Seasons of Tomorrow (13 page)

“Gut.”

She returned her attention to the gutter while walking. “Look! Isn’t that one?”

The sun glinted off something buried under wet leaves. “Let me get that.” Jacob grabbed the two connected glass doorknobs, saving her from bending her knee. “Here you go.”

Looking pleased, she took it from him and brushed off the grime and rotting leaves.

It couldn’t be worth more than thirty dollars, even if she got top price for it. “We’re getting too far from the accident. Let’s go back, and I’ll check the other side of the street.” After waiting for a car to pass, he ran across the road, and as he worked his way back to where the accident happened, he spotted the missing doorknobs. “Got ’em.”

“Really?”

He held them up. “Ya.” He walked to where she was and gave them to her. “I guess if that’s all of them, I should be on my way.”

“Actually”—she looked at the palm of her hand and then ran it down her coat, wiping off debris from the doorknobs, he guessed—“if you came by the shop, you could show me how to connect the shutters. Ammon’s keeping the children until after lunch so I can get some work done, and think of how much more I could get done if I had a clue what I was doing. The warehouse is only a couple of blocks from here.”

“Ammon won’t mind?”

“Not a bit. If he could, he’d hire you to help me. Now Dora, she would mind. She’s asked me more than once if I did anything to sabotage you and her.” Esther headed for her wagon. “And I had to admit that we did talk about you two dating. She’s really angry with me.”

Jacob hated that he’d caused trouble between them. He walked with Esther. “I didn’t mean to drag you into the conversation. I barely mentioned
your name, and she was immediately suspicious that you may have said something to influence me.”

“And did I?”

“No. I’d told her from the start that I was leaving in April, but since she was thinking of things more seriously than I was, it was time to end it. Sorry for my part in causing trouble.”

“Completely forgiven. It’s not your fault that my relationship with Dora is a bit complicated. I get motherly and smother her at times. Anyway, sibling issues aside …” Esther’s wry smile hinted of her scheming something, and he was intrigued. “You run over me with your horse, and then you cause my sister to be angry with me.”

He could tell by her playful tone where she was headed. “And don’t forget your injured knee.”

“Ouch.” She immediately grabbed her knee and started an exaggerated hobble. “I know how you can make up for it.”

“Let me guess. Uh, shutters?”

“The warehouse is really close. I’ll lead the way.”

“Go ahead, and I’ll catch up.” Jacob hurried back to his wagon, wishing he’d eaten breakfast. By the time he got to his rig and started out, he was about a block behind Esther. They continued on for another two blocks, and then she turned onto a driveway next to a large brick building, but it wasn’t a warehouse. An electric sign in the window read Hudson’s Decorative Ironwork. The sidewalk had a display of tables, chairs, sections of fences, and a piece of a banister. Then it clicked. This was the place that had provided the banisters for the houses he was finishing for Kings’ Construction.

As Jacob brought the horse to a stop, a tall, burly black man came out a side door. Jacob recognized him as the man who’d been Esther’s driver the day she came to the construction site. “Shark Bait.” The man scowled. “I expected you sooner. Where have you been?” He gestured at Jacob. “And why do you have a King of Kings’ Construction with you?”

Esther grinned. “He kept trying to run over me with his rig, and I’m trying to rehabilitate his bad behavior by putting him to work.”

The man nodded. “I’m Bailey Hudson.”

Jacob hopped down. “Jacob King.”

“He’s going to show me how to put these shutters together.” Esther looped the reins around the handle of the brake and scooted across the bench seat toward the step down.

Bailey eyed her. “Knee bothering you again?”

How did the man know that?

Bailey went to the side of the wagon near the bench seat. “You promised me about that knee. Are you keeping your promise this time, or am I calling Ammon?”

Esther shook a doorknob at Bailey. “If you think I’m spending my morning away from the house to go to the doctor’s, you’ve lost your marbles. All they’ll say is stay off it, don’t tote children, and take ibuprofen.”

“That’s not all, Miss Essie. They’ll also say you need to get an MRI.” Bailey scowled, but he held out his hands. “Well, come on.”

She set the doorknobs on the bench seat, put her hands on his shoulders, and he eased her to the ground.

Bailey turned to him. “It’s nice of you to help our little Shark Bait, Jacob. And for your reward, let me invite you to breakfast.”

Esther grabbed the two sets of doorknobs from the bench seat. “Don’t let Bailey fool you. He goes by the diner most mornings to buy breakfast for his workers, and he gets too much every single time. If you’ll eat, you’ll be doing him the favor.”

“True enough. Even Shark Bait can’t possibly eat all I got today.”

Jacob balanced the shutters on one shoulder.

Bailey grabbed several shutters too. “Jacob, you hungry?”

“I am. But I’m more curious—‘Shark Bait’ and ‘Miss Essie’?”

The man grinned, his white teeth in sharp contrast to his dark skin. “You come inside, and maybe I’ll show you why we call her that.”

Esther narrowed her eyes at the man.

Bailey shrugged, his eyes mockingly wide, as if he were afraid of her.

Jacob needed to be doing his own work, but he also owed Esther some of his time. That actually just gave him a rationalization for being here.
Right now, there was nowhere else he’d rather be. “How many nicknames do you have?”

She sighed. “Too many. My understanding is my Daed started it, but most of them have been given by this one.” She gestured from Bailey’s head to his toes.

Bailey grinned. “Me and her Daed go way back.” He nodded for Jacob to follow him. Esther continued to walk toward the side door while Jacob and Bailey leaned the shutters against the building.

Bailey dusted his hands together as they returned to the wagon for more. “You’re probably wondering just who is the boss around here.” He smiled, pure joy radiating from his eyes. “It’s definitely me. Just keep that under wraps. Okay?”

Jacob laughed. “Sure. But why does she call it a warehouse?”

“There’s one out back. She fell in love with it when her Daed started bringing her here before she knew how to speak English.”

“You’ve known her that long?”

“Her Daed was a farmer, but during the late fall and winter months, he’d work in the warehouse for me, and she tagged along when allowed.”

“I suppose it was some of your men who put in railings for the porches, staircases, and catwalks, both inside and out, at the new houses.”

“Yeah, that’s right. They did a good job, right?”

“Excellent.”

“Good.”

They finished unloading the wagon. When they stepped into the shop, Jacob breathed in the aroma of coffee and breakfast foods. His stomach rumbled as he scanned the place. Five middle-aged men were at workbenches, and a couple of them had on welding helmets and had lit torches in hand.

Bailey pointed. “Breakfast is in the kitchen, and that’s at the back of the building. Help yourself to anything that’s there.” He gestured to some privacy screens toward the front where customers would enter from the sidewalk. “That’s Shark Bait’s workspace.”

Jacob could see her feet underneath the fabric barricade.

“We built the privacy screens for her when she was a teen. That way she didn’t need to be self-conscious while concocting weird stuff, as she called it.” Bailey chuckled. “See the flooring in the entryway and office areas?”

“Yeah.” That flooring covered everything that led up to the cement floors where the workers’ shop area began.

“Shark Bait did that—salvaged and laid it. And if it needed sanding, staining, or shellacking, she did that too.”

“Really?” Jacob went toward the foyer and office areas. The flooring was laid out in segments of nine square feet, each section showcasing a different type of floor—oak, pine, hickory, brick, and slate. The four corner sectors were a combination of wood and stone. Jacob spied what he assumed were her first stabs at laying flooring. Kneeling, he eyed the floor as the sunlight fell across it, divulging every flaw.

Not bad
.

He was no expert when it came to laying flooring. However, it was his job to line up the subcontractors who installed what the buyers ordered, and he had to make sure the owners were pleased. So he inspected a lot of floors before doing a walk-through with the buyers.

“She used this as her practice area, but it also gives potential buyers of the loose boards and bricks a place to get a visual. Not that she has a lot of customers, but she’s diligent about the business she does have.”

Jacob picked out two favorites and wondered how the owners of the houses Kings’ Construction was building would feel if they could see this.

Bailey pointed at a desk. “I’d better get busy.”

“Thanks.” Jacob stood and walked to the brick-and-wood section. He crouched again and ran his hand along the area where the brick abutted the pine. The repurposed flooring had far more aesthetic appeal than he’d imagined. As a carpenter, he’d always gravitated toward the newest products on the market. Maybe that’s what owners wanted because, like him, they didn’t realize they had an option or know the aesthetic appeal of old wood and brick.

“Hey.” Esther’s voice caught his attention.

Jacob remained crouched as he looked her way. “These are beautiful.”

She smiled, nodding, as if pleased that he finally got it. “Ya, old wood and stone make for beautiful floors, but there’s more to it than that. There’s something wonderfully rich about standing on a floor where people stood a hundred or two hundred years ago, isn’t there? As if we’re touching history while becoming history.”

He nodded. “True.”

“Some of the sections were my first stabs from five years ago, so I should redo those, but there hasn’t been time.”

“I can imagine.”

She’d had four children within probably six or seven years of marriage. She ran a home for unwed mothers and earned money as a do-it-yourself hobbyist of repurposed goods. He was impressed.

He stood. “Do you install flooring?”

“Not really. I’ve done a bit of it out of necessity on repairs at home. And I laid this as a display, but I’m not skilled enough to put it in for someone who’s paid a premium price for the supplies.”

“You could probably get really good at it with a little practice.”

“Maybe, but the timing to complete a project on a new house is too precise to fit a schedule like mine.”

The word
schedule
hit him hard, and he realized he needed to step up his pace. As interesting as she was and as much as she could use a hand on the shutter contraptions from a carpenter, he had a lot of his own work to get done. He had to finish two houses, including talking to the owners about installing some of her flooring, before he left town in a few weeks.

Still, he could show her how to connect the shutters. Since she could lay flooring, it probably wouldn’t take him long to teach her how to put the accordion-style shutters together.

Jacob dusted off his hands. “We should get started.”

She pointed a thumb toward the back of the shop. “How about some coffee and breakfast first? If I read you right when Bailey mentioned food, you’re hungry.”

The aroma of coffee, bacon, and cinnamon wooed him. “I am.”

“Kumm.”

Once in the kitchen, he couldn’t believe the spread of food sitting on warming trays. “I think Bailey wants to own a mom-and-pop diner when he grows up.”

“You won’t find a nicer guy anywhere.”

His phone pinged, indicating he’d received a text message. He pulled the phone from his pocket, touched the screen a few times, and stared at a new image of Casey. He chuckled. “How cute is she?”

Esther held out a plate to him, studying his phone. “Extremely.”

Another ping registered, and a private text message from Sandra flashed over the image:
Casey sends her love, and she’s counting the minutes until Dad comes home
.

Dad?
Casey never called him that, and he didn’t recall Sandra ever using that term before, but true to Sandra’s nature, her timing couldn’t have been worse. Unsure whether to try to clarify it with Esther, he slid his phone into his pocket, and they fixed their plates.

Once across the table from each other, she bowed her head for a few moments of prayer and then looked up. “I understand you’ve been staying with Noah and his family. Barb is a fantastic cook, isn’t she?”

Esther didn’t seem a bit put off or uncomfortable with Jacob because of the text message, but he wanted to explain.

“I didn’t lie about Sandra.”

Esther studied him. “I appreciate what you’re doing for me today. And with you leaving in a few weeks, just let it go at that.”

Jacob shrugged. He wasn’t very good at building friendships. Even though it was his nature to be warm and friendly, he struggled with his sense of personal privacy. It was easy to help and care for people, but to actually let someone inside his life was hard. That was part of the reason Samuel’s betrayal had cut so deep. Jacob had been close to only two people in his life—and they fell in love with each other. Even when sharing with Samuel and later with Rhoda, Jacob had told only what he had to—most often confessing the bare minimum needed to avoid hurting the relationship. “I’ve never been more than friends with Sandra. Barely even that a lot of the time.
But I have been like a dad to Casey, albeit one who doesn’t get to visit all that often.”

She ate a bite of scrambled eggs. “It’s difficult to get a man to own up to the responsibilities of his own child if he doesn’t love the mother. Would you mind if I asked what caused you to care enough to stay involved in her life?”

“I can tell you what led up to it”—Jacob dug his fork into the biscuit and gravy, cutting a bite—“but it’s a long story.” He put a forkful of biscuit into his mouth and then took a sip of coffee. “When I left the Amish at barely nineteen, I worked at various construction jobs until I found this one company and went to work for a man named Blaine. We really hit it off, so I lived with him and his wife, Sandra, and while I was there, she learned she was pregnant. To make a long story short, the night Sandra went into labor, Blaine was nowhere to be found. She didn’t want to go to the hospital too early and asked me to stay up with her. We watched a weird movie on TV, one I can’t even remember the name of.”