"You can have a lovely time with her then."
"That's why Isaac and I aren't leaving to go traveling tomorrow. I wanted the two of us to spend some time with her first."
"I guess she’ll miss you terribly." Lucy knew it would be hard for Hazel’s mother because Hazel was her only child.
"She will. She’s already missed me since I’ve been here for work."
Hazel took a mouthful of food while Lucy stuck her fork into the mashed potatoes. Then Isaac said something to Hazel and they giggled with each other like a couple of lovebirds. Lucy looked around to see where Levi had chosen to sit. She spotted him sitting with his brothers at the far end of the yard. As soon as it was polite to do so, she’d leave Hazel and sit with Levi for a few minutes.
Chapter 3
Levi sat waiting for Lucy to come and sit by him.
"Isaac’s the first of us to get married. Who will be next?" his youngest brother, Benjamin, asked.
"Who will be next to fall off the perch?" Timothy laughed.
"It took him long enough," Jacob said.
"That's because he didn't have the right girl," Benjamin, the youngest, said. “I knew Hazel was a good girl. If he didn’t marry her, I would’ve.”
The brothers laughed at him.
“You wouldn’t have had a chance,” Samuel told him.
Jacob laughed the loudest, and then said, “Nee, you wouldn’t have had a chance, Benjamin. You’re barely out of diapers. She wants to have a boppli, not marry one.”
Benjamin was the only one who didn’t find that funny. “I’m old enough. Anyway,
let's make our predictions of who will be next."
“Ah, but whoever he is, will he take as long as Isaac did?” Samuel asked.
“And then change his mind at the last minute?” Jacob added.
"It’s logical that it'll have to be Levi because he's the only one of us with a girlfriend," Timothy pointed out.
"The only one with a girlfriend that he's had for longer than a week." Benjamin chuckled. "Not like the two of you." He nodded his head at Timothy and Jacob.
"They're not your girlfriend if you only take them for one buggy ride," Jacob said.
Benjamin shook his head. "Perhaps you should be more choosy who you take for a buggy ride."
Jacob scowled at him. "What do you mean?"
"I don't think you should take every girl in the community for a buggy ride."
"Why not?"
"Because soon you’ll have taken them all out and then you'll have no one left."
Levi leaned forward. "I don't think this is the time or the place that you should be discussing these things."
"We're only joking around. Don't take things too seriously," Jacob told him.
"Just because Isaac will be gone for a few weeks, he figures he has to step into the role as the oldest bruder," Timothy said.
“Yeah, don’t try to act like Isaac.” Jacob chuckled.
Levi shook his head. His brothers were impossible sometimes. "I'm just trying to give you some advice. If someone overhears you, they’ll get the wrong idea."
“And will that be our fault, or theirs?" Benjamin asked.
"You know what the word says about offending people," Levi said.
"Levi's right," said Samuel. "We should save this kind of talk for later."
"All right, but just don't take everything so seriously, Levi, like Jacob just said. That’s all I’m saying," Benjamin said.
"I'll keep that in mind. Advice from the youngest son must be so valuable."
“Out of the mouths of babes,” Benjamin said with a grin.
Levi ignored his brothers and looked over at Lucy sitting at the wedding table. Sometimes he liked to stare at her and appreciate how pretty she was. The way her eyes sparkled melted his heart. When he caught her eye, she pushed out her chair and then whispered something to Hazel. Hazel nodded, and when Lucy stood up, he knew she was heading his way.
He moved away from his brothers to the other end of the table to make room for Lucy. When he looked back, he saw that his mother had intercepted her and now they were talking to each other.
As he stared at his mother's face, he tried to gauge from her expression what she was saying, but he couldn't. His mother was very forceful and had a way of trying to make everyone do exactly what she wanted. Levi knew that Lucy hadn't wanted to be Hazel's bridesmaid, not when she was Mary Lou's best friend. Lucy would have known Mary Lou wouldn't want her to have anything to do with Isaac's wedding.
Everyone knew Mary Lou would’ve been upset by Isaac’s sudden marriage to Hazel, and none of Mary Lou's family was at the wedding. To make matters worse, Mary Lou had left the community. Even though she had left the community after her dalliance with an Englischer while she was dating his brother, Levi was still a little shocked that his brother’s marriage to Hazel had been so quick. Isaac didn't normally do things quickly. He was a plodder, a thinker, so why had he rushed in so fast to marry Hazel?
Finally, Lucy and Levi’s mother finished their conversation and Lucy made her way over to him.
“Hello,” he said.
“Hi.”
When she sat down next to him, he asked, “What did my mudder want?”
“Nothing. She just said hello and asked how things were.”
“What kind of things?” He knew there was a lot more to it than that. He guessed his mother was still bothered about the accident with the plates, and the two girls not having breakfast with the rest of the family.
She shrugged her shoulders. “This and that.”
“Such as?” he asked, wondering why she was being so secretive.
“Nothing about you and me, if that’s what you were wondering.” Lucy managed a smile. “Nee, it was just about Hazel. I think she’s concerned that Hazel doesn’t know many people and she wants things to be more comfortable for her. I said I’d do my best to befriend her. I’m already doing that, so I’m not sure why she asked me again. She also didn’t want me to think she was cranky with me.”
“When you broke all our plates?”
She playfully slapped his arm. “I didn’t break all your plates. Anyway, who said I broke any?”
He chuckled. “I heard all about it.”
Lucy sighed and then looked down at the table.
Normally Lucy smiled and was happy all the time. Today she looked glum. “Why aren’t you happy today, Lucy?”
Lucy looked over at Levi. “I am happy.”
“Nee you’re not. You can’t fool me. What’s got you so upset?”
There was that incident with his mother that morning, and his older brother was marrying Hazel rather than her good friend, Mary Lou. How could he expect her to look as though she was enjoying herself?
“I’m not upset, not really.”
He lowered his head and fastened his eyes upon her as he waited for her to speak. He knew her too well.
She had to be honest with him. “I’m getting to know Hazel and I’m liking her more the more time I spend with her, but I can’t help feeling that Mary Lou didn’t get a fair chance.”
“To do with what?” Levi drew his dark eyebrows together.
“Hazel arrived and then Mary Lou was moved into second place. Mary Lou and Isaac had been together for two whole years and that’s a long time.”
“They were together for quite a while, that’s true, but what you just said is not the way I heard things worked out. I’m fairly certain Mary Lou left the community first and then Hazel and Isaac got together after that.”
“She only left because she knew what was going to happen between Hazel and Isaac. She saw the writing on the wall.”
“Either way, it’s not Hazel’s fault,” Levi said.
“Do you mean it’s your bruder’s fault?”
“Nee, it’s no one’s. Hazel and Isaac are meant to be together. He told me last night that they met a long time ago—years ago and he never forgot her. As a young teenager, he asked her to marry him and then they drift
ed apart and lost touch. From what he said, they met for just one day and fell in love.”
Lucy stared into his eyes. “If he was so in love with Hazel and it was love at first sight, why was he dating Mary Lou?”
“He thought he’d never find Hazel again. He was so young when they met. He said he didn’t think he’d ever feel like that with anyone again.”
“And how do you know all this?” Lucy asked.
“I just told you that. He told me last night. We were up pretty late.”
Lucy fixed her lips tightly together. “It sounds silly. He doesn’t sound like a real man. I’m sorry, I know he’s your bruder and everything, but it’s weird to ask someone he didn’t know really well to marry him after stringing Mary Lou along for two years. For two whole years. He kept her off the market and now she’s so much older.” Everyone knew it was always harder to find a spouse the older one got, and it was especially true for women.
Levi shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. It’s not for you or me to tell him how to think and feel.”
She looked down at his plate of food. It was some of her favorites, bologna and creamed celery, but she’d lost her appetite out of sadness for her best friend.
“Are you still in touch with Mary Lou?” he asked.
She looked into his bright blue eyes. “I saw her in town once. She gave me the number of her cell phone.”
“Is she coming back to the community?”
“She’s left, so she might never come back. I have a feeling she’ll be back, though, and when I have a strong feeling about something, I’m always right.”
He chuckled as though she was exaggerating.
“She’s still upset over what happened with Isaac.”
“Why? She’s the one who ended their relationship and she’s the one who broke up with Isaac.”
Lucy didn’t like what he was saying. “Is that true?”
He nodded. “As far as I know. That’s what I heard.”
She repeated how she felt at the risk of upsetting him. “I think your bruder treated her unfairly and that’s why she left. Why would she come back? He let her go on for two years believing he was going to marry her. She could’ve married half a dozen other men, but she waited for him because he’d made promises and now look at what happened. He married a completely different woman.” She looked over at Isaac and Hazel who were staring into each other’s eyes and whispering. It should’ve been Mary Lou.
“I’ve never heard you talk like this.” Levi spoke in a quiet voice.
She blinked hard. “I’m just saying what’s on my mind, that’s all.”
“It sounds to me like you’re trying to say that my bruder did something bad, or wrong, and he didn’t.”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s a matter of opinion.”
“If the bishop had thought Isaac had done something wrong, he wouldn’t have married Hazel and Isaac.”
“Perhaps the bishop doesn’t know the true story.”
Levi shook his head. “I want to be happy today. Happy for Isaac and my new schweschder-in-law. He deserves happiness. He’s waited so long to find the right woman and now he has. I want to be happy for him. And I can’t be happy for him while you’re in this sullen mood with your crazy ideas.”
“You should try to understand how I feel. You should at least attempt to see things from my point of view. Mary Lou was my best friend and she did nothing wrong.”
He shrugged. “That’s not what I heard.”
“What did you hear?”
“Forget it.”
Her voice rose just slightly. “What did you hear?”
He looked from side to side, and then said, “I said forget it.”
“You can’t say something like that and then just say forget it.”
“Keep your voice down, people are starting to look,” he hissed.
She stood up and smoothed down her special blue dress. “I’m going back to sit at the wedding table if I’m bringing down your good mood and your happiness level.”
“Good, I was just about to suggest that myself.”
She walked away and sat back down next to Hazel. Looking down at the food on the table in front of her, she stuck in her fork and ate a bit of roasted chicken that had grown cold. Then she forced herself to chew even though her stomach was churning. She wanted to be anywhere other than here, at this wedding. She turned back to Levi to see him with his head down, eating. He’d moved back to the other end of the table, closer to his brothers.
Maybe she could’ve waited until after the wedding to express her views, but still, he'd asked what was wrong with her. Now she was questioning their whole relationship. If there was one thing that was important to her in a husband it was that he be supportive of her. Levi wasn’t being that way—he wasn’t even trying to understand how she felt. Even if he didn’t agree with her, he still should’ve been supportive. And besides that, he told her Mary Lou had left the community and then they’d broken up. Someone wasn’t telling the truth about the situation. And what did he know about Mary Lou that he'd refused to tell her?
Hazel turned to her. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah, everything’s fine. I’m sorry I moved away from the table here. I hope you didn’t mind, but I just wanted to talk to Levi for a while.”
“I don’t mind at all, but I’m glad you’re back.”
Hazel was so nice that Lucy felt a little bad for abandoning her just now, and for not being totally happy for her. “I guess I haven’t been the best wedding attendant.”
“Oh, you have. I don’t know how I would’ve coped without you keeping me calm last night and entertaining me this morning. I think we gave Isaac’s mudder an awful fright.”
Lucy giggled and put her finger up to her mouth giving her the sign to be quiet. She didn’t want Isaac to hear what Hazel had just said about his mother. “She doesn’t like me, I can tell you that, and I haven’t done anything to her,” Lucy whispered.
“Maybe she’s just like that with everyone.”
“Not with you,” Lucy said. “I can tell she likes you.”
“I hope she does.”
“She just doesn’t like my whole family, not really,” Lucy whispered and then she remembered they’d already had a similar conversation that morning, not long after they’d woken up.
“Do you want to try some different food?” Hazel asked, looking down at the nearly full plate in front of Lucy.
“I’ve eaten quite a bit. There was too much on my plate. I also ate before when I was talking to Levi. I’m not very hungry.”
Hazel put a hand over her stomach. “Me either. I’m still a bit nervous.” Just at that moment, Isaac said something to Hazel and Hazel had no choice but to turn away from Lucy.
Lucy glanced over at Levi to see him still at the same table, but now he was talking to their mutual friend, Nella. Lucy had always thought she’d marry Levi, but with his current attitude, she wasn’t so sure. She closed her eyes for a moment and imagined Mary Lou was marrying Isaac rather than Hazel. The wedding would have had a whole different feel and she’d be much happier if Isaac had married Mary Lou like he should’ve. When she looked back over at Levi again, she was most annoyed to see Levi still speaking to Nella—and they were laughing.
What would they have to laugh about? If she wasn’t having a disagreement with him right now, she would go back and find out.
Hazel turned back to face Lucy. “Who’s that girl talking to Levi?”
“That’s just a friend. Her name’s Nella.”
“That’s right, I remember now. I’ve met her before. I can’t remember everyone. I’m not used to a big community like this.”
“It won’t take too long to get to know everyone.”
“I hope not. Isaac and I will be back in two weeks, and then would you and Levi come over for dinner?”
Lucy looked over at Levi again and hoped things would be better between them in two weeks. They’d never had an argument before or even a cro
ss word. She wasn’t sure whether their argument was a final one that would end their relationship, or one that would be over in five minutes. “Denke, we’d love that. I’ll look forward to it.”
“Wunderbaar. I can’t wait to have you over for an evening meal. We’re not leaving for a couple of days because I wanted Isaac and I to spend time with my mother and aunt and onkel tonight before we go.”
“That sounds nice.”
She looked over at Hazel’s mother who was sitting with the bishop’s wife. Her mother looked older than she’d imagined Hazel’s mother would look, and she appeared quite frail. Lucy had heard about Hazel’s mother’s suicide attempt after her husband, Lucy’s father, had left them for the last time, so she felt very sorry for the woman.
Chapter 4
As soon as Lucy had walked away from Levi after their disagreement, he stood up to call her back. He could see she was upset, but Nella walking up to him prevented him from going after her. He went to step around Nella, but she spoke to him.
“Hi, Levi.”
He put his troubles aside for the moment. “Hi, Nella. What can I do for you?”
The dark lashes that framed her large brown eyes fluttered. “What makes you think I want you to do something for me?”
He chuckled. “That’s not what I meant. Sometimes I forget I'm not at work. Let me start again. Hi, Nella. How are you?”
“That’s better. I’m very well denke.”
“Glad to hear it.”
She giggled and pushed some chestnut-colored strands of hair back under her prayer kapp. “Actually, there is something you can do for me. Well, I hope you won’t mind doing it for me.”
“See, I knew it. I was right. What is it?”
“Well, it’s an awkward thing.”
He stared at her attractive face and knew she was worried about something. “You’ve started now, so you might as well finish.”
“It’s about Joshua.”
He shook his head at the mention of his younger brother closest to him in age. “What’s he done now?”
She giggled nervously and then swallowed hard. “Nothing. That's the problem. He won’t pay me any mind.”
His Amish Romance: Amish Romance (Seven Amish Bachelors Book 2) Page 2
