by Kelly Irvin
“He’s right about that.” Bertha frowned. She wouldn’t disagree with the deacon. No member of the community would. “See to it that you’re back in time for evening chores. Your daed’s back is out of whack again.”
“We’ll take your buggy since it’s already hitched.” Mahon stood, sketches in hand, and headed for the door. “You can drop me off on the way back.”
“We should take this.” Iris picked up the sketchbook and scooted away from the table. “In case you need to draw something.”
It sounded lame in her ears. Because it was lame. Mahon grabbed his coat from the hook by the back door. The look of discomfort on his face said he thought so too, but he shrugged and nodded. He put on his coat and held out his hand. “I’ll take it.”
“I can carry it. You’ll be driving.”
His anxious gaze fixed on the sketchbook, he chewed on his lower lip for a second. “I’ll be back before supper, Mudder.”
Bertha sniffed. “Don’t track mud in the house when you do get here.”
A few minutes later they were on the road to Jamesport under a gloomy, gray sky that threatened to open up and drench them. Iris held the sketchbook in her lap with both hands. It was important to Mahon, which made it seem heavy and substantial to the touch. She studied the fields as they rolled by, searching for a topic of conversation. Patches of snow shone white against the muddy earth spattered with rain. The weather? The baby? She couldn’t stand it anymore. “Can I look at your drawings?”
She opened the book before he could reply. The first few sketches were landscapes. Missouri in spring. A horse pulling a buggy on a road that wound past an open field, a red barn in the distance. Roses on a trellis outside a front door, complete with a welcome mat on the porch. An oak tree and an unoccupied tire swing. The strokes were fine and sure. The drawings contained as much detail as a black-and-white photograph, like memories caught and suspended in time.
“I wish you wouldn’t.”
“Why? They’re beautiful.”
Iris turned the page and found her own likeness staring up at her. She sat in a lawn chair, a glass of something in her hand. Her head was thrown back as if she were laughing. She looked up at someone who stood just beyond the page. She glanced at Mahon. He scowled straight ahead. A pulse beat in his jaw.
“I’m sorry.” She shut the sketchbook. The clip-clop of horse’s hooves in the muck filled the silence for several seconds. Half a dozen thoughts whirled through her head. He’d captured her image at a singing or a picnic. A happy, carefree moment. Such moments seemed long ago. For him, too, perhaps. But he’d never approached her at a singing. She always left with Aidan. Mahon’s presence barely registered in those days. “Why do you draw me?”
“I draw other people.”
“Other women?”
He didn’t answer. The squeak of the wooden wheels as they spun in the muck punctuated the question. The wind whistled through the bare branches of the sycamore and elm trees that lined the road. It cut through her wool coat. She shivered. “I didn’t mean to pry.”
“My daed says drawing doesn’t serve a purpose. He says it’s like daydreaming, filling up time with doodles.” He cleared his throat. “He’s never mean about it. He only wants me to understand. It’s not like making furniture, which is useful and can be beautiful too. Or the crib quilts you make for the babies. The quilts keep them warm, but they’re pretty too.”
He’d noticed her crib quilts. She set that observation aside to study later. It sounded as if he’d heard this lecture many times. “But you still draw.”
“It doesn’t interfere with my chores.” Mahon’s glance sideswiped hers. His face turned a deeper hue of scarlet than the cold warranted. He snapped the reins as if to hurry along this never-ending ride. “I think while I do it. I puzzle things out. I record memories. It doesn’t hurt anything.”
He stumbled over the words as if searching for the right ones to explain something he feared she would never understand. But she did. While she pieced and quilted the crib blankets she, too, puzzled over life’s strange twists and turns. She imagined the lives the babies would have, what they would look like, the world they would inherit in years to come. She, too, tried to understand that which couldn’t be understood. What did farmers think about during those long afternoons when they tilled the fields? What did Mudder think about as she toiled over load after load of laundry or pulled weeds in the morning sun on a spring day? Was it any different? Daed—and the bishop and the minister—would argue the end results were. Food from the fields and the garden, clean clothes, quilts, useful products unlike these sketches that served no other purpose than to memorialize a moment in life. “Gott made beautiful flowers. It doesn’t seem they serve much purpose other than to make us smile and tell us spring is here.”
“I’m sure they serve other purposes.” His expression softened and he smiled. “They provide food to the bees.”
“I’ll give you that one.”
The silence was more companionable then.
She longed to open the sketchbook again. Is that what her mother meant by pride? What Freeman talked about in his messages on Sundays—personal vanity, idolatry. The sin of worshipping one’s self. All that in an innocent sketch of her laughing. Or maybe it was the call of the forbidden, like the keggers during her rumspringa. She’d been so anxious to gulp down that red cup of beer. Then, when Salome wasn’t looking, she’d spat it out and rushed in search of water to drown the nasty taste. The English farm boys had scoffed at her queasiness.
“Why don’t you want me to look at the sketches?”
“My whole life I’ve been told not to get carried away with it. To drop the pencil and go do something worthwhile.”
“I used to get that when I read books instead of darning.”
“But you didn’t feel . . . compelled to read.”
“Nee, I just like it.” She grinned, thinking of her early foray into Nancy Drew mysteries, eventually replaced by Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot. Lives so different from hers and worlds apart. Vocabulary too. “I keep a book in my room and go to bed early.”
His chuckle sounded rueful. “I share my room.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“I don’t draw other women.”
“Why do you draw me?”
He snapped the reins. “Giddy-up.” As if he couldn’t wait to reach Jamesport. “It passes the time.”
“The time until what?”
“Until you’re ready.”
Maybe she should ask him to draw her a picture. “Ready for what?”
“I don’t remember you asking so many questions.” He glared at her. “Me.”
One syllable could be worth a hundred drawings, if it was the right syllable.
She wasn’t cold anymore. In fact, she considered removing her mittens and her coat.
“You asked.” He growled deep in his throat, like an old barnyard dog awakened from a nap. “I’m waiting for you to get over Aidan Graber, come to your senses, and see we’re meant to be together.”
CHAPTER 8
Come to my senses? Heat scorched Iris’s ears. The burning on her cheeks had nothing to do with the icy-cold wind. She inhaled and counted to ten. Three times.
“You asked.” Mahon sounded as aggravated as she felt. “More than once.”
How dare he? Get over Aidan. “What are you talking about?”
“You forget I live in the same house as Salome. I spent as much time with you as her when we were kinner. I watched you leave with him after the singings. I watched your face when you watched him at Caleb’s funeral. I saw your face when he married Bess. All this time I’ve waited for you to see what’s on my face.”
He’d found the words after all.
“Well, well . . . I don’t . . .” Iris sputtered. “You never . . .”
“You did ask.”
Iris laid the sketchbook between them. His words hung in the air. Rachel was right about everything. Mahon’s feelings
came as no surprise, truly, so why was she so stunned? The depth and breadth astounded her. He’d held his peace for a long time. Now the words rushed out like a torrential river that bowled her over. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Don’t say anything. Do me that favor.”
To say nothing would be unkind. Yet his declaration put him far ahead of her on this path. He couldn’t expect her to race to meet him at the end. “It’s not fair.”
“What’s not fair?”
“You could’ve tried.” As if she would’ve had eyes for anyone other than Aidan in those days. Now she wasn’t being fair. No other words came that would help her explain the tumult in her heart and head. “You could’ve said something.”
“Your heart was—is—with someone else.”
“No. It’s not. Not anymore. Granted, it was at one time, but I’ve made my peace. I turned him down.”
“He asked you to marry him and you said no.”
She turned her face toward the fields. Shame coursed through her. Did everyone know of her heartbreak? What passed between her and Aidan was private. Like having a leg amputated and experiencing phantom leg pain. “How do you know this?”
“Salome and Mary talk when they do their sewing at night. They forget I’m around.”
The sound of the rain-engorged creek gurgling past her on the cool spring evening on which Aidan had proposed assailed Iris’s ears. The way the rocks had smacked the water when she made them skip better than he did. Frogs croaked. A mockingbird trilled. Her heart beat in a ragged, painful tribute to what she knew was coming. “I had to say no. He didn’t lieb me.”
“Another woman might have said jah, thinking he would grow to lieb her.”
“In three years, he never kissed me.” She bent her head and stared at her hands, her voice a whisper. Mortified, she cringed and put her hands to her burning cheeks. Had she said those words aloud? “You don’t want to hear this.”
“I’m glad.”
Her hands dropped. She swiveled and glared at him. “Why?”
The childish, chipmunk face disappeared, replaced with a man’s fierce stare. His blue eyes were warm and liquid. His cheeks were red from the cold and emotion. He transferred the reins to one hand. His free hand landed on hers and squeezed, his grip hard, nothing like the soft brush of the previous evening. “It means your first kiss is reserved for the man who loves you.” He let go and returned to the business of driving. “Me.”
Her mouth gaped. Unable to think of a single word of response, she closed it.
They made the rest of the drive to the Jamesport Grocery Store in silence. Mahon pulled into one of the spots in front of the hitching post and tethered the horse. “They might have stopped here for supplies before heading out of town.”
She owed him a response. The connection between her brain and her mouth was tied in a million knots. She nodded. He hopped from the buggy and looked back. “Are you coming?”
She nodded again. Shaking his head, he strode around the buggy to her side. He glanced around at the nearly empty street and then up at her. “Don’t worry about it.”
“I’m not worried.” Her voice sounded breathless in her own ears. Her gaze fastened on his mouth. The power of suggestion? She had waited forever for that first kiss from Aidan. It never came. Mahon was right. It should be reserved for a man who loved her, whom she loved just as much. “Don’t you worry.”
“I’ve been waiting quite awhile. I’m used to it. I’m not going anywhere.”
She studied him. He looked nothing like Aidan, who was tall and blond and had an angular face. But Mahon did have that same sense of loyalty. Aidan’s love for a friend had kept him from courting the woman he loved. When Caleb died, Aidan had the opportunity to finally seek her out. Instead, he asked Iris to marry him because he felt an obligation after years of courting. Knowing his true heart, she’d sent him to Bess with her blessing. Mahon was waiting for her and only her. The thought was like needle and thread darning the rips in her heart. Still, no words presented themselves.
He smiled, a soft, tentative, knowing smile. “Except into the store.”
She climbed down and followed him inside, where they found Kathy Myers behind the register. Snapping a wad of gum the size of her thumb, the teenager scratched the end of her pimpled nose and laid aside her cell phone. She took her time looking at the sketches. “Yep, I’ve seen him.” She pointed to Quinn. “Right after I unlocked the doors this morning. He was waiting outside in a van. Parked right next to Mrs. Lumpkins’s station wagon and Cheryl Reiner’s pickup truck. They like to do their shopping early to beat the rush hour. Like we got a rush hour in Jamesport on a Thursday morning.”
“Did he say anything? Like where he was headed?”
“Nope, and I never got a chance to ask.” The bells over the glass double doors dinged. Kathy waved at Tillie Matthews, who waved back and headed toward the bread aisle. “You should show these to Dan Rogers.”
“The sheriff ’s deputy?” An uneasy feeling churned in Iris’s belly. “Why? Is he in town for something?”
“Mike called him.” Mike was Mike Turner, owner of the grocery store. Kathy tapped Quinn’s sketch with a fingernail painted neon purple. “After I called Mike to tell him this guy walked out of the store without paying for anything.”
“He shoplifted. Are you sure?”
“He was carrying one of those green camouflage army backpacks.” Kathy pointed at the overhead mirrors. “I watched him pick up a package of sanitary napkins, some chocolate donuts. A bottle of aspirin. Some OJ. Next thing I know, I’m ringing up Mrs. Lumpkins and I hear the bell. I look up and he’s out the door. I ran around the counter and sprinted after him. He took off like a bat out of hell in a brown van that sounded like it was on its last leg.”
Mahon turned around and leaned on the counter between the gum and mints rack and the rack of sales flyers. He scooted down to let Tillie pay for her bread and milk. “Is Deputy Rogers coming to town?”
“He’s already here.” Kathy waved Tillie’s twenty-dollar bill in the general direction of the street. “He was on his way to the Purple Martin Café for a piece of Zeke’s chocolate cream and meringue pie before he headed back to Gallatin.”
Iris whirled, tugged a cart from the row by the doors, and headed for the baby food aisle. How could Quinn do such a thing? Desperation? He only needed to ask. They would’ve helped. How could he do this to Lilly? How could he do this to Jessica?
A father who could leave his baby girl behind could also steal, it seemed. He’d left Iris with the responsibility of feeding his child. She picked up a can of powdered formula. The cost of one small can made her mouth drop. At this rate her small savings from selling crib quilts at the craft sales would be quickly depleted. No matter. She would earn more this spring. She grabbed two big cans and set them in the basket, followed by three gallons of distilled water.
“You don’t want to tell him, do you?” Mahon halted near the long rows of baby food in jars of every color. He picked up a jar of purple plums, then placed it back in its spot, the label turned out. “You’re worried about what it means for the baby.”
“If we tell him about Quinn and Jessica, we’ll have to tell him about Lilly.”
“We have to tell him.” Mahon took over the cart for her and headed toward the counter. “A man broke the law and we know something about him.”
“We don’t even know his last name.” Iris tugged her wallet from her canvas bag. She counted the bills inside it, once, then again. “We can’t help them find Quinn and arrest him. He’s Lilly’s daed.”
“He’s also a shoplifter.”
“Would Freeman want us to get involved?”
“We’re already involved.” They waited for Mr. and Mrs. Haag to finishing paying for their groceries. A lot of frozen meals. Sugar-free cookies. Banana pudding. And prune juice. “Not to mention, your daed wanted us to find them. A sheriff ’s deputy can do that easier than we can.”
“And p
ut them in jail.”
“Just Quinn. Which would force Jessica to go home to her parents and take her baby with her.”
Her expression puzzled, Kathy shoved a lock of bleached blonde hair from her eyes. “I didn’t know you two were married, let alone had a baby.”
“We don’t.”
“We’re not.” Iris’s words collided with Mahon’s.
Kathy’s dark, finely plucked eyebrows rose and fell. “Okay, whatever you say.”
Mahon parked the cart. “I’m going to the Purple Martin. Are you coming or not?”
A baby should have a mother and a father.
A series of bad choices had brought them here. That’s what her father would say.
Iris followed Mahon down the street to the Purple Martin Café, home of the best chicken fried steak in town. The aroma of bacon frying mingled with the scent of freshly baked apple pie greeted her when she pushed through the glass double doors. Her stomach rumbled. Owner Ezekiel Miller hustled toward them with his usual enthusiastic wave. If he found it odd they had walked in together, he didn’t show it. “Table or booth?”
Mahon shook his head. Iris followed his gaze. Deputy Rogers sat at the counter polishing off a huge piece of chocolate cream pie crowned with golden, brown-tipped, puffy meringue.
About fifteen seconds into Mahon’s recitation, Rogers laid down his fork. Thirty seconds in, he tugged a slim notebook from his shirt pocket and began to take notes. He asked a few questions about the van, Quinn’s and Jessica’s descriptions, where they were from and where they were going, all of which Mahon answered. Rogers sat in silence for a few seconds after Mahon finished.
“Can I keep these?” He pointed to the sketches.
Mahon nodded. Iris tried to read the deputy’s expression. A word from her Agatha Christie novels came to mind. Inscrutable.
He leaned forward on his stool, looking past Mahon to Iris. “They didn’t specify where in Texas?”
Iris shook her head.
“Neither one of them offered a last name or said where they came from?”
“They told Mahon they were from Iowa. That’s all I know.”