“I think that’s a hint to start passing the desserts so you can call him,” Millie said as she rose from the table. “The more you say about Marcus, the more I want to meet this guy.”
Wyatt wanted to meet Marcus, too—but the phone call could wait until they’d enjoyed the tempting assortment of desserts Millie and her mother were handing to folks at the ends of the table. “I see three pies, a pan of brownies, and a coconut layer cake. How am I supposed to choose just one?” he murmured.
Ben laughed, playfully punching Wyatt’s shoulder. “Just one? Man’s not supposed to live by bread alone,” he quipped. “We’ve got to have cakes and pies and other goodies to help us get by! Dig in, Wyatt. You don’t want the ladies to think you don’t appreciate their efforts.”
After Miriam and Nora scraped and stacked the dinner plates and Rebecca passed clean plates for their dessert, Wyatt accepted the glass pan Andy handed him. He gazed at a custard pie that was three inches thick and filled with coconut. “I see what you mean,” he said as he lifted a small slice from the pan. “I love coconut, and I can’t turn down chocolate—”
“And we’ve heard you have a taste for rhubarb, too,” Luke teased from the other end of the table. “Here’s the pie you’ll want to try, because Miriam’s rhubarb cream pie is the absolute best—not that Rhoda’s fresh peach pie won’t tickle your taste buds as well.”
“If anyone wants ice cream on their pie, we have that, too,” one of Rebecca’s sisters said.
After all the desserts had made their way around the table, Wyatt gazed at his plate and wondered how he was supposed to eat the wedges of coconut custard and rhubarb pies as well as a thick frosted brownie with nuts on top. He noticed that Vanessa was facing the same situation, although she’d taken half-slices of the peach and rhubarb pies.
It’s a good problem to have, he told himself as he closed his mouth over his first bite of creamy, coconut-filled custard. We won’t need any supper tonight.
After they’d all scraped their dessert plates clean, the women began clearing the table. Wyatt felt bad that they would be washing seventeen people’s plates, serving dishes, and utensils by hand, considering that he or Vanessa would’ve loaded them into an automatic dishwasher. Didn’t washing all those dishes on Sunday count as work? He didn’t understand the ins and outs of Amish beliefs, but it wasn’t his place to question them—especially because the men were all leaving the kitchen as though their exodus was part of the routine.
“Shall we call Marcus on my cell phone or from your phone shanty, Ben?” Luke pulled his cell phone from his pocket, as though he had a preference but was allowing his older brother to decide.
Ben shrugged and pulled the chain on the front room’s ceiling fan to make it run faster. “Guess I don’t see the use in all of us hanging around the shanty—especially if Wyatt wants to talk to him,” he replied.
Luke grinned and began running his finger along the face of his phone. “Let me just find Marcus’s number . . . had it when we moved to Missouri. Ah! Here he is.” He pressed on the phone and held it to his ear as Ben gestured for the men and Brett to make themselves comfortable on the couches or in the upholstered chairs. Luke plopped down in the center of a sofa, between Wyatt and Ira.
After a moment, Luke chuckled with anticipation. “Jah, is this the Marcus Hooley who spends his time taming wild women and horses?” he teased. “It’s your cousin Luke, calling from Missouri.”
Wyatt chuckled along with the other men in the room. From Luke’s expression, he surmised that Marcus had replied to Luke with a similarly raucous statement.
After he’d exchanged a few other pleasantries, Luke said, “We’ve got a proposition for you. An English neighbor of ours is looking for somebody to train Belgians and Percherons at his new horse farm, and you were the first guy we thought of. Think you might be interested?”
Wyatt watched Luke’s handsome face for any sign that Marcus had turned him down without even hearing any details. Instead, Luke was nodding as he listened for a few minutes—and then he smiled at Wyatt, raising his eyebrows. “His name’s Wyatt McKenzie and he’s right here,” he said. “You want to talk to him?”
When Luke handed him the cell phone, Wyatt thought quickly about what he wanted to say. With so many of his neighbors listening, he didn’t want to talk about money yet, and he wanted to make a positive impression on this young man. “Hey there, Marcus, this is Wyatt McKenzie,” he began smoothly. “You come highly recommended by your cousins here in Willow Ridge. Any chance you’d be interested in joining them, to work for me?”
There was a pause on the line. “So . . . why would I want to do that?” Marcus asked. He didn’t sound insolent, exactly, but his attitude was noticeably different from that of his kinsmen.
Wyatt thought about his reply. He reminded himself that he needed this young horse trainer a lot more than Marcus needed him. “Well, you’ll have the chance to set up your own training program in a brand-new, state-of-the-art facility,” he began in a low-key voice. “I’ll provide you with comfortable living quarters—”
“Sixty-inch flat screen TV? New computer? Gaming system?” Marcus fired off. “And don’t go thinking I’m a horse and buggy man, so I’ll need a garage—and maybe even a new car—”
“Hold it right there,” Wyatt said coolly. He changed gears mentally, to deal with a young man who would obviously be a high-maintenance employee. “Luke and Ira have told me you’ve jumped the fence, and I’m fine with that. But I’m the owner, and you’ll be the employee—if you can provide me with three references this week, and if you prove during your trial period that you’re as good with horses as your cousins claim you are. Then we’ll negotiate for some of those perks you want.”
Marcus fell silent.
Ben and the other men were watching Wyatt’s reaction curiously, wondering what had prompted him to speak so sternly to their cousin. He waited a few moments before he went on. “What kind of work are you doing now?” he asked Marcus. “If you need to give your supervisor notice that you’re leaving—”
“Working at an auction barn,” the kid replied in a dull tone. “The boss has me bring the horses onto the sale floor because I can make them stand tall and hold their heads just right while prospective buyers look them over.”
Wyatt wondered if Marcus tended to exaggerate his expertise with horses—but if he could truly improve the stance and performance of a horse in the short time it was at the auction barn, he had a real talent. “How do you do that, Marcus?” he asked. “I’m guessing you handle a lot of horses during an auction, and you don’t spend much time with any one of them.”
“I know how to talk to them. How to touch them.”
Wyatt blinked. He’d heard of “horse whisperers,” but they were rare—and he wondered again if this young man was overstating his abilities. “Okay,” he said, thinking quickly, “if you’re that good with horses, why don’t you have your own business? Living there in Lancaster County, you could make money hand over foot training horses for the Amish.”
Another long pause made Wyatt wonder if Marcus had hung up—until the young man cleared his throat. “It seems my ability to manage money doesn’t measure up to my talent for training horses,” he said snidely. “My um, ex-girlfriend kicked me to the curb because I tend to spend more than I make.”
“And you were spending her money, as well? Without telling her?” Wyatt asked before he could catch himself.
Marcus let out a short laugh. “You got it.”
“And you’ve racked up a lot of credit card debt?”
Marcus cleared his throat again. “Yup.”
Wyatt paused. His immediate impulse was to write the kid off, because Marcus’s attitude and spending habits were two strikes against him before they’d even met. Wyatt knew a lot of spoiled young men in the Thoroughbred world who habitually spent more than their wealthy fathers’ generous allowances and then expected their dads to bail them out of their credit messes. He didn’t need t
he headaches that would go with keeping track of Marcus’s irresponsible spending behavior—or his sense of entitlement.
Yet he reconsidered. He really wanted an Amish trainer, even if Marcus had rebelled against being baptized into that faith. Deep down, Wyatt knew a lot about Marcus’s mind-set, because he’d created some similar financial disasters when he’d been Marcus’s age. If Nelson Carneal hadn’t cut off his allowance and made him work for a salary—and if one woman and then another hadn’t kicked him out for using her credit cards on the sly—he wouldn’t have shouldered his responsibilities, wouldn’t have attained his current comfortable position in life. Nelson had made it clear that Wyatt wouldn’t inherit the two horse farms if he continued on the crash course he’d navigated in his twenties. His adoptive father had probably saved him from ruin, in more ways than one.
Wyatt refocused, choosing his words carefully. “Marcus, maybe you’re due for a fresh start where you can earn a decent, steady wage,” he suggested. “If I talk to your creditors and set up a repayment program you can handle, we can get you out from under that debt and establish a positive credit history. But you’ll have to work for me—and work with me,” he added firmly. “Nothing’s free in this world, Marcus. A real man pays his way, and he pays it for ward.”
Marcus laughed derisively. “Yeah, well—”
“But if you don’t think you can behave like a real man, working on my terms,” Wyatt continued, “we’ll just end this call and neither of us need waste any more time talking about a job you can’t handle.”
Marcus exhaled harshly. “Let me talk to Luke.”
With a tight smile, Wyatt handed the cell phone back to Luke. “Your cousin wants a word,” he said.
Luke put the phone to his ear, scowling in disbelief at what Wyatt had been saying. “What’s going on out there, Marcus?” he demanded. “Wyatt’s offering you a first-rate opportunity—”
Wyatt couldn’t understand every word of Marcus’s rant, but his belligerent tone came through loud and clear. Marcus didn’t realize that a roomful of local men had heard Wyatt’s side of the conversation and that they all wore wary expressions as they watched Luke’s brows pucker.
“That’s just nuts, man,” Luke blurted out. “Wyatt’s not expecting any more from you than any other employer would. Quite frankly, as I listened to what he was saying, I wondered if I’d steered him wrong by recommending you.” After a few more minutes of listening to Marcus, he turned to Wyatt, placing his hand over the speaker end of the phone. “What do you need from Marcus to consider his application?” he whispered.
“Three references this week. If those folks confirm his ability, I’ll pay his way to come out for a personal interview.”
“More than fair.” Luke removed his hand from the phone. “All right, here’s the deal, Marcus. You email me three names and phone numbers tomorrow—men who know your work with horses,” he said brusquely. “If they say you’re the best trainer they’ve ever met, McKenzie will pay your way out here for an interview. And quite frankly, if you’re not willing to straighten up and fly right, we don’t want you here. Ben and Ira and I have worked for every nickel we’ve earned, and we don’t plan to bail you out of your money problems. Got it?”
When Luke hung up a few moments later he was shaking his head in exasperation. “I’m not even believin’ this,” he muttered. “How could a guy Marcus’s age have already made such a mess of his life?” He looked at Wyatt. “After having this conversation, I won’t blame you if you want nothing to do with our cousin. I’m sorry I got your hopes up about his talent with horses.”
Wyatt shrugged. “The ball’s in his court. If Marcus doesn’t respond with those phone numbers, we’ll have our answer, and I’ll look elsewhere.”
Ben leaned forward in his chair, his expression somber. “Are you telling us Marcus was using some gal’s credit cards? And that he’s up to his ears in debt?” he asked softly. “I can’t imagine what Uncle Felty and Aunt Edna must be going through.”
Luke slipped his phone back into his shirt pocket. “I got the distinct impression that Marcus is no longer living with his parents or answering to them,” he said. “For all we know, Uncle Felty told him the same thing you did—to get his act together or get out. He’s never been a man to tolerate the sort of nonsense we’ve heard about these past few minutes.”
As the other men in the front room murmured about Marcus’s apparent falling-out with his parents, Wyatt recalled the times he’d let Nelson Carneal down with his bad habits—and how his adoptive father had always loved him enough to offer him another chance anyway.
“All right, let’s see a show of hands,” Wyatt said as he gazed at the others. “How many of us heard advice or instruction from our dads about good money habits and blew them off ?”
Wyatt raised his hand, smiling as every one of his companions did the same. “And how many of us filched a little—or a lot—of money at some time or another, thinking we’d never get caught at it?”
Again his hand went up, and so did a few of the other men’s as they shook their heads, recalling what they’d done.
“And how many of us took advantage of a young woman’s affection for us? Did her wrong in some way?” Wyatt asked, keeping his hand in the air.
Luke sighed. “I see what you’re saying, Wyatt. You think we should give Marcus a chance to grow up—to pay off his debt and someday pay it forward, as you put it.”
“If we don’t, who will?” Wyatt challenged. “If he comes here, and he gets into trouble, I’ll take full responsibility for—”
“No, you won’t,” Ben interrupted. “It’s our job to be this young man’s role models—and it’s our way to forgive his past mistakes as we guide him forward.” He let out a sigh. “I know of a man much older than Marcus who’s recently made some serious mistakes with money, and we’ve given him a chance to come clean. We can do no less for Marcus—if he’s smart enough to accept your offer, Wyatt.”
“At least we know up front what we’ll be dealing with when Marcus shows up—if he does,” Luke remarked. “With all of us keeping tabs on him, I’m guessing he’ll either get with our program, or he’ll bolt.”
“Jah, we’ve all made similar choices,” Ira said. “And we all have family members and friends who steered us right when we wanted to stray. God already knows how this’ll turn out, and He’s counting on us to play our part with Marcus.”
As the men asked Wyatt about when his fences and buildings were to be completed, he was amazed—and gratified—that every one of them offered to help with those tasks. They were excited about the prospect of having locally bred and trained draft horses and were genuinely interested in his plans for the tract of land he’d bought. By the time he and Vanessa were heading to the car to leave, Wyatt thrummed with the enthusiasm his neighbors had generated.
“You’ve got an interesting smile on your face, Wyatt,” his sister hinted as he backed the Lexus down the lane.
Wyatt chuckled. “I had my first chat with the young horse trainer the Hooleys are recommending, and if Marcus comes, he’s going to be a challenge,” he explained. “As soon as the other men heard about some of his shenanigans with credit cards, they immediately stepped up and agreed to help me get him into shape. I have a support system in place, and I didn’t even have to ask for their help. It was an amazing conversation.”
Vanessa squeezed his arm. “I think you’re going to do just fine here, Wyatt. These people are the most helpful, kindhearted souls I’ve been around in a long while.” She glanced out the passenger-side window, a secretive smile on her face. “The women were asking questions of Rebecca and me, hinting about what the future holds for the two of you.”
Wyatt focused on the road. He and his sister were close, but he wasn’t keen on saying things to her before he’d discussed them with Rebecca. “What do you think of her?”
Vanessa laughed out loud. “I liked her from the moment she pitched that pan of crisp at you,” she replied. “Wit
h Rebecca—and these other folks—what you see is what you get. Considering some of the crowd we’ve run with in the Thoroughbred world, I find Willow Ridge a tremendously refreshing little town. A good place to call home.”
Wyatt let out the breath he’d been holding. As he turned the car onto the dirt path leading into his property, his sister’s words felt like a blessing on this new adventure he’d undertaken. “Thanks, Nessa,” he murmured. “I’m sorry you’re leaving tomorrow, and I hope you’ll come back now and then to see how things are going.”
“I wouldn’t miss it for anything.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Loretta wanted to stop time, to allow this long-awaited wedding moment to shimmer blissfully in her memory for the rest of her life. How the past few weeks of preparations had seemed to drag—and how every other wedding she’d ever attended felt halting and slow, by comparison to her own! As she and Drew stood before Bishop Tom to repeat their marriage vows, it struck her that suddenly, in a few moments, she would be Mrs. Andrew Detweiler.
There would be no going back. Not that she would want to.
Focus forward, she thought fleetingly. Today’s the first day of a whole new life, when you stand a chance for the happiness and peace you’ve wished for.
As Bishop Tom said the introductory words of the age-old ceremony, Loretta reminded herself to breathe. She glanced at Rosalyn and Edith, who beamed at her from the side-sitters’ bench on the front row of the women’s side. She felt the weight of Dat’s sullen stare as he sat on the preachers’ bench behind the bishop, but instead of making eye contact with him, she gazed up at Drew. He stood beside her as steady as a rock, dressed in the new white shirt, black vest, and black trousers she’d sewn for him after she’d made her royal blue wedding dress. His violet eyes expressed desires and promises Loretta dared to believe would finally come true in a very short time.
“Drew and Loretta,” Bishop Tom said as he gazed solemnly at each of them, “the sacrament of marriage is a holy bond, not to be entered into on a whim or without absolute certainty that this relationship will thrive and prosper until death parts you. Do you understand this?”
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