At Home in Pleasant Valley (37 page)

He was so near that the scent of him filled her nostrils. She stepped back again, tension like ants crawling on her skin.

“Rachel?” A tall shadow bisected the shaft of sunlight. Gideon stood in the barn doorway. “Is there a problem?”

“Everything is all right.” Now. She hoped her relief didn't show in her voice. “Gideon, you remember Mr. Carver.”

“It is gut to see you,” Gideon said politely, although he didn't sound happy.

“Zook.” Mr. Carver gave a short nod. “I have some business with Mrs. Brand, so if you'll excuse us—”

“We are finished, I think.” She moved quickly to the doorway, and Gideon stood aside while she passed through and out into the sunshine. “I appreciate your coming, Mr. Carver.”

The man had no choice but to follow her out of the barn. He stood for a moment in the doorway, hands on his hips, and then stepped outside.

Gideon moved out behind him and stood quietly, his gaze not leaving the other man.

“I can bring those papers over sometime this week, Mrs. Brand. Just give them a look-see.”

“I will let you know if I want to talk about it any further.” She turned to Gideon. “Mr. Carver is interested in buying or leasing some of the land and the dairy herd.”

The Englischer nodded. “Just stopped by to have a look around today. See if Mrs. Brand had any questions.”

“I did not see your car, Mr. Carver.”

Gideon made the observation quietly, but as he said it, Rachel
realized how odd it was. Carver didn't seem the type of man to go anywhere on foot.

“Yeah, well, I wanted to have a walk along some of the boundary lines. Just checking things out. I left my car down the road.” He gave Gideon a speculative look. “I see you're here to build a windmill for Mrs. Brand.”

“He is also here as a friend.” Rachel said the words firmly. Perhaps it was best that the man see that she was not without people to advise her.

“Well, you consider my offer, now. Remember, it won't stay on the table forever. You'd better decide pretty soon if you don't want to be left stranded.”

“Thank you, Mr. Carver.” She kept her tone polite. She didn't want to encourage the man to haunt the farm pestering her for an answer, but she didn't want to discourage him entirely, either. “I will think about what you have said.”

“Good.” He nodded to her, ignoring Gideon. “I'll hope to hear from you soon, then.”

He walked off down the lane. Gideon made no effort to go back to his work, but stood watching until Carver disappeared around the bend in the lane. They heard the sound of an engine, and a moment later a pickup truck pulled out onto the road and sped away.

Rachel turned to Gideon. “Why did you come to the barn? Didn't you think I could handle Mr. Carver on my own?”

That came out more sharply than it should have. She had a feeling she was snapping at him just because she'd been so relieved to see him there.

Gideon leaned against the barn door, probably to ease his leg after climbing and standing so much. Because of her. “I did not know that Mr. Carver was here, Rachel.”

“Of course not.” She took a breath, consciously trying to relax her tense shoulders, unclench her hands. “I'm sorry. That wasn't kind of me.”

“No need to be sorry. I wasn't trying to pry into your business.” He gestured toward the windmill tower. “From up there, I couldn't help but see you staring at the barn. You stiffened as if—well, as if something wasn't right. When you went in and didn't come back out right away, I thought I should check.”

That was natural. She should be grateful, instead of feeling that Gideon, like everyone else in her life, was trying too hard to manage things for her.

“Denke. I appreciate your kindness.” She frowned. “It was odd, I think. Carver not letting me know he was here.”

“He's made you an offer, you said?”

She nodded. She'd avoided telling Gideon about it once before, and the same reason held now. Gideon was so intent on doing what Ezra would want. She already knew what he'd say about the possibility of her making such a drastic change.

Still, their relationship had changed since that day. Gideon was already too involved in what went on here to keep him in the dark about this.

“This offer he talked about—he wants to buy the dairy herd outright, and then rent the barn and the pastures from me. That way, I could keep the house and as much land as I need for my own use, and the rest would be bringing in money for me and the children without the worry of the animals.”

“And you are thinking about doing this?”

Something about his even tone raised her hackles. “I know what you will say, Gideon. You want everything to stay just as it was when Ezra was here, but—”

“No, Rachel, that is not what I would say.”

“It's not?” Her voice lifted with surprise. “But I thought—”

“Maybe once I would have said that.” He seemed to be looking inward. “All I could think was that I had to make amends to Ezra. I couldn't seem to see any further than that. Now—well, now maybe I am seeing him a little more clearly.”

He was quoting her own words back to her, she realized. Maybe that meant he was moving out from under the suffocating cloud of guilt that had burdened him. If so, she was glad.

“Ezra would never have imagined a situation in which you'd be going on without him.” His voice was flat. “We both know that.”

He was right. She did know that. “Ezra never let himself worry over what might happen. That's not a bad thing.”

“I didn't mean that it was. I'm just saying that trying to think that he would want this or that is fruitless. All we can really be sure of is that he would want what is best for you and the children.”

“Ja.” She felt lighter, as if something had lifted from her, too. “You think that I should take Carver up on his offer?”

“I would not go that far.” Gideon was cautious, as always. “Maybe just that you might consider it. If you're going to go ahead with the nursery business, you need to keep enough land for that. This might be better than taking Isaac's offer and selling out entirely.”

“The People would not look on it favorably, if I did business with an Englischer instead of one of us.” Carver had been right about that, if nothing else.

“Then one of our people should make you the same offer, before they judge your actions.”

“Isaac would never understand. Or forgive.”

The word dropped between them.
Forgive
. They both struggled with that, didn't they? Forgiving each other, forgiving themselves.

Forgiveness was never easy. Maybe that was why it was so important.

“I don't know the answer to that, Rachel. It may be that Isaac will not forgive any choice but the one he wants.”

“Ja.” That was certain sure, but wasn't doing what was right for her family more important?

“One thing that I think about Carver's offer—” Gideon paused, his gaze focused on the lane where the man had disappeared. “He is yet another person who might want you to decide that the farm is too much for you. And who might do something to force you to that decision.”

M
ary
put one block too many on top of the huge tower William had been constructing with the children, and it collapsed with a satisfying clatter. Mary giggled, not a bit sorry, while William groaned nearly as loudly as Joseph did.

William grabbed Mary, tickling her. “Schnickelfritz,” he exclaimed. “You did that on purpose, ain't so?”

She just giggled all the more, clutching him around the neck.

Joseph's lower lip came out. “Mammi, Mary did that on purpose. Onkel William said so.”

William exchanged glances with Rachel as he set Mary back on her feet, and he seemed to sober with an effort.

“I was teasing, that's all. Komm, let's pick up the blocks.”

Rachel suppressed a smile. William went from playing as if he were one of the young ones to being the serious adult, but she suspected he didn't do it easily. Playing with them was more to his taste than enforcing any rules, much as he might try.

“It is time to clear up anyway,” she said. “Becky and I will finish up the supper dishes while you do that.”

“Not so soon, please, Mammi,” Joseph protested. “I want to play with Onkel William some more.”

“Not now,” William said. “Now you must do as your mamm says. And I must get home to bed myself, so I can be back here early to tend the cows.”

Amazing, that William could talk to the children without stammering at all, but could barely get out a sentence among adults. When he
finally fell in love, would he find that with his special girl there would be no stammering either?

Rachel paused in the doorway long enough to be sure there'd be no more grumbling from Joseph. Then she and Becky headed back to the kitchen sink.

“Onkel William likes to play games,” Becky observed as she picked up the dish towel.

“I was just thinking that myself.” Rachel plunged her hands into the warm, soapy water. “Ach, he is not so very older than you, ain't so?”

Becky nodded, wiping a plate with careful circles of the towel. “He is not very much like Onkel Isaac.”

“No, I guess not.” Was there disapproval of either of her uncles in that? Rachel hoped not. “Brothers and sisters are sometimes alike and sometimes very different from each other.”

“Onkel William is more like Daadi, I think.” Becky set the plate on the counter and took a cup from the rack. “Daadi liked to play with us, too.”

The towel might as well be tightening around her throat. “Ja, he did.”

William came in from the living room, silencing whatever else Becky might have said about her father. Would she ever know? Did she want to?

She wiped her hands on a dish towel as she turned to William. “Denke, William, for playing with the little ones. You are a gut onkel.”

He colored, ducking his head. “S-s-supper was a fine meal. You were kind to invite me.”

She'd probably said too often how much they owed him, so she just patted his sleeve. “We'll see you tomorrow.”

“Ja.” For a moment he hesitated, as if he'd say more. Then, perhaps thinking better of it, he went out, the door banging behind him.

The house was quiet when he'd gone, with only the soft voices of Joseph and Mary from the other room to make a sound. Rachel turned back to the dishes.

Or maybe it just seemed quiet because she was the only adult in the house now. Once, she'd have been looking forward to Ezra coming back in from the evening round he'd always made to check on the
animals. She'd have been thinking of the things she wanted to tell him after the little ones were in bed—the small details of her life that interested no one but him.

And now interested no one at all.

She washed a plate with conscious care. The gloomy thoughts could gather too quickly in the evening if she weren't careful. She would not let them take control.

“My mamm and I used to do the dishes together always. Course, I was the only girl. Soon we'll have Mary to help, too.”

Becky's nose crinkled. “She'd break things, Mammi.”

“Well, and you did when you started, too. Breaking things is part of learning to do them right.”

Becky made a small sound that indicated doubt. “Did you know that English people have a machine that washes and dries the dishes? That would save a lot of time.”

“I guess so. But if we'd had a machine to wash the dishes, my mamm and I would have missed out on a lot of talking with each other. And I'd surely miss talking to you. So I'd rather do things our way.”

Becky considered that for a moment. “I guess maybe I do, too.”

“Gut,” she said softly.

“I brought a new book home from school,” Becky said, with the air of one veering away from an emotional moment. “Teacher Mary said that since I liked the Little House books so much, I might like this one.”

“Maybe we can read together for a bit after the younger ones are in bed. Would you like that?”

Becky nodded.

It was tempting, so tempting, to be content with the fact that things seemed easy between them again. To believe that everything was all right.

But it wasn't. Becky had done a dangerous thing in climbing up in the barn, and Rachel still didn't really know why she'd done it. She'd hoped Becky would bring it up herself, given a little time, but she hadn't.

As Becky's mother, she must push it, no matter how easy it would be to let it slide. That had been Ezra's way with the children, not hers.

Her hand stilled on the casserole dish she was washing. That thought had been almost critical of him. She hadn't meant it that way, had she?

She set the casserole dish in the drainer and took Becky's hand when she would have reached for it.

“Just let that drain. I'll put it away later. Now I want to talk to you.”

Becky's small face tightened. Natural enough, wasn't it? Every child knew that the talk probably wasn't going to be a happy one.

“I have to understand, Becky. Why did you climb up in the barn?”

Becky shrugged, turning her face away. “I just did.”

“That's not an answer.” She took Becky's chin in her hand, turning her face gently. “Tell me.”

Something that might have been rebellion flared in Becky's eyes. She shook her head, pressing her lips together in denial.

Rachel would not show the pain that squeezed her heart. “Komm.” She drew Becky to the rocker. Sitting down, she pulled her daughter onto her lap.

Becky came, limp as a faceless doll and betraying just about as much emotion.

Please, Father. Show me. Give me the words.
There was more than a little desperation in the prayer. How had she and her daughter gotten so far apart?

She set the rocking chair moving almost automatically, closing her arms around the unresisting, unresponsive child.

“I am your mamm, and you are my dear daughter.” Through a shimmer of tears, she stared at the part in Becky's hair. It was almost, but not quite, straight—a sign that she had done it herself.

Pain tightened its grip on Rachel's heart. How had they slipped away, those days when her child depended upon her for everything? Not that she wanted to keep Becky a boppli forever—no, not that. But somehow, in the past year, preoccupied with grief and the struggle just to keep going, she hadn't even noticed the steps of her daughter's growth.

She pressed a kiss to the crooked part. “It has been too long since I've rocked you like this.”

“I'm too big for rocking.” But she didn't pull away.

“I hope you will never be too big for Mammi to love you.” She smoothed her hand down Becky's back, feeling the sharp little angles
of her shoulder blades. “Or to worry about you. Did you climb up because you remember Daadi doing that?”

Becky made a convulsive movement, and Rachel hugged her close.

“Daadi was a gut climber,” Rachel suggested. “Were you trying to do what he would have done?”

For a moment Becky was still in her arms. Then her small face turned into the curve between Rachel's shoulder and neck, snuggling into place, gentle as an infant at the end of a feeding.

“I don't know,” she whispered. “Maybe. We were playing in the barn, and Elizabeth said how high it was, and the next thing I knew, I was saying I could climb up.”

Rachel's breath seemed stuck. Whatever she said now could mean the difference between learning and rebellion.

“I expect you had a picture in your mind of Daadi climbing up in the barn.” She fought to keep her voice calm. “I do, too. Daadi liked to do things that were a little daring. But—”

“He wouldn't want me to do it.” Becky muttered the words against her collarbone, so that she seemed to feel them as well as hear them. “If he'd had to climb up and get me, would he have been angry with me?”

Becky was echoing the question Gideon had asked her. So he had made her think. That was more than Rachel had been able to do, it seemed.

“Not angry, no. He'd have been afraid for you, first of all. And then—well, I think he might have been a little bit disappointed that you'd do something—”

“Foolish,” Becky finished for her.

“Yes.” She wouldn't gloss it over by calling it anything else. “But he would hug you very tight and love you just the same. You know that, don't you?”

Becky nodded, her face rubbing against Rachel's dress. “I guess so.” Her voice was very soft. “Mammi—do you ever think you're forgetting Daadi?”

The question pierced her heart. Forget? Did her children think she was forgetting him when she talked so much, thought so much, about the things she did now that she'd never done with him?

Was she? How often in the past few days had she thought about
him, not wondering what he'd think of her struggles with Isaac or her worries about the children, but just thought of him, pictured his dear face, imagined the feel of his arms around her?

“. . . talking to Gideon.”

Preoccupied with her own self-doubt, she'd missed the beginning of what Becky said, and the words were like a blow to her heart. Was Becky thinking that her mother was turning to Gideon in the way she'd once turned to her daadi?

“He remembers when Daadi was a little boy,” Becky added. “I like to hear about that.”

Rachel could breathe again. Becky was talking about herself, not her mamm.

“It's nice to hear other people's stories about Daadi,” Rachel said. “We can see him through their eyes then, can't we?”

Becky nodded. She leaned against Rachel's shoulder, as relaxed as the babe Rachel had imagined moments ago. She snuggled her face closer to Rachel's.

“I'm glad we talked, Mammi,” she murmured.

“I'm glad, too.” A barrier that had been separating her from Becky dissolved as simply as a patch of snow in the spring sunshine.

Thank You, Father.

But another worry had sprung up in its place. Would she have jumped to that conclusion about Gideon if the thought hadn't been in her mind to begin with? Was she talking to him too much? Confiding in him too much?

If she was, what did that say about her feelings for him?

•   •   •

“I
said, are you going to hold this board straight or not?” Aaron's exasperated tone penetrated Gideon's thoughts.

“I am.” He leveled the top stall board by a fraction of an inch. “It's fine. There's nothing wrong with my eye.”

“Not when you're paying attention, there's not.” Aaron's tone was that of every older brother who'd ever lived, Gideon suspected. And the truth was that he had been woolgathering.

“Mahlon and Esther Beiler will be back from their wedding trip tomorrow, I hear. We didn't get this work frolic scheduled any too soon.”

Aaron drove a nail home with a single swift stroke. “I hear tell they were going to stay out in Illinois a bit longer, but decided to come back early. The Beilers will have been missing Mahlon, him being the youngest boy.”

“Ja.” Not that any son wouldn't be missed, having been away for months on an extended visit to kinfolk out in the Midwest.

But Leah's parents had lost her little sister, Anna, their youngest, to the English world a year ago. No doubt they were still grieving that. They'd be glad to have the newlywed couple to fuss over.

And the community was made stronger when they gathered for a work frolic, getting the couple's new home ready for them. Rachel was here somewhere, he had no doubt—maybe working with some of the other women in the house.

“Rachel Brand will be here today, ain't so?” Aaron's words, echoing his thoughts, made Gideon blink.

“Guess so.” Gideon turned the question over in his mind. Aaron wasn't one to say something for the sake of hearing his own voice. If he asked about Rachel, there was a reason.

Aaron was frowning down at his toolbox, face turned away.

Gideon planted his hands on the stall bar, giving it a shake to be sure it was secure. “Why the interest in Rachel?”

Aaron shrugged. “No reason. I was just thinking—well, you're spending a lot of time over there. Lovina will have it that you're courting her. Are you?”

“No.” He bit off the word. “I'm being a friend. If a man can't help out a neighbor without folks thinking he's courting—”

Aaron raised his hand to stop him. He clamped his mouth shut. Not because of Aaron, but because of what he might give away if he responded too strongly.

“I wouldn't think anything about it. But the thing is—well, Isaac Brand's been to see me about Rachel. And you.”

Gideon wouldn't have been more surprised if Aaron had swung a two-by-four at him. “Isaac?” He forced back the angry words that
sprang to his lips. “What has Isaac to say about my doings? Or Rachel's, for that matter?”

Aaron shrugged heavy shoulders. “Nothing to yours, I'd say. As for Rachel—well, as her brother-in-law, I guess he feels he has a duty to be concerned about what she's doing.”