A Love Undone (6 page)

“Ya, but it’s ten o’clock, and he expects clean sheets on the beds and the floors done, and there could be twenty people to feed.”

“Goodness, girl.” Jolene winked. Most who knew Lester Fisher were afraid of him, but Jolene had grown to love the old man. He was often prickly with those he didn’t like, but to her, he was a secret keeper and a good friend. “We can slay this dragon and have time left over to prop up our feet.” Big exaggeration, but Naomi’s taut shoulders relaxed.

Jolene turned to Josiah. What had been on his mind when he arrived? “Hope is helping Mrs. Pinson clean windows this morning. You know where Mrs. Pinson lives, right?”

“The small brick home on the corner of Walnut and Chestnut.”

“That’s right. On your way back to the cabinet shop, would you stop by there and tell Hope we need her to join us at Lester’s house as soon as possible?”

“Sure thing.”

“And it’d be best if Ray stayed at the shop all day today and went home with you after work.”

Josiah’s face formed lines of concern, but he nodded. “Sure.”

Was Josiah here because of something with Ray and work? If so, they would need to discuss it later. Not only did Lester need them, but Jolene had left the key to his attic hanging on the nail near the attic door. What had she been thinking? Surely no one would need to unlock it and go up there.

Surely.

Jolene turned to Naomi. “Let’s get the pastries and go slay this dragon.”

Ray hid inside the dilapidated building, wishing it would fall on him and end everybody’s misery. He kicked a support beam, causing dust and debris to rain down. So what if he’d messed up at the cabinet shop and drilled the holes for the hardware in the wrong place! Old Man Yoder didn’t have to yell at him in front of everybody. He hated that kind of work. Hated that Josiah still treated him like a ten-year-old little brother.

Life stunk! He shoved the support beam, and it creaked and moaned while shifting a fraction. A board on the other side of the room fell, causing dust to fly. Ray wiped tears from his eyes. He was too old to be a crybaby.

The sound of horse hoofs against pavement drew his attention, and he stepped out of the dark building. Trees surrounded him on all sides, so despite hearing a rig on the road, he couldn’t see it. Not yet anyway. Not until it rounded dead man’s curve. He looked at his watch and realized he’d been gone from the shop quite a while. He started for the road.

Josiah hadn’t been at the shop when Ray messed up and Yoder yelled at him. If his brother was back, it’d take him about two seconds to realize Ray wasn’t there, and he’d go searching for him. And he’d start by going to the house.

Dead leaves crunched under his heavy boots as he walked toward the road. Ray’s thoughts reached into the past, going back thirteen years. He couldn’t remember being struck by lightning, but
he remembered having sausage at breakfast just a few hours before it happened. Would life be different for him if he hadn’t been struck? Would he be better? Better at math or blueprints like his brothers? Would his mother have loved him more? He’d never told anyone, not even Jolene, but Ray had overheard his mother talking to his aunt one night. Just above a whisper she said that he was worse than useless, that he was a burden to everyone around him. His mother’s haunting words continued to ring in his ears. He could barely tolerate the thought that Jolene might feel the way their mother had, but these days as they argued more and more, he wondered.

He just wasn’t good at anything … except worrying Jolene.

“Hello!” The elongated word from a male voice caused Ray to look up and realize he’d walked half a mile down the paved road while lost in his thoughts.

The three guys in a buggy—Alvin, Urie, and James—were a few years older than he was. Alvin had the reins. Ray ignored them and kept on walking.

“Where you headed, Ray?”

Ray shrugged, ignoring Alvin.

“Maybe he don’t know,” Urie piped in.

“I know,” Ray hollered over his shoulder.

“You want a ride?” James asked.

Ray stopped. James was one of Van’s younger brothers, and unlike the others James had never been mean to him. Then again, Ray and James never attended school together. James had moved to Winter Valley a few years after he’d graduated, coming here to apprentice under Van. Besides, Ray didn’t have a problem with James. Only Van. Not many months after his parents died, Ray needed to ask Jolene
something, so he went looking for her. She was near the barn, and he overheard her and Van talking. He didn’t know what Van had said, but she was crying. Ray had wanted to punch him, but he was afraid Jolene would be upset that he’d been eavesdropping, so he remained hidden. Van never came back after that. But from that day to this, Ray had refused to talk to anyone in the Beiler family unless forced to.

“Kumm on.” Alvin grinned and nodded. “We’re all friends.”

Ray glanced at Alvin and Urie. “I’ve got blisters on my feet that are better friends than you two.”

Alvin laughed. “You’re all right, you know that?” He motioned for him. “Can’t blame a man for calling it as he sees it. We haven’t been friends, and we shoulda been nicer in school. It’s way past time we started fresh. Okay?”

Ray’s leeriness eased when James smiled and nodded, and he didn’t see any harm in hitching a ride. He did need to get back quicker than he could by foot. “All right.”

Alvin shoved Urie’s shoulder. “Get in the back and let the man have your seat.”

Ray got in. It felt sort of good to hang out with these guys. All the girls wanted to go out with them.

“Where to, Ray?” James asked.

He slumped. “The cabinet shop.”

Alvin clicked his tongue, and the horse started down the road again. “You say that like it’s no fun at all.”

“It’s not.” Ray propped his arm on the open window.

Urie leaned across the back of the seat. “We’re on our way back to work too. Mondays are the worst. Thank God for weekends, though. You do anything special on the weekends?”

He shook his head. “Just rest and do chores.”

Alvin’s eyes lit up. “You could go with us. We don’t do much, but we’ll help you have a little fun. Sometimes we meet up with a few girls.”

“Can’t.” Although he wasn’t sure why. He was eighteen. His siblings had gone out with friends on the weekends when they were his age. He turned around, catching James’s eye. “Should I?”

James shrugged and Alvin elbowed him. When James didn’t say anything else, Ray faced the front again.

“Well”—Alvin turned and looked at James—“I think he should consider going. Don’t you, James?”

“Ya, sure.”

Alvin came to a stop in front of the cabinetry shop. “We could meet you right here Friday night, say, around eight o’clock.”

He sort of wanted to, but it didn’t feel like a good idea, and Jolene said he should trust his gut in such matters. Sometimes it seemed as if Jolene was his mama, and he needed to cut the apron strings. But he shook his head.
“Nee.”

“Having fun on the weekends makes the workweek more tolerable.”

“At eight?” Why had Ray asked?

“Ya.”

Hmm. That would give him time to get his chores done, but would Jolene mind? He was old enough to decide on his own. Besides, Jolene might be glad to have a few hours outside of work when Ray wasn’t underfoot.

“I’ll think about it.”

“It’s okay.” Andy gently eased toward the horse, hoping to encourage her to back out of the trailer and down the ramp. He’d arrived at Lester’s farm at dawn in the cab of the truck pulling the first trailer of horses. Five hours later he was unloading the last of the twenty-three horses, and she was every bit as skittish and difficult to handle as the first one had been. He could hear the other horses in the corral, whinnying and stomping against the fence to see if they could get free.

After letting the horse sniff him, he patted her and inched forward, trying to get her to back up. She reared and whinnied. Andy flung himself back to avoid a direct kick. There wasn’t a spot on his body that didn’t hurt, either from the days of hard work or from bruises inflicted by feral horses. “You’re doing great,” he murmured gently even as his heart feared taking another hit. Despite wearing protective gear, he was banged up.

He eased forward and stroked her neck. “Let’s just keep backing up.” He continued to crowd her by stepping closer to her face as she remained inside the horsebox with its narrow sides. She whinnied and stomped in protest. “I know,” he cooed, “but you’ve got to be unloaded.” She took a few steps back. “That’s a girl.” She reluctantly walked backward down the trailer ramp. When her back hoofs stumbled off the ledge where the ramp met the dirt, she reared, knocking Andy down, and bolted into the corral.

Some of the volunteers who were watching him clapped as the last horse entered the corral. Andy just sat on the ramp and gathered his wits, grateful to finally have these horses where they needed to be. After FedEx had dropped off the information, he’d called Uncle Lester, who agreed to the plan. Andy had then called Renee, the executive director of the Humane Society. As she explained the situation, it became clear to him that the Humane Society needed as many skilled volunteers as possible. Within two hours he was on his way to the makeshift triage center in central Pennsylvania. He’d left home Thursday night. Today was Monday, and he’d slept little in between.

He stood and removed his helmet. At home he and Levi never used protective gear when training horses, but it was a government regulation when he helped the Humane Society, and wisely so. He and Levi had worked with some high-strung, abused, and traumatized horses but never feral ones.

His uncle Lester ambled toward him, cane in hand as he limped across the patchy grass. “I didn’t doubt for a minute that you could handle those horses.”

Andy walked off the ramp. “You should have. I sure did.”

“The Keim girls arrived. There was a mix-up concerning the message I left. That’s why there wasn’t any breakfast ready when you and the team arrived, but they have some pastries, fruit, and coffee set up on tables under a shade tree at the side of the house. They’ll have lunch ready in less than two hours.”

He didn’t know who the Keim girls were, but his uncle seemed to put a lot of stock in them. “Denki. I’ll get something to eat in a bit. I want to check the fences first.” Hunger rumbled through his stomach as the aroma of coffee rode on the air.

When volunteers removed the trailer ramp, Andy closed the gate and began walking the perimeter of the corral, shaking each fence post and rattling the railing. This particular pen covered an acre. As he continued to work his way around it, he saw a few Amish and Englisch men and women in the yard with plates of food and coffee, eating and chatting. The backdrop for the tables and meandering people was pastures and tame horses with one sprawling white dogwood in full bloom. He remembered the fields and fences well from a few childhood visits, but had that dogwood always been there?

An Amish woman walked toward him, toting a tray. When she got close enough, she held it up. “Lester asked me to bring you coffee and Danish.”

Andy looked at his filthy hands. He couldn’t eat, but surely he could at least gulp down a little coffee. He wasn’t a fan of Danish pastries, but he’d surely like something in his stomach.

Once she was near him, she moved the edge of the tray to her hip and balanced it with one hand before picking up a pint-size, clear container. “Hand sanitizer will fix that, at least until you can wash up with soap and water. Hold out your hands.” She waggled the container over the grass, away from the tray of food.

He did as she said, but he’d been working around the clock for days without the benefit of a bath. “This kind of dirt needs lye soap and scalding water.”

“Maybe.” She poured gobs of the clear liquid into his hands. “But this will do. Just rub your hands together as if it’s soap and water.”

The smell of alcohol overpowered the aroma of the coffee. The sanitizer landed on his hands as a clear liquid, but it dripped from
them as if it were muddy water. She squirted more into his hands, and he rubbed it on his arms. She then passed him a wet, white hand towel. Before he used it on his hands and arms, he scrubbed his face with it. When he saw the grime on the white towel, he tensed. “Sorry.” With the damage already done to the towel, he went ahead and wiped his hands and arms.