Caroline's Secret (3 page)

“Well, it seems to me that if they are ever going to get to be a couple, they are going to need some encouragement.”

“You mean like matchmaking?”

“Isn’t that what Esther is trying to do with us?”

Caroline shrugged. “I guess.”

“But she’s really interested in
Onkle
, right?”

“Right.”

Andrew pulled the tractor onto Main Street and chugged toward the bakery. “He’s a bit . . . distracted, so the only way she’s going to gain his attention is with outside help.”

He had a point. Esther had married her husband young and had been widowed early in their marriage. She never remarried and, as far as Caroline knew, had never even courted again. Going after a man was not in her traditional Amish makeup even if she knew what to do to garner Abe’s attention. Caroline wanted nothing more than Esther’s happiness. And Abe . . . well, Abe was about as distracted as they came.

Andrew pulled into the parking lot in front of the bakery and left the engine running as he swung down from the cab.

“What do you suppose we can do about it?”

Andrew smiled as he clasped Caroline around the waist and hoisted her to the ground. This time she had to ignore the charm of his crooked grin as well as the little tingles his touch produced. “Esther seems intent on pushing us together, right?”

“Jah.”

“So we just include them in whatever activities that Esther concocts for us.”

“You really want to do this?”

Andrew nodded, the wind stirring the strands of his dark, dark hair where it stuck out from under his plain straw hat. “My
onkle
could use a little more happiness in his life. What about Esther?”

Esther had done so much for her in the nearly two years Caroline had been in Wells Landing. What way was more perfect to pay her back than by helping her grab the attention of her new true love?

“
Jah
. . . okay, then. I’ll help you.” After all, it was the least she could do.

The bell over the bakery door rang, signifying that another customer had come into the shop.

Caroline wiped her hands on a towel and pushed the little tendrils of escaped hair off her forehead with the back of her wrist. And turned around to greet . . .

“Andrew.”

“Hi, Caroline.”

Caroline gazed down at herself in dismay. The front of her apron was covered with flour.

“Did you have a problem?”

She brushed herself off and tried to smile.
“Nay.”

“So you are always this messy?”

“Andrew, what a thing to say.”

He smiled sheepishly. “Sorry, I just . . .” He trailed off with a shrug.

“Is that what you came here for? To critique my baking process?”

“Actually, no.” He leaned in a little closer to her and whispered, “Can we go for a walk? I have something I want to talk to you about.”

Just then Esther came out of the back room carrying a stack of newly washed baking pans. Caroline could well imagine what it looked like to the other woman, Andrew bent low to whisper in her ear. Close, intimate.

“Esther, is it okay if I take a quick break?”

The older woman set the pans on the counter, then looked from Caroline to Andrew and back again. Her eyes lit with prospects. “Of course,
liebschdi
. Take all the time you need.”

Caroline resisted the urge to roll her eyes. They had several loaves of bread on order today as well as a birthday cake for the Baptist pastor’s upcoming celebration. She didn’t have time to loiter with Andrew, but it seemed that Esther felt some things were more important.

If Andrew noticed, he didn’t say anything, just waited patiently with a small smile on his face as Caroline removed her apron and did the best she could to smooth down her hair without the aid of a mirror. Why she even attempted was a matter for discussion. Once she walked out into the Oklahoma wind, she’d be lucky if the pins held her prayer
kapp
in place, much less the wayward strands of her unruly hair.

Andrew held the door open for her and out they walked into the warm summer sunshine.

“So, what did you need to talk about?” Caroline asked as they started down Main Street.

“I have an idea.”

“Oh?”

“About how to get Esther and
Onkle
together.”

“I’m listening.”

“After church on Sunday, I’ll invite you and Esther out to the house. You know she’ll come so that she can get the two of us together. After we eat, you and I can head down and look at the horses, and that’ll give them plenty of time together . . . alone. Surely Esther can get him to pay attention to her if we leave them alone.”

“Don’t be so sure.” Caroline laughed, and Andrew joined in.

“We can always hope.”

“What about Emma?”

A small frown creased his brow. “Of course she’s invited too.”

Caroline shook her head with a smile. “I would hope so. I meant, what will we do with her when we go to see the horses?”

“Take her with us. I mean, if that’s all right. She’s not afraid of horses, is she?”

“Nay,”
she said, though she wasn’t sure if Emma was afraid of the great beasts or not. The toddler had never been around horses for more than a minute or two, passing on the street or in the parking lot at the store. But oh, how Caroline wanted her to have some experience with the beautiful creatures. “That would be wonderful.”

“Jah?”

“Jah.”
They reached the end of the shopping center and turned back toward the bakery.

Her friend Lorie stood just inside the Kauffman Family Restaurant and waved, a wondering look on her pretty face. Lunch in the park today would be full of questions, for sure and for certain.

Caroline waved back to Lorie and kept walking beside Andrew.

“So we’re set, then?” Andrew asked as they neared the bakery’s big glass door.

“All set.” Caroline smiled.

“I’ll see you Sunday, then.” Andrew tipped his hat and headed across the street and back to the furniture store.

“So what’s going on with you and Andrew Fitch?” Lorie had no more than set the Styrofoam container holding her lunch on the picnic table before the question flew out of her mouth.

Caroline opened her brown paper sack, setting Emma’s finger foods in front of her before extracting her own sandwich. “Nothing. But you’re not going to believe me.”

“It didn’t look like ‘nothing’ to me.”

Emily popped the top on her soda and looked at each of them in turn. “What did I miss?”

“Caroline and Andrew Fitch walking down the street arm in arm this morning.”

“We were not arm in arm,” Caroline emphatically corrected.

“But you were walking down the street together?” Emily looked from Caroline to Lorie for confirmation.

Lorie nodded.

“It’s not like that,” Caroline protested.

Emily studied her with her knowing eyes. “Then what’s it like?”

Caroline expelled an exasperated sigh. “Why does everyone want to get me married off?”

“Because you’re the nicest person I know,” Lorie started. “And I want to see you happy.”

“Why does everyone think I’m unhappy?”

Emily shook her head. “It’s not that we think you’re unhappy, we just don’t think you are happy.”

“Is there a difference?”

“Jah,”
Lorie said. “Not unhappy is floating along and not really going anywhere.”

“Existing,” Emily added. “Just getting by.”

“But happy . . .” Lorie’s entire face lit up like the streetlights every evening. “Happy is floating on air, each step lighter than the next.”

Caroline shook her head, a small smile on her lips. “You’ve been reading those
Englisch
romance novels again, haven’t you?”

“Is it wrong to want true love?” Lorie asked.

“No.” Emily’s answer was emphatic.

“I appreciate your concern,” Caroline said. “But I’m fine with ‘not unhappy.’ I have Emma to think about.”

“That’s it.” Emily snapped her fingers. “You do have Emma to think about. And she’s the very reason you should get married again.”

Caroline swung her gaze to her lap to keep the shame from shining in her eyes. Married again would be impossible, seeing as how she had never married the first time. Even as close as she had become with Lorie and Emily, she had never told them the truth about her relationship with Emma’s father.

“Marriage is a fine thing.” Emily patted the back of her prayer
kapp
.

“
Jah
, but why does it have to involve Andrew Fitch?” Caroline asked.

“I didn’t bring up Andrew,” Emily said slyly. “You did.”

“You need someone like you,” Lorie explained. “Just look at me and Jonah.”

“I thought you were having doubts,” Emily said.

“Well, only a few. But doubts don’t equal unhappy.”

Caroline breathed a sigh of relief that the conversation had shifted away from her. She was not in the market for another relationship. She had her hands full with Emma, Esther, and the bakery. But if she were to want to date again . . .

Well, Andrew would make some lucky woman a fine wife. Once he got over whatever caused the pain haunting his so-blue eyes.

Caroline had enough of her own heartache. It wouldn’t do at all to take on someone else’s.

An hour later, Caroline carried her sleeping angel into the back rooms at the bakery and turned on the monitor. She had fought long and hard with the elders concerning the use of the
Englisch
device. Well, Esther had. Caroline had asked, been denied, and started making other plans. But ever her champion, Esther had not relented until the bishop saw and agreed to Caroline’s need for the monitor.

She clipped the speaker to the band of her apron and made her way back into the bakery kitchen.

In Tennessee, she would have never challenged her church leaders in such a manner, especially in her conservative district. But Esther was feisty, a fighter in her own right, having survived the tragic death of her husband and starting her own business instead of bowing to the traditions and getting married again.

Caroline wasn’t used to such forward thinking. A widowed woman—any woman—wanting to start her own business would have been denied the right by her bishop and that would have been that. And baby monitors? Definitely not allowed. They didn’t even have indoor plumbing!

“Emma asleep?” Esther asked as she washed her hands and prepared to start the preacher’s cake.

“Like a baby,” Caroline replied with a soft smile.

Esther returned it with a smile of her own. “They don’t stay babies long.”

“Nay.”
Already Emma was growing up, each day able to accomplish a little more than the day before.

She only wished her parents could see their only grandchild. And that Emma’s father could see the miracle that they had created.

It had been a long time since Trey had filled her thoughts. Almost as long since she wished things could have been different. But if they had been different, then she would not have come here, met Esther, Lorie, and Emily, Andrew and Abe. How different her life would have been if things had not turned out the way they had.

“Esther, do you believe that my coming here was God’s will?”

“Of course I do,” Esther answered without hesitation. “What else could have brought you to Wells Landing?”

Caroline shrugged and started measuring flour into a large mixing bowl. She stretched up on her tiptoes to get the baking powder, and succeeded in once again smearing the front of her apron with flour.

From the front of the shop, the doorbell tinkled out its alert.

Esther wiped her hands on a dish towel and covered the loaf of bread she had been shaping with a clean, dry towel. “I’ll get it.”

Caroline pushed all thoughts of Trey from her mind and got down to the business of baking.