Heart in Hand: Stitches in Time Series #3 (28 page)

Anna didn’t usually watch the clock when she was working but she caught herself doing it a number of times that afternoon. She didn’t know what the end result might be, but she had to speak up now.

Gideon had stopped for a quick break and cool drink on the porch. Facing the road, he saw Anna before she saw him.

He watched her get out of the van and look out at the fields, searching for him. When she didn’t see him, she turned, and he waved at her from the porch.

She started for the house, and he watched the way she seemed to march up the walk and then the steps.

Uh-oh
, he thought.
Trouble is brewing
. He remembered the way she’d seemed distant and cool as she was leaving, but she’d said she had to get back to work so he’d left it alone. If there was a problem, he figured they’d talk about it soon enough. Or she’d get over it. Mary always had.

He rose as Anna climbed the steps, unsmiling, and took the seat next to his that he indicated.

“Can I get you some iced tea?” he asked, holding up the glass in his hand.

She barely glanced at it. “I’m not Mary,” she said without preamble.

Startled, he sat with a thump. “I know you’re not. What brought this on?”

She pinned him with her gaze. “You keep making decisions without me.”

Puzzled, he ran back through the events of the past few days. “You accused me of being a ‘decider’ once, and I didn’t do that again.”

“I overheard you talking with Matthew and Chris at the mud sale. You were arranging for a friend of Matthew’s to do some work on my farm. Gideon, we’re seeing each other. We’re not married.”

“So that’s it,” he murmured. “I was talking with them about getting some help with my planting. The man who’ll be helping me is looking for some extra work—”

“So you were talking about getting him to help me without discussing it with me first?”

“I was only talking with them. I wouldn’t arrange anything before I discussed it with you.”

He watched her get to her feet and pace the porch. “I’m quite capable of arranging these things myself, Gideon.”

Feeling a little affronted, he stood as well. “I know that. I didn’t arrange anything.”

“That you’d even talk about it with someone else.” She shook her head. “I just can’t believe it.”

“I was trying to make things easier for both of us. I’m short on help since the Stoltzfus brothers have their own farm now. I’m getting some help for me and happened to hear I might be able to help you.”

He frowned. “Don’t you want me thinking of how I can help you with all you do?”

“Have I said I need help?”

“Well, no.”

She sighed. “It’s too soon. Do you understand it’s too soon?”

“No, what’s too soon?” Confused, he pulled off his hat and dragged a hand through his hair.

“We’re . . . butting heads over your getting so involved in my life when we’re supposed to be dating, taking things slowly! Gideon, I’ve been managing on my own for more than two years now!”

“So you don’t need me,” he said slowly.

“Not the way you’re doing things. I’ve had to learn to be independent, Gideon. Don’t you understand that?”

He reached for her hand, but she put them behind her back. “But you don’t need to be that way anymore, Anna.”

“But I do. I can’t give that up again. If you had any idea how hard it was to lose Samuel and feel so adrift, feel I couldn’t make decisions afterward on my own after making them with him.”

“I can’t give up control again. No,
control
isn’t the right word.”

She looked out at the fields surrounding the house. “I need to feel I’m a partner in a marriage. I don’t think you were a partner with Mary. I think you had a very traditional marriage with her with you being the one in charge. That’s fine if that’s what you both wanted, but that’s not what I’m looking for the next time I marry.”

Gideon felt his heart sink. “Are you saying you want to stop seeing each other?”

She was silent for so long he felt his nerves stretch to the screaming point. “I don’t know. Maybe we need to back off a little,” she said finally, so quietly he almost missed what she said.

There was a commotion in the drive. Sarah Rose was jumping out of his father’s buggy. When she spotted Anna, she flew toward the porch. His father grabbed at her, but she proved too fast for him. He chuckled and waved a hand at Gideon before he climbed into the buggy and left.

Sarah Rose hopped up the steps and threw her arms around Anna’s knees. “Anna! Are you here for supper?”

She glanced at him, sending him a silent signal as she stroked Sarah Rose’s braids that were coming undone. “Not tonight. Another time.”

He couldn’t argue with her. A van was already pulling into the drive. “Her ride is here, Sarah Rose. You need to say good-bye.”

Anna bent and hugged Sarah Rose, and then she hurried down the steps and crossed the lawn to get into the van. Gideon stood there on his porch and watched as it backed up, then headed down the road.

“
Daedi
? Can I go play next door?”

“Did you do your homework at your grandmother’s?”

“She helped me with my math.”

“Make sure it’s okay with Sadie’s
mamm
. And be back in an hour. Ask her to tell you when it’s time. And no snacks.”

Gideon watched her run next door and waited until his neighbor stepped out onto her porch and waved to show the visit was okay.

He’d been ready to call it a day before Anna had visited, but now he scanned the sky and calculated how much daylight he had left. It might be good to work off the uneasiness he was feeling at what had just happened between him and Anna.

Big Jim, his lead plow horse, shook his head when he approached. “Let’s get a little more work in, and I’ll make sure you get a treat when we go to the barn.”

The horse shook his head again and snorted but moved forward. Gideon climbed up into his seat behind them and began the slow, steady trek up a row, down a row. Most days he enjoyed the work, but today all he could think about was the sparkle of tears he’d seen in Anna’s eyes as she left him.

They reached the end of the row and traveled down another, then another. Each time they came to the end, the horses moved in a slow turn in tandem, a movement and rhythm born of years working together on the farm.

“Let’s head home, Big Jim,” he called on the last turn.

Big Jim must have been so happy to hear the call that Gideon saw him bump into Dale and the second horse stumbled. Gideon called out to them, waiting for them to settle into rhythm again.

Then a wheel hit a rut, the world tilted sickeningly, and he flew through the air, slamming into the hard, unplowed ground. The plowshare swerved up into his view, and he threw up his arms to protect his face. Pain exploded in his head, and then the world went black.

The lines on the shop order form were blurring. Anna decided to take a few minutes’ break and rest her eyes.

She hadn’t slept well after she talked to Gideon. It had just been too upsetting, and nothing had really been resolved before Sarah Rose had come home. After she’d gone home, she’d tried to relax but eventually went to bed, where she’d tossed and turned, tossed and turned.

Following her usual pattern, she’d finally gotten up, fixed a cup of chamomile tea, and knitted for a while. Finally, she returned to lie in her bed, wide awake, but forcing herself to rest. Working in the shop meant being on her feet many hours of the day so her body was tired even if her mind raced.

Now she was having trouble getting through her day.

Naomi stuck her head in the back room. “Phone call. It’s Sarah Rose, and she sounds upset.”

Anna picked up the phone. “Sarah Rose? Slow down, I can’t understand you.” She listened, feeling colder by the second. “I’ll go to the hospital right now.”

She hung up and stood there for a moment, trying to think what to do. Then she realized Naomi was trying to get her attention.

“What’s wrong, Anna?” She turned and called for their grandmother.

Leah rushed in. “What is it?”

“Sarah Rose said Gideon’s been hurt. He’s in the hospital.” Anna pressed her fingers to her temples. “I need to go there.”

“I’ll get you a driver. Get your things. I’ll go with you.”

Anna didn’t argue with her grandmother. Fear had her in its grip, and she wasn’t going to pretend she couldn’t use some support.

It seemed like hours before a driver got there, but it was only minutes. Anna and Leah rode to the hospital holding hands and praying.

Only when they got to the hospital did Anna think about how quickly she’d dropped everything to come to see him . . . what if he didn’t want to see her?

Gideon’s parents were waiting at the hospital. They embraced her like a daughter. Obviously, Gideon had either not told them that they were having problems, or they were simply too upset with what was happening.

“Gideon’s neighbor called us. She saw his horses in the field and Gideon lying on the ground,” Amos said heavily. “They called 9-1-1 and brought him here. He lost a lot of blood. Broke an arm and his left leg. He’s been in surgery for several hours already.”

“And will be for hours more.” Tears filled Esther’s eyes. “We’ve been praying since we heard.”

“Us as well,” Leah said, and Anna felt her squeeze her hand.

They sat and waited, drinking cups of coffee Esther would fetch them. They formed their own little world insulated from the swirling, noisy one of the hospital, sitting in a circle in a corner of the room to hold hands and pray.

Every so often, a nurse would come to tell them how Gideon was doing in surgery. He was “holding his own,” they were told. Such a strange expression. But it was good news, the nurses assured them.

Anna knew that things could change in the blink of an eye, but it seemed impossible to connect Gideon with such a devastating accident. Both Mary and Samuel had fought the battle to live for months before dying. Gideon was such an energetic, vital man. He’d been doing the same work he’d done for years, carefully plowing his land, and something had gone wrong and the equipment had thrown him and then when the horses panicked, the metal from the plow had—

“Anna?”

She stared up, trying to focus. “Yes?”

Amos put his hand on her shoulder and smiled at her. “Gideon got through the surgery. They’re taking him to the recovery room now.”

“Thank You, God,” Anna whispered through trembling lips. She turned to her grandmother, and the tears began.

Leah rocked her like a babe and patted her back. “Sssh,” she soothed. “He’s going to be all right. Don’t cry so. You’ll make yourself sick.” She dug in her purse for a tissue and pressed it into Anna’s hand.

Anna watched as Amos and Esther talked with the doctor. They listened intently, and then they walked over to join Anna and her grandmother.

“It’s going to be at least another hour or two before family can see him,” Esther said. “The doctor said one of us can see him for five minutes each hour as long as he’s stable.”

She leaned forward and touched Anna’s hand. “We want you to go first.”

19

Anna tried to argue with Gideon’s parents, but they insisted she be the one to see him first.

“I—I can’t do that,” she told them quietly. “It wouldn’t be fair to either of you. The last time we saw each other we argued.”

Esther turned to Amos. “When was the last time we argued?”

“This morning,” he said with a slight smile.

“Like I always tell him, it’s all right if he doesn’t agree with me. I can’t force him to be right.”

They were trying to make her feel better. She loved them for it, for the way that they looked past their own worry and pain. But it didn’t change what had happened between her and Gideon.

Anna stood and paced. “You don’t understand. We talked about not seeing each other again.”

“I know how Gideon feels about you,” his mother told her. “All couples go through rough patches. Let’s get through this, and you’ll see. Everything will be fine.”

Her grandmother patted her shoulder. “Esther is right.”

They sat there, waiting, and when Leah smothered a yawn, Anna glanced at the clock on the wall and realized how late it was getting.