by Anna Schmidt
“Das ist sehr gut,” he whispered as he pulled her to him, her hands trapped against the broadness of his chest. His mouth now rested close to her ear and his breath came in audible gasps as if he had just run a very long way to reach this place.
Beneath her hand she could feel the steady thumping of his heart. It reminded her of that day in his shop when she had watched him pounding out the bridle bit. She snaked her hand between them until she had freed it enough to comb her fingers through his hair.
“Again,” she said and smiled when she heard the rumble of his laughter. She looked up at him. “Bitte?”
A shudder ran through his entire body as he cupped her jaw in his palm and tilted her face to his. This time when he lowered his lips to hers, there were no teasing forays onto her cheeks and eyelids. Instead their mouths collided in a burst of warmth and need that Greta realized was exactly the kiss that she had imagined sharing with the man she would marry. A lifetime in Luke’s arms? She did not even need to think twice about it.
When he pulled back a little, she actually whimpered in protest. “I think that we have done a good job of getting that first kiss—and the second—out of the way,” he said, “and now we can go forward with truly getting to know each other and deciding if there’s a future for us.”
“If you kiss me once again,” Greta teased as she stroked his cheek, “I think there may be no need for discussion.”
His laughter rang out in the silence of the night as he set her back on the swing and collected his hat. “We will discuss,” he said as he bent and kissed her cheek in a purely brotherly—and disappointing—way. “I want you to be very, very sure of whatever decision you make.” He walked back toward his shop then and as he went Greta heard him humming softly to himself.
Greta sat on the swing alone for a long time after Luke left. She repeatedly ran her tongue lightly over her lips, tasting the kisses she’d shared with him, remembering the way she had fit so perfectly in the curve of his arms. She relished the realization that while his kiss had nearly been her undoing, her kiss had caused that shudder of pleasure she felt rocket through his chest and shoulders.
But she reminded herself sternly that a few shared kisses were not a solid foundation for a lifetime spent together. Luke was right. They barely knew one another and if she didn’t want to make the same mistake she had made with Josef—a man she had known perhaps too well—she was going to have to do something to remedy that.
“A frolic,” she said aloud. “It’s the perfect solution.”
Frolics were events where the entire community came together to complete some project—sometimes frolics involved only the women when they gathered for a quilting bee, for example. But she had to come up with something that would involve the entire community—male and female.
Lydia agreed when Greta presented her with the idea the following morning. “The schoolhouse could use a fresh coat of whitewash and a good cleaning,” she suggested. “I’ll send word home with the children today. We can plan it for a week from Saturday.”
Greta frowned. “But then how will Luke know?”
Lydia’s eyes twinkled mischievously. “Well, we will have to order the whitewash from Roger Hadwell and it seems to me that he does enjoy spreading news of all sorts.”
“He does at that,” Greta agreed and giggled. “I’ll go and order the whitewash this morning.”
As it turned out there was no need to rely upon Roger to tell Luke about the frolic for when Greta walked into town she saw the two men sitting outside Luke’s shop.
“Guten morgen, Greta,” Roger called out as she came around the corner of the livery.
“And to you,” she replied, but it was all she could do to keep her eyes on Roger when all she really wanted to do was look at Luke. Was it possible that she was so very fickle that she could so easily be drawn to this dark stranger when it had been just a week and a half since Josef quit her?
She focused her attention on Luke’s hands, the fingers long and thick, and could think only of how those palms had felt cradling her cheeks the evening before. “I...” Her voice failed her. She felt a fire ignite in her cheeks as if he had touched her now. She cleared her throat. “Liddy is announcing a frolic to clean and whitewash the schoolhouse a week from Saturday,” she said, spilling out the words in one breath lest she lose her voice once again.
Roger pushed himself to his feet. “Whitewash, you say? I think there might just be some leftover from when we last painted the house.” He headed for his store. “Coming?” he asked when Greta did not make a move to follow him.
“Yah,” she said and glanced at Luke for the first time since encountering the two men. “In a minute,” she added, her eyes locked on his. She realized that he seemed to be as nervous as she was about this encounter in broad daylight. “Lydia was wondering, Luke Starns,” she began in a voice that even she realized was too loud, “would you have the time to come and help? I don’t know if you have frolics where you’re from back in Canada, but...”
Roger had paused on his way back to the hardware store and was studying her curiously.
“We do have frolics,” Luke said softly. “I’ll be there.”
Three simple words, accompanied by a smile that set her heart to racing, was a promise she could count on.
“Denki,” she murmured softly, but inside she was singing as she followed Roger to the hardware store.
Chapter Eleven
News of the frolic to clean and paint the schoolhouse spread quickly. Lydia reported that she could hardly keep the children’s mind on their lessons because they were so excited about the event. For the citizens of Celery Fields—as indeed for all people of the Amish faith—work was rarely if ever considered drudgery. Greta had sometimes marveled at the way Englischers complained about having to take on the simplest tasks. More than once she had been helping Pleasant in the bakery and served a visitor from Sarasota who sighed happily over the fact that “At least I don’t have to bother baking bread or making dessert for my family. I don’t know how you can do it day after day in this heat.”
For Greta the woman’s comment had come as a complete mystery. She could not wait for the day when she could bake and prepare meals and keep house for her husband and their brood of children. She had been preparing the meals and managing the house for her father and Lydia for years now and in the process she had earned a reputation throughout the town as an accomplished cook. Unlike the Englischers, who tended to spread compliments around like so much chicken feed, those of Amish faith did not believe in receiving or giving compliments. That would lead down the path of prideful ways. Thinking well of oneself or of something done well was a sin. But Greta could tell by the way the other women of Celery Fields were always glad to see her arriving at some function with her basket, or how the men belched with satisfaction after enjoying one of her cakes, that God had blessed her with the gifts to do everything associated with managing well a home and family.
On the Saturday of the frolic, she smiled as she waited for the chunks of bittersweet chocolate to melt on the wood stove and thought about the night that Luke had come asking for a second helping of her chocolate cake. Then she closed her eyes as she relived, for perhaps the hundredth time, the taste of his lips on hers. She thought about little else these days other than Luke Starns. When would she see him again? What was he thinking about as he went about his work or lay alone in his restored upstairs apartment at night? And most of all she wondered when he might kiss her again.
Her nose told her that the chocolate was burning and she opened her eyes with a start and grabbed for the pan with her apron-wrapped hand. There was nothing so sweet as the scent of chocolate warming on the stove and nothing so rank as the odor of that same chocolate burnt to a tarry mess. She dropped the pan in the sink and pumped water into it, making a face as the combination of cold water on the hot ingredients only intensified the acrid smell.
“That’s what you get, Greta Goodloe,” she chastised herself
, “for daydreaming and not minding the task before you. Now it’s ruined and you’ll have to start again and there’s no time to get the cake made and properly baked before...”
“Greta?”
Luke stood in the kitchen doorway, filling the space with his broad shoulders. “Who are you talking to?” He glanced around.
“Myself,” she admitted. “I was baking a cake for the frolic and I got...” Her eyes focused on his mouth—a mouth that seemed to be fighting a smile—and she found that she was having trouble breathing much less finishing a thought or sentence.
He wrinkled his nose as the odor of the burnt chocolate hit him. “I just came from the schoolhouse and from what I could see there are more than enough sweets there already.” He crossed the room and took her hand in his. “You didn’t burn yourself, did you?” He was frowning and running his thumb over her palm.
Greta felt the color rise to her cheeks and she knew that she should pull her hand away. She was far too aware that the only burning going on at the moment was the heat she felt with Luke being so near. “Why did you come?” she asked, her voice catching in midsentence.
“Lydia sent me to tell you to be sure and remember to bring...” His eyes locked on hers and she realized that he had also lost his train of thought.
With a will of its own her head tilted up and her eyes fluttered shut as she fought to steady her breathing.
“Greta,” he whispered, his lips so very close that she felt his breath tickle the strands of her hair that had worked their way free of her bun in the hot kitchen. “Do you think of me?”
“Constantly,” she admitted. “And you?”
He chuckled. “I can’t work. I can’t sleep for thinking about you—about us.”
Greta fought a smile of pleasure and opened her eyes. “Me, too,” she agreed.
But then all trace of his smile vanished and he stepped away. “It’s important that you take plenty of time in this matter, Greta. You have suffered a great disappointment and...”
Oh, why did he have to spoil everything by bringing up the past? What was it about men that they had to always dwell on the realities of a matter? She turned away and began scrubbing the pan. “Of course, you’re right,” she said, her voice far too bright to be sincere. “Now what was it that Lydia did not want me to forget?”
“The extra cleaning rags,” Luke said, his expression one of pure confusion at her sudden change in topic and conduct.
“They are there on the back porch. You can take them with you now.”
“I had thought we might—that is, no one would think anything of it if you and I were to walk down to the schoolhouse together.”
“And that’s important to you, isn’t it? That others not question your actions?”
He waited a long moment before he said anything, then quietly he said, “I thought such things were of concern to you, Greta.”
Greta paused in her scrubbing, aware that he had turned away and started for the door. She so wanted to stop him, to call him back, to rest her cheek against his chest and beg his forgiveness for her foul mood. “I’m sorry, Luke,” she murmured but he was already gone, walking past the kitchen window with the basket of rags and an expression that looked like the coming of a storm.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated and was struck by the difference in her apology to Luke from the ones she had offered to Josef over the years whenever something she said or did upset him. With Josef her apologies had been more a matter of habit—automatic in the knowledge that, whether she felt she had wronged him or not, this was the way to end whatever argument or disagreement they might be having. But with Luke the apology had come straight from her heart, from her understanding that her words had been hurtful and her change in attitude confusing for him.
She stood at the window with the scalded pot in one hand and a hunk of steel wool in the other and watched Luke until he was out of sight. And when she could no longer see him she felt such a sense of loss that she let the pot and steel wool fall from her slack hands as she ran from the house to catch up to him.
* * *
“Luke! Wait!”
His heart hammered with relief as he turned to watch her run toward him. He savored the moment of Greta Goodloe running across the fallow field to him. The strings of her black bonnet had come undone and flew out behind her as she clutched at her bonnet with one hand and gathered the skirt of her dress and apron in the other to prevent herself from tripping. In his mind he was already years into the future and now she was wearing the white starched prayer covering of a married woman. She was running to him as his wife.
While he waited for her to catch up to him, he prayed that the dream of a union between them one day might be so and he vowed that soon he would find the right time to tell her everything that had happened in his past. Somehow in his heart he was sure that she would understand why he had made the choices he had made.
“Forgive me,” she gasped when she reached him at last.
“There is nothing to forgive,” he replied as he set down the basket and tried to tie the ribbons of her bonnet into a bow.
She looked up at him, the sun full on her face and he thought that he had never seen a woman more beautiful than Greta. “My fingers are too thick,” he said huskily.
“I think your fingers are fine, although probably better for other tasks,” she said as she took over the tying of the bow herself while he picked up the basket of rags and waited for her to finish. “I did not mean...”
“Sh-h-h. It’s past.”
She fell into step with him and side by side they walked the rest of the way to the schoolhouse. There seemed to be no need for further conversation and for that Luke was grateful, for he found that whenever he was around Greta he had trouble making his voice work or even coming up with the words he might say to her.
“Ah, here they are,” Lydia said as soon as she spotted them. Her eyes flickered toward a small group of women that included Hilda Yoder who was scowling at them with disapproval.
“We have had to stop our work waiting for those clean rags, Luke Starns,” Hilda chided. “What took you so long?”
Greta took the basket of cleaning rags from Luke and handed it to Lydia. “I ruined the cake and Luke was kind enough to help me clear the mess,” she announced and in the background Luke heard several of the men groan.
“No matter,” Lydia told her. “We have plenty.” Then she clapped her hands together as she might if she were settling her students in for the day and began giving out assignments. “If you boys there would set up the ladders. The siding will need scraping before we can paint. Start on the north side and complete that so the men can begin the painting while you move on around the building.” Next she pointed to the place where the desks had been set out into the yard along with the bookcases—empty of their books. “And Bettina, take your friends and the younger children and set to work polishing the desks and bookcases. Then you will need to dust every book, pound the chalk from the erasers and wash the chalkboard.”
“Esther,” Hilda called out. “Go with Bettina and the others.”
Without question or comment the children ran to the shade of the large banyan tree and set to work, their excited chatter filling the heavy air that hung over the now empty school. Without the need for instruction, several of the men set to work climbing the ladders the boys had put in place and scraping the outer walls of the building while the women went inside to scrub the inner walls, wash the windows and polish the floor.
Around noon, Lydia sounded the bell and everyone gathered for the meal of cold cuts, cheeses, salads and desserts arrayed on boards set on sawhorses outside the schoolhouse. Like Sunday evening singings, frolics were acknowledged as occasions when males and females were allowed to socialize openly. With no comment from their elders, the older teens and young adults who were not yet married gathered in small groups to enjoy their lunch. Luke filled his plate and then took a seat on the ground next to Greta and Lydia.
He saw Hilda Yoder make some comment to Gertrude Hadwell as they looked his way. Both women nodded knowingly and smiled broadly at Lydia as they passed by on their way to sit with their husbands. Clearly they had no idea that it was Greta Goodloe being courted—not her sister. He glanced at Lydia and Greta and the three of them collapsed into laughter, drawing the attention of the two older women—as well as their frowns of censure. But Luke didn’t care. For the first time in a very long time he felt a part of a community—a part of a family. Should he and Greta marry someday, then they would share many afternoons like this one with Lydia and Pleasant and Jeremiah and their children.
“Bettina is a good influence on Caleb Harnischer,” Lydia said as she bit into a sandwich and nodded toward the teenagers. “He has become a far better student since taking up with her.” She smiled as she glanced at Greta. “I have to say that I have noted some changes for the better in my sister recently, as well, Luke.”
Luke sneaked a peek at Greta and grinned. Her cheeks were a rosy red and she was frowning. “In what ways would you say that she has changed, Lydia?”
“Oh, she is far more content these days and I hardly ever have to remind her to attend her chores and...”
“You have never had to remind me about chores, Lydia,” Greta fumed.
Lydia lifted one eyebrow as she continued eating.
“At least not often. Most of the time you simply instruct out of habit, unaware that I have every intention of getting to whatever chore you may see.”
Lydia turned her attention back to Luke. “You also seem in better spirits. With the disaster of the fire and your loss of business for those few weeks, it would be understandable for you to be a bit down in the dumps.”
Now it was Luke’s turn to flush. “My spirits have been uplifted by the kindness of my neighbors,” he replied softly.