Bookends (19 page)

“It
is
good, Emilie. It’s …” His voice broke. “Good to have you out of that car and … alive.” One lone drop escaped, landing on her chin. Huge, warm, wet. “Sorry.” She felt him brush it gently away with one gloved thumb. “How ’bout I follow the ambulance to the hospital? Mind if I do that, Emilie?”

“Do,” she murmured, feeling her world starting to spin again. “Please … please … do.”

“I dunno what happened, Beth. I just lost it.”

“Lost what?” Beth’s dark blue eyes twinkled.

“My mind, of course.” Jonas exhaled and threw his hands in the air. “My sense of reason. Something.”

“Start at the beginning. Tell me how it all took place.”

Jonas stared out at the rain pounding on the church parking lot, the last of the snow and ice giving way to swollen gutters and overflowing rainspouts.

Whatever had possessed him to share this with Beth Landis was any fool’s guess. He’d vowed afterward he wouldn’t tell a living soul. All the way home from the hospital Friday evening, all weekend long, he’d kept his inexcusable behavior to himself. Until this morning when his chest threatened to implode if he didn’t get it off there and let somebody else work him over, give him what-for, make him suffer.

Beth and Emilie were friends. That made Beth the most likely candidate for letting him have it with both barrels. Not that she was the shooting type.
Sitting there behind her desk at church, hands busy stuffing envelopes, Beth resembled anything but a shotgun-totin’ mama.

“Sit down, Jonas. You’re making me nervous, pacing like that. I’m fully prepared to hear every sordid detail.” She grinned. “Not that I expect there to be any.”

“It’s like this.” He dropped in her visitor’s chair with a determined thwump. “I kissed her.”

“Kissed who?”

“Don’t be cute, Beth.” Which was ridiculous. The woman was the definition of cute. “Emilie. I kissed … Emilie.”

Beth glanced up from her envelopes and tried to look disinterested. “Oh. On Friday?”

“No, on the mouth!” He groaned and rolled his eyes. “Yeah, on Friday. At the hospital. That’s what makes it so awful, Beth. She was … uh … unconscious.”

Beth gasped. “She was out cold? You kissed her without her—?”

“Yes. Disgusting, isn’t it?” He stood again, circling the small office. “What kind of man would lean over an injured woman on a gurney and … and take advantage of her like that?”

Beth tossed her work aside and leaned back in her chair, a wide grin inching across her freckled face. “What a minute. Who says you took advantage of her? Maybe she liked it. Maybe she welcomed it. In fact …” She sprang to her feet, cornering him between her bookcase and the office coat-rack. “I’ll bet she
asked
you to kiss her.”

The hairs on the back of his neck rose to attention. “W-what did you say?”

Beth folded her arms. “I said Emilie probably asked you to kiss her.”

He gulped. “W-where did you get such a crazy idea?”

“Am I right or am I wrong?”

“You’re … right.” She
was
right! He blew out a sigh of relief. “That’s exactly how it happened. I leaned over to say I’d stick around until the doc came back and she said … uh …”

“Kiss me?”

He narrowed his gaze. “Did she already talk to you about this?”

“Nope. The point is, she knew it was you. Knew what she was doing. So … what’s the problem?”

Was the woman dense? “The problem, Beth, is that she didn’t know what she was saying. Emilie was … delirious.”

She laughed. “Before or after the kiss?”

“That’s it. I’m outta here.” He grabbed his coat, sorry he’d ever trusted Beth with such sensitive information. Poking his arms in the sleeves with minimal success, he grunted, “I suppose you’ll tell her everything we talked about here.”

“Relax, Jonas. You and I are friends, too, remember?” Beth edged toward the doorway, effectively blocking his exit. “Look. The only real question here is, did she kiss you back?”

Oh, yeah.
He could still feel Emilie’s buttery lips molding themselves to his, her soft nose squashing beneath his own, her porcelain skin rubbing his rough beard, her soft sigh against his mouth when he finally pulled away …

“You’re smiling, Jonas, but you’re not telling me what I need to know. Did Emilie kiss you back?”

He wiped the grin off his face and shrugged. “Yeah, I’d say she kissed me back. But remember, it was her idea to begin with. I was just … handy.”

“Right.” Beth stepped to the side, giving him a clear shot at the hallway. “My guess is, now you’re wondering if she remembers this torrid kiss.”

“It wasn’t torrid. It was … sweet.” That’s what she’d said. “So
sweet.
” He caught himself before he grinned again. “And that’s precisely what concerns me—does she even remember it? I don’t wanna have to bring up the subject myself.”

Beth checked her watch. “Tell you what. I’m here for another hour, then I’ll swing by Emilie’s place on the way home and see if she makes a confession of her own.”

Jonas buttoned his coat, feeling immensely better. “And you’ll let me know?”

“If she brings it up, I’ll listen. That’s as much as I can promise you.” Shivering as the blustery winds outside rattled the old windows, Beth reached behind the desk and bumped the thermostat up to seventy. “The last thing I want is to get between you two.”

Jonas paused in the doorway, confused. “Why is that?”

She groaned. “Because you’re both stubborn, hardheaded, and strong willed, for starters.”

“Both of us?” His fist hit the doorjamb. “You gotta be kidding! Emilie
Getz and I have absolutely nothing in common.
She
may be stubborn, but no way do I fit that description. Absolutely not. Hardheaded? Not this guy. Not in a million years …”

The woman was pushing him out the door. A twenty-something pipsqueak and she was shoving
him
out into the hall. In all his years of dealing with women, he couldn’t remember such a thing happening.

“Who told you I was strong willed? Huh? Who said that?” The louder Beth laughed, the more he bellowed. “C’mon, you know it’s not true. I am
not
stubborn. Am not!”

The door closed behind him with a firm bang.

Emilie couldn’t remember a more miserable Monday morning.

Her BMW was scrap metal.

Her right collarbone was equally shattered and bruised while every muscle ached from the tension that’d seized her body on her endless, downhill slide to disaster.

Worst of all, the insurance agent perched on her living room sofa was scratching down numbers and shaking his head.

“The Blue Book value doesn’t look good, Miss Getz.”

She rubbed her temple, willing away the headache that had lodged itself there since Friday. “The
what
book?”

“Blue Book. It tells us what your seventeen-year-old car is worth. Naturally, we can only pay you the salvage value. As a courtesy.”

“And that amount is …?”

“Pitiful.” He told her the figure in dollars and cents.

“Oh, great.” Emilie groaned, slumping further down in the overstuffed chair that served as her makeshift hospital bed. “Almost enough for a bicycle.”

“A used one, maybe.” His chuckle was meant to amuse, but instead grated on the one nerve she had left. “Because you dropped your collision insurance six years ago we don’t cover damage to your car. Just the things you hit. Like stone fences.”

“I see.” So much for frugality.

“Look for your check in a couple of days. Anything else I can do for you?”

“No, you’ve done enough, thank you.” She slid Hamilton’s three-pound
History of the Moravian Church
onto her lap, wincing at the stab of pain that shot across her right shoulder. “I’m woefully behind in my research, so if you don’t mind seeing yourself out …”

“No problem. He stood and quickly pulled on his coat, heading toward the front door. “Sorry about the bad news, Miss Getz. That’s how it goes when things get old and lose their value.”

Did he mean her or the BMW?

“Appreciate you stopping by.” She lifted a hand as he disappeared from sight, then dropped it on her open book, exhausted from the effort.

How in the world was she going to manage? A broken right collarbone made writing impossible and turned typing into a tedious, hunt-and-peck proposition. Without a car, she couldn’t get around to do on-site research, or grocery shopping, or go bookstore browsing in Lancaster.

Or sledding with Jonas.
Not that she planned to slide downhill in a moving vehicle ever again.

Her head fell back on the upholstered fabric as vague memories from Friday washed over her. Being pulled out of the wreckage. Seeing Jonas. Watching Beth and Sara smile and cry at the same time. Riding in the ambulance to Lancaster General.

Jonas, looking concerned, asking questions of anyone in scrubs who stood still long enough for him to snag their sleeve.

Jonas, holding her hand, making her laugh in spite of her pain.

Jonas, begging her forgiveness so many times it was ridiculous.

He’d driven her home Saturday morning with Trix in the backseat keeping watch over four bags of groceries for her and a thermos of hot, perfectly sweetened Earl Grey waiting up front in the passenger seat. Sunday he’d stopped by after the early service with a church bulletin, get-well greetings from the staff, and two cheese Danish—which he ended up eating.

Now it was Monday, a workday for both of them. No telling when—or if—she’d see him again.

With the horrid weather, he wouldn’t be likely to come knocking on her door today. After the morning’s dense fog lifted, heavy rain clouds settled over Lancaster County, resulting in the worst flooding in five years.

At least that’s how the noon news anchor described conditions. Emilie stayed high and dry, cocooned inside her little borrowed home with a tuna
salad sandwich and a few green grapes for lunch.

Not that the house itself wasn’t grand company. She loved the old hallway clock built inside the wall such that it opened on both sides, put there by Clarence the clockmaker from across the street, who owed the family some money generations ago.

Then there was the bank vault encased in the dining room wall, and the natural wainscoting from the 1840s, and the charming plate rail that circled the cozy kitchen with its scant seven-foot ceiling and eight tiny windows over the sink.

Emilie would happily call it home for a lifetime.

Instead, she’d be Salem-bound come June.

A sharp knock at the back door snapped her out of her reverie. Beth Landis—at least, it
looked
like Beth, bundled up in a hooded red parka—peered in, motioning frantically. Emilie jumped to her feet, then regretted it when her head started pounding and the room tilted sideways. “Hang on,” she mumbled, making her way toward the door.

Beth blew in on a stiff, soaking gust of wind. “Whew! Thanks. It’s wicked out there.” She unzipped her parka and dried her dripping hair with a nearby dishtowel, eyeing Emilie with an affectionate appraisal. “So. How are you feeling today? You look worn out.”

“Some encourager
you
are.” Emilie shuffled over to the table, doing her best to remain perpendicular. “Have a seat and I’ll make some tea.”

“Forget that, Doc.
You
sit and I’ll make the tea.” Beth gently pushed her into a kitchen chair, then busied herself with the necessary ingredients, pulling a generous rectangle of Moravian sugar cake out of her zippered pocket to add to their plates. “Helen sent me home with a whole panful yesterday.” Beth grinned as she peeled back the plastic wrap and sliced the cake in two. “I knew you’d want some.”

It was lovely to have company—not just company, a friend—bustling about her kitchen. Emilie observed Beth’s cheerfully efficient manner and imagined little Sara sitting just so, legs dangling high above the floor, watching her mother make lunch.

She didn’t mean to say it; it simply came out. “Sara is lucky to have you for a mother.”

“Think so?” Beth joined her at the table, her task complete, her eyebrows furrowed. “I dunno. I’m never sure if I’m doing any of it right.”

Emilie poked at one corner of her sugar cake, not really hungry, wanting to be polite. “I can’t imagine having a child under my roof for twenty-four hours, let alone twenty-four years.”

Beth nodded, popping a forkful in her mouth. “Pretty scary stuff. No way to prepare yourself, either. When it comes to motherhood, you just dive in. And pray. Speaking of which, okay if we bless this?” She lowered her fork and reached for Emilie’s hand. “Would you do the honors?”

“Would I what?” Emilie’s hand suddenly felt like ice in Beth’s warm grasp.

“Pray. You know, bless our food and our fellowship.” Beth dipped her chin and closed her eyes in anticipation.

Pray?
Emilie gulped, then closed her own eyes.
Now what?
Should she say the blessing from the
Daily Texts?
Is that what Beth wanted? The words came slowly, mined from childhood memories long forgotten, spoken with the sober formality of her German ancestors: “Come, Lord Jesus, our guest to be, and bless these gifts bestowed by thee. Amen.”