“Well, before all that, Lilly asked me a funny question.”
Looking down at her, Jacob grimaced. “Do I even want to know? Half the things that I hear come out of her mouth are surprising.”
“Don’t sound so glum,” she said pertly. “First of all, girls her age are dramatic.”
“I believe that.”
He sounded so confused about it that Rebecca laughed. “Being dramatic is not a bad thing. I promise!”
“All right. If you say so.” He sighed. “I tell you what, I am looking forward to the day when Lilly and I are more comfortable with each other. I hope and pray that one day I can tell her something without feeling like I am walking on eggshells.”
Boy, she’d started this off on a bad foot. “Jacob, I didn’t bring this up to talk about Lilly.” Before she started blushing, she cleared her throat. “Lilly asked if I had ever had a boyfriend.”
“I’m sorry. That girl has no shame.” He shook his head. “How did you answer that? Or do I even want to know?”
She smiled in return, liking both his joke and his honesty. “Well, you see, that caught me off guard. I actually thought it was kind of a funny question.”
“Of course you did. It weren’t any of her business.”
“No, it was actually because I hadn’t really reflected on my past relationships—or lack of them. You see, my answer was no. I’ve never had a serious boyfriend.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“I don’t think so, either. But when she then asked me why I hadn’t, I got to thinking some more.” After a brief pause, she continued on. It was obvious that she needed to get to the point soon, before he began thinking she was being critical of his niece.
“When I was attempting to give her reasons as to why I hadn’t ever had a boyfriend, I discovered something about myself.”
“What was that?”
“I never gave myself the time or opportunity to do so.”
“Truly?” He sounded surprised.
She didn’t blame him. She’d been kind of surprised about her romance-less state, too. “I started thinking about my life. At first I decided I could say that I’ve simply been too busy for love and romance. But once I was honest with myself, I realized that I’ve actually let myself become too busy. I allowed myself to put other people’s needs before my own.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that. That’s what family is for, don’t you think?”
“I do. But not necessarily at the expense of twenty-five years. I feel like I wasted a lot of time trying to be everything to everyone. Sometimes a girl needs to take a chance and give herself time to be selfish.”
“Is that why you said yes to me walking you home? It was time to be selfish?”
She thought about that, then shook her head. “Yes. Hmm. No, I mean, nee.”
“Yes and no?”
“What I’m trying to say—very badly, I might add—is that I think I realized that there was something different about you. It appealed to me. I wanted to get to know you better.”
“I think I was ready to be selfish, too, if you want to know the truth,” Jacob said. “When I heard that my brother and sister-in-law died, it made me realize that I’d been living each day without much thought to the future, or to my past. I’d been living in Pinecraft, getting up in the morning, working my job, getting something quick to eat, and sleeping. And then doing it all over again in the morning.”
She knew exactly what he was getting at. It was so easy to think that each day was going to be like the one before and the next one, too. Before you knew it, another week had passed, then a month. And if you weren’t careful, you would have nothing to show for it.
“I’m not sure what I want to do with my life anymore,” Rebecca admitted as they turned down her long driveway and headed toward the large white two-story house that her family had lived in for generations. “I thought it was caring for my siblings. Then I thought it was teaching school. But maybe God simply wants me to try to make a difference in other people’s lives.”
“That’s all?” he asked in a teasing tone. “Attempting to make a difference is a pretty lofty goal to take on.”
“Maybe. Or maybe not. You see, my mother was able to make a difference in our lives almost every day before she passed away.” To her surprise, her throat got tight with emotion. Even after all this time, she still missed her mother’s love and guidance.
“What did she do that was so special?”
“She raised a family. She cooked us supper every evening and made us breakfast every morning.”
“Don’t all mothers do that?”
She shrugged. “Maybe. But if you had asked me when I was seven if other mothers did that, I would have told you it didn’t matter to me. All I cared about was that my mother did. She made a difference in my life.”
“When you figure out what you are going to do, let me know. Because I am simply just trying to get through each day.”
Rebecca nodded, but inside she felt deflated. Maybe she had been sounding just a little too preachy. Or perhaps she’d sounded dreamy? After all, it was a fairly big proposal, to attempt to make such a difference in a life.
She was just about to explain herself again when Jacob started laughing.
“When did you get that little guy?”
She slowly turned her head to where Jacob was staring and gasped.
There, in one of their flower beds stood a baby goat. It was a tiny thing, surely not more than a few months old. It seemed fascinated with Amelia’s mums and was nibbling on the purple ones that lined the bed. By the looks of things, it had been enjoying those mums for quite a while.
As they got closer, it popped its head up, a ragged bloom hanging from its teeth, and stared directly at them. Rebecca couldn’t help but smile. It was adorable with silky white fur, an inquisitive expression, and sturdy-looking little legs.
“You didn’t tell me you’d gotten a baby goat,” Jacob said. “It’s cute.”
“I didn’t know, either.” It was impossible to keep the dismay out of her voice. “I don’t know where it came from.”
“Well, it currently seems to have a fondness for purple chrysanthemums. I wonder why.”
Intent on saving the mums her mother had planted years ago, Rebecca strode toward it. But she was brought up short by its change in expression. Instead of looking content, it now looked extremely irritated with her. Its beady black eyes looked directly at her.
Did goats bite? She wasn’t sure. After a few seconds, it bleated.
Jacob, unfortunately, looked just as lost about what to do with the little creature as she did. He was standing in front of it, his hands held out, as if warding off an attack.
The goat? Well, after barely glancing at Jacob, it delicately pulled the head of yet another mum and began nibbling on it in earnest.
“Do you want me to try to grab hold of it?” Jacob asked.
“I don’t know.” If they caught the little thing, what would they do with it then? Maybe that didn’t matter, though. She couldn’t simply remain there and watch it destroy Amelia’s garden.
“Oh, Princess. Nee!” Amelia cried as she ran out from the barn. “You mustn’t eat the blooms.” When she saw Rebecca, Amelia frowned at her. “Becky, why are you just watching Princess eat my garden?”
The answer seemed so obvious, she didn’t dare say it. Instead, she asked a question of her own. “Why is a goat here? And why on earth is it named Princess?”
“She is my new kid,” Amelia explained as she strode into the bed and wrapped her arms around the goat’s neck. After brushing a hand through its soft-looking fur, she added, “I thought Princess was a wonderful-gut name. She’s a rather fine-looking goat, don’tcha think?”
“She is pretty, I’ll give you that,” Rebecca said. “But I don’t understand how she came to be here.”
“Oh, that’s easy. I was over at Hershberger’s today and they had some goats for sale.”
H
ershberger’s was a popular tourist destination in the area. Folks could even buy corn to feed the goats who loved standing on top of one of the barns. The place was fun and the goats were amusing to watch. But it was a bit of a shock to realize that Amelia had not only ventured over there on her own, but had chosen a baby goat, too.
Not wanting to hurt her sister’s feelings, Rebecca took care to simply state the obvious. “So you bought one.”
“Obviously,” Amelia said as she pulled the goat toward Rebecca and Jacob. “Hi,” she said with a smile. “We haven’t met. I’m Amelia Kinsinger.”
“Jacob Yoder.”
Still holding on to the goat, she looked from Rebecca to Jacob and back. “Are you new to Charm?”
“Jah. Just moved here from Florida.”
“His niece is in Rachel’s classroom. That’s how we met.”
“I didn’t think you were helping out there anymore.”
“I’m not. But now Jacob is going to work at Kinsinger’s.”
“Are you? That’s gut to know. Doing what?”
“Carpentry. I’ll be building house frames,” Jacob added.
Before Amelia could ask any more personal questions, Rebecca redirected their conversation back to the goat. “Where is, ah, Princess going to be living?”
“In the barn, of course.” Looking a little worried, Amelia added, “But I think I’m going to need to get her in a better stall. She slipped out of the one I put her in just an hour ago.”
“Let me see if I can help you,” Jacob said.
Amelia smiled softly. “Danke. Lukas is going to be mighty upset with me if I don’t make sure to take care of Princess.”
“Does Lukas know about her yet?” Rebecca asked.
“Of course not.”
“Aren’t you a little worried he’s gonna be upset?”
“Nee.” Looking decidedly obstinate, she added, “Lukas is my big brother, not my guardian.”
That was true. However . . . “But don’t you think you should have asked him about her?”
“Nee. Why? Are you upset that I didn’t ask you?”
She was, actually. A flower-eating goat sounded like trouble. “I’m not upset,” she began, “but I am surprised.”
“You’ll get used to Princess in no time,” she said as she picked up the goat and started toward the barn. “Danke for your help, Jacob.”
After sending an amused smile her way, Jacob turned to Rebecca. “I guess I should go help out your sister.”
It was startling, but she felt a fresh burst of jealousy. Amelia, with her perfect balance of beauty and sweetness could get just about anyone to do anything for her. Especially if that someone was a man. Since it had been happening all their lives, probably from the time that Amelia could smile and point to a block or toy that she wanted, Rebecca couldn’t even fault her sister for it.
But suddenly, Rebecca wished Amelia’s natural appeal wasn’t quite so . . . well, appealing. “You don’t have to go help her if you don’t want to,” she said. “Lukas can work on the stall later.”
“I don’t mind helping.” She bet he didn’t. Just as she was willing herself not to say anything unkind, he added, “But would you do me a favor, too?”
“What do you need?”
“Come rescue me in fifteen minutes or so?”
Since he looked like the last man to ever need to be rescued, especially not from Amelia, she laughed. “What do you need rescuing from?”
“Princess. She’s cute, but I’m not really a fan of goats.”
“You really aren’t a farmer, are you?”
Looking sheepish, he grinned. “Nope. Besides, no offense, but I didn’t come here to work in your barn. I wanted to see you.”
Instantly, all her worries vanished. “I’ll come to the rescue in fifteen minutes.”
“Danke,” he said before striding to the barn.
After watching him for a bit too long, Rebecca went inside the house. She needed to put her purse down and clean up.
Later, after she “rescued” Jacob, she was going to need to be ready to referee the inevitable argument that was going to take place between her siblings. Because no matter what Amelia thought, a new baby goat named Princess was absolutely the last thing their family needed.
Chapter 18
This was not how Jacob had anticipated their evening would go.
He was currently kneeling in a patch of straw in a rather dark and dingy horse stall in the back of the Kinsingers’ barn. While he hammered at a stretch of chicken wire across the bottom of the railing—which he seriously doubted would keep a rambunctious goat out of trouble—the tiny goat had taken to amusing herself by nibbling on his pant leg.
Furthermore, the person he was there for, the one person in all of Charm whom he was eager to know a whole lot better, was nowhere to be found.
Instead, her sister, Amelia, was in the stall with him. She was sitting on an old barrel as casually as if she’d been sitting with a group of women sipping tea. And between looking over his shoulder and giving him instructions he didn’t need, she was doing a very bad job of controlling one playful, hungry goat.
Princess seemed to have forgotten all about her penchant for chrysanthemums and now was fixated on chewing a hole in the hem of his trousers. She was as determined to get her way as a toddler on a quest for a forbidden toy.
Every time Amelia pulled her away with something silly like, “Oh, nee, Princess,” the goat bleated a bit, glared at Amelia, and scooted closer to him again.
Jacob was fairly certain that he was going to go home with a big hole in his pants. Disciplining the goat itself was not an option. Instead, he did his best to concentrate on creating a safe spot for Princess as quickly as possible. Then he could get out of this stall and get back to the reason he was there in the first place.
“Jacob, how do you think it looks?” Amelia asked. “Do you think it’s gonna be Princess-proof?”
“I hope so.” And he really meant that. But based on Princess’s behavior so far he doubted it would stand up against her for longer than ten minutes.
“I hope so, too. She’s going to need to learn to like her little stall, because I don’t think either Rebecca or Lukas is going to let her inside the house.”
She sounded almost serious. Turning around, he looked at her. “You actually want this goat to live in your haus?”
Her lips twitched. “Not really. But it’s fun to think about. Ain’t so?”
Princess head-butted him. He fell from his crouch and landed on the exact spot that Princess had apparently had in mind. “I think it would only be fun for a certain goat,” he teased.
As the silly animal scooted closer and craned her neck for a rub and he complied, Amelia giggled. “She’s won you over, too. I knew she would.”
Smiling at her, he had to admit that it wasn’t just the goat who had done that, it was Amelia, too. Now that the goat wasn’t tearing at his clothes, he could get a better look at Rebecca’s sister. Even in the dim light, Jacob was certain that Amelia was the prettiest woman he’d ever seen. Blessed with light blond hair, pure blue eyes, a heart-shaped face, and a lithe figure, all matched by a sweet personality, she was truly lovely.
Part of him was surprised he wasn’t thinking about her. She was sweet, pretty, and unattached. But he wasn’t interested in developing anything more with her than a friendship. Instead, his heart and thoughts were thoroughly concentrating on one person and that was Amelia’s sister.
“I am fairly sure this goat did not win me over, Amelia.”
“She might have.” After placing a kiss on the goat’s head she added, “I knew she was the goat for me as soon as I saw her in the pen at Hershberger’s.”
“You knew she was the goat for you?” he repeated with a smile.
“She trotted right up to me and stayed by my side. She liked me from the moment we saw each other.”
Jacob didn’t know much about goats, but he was fairly certain little goats didn’t bond wi
th young women that quickly. Not even pretty blondes like Amelia. “You are too silly,” he teased, feeling like his life would have been even better if he’d had a little sister like Amelia around when he was growing up.
“I’m not silly, Jake. I only know what I like.”
“And you like goats.”
“It’s true.”
When she let out a giggle, he laughed, too. He could only imagine what a handful Amelia had been for her siblings.
He was just about to finish up the project when the barn door opened and Lukas Kinsinger walked in. He was followed by a man of similar build but with light brown eyes and darker brown hair. They were deep in conversation, then turned in unison to the stall that he, Amelia, and one goat occupied.
Both men stopped and stared.
Amelia raised a hand. “Hiya, Lukas.”
Her brother looked thoroughly confused. The other man appeared just plain irritated.
Striding over, Lukas said, “Hi there, Jacob. When I hired you for the lumberyard, I never thought I could hire you to work in my barn, too. Is there a special reason I’m finding you hammering chicken wire in here?”
There was no way he was going to try to explain himself while crouched on the other side of a horse stall. He stood up. “I was simply doing a favor for Amelia.”
The other man approached and rested his elbows on the top rung on the stall. “Oh? And what kind of favor was that?”
Jacob knew that tone, and he wasn’t about to get involved in a fight over Amelia. He raised his hands. “Obviously, I’m hammering chicken wire. Nothing more.”
“Settle, Simon,” Lukas murmured. “Jacob, this here is Simon Hochstetler. He’s a gut friend and one of my supervisors at the mill. Simon, this is Jacob Yoder. He was just hired on over in Marcus’s section.”
“Hi, Simon. It’s gut to meet you,” Jacob said.
The other man simply glared, then said, “That doesn’t tell me why you are alone in the Kinsingers’ barn with Amelia.”
Jacob was too old to be cowed by another man’s jealousy. And it was mighty obvious that’s what this was. “I already told you what I was doing. Nothing more. Nothing less.” Unless one counted his pant leg getting chewed by a billy goat.
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