“She insists I court—nee—marry Samuel Bawell.” She tugged at her prayer kapp ribbon as she turned to look at him, tears pooling in her eyes. “I know everyone thinks he’s such a good man, but he’s not. I’ve seen a different side to him, one that concerns me.” A single tear clung to her damp lashes and then dropped to her cheek. “He can be rough and demanding when he doesn’t get his way and then go all sweet and gentle like it never happened. Mamm says it’s just my imagination, but it’s not. I won’t marry him, Isaac. Not without love.” Her gaze smoldered with raw, mixed emotions.
Isaac squeezed her warm hand, wishing he had the right words to comfort her. Arranged marriages still happened in his community back home, but most youngies picked their own mates nowadays. “She threatened to force you into this loveless marriage knowing how you feel?”
“Ya, and she will if it suits her purpose.” She sighed deeply and slowly as she tugged at her kapp ribbon again, her expression grim.
“What are you going to do?” Isaac had no advice to offer Molly. He couldn’t manage his own life issues. How could he help her?
“That’s where you come in.” She made an effort to grin at him through her tears, her cheeks flaming red. Her hand fidgeted with the handkerchief in her lap.
“Tell me,” Isaac encouraged.
“If my daed were alive, he’d put a stop to all this nonsense...but he’s not. Mamm has all the power. I’m just the old maid.” She pushed her shoulders back and held his gaze as she sniffed. “I know it’s a lot to ask of anyone, especially you, but I couldn’t think of anyone else who could help.” Her bottom lip began to quiver.
“I can’t help if you don’t tell me what you need of me,” Isaac encouraged, patting her hand.
Molly took in a deep, ragged breath. “Would you pretend to court me for a little while, act like you have a real interest in me? Between the two of us, we can consider it a joke. It would mean nothing serious or binding.”
Isaac’s eyebrows went up in surprise.
“I know we barely know each other, and that we don’t share affection in that way, but we’d only have to go places together. Be seen in public once in a while. Nothing more. Just pretend an interest to fool my mother and the community until Samuel goes back home to Ohio in a few weeks. Once he returns home, we can end the relationship. You can just tell people I wasn’t the one for you.”
Isaac looked at Molly, saw expectation in her eyes. Coming to him, asking him for help, couldn’t have been easy for her. He couldn’t let her down, not after all the help she’d given him. He owed her that much, but was still surprised when he heard himself say, “Ya, sure. I can do that for you. You’ll let me know when you want to start this pretending?”
Molly’s stressed expression relaxed. She smiled. “There’s a singing frolic in the Mennonite church tonight. All the youngies are going. If you’re not too busy...maybe we could go together and hold hands when we get there so others would see.” Molly’s expression grew pensive again, her smile disappearing.
“Ya, that sounds okay,” he said, not sure he was doing the right thing.
“Thanks so much, Isaac.” Molly threw her arms around his neck, squeezed hard and then jumped off the couch. “I’ve got to get home before Mamm does. We’ve got a new guest, and she complains when lunch meals aren’t on the table at noon.”
Standing, Isaac watched Molly hurry out the shop door, a relieved smile brightening her face. He ambled back toward his chair. What had he gotten himself into?
Silence greeted him as he turned back into his office. Pain coursed down his leg, reminding him he needed to take one of the pain pills the Englischer doctor had given him that morning. A few days of pain medication and maybe he’d stop snapping customer’s heads off just because he hurt in body as well as spirit.
He wanted to help Molly, but he didn’t want to give her the wrong idea, either. She’d been nothing but good to him, but she deserved someone better to court, even if their relationship would be nothing but pretense.
Leaning forward and looking around the clean, organized bike shop took the frown off his face. He’d never experienced such kindness from total strangers before. The people of Pinecraft had been generous to a fault. Getting to know them, he found Mennonites, Amish and Englischers all working side by side, without pay, but with a common goal. To get his business open.
He was almost ready to flip the Closed sign over to Open, and he had Molly and the people of Pinecraft to thank for that. She’d even brought in Mose Fischer, his first real customer. And now he was about to start a fake courtship with her.
Isaac dumped his new pain pills into his hand. He looked down at the white capsules. There had been a time in his life when he’d have been tempted to swallow the whole bottle just to keep the thoughts of what he’d done to Thomas at bay, but today he singled out a pill, stuck it in his mouth and swallowed it down with a drink from his bottle of water.
Life was for the living, not that he deserved to live, but he had a reason to go on. He set the medicine bottle on his desk and picked up the phone. Maybe a reminder to his supply house would get the carts here a few days early. He’d be glad when the shop was officially open and he had something more to do with his time than sleep and eat.
The bell above the door clattered. Glancing over his shoulder, Isaac watched a man come into the shop, his shirt logo telling him the shop’s new sign was finally ready to go up.
Excitement built in his heart. The bike shop would officially be open in a few days, and he was going to the singing frolic with one of the sweetest girls in Pinecraft. He had no right to the joy that overwhelmed him, but he humbly accepted it as a gift from Gott.
He looked down and saw Molly’s handkerchief on the shop floor. He stopped and picked it up. The scent of lavender floated up and tickled his nose. Smiling, he tucked the cloth in his pocket next to his heart and hurried toward the shop door to greet a customer. Tonight when he saw Molly he’d give the square of white linen back to her. He beamed at the thought of being with her, holding her hand, but busied himself as he reminded himself their courting was for Ulla’s benefit, not his.
Chapter Five
Two hours later Molly stood silently at the thrift store’s front window, pretending to flip through men’s shirts hanging from a metal rack, when she was really watching Isaac’s bike-shop door. She couldn’t stop thinking about him, about the fake courtship she’d proposed to him.
Now that she’d had time to consider the situation, she realized Isaac must think her a complete bensel for asking him to go along with her foolish ruse.
Why had he agreed to fake an interest in her? They hardly knew each other. Were strangers really. What was in it for him? They had nothing in common, with the exception of living in Pinecraft and both being Amish. No one was going to believe they’d fallen in love so quickly. Her shoulders slumped. Most of the time they weren’t even nice to each other.
She straightened two shirts on their plastic hangers and pondered her fate. Her mother knew her better than anyone, knew she seldom acted impulsively. Everyone in the little tourist town thought of her as good ole practical Molly, the spinster with no personal life. She was the one everyone counted on. Her forehead crinkled with irritation as she shoved a shirt across the rack with such force the plastic hanger broke and fell to the floor. She bent to retrieve it, her mind racing. Her mamm wasn’t going to fall for their pretense unless her and Isaac’s romance was very convincing. That meant she’d need Isaac’s total cooperation. He was a busy shopkeeper. He didn’t have time for her childish ideas. He probably thought her a silly old maid, coming up with such grand schemes just so she didn’t have to marry.
Movement across the street caught her eye. She watched with interest as a big crane carried a sign toward the roof of Isaac’s bike shop. The store had been called Lapp’s Bike Shop for more years than she could remember. No
w it would have a new name, a new beginning.
Every bike she’d ever owned had been purchased, fixed, painted or exchanged there.
She could see Isaac silhouetted in the doorway, his stiff black hat in hand, the warm tropic breezes blowing his dark hair into his eyes.
In a few days everyone in Pinecraft was supposed to believe this dark-haired, brooding man wanted to be her husband. She was growing more and more uncomfortable with the deception in which she’d tangled Isaac. But if she tried to fight her mamm alone, she’d lose and be forced to marry Samuel. She sighed and leaned closer to the store window, watching the sign go up into the air.
“I thought we came to look for tablecloths. Are we going to shop, or are you going to stand there all day gawking out the window?” Ruth, tall, thin and very pregnant, called from the housewares aisle a few feet away. They’d been friends all their lives and now were next-door neighbors every November through March since Ruth had married and was living in Ohio with her husband most of the year. “I’ve only got a couple of hours to shop. You know when Saul starts banging on the table, dinner better be ready. You coming?”
With a smile Molly held up one finger and signaled for her friend to wait. She held her breath as the crane turned the sign around. In bold black letters, on a plain white background she read the words, THE BIKE PIT. The name described the hole-in-the-wall shop to perfection. She smiled as she scurried away, pleased for Isaac and his new adventure.
“Why are you smiling? Some Englischer wave at you?” Ruth picked up a lovely hand-painted cup and saucer with dainty pink roses. She set the pricy old dust catcher back on the shelf.
Molly forced the smile off her face. “No, nothing like that. Just a new sign going up across the street.” Molly glanced over her shoulder and peeked at the sign again.
Ruth picked up the cup and saucer again, seemed to do a considerable amount of thinking before putting it in the shopping basket hanging from her wrist. She tucked a pair of secondhand socks around the fragile memento for safekeeping. “You think I’ll break this?”
“Ya. Probably the first time you wash it,” Molly answered truthfully.
“I don’t care. I’m getting it anyway, but don’t tell your mamm. She’ll spread it around that I’ve gone fancy.”
“Well, you have, haven’t you?” Molly laughed as Ruth stuck out her tongue at her and headed toward more household items, muttering, “Yeah, but that doesn’t mean everyone and their sister has to know.”
Molly called after her, “I think I’ll pen an article to the Pinecraft Weekly. I can see the headlines now. ‘Ruth Lapp Drinks Coffee Out of Bone China and Gets in Trouble for It.’”
Ruth gave Molly a scathing look, her bottom lip half curled in a smile. “You do, and I’ll write one about that mysterious bump on your new tenant’s head.”
Molly hurried to catch up with her friend. “I told you that was purely accidental.”
“That’s not what Isaac Graber said while we were cleaning his shop.”
“He didn’t say anything about it, and you know it,” Molly fired back. She pulled out a white tablecloth, saw a red wine stain and refolded the cloth, stain side up.
Feeling eyes on her, Molly glanced up and saw Isaac enter the store. He gave her a quick nod and then shifted his gaze away as he continued to walk toward the front of the store. He leaned heavily on a cane, heading for the secondhand bike rack they’d just passed. He had a hitch in his step, but otherwise appeared as fit as he had that morning. “Oh, no. Not him,” Molly said.
Ruth paused, rummaging through the tablecloths long enough to admonish, “That’s not nice, Margaret Anne Ziegler.”
She wouldn’t have to pretend with Ruth. She’d tell her friend about her and Isaac’s pretend courtship when the time was right. But not today. “You don’t have to live in the same house with him or share a meal when he’s grumpy.” Molly tossed a used but spotless tablecloth on their stack of possibilities.
“I think we ought to be nice and see if he needs help. It can’t be easy shopping with one hand,” Ruth murmured.
Too embarrassed to speak to him now that she’d realized he probably regretted his promise to her, Molly whispered, “You help him then. I’m staying right here.”
“That’s what’s wrong with the world. No one’s willing to help their neighbor anymore.” Ruth lumbered off, her hands resting on the top of her bullet-shaped belly.
“Oh, all right. Wait up. But don’t blame me if he doesn’t want our help. He’s funny like that.”
Ruth kept walking but glanced back. “You mean he’s independent?”
Molly screwed up her face and said, “Something like that.”
* * *
Isaac perused the array of secondhand bikes lined up in a neat row, mentally calculating how many he could buy and still have enough money left over for meals and bike parts. He’d already bought several golf carts to use as rentals. Like most Amish, he didn’t believe in credit cards or payment plans. It was cash-and-carry or do without. His savings were almost gone, but the shelves were better stocked. Several more rental bikes would keep the shop going, especially if the bike repairs kept trickling in.
The sound of laughter grabbed his attention. Molly came back into view. His stomach flip-flopped as he remembered their conversation that morning. Would anyone believe someone like Molly would choose a man like him for a husband?
He turned and glanced Molly’s way. She was laughing with a woman he’d met, but he couldn’t put a name to. “Let me guess,” he said, hobbling up. “You’ve come to kick my cane out from under me.”
Molly’s face flushed red, as if he’d gone too far with his latest comment. “I don’t know why you go about saying I hurt you on purpose.”
“I was only joking, Molly. If you weren’t so easily riled, I probably wouldn’t have so much fun making you angry.”
“Let me poke a hole in your theory, Isaac Graber. I couldn’t care less what you say or do,” she snapped back, their earlier camaraderie forgotten.
Ruth edged her way between the two of them. “We thought we’d come help you shop since you’re one-handed today.”
“That’s very kind of you... I’m sorry. I’m lousy at remembering names. Refresh my memory?”
“I’m Ruth. Ruth Lapp, Saul’s wife.” The pregnant woman blushed a pretty pink. “Molly was just saying what a wonderful tenant you are.”
Isaac snickered. “I imagine she was.” He turned Molly’s way, lost his balance and grabbed for a bike handle to steady himself.
His hip bumped the bike, and, like a row of dominoes, they began to fall, one by one, with horrific clangs of metal against metal.
Seconds later Isaac found himself on the cool concrete floor, in the middle of the jumble, his injured leg spared the brunt of the fall, but his masculine pride seriously damaged.
“I was nowhere near you. You can’t blame this on me, Isaac,” Molly said, her lips quivering, her laughter barely held in check. “Not this time...” Her voice trailed off as the store manager came and stood next to them, his arms folded across his broad chest.
Isaac’s gaze veered away from Molly to the man frowning at him. “I’ll take all six. Do you deliver?”
* * *
Molly pushed a red bike across the street, dodging several speeding cars, then trotting to the shop door Ruth held open for her. “You got me in more trouble.”
“Did not,” Ruth jeered. “You didn’t have to offer to help Isaac, but you’re kindhearted and a little in love with the man. It was you who said we’d help. Not me.” She patted her baby bump. “The baby’s really active today. I think he’s going to like bikes.”
“Did you see his face?
“Whose?” Ruth asked, looking confused.
“Isaac’s. He looked grief-stricken, like the last thing he wan
ted to do was buy a pile of dented bikes.”
“I thought you said he’s always grumpy.” Ruth lined up the bike Molly handed off to her.
“He is...well, not exactly grumpy. He’s funny sometimes, and helpful...but he has this way about him. Sort of like he’s miserable or unhappy.”
“You want to fix him, that’s your problem. We women love to fix our men.” Ruth plopped down on an old, cracked leather couch positioned against the half wall of the office and sighed as if she’d been running a marathon.
Molly joined Ruth on the couch and picked at a piece of torn leather as she spoke. “That’s not true. I don’t want to fix him. I think he wants to fix me.” Her words were out of her mouth before she could stop them.
Interested, Ruth asked, “Fix you? What do you mean?” She rubbed a spot on her stomach, her gaze focused on Molly’s face.
Molly took off her built-up shoe and flexed her toes, avoiding Ruth’s scrutiny. “Ya, well. I asked a favor of him and he agreed to help because he knows I’m a fool, that’s all.”
“Help? In what way?”
“With a courting ruse.” Molly worried the ribbon of her kapp. She wished she’d kept her mouth shut. She intended to tell Ruth, but not now, not until all the plans had been talked about between her and Isaac.
Ruth leaned in close. “What have you done, Molly?”
Isaac reappeared through the shop’s door before Molly could explain herself. He used one hand to manipulate a small bike inside. He wore a smile, but was silent, almost broody.
Ruth lifted her head and sniffed. “Is that pizza I smell?” She sat forward and scooted to the edge of the couch. “How about we all go get something to eat? I can take the leftovers home to Saul.” She grabbed her purse and headed for the door.
“You ladies go. Enjoy. I’ve got work to do. Danke for helping out.” Isaac walked toward the desk, his limp more pronounced. Molly watched as he carefully sat, then swung around the computer chair, his face a chalky white.
The smile on his face looked forced to Molly. As she shut the shop door, she noticed his hand go to his injured leg and rub. He was in pain. Poor man.
The Amish Midwife's Courtship Page 5
