Zach huffed out a breath. He was too exhausted to persuade her otherwise. “Don’t expect anything.”
She gave him a ghost of a scowl. “I would never.”
Refusing Blair’s Chinese food, Zach left her to fend for herself and stumbled to his room, his only object to sleep and forget. He fell into bed like a man already dead. He was. He would never feel alive again.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Cassie pulled into the parking lot of Zach’s apartment building, parked her car, and took a deep breath. She didn’t know if she’d be welcome or not, but at the moment, her feelings didn’t matter. Yesterday, Zach’s profound suffering had etched itself into every line of his face. Austin’s death had devastated everyone, but Zach had shared something extremely close with Austin. It was as if Zach had died right along with him.
While he’d supported Jamie at the hospital, he had gone out of his way to avoid Cassie. She understood his reaction. She had tried to nurture his faith. Austin’s death had crushed it. He had lashed out at her because he was looking for someone, anyone, to blame. He needed something sturdy to hang his grief on. He had found Cassie.
All she had wanted to do was help him rekindle his faith. But had she unwittingly destroyed it forever? She hadn’t been able to give him the answers he needed, and now his doubt had swallowed his faith whole. If he rejected God, it would be no one’s fault but hers. She should never have presumed to try to tell him anything about life and death and the love of God. She’d done a terrible job of it.
The thought that Zach might have stopped loving her stole her breath. Could a change of heart happen so dramatically? And could she hope to make him love her again?
He suffered terribly, and she couldn’t let him suffer alone. He might be too angry to accept her comfort, but she had to try. The thought of Zach sitting in that tiny apartment, grieving and lonely, was more than Cassie could bear. So even if he rejected her, she would do what she could.
Her own heart felt like a solid piece of lead. Not only was Jamie her friend, but Cassie had visited Austin several times in the hospital. He had wheedled his way into her heart with his passion for soccer and life and his innocent honesty in the face of death.
She got out of the car with a pint jar of maple syrup and a heaping plate of orange–macadamia nut cookies, Zach’s favorite. Even on the worst day, he would give her a smile for an orange–macadamia nut cookie. He joked that they were about a thousand calories per cookie. She teased that she was trying to fatten him up.
Ten o’clock. She hoped it wasn’t too early. He’d been dead on his feet yesterday. She didn’t want to wake him, but she also knew he had a shift starting at noon. He’d probably be awake.
She walked up the stairs to his apartment and quietly listened at his door for any sign of life. The sound of something sizzling in a pan—bacon maybe—told her that he was stirring. At least she wouldn’t wake him up. It was definitely not a normal kind of day. Zach never made breakfast. He never made lunch or dinner either. Well, there wasn’t much he could do to ruin bacon unless he burned it.
With her heart clomping around in her chest like a giant in army boots, she knocked on the door. She gripped the plate of cookies tighter as she prepared for anything, including having the door slammed in her face.
Nothing could have prepared her for this.
An icy hand clamped around her throat, and she couldn’t draw a breath.
Zach’s old girlfriend Blair the Beautiful opened the door holding a spatula and wearing nothing but Zach’s pink button-down shirt. It covered enough of her legs that she probably wouldn’t be arrested for indecent exposure, but left little to the imagination about anything else.
Blair looked Cassie up and down as if inspecting someone who’d come to the prom wearing jeans and a T-shirt. “Can I help you?”
Cassie’s stomach clenched, and she thought she might be sick. “Is . . . is Zach here?” She didn’t know why she even asked. She had absolutely no desire to see him now.
“He’s asleep.” Blair smirked. “But he’s got a smile on his face.”
Cassie wasn’t about to hyperventilate in front of Zach’s girlfriend. She had to get out of there. She had to get out now.
Eyeing Cassie casually, Blair twirled a lock of hair around her finger. “You’re that Amish girl, aren’t you?”
“I used to be Amish.”
“You definitely look better without the ugly gray dress and bonnet.” Blair held out her hand. “Are those for Zach?”
Cassie looked down at the cookies. She’d forgotten they were in her hand. “Yes,” she said, handing them over but fully expecting Blair to toss them in the trash as soon as the door was shut. “And this.” She handed her the jar of syrup. Five gallons of sap wasted on Zach Reynolds.
“It looks delicious,” Blair said apathetically.
Cassie couldn’t stand there one more second. “Have a nice day,” she said because she couldn’t think of anything else.
Certainly not “Tell Zach I came by” or “I’ll call him later.” She wasn’t going to call him later. She wasn’t ever going to call him again.
She turned around and walked slowly down the hall, holding her head high in case Blair watched from the door. She practically skipped down the stairs although she’d already heard the door to Zach’s apartment close. She wanted to burst into tears, but tears would have to wait until she made it to the car. She quickened her pace. She wouldn’t be able to hold them in much longer.
From the very first, she had known what kind of man Zach Reynolds was. Why, oh why hadn’t she trusted her gut and avoided being taken in by his dazzling smile and cute nose? Zach had proved to be just like all those other guys out there who only had one thing in mind. All his talk about virtue and purity and Sir Galahad was just a ruse to eventually get the naïve ex-Amish girl into bed.
And she’d played right into his hands. By the time he’d finished working his little act, she’d almost begged him to kiss her. He must have been overjoyed that he finally got somewhere with this tight Amish goody-goody.
She climbed into The Beast, slammed the door, and rested her head against the steering wheel. She hated for the world to be like this. Except for the Plain people in her community and her family, there were so few godly men out there, and even fewer who wouldn’t ultimately disappoint her. Zach, who had seemed so eager to change, so eager to be a better person, had shown his true colors when a crisis came.
She lifted her head and rubbed at the dent the steering wheel had made in her forehead. She’d been fighting with herself for so long, wanting to be part of the outside world while clinging to her Amish values. As Zach had shown her in dramatic fashion, it couldn’t be done.
So. What to do now?
Go back to ogling professors and intellectual graduate students who thought she was a fool for even believing in God? Or return to her Amish faith and give up the fight, surrender to the pull she’d been feeling for years? As a member of the church, she wouldn’t have to steel herself for battle every day. She wouldn’t have to worry about fighting off guys who wanted to use her or get her heart broken by handsome doctors with a weakness for orange–macadamia nut cookies.
A sob escaped her lips. She was so tired. Tired of the struggle with her family. Tired of being a disappointment to Norman. Tired of breaking her mamm’s heart. Tired of never being good enough because she wasn’t truly one of them.
The car groaned loudly when she turned the key. She pulled out of the parking lot past Blair’s sleek new Lexus. Too bad she hadn’t noticed it before. She could have saved herself a lot of embarrassment, plenty of heartache, and a plate of orange–macadamia nut cookies.
She drove straight to Mamm’s house, which sat at the end of a secluded lane lined with climbing rosebushes.
Mamm answered the door with a spot of flour on her cheek, and it looked as if she were about to launch into a criticism of Cassie’s blowsy hair. Cassie immediately flung herself into her mamm’s arms and
cried as if her heart would break.
Mamm softened as she wrapped her arms around Cassie and rubbed her back soothingly. “There, there. It can’t be bad as all that.”
“Mamm,” Cassie said through her tears. “I want to come home.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Zach dragged himself down the hall to the exam room.
How long had it been since Austin died? Two weeks? Three? He remembered going to the funeral, but he couldn’t remember how many days had passed since his world had come crashing down. Again.
At the funeral, the pastor had talked about Jesus admonishing his disciples to suffer the little children to come unto him, and how Austin had hopes of a better resurrection. Only concern for Jamie had kept Zach from getting up and storming out during the sermon. How could the pastor talk about hope for resurrection when God hadn’t even given Austin or Zach’s dad hope for a long life?
Zach lifted the chart hanging on the door and walked into the room where his next patient waited.
He wished he’d called in sick today.
Anna Helmuth sat on the exam table with a delighted twinkle in her eye as if she were about to take a trip to Disneyland. Zach couldn’t have been less happy to see anyone, including Blair. Anna’s presence dredged up not only several painful memories of Huckleberry Hill, but also the profound sense that he’d lost something important that he’d never get back.
But it wasn’t as if he wanted it back. The angel with the pink dress and the curly golden hair was nothing more than an illusion. He preferred to live in the real world, thank you very much.
“Dr. Reynolds!” Anna said, as if she loved him with all her heart.
He forced a professional smile onto his face, which was the only smile he could manage these days, and shook Anna’s hand. Felty sat next to her on the table, but thankfully, Cassie was not with them. Even though he didn’t believe in God anymore, he almost said a prayer of thanks that she had been wise enough to stay away. “Anna, it looks like it’s time to get you back on your feet. How is the foot feeling?”
Anna raised her eyebrows as if to scold him. “Don’t get me wrong, Doctor. The home health nurse is a wonderful girl named Erika, but she isn’t you. I promised myself that we wouldn’t let you starve. How can we feed you if you won’t come over?”
“Working at the hospital keeps me busy,” Zach said, staring at Anna’s chart so he wouldn’t have to look into her dancing blue eyes that seemed to see things he’d rather keep secret.
Anna reached out and squeezed his arm. “You’ve lost weight, Doctor. Too much. Come for dinner tomorrow, and I’ll cook my famous Indonesian Beef Stew. It’s a vegetarian dish.”
“I’m sorry, Anna. I’m finishing up my first year of residency in a couple of months. I have to spend a lot of time at the hospital.”
Anna looked as if she were concentrating on a difficult math problem. “What if I had Cassie make cookies?”
Cookies.
Every muscle pulled taut. Oh, she’d made cookies, all right. A heaping plate of orange–macadamia nut cookies that he had chucked into the garbage can as soon as he saw them. He didn’t want her cookies. He didn’t want her sympathy. And he most certainly didn’t want her religion.
He tried to ignore the mountain of guilt that buried him every time he imagined that scene at the door with Blair in all her half-dressed glory. She thought it was so cute to dress up in his clothes. To Cassie, the pink shirt, the leggy brunette, and the realization of what she thought Zach had done must have been a slap in the face.
Well, Cassie Coblenz, join the club.
She’d given him a slap in the face when she had assumed that he had actually slept with Blair. If nothing else, that little incident at the door had made it clear to Zach what Cassie truly thought of him. All those weeks of his trying to be a good man, and she had still assumed the worst. She had never really believed in him in the first place.
He wasn’t about to enlighten her on what had really happened or not happened with Blair. Let Cassie think the worst. They’d both be better off that way. She could go on feeling hurt and betrayed by what she thought he’d done to her, and he could go on feeling deceived and betrayed by Cassie and God.
He was through with Cassie. What did he care if she thought he was sinful and worthless? He would never live up to Cassie’s ideal of a godly man anyway.
Still, letting Blair into his apartment had been a mistake. With all her talk about “no strings attached,” she certainly wanted to tie some pretty strong knots. That morning after bacon and pancakes with homemade maple syrup, he had told her that they were really and truly over and that he wouldn’t be answering her texts or phone calls ever again.
Despite his resistance the night before, Blair had stormed out of his apartment, proving that she had expected something more permanent from him despite all her protests to the contrary.
He had regretted brushing her off yet again, but he’d already felt so rotten about Austin’s death that one more thing to feel rotten about didn’t make much of a dent.
He removed the bandage from Anna’s foot and pressed his thumb lightly into the nicely healed scar. Anna’s foot looked better than new.
“Cassie’s in a very bad way, Doctor. Don’t you think you could spare even an hour this week to come take a look at her?”
“Is she sick?”
Anna furrowed her brow until the wrinkles piled on top of each other. “Well, she is quite pale and keeps her head down a lot.”
“And she’s started going out with Elmer Lee,” Felty said.
Anna nodded. “Yes, Elmer Lee. She must be sick.”
Zach tried not to sound intensely interested. “She’s dating Elmer Lee?”
“As soon as Cassie moved back home, her mamm pushed her into baptism classes.”
A lump of coal stuck in Zach’s throat. “She’s going to join the church?” He’d seen Cassie at the funeral, wearing a plain navy blue dress and a prayer kapp, but he’d figured that her mamm had bullied her into dressing Plain like she always did. The thought that Cassie had chosen to join the church was too disturbing to contemplate.
“And,” Anna said, leaning forward as if to share a juicy piece of gossip, “Elmer Lee has been eating at Esther’s place three nights a week.”
Zach clenched his jaw and kept his face passive, as if he couldn’t care less that Elmer Lee was worming his way into Cassie’s life or that Cassie would be miserable being Amish.
It was none of his business. She had made her choice. Just because he had let her go on believing the worst didn’t mean that he was responsible for her decision.
Could Anna and Felty hear his teeth grinding together? There was no doubt that Cassie had decided to rejoin her community because of him.
Fine.
Maybe he’d helped her realize that it was the only place she truly belonged. A timid girl like Cassie who never stood up for herself and never rocked the boat would fit in just fine with the Amish. Let her believe that Amish people would never disappoint her. Let her think that God loved her.
“Anna’s been trying to talk some sense into her,” Felty said.
Zach narrowed his eyes and tried to breathe normally. “I don’t understand. You don’t want her to be Amish?”
“Cassie needs to carve out her own path, not take the one that’s laid out before her,” Felty said. “Her decision springs from a broken heart.” Felty stroked his horseshoe beard and eyed Zach as if he could fix this mess.
The lump almost choked him.
Her decision springs from a broken heart.
Zach snapped off his latex gloves. “Good as new. Come back in six months, and we’ll check to make sure it’s still doing well.”
Zach flinched when Anna slid off the exam table. With her short legs, it was a long way down. She landed on her new foot as easy as you please. That woman was going to break a hip someday.
“I was afraid of this,” she said as she bustled to the large canvas bag sitting on one
of the chairs. “It’s going to take something spectacular to lure you back to Huckleberry Hill.”
“I’m really busy . . .”
Anna pulled a strange circle knitted with pink yarn from her bag. “This is a steering wheel cover for your car. It will keep your hands from freezing on cold winter mornings,” she said, handing it to him. “I used Cassie’s steering wheel to get the size just right.”
It would fit perfectly, then.
“Anna, I can’t accept this.”
She ignored him and returned to her bag. She searched around at the bottom before she pulled out what she had been looking for. It was a red knitted square, probably two inches by two inches. “This is a blanket for your turtle. I remember you telling me that you have a turtle. It hasn’t died yet, has it?”
He shook his head.
“I made it red so that the turtle wouldn’t think it was lettuce and eat it.”
“Anna, this is very kind, but—”
She flashed a sparkly grin. “Now, Doctor, don’t you even think about refusing. I’ve knitted my fingers to the bone for you and Cassie.” Next, she pulled a stunning navy blue sweater from her bag. The pattern on the front looked like someone had woven braids right into the sweater. He didn’t deserve such a gift. He didn’t deserve Anna’s generosity or Felty’s kindness. He’d broken their granddaughter’s heart and been a complete disappointment to religious people everywhere.
“I thought about making it pink because I know how much you like pink, but this blue seemed more manly, and you’re going to need wonderful-gute manliness if you want to compete with Elmer Lee.” She handed him the sweater. He handled it as if it were made of glass. “Try it on, Doctor.”
“Right now isn’t really the time.”
“Take off your white lab coat and try it on. If it doesn’t fit, I’ll have to take it home and fix it.”
Reluctantly, Zach took off his lab coat and pulled the sweater over his head. The neckline was high with a slight V-neck. The long sleeves hugged his wrists at exactly the right spot, and the fabric stretched across his chest like a snug glove.
Huckleberry Hearts Page 28
