Amish Brides

by Jennifer Beckstrand

  Her lips parted in a slight smile, but he could tell she wasn’t poking fun or feeling sorry for him, almost as if she didn’t think less of him for wanting a dead rosebush in his yard. “Don’t worry. My mamm and dat insult the bush all the time. They want me to move on.”

  Suvie tilted her head to the side as if to get a better look at him. “Maybe you don’t need to move on as much as expand.”

  “Expand?”

  Her eyes sparkled as she bent over and picked up her soggy shoes and stockings. “I don’t know. Sometimes I can’t even understand myself.” She opened the door, stuck her head out, and looked to the sky. “Still raining.”

  “Do you want my umbrella?”

  “Nae, I’ll make a run for it. I’ll be back tomorrow unless it’s still raining, in which case I’ll come the day after that or the day after that. The first dry day, unless it’s Sunday, in which case I’ll come the day after that.”

  Her smile was as bright and warm as a roaring fire in the hearth, and he found himself hoping there wouldn’t be a cloud in the sky tomorrow.

  Chapter 3

  “It’s a wonderful nice day to plant flowers,” Anna said as Felty drove the buggy down the lane. “Aaron desperately needs petunias. People think a grumpy old man lives at his house when they see the dead rosebush. Maybe we should tie some ribbons around it.”

  “Ribbons would look very pretty, Annie Banannie,” Felty said. “But I don’t think Aaron wants anyone touching his beloved rosebush.”

  Suvie sighed. Poor Aaron. He must be very sad indeed if the dead rosebush was all he had to remind him of Mary.

  It had rained for three days straight, and if the rain had lasted any longer, Suvie would have marched over to Aaron’s house, planted the petunias in his mud puddle, and not even have cared if they died. Anna was right. Aaron needed flowers in his life. Suvie hoped he realized he needed her too.

  Thank the gute Lord, the rain had stopped sometime after midnight last night, and Suvie was up before the sun, unable to sleep with the butterflies making quite a fuss in her stomach. She had walked up Huckleberry Hill to Anna and Felty’s house, and Anna had whipped up a quick batch of butternut squash and raisin soup for Aaron before the three of them piled into the buggy and drove to Aaron’s house.

  Suvie had nearly come by herself instead of imposing on Anna and Felty to come with her, but she was smart enough to know that Aaron would be less likely to reject her if she brought his grandparents along. He might not have any interest in Suvie, but he loved his mammi and dawdi and wouldn’t purposefully do anything to disappoint them.

  Besides, Anna and Felty were experienced matchmakers. They knew exactly what had to be done to win Aaron’s heart.

  Anna reached back and patted Suvie’s arm. “This soup is going to make Aaron fall in love with you, for sure and certain. And if that doesn’t work, the dishrags will. No boy can resist a dishrag.”

  Suvie’s heart sped up when they came around a bend in the road and Aaron’s dead rosebush came into sight. Four days ago, Aaron had smiled at her. He’d laughed at her jokes and helped her pull weeds. He’d been impressed by the shiny sink. Maybe he’d think about maybe giving her a chance.

  Suvie would have jumped out of the buggy and up Aaron’s porch steps, but she was in the backseat, and it would have been rude to vault over Anna to get out. Anna was in her eighties, and Suvie wouldn’t dream of rushing her, even if it meant she’d have to wait a few extra minutes to see Aaron.

  When they finally made it out of the buggy, Suvie raced to the porch and knocked on the door. She could only be so patient.

  Anna caught up with her and clucked her tongue. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to bury those petunias instead of plant them.”

  Suvie glanced over at the flat of petunias that was still sitting in the muddy flower bed. A gasp sort of oozed from between her lips. Her petunias had been reduced to slimy, wilted green stems by four days of heavy rain.

  They were definitely dead.

  Had her chances with Aaron died with the petunias?

  Anna patted the bowl she held tightly in her arms. “Don’t worry, dear. We don’t need petunias to catch Aaron’s heart. My soup will do the trick.”

  Suvie cracked a smile and then couldn’t help the giggle that escaped. She and Aaron were equally unenthusiastic about Anna’s cooking. They had at least one thing in common. “You’re right, Anna,” she whispered, just in case Aaron was listening on the other side of the door. “Your soup could very well bring us together.”

  When Aaron didn’t answer, Suvie knocked again—louder, just in case he hadn’t heard her pounding the first time.

  Anna smiled her most patient grandmotherly smile and shrugged. “I think you’re going to have to sneak around the back again and peek in his window.”

  “Lord willing, he’s not in his underwear,” Felty said.

  Anna widened her eyes with a scold. “Now, Felty. You shouldn’t talk about our grandson that way.”

  “Well, he wears underwear, doesn’t he?”

  Suvie laughed and turned bright red at the same time. Did Anna and Felty ever behave like normal old people? “Maybe you should come with me just in case.”

  Aaron’s grandparents glided down the porch steps like seventy-year-olds while Suvie almost tripped, she was so nervous. She was still the fastest of the three of them and led the way around the house to Aaron’s backyard. Aaron was standing next to that strange pile of rocks sitting in the middle of his lawn. He tossed a fist-size rock on top of the pile and dusted his hands on his trousers.

  He looked up, gave Suvie a dazzling smile, and just as quickly averted his eyes and stared at Anna as if he were determined not to make eye contact with Suvie. She did her best not to let frustration choke her even though it was clear that Aaron was infinitely more interested in his mammi than he was in Suvie. Too bad he was so handsome. It only made the torture worse.

  “Aaron, dear,” Anna said, handing her bowl of soup to Suvie and giving Aaron a pat on the cheek. “We thought it would never stop raining.”

  Suvie swallowed her disappointment and gave Aaron a wry smile. “Don’t you ever answer your front door?”

  He seemed to reluctantly turn his eyes to her. But his grin gave her a little hope. “Don’t you ever knock?”

  She raised her eyebrows. “All the time. And loud. My knuckles are sore from knocking so hard. I’ve been reduced to spying into windows.”

  “I . . . I like the baby blue,” he said, and it took Suvie a moment to realize he was talking about her dress.

  He liked her dress? She’d wear it every day.

  He hesitated before fixing his eyes on his mammi again. “I really like your purple dress too, Mammi.”

  Anna waved the compliment away. “Ach, don’t pay any attention to me.”

  “You have quite a rock pile here,” Felty said.

  Aaron lifted his chin as if daring his dawdi to argue with him. “I’m faithful about it.”

  Suvie stared at her hands and tried to look completely disinterested in the conversation, though she was wonderful curious about why Aaron had a pile of rocks in the middle of his yard. She suspected it had something to do with Mary, but she was too polite to ask.

  “Mary would be pleased to know that her memory is still alive on your lawn,” Anna said, giving Aaron a second pat on the cheek.

  Mary’s memory? Suvie was pretty sure that when she died, she wouldn’t want to be remembered as a pile of rocks, but if it made Aaron feel better, then who was she to judge? Her aendi Ruth had told her that even though everybody felt sadness, people were sad in different ways. Maybe the rocks were Aaron’s pile of sadness.

  Anna took the bowl of soup from Suvie and passed it to Aaron. “We just came to make sure you get settled in.”

  Aaron frowned. “Settled in?”

  “Jah, and to give you this soup and”—she reached into her apron pocket and pulled out three colorful handfuls of yarn—“these dishrags.” She turne
d and winked at Suvie, as if all her problems were now solved. Suvie truly hoped that those dishrags were as powerful as Anna claimed. “Felty and I need to go. I’ve got to make peanut butter spread for the fellowship supper on Sunday, and you know how hard it is to stir. But Suvie is staying. I know you’ll enjoy that.”

  Aaron glanced from Anna to Suvie and back again, frowning like a little boy whose mamm was leaving him with a mean babysitter. “I don’t mind planting the petunias myself. It’s no trouble.”

  If Suvie hadn’t been so in love with Aaron, she might have worked herself up to a stomachache and gone home with her tail between her legs. But she wasn’t about to give up, even though Aaron was looking at her like he wished she’d leave. Anna had knitted dishrags and made casserole and soup. Suvie had searched four stores in Shawano for petunias and spent an hour getting the mud stains out of her mint-green dress.

  She wouldn’t quit, even though Aaron so obviously wanted her to. She and Anna had gone to too much work already to let go now. And most of all, Aaron, no matter how immovable, was definitely worth the effort. He was handsome and smart, hardworking and godly, and she liked the way his lively eyes studied her face as if he were trying to understand all her hopes and dreams with one glance. He was a wunderbarr grandson, and she loved how devoted he had been to Mary. Few men treated their wives with that much affection, and Suvie wanted that in her life. She wouldn’t let an uncertain look from Aaron or a flat of dead petunias stop her.

  “Now, Aaron,” Anna said, “I’ve had quite enough of your unselfishness. You’re going to need help with those petunias, and no one knows how to plant a flower like Suvie. Her thumbs are so green, she could probably even bring flowers back from the dead.” Anna turned her back on Aaron and raised a doubtful eyebrow at Suvie. Anna had done all she could to help, but Suvie was going to have to be creative if she wanted to spend any amount of time with Aaron today. Those petunias were not coming back.

  Felty turned back and smiled at Aaron. “We came for no gute reason and now we’re leaving you two alone together for no gute reason. I’m glad you’re not the suspicious type.”

  “Now, Felty,” Anna said, hooking her arm around his elbow and pulling him away. “We don’t need a reason to see our grandson.”

  “No, we don’t,” Felty said.

  Anna and Felty disappeared around the side of the house, and Aaron stood staring at his boots. If Suvie waited for Aaron to decide he loved her, she’d be waiting a long time. She’d have to make her own hay.

  She pasted on the most radiant smile she could muster. “I have bad news.”

  He raised his gaze to her face, and her heart sank even lower. “What’s wrong?”

  What was wrong? Too many things—like the fact that he didn’t want her here and that his eyes were full of resentment. She took a deep breath and widened her hopefully convincing smile. Maybe it wasn’t resentment. Maybe Aaron felt cautious. And suspicious. Felty had practically warned him to be suspicious. Suspicion was better than resentment. Her determination wouldn’t fail her if she pretended he was suspicious instead of resentful.

  “The petunias are dead,” she said.

  He nodded. “They looked wonderful soggy last night. I should have brought them in the house.”

  She cleared her throat. Twice. “Speedy Weaver might have a few leftovers at his greenhouse. Should we go find out?”

  He wrapped his hand around the back of his neck as if he were trying to loosen a noose. Suvie’s heart fell so far, it was probably six feet underground. “Ach, vell, maybe you should go by yourself,” he said. “I have a field to plow.”

  She was smiling so hard, her lips would probably permanently stick to her teeth. “Okay. Can I borrow your buggy? Anna and Felty drove me here.”

  He wilted like a leaky tire. “Ach. I suppose I should drive you.”

  “Not at all. I can go myself.” She brushed an imaginary thread off her sleeve just to remind him that she was wearing a blue dress and that he liked it. “I’m a very gute driver, except for that one time I drove Judy off the road and into a ditch. Or the time I hitched her up wrong and she left without me. Or that one day when I lost the reins and she went three miles in the wrong direction before she tired out.”

  Aaron curled one side of his mouth. And then the other. Her heart did a little jump. “You always say something I don’t expect.”

  “Is that a gute thing or a bad thing?”

  “I don’t know. But I do know I’m driving to Speedy Weaver’s house.”

  Suvie didn’t have to fake that smile anymore. Aaron’s resistance was all but gone. “Well, okay, but don’t blame me if your field doesn’t get plowed.”

  “It’s too muddy anyway.”

  He put Mammi’s soup in the house, and she followed him out to the barn to hitch up his horse to the two-seater, open-air buggy. They climbed in, and Aaron guided the horse down the lane.

  “I see you fixed your rain gutter,” Suvie said as they turned onto the road in front of Aaron’s house.

  “In the dark with a flashlight. I didn’t want my foundation to sink.”

  “You really need to clean out your gutters. Your house could float away in the next storm.”

  He studied her face. “You really are bossy.”

  Suvie smiled and batted her eyelashes. “Jah, I am. You’d better clean them out before your dawdi decides to do it for you. He was talking about it this morning. A ladder is no place for an eighty-seven-year-old.”

  “You’ll have to convince him not to try it,” Aaron said.

  “Me? I couldn’t even talk your mammi out of making you a batch of butternut squash and raisin soup—though I didn’t try very hard. It makes her so happy to feed her grandchildren, and she thinks you’re too skinny. You should gain some weight if you don’t want a plate of your mammi’s treats every day.”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “Do you think I’m too skinny?”

  Suvie laughed at the look of mock distress on his face. “When you were in the feed store last week, Melvin called you a tall glass of water, but I don’t know if that means you’re too skinny. Your mammi thinks you are.”

  “I’ve lost some weight since Mary died. I eat because I have to, not because I find any pleasure in it. Everything tastes like cardboard.”

  She let her mouth fall open. “That is the most unbelievable thing I’ve ever heard. Have you tasted Clara Yutzy’s peanut butter chocolate drops?”

  His lips twitched as if he were trying not to smile. “I can’t say that I have.”

  “Or what about Lia Zimmerman’s dinner rolls? Or Moses Zimmerman’s cheese? Have you gone to Nelson’s bakery right after she takes a peach pie out of the oven?”

  “Nae,” he said.

  “Aaron Beachy, I’m ashamed of you. So many gute things to eat, and you can’t do any better than bran flakes? Don’t try to deny it, I saw them on your counter the other day. I almost threw them away, I was so offended.”

  “I don’t want to get fat.”

  She threw back her head and huffed her displeasure to the sky. “You’re a long way from fat, Aaron Beachy, but if I have anything to say about it, you’re going to gain a few pounds. I’m shocked at how much appeditlich food you’ve missed out on.”

  “Have I told you how bossy you are yet?”

  “Denki. It’s one of my best qualities.”

  The rain had left small puddles everywhere on the dirt roads, and Aaron sped up whenever they came to one. The horse and buggy splashed its way over the long country road, with Aaron whooping whenever the water splattered higher than a few inches. Up ahead, a puddle at least eight feet wide covered the whole road. Aaron prodded the horse to go faster. “I love a good puddle.” Just as quickly, he slowed the horse to a walk and furrowed his brow. “Unless you’re afraid you’ll get your dress dirty.”

  Suvie beamed at him and wrapped her fingers around the edges of her seat. “I know how to do laundry yet.”

  Grinning like a tomcat, Aaron flicked the r
eins, and the horse broke into a trot. Suvie held her breath as the cool, humid air whipped past her face and tried to tug her bonnet off her head.

  With a whoosh, the buggy wheels rolled into the water, but the puddle was deeper, much deeper, than either of them had anticipated. Suvie had barely enough time to let out a dismayed squeak when the buggy tilted wildly to the side. Her tight grip on the seat didn’t help her as the buggy lurched and threw her into the water.

  The water couldn’t have been more than ankle deep, but the splash sounded tremendous in her ears, and she landed face-first so that pretty much every inch of her front got soaked. Oy, anyhow! She hoped Aaron liked muddy baby-blue dresses.

  Her eyes must have been playing tricks on her. She thought she saw four, maybe five little boys jump up from behind the tall weeds by the side of the road and run away.

  “Are you okay?”

  Suvie pushed herself to a sitting position, which got her chin out of the mud but completely soaked her backside. She could feel the water seeping up her back. She wiped her eyes with a mud-caked hand and looked up to see Aaron standing over her, holding his hand out to her and looking much more serious than he needed to.

  A giggle tripped from her lips, as did a small pebble that she must have eaten when she went face-first into the puddle. She took Aaron’s hand, and he pulled her and about ten pounds of water to her feet. “I wish I had known that this is what you meant by getting my dress dirty.” The giggle turned into a throaty laugh that she couldn’t control.

  He looked at her as if maybe he thought she’d hit her head. “Do you need a doctor?”

  “And I thought I was a bad driver.”

  He gave her a reluctant smile. “I’m a gute driver. You should have held on tighter.” He took her arm and tugged her to dry ground.

  “You’re a bad driver, and that was worse than the roller coaster at Wisconsin Dells.”

  Still laughing, she bent down, gathered the hem of her dress in her fists, and tried to wring it out. It was like trying to squeeze water out of a handful of beach sand. “It’s no use. I’m going to have to stand here until I air dry.”