Huckleberry Christmas (5 page)

Tyler scooped the last of the crispy bacon onto the tray and spooned half the bacon grease out of the pan. Then he poured pancake batter into the grease to form four perfectly round pancakes. Nothing better than pancakes flavored with bacon grease. He set the orange juice and bacon on the table and stepped back to admire his handiwork. Two crisp white plates sat on yellow placemats with a knife, fork, and spoon resting in their proper places. At home this morning, Mamm had helped him fold four yellow cloth napkins into the shape of flowers. He set two of them on the plates and the other two sat at the empty places at the table, in case Toby was extra messy. Toby’s high chair sat between the two chairs at the table, and his plastic cup and plate waited on the tray.

Girls liked to be a little fancy now and then. He hoped his table decorations would send Beth into fits of delight.

He quickly turned back to his pancakes and flipped them over one by one, each perfectly golden-brown and saturated with bacon grease. It had taken quite a bit of finagling to get Anna and Felty out of the house without Beth knowing about it. He’d hired a driver to pick them up early this morning and take them to the Denny’s in Green Bay. When he had told Anna that he needed to be alone with Beth, Anna had actually squealed with glee and wished him happiness.

Felty, on the other hand, had looked more concerned than Tyler had ever seen him—even on the night Lily had broken off their engagement. “Don’t get discouraged” was all Felty had said.

Tyler looked at the clock. Six-fifteen. Anna said Toby arose, without fail, at six. Hopefully, Beth would smell the bacon and emerge from her room at exactly the right time.

Toby toddled into the kitchen first. When he saw Tyler, he ran into his arms. “Mommy.”

Tyler threw Toby into the air three times while Toby squealed and giggled. Tyler plopped him into the high chair and poured some orange juice into his sippy cup.

He heard the sound of bare feet on the wood floor and looked up as Beth shuffled into the kitchen. She wore a lavender dress without shoes or a head covering. Her long chestnut hair fell gracefully over her shoulders and almost to her waist. He couldn’t help himself. Tyler stared like a hungry child in a candy shop. Beth’s hair shone like liquid chocolate, and he wondered what it would feel like to run his fingers through it.

Beth yawned and then realized that it wasn’t her mammi standing in the kitchen. She opened her eyes wide and took two steps back. “Oh.”

Giggling, she retraced her steps and disappeared down the hall. In less time than it would have taken Tyler to don his boots, she returned, wearing shoes and stockings and with her hair tucked into a prayer covering. Tyler yearned for another glimpse of that hair.

“You know,” she said, “you should really tell me when you’re going to show up in my kitchen. It is entirely your own fault that you saw me without a kapp.”

“Sorry. I wanted it to be a surprise.”

“You surprised me, all right, but there is a very thin line between a surprise and a heart attack. Are you trying to send me to the hospital?”

How come no one else could make him smile so easily?

Beth kissed Toby on the cheek and gestured to the table. “What is all this?”

“I wanted to make you breakfast.”

A shadow flitted across Beth’s face before she replaced it with a grin. “Are you trying to tell me that I shouldn’t cook for myself? Amos said I didn’t even know how to boil water. Once I knew he didn’t like the way I made it, I quit serving boiled water for supper.”

“It’s a special day. I wanted to make a special breakfast.”

Beth raised her eyebrows and showed that charming dimple. “Ooh. Special breakfast.”

He suddenly felt as if he’d been stricken with pneumonia and were struggling for every breath. He didn’t need to be nervous. Beth wasn’t intimidating in the least. Then again, it wasn’t every day a boy asked a girl to marry him.

“I have something I want to ask you.” He took the sunflower from the vase and handed it to her. Girls liked getting flowers.

Beth’s smile disappeared faster than a Popsicle on the pavement in mid-July. She looked at the flower as if he had given her a snake.

A feeling of dread washed over him. Maybe she didn’t like flowers so much.

Maybe he should reconsider.

He’d already told Beth today was a special day. He could pretend it was his birthday.

No, he had a plan. He felt good about the plan. This was not the time to abandon the plan.

He sat down and began his carefully rehearsed speech. “Last year at this time, I was published with Lily Eicher.”

She cocked an eyebrow. “You made me breakfast to commemorate your engagement?”

“No,” he stammered, “I want to explain . . .”

Her face fell. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make light of it. You must have been heartbroken.”

“I suppose I was. I thought I loved her, but looking back, I can see we weren’t right for each other, and she and Aden are so happy. The thought of it doesn’t hurt anymore. The thing that stung the most was my complete humiliation.”

Toby reached for a pancake. Beth cut one up and poured syrup on it. “I’m sure Aden would never embarrass you on purpose.”

“Of course not. He and Lily were both so nice about it. They even offered to postpone their wedding so people wouldn’t feel sorry for me. But they needed to be together. I wouldn’t ever want to stand in the way of real love.”

Beth twirled the flower with her fingers. “You’re quite noble, Tyler.”

“I got a valuable lesson from the whole thing. I was like a moony teenager with Lily. Her rejection made me realize that romance is fake—a trick to get people to marry each other.”

“You’re right. All a man has to do is behave well enough to convince some girl to marry him, and then she’s stuck for life.”

Tyler studied her face. Was she teasing him again? “But I still want to share my life with someone. What do you say?”

“About what?”

“Will you marry me?”

Beth looked as if he’d chewed up his napkin and swallowed it whole. “Wha . . . why? What are you talking about?”

“I need a companion and helpmeet who will work beside me and be my friend. I know you’d be a good wife.”

Beth slapped the sunflower against the edge of the table. Petals flew everywhere. “You think I’d make a good wife?” she said, her voice rising in pitch with each word.

Tyler flinched. Was she angry or just surprised? “Jah. The way you care for Toby and look after your great-grandparents—”

Petals kept flying. “What makes you think for one minute that I’d want to marry you?” she practically snarled at him as she reduced the sunflower to a barren stem.

He hadn’t expected quite this reaction. He’d bought yellow napkins and made bacon, for crying out loud. “You’re fun to be with. I think we’d get along very well together.”

She folded her arms and grunted her disapproval.

“If you think I’m expecting you to adore me, you don’t have to worry about that. It’s obvious you’re still very much in love with Amos.”

Pain darkened her expression.

“I can’t pretend to be able to replace the bond you shared with Amos, but we could at least offer each other companionship and comfort in our later years. Besides, I worry about you and Toby. A widow’s lot in life is hard, no matter how young or old she is. I want to help you out.”

After tossing what was left of the sunflower on the table, Beth picked up a piece of bacon, ripped it into shreds, and deposited it on Toby’s tray. “So, you think I can’t take care of myself. That you’ve got to swoop in and rescue me.”

Tyler had never been thrown quite so far off-balance before. Thoughts and ideas flew around his head like a flock of birds, not the least of which was that Beth looked stunningly beautiful when she was angry. Not a gute time to mention that. “Now I’ve made you angry.”

Beth stood and began to pace. “You certainly don’t want to marry a girl with a bad temper.”

Toby, sticky with syrup and not in the least upset, pumped his little hands in the air and yelled, “No, no, no,” as if he were chastising Tyler and making his own arguments against him.

“I don’t mind a temper. It means you care about things.”

She threw up her hands. “Do you never have an unkind thought about anybody?”

“I try to be—”

“Because I am thinking some very unkind thoughts about you right now.”

“You have every good reason to.”

Tyler caught sight of a fleeting grin before Beth plopped into her chair and buried her face in her hands.

He bent over to peek at her. “Beth? Are you okay?”

He heard a muffled growl behind the hands. “You are the most frustrating person to be mad at. If you fought back, I’d feel a lot better about myself.”

Tyler didn’t know what to do. He didn’t have much practice at fighting back. “Okay. What do you want me to say?”

A giggle escaped Beth’s lips. “Just . . . just stop talking.”

“Can I just tell you—?”

“Nope,” she said, with her face still buried in her hands.

Tyler shut his mouth and tried not to move a muscle except when Toby pointed to the bowl of scrambled eggs. “Mommy.”

Tyler picked up the bowl and mouthed,
Do you want these?

“Mommy.”

He spooned eggs onto Toby’s tray and watched as Toby gathered them up in his chubby little fingers and popped them into his mouth. He spit each bite out, played with it, and put it back in his mouth for further tasting.

Beth finally lifted her head and wiped an errant tear from her cheek. Tyler’s throat sank to his toes. He hadn’t meant to make her cry. “Beth, I’m really sorry.”

She held up her hand as if to stop traffic. “I’m fine. I cry when I’m angry. Don’t apologize.”

“I cry when I’m angry too.”

Beth twisted her lips into a wry grin. “You do not.” She shook out his exquisitely folded napkin and blew her nose on it. “In a few days, we’re going to laugh about this. Well, I’m going to laugh about it. You’re going to sort of smile about it.”

Tyler confirmed her prediction by smiling. He couldn’t help it. She was so cute.

“Look at that,” Beth exclaimed. “You’re smiling already.”

“I’m thinking of bacon.”

“Even if we’re mad at each other, we shouldn’t let this food go to waste.”

Tyler wasn’t mad. He felt like smacking his own forehead. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

They said silent grace, and Beth helped herself to a pancake. Her lips curled in pleasure when she bit into it. “Hmm. Delicious. They taste like bacon and maple syrup.”

Tyler didn’t know if he should eat. Would she be cross if he saved her all the biggest pieces of bacon? “My mamm’s recipe.”

Beth smothered her eggs with pepper but no salt. “Do you know yours is the second proposal I’ve had in the last twenty-four hours?”

“You’re kidding.”

“Alvin Hoover.” She picked up the sunflower that she had beat the petals off of. “He brought sunflowers.”

Tyler had never felt so foolish in his entire life.

“I’m sorry I overreacted. You caught me off guard, that’s all. I thought I had you figured out. I didn’t want you to turn out to be like all the others.”

“The others?”

“Wallace Schwartz proposed at the market where I bought groceries. He had three children and five cats that needed a loving mother’s care. Yost Byler was a sixty-year-old bachelor. He wanted someone to look after his ailing father. He tried a little harder than Wallace. He brought me zucchini from his garden and Mary Ellis romances from the library. But when he started knocking on my bedroom window late at night, that’s where I had to draw the line.”

Tyler managed a smile, even though he felt like a creep. “Were there ‘other’ others?”

“Amos’s twin brother Isaac ran them off.”

“I’m glad somebody watched out for you.”

“Not Isaac. He told everyone that I was engaged to him.”

Tyler’s mouth fell open. “What did you do?”

Beth’s dimple disappeared, and her hand trembled slightly as she put down her fork. “I begged him to leave me alone, but he was nasty about it, insisting I had a duty to marry him because he is Amos’s brother. Then his mamm said if I truly loved their family, I would agree to a marriage. The pressure made me miserable. When Mammi’s letter came, I packed my bags and got out of there right quick.”

Beth had asked if Tyler ever got mad. Jah, he did. He couldn’t stand the thought of anyone bullying Beth. He balled his hands into fists and took several calming breaths. “I’m not like the others.”

She laid her hand on his arm. His skin tingled at the touch. Any widower, bachelor, or young unmarried man, for that matter, would be a fool not to wish for Beth as a wife. Of course her suitors were many. “Oh, I know you’re not like the others. Alvin told me he wanted to take care of Toby and me, but he didn’t mean it. The other men saw how marrying me would benefit them. They didn’t take the trouble to find out how I felt or what I wanted or what would be in my best interest. You, on the other hand, are willing to sacrifice your entire future to help a struggling widow.”

“I don’t see it as a sacrifice.” He looked into those deep blue eyes. Not a sacrifice at all. “But I didn’t really consider your tender feelings either.”

Beth withdrew her hand and snorted dismissively. “Jah, tender. That’s twice in the last couple of weeks I’ve almost bit your head off.”

“I shouldn’t have asked. I don’t usually rush into things. I’m sorry.”

She jabbed the dead sunflower in his direction. “Enough apologizing.”

“And I don’t think you’re helpless. You are smart and feisty, and you can do anything you put your mind to.”

A soggy piece of pancake flew through the air and hit Tyler in the cheek. Beth giggled. The side of his mouth curled in amusement as he took his cheery yellow napkin and wiped the side of his face.