by Marta Perry
He shook his head, his eyes darkening. “I’m not free.”
“You’re not married,” she snapped back. This was about Mattie, of course.
He shook his head, misery in his face. “Katie, you don’t know what it’s like, everyone looking at me and knowing. Or thinking they know, which is just as bad. I can’t pull you into that.”
“Caleb, that’s not true.” She took a breath, trying to find the words for what she wanted to say. “I don’t know if we are meant to be together, but I would like the chance to find out.”
She only realized when she said the words how true they were. She had loved Eli, but losing him didn’t mean she could never love anyone else. She was ready now for a real new life, and it was being here and getting to know Caleb that had made her so.
“You don’t understand,” he said again, and she wanted to shake him.
“Stop it,” she said, astonished by the tartness of her voice. “You are a smart man. You must know, surely, in your heart, that no one condemns you.” Tears stung her eyes, but she wouldn’t let them fall. “But I think it’s true that you can’t move forward. Not until you know why it is that you condemn yourself.”
Before the tears could fall she turned and walked quickly away from him.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
By noon on Friday, Katie knew the Pennsylvania Dutch Days had met their hopes and expectations. Through the shop windows, she could see people wandering up and down Main Street . . . so many that Chief Walker had made a hasty decision to close off two blocks to cars and buggies.
The vendors adapted quickly, with many of the stands moving onto the street to provide space on the sidewalks. It was wonderful, seeing so many people working together to make this event happen so quickly.
Katie brought her attention back to the customer she was trying to help. “Now here is the Log Cabin Star pattern in blue, yellow, and white.” She turned back a quilt to expose the next one.
“Oh, it’s beautiful.”
Katie would be more encouraged by the words if the woman hadn’t said the same thing about every quilt she’d looked at so far.
“Ja, it is,” Katie agreed. “I made this one myself, with a little help from my mother and sisters on the quilting. It’s one of my favorite patterns. If you look very closely, you may be able to see a few differences in the quilting stitches, since they are all put in by hand.”
“Hal!” The woman called to her husband, who stood at the window looking out at the food stands. “Come and see this one. I think it’s the one.”
“You thought that about at least six of them.” The man smiled good-naturedly at Katie and dutifully admired the quilt. “Hurry it up, sweetheart. I want to get something to eat.”
Katie’s stomach growled in sympathy. She hadn’t eaten anything in hours. She didn’t mind letting Rhoda or Donna or Molly handle other sales, but she preferred to show the quilts herself.
Besides, it kept her mind occupied enough that she didn’t obsess about Caleb. The moment she told herself that, she knew it wasn’t true. Caleb was always there, lurking at the back of her mind, so that it seemed he was taking up residence there.
“Let me look at that one with the shades of brown and yellow in it again,” the customer said. “What did you call that design?”
“Sunshine and Shadows.” Katie dutifully flipped back to the quilt made by Caleb’s mother. “This was made by an older lady, a widow, in our community. She’s a very skillful quilter.”
“Lovely,” the woman crooned, stroking the pattern.
Naomi would be pleased if her quilt sold. She probably wouldn’t be pleased to know what Katie had said to her son.
Or would she? Surely Naomi wanted Caleb to come back to life again.
Still, Katie shouldn’t have said what she did. It had been hurtful, and even if Caleb needed to hear it, he certain sure didn’t need to hear it from her. They didn’t have the kind of relationship that would allow her to speak so. Two kisses didn’t make a close relationship.
But she and Caleb weren’t seventeen-year-olds, trying out falling in love and choosing a mate. They were older; they’d both experienced tragedies in love. Anything that happened between them had to be more serious.
“I just can’t decide,” the woman moaned.
“Sweetheart, lunch,” her husband pleaded. “Maybe we could go eat and then come back. That might help you make up your mind.”
And it might make her walk away without buying anything. Katie tried to resign herself. That was all part of running a quilt shop.
“I know what I’ll do.” The customer’s face lit up. “I’ll get both of them. One for our bedroom and one for the guest room. They’ll be perfect. You don’t mind, do you, Hal?”
Katie held her breath. Two quilts? Surely not.
“Anything that will get me to lunch.” He grinned at Katie again, getting out his wallet. “They are both real pretty.”
In a few minutes the transaction was done, and Katie still felt a bit dazed as she watched the couple walk out the door with the wrapped quilts. Two quilts in one sale. That in itself was enough to make this day worthwhile.
Donna, who’d been helping another customer, hurried over to her. “I thought that silly woman would never make up her mind. Go get some lunch before you fall down. No arguing, now.”
If Donna helped out in the store much, Katie suspected the woman would soon forget whose store it was. Still, Katie did feel as if her belly was bumping her backbone.
“Ja, denke. I will. I won’t be long. Shall I bring you something?”
“I’ll pop out for a minute when you get back.” Donna shooed her to the door.
Katie stepped outside into warm sunshine and a jostling, cheerful crowd. The mixed scents of funnel cakes, barbecue, sticky buns, corn chowder, and who knew what else assailed her. Every group in town, from the Volunteer Fire Company to the Methodist Ladies Circle to the PTA from the public school, had gotten in on the project. Like volunteer groups everywhere, they were old hands at raising money. Each group had its specialty, and none of them infringed on anyone else’s.
“Katie, this is a wonderful-gut turnout, ain’t so?” Rachel leaned over the counter of her stand, beaming. “It’s so much fun to do this right here instead of traveling to a Mud Sale. We’ll probably have even more folks tomorrow, it being Saturday.”
“Ja, I hope so.” Katie was about to ask Rachel how her sales were going when several women who’d been picking among Rachel’s herb plants came up with their selections, and Rachel turned to them.
Tempting as it was to stop and visit, Katie had better get her lunch and return to work. She slipped through the crowd and stopped at the Catholic Women’s Guild stand. Everyone said their sausage and pepper sandwiches were the best.
Moments later, holding a paper plate with an overstuffed roll in one hand and a can of soda in the other, Katie began navigating her way back to the store, taking care lest she drop sausage and peppers on someone’s clothing.
And then she saw him. Caleb, moving straight toward her. Her breath caught in her throat. He was looking down, frowning, and he hadn’t seen her yet. She waited until he was within a few feet of her. They couldn’t talk, not in this public place, but she could say two words. I’m sorry. He would know why.
“Caleb.”
He stopped dead, staring at her.
“I—”
His face was closed, as if a door had been slammed shut on everything he thought and felt. “I must go.” He turned and elbowed his way through the crowd, moving so fast she couldn’t possibly follow.
And even if she could, what good would it do? Caleb was in there, someplace, but she would never be able to reach him.
Saturday was the busiest day his shop had ever seen, and as far as Caleb was concerned, that was fine for several reasons. He was pleased about the sales, of course, and it did his heart good to see Becky darting from customer to customer, forgetting her shyness in her role.
Most
important, though, was that the busyness could keep him from thinking about Katie. Or at least, if not that, from glancing at her and listening for the sound of her voice. He’d come to work the outside tables for that very reason.
“Ja, those are traditional Pennsylvania Dutch designs.” He handed the set of bookends to a customer. Smaller things were most popular, that was certain. Things folks could fit into their trunks and bring home easily.
“I’ll take these. And the pair with the birds on them, as well. I’ll put them away for Christmas gifts.”
He started to reach for them, but Becky beat him to it.
“I will be happy to ring this up for you,” she said.
Caleb nodded his thanks as Becky took over the customer. She understood that waiting on people was not his favorite thing to do. Now, if he were upstairs in his workshop . . .
Running away from people, Katie’s voice said accusingly in his mind. That’s what you do.
Well, maybe so. But that was his business, wasn’t it? Katie didn’t understand.
From the corner of his eye he caught the movement of Katie’s shop door and a flash of blue dress. She was coming out to the sidewalk, maybe to take over from her friend Donna, who’d been handling customers at the outside tables for the last hour or two.
He headed for the door, raising his hand to Becky. “I’m going upstairs for something. Will you take over out here?”
“Ja, for sure. Do you think I could run and get some lunch soon?”
“In a bit,” he said shortly, and escaped inside.
William, showing a cabinet to a customer, gave him a questioning look as he hurried to the stairs and started up. Why was everyone looking at him that way? His irritation edged upward, accompanied by a growing sense of guilt.
Becky didn’t deserve a short response from him, and William was doing his best to deal with customers despite his stammer. Neither of them was to blame for the fact that he felt raw and exposed every time Katie looked at him.
They’d already carried down most of the furniture from the workroom, but there were a few more carved wooden items that might be put out for sale. He began filling a box with pairs of bookends and some wooden toys he’d experimented with. He’d begun to think tourists would buy almost anything as a souvenir of their trip.
Footsteps on the stairs had him turning around. It was William, running a hand through his shock of yellow hair.
“Andy and your m-mamm came in to h-help. I’m g-glad to g-get away.”
“Gut.” Caleb was ashamed of himself, hiding away up here when it was so difficult for William to be talking to strangers. “Sorry I rushed off. I wanted to take a few more things down.” He gestured with the box.
“N-no problem.” The tension eased out of William’s voice now that they were alone. “Things are really g-going gut, ja?” He leaned against a half-finished jelly cabinet.
“Guess so.”
“That K-Katie, she d-deserves the credit, ain’t so?”
Caleb’s fingers tightened on a duck decoy, and he forced them to relax. “Ja.” The last thing he wanted was to talk about Katie. He picked up the box. “I’ll go down and price these. Why don’t you take a break for a while?” He went back downstairs before William could reply.
If he’d expected a moment’s respite, he hadn’t gotten it. Everything about this day only served to remind him of Katie. Of Katie’s words. Of the expression on her face when he’d pulled away from her.
He set the box down on the counter and began methodically putting stickers on the items. Andy was dealing with a customer, and he could see Mamm out on the sidewalk, helping Becky. No one to talk to him right now, to sing Katie’s praises.
That wasn’t fair. Katie had worked hard and done a fine job. It was his fault that—
“Caleb.” The soft voice was the one that had haunted his dreams last night. He looked up from the box to find her standing at the counter.
“Katie.” He fought to sound natural. “Busy day, ain’t so?”
She gave a slight gesture, as if to dismiss the activity as unimportant. “I saw you were having a bit of a break. I just need to say—”
“You don’t need to say anything.” He hurried the words out. “The fault is mine.”
She shook her head, lips pressing together. “I had no right to say what I did. I’m sorry.”
He sucked in a breath, trying to find a way to say the words without hurting her. “I was wrong. I should not have . . .”
Kissed her? He shouldn’t have, but he couldn’t regret it.
“It’s all right,” she said quickly. “That’s all I wanted to say.” She spun and went back to her shop, but not before he caught the glint of tears in her eyes.
This was no good. He had to talk to her, in private. He couldn’t let her blame herself, and the only way was to try to be honest, both with her and with himself.
The opportunity to talk to Katie didn’t come until evening, when the tables had been removed from the sidewalks, the banners taken down, the CLOSED signs put on the doors. Only a few last stragglers were making their way out of town, and peace settled over Pleasant Valley again.
Katie had sent Rhoda off with Becky at Nancy’s invitation to spend the night. Nancy was, he supposed, trying to make amends for her harsh words.
He could hear Katie moving around in the shop, probably trying, as he was, to put things back in order before the Sabbath. It wasn’t church Sunday tomorrow, so they’d have a quiet day after today’s busyness.
He set a quilt stand back in its proper place, took a deep breath, and walked through the archway.
Katie looked up from the place mats she was folding, and her expression seemed to tell him that she had been listening to him, as well.
“I have to tell you this,” he said abruptly, before he could lose his courage. “You know about Mattie. About what happened between us.” He shook his head when she seemed about to say something. “I know what you will say. That it is in the past, that everyone has forgotten about it except me. But you don’t know everything.”
“Tell me.” She reached across the counter, as if she would touch his hand, and then seemed to think better of it.
The store was so quiet . . . as if it, too, needed to recuperate from the noise of the day. Its warmth and color, so like Katie, seemed to enclose him. But he couldn’t accept the comfort it offered.
“After Mattie left, when folks found out about her, I went to the city to find her. To tell her . . .” He let that trail off, not wanting to remember the boy he’d been. But the memories were there, whether he wanted them or not.
“I was nineteen. I’d never been in a place bigger than Mifflinburg in all my life. Neither had Mattie, but there she was, living in the city, sharing an apartment with some Englisch friends I didn’t even know she had.”
“I’m sorry.” Katie’s murmur was soft with distress.
“When she opened the door, I didn’t even know her at first, she looked so different. But then she seemed glad to see me. She asked me in, and I told her what I’d come to say.”
He took a breath, his throat tight. “I said I still wanted to marry her. I said if she was determined to leave the Amish, I would leave, too. Even though I knew the baby wasn’t mine, I would love it anyway.”
His throat seemed to close entirely. He remembered saying the words, the feel of them on his lips. The way Mattie had shaken her head, her newly short hair swinging out from her face.
“She said no. She had been meeting an Englisch boy in secret the whole time we were engaged. When she realized she was pregnant, she thought she would marry me, but when the time came, she ran away instead.”
“You did all you could,” Katie said. “No one could have done more. How can you reproach yourself?”
He shook his head. She didn’t understand. “I never knew. How could that be, that I never even suspected there was someone else?” He had to make her understand. “Mamm says my heart’s been frozen for a long time. Th
at you started it thawing. But I can’t be sure, Katie. I just don’t know if I have it in me to give my heart to someone again.”
Katie automatically slipped the straight pins into the bodice of her dress, hardly needing to think about the fastening after all these years. She stepped to the window as she settled her kapp in place, glancing out at the street. Sunday morning was sunny and also very quiet, after all that had happened yesterday.
Everything that had happened, from the success of Pennsylvania Dutch Days to the truth she’d heard from Caleb. Pain pierced her heart as if she’d driven one of the pins straight into it.
Faced with the pain of Mattie’s rejection, he’d followed his natural instincts and withdrawn. She understood that. It was his way of coping. But he’d withdrawn so far that he doubted his own heart.
He had been honest with her. That was all she could expect. Only now that the dream was over, she knew she had begun to hope for more.
She brushed a hand down her apron, straightening it even though it already hung perfectly even. She should be happy. Everything she and Lisa had planned had worked out well, and the crowds had been even better than they’d expected. Some of those people would surely come back to Pleasant Valley to shop, meaning good things for all of them. Perhaps she could even stop worrying about the shop.
She wandered out to the living room, feeling vaguely unsettled at being alone on a Sunday morning. Rhoda had spent the night at Becky’s, and since it was an off Sunday, there was no rush to get ready for church.
Katie sank down in her rocker and reached for the Bible on the table next to it. Ordinarily on an off Sunday Daad would read the Scripture out loud, his deep voice making the High German words resonate. When she was a child, she’d thought that must surely be what the voice of God sounded like.
Well, today she would have devotions on her own. Independence could be a fine thing, but it could also be a bit lonely.
She opened the Bible to the passage they’d reached in Isaiah and began to read aloud, even though there was no one to hear.
