An Amish Match on Ice Mountain

by Kelly Long

  His mamm was quiet, obviously tired after a day’s helping at the wedding, and Ransom gently patted her shoulder as he got up to take his dishes to the sink. He bent and kissed her soft cheek, balancing his plate in his left hand. “Danki, Mamm—for all of your hard work. I know Jeb and Lucy appreciate it.”

  “As well they should,” his sister Esther mumbled sourly, her irritability bearing witness to her own tiredness.

  Ransom laughed. “Kumme on, Esther. You know you loved every minute of it.”

  “Better watch out, Ransom King,” Esther quipped. “Or you’re going to get trapped into a wedding of your own one of these days—especially after the way you chase the girls around.”

  She got up from the table and swatted at him with a damp dishtowel. He easily evaded her then jumped up to sit on the counter, swinging his legs. “You be older than I, Esther . . . Isn’t it time you yourself were, uh, trapped as you put it.”

  His sister glared at him. Everyone knew that Esther was moody and scared off any prospective suitors with her sharp tongue but Ransom still thought she was beautiful—even if a bit off-putting. But now, she marched from the kitchen, obviously dismissing him in a fit.

  “Ransom, you shouldn’t tease her so,” his mamm said in soft rebuke as she began to gather the plates to wash.

  “I know,” he grinned. “But it’s too much fun to stop.”

  “Well, while you’re having fun, I need you to remember that I want you to take some Lamb’s Ear plantings over to Viola Mast’s haus tomorrow. She asked for them special today and you need to also return the tables we borrowed.”

  Ransom jumped down from the sink and headed for the stairs with a yawn. “No problem, maam. Gut nacht.”

  He expected to drop right off to sleep but instead found himself tossing uncomfortably while strange images of Beth Mast and ripe blueberries played at the back of his mind.

  * * *

  Dawn had yet to stretch its pink fingers across the summer morning sky when Beth slipped quietly from her bed. She was grateful for the feel of Thumbelina, her large Maine Coon Cat, when he brushed against her legs in the inky darkness. She dressed with hasty hands, anxious to get the milking done that was needed for breakfast. Friday meant doing the laundry—always a prodigious task, but by way of the soiled tablecloths that Viola had loaned and brought back from the King’s, it became a monstrous chore.

  But Beth was undaunted; she understood that work was a necessary thing in life. And, as her stepmamm often said, “The more time spent in work, the less there was for idle thought.” Beth knew she had a tendency to let her mind wander, so she was happy for the often heavy chores.

  Thumbelina prowled ahead of her as she left her third-floor room and made her way down the stairs, careful to avoid the steps she knew that creaked in an effort not to wake her stepmamm and Rose. The two had large rooms on the second floor of the auld farmhaus, and, as was typical, they each had placed a mound of clothes and linens outside their respective doors the nacht before so that Beth might gather their laundry without causing them to wake before breakfast was ready.

  She balanced the tall pile of clothes and walked blind down the last set of stairs to the first floor. The wash room was adjacent to the kitchen—a cramped space, barely big enough to hold the wringer washer, large tub, and then—when needed, the ironing board and heavy irons heated on the woodstove. She had to go outside, through a narrow back door, to pump the water, but she understood Viola not wanting her to use the kitchen pump and possibly sloshing water on the hickory hardwoods.

  It took five pails of water to get the metal tub at a gut level for washing, and she hastily separated the whites from the colors after lugging the buckets inside. She plunged the first of Rose’s dark aprons into the water, watching the fabric balloon up then squashing it down once more. She continued through dresses of different hues then paused for a moment to catch the breeze from the back open door only to hear Thumbelina let out a piercing meow.

  Beth jumped in spite of herself then stepped outside in time to see Ransom King driving a wagon slowly down the lane that led to the barn. He gave her a casual wave and she lifted her hand, feeling a strange pounding in her chest. She was suddenly very conscious of the perspiration stains under her arms and the fact that her dark hair had escaped her kapp in errant tendrils.

  “He must be returning the tables to the barn from the wedding,” she muttered to Thumbelina who purred loudly in return. “And he probably won’t even stop at the haus . . .”

  Still, she grasped her hair with ruthless fingers and hastily pinned it back as best she could then returned with a resolute effort to the chore of the washing. She was working the wringer washer when a male voice sounded from the doorway and Thumbelina’s purring increased.

  “That’s a big cat.”

  Beth spun then swallowed hard, careless of the dripping water from the pillowcase she held.

  “Uh . . . jah . . . His name is Thumbelina. I—I thought he was a girl at first and then . . .” She floundered helplessly, wishing she could be as beautiful and confident as her older stepsister.

  Ransom smiled and stooped down to rub his hand in the thick gray fur of the animal and Beth had the irreverent memory of his stroking her back on the previous day.

  “I came over to put the tables in the barn, all right?” He slanted a glance up at her through thick lashes and she wet her lips.

  “Jah, do you need any help?”

  He rose and shook his head. “Nee—it’s men’s work anyway.”

  “Ach, I’m as strong as an ox,” Beth returned in a cheery tone, unconsciously repeating what Viola often said.

  She watched him as he let his dark eyes skim down her damp frame and up again. He shook his head. “I don’t know who’s been putting such ideas in your head, but whoever they are—they’re wrong. You look like you should be cutting flowers not doing such heavy labor as this.” He gestured to the wash piles, visible inside the door. “Where’s your stepsister to help?”

  Beth drank in the kindness of his words and then snapped back to the moment. “Ach, Rose is delicate—a doctor told her long ago that she should only do light tasks as she tends to faint . . .”

  Ransom gave her a wry look that she couldn’t quite understand. “Uh-huh,” he said, then reached out to gently tug the wet pillowcase from her fingers. “What do you say to the two of us getting this job done faster?”

  Beth stared at him, appalled. “I couldn’t—couldn’t let you help me.”

  He put his hands on his lean hips, ignoring the dripping cloth he held. “And why not? I’ve wrung things out for Mamm plenty of times . . . Kumme, let me show you.”

  She watched helplessly as his light blue shirt became even more soaked as he took charge of the wringer and soon had the clothes flying through.

  “Can you hang these on the clothesline?” he asked over his shoulder and she hurried to help.

  She was stretching to place the last wooden clothespin when she heard Rose’s voice and spun in dismay, thinking desperately of a way to explain Ransom King washing women’s dresses.

  Chapter Three

  Beth wanted to dissolve into a spot on the clean grass, but instead she swallowed and walked over to the small wash room. Rose stood like some kind of fairy apparition in the doorway; the sunlight playing off her magnificent red hair, which hung unbound down to her hips. She also was wearing her dressing gown but was standing with visible confidence as Ransom stood, paused, with a dripping cloth in his hands.

  “What’s going on this fine morning, Beth?” Rose’s voice was high and breathy and Beth ignored the blatant fact that any other girl would have run back to her room if caught in such a state, with her hair loose, as only a husband should see it. But not her Rose . . . Nee, Rose has confidence and innocence, Beth thought with pride.

  “Ach . . . Ransom offered to help with the washing and I . . .”

  “Let him, of course,” Rose smiled. “What kindness, so early in the morning. You
must kumme in and have some breakfast, Ransom. I’m sure all of this work has made you hungry.”

  Beth watched Ransom wring out the towel he held and then look up at her stepsister. Heavens only know what he’s thinking . . . Surely he must be floored by Rose’s beauty while I look like....

  “Breakfast would be nice,” Ransom said. “You go on and cook while Beth and I finish here.”

  Beth hastened to intervene. “Ach, but I do the cooking. I’m sorry, Rose—I forgot breakfast with the pile of laundry and—”

  Rose waved a delicate hand in dismissal. “I’ll cook, Beth. Please kumme in, Ransom, and dry off. Beth’s gut at the washing—she’s used to it. Besides, I wanted to talk about you making a new spice box for the kitchen—a surprise for my mamm’s birthday.”

  Beth grabbed the towel from Ransom’s hand. “Jah, please geh. I’m fine here.”

  She felt him give her a measuring glance then finally he nodded. “All right. If you’re sure.”

  She watched them enter the haus single file through the narrow door and then Rose gently closed the wood, leaving Beth standing, feeling appropriately shut out of any such intimacies as morning conversation and flowing hair. She turned with a resolute face back to the washer and tried to ignore Thumbelina’s plaintive meow.

  “Well,” she said, finally looking at the cat. “That was that.”

  * * *

  Ransom knew he had a reputation for being a flirt but the overt manner in which Rose Mast paraded about the kitchen in her dressing gown made him long to run back outside. He wondered rather uneasily where Frau Mast was as Rose reached over his damp shoulder to gain the salt shaker for the scrambled eggs she was making.

  “Uh . . . I could cook, if you’d like to—get dressed,” he said finally.

  But Rose appeared oblivious to her hair and attire and waved airily at him. “Ach, I’m quite comfortable, Ransom. But you must be feeling damp in that shirt. Why don’t you—”

  Ransom was spared any suggestion on the girl’s part when Viola Mast entered the room from the staircase but apparently didn’t notice him seated at the table.

  “Rose, whatever are you doing? You know it’s Beth’s job to cook. Where is that laz—” With a start, she caught sight of him. “—I mean ... girl?”

  Ransom watched Viola change facial expressions as fast as a shadow slips out of the sunlight. And he felt troubled. There was something going on in this haus of women that made him worry for Beth. Not that it’s any of my business. . . .

  Viola continued. “Why Ransom King—I didn’t see you there. Rose, dear, run along and dress and I’ll check if Beth needs any help and take over here.”

  “Ach, Mamm, I’m fine. Don’t be so stuffy. Ransom’s seen a woman’s hair before, I’m sure.”

  He didn’t respond to the loaded comment but rubbed absently at his wet sleeve.

  Viola took the moment into her own hands with a none-too-subtle pinch to Rose’s arm. “I must insist Rose. Now, sei se gut.”

  Rose flounced to the stairs with a smiling backward glance in his direction then he rose from the table bench. “I’ll geh help Beth finish the washing while you cook, Frau Mast.”

  He didn’t know how Viola might have responded because Beth emerged from the wash room.

  “Ah, there you are, child,” Viola practically cooed. “Kumme sit down with our guest and have something to eat. You must have been up quite early.”

  Ransom didn’t miss the surprise on Beth’s sweet face and then the flush of happiness. “Danki, Viola . . . Danki for getting breakfast and I’d love to sit down but I’d better geh and change.”

  Ransom cleared his throat. “You wouldn’t be the only wet one at the table.”

  She looked at him, with her wide blue eyes, and he was reminded of a baby owl peeking out from its nest. He smiled at the thought and delighted in her return smile, but Viola didn’t seem as pleased.

  “The eggs are ready now, child. I’m sorry, Ransom—Beth must indeed change, as is only proper.”

  He sighed to himself then pulled a pocket watch from his hip pocket. “Well, now that I look at the time, I’d best be getting back to the wood shop. I left the Lamb’s Ear plantings that you wanted in a box on the front porch. I’d love breakfast another time. Danki, ladies.” He turned and made for the front door, but not before he’d given a last lingering look at Beth’s face.

  * * *

  “You simply must finish up the breakfast—I’m having those pesky chest pains again,” Viola said. “You may change later. I’ll geh and sit in Rose’s room and you may serve us there.”

  Beth murmured a reply, still thinking about the fact that Ransom King had helped her do the wash when Viola paused on the bottom stair step. “Ach, and Beth, perhaps you don’t understand what’s proper with young men—you’ve had so little experience . . . But a maedel does not let a man help her with such menial chores as the laundry. It is not fitting.”

  Beth bit her lip, thinking of Rose in her dressing gown, but then nodded. “Jah, Viola. It won’t happen again.”

  “Gut. I’m glad to hear it.” Viola disappeared up the steps and Beth bowed her head. It was a shame that it would never happen again—she’d rather enjoyed working side by side with Ransom King.

  He’s nice . . . she thought then hurried to salvage the burning toast.

  Twenty minutes later, she hefted a loaded tray of crisp bacon, scrambled eggs, grilled tomatoes, toast, and homemade marmalade up the stairs and managed a soft knock on Rose’s door.

  Rose bade her enter and Beth got the door open, balancing the tray on her hip. Neither Viola nor Rose looked up when she got the tray into the room and started to set it up on the small table by the window, reserved for such occasions.

  Rose popped off the bed, now suitably dressed with her hair kapped and snatched a piece of bacon from a plate. Beth watched her in some dismay, knowing that no grace had been given for the food. But Viola seemed willing to overlook the infraction as she calmly took a place at the table.

  “That will be all, Beth. Danki.”

  Beth nodded, preparing to leave the room when her stepmother’s voice gave her pause. “Ach, and Beth, I know you planned on attending the blueberry frolic tomorrow, but I’m afraid that I must geh to chaperone, of course, and that black-faced goat of yours is about due for a late lambing. Someone should watch her.”

  Beth felt her heart sink. The blueberry frolic was one of the social highlights of the summer but she couldn’t deny that Cleo had been showing signs of being near to giving birth and she might need help.

  “Viola, perhaps Jimmy Stolfus could stay with her.” Jimmy was the twelve-year-old buwe who’d been hired to help Beth about the farm.

  She watched Viola smile. “Now dear, you know couldn’t possibly know that I gave Jimmy the day off tomorrow, and besides, Rose will bring you back some berries for jam. Won’t you, Rose?”

  “Mmmm-hmmm,” Rose mumbled, her pretty mouth full.

  Beth nodded her thanks and left the room, closing the door quietly behind her. It’s of no matter, she told herself stoutly. I probably wouldn’t have had too gut a time anyway. But then, Ransom King’s smiling face danced behind her eyes and she had to push the thought away with deliberation before heading back downstairs to clean the kitchen.