“Your parents? They are missing you, I would think.”
She saw his hand tighten into a fist, but just as quickly, it relaxed again. There was a story there, and she wanted to hear it.
He nodded. “Jah. I imagine they are.”
And that was it. One short sentence. She could tell by his expression that he wasn’t of a mind to share anything further with her. She suddenly felt ridiculous to think that he would. They were virtual strangers, after all. She needed to keep her mind and curiosity under control.
She picked up a few of the books he’d selected and looked at their spines. “Maybe I should check these out and study them at home,” she said, reverting to a very business-like tone.
“You have a library card?”
“I’ve had it since I was a child. Granted, I haven’t used it much lately, but I suppose it will still work.”
He restacked all the books. “Sounds like a gut idea.”
She stood so quickly, and her chair nearly toppled over behind her. She caught it and pushed it under the table. Gathering up the books in her arms, she began to walk toward the check-out counter.
“Rhoda?”
She stopped and turned back to him.
“Thank you. Can I stop by later this week and see what you think?”
She bit her lip. She’d like nothing more than having him stop over. She was ready to respond when he continued. “I’ll have to find someone else if you’d rather not do it. Which is all right, by the way.”
He gave her a frank look, and her heart sank. For some reason, she was thinking that she was his only choice. How silly. Of course, he’d search out someone else with bees if she said no. She wasn’t special to him. She simply had the bees he needed.
He stood and took a step toward her. “I appreciate you coming to the library.” The expression on his face was charming. There was no other word for it. The man was nearing thirty, but his boyish good looks made him ageless. She found herself grinning.
“Why don’t you come to supper on Friday? Mamm would surely like to meet you.” She surprised herself by offering the invitation. It was odd to invite a single man to dinner, but then, it wasn’t like the two of them would be alone. Her mother would be there. Besides, this was business.
He appeared surprised by her invitation, too, but he agreed quickly. “That’d be right nice. Six o’clock all right?”
“Jah. Six o’clock. We’ll be ready.” She turned and walked to the counter, hugging the books to her chest. She already knew she was going to say yes to renting her bees. She wondered whether she would be so ready to agree if he weren’t so appealing. Or so single.
Ach. Of course, I would. That has nothing to do with it.
Chapter Five
Rhoda wasn’t the best cook, but her mother was. “Mamm, we’re having company for supper this Friday.”
“Oh?” Winnie looked both startled and pleased. “Who’s coming? Is it Bart? Or Donna maybe? Or Martha and the children?” She clapped her hands together. “Or is it all of them! Oh, that would be wonderful gut.”
“Nee, Mamm. It’s Aaron Raber.”
“Aaron Raber?” Her forehead scrunched into a deep wrinkle. “Who’s he?”
Rhoda sat down beside Winnie on the davenport. “He’s new in the district. He comes from Ohio. He took over the Stutzman place.”
Winnie clicked her tongue. “Such a shame about the Stutzmans. Having to pull out and leave like that.” She shook her head. “Such a shame.”
“Anyway, Aaron’s going to revive the orchards—”
“Ach!” Winnie interrupted. “A real waste of time. That’s what drove the Stutzmans out, you know.”
Rhoda felt a strong urge to defend Aaron’s decision, but she let it pass. “Well, be that as it may, he is still planning to grow apples. And he needs my bees.”
“What’s he want honey for? You work hard for that honey. Why! The nerve of that man.”
“Mamm.” Rhoda’s tone was sharper than she intended. “He doesn’t want the honey. He wants the bees to pollinate his blossoms.”
“Bees roam free. They’ll pollinate his blossoms if they fly that way.”
“He wants to rent my hives. He wants me to set them up in his orchard early in the season.”
“Aw.” Winnie frowned as if she was studying the idea. “Well, we usually have left-overs for supper. But I think a nice roast would do well.”
Rhoda smiled. “I was thinking the same. And your biscuits, maybe? Can you make them?”
Winnie snorted. “Of course, I can make them. And won’t your father be pleased? He does love my biscuits.” She laughed, a thin cackle filling the room. “Your dat used to joke about me entering my biscuits in the county fair. He said they’d win grand prize.”
Winnie reached out and touched Rhoda’s arm, still laughing. “There ain’t no category for biscuits!”
Rhoda smiled, but her heart squeezed within her. Winnie was talking more and more about her husband as if he was alive. And Rhoda felt more and more uncomfortable around it. Did this mean her mother was moving closer to the hereafter?
“Wait till I tell Zeb about all this. Renting bees. Never heard such foolishness. He’ll get a good laugh.” Winnie rose as if she was going out to look for her dead husband.
Rhoda jumped up. “I’ll tell him,” she said. “I’ll tell him. You just sit here and rest until dinner. Friday’s not for a few more days in any case.”
“Do we have lard?” Winnie asked. “I’ll need lard, you know. Makes them biscuits so light and fluffy, they could fly.”
“I’ll make sure we have all the ingredients you need.”
Winnie nodded. “Gut. Then, I’ll sit here and rest a spell. You’ll holler if you need me?”
“Of course. Don’t fret.” Rhoda watched her mother sink back down to the davenport. The cushions barely registered her weight. Was she getting thinner? Rhoda let out her breath in a long sigh. Winnie had always been a skinny little thing. But she was eating. Rhoda made sure of it.
“I’ll be outside, Mamm. I need to gather the eggs. I didn’t get to it yet this morning.”
But Winnie had a faraway look in her eyes, and Rhoda knew she hadn’t heard her.
By Wednesday, Rhoda was embarrassed by her level of excitement over the coming Friday evening supper. She’d hardly thought of anything else as she worked around the farm. When she milked the cow and turned it out to pasture, she thought of the supper. When she pulled the last of the summer weeds, she thought of the supper. When she washed the dishes and dusted the house, she thought of the supper. When she hitched Feisty to the cart and went to the Feed & Supply for provisions, she thought of the supper.
She couldn’t get it out of her mind. Nor could she stem her rising excitement.
In truth, it wasn’t the supper she anticipated. It was Aaron Raber sitting at her table. Never before had she felt such eagerness to spend time with a man.
Later, she plucked the last green beans from the tall vines in the garden and dropped them into her basket. There was just enough for a nice fresh mess for the supper. Rhoda actually hummed as she took the basket to the front porch. She set it on the top step and then headed out to check the mail. They rarely got letters, but every once in a while, a round robin letter would come from their relatives in Pennsylvania. Mamm adored those letters, pouring over them for days, squeezing out every detail and embellishing each reported happening until it was as if the event had occurred in their very own backyard.
Rhoda opened the mailbox door and reached in. There was a letter. She pulled it out and looked at it, not recognizing the handwriting. It was addressed to her. How intriguing. She ripped it open.
Dear Rhoda,
I am sorry to say that I will be unable to attend supper this Friday. Thank you anyway.
Sincerely,
Aaron Raber
Rhoda stared at the letter and read it again. And again. She read the short message three times before it really sank in.
&nbs
p; He wasn’t coming.
She swallowed. Why ever not? What had changed between Monday and Wednesday? No… She looked at the postmark. What had changed between Monday and Tuesday? She inhaled sharply. Here she’d been looking forward to the supper for hours and hours when he’d already decided he wasn’t coming.
She wadded up the letter, holding it in her fist.
Surely, there was a good reason. He was a nice person. He wouldn’t cancel on a whim. Or would he? She didn’t know him.
She crammed the wadded up letter back into the envelope. It was just as well. It would save her a mountain of work. And Mamm, too.
Her thoughts went to the plump roast that was thawing in the refrigerator. If she hurried, she could stick it right back into the freezer with no harm done. Her walk back to the house was almost a run. She rushed through to the kitchen and pulled the roast from the fridge. With an angry thrust, she slammed it back into the freezer.
There. It was done.
“Lands sake!” exclaimed Winnie from where she leaned against the doorframe. “What’s got into you?”
Rhoda whirled around to face her mother. She blew out her breath. “He’s not coming.” She tried to make her voice neutral, but it was tight with frustration and disappointment.
“Who? Bart? Why was he coming?” Winnie’s eyes lit up. “Is he bringing the kinner with him?”
Rhoda rested back against the refrigerator. “Nee, Mamm. Bart wasn’t coming—”
“Then, who was?”
“No one.” She went to the sink and poured herself a glass of water. She took a long drink and then looked at Winnie, who was bustling to the cupboard where they kept the plates.
“I better get the table set, hadn’t I? If we’re having company.”
“Mamm,” Rhoda cried, “no one is coming.” She grabbed her mother’s outstretched arms.
“Oh?” Winnie looked confused. “Then why are you in here cooking?”
“I’m not in here cooking.” Rhoda sighed heavily. “Come on. Why don’t you sit out on the porch a while? It’s still warm enough. Soon, it’s going to be too cold to linger outdoors.”
Winnie nodded. “I’d like that. Shall I put on my cape?”
Rhoda hesitated. She was restless and needed to do something—anything. She had to get her mind off the broken invitation. “Wait. I have a better idea. Why don’t we go on over to Bart’s right now? You wanted to see him and the kinner, didn’t you? We’ll visit him.”
Presently, Bart wasn’t her favorite sibling, but she knew her mother would want to go. And it would give Rhoda something to do, someplace to go.
Winnie clapped her hands. “That would be right fine.”
Rhoda needed to talk to Bart anyway. If Matthew agreed to lease their land, she needed to know what price she should ask. In truth, she had no idea. She led Mamm into the wash room and pulled both of their capes from their pegs.
“Would you like to come out to the barn with me while I hitch up Feisty?”
“I’ll help,” Winnie said, following her outside. “You know I’ve hitched plenty of horses in my day.”
Rhoda laughed. “Jah. I know you have.” Rhoda heard Aaron’s letter crinkle in her waistband where she’d tucked it. She should have thrown it away into the warming stove. Well, she didn’t want to go back into the house now.
Winnie clasped Rhoda’s arm and leaned close. “Bart’s trying to take me out of my house.”
Rhoda stopped walking and turned to her mother.
Winnie’s face was pinched. “No use hiding it from me. I’ve heard him talk.”
“We’re not hiding anything, Mamm.”
“You promised me, Rhoda. You promised me that I would die in my own house.”
“I know I did.”
Winnie went stiff. “Is that why we’re going to Bart’s? To make plans to get me out of my house.” She backed up, her eyes wide. “I ain’t going with you, Rhoda. I ain’t!”
“I need to talk to Bart about the fields. This doesn’t have a thing to do with you.” In a roundabout way, it had everything to do with her mother, but she wasn’t inclined to share the details.
“You promised me, Rhoda.”
Her mother’s tone reminded Rhoda of a child on the recess field. When had her mother gone backwards in years? When exactly had Rhoda become the mother and Winnie the child? Because that was what had happened. She couldn’t deny it.
“I love you. Bart loves you. Please stop you’re fretting. Please.” Rhoda took her mother’s hand. “Now, come on. Let’s hitch up the pony.”
Bart’s wife Evelyn was elbow deep in bread dough when Rhoda and Winnie entered the kitchen.
“Ach! I didn’t hear you come,” she said, wiping a smudge of flour onto her forehead. “Mama, it’s nice to see you.”
Evelyn had called Winnie mama since the day she wed Bart. Winnie had always liked it and was quite fond of her daughter-in-law.
“I’m not moving,” Winnie announced. “So get that through your head.”
Evelyn’s eyes flew to Rhoda. Rhoda shrugged and gave her a helpless look.
“No one said anything about moving,” Evelyn said, leaning into her dough again.
“Where are the kinner?” Winnie asked.
Evelyn laughed. “Out and about! They’ve scattered. But no worries. Once they smell this bread, they’ll come a running.”
“Where’s Bart?” Rhoda asked.
“Out in the barn. Didn’t he greet you when you came?”
“Nee.” Rhoda patted her mother’s shoulder. “Mamm, why don’t you have a nice visit with Evelyn while I go talk to Bart?”
Winnie sank down onto a kitchen chair. She waved her hand. “Off with you, then.”
Rhoda gave Evelyn a smile and left the room. Outside, she walked to the barn and peered inside. Bart wasn’t there, but young Evelyn and Gertie were, mucking out a stall.
“Aenti!” cried Evelyn, throwing down her rake.
Rhoda opened her arms, and the girl flew into them. Gertie joined the reunion, although at seven, she had turned a bit shy and simply stood at Rhoda’s side.
“So nice to see you both,” Rhoda said. “Looks like you’re doing a fine job out here. Where’s your dat?”
“Behind the barn, mending the chicken coop,” Evelyn said.
“I need to talk to him.” Rhoda moved through the barn, and the girls started to follow. “Now, girls, get your chores done first. I’ll come back and visit a bit after I talk to your dat.”
Rhoda went outside and around the barn. Bart was on his haunches with a hammer.
“Bart?”
Bart looked back over his shoulder. When he saw Rhoda, he smiled and stood up. “When did you get here?” He dusted off his legs. “Didn’t hear you come? You drive the pony cart?”
Rhoda nodded. “Mamm’s inside with Evelyn.”
“Gut. What do you need?” His forehead creased. “Something wrong at the house?”
“Nee. Nothing’s wrong.” Rhoda took a deep breath. “I approached Matthew about leasing the land.”
Bart took off his hat. “What?”
“You know he and Betty will be married. Probably next month during wedding season. And he won’t be farming his dat’s land. His older brothers are plenty adequate to help. So I thought maybe he’d want to farm ours.”
Bart’s brows gathered into a frown. “You should have told me before you asked him.”
“But you said it was too much for you to farm with all the land here. You said you didn’t want to do it anymore.” Rhoda spoke quickly because she knew Bart was right. As head of the family, he was the one who should have been talking to Matthew.
“Rhoda—”
“All right. I’m sorry. But I’ve promised Mamm that she wouldn’t have to move. And if I can make enough money, we can keep the old house going, and Mamm can stay put.”
“You shouldn’t have promised her that.”
“Well, I did.”
They stood staring at each other, like
some kind of stand-off. After a moment, Rhoda’s shoulders drooped. “I’m sorry, Bart. I should have asked you before talking to Matthew. And you’re right. I shouldn’t have promised Mamm.” She took a step forward. “But I don’t think you understand how important it is to her. She would be lost anywhere else.”
Bart walked to his work bench and straightened some tools, perhaps because he needed a minute to collect his thoughts. Rhoda stood nervously, wondering if he was about to decree something she wasn’t going to like.
He turned to her. “I know that I told you I’d give you the winter…”
Rhoda tensed.
“But I don’t think I should. Farmer’s Almanac says this is going to be a horrid winter. Record-breaking cold. I don’t like the thought of the two of you in that drafty old house alone.”
“It’s not drafty!” Rhoda cried. “And I can put storm windows on.”
“I told Evelyn, and she agrees. You and Mamm should move into the daadi haus. We can even bring your hives over here.”
“Leah is allergic!” Rhoda gaped at him. “I would never bring them over here.”
Bart shrugged. “Then, maybe you could house them with Donna or Martha.”
“Neither of our sisters are interested in my bees. You know that.”
“Rhoda, we’re getting off the subject.”
Rhoda’s eyes stung with tears. “I can’t do it. I can’t tell Mamm.”
“Then I’ll tell her.”
“She’ll hate you.”
“Hate me?” He looked at her, his eyebrows cocked.
Rhoda swallowed. “She won’t like it, Bart. She talks about her dread of leaving all the time. Dat built that house for her, and she wants to live out her life there. If we move her, she could very well up and die.”
“You’re being a bit melodramatic, aren’t you?”
“Nee. Don’t you remember Widow Roth? After her husband died, she didn’t last two months.”
Bart grimaced. “Widow Roth was ill, Rhoda.”
“Nee, she wasn’t. I remember Old Mae said she died of a broken heart. And it was true. She did.” Rhoda felt her world slipping away from her. She didn’t want to leave the house, either. Contrary as it sounded, she liked her independence there. Watching over Mamm could be a burden, but if it meant staying there in her childhood home, she didn’t mind.
Amish Romance: The Amish Beekeeper: A Hollybrook Amish Romance Clean & Wholesome Story (Rhoda's Story Book 1) Page 4