Love Finds You in Sugarcreek, Ohio (14 page)

“Do you hear that?” Joe said. “I’ve gone far too long without hearing that kind of laughter coming from my little boy.”

“It’s a nice sound,” Rachel agreed.

They went back to Bobby’s bedroom and glanced in to see what was going on. Anna was dancing her seashells, one by one, across the shelves of a small bookcase.

“I’ll be right back.” Joe’s voice sounded raw and choked. To Rachel’s surprise, he abruptly turned and walked away.

Rachel followed and found him pacing in the yard outside.

“I thought nothing they could do would upset you,” she said.

“They are so kind and giving, sharing what they have with me, a stranger—they break my heart.”

“Which is why I’ve tried so hard to protect them,” Rachel said. “An unscrupulous person could destroy them.”

“The first night we met, I told you I would never hurt them. I meant it.”

“With all my heart, I’ve hoped that’s true.” Rachel sighed. “Look, Joe, it’s no secret that I’ve been less than thrilled with your being here…but helping you and Bobby is making my aunts happier than I’ve seen them in ages. I’m not going to mess with that. I don’t want you to either. So go hang Anna’s calendar, help Bertha put up the curtains, and tell them thank you when they’re finished. They believe they are doing God’s will.”

“I know.”

As she turned to leave, Joe put his hand on her shoulder. It was the first time he had done that, and she wasn’t prepared. Startling her into a combat reflex, she whirled into a crouch, her eyes snapping and her fists clenched.

“Oh, Rachel, I wasn’t trying to hurt you.” Joe drew his hands back, palms up. “I just wanted to say one more thing before we went inside.”

“Sorry.” She unclenched her fists and took a deep breath. “I’m a little jumpy these days.”

“For Bobby’s sake, I need this chance at building a quiet life. At least for a while. Please allow me that chance.”

Rachel chewed her bottom lip. “Tell me what you’re running from.”

“That would require trust, Rachel.” There was a deep sadness in his eyes. “And trust is something I’m very low on these days.”

“But I’m supposed to trust
you.”
Her frustration was intense. Didn’t he realize how completely trustworthy she was?

“I know it’s a lot to ask.”

Still unnerved by her reflexive reaction to his touch, she felt a strong desire to lash out at him. “I checked your prints.”

He cocked an eyebrow and waited.

“They came up clean.”

Joe nodded, as though he’d been certain they would.

“I ran your tags.”

A slow smile spread over his face. “How
is
Buzzy?”

“Less than communicative.”

“A good sort of friend to have.”

“How did you do that, Joe? How did you talk a used-car salesman into letting you drive a perfectly good truck off the lot that didn’t even belong to you?”

“I made a trade.”

“What kind of trade?”

“The kind that left him driving a vehicle worth ten times the one I borrowed.”

“Really?”

Joe crossed his heart. “Scout’s honor.”

“That makes no sense whatsoever.” She put her hands on her hips. “Okay. Treat my aunts right, keep out of trouble, and I’ll leave you alone.”

He grinned that killer smile again. “You don’t have to leave me alone.”

She looked him square in the eyes, determined not to acknowledge his attempt to flirt. She dare not let him see that she was weakening toward him. “Step out of line even once, and our agreement is off.”

His smile faded. “I wouldn’t expect anything less of you, Officer Troyer.”

With the painting and cleaning completed, and with Joe and Bobby living comfortably in the daadi haus these past three days, Rachel had no excuse to spend her nights at her aunts’ home anymore. Her own house, which had once felt like a well-ordered sanctuary, now simply seemed vacant and empty when she went home to it. She longed for the farm, for the comforting companionship of her aunts, and—if she was being totally honest with herself—what she missed most was the presence of Joe and his sweet son.

Rachel was exhausted. Her day at work had been especially brutal. If ever she had
needed
to spend some time at her aunts’ farm, it was this evening. Deciding she had stayed away long enough, she drove over to check on how things were going with the aunts and their new handyman.

Spotting Joe on a ladder, scraping paint off the side of the farmhouse, gave her pause. It seemed strange, seeing a man constantly working around her aunts’ farm, but she had to admit—the farmhouse had been in dire need of a fresh coat of paint. Thank goodness he was the one doing it and not her. Scraping paint was one of those things that set her teeth on edge, like fingernails on a chalkboard to others.

“What are you doing?” she asked as she approached the porch.

“Building the Sistine Chapel. What are
you
doing?”

“Okay, so that was a dumb question. Sorry.”

“I have to admit,” he said, “I didn’t realize how tedious the prep work would be.” He glanced down from his perch on the next-to-the-top rung. “Can’t beat the view, though.”

“Is supper ready?”

“Close, I think.” He climbed down the ladder and laid the scraper on a windowsill. “Lydia kicked me out of the kitchen. She said she was making something special.”

“That’s Lydia for you.” Rachel grinned and leaned against the porch.

“Since Bobby and I now have a kitchen, I attempted to cook a meal at noon today.” He smiled crookedly. “Bobby brutally informed me that Lydia’s cooking tastes better than mine.” He placed the palm of one hand flat against his chest. “I was crushed.”

“Well, as you pointed out last night at supper, Lydia is a genius in the kitchen. After that comment, she’s probably half killed herself cooking for you today.”

“I hope not. For women their age, all three of them work too hard as it is.”

“I know. That’s why I was trying—until
you
came along—to make them give up the idea of running an inn.”

“I’m sorry about that. Bertha keeps coming up with more projects I need to complete before they open in the spring.”

“She’s almost eighty,” Rachel grumbled. “Any normal woman her age would be gearing down, not restarting a labor-intensive business.”

There was a pause as he studied her. “You sound worn-out, Rachel. Has something happened?”

The genuine kindness in his voice shattered her. She felt a lump rise to her throat as the tragedy of her day flashed through her mind.

His question made her wish she had someone with whom to share daily events—someone besides her aunts, whom she tried to protect as much as possible from the harsh realities of life.

“What’s happened, Rachel?” he prodded.

“A car wreck.” She stared down at her boots.

“How bad?”

“Bad.” The memory rose as bitter as bile. The child had been so terrified, so hurt. Rachel felt as though she’d explode if she didn’t talk about it to someone. “We had to life-flight a little girl to the Children’s Hospital in Akron.”

“Will she survive?”

Rachel shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“How old is she?”

“Three. Her parents didn’t have her in any kind of safety seat. She wasn’t even wearing a seat belt. They were just dumb kids themselves, and they were high on something. Neither of them was badly hurt, which I suppose is a blessing. Maybe if the little girl survives, they’ll decide to grow up and take better care of her.” Rachel rested her head against the porch column and closed her eyes. “I don’t understand what’s
wrong
with some people.”

His voice was quiet, intimate. “The people around here are blessed to have you watching out for them.”

She opened her eyes. “Thank you for saying that. Sometimes I wish I’d become, oh, I don’t know, a rocket scientist or a brain surgeon or something. You know”—she joked, wiping away a stray tear—“something easy.”

“You’d be miserable doing anything else for a living.”

“I don’t know about that. Sometimes I think I should quit my job and help my aunts run their inn.”

“Are you serious?” He looked at her closely. “They would be thrilled.”

“Can you imagine me making muffins for breakfast?”

“Actually—yes. I can.”

Wonderful smells wafted out of the window, and her stomach rumbled. Had she eaten any breakfast? No. Lunch had been a stray mint she’d found in her desk drawer. The only thing fueling her right now was black coffee. The caffeine and adrenaline were wearing off, and she was beginning to feel weak and light-headed.

“Where’s Bobby?” She sank down onto the top step.

“Holding court in the kitchen last I saw. Anna had unearthed an old wooden high chair, and Bobby was sitting at the table making a tower out of Dominoes.”

“It’s probably my high chair. I think it belonged to my father and aunts too. Bobby’s a little big to be using it.”

“Not when he’s pretending to be Anna’s baby doll.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I am
not
kidding.” He grinned. “I have totally lost control of my son!”

“Boo!” Anna poked her head out the door and waited with a look of eager anticipation. Joe and Rachel gave the requisite jump and frightened gasp. Anna giggled with pleasure. “Bertha says—come eat!”

“Thanks, Anna.”

Joe rinsed his hands beneath the hand pump after Anna left. “Do you have any idea why she does that ‘boo’ thing?”

“None of us really know what goes on inside Anna’s mind. All we know is that saying ‘boo’ is her little joke and even the smallest cousins know to respond to it.”

“She’s a sweetheart.”

“Yes, she is. By the way, please don’t mention the injured child at the supper table. I try to protect her from sad things. She’s not wired to deal with them.”

“I’m pretty good at keeping secrets,” he said.

“You
think?”

Somehow Joe’s laughter ringing out as they went into the house didn’t irritate her. In fact, she liked it a lot. It almost scared her how easy it was to have this man in her life.

After supper, Eli arrived and announced that it was time to initiate Joe into the fine art of buggy driving. Joe was less than enthusiastic.

“If you are going to be helpful to the Troyer sisters, you must learn how to drive one of these.” Eli patted the black buggy sitting in the yard.

“Um…that would first mean hitching it up.”

“Jah. That is a problem?”

“Eli,” Joe said, “I don’t even know how to catch the horse, let alone hitch it up.”

“Catching the horse is no problem.”

“Maybe not for you, but it won’t even let me pet it. I’ve tried.”

“But Nellie is a gentle mare.”

“I don’t mind walking into town.”

“True. But the sisters like to get out from time to time. Next Sunday is church Sunday, and they would like to go.”

“Can’t they go with you?”

“Why would they do that when they have a hired man to take them?”

“Because, oh, I don’t know, they like to live?” Joe sighed. “I wish I had my truck.”

“And how is that truck faring?”

“I should have enough money for it to be fixed in a week or two.”

“Ah. Then that means you have your license back?”

“No.” Joe kicked at a clump of grass. Not having a driver’s license was a sore point with him. He had always been able to go when and where he wanted, usually much faster than the law allowed. It was hard not to go too fast when one owned cars that were famous for their speed.

“A buggy is not so bad when it is all you have,” Eli said. “But first, I want to see you catch Nellie and put a bridle on her.”

“How much time do you have, Eli? Decades?”

As Joe had expected, Nellie had her own agenda—and being hitched to a buggy was not on it.

“How do the aunts do this?” Joe asked, after Nellie had frisked away from him for the tenth time.

“They don’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“Bertha says ‘Come,’ and Nellie comes. Bertha says ‘Back up,’ and Nellie backs up. Bertha says ‘giddyap,’ and Nellie ‘giddyaps.’ Bertha says ‘Whoa,’ and Nellie…”

“I get it.” Joe held up a hand. “What if Bertha isn’t around? Does Lydia do it?” he asked hopefully.

“
Nein
. Lydia is afraid of horses.”

“Why?”

“She was kicked in the side once. It left a bad memory.”

“Oh
really.”
Joe was not exactly thrilled with the idea of getting kicked, either.

As he halfheartedly chased the horse around the pasture, Nellie acted coltish as she scampered just out of reach. He tried hiding the bridle behind his back. He tried tempting her with an apple and then with sugar. Nothing worked. If Joe hadn’t known better, he would have sworn she thought they were playing tag.

It didn’t help that, for the most part, Eli spent his time clutching a fence post and giggling so hard he was nearly crying.

“Ach. Goot. Goot,” Eli said, wiping his eyes. “Don’t stop. Keep trying.”

Joe looked at Nellie. Nellie looked at him—with every muscle tensed to prance away the minute he approached her. He could swear that had it been possible for a horse to do so, she would have thumbed her nose at him.

His face was gritty from running around the pasture chasing the silly animal—and he was getting a little tired of listening to Eli laughing.

“
COME
!”

He whipped around and saw Bertha, propped on her walker, standing near the fence. She frowned at the horse.

“NELLIE. COME! NOW!”

Nellie obediently walked over, lowered her head, and stood in front of Bertha.

“STAY!
” Bertha said. The horse stood as still as a stump. “Go put the bridle on her, Joe. Eli, you help him.” Then Bertha slowly inched her way back into the house.

It was humiliating—the woman was practically an invalid.

Obediently, Eli and Joe got the bridle fastened onto Nellie.

“What just happened here?” Joe asked, as they led the horse to the buggy.

“Did you not hear? Bertha said, ‘Come’ and ‘Stay.’”

“
I
said ‘Come’ and ‘Stay.’ I said ‘Come’ and ‘Stay’ a
lot.”

“Jah, but you did not say it in German.”

“Bertha didn’t say it in German, either.”

“No. But she
thought
it in German.”

He saw amusement playing in Eli’s eyes. “Okay, I’ll bite. How did she ‘think’ it in German?”

“Could you not tell? Bertha was thinking, ‘Come, you silly horse. Come and stand still and let Joe bridle you, or there will be no more oats or good fresh hay for your stall for the next month, and I might have to sell you to someone who will make you work for a living instead of frolic in the pasture all day…you big bag of lazy bones.’”

“Bertha was thinking all that, huh?”

“Jah. And the horse knew she was thinking that. It makes a difference.”

“And what was I thinking?”

“You were thinking like an Englischman.” Eli’s voice grew high and mincing. “You were saying, ‘Come, pretty horsey with the big hooves that might kick me. Come and stand still, or I will walk away and do nothing but cry because you are so much bigger and stronger than me.”

“You have been having way too much fun at my expense, Eli.”

“I am a very old man,” Eli said sanctimoniously. “And I would like to live many more years to watch over my family. The Bible says that laughter is good medicine. You have already added several months onto my life span today.” He chuckled and clapped Joe on the shoulder. “I will now teach you how to hitch Nellie to the buggy.”

“You need a television, Eli,” Joe grumbled as they split apart and walked down both sides of the horse. “With a great big flat screen. Messing with me is too amusing for you.”

“Jah,” Eli admitted happily. “That it is.”