Heart in Hand: Stitches in Time Series #3

by Barbara Cameron

  “Everything’s fine.” She looked around her. “Spring’s finally here.”

  Leah nodded. “Gideon will be busy planting soon.”

  Anna nodded.

  “He didn’t come for a knitting lesson this past week.”

  “No, he couldn’t make it. He dropped off Sarah Rose. But you know that.” She turned to her grandmother and sighed. “You and your questions. You’re relentless.”

  “I’ve heard your cousins call you that when you wanted to know something.” Leah smiled. “Where do you think you got it?”

  Anna laughed and shook her head. “Not from my mother. She’s one of the quietest women I know.”

  “True.” Leah’s smile faded, and she patted Anna’s hand. “What’s happened, kind? Are things not working out with Gideon?”

  “I don’t know. Something happened last time.” She twisted one of the ribbons of her kapp around her finger. “He started saying he wasn’t sure that I was ready to be dating him because he’d heard I often went to the cemetery to see Samuel.”

  Leah’s eyes widened.

  “I hadn’t heard that. And I think someone would have told me. They’d have been worried about you and think I should know.”

  “Exactly.” She hesitated. “I got to wondering if maybe he’s changed his mind and he’s looking for a reason to back away.”

  She put her hand to her mouth when her lips trembled. “I’m not going to feel sorry for myself. I think only of him, but if he’s wanting to back away, then, well, I have to wonder if he’s not the man God set aside for me.” She shook her head. “I’m confused.”

  “Well, don’t get ahead of yourself,” Leah cautioned. “No relationship goes perfectly smoothly.”

  “Mine with Samuel did.” Anna lifted her chin. “We never fought.”

  Leah grinned. “That’s because he adored you and let you have your way.”

  Anna compressed her lips, and then she laughed and nodded. “Mostly.” She sighed. “And maybe I’m just like so many other widows who remember our late husbands in a better light than we did when they were alive.

  “Samuel was everything to me. He was a friend first and a protector of me, stepping in to make another boy stop teasing me in school, and then one day we looked at each other and had that first kiss.”

  She blushed. “And I knew then that I wanted to be with him for the rest of my days.”

  She drew in a deep breath. “You know, I was so happy with Samuel. I’m not willing to settle for less. God sent someone along for you. He’ll do it for me.”

  Leah smiled and squeezed Anna’s hand. “Good for you.”

  A woman walked up and stopped in front of them. “Oh, I must be early. I thought you were open at eight.”

  “We are. Naomi’s inside, and we’ll be right in, Mrs. Selby.”

  “No hurry,” she said. “Oh, look, she’s in the window.” She walked inside the shop.

  “Window?” Anna said, momentarily confused. Then, when she glanced over her shoulder, she saw Naomi wave, then go back to redoing the display window.

  “It’s time to get to work.”

  As mistakes went, Gideon figured he’d made one of the biggest of his life.

  Not only did he miss Anna, but his daughter had been registering her disapproval of him all week.

  He stirred the soup in the pot on the stove and shut off the gas flame beneath it. “Supper’s ready. You’ll have to finish your homework after.”

  The night before, he’d tried making her finish, but all that had accomplished was to make him wait a half hour for his meal.

  Her lower lip stuck out as she scribbled on her paper. “I’m almost finished.”

  “Five minutes,” he compromised. “If you’re not done then, we’ll eat and you can do your homework and go to bed.”

  She looked up, her eyes stormy. “No bedtime story?”

  “Not if there’s no time.”

  The lower lip pushed out even more.

  “Watch out, you’ll trip over it,” he murmured.

  “What?”

  He bit back his grin. “Nothing.”

  She lifted her head and sniffed. “What are we having?”

  Here it was. The big question. So far this week he hadn’t pleased her once. “We’re having Three Bear Soup and grilled cheese sandwiches.”

  She opened her mouth to object and then, to his surprise, shut it. Her pencil zoomed across the paper, and one minute later she was done and closing her notebook. She got up and started setting the table. When she put three bowls on the table, his heart sank. Would it be Anna she hoped would appear for supper?

  Or the imaginary kitty she’d invented when he hadn’t let her bring Anna’s kitten home?

  “Who’s the bowl for?” he asked, hoping she wasn’t going to bring Anna up again.

  “It’s not for her. It’s for Kitty.”

  “Sarah Rose, put the bowl back. You don’t have a kitty, and if you did, it wouldn’t be allowed to eat at the table.”

  She stared at him for a long moment and then, with a long-suffering sigh, picked the bowl up and flounced over to the cupboard to put it back.

  Gideon carried the pot of soup to the table, then piled the sandwiches onto a plate and set it next to the soup. They took their seats and bent their heads in prayer, then he served her soup and half a sandwich.

  “Why do they call it Three Bear Soup?” he asked as he tasted a spoonful.

  “Because it’s what the three bears had on the stove when Goldilocks went to their house,” she said, taking a big bite of her sandwich. “And it wasn’t too hot; it wasn’t too cold; it was just right. Just like the beds.” She slurped some from her spoon.

  Before he could admonish her on her table manners, she smiled at him. “It’s good, all warm in my tummy.”

  He decided to hold off on the table manners lecture. Maybe his making her one of her favorite meals was thawing her out a little.

  “Are you going to see Anna tomorrow after church?”

  “I am. Do you want another half sandwich?”

  “Yes.” Then, “Thank you,” she added. “Where are we going?”

  “You’re going to visit with your grandmother, remember? She told me she has something planned for the two of you to do.”

  “I’d rather go with you and Anna.”

  “Sorry, not this time.”

  “But why?”

  She was so persistent, he couldn’t help thinking for probably the thousandth time since she’d started talking. Where had she gotten such a trait? He wasn’t like that. Mary hadn’t been.

  “Sometimes adults need to spend time with each other.”

  She frowned and started to say something, but he got up quickly, went to the refrigerator, and pulled a carton of ice cream from the freezer. A war immediately raged in his daughter—sulkiness warred with an interest in the ice cream Gideon had brought to the table.

  “Do you want some?” he asked her casually as he filled a dish with scoops of butter pecan.

  “Yes!” She got up and took their plates to the sink.

  By the time she came back to the table, he’d set the dish at her place.

  “Kitty just said she wanted some.”

  Grateful for the change in subject, Gideon got a saucer from the cupboard, placed a small scoop on it, and set it next to Sarah Rose’s. “Just this once,” he said.

  “Sarah Rose told me you made her Three Bear Soup last night,” Jenny Bontrager said as Gideon went into the kitchen after church. “I’m glad she likes it so much.”

  “I appreciated you giving me the recipe,” he told her, bending to hug his daughter. “It’s easy to make.”

  She smiled. “I wasn’t the best cook when I got married.” She gave her daughter Annie a sharp glance. “No comments from the peanut gallery.”

  “Peanut gallery?” Sarah Rose looked up at Gideon. “Why is she calling you that?”

  Annie laughed. “Mamm talks a little funny sometimes. She was Englisch befor
e she became Amish.”

  “I do not!” But Jenny was smiling as she worked with the other women to set out the after-church light meal.

  “But what’s a peanut gallery?” Sarah Rose, persistent as ever, wanted to know.

  Gideon couldn’t help thinking he wished it was as easy to get Anna to forgive him as it had been Sarah Rose last night. If only Three Bear Soup, grilled cheese sandwiches, and butter pecan ice cream . . .

  Instead, she regarded him with some wariness as they got into his buggy after church and set out for a ride. He glanced at her a couple of times as they pulled away from the Bontrager house, and he felt her look at him.

  “I brought a picnic lunch,” he told her. “Or we can go to a restaurant if you’d rather.”

  “No point wasting food.”

  He nodded. “Let’s go to that little park with the pond.”

  When she stiffened, he remembered that was the park where they’d had the picnic. Maybe it wasn’t wise to take her back there . . .

  “Wherever you want is fine,” she said before he could suggest someplace else.

  Gideon wondered if it was a good sign that she was being agreeable. But she didn’t smile and didn’t say anything. He didn’t think that boded well for their discussion.

  They spread a quilt on the grass. He put sandwiches he knew were her favorites and a pile of potato chips on paper plates. But she didn’t eat.

  His mouth suddenly dry, Gideon twisted off the cap on a bottle of water and drank. Okay, this wasn’t going to be easy. But it had to be done.

  “Anna, I’m sorry for what I said last week,” he said simply. Taking off his hat, he ran a hand through his hair. “I’ve been feeling restless lately. It didn’t seem that things were moving as fast as I was hoping. So I figured you were holding back because you weren’t ready.”

  “Gideon, we talked about taking things slowly right at the start.”

  “I know.”

  “And even when everything was moving smoothly and we were madly . . .” she hesitated, then lifted her chin and looked at him directly, “even if we were madly in love, we couldn’t get married until the fall, after the harvest.”

  “I know.”

  “You hurt me,” she blurted out. “You decided something about me that wasn’t true based on what someone said about me. That wasn’t fair. You told me. You didn’t ask.”

  “You’re right.”

  “One person’s not supposed to be the sole decider in a relationship.”

  He hadn’t ever heard the word decider used before, but what he remembered of her in school was that she loved to read. Besides, he knew what she meant. He’d decided—he’d assumed—something that day when he’d told and not asked if she went to the cemetery to visit Samuel’s grave often.

  That assuming . . . suddenly he thought he might know how to get her to forgive him.

  “I made an assumption,” he told her, emphasizing the first the three letters in the word. “So we know what I made of myself.”

  He saw the corners of her mouth lift just a little. But then she pressed her lips together, and he knew she wasn’t going to let him off the hook so easily.

  “You always were good at charming your way out of things.”

  “Just our teacher. Not Mary. She didn’t let me get away with anything. And I can tell you won’t, either.”

  She lowered her eyes, then looked out at the pond. “You talked about feeling restless. About being impatient. Maybe it’s because you should date someone else.”

  “What?”

  “Maybe you should date someone else.”

  “Why would I want to do that?” Feeling panic rise up inside him, Gideon searched her face, trying desperately to understand what was going on.

  “I’ve been thinking about what you said,” she told him. “Maybe you’re feeling restless because things aren’t going as well as you’d hoped, and you’re worried you won’t have someone to marry in the fall.”

  “Now don’t go putting words in my mouth!” His voice was sharper than he wanted it to be, but he couldn’t help it.

  She smiled slightly. “How does it feel?”

  He scowled. “That’s not funny.”

  “Can you understand how it felt to have someone just decide?”

  “I didn’t think,” he admitted.

  “I wouldn’t do that to you,” she said quietly. “I wouldn’t let you think I cared about you and still be pining for Samuel.” She sighed. “You know there’s never a point where you say to yourself that you’re over someone you love and you’re ready to move on. But I did open my heart to you, Gideon, and it feels like you just handed it back.”

  She got to her feet and walked down to the water’s edge, standing there with her arms wrapped around herself.

  Her words hung in the air between them, damning him. He sensed that what he said next would make all the difference between them, and it terrified him. She’d said he was good at getting out of trouble, and he had been when he was younger and got into trouble at school.

  But he wasn’t as charming, as glib as she thought—at least not as she seemed to think. Maybe he’d settled down a bit because he’d married Mary and they’d made a home on the farm and started a family. Losing Mary had shaken him to the core, sobering him, making him appreciate the life they’d created together. Making him know that he wanted the joy and yes, even marriage again.

  But Anna hadn’t seen that side of him. They’d bonded in the beginning over shared pain of losing a spouse and her helping him figure out how to deal with Sarah Rose’s difficulty with losing her mother.

  Then he’d wanted to get past that and be a couple starting their own story. Their late spouses would always be a part of them, but it was time to write a new chapter.

  He wondered whether he’d been a little jealous of Samuel, wanting Anna to think only of him once they started dating. So he’d jumped to the conclusion that she’d been visiting Samuel’s grave often. He was surprised that she hadn’t said he had a double standard—he visited Mary’s, but maybe she realized that lately it was more for Sarah Rose’s sake so that she could leave cards and flowers for her mother.

  Gideon got to his feet and walked down to join her. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “It wasn’t fair of me to question whether you’re ready to be dating. You’re right—you wouldn’t do that to me or to Sarah Rose.”

  He held out his hand, hoping she’d take it. To his relief, she did, although he sensed her reluctance.

  “And I don’t want to hear any more about maybe I should date someone else,” he said. “You’re the one for me. I’m going to prove it to you.”

  When he saw her eyes widen with surprise, he knew he was going to win her trust again.

  And there could be no more worthy pursuit.

  “I can climb up myself,” Sarah Rose told him as he lifted her into the buggy. “I’m a big girl.”

  “You are,” he agreed. “But let your daedi enjoy helping you. After all, your hands are full carrying that basket and your tote. By the way, what do you have in it?” It was too small for her knitting—that was why she had the tote bag slung over her shoulder.

  “Kitty is going with us to the store,” Sarah Rose told him. “I put a ball of yarn in the basket for her so she could play with it while we knit.”

  He didn’t know what to say. No matter how he’d talked to her she was firm in her belief that she had a new kitten. She talked to it, played with it, even said she was taking it to bed with her at night. Since it was imaginary, he could hardly tell her she couldn’t tuck it in with her under her quilt . . .

  And he couldn’t tell her the kitten couldn’t go into the shop, either.

  Anna just smiled when he came into the back room where she was taking a break before the lesson.

  “I think that’s sweet,” she told him, pouring him a mug of coffee before she turned back to stir a pan of hot chocolate.

  “What’s sweet?” asked Thelma. “Other than that adorabl
e little girl of yours, Gideon.”

  She nodded when Anna held up the coffee pot, silently asking Thelma if she wanted a cup.

  He rolled his eyes. “Well, thank you, but she’s a bit mischievous this past week. She’s decided she has a kitten.”

  “Oh, well, that’s nice. It’s good for a child to have a pet. Teaches them responsibility.”

  Anna chuckled. “It’s an imaginary one. Gideon doesn’t want her to have a kitten yet.”

  “Oh, I see,” Thelma said. “Well, one of my kids had an imaginary pet, too. But as I remember it, it was a dragon, and my son said it ran away about six months after it moved into his room.”

  She poured a generous amount of cream into her coffee and turned. “Well, hello, Sarah Rose.”

  “Hello,” the girl said politely. “Anna, can I have some hot chocolate?”

  “May I?” her father prompted automatically.

  “May I?”

  “Of course. I’ve already started it for you.”

  Thelma sneezed. She plucked up a paper napkin from the coffee tray and dabbed at her nose.

  “God bless you,” Anna, Gideon, and Sarah Rose told her.

  “Achoo! Achoo!” Thelma said loudly.

  “Goodness, are you all right?” Anna asked her.

  Thelma nodded. “Why, yes,” she said, nodding. “Hmm. I don’t usually sneeze like this except when there’s a cat around. I’m allergic, you know.”

  Anna and Gideon exchanged a look. “No, I didn’t know,” Anna told her.

  Sarah Rose moved the basket she was carrying in one hand to behind her back.

  “Well, I’m going to go sit down out in the shop,” Thelma said. “Lettie’s here and I’m dying to find out how her vacation was.”

  Anna set the cup of hot chocolate on the table for Sarah Rose. “Be careful. It’s hot.”

  Nodding, Sarah Rose took a seat and blew on the hot drink, smiling when her breath made the little marshmallows Anna had added bob and swirl around on the surface.

  A few minutes later, after the three of them had finished their hot drinks, Sarah Rose stood. “I’m going to leave Kitty here, so Thelma won’t sneeze.”

  Anna and Gideon looked at each other, and he nodded. “Good idea.”