“Emma, are you okay?”
Upon hearing that low, beautiful, why-did-he-have-to-come-into-the-shed-at-this-very-moment voice, Emma winced and clamped her eyes shut as if playing a game of toddler hide-and-seek, pretending that if she couldn’t see him, then he couldn’t see her.
Wrong thing to do. Concern tinged his next words, and she could hear him move closer. “Emma, are you hurt?”
She opened her eyes to see Ben standing over her, looking handsome enough to charm the bees out of their hives. She’d seen that look he gave her a hundred times before when they were courting. Every time she had made a fool of herself or tripped over the neighbor’s cat or set fire to something, compassion would flood his expression as if he felt her pain. When he had made sure she was all right, the amusement would always twinkle in his eyes, and he would act as if he thought her mishaps adorable.
Well, she knew better now. He didn’t think her clumsiness was adorable. He had moved to Florida to get away from it.
For the second time, she squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her lips together. She would not cry.
She would not cry.
Ben’s voice grew deep and rough as he laid a hand on her arm. “Emma, can you hear me?”
Still attempting to gain control over the pesky tears, Emma didn’t trust her voice. Without opening her eyes, she nodded emphatically.
“Do you think you can stand up? Let’s get you into the house, and then I can run to the neighbors and call a doctor.”
All thoughts of crying fled. She immediately opened her eyes and with a jerk, tried to sit up. The wheelbarrow sucked her back into its depths. She growled in exasperation. “I’m fine. I thought I’d see if the wheelbarrow would be a gute place to take a nap later on.”
A grin played at his lips as he reached out his hand. With only a moment’s hesitation, she took it. The wheelbarrow suddenly felt as deep as a bathtub. With nowhere for her feet to gain purchase, she managed to sit up, but couldn’t touch the ground. Ben took her other hand and pulled.
She grimaced as she sort of scooted her hinter part to the edge and searched for the ground with her toes. There was no graceful way to exit a wheelbarrow. Ben gave a firm tug. Finally locating solid earth, she stumbled forward and ended up in his arms. The world seemed to stand still for a brief moment as she looked at him and he stared back at her as if a best-forgotten memory attacked both of them at the same time. Emma held her breath and wished for the thousandth time that she didn’t love him so much.
Regaining her balance and her wits, she jumped back as if he were on fire. He frowned and almost made her believe that her pulling away had hurt his feelings.
He cleared his throat and tried to smile. “Are you okay?”
She pointed to the supine Pumpkin Pro. “He tried to kill me.”
Ben smiled, a genuine smile this time, bent over, and hefted the bag over his shoulder, just like she knew he could. His shoulders were so broad, she could have parked a buggy on them. “Where do you want it?”
Emma turned her face to the great outdoors to keep from staring, but that didn’t stop her heart from jerking around her chest like a skater bug. She ground her teeth together.
She would not cry.
“Put it in this handy wheelbarrow,” she finally managed to say. “I can take it to the garden myself. Denki for your help.”
A hint of teasing flashed in his eyes, and he strolled out of the shed as if he were going to church. With a fifty-pound bag slung over his shoulder. “Seeing as how it tried to kill you, I’m not letting it out of my sight.”
He was always thoughtful like that, seeing a job through to the end. She loaded the rake and hoe and a few other supplies into the wheelbarrow and pushed it out to the garden plot. She tried to move deftly over the grass to show Ben that no wheelbarrow would ever get the better of her again. She only stumbled once.
Ben laid the bag of Pumpkin Pro at the edge of the dirt and gazed at the garden plot. Anna had been right. Not one drop of sweat appeared on his forehead.
He hadn’t even been looking to see how well she pushed the wheelbarrow. Perhaps she should push it in a circle around him just once. She decided against that idea. With her history, she’d trip on a clod of dirt and end up facedown in the wheelbarrow.
She tried not to notice how tall and straight he stood or how he seemed to command the very air he breathed.
She pursed her lips and cleared her throat. Ben had nice posture. Lots of boys had gute posture. Ben’s wasn’t anything remarkable, even if he did have broad shoulders.
“What are you going to plant?” Ben asked without looking at her.
“Peas first. Then tomatoes and beans. The pumpkin goes over here. I’ll need to build up a mound of dirt for good drainage.”
He glanced at her, and Emma could have sworn she detected uncertainty in his expression. What was he suddenly so worried about? “This is an acre of soil. Preparing it will take all day. Maybe I should hitch up Dawdi’s plow.”
Emma shook her head. “No need. Even with a plow, I’ll need to break down the clods of dirt. I’ll work for a few hours today and come back tomorrow and the next day if I need to.”
He grabbed the shovel from the wheelbarrow. “I’ll help. This dirt is as hard as a rock.”
“Don’t trouble yourself. I know you need to prune the peaches.” And I’d really rather not bite my tongue off trying to hold back tears all day.
He showed that half smile again, as if he really wanted to help but really wanted to avoid her too. She couldn’t make heads or tails of it. He gestured to the bag of Pumpkin Pro lying innocently on the ground. “You’ll need help with that, and I think the other fertilizer Dawdi bought is even heavier. I’d hate to find you buried under a hundred pounds of bone meal at the end of the day.”
Emma ignored her heart, which did all sorts of acrobatic tricks inside her chest. She couldn’t very well refuse his help without being rude. And he was right. Without Ben, she might end up being the first person to be assassinated by a bag of fertilizer. “Okay,” she said, sounding like she had just agreed to a root canal.
“Okay.” He gave her a reassuring smile before plunging the shovel into the dirt and turning it over with a mere flick of his wrist. That dirt didn’t stand a chance against Ben’s muscles.
Emma sighed quietly so that not even she could hear herself. Then she followed with the hoe, breaking up the large clods of dirt he left behind. Once they’d loosened the soil, they’d go back over the ground with a rake and the fertilizer.
Breathing a little harder now, Ben looked back at her and smiled again. Three times already today. That was a surprise, for as adamantly as he disliked her. “How is your family? Is Mahlon still working at the sawmill?”
“Jah, he is still there, plus he helps Dat on the farm, of course. Percy is helping with the cows. When his turns sixteen this summer, he’s going to find work with an Englischer in town. He can’t work at the sawmill with Mahlon until he turns eighteen.”
“Percy is a gute worker.”
“Jah, he’s always searching for ways to earn money.”
“How are the little ones?”
“Not so little. This is Rose’s last year in school, and Andy and Lisa are in fourth grade and sixth grade.”
Ben shook his head. “I can’t believe they’re that old already.”
“Rose is learning how to make quilts. Dat bought her a fancy battery-operated sewing machine.”
“I’ll bet she can go fast with that.”
“Jah. She can.”
He didn’t look at her as he cut dirt with the shovel, but she could see his brows inching closer together. “Have you tried the new machine?”
“I don’t dare. It goes so fast, I’m afraid I might sew all my fingers together.”
He nodded as if she’d answered the question correctly, then turned from her as if he’d said something slightly rude and felt embarrassed about it. No doubt he was thinking about Emma’s treadle accident.
Emma winced. The week after they had gotten engaged, Emma had started on a quilt for the wedding. In her haste, she had sewed right through her finger with the old treadle machine. She’d never finished the quilt and had gotten a very swollen finger and a tetanus shot for her trouble.
Emma hoed with renewed vigor. Tears threatened, and she wasn’t about to invite them by reminiscing about Ben. The day she’d sewn through her finger had been one of the best of her life. Ben had taken her to the emergency room for a shot and a bandage, and after the hospital, they had spent a wonderful afternoon at Shawano Lake, dipping their toes into the water and talking about the day when they could marry and be together forever. Ben had told her that the only present he wanted for his wedding was Emma herself and that after they married, she never had to sew anything ever again.
Ben grunted as he buried his shovel blade into the hard dirt. By the shadow overspreading his features and the hard line of his lips, she could tell his mind was at the lake too. Maybe he remembered the sunset that tinged the clouds pink and orange before fading to a deep crimson and finally giving way to the darkness.
Did he remember how they had sat so close that her sleeve had brushed against his arm and made her tingle all over? Or how he had told her that he wanted to kiss her so bad that it took every bit of strength inside him not to go ahead and do it?
She studied the frown on his face as he labored with the dirt. Maybe he was thinking about how she’d accidentally sprayed mosquito repellant into his mouth while they were at the lake. He had laughed about it then, but maybe it wasn’t as fond a memory to him as it was to her. Mosquito repellant tasted pretty nasty. It was probably one of the reasons he’d left her.
She frowned to herself. Doubt and self-condemnation always accompanied thoughts of Ben—always the second-guessing and what-ifs. If she hadn’t burned down the chicken coop and sewed through her own finger, would Ben still love her? If she hadn’t sprayed repellant into his mouth or burned his birthday cake, would they be married right now? Thoughts of what might have been left her breathless.
Silence prevailed between them for a few minutes. Emma didn’t know how the silence could be any better than the conversation. If she stayed silent too long, Ben might start to notice how she hoed the dirt and determine that she was not a good enough gardener to be his wife.
“How is your family?” she blurted out. Talking was better than thinking about the regrets.
He paused, as if considering how to answer her question. “They’re gute. I went yesterday for supper.” He almost choked on his next words. “Lizzie said to tell you hello.”
Emma immediately decided she preferred the silence. It was impossible to talk about anything without dredging up memories too painful to contemplate. She most definitely did not want to talk about Lizzie, her former best friend. Lizzie blamed Emma when Ben ran away, and Emma couldn’t bear to face her.
Of course, Lizzie had been right to cut Emma off. How could they hope to be friends when Lizzie had lost her favorite brother because Emma was too flawed to be loved?
“My family is going to the lake when it gets a little warmer.” His face suddenly brightened. “I bet they would love it if you came. You and Lizzie could take that old canoe out.” Why did he smile like that at another memory that only made her want to weep? “Remember the first time you got into that canoe with Lizzie, and it started rocking something wonderful?”
Emma turned her face away so he wouldn’t see it glow bright red. “I remember.”
“It tipped over, and you thought you were drowning, but then you stretched your feet out and touched bottom. The water barely went to your waist.”
He’d obviously forgotten the best and the worst part of that story. She’d panicked when the canoe tipped and had started flailing her arms and praying for some sort of rescue. Even as her feet found purchase on the bottom of the lake, Ben had jumped into the water without hesitation and scooped her into his arms. They both laughed when they discovered how shallow it was, but he had still insisted on carrying her to shore.
It was the day they had met and the day she knew she loved him. Love at first sight, so to speak, although Mamm would say that notion was a bunch of baloney. Emma had been seventeen years old and had never looked back. Ben would always be the only boy she ever loved.
Her eyes stung with those blasted tears again. She attacked the dirt clod at her feet with renewed determination and pretended Ben wasn’t standing five feet away staring at her. The tears retreated.
“In the summer, you and Lizzie towed that canoe behind Dat’s buggy and went floating in the lake at least once a week.”
“She liked to row around the lake, but she always wanted to be the one to steer.”
Ben grinned. “That’s Lizzie. Bossy as a wren guarding her nest.” He dropped the grin and transformed into a minister giving a sermon. “You are blessed to have each other.”
Emma twitched her eyebrows in surprise and turned her face to her task so Ben couldn’t see her reaction. Didn’t he know that she and Lizzie hadn’t spoken since he left for Florida? She risked a glance at his face. His expression looked as if a plow had done its work on his brow.
Jah. He knew. Did he feel guilty that she had lost a friend as well as a fiancé?
Of course he felt guilty. She searched for a way to reassure him that things weren’t so bad, that she had plenty of other friends to paddle canoes with. She didn’t want him to feel any worse about this than he already felt. Her penchant to burst into tears at the slightest provocation wasn’t helping either.
She forced a cheerful—but hopefully not overdone—smile. “Martha Weaver, Amanda Coblenz, and I like to quilt together. And Edna Fern Glick and I go to singeons all the time. I have lots of friends. Besides, Mahlon still drags me to go fishing sometimes, although he says I scare away the fish with all my talking.”
Ben nodded with a weak smile on his lips. “Mahlon likes to fish.”
“I don’t. A hook stuck in your thumb hurts worse than a needle sewing through your finger.” Oh. She shouldn’t have mentioned that. Ben was already fully aware of how accident-prone she was.
His eyebrows rose two inches on his forehead, and his lips formed a silent O. “Did you have to go to the hospital?”
Her face got warm, and with her hoe she reduced the nearest clod to dust. “Dat pulled it out with his pliers. He said I didn’t need stitches.” Emma rejoiced that she wore garden gloves. She did not want Ben to see the scar. It would serve as further confirmation that he’d made the right decision to dump her.
“Titus caught a hook in his earlobe once. He has a little scar. Mamm says he looks like one of those Englischers with piercings all the way up their ears. One day, Titus stuck a tiny rhinestone over the top of his scar and told Mamm he’d gotten his ear pierced. You should have heard her squeal.”
Emma loved the sound of Ben’s laughter. Next to his singing, it was the best sound in the world. She smiled at him and tried to enjoy his company without thinking about what she had lost.
Unfortunately this was impossible for more than about ten seconds. But it was a gute ten seconds.
Ben proved to be quick with the shovel. They fell into an easy rhythm with each other as he turned up the soil and she broke it down. Emma started to feel comfortable. Her heart resumed a relatively normal pace. Relatively. The hard work diverted her attention from the handsome boy who was definitely working up a sweat and helped her focus on dirt and earthworms. She barely noticed how the muscles of Ben’s thick arms bulged with every slice of the shovel.
Once they’d turned up the soil, Ben shoveled dirt to make a little hill for the pumpkin plant. “You’re only planting one?”
“Jah, the giant one.” Emma didn’t want to say any more about giant pumpkins. Growing the giant pumpkin was the last big thing she and Ben had done together.
He didn’t mention it either. “Did you sell all those pumpkins you grew last year?”
“I had over two h
undred yet.”
“Two hundred? That’s wonderful gute.”
“Mamm thought I was foolish to plant two full acres, but Dat said he had enough room for feed corn and he wanted to rotate the crops anyway. Mamm put seven big ones in the root cellar, and I made pies for several neighbors.” Emma trained her eyes to the ground. That had been after Ben left for Florida. She made pies until they came out her ears. The hard work hadn’t made her feel better about Ben in the least. But the pies had made her neighbors happy.
“When Yost Newswenger came to me and asked if he could have a few to sell, I let him have the rest of the crop. He sold most of them.”
The line between his brows deepened. “You gave Yost your pumpkins?”
Her heart sank. “Do you think that was foolish of me? Mamm scolded me for doing all the work and then giving away all the money. But Yost needed a bike to make deliveries for his fater. With his mamm feeling poorly, they don’t have extra money. I wanted him to have a bike.” She studied Ben’s face. He was probably counting all the reasons she would make a bad wife, like the fact that she gave away her hard-earned money like candy.
His expression revealed a mixture of delight and sadness, which didn’t make sense, but that’s what she saw. “You are the kindest person I’ve ever met, Emma.”
The way he said her name sent tendrils of electricity traveling up her spine. Maybe he didn’t think she was such a dolt after all.
Heat rose to her cheeks. “You haven’t met very many people, have you?”
“Thousands,” he said, almost breathlessly.
She couldn’t endure his penetrating gaze for long. “We’re almost ready for the bone meal. And how are you at shoveling manure?”
He buried his shovel in the dirt and lifted a heaping scoop. “You tell me.”
Huckleberry Spring Page 5
