A Simple Hope: A Lancaster Crossroads Novel (30 page)

“You selling any food?” the young man shouted toward the stand.

“We have jam,” Ruthie and Bethany answered in unison, then looked at each other and giggled.

“Oh, yeah? What kind of jam is that?” He palmed one of the jars and lifted it to read the label. “Apricot? Nah.”

“We got strawberry jam, too,” Bethany offered.

“How about bread? You got any bread or rolls?”

“Sorry, mister.” Ruthie shrugged. “But that’s a good idea.”

Bethany shook her head. “Who wants bread for Mother’s Day?” she asked her cousin.

The man rolled the jelly jar between his palms. Something about the hungry way his eyes combed the stand made Rachel watch him carefully. There was a tingling sensation at the back of her neck; she sensed danger.

“Have you girls seen a runaway girl around here? She’s a shorty. Black hair with blue highlights. Her name’s Shandell.”

Shandell …

This was Gary, looking for Shandell.

Rachel’s heart began to hammer in her chest and fear was sour on the back of her tongue. She didn’t think this man would hurt her or her family, but facing him was like driving near the edge of
a cliff. If one wheel of the buggy slipped, the whole thing could go tumbling down.

She moved away from the buggy and came around the stand behind the girls. Best to let her presence be known.

Ruthie shook her head. “I never heard a name like that before.”

Gary’s eyes grew round as he noticed Rachel. “How about you? You see a girl pass by, maybe hitchhiking? Not Amish. She’s American.”

“I just got here,” Rachel said, dodging the question. “But these girls work the stand more than I do. They’d know better than me.”

“We haven’t seen anybody walk by today except Plain folk,” Bethany reported.

He stepped away from the counter and grabbed at an apron hanging from a nail. “What’s this?”

As the girls went around the counter to take the apron down and talk it up, he backed toward the counter. Eager to move this man on and get the girls home, Rachel went to the buggy to clear away the lap blankets and umbrellas. With a crime spree in the area, it would not do to leave these wares along the roadside overnight.

“Well, thanks anyway, girls.” Gary got into his car, and the engine roared.

Rachel caught a glimpse of the license plate from Maryland, and then the car sputtered out with a violent spray of gravel behind the wheels.

“Time to go.” Rachel couldn’t still the thundering of her heartbeat, and she longed for the safety of home. “We need to load everything into the buggy.”

“But we’ll be back in the morning,” Bethany pointed out.

“We don’t want to have things stolen, the way they were last week. And we know there’s been a rash of theft in Halfway.”

“Then it’s good to take care of our merchandise,” Ruthie said. “We can bring it back in the morning. It won’t take long at all.”

“I guess.” Reluctantly, Bethany started to gather jars into a sack. “Hold on a second. What happened to the jam that was here on the counter? I just put two out on display and they’re gone now.”

Ruthie left a crate of geraniums to come over to the counter. “Apricot and strawberry, right? Where’d they go?”

“Oh, honeygirls.” Rachel frowned as they did a quick inventory. “They’re gone. Someone must have taken them.” And she had a strong notion of just whom the thief was.

The stolen jam was all the talk at the dinner table. The table was full, with good, steaming hot food like ham that Dat had grilled outside, along with mashed potatoes, gravy, dressing, buttered corn, and peas. Rachel never could get enough of Mamm’s mashed potatoes, creamy but with little bits of solid potato inside.

“Just forget about it,” Abe said, sitting tall. “Nothing you can do about it now.”

Little Davey was more sympathetic. “Don’t be sad. We have more jam, right, Mamm?”

“We do,” Betsy agreed.

Still, Ruthie and Bethany felt cheated, feeling the brunt of the second theft from the farm stand in little more than a week.

“Why does this keep happening to us?” Ruthie asked as she added corn to her plate.

“Ours is not to question why.” Mamm passed the peas down the table. “Just keep doing what you’re doing. It’s better to suffer wrong than to commit wrong.”

“I think it was that last customer. I’m sure it was him.” Bethany’s eyes were round as quarters.

“Easy there, half-pint,” Ben said. “I’ve never seen you so mad.”

“Someone stole things that belong to me,” Bethany said fervently. “More than once!”

“Now, let’s pipe down a little bit,” Dat said. “It’s not our place to judge this man or to punish this thief. It would do us better to look
at our own actions. We are made in the image of Gott. We’re here to do Gott’s work.”

Bethany’s lower lip jutted out in a pout; she wasn’t so quick to accept Dat’s advice. “But Dat, someone is stealing from us.”

“If that’s Gott’s will, we must accept it. Turn the other cheek and put your mind to good deeds. A man is starved by cruelty but fed by kindness.” Nate held a glass of milk aloft, considering it thoughtfully. “I choose to be nourished.”

It was some comfort, hearing her father’s words. Better to think about the good she could do than the evil in the world. This reminded her that she was doing the right thing by helping Shandell. What was it Dat had said? Kindness could feed the soul. Rachel never knew her dat was such a wise man. His words stuck with her as she washed dishes, her arms up to the elbows in suds. As they sang some songs and yodeled together, Molly and Ruthie did the drying, while Bethany put everything away. That left Rose free to be out in the stables, tending the horses she loved. Good sister that she was, she would harness Banjo so that Rachel could ride over to visit James.

As the horse’s hooves clicked rhythmically on the road, Rachel drew her sweater closer around her and thought what a difference a week had made, in so many ways. Barely a week ago, she had felt her James slipping away, like soil through her fingers. And tonight, the path was lit by a new hope.

She arrived to find James staring at a dying fire.

“So you did wait up for me,” she teased. The house was quiet. She knew his teen brothers were most likely out and about, courting their favorite girls. Sister Verena wasn’t quite in her rumspringa yet, and his parents had already gone up to bed. “But you didn’t keep the fire going.”

“I got caught thinking about Dat and this new manager for the orchard.”

“It’s not a problem you can whittle down tonight, so put it out of your mind.” Bending near the stove, she opened the door with a poker and added a log. It would take a hearty fire to chase the cold from her bones. “It’s courtship night. I’m here to distract you from this Orchard Al and Shandell and the treatments and exercises you do every day.”

“Mmm. By the way, Shandell gave me your dress back for a washing when I brought her food. She was going to eat and go to sleep. I don’t think she’s used to that kind of work.”

Kneeling on the floor, Rachel smiled as she added another log. “Ya, but she really threw herself into it.”

“Threw herself right into the pile of manure,” James added.

She turned back to catch him grinning. At least his mood had lightened. “Lucky for you, she moved quick and got out of the way so your father didn’t see her. That was a close call.”

“I was sure Dat saw her. But she picked a clever place to hide. Clever but dirty.”

“She’s a good girl.” Rachel rubbed her arms briskly, trying to warm up. “I have my own bit of news about Shandell. I think I came face-to-face with her Gary, and let me tell you, it was very scary.” She stared into the flames as the heat began to blossom around her.

“Rachel …” She could hear James wheeling himself closer. A comforting hand pressed her shoulder. “When was this?”

She explained how the young man had come by the farm stand. “He’s a good talker with a slick layer of charm, but there’s something about him that set my teeth on edge. The way he stared at us. His eyes—there was a hunger there. Like a wolf starving in the snow. And when he left, his car roared and stones went flying from the rear tires. He’s an angry one, no denying that.”

“I’m glad she decided not to go back with him,” he said.

“Ya, and I hope she never has to see him again. Imagine a parent sending that man to pick up a child.”

“She’s not a child,” James said, “though you treat her that way.”

“I worry about her.”

“I do, too, but we can’t whittle that problem away in one night.”

Hearing her own words tossed back at her made her snort. Both his hands were on her shoulders now, massaging gently. She dropped her chin to her chest for a moment and basked in the warmth of the fire and James’s strong hands.

“Still cold?” he asked.

“I’m getting better.” It had helped to share the story about Gary; carrying that block of fear around had chilled her inside.

“I know one way to warm you up.”

She tipped her head up and turned to him.

“Kumm.” He opened his arms wide. “Sit here on my lap.”

She pressed a hand to her mouth. “I don’t want to hurt your legs.”

“My legs are fine … good and solid. It was my spine that was hurt, and that healed months ago. Kumm to me, Rachel. I need to hold you close.”

Swallowing over the lump of emotion in her throat, she rose, levered her hands on his shoulders, and eased herself down. The body beneath hers felt sturdy and solid and strong. She swung her legs over one armrest of his chair and leaned into him, wrapping her arms around his neck.

“Is that okay? I’m not hurting you, am I?”

“You can’t hurt a strong man like me.” His arms were around her, holding her secure, and he tipped his head sideways, toward her face. “You smell good.”

“Not like manure?”

He chuckled. “Not at all.” His hand moved to the base of her
skull, his fingertips massaging the sensitive skin on the nape of her neck. “And you feel good.”

Her face was just inches from his, and she could see the shiny dark shadow along his chin, and the long sweep of his dark eyelashes. His eyes were dark and smoky and sometimes, like tonight, shiny as a lake. You could see so much in a person’s eyes. Often James’s eyes were closed to the world, like windows that had been shut. But tonight, now she could see him, her James, and she could see the love and longing that had been shuttered inside for so long … too long.

He tipped his face down and touched her lips in a kiss that sent sweet shivers through her. Oh, dear James! She turned toward him and was lost in his arms. He smelled of lavender and leather—a much better combination than this morning’s fare—and she breathed deeply. She couldn’t get enough of him!

His hand moved over her shoulder blade, leaving a trail of tiny sparkles of sensation. They knew each other so well, inside and out. There was no doubt in her mind that Gott meant them to be together. It had been her own doubts about baptism last spring that had kept them from marrying in the fall.

Things would be so much simpler when they were man and wife, living together and loving each other in the ways that married couples learned. Those days could not come soon enough. In a few weeks she would begin her classes with the bishop, preparing to be baptized and be a full member of the church. Truly Amish.

In November, they would marry. Oh, James had his worries about that, but she would convince him that she loved him as he was, for better or worse, in sickness and in health.

A
lthough it was Sunday, James awoke at four, as usual. He sat up in bed and pushed back the quilt, then remembered that it was Sunday, a welcome day of rest. There would be no early morning fertilizing in the orchard, and no trip into Paradise for treatment. Depending on what his mother had arranged, his family would go visiting, or else they’d be hosting family and friends here.

An easy day. Pulling the quilt back over his head, he breathed out a deep sigh and dropped back to sleep. This time, his waking dreams were of walking, or at least trying to walk. He was in the center of the highway, standing on the double yellow line, and a buggy was moving along in front of him.

The driver of the buggy turned back to him, and he recognized Rachel, her blue eyes flashing, her smile dazzling. “Kumm,” she called to him, gesturing for him to catch up. “I’ll wait for you.”

She pulled in the reins and stopped the buggy, and James flexed his arms to jog to the buggy. But as his chest and arms heaved forward,
his legs remained in place, as if they’d been nailed down to the street.

He struggled to move his legs, grunting and pushing with all his strength. He had to catch up … he needed to go with Rachel …

He awoke with a cry, thrashing at the quilt with his arms.

The ceiling overhead, with the small crack that he had memorized over the past months, was the ceiling of his parents’ bedroom: the room Jimmy and Edna had vacated so that he could have access to a bedroom on the ground floor.

Because he couldn’t walk.

Because he was confined to a wheelchair.

“Dear Gott, am I going to be half a man the rest of my life?”

He ran his hands over the tops of his thighs, thinking about his vow not to marry until he could stand on his own two feet. The thigh muscles were gaining better tone, an improvement either from the electric treatment or from the new physical therapy routine. The pressure of his fingertips was like a comb running down his thigh. He could feel. His legs weren’t dead. There was hope.