Huckleberry Christmas (12 page)

“Stop,” Tyler said. “You’re going to kill yourself skating like that.” He let go of one of her hands so he could skate beside her.

“I’m afraid I’m going to kill myself either way.”

He pointed to a bushy pine tree growing a hundred feet from the pond. “Focus your eyes on one point. It will help you get your balance. Now walk slowly around the edge with me so you get a feel for the ice.”

“Don’t let go.”

“I wouldn’t think of letting go,” Tyler said. “It’s a wonderful-gute excuse to hold your hand.”

Beth tried to ignore the warmth that spread to the tips of her toes. She wouldn’t let herself be distracted even when her hand felt so good nestled in his.

“Now, think of yourself as a graceful animal, moving through its natural habitat.”

She grunted and jerked forward. He tightened his grip on her hand as she nearly lost her balance. “I’m thinking moose on roller skates. What are you thinking?”

He chuckled. “I see a beautiful dove floating lazily over the hill.”

“You need glasses.”

On her second time around the pond, her steps became less choppy, and she felt she might be making progress.

“Gute,” Tyler said. “Now relax. Bend your knees a little and try a short glide.”

Beth wondered if she’d drawn a breath since she got onto the ice. Still holding Tyler with the death grip, she relaxed her stiff back and concentrated on adding a little glide to her step. So far, so good.

“You’re doing very well,” Tyler said. “But not well enough for me to let go of your hand.”

“I see that,” she said, kind of hoping she wouldn’t skate all that well today. “The first time my mamm and dat took me skating, we went to a huge rink in Green Bay. My parents made a day of it. They hired a driver and took me and my younger brothers and sisters out to lunch. It was a big to-do renting our equipment and getting all our skates on. The second I stepped onto the ice, my feet flew out from under me, and I fell flat on my back and got a concussion.”

“Ouch.”

“Five minutes after we got there, we turned in our skates and left. They wouldn’t give us our money back. I cried all the way home.”

“Because you wanted to skate?”

“No, because me head hurt something wonderful.”

Tyler moaned in sympathy. “I’m sorry.”

“Well, I was only eight. I’m over it now.”

“Oh, yes. I can see you’re over it,” Tyler teased. “How many times have you been skating since?”

She quirked the corners of her mouth upward and bumped her shoulder into his. “Never, smarty pants.”

He made a slight bow. “I am honored that you would trust me to keep you from making a fool of yourself.”

“I think you’re secretly hoping I’ll make a fool of myself.”

He chuckled. “Absolutely not.” He kept his gaze on her face. “I don’t actually think it’s possible for you to make a fool of yourself.”

Beth caught her breath as she lost her concentration and nearly fell. Tyler whipped in front of her and wrapped his arm around her waist. “You okay?”

He was too close. She felt his warm breath on her cheek and thought she might melt into a puddle on the ice. “I’m okay.”

Still holding her other hand, he quickly looked away, slid his arm from around her, and pulled her forward. “You almost made a fool of yourself,” he said, with a playful smile.

Jah. She almost had.

Five or six more young people had joined the group around the fire. Beth didn’t know what they were cooking, but the faint smell of chocolate and citrus wafted their way. Die youngie around the campfire started singing Christmas carols.

“Music is my favorite thing about Christmas,” Beth said. “Dawdi sings carols from sunup to sundown.”

“I’ve never known Felty without a song on his lips.”

“Toby has started singing with him. He doesn’t really say any words, but when Dawdi breaks into song, Toby joins him with humming and oohing.”

“I love hearing your dawdi sing. I can’t carry a tune in a bucket.”

“No, you can’t.”

Tyler widened his eyes in mock indignation. “You don’t like the way I sing? I sing to the cows all the time.”

“Oh, those poor creatures.”

Her reply took him by surprise. He laughed until she thought he might not catch his breath. Then he growled and skated faster until she felt like she was tripping over her own feet to keep up. “Tyler, slow down this instant. Tyler, Tyler, slow down or I will be forced to pull out my sunflower.”

He slowed down enough to let her regain her balance. She gripped his hand even tighter. “You are a wicked boy. I almost fell.”

“You shouldn’t insult the man who stands between you and a mouthful of ice.”

When had his smile become so special to her? “When we first met, I thought you never smiled. But I was wrong. You smile all the time. I just didn’t notice it before.”

His gaze made her already-wobbly legs feel like pudding. “Maybe I have so much more to smile about these days.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Beth saw Erla and Menno each don a pair of skates and step onto the ice. She did her best to mask her disappointment. Tyler would want to skate with Erla now, and Beth would gracefully back away so she wouldn’t make a pest of herself.

Both Erla and Menno acted as if they had been born on skates. Erla glided toward them like a bird in flight—the fluid motion that Beth had not been able to master. Erla held an orange in her mittens and presented it to Beth when she came close.

“Try this,” Erla said. “It’s Menno’s invention.”

Tyler let go of Beth’s hand and wrapped his arm around her waist. There was no way she would fall while in his firm grasp. She took the orange and a plastic spoon from Erla.

“Blow on it,” Erla said. “We hollowed out an orange and poured cake batter into it. You cook it over the coals for about ten minutes.”

Beth scooped a spoonful of cake from the orange, blew on it, and took a bite. It tasted like an orange-cream sweet roll. “This must be what they eat in Heaven,” she said. She held out a spoonful for Tyler. “Are you afraid of my germs?”

Tyler inclined his head. “I’ll swap germs with you any day.”

He took a bite, savored it, and sighed. “Very nice, Erla.”

“How did you think of it?”

Erla squeezed Menno’s arm. “Menno is always coming up with some new thing for the store. He showed us his own secret recipe for cheese yesterday.”

Oh. Cheese.

Tyler and Erla made cheese together. Like a giant vacuum, that thought sucked all the fun out of the air. Beth handed Erla her orange. “I should probably get out of the way so you two can skate together.”

Amusement danced in Erla’s expression. “You two seem to be getting along so well. I don’t want to ruin it.”

“You’re never going to get better without my help,” Tyler said. “Ever.”

Beth smirked at him. “Oh really?”

“Yep. You need me.”

Erla was all smiles. “I’ll skate with Menno. He likes to go fast.”

Menno nodded.

They didn’t even wait for Beth’s agreement. Still holding her orange, Erla followed Menno as he took off around the pond. Beth caught her breath. They weaved in and out of other skaters with careless speed. She was impressed that they managed to stay on their feet.

“Aren’t you glad Menno isn’t helping you learn how to skate?” Tyler said.

“I see a broken collarbone in his future.”

Tyler took her hand, and they glided around the edge of the pond, out of the way of anybody who wanted to go fast. “You’ll never take me for granted again, will you?”

As they skated in comfortable silence, Beth watched Erla chase Menno around the pond. She seemed quite delighted when Menno changed directions and started chasing her.

Was Erla interested in Tyler at all? Surely she would have jumped at the chance to skate with him. Maybe she was playing a game, trying to excite Tyler’s interest by seeming indifferent. Beth furrowed her brow. Erla might have gone cliff diving in Mexico, but she didn’t seem the type to toy with someone’s feelings like that. Gluing her gaze to Erla’s face, Beth couldn’t come to any other conclusion. Erla carried a torch for Menno, not Tyler.

Should she feel guilty for how happy this thought made her?

She nibbled on her bottom lip. Would Tyler’s heart be broken when he found out? Even though Erla’s indifference made Beth strangely giddy, she couldn’t bear the thought of Tyler being hurt again. She had to tell him before he fell in love with Erla and ended up swearing off dating forever.

Maybe he wouldn’t care. Truthfully, Beth would be quite relieved if Tyler hadn’t been all that interested to begin with. Hadn’t she been the one to push him to go out with Erla?

After they made one more pass around the pond, Beth squeezed Tyler’s hand, and he smiled at her. She tried to make her voice as low and soothing as possible. “Tyler, you wanted me to tell you what I think about Erla.”

“And?”

“She’s not interested.”

His lips twitched as if he were holding back a smile. “She isn’t?”

“No. She seems to be quite taken with Menno Petersheim.”

She held her breath and studied his face carefully for any signs of disappointment. She saw something else entirely. His eyes seemed to dance as he rubbed the whiskers in his chin. “Maybe so. Menno is a nice boy.”

She should have waited until they were off the ice. She wanted to look into his eyes and really see his heart, to determine if he was devastated or indifferent. “Are you . . . are you okay?”

“Are you sure? You told me I give up too easily.”

“I’m sure. Look at them.”

Tyler glanced at Menno and Erla. “They seem to be having a gute time together.”

Beth slowed down and pulled on Tyler’s arm. “Tyler, stop. Look at me.” She took his face between her hands. “I never for one minute want you to be hurt. I’m sick that I matched you up with her.”

He grew serious, pressed his mouth into a hard line, and stared at her lips. “I don’t want to be hurt again.” She hadn’t perceived any movement, but they suddenly seemed to be mere inches from each other. He radiated heat like a cook stove. “I refuse to be cautious anymore. I’m not going to hold back just because there might be pain at the end of this.” His eyes flashed with an emotion so deep, Beth almost cried out in sorrow. “I can deal with pain. I’ve done it before. Today, I’m ready to put my whole heart and soul into love.”

In that breathless moment, Beth felt she might do anything to see that Tyler found all the happiness he deserved.

“Look out!”

A skinny young man with wobbly ankles and flailing limbs careened toward them. Tyler cried out, but his reaction came too late. The young man crashed into Beth and sent her sprawling onto the ice.

The young man launched into the snow at the edge of the pond for a much softer landing than Beth had on the unforgiving ice. She ended up on her backside with no hope of righting herself, much like an upside-down turtle. A ball of crumpled paper rolled from her pocket and came to rest a few feet out of reach. Even while caught up in the pain of a hard fall, Beth recognized Isaac’s letter. She’d forgotten to throw it away.

Tyler knelt beside her on one knee. “Are you okay? Can you move? Where does it hurt?”

Beth managed to sit up with Tyler’s help. “My pride is wounded, and I will probably have a very impressive bruise that I won’t be able to show anybody.”

The young man brushed the snow off his coat and bravely teetered back onto the ice. “I’m sorry,” he said, holding out his hand for Beth. “I lost control.” Tyler and the young man each took one of her hands and helped her stand. “I think that’s all the fun I can take for one day,” she said.

Tyler knit his brows together. “Come on. Let’s go by the fire.” Wrapping his arm tightly around her waist, he said. “I won’t let you fall again.”

As he pulled her along, he nearly tripped on Isaac’s balled-up letter. Her heart jumped as he bent over and retrieved it. “You must have dropped this,” he said, turning it over in his hand and examining it. His frown cut deep lines into his face. “Is that . . . Beth, is that another letter from Isaac?”

She snatched it from his hand and stuffed it into her coat pocket. “It’s not important.”

He looked as if the world might come to an end. “Anything that upsets you is very important.”

“How do you know about Isaac’s letters?” And how did he know they upset her?

“He should be ashamed of himself.”

“He just blows smoke. It doesn’t bother me,” she lied.

The muscles in Tyler’s jaw tensed as he tightened his grip around her waist. “I warned him to stop. I guess I wasn’t convincing enough.”

Her dread grew like mold. “What do you mean?” “He knows—
he knows
—you want him to leave you alone.”

Beth halted their progress across the pond and turned to look him straight in the eye. “What do you mean you warned him to stop?”

“I wrote to him and told him to quit harassing you or I would talk to his bishop.”

Beth felt like she’d crashed onto the ice for the second time. “You wrote a letter to Isaac?”

“I won’t let him hurt you like that, Beth.”

She couldn’t breathe. Rage overwhelmed her as she pressed her palm into his chest. “No. No, Tyler. I won’t allow you to think you have any right to deal with my family.
My
family. Isaac is my problem.” She pushed him away from her. Dazed, he dropped his hands to his side and acted as if she’d thrown a stone at his head. “Do you understand how you’ve humiliated me? Isaac tells me constantly how helpless and stupid I am. Your meddling only makes things worse.”

He could barely speak. “I didn’t think it would—”

“You wanted to rescue me, because, like Isaac, you believe I’m helpless and stupid.” It was a cruel thing to do, to compare him to Isaac, but her accusation found its target.