“Does your arm hurt? It looks really sore.”
He’d just given her an excuse for the crying. “Jah, it is really starting to hurt now.”
He lifted her hand so he could see the cut. “We should have sent Rachel.”
Jah. Rachel wouldn’t have tripped over her short legs running recklessly down the hill. Graceful Rachel would have been able to stay on her feet. The tears came full force, and Lia clapped her free hand over her mouth to keep a sob from escaping her lips.
Moses inclined his head to the paramedic sitting behind Lia. “Can you give her something for the pain?”
“It’s better to wait till we get there. Only ten minutes.”
Moses frowned, his gaze riveted to Lia’s face, and looked as if he were about to argue. Lia sniffled and dabbed her handkerchief over her face. “I’m all right.”
Moses looked into her face until he must have been satisfied, then closed his eyes and let sleep overtake him.
I’m all right.
But she wasn’t all right. Being near Moses would be pure torture, watching him fall further in love with her sister, knowing what she had lost.
Squaring her shoulders, Lia closed her eyes to block out the sight of Moses Zimmerman and set to building an iron box around her heart.
Chapter Sixteen
The haze of the painkillers wore off, and Moses’s leg throbbed enough to wake him up. Through his closed eyelids, he could sense the bright light of midday streaming through the big window. How long had he been asleep? Twelve hours? Three days?
Moses opened his eyes and almost jumped out of his skin when he saw Rachel standing over him, her face close to his. Was she checking to see if he was dead?
She smiled weakly and took a step back. “I was afraid you’d sleep forever. It’s almost ten o’clock.”
The unwelcome sight of Rachel in his—well, her—room made his leg ache intensely. He had a feeling recovery under Rachel’s care would be slow going. Even though he knew it was selfish, he found himself wishing for Lia. But he should be thoughtful enough to let her be for a few hours.
Moses sat up and stifled the moan that wanted to escape his lips. They had really done a job on his leg. It felt as if someone had tried to flatten it with a sledgehammer. He covered his eyes and hoped he wouldn’t be stuck with Rachel for the rest of the day. “Do you think you could bring me a painkiller?”
Rachel sidled backward until she reached the door. “I’ll be back.”
He watched her go, doubt playing inside his head like a fly buzzing in the corner of the room. Would Rachel know to bring water as well?
He slowly slipped the blanket off his injured leg. They had given him a pair of flimsy cotton pants at the hospital that easily fit over his thickly bandaged leg. His foot was slightly swollen and about six shades of purple, but he felt fortunate that he could feel his toes.
Gritting his teeth, he slid the pant leg past his knee and examined his wrappings. The doctor had bandaged the leg up good and tight and given Moses strict instructions to stay off it. In a few days, the doctor would take the stitches out and put Moses in a sturdy cast. It wasn’t ideal, but at least then Moses would be able to get around on his own.
He hoped Lia had been allowed to sleep in. She had spent a day and a half with him at the hospital, waiting with him until he went to surgery, staying glued to his side after they wheeled him to recovery, and consulting with the doctors about the care of his leg. He didn’t know when she got any sleep. Would Barbara have taken such good care of him? He’d never know. Barbara wasn’t here.
Lia had communicated with Mammi and Dawdi and Moses’s parents by calling David Tolley’s phone. The Tolleys ended up camping out on Huckleberry Hill and spending the day with his grandparents.
They decided that Moses would recuperate at Mammi and Dawdi’s house. His own parents lived more than an hour away, and he really wanted to be close to his cheese factory even if he couldn’t set foot inside the place for a couple of weeks.
Roy Polter had driven Moses and Lia to Huckleberry Hill last night where Anna and Lia helped him into Rachel’s bed, gave him a painkiller, and made him comfortable before he fell hard into sleep.
Rachel strolled back into the room empty-handed. Moses sighed inwardly. She was as useless as he had anticipated. Would he have to crawl to the kitchen himself and find his own medicine?
But his prayers were answered when Lia followed close behind with a tall glass of water and two baby-blue pills in her hand. She smiled at him, but her smile didn’t reach her eyes. She must have been bone-tired. He glanced at the bandage covering her forearm and remembered he wasn’t the only one who’d been injured.
“How is your arm?” he asked.
“Who cares about my arm when your toes look like you’ve been tiptoeing through the huckleberries?”
Again the halfhearted smile. Moses didn’t like it one bit.
“How is the pain?” she said.
“I am very grateful for the painkillers.”
“How many stitches did you get?” Rachel asked as she sat uncomfortably on the edge of her bed, her eyes glued to the thick bandages cocooning Moses’s leg.
Moses took the pills and the water and gave Lia a grateful smile, but she seemed very interested in looking at a spot on the wall about two feet above his head.
“Thirty-seven stitches,” Moses said, taking Lia’s hand under the pretense of looking at her bandages. “How many did you get, Lia?”
Lia glanced from Moses to Rachel and gently pulled her hand from his grasp. “Four. Not near so impressive.”
Moses kept the frustration off his face and let his hand drop to the bed.
“What did the doctor say?” Rachel asked, leaning toward him even as Lia stepped away.
“He told me not to smoke,” Moses said.
Lia let a wisp of a grin play at her lips. When had her smile become his favorite sight?
“And I’ll be in a cast for seven or eight weeks.”
Rachel looked truly sympathetic. “Don’t you worry. I am going to take good care of you.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Moses saw Lia turn her face away.
He attempted to keep his attention on Rachel. “Once the cast is on, I shouldn’t need any help.” He raised his hands. “I’m blessed to have two good hands so I can still make cheese.”
To his annoyance, Rachel grabbed his hand and gave it a squeeze. Lia was already out the door. “I’ll get your breakfast,” she called over her shoulder.
Rachel frowned and spoke loudly to make sure Lia could hear her all the way to the kitchen. “Remember, we agreed I would bring Moses his food.”
Moses pulled his hand from Rachel’s grasp.
Rachel studied his face, smiled, and nodded as if she knew all his thoughts. He found the gesture annoying.
Pulling the blanket back over his leg, she said, “When I saw you lying there in the barn in a pool of blood, I almost fainted with fright.” She sighed in a long drawn-out breath that reminded Moses of the wind hissing through the slats of the barn. “I feel things so deeply where you are concerned, and I panicked you might die. Lia doesn’t care about you like I do, so she could abide the sight of your leg where I could not. She’s always been cold like that.”
Moses decided he’d had enough of such talk. “If it weren’t for Lia, I’d probably be dead.”
“I don’t think you’d be dead.”
“There would be few problems in this world if more people were as brave as Lia.” He pinned Rachel with a stern eye, hoping his look would inspire her to think better of criticizing her sister.
Rachel pursed her lips and looked away in confusion, probably formulating another strategy for winning his favor. Why wouldn’t she give up?
Dawdi ambled into the room to take a look at Moses. “You look no worse for the wear,” he declared, thumbing his suspenders. He pulled back the blanket Rachel had spread over Moses and examined his foot. “Mighty fine bruises.”
Bea
ming from ear to ear, Mammi bustled in with a beautiful bouquet of red roses in a tall vase. “These are from the Tolleys. Seventy-five dollars.”
Moses winced when he scooted his back against his pillow. “Are they here?”
“Jah, but they don’t want to disturb you. We’re going to Green Bay with them today. We hope you don’t mind. Lia will be here to care for you.”
Rachel blinked rapidly as if trying to remove some irritating dust from her eyes. “I’ll be here too. Lia isn’t the only one who knows how to care for the sick. I nursed my mamm for a whole week with the flu.”
Anna smiled patiently at Rachel. “Of course, dear.”
“Lia said you went to the auction with the Tolleys yesterday,” Moses said.
“They are such lovely people. They drove us all the way to Marion.” Mammi leaned toward Moses and her eyes danced. “In their motor home.”
“That’s a mighty fine contraption,” said Dawdi.
Mammi grinned as if sharing a big secret. “He used the bathroom in it twice.”
Moses couldn’t help laughing. “Did he?”
Dawdi nodded and slipped his hands into his pockets. “Fanciest thing I ever saw. And I got Nevada and South Carolina. It was a very gute day.”
Mammi set the vase on the windowsill and retrieved something from her apron pocket. She held up two furry, baby-blue knitted things. “I made you some slippers. So your feet will stay toasty.”
Moses looked out the window at the sunny August morning. The sun beating down through the trees made him feel sweaty already. “Denki, Mammi. I don’t want my toes to freeze.”
Mammi smiled in satisfaction and slid the slipper onto his good foot. He held his breath as she carefully eased the other slipper over his purple toes. The movement didn’t make the pain worse, but he felt like he had suddenly grown fluffy bunny feet. He didn’t fault Mammi. It might have been impossible to make a pair of slippers look manly.
Mammi pointed to the crutches propped against the wall. “You can walk around in the slippers if you need to.”
“The doctor says to stay off my feet except to go to the bathroom.”
Mammi smoothed his blanket over his legs.
He took her hand and squeezed it. “Thank you for letting me recuperate here for a few days.”
“I don’t mind sharing a room with Lia,” Rachel piped in. “I want you to be as comfortable as possible. We’ll manage fine for as long as you want to stay.”
Moses had seen that tiny room with the thin twin bed. He suspected that Rachel managed by insisting Lia sleep on the floor.
Mammi curled her lips and winked at Moses behind Rachel’s back. “The girls will take gute care of you. We’ll probably be back before supper.”
Dawdi patted his shirt pocket. “I’ve got my notebook ready. I plan on seeing a lot of new states today.”
Mammi laid a kiss on Moses’s forehead before walking out the door, hand in hand with Dawdi.
Rachel went to the door and watched them walk down the hall. When she turned to Moses, she looked like a cat with a mouthful of mouse. She sat back on the bed. “We’re going to have so much fun today being together.”
Was it too late to scream for his grandparents to come back?
Don’t leave me alone with her!
Lia appeared at the threshold of his room with a steaming tray of food. Rachel leaped up with enthusiasm and took the tray from Lia. “Look what we made for breakfast,” Rachel said as Lia turned on her heels and disappeared from view. Moses should have called her back to tell her he knew who made the food, that he knew who worked her fingers to the bone, even as Rachel took the credit.
I’m not like your father, Lia. I know how to value a gute woman.
Rachel, with the smug look of someone who expected to be thanked, set the tray on his lap, and the heavenly aromas of blueberry pancakes and bacon made his mouth water.
“The pancakes are my recipe,” said Rachel.
Lia marched back into the room with a bottle of syrup and a tall glass of orange juice that she set on the small nightstand next to the bed.
What could he say to make her linger? The overwhelming desire to have her near him took him by surprise. When had she become this important to him? Or was it merely his wish to avoid Rachel that made him long for Lia’s company?
“Thank you for the breakfast, Lia. Don’t tell my mamm, but you are even a better cook than she is.”
His comment seemed to strike Lia as an unhappy thought. “It was Rachel’s idea to make pancakes.” Without another word, she glided out of the room, leaving Moses with a plate full of delectable food and at the mercy of Rachel Shetler, a girl who would never tire of talking about herself.
It was going to be a very long day.
Flustered at the sight of Moses hobbling down the hall, Lia pulled her soapy hands from the dishwater, propped her wet fists on her hips, and tried to look stern. “Moses, what are you doing out of bed? The doctor said—”
“The doctor said I should use the crutches in emergencies, and since I can’t get you to set foot near my bedside, I must come to you.”
Lia pulled a chair from under the table and commanded Moses to sit. “If you break your leg all over again, don’t come crying to me.”
Moses sat, panted with exertion, and rested the crutches against his shoulder. “I wouldn’t dare. Two weeks cooped up in that room, and I’m ready to pull my hair out.”
Lia wiped her hands dry and didn’t bother to correct Moses on his timing. It had been less than two weeks. Ten days, near time for the stitches to come out. Ten full days with Moses in the house only served to make Lia more miserable than ever. Rachel seldom left his side, unless he slept, and that was fine. Lia was more efficient with chores anyway.
Except when she administered medicine or checked his bandages, Lia studiously avoided Moses’s room. Her breathing stopped and her heart shattered every time she looked into those blue eyes, and she didn’t want the hourly torment. She had been perfectly content to bury her sorrows in the kitchen and let Rachel serve him his meals. For the first three days, Rachel disappeared into Moses’s room at mealtime with two plates of food, leaving Lia and Anna and Felty to enjoy eating in peace in the kitchen. Anna and Felty truly loved her, and Lia could pretend that there was no such person as Moses Zimmerman who didn’t care one whit about her private heartbreak.
But after three days, Moses hobbled to the kitchen on his crutches for meals, swearing he would go stir-crazy lying in that room.
Anna had insisted on making supper every night after that, using ideas from her new recipe book. They had eaten slimy kale soup that Moses had chosen to gulp down instead of chew, fried tofu patties that weren’t too bad smothered in soy sauce, and something called aspic that made Lia shudder as it slid down her throat. It puzzled her how Felty seemed to enjoy every dish set before him as if he were eating off the king’s table.
Rachel came tripping down the hall from Lia’s room and looked at Moses. “Shame on you,” she said, shaking a finger at him. “How are you ever going to heal if you keep disobeying the doctor’s orders?”
Moses pressed his lips together and let out a sigh. “I needed to talk to Lia.”
Rachel turned all her displeasure on Lia. “He shouldn’t have to come out here to talk to you. It wonders me that you are too busy to walk twenty feet down the hall.”
Moses shook his head and rubbed the left side of his face. “Rachel, let Lia be. She’s done nothing wrong.” Lia recognized a hint of crossness in his voice.
Maybe Rachel was starting to wear on him a bit. Whatever the reason, Lia felt grateful he had come to her defense. She couldn’t help it if the emptiness in her chest threatened to consume her every time she laid eyes on Moses.
Rachel rolled her eyes, plopped herself on the sofa, and pretended to read the newspaper.
Moses ignored her. “I get my stitches out tomorrow and a cast. Will you come with me?”
Rachel snapped her head up. “I want to
come.”
Lia brushed her hand across the table in an imaginary search for crumbs. Moses wasn’t aware of how she felt about him and therefore couldn’t know the turmoil his request threw her into. He wanted her along because she kept her wits about her in a crisis, but the more time she spent with him, the greater the risk of disintegrating into a puddle of tears.
“I don’t mind if you take Rachel.”
Rachel scowled and slapped the paper down on the sofa. “I don’t need your permission. Who has taken care of Moses day and night since he got hurt?”
Moses’s gaze intensified until Lia had to look away. “Lia came with me to the hospital. She will know all the medication I have taken.”
Rachel waved her hand dismissively. “She can write all that down. I’m sick of sitting around this house without anything to do. I’m coming.”
Moses inclined his head to Rachel without looking at her. “Rachel can come if she wants, but I would appreciate it if you came too.” He must have seen that his pleas were going nowhere because he flashed that mischievous grin that Lia found charmingly irresistible.
But Lia’s heart was too heavy to be lifted by a set of perfectly straight teeth. If Rachel was going to be Moses’s wife, Moses must learn to put up with her fits of panic and anger. Rachel’s beauty came at a price.
Rachel stood and grabbed Moses’s crutches. “We don’t need Lia to come.”
Lia turned her back on them both. “Nae, you don’t need me.”
She deliberately kept her face away from them as she heard Rachel say, “Now take these crutches and get right back to bed, young man. I’m in charge of your care, and I won’t stand for such disobedience.”
Lia refused to watch Moses limp down the hall as she busied herself with nothing in the kitchen. Only when the sound of the rubber-tipped crutches faded did she turn and quickly finish the dishes.
Rachel had left the door to her room open—it wasn’t exactly proper to shut it—and the sound of her laughter skipping down the hall proved more than Lia could bear.
With slow, deliberate movements, she wiped up the water from the counter, slid Felty’s Bible from the side table, and sauntered out the front door. Once she shut it behind her, she lifted her skirts and raced into the woods without looking back.
Huckleberry Hill Page 20
