“Whoa there, Dinah!” Ira called out as he grabbed the leather lines in both hands. “Gee, girl! Steady now—steady—”
Whack! With a loud, sickening crack, one wheel of the buggy ran over a rock as they went off the side of the road. Millie dropped the soda can to grab Ira and the back of the seat, letting the cooler slide off her lap as they lurched to a halt behind the snorting, stomping mare. The car whizzed past them.
Millie’s heart was pounding so hard and fast, she could barely breathe. “Oh, Ira, I’m sorry!” she wailed. “The soda can must’ve gotten all shook up when—”
“Just be thankful we’re still in the buggy,” he rasped. “I wasn’t sure I was gonna get Dinah off the road in time. We’d better climb out, in case that wheel decides to give. Sit tight—I’ll help ya down.”
The buggy was tilted precariously toward the ditch, so Ira stepped carefully over Millie’s lap and jumped to the shoulder of the road. He reached up for her, his face taut. Once her feet found the pavement, Millie dared to think about what might have happened. She envisioned Ira and herself flung out into the bushes, maybe thrown against the thick trunks of the trees, perhaps with the buggy overturned on top of them—with Dinah crying out in agony. It happened sometimes.
She grabbed Ira around the waist and buried her face against his chest. “This was all my fault. And now we’re out in the middle of nowhere—”
“Shhh,” he murmured as he held her close. “It was a close call, jah, but the thanks go to God for gettin’ us out of it unharmed. Not the first time I’ve had a horse spook on me, and it won’t be the last.”
Millie inhaled deeply to get control of her tears and her racing pulse. It wasn’t Ira’s way to talk about God’s assistance, yet it soothed her to hear such reassurances and to know he wasn’t angry about the shaken-up soda. After he released her, Ira settled Dinah, stroking the mare’s muscled neck and talking softly to her. When he went around behind the rig, his groan told the tale.
“We’re goin’ nowhere on this busted wheel,” he announced. “It took a nasty hit when we went over that rock.”
Millie drooped. The breeze had stopped, and even though the roadside was shady, the afternoon heat and humidity were becoming very uncomfortable. “Um, got your cell phone?”
“Nope,” Ira replied with a rueful chuckle. “I know better than to let Aunt Naz or Ben see it on me during church. It’s at home on the charger.”
Millie sighed. Even though it was getting more common for kids in their rumspringa to carry cell phones, Atlee and Dawdi had strictly forbidden her to have one. Ira and Luke got by with having cell phones because they used them for their business calls. If they joined the church, Bishop Tom would expect them to forego the portable phones in favor of a landline in a phone shanty by the road.
“So I guess we’ll wait for somebody to stop,” she murmured. Millie glanced into the tilting rig, where the overturned cooler lay in a puddle of melting ice. Slices of ham, smashed deviled eggs, and several broken cookies were strewn on the floor around it. “I sure made a mess of your rig. Not to mention our lunch.”
Ira glanced at their ruined picnic, shrugging. “We can clean that up—but we’d better start walking. Who knows how long we’d have to wait? And what would we do about Dinah, if a car stopped for us?”
He squinted up through the sun-dappled canopy of the trees. “It’s nearly two o’clock. The buggy will roll along all right without our weight in it. Maybe by the time we reach that gas station we passed a while back, somebody’ll be home from church to answer their phone and help us.”
Or not, she thought glumly. When Ira got the horse turned around, Millie fell into step beside him, hoping a car wouldn’t come around the curves too fast while they walked along the shoulder of the road.
A fine sight we make in our church clothes, gettin’ all sweaty. These Sunday shoes are startin’ to pinch like the dickens. Sure wish I had a cup to catch some of the ice on the buggy floor . . .
Chapter Fourteen
Luke steered his gelding onto the county blacktop that would be the final leg of their trip home from Cedar Creek. While Nora’s earlier offer to drive them in her car had sounded like fun, she’d told him flat out that he wouldn’t be taking the wheel even though he’d been a pretty fine driver when he’d had a car as a teenager. She’d said it was a matter of insurance, but he figured it for a control issue—so he’d taken control by driving a rig today.
“Are you going to sit with that sketch pad in your lap for the rest of the way home?” he hinted. “By my last count you had at least a dozen new hangings drawn out.”
Nora’s smile teased at him. “Denki for suggesting this field trip. I’d forgotten how scenic these back roads are—and when I make hangings that include specific objects or places that local folks recognize, they sell better,” she remarked as her pencil moved across the page. “Vernon’s stone silo is a great example of that, just like your mill is. It reminds English customers of simpler times and a lifestyle they’d like to try. Or they can say they’ve been to the place on the hanging.”
Luke couldn’t help himself. Little beads of moisture dotted the rim of Nora’s upper lip, and he wanted to keep her talking so he could watch her mouth. Had she been any other woman, he would already have kissed her several times, but something in Nora’s tawny eyes warned him that she wasn’t the type to suffer fools or to give in to every guy who wanted a sample. Her crazy-quilt cape dress pieced in prints of blues and greens announced that she was artsier than most folks, yet in her crisp white kapp she’d looked as demure as any other woman sitting in church. Even though she wasn’t wearing a trace of makeup, he’d found Nora the most desirable woman in the Mennonite congregation this morning . . . the most enticing female he’d met in a long, long while.
“And then there’s Vernon himself,” Nora continued as she flipped to a fresh page. “Had I grown up with him for a bishop, I might have returned to Willow Ridge after Millie was born. Maybe joined the Amish church,” she speculated in a faraway voice. “Your Aunt Jerusalem’s lucky to be married to him. They seem as happy as a couple of kids.”
Luke immediately recognized the face, hair, and beard taking shape as her pencil flickered across the paper. No two ways about it: Nora was a talented artist who could probably make a living with her pencil if she hadn’t chosen to open a store.
Nora sighed as she sketched in the details of Vernon Gingerich’s crow’s-feet and wispy white beard. “I think I could’ve gone to Vernon after my ordeal with Tobias Borntreger and I believe he would’ve listened to me. What a wise, patient man he is. What a compelling, eloquent voice he has—and those baby blues!” she added with a rise of her eyebrows. “Why, he could pass for Santa Claus or—or God! When I imagine what God looks like, He has a very similar appearance, except He’s more stern and forbidding.”
“That’s how the Old Testament and the preachers present Him,” Luke remarked, although religion wasn’t what he wanted to talk about. “After all, He wiped out all but Noah’s family with a forty-day flood, and ordered Abraham to kill his son. And He gave Moses that list of thou-shalt-nots, which pretty much guaranteed that everyone thereafter would lead guilt-infested lives.”
Nora’s laughter did funny things to Luke’s insides. She looked up from her sketch, her hazel eyes aglow. “I just met Vernon today, yet I sense he cuts through the guilt and gets right to the forgiveness part.” She let out a pensive sigh. “My life would be so different now if my father had had the same sort of mind-set sixteen years ago.”
Luke nodded, focusing on the road. How could he change the subject? Once Nora had shared her unfortunate fall from grace with him, along with a sketchy account of her marriage and divorce, he’d figured she was lonely, rattling around in that big house . . . eager for company. Never had he guessed that a sketch pad would beat him out for her attention today—especially after he’d gone to church with her!
“Where’d you learn to draw so well?” he asked, figuring a
compliment would appeal to her.
Nora shrugged, flipping to another fresh page in the spiral-bound pad. “I loved fiddling with art supplies when I was growing up. But of course I did my drawing in the privacy of my room because Dat thought art served no practical purpose for an Amish girl.”
“Ah, the things we did in our rooms when we were kids,” Luke murmured.
Nora’s knowing smirk made him laugh. “I bet you and Ira were incorrigible as teenagers. Puh—you still are!”
“What can I say? We Hooleys kept the roads hot and we never left singings—or any other activity—alone.” Luke sucked in his breath and let it out slowly. “Okay, I’m just going to flat out ask you. What’s it take to get to first base with you, Nora? You’ve been deflecting my—”
“What do you consider first base?”
The wide-eyed expression on Nora’s face made Luke kick himself for asking such a crude question. Did she expect him to spell out every little detail? Or was she covering for not knowing what first base meant? Maybe being sent away at sixteen to have a baby had robbed her of that experimental dating time in her life.
Her English husband had surely put some moves on her while they were dating.
“Maybe I’d like to be . . . wooed,” Nora murmured, lingering on that final word. “This time around I’m not going to accept everything an eligible guy dishes up just because he can. Seems like every man I meet expects me to respond with a passion that matches his, even if that’s not what I feel.”
She put her pencil down to nail him with a direct gaze. “I have a lousy track record when it comes to romance, and I’ve finally realized it’s because the men got to do all the choosing,” Nora confided in a low voice. “Well, no more. From here on out, Luke, it’s all about me. And if that means you don’t want to take me out anymore because I’m a waste of your time and effort, then that’s the way the cookie crumbles. Just sayin’.”
So much for Nora being lonely. Or needy. Luke looked straight ahead, keeping his expression unchanged. He wanted to set this outspoken, self-centered, arrogant woman out on the side of the road, because nobody turned him down that way.
Yet Nora’s candid words resonated with a challenge, just as they had when she’d teased him into taking her to church. Luke relaxed, his gaze following the steady movement of his gelding’s sleek, muscled haunches. She probably thinks I’m acting like a horse’s backside.
Nora’s voice cut into his thoughts. “Thanks for asking about my preferences, Luke.” She sounded wistful rather than willful. Totally sincere. “You’ve probably saved us both a lot of stupid moves and heartache. I hope my response didn’t—”
Nora leaned forward, shading her eyes with her hand. “Looks like somebody’s had buggy trouble.”
Luke, too, was gazing at the pair leading a horse ahead of an open rig that was missing a back wheel. “Is that Ira and Millie? Not many fellows wear their straw hats cocked back at that angle.”
Nora sat on the seat’s edge, her face tight with concern. “Awfully hot to be hiking along this blacktop. We don’t have room for both of them in your buggy—”
“We’ll figure something out.” As he clucked for his gelding to go faster, Luke thought of a way to make this situation work to his advantage. He put two fingers to his lips and whistled loudly. “Ira Hooley!” he hollered.
The two walkers turned around. Relief and another emotion he couldn’t yet identify lit their sweaty faces as Luke pulled his rig ahead of them. He stopped on the shoulder of the road.
“Millie and Ira! What happened?” Nora asked as she stepped down to the blacktop. “Are you all right?”
Millie’s eyes were wide and her freckles looked ready to pop off her nose. “I was openin’ a can of soda and when it sprayed, the mare spooked—”
“And you just happened to be out riding on this road this afternoon?” Luke quizzed his brother as he, too, hopped down to the pavement.
Ira bit back a grin, knowing he’d been caught, while Millie gawked at her black shoes. “That’s my doin’, too,” she confessed. “So now you’ll think I’m a nosy, pryin ’—”
“I think you and I will stand in the shade while the guys figure out how to get us home,” Nora interrupted smoothly. She slung her arm around Millie’s shoulders and steered the girl into the shadow of some nearby cottonwoods and cedars.
Ordinarily Luke would’ve accused Ira and his girlfriend of spying, yet he held his tongue. Mother and daughter were together, speaking in low tones as their kapps bobbed in unison. Here was his chance to earn a few points, because even if Nora insisted she wasn’t into game-playing, she was keeping score. Every woman did.
“So what happened?” Luke asked his younger brother. As Ira recounted the accident that could have had much nastier consequences, Luke fished around in the back compartment of his buggy. “Here’s enough rope to hook your rig to my trailer hitch,” he said, pointing to the metal ball mounted on his rig’s underside. “Will you be all right riding Dinah without a bridle?”
“I’ve got a halter and a lead rope in the back of my rig, so I can make do,” Ira replied. “But what about Millie? I don’t think Dinah will tolerate havin’ both of us on her back.”
“Millie’s riding with us.” Luke glanced toward Nora and her daughter, lowering his voice. “I see it as a way to finally get her gorgeous, skittish, willful mother to sit close to me—but you didn’t hear me say that.”
“Ah. Slow date, eh?”
“It’s picking up. Let’s go,” Luke murmured as the two of them unhitched Dinah from the crippled rig. “The sun’s going to fry us if we’re out here much longer. Glad I brought an enclosed buggy today.”
After they fastened Ira’s rig to Luke’s and adjusted the halter and lead rope into a makeshift bridle on Dinah, they were ready to roll. Luke smiled to himself as Millie preceded her mother to sit against the left side of the rig. When three people rode in a vehicle this small, the middle one had to sit forward on the seat. Nora would have no choice but to ride with her hip against his thigh, in constant contact with him all the way back to Willow Ridge.
“Geddap, now,” Luke called his gelding. It would be slower going because they were hauling the extra weight of Ira’s rig, but he was enjoying the sound of Nora’s voice—the expressions on her face and Millie’s as they looked at Nora’s sketches, and the way her clean fragrance wafted around him. The only way to make a little more space was for Luke to turn slightly sideways and slip his arm behind Nora as he took the lines in his right hand.
“So you make your sketches and then trace the main pieces to cut out the appliqués?” Millie asked. “Oh, look at these cute cows! Sort of like Bishop Tom’s herd—except he doesn’t have such a pretty wooden fence.”
“Jah, Vernon’s cows are Black Angus, and I figure to cut them from different black calicos and little prints,” Nora replied eagerly. “The red barn with the gambrel roof and the stone silo will look so cool alongside them! I’ll get some little silk flowers to sprinkle in the grass after I embroider it with different shades of green, and—”
“How do you think of this stuff ?” Millie asked. Her eyes, so like Nora’s, were wide with wonder.
Nora shrugged modestly. “I’ve been making dimensional banners and hangings for a long time,” she replied. “I don’t know exactly how my pictures fall together. My mind just works that way.”
“Wow.” Millie sighed. “I didn’t get any of that talent from ya, I guess.”
“As we spend more time together, though, I bet we’ll find we have a lot of things in common,” Nora said tenderly. “Even though I’ve not been around my mamm for a good many years, I still find myself doing and saying things like she does. Little stuff, mostly. There’s no getting away from it.”
Luke couldn’t help feeling good about the way Nora and Millie were sharing this quiet conversation. Maybe it was one of those instances where fate and faith had stepped in—even though he knew Ira and Millie had been hoping to spy on him and No
ra. When they came to a long straightaway without any oncoming traffic, he pivoted to peer through the open rear window. “You all right, Ira?” he called out.
His brother waved. Despite his hat, his face was getting sunburned and he looked awfully hot in his black vest and trousers. “I’m thinkin’ a stop at the ice cream place up ahead would be a gut idea,” he replied. “I’ll treat. And maybe we can find a hydrant so the horses can drink.”
“Ice cream!” Millie said. “Now that’s the best idea I’ve heard all day. Our picnic got tossed to the floor when we went off the road.”
“Truth be told, I could use a burger, some fries, and a tall, cold soda before I enjoy that ice cream,” Luke remarked. “The picnic your mamm and I shared is long gone, and it’ll be a while before we’re home.”
“Fabulous! And we can sit indoors where it’s air-conditioned,” Nora said. She flickered her eyebrows at him. “I don’t know about you, Mr. Hooley, but I could use some cooling off.”
Luke laughed out loud. While he’d never considered going on a double date with a mother and her daughter, the day was working out better than it might have.
When they pulled off the road at the Jerzee Creem, Luke assumed that Nora dashed inside because she had to use the restroom—but she came out with two big plastic bins they could use to water the horses, from a spigot on the side of the building.
“And how’d you get ahold of these?” he asked her.
Nora shrugged. “I asked. The young man at the counter was obviously a victim of my freckle-faced charm and persuasive ways.”
Luke could’ve kissed her. He loved the playful tone of Nora’s teasing, and the way she and Millie stayed outside with him and Ira until both horses had drunk their fill and been tied to trees, in the shade. Did he dare think of this as a family gathering? Could he dream ahead to spending more time with Nora and Millie keeping him and his brother company? It wasn’t the sort of date he would have found appealing when he was younger—but then, he’d not found himself in such a compelling situation before.
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