by Naomi King
“I stopped at every house for miles around,” he murmured, “but nobody has any idea about Pete. I’m really sorry.”
Amanda shrugged listlessly. “Wyman got the same report from Sam and Ray and the others out that direction. We must’ve really misread our boy, as far as how upset he was,” she replied with a sigh. “Maybe it’s time to notify the police. I—I’ve been praying that Pete’s safe, rather than . . . out in the cold, hungry or maybe hurt or—”
“Going down that road only leads to troublesome assumptions, Aunt,” Jerome murmured as he rested his hands on her shoulders. “We’re leaving it in God’s hands, jah?”
“That’s the better answer.” Amanda looked up at him with a stronger smile. “Did you get some supper someplace? We ate a littler earlier tonight so Wyman could take the kids out in the sleigh. It’s a nice evening for that.”
“Gut. The little ones will have a fine time and lift their dat’s spirits as well.”
“I’ll warm you some of Vera’s split pea soup. How about a sandwich to go with that?” Amanda said as she opened the refrigerator.
“And can I have a side of your advice as well?” Jerome eased into his place at the table, hoping a few moments alone with his aunt might help him see his future more clearly.
Her raised eyebrows made him chuckle. “And what’s on your mind, dear? You’ve done all you possibly can, as far as looking for Pete, so—”
“It’s about Emma.”
“Ah.” Amanda’s expression wavered between curiosity and hopefulness as she ladled cold soup into a small pan. “I’ve got some pottery orders to deliver to Cedar Creek as well as pieces to sell in Sam’s store, if that gives you a gut reason to see her again. From what you told me, your last visit went really well.”
“I’ll take your pottery in for you, sure,” Jerome replied, wondering how to word his concerns. “But while I think my instincts are right this time, about Emma being a better match than either of my two earlier girls—”
“I agree with you there.”
“It struck me the other day that I don’t have a lot to offer her,” he continued earnestly. “Sure, I can take Emma out, and I think I’m convincing her I’m a worthwhile kind of guy, but then what? Where’s the proof that I can make a gut life for her?”
Amanda’s brow furrowed. “Whatever do you mean, Jerome? You’re a fine man with a gut business and a heart big enough to love young and old alike.”
“But where would we live, if indeed Emma would have me?” Jerome gave his aunt a moment to consider the ramifications beneath the surface of his plea. “If I were to move my mule-breeding business there to the Grabers’, I’d need to build a much larger barn, and—”
“You don’t want to live here?”
Amanda’s question—her disappointment—pierced his heart. “Oh, it’s not that at all,” he insisted. “But I’m pretty sure Emma would only come if she can bring her dat along . . . and as I count up the bedrooms, I run short. And while I’m glad Wyman and his kids have come here . . .”
“The house is awfully noisy and full now, compared to what we were used to,” Amanda agreed. “And while Merle would be happy to be surrounded by the kids’ hubbub, Emma’s quieter. More private.”
Jerome flashed Amanda a relieved smile. “Denki for understanding that, Aunt. I don’t want you to think I’m ungrateful or unwilling to be here with you any longer.”
Amanda slid into the chair beside him and slung her arm around him. “I know better than that, Jerome. But there can be too many hens clucking in one kitchen, I think. And you deserve to rule your own roost as well.”
He chuckled, secretly pleased that she was knuckling his scalp like she’d done when he was a kid. “Jah, I’ve heard it said I can be pretty cocky. Emma’s implied as much, more than once.”
“You’re confident, but not to the point of being too proud or vain,” Amanda assured him. “And let’s not forget that when I first married Wyman and we moved to Clearwater, I intended for this house—the whole farm—to be yours because it belonged to your uncle.”
Jerome’s pulse thrummed as he gazed into Amanda’s eyes. While they had discussed this subject before her marriage—before the Brubakers had decided to live here, rather than in Clearwater—he hadn’t felt it was his place to bring it up again.
“You’ve been awfully gut about accepting the way all of our lives have changed these past couple of months,” his aunt went on in a firm voice, “so I want you to consider the bulk of this land as your own, Jerome. It’s only fair—and it’s not like Wyman will ever farm it, except to raise hay for the horses just as you already do.”
“You’re sure he’ll agree with that?” Jerome quizzed her. No sense in getting his hopes up, knowing how her new husband saw things from a more traditional Old Order male perspective. “Wyman’s the head of the household—”
“And I will always be the neck that turns the head,” Amanda teased, playfully tapping his chest with her finger. “I have no doubt that James and Merle—and Wyman and I—will help you with the money for a house, too.”
“Oh, I’ve got a gut start on the money part. It’s knowing where to build a home that’s been the holdup.” Jerome grasped Amanda’s shoulders, smiling excitedly. “You have no idea how many doors this opens for me, Aunt! Your telling me these things is the best Christmas gift ever.”
“Glad to hear it. I’d better stir your soup before it scorches.”
As she rose from the table, Jerome silently thanked God for the way this conversation had changed his entire outlook. The large bowl of soup Amanda set in front of him made him inhale appreciatively, and as she sat down beside him to make his sandwich, he smiled gratefully at her. “Can I ask you something more? Something . . . women understand better than guys do?”
Once again her eyebrows rose expressively. “This is you, asking me how to handle women?” she teased.
Jerome let out a short laugh. “I used to think I knew what I was doing,” he confessed, “but with Emma, well . . . after she gave Bess Wengerd a piece of her mind and then went on that sleigh ride with me . . .”
“She came back with rosy cheeks and a big smile,” Amanda recalled. “I thought you’d won her over, for sure.”
“Me, too, until—until I asked if I could kiss her. She said no.” Jerome sighed. “I was making progress with her on Friday, too, but Merle walked in on us and she jumped away from me.”
What had his love life come to, that he was making such an inglorious confession to his aunt? It was fine to have the promise of land and a new home, but he wouldn’t need those if Emma wouldn’t kiss him.
Amanda slathered mustard on a slice of bread before arranging cold pork roast on it. “I know something about that, from Emma herself. But if I tell you this, Jerome, you must respect her feelings—keep this information to yourself—or you’ll lose her,” she insisted. “Emma will be too embarrassed, too upset with you and me both, to ever see you again, I suspect.”
Jerome lowered his spoonful of soup back to his bowl. “All right. I’m listening.”
His aunt slowly drew the knife through his sandwich in an X, as she’d done when he was a boy. Then she looked into his eyes. “Emma has never been kissed, Jerome. She wanted to kiss you after your sleigh ride, but she was afraid she’d do it wrong and ruin her chances with you.”
His mouth dropped open, and then closed again. “You don’t say,” he rasped. He quickly reviewed crucial moments they’d spent together: the way Emma had seemed so afraid of him when they’d shopped; her refusal to kiss him after their sleigh ride; her hazel-eyed gaze as they’d shared a lemon bar but nothing more. “I can’t believe the boys in Cedar Creek didn’t take Emma the long way home after Singings and didn’t introduce her to smooching in the seclusion of their rigs.”
Amanda slid his sandwich toward him. “A woman her age doesn’t admit such a thing unles
s . . . unless she’s every bit as concerned as you are about this relationship,” she said.
“Just one more thing Emma missed out on while she was waiting for Matt to notice her,” Jerome murmured.
“Even before they marry, girls are at the mercy of the men in their lives,” Amanda remarked pensively. “To me, this proves what a respectable, decent young woman Emma has always been. She just needs someone like you, Jerome, to show her how happy she can be . . . to show her how love can change her entire life.”
Jerome’s breath escaped him in a rush. “Now you’re scaring me, laying all the responsibility on me for—”
“Puh! Since when have you ever been afraid of a kiss?” Amanda’s tone was light, yet she held his gaze as surely as she was holding him accountable for the secret she’d just revealed. “Emma’s waiting for a gut man like you to help her become the woman and wife she was meant to be. It’s all in how you handle it.”
His thoughts were spinning wildly. Jerome felt as though an invisible barrier had just been lifted, revealing his entire future. Emma has never been kissed! She’s not afraid of me—she’s unsure of herself. And didn’t that fit with everything else he knew about the elusive young woman in Cedar Creek?
“If you need another reason for going there—besides to visit with Merle, of course,” Amanda said lightly, “Jemima and the girls have nearly finished the quilts we’ve been making for Abby and James. Emma will want to see them, since she and her mamm helped piece the tops, and you can give them to the newlyweds while you’re there as well. So, see? Pottery, quilts, and Merle. I’ve given you three reasons for visiting Emma again without making it seem like you’re chasing her.”
“Not to mention land and a future home. Denki for the way you’ve always looked after me, Aunt.” Jerome grinned and grabbed a section of his sandwich. He believed he had a better chance of winning Emma’s hand and heart now—and a lot more to offer her than he’d anticipated.
Chapter Twenty-five
“Have a gut day with your cleaning, Daughter,” Wyman said as he pulled the buggy into the Yoders’ lane on Monday morning. “This is your last day to work until after Christmas, jah?”
Vera nodded glumly. “I’m to get paid today, too, but that doesn’t seem nearly so exciting, with Pete still missing. I’ve prayed and prayed.”
“Then you’ve turned your brother’s situation over to God, and that’s the best any of us can do,” Wyman insisted as he gently lifted her chin with his hand. “No need to carry your problems into the Yoder house. Working cheerfully and well is the way to spend your day. I’ll be back for you around two.”
“Thanks for the ride, Dat.”
As Vera opened her door to get out of the rig, Wyman noticed a couple of younger fellows—Cletus’s sons, by the looks of them—coming around the side of the machine shed. He waved at them, but they were too focused on his daughter to notice.
“Vera, Vera!” one of them called out.
“Come right here-a!” the other one added with a laugh.
Wyman stiffened. This was his seventeen-year-old girl they were taunting—but she had the sense to ignore them and head straight for the house. When she’d gone inside, the fellows finally waved to him and then headed into the barn, so Wyman turned the rig toward the road again.
He’d gotten a call from the locker that Pete’s deer was processed and ready for pickup, so that was his next stop. Amanda and Jemima were pleased about having the deer meat, and they were planning to serve a venison roast when Eddie came home from the mercantile to celebrate the holidays . . . not that Christmas would be the same with Pete still missing.
Better follow your own advice. It’s in God’s hands, and He knows exactly where your boy is, Wyman reminded himself. Better follow your instincts about those fellows catcalling at Vera, too.
Wyman turned the rig around in the next wide spot in the road. He was still kicking himself for not reading Pete more clearly, or being more aware of Reece Weaver’s irresponsible ways, so he wasn’t taking any chances where Vera was concerned. As his reason for coming back, he would step inside to express Christmas wishes to the Yoders, and if everything appeared to be on the up-and-up for Vera, he’d leave. It didn’t hurt to get a look at the house where his daughter was working her very first job, after all.
Wyman drove back into the lane and stopped alongside the tidy two-story white house. As he stepped up to the porch, he noticed how the windows sparkled in the morning sunlight, probably because his Vera had cleaned them recently. What he saw going on in the front room, however, propelled him through the door without bothering to knock.
“Who are you and what do you think you’re doing?” Wyman demanded as he strode toward the two young men he’d seen earlier. They were standing on either side of Vera as she gripped the handle of a broom, and their playful grins told him exactly what they had in mind as they flirted with his pretty daughter. “Where’s your mamm? Or your dat?”
At close range, the two brothers looked to be twenty-something, both of them sporting English haircuts and clothes. They backed away from Vera, but they didn’t seem particularly contrite. “The parents got called down the road to help a neighbor,” one of them replied.
The other one hooked his thumbs into the belt loops of his jeans. “We were just making sure Vera could find all the tools she needed.”
“Vera, get your coat.” Wyman gestured toward the door, holding her gaze.
“But Dat, I—”
“No buts. I’ll call later and explain to Mrs. Yoder why you won’t be working here any longer.”
His daughter’s distressed expression tore at him, but as Vera fetched her wraps, Wyman was glad he’d walked in when he had. Scowling at the two young men, he held the door for his daughter and followed her out. She scurried toward the rig with her shoulders hunched, and by the time he’d taken the driver’s seat, she was crying inconsolably.
“Nothing was going on,” she protested as Wyman drove them toward the road. “The Yoder boys were only teasing me. I was handling it just fine—”
“I know you believe that, Vera,” he countered gently, “but you were outnumbered. I was the same age as those fellows once, and I—”
“And now I won’t get my pay, and I’d hoped to—”
“Money’s nothing compared to your safety, Vera. Your reputation, too,” Wyman added ruefully. “It would break my heart if I so much as suspected those fellows had taken advantage of my dear, innocent daughter. I’m sure Cletus and his wife will see it that way as well.”
Vera gulped and sniffled, not answering him.
Wyman sighed. Why were so many unfortunate things happening with his kids? Just when he thought he’d gotten his family settled into the farmhouse in Bloomingdale, all manner of problems were cropping up. He didn’t attempt further conversation as he went to the locker and then loaded boxes of white-wrapped packages into the back of the buggy. It was only nine thirty when they returned home, yet Wyman already felt the day had gone sour.
Vera hurried toward the house, her feelings still hurt, as he went into the barn for a wheelbarrow. He was grabbing a box of frozen meat from the back of the buggy when he heard horses’ hooves and creaking wheels making their way up the lane behind him. Wags dashed out of the barn and began barking raucously.
“Say there, Brubaker! You remember the parable of the lost sheep?” a familiar voice called out.
Wyman straightened to his full height, not looking behind him. That reedy remark could only have come from Uriah Schmucker, the bishop of the Clearwater district he’d moved away from—and whose farewell had consisted of slamming the door in Wyman’s face.
Now what? Why has Uriah come such a distance to torment me, on top of everything else that’s happened? Considering the way this bishop had smashed Amanda’s pottery at the other house, he couldn’t welcome this fellow with open arms. But he couldn’t ignore Sc
hmucker, either.
“Wags, hush!” Wyman pointed at the overgrown puppy until he sat down beside the barn door, his tail thumping wildly. When he turned, his heart nearly sprang from his chest. Pete—his Pete!—was stepping out of the passenger’s side of the buggy, looking rumpled and somewhat sheepish, indeed. But he was home, and all in one piece, and—
Wyman couldn’t think for running. He grabbed the boy in a bear hug, aware that he was babbling, but he didn’t care. “We thought you were—Pete, we’ve been so worried that you’d—where have you—”
For the briefest moment, his son hugged him back before shrugging out of Wyman’s embrace. “Hey, Dat.”
All the air left Wyman’s lungs, but he refrained from launching into a lecture. Uriah Schmucker was standing there, assessing their reunion with a smug smile.
“Remember this boy, do you?” the bishop teased. “Seems he’s been hiding out in one barn or another, with his friends sneaking him food. It was the gelding that gave him away.” Uriah gestured toward the large black horse tethered behind his rig. “I heard tell that you’d been to Clearwater a couple-three times trying to find him, so here he is—your prodigal son. A Christmas gift, a few days early.”
“You have no idea,” Wyman rasped as he willed his pulse to return to normal. He extended his hand, keeping his other arm around Pete. “Can’t thank you enough, Uriah.”
The wiry fellow cleared his throat in a way that suggested there was more to his story. “Pete, I’m sure the rest of your family will be happy to see you—and they’ll be glad when you’ve had a bath, too. Don’t forget your duffel.”
Pete nodded. He kept his head low as he untied Blackie, fetched his belongings from the buggy, and then headed into the barn.
Uriah stepped closer to Wyman, one eyebrow raised. “On the way here, your boy told me you’ve gotten into a money crunch. Says you’ve forbidden him to quit school so he could help out.”
