At Home in Pleasant Valley

by Marta Perry

  “You wouldn’t,” Anna said again, searching for a way to convince him of what she saw so clearly. “You’re not someone who gives up once you’ve set your hand to something.”

  Surely his endless patience with the horses, his steadfast determination to run the shop for Joseph, proved that.

  He was shaking his head, and she put her hand to his cheek, wanting to stop him. To comfort him. But his skin was warm against her hand, and the touch sent that warmth shimmering along her skin.

  He looked at her, something startled and aware visible in his eyes even in the dim light. The breath caught in her throat.

  Then his head came down, and their lips met. She ought to pull away, but she couldn’t. She caressed his cheek, felt his arms go around her, drawing her close, and lost herself in his kiss.

  After a long, dizzying moment he drew his lips away slowly. Reluctantly, it seemed. He brushed a trail of kisses across her cheek before he pulled back and looked at her.

  “I didn’t mean for that to happen,” he said gravely.

  “Neither did I.” She could only be surprised that her voice sounded so calm.

  “But I’m not sorry.” A smile lit his face with tenderness. “I’m not sure what it means, but I’m not sorry.”

  He rose, clasped her hands for an instant and then let them go. “Good night, Anna. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  She put her fingers to her lips, watching him stride off toward his place until the gathering dusk hid him from view. She didn’t know what it meant either, but for once, she wasn’t running away.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Are you still working on that old corn binder?”

  Samuel looked up at the sound of Joseph’s voice to see him leaning in the shop doorway. “As you can see. This time I’m going to get it working if I have to rebuild it from scratch. Should you be out here?”

  Joseph moved a few more steps, listing a bit, and lowered himself to the wooden chair next to the desk. He was still hurting, clearly.

  “Not according to your sister. She put me in a chair in the yard like she was putting a puppy in a pen and told me to stay there.”

  Samuel grinned. “Myra’s getting a bit bossy, I’d say. Still, maybe you ought to go back out there and behave before she catches you. She might blame me.”

  Although truth to tell, he was glad to have some company about now. It might keep him from reliving over and over those moments with Anna last evening. He kept catching himself staring into space with a silly grin on his face.

  “Ach, it’s not going to hurt me to sit here a bit instead of out there in the yard. I’ll take the blame if Myra catches me.”

  “That you will.” Samuel tinkered with a stiff bolt, finding that his stubborn imagination still refused to be diverted from the image of Anna’s face in the moonlight.

  The why of it was simple, wasn’t it? Anna had been a lovely girl, one anybody would want to kiss. When she’d come back, a grown woman, he’d thought at first that she looked hard, with her English clothes and her tight, wary expression.

  Changing to Amish dress had made her fit in, but it had taken time for the wariness to fade. She probably hadn’t even realized how her expression had countered her clothing.

  Now it seemed that the bright, sassy manner and pert look of her teenage years had mellowed into a very appealing maturity.

  Joseph’s chair squeaked as he moved. “Do you think Anna is settling down all right?”

  The question, coming out of the blue, made Samuel instantly guilty. Did Joseph know about last night? How could he? Anna wouldn’t have gone in the house and said she’d been kissing him—that was certain-sure.

  Samuel cleared his throat. “She seems contented enough.”

  At least he thought that was true. They had all been too busy since the accident to do much sitting around and thinking, except for Joseph, who probably had too much time for that.

  “Ja, she does,” Joseph agreed. “And she’s keeping busy, what with helping Myra and taking care of the boppli.”

  “Then what has you so worried?” A thread of uneasiness went through Samuel.

  “I guess I was just thinking about the girl she used to be, always running from one thing to the next, always so enthusiastic. She’s changed.”

  Samuel sat back on his heels. Joseph’s thoughts were following the same trail as his, though not for the same reason.

  “She’s grown up, is all. She probably took some hard knocks out there in the English world. That would change anyone.” It had changed him.

  “I guess.” Joseph’s gaze seemed to look into the past. “When I think about how she used to be, I remember that we all wished she’d settle down, especially when every boy in the district was looking at her.” He smiled. “You, too, as I recall.”

  “Ach, no, not me.” Samuel studied the bolt he’d just detached. “Well, maybe I looked at her from time to time. Such a pretty girl, who wouldn’t look?”

  “Well, then,” Joseph began.

  “I knew she’d never have time for someone like me,” he added quickly. “I was too much a stick-in-the-mud for Anna.”

  He hadn’t been last night, though. He wasn’t the only one enjoying that kiss. They’d both grown and changed in the past three years.

  “That Anna never wanted to take responsibility for anything.” Joseph stretched a bit and then winced, putting his hand to his side. “Then the baby was dropped in her lap. Nothing takes more responsibility than being a parent does.”

  “True.” Samuel gave Joseph a questioning look. “But I’m thinking you surely didn’t come out here to talk about how your sister has changed. What is worrying you about her?”

  “Not worrying, exactly.” Joseph linked his hands together. “Just thinking about Myra and the new boppli. Myra’s getting so she depends on Anna a lot.”

  Samuel mulled that over for a moment. “You’re afraid Anna might go off and leave Myra flat, is that it?”

  He had to admit that the thought had crossed his own mind a time or two. The longer someone spent in the English world, the less likely it was that he or she would ever come back to stay.

  “It could happen. I don’t want to think that, either for Anna’s sake or ours.” Joseph’s forehead furrowed, the lines of his face deepening. “Myra needs all the support she can get right now. This worrying about the boppli . . .” He let that trail off.

  “I know,” Samuel said softly. “I am praying about it, too.”

  Joseph nodded, the corners of his mouth pinching in. “If only there was something I could do to make this waiting easier for Myra. Whenever she sees me looking at her, she puts on this smile like everything is fine. It near to breaks my heart.”

  If Joseph could do something, anything, he probably wouldn’t fret so much. It was the inactivity that was eating at him, as much as anything, Samuel guessed. Joseph was used to working hard, dawn to dusk, not sitting in a chair, waiting to heal.

  He gestured toward the corn binder’s innards, knowing they made more sense to Joseph than to him. “Can you take a little look at this? Would it do any gut to tear this down already?”

  Bending forward, Joseph peered at the machine, but he quickly sat back with a muttered exclamation. “Ach, I can’t get my eyes to focus enough even to see. What if I never do? What will happen then?”

  “Your eyes will heal,” Samuel said quickly, regretting that he’d said anything about the binder.

  “How do you know?” It was nearly a snarl.

  “They will.” He tried to sound sure. “You just have to give it time, like the doctor said.”

  Joseph nodded, but Samuel didn’t think he was convinced.

  Nor was he himself convinced. He’d been hoping that in a week or two, Joseph would be able to come back to the shop. If he couldn’t . . .

  Well, if he couldn’t, then Samue
l would carry on, even though he was beginning to think he might want to work at something other than the machine shop for the rest of his life.

  Maybe he’d have begun to think that anyway, once he’d started working with that horse of Mr. Bartlett’s. But Anna had something to do with the turn his thoughts had been taking lately. She’d stirred him up, making him think of possibilities. Maybe he’d been too mired in routine since he’d come back.

  That was one characteristic that hadn’t changed about Anna. She’d always come into any group and sparked it up. She might have grown up in many ways, but she still seemed to have that effect on people.

  On him.

  • • •

  If any of her friends from Chicago could see her, they wouldn’t believe their eyes. Anna knelt in the garden, picking the last of the peppers for the relish she’d told Myra she’d make.

  She held a bell pepper in her hand, feeling the weight of it, then lifted it to her nose to inhale its freshness. Her city friends thought relish was something you bought at the grocery store.

  She knew perfectly well what she was doing. She was keeping her mind occupied and her hands busy so she wouldn’t think about those moments with Samuel. Those kisses.

  It was funny, how she’d ignored him when she was a teenager. He was Joseph’s friend, nothing else. She’d thought him slow and maybe not too bright.

  But there’d been nothing slow about those kisses. And Samuel was bright enough when it came to the horses he trained, to say nothing of how he kept the shop going and supported Myra and Joseph.

  Standing, Anna stretched her back and glanced over at the cucumber vines to see if any cukes remained, but the vines were brown and withering.

  A movement caught her eye. Samuel came out of the shop and started for the house. Then he spotted her. He veered off the straight course and headed for the garden. A flutter of excitement in the pit of her stomach made her feel as if she were sixteen again.

  “Anna.” A smile teased the corners of his mouth. “Busy, I see.”

  “I told Myra I’d make some end-of-the-garden relish this afternoon. If I haven’t forgotten how to do it, that is.”

  “It’ll come back to you.” He pushed his straw hat back on his head, glancing at the farmhouse, his brows drawing down. “Myra chased Joseph back into the house a bit ago. I hope he didn’t overdo it, coming out to the shop.”

  “You didn’t have him hauling any machinery, did you?” She tilted her head back to smile at him, her instinctive reaction startling her a little. Was she actually flirting with him?

  It had been so long, she wasn’t quite sure. For the past year she’d been so busy and burdened just struggling to survive that she hadn’t even thought about men.

  “No, I didn’t.” His smile flickered. “He’s not getting better as fast as he thinks he should. He wants to be back at work in the shop. I think he’s secretly convinced that nobody can do it as well as he can.”

  “I don’t believe that. He was just saying this morning what a great job you and Matthew and Daadi are doing. He feels bad that you can’t spend more time with the horses, I know.”

  Samuel’s broad shoulders moved in a shrug. “It makes no matter.”

  “But it’s important to you. Working with Mr. Bartlett’s animals could open new doors for you.” She was probably saying too much, but wanted him to have his chance.

  “Ach, I can be patient about that. It will work out as God wills.”

  Anna picked up the basket. “I’ve never been especially patient.”

  The fine sun lines around his eyes crinkled. “I remember that about you, Anna. You always had to push things along to make them happen faster.”

  “I guess so.” Memories pricked at her. “Sometimes that didn’t work out so well.”

  “Was it better, out among the English? Did things go fast enough for you there?”

  He stood there as patient as if he had all day to talk to her. Maybe it was that patience that had tricked her into thinking him slow.

  “Things were always happening out there, I guess. The months went by so quickly. It was all I could do to get by, especially after Gracie was born. I didn’t have time to think about whether I was bored or not.”

  He nodded. “I found it hard to keep up out there. Even knowing English, it was still like they were all talking a different language. And so fast. I’d be sorting out one thing and they were on to something else.”

  She remembered that feeling. “Once all I heard was English around me, I found I started to get better.”

  “Maybe you were more ready for it than I was,” Samuel said.

  She considered that. “When I left, I thought I was prepared because I had English friends. I wasn’t.”

  Those first months had been indescribably difficult. A dozen times she’d been ready to come home, but something—pride, maybe, or stubbornness—had kept her going.

  “We weren’t intended to be prepared for English life,” Samuel said. His eyes seemed to warm as they rested on her face. “Now that you’re back, you’re living a life you’re prepared for. Even down to remembering how to make garden relish.”

  She laughed. “That’s yet to be seen. But I’d best get going on it.”

  “One thing, first.” He paused, as if not sure how to say it. “The county fair opens on Wednesday.”

  He stopped, and she waited. “Ja?” she said finally, when it seemed he was stuck.

  He cleared his throat. “Joseph wants me to go and look over the equipment displays. I thought . . . well, maybe you would want to go with me.”

  For a moment she could only stare at him. Her instinctive reaction was to pull back. It had been too long. She wasn’t ready.

  “That . . . that would be nice, but I can’t leave Gracie with Myra. She has enough to do.”

  “We can take Gracie along. She will like to see all the animals.”

  Anna had a sudden image of the three of them walking around the fair, looking like a family. “Samuel, I can’t. People would say that we are courting.”

  He lifted an eyebrow. “Is that such a bad thing? Anyway, I thought Anna Beiler didn’t care what folks thought about her. Ain’t so?”

  That had been the old Anna Beiler, the one who was careless with the people she loved. Now she knew better. If you lived in a community, you had to care what people thought.

  But she also knew she wanted to go. She wanted to have a day with Samuel and the baby, to see how they were together.

  It meant stepping into deep water, didn’t it? Did she have the courage?

  She took a breath. “Ja, Samuel. Gracie and I would like to go to the fair with you.”

  • • •

  The house hadn’t been this quiet since the day she and Gracie had arrived. Anna washed vegetables in the sink, trusting that neither of the two little girls would wake from her nap when she was in the midst of making the relish.

  It was certain-sure that if one woke, the other would, too. Already Sarah and Gracie were more like sisters than cousins, looking for each other first thing every day.

  She paused, staring down at the pepper in her hand. It was irrational, wasn’t it, to feel almost . . . well, jealous that Gracie had so many other people in her life now. But for all these months, she’d been everything to Gracie. And Gracie to her.

  If that changed . . . well, it should, shouldn’t it? Amish or English, children grew, and their worlds grew, too, becoming larger than just mommy and baby. Maybe the question she was really skirting around was whether she ought to be moving into a relationship with Samuel.

  What relationship? She called on the skeptical part of her mind. A few kisses, a single outing together . . . that didn’t make a relationship. In modern society—but she wasn’t in modern society, was she?

  She got out the wooden chopping board, as comfortable now in
Myra’s kitchen as she’d been in her own tiny nook of a kitchenette back in Chicago. It had been a relief to come in from the garden and find that Joseph was taking a nap, apparently tired out from walking this morning, and Myra had gone to the store for groceries. That had put off the moment when Anna would have to tell them that she and Gracie were going to the fair with Samuel.

  Not that Joseph and Myra would raise any objection. Quite the contrary. They’d have trouble hiding their elation, probably, and that would be enough to make Anna want to back out.

  Maybe she should anyway. Maybe . . . The sound of a car in the driveway cut short that line of thought. She leaned over to look out the window over the sink, to see Rosemary sliding out of her late-model SUV.

  Anna dried her hands on the dish towel and went to the door. She hadn’t expected to see the English neighbor again so soon. She’d enjoyed their conversation and the taste Rosemary had given her of the world she still missed, but she suspected none of the family would smile upon her developing a friendship with an Englischer, thinking it too tempting. Which it probably was.

  “Rosemary, how nice to see you.” She reached the door before the woman could knock. “Myra is out now. She’ll be so sorry she missed you.”

  “No problem.” Rosemary took the open door as an invitation and walked into the kitchen, her glance sweeping over the peppers, onions, and cauliflower on the counter. “Looks busy in here. I was hoping you’d have time for a cup of coffee.”

  “There’s a pot on the stove,” Anna assured her. “I’d love your company, as long as you don’t mind if I keep on with this. I’m afraid the girls will be up from their naps before I’ve finished.”

  “Always busy,” Rosemary commented, making herself at home and pouring her own mug of coffee. “I never saw anybody who liked work as much as the Amish.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I saw some pretty fierce workaholics when I lived in Chicago.”

  “Was that where you were?” Rosemary came to lean on the counter next to her, carrying the mug, obviously ready for a chat.

  Anna nodded, sorry she’d let that slip. She’d be better off to keep that part of her life private. Still, what could it hurt for Rosemary to know she’d lived in Chicago?