Authors: Kelly Irvin
He swallowed. “Good pie.”
“You haven’t eaten it yet.” Her head lolled back on the pillow. “Don’t be nice to me because I’m dying.”
“I wouldn’t do that.”
A sound came from her mouth that might have been a painful ghost of a giggle. “No, you’d tell me to stop feeling sorry for myself.”
“Yes. Time to stop laying around and do some work.”
“Soon as I take a nap.”
Her eyes closed and her grip went lax. He started to back away. Her eyes fluttered open. “Promise me I’ll get to ride again.”
David glanced at Willow. Her hand fluttered to her mouth. She nodded. He turned back to Kinsey. “I promise. One way or another.”
“I’m tired.”
“Sleep.”
David turned to slip past Willow and Violet. Willow put up a hand. David stopped. He waited. She had a right to be angry.
“Thank you.”
Startled, he couldn’t think what to say.
“You gave her one more good day.” Willow touched his arm. “Thank you.”
One more good day. “Don’t thank me. Every day on this earth comes from God.”
Willow nodded. David could do no more than nod back.
It had taken him a year to come to this place, but now that he was here, he understood.
Thank You, God, for one more good day.
E
xhaustion clawed at Josiah. The reins weighed heavy in his hands, and the monotonous
clip-clop
of the horse’s hooves on the blacktop and the heat that billowed from the road threatened to lull him to sleep. Miriam looked amazingly awake after the day she’d had. She stared at the passing scenery as if she were at ease. He squirmed on the seat, trying to think of something simple to say. Sitting next to her in the hospital emergency room had given him time to think about how good she was with children and how quickly she reacted to Kinsey’s collapse. She had her head on straight. She’d never wavered.
“Penny for your thoughts.” She gave him a quizzical look. “You’re mighty quiet.”
“Tired.”
“Me too. But wound up.” She patted her kapp and ducked her head. “It’s a shame we can’t just ride for a while.”
The sun hung low in the western sky, playing a game of hide and seek with the clouds on the horizon. “It’s late. It’ll be dark soon. You’ve missed supper and we’ve both got chores.”
“True.”
It amazed Josiah how much disappointment and longing could be packed into one syllable. He shook the reins and clucked at Mooch. “You know how to handle yourself in an emergency.”
She shrugged. “Panic doesn’t help.”
“Seeing that little girl lying on the floor like that…”
“Imagine how David felt.”
Josiah could imagine all too well. “He’s lost so much. I wonder about him getting close to a little Englisch girl. It’s odd.”
“She’s sick. He’s sick. They met in the hospital. I don’t think it’s odd at all.” Miriam smiled. “I think it’s sweet. They both understand like no one else can what it’s like to have a scary disease. They’ve given each other a special gift.”
“Do you ever think about how it could end for him?”
“Or for her if he goes first.”
“He won’t die. She might, but not David.”
“Because he’s your friend?”
“Because he’s too stubborn.” Josiah paused, considering whether to voice the thought. “Because I don’t pray much, but I prayed about him.”
“Gut.”
Miriam surprised him by putting her arm through his and leaning against his shoulder. “I pray for him and his doctors and for strength and courage.”
She was so much better than he. “Me too.”
“None of us is perfect, Josiah. I don’t expect you to be.”
“But you are.”
“Am not.”
She sounded offended, which amused Josiah for some reason. “Are too.”
“Stop it!”
They both laughed, her high giggle mixed with his low growl of a laugh. It sounded good. Nothing stood between them except his own weakness. The clarity of that thought pushed him into taking the chance, bridging the chasm he had created between them. “There’s always later.”
“Later?” She let go of his arm and straightened.
He snatched a flashlight from the floor of the buggy. “I’ll double check to make sure the batteries are still good.”
Her gaze went from the flashlight to his face and back. “What about Sarah?”
“Sarah can get her own flashlight.”
“I’m serious.”
He held her gaze. “So am I. I’m sorry it took me this long to figure it out.”
“Daed goes to bed early. My brothers will probably be out and about doing their own visiting.” A smile spread across Miriam’s face. “I’ll catch up with my sewing tonight. I’ve allowed myself to get behind.”
He hoped she was right about her brothers. None would be happy to see his buggy in the Yonkers’s lane. Miriam’s courting was her business.
And now it was his.
A
nnie punched the bread dough with her fist, then rolled it over and smoothed it into a ball. Charisma giggled and did the same with the bread dough sitting on the floured cutting board in front of her. The girl laughed at the strangest things, which made teaching her to bake all the more challenging. She’d rather sit on a stool, watch, and make a running stream of comments meant to amuse herself and keep her mind off Logan’s fate. The judge had taken a long recess—something about another court hearing he couldn’t postpone. The waiting was making Charisma crazy, and therefore Annie too. Annie used the back of her hand to rub an itchy spot on the end of her nose. “Something tickle your funny bone? What’s so funny?”
“Who knew making bread could be such good therapy?”
“Therapy?”
“You know, working out your aggressions.”
“Aggressions?”
“Annie Shirack, you can’t tell me you don’t have the desire to haul off and smack Mr. Bald and Pitiful now and again.”
Annie’s hand fisted involuntarily. She immediately loosed her fingers and wrapped them around the bread pan. “Grease this pan for me, please.” She wiped her hands on a towel and began smoothing Charisma’s dough. “We’ll put these in the pans and let them rise again before baking them.”
“Don’t try to avoid the question. Don’t you ever get so mad at David that you want to kick his—”
“No. No!” Annie slapped down the image in her head. Sure, sometimes she was so frustrated she wanted to chop some wood to keep from giving David a piece of her mind again. She wasn’t proud of her behavior that day in the barn. She needed to learn to talk less and listen more. “We don’t believe in violence.”
“Never? Not even to defend yourselves?”
“We’re peaceful people.” That fact gave her a sense of security, a knowing who she was and where she came from. “We don’t involve ourselves in strife.”
“You don’t got any guys fighting in the war?”
“No.”
“What if somebody killed your little brothers? Wouldn’t you want to hurt him back?”
“Hurting him wouldn’t bring back Josiah or Mark.”
“You sure—”
The bell dinged over the double doors as a customer entered. The door slammed shut with a bang. It was a wonder the glass didn’t break.
“Hello, hello. Annie, are you back there?”
Sarah Kauffman strolled through the aisle and sashayed right up to the counter. Annie hardly recognized her in the long, dark blue dress and crisp kapp. Gone were the blue eye shadow and dangling silver earrings she’d favored in the past. She looked so much younger…and more innocent. Annie knew better. She returned to the front counter. “I’m here. Sarah, how are you?”
“So this is Sarah?” Her face full of curiosity, Charisma jumped down from her stool and crowded Annie. “Josiah’s Sarah?”
“Yes. No. I mean, this is Sarah Kauffman.” Ignoring Charisma’s smirk, Annie made the introduction politeness demanded. “What would you like, Sarah? We have some sourdough bread hot out of the oven.”
“Mayor Haag wants two dozen hoagie rolls. She’s making—I mean I’m making—sub sandwiches for her campaign meeting tonight.” Sarah tapped long, unadorned fingernails on the glass. “And two dozen
molasses cookies and two dozen chocolate chip cookies. She says you have the best molasses cookies in the state. Is that right?”
She was trying really hard to be nice. Annie grabbed a white paper sack from a stack on the counter and began filling it. Whatever had happened with Josiah, Annie had to treat this girl with the same respect she would any other customers. Some were more of a challenge than others—even Bishop Kelp would concede that fact, surely. “How are things with you, Sarah? Is your job going well?”
“Everything’s great.” She picked out a chunk of brownie from the sample platter and popped it in her mouth. “Yummy. I’ll take a couple of brownies for myself. Mayor Haag won’t care.”
Annie glanced at Charisma. She was way too quiet. Her lips were turned down in an exaggerated frown. She sniffed and crossed her arms.
Sarah glanced up from studying the trays of cookies behind the glass. “So you’re the girlfriend of the guy who robbed this place, right?”
“And you’re the girl who nearly killed Annie’s brother, right?” Charisma snatched back the platter of samples just as Sarah lifted her hand to take another piece of a brownie. “You’re the one pretending to be Amish.”
“I’m not pretending.” Sarah’s tone mixed irritation with surprise. “I’m trying to make a life for myself. Besides, what do you know about it?”
Charisma squeezed past Annie and sauntered around the display case, not stopping until she stood in Sarah’s path. Something about her pose—hands on her hips, chin lifted, scowl on her face—made Annie think of a cat defending her territory against a stray who’d wandered onto her property. “I know girls like you.”
“You don’t know me.”
“Sure I do. You’re just like me. When you want something, you go after it. Nothing stops you.”
Sarah made a show of examining the trays of cookies neatly arranged behind the glass. “Annie, give me a dozen oatmeal raisin cookies too. I’ll take them home. My cousin Delia loves oatmeal raisin cookies.”
Annie thrust the bag of cookies and rolls at Sarah. “That will be twenty-one dollars and twenty-five cents.”
Sarah dug around in her bag and produced a billfold. With an exaggerated flourish she counted out the money. “There you go. Pleasure doing business with you.” She smiled at Charisma. “You may think we’re alike, but we’re not. I would never waste my time on a guy who is willing to go to jail for the pennies he’ll get from robbing a bakery in a little backwater town like Bliss Creek.”
She pivoted and traipsed to the door in a leisurely stroll that said she hadn’t a care in the world. Annie bit her lip to keep unkind words from spilling out. Logan had made bad choices, but Sarah had no right to judge. Plain people didn’t judge.
Charisma chuckled.
“What are you laughing about? You thought that was funny? I don’t—”
“Annie, Annie! I just proved my point.” Charisma held up both hands. “Actually, I proved your point.”
“What are you talking about?”
“No way she’s suited to your life. She’s faking it.”
Uncertain, Annie folded her arms and thought about it. “I already knew that.”
“You figured she couldn’t be that devious. You wanted to believe she might be joining your community for the right reasons. You wanted to believe she’d do the right thing.” Charisma plopped the sample platter back on the display case, selected a chunk of cookie, and inspected it before popping it in her mouth. She chewed deliberately. “Now you know. She won’t. You have to make your brother see that.”
“He already does. He even took Miriam for a buggy ride the other night.”
“That doesn’t mean Sarah Kauffman can’t still get inside his head.” Charisma dusted her fingers off. “I know girls like her. I am a girl like her. You gotta make sure he stays away from her.”
“How?”
“You’ll figure it out. For Miriam’s sake, you’d better.”
D
avid smoothed the blanket on Blackie’s back, then adjusted its position before adding the saddle. The evening air hadn’t begun to cool, even in the shade of the Shiracks’ barn. He hoped it wouldn’t be too warm for Kinsey. It had been a surprise when Willow had stopped by the Plank house, her uniform wilted after a long shift at the restaurant, to convey a message from her daughter. She wanted the ride now that David had promised her in the hospital. One last time? Willow didn’t say that, but David read the painful air of resignation on her face. The doctor saw no reason to prohibit it. Nothing she did now would change the course of the disease.
David didn’t want to give up, even if the doctors did. Even if Willow and Violet were trying to find peace with this ending. A chance still existed. God’s plan might still be to give her—to give them—more time. He buckled the cinch, tightened it a little, and then led the horse out into the corral where he used a quick-loose knot to tie the rope to a fence post.