“Me? I have not! I can’t imagine what you’re talking about.”
Turning so that her grandmother wouldn’t see, Anna lifted her fingers to her lips and mimed smoking a cigarette.
Mary Katherine blushed. “You’ve been spying on me.”
“Food’s ready!” Leah called.
“Don’t you dare tell her!” Mary Katherine whispered.
Anna’s eyes danced. “What will you give me if I don’t?”
She stared at her cousin. “I don’t have anything—”
“Your afternoon off,” Anna said suddenly. “That’s what I’ll take in trade.”
Before she could respond, Anna hurried into the back room. Exasperated, Mary Katherine could do nothing but follow her.
The minute they finished eating, Mary Katherine jumped up and hurried over to wash her dishes. “I’ll be right back,” she promised, tying her bonnet on the run as she left the store.
Winter’s chill was in the air. She shivered a little but didn’t want to go back for her shawl. She shrugged. Once she got moving, she’d be warm enough.
She felt the curious stares as if she were touched.
But that was okay. Mary Katherine was doing a lot of staring of her own. She had a great deal of curiosity about the Englisch and didn’t mind admitting it.
She just hoped that her grandmother didn’t know how much she’d thought about becoming one of them, of not being baptized into the Amish church.
As one of the tourists walked past, a pretty woman about her own age, Mary Katherine wondered what it felt like being covered in so little clothing. She suspected she’d feel half-naked in that dress. Although some of the tourists looked surprised when she and her cousins wore bright colors, the fact was that the Ordnung certainly didn’t mandate black dresses.
Color had always been part of Mary Katherine’s world. She’d loved all the shades of blue because they reminded her of the big blue bowl of the sky. Her father had complained that she didn’t get her chores done in a timely manner because she was always walking around . . . noticing. She noticed everything around her and absorbed the colors and textures, and spent hours using them in her designs that didn’t look like the quilts and crafts other Amish women created.
She paused at the display window of Stitches in Time. A wedding ring quilt that Naomi had sewn was draped over a quilt rack. Anna had knitted several darling little cupcake hats for babies to protect their heads and ears from the cold. And there was her own woven throw made of many different fibers and textures and colors of burnt orange, gold, brown, and green. All echoed the theme of fall, of the weddings that would come with the cooling weather after summer harvests.
And all were silent testament to Leah’s belief in the creativity of her granddaughters, thought Mary Katherine with a smile. The shop featured the traditional crafts tourists might expect but also the new directions the cousins came up with.
It was the best of both worlds, thought Mary Katherine as she ventured out into the throng of tourists lining the sidewalks.
Jacob saw Mary Katherine exit her grandmother’s shop. His timing was perfect because Anna had told him once what time they took a break to eat at the shop during the day.
He watched her stop to gaze at the display window and smiled—the smile that had attracted her to him. Oh, she was pretty with those big brown eyes and soft skin with a blush of rose over her cheekbones. But her smile.
She hadn’t always smiled like that. He started noticing it just a few months ago, after the shop had opened. It was like she came to life. He’d passed by the shop one day a couple of weeks ago and stopped to glance inside, and he’d seen her working at her loom, a look of absorption on her face, a quiet smile on her lips.
Something had moved in his chest then, a feeling he hadn’t had before. He’d resolved to figure this out.
He hadn’t been in a rush to marry. It had been enough to take over the family farm, to make sure that he didn’t undo all the hard work that his daed had done to make it thrive. He didn’t feel pride that he’d continued its success. After all, Plain people felt hochmut was wrong. In school, they had often practiced writing the proverb, “Der Hochmut kummt vor dem Fall.” Pride goeth before the fall.
But the farm, its continuity, its legacy for the family he wanted one day . . . that was important to him. To have that family, he knew he’d have to find a fraa. It was important to find the right one. After all, Plain people married for life. So, he’d looked around, but he had taken his time. He likened the process to a crop—you prepared the ground, planted the right seed, nurtured it, asked God’s blessing, and then harvested at the right moment.
Such things took time.
Sometimes they even took perseverance. She’d turned him down when he approached her and asked her out.
He decided not to let that discourage him.
She turned from the window and began walking down the sidewalk toward him. Look at her, he thought, walking with that bounce to her step. Look at the way she glances around, so animated, taking in everything with such curiosity.
He waited for some sign of recognition, but she hadn’t seen him yet. When they’d attended school, their teacher had often gently chided her for staring out the classroom window or doodling designs on a scrap of paper for the weaving she loved.
Mary Katherine moved through the sea of Englisch tourists on the sidewalk that parted for her like the waters for Moses when she walked. He watched how they glanced at her the way she did them.
It was a mutual curiosity at its best.
He walked toward her, and when she stopped and blinked, he grinned.
“Jacob! What are you doing here?”
“You make it sound like I never come to town.”
“I don’t remember ever seeing you do it.”
“I needed some supplies, and things are slower now with the harvest in. Have you eaten?” He’d casually asked Anna when they took their noontime break, but he figured it was a good conversational device.
“Yes. We ate a little early at the shop.”
He thought about that. Maybe he should have planned better. “I see. Well, how about having supper with me tonight?”
“Did you come all the way into town to ask me out?”
Jacob drew himself up. “Yes.”
“But I’ve told you before—”
“That you’re not interested in going out.”
“Yes.”
“But I haven’t heard of you going out with anyone else.”
She stared at him, oblivious of the people who streamed around them on the sidewalk. “Who did you ask?”
Her direct stare was unnerving. His collar felt tight, but he knew if he pulled it away from his neck, he’d just appear guilty. “I’d have heard.”
“I’m not interested in dating, Jacob.”
When she started past him, he put out his hand to stop her. She looked down at his hand on her arm and then met his gaze. “Is it you’re not interested in dating or you’re not interested in dating me?”
Her lips quirked. “I’m not interested in dating. It’s not you.”
“I see.”
She began walking again.
“Do you mind if I walk with you?”
“Schur.” She glanced at him. “Can you keep up?”
He found himself grinning. She was different from other young women he knew, more spirited and independent.
“Where are we going?”
She shrugged. “Nowhere in particular. I just needed to get out and get some fresh air.”
Stopping at a shop window, she studied its display of tourist souvenirs. “Did you ever think about not staying here? In Paradise?”
“Not stay here? Where would you go?”
She turned to look at him and shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s a big world out there.”
Jacob felt a chill race up his spine. “You can’t mean it,” he said slowly. “You belong here.”
“Do I?” she asked. Pensive, sh
e stared at the people passing. “Sometimes I’m not sure where I belong.”
He took her shoulders and turned her to face the shop window. “This is where you belong,” he told her.
She looked at the image of herself reflected in the glass as he directed. He liked the way they looked together in the reflection. She was a fine Amish woman, with a quiet beauty he’d admired for some time. He’d known her in school and, of course, they’d attended Sunday services and singings and such through the years. He hadn’t been in a rush to get married, and he’d noticed she hadn’t been, either. Both of them had been working hard, he at his farm, she in the shop she and her grandmother and cousins had opened.
He began noticing her shortly after the shop opened. There was a different air about her. She seemed more confident, happier than she’d been before.
He reminded himself that she’d said she didn’t date.
So why, he asked himself, am I trying again? Taking a deep breath, he turned to her. “Mary Katherine—”
“Jacob!” a man called.
He turned and saw a man striding toward him, someone who had returned to the Plain community after years away.
Though the man hailed him, his attention was clearly on Mary Katherine. He held out his hand. “Daniel Kurtz,” he said. “We met last Sunday.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Jacob saw Mary Katherine turn to the man and eye him with interest.
“You’re Rachel’s cousin from Florida.”
“I am.” He eyed the shop. “So, this is your shop?”
“My grandmother’s. My cousins and I help her.”
Daniel nodded. “Very enterprising.” He glanced around. “Is this the size of crowd you get this time of year?”
Mary Katherine nodded. “After-Christmas sales bring them out. But business slows down while people eat this time of day.”
“I came into town to pick up a few things and I’m hungry. Have you two eaten?”
“I asked Mary Katherine but—”
“We’ll join you,” she said quickly.
Jacob stared at her. But the two of them were already walking away. With an unexplained feeling of dread washing over him, he followed them.
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Table of Contents
Half title
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
Recipes
Creamed Celery
Snickerdoodles
White Hot Chocolate
Three Bear Soup (great for sick kids)
Glossary
Heart in Hand: Stitches in Time Series #3 Page 24
