by Anna Schmidt
But then Luke saw the way Josef’s gaze followed her. Was the man having second thoughts? And if so, what would Greta do about that?
“Back to work,” somebody called out and as one the men rose, set aside their plates and glasses and returned to the building. Luke turned to set down his plate and found Greta standing not two feet away, her face wreathed in a smile.
“It’s going so well,” she exclaimed. “Look how many men came from Sarasota to help—and on a workday for them.”
“I have Jeremiah to thank for that,” Luke admitted, having learned that Pleasant’s husband had let it be known among the men he worked with at the local ice plant that their help would be welcomed.
“And your customers came, as well,” she reminded him. “You’ll be back in business in no time at all, Luke.”
The way she said it Luke felt certain that she was right. That was the thing about Greta. She always seemed to see the positive in life. The way she was smiling up at him now made him feel like he could do just about anything he set his mind to doing.
“Luke Starns, we cannot work if we do not know what you want,” Josef Bontrager said. He had returned to the barn and was standing there, hands on hips as he glared at Luke.
“Coming,” Luke said and handed Greta his plate and glass. His good spirits plummeted when he realized that her smile had faded and her eyes were on Josef, not him. “Fool,” he muttered to himself as he strode away from the Goodloe barn into the hot and steamy afternoon.
* * *
The men took another break in the late afternoon. By that time Greta and the other women had cleared away all the leftover food and washed and dried the dishes. Most of the women left shortly after the lunch had been served. There were chores to be done and children in need of their naps. As the sun moved lower in the western sky, Greta and Pleasant’s stepdaughter, Bettina, moved among the workers, offering them cookies and cold milk. Greta was all too aware that Josef’s gaze followed her wherever she went. If she spent too much time lingering over conversation with any one of the men—even the married ones—that gaze became a glare. More disturbing than that was the fact that Luke Starns also seemed to be watching her—and he appeared to be no more pleased than Josef was with her behavior.
Well, let them gawk all they wanted. Greta was so very tired of trying to live up to somebody else’s ideal of how she should conduct herself. She liked people. She found the sheer variety and diversity of them a source of endless fascination. Wasn’t it amazing how God had given each of his creatures their very own unique qualities? If Josef—and Luke, for that matter—chose to view her behavior as inappropriate, that was hardly her problem. Josef had made his choice and as for Luke—well, if he wanted to be her friend, or more than that—then he would just have to accept her for the way she was. After all, that’s what true friends did.
“Greta?” Josef had come alongside her and was handing her his water glass. “Would it be all right if I called on you this evening?”
The very last thing that Greta had expected was this. Calling on her after dark meant—well, it meant that he wanted to pick up again with courting her. Didn’t it?
She eyed him carefully. “Why?”
Josef chuckled nervously. “Do I truly need a reason?”
“Truly you do,” Greta replied.
“Do not make me plead with you.” In an instant Josef’s tone had gone from a chuckle to an order.
“I am not making you do anything, Josef. Lydia has...” She fumbled for some excuse.
Josef frowned. “Of course. I had heard that the blacksmith was calling on her,” he said. “Perhaps tomorrow?” He walked away without waiting for her to answer. She realized that he simply assumed that sooner or later she would agree to see him.
Using Luke and Lydia as her excuse had not been at all what Greta was about to say but since Josef’s assumption had ended this awkward conversation Greta was thankful. Thankful that was until she saw Luke staring at her from across the yard and then turned to find Esther Yoder glaring at her, as well. So many people looking at her—all of them seemingly unhappy. Well, Josef had approached her. For once in her life she could not be accused of flirting. She picked up the last of the dishes and headed for the barn.
* * *
As Luke watched Greta and Josef it occurred to him that he might just be walking right into the situation that had gotten his heart broken back in Ontario. It occurred to him that Greta Goodloe might have agreed to Lydia’s idea to make Josef jealous. If that was her plan then it appeared to be working. Josef Bontrager had been unable to take his eyes off Greta all through the lunch break in spite of Esther Yoder and her mother hovering around him, making sure that he had second helpings and a large piece of shoofly pie. By late afternoon the man had clearly found his courage to approach Greta.
Luke was not given to jumping to conclusions. He reminded himself that he had no knowledge of the conversation that had passed between Greta and Josef. As he set in place the large heavy-notched beams that formed the support for the roof for his business, he went over every detail of what he had observed. Josef’s approach. Greta’s polite smile—or had that smile been one of expectation? Did she still have feelings for the man? How could she not? It had been less than a week since their break.
He was a fool on a fool’s mission. Perhaps God did not intend for him to marry at all. Certainly the signs pointed toward that. The business in Ontario. Lydia’s outright refusal to even consider a courtship. Had he become so desperate to marry that he had fallen into the trap once again of being someone’s pawn in a game he did not wish to play? Was Greta’s intention to use him to win back Josef?
“Well, we’ll just see about that,” he grumbled to himself as he dropped the last beam into place and signaled to Roger Hadwell at the other end of the log that it was secure. He scrambled down the scaffolding and stood with the rest of the crew to consider the day’s work. The frame was in place for the building and the roof. Where that morning there had been nothing but barren ground, there now rose a skeleton of fresh-hewn wood and the men standing around him had done it all.
“I’d say that’s a good day’s work, Luke,” one of his customers from Sarasota announced. “By the end of next week at this rate I expect you’ll be in business.” The man clapped Luke on the back as he and his friends headed for their trucks and drove away.
Luke glanced toward the Goodloe house and saw Lydia coming home from her day at school. He wanted to thank her for letting the older boys come help with the work but he knew approaching her now would cause tongues to wag. Everyone assumed that they were courting—that much was evident by the sly comments some of the other men had made in his presence throughout the day. He saw Lydia pause for a moment and gaze at the structure. She called out something to the cluster of men nearest to her and kept on walking. Greta was nowhere in sight.
“Shall we offer a prayer of thanksgiving?” Bishop Troyer asked and all of the men gathered around the church leader as he offered up a prayer thanking God for the blessings of the day.
As soon as the prayer circle ended, those men that had remained for the whole day headed for home—some in their wagons or buggies and others walking, all promising to return the following day after chores to continue the work. Luke stood in the middle of town and watched them go and for the first time since coming to Celery Fields he felt like one of them. He was no longer a stranger in this community. His decision to rebuild his business, when it would have been just as understandable—given the dwindling population and customer base—for him to leave Celery Fields and start over somewhere else, had secured him a place among the others as one of their own.
“Luke?”
He was surprised to see the bishop’s wife coming his way. Mildred Troyer was a spry woman of indeterminate age and always ready with a kind word and a smile. She was much beloved by everyone in town and she had made Luke feel welcome from the day he’d first arrived. Now she handed him a package wrapped in brown paper a
nd tied with string.
“I thought you might have use for these,” she said. “I had to guess at the size but used our nephew Jeremiah’s measurements. It seems to me that you and he are about the same size. If they won’t do, you just bring them right back to me and we can alter them.”
Luke loosened the string and pulled back one edge of the paper to reveal a stack of clothing—two shirts and a pair of trousers. Every bit of clothing he owned other than what he’d been wearing had been lost in the fire. He’d been making do with washing out his one shirt every night before he went to sleep and carefully brushing the day’s dirt from his pants.
“Can’t have you calling on Lydia Goodloe in clothing you’ve spent the day working under this hot sun in,” Mildred teased with a twinkle in her bright blue eyes.
“Thank you. I never expected...”
Mildred patted his hand. “It’s just neighbors helping neighbors,” she assured him and then she went to join her husband for the short walk home.
Luke watched them go—two people who had spent more of their life together than they had with anyone else. They walked side by side, exchanging bits of conversation. They would share their supper and then sit for a while. The bishop would probably read or work on his next sermon while Mildred did some mending or quilting. Then they would go to bed—to the bed they had shared for so many years and through good and bad times.
Luke wanted that life. He wanted that one person he could trust to be there through everything. He wanted to know that at the end of his workday he would go home to that kind of comfort and companionship. He turned his attention back to the Goodloe house. A thin stream of smoke rose from the kitchen chimney. Greta was preparing supper for herself and Lydia. She must be almost as exhausted as he was for she’d been up early organizing the meals for the workers, making sure everyone was fed, clearing away and washing the used dishes.
He closed his eyes and pictured her in that kitchen, her laughter like music as she went about her cooking. He thought about her hands—hands he had held in his when he had removed that splinter—hands that knew how to work but that were still smooth and as soft as a baby’s cheek. And from there it was an easy leap to thinking about children—his children—their children.
He shook himself free of his revelry and headed back to the dry goods store with his bundle of clothing. The women in town were taking turns feeding him, leaving a tin bucket with a cold supper for him in the evenings. They would do that anonymously for it was not the way of the Amish to seek recognition or praise for their good deeds. Sure enough, waiting on the back stoop of the dry goods store was a picnic hamper so filled with food that the top would not close all the way.
He sat on the step and opened it, suddenly ravenous. Inside were three pieces of fried chicken wrapped in waxed paper, a bowl of cabbage slaw, another of three-bean salad, and on top of it all a generous serving of chocolate cake. Sitting next to the basket was a thermos filled with sweet iced tea. Luke leaned against one of the posts that supported the covered stoop and began pulling the chicken apart with his fingers. Whoever his benefactor was tonight, she was the best cook in all of Celery Fields—at least as far as he’d been able to judge.
He thought about the women that had come that morning with their husbands, carrying their baskets of food up to the Goodloe barn to be set out for the workers. He mentally ran through the dishes the women had served as the men moved down the line filling their plates. There had been the chicken and the side dishes and of course, the bread, but that chocolate cake had not been served at noon. For dessert there had been a variety of pies, but no cake. As he savored every bite he thought that he would give a lot to know who had baked that cake for him.
And then he remembered. At the lunch served after services the previous week, when he’d tasted Lydia’s terrible peach pie, Lydia had said something about Greta’s chocolate cake. “If you like that pie,” she’d commented as he savored the piece of pie she replaced her own with, “just wait until you taste Greta’s triple chocolate cake.”
“Triple chocolate?” Luke had asked.
“Chocolate cake, chocolate cream filling and chocolate butter frosting,” Lydia had explained, ticking off each item on her fingers. “My sister has a weakness for chocolate.”
Luke studied the remains of his piece of the cake. Was it possible that with everything else she’d had to do today, Greta Goodloe had also prepared supper for him? And if this was indeed her chocolate cake, then why had she not served it at the lunch? Was there some message in the fact that she had reserved a piece for him?
“One way to find out,” he said as he packed up the remains of his picnic and drank the last of the tea. Normally he would simply leave the container and dishes from his supper on the stoop and the following day it would be replaced by that day’s meal. He could only assume that the women somehow had figured out how to return the previous day’s dishes to their rightful owner. Tonight though, he intended to be the one to return the used dishes—and if he was right about their owner, then just maybe she would offer him a second piece of that cake.
* * *
Greta had told herself that she was simply overtired. That’s why she had gone out to the porch to sit awhile after Lydia had retired for the night. It certainly wasn’t because she expected Luke to come calling. The man had barely said ten words to her all day. And between the fire and the days spent preparing to rebuild, courting was surely the last thing on Luke’s mind. And besides, who knew what the rules for courting were where he came from? Amish communities could differ greatly in the manner in which the people conducted themselves. Maybe in Canada...
The house was dark but there was a moon and light enough for her to see the stark silhouette of Luke’s new building. Courting. Were they actually going forward with Lydia’s plan? Had Luke agreed? Had she?
“Guten abend, Greta Goodloe.”
She had been unaware of him coming up the path, so lost had she been in thoughts of the day just past and her confusion about what she wanted in all of this.
“May I sit with you?”
“Yah,” she said, her voice barely a whisper as she made room for him on the weathered porch swing.
He set down the basket that had held his dinner. “I would hope there’s some of that chocolate cake left,” he said and in spite of the darkness she heard the lilt of lightheartedness in his tone.
His teasing gave her confidence. “What makes you think we have chocolate cake to offer?”
He chuckled as he settled next to her, filling the space so completely that there was less than an inch between his shoulder and hers. “Your sister once told me that you made the best chocolate cake in all of Celery Fields. I just assumed that the piece I had tonight for my supper was from your hand. I could not imagine a more delicious cake, but if I have guessed wrong then perhaps one day...”
She jabbed him with her elbow. “Stop teasing me. The cake was mine although there are any number of women in Celery Fields that might have given you its equal.”
“Somehow I doubt that.” Luke pushed the swing into motion and the two of them sat in silence for a long moment, all hint of lightheartedness replaced by their shared realization that they were here side by side in the dark.
“Tell me about the seashells,” he said finally. “I saw you return with one for the garden the other day. Where do you find them?”
“In the bay.”
“The bay?”
She studied him, trying to see if he was still teasing her. “The bay between the mainland and the barrier islands—the keys that separate the mainland from the Gulf of Mexico.”
“You go there? Alone?”
“Sometimes. I like going there. It’s very quiet and peaceful. There are wonderful birds and of course, the shells—some of them are still occupied and it makes me laugh to see them scuttling around in the shallows.”
“I would like to see that.”
An idea came to her. “We could go—the two of us. Everyone th
inks that you are calling on Lydia so if you and I went down to the shore together, no one would be surprised. It’s perfectly normal for you to be seen with me as Lydia’s sister. Do you want to go there one day?” Suddenly her mind was filled with the image of Luke walking with her through the shallow waters of the bay, examining the sea life, watching the birds. It was an image that filled her with joy. “Perhaps this Sunday afternoon?”
Luke’s hesitation gave her pause. As usual she had rushed in with a plan not fully considered. How did she know he was even interested in courting her at all? Perhaps he still had his thoughts set on Liddy. “Forgive me, Luke. Sometimes I...”
“I would like to walk at the shore with you, Greta. I would like that very much.”
The warmth that swelled in Greta’s chest spread to her lips as they parted in a smile of delight. “You could fish there, as well. Many of the men and boys from Celery Fields fish there.”
Luke laughed. “I’m afraid I’m not much of a fisherman, Greta.”
“Then we will simply wade in the water and study the sea life and perhaps be fortunate enough to find an unoccupied seashell to add to Liddy’s collection.”
“How is it Lydia’s collection when it would seem that you are the collector?”
“It’s something I do to help her. She likes taking the different shells to the school to show her students and they make a lovely border for our kitchen garden. Liddy can name every single shell. She is so very smart about such things.”
“But does she make the community’s best chocolate cake?” Luke asked.
Now it was Greta’s turn to laugh. “You are still determined to have a second piece, are you?”
“I am—and a third tomorrow if there is any left.”
Greta stood up. “Very well. Wait here and I will cut you a slice, but after that...”
He caught her hand as she turned toward the door. “And will you sit with me while I eat the cake, Greta?” He ran his thumb over hers.
“I will,” she agreed and as she gently pulled free of his touch and entered the house, her heart sang with what she could only define as giddiness. She liked Luke Starns—she liked him a great deal.