She pointed at the pry bar on the floor. He backed up his wheelchair, suddenly feeling like a clumsy toad.
She picked up the tool, then put space between them. “You stopped writing.”
“It was nice of you to send me letters after the accident.” And he’d answered a couple. It’d felt good to know someone cared, even somebody he barely knew. “But after the first few, I didn’t have anything else to say.”
“Ya, me either.” She pointed the pry bar at him. “You look good.”
He didn’t believe her. That was just what people said whenever someone had been ill or injured. “Compared to what?”
She raised an eyebrow, sending a shiver of exhilaration down his spine. Her eyes held a challenge, as if she’d go toe-to-toe without being intimidated by him.
A man came to the doorway, carrying a bowl with a cloth over it. “Marian, I wasn’t sure where you’d disappeared to.”
She glanced his way before turning back to Roman. A hint of dare flickered through her eyes. “I’m right here.”
Disappointment crashed in on him. The man had to be the boyfriend.
He entered the room. “Hi.” He set the bowl on the table near Roman. “Marian and I came by to say a friendly hello, and your aunt told us where you’d be. She had me wait until she fixed this snack for you.”
Marian held out the pry bar to Roman, keeping a firm grip on it even after he grasped it. “Like I said, you look good, and that’s compared to any man your age.”
Emotions skittered and sizzled like water poured on a hot engine.
“Marian.” The man sounded displeased.
She released the tool before gesturing toward the man. “You remember Andrew?”
Roman blinked. “Your little brother?”
Challenge and humor danced in her eyes. “Yep.”
Andrew shook his hand. “Good to see you again.”
“You too.”
Andrew had been a scrawny kid the last time Roman saw him. Andrew began straightening and lining up the tools on the table.
Roman laid the pry bar across his lap. “You knew exactly what I was thinking when he came into the room, didn’t you?”
She shrugged, a huge possum grin on her face. “I was hoping.”
“You have a cruel streak,” he teased. “I’m not sure I like that.”
“Then let me make it up to you.”
“No thanks.” Fear of this bold, interesting woman danced with the hope she stirred. What would she say if he invited her to attend a singing with him?
She brushed her fingers across her cheek, as if she’d felt a bug or something, and in the process unknowingly left grimy marks. “Afraid you won’t survive my effort to make up for my rudeness?”
“Very much so.”
“You’re smarter than I gave you credit for, aren’t you?”
“So I look good, but I also look stupid?”
She giggled, clearly enjoying their banter. “Maybe.”
He tried to size her up. She had more zing than any girl he’d ever met. Was she just horsing around, or was she seriously flirting with him?
If this conversation had taken place five years ago, he’d have asked her out by now. But he didn’t know enough about her to be certain what to think. Suddenly it dawned on him that she was probably acting this way to give a crippled man hope that his life with girls wasn’t over. “I don’t need pity.”
Her laughter echoed inside the small room. She looked at her brother. “He thinks I’m capable of feeling sorry for someone.”
Andrew scoffed. “Ya, and the Sahara is dairy farming country. My advice, Roman, is run.”
Roman put a hand on each leg. “I can’t.”
She studied him, scrutinizing him with her beautiful brown eyes that were almost as dark as her hair. “You never did run after or away from any girl, did you?”
“Not that I recall.” He’d never needed to run. If he was interested in someone, he’d ask to take her home from a singing, and if she said no, he never asked again. If a girl pursued him and he wasn’t interested, he’d nicely tell her so—at least he hoped he was nice about it.
She looked at the gunk on her hands and frowned. “I suggest you learn how to pursue … unless you intend to give up dating for the rest of your life.” She wiped her hands on her black apron. “Since I’m currently between beaus, you can practice on me.”
“I’m not sure brazen women are my type.”
“Gut. Because I’m not sure a wheelchair-bound man is my type.”
She’d just addressed the elephant in the room, the one everyone always pretended didn’t exist.
“You’ve got style, Marian.”
“And another one bites the dust,” Andrew mumbled.
Marian giggled. “Pick me up tonight around eight.”
He couldn’t get in or out of a carriage without someone strong to lift him. Rigs sat up high, the doors were quite narrow, and there was never room for his wheelchair. Aden had designed a buggy to carry the wheelchair on the outside of it, but that was in Apple Ridge. “Tonight?”
“Your aunt said you’re planning to be in town only through Sunday at the latest.”
“True, but …” That awful sense of powerlessness clutched his heart and squeezed. Determined to overcome the feeling, he came up with a different plan. “Maybe you should come by here. We could play a board game or something.”
She frowned at him. “What’s the problem, Roman?”
“Nothing.” He couldn’t confess the reality of his situation, not to someone as strong and bold as she was. If she saw him as too weak to even take her out, she’d cross him off her list of possible beaus before he knew whether he wanted a second date.
“Then pick me up at eight.” She turned and walked out.
Roman glanced at her brother.
Andrew rolled his eyes. “I warned you. She’d look a dragon in the eye and dare it to ever spew fire again. The scary part is, she’d win that fight.”
Roman stared at the doorway she’d just gone through. Had he ever been strong willed enough for someone like her? Back when his confidence was in place, he could charm the sweet, kind girls. But not someone like Marian. Then again, surely he could survive one date … couldn’t he?
Stars twinkled brightly through the carriage window, and Annie was too restless to be taken straight home. She stole a brief glimpse of Aden as he silently pulled out of the restaurant lot. It was nearing ten o’clock, but they’d just finished the food preparations for the next day.
Their hours together preparing food for tomorrow’s menu and cleaning up dirty dishes had felt more like spending time with a good friend than accomplishing a weighty task. Except during a true work frolic, the men undertook one task while the women did another, usually men building something and women tending to little ones and preparing huge meals. She liked her and Aden’s method much better, interacting constantly while doing their jobs.
Did he care as much about spending time with her? Her thoughts jumped to the man her mother had been so positive was the right one for her. Leon had loved spending time with Annie, and her mother had really expected Annie to like him. For her sake, Annie had tried. For all her lack of warmth, Mamm did care about her. Annie knew she did. She sighed.
Aden slowed the rig. “S-something wrong?”
“Just thinking about my Mamm.”
He nodded.
If Leon had been even a little like Aden, she might have been able to give in to Mamm’s wishes. She’d gone out with him several times, hoping to learn to like him. It would have pleased her mother.
“You m-miss her?”
She shook her head. “I miss who she used to be. And I’m sure she feels the same way about me. We used to get along decently enough … before I became of dating age.”
Aden gave a reassuring smile, looking as if he’d like to ask questions or talk about it, but instead he nodded and began humming. But the music wasn’t a long monotone without meter or melody, so co
mmon for the Amish. It sounded a bit like the tune to “He Leadeth Me.”
“Ach, I love that song. Would you sing a few words for me?”
He shook his head.
“Just a few. Please?”
He drew a deep breath and sang, “I have no idea what the words might be, but it’s a song that sticks with me.”
“You have a lovely voice. Sing again.”
He made a face before smiling and singing, “I don’t know what to tell you, what to say, how to move you.”
She laughed. “You changed songs.”
“I don’t know where I heard it, but I think it’s from a soundtrack to a play or a movie. We have a supplier who gives parties at the restaurant a few times a year, and he sets up a stereo during them. He used to come into the kitchen and talk about the movies he’d seen and what tunes went with what movie.” Aden kept a tune going.
“Wherever that one came from, I wouldn’t tell your bishop about that song if I were you. Did you hear yourself?”
“H-hear wh-what?”
“You didn’t stutter over one word.”
“I know,” he sang, returning to the tune of “He Leadeth Me.” “The doc says singing comes from a different part of the brain than talking. But you wouldn’t want me to sing everything I need to say, would you?”
“I’d have you communicate in any way that makes you most likely to open up and share—whether it’s stuttering, singing, or sign language.”
He looked surprised. “You’re very s-sweet, Annie,” he half sang and half spoke. “But sign language?” He dropped the reins to the horse and gestured nonsense with his hands. “Ach! Not a good idea.” He elongated the words, staying in perfect pitch.
She giggled and picked up the reins. “I’ll drive; you talk.”
He retrieved the reins and turned onto the long lane that led to her Daadi’s Haus. “You talk; I’ll drive,” he sang.
Despite his difficulty with words, she found Aden to be everything she’d looked for in a man, and the thought terrified her. He was even-keeled, encouraging, kind, fun, and as genuine as God’s deepest lake.
Annie unbuttoned her jacket. The current warm spell would make for a very pleasant walk, even this late at night. “How long has it been since you’ve seen the cherry tree orchard?”
Aden hummed for a moment. “Four years, almost five,” he sang. “You showed it to me in full bloom the spring you turned fifteen.”
“Would you like to park the rig and walk to the orchard? I want to know if there is the slightest sign of budding.”
“It’s d-dark.”
“I’ll keep you safe.”
“N-no.” He laughed and then sang again. “We won’t be able to see the buds. But if the point is to walk and talk, I’d rather not sing to the cherry trees.”
Next week when Roman returned and Mattie and Gideon were married, she’d have no reason to come to the diner to work beside Aden. These last two days had been the best she remembered having in her life, and the desire to enjoy this short bit of time outweighed her guilt for doing something behind her grandfather’s back. “I’d like to see you sing to my Daadi’s orchard.”
“Of course you would.” Despite singing those words, he clearly mocked frustration. At least she hoped he was pretending it.
He pulled off the driveway and onto the field and brought the rig to a halt.
“I wonder.” Annie opened the door of the carriage. “Maybe all you need to do is think of a tune while talking.”
“Maybe.” He sang the word boldly, raising his head and putting his hand to his chest as if he were on a stage.
Laughing at his antics, she fell as she got out of the rig. Aden hurried around the carriage, but she got to her feet quickly. She straightened her dress and pointed a finger at him while trying to curb her giggles. “Not funny.”
He chortled, all the while waving his hands in a gesture that said it wasn’t funny at all.
They walked down the hill. The stars twinkled as a lone cloud crossed in front of an almost-full moon. Once near the stream, she paused, taking in the beauty of the multitude of barren trees. “Did I ever tell you why Daadi Moses planted all these trees out of sight of passersby?”
Aden shook his head.
“Daadi Moses was a farmhand for Raymond Zimmerman, and he fell in love with his eldest daughter. She wasn’t old enough to date because her strict father wouldn’t let her go out until she was twenty. She cried, trying to get her father to change his mind, but he wouldn’t. Daadi Moses assured her he’d wait, but she didn’t believe him. So he bought a cherry tree, saying that he’d wait for her for as long as that tree lived. Wanting to make it a gift to her, he asked permission from her father to plant it on his property. But the man refused.” Annie grabbed a low-hanging branch and pulled it close, inspecting it for possible buds.
Aden touched her shoulder and used his index finger to signal for her to continue. Her heart warmed at the thought that he was interested in this. No one else who mattered to her seemed to care at all.
“My Daadi Moses bought one small plot of ground with a stream running through it. That piece of earth wasn’t big enough to put a house on, only a few trees. He’d pass her home every Saturday on his way to the plot of land that held the tree. I guess it was a way of letting her know he was taking care of that tree. And it gave him the opportunity to put a letter in her mailbox as he passed by. Sometimes she could get away and meet him at the mailbox without her parents knowing. He said those few brief minutes had to sustain them for years.”
Aden propped his hand against a tree. “I never knew any of th-this.”
“Despite his persistence, the girl’s father didn’t budge in his decision. He even said that when she did date, she couldn’t marry until he said so. Daadi Moses bought another cherry tree and planted it.”
Aden gestured at all the trees. “How l-long did he wait?”
“Four years.” She couldn’t help but smile. “The woman was my grandmother, and he bought her a tree every year, even after they were married and for a long time after she died. Isn’t that beautiful?”
“And s-sad.”
“He worked long, hard hours during those years and bought all the land we can see. Whenever one of the trees dies, he plants another. They loved each other dearly, and this orchard will be a glorious testimony to that in a few weeks.”
“That story d-doesn’t sound like M-Moses.”
“I know. He’s a good man but doesn’t come across as prone to sentimental actions. I like to think maybe that’s what love does—reaches into the best and deepest parts of a man.”
“Just a man?”
“I’m telling you my personal viewpoint, so, ya, it’s about the heart of a man. It probably sounds like pure foolishness to you.”
He smiled and shook his head. “Not at all.”
They meandered side by side farther into the orchard. Had he noticed how much smoother his speech patterns were while they were in this field? Maybe he was thinking of tunes while talking. But she didn’t care if he stuttered over every word; she loved hearing what he had to say.
“Wh-wh …” Aden stopped and then hummed a tune. “Why did he plant it out of sight?”
“Ah, I left out that part, didn’t I?” The barren trees were so beautiful against the night sky. “He said it was because the love between him and Esther was hidden from passersby. It was a private thing that my grandmother’s Daed could never see and never destroy.”
“Sounds like M-Moses was right.”
Was it like that for every couple—that the love binding them couldn’t be seen or understood by passersby, even their own flesh and blood?
“And it gave them a place for picnics and long conversations once they were allowed to see each other.”
Aden pointed in the distance.
She looked in that direction. “I don’t see anything.”
He got behind her and extended his arm over her shoulder. Her eyes followed down his coat sleev
e and index finger. Two deer stood at the edge of the creek, drinking.
This place had always seemed magical to her.
She turned to Aden, studying his face and hoping she was reading him right. “You like it here too, don’t you?”
His smile was enough to assure her. “Ya.”
The deer jolted and ran through the orchard and across a knoll. She wanted to see Aden again, as much as time allowed. But was that wrong of her? Didn’t her grandfather see her grandmother some without their parents’ approval? Maybe they didn’t go for walks, as she wanted to do with Aden, but they caught a few minutes at the mailbox, shared letters, and waited. Was walking through this orchard with Aden that much different? “Will you meet me here as often as we can until the trees blossom?”
“Definitely,” he whispered.
She’d always cared for Aden—sometimes just as a friend, sometimes more like a crush—but right then she knew that she cared about more than his determination to communicate with her. Was she falling in love with who he was, whether speaking or silent?
Roman lay in bed, hoping the pain reliever would do its job. Trying to get into a buggy with the help of someone who wasn’t his brother had resulted in a pulled back muscle.
The date had been worth it. Still, frustration stirred.
His one date in five years, and for it to go off without physical injury, he’d needed Aden to help him get around. There’d been a time when Aden relied on him—Roman had been his voice—but Roman hadn’t needed his brother. Now he required Aden’s help much more than his brother needed his. The whole situation was more wearisome than Roman could stand.
He’d gone to Marian’s house, but he’d dealt with some physical discomfort at times throughout the evening—not that he’d told her. She should have agreed to his suggestion to come to his uncle’s place. But no, she balked, and he’d caved like a man desperate to go out with a woman.
The Scent of Cherry Blossoms: A Romance from the Heart of Amish Country Page 5
