickly, she crossed the restaurant and took a seat in the booth, opposite from Noah.

  If the hostess thought her actions were strange, she didn’t show it. Instead, she placed a mini chalkboard on the table in between them. “Penny makes pies every evening and morning, so everything is real fresh. We’ve got five to choose from today. Iced tea, lemonade, water, and coffee, too.”

  And with that, she turned and walked away. Sadie watched her for a moment before concentrating on the blackboard. Today’s offerings were peach, strawberry, cherry, apple, and blackberry. “Which kind of pie are you going to get?”

  “Cherry. What about you?”

  “Peach?”

  He tilted his head to one side. “Is that a question?”

  “I’m not sure.” Oh, but she was so bad at this. “I guess I’m not used to making decisions.”

  “Not even about what kind of pie to have?”

  If she was bolder, she would have told him that that was especially what she wasn’t used to doing. “Not even that.”

  “I’ve had their peach pie lots of times. They serve it warm with ice cream.”

  Her stomach growled. “Now I have even more decisions to make.”

  “Indeed you do.”

  When a young woman came to take their order, Sadie felt much more at ease. She was Amish and about their age.

  “I’m Ida. What would you like?”

  Noah leaned forward. “It’s time, Sadie. What will you have?”

  “Can I have peach pie and a scoop of vanilla ice cream, too?”

  “What will you have to drink?”

  “Water.”

  “Cherry, warmed, with vanilla ice cream—and water for me, too,” Noah added.

  “I’ll be right back.”

  Sadie exhaled. She’d done it.

  For the first time since they’d met up, Noah wasn’t smiling. Instead, he was gazing at her in concern.

  “Is something wrong?” she asked.

  “Jah. Sadie, I’ve been sitting here, trying to come up with a whole bunch of reasons to explain why you are reacting to everything the way you are. But for the life of me, I simply can’t figure it out.”

  “Figure out what?”

  “Why are you so tentative? I know your uncle was mad I was over. But Esther didn’t seem to think me visiting you would be a problem. She would know, right?”

  “Jah. I . . . you’re right. I don’t think my uncle Stephen will be too upset if I have pie here with you.”

  “Then why does it seem like you are afraid of something? You aren’t afraid of me, are you?”

  “No. I’m not afraid of you.” She just felt afraid of everything else right at the moment.

  “Then what is it?” Before she could reply, he said, “Is it your family here? Are you uncomfortable around them? Do you feel trapped or something?”

  “Of course not.”

  “You need to be honest with someone.”

  He was no doubt right. She did need to be honest with someone about how uneasy she felt with her relatives. How alone she felt here in Kentucky.

  How scared she was about her future.

  And there was something about Noah Freeman that felt good and clean and special.

  But if she shared her fears and told him the truth about the baby, he’d never look at her again.

  Though that would probably be better in the long run, she was just weak enough to hate the thought of that happening.

  “Noah, I agreed to come in and have pie and allow you to walk me home so Esther could see her friend’s mother. That’s it.”

  “I can help you, Sadie.”

  “But I don’t want your help.”

  “You may not and that’s your choice. It’s just . . . well, I hope you don’t one day regret keeping me at a distance.”

  She didn’t say anything. But she was pretty sure that she already did.

  Chapter 10

  July 12

  Daisy was in such a daze, the receptionist at the doctor’s office had to ask her the question a second, then a third tim
e. “Will next Tuesday work for you or not?”

  Would it? Unable to make even that much of a decision, she froze.

  Mrs. Cartwright tapped one manicured nail on the open calendar that was taped to the light-gray countertop. “You usually clean my house on Tuesdays so I think it will work, don’t you? I’ll be able to take you.”

  She knew what Mrs. Cartwright was saying. Instead of Daisy doing what she was paid to do, Mrs. Cartwright would be carting her around Hart County. Gratitude melded with frustration and singed her insides. “You wouldn’t mind?”

  “Of course not.”

  “All right, then.” She exhaled deeply and looked back at the receptionist. “That day will work for me.”

  Looking relieved to get Daisy on her way and help the next person in line, the receptionist typed in the date on her computer screen and gave her an appointment card. “Here you go. Come fifteen minutes early. We’ll need you to fill out paperwork.”

  “More paperwork?” It felt like she’d already told them everything she could about herself. What else would they need to know?

  “We’ll do that. Thank you,” Mrs. Cartwright interjected crisply. “Let’s go have some lunch, Daisy. My treat.”

  Daisy was so overcome by Mrs. Cartwright’s generosity, she hardly knew how to respond. Eileen Cartwright had always been a nice woman, but Daisy had never imagined that her kindness would extend so far as it had over the last week. From the moment Daisy had mentioned that she was being sent to the specialist and was going to have to get more tests done, her employer had taken charge and gone above and beyond Daisy’s expectations. “Thank you,” she said at last.

  After they got into her shiny black sedan, Mrs. Cartwright pulled onto Main. “I thought maybe we could go to Bill’s Diner. Does that sound good to you?”

  Bill’s was a staple in Munfordville. In the whole county, actually. Bill and his wife specialized in wholesome comfort foods and ran a special every day that seemed to have no rhyme or reason beyond that it was what Bill felt like cooking.

  “It sounds gut. I just hope the special ain’t liver-and-onions.”

  “You and me both.” Mrs. Cartwright wrinkled her nose. “I’m always surprised whenever I see so many people order that. I’ve never been a fan.”

  “Me, neither, though I had a girlfriend once who enjoyed it more than anything.”

  “Once? What happened to her?”

  “She passed away a few years ago. It was Jean Stauffer.” She paused, half expecting Mrs. Cartwright to grimace. The Stauffers’ reputation wasn’t too good. Actually, it was so bad that almost everyone had an opinion about them. Jean had been a good woman, though. One of the best.

  “I didn’t know her.”

  “She was Amish.” Daisy exhaled. She felt guilty, like she was being disloyal to Jean, but she simply didn’t have the energy to try to defend the Stauffers when she’d never agreed with Jean’s choice of a husband in the first place. Jean had been a delicate sort, prone to sickness. Stephen, so robust and, well, masculine, the opposite of that. “Jean and I grew up together.”

  “I’m sorry you lost her.”

  “I am, too.”

  They drove on, Mrs. Cartwright with both hands on the steering wheel and Daisy holding tightly to the stack of papers the nurse in the office had handed her about lupus in her lap. The papers felt unnaturally heavy, like their contents contained a great burden.

  She knew she was no doubt going to have to study the information carefully, and then probably have to read it all again.

  Then she remembered her manners. “Thank you for your help today. And for next week, too. I don’t know what I would do without you.”

  Eileen glanced at her, her kind eyes shining through her glasses. “Like I said when I picked you up this morning, I’m glad to help. You’ve been helping me with my house for fifteen years.”

  “Has it really been that long?”

  “It certainly has. When you first started, Jim was still alive and two of my kids were in high school. Now, of course, Jim is in heaven and all five of my children are out of the house. Why, two are married and now have babies of their own.”

  The reminder of those events made Daisy smile. Eileen had gotten in such a tizzy about those weddings. “Time moves on.”

  “It always does, doesn’t it? Whether we want it to or not.” Her tone was filled with resignation and something else. Was it a hint? Or maybe a warning for Daisy to take to heart?

  Daisy nodded, thinking of all the life changes Mrs. Cartwright had been going through. She’d lost her husband in a car accident and had been almost inconsolable for months.

  Then one day when Daisy walked in her kitchen, she’d found her employer sitting in a light-blue tracksuit and sipping coffee. Her eyes were bright and she was filled with a new purpose. She’d called a travel agent and had booked herself a trip to Australia—and she was going to go by herself.

  Daisy was so shocked by her change in behavior, she scrubbed the kitchen floor extra well that day, afraid to say the wrong thing.

  Thinking about that day, she said, “What was it that brought you out of your doldrums after Jim died?”

  Eileen looked startled. “What do you mean?”

  “I was just thinking how one day you looked sad and afraid to leave the house, but the next time I came over, you had on your tracksuit and were talking about Australia.”

  Her eyes brightened. “Ah. Yes, that was quite a day, wasn’t it?” She chuckled softly. “Every time I recall your expression when you walked in the kitchen, I feel like giggling.”

  “I was mighty surprised.”

  “You were shocked! Daisy, for a minute there, I thought your eyes were going to bug out of your head.”

  Embarrassed, but thinking that had probably been the case, Daisy smiled, too. “I was just wondering what brought about that change. One day, you were crying and then next you looked like your regular self again. That is, if you don’t mind me asking.”

  Pulling into the diner, Eileen replied. “I don’t mind you asking in the slightest. Goodness, I think that was six years ago now, wasn’t it?”

  “Thereabouts.”

  “Well, the short of it was that my children got on the phone and each took a turn telling me that their father would be very upset to see me grieving the way I was.”

  “And the long of it?”

  “It wasn’t something so cut and dry. The best way I can explain it, without droning on for hours, is that one morning I forgot to be sad.”

  “Was it really that simple?”

  “No. Not really.” Eileen turned off the ignition, unbuckled her seat belt, and opened up her driver’s-side door. But instead of getting right out, she turned to Daisy. “It wasn’t simple or easy at all. But time does heal. So does allowing other people’s love in your heart. I started realizing that I was so consumed by my pain that I was blocking out any chance for happiness. I realized that I’d even been taking my children’s love and patience for granted. Kristy told me that she’d felt like she’d lost me, too.” Her smile turned wistful. “I couldn’t have that.”

  “So you started allowing happiness back in.”

  “I did. And hope.” After she got out of the car and Daisy did, too, Eileen said softly, “That’s when my son Blake reminded me about how much I had always wanted to visit Australia. He asked what I was waiting for.” She clicked a button on her key chain and locked the car. “That’s when I took a leap of faith and booked that ticket.”

  Daisy thought there was a pretty big gap between finding hope and traveling to Australia by oneself. “Weren’t you afraid?”

  She pressed a hand to her chest. “Oh, yes. I can still practically feel how hard my heart was beating when I walked inside that plane and sat down. I hadn’t been on a plane in years. I had never been out of the country, and I was going on a two-week journey without a single person that I knew by my side. At that moment, I had never missed my husband more.”

  “But it went al
l right.”

  “It did. And you know why?” When Daisy shook her head, she continued. “Because as I was flying over the ocean, I remembered that my Jim hated to fly. If he was alive, I wouldn’t have gone.”

  Eileen was almost sounding like she was glad that he hadn’t been there. “But—”

  “I loved Jim, but that didn’t mean that everything about us was perfect or that we always wanted the same things.” Softly, she added, “I realized that I was still me. God had given me a lovely marriage and a wonderful husband and father of my children. But He was now also giving me the opportunity to do something else and follow other dreams.” She smiled again, then started walking toward the diner.

  Daisy followed suit.

  Just as they opened the door and felt that first blast of air-conditioning on their skin, Daisy said, “So maybe there is a silver lining about my diagnosis?”

  “I don’t know if anyone would call a lupus diagnosis a blessing. But I do know that life is a whole lot better when you’re going forward. Wishing things were different doesn’t get you anything good.”

  Those words stayed with Daisy all through lunch and till later that afternoon, when she was sitting on her back porch watching the bumblebees hover among the lavender like mini blimps.

  She vowed then to try to look beyond her pain and worry and uncertainty about the future. She would find her own Australia, even if it was simply starting a new project around the house. Who knew? Maybe she could even take a bus trip to South Dakota. She’d always wanted to do that.

  And when her mind flitted on to Stephen Stauffer—for the first time in memory, she didn’t push it away. Instead, she tried to think of him in a new light.

  And wondered if he, too, had unrealized Australia in his future.

  Chapter 11

  Friday, July 13

  The first thing Noah noticed when he got to work was that it was unnaturally quiet. Then he noticed that the fire chief was in his office with Sheriff Brewer and Deputy Beck. When he walked down the hall, he spied Chad and two firefighters sitting in the rec room, nursing cups of coffee and looking grim. There was also another man and a woman in the room. They were looking at their iPad screens and talking.