Promise Lodge (16 page)

After everyone ate and the kitchen was cleaned up, the others went back to their tasks in the cabins, the barn, and the garden plots. Rosetta's soap had hardened in a big rectangular pan in the mudroom, so she sharpened a knife and began to cut along the lines she'd scored into the soap's surface after she'd poured it. The fragrance of the mint and lavender oils she'd used lifted her spirits. Even after listening to the letters from more people who planned to come to Promise Lodge, however, she couldn't get Bertha Chupp's words out of her mind. Something told her to retrieve the letter from the wastebasket.

Rosetta wiped some crumbs and splotches off the pale blue paper. The handwriting resembled that of many women she knew, but she still wondered why the bishop's wife had written her such an unsettling letter.

She stuck the folded sheets into the drawer with her soap-making supplies.
Amos and Mattie have it right. Our work and our dreams bless us here, and we shouldn't sink to Bertha's level by answering in a spirit of spitefulness. Promise Lodge is a place of peace. Here, we plan for happiness.

Rosetta smiled. As she stood each rectangular bar of soap on end on an old window screen to dry completely, she imagined the new friends who would soon be coming to the lodge. She thought about getting better acquainted with Truman Wickey, too, and seeing him again sometime soon. It was best to focus forward and to leave the past behind.

Chapter Fourteen

The next morning, Noah sat between Preacher Amos and Roman on the wagon seat, driving to Forest Grove to fetch lumber and other supplies they needed to build the produce stand. As Buck clip-clopped along the county highway, the breeze made the silver maple leaves shimmer in the morning sunlight. Queenie sat behind them in the wagon, her tongue lolling from her mouth as she watched for squirrels and other animals in the woods. He couldn't recall such a picture-perfect day—at least not since he'd moved to Promise. Or was he feeling better about life, in general, because he'd made his peace with Deborah?

“Noah, it's
gut
to see you smile,” Amos remarked. “I was wondering if you'd forgotten how.”

Noah's lips twitched. “Deborah and I have talked things through. I told her I'd not be courting her again—not just yet, anyway. But we've mended our fences.”

“Ah, forgiveness,” the older man said lightly. “The gift that blesses the giver as much as the receiver. Do I have that figured right?”

“
Jah
. You tried to tell me and I finally got it,” Noah replied. He tugged on the leather lines to slow the Belgian for an upcoming curve.

“But you're not going to court her? What's the deal with that?” Roman quizzed him. “Once upon a time, the two of you were all but married, planning a home and a family—”

“And that's where it gets sticky,” Noah interrupted urgently. “How am I to afford a house now? And the land to build it on? Back in Coldstream, Preacher Eli was taking me on welding jobs and I was building up a trade and a reputation. I don't see that happening out here in the middle of nowhere.”

Preacher Amos stroked his silver-shot beard as he considered this. “You and your bride could start out in one of the cabins,” he suggested. “The tradition of living with one set of parents or the other for a year probably isn't practical for you, but a cabin would keep you close to us while you save up to build your own house.”

Noah sighed. “Deborah and I agreed long ago that we didn't want to live with her family, because the quarters are pretty close in the Peterscheim house,” he said. “And now that Mamm doesn't have plans to build another house—well, I've always wanted to provide Deborah a home of her own, anyway. But I can't see how I'll ever earn enough to do that if I stay in Promise.”

Roman and Amos exchanged a startled look before focusing on Noah. “Where would you go, then?” his brother demanded. “Back to Coldstream?”

“Maybe you've not been in this area long enough to see the possibilities,” Preacher Amos insisted. “We've all been awfully busy since the move, and we haven't really found our way around yet. But I'll tell you this, son,” he continued earnestly. “Your
mamm
would be deeply hurt if you went somewhere else to start your family. She'd be lost without you, whether she'd say so or not. She's looking forward to grandkids, too.”

“
Jah,
I've heard about that,” Noah murmured.

“I have to admit that you've come in handy for rebuilding some of the dairy equipment and welding the broken water pipes since we've moved,” Roman remarked with a chuckle. “There was a time, when we were kids, that I wondered if you'd ever be worth the trouble you caused me, but I've changed my tune. You're a
gut
man to have around, little brother.”

Noah let out an exasperated sigh. “But living rent-free and taking my pay in meals won't buy me the home place I'm hoping for,” he told his brother. “I need steady work—and soon—or I'll be as old as Amos before I can marry Deborah.”

“Hey! Don't go calling me
old,
” the preacher teased, elbowing Noah good-naturedly. “I see your point, though. It was the same for me when I was starting out in carpentry work. A
lot
of fellows could swing a hammer in Coldstream back then, and I had to make my own opportunities . . . branch out into the surrounding towns and get my name and my work known amongst the English
.
”

The preacher was only a few years older than his mother, but Noah still had trouble imagining Amos Troyer as a young man with girlfriends—and a full head of hair. “So, you were dating Mamm back then, right?” he asked, partly to steer the conversation away from himself. “What happened that you didn't marry her?”

A faraway look overtook Amos's weathered face. “It wasn't for lack of
gut
intentions, because I was crazy about Mattie all through school,” he murmured. “But your grandfather, Walt Bender, had different aspirations for his eldest daughter, and Marvin Schwartz had already bought the place just down the road from them.”

“So Dat won out because he had property?” Roman asked. “What did
Mamm
say about
that
?”

“Not much,” Amos replied with a short laugh. “She was an obedient daughter, and her respect for her parents' wishes overrode her feelings for me—which might explain why she's not much for
obeying
any other man these days. Got a mind of her own, Mattie does.”

Noah steered the Belgian quickly through the intersection and onto the shoulder of the state highway so the cars behind them could get around the wagon. “See what I'm saying?” he protested. “When we lived in Coldstream, I was thinking to build Deborah a house near the fence between us and the Hershberger farm, so I'd still be on the home place. But now . . .” He let his sentence trail. It did no good to keep complaining about the recent changes in his life.

“Don't give up on it. Keep believing God's got a plan for you, Noah, and your job is to find it and follow it,” Amos mused aloud. “Takes some of us two or three tries before we get it right. Nothing would make me happier than to see you and Deborah settling into a place at Promise Lodge. I'll see what I can do to help that happen.”

Noah's eyebrows rose. Preacher Amos sounded ready to do more than pray for the home Noah wanted so badly. In his mind he could see Deborah on the front porch of a tidy white house, and he could envision the arched rose trellis she'd always wanted, too. When they'd left for Forest Grove, Deborah had already been up on the ladder painting the inside of cabin eight. She was such a hard worker, kind and gentle—and truth be told, he'd never stopped loving her, even after she'd jilted him.

But he'd decided not to say any more to Deborah about marriage until he could give her the life she deserved. He'd disappointed her during their first courtship, and he hoped never to endure such gut-wrenching heartache again.

Noah steered Buck into the parking lot of the Forest Grove Mercantile. Maybe he could find a simple gift in the store that would put a smile on her pretty face....

* * *

Deborah looked around the cabin's main room, gratified at what a huge improvement a coat of paint made. Mattie and the Hershberger girls were planting peaches-and-cream sweet corn in the farthest plowed plot today, while Christine and Rosetta worked upstairs in the lodge sewing simple curtains for the rooms that would soon become apartments. They had all invited her to help them, but Deborah found a certain satisfaction in rolling paint on the walls, knowing the cabins would be ready for their incoming residents sooner.

Every now and again, a little solitude was soothing. It gave Deborah time to review her recent fishing date with Noah . . . to think about how his attitude had improved now that they were friends again.
She
felt better, too—hopeful, now that they'd salvaged their relationship.

Deborah stopped the rhythmic
swish-swish-swish
of her roller to listen. Had she heard voices? It was too early for the men to be back from their shopping expedition.

She listened again, her roller poised on the partially painted wall. Nothing.

As Deborah spun her roller in the tray to fill it with beige paint, however, a movement outside caught her eye. She froze on the ladder, gripping the roller handle, when one male face and then another appeared at the cabin's open front window.

“Well, well, well,” said Isaac Chupp in a sly voice. “Corbett and I watched the men drive off earlier—and the other gals are all real busy right now, working in that old lodge building or waaay out beyond the lake. Is this a
gut
time to talk, Deborah?”

“Figured we'd find you here,” Kerry remarked with a smug laugh. He swung open the screen door and stepped inside, looking taller and stronger than Deborah recalled from her previous encounter with him. “Your old man said he didn't know where you'd run off to, but we didn't buy that for a second.”

“
Jah,
we figured you'd come here to Promise to hang out—or hide—where all these other do-gooders would believe whatever you told them and feel sorry for you,” Isaac continued coldly. He and Kerry stopped a couple of yards away from her ladder, crossing their arms as they glared at her. “You're really stupid, you know? Maybe too stupid to live.”

Deborah's body forgot how to function. And where could she go, even if her legs would move? The boys stood between her and the cabin's only door. Isaac's eyes narrowed as he sneered at her. A malevolent smile lit Kerry's pale, freckled face beneath his shaggy carrot-colored hair.

“Guess you know we've got a score to settle—not only for putting our names in the paper so the sheriff came calling,” Isaac said in a hard-edged voice, “but also because you made Kerry wreck his car—”

“None of that was my doing,” Deborah rasped. She gripped the ladder, resting her knees against its wooden frame so the boys wouldn't see how badly they were shaking. “You were both really drunk—”

“Shut up! I'm not finished!” Isaac barked. He ran his hand through his blunt-cut blond hair, appearing eager to grab hold of her again. “I
told
you not to breathe a word about finding us in the barn, but no! You had to blab to your
dat
and get the law involved, so now
my
old man's all hot and bothered—”

“And fixing my car would cost more than it's worth,” Kerry interrupted in a rising voice. “So now I've got no wheels, all because you wouldn't give me a little payback for taking you home.”

“So we'll take what you owe us right now, while there's nobody else around to get in our way.” Isaac looked her up and down as though he could see through her paint-splotched dress. “After all these years of wanting a sample of Schwartz's little honey, I'm about to get one. Then Corbett will take his turn. Wonder how Noah will feel about you
then
?”

The hairs on the back of Deborah's neck stood up and every nerve in her body vibrated.
Please, dear Jesus, You've got to help me. Without You, I don't stand a chance.

“Mostly, though, we want to make sure you don't get any ideas about going back to Coldstream,” Isaac said with a nasty laugh. “As long as you're not there shooting off your mouth, Sheriff Renfro has no
proof
of who was in that barn—except for you, of course. I told him to listen to the call the nine-one-one dispatcher took. Told him that was
your
voice on the recording, after you got so smashed while you were sneaking a beer in the barn that you knocked over a lantern,” he continued. “Then you felt guilty about starting the fire, so you called them and took off—because you knew you'd be in big trouble with your
dat
if he found out you'd been drinking.”

Deborah sucked in air, hoping to steady her nerves—trying to sort the truth from the lies Isaac could spin so effortlessly. Had he really given her name to Sheriff Renfro? Would he and Kerry take their revenge, or were they just hazing her? Deborah didn't want to find out. She sensed that the hand-shaped bruise on her neck had been a minor injury compared to the pain they could inflict as a team.

When Isaac stepped toward her, Deborah hurled the paint-saturated roller at him. As it hit him in the face, he and Kerry hollered obscenities and rushed toward her. With every last ounce of strength she had, Deborah jumped from the ladder and swung it at them. The paint tray flew at Kerry, splattering him, while the ladder struck Isaac on the shoulder. She didn't wait around to see how either of them reacted.

Deborah bolted out the screen door, hollering at the top of her lungs. “Rosetta! Christine!” she cried. She ran toward the lodge, hoping the women heard her through the open windows. “Help me! Isaac's here!”

As she sprinted up the stairs to the lodge porch, Deborah heard the boys' rapid footfalls behind her but she didn't turn around. Spotting the wire basket of eggs Rosetta had gathered earlier, she picked it up.

“Rosetta!” she yelled through the screen door. “Christine, come quick!”

Footsteps thundered on the lobby's wooden staircase as Deborah turned toward Isaac and Kerry. Both boys were splattered with beige paint, still intent on getting their revenge. Deborah began pelting them with eggs, aiming toward their faces. “Don't you touch me!” she cried.

From the direction of the garden, she heard the Hershberger girls and Mattie hollering as they came running toward the lodge. Behind her, Rosetta and Christine rushed out onto the porch.

“Don't think for a minute you're going to get away with this, Isaac Chupp!” Rosetta cried. She had grabbed the scrub bucket they'd used to clean the kitchen floor, and when she flung the dirty water in Isaac's face, he sputtered like an angry cat—but it slowed him down. Christine, who had carried a bolt of blue curtain fabric downstairs, pitched it fiercely at Kerry, making him stumble and slip in the wet grass. When the redhead saw that Mattie, Laura, and Phoebe were rushing at them with their rakes and hoes, he fled down the gravel lane toward the camp entrance.