Lily swallowed the lump in her throat and nodded, making sure her lips curled cheerfully. Hannah meant no offense. “We all love to quilt, except for Poppy. She doesn’t have the patience for it.”
“Then we’ll see you on the twentieth. Noon at our house.”
Paul cleared his throat as if he were trying to start a gas-powered engine. His blood sugar must be acting up again. He tapped his hand on the counter. “Let’s go, Lily.”
She glanced at him and smiled at the Yutzy sisters. “I’ll see you later.” Lily bent her head to the side to make eye contact with James, who was faithfully frying doughnuts. “Nice to see you again.”
James raised his eyes to her face and quickly let them drop. “You too,” he mumbled.
Mary grinned. “He thinks you’re pretty,” she whispered loud enough for both Paul and James to hear. With his back to them, James slumped his shoulders and seemed to shrink about four inches.
Paul frowned. “Come on, Lily.”
“Wait!” Hannah retrieved two glazed doughnuts from the tray and handed them to Lily. “Take these. They’re a new recipe.”
“I don’t have enough money—”
Hannah giggled as if Max had been kissing Englisch girls again. “I’m not selling. I’m giving. We love you like family, Lily, and family doesn’t pay.”
Lily gave Hannah a quick peck on the cheek. “Are you sure?” She suspected that Hannah and Mary loved a lot of people like family. She didn’t want them to go broke feeding all their surrogate siblings.
Mary snatched two napkins from the counter and stuffed them into Lily’s apron pocket. “Max blamed you for his little lip problem. It’s the least we can do to make it up to you.”
“We don’t need them,” Paul said. “We’re going for supper at the restaurant.”
“How nice,” Mary said, clapping her hands together. “Your mamm’s rolls melt in my mouth.”
Paul might not have wanted to accept doughnuts from the competition, but Lily was definitely taking them. They were better than the glass of water and the pat of butter waiting for her at the restaurant. If Paul didn’t want one, she could eat them both. She smiled to herself. Would eat them both.
Hannah brushed her hands down her apron. “You can eat dessert first.”
“Denki,” Lily said. “We will see you at the frolic.”
“Bring a thimble,” Mary said.
Lily took a bite of one of the doughnuts as she and Paul walked away. Pleasantly warm and deliciously sweet. “Mmm,” she sighed.
Paul eyed her resentfully. “How can you learn to be humble if people like James Yutzy think you’re pretty? He shouldn’t be looking, and you shouldn’t encourage him.”
Lily felt herself blush. “James is only sixteen. It’s kind of cute. I’m flattered.”
The frown turned into a scowl. “Of all the stuff, Lily. Flattery is the seed of vanity, and you, of all girls, have to fight the temptation, especially considering what you used to look like.”
The bite of doughnut nearly stuck in her throat.
What she used to look like.
She had been a hesslich, ugly teenager. Paul had looked past the glasses and the pimples and seen her heart. Now that her teeth were straight and her skin was smooth, she understood why he constantly admonished her about humility. Mary’s compliment had sent warmth tingling all the way to her toes. Why had she have let such talk tempt her?
Paul looked on the heart, just like Gotte did. She’d never deserve someone so deeply good.
She lost her appetite for those doughnuts. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have let them tempt me. I’m still so weak yet.”
“I forgive you, Lily. It’s not your fault that your aunt pushed you to get the braces and then the contacts.”
“The contacts are better for my eyesight,” she said, immediately regretting it. It sounded like she was trying to justify her sin.
“I hoped the glasses might help, but people see right past them.”
Lily heard someone call behind her. “Well, if it isn’t Coke Bottle!”
She turned and nearly groaned out loud. The last thing she needed was an encounter with Dan Kanagy while out with Paul Glick. And why wouldn’t he quit teasing her about her glasses? Paul liked them. Dan turned them into a joke.
Paul stiffened beside her as if someone had rammed a pole down the length of his spine. There was probably no one Paul hated more than Dan. His dislike stemmed from the fact that Dan had been so mean to Lily in school. It pleased her that Paul was ever the loyal friend.
Dan’s smile was as wide as Shawano Lake as he jogged to catch up to them. He carried a plastic shopping bag in one hand, which he held out to show her. His grin dimmed briefly as he gave Paul a furtive glance, but it came back with full force within seconds. “This is perfect timing. I just bought this for you.”
Her heart fluttered. She felt torn between being charmed that Dan the Mean Boy had bought her yet another gift and sheer panic that Paul would find out about the whole reading-together thing.
“Hullo, Dan,” Paul said, his tone a taut wire of resentment.
“Gute maiya, Paul,” Dan said, without even looking at him. He kept grinning at Lily. “That dress brings out the green in your eyes. They’re so pretty, like looking into a lake.”
Paul took a step closer to Lily so his sleeve touched hers. “Lily doesn’t care to be called ‘pretty.’”
Well, she shouldn’t care to be called pretty.
Ach. She attempted to ignore the thrill of pleasure that traveled up her spine. Pure vanity; that’s what it was.
“It’s too bad she is pretty then,” Dan said cheerfully, but almost daring Paul to contradict him. “She’s going to hear it a lot.” He gave up on the subject of Lily’s appearance and jiggled his plastic bag. “Can I show you the gift I bought you?”
Lily glanced down at the half-eaten doughnut in one hand and the untouched doughnut in the other. Whatever the gift, she wouldn’t be able to hold it.
She hadn’t thought it possible to hold her breath and speak at the same time. “Do you want one?” she said. It was rude to hog all the doughnuts for herself.
Every time she thought Dan’s smile was as wide as it could go, he surprised her. “Sure,” he said, taking half her lunch.
Well, she had offered it to him.
She reached into her apron pocket and pulled out a napkin while he made a third of the doughnut disappear in one bite. “Must be one of Yutzy’s,” he said.
She nodded.
“They make the best doughnuts.”
“My mamm makes the best rolls,” Paul muttered.
“Jah. Her rolls are wonderful-gute,” Dan said, with a look of good-natured forbearance. He finished off the doughnut just like that and wiped the sticky glaze from his hands. Having dispensed with the doughnut, he reached in the bag and retrieved a boxed set of books. He held it up for her to see. “Little House on the Prairie. Nine-book set.”
“Oh,” Lily said, a bit ferhoodled. He’d bought them for her? They couldn’t have been cheap.
“Edith at the book shop says the first one takes place in Wisconsin.”
“It does,” she said, almost reverently. The Little House on the Prairie books had been some of her best childhood friends, especially after her parents died.
“I know they’re for children, but I thought maybe you’d like them. Edith says I can return them if you don’t.”
Lily didn’t know what to say. Dan was practically a stranger to her. Why would he do this? “It’s . . . it’s too much, Dan. I can’t accept this.”
He suddenly seemed uncertain, young, like a little boy who had drawn a picture for the teacher he had a secret crush on. “Have you read them? I really wanted to get something you’d like.”
Even though profoundly aware of Paul standing beside her, disapproving and stiff, as if rigor mortis had set in, Lily couldn’t let Dan believe for one minute that she didn’t appreciate such a beautiful gift. “I . . . I love the
m.”
The uncertainty fled from his face, and his smile could have lit up a dark room.
She handed Paul her half doughnut, ignoring the hard line of indignation on his lips and the glint of utter surprise in his eyes. She took the box from Dan and read the titles. “By the Shores of Silver Lake is my favorite.”
Dan traced his finger down the space between two of the books. Were his hands trembling? What did he have to be nervous about? “Mammi had a set of these on her bookshelf. Aunt Rebecca took them back to Wautoma with her.”
Paul was a barely controlled eruption. He firmly, petulantly, slipped the box from Lily’s hands and handed it back to Dan. “She already said she can’t accept it. Don’t make her uncomfortable by insisting.”
Embarrassed by Paul’s rudeness, Lily nearly reached out and snatched the books back. Paul despised Dan, but there was no reason to talk to him like that. Instead, she assumed a posture of humility and lowered her eyes. Paul probably saw her courteous conversation with Dan as a slap in the face.
She couldn’t lift her eyes to look at him, but Dan’s voice sounded like a flat glass of soda. “I see I shouldn’t have interrupted.” He slipped the books back into his bag. Lily closed her lips on a plaintive sigh.
Why should she regret the books? She’d already read them.
“I’m taking her to lunch at my restaurant,” Paul said, the boast apparent in his tone.
“I hope you have a nice time,” Dan said, as if he were talking about a trip to the hospital for appendix removal.
Lily raised her head and dared a look at Dan. She saw a tinge of sadness in his eyes, but thank goodness, he didn’t seem angry with her.
He lifted his eyebrows as if he were attempting more cheerfulness than he felt. “Maybe I’ll see you both tomorrow at the gathering?”
“We’re busy,” Paul said. “Aren’t we, Lily?”
She knew what he expected. He expected her to turn up her nose at Dan Kanagy and send him packing with one scowl. But she couldn’t be that rude when Dan was being so nice. “I think I’m busy,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. She showed him a polite smile to temper her words.
The lines around his frown relaxed slightly. “Maybe we’ll see you some other time.”
“Jah. Maybe.”
He turned and marched back the way he had come, and she said a little prayer of gratitude that he hadn’t mentioned that they had an arrangement to discuss Where the Red Fern Grows. Paul would have erupted again.
Guilt lodged in her throat like a dry doughnut hole. She shouldn’t keep such a secret from her boyfriend. But why should she unduly upset the boyfriend when there was nothing for him to be upset about?
She didn’t notice the silence between them until she turned to see Paul looking at her as if he had a sour stomach. “He likes you,” he said, as if everything Dan Kanagy had done were her fault.
“I read to his mammi before she died. He’s grateful, that’s all. Maybe he’s sorry for how he used to treat me.”
“Used to treat you? He called you ‘Coke Bottle.’”
Lily shrugged. It hadn’t hurt so bad. “I know, but he was nice after that.”
Paul looked at her as if she’d said something completely idiotic. “Nice? Lily, Dan Kanagy isn’t nice. He’s called you all sorts of bad names. He’s a cheat and a liar. You can’t defend that.”
She should have just let it die. It was never a good idea to correct Paul. Dan may have teased her mercilessly, but he couldn’t have been kinder to his mammi. He’d weeded Poppy’s flowers. He’d braved the bees to bring Lily a book. She deeply doubted he was a liar or a cheat even if his dat was. “Dan didn’t cheat your dat.”
“His whole family was in on it. You don’t know anything, Lily.”
Paul had told her the story so many times, she had it memorized. Instead of seeking to forgive, Paul wore the Kanagys’ insult like a badge of honor.
She fingered the strings of her kapp and tried to be more sympathetic. Paul’s family had been wounded deeply. “I’m sorry. I’m not questioning that it happened.”
“John Kanagy bought thirty acres from us with the strict agreement that we would buy it back in two years. He needed it for two years, he said. We agreed that he was only renting it from us. But when the time came to get the land back, John demanded five times what we had sold it for. We couldn’t afford to buy it back. We nearly lost everything because of that land.”
Jah, she’d heard the story. Dan figured nowhere in it. But she wasn’t going to argue with him anymore.
“I was only twelve,” Paul said. “But Dat trusted my judgment. Every time I saw Dan at school he’d tell me, ‘Don’t worry. We’ll help you out. We’ll make it right.’ I believed him. My dat believed him. If we had known how dishonest the Kanagys were, we never would have sold that property.” He slid an arm around her shoulder and nudged her in the direction of the restaurant. He rarely touched her, so she knew he was serious. “Don’t be deceived because he’s handsome, Lily. He is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Don’t forget all those names he called you.” Paul looked away and chewed on his thumbnail. “He called you even worse names behind your back.”
Lily’s throat suddenly felt raw. “He did?”
Paul kept his eyes turned away. “He said you were ugly as a dog and that you belonged with the pigs instead of with the other girls at school.”
Lily felt as if she’d been slapped as the pain of school came rushing back, making her head spin and her stomach lurch. The surrounding air became moist and oppressively hot, and she couldn’t catch a breath.
Paul nodded smugly. “Dan Kanagy is rotten to the bone. You’d be wise to stay far away from him and burn any books he gives you.”
“I will,” Lily said, determined to go home and at least consider burning Where the Red Fern Grows.
Paul bent his mouth into a thoughtful scowl. “He wants something from you. I wouldn’t be surprised if he and his shifty fater try to buy your property right out from under you.”
Lily thought of Dan’s enthusiasm at seeing their farm. Was he interested in their property? A seed of doubt grew. “They can’t buy it. We own our farm free and clear.”
“Don’t be caught off guard if they try, and don’t believe any of his promises.” Paul seemed to have forgotten how hungry he was. He slowed his pace as they got closer to the restaurant. “I’m worried for you, Lily. Dan is only interested because you’re not ugly anymore. Don’t be tempted by all his talk of green eyes. He’s found your weakness. Don’t let him feed your vanity.”
Even though his words stung, she knew she deserved the lecture. She felt so grateful for a friend like Paul. He would never dream of feeding her vanity.
Chapter Six
Dan blew into his house like a tornado, itching to give the door a good, hard shove and rattle all the windows. He didn’t. With his knuckles white around the doorknob, he shut the door as gently as if a baby were sleeping just inside.
He had to do something with his hands or his blood would boil over. Steam was probably coming out of his ears.
He stormed into the kitchen. A stack of dirty dishes sat in the sink. Perfect. He would have smiled if he hadn’t been in such a terrible mood. He could take out his frustration on the dinner plates. After emptying the sink and plugging the drain, he filled the sink with steaming hot water and about three tablespoons of soap. Bubbles. He wanted lots of annoying bubbles.
Even though as a Christian he should love everyone, Dan had never been able to stomach Paul Glick. Paul was the boy who always thought he was right. Always had to be right—the kind who dug in his heels harder when someone proved him wrong or questioned his pompous intelligence.
Dan scrubbed his rag across the plates with a vengeance. Pompous intelligence and unbearable arrogance.
He who is angry with his brother is in danger of hellfire, or something like that. He took a deep breath to calm his racing pulse. It didn’t help.
In eighth grade when Dan had
started taking an interest in Lily Christner, Paul had too. At recess, Paul would drag Lily to the far corner of the playground and they’d sit and talk while the rest of the boys played baseball or Kick the Can. Dan had never been able to understand what Lily saw in Paul, but from eighth grade on, they were fast friends.
For his own sanity, he’d tried to keep clear of Lily Christner. It had been plain as day that she and Paul were destined to marry, and Dan hadn’t really wanted to make a fool of himself chasing after another boy’s fianceé. He had hoped that two years in Pennsylvania would dull his interest, but Mammi wrote so often of Lily and their time spent reading together, he couldn’t quite achieve indifference.
And now he had returned, and Lily was as beautiful as ever, and he couldn’t stand the way Paul treated her—as if she were someone he had to beat down to make himself bigger, someone small and insignificant who shouldn’t be allowed to make her own decisions or spread her wings and fly. And Paul had succeeded in convincing Lily it was true. Dan saw it plain as midday that she honestly believed she didn’t deserve any better than Paul Glick.
Not that Dan was a great catch or anything like that. Lily deserved better than him too. She deserved the best man in Wisconsin. She was certainly the best girl.
Dan growled and dumped another stack of dishes into the sink. If he’d stayed away from Lily after Mammi’s funeral like he’d promised himself he would, his feelings for her wouldn’t have resurfaced and he wouldn’t be standing here pushing plates around the sink, up to his elbows in bubbles.
“Have a bad day?”
He snapped his head around. Mamm stood in the doorway holding a recipe and a bottle of cooking oil. “What makes you think I had a bad day?”
“You clean when you’re angry.”
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