The Beekeeper's Son (The Amish of Bee County Book 1) (17 page)

“So Gott let his fraa die to teach him a lesson?” What kind of God did that? The kind who let her father die of a heart attack long before she was ready to let him go? What a selfish thought. Daed had gone on ahead because it was God’s will. Why was that so hard for her to accept? “Sorry, I didn’t mean that. I just . . .”

“Miss your daed? I understand that. Mordecai misses his fraa and Phin misses his mudder. That’s human nature. Our time on this earth is measured in days. Sarah was a gut woman who loved Gott. I believe she went and never looked back. It’s just hard for us who are left behind. I reckon it’s the same for you with your daed.”

“It is. I try not to be selfish.” Deborah fingered the lilac material, imagining how it would look in a dress and how Daed would’ve stuck his hands on his hips, cocked his head, and growled that she
was growing up way too fast the first time he saw her in it. “I know what I’m supposed to believe. It’s how I feel that I can’t change.”

“Your heart will catch up.” Susan handed the bolt to a lady with a measuring tape around her neck and scissors in her hand and asked for six yards. “And when it does, I hope you’re still here. Phineas could use a friend.”

A friend. Was Susan matchmaking? Like Esther? Like Mordecai with his hints about Phineas showing them how to harvest honey? Phineas had said he would take her bird-watching. He’d said he’d show her where the wild cucumbers were. Yet he’d been avoiding her since she moved into the house. He barely made eye contact at the table and rushed out the second he finished eating. He spent all his time with the bees. Which was just as well. She had no desire to relive that mortifying moment when she realized he’d seen her crying behind the wagon. Or his awkward attempt to make her feel better.

The beautiful rainbow. That one moment they’d shared something beautiful in the midst of the ugly, sodden aftermath of a fire that took everything. Beauty in the midst of desolation. Nothing before or after could change that. God had sent them a sign that life would go on. That He created new beauty every moment of every day.

Did Phineas think of that moment? Did he think of the night he’d walked her home from the singing? She’d enjoyed that walk, as embarrassing as its beginning had been. The manure on her sneakers. Her headlong rush into his arms. Did he think of that? If he did, he didn’t let her see it at the supper table or over kaffi in the morning. It wasn’t her fault Phineas was so hardheaded. “He might try being a little nicer.”

Susan laughed outright, startling the saleslady who dropped
her scissors. “Sorry, ten yards of the black and ten of that lilac material. Twelve of the gray.” She turned to Deborah, her face still creased in a smile. “That will do, don’t you think? The lilac is kind of pretty.”

It was and so was Susan, with her scrubbed pink cheeks and laugh lines around her eyes. She had to be in her midthirties. She’d never married. For the first time, Deborah stopped to wonder why. “Do you think there’s a special someone for everyone?”

“For most folks.” Susan took the folded material from the saleslady and laid it in their basket next to Hazel, who sat cross-legged in it, sipping her soda, her cherubic cheeks split in a wide smile. “Don’t get that on the material, little one. I don’t want to have to wash it before we get the dresses made.”

Hazel wrapped both her chubby hands around the cup and nodded. “Gut.”

“Very gut.”

“But not you,” Deborah broke in, anxious to understand. How would she know what God’s plan was for her? Maybe she didn’t have a special someone. Maybe that was why Aaron went to Ohio. How was she supposed to know? “How come not for you?”

“I had a chance, but I love teaching. I love my scholars and I never felt that longing, that feeling that said this was the one. This was my intended. The one Gott choose for me.”

“But you’re happy.”

Susan smiled. “Content.”

“I don’t think Stephen will make Mudder content, let alone happy.” Deborah blurted the words and immediately wished them back in her mouth. “I know it’s not for me to say.”

“Your opinion of Stephen is clouded by your broken heart.”

“Broken heart?”

“Your heart is still broken for your daed. People walk that path in different strides. Your mudder walks ahead of you. Don’t punish her for seeking to be content with her lot in this life. You’d do well to follow her example.”

With those crisp words of advice, Susan pushed the basket toward the notions rack. “We need thread. Lots of thread.”

“But . . . but it’s not that.” Deborah marched after her. “Stephen . . . he’s so different from Daed and he’s not good with kinner. You saw that.”

“Of course he’s different from your daed. And you spoke back to him in a way I imagine you never talked to your daed.” Susan stopped in front of a display of hundreds of different colors of thread. Without hesitation she plucked first a white, then a black, and then a lilac spindle, her forehead wrinkled as if considering her response. “But that doesn’t mean your mudder can’t love him. Or that he can’t learn to be better with you and the other kinner. Have patience.”

Patience. One of the many things Deborah had in short supply these days.

“Have patience and be kind.” Susan dumped a dozen rolls of thread into the basket, making Hazel squeal with delight. Then she added a package of threaded bobbins followed by a needle for the treadle machine. “With yourself. With Stephen. And with Phin.”

Back to Phineas. Deborah opened her mouth, but Susan kept talking. Her expression said she’d uttered her last words on that topic. “Okay, we have material for the boys’ pants, their shirts, you and your sisters’ dresses. We have the underwear and socks. What else?”

Nothing else. Susan had spoken all that needed to be said. She was right. Deborah owed Stephen an apology for being mouthy.
And her mother for questioning her decision to come to Bee County, how she spent her money, and with whom she spent her time.

How she would ever force her lips to form those words, Deborah couldn’t imagine. But she would.

“Nothing? Gut
.
Time for our hamburgers.”

She’d been serious about McDonald’s. Deborah’s spirits lifted. Not because Stephen wouldn’t approve. Nee
.
Because she was hungry.

She kept telling herself that all the way to the parking lot. Her hamburger was the best one she’d ever eaten.

EIGHTEEN

Rubbing her jaw in hopes of assuaging the dull throb of a toothache she’d been trying to ignore for days now, Abigail stifled a yawn and trudged on bare feet to the kitchen. She’d managed to rise before Susan. That hadn’t happened much in the days since they’d moved in with the Kings. Abigail wanted to make herself useful, but Susan almost always rose so early that breakfast was well under way before Abigail could lend a hand. The habit of a schoolteacher who had to prepare meals for her brother’s family before spending the day teaching. Not during the summer, but still, Abigail was determined to give Susan a break she undoubtedly deserved.

She would make pancakes, fried eggs, potatoes, zucchini, and squash. A tasty breakfast that would hold the men over until the noonday meal. The only person absent would be Caleb. She missed having her only son at the table. He looked so like Timothy and had his affectionate heart as well.

Abigail picked up her pace. Cooking would take her mind off her situation. She had to do something soon. She couldn’t keep living in Mordecai King’s house. It wasn’t right. Certainly not in Stephen’s eyes, and he was quite willing to marry soon, which
would get her family all together under one roof again. Was that a good reason to get married? The thought drove her to hurry even more. In the pitch-black of the predawn morning, her big toe connected with a chair leg in the front room.

“Ouch, ouch!” She danced around, foot in the air, then sank into the chair to rub it. Now she had an ache in her toe to match the throbbing of her tooth that wouldn’t go away no matter how much she willed it to stop. What was that chair doing there? She wanted to scream, but she didn’t. Not living in her own house, she couldn’t wander around in the dark without expecting something like this to happen. Her toe felt broken. “Gott, this is no way to start the day!”

“Probably not.”

Startled at the sound of another voice so early, Abigail jerked upright, toe forgotten. “Mordecai. I thought I was the only one up.”

He stood in the kitchen doorway, a fishing pole in each hand. “I gathered as much.” The ends of his lips curled up in the slightest of smiles. “Chastising Gott? I wouldn’t want anyone to hear me doing that.”

“I wasn’t . . . I just . . .” Abigail stood. Her toe ached in protest. She bent and rubbed it some more. “I wanted to get an early start on breakfast. I thought I would make pancakes, eggs, fried potatoes, and some zucchini and squash.”

“You don’t have to try so hard.”

It took Abigail a moment to shut her open mouth. That he’d noticed her effort surprised her. That he would comment on it, even more. She’d washed clothes, sewed, cooked, and cleaned with a fervor even greater than she employed in her own home, but Mordecai had been busy working from dawn to dusk at John’s place, helping with the rebuilding of the house. How could he know?

He was wrong, of course. She did need to try hard.

“We’re guests here, and I don’t want to make more work for Susan and Esther. The least we can do is earn our keep.” Five more mouths to feed would quickly become a strain on the Kings. To her great frustration, Mordecai had steadfastly refused to take money to help with household expenses. “I wanted to thank you again for your hospitality.”

“No need. We’re only doing what’s right and expected.”

His pained smiled said he meant the words. His generosity went without saying. Or he would prefer that it did. He had a quiet way about him as if he was at peace. He walked in a measured pace that spoke of a certain destination. Today it appeared that destination involved fishing, also to Abigail’s surprise. Much work had to be done before a new house could be raised on the site of the destroyed one. “Were you going fishing?”

“It was supposed to be a surprise.” He tapped the bottom of the poles on the faded vinyl in a jerky tune. “I hired a van to take us to Choke Canyon Reservoir.”

“Reservoir?”

“It’s a state park. We can fish and the kids can splash around in the water.” Grinning like a child on Christmas morning, he moved into the room and leaned the poles against the wall. A bony, dirty white dog with black patches on its face and back trotted in behind him. Abigail had never seen the animal before. It dropped on the floor next to Mordecai, its mouth open, long pink tongue lolling as it panted. Mordecai squatted next to the dog as if accustomed to having it in the house. “Phin goes birding on the trail.”

“Whose
hund
?” The question trumped the half a dozen others that milled around in her head about this plan to take a day off and go fishing and look at birds. “Where did it come from?”

“I don’t know. Mine, I guess.” Mordecai scratched behind one droopy ear, and the dog’s snout seemed to widen in a big, thankful grin. “Folks are always dumping their dogs out here in the country, like they think they can fend for themselves by hunting or something. After being fed store food and table scraps, they have no hunting instincts left.”

“So you just decided to adopt this one?”

“He adopted me. He’s been following me around since I fed the horses this morning.”

“Did you feed him?”

“Yep.”

“There you go.”

“You don’t like dogs?”

“I like them fine, but he is another mouth to feed.” Abigail knelt and smoothed a hand over the dog’s rough fur matted with burrs and dirt. “He needs a bath. What’s his name?”

Mordecai grinned, his face not that far from her own. He leaned in and petted the dog so his hand passed within inches of hers. “Tell you what, I’ll let you do the honors.”

“You’ll let me name your hund?”

“As long as you don’t give him a sissy name like Belle or Star or Angel or Jasmine.”

“Sissy names.” She chuckled. “Is he a he?”

“Jah.”

“Let’s see.” Tickled that Mordecai would trust her with the naming of his dog, she tilted her head and gave the dog a good once-over. He tilted his head and gazed right back at her. “You look like Mutt to me.”

“Nee.”

“Patch?”

“Nee.”

“I thought you said I could name him.”

“I did.”

She laughed. “How ’bout Butch?”

“There you go. That’s a nice, strong name. Butch. Butch it is.”

Butch barked, one quick bark, then flopped his head on his paws as if tuckered out.

“What will Susan think of this latest addition?”

“It isn’t the first time. She’ll just natter on about how he can’t be messing up the house, that he needs to stay outside. Until the first hard thunderstorm and then she’ll be all worried about how he’s doing out in the barn.”

That didn’t surprise Abigail. People like Mordecai and Susan were helpers by nature. They took in strays. In fact, they’d taken in almost a whole family of strays. This hund was no different. Mordecai could no more turn his back on it than he could a child. “So is Butch going fishing with you today?”

“I expect so. He’ll like it at the lake. Lots of critters to chase. Lots of shade for a nap later.”

“You plan to do those things yourself, I reckon.” The pleasure the idea gave him was so obvious in Mordecai’s face. He reminded her of Timothy the first day of hunting season. The thought didn’t cause the terrible deep-seated ache it once had. More of a warmth nestled around her heart. “Don’t try to say it’s for the kinner. You want to play hooky.”

“Something like that.” He didn’t seem to feel the least bit guilty. “It’s a treat. People should have a treat now and then.”

Like playing in the rain? Mordecai worked hard, but he played hard too. Would the bishop agree with Mordecai’s sense of balance between the two? Would John? Or more importantly,
Stephen? “What about John’s house?” Abigail couldn’t imagine simply taking a day off in the middle of the week to go fishing. It wasn’t done. “Susan and I planned to make meals for the men today and do laundry.”