Assaulted Pretzel

by Laura Bradford

  Keith waved aside her praise but not before she caught the tug of a smile on the left side of his mouth. “My business has grown because of this place. Anyone can drive down a road and spout off a few facts. But stopping here, at a real Amish home to watch a real Amish toy maker in action? That’s what has folks like Diane calling me instead of the next guy.”

  Setting his notebook on his seat, he followed her off the bus and over to the front door of Daniel’s shop. “Have you been inside? Seen the toys up close?”

  She peeked inside the window beside the door and nodded. “I have. The jigsaws are my favorite. Especially the ones shaped like animals that can stand up when the pieces are placed together just right.”

  “That is nice to hear, Miss Weatherly, and I thank you.”

  Whirling around, she came face-to-face with Daniel’s assistant toy maker. “Isaac! Hi! I didn’t know you were behind me.”

  The man’s narrow and beardless face clouded momentarily. “I am sorry. I did not mean to frighten you. I have come to take visitors to the workshop to watch as I make a giraffe-shaped jigsaw puzzle.”

  Again and again, despite his attempt at conversation with first her, and then Keith, Claire found herself drawn to the Amish man’s emerald green eyes that were so unlike any she’d ever seen before.

  Except, of course, on Isaac’s father…

  She nibbled her lower lip inward and contemplated what to say, her thoughts quickly narrowing in on one topic. “Is there any chance you could show us how you make one of your Jumping Jacks?”

  Just as quickly as it had disappeared, the cloud that had been Isaac’s just moments earlier returned with a vengeance. “I do not make Jumping Jacks any longer.”

  Chapter 24

  She lowered her hand to her side as the bus carrying her friends turned onto the main road and headed toward town with one less passenger than it had at the start. The decision to stay behind and talk to Isaac had snuck up on her during the workshop part of the tour and she’d seen no reason to argue. Especially in light of the wide-open shot he’d given her by swearing off his signature toy.

  Drawing in a breath of courage, Claire retraced her steps back to the workshop where, only moments earlier, she’d stood with five other people and marveled at the man’s toy-making ability with nothing more than the simplest of tools. “Isaac?” she called as she tugged on the heavy barn door and peeked inside to find Jakob’s brother hunched over a nondescript piece of wood.

  Isaac looked up, his mouth set in a grim line. “Miss Weatherly? Did you leave something behind?”

  “No. I…I was hoping maybe we could talk for a few minutes.” At his answering nod, she pulled the door closed in her wake and pointed at the worktable. “What are you making now?”

  He followed her gaze downward, shrugging as he did. “I do not know yet. Something new. Something different. Something that can replace my Jumping Jack.”

  “But why?” she prodded, her words echoing around the otherwise empty barn that no longer had any need for the cluttering effect that often came with basic farm implements. “I saw the Jumping Jack you made for your niece the other day. It was wonderful. It even had Esther and me playing with it a little, too.”

  The smile he allowed stopped short of his eyes, giving her a window into the Amish man’s pain despite the lack of any discernible response. Trying to figure out what his pain stemmed from, though, was futile. Besides, she’d been guessing and interpreting long enough. It was time to ask the hard questions of the only person capable of answering.

  “Why would you stop making something that people enjoy?”

  For a moment, she didn’t think he was going to answer, the emotion behind his eyes and the rigid stance he adopted tangible proof she’d hit a sore spot. But, eventually, he spoke, his words giving little away. “They do not bring me joy any longer. Instead, they bring worry.”

  “How can a toy bring worry?” It was a rhetorical question in many ways since she knew the answer, but she let it stand nonetheless.

  “It is that toy that brought the big toy company to Heavenly. It is that toy that made friends look forward to work they have difficulty finding. It is that toy that almost destroyed Daniel’s business and mine, as well. It is difficult to find joy in such a toy now.”

  She allowed her gaze to leave his long enough to perform a quick sweep of the workshop she’d barely noticed while standing alongside the Grandersons and the Joneses not more than ten minutes earlier. Then, she’d been as mesmerized as everyone else at the way Isaac could transform a piece of wood into a toy right in front of their eyes. Now, though, she found herself wanting to soak up everything about her surroundings as if some concrete piece of evidence linking Isaac to Robert’s murder was there, waiting to be noticed.

  But it wasn’t.

  Not that she could see, anyway.

  “I could understand you feeling that way if it was really your Jumping Jack that brought him here, Isaac. But it wasn’t.”

  He drew back. “Miss Weatherly?”

  She took a step closer to the table, her voice dropping to a near whisper. “I can’t say for certain, but I suspect you could have sent a handful of dirt and Robert Karble still would have come here.”

  Isaac plucked a carving tool from a simple holder to his left and began furiously working at the block of wood. “He came because of toys. He was to make Amish toys.”

  “But why? Because he suddenly woke up one day and thought of the Amish and their history of simple wooden toys?”

  He swapped the tool for a piece of sandpaper he didn’t need. “Perhaps that is what happened.”

  Swinging her focus toward the door, she lowered her voice still further. “Isaac, I know.”

  Pushing the sandpaper to the side, he grabbed for the sculpting tool once again only to let it drop through his fingers and onto the table with a dull thump. “What is it you think you know?”

  “I know Robert Karble was your father.”

  She didn’t need a sudden infusion of light to see the man’s face drain of all color, nor did she need bionic ears to hear the single swallow that preceded the weary slump of his shoulders. With several quick strides, she closed the gap between them and took his hands in hers, the coldness she felt there making her release them and step back in one motion.

  “Please,” he suddenly implored. “You can not tell anyone. Not Daniel. Not Sarah. Not Esther. Not Martha. Not Jakob. Not anyone. Please.”

  “They won’t think any less of you, Isaac. How could they? None of what happened had anything to do with you. You weren’t even born yet.”

  “My parents were not married. Mamm—I mean, my mother was not Amish. How then could I be Amish?”

  “Because you made the decision to be baptized. That alone makes you Amish.” But even as she offered the reassurance she knew he needed to hear, she couldn’t help but wonder if everyone in Isaac’s community would feel the same as Benjamin did on the subject.

  “But I did not come about it in an honest way.” Bracing his hands against the table, he rose to his feet and removed his hat, looking down at it as if it were suddenly a foreign object.

  She stepped forward, took the hat from his hands, and secured it onto his head once again. “Did you believe you were Amish, Isaac?”

  “Yah.”

  “Did you make the choice to be baptized all on your own?”

  “Yah.”

  “Then you came by your Amish lifestyle and beliefs in an honest way. To torture yourself by considering otherwise not only makes no sense but is also wrong.”

  He reached up and felt the top of his hat with his callused hand, the slow nod of his head doing little to ease the pain in his eyes. “I know I need to tell. To remain silent will make me dishonest as well. But I do not know how to tell. Last month, I did not know of my father. I believed him dead before my birth. Then I read the letter from Mamm. She tells of the truth and how I am to find my father. I send a letter and Jumping Jack. Because he, too, is a
toy maker. He sends a letter back. I send another. He comes to visit with a picture book. He wants to see more toys that I make. I show him my drawings and tell him how I make my toys. We have a good talk, share laughs. We talk of toys and he tells of time we will spend together making toys. Then he changes mind. He wants to steal my ideas and hurt my friends. I get angry. Very, very angry. Then Esther screams and people come running. Once again, I am without a father.”

  “Did you hurt him, Isaac?” she asked despite the internal warning bells clanging in her head.

  Bowing his head, the first and only tear she’d ever seen an Amish man shed fell to the ground at his feet. “No. I am Amish. I do not kill.”

  * * *

  Isaac’s words were still looping their way through her head when she let herself in through the back door of Heavenly Treasures shortly before lunch. The relative quiet on the other side of the wall told her everything she needed to know.

  “Quiet day so far, Esther?” she asked as she poked her head into the storeroom. A quick survey of the room, however, yielded no sign of her friend.

  Concerned, she turned around and made her way into the tiny office Claire used mainly for bookkeeping. There, sitting at the desk with her head on the metal surface, was Esther. “Esther? Is everything okay?”

  In an instant, Esther was on her feet and running a worried hand along her head cap in a desperate attempt to appear neat. “Claire! I did not hear you come in. I…I have been watching the store all morning. We had some customers, sold some items.”

  She took Esther’s trembling hands in hers and rushed to reassure the young woman that she wasn’t angry. “Esther, Esther. It’s okay. You’re welcome to come in my office, you know that. But is everything okay? You look a little pale right now.”

  Esther tugged her hands free only to bring them to her face. “I do? Eli stopped in a while ago to say hello. I do not want him to think I look poorly.”

  “You look pale, Esther. But that doesn’t stop you from being beautiful.” She pushed a stray piece of hair inside her friend’s kapp and offered what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “Trust me, Esther, Eli was just happy to see you. And I know this because he’s always happy to see you.”

  At the uncertainty that remained in Esther’s face, she asked the next most logical question she could. “Wait. Did you and Eli have an argument or something?”

  “No.”

  “Are you feeling sick?”

  “No.”

  “Then what’s wrong? And don’t tell me there’s nothing because I know better.” And it was true. In just the short time since meeting and getting to know Esther, she could read the young woman like a book. It helped, of course, that there was only one of three things on Esther’s mind at any given time—her family, her crafts, and Eli.

  Her family…

  “Is everything okay at home?” she asked.

  Esther’s face crumbled. “I do not know, Claire. I am worried.”

  “Worried about what, exactly?”

  “Mamm.”

  Tossing her purse onto the floor beside her desk, she took Esther by the arm and guided her back to the chair. “What’s wrong with your mother? Is she sick?”

  “I do not know. She will not say. She asks me to watch my brothers and sisters often when I am home but does not say what she is doing or where she goes. I wonder if she sees the doctor but does not say.” Esther brought her hands to her head in prayer and scrunched her eyes closed. “I almost asked Dat yesterday but I did not. Instead, I asked Mamm when she got home. When I told her I almost asked Dat, she sent me out to do chores and would not speak to me again until dinner.”

  “Maybe she just needed a break. Caring for all those children has to be tiring.”

  “Not for Mamm,” Esther said sadly. “But that is not all. When Eli came in today he said he saw Mamm coming from trail that leads to the pond. The same trail that she could take to the doctor if she kept going past the pond.”

  “The pond?” she repeated.

  “Yes.”

  Martha wasn’t sick. She’d bet her bottom dollar on that one. She’d also bet the reason for Martha’s suspicious behavior had everything to do with a particular Heavenly detective and nothing whatsoever to do with some phantom health issue.

  “I do not want Mamm to be sick, Claire!”

  It took everything in her power not to blurt out what she knew and erase the fear from Esther’s eyes once and for all. But she couldn’t. She’d given her word.

  No, it was up to Jakob to set things right with his niece.

  Jakob and Martha.

  Chapter 25

  Claire surveyed the table one last time, her gaze lingering on the place setting across from Kayla Jones. “Do you think she’ll ever come out for dinner?”

  “I checked in on her about thirty minutes ago and she was dressed and moving around.” Diane tipped the water pitcher atop Ann’s glass and began to pour. “She is trying so hard to pick herself up and move forward but it’s difficult. She wants closure on what happened so she can leave, yet I know that when she does, it’s only going to bring a whole new wave of pain.”

  All Claire could do was nod. Her heart ached for the grieving widow and the shock she knew still lay in wait.

  “Thankfully, our guests are every bit as worried about Ann as we are and so I know they’ll do their best to keep the conversation light. Assuming, of course, she joins us…” Diane filled the last two glasses at the table then turned to look at Claire. “Were you able to straighten things out with Jakob, dear?”

  She plucked two bread baskets from the serving table and positioned them at opposite ends of the table with a crock of butter next to each one. “I called the station and left a message for him, but he hasn’t returned my call.”

  “He will.”

  Something about the conviction in her aunt’s voice made her laugh. “You sound so sure of yourself.”

  Diane came around the table and stopped next to Claire, the sound of footsteps descending the stairs necessitating an end to their conversation. “No, I’m sure of Jakob…and his feelings for you.”

  She felt her mouth slack open but shut it fast when Doug and Kayla rounded the corner and entered the room.

  “Mmmm. Diane, something smells absolutely wonderful in here.” Kayla lifted her chin into the air and inhaled deeply. “Mmmm. What is that?”

  Doug brought his palm to his forehead. “Wait. Wait. Don’t tell me. It’s a hearty and homemade beef stew.”

  At Diane’s nod, Kayla’s eyes widened on her husband. “How did you know that?”

  “I read the hand-printed menu Diane left in the parlor this morning.”

  “Hand-printed menu?” Kayla repeated before turning her gaze on Diane. “Do you do that every day?”

  Again, Diane nodded.

  A smile that began at the corners of Kayla’s mouth made its way across her face just before she turned an accusing look on her new husband. “Hey! That’s how you’ve known what’s for dinner every night since we’ve been here! You rat! I was actually starting to think you had some sort of gift!”

  “I do,” Doug quipped while simultaneously pulling Kayla in for a loving squeeze. “I read.”

  “Ha, ha, ha. Very funny, mister.” Kayla shook her head then rolled her eyes at Claire and Diane. “Do you see what I have to put up with?”

  “Treasure him. Treasure each other.”

  All eyes turned toward the door and the woman that had been missing from the table since the festival.

  “Ann! I’m so happy you’ve decided to join us for supper this evening.” Sweeping her hand in the space between the newlyweds and Ann, Diane addressed the sudden silence in the room. “Doug and Kayla, you remember Ann Karble, don’t you? She’ll be sitting directly across from you tonight, Kayla.”

  Slowly, Claire released the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding until that moment. But standing there, watching the young couple from Tennessee welcome the grieving widow with open ar
ms, she couldn’t help but feel relieved and proud. Somehow, despite the question mark factor that accompanied every first-time guest to Sleep Heavenly, the inn always attracted kind people.

  She supposed some of that came from the nature of their surroundings. Heavenly wasn’t a party town. It was a quiet place steeped in the kind of quaintness that made a person feel comfortable. Her aunt simply took that comfort a step further and made everyone who stayed under her roof feel like family to her, to Claire, and to one another.

  The addition of Virginia and Wayne several minutes later did nothing to change the dynamic around the table. If anything, the added conversation and friendly smiles they offered Ann lightened the atmosphere even more.

  Blinking against a sudden and unexpected threat of tears, Claire followed Diane into the kitchen, where two serving bowls of stew waited. “You always have the nicest people staying here, you know that?” she whispered.

  Diane beamed. “God is good, isn’t He?”

  She took hold of both bowls and stepped through the swinging door Diane held open. “I think Ann needs a night like this, you know? I mean, I know it won’t make her forget, but just to hear laughter and feel like a person again for a little while has to help.”

  “I agree.” Diane came around Claire as they reached the dining room’s wide entrance and brought her hands together in a quiet clap. “The stew is still quite hot. So enjoy your salads and Claire and I will take care of ladling the stew into your bowls. We’ve got plenty so please don’t be shy asking for seconds or thirds.”

  Slowly, they made their way around the table, stopping at everyone’s place to put two or three heaping ladlefuls of stew into each bowl, the pleasant aroma the meal emitted making Claire’s stomach rumble in hunger.

  “I’m sorry I’m late.” Melinda breezed into the room in a formfitting running suit, stopping midway to the table as Ann looked up. “Oh…Ann. I didn’t expect you to be here.”