John fiddled with his silverware, arranging it to his satisfaction. “I was quite disappointed that you weren’t more appreciative of the trouble I went to in coming to see you.”
“It was unexpected, John. I was there to be with my grandmother.” She sighed. “We’ve already discussed that.”
“You weren’t there just to be with her,” he said, frowning. “You were there to spend time with Nick.”
“He’s a family friend and driver,” she told him. “That’s all. You have nothing to be jealous of.”
The minute the word jealous slipped out of her mouth, she was sorry. His expression darkened and he set his fork down with a clatter.
“That’s not what I hear.”
She’d wondered but hadn’t been suspicious up until now. “I saw you talking with a man before you got on the bus,” she said slowly.
“I—”
“And I saw him sitting in restaurants and such when Grossmudder and Nick and I sometimes went somewhere together,” she continued.
She held her breath and waited for him to tell her that she’d been seen kissing Nick. If he did, she had no defense. She’d kissed him. It hadn’t been intended, of course, but when it happened, she’d responded to Nick.
Which told her that even if she hadn’t been sure she should break off her engagement with John, she knew she had to do so now.
Apparently John didn’t know, because the accusation never came. He said nothing more about Nick.
The sense of relief was massive. That combined with the dread of coming here to talk to him and all the drama at the shop made her realize she felt drained.
“You didn’t trust me,” she said flatly.
“You can’t blame me. If you hadn’t—”
“Stop,” she told him, holding up her hand. “Don’t try to turn this back on me!”
His eyes widened. She’d never talked to him like that. “I’m not blaming you,” he said in a cajoling tone.
When he reached for her hand, she drew it back. “Don’t touch me! I won’t let you hurt me again.”
“I’ve never hurt you!” He took on an injured air.
“You know you have.” She met his eyes. “You’ve manipulated me and intimidated me and been rough enough with me to hurt me. I’ve had the bruises on my arms to prove it.”
He stared at her. “Where is all this coming from? Has Nick been feeding you some Englisch nonsense that you’re being abused? Are you sure he doesn’t want you for himself?”
“He’s a family friend. He’s our driver,” she repeated.
She hoped she sounded convincing. She hadn’t been so sure that was all Nick was since they’d visited Florida. But it didn’t matter.
It was time to speak up for herself. She took a deep breath.
14
Nick felt his heart stop then start again when he pulled up outside the restaurant and saw a police officer talking with Naomi, who was sitting on a bench.
He slammed the car into park and killed the engine, then sprinted across the road.
“Naomi!” he called.
A horn honked and a car screeched to a stop just a few feet from him.
“What’re you, an idiot?” the driver called. “Get outta the road!”
The officer turned, but before she could speak the driver was speeding off.
Now Nick’s heart was pounding as he ran toward the sidewalk. “Is she all right?” he asked the officer. “Did that jerk hurt her?”
“She’s fine,” the woman said. “What’s with you trying to get yourself killed? Maybe I need to write you a jaywalking ticket for not using the crosswalk.”
“Please, don’t,” Naomi said tiredly. “Enough people have gotten into trouble over me today.”
“You arrested John?” Nick asked the officer. “Can I shake your hand?”
Kate looked at him. “I didn’t trust him. And you are?”
“Nick Talbot. You’re not really going to give me a ticket for jaywalking, are you?”
“I’m thinking about it.” Her stare was unblinking, her tone stern.
She turned back to Naomi. “Can I give you a ride home?”
“That’s why Nick’s here,” Naomi said, standing. “He drives my grandmother and cousin and me to and from work. He came to get me after I met with John.”
“I see.”
“May I ask a question?”
“Sure.” Kate put her hands on her equipment belt.
“Is there some reason you were here tonight?”
“I can’t take a dinner break like everyone else?” Kate asked. “Food’s really good here.”
Nick watched tears well up in Naomi’s eyes. “Ya, right,” she said, surprising the officer with a hug. “I could tell John wanted to give me a hard time, but just after I told him I wouldn’t be seeing him anymore he looked over and saw you a few tables away and changed his mind.”
Kate’s smile faded. “The first week or so is the most dangerous if an ex-boyfriend or husband is going to give you trouble,” she told Naomi.
She pulled out a business card and pressed it into her hand. “You call 911 if there’s any problem and give them my name. Now get out of here before I give your friend a ticket. I’ve had a long day. I didn’t need to almost have someone splattered on the road right in front of me.”
“Well, that was an image I didn’t need to think about,” Nick muttered.
“She was right.”
“I know.” He carefully guided Naomi across the street—using the crosswalk a few feet away, aware of the officer watching him, without him glancing back.
“She drew a gun on Chris.”
He gave her a shocked look and would have stopped in the middle of the road, but she pulled him along. “You must really want to get on her bad side.”
“I want the full story,” he told her as they approached his vehicle. “Get in the front seat. Your hands are like ice. Why don’t you have a warmer jacket on?”
“I wasn’t expecting a cold snap,” she told him. As soon as she buckled her seat belt she rubbed her hands together.
Nick got into the driver’s side, started the car, and then turned on the heat. “It’ll start warming up in a few minutes.” Frowning, he put the car back into park. “I think I have a spare blanket in the trunk.”
“No, no, let’s get going,” she said, glancing around. “I’ll be fine.”
He caught on to her nervousness and immediately clicked on the door locks and got the vehicle moving. “Are you afraid John is hanging around?”
“I doubt it,” she said. “Guess I’m just overreacting to the officer’s warning.”
“I think it’s wise to be careful,” he told her.
Then, to get her mind off her tension, he began talking about the weather, comparing it to Florida. Soon he could see her visibly relax.
“So what’s the story about Chris?”
She told him in as few words as possible and lapsed into silence after that. He started to ask her about how Leah was doing, but when they traveled under a streetlight and he looked over he saw a tear gleaming diamond bright on her cheek and he changed his mind.
When he pulled into the drive, a kerosene lamp glowed like a beacon of warmth in the front window of Leah’s house. The door opened and light spilled out as Leah waited for Naomi to walk inside.
Naomi opened her purse to reach inside, but Nick put his hand over hers. “No charge. It’s on the house.”
“I can’t—”
“A friend can’t help a friend?”
She bit her lip. “You did so much on the trip and wouldn’t take enough money.”
“I don’t want to hear about it,” he said gruffly.
What he wanted was to reach over and stroke away the tear, to touch her shoulder and reassure her that everything was going to be all right, to tell her that you could survive not getting what you wanted.
But he didn’t think he could convince her when he didn’t believe those words himself.
“Bake me some o
f those rolls we had the first morning of the trip and we’ll consider it even,” he said lightly. “Now go on. Your grandmother’s probably worried about you.”
He waited while she got out and walked up to the front door, where he saw Leah embrace her. Leah waved to him, and placing her arm around Naomi, she closed the door. The lamp moved from the front window and he traced its path as one of them carried it to light the dark stairs and set it in a bedroom.
He pulled out of the driveway and drove home as darkness fell.
Life went back to normal—at least the kind of normal you had when you worked in a shop, thought Naomi as she straightened a display.
You never knew who would walk into the shop—local or tourist, new or longtime customer, buyer or browser.
Jamie, one of Mary Katherine’s Englisch friends, breezed in with her hair in braids, wearing a short flowered skirt and a jean jacket covered with dozens of multicolored buttons and bows.
“Oh, a bird dropped a feather in your hair,” Anna exclaimed, and started to pluck it out.
Jamie laughed and held up her hand. “No, I put it there! It’s the latest fashion.”
Anna raised her eyebrows. “Latest fashion?” She shook her head. “Imagine.”
“You didn’t notice my hair’s brown now, not an unusual color.”
Anna shrugged. “But I liked your hair when you colored it. I always thought it made you … you.”
“Well, how about that.”
“Glad to have you back.”
“I’m glad to be back.”
Jamie flopped down in a chair next to Naomi and studied the quilt she was sewing.
“What’s that pattern?”
“Crazy quilt,” Naomi muttered.
“Really?” Jamie looked at the random-sized pieces. “You feeling a little crazy? Maybe it’s time for a Girl’s Night In this week.”
“Sounds like fun,” said Anna. “We’ll have to see if old married ladies can get away.”
“Who are you calling ‘old married lady’?” Mary Katherine asked, looking over from where she sat at her loom.
“You,” Anna told her, giving her an impudent grin.
“How are you doing?” Jamie asked quietly. “I know Plain people are very private and don’t make engagements public, but I knew. And I could tell something was wrong pretty quickly.”
Naomi smiled slightly and leaned back in her chair. “And so now you know I’m not getting married, right?”
“I didn’t tell her,” Anna spoke up as she seated herself and pulled out her knitting.
“It’s okay. Jamie’s a friend.” Naomi leaned back in her chair.
“So, you feeling a little discombobulated?” Jamie asked her, gesturing at the quilt.
“I thought I knew where I was going,” Naomi told her slowly. “I thought he was the man God set aside for me and we’d get married and have children and—”
“Live happily ever after, like a fairy tale?”
She colored. “Well, we don’t talk like that. That’s just fanciful Englisch talk.”
“Besides, there’s no such thing as a happy ending,” Anna blurted out, then looked startled at what she’d said. She pressed her fingers against her mouth, then jerked her head around and stared at Mary Katherine. “Sorry.”
Mary Katherine stared at her, her expression sad. “No, I’m sorry, Anna. I’m sorry for what happened to you. I—”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Anna—”
“I mean it, I don’t want to talk about it.” Anna shoved her knitting into the basket next to her chair and stood. “I’m going to see if Grossmudder needs help with the deposit.”
As a group, they watched her leave the room.
“You’re not going to go after her, try to talk to her?” Jamie asked.
Naomi shook head. “Not now. Anna would be very upset with us. She wants to be left alone when she’s like that.”
“But maybe that’s not the best thing for her,” Jamie persisted. “I remember when I took Psych—”
“Uh-oh, here comes the psychology class,” Mary Katherine warned. “Look out, Naomi, here comes Dr. Freud.”
Jamie grinned. “Okay, I know I talked a lot about the class when you and I discussed our fathers. But the class really helped me understand him.”
“It’s just we talk a lot about how God has this man set aside for us,” Naomi said. “So why did Anna’s husband die so young and leave her? Why did John—” she stopped.
“Why did John what?” Jamie pounced. “What did he do?”
Naomi shook her head. It wasn’t right to talk bad about him.
“I can guess,” Jamie finally said. “Abuse isn’t a stranger to any community—Englisch or Amish.”
“I’m not blaming John for anything.”
“No. You think you did something wrong, don’t you? Abusers are good at making their victims feel they’re at fault, that they did something to make someone lose temper with them.”
Naomi’s fingers clutched at the quilt. “That psychology class taught you all that?”
“That and having friends who have gone through it. It’s a bigger problem than you know.” She checked her watch. “Gotta get to class.”
She walked over and looked at the pattern Mary Katherine was weaving. “You talking to a class on weaving again this semester?”
“I am. And I’m enjoying the class your instructor is letting me audit.”
No sooner had Jamie left than Elam Miller, an older Amish friend of their grandmother’s, strolled in. Naomi had always liked Elam. He always had a smile for others and came around to help her grandmother with things that needed fixing.
Elam had lost his wife a little more than a year ago and she and her cousins had wondered if the two friends would marry after his time of mourning was over. But it hadn’t happened.
“Is Leah here?” he asked, looking around.
“Elam?” she called from the back room. “Come on back.”
He did as she asked and a few minutes later Anna came out and rejoined them in the shop.
“I was just told to get ready to close.” She looked at the back room door, shut now, and seemed baffled. “I got the distinct feeling that they wanted to talk privately.”
“Really? What about?” Mary Katherine asked.
“I don’t know.”
“He used to stop by and talk to Grossmudder when I stayed with her. I think he’s sweet on her.”
Naomi and Anna stared at her. “Really?”
“Really.”
“You never said anything.”
Mary Katherine shrugged. “He stopped coming for a while. I didn’t think anything about it.”
Anna smirked. “Then you and Jacob started seeing each other and all you could see was him.”
It was so good to be back with them, Naomi reflected. They were closer to one another—closer than siblings. The day wasn’t normal if they didn’t say a loving word to one another—or bicker.
Days passed and people came and went in the shop. In between customers, Naomi quilted, Anna knitted, and Mary Katherine did her weaving. Life returned to the routine.
Except Nick didn’t talk to her as often as he had before the trip—and definitely not as much as when they’d been in Pinecraft. She missed him.
The weather started warming up. Naomi didn’t know if it was the signs of spring that made her heart feel a little lighter each day or the fact that she heard John had gone back to his own Amish community in another county.
She finished the crazy quilt and pulled out the material she’d bought at a store in Sarasota. Her cousins loved the tropical patterns and colors she’d found. Anna thought a quilt using the material with dolphins and seahorses would be perfect for a summer window display.
When Nick had wanted to buy one of her quilts John had carelessly told him that he didn’t need to buy one at the auction-inflated price—that Naomi would make him one if he wanted.
She pulled out her s
ketchpad. Two patterns caught her eye. The first was one that was simple and used several coordinating materials. Her favorite was the one called Marine Life with a print of dolphins, sea turtles, and shells. It could be a reminder of the time they’d spent in Florida.
But then after she finished it, it just didn’t seem like him. As he drove them home that night, he turned on the headlights and she remembered the quotation from the writer that he’d used on the way home from Florida.
It seemed to her that he’d been tuned in to her, hearing the bit of anxiety in her voice about finding a path home in the dark. He was like that, picking up on her emotions. He’d reassured her with it and shown her that he could be relied on to see her safely home.
A few days later, Naomi went looking for a pattern book in the back room of the shop. There, that was it, she thought as she found the one she wanted and brushed the dust from it. Her heart beat faster as she flipped through the pages and stopped to study the Mariner’s Compass quilt pattern.
She walked out into the shop and began pulling bolts of materials: a rich navy blue, a turquoise, a light aquamarine, a cerulean. Some greens too, for when the sunlight hit the water a certain way.
She cut big spears of fabric, assembled them on a table to look like the pattern, and grew excited. The colors, the design—yes, this reflected Nick’s personality, the way he’d grown up traveling, learning, seeking new adventures. His wasn’t a life of staying on the tried-and-true path but of asking questions the way he did of Leah, of studying the people and places around him. Of his voracious reading.
He seemed on an inner quest for some meaning in his life, and while he didn’t go around spouting some biblical phrase or trying to impress, he lived his spiritual beliefs by helping others and valuing the same kind of things she did.
This could be the quilt to give to a man like him. He’d understand that … well, that she understood him the way he seemed to understand her.
Sometimes, when she got into his van for the ride to and from work she caught him staring at her and she’d blush, remembering that kiss they’d shared on the beach. Remembering the way he’d seemed to care that night outside the restaurant when he’d seen her with the police officer and thought John had hurt her.
The Heart's Journey: Stitches in Time Series #2 Page 16