If a person had to live in a certain place to do the work he loved, then did that mean he’d have to stay in town and never rejoin their Amish community?
She didn’t want to think about that. She wanted him back in their community. Besides, the Zimmerman farm had once belonged to an Amish family who’d sold it to Neil before they moved away. So really, it was right on the border of the Amish community . . .
John was right on time for supper that evening.
Rose Anna made supper since he was her guest. It gave her the chance to make his favorites. He’d always claimed she made the best fried chicken—what was it with men and fried chicken?—so she’d made not one but two batches of it as well as mashed potatoes and gravy and spring peas and biscuits.
Grossdaadi had come out of the dawdi haus and offered to taste test for her, so she’d given him two biscuits hot from the oven with some butter and honey. Now he sat in the kitchen and kept her company.
She indulged him further by listening to him tell her not once but several times how happy he was that John—not some other young man—was stopping by.
He hinted she was being “courted,” and she insisted John was just a friend.
When there was a knock on the front door, he beat her there to welcome John.
John soaked up the attention from the older man. His own grossdaadi on his dat’s side had died when he was just a kind, and his mudder’s side lived hours away, so he hadn’t had a close relationship with any male relatives.
She knew God had a reason why He did things, but she didn’t know why John couldn’t have had a more loving family. If he had, things would have been so different with the two of them . . .
“Rose Anna?”
She jerked to attention. “Ya?”
“Danki for such a wunderbaar supper.”
She glowed not just from the praise but from the way he was speaking in their language more and more.
He turned to her parents. “And Linda and Jacob, danki for having me in your home.”
“You’re wilkum,” Linda told him and Jacob nodded.
A few minutes later they excused themselves. Rose Anna suspected it was so that she and John could spend some time together.
Grossdaadi got out the checkerboard and challenged John to a game.
Rose Anna just laughed, shook her head, and began clearing the table.
***
It felt like another world.
John sat in the Zook kitchen playing checkers while Rose Anna cleared the table.
She’d refused his help, insisting that she’d let him help dry the dishes when the game was over.
Of course, one game wasn’t enough for Grossdaadi. They played three before John insisted he had to help Rose Anna dry the dishes. Abraham grinned, folded up the checkerboard, and took it and a piece of pie into the dawdi haus. He paused at the door, caught his eye, and winked at him.
Hmm, thought John. Was the old man playing matchmaker? He picked up a clean dish towel and waited for Rose Anna to hand him a dish to dry.
“He looks happier.”
She nodded. “I think it was gut for him to get away for a bit. But I missed him so.”
“I did, too,” he admitted.
She handed him a dish, but he didn’t take it until she looked at him. “I missed you.”
“Did you?”
John saw the doubt in her eyes and hated that he’d put it there. “I did. I really am sorry.” He remembered his conversation with Neil.
He stood there drying dishes with her in the quiet room and thought about how if things had been different this chore might have been something they did of an evening like couples did. Or if he had chores in the barn she might do the dishes alone and they’d have a cup of coffee and some conversation before they headed off to bed.
He nearly dropped the dish he was drying and forced his thoughts away from such a dangerous direction.
“John? Are you allrecht?”
“Uh, yeah, of course.” He cleared his throat. “I just remembered something I need to do tomorrow.”
She handed him another dish and smiled. “How is Willow’s foal?”
“Doing well. Neil said you can drop by any time and see her again.”
“He seems like a nice man.”
“He’s been a good man to work for.”
“You’re frowning.”
“I’m worried about him. He’s got a heart condition. I’m thinking of calling his son.”
She touched his hand. “He’s that bad?”
“I’m not sure. But what if his son doesn’t know about it?” He stared down at her hand. It felt so good, so right to have the contact. Made him think of how it was just the two of them, alone.
“Rose Anna? Is there any coffee left?” her mother called.
Startled, he stepped back, dropping Rose Anna’s hand as if it burned.
Linda walked into the room and glanced around. “So Abraham went to bed?”
“Just a few minutes ago.”
She poured two mugs of coffee and then turned to John. “So did he cheat?”
John laughed. “Of course. It’s okay. I’m on to him.”
She picked up the mugs and started out of the room then turned. “Rose Anna, don’t go giving him more pie, hear?”
“Oh, I won’t,” she said quickly.
The door to the dawdi haus opened, and Abraham walked out with the empty plate in his hand. Linda’s head swiveled in his direction, then back to Rose Anna. All Linda had to do was raise her eyebrows, and Rose Anna bit her lip and looked apologetic.
Linda shook her head as she left the room.
“Guess I came out at the wrong time,” he said as he put the plate and fork in the sink. “Sorry.”
But he stuck his hand in the cookie jar and grabbed one before heading back into his quarters. “Gonna make me some snickerdoodles tomorrow?” he asked Rose Anna.
She rolled her eyes. “You have such a sweet tooth, Grossdaadi.” She waited until he closed the door. “Mamm gets after him if he eats too many sweets, but I like to indulge him.”
“What about me?” he asked, taking her hand again.
“Are you asking for snickerdoodles?” She gave him a flirtatious smile.
He nipped at her fingers. “These are fine for a nibble.”
She tried to pull her hand back. “They must taste like lemon dish detergent, silly.” But he wouldn’t release her hand, and she felt unnerved by the intensity in his eyes.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw movement. It took a moment to react, but then when he saw it was Jacob he dropped her hand again.
John waited for Jacob to say something, but the older man just moved past him with his coffee cup and refilled it from the percolator on the stove.
He let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding as Jacob grabbed a cookie from the jar and left the room without comment.
Giggling. John heard giggling and turned to see Rose Anna unsuccessfully trying to stifle her mirth behind her hand.
“That wasn’t funny,” he growled.
“I’m sorry,” she finally managed. “What did you think he was going to do? Challenge you to a duel or find a shotgun to make you marry me?”
“Of course not!” he said, frowning as she continued to take the whole thing lightly. “But it was a little . . . unnerving.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, struggling to put on a serious expression. But her eyes danced with humor.
He rolled his eyes. “You’re incorrigible.”
“That’s her middle name,” Linda said as she walked up behind him. “Just thought I’d put these in the sink,” she said as she set down the two mugs she carried.
John muttered under his breath as his heart jumped up into his throat. Honestly, did her parents practice sneaking up on their daughter’s male friends?
Then he realized what he was thinking. Did she have male friends? He knew she’d seen Peter for a time.
He suddenly craved some tim
e with her.
“Rose Anna, make schur you pack some leftovers up for John.”
“Thanks,” he told her.
Linda nodded and left as quietly as she’d come in.
“John?”
“Hmm?” He realized she was holding out a mug to him to dry.
He made swift work of drying it and setting it and the second one into the cupboard. Then he threw the dish towel down on the counter top and grabbed her hand.
“Come on, let’s get out of here.”
“Where are we going?” she asked as he pulled her out the back door.
“Anywhere,” he said. “Nowhere.”
She laughed. “My favorite place.”
***
What had happened in the kitchen?
It was the first time since she and John had started seeing each other again that he had reacted in such a way.
She wasn’t complaining. She just didn’t know what to make of it.
Rose Anna began having second thoughts even before they reached John’s truck.
“John?”
“What?” He opened the truck door and looked at her expectantly.
“Maybe it’s not such a gut idea to go for a ride.”
“Why? It’s not late.”
What a dilemma. She wanted them to be more than friends, but this was the first move he’d made toward that, and only days after their disagreement. As much as she wanted to go for a quiet drive with him where they wouldn’t be interrupted she wondered if he’d want more. Their last kiss was a long time ago but she still remembered it . . .
Something Emma had said to her that day they talked came to her. Emma had said to be careful not to change for John and had seemed to hint to be careful about intimacy.
She hesitated, and then she got into the truck. John had never pressured her about anything. There was no need for her to worry about that.
She wasn’t naive. He was a man, and Amish men wanted the same things from women that Englisch men did even if they weren’t as obvious about it. Most waited until after marriage. But she’d heard of marriages in her community that produced boppli less than nine months after the wedding day. People were people wherever they lived, whatever religion they practiced.
He drove out into the country, and they rode with the windows down to catch the scents and the breeze of a warm spring evening in Pennsylvania.
Rose Anna couldn’t imagine a more wonderful place.
She told him about Jamie’s visit and her life in New York City. “She said she and Steve love it there. They can do the work they studied for. I can’t imagine seeing skyscrapers instead of mountains. Busy streets instead of country roads like this. And so many people. Can you?”
John shook his head. “I’ve never wanted to live anywhere else.”
“Except in town.”
He shrugged. “Where else could we go when we left the farm? But I’m still not far from the community.”
He was farther than he thought, she wanted to say. But she didn’t dare. It would ruin the mood, and she wasn’t going to do that.
As if he read her thoughts he reached over with one hand and linked his fingers with hers. He let their hands rest on the seat between them.
Buggies passed them on the other side of the road. Amish couples were out for a ride enjoying the spring evening.
Things weren’t really as different as they might seem, she thought. Only they were in an Englisch truck.
Rose Anna recognized friends and church members but didn’t wave since they didn’t look in their direction.
She’d shared what had happened in her day, so he told her about his. He joked that Willow’s foal was becoming as much a flirt as her mother.
“Why doesn’t she have a name?”
“Neil hasn’t gotten around to it yet. Willow was already named when he bought her as most of his horses were. He says it’s hard to pick the right one.”
John glanced at her. “Maybe you’d like to come visit and help suggest a name.”
“I guess you don’t remember I wanted Daed to let me call one of our horses Button.”
“No, I never heard that story. Why did you want to call him Button?”
“Because the silly thing tried to eat the buttons off my jacket. That was before I convinced him apples were better.”
“So then you named him Apple?”
She laughed. “Nee. We called him Brownie because he was such a rich, dark brown color. It was a simple name, but it fit him.” She glanced at him. “I heard that sometimes the Englisch name their cars and trucks. Does this one have a name?”
“I think that’s something the Englisch women do, not the men.”
“But if it had a name it might be Second Hand Rose, don’t you think? After the Englisch song?”
“Where would you have heard that song?”
“A woman was singing it to herself as she sewed a quilt in class one day. She was using material from a couple of old dresses her daughter had outgrown.” She tilted her head and studied him. “You inherited the truck from your bruder Sam and he from David.”
“True. But I’m not calling it Second Hand Rose.” He grimaced at the thought.
She giggled. “Not manly enough, huh?”
“No!”
They fell silent as dusk fell. It was a comfortable, companionable silence.
“Danki for supper,” he said when he took her home.
It always did something to her heart when he slipped into using his old language. She wondered as she had in the past if he realized it. “You’re wilkum. Grossdaadi was schur glad to see you. I hope it didn’t make you feel uncomfortable.”
“Not at all.”
“But my parents did.”
He started to shake his head and then he sighed. “Only at the end.”
“I’m schur it wasn’t their intention.”
He was silent, tapping his fingertips on the steering wheel. “No,” he said at last. “Your mother announced herself before she came into the room.”
“To be fair, my dat didn’t.” She had trouble repressing her grin.
He chuckled. “No, he didn’t. But a man shouldn’t have to in his own house. A woman shouldn’t have to, either,” he said quickly. “If I had a daughter, I might behave the same way.”
Rose Anna couldn’t help it. She giggled. “With your background, I’m sure you’ll see every man who comes to see your dochder as bad.”
“Hey, where did that come from?”
“Even before you left home you enjoyed being a little bit of a bad boy.”
He grinned at her. “And you liked that.”
She folded her hands in her lap and tried to look prim. “That’s not true.” But she had. She did.
And he could never know that.
His grin faded. “Look, Rose Anna, I’m not spending my time in town running around, all right?”
“I didn’t say you were.”
“That might have been true in the past. But it’s not anymore.”
“Allrecht.”
He released her hand and muttered something under his breath. After checking his rearview mirror, he pulled over and then turned to look at her.
“There isn’t anyone but you, Rose Anna. I don’t expect you to believe that but it’s true.”
14
Rose Anna studied him. This was the man she’d known all her life—loved most of her life. He’d teased her unmercifully, charmed her, and then devastated her by leaving her.
But he’d never lied to her.
“I believe you.”
John leaned back in his seat. “You do. Just like that.”
She nodded.
He reached for her hand, and she let him take it. “No one’s ever believed in me like you.”
“That’s not true. Your mudder does.”
“I wish I believed that. She needed to stand up to my dat. She never did.”
She squeezed his hand. “I know. And I’m sorry about that. But I’m not schur she coul
d, John.”
“Schur she could! We were her kinner!”
Once again, he lapsed into their language. She just knew it was the language of his heart. Maybe it was foolish of her, but she still believed he hadn’t left the Amish community. He’d left it temporarily but not for forever.
“It must have been so hard for her, caught between her mann and her kinner—”
“Are you going to make excuses for her?” he demanded, trying to pull his hand from hers.
She grasped his hand in both of hers and refused to let go. “Nee. But it’s not my job to judge her, John.” She waited until he looked at her. “Or yours. Look, I heard that the bishop came and talked to your parents years ago.”
“You heard that?”
She nodded.
“Nothing’s secret in our community, is it?” He turned to stare out at the road. “Ya, he came and talked to them. And things got worse for me and my bruders.”
He slammed his hand on the steering wheel, then he checked traffic and pulled out onto the road making a U-turn so fast the tires squealed.
Rose Anna didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t seen him this upset in a long time.
Before she could speak he slowed, shook his head. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s allrecht.”
“Nee, it’s not. I’m no better than my dat if I talk to the woman I care about that way.”
Care about. Not love.
She stared at him. It wasn’t what she’d always dreamed of hearing him say. But it was more than he’d ever said.
The ride back was silent. She could barely see his face now that dusk had faded into night. There were few street lights out here in the country, but when they passed under one his face looked set and unhappy.
He pulled into the driveway and sat for a long moment. “Sorry.”
“I’m sorry, too.”
His head whipped around. “For what?”
“That you had such a hard time with your dat. Maybe one day you can forgive him.”
He made a short noise of disgust.
“John, you can’t keep your heart closed to him.”
“Bet?”
“It’s not our way. It didn’t used to be yours.” She reached for her door handle. “And I don’t believe it is now.”
“You’ve seen how he behaves with me. He might have changed with David and with Sam, but he schur hasn’t with me.” He glanced at her. “He still argues with me, still has a problem with me. He thinks I’m a failure since I left. And since I work three part-time jobs and have no future, he’s not far wrong.”
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