by Beth Wiseman
And she had more to worry about than having a boyfriend. Focusing on the load of fresh compost, she said, “Do you mind dumping it in front of the gaarde?”
“Is that where you’re gonna leave it?”
She shook her head. “I’ll get the wheelbarrow and move it all behind the grienhaus.” It wasn’t exactly a greenhouse. Not yet. But once she finished it, she could garden year-round, focusing on fresh vegetables that were so expensive during the winter months.
“I can do that for you,” he said.
His kindness didn’t help keep her thoughts on an even keel. “That’s all right. I know you’re busy with the farm.”
“They won’t miss me for a few minutes.” He grinned, displaying a deep dimple in each suntanned cheek.
She gripped the edge of the wagon and tried to get a grip on her senses too. “I’ll, uh, get the wheelbarrow.”
He nodded and leapt onto the back ledge of the wagon. She returned a few moments later.
Gideon tossed a shovelful of compost into the rusted three-wheeled barrow. “Looks like this thing has seen better days.”
She regarded the wheelbarrow. Gideon was right. The barrow was old, like everything else around her grandfather’s home. One tire kept losing air and she had to fill it using a bicycle pump at least once a week. Purchasing a new one was low on her list of priorities. Keeping food on the table and paying for gas and propane to keep the lamps lit and the stove going—that’s what mattered most. Which was why her garden was her most important possession in the world. Fortunately their community helped with her grandfather’s blood pressure and heart medications, or they wouldn’t be able to make ends meet.
When the wheelbarrow was nearly full, Gideon plunged the shovel back into the shrinking pile. He jumped down, his huge boots thudding on the gravel drive. He grabbed the handles in his large, strong hands and pushed it through the open garden gate.
Rachael brushed a few stray flecks of compost from her arm and smiled. Whoever married Gideon Beiler would be a lucky woman. Her smile faded. Too bad it wouldn’t be her.
Gideon nearly tripped on a small stone in the winding path through Rachael’s garden. Great. That was all he needed to do, trip over his gigantic feet like he used to when he was a kinn. Although he was twenty-five, the memories of being teased for his gangly frame came up at the worst times. Like now, when he was trying to be nonchalant around Rachael. Keep cool, his Yankee friend would say. But he had never met Rachael Bontrager.
The partially built greenhouse was at the back of her fenced-in plot, near a large patch of perennials thriving in the shade of a huge oak tree. He’d never been this far back in her garden before. Gideon dumped the compost and stepped back, studying the structure. Although it wasn’t complete and the design was crude, he could see the genius behind it. Recycled wood pallets were nailed together to make the floor, and the back wall was constructed from used, mismatched windows. More windows and two old doors were neatly stacked and leaning against the short fence, which upon further inspection, was also made of various pieces of wood.
“Obviously it’s not finished yet.”
He turned at her sweet, lilting voice. He glanced down, meeting her light-green eyes, which reminded him of the beach glass he’d picked up on a fishing trip to Lake Erie a few years ago. They were a stark and beautiful contrast to her dark-brown hair, which was nearly black against the white of her kapp. He focused on the greenhouse again, not wanting her to catch him staring.
“Ya,” he said. Ach, he sounded dumm. Why couldn’t God have blessed him with the gift of smooth speech? And while He was at it, coordination and decent eyesight would be nice. He shoved his glasses up the bridge of his nose for the tenth time that morning. “When did your grossvadder start making it?”
“Winter. And he’s not building it. I am.”
He looked at her. “Where did you get the materials?”
“I guess you haven’t seen my grossdaadi’s barn. It’s stuffed with all kinds of spare parts, scraps of wood, nails, screws . . . all the things he picked up from odd construction jobs.” She touched the back wall, running her fingers across the chipped white paint. “He can’t bear to part with anything.” She turned to Gideon. “So I decided to put some of it to gut use.”
She never failed to surprise him. While most of his time was taken up working their small farm with his father, sometimes he would take a break and sit on the front porch, eating lunch or just enjoying the rest. Often he’d see her working in the garden, from dawn to dusk it seemed, except for when she went to the flea market on Mondays. Even there she was working, selling plants and flowers to both Amish and Yankee customers.
“Mei daed made sure I knew how to use a hammer and nails,” she added. “It comes in handy. I don’t have all the particulars figured out yet, but it will come together.” She grinned. “I can’t wait to have fresh broccoli in the winter. I love broccoli.”
His gaze stayed on her, and all he could do was nod.
“Broccoli salad, broccoli and rice, chicken and broccoli—”
Did she realize how perfect she was? Resourceful, sweet, beautiful? He wished he could tell her that and so much more.
Instead he grabbed the wheelbarrow. “I’ll get the rest of the compost.”
“Uh, okay,” she said.
He hurried away, his cheeks heating. When would he stop acting like a nervous dummkopf around her? And more important . . . when had he started seriously caring for her?
Rachael sighed as Gideon rushed off. Gideon Beiler, short on words, always in a hurry. Then again, why would he stick around to hear her waxing poetic about all things broccoli? Not exactly interesting conversation.
She never should have let him help her move the compost. She was capable of doing it herself. As it was, he gave it to her for free and didn’t charge for delivery. She shouldn’t have taken further advantage of his kindness.
Knowing he would refuse if she offered him money, she looked around the garden, desperate to find something to show her appreciation. But there wasn’t much here, except for the planted perennials, and she couldn’t give him a dug-up plant. Then she spied one of the flower baskets she’d made to sell at the flea market on Monday. When she heard him returning, she grabbed the hanging basket.
After he dumped the compost, he picked up the wheelbarrow by the handles. “One more trip should do it.”
“Here.” She thrust the basket in front of her. Pink Petunias. Just what every man wants. She cringed.
He stared at the basket, now inches from his chest. “Um, nice flowers.”
“They’re for you.” With every word, she dug a deeper hole. One she wanted to disappear into. “I mean, they’re for your familye, er, your mamm. She likes flowers, ya?”
“Ya.” He took the basket from her and set it in the wagon. “She’ll like them.” He pushed the wheelbarrow.
“I just wanted to thank you . . .” But he was already several feet away, his long legs covering a lot of ground.
Rachael looked at the patch of violet Verbena near the gate and rolled her eyes. “I should stick to talking to plants.”
CHAPTER TWO
God writes the Gospel not in the Bible alone, but also on trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars.
—MARTIN LUTHER
After he delivered the compost to Rachael, he went home and put the flower basket on the front porch, then headed for the huge white barn behind the house. The sounds of lowing cows and bleating goats, chomping on sweet timothy grass in the nearby pasture, barely registered in his thoughts. He passed by his mother’s vegetable garden near the small wooden deck attached to the house. While his mother was a good gardener, the small patch paled in comparison to Rachael’s larger, distinct garden. It was stunning, like the woman who cared for it.
He entered the section of the barn where the calves were raised. This spring they’d had five, along with fifteen goats. He and his daed would sell them at auction in the fall, and until then, they—
with the help of his seventeen-year-old sister, Hannah Lynn—would make sure they were fat and healthy.
As he approached their pen, the calves, with their thin legs and awkward gait, hurried toward him, filling the barn with their hungry moos. The smallest one was almost pure white except for the two black patches on either side of her flanks. She slipped on the loose straw on the barn floor, tumbling forward and landing on her face.
Gideon chuckled and knelt down. “Kumm here.”
The cow scrambled to her feet and went to Gideon. He nuzzled her damp nose. “It’s not fun when your legs don’t work right, ya?”
But the cow didn’t seem to care that Gideon could sympathize with her. She and the other calves were ready for their food. He dumped a bag of grain in the trough, and the mooing quickly faded into crunching as they munched on their morning snack.
“About time you got here.” Hannah Lynn walked into the barn.
Gideon turned around, brushing his hands together. Dust from the grain danced in the air. He looked at his younger sister, smelling the morning’s work in the stalls on her. She had on a pair of his old boots, the tops reaching the hem of her blue dress. The boots were about three sizes too big, but she insisted on wearing them. “I’m not that late,” he said.
“You’ve been gone over an hour. I thought you said you’d be right back.”
“Took longer than I thought.”
Hannah Lynn crossed her arms and leaned against the barn pole. “So . . . how’s Rachael?”
Gideon picked up a broom and started sweeping the barn floor. Not that it needed it—they all kept things in good shape around here. He shrugged as he pushed the broom. “Gut.”
“Ask her out yet?”
He nearly lost his grip on the broom. He wished his sister would mind herself instead of him.
She sighed. “Nee, I take it.”
“You can take it however you want.” Gideon pushed the broom harder. A cloud of dust collected in the air.
“I know. It’s none of my business.” Hannah Lynn uncrossed her arms and straightened. “I’m just watching out for you.”
“I don’t need your hovering, little schwester.”
“Then why don’t you start courting Rachael already?”
Gideon stopped sweeping. “It’s not that simple.”
“Why not?” Hannah Lynn said, taking the broom from him. “You like her. She’s available, at least from what I’ve been able to find out.” Hannah Lynn leaned her chin on the top of the broom handle. “She keeps to herself, though. Kind of like someone else I know.” She poked him in the shin with the broom bristles.
“Are you done?”
“What are you afraid of?”
“I’m not afraid.” He snatched back the broom. “What I am is busy.”
“You are afraid.” Hannah Lynn moved to stand in front of him. “Afraid she’ll say nee.” Her eyes widened. “Or maybe you’re afraid she’ll say ya.”
He leaned the broom against the rough-hewn wall. “That’s ab im kopp. Why would I be afraid of that?”
“Because then you’d have to actually geh out with her.” Gideon turned away. His sister didn’t understand. She was seventeen. What did she know about relationships? Or rejection. Or yearning—
“Gideon.” Hannah Lynn snapped her fingers in front of his face.
Her expression came into focus. “You need to stop spinning your wheels,” she said.
“That’s not what I’m doing.”
“That’s exactly what you’re doing. You care for Rachael. I’m sure almost everyone in the district knows.”
“That’s comforting.”
“Mei point is, you can’t just wait for the right moment. Or for things to happen. You have to act. If you like Rachael as much as you seem to, then she’s worth going after.”
Gideon scrubbed his hand over his cheek, feeling the stubble of whiskers he’d shave off in the morning. A sign of his singleness.
“You know what Mamm always says.”
“Mamm says a lot of things.”
Hannah Lynn straightened her posture, clasping her hands together like their mother often did. “You geh after what you want. And if it’s God’s will, you’ll get what you need.”
“Nice imitation.”
“She’s right.”
Gideon sighed. He was tired of pretending, of acting nonchalant around his sister, who clearly saw through the façade anyway. “I don’t know.”
“Don’t know what?”
He felt his cheeks flame. “I don’t know . . . anything.” He had very little experience asking out the girls in his district. Even his sister didn’t know about the time he’d asked Julia Keim to a singing. He could still remember how her face had contorted as she tried not to laugh. He’d been nineteen, and he hadn’t asked anyone else since.
Hannah Lynn was tall for an Amish woman, almost six feet. Yet she still had to look up to him. “Make it simple. Ask Rachael to geh on a buggy ride. If she says ya, problem solved.” She turned and started to leave.
“What if she won’t?”
She stopped and turned around in the doorway. “Then you’ll know where you stand. And you’ll have done something, instead of pining away.” She disappeared out the door.
Behind Gideon, the calves mooed softly, finishing the last bits of their meal. Gideon reached over the top of the pen and patted the smallest one on the head. He wished he wasn’t so transparent. Or that his sister wasn’t right, not to mention she sounded more confident at seventeen than he was at twenty-five. The only thing standing in his way was fear. And unless he wanted to spend his life alone, he had to stop being a coward.
Rachael spent the rest of the morning working in the garden. In a few days she would go to the flea market, and she still had a few flower arrangements to put together. She found that combining different plants and flowers in a simple container appealed to her customers more than selling the individual plants.
For the next hour, she worked on preparing a medium-sized pot at her potting bench, another structure she’d cobbled together with spare parts. Her grandfather never threw anything away, and in Rachael’s mind, that was a good thing. She’d found a small castiron tub sink, the white enamel peeled off in places, and nestled it inside a wood frame. Underneath she nailed an old pallet to the legs of the frame, which served as an extra shelf. A coat of white paint from a half-empty can she found in the back of the barn added the finishing touch.
She placed the terra-cotta pot inside the shallow sink and filled it with light-green creeping Jennie, which draped just over the pot’s edge. In a few weeks, with proper tending, the plant would hang like a leafy curtain until it trailed to the ground. Next to the creeping Jennie she added two magenta Impatiens, which gave the arrangement a pop of color. Then she placed the final touch—Swallowtail Coleus. A sturdy plant, despite its delicate, thin branches. The Coleus would grow straight up, balancing out the rest of the plants.
She stepped back and looked at her handiwork, pleased with the simple arrangement. Her stomach growled and she realized it was lunchtime.
When she went inside to make lunch, she found her grandfather in the kitchen, leaning on his cane, stretching to reach a cup from the cabinet. She hurried to him. “I’ll get that.” Rachael pulled a coffee mug from the cabinet and placed it on the counter. She frowned at him. “You should have waited for me to do this.”
“I can get a cup, Rachael.” He moved to pick it up, but she took it from him.
“I’ll get your kaffee,” she said. “You geh sit down.”
He muttered something she didn’t understand, but she thought she heard the word bossy. As he walked to the table, the thudding sound of his cane was a counterpoint to the slight drag of his left foot on the floor. He plopped onto the chair.
Rachael washed her hands before pouring him a cup of stillwarm coffee from the percolator pot on the stove. She took it to him. “I’m sorry. Time got away from me this morning.”
“I don’t k
now how many times I have to tell you, I’m fine.” He took a sip of the coffee, a bit of the brown liquid dribbling on his chin and catching into his nearly gray beard. “You worry too much.”
“I’m supposed to be taking care of you.”
“So you keep reminding me. Every day.” He set the cup on the table. “Rachael, I appreciate you coming here. But it’s been a year since . . .” He stared at his cup for a moment.
Since the stroke. She shook off the memory of when they’d received a call from Lydia, Gideon’s mother, who had happened to be outside when she saw Grandfather collapse as he was walking to the barn. If it hadn’t been for Gideon’s family, her grandfather might be dead. “Hungry?” she asked, walking to the pantry, pushing away the horrible thought.
“Ya. But I see what you’re doing.”
“Getting the bread?” She opened the door and pulled out a loaf of homemade bread she’d baked two days ago.
“Changing the subject. I’ll take eggs and bacon, by the way.”
He’d asked for the same thing for breakfast. She’d made him oatmeal instead. “You mean tuna salad, ya?”
“I’m tired of rabbit food.”
“Rabbits don’t eat tuna. And you know the doctor said you have to watch what you eat.” Rachael took two plates from the cabinet and set them down. She picked up a head of lettuce from one of three large bowls on the counter. They were filled with fresh vegetables, some that she’d picked from her garden. “That includes fat, salt—”
“And everything that tastes gut.” He put his right hand on the table. His left remained in his lap. “What I wouldn’t do for some ham, eggs, hash browns, bread slathered with butter . . .”
Rachael ripped a few pieces of lettuce and placed them on the bread. Her grandfather’s crankiness was a good sign. When she’d first arrived to help after his stroke, he’d been depressed, had some mild memory problems, and found it difficult to balance. Now he was as ornery as he’d ever been. She opened and drained a can of tuna, then placed the fish on the bed of lettuce.