An Amish Man of Ice Mountain (The Amish of Ice Mountain Series Book 2) (7 page)

Chapter Twelve

Joseph trod the mountain path with familiar confidence, letting his fingertips trail over the odd bush or tree branch with the feeling of greeting
auld
friends. He found himself hurrying though as he approached his old home, not able to get Jude’s brief words about his
fater
out of his mind.

He came upon the clearing and stopped still for a moment, drinking in the sight of the ramshackle, humble cabin with its trail of rose vines—a long-ago testament to his dat’s love for Joseph’s deceased
mamm.
Then he realized that the roof needed some new shingles shaved and that the kitchen garden seemed thin.
Maybe Daed’s worse off than Jude could say . . .

He hurried down the grass hill and the cabin door opened as a large, tumultuous pile of dark fur and loping legs hurled itself at him.

Joseph laughingly greeted the wolf dog. “Bear! Old fellow . . . been up to hunting anything bigger than you lately?” Joseph was slobbered on for his trouble and he smiled into the single eye of the dog, the other having been lost in a battle with a real bear. “All right . . . down,
buwe
!”

Joseph straightened and blinked as his
dat
came out onto the porch of the cabin. His
fater
seemed to have aged ten years over the past months and Joseph was alarmed at his thinness and the pronounced gray in his dark hair and beard.

“Daed?” Joseph mounted the steps and paused, then caught the older man in a quick embrace. He pulled away, amazed to see his normally taciturn father’s eyes well with tears.

“I’m glad you’re home,
sohn
.”

“I’m happy to be here—I’ve missed you and Bear and—everybody.”

“Will you be staying on a bit? The bishop came by and said you brought a woman and child with you—
Englischers
.”

Joseph felt his side begin to throb and he shifted his weight on the uneven boards of the porch. “
Jah,
Daed. Can we go inside, and then I’ll tell you about it.”

“
Kumme
in,
sohn
. It’ll always be your home here, no matter what.”

But his negativity melted when he entered the
auld
home. He breathed in the familiar smells of wood smoke and lemon polish and was glad to see the place was clean.

“Mary—she
kummes
over often, though I tell her not to bother with the babe on the way.”

“She’s probably glad to help, Dat.” He patted Bear absently and took a seat at the small kitchen table while his father poured two mugs of coffee.

“You hurt your side somehow,
sohn
?”

“It’s nothing.”

His
fater
arched a shaggy brow and Joseph shrugged. “I broke a few ribs getting in the way of an angry stallion. Priscilla’s little girl, Hollie, was playing around and—”

“Priscilla.” His
dat
said the very
Englisch
name as if he tasted a drop of mustard.

Joseph suppressed a sigh. “What did Bishop Umble tell you?”

“Enough to know the woman’s had a hard lot and with a
kind
. . . Somehow, I guess I thought that you’d be marrying one of our girls from the mountain though.”

“I’m not marrying anyone.”

His
fater
gave a gruff laugh. “You hold on to that thought,
sohn
. Maybe it’ll save you some heartache.”

Joseph smiled sadly.
If only he knew what I’ve done . . .
“Well, Dat, it seems Derr Herr doses out heartache to everyone now and then, and there’s no sense trying to avoid it.” He took a long pull of his coffee, then got to his feet. “I’m going out to the shed to shave a few shingles for the roof.”

His
fater
snorted familiarly. “Well, you won’t be laying them,
buwe
, not with your ribs. Jude can do that.”

Joseph felt on more even ground at his
daed’
s brusqueness and grinned. “We’ll see, Dat
.
We’ll see.”

Priscilla settled tentatively on the edge of the comfortable bed. The Lyons’ guestroom was painted a pale yellow cream and she felt strangely comforted by the gentle swishing of Mary’s skirt as she moved to smooth the quilt atop the carved hope chest at the foot of the bed.

“I hope you’ll be happy here.” The
Amisch
girl’s voice was gentle and Priscilla struggled with sudden tears, not liking her vulnerability but willing to accept it for the moment.

“I can’t—I can’t thank you enough, really.”

“And Joseph too?” Mary’s question was even more gentle, not prying or grating, yet Priscilla could not control the flush she felt warm her cheeks.

“Yes . . . him especially.”

Mary sat down in a ladder-back rocking chair with a smile. “My bruder’s not easy to know. I bet he didn’t tell you how
gut
he is at figuring things and building. He was the master builder for this
haus
.”

Priscilla shook her head and gazed around with new appreciation at the stained wood of the window casements and the gentle slope of the roof. “No . . . he didn’t say. He did a wonderful job. Your
haus
is beautiful.”

“You speak Penn Dutch?”

“I—my mother was
Amisch
but she left to marry my father. She—when I was little—would speak Penn Dutch to me when we were alone. I guess I feel close to her memory here with you.” Priscilla fidgeted a bit with the handle of a bag she’d carried up the mountain.

“My
mamm
is passed from this world as well. I never knew her.” Mary rocked in easy time to her solemn words and Priscilla felt the normal guard she held on her past slip a bit.

“My mother died of a heart attack when I was fifteen. She and my father had been fighting. He left the house and she—well, she had the attack and died in my arms.”

“
Ach
, what pain you have carried . . . I am sorry.”

And that was all the other woman offered, except to sit quietly with Priscilla for a few peaceful moments. The lack of talk or trying to fix the situation was the
Amisch
way, Priscilla knew, and the quiet was somehow a balm to a sliver of her hidden heart.

Then she gazed into the bag beside her in consternation. “Oh no . . .”

“What’s wrong?” Mary stopped rocking.

“Joseph’s medicine and his clean bandages—for his ribs. He broke them, saving Hollie . . . I forgot to tell you. He needs these things.”

“Ach.”
Mary rose in apparent relief. “That’s all?
Kumme
. . . I’ll take you to him. Jude is reading to Hollie. He loves the
kinner
, you know.”

Priscilla nodded but felt a bit uncertain. Joseph’s mention of being a prayer partner clearly bothered him.
And it doesn’t sit well with me either.

But she knew she owed him a great deal for saving Hollie, so she followed Mary out of the cabin, clutching the bag to her chest, and tried to concentrate on the beauty of the late afternoon mountain sunshine that surrounded her.

 

 

Joseph fingered the smooth edge of the wooden shingle with satisfaction as he held it up to the light spilling in through the shed window. Tiny dust motes played in the bright beam and he thought how much more comfortable he was around wood than he’d been on the harsh metal of the rig. He reached to rub absently at his side, aware that the warmth of the small work space was irritating his bandages. He looked up in surprise from where he sat behind the lathe when a tentative knock sounded on the door.

“
Kumme
in,” he called.

He blinked in the fall of light, then rose to his feet as he recognized the bright red hair.

“Priscilla . . .”

She shut the door behind her and held out a bag. “I—uh—your sister brought me here and showed me the shed. I don’t mean to bother you, but I have the supplies for your ribs. Are you—in pain?”

Yes, pain . . . because the sight of you makes me
narrisch
and I can’t move forward and I can’t go back . . .

“Only a little. I’m fine.”

“The doctor said you—um—we could change the bandages, and I have your pain meds.”

He stared at her in fascination.
Does she want to help me? Touch me?
He almost smiled at the thought of what his
fater
would say if he escorted Priscilla into the
haus
and proceeded to have her strip his shirt off. He shivered a bit despite the heat and carefully put the shingle down on a nearby workbench.

“Well, I . . .”

“Is there somewhere less dusty that we could go—to do the bandages, I mean?” He watched her lift her chin. “Will your dad mind?”

“Probably,” he admitted with a rueful grin that quickly faded.
And you’d mind too if you knew who . . . what . . . you were touching. Don’t you remember the way I kissed you in the emergency room?

“Then we’ll do it here,” she said briskly, setting the bag on the workbench and sliding around some tools to come close enough for him to smell her hair; like lavender and mint and something even more delicate and heady.

“Uh . . . here?”

“Unless you’d rather not. I mean—when you left Mary’s, you looked kind of upset.” She lifted her small hands to the collar of his shirt, then slid her fingers down his shoulders and beneath his suspender straps. “Were you? I know I’m not all that happy about being assigned a prayer partner either, but it seems a small thing in exchange for the bishop letting us stay.” She slid a pin from its place in the fabric near his throat. “But maybe it means much more trouble for you?”

He stared down into her questioning eyes, trying to find the thread of the conversation and failing utterly with her hands on him. “Trouble? Uh . . . trouble.
Nee
.”

“Joseph? Do you even know what I’m talking about? You seem confused.” Her fingers pulled a second pin and she laid it on the workbench, then reached up to place a firm hand beneath the hair on his forehead, obviously checking for fever. She dropped her hand after a few moments and frowned. “So you are upset?”

She’d gone back to his shirt, spreading the blue fabric and exposing the bandages around his ribs.

The breath caught in his throat; his body remembered what his mind held tight rein upon. It would be so easy to reach down and touch her, but he’d promised never to do that again. Yet he knew how . . . that much he realized. He took a step back and knocked his hip into a sawhorse.

“Joseph.” She sounded as exasperated as she did with Hollie sometimes, and he had to smile. Then she pressed against his rib cage, and he gasped.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, clearly intent only on his bandages while his own mind switched hazardously between the present and his shameful past.

“The base dressing is to stay on until you can get to a doctor to remove it, but these outer bandages are damp. You shouldn’t be working or sweating. You need to take some pain medicine and lie down.”

Again she mothered him, and he watched while she put a delicate fingertip to her pink lips in apparent thought.

“You are going to be able to see a doctor somewhere here, right?” she asked.

“Jah.”
He pulled his shirt from her hands in a sudden decision. The Bible instructed a man to “flee from sin,” and if he didn’t get away from her hands, he had no idea what he’d do. And he’d only recently been instructed to keep his behavior “holy” with this woman. Jah,
right.
“Look, Priscilla,
danki
, but—I’ll get Jude to fix the bandages. He’s a professor and—”

“A professor of medicine?” She tapped a small foot, stirring up more dust motes.

“He’s
schmart
enough.” Joseph scooped up the pins off the workbench and hastily set about readjusting his shirt. He grabbed the bag of supplies and started to move past her. Then he stopped; he remembered his
fater
. “Uh . . . if you’d like to
kumme
into the
haus
, I’ll introduce you to my
daed
.”
Which ought to go right as rain . . .

Her ivory face was stony and he felt a pang of remorse for being so abrupt. He moved to touch her arm, then dropped his hand before he made contact. “Priscilla, please,
kumme
meet my
fater
. I’d be honored.”

She gave a small nod and he exhaled with relief, moving to put a hand on the door latch. The door gave way under his hand though and opened inward. Mary nearly fell into his arms from the outside. He caught her arm, then looked up to find his sister, her husband, his father, and Hollie all clustered with interest about the door with faces that held looks of distinct interest.