The Calling

by Suzanne Woods Fisher

  She pasted a smile on her face and turned around. “Hi, Jimmy.”

  He was puffing. He’d run down the driveway to catch her. “I thought I was going to give you a ride home. What do you say?”

  “Some other time. I just want to be alone tonight.” That was sort of true. With everything that was on her mind lately, she wasn’t good company. “Jimmy—you and me—I just don’t think it would be a good idea.”

  That part was the absolute truth.

  “Look at me, Bethany.”

  She lifted her head.

  “I know you think I’m just playing. But I’m playing for keeps.”

  And then Jimmy was gone, striding away from her and toward the buggy. The cant of his shoulders made Bethany feel suddenly cold, as if summer had turned to winter in the blink of an eye, though it was a humid and sticky evening. She took in everything as he swung onto the seat: his muscled forearms clutching the reins, his cheeks, clean-shaven in the morning, now shadowed, his gaze, set resolutely ahead. He drove the buggy right up to her. “Hop in.”

  Shootfire! There he goes, telling me what to do again. Just as she was feeling a little softhearted toward him, he went and ruined it all.

  “Bethany, Eagle Hill is over five miles away and your brother left with Naomi hours ago.”

  “Well, fine,” she said as she let him help her up. “But this doesn’t mean a thing, Jimmy Fisher.”

  He slapped the horse’s reins to get it moving. The horse snorted and broke into a trot. The buggy creaked and rumbled and clattered over the wooden bridge that spanned a small creek at the bottom of the driveway. Tenderly, Jimmy nudged her shoulder. “You okay?”

  She looked up at the brilliant stars in the moonless sky. “I’m fine. Never better.”

  They weren’t far down the road when he pulled up on the reins and turned the buggy to the side of the road. “You want to tell me what’s bothering you lately?”

  She turned toward him. “What makes you think something’s bothering me?”

  “Let’s see . . . you’re jumpier than usual, prickly as a cactus pear, you look like you haven’t had a good night’s sleep in a while—”

  “Enough. I get your point.” Why did he have to be so good-looking? She was touched by his concern, despite herself. Bethany hesitated. “Look, Jimmy, there’s a lot on my mind right now and I need to get a few things figured out.”

  “Like what?”

  “You wouldn’t understand. It’s not the kind of thing you’re accustomed to.”

  “There you go again. Thinking that I’m just a one-trick pony. Try me, Bethany. I’d like to help you, even though you’re too stubborn to accept it.” Jimmy reached out to touch her hand and she nearly jumped out the window. He turned in the seat. “When are you going to realize how much I care about you?”

  “Me and everyone else in Stoney Ridge who wears a dress. Naomi says you go through girls like potato chips.”

  “She said that? How insulting.” Though he didn’t seem a bit insulted.

  She looked out the window. “The last time I let someone affect me . . . well . . . it was . . . Jake Hertzler.”

  Jimmy groaned. “I thought he was ancient history.”

  “He is.” She glanced at him. “I’m not the right one for you, Jimmy.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest defensively. “Wow. That’s a pretty smooth brush-off. What comes next? Are you going to tell me you just want to be friends? I’m not playing games with you, Bethany. Maybe you’re the one playing games.”

  She wasn’t going to take that from anybody. She stood her ground. “That’s not fair, Jimmy. You’ve done a lot for me, but I never asked you for anything. I’ve been trying to keep our relationship friendly rather than romantic.”

  “I see,” he said sharply. “Well, you can go on pretending there’s no spark between us, but we both know it isn’t true. Challenges don’t scare me. They just make me more determined.” Their gazes met and lingered, then parted. He gathered up the reins and started them on their way again. Finally, in a kinder voice, he said, “Bethany, whatever it is that’s troubling you, just remember you’re a lot stronger than you think you are. Whenever you figure things out, I’ll be here, waiting for you. I’m not going anywhere. Not going after anyone else, either.” He grinned in that slow, charming way that made her heart pound. “I don’t even like potato chips.”

  Despite herself, as Naomi watched Tobe drive the buggy away, her heart swelled with hope. Maybe, just maybe, her dream was going to come true.

  It was a dream that began years ago, when Naomi was eight and Tobe was twelve. He and Bethany had spent a few weeks of the summer visiting their grandmother and the three of them played together each day, as soon as their chores were done. They rode ponies over to Blue Lake Pond, picnicked on the shore, hiked up in the hills. Those summer visits were happy memories for Naomi.

  But it was three summers later that things drastically changed between Naomi and Tobe—at least the way she felt about him. Her mother had died during the winter. Just when school was out for the year, her father had been badly hurt in an accident with a horse. He lingered for over a week, then died suddenly of complications. Everyone had treated Naomi with kid gloves, assuring her that her father would be all right, that he would rally.

  All but Tobe.

  She had asked him if he thought her father would survive and he had said no, he didn’t think so. He said he hoped he was wrong, but to get prepared, just in case. It was the day of her father’s funeral that Naomi experienced her first migraine. She couldn’t even attend the service for her father. She remained in her darkened bedroom, with curtains drawn because the light hurt her eyes so much.

  Tobe shimmied up the rose trellis and onto the roof and knocked on her window to keep her company while the service was going on. He sat on the floor, back against the wall, and read to her, using a small flashlight to see by. The sound of his soothing, calm voice eased the pounding in her head. By the time the worst of the headache had passed, Naomi was thoroughly smitten.

  By the age of fourteen, she was crazy about Tobe.

  By sixteen, she was head over heels in love. Loving Tobe was as familiar to her as breathing.

  But Tobe Schrock had a reputation, even as a teenager, even though he only came to Stoney Ridge in the summers when he visited his grandmother. Naomi wasn’t sure how much of his reputation was deserved and how much was inflated, but all her friends warned each other about falling for Tobe Schrock. He was too good-looking, they said. He was unreliable. Lazy as a man could be, her brother Galen often noted. So Naomi kept silent her feelings for Tobe, but she soaked up every mention of his name over at Eagle Hill. His absence hurt her the way it did Rose and Vera and Bethany, so much so that she tried to talk herself out of love with him. She told herself he would never return.

  Until this week, when he did return.

  Seeing him in the kitchen of Eagle Hill that first night, looking and acting like he’d never left, ruined her resolve to stop loving him. Instead, images rolled in her mind, unsummoned, memories of growing up together. She knew every inch of that beautiful face, the scar across his left cheekbone that he’d received when he and a friend were skipping rocks at Blue Lake Pond and his friend threw a wild pitch that hit Tobe in the face. The heavy dark brows that could signal wrath or disapproval or amusement with the slightest shifts; the prominent eyetooth.

  A young Tobe running through the privet, calling for her to come out. Tobe as he grew into a young man, broad shouldered and handsome. Tobe leaning against a wall, watching Naomi struggle to fasten the shafts to the buggy, muscled arms crossed over his chest, wanting to help but holding back because he knew she wanted to do it herself; of Tobe laughing, and frowning, and listening, and telling her the truth no matter what, and the way she felt when he entered a room. She could never stop smiling whenever Tobe was around, though she knew she didn’t have the same effect on him.

  Until this time, coming home, when Tobe smiled b
ack at Naomi. For the last few days, he courted her carefully, cautious to avoid Galen. She had quietly followed him up to Blue Lake Pond one afternoon, stumbling on him sitting on a log as if she was always at the pond in the afternoon. He invited her to sit down. It was awkward at first, but soon they started to talk and talk and talk. Later that night, long after midnight, he had tossed pebbles at her window until she went to see what was making that noise. She thought it was a bird and was shocked to see Tobe down below, waving to her to join him. “Come on down,” he whispered. She had never dressed so quickly in her life.

  Each night after that first one, Tobe would toss pebbles at her window and Naomi would hurry down. They walked in the moonlight, up the ridge, to connect to a shortcut to Blue Lake Pond that only he knew about.

  Tonight was one of those nights bright with untold numbers of stars. After Bethany left to go to the barn for the singing, Tobe quietly asked Naomi if she would mind skipping the singing and go for a ride. She jumped back in the buggy, quick as a whip, before he could change his mind. They drove to Blue Lake Pond and sat on their favorite log. It was a windless night and the water was so still and calm it looked like a mirror, reflecting the stars.

  Naomi stared at it so long that Tobe asked what she was thinking. “The stars are almost like a pattern,” she said, pointing to the water. “Can you see it? I’m wondering if I could design a quilt top to match it.”

  Tobe smiled. “Why do you like to quilt so much?”

  It was a question no one had ever asked her before and yet it was such an important one. “To me,” she said, “piecing a quilt top seems to be evidence of how God works in this world.”

  He tilted his head at her in that adorable way he had, his way of encouraging her to keep talking.

  “I take all these scraps and leftovers and odds and ends, and turn them into something beautiful. Something useful and purposeful. It just seems like that’s what God is always doing, all around us. Taking our jumble of mess and transforming it into something wondrous.”

  Tobe stared at her for a long, long time. And then he started to confide in her all he knew about Schrock Investments and all he had seen and heard. Every detail.

  She listened carefully, trying to understand, careful not to judge, though she felt shocked by what he revealed. His eyes were so weary, so sad. Eyes too old for such a young face. Naomi’s heart broke for him.

  “I’m leaving in the morning with the SEC lawyer,” he said after he finished the long, sad tale. “I don’t know what’s ahead for me.”

  The news of Tobe’s departure wasn’t a surprise for Naomi. Bethany had told her Monday was the day and Naomi had tried to push it out of her mind. Tried not to think of having to say goodbye to him again.

  He took her hands in his. “Naomi . . . I know I’m not much of a catch.”

  “You’re the only catch I want,” Naomi said eagerly and Tobe grinned in that boyish way he had. Then he reached out and drew her close to him, and kissed her. Tobe’s lips were soft, but his kiss was hard, slow, almost lazy, and so assured. His arms rested at steep angles across the small of her back and the blades of her shoulders.

  She melted into the circle of his arms, leaning in, lifting up, softening her mouth. For a few sweet moments, everything felt right to forget and safe to remember.

  It was her very first kiss and it was perfect. Absolutely perfect.

  On Sunday evening, Geena was finishing up a book an elder from her church had given to her: Help! I’ve Been Asked to Preach. Don’t Panic: Practical Help to Keep Your Sermon from Sinking by Maylan Schurch. She took notes as she read, wondering if the elder thought her sermons sank or stank. A knock on the door interrupted her. “Come in.”

  Rose popped her head in. “Do you have a moment?”

  Geena happily put away the book. “I do. Please come in.”

  “Do you need anything? Towels, fresh sheets, extra shampoo or toothpaste?”

  “No. You’ve provided everything I could possibly use.”

  Rose held her hands behind her. She seemed ill at ease, as if she had something to say but didn’t know how to say it. “It looks as if the heat wave is going to break by Tuesday.”

  “Oh. Oh!” Now Geena realized what Rose was trying to say. “Your reservations! I’ll leave, then.”

  “Actually, I have a favor to ask. I’m going to Philadelphia tomorrow with Tobe and my mother-in-law. We’re not really sure how long we’ll be gone.”

  Geena was well aware that everyone was leaving in the morning. She and Allen had spent all of Sunday together, hiking, church, a brunch afterward, wandering through the small towns and shopping, then dinner together because Tobe went to a church youth gathering. Before Allen said goodbye, he asked her what she might say if he were to call her sometime. Maybe to go out for dinner. “That would depend,” she told him, “on how much you can help Tobe Schrock stay out of jail.”

  “I’ll do all I can,” Allen had promised. “He’s not the one we’re after. I want Jake Hertzler.”

  There it was again. The feeling she got that there was something personal about this case for Allen. “Still,” Geena said. “Promise me you’ll keep Tobe out of jail.”

  But Allen wouldn’t promise. He did say he would do his best, and if she happened upon any information that might prove useful, please call him. He gave her his business card and kissed her on the cheek. When had she last been kissed on her cheek by a man who wasn’t a senior citizen? Years and years and years. It was, she couldn’t deny, very nice.

  But none of that pertained to Rose Schrock, standing in the middle of the guest flat living room, looking embarrassed. “Geena, I wondered . . . if you’re not in a hurry to return . . .”

  “I’m not.”

  Rose glanced up at her, a shy look on her face. “Would you be willing to move into the house and stay with my daughters? Just in case they needed extra help with the boys while they’re working and managing the new guests?”

  Geena was pleased to be asked. Grateful, too. She wasn’t ready to go back to Philadelphia to officially start job hunting. She knew it was waiting for her and she dreaded it. “Consider it done. I’m glad that you feel comfortable asking me.”

  “Well, I have a confession to make. We’re going to be staying at the home of someone who was our first guest at the inn. She has become a good friend. Her name is Delia Stoltz.”

  “Aha. Now I see.” Delia Stoltz attended Geena’s church. Her husband, Dr. Charles Stoltz, was new to church attendance but very vocal about his feelings that Geena should be replaced with someone who was a more dynamic preacher. “So, you’re probably aware that I was fired.”

  Rose nodded.

  “Don’t feel badly. It’s not a secret. I told Bethany about it.” Geena grinned. “But now you can understand why I have a surfeit of spare time.”

  “I certainly wouldn’t charge you for staying at the house. You’d be doing me a favor.”

  “I’m happy to be of help, Rose. In fact, I couldn’t be more delighted. It’s been good for me to be here.”

  Rose looked at the title of the book on the kitchen table. “Delia mentioned that the problem wasn’t with your pastor’s heart, it was with your preaching.”

  “That’s about right.” Geena rubbed her forehead. “I try so hard to preach well. I try to be just like my father—that’s what everyone expects. My father is a wonderful minister. I’ve been trained by the very best. I prepare detailed notes and put in hours of research . . . and still, something in the delivery goes badly. I bore myself!”

  Rose picked up the book and flipped through it. “I don’t know much about being a minister, but one thing our preachers don’t do is to use notes. They let God’s Spirit guide them.”

  “No notes? None at all? That would have given heart attacks to my seminary professors. Sermon preparation was a major focus. It even has a fancy name: homiletics.” She pressed her palms together. “They trained us to deliver a nice, tight sermon. Tight. Sixteen minutes long
would earn you an A. Studies have found that’s the attention span of the congregation.”

  Rose looked confused. “But how can God’s Spirit lead when a minister has it all planned out?”

  Geena hadn’t thought of it that way. “But don’t your ministers ramble and go off on bunny trails?”

  “Some do. Some are long winded. But some get right to the point. Those are the ones you can tell have forgotten about themselves—they’re just trying to share the word of the Lord because they love it so much. They talk from the heart.” She put the book back on the table. “Maybe . . . you shouldn’t try to preach like your father. Maybe you should just try to be yourself.” She threw her hands up in the air. “Listen to me! What do I know about preaching?” She shook her head. “Thank you for your help this week. I’m glad you came to Eagle Hill, Geena. You’ve been a blessing to us.”

  13

  On Monday morning, Bethany made pancakes for Sammy and Luke while Rose finished packing for the trip to Philadelphia. Allen Turner stood patiently by the open trunk of his car, waiting for suitcases to appear. Mammi Vera stood beside the car, frowning at Allen Turner, standing vigil. She didn’t like him or trust him, but that was only because she thought he was creating trouble for Tobe. She couldn’t understand that he was trying to help him.

  Rose was bustling around the kitchen, giving Bethany and Mim last-minute instructions for the inn.

  “We’ll be fine, Rose,” Bethany said. “Besides, as long as this heat wave continues, we’re not going to get any new guests.”

  “The weather is supposed to cool down,” Rose said. “I told Geena she could move into the house while I’m away if she’d like to stay longer.”

  “Mammi Vera did not like hearing that!” Mim said, grinning. “She said Mom is turning Eagle Hill into a boardinghouse.”

  “Allen Turner paid us for staying for the weekend,” Rose said, scribbling down some instructions on a piece of paper. “He insisted.” She glanced at Bethany, then stopped writing and straightened up, looking at Bethany for a long moment. “You look exhausted. Didn’t you sleep well?”