by Kelly Long
“Thank you for this, Sarah.” Lilly smiled, indicating the basket of preserves. “That’s a beautiful horse.”
“Ach, come and see it and say hello to Jacob.”
“All right.”
The two girls walked among the gamboling children and approached the Morgan.
Jacob tipped his hat. “Miss Lapp.”
Lilly nodded and reached a tentative slender hand to the muzzle of the horse.
Jacob laughed. “He won’t bite.” He took the schoolteacher’s hand in his own and stroked it down the glossy coat. Sarah watched a blush stain Lilly’s cheeks, and the children giggled at their teacher. Jacob dropped her hand after a few moments and Lilly stepped back.
“Lunch is over, children,” she announced to a collective moan of small voices. She smiled at Sarah and Jacob. “Enjoy your ride together.” Sarah watched her walk to the schoolhouse with the children in attendance and climbed back into the buggy. Jacob joined her and picked up the reins, and the Morgan was off.
“Lilly Lapp is a beautiful girl,” Sarah commented.
He made a noncommittal grunt. “I can’t understand why someone would want to keep spending time in school as a teacher.”
Sarah laughed. “That’s your father talking; he never did want you in school when you could have been working around the horses.”
“Well, he’s right. Too much book learning and not enough life learning isn’t good for anyone.”
Sarah made no comment as she knew it was something they’d long argued over. Instead, she talked idly about this and that, and he made no disagreement when she told him they had better go back.
He pulled the buggy up to the stand and Sarah glanced sideways at him. “Can’t it always be like this, Jacob? I’ve missed you.”
He stared straight ahead. “That’s something, anyway.”
“Jacob, please . . .” She laid a placating hand on his arm just as she recognized a familiar whistle. She glanced back and saw the doctor walking down the high road to the stand. “Ach, it’s a customer. I’d better go.” She prepared to hop down from the buggy when Jacob caught her arm.
“Sarah, even if you don’t want me, I see you. I know you. You’re being a fool to think that you could have anything with an outsider.”
She wrenched away and got down from the buggy, her conscience pricked at his words. “Thank you for the ride,” she said stiffly. She watched him shake his head, then turn the buggy to drive past the doctor without returning his wave.
She met the doctor at the steps.
“That was a beautiful horse, though I seem to rub its owner the wrong way,” he commented with a grin. “Did you have a good ride?”
“It was fine. I made some pecan tarts last night,” she went on hurriedly. She had no desire for the doctor to think that there was anything between her and Jacob, and she ignored the pang of conscience that said she shouldn’t care what he thought.
“Great.”
She had to admit later, as she watched the doctor walk away, that he didn’t seem to think anything of seeing her with Jacob. He was just as pleasant and cheerful as always, and she felt more confused than ever about the increasing place the doctor was occupying in both her mind and her heart.
One blue-skied Sunday in September, Sarah decided to go to the woods on the paths beyond the farm to gather the various items she needed to make the stand better supplied for fall and to have a chance to reflect upon her feelings of late. She took a large basket and a few things for lunch and set out with Mamm’s admonishment to be back before dusk.
The deep floor of the Allegheny Mountains was pillowed with a light coating of fresh orange, red, and yellow leaves, though the trees themselves were still fairly thick with color. Beneath the bright colors under her feet was a decaying eternity of dark brown—hemlock, pine, birch, and maple, as well as dogwood and oak—all worked together to cushion and nearly silence her steps. The trail lines remained, though, trails much older than her own people, she knew. Trails of the Susquehannock Indians, the tall people who once inhabited what she now called home, and she breathed a prayer for the long-extinct tribe.
She was startled from her thoughts by the rustling footsteps of someone coming up on the path. She had a vague feeling of uneasiness, aware of how alone she was. She’d nearly decided to turn back around, when a familiar blond head appeared and the doctor hiked up the trail toward her.
“Miss King—what a pleasure.”
She stared at him like he was some sort of apparition of all her desires, and despite all of her recent convictions, she couldn’t contain her joy at seeing him. She also knew that her parents would be upset to have her walking with him in the primal intimacy of the woods, but she promised herself that she would be coolly polite and nothing more.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, frustrated that she sounded breathless.
“Oh, I had a bit of free time and thought I’d walk to the creek and have lunch. These paths are great, and it’s a nice place to think among the trees.”
“Jah, you’re right.”
“What about you?”
“What?”
He smiled. “What are you doing here?” He gestured toward her basket.
“Ach.” She latched onto the safe topic. “The Englisch ladies seem to like wreaths. I thought I’d make some from leaves and berries and perhaps a few of pinecones. Then I’ll make some leaf and pine garlands and boughs; Chelsea, my sister, you know, told me in a letter to do some leaf arrangements in canning jars, and I need teaberries and maybe there are a few late blackberries or raspberries for jam—they hide like the deer in patches of sunlight and continue to ripen, though the year grows late.”
“You manage to capture all the secrets and intimacies of the woods.”
She bit her bottom lip at the huskiness of his voice.
“You know, someone might think that white teeth pressed against a red mouth might be an invitation for someone else to look at those lips.”
She stopped her chewing and he laughed, the sound causing a rustling among the leaves on the ground as a chipmunk squeaked in protest and darted up a birch tree.
“Well, since We’re here, shall we walk together? I can help you gather the things you need.”
Jah . . . of course.” “
They started down the path together, and Sarah glanced sideways at the tall man beside her. For just a moment, in the seclusion of nature, she wanted to pretend that they were pioneers together ready to work the land. Or, she smiled, she could pretend that he’d been born Amish and—she tripped over a root at the thought and he steadied her.
“Careful.”
“Jah,” she agreed, both disappointed and relieved when he dropped his hand from her arm.
“Your father and brothers are so busy lately; the harvest is the hardest time of the year for them, isn’t it?”
Sarah considered. “Not hard—work is good. The Lord has given us purposeful work in each of the seasons; there’s just more to do at harvest.”
“The Amish don’t seem to separate work from everyday living.”
She bent to select a pinecone, checking to make sure it was without rot. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, the Englisch say ‘I’m going to my job or my work,’ and then they think of home as something separate and better sometimes. It’s rare to find an Englisch person who truly loves his or her work.”
“I still don’t understand . . . How can home be separate from work? It’s all part of the same. How can an Englisch man think if he divides himself over and over each day?”
“We just do it.”
She stopped and looked up at him with concern. “Don’t you like your work, Doctor?”
“Who me? I love it. God has blessed me incredibly.”
She nodded, satisfied, and continued along the path. “I feel blessed too.”
“I know; that’s why it’s so peaceful to be with you.”
She regarded him primly, trying hard to think of him as a p
olite friend. “Danki.”
He caught a stray falling red leaf and ran it down the arm of her black, serviceable, hook-and-eye coat. She shivered, despite herself, and he smiled, twirling the leaf in his long fingers. “You’re quite welcome.”
Grant resisted the urge to look down at her as they walked. He had difficulty controlling his impulses when he was around her, always finding a way to sneak in a touch here or there, like with the leaf. He knew he made her nervous at times, but he also sensed that she was interested in his attentions, even if she fought against herself in the process. If he were smart, he should probably just back off, since he knew that if Sarah returned his affections, she’d risk being shunned by her community. But he couldn’t help himself. He suppressed a sigh and heard the nearby sound of the creek.
“Hey, let’s go to the creek for lunch.” He patted the pockets of his brown leather coat. “Mrs. Bustle handed me enough for two.”
“I have a sandwich.”
He grinned. “Then we won’t go hungry.”
“Nee.”
Pine Creek in the early autumn was at its best in terms of secret pools and gently swirling leaves, lazy gurgles and the stray dart of a dragonfly. The moss-covered rocks seemed to invite time and life to be still for a moment, to listen to the relaxing fluidity and to forget the cares of the world.
He extended a hand to help her across the water and wasn’t surprised when she jumped like a young deer, barely touching his fingers as she gained his position, and they both sank down by unspoken agreement on the large rock in the middle of the water.
He emptied his full pockets, revealing treasures of egg-and-ham salad on fresh bread along with miniature vanilla crème brûlées and tiny, purpled wine grapes. She brought forth an apple pie in a child-sized patty tin and a roast beef sandwich. They both bowed for a moment of grace, with no seeming need to speak a word, as the hand of the Father seemed so present in their meal.
“This is nice,” he said, thinking what an understatement it was.
“I’ve wanted to ask you . . .” She broke off with a shy glance.
“Anything,” he prompted. “Remember, I’d like there to be the truth between us.” And that thought, he nagged himself silently, makes you a liar, because you’d rather talk about how beautiful she is than anything else that might be on her mind.
“I wanted to ask you,” she continued. “If it’s not too forward . . . about how your mamm and father died.”
If she’d knocked him across the head broadside, she couldn’t have rattled him more. He never talked with anyone about his parents, about how it had happened, anyway. He stared down at the water and felt the pull of something deep within him.
“More ice melting,” he told her.
“I didn’t mean to bring you pain. I just thought about . . . well, how young you were and how hard it must have been.”
He shook his head. “My parents died in an automobile accident.”
Ach . . . I’m sorry.” “
He went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “A great tribute to the evils of automobiles, I know, but there’s a bit more to the story. You see . . . they swerved to avoid hitting a deer. Mother lived for a few hours, long enough to tell me how beautiful the animal was.”
“They should have hit it,” she cried, and he shook his head.
“No, I know your farm sensibilities tell you that, but we were all animal lovers. Mother would swim brown recluse spiders out of the pool and Father kept three dogs—in his office.”
“You told me once . . . your father was a physician?”
“Yeah, but he would have been just as great a vet, though.”
“And he’d be happy for you in your work?”
“Very happy. Very happy that I’m using my work to serve the Amish people, just like he did.”
“Why did he care so much about the Amish?”
Grant smiled. “He admired their sense of community, I guess. He thought your people got things closer to the first-century church than anyone else, and I think God called him to care for the Amish community like He’s called me.”
He tore off a small piece of sandwich, throwing it into a set of circles where he’d seen a fish jump the moment before. A brown trout promptly took the bread, and he tore off another piece, glancing at her sideways.
“I’m glad He’s called you here,” she whispered, her eyes matching the rich brown tones of the surrounding trees.
He abandoned the bread and reached across the food to cover the hands she’d folded in her lap. “Thank you. You don’t know how much that matters to me—what you think.”
She looked down at his hand in her lap and rubbed her small thumb across the pads of his fingertips, and he felt his heart begin to throb in his throat.
“I feel the same way too—about what you think,” Sarah admitted.
He would have spoken but there was a nearby rustling of the dense foliage, loud enough to make him jump to kneel protectively beside her, when a majestic white-tailed buck cleared the bank and leaped into the stream, not more than ten feet in front of them. Grant stared at it wonder, sinking backward with his arm around her shoulders.
The deer returned his gaze, its many pointed horns glistening in a flash of sunlight, then it gave another splashing leap and majestically mounted the opposite side of the bank until it disappeared into the woods.
“It was a deer, for you, from Der Herr . . . in memory of your parents,” she whispered and he looked down at her, feeling the truth of her words. He bent his head, intent on the soft line of her lips when his nostrils flared and his eyes narrowed alertly.
“I smell smoke . . . Do you smell it?”
“Jah. It’s probably from a nearby farm.”
“No . . . I don’t think so. Stay here for just a minute, will you?”
He was taking the rocks in great strides, puzzled by the sense of urgency that drove him on. Something didn’t feel right. He broke through the dense overgrowth near where the buck had gone and came into a sudden clearing. A figure in a blue-hooded coat hunched over a pile of damp leaves, trying to start a fire.
“Hey!” Grant called.
The person turned and he caught a glimpse of a clean-shaven male face before the man took off into the woods, leaving the smoldering leaf pile behind. Grant gave chase but then thought of Sarah and turned back to stamp at the pile, surprised by her sudden appearance at the edge of the clearing.
“I heard you call.” She watched him finish stepping on the leaves. “What’s wrong?”
He walked over to her. “Someone was trying to start a fire.”
“An Amish?”
“I don’t know. He had a blue parka on and no beard. He ran off when I called.”
“Probably an Englisch teenager up to tricks.”
“No . . . I don’t think so. I’m not sure why, but there was something wrong, I think. And a fire in these woods would be no trick; it would be a disaster.”
“Jah, you’re right. I’ll tell Father when I return.”
“All right.” He smiled down at her, wanting to dispel the strange feeling he had of danger. “Let’s get your things for the stand first.”
She agreed and turned ahead of him to walk out of the clearing, but he looked back, unable to get over the feeling that someone stalked their going, and he hurried to catch up with her slender figure.
The beautiful day continued despite the disruption of the almost fire. The mountain paths revealed their secrets like walkways of strewn jewels. Delicate mushrooms, shy teaberries, pussy willow stems, and rich ferns all made their way into their baskets. They paused in a pine glen to gather seeds and Grant made a casual observation.
“You know, you’ve never ridden in my car.”
Sarah bent to select a large pinecone from the ground and he did the same.
She glanced at him as she hunched on the ground, smiling to see him plop two dissimilar cones into his basket, then brush his hand on his denims.
“There’s been no nee
d, Dr. Williams.”
“Don’t you think we’ve progressed to you calling me Grant—at least when we’re alone?”
She shrugged, embarrassed, not wanting to think about how many more chances they’d have to be alone.
“If you like.”
“I like, and, as I was saying, there’s apparently always a need to ride in a car . . . you’d be surprised.”
Something in his tone made her curious.
“Ach?”
“Oh yes, ach indeed.” He loved to repeat her Pennsylvania Dutch, but this time she didn’t feel amused as he went on. “Let’s see, there’s been the young Miss Loder, needing a ride to the market. A Miss Stolis wanting a ride because night was falling and there was a storm closing in.” He furrowed his handsome brow. “A Miss Adams, Englisch you know, who just wanted to know more about the field of veterinary science, and a Miss—”
“That’s fine, Doctor. I get your point.” Sarah’s voice was tight, and she had a burning vision of yanking Deborah Loder’s blonde hair and giving Anna Stolis a walk in a storm she’d not soon forget. She slapped a half-eaten pinecone in her basket, then turned toward the grapevines that Father grew near the creek.
She drew a deep, shaky breath and realized that she was jealous. She’d never felt the emotion with such intensity before, and the overwhelming feeling of the sin nearly made her sick at her stomach. She was jealous of others spending time with a friend, which made her the least desirable of friends. She didn’t deserve to spend time with him herself; she needed to go home.
She’d just turned again when she caught his blue eyes regarding her amusedly while he snacked on late black raspberries. The dawning awareness that he was teasing her did nothing to slow her from gritting her teeth and swinging her basket in an unladylike arc back over her arm. She shook her head at him, then turned to go, wanting to stomp but deciding she’d not give him the satisfaction.
He caught her arm, then jumped back a step when she swung her basket at him. “Don’t forget, Doctor, that there were three brothers before you who really liked to tease a little sister. Stay back, or you may find yourself in need of your own care.”
