Assaulted Pretzel

by Laura Bradford

  He stepped toward the swings then doubled back. “I don’t think you want to see her shunned, but the more people who are aware of what’s going on between Martha and me, the greater the risk grows.”

  “I told you I wouldn’t tell anyone,” she protested. “And I’m insulted to hear that you would doubt my word.”

  “I’m not saying you’d consciously decide to sell us out.” Jakob paced back and forth across the portion of the playground closest to the table. “That, I know you wouldn’t do. But it’s like anything in life. The more people who know, the greater the chance someone will slip—even innocently.”

  She could feel the anger welling up inside her chest alongside the urge to get up and walk away, but she resisted. “I could have slipped, as you call it, just this afternoon. With Esther. But alleviating her fears for her mother is on you, not me.”

  He stopped midpace and turned to stare at Claire. “Esther is afraid for Martha? Why?”

  “Because she’s a smart girl. She sees the way her mother keeps sneaking off. She sees the way Martha acts all jumpy after coming back from her mystery trips. And she’s putting two and two together and coming up with six.”

  Again, he swiped a hand down his face. “Six?”

  “That’s right, six. Esther thinks her mother is sick and that Martha is disappearing in the middle of the day to go to doctor’s appointments. She thinks the worried look she sees in her Mamm’s eyes is because of a life-threatening illness of some sort.”

  “Oh no…” Jakob muttered. “Are you sure?”

  “Positive. She shared her worries with me today at the shop.”

  “And—and you didn’t tell her the truth?”

  A swell of anger she could no longer tamp down brought her to her feet. “I wanted to, but I couldn’t. I gave you my word I wouldn’t say anything, remember?”

  He crossed to the table and dropped onto the bench across from Claire, the sadness in his eyes softening her anger a smidge. “Oh man…Claire. I had no idea. I’m sorry I put you in that position.” Propping his elbows on the table, he dropped his head into his hands and exhaled a breath of exasperation. “But see? This is why I’m keeping you at arm’s length right now. Because I don’t want to put you in an awkward position like that again and…”

  She waited for him to reclaim the words he let fade into the night air, but he didn’t. Instead, he simply cradled his forehead and mumbled words that made no sense. “Jakob, please, finish your sentence.”

  “Look, all I can say is that Martha has to be my focus right now. I knew how much my decision to leave my Amish roots hurt me, but I never realized just how much it hurt her. I have to make amends. I have to make things right. That…and she…needs to be my focus right now.”

  “And being polite to me changes that somehow?” The hurt in her voice was unmistakable but she didn’t care. She was tired of hiding her feelings about everything where Jakob and Benjamin were concerned. She cared for them in a way that went deeper than friendship.

  He lifted his head off his hands and pinned her with a pained expression. “I wasn’t trying to be rude. I’m just trying to fix my past before I even think about moving on to my future.”

  * * *

  If it hadn’t been for the light peeking out from beneath her aunt’s door, Claire never would have knocked. But seeing as how Diane was obviously awake, she gave in to her need for the hug she knew was always waiting.

  “Diane?” she whispered through the door. “It’s me…Claire. Can I come in for a few minutes?”

  The words were no sooner out of her mouth than the door swung open and the hug she so desperately needed was there for the taking. “Claire, dear? Is everything okay?”

  She reached backward and closed the door while doing her best to strike a tone that would allow her to get through the conversation she both needed and dreaded. “I don’t know. I’ve been telling myself for so long that I don’t have feelings for Jakob but it’s not true. I do. I’m not sure how deep they run, but they’re there. Just as the feelings I have for Benjamin are there, too. But I can’t explore those feelings for either one because I’m English and they’re—”

  “Jakob is English now, too.”

  If it wasn’t for the fact that her heart was breaking, she’d have laughed at her aunt’s persistence. Instead, she simply shook her head. “But his heart is with the Amish. And right now, there’s only room for that.”

  As the words left her mouth and headed for the dissection room that was her aunt’s brain, Claire wandered over to the window seat Diane had adorned with throw pillows of every shape and size and sat down, pressing her forehead to the cool windowpane. “And for whatever reason, hearing him say that hurt terribly.”

  Diane hesitated a moment then stepped in behind Claire with a brush and some much needed tender loving care. Slowly, the woman moved the brush through her niece’s hair, again and again, giving them both a few moments to think. “I can’t speak for Jakob, dear, but I’ll tell you what I think is going on and you can decide whether it holds any merit or not.”

  She gave herself over to the nurturing feel of the hairbrush and the certainty that somehow, someway, Diane was going to make things better. “Okay, let’s hear it.”

  “Have you ever heard that expression about loving yourself before you can truly love another?”

  “Yes.”

  “I think that is what Jakob is trying to do right now.”

  Startled by her aunt’s words, Claire moved her head away from the path of the brush and looked at Diane over her shoulder. “What are you talking about?”

  “Jakob may have accepted his decision to become a police officer, but he’s never accepted the loss of his family because of that decision. If he had, he’d never have left the NYPD to come back here. Why would he? It’s not like he’ll ever get much recognition in a town the size of Heavenly, especially when half the town won’t speak to him.”

  She swiveled her body around so as to afford an easier view of the woman who’d been her most treasured confidante since childhood. “Go on…”

  “Don’t you see? He came back here to make himself whole again. Though I’ll admit, until you told me about him and Martha, I’d have said it could never happen. But now, who knows? If they’re careful and don’t let the word out, maybe he can forge some sort of relationship with her again.”

  “Whole?” she whispered.

  “Losing something that matters to you—something that helped make you who you are—has a way of making a person feel less whole. You know, like something important is missing from who you are. And with that missing part, it’s hard to ever imagine truly being who you want to be in the future.

  “Sometimes, that missing part is acceptance—either from one’s self or someone else. Sometimes that missing part is a connection to something else…like a person or an event. Jakob’s missing part is his relationship with his family. Whether that can be satisfied by simply reestablishing a relationship with Martha remains to be seen. But I suspect he wants to put his own heart back together again before he can truly give it to you. Just like you need to put your heart back together before you can truly give it to him or anyone else.”

  It made sense. It really did. But still, her heart ached. She didn’t want him to shut her out while he made himself whole. Then again, if there was even a chance he was doing all of this for her, how could she judge when her own heart still held such a question mark when it came to Jakob?

  And Benjamin?

  “Give him a chance to make that connection, Claire. I suspect it will make all the difference in the world. For him and for you.”

  Chapter 27

  She was tossing the day’s trash into the Dumpster behind the shop when she heard the approaching clip-clop of a buggy in the alley. The telltale sound, coupled with the noon hour, meant one of the Miller brothers had arrived to check on Ruth and the bake shop next door.

  On one hand, she hoped for Esther’s sake it was Eli. Maybe then
, she could take comfort in the Eli-induced smile Esther would surely wear in response. And then, with any luck, that same smile would help rid Claire—at least temporarily—of the guilt she felt where her friend’s continued and needless worry over Martha was concerned.

  On the other hand, though, she couldn’t help but hope it was Benjamin. Her own heart, if not her psyche as a whole, needed that.

  “Good afternoon, Claire.”

  She sucked in her breath at the indisputable effect Benjamin’s voice had on her demeanor and turned around, raising a hand in greeting as she did. “Benjamin…hi.”

  He reached behind his seat and retrieved a hand-tied bouquet of wildflowers before stepping down out of the buggy.

  “Oh, Ruth will love those,” she gushed. “I always love looking out the side window of my shop and seeing the flowers she likes to put in her own window. They brighten my day. Esther’s, too.”

  “I hope that is true.” With an uncertainty that was unfamiliar to Benjamin’s gait, he stepped forward and held the flowers in Claire’s direction. “These are not for Ruth. They are for you.”

  She looked from Benjamin to the flowers and back again before waving his words away. “No. I wasn’t hinting for you to give them to me when I said that about Ruth. I was just admiring how pretty her flowers always are.”

  The bouquet did not move. Nor did Benjamin’s steadfast focus on her face. “I do not bring flowers to Ruth. She makes Eli stop the buggy each morning and she gets down and picks them herself.” He took a step closer, his arm still outstretched. “I picked these. For you.”

  Feeling her hands begin to tremble, she clasped them behind her back only to unlink them again and reach for the bouquet. “I…I don’t know what to say. They’re…beautiful.”

  A slow smile started at the left corner of Benjamin’s mouth and grew until it encompassed his large blue eyes, as well. “I am glad.”

  There was so much she wanted to know. From Benjamin and from herself. Why had he brought flowers? Did he have feelings for her the way she suspected he did? And how could she go from feeling so blue over Jakob to being so elated over a gesture that could go no further?

  Pushing the pointless questions from her thoughts, she brought the bouquet to her nose and sniffed. “Mmmm…they smell wonderful.”

  He scrunched up his face and shrugged. “I know they bring bees. Two, actually.”

  She had to laugh at his honesty. “I’ll keep them inside, where only I can smell them. Well, and Esther, I guess.”

  “Is Esther inside?” he asked.

  “She is.” She inhaled the sweet smell of her unexpected bouquet one more time and then beckoned him to follow her to the shop’s back door. “Would you like to talk to her?”

  He remained rooted where he stood, glancing between Heavenly Treasures and the Shoo Fly Bake Shoppe as she waited for him to follow. “I would like to talk to you, Claire, if I may.”

  Again she waved him over. “Sure. C’mon inside. That way I can put these in water and you don’t have to keep standing there with the sun in your eyes.”

  “In private. Please.”

  She paused her hand on the handle of the screen door and searched his face for anything that might indicate what he wanted to talk about, but there was nothing. Nothing beyond the fidgety hands that hung by his sides, anyway. “Is everything okay?”

  When he didn’t offer an immediate answer, she let go of the door and retraced her steps back to where she’d been standing when he offered her the flowers. “Something came up with Daniel or Isaac, didn’t it?”

  “No.”

  “Is Eli okay?” She heard the panic in her voice and followed it up with a silent prayer that everything was alright. Esther didn’t need anything else on her plate.

  “Yah. Eli is fine.”

  “Ruth?”

  “Ruth is fine, as well.”

  She’d run out of reasons for Benjamin’s request and was left with nothing to do but wait. After a moment or two, he pointed to the line of trees beyond Claire’s shop.

  “You want to talk back there?”

  “There is a bench to sit on. Eli helped me make it two years ago when Mr. Snow first opened his shop here. It is not far.”

  She fell into step behind him as he led the way to the tree line that ran along the back of each and every shop on the southern side of Lighted Way. When they reached the edge of the woods, he used his hand to tuck a few low-lying branches from her path. “See? It is there.”

  “Oh, Benjamin, this is lovely,” she mused as she stepped through the opening he provided and stopped beside the sturdy wooden bench. Looking around, she couldn’t help but feel the quiet intimacy of their surroundings.

  “Please. Sit.”

  When she’d situated herself on the bench with the bouquet still clutched in her hands, he leaned against a tree that afforded the best view of Claire. “I do not think Ruth must worry any longer.”

  “You mean Esther?”

  “Esther does not worry. Ruth worries.”

  She considered correcting him, but let it go when she realized she couldn’t. Not if she was going to keep Jakob and Martha’s secret from yet another person. “Why is Ruth worried?”

  “She worries for me.”

  And then she remembered. Ruth worried about Benjamin living out the rest of his life alone…

  A sick feeling began to grow in her stomach as she realized what he’d just said. “And she doesn’t need to worry about you any longer?” she repeated even as her mind started cycling through the various Amish women who may have staked a claim on Benjamin’s heart. None of them, though, made any sense. Not when they’d been there all along and no one—not even Ruth or Esther—had ever mentioned them in relation to Benjamin.

  “Seeing Jakob around town the past two months, I see such a life is possible. I do not know what I would do, but I am good with my hands. Because of that, I, too, can make a living.”

  “A living?”

  “I could even run the store when there are children, too.”

  “Children?” she asked. “What children?”

  “The ones we will have.”

  She blinked once, twice. “We?”

  “Yah.”

  The flowers began to shake along with her hand as the reality of what Benjamin was saying finally began to seep into her thoughts, bringing with it a mixture of hope and dread as well as a reply she knew she had to give.

  “Benjamin, you were baptized. You are Amish. You can’t change that.”

  He pushed off the tree and came to sit beside her on the bench, his eyes wide as they focused on hers. “Jakob was Amish, too. He changed.”

  She set the flowers on the bench between them and searched for a way to address Benjamin’s statement without giving away more of her tortured heart than she was ready to reveal. “He did, but at a great personal cost that he can never recoup.”

  Benjamin’s brows furrowed beneath the brim of his hat. “He is not happy being a policeman?”

  That she couldn’t answer. She thought Jakob was happy, but now she wasn’t sure. “I think he is,” she said honestly, “but I can’t answer for Jakob. What I do know is that he misses his family terribly and that’s something he can never get back.”

  “I would manage,” he said.

  “You really think you’d be okay not talking to Eli ever again?” she challenged, even as her voice broke at the knowledge that she was deliberately trying to shut the door on the affections of a wonderful man. A man who listened when she spoke, a man who made her feel as if she was someone special, a man who brought a flutter to her heart she couldn’t deny. “Because…I don’t. And Eli needs you. He needs your direction, your support, your encouragement, your love.”

  Benjamin bristled at her side. “Eli would manage.”

  “And Ruth? What about Ruth?”

  “She would not worry for me anymore.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. But she’d ache from missing you. She’d ache not being able to
be a part of your children’s lives. You know that as well as I do, Benjamin.”

  For a long moment, he said nothing, the pain in his eyes filling in where he had no words. When he finally did speak, his voice quickly mirrored his tortured expression. “If I do not leave, we can not be together.”

  “We can be friends. Like we are now.” Yet even as she uttered the sentiment aloud, she knew the easy relationship they’d shared over the past two months had been forever altered by a bouquet of flowers and an impossible dream.

  * * *

  Claire was grateful when five o’clock brought both an end to Esther’s shift and the chance to finally ponder the way her world had changed in the blink of an eye.

  Twenty-four hours earlier, she’d harbored feelings for two very different men—one she knew she could never be with, and one who seemed to be pushing her away without so much as a second thought or an explanation of any sort. Now, thanks to a roundabout reason guessed at by Diane and a suggestion that simply couldn’t happen, her friendship with those same two men was on shaky ground at best.

  She tried to tell herself it didn’t matter, that she was thriving in Heavenly long before either came into her life, but she knew it was a lie. Heavenly was special because of Diane and Esther. But it was magical because of Jakob and Benjamin.

  “Miss Weatherly?”

  She lifted her head from its resting spot atop her metal desk then sat up tall, the identity of the man standing in her office doorway sending an unexplained shiver down her spine. “Isaac?”

  “Yah. It is me.” He hooked the thumb of his right hand toward the door. “I knocked. You did not come.”

  “I’m sorry. I was lost in thought, I guess.” She scooted her chair back from the desk and stood, pointing at the leather-bound album in his left hand as she did. “What’s that?”

  He looked down at the album and swallowed. “It is for my father’s wife. I think it might be best for her to have now that he is gone.”

  She took the album from his outstretched hand and gently fingered the cover. “It’s a photo album.”