The Beekeeper's Son (The Amish of Bee County Book 1) (15 page)

Abigail’s stomach lurched. A marriage proposal born of practicality, not romance. That made sense. She was no young girl in
the throes of her first love. She hugged the clothes to her body with one arm and raised trembling fingers to her face to push back straggling hair on her forehead. Seconds ticked in her head, louder and louder. As impractical as it might seem to a practical man like Stephen, she didn’t want the rest of her life, her chance at love again, to be a problem the man in front of her had to solve.

Timothy.

She’d thought she would have time. Time to adjust. To get to know Stephen again. To get used to this place. “I’m sorry, I’m—”

“Sorry? You came here for this.” Stephen’s face reddened even further. His jaw jutted. “Will you find me lacking once again?”

“Nee. I’m tired. That’s all.”

He stuffed the dirty, wet dress on top of the clean ones with such force, Abigail staggered. “We’re both tired. Not a good time to make important decisions.”

Relief blanketed her like the gale-force wind of the previous night. “I just want a little more time to get to know you again.”

“I understand.” His face said he didn’t. “In the meantime, you’re homeless.”

“We’re having a district meeting in a few minutes. What to do next will be decided then.”

Stephen swiveled and marched away. At the corner of the barn, he looked back. “Beggars can’t be choosers, you know.”

After a minute, Abigail remembered to close her mouth. By then he had disappeared around the corner.

When had she become a beggar?

FIFTEEN

Despite the clear morning air, the rank odor of smoke lingered in Phineas’s nose. He’d been unable to shake it, no matter how much he washed his face and hands after a scant few hours of sleep. Morning brought light, and with it, a clear view of the destruction. He turned his back on the wet rubble that had been John’s home and strode to the barn. How did a person see God’s hand moving in such devastation? His daed would say God had a plan. Whatever it was, Phineas couldn’t fathom it. He let the thought drift away in a fog of fatigue.

He squeezed through a cluster of men standing by the barn doors, discussing the cost of lumber and Sheetrock. They would need plenty of both to rebuild the house. Everyone had gotten the word and made their way to the Masts’ barn. They would hear what the bishop had to say about the fire and decisions would be made. They would help the Masts rebuild and provide food and clothes for them and for the Lantz family. That was what they did.

He couldn’t help himself. He let his gaze rest on Deborah. She had looked so forlorn during the dark hours before dawn. She was feisty, though, no doubt about it. Swinging that full bucket
with all the force she could muster. For a scrawny girl, she was strong. She held Hazel in her arms as if the little girl weighed nothing. Hazel raised her head from her sister’s shoulder and smiled at him. He couldn’t help it, he smiled back. “How are you, little one?”

“Fire burned up doll.”

“I know, but there will be other dolls.” He squeezed her plump hand, careful not to touch Deborah. “What’s important is that you and all your family are safe and unhurt. Gott is gut.”

Deborah looked up at him, her expression bleak. “He’s right, Hazel. We’ll make you a new doll.”

Hazel snuggled against her sister’s chest. “Phineas is smart.”

Deborah turned back to the front of the barn, but not before Phineas saw the look that flashed on her face. She didn’t think he was so smart.

She was angry at him and trying not to show it. He stepped back so he stood next to his father. He hadn’t taken her to look for birds. In the hard light of day, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. In the dark of night, she could forget what he looked like, but not during the day. She’d see and regret her request. She’d make excuses not to go and he’d feel like a fool and more alone than ever. He was better off not going down that road. Still, he’d started in the direction of John’s house twice, but each time he veered off in a long hike to the apiaries.

Maybe he’d thought it would be easier to simply run into her as they had that night on the road. After dusk. But he hadn’t and the days had stretched until it seemed awkward to show up at her door. He’d stayed out of sight and kept to himself. That was what he did. Surely, in the light of day, she’d recognized it was for the best. She was going home anyway, sooner or later.

She looked better now. Her dress, faded and a size too big, was clean and neat, but smudges like bruises darkened the skin under pale-blue eyes that held a familiar sadness. She ached for everything she’d lost—not just the clothes and the keepsakes, but her home back east and her daed. He knew how that felt. Even after twelve years he still ached for his mudder’s warm, soft hand to touch his cheek to see if he had a fever.

Deborah’s head came up, her gaze sideswiping him, then bouncing over to Stephen. Her face darkened and she handed Hazel to Leila. The little girl went without protest while Deborah hugged her arms to her chest as if cold and edged closer to the door.

Something about Stephen’s presence in her life made Deborah cold.

Phineas could understand that. If anything ever happened to Mordecai, well, Phineas refused to go there. God’s will was God’s will and they all were only passing through on this earth, but he couldn’t bear to think of Daed slipping away ahead of him.

“Let’s get started, then.”

The sound of Leroy’s voice cut the air. The men faced the front, arms crossed, their faces solemn.

The gentle mutterings of the women on the other side of the barn muted, but the Masts’ horses took turns whinnying as if they hadn’t gotten the message.

“First, I want to say, though we’ve had a bit of a rough night, the sun is shining now.” Leroy’s dark eyes were bright behind his smudged, wire-rimmed glasses. “The Lord is gut. No one was hurt. Those material things consumed by the flames, they mean nothing.”

Phineas sneaked a look at John. The big man nodded, his expression serene. What it must feel like to know he not only
had his own family of six kinner and a fraa for whom he had to provide, but also his widowed sister and her five. Still, he stood, shoulders broad, hands relaxed at his sides, looking as if he’d had a restful night of sleep. Phineas longed for the man’s peace of mind gained from the knowledge that God would provide.

“I’ve given this some thought and I’ve prayed.” Leroy smoothed his silver-gray beard and smiled. “It’s best to open our homes to these two families. We’ll provide shelter while we rebuild. We’ll start rebuilding as soon as we clear this site of the rubble and debris.”

No surprise there. Why call a meeting to state the obvious? Phineas sideswiped his father with a quick look. Daed moved restlessly, his hands on his hips, then dangling at his sides, and finally he crossed his arms over his chest. Something odd tinged his normally benign expression. He looked . . . nervous. Nee, it couldn’t be. Not Mordecai King.

“To the question of where John and his family will stay and his sister’s family, it is necessary to divide them up. Our homes, while sufficient for our needs, are small and our families abundant. We’ve been blessed by the gut Lord in that way.”

Leroy did have a way with words. When his Sunday came around to deliver the message, he often held them in the throes of his words. But he never got down the road to his point quickly. Ever.

“John and Eve and their girls will go with Andrew. The older boys will stay with Stephen.”

Stephen cleared his throat and bobbed his head as if acknowledging grace bestowed.

“We’ll also split up Abigail and her kinner. The boy will stay with Stephen. He’ll put Caleb to work. He can use more hands with his greenhouse and selling his produce to the grocery stores.”

Leroy nodded in Phineas’s direction. Startled, Phineas glanced around, then realized his daed nodded back. “Abigail and her girls will stay at the King house. Mordecai has the most room, and Susan can host the frolics to help them make new clothes and the other necessities they now lack. They can help with the honey production.”

The most room because Mudder died before she could bear the children she and Mordecai had dreamed would fill his home. The thought blew away in the realization that Leroy was saying that Deborah and her sisters would stay in the house Phineas lived in. He turned to Daed. “Nee—”

Daed shook his head, his expression dark. “Not now.”

They would fill up the house with Abigail Lantz and her four daughters. Four girls wandering about the house, taking up space.

They would be in his house, looking at him, watching him, waiting for him to make conversation. His house was the one place he could go where he didn’t have to worry about what people thought of the way he looked. His stomach lurched. Hand to his mouth, he squeezed through the crowd and slipped out the door.

Outside, the early-morning sun peeked through clouds that still hung low and thick and heavy as if they might open up and pour out their bounty once again. Rain caught on the brown, wet grass glistened in the light. A steamy fog hung in the air. Soon it would all dissipate in the blazing July sun. Hands on his knees, Phineas breathed the tepid, wet air and tried to calm his roiling stomach.

The air smelled like remnants of a spring long gone. A flash of color caught the corner of his gaze. A pale, achingly thin rainbow hung beyond the trees, slivers of yellow and red tinged with pink and blue in the distance, beyond the sodden, black rubble
that stank of burned rubber and wet wood, beyond the road and the halfhearted trees in between. Without thinking, he straightened and moved toward it as if he could touch it and catch this slim sliver of God’s creative genius in his hands.

A soft sob wafted in the air. Phineas halted, hand out. The sound came from behind the row of buggies and wagons. Where the horses nibbled at wretched, wet grass. He waited, listening. Nothing. Maybe he’d imagined it.

A second sob, this one softer yet, more muffled as if the person wanted nothing more than to suffocate the feelings that would cause such a sad, sad sound.

Phineas slipped around the wagon. Deborah huddled on the other side, her forehead pressed against the wooden slats. One hand covered her mouth, the other pressed against her chest as if she feared her heart would burst through it and escape.

Something inside Phineas swelled and ached with a familiar sensation of mourning and loss. Deborah was a fellow sojourner on a journey he would not wish on his worst enemy. She’d lost her daed, just as he’d lost his mudder. Too soon. He didn’t even know her, but the anguish on her peeling, sunburned face broke his heart.

It was a private moment. She wouldn’t want his pity, just as he didn’t want hers. He started to back away but found his feet stuck to the ground. His heart fought with his head. Never in his life had he been a coward. “Deborah?”

Her head jerked up. Wiping at her face with both hands, she backed away, taking a long shuddering breath. “I was just . . . It was stuffy in there, so I came outside—”

“There’s a rainbow.”

“What?”

Phineas pointed. “There’s a rainbow. It’s only the second time I’ve ever seen one.”

Deborah inched toward him, her gaze following his finger. “It’s so thin. It’s hardly there at all.” Her voice trembled. “It’s beautiful.”

“It is.” Phineas dropped his arm to his side. “They’ll be out any minute.”

She turned back toward the barn. “I best gather up the girls, then.”

Phineas wanted to say something. Anything to wipe that desolate look from her face. He studied the rocky ground under his feet. It was the same solid ground he’d walked on all these years, but he tried to see it as she must. As a strange and foreign land.

“When things settle down, I’ll show you where to pick the wild cucumbers.”

Her head came up. “Like you took me to see the birds?”

“You really want to bird-watch . . . with me?”

“Who else would I do it with?” She glowered, but nothing she could do would make her face anything but pretty. “If I said I wanted to go, I wanted to go. You must be the one with the second thoughts.”

He drew a line in the mud with his boot. “We can do both.”

“If you don’t want me tagging along, just say so.” Her hands fluttered, talking for her as usual. “I don’t want to go where I’m not wanted.”

“It’s not that. I . . . want . . . you to come.”

“I can tell by the way you talk.”

Frustration welled up in him, mixed with the certainty that he could see how all this would end, and it wouldn’t end well. Not for him.

Still, this wasn’t about him but Deborah, with her tearstained face and her effort to hide those tears from him. “We’ll go. Soon. But there will be work to do first.”

Her wary look said she didn’t believe him. “You think Susan will still have the quilting frolic?”

“It’ll take the men time to clear the rubble. We can’t have a house raising until we do. There’s plenty of time for other frolics.”

“Okay.” Her voice softened. She looked so weary. “But you don’t have to take me bird-watching. I know you’d rather be alone.”

“With so much work to do now, it might be awhile, but I’ll try.”

“Don’t put yourself out for me.”

“I won’t.”

“That’s apparent.”

“Are you always so . . . plainspoken?”

“Only with people who disappoint me.”

He’d disappointed her? How was that possible? She turned her back again and trudged away, head down to the barn. At the door, she looked back. “We’ll try not to be a burden.”

Before he could think of what to say, she shut the door on him.

He turned. The rainbow had disappeared. The sun broke through the dissipating clouds and light poured out on him.

Truth be told, if he dared admit it to himself, having Deborah Lantz close would be no burden at all.

Only his heart was on the line.

SIXTEEN

The sway of the wagon and the warm early-morning sun combined to make Deborah sleepy. Another restless night squeezed between Leila and Rebekah in a bed meant for two had left her cranky and tired. Her black tights were twisted and her shoes felt tight as if her feet were swollen. That was what she got for going barefoot so much. She felt even less at home in Mordecai’s house than she had at her onkel’s. Onkel was family. At least Mordecai had a bigger house. Mudder had an actual room to sleep in. Sleep. Deborah closed her eyes, knowing she wouldn’t miss a thing. The terrain between their tiny district and Beeville didn’t seem to vary. Mesquite, brush, open fields of milo and corn, and dirt, lots of dirt.