“I’m going to draw at the river.” Grace turned and began to run down toward the bank.
“Be careful,” Miriam called.
“I will!”
She heard her father talking to the other men, and Miriam had been right—her stomach was growling even now. But her hunger pains would wait. The sun was slanting through the trees just so, splashing on top of the water as it sloshed and splattered past the cabins. Another hour and she’d miss what was left of the morning shadows.
Sitting with her back against a red cedar tree, she pulled out her pad and pencil, and she began to draw.
Directly in front of her was the water, and to the right was the corner of one of the cabins. Chokeberry covered the cabin’s side, and though someone had cut much of it down, bluebirds were searching among the branches for early fruit. She knew they wouldn’t find any, but perhaps there was something else they could eat there. She’d have to ask Miss Bena. Although the woman was severe, she knew more about birds than anyone else Grace had ever met.
A fish splashed in the river at the exact same moment a red-tailed hawk dove, just barely missing the fish.
Grace paused, thinking of the circle of life, of how the fish had narrowly escaped and how the hawk would continue searching or go hungry.
She bent back over her tablet and continued to sketch.
Chapter 12
Aaron met the stares of the group of folks sitting around the table in the cabin’s office. His onkel Ervin had set the room up to resemble a comfortable Amish kitchen and sitting room—a real Amish home. In other words, it looked nothing like Amish Anthem.
He stared down at his notes and cleared his throat.
It didn’t help that he’d known these people only two days. Or maybe it did.
They had no expectations of him. So what if his plan didn’t work? He’d pack up Elizabeth and children, put them on the bus to Indiana, and take them back home.
His arm brushed against Beth’s picture, still in his pants pocket, still weighing on his mind. The young girl would probably prefer to stay here, as Elizabeth most likely would. If he could help them to do so, it would be better for everyone. Of that he’d convinced himself last night.
Lydia waited impatiently, watching him.
Miriam held her baby as she sat next to Gabe, who was reaching for a second piece of cake. David seemed in no hurry. The man appeared to have one speed—measured and deliberate. Seth hadn’t shown up this morning, but Aaron would need him as well.
“I know you’re wondering why I asked you to go to town with me today.”
“Seemed to be a waste of time,” Lydia muttered.
Instead of ignoring her comment and her bad attitude, Aaron turned toward her and forced his voice to be calm and reasonable. He would need Lydia on his side most of all. He couldn’t run the cabins without her, though he would rather. The last thing he wanted was a front desk attendant with a sullen manner.
She hadn’t been rude to the guests last night, though. He’d watched her as she’d tried to convince them to stay. Lydia was good with Englischers.
No, the problem and the cause for her bad attitude lay elsewhere.
“Why did it seem to be a waste of time?”
Lydia looked surprised that he’d asked her and all but speechless that he was waiting for an answer. They had worked so hard around the cabins the day before that she’d gone home looking as if she’d crawled underneath them. Today she was wearing a clean dress and a crisp apron. The light brown hair that tended to escape at will was tucked neatly under a fresh kapp, and her face didn’t bear a single smudge of dirt. It occurred to him that she was of marrying age, and he wouldn’t have her as an employee for long. The thought annoyed him more than it should have, so he pushed it away.
Lydia glanced first at Miriam, and he thought she wouldn’t answer, but finally she sat up straighter and began ticking points off on her fingers. “We aren’t centered in the middle of town. We aren’t a retail store. We don’t have Drake’s resources. And we wouldn’t operate the way he does even if we did.”
“Excellent points, especially the last one.”
“So why did we go?”
“Because he has customers and we don’t.”
“If that’s what we have to do, I’m not interested.”
“Are you interested in having a job?”
Lydia opened her mouth to protest, but then she clamped it shut again. Instead of responding, she folded her arms tightly across her chest and glared at him.
Gabe cleared his throat but waited for Aaron’s nod before he spoke up. “Lydia is right that there’s little about the man to admire. Miriam and I were on the committee assigned to work with him before Amish Anthem was built. He’s incorrigible.”
“And yet he’s successful.” Aaron reached for his kaffi.
“Apparently,” Gabe conceded.
“It’s obvious he is whether we like it or not.” David stopped eating and sank into a chair. “We might not agree with his methods, but customers weren’t standing around with their hands in their pockets. They were handing over money as fast as Drake’s minions could put it in the register.”
“How does this affect us?” Lydia’s voice was as sharp and brittle as the small rocks layering the parking lot outside the window. “How does his store, which is disgusting and a disgrace to all we call being Plain, help us in any way?”
Aaron was still standing near the end of the table. He put down his kaffi and stuck his hands in his pockets. The notes in front of him said it all, but he didn’t need to look at the notes. All he’d needed to know was if his plan was possible, the plan that had first rooted in his heart when Elizabeth had handed him the badly drawn picture.
Seeing Drake’s store had confirmed that his ideas, and what had been done previously in his hometown in Indiana, could be transferred here to Wisconsin. But he couldn’t do it alone. He’d need help.
How did he explain it all to them? And why did he suddenly care so much?
Miriam was the one who opened the door for him. “You weren’t looking at what Drake was doing. You were looking at his consumer base.”
“Ya. Partly. Mainly.”
“I still don’t understand,” Lydia said.
“Good students listen and learn, like you did in class, Lydia.” Miriam was smiling now as she handed Rachel to Gabe and stood to cut a piece of the breakfast cake. “We went to Amish Anthem today to learn if it was possible to be successful commercially, with the Englisch, in this area.”
Aaron nodded again. He thought of interrupting her, but he decided it might be better if his plan came from her rather than from him.
“But we operate cabins,” Lydia pointed out. “A place for people to stay.”
“And yet they are empty.” David glanced out at the vacant parking lot.
Silence filled the room as they all considered the truth of his statement.
“In our meetings, Drake bellowed on and on about the Amish experience—how he wanted to allow people to live the Plain life. It was ludicrous, because he stepped from his private jet straight into the downtown Cashton council room, never straying to the dirt road of a farm.” Gabe leaned back, Rachel cradled in the crook of his arm. “Maybe he was onto something, though.”
Miriam turned toward her husband. “And even with the details wrong—”
“Like a cellar in the kitchen.” Lydia wrinkled her nose in distaste.
“Ya.” David drank from his kaffi mug before continuing. “Even with major points wrong, he was still selling items as quickly as customers could pluck them off the shelf.”
Lydia clutched the side of her chair. “If our single goal is to make a profit, we might as well ride the busses and work in the city. That wasn’t what Ervin wanted. He wanted to offer a place of solitude.”
“What if we could be successful and still honor Ervin’s dream? Maybe there’s a way to replicate Drake’s success and get the details right.” It was the first time Aaron had spok
en in five minutes. “What if we could offer a genuine Plain experience, but still give visitors the canned foods to purchase—”
“And the fresh baked breads and pies.” Miriam’s smile widened.
“Even put rockers on the front porches for sale.” David slapped his knee. He stood and walked around the room, looking at the space as if he were seeing it with new eyes. “We could build shelves in here and fill them with toys. Toys visitors would want to purchase for their children, who might just happen to be bored without their video games and computers.”
“Are we to sell them the quilts off the bed as well?” Lydia’s mouth was set in a grim line, and Aaron’s heart took a dive. While everyone else had been catching on to his vision, Lydia had been setting her feet against it like a stubborn mule.
Why was he disappointed? Why was he surprised? He’d suspected she would be the hardest to convince. Some people disliked change, and he was asking her to make major adjustments. Of course, he could do it without her. She didn’t own the cabins. He did, or rather his aunt did. Still, he would have liked to have had her help.
A silence had settled over the room, and Aaron realized the others were waiting for him to answer Lydia.
“Of course we won’t sell the quilts off the bed. For one thing, our beds are covered in old blankets.” He spoke quietly, reasonably, as if he were trying to calm a colt. “Offering quilts isn’t a bad idea, though. Amish women are admired across the country for their quilting talent, but we will strive to not be like Drake in any way. There’s no need to put a price tag on every item in every cabin.”
“Are you quite sure?” She hopped up now and began collecting dishes. Aaron jumped when she dropped them back on the table with a clatter. “Because it sounds to me like we’ll be a miniature Amish Anthem, and that’s not somewhere I care to work, Aaron Troyer.”
“I suppose you’d rather barely work at all.”
“What?”
“There’s certainly not much to do when there are no customers.”
“If you’re saying I haven’t earned my pay—”
“I’m saying maybe it’s easier to leave things the way they are. You don’t strike me as someone afraid of a challenge, but perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps you are afraid that you couldn’t keep up if all the cabins were full.”
Her face had turned red, but she wasn’t backing down.
“Have they ever been full, Lydia? Have they ever been even half full?”
Instead of answering, she turned and ran from the office, the screen door slapping shut behind her.
Silence filled the room, broken finally by David, reaching for more kaffi. “I thought it was a gut idea.”
“Maybe she’ll come around, Aaron.” Gabe stood and began pacing with Rachel, who had started to fuss.
“Would you like me to go and speak with her?” Miriam offered. Her eyes were kind and sympathetic.
Aaron was tempted to send her.
The last thing he wanted to do was deal with an emotional employee. Why couldn’t he be home in Indiana, tending the fields?
But he wasn’t home. He was here, and he needed to see to this.
He needed to resolve it now. As much as he would like to send Miriam out to smooth over the differences that had been brewing between him and Lydia since he’d arrived, he knew the answer had to lie between them.
“I’ll do it.” He grabbed his hat off the peg by the door and rammed it down on his head. “If I’m not back in fifteen minutes, send out a search party. That woman seems to have quite the temper.”
Lydia didn’t need to turn around to know Aaron was standing behind her. Whenever he was within shouting distance, her skin felt as though a hundred ants were crawling over it. No, that was wrong. It felt as if a hundred butterflies were rubbing against her skin at the same moment.
Maybe that was why she was overreacting. And she did realize she was overreacting.
Yet she didn’t respond when he cleared his throat. Instead, she continued staring at Pebble Creek, hoping the sight of the water rushing downstream would calm her nerves. They felt as taut as her brother’s kite string when she used to hold it for him as he ran in the fields back behind their house—their old house.
Before her dad got sick.
Before they lost the farm.
“Tell me what’s bothering you,” Aaron said. He didn’t walk any closer. Instead, he moved toward a large flat rock on her right and sat on it, studying the river as if he were trying to see what she saw.
Lydia shook her head.
There was no way she could explain to someone she’d known for only a few days all of the emotions tangled in her heart.
“Help me see what’s wrong with making this place profitable.”
“Maybe nothing,” Lydia admitted. “Maybe it’s simply that I don’t belong here anymore.”
He turned to study her as he’d been studying the river. She didn’t want to look into his eyes—eyes that were the color of molasses. Lydia was certain she’d see pity and condescension there. She didn’t want to look, but she could no more resist than the water could decide not to flow downriver.
When she did she saw only curiosity and maybe a speck of pleading, and behind all of that the same stubbornness she saw in her own eyes when she checked the small mirror in the bathroom each morning before leaving for work.
“Why would you not belong here, Lydia? My onkel trusted you. He needed you, and I need you too.”
“I doubt that.” She heard the bitterness in her voice and cleared her throat. When had it lodged there? How long ago?
“You’ve probably noticed I don’t have the best tact, but I’m not one to lie. I do need you, and we both know it. I could hire someone else, but they don’t know this place like you do. I don’t know this place like you do.”
Lydia glanced downstream.
She shouldn’t throw away this job. There was no way she could go home today, face her parents, and tell them she’d lost the small amount of income the cabins provided their family. What did she hope to accomplish by arguing with Aaron?
“So many changes…” Her voice died like the breeze in the trees around them.
“If we don’t make some changes, this place will close. You’re an intelligent woman. I know you can see that.”
“Our faith holds fast to the old ways. We set ourselves apart.”
“Let’s show that to the Englischers who come here.” Now he smiled slightly, and Lydia’s heart actually tripped in its rhythm. She recognized that she faced more danger from her feelings than she did from the change in the cabins or a great crowd of tourists.
She didn’t need to be caught up in those eyes and that smile. Aaron Troyer was not here to stay, and she did not need that sort of heartbreak in her life.
So she stared at the river and frowned.
“We can offer that place of rest and solitude my onkel wanted to provide. We can be an example to the Englischers of what it truly means to be Plain. It’s not what Drake is showing them.”
“No. It’s not.”
“We’ll present something different. An authentic experience.”
She stole a peek at him.
“Let’s clean up the cabins and give this place a face-lift. Invest some of my dat’s money. I even have a little of my own.”
“Why would you do that?” The words were out of her mouth before she could reel them in where they belonged.
She thought he would tell her it was none of her business. Instead, he brushed at the pocket of his pants.
“Because Elizabeth and her children want to stay here.” He stood, walked over to where she was, and stopped in front of her.
She could smell the soap he’d used that morning, see a small rip on the shoulder seam of his shirt that needed mending, and then she was looking again into his eyes.
“I had no desire to travel here, Lydia. I wanted to be in Indiana, working the fields. But I am here. Apparently Gotte wants me to be in this place at this time. So I shou
ld do the best I can, ya?”
“Ya.” The word cost her dearly.
“I’ve seen the way you are with the customers. You’re gut with them. But the cabins…” He glanced away, back toward the buildings, and when his gaze was off her she felt her stomach plummet. She knew at that moment that it was already too late. Already her heart was falling for Aaron Troyer, even though her head knew better.
“The cabins aren’t much as they are now, but you’re right about the river. The river is special, especially here where it bends. I suspect Ervin knew that. We can make the river the focus of the property. When I look at this place, I can almost see how it was meant to be. Like when I look at a field in the winter, and I can see what it will look like before the fall harvest.” He waited for her to nod that she understood. “If we improve the property, it will help your community too. The Englisch, they like to purchase things. We’ll give them things to buy, which will help families who need income in your district, ya?”
“Ya.” She sounded like a parrot in a story she’d read as a child.
“I can do it without you, but it will be harder…much harder. Truth is, I need your help.” He pulled in a deep breath, glanced at the ground, and when his eyes met hers again she thought a blush stained his cheeks. “And Elizabeth does too. Elizabeth and the girls. Will you stay and work? Stay and help us make the changes?”
Lydia thought of her parents and siblings—all the people counting on her. Now she was going to add another family to that number?
She thought of all the things she could say to Aaron, all the ways she could answer him, but only one word came out.
“Ya.”
It must have been enough, because a smile spread across his smoothly shaven face—the first genuine smile she’d seen.
“Let’s go back to the others. We have a lot of work to do, and they sounded as if they would be eager to get started. Plus, if we don’t hurry, David will have eaten all the kaffi cake. Did you even have some?”
Lydia wanted to laugh as she walked back to the office with him. She’d always been self-conscious about her weight, not that she was big. Certainly she wasn’t tiny like her sister Clara. She liked to think of herself as hardy, which was important when working long difficult hours. Each year she looked more like her mother—whether or not that was a good thing. Aaron’s question, though, had put the icing on a bizarre morning.
A Home for Lydia (The Pebble Creek Amish Series) Page 9
