by Kelly Irvin
“I didn’t know anyone was there.” Mercy whirled and set the chair upright. “What happened to your crutches?”
“So you figured it was okay to talk to yourself?” His grin lit up his dark face. His teeth were so white against his tan. “They say you’re only nuts if you answer yourself when you talk out loud. Are you answering?”
“Not yet. What are you doing here?” That sounded terribly rude. “I mean, how did you know I’m staying at Grandma Knowles’s house?”
“It’s okay. I’m not stalking you or anything.” He let go of the handles and straightened. “My sister borrowed these wheels from a friend. I went home just now and found it parked in the front hall with a bow on it. She knows I hate being cooped up. I’m used to getting a lot of exercise. Sitting around drives me crazy.” He patted the scooter. “She figured the wheels would allow me to get around until I wear myself out. So here I am, about ten blocks from Sis’s house.”
“That was sweet of Angie. Around here, no one is too far away, I reckon.” Compared to Kootenai, Eureka was the big city, but Mercy could ride her bike downtown with little effort. “If I were home, I’d be walking too. But everything seems strange now, different, especially after dark. It’s not home.”
The basic issue: Eureka was not home.
“You could take a walk with me. I mean you walk, I roll.”
Could she? Mercy grappled with the implications. Spencer was an English man. Taking a walk with him alone likely would cause frowns. On the other hand, everything was different now. The world had changed. It was upside down and inside out.
“You can say no. I promise it won’t hurt my feelings.” His gaze came up and his blue eyes sparked. “But just so you know, I’m harmless. Whatever you may have heard from a certain woman in a red dress, I’m not a bad boy. I hate that term. Life is too complicated to reduce a person to a stupid stereotype.” He drew a long breath.
Suddenly, she needed that breath of fresh air that would come from being with someone who was completely and utterly different from her. “I’d be happy to take a walk with you.”
“Are you sure?” A surprised grin replaced his gloomy visage. “I don’t want you to regret it later.”
“I won’t.”
It was her turn to be surprised. Her mother and father might object to this foray after dark with an Englisher, but for once, she would make her own decision irrespective of their opinions. One day, God willing, she would be married and no longer in a position to make these decisions. Today was not that day.
Spencer flung out his arm in an “after you” flourish.
Mercy tucked her hands behind her back and fell in step next to him. It wasn’t too hard to match her stride to his push-off on the scooter. It squeaked under his weight, but the sound wasn’t annoying. More like steadying.
Silence ensued for the first block. Did it seem as awkward to him as it did to her? She wracked her brain. He wouldn’t care about her scholars or her sisters’ argument over cherry versus huckleberry pie. The weather?
“It seems like summer is lasting longer than usual.” Spencer spoke first. “A good strong cold front with rain would do a lot toward putting that fire out.”
Mercy laughed.
“You find the weather funny?” He laughed with her. “I have plenty more where that came from.”
“Did you want to take a walk with me to talk about the weather?”
“You’re assuming that me showing up in your driveway was intentional.”
“Was it?”
“I suppose I’ll go to hell if I lie to a good Christian woman.” The scooter quickened. Mercy increased her own speed. He slowed. “What if I did? Would that be so terrible? Juliette said—”
“Juliette was the other woman talking to herself?”
“I don’t gossip.”
“Neither do I.”
“That’s good.” His arm whipped out and he guided her around a dog’s droppings square in the middle of the sidewalk. His arm dropped before she began to breathe again. “For the sake of discussion, let’s say it was a mutual friend and move on. After I met you the other night, I kept thinking about you. I don’t know why. I thought if I talked to you again, I could figure it out.”
“What did Juliette say?”
“She said Amish women don’t go out with English men.”
“She’s right.”
“Never?”
“Sometimes during our running around—”
“Rumspringa.”
“Yes, our rumspringa, both Plain girls and boys go out with English people. But it’s rare that it lasts. They know if it does, they’ll have to leave the district and their families. Forever.”
“A terrible price to pay for love.”
“Most of us choose our faith over love.”
“That’s not just Plain women who do that.” He sighed but didn’t continue.
“I haven’t known many English women of that kind of faith, but from what Juliette says, Tim puts his faith first over love.”
“He’s stubborn like that.”
“You don’t like him?”
“He doesn’t like me.”
“Why? You just got here.”
“I knew him in high school. Or of him. He really only knows me by my reputation, which was exaggerated by our friends’ gossip.”
No need to dig up decade-old gossip. Tim should know better. People changed. For the better sometimes, sometimes for worse. “So have you decided why you had to see me again? It couldn’t be because you saw a challenge, could it?”
“No, no way. I don’t know yet, but it wasn’t that. Something about you intrigued me. You remind me of someone I used to know. Used to talk to.”
He sounded wistful. And lonely. “It’s good to have someone you can talk to about important things. Why don’t you talk to your friend anymore—the one I remind you of?”
He veered into the grass to avoid a tricycle left on the sidewalk. She veered the other direction. “Because she put her faith first.”
“You don’t believe?”
“At the time I thought I didn’t.” Emotion roughened his voice. “I don’t know. I couldn’t tell her how I felt. When I jump, I see a world only someone—something greater than me—could have created. Then I come down to earth and it’s such a mess. I don’t get how a good God could let it be so messed up.”
“How come you can tell me and not this friend?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I worried too much about what she would think of me.”
Maybe that’s why Caleb couldn’t talk to her about his feelings. He didn’t want to feel stupid or judged. Maybe. “I wonder if all men are like that.”
“Stupid, you mean?”
“It’s not stupid; it’s human.”
“See, I knew those soulful eyes hid a thoughtful heart.”
Her soul was something that went to heaven, wasn’t it? “What does that mean, exactly?”
“Your heart shows in your eyes. You think about things and you care deeply.”
“And it shows in my eyes?”
“Yes.”
“We should talk about something else.” She stumbled over a crack in the sidewalk caused by the roots of a nearby oak tree. The scooter’s squeak increased, then died for a few seconds. “Why did you become a smoke jumper?”
“Fair enough.” He seemed to search the empty street ahead of them for the words. “I realized early in my firefighting career that I wanted to be a smoke jumper. I was always intrigued by working with aircraft and I liked the idea of learning a new skill.” He snorted.
“What?”
“The truth is smoke jumpers are freethinkers. They have to work in remote places with little or no support. I liked that idea.”
Despite all the teachings of yielding oneself to God’s will and never standing out, putting faith, family, and community first, Mercy could understand why. As a teacher she worked alone. She created lesson plans. She made decisions about discipline in the classroom. She
was in charge. That sounded like pride, but it was true. She loved her friends, but she liked working alone. If a person could be alone with twenty-seven children. “You’re a loner?”
“Jumping requires the firefighter to be creative and a problem solver, to think outside the box. I like to think that is who I am down to a T. I don’t need someone to oversee my work. Tell me what you want done, I’ll go do it.”
Like Mercy, truth be told. “You want to be the boss of yourself.”
“Yep. But smoke jumping taught me some unexpected skills. I learned to trust my supervisor and the guys I work with. We became a team.”
“Or a family.”
He smiled. That must be how her students felt when she gave them a pat on the back for spelling a word correctly or doing their times table without stumbling.
“We’re self-sufficient as a group. We don’t receive a lot of support and we don’t need it. We may be out there for as little as two or three days or as much as three weeks. Either way, we have each other’s backs and we work like synchronized swimmers.”
“Before you wanted to work alone; now you like being part of a team.”
“Nobody is more surprised than I am.”
“Maybe if you’d been out there with your team, the fire would be out now.” Ugly bitterness bubbled up through the cracks in their friendly give-and-take. How could she blame this virtual stranger for her loss? Because she needed someone—anyone—to blame. “Maybe our house and the houses of our friends would still be there.”
“That’s harsh and not true.” His smile died. “You heard Dan Larson. All available resources are being thrown at this fire. They’re doing everything they can. You can’t control the weather or the fact that people aren’t taking care of their properties so we can defend them.”
Mercy couldn’t help the way she felt. Still, Spencer wasn’t the enemy. The fire held that distinction. She took a long breath, inhaling the scent of fading summer and roses past their prime in someone’s front yard. “Your team is out there and you’re not. Does that bother you?”
“You must’ve been a reporter in some past life.”
“Past life?”
“Never mind. I hate it. I hate not being out there, knocking this fire down. Sitting around doing nothing is worse than walking on a bed of nails.”
“Or hot coals?”
He laughed. Another gold star.
“Why did you come back to Eureka now?” It was none of her business. None of this was. But his laugh made her feel as if they’d known each other for years. “Tim made it sound like you hadn’t been here in years. Why hadn’t you been back to visit before?”
He didn’t answer for several long seconds. Maybe she’d gone too far. “My mom asked me to come.” He cleared his throat. “She’s a drunk.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’d moved on. Then she sent me this letter. She’s doing her steps and staying sober. She wants me to forgive her.”
“Her steps?”
“Alcoholics Anonymous. She has to ask forgiveness.”
“Then you have to forgive her. Even if she didn’t ask, you’d have to.”
“No, I don’t.” Suddenly, he sounded peeved and miserable. No more gold stars.
“Sorry. It’s just that we are taught to forgive from the time we’re toddlers. Gott expects it. And you’ll feel better. You’re carrying it around like a huge tree stump on your shoulders. It’ll feel good.”
“See, that’s what I mean. Soulful. Even if I don’t agree.”
“Try forgiving her. See how good it feels.”
“I’ll try.” He grabbed her hand and squeezed.
Stunned by his warm, firm touch, Mercy squeezed back. A blush born deep within her bloomed and spread head to toe. Her heart raced like a horse given free rein on an empty back road.
“I’m sorry about your house.” His voice deepened and his thumb smoothed the skin on her hand. “I know every firefighter out there is sorry, but knowing you personally reminds me of how much people depend on us to do our jobs.”
He let go. Mercy shivered. She did an about-face. “We should head back.”
The squeak started again. Seconds later, he rolled alongside her. “Your turn. Tell me about yourself.” He slowed his pace, forcing Mercy to do the same. “Why did you become a teacher? Aren’t most Amish women your age married?”
“I’m only twenty-two. Pretty average.” None of her closest friends were married either. In a small district like Kootenai, choices were limited. Turning down Caleb could have terrible repercussions. She might never marry. Better to never marry than marry the wrong man. No one in the district would disagree with that, not even her parents. Yet they kept gaping at her with wrinkled foreheads and perplexed eyes. “I became a teacher because I love reading, writing, and arithmetic. I love learning. Scholars deserve teachers who do it for love of learning. We may not have a lot of book learning, but what we do have should be good.”
“You’ll have to quit when you get married?”
She had come to grips with this truth, hadn’t she? “Yes. If I marry.”
“You don’t think you will?”
“I don’t know what Gott’s will is. I don’t know what His plan is. No one does.”
“I bet you wish you did.”
“It would be helpful.”
“What if you could marry and keep teaching?”
“What if you couldn’t ever jump again? What would you do then?”
“Turn it around on me, why don’t you?” He elbowed her.
She stepped off the sidewalk and slogged through grass for a few steps. “Hey.” She giggled, something she hadn’t expected to do for a long time. “That was rude.”
“I’ve been told I can be rude. I used to think smoke jumping was it. I’m chomping at the bit to get back out there. I crave the adrenaline high.”
“I hear a big but in there.”
“I want to have a reason to come home after it’s over.”
“You want to have someone to come home to when it’s over.”
“Yep.”
“I know what you mean.”
“I know you do. I see it in those eyes.”
“Soulful eyes.” She ran her tongue over those strange, insightful words. Did she see his soul in his eyes? Was that an English man’s way of sneaking into her head and poking around? Her cheeks were warmer than the humid night air warranted. “It’s different for Plain women. We want to be wives and mothers. That is our job in life.”
“But it’s possible to have more than one job. English women do it all the time.”
“We don’t believe they do it well.”
“I’ll let them know.”
“We don’t judge.” She rushed to clarify. “We only wish to keep our faith and our families first in our priorities.”
“You just did.” He laughed, a deep laugh that invited anyone within hearing to laugh with him. “I’m just giving you a hard time. Each to their own. Many women would tell you they struggle with trying to be superwomen. To have it all isn’t what it’s cracked up to be, or so I’ve heard.”
“Men don’t have to make those choices . . .” Her words tripped over themselves and died a quick death. A horse and buggy stood in front of Grandma Knowles’s house. A visitor this late could only be a man who’d come to court.
His long legs sprawled in front of him, hat drawn down, chin lowered toward his chest, Caleb sat in the lawn chair. By all appearances he slept.
Waiting for Mercy.
23
Eureka, Montana
Some events couldn’t be explained away. Sometimes words made them worse. Mercy clasped her hands in front of her to keep them from flapping. She veered away from Spencer, putting as much cement between him and her as she could as quickly as she could. His raised eyebrows and sardonic grin told her he knew exactly what was going on. He moved past her and rolled up the driveway to where an unsuspecting Caleb sat.
“Hey. You’re Caleb, right?”
He tapped on Caleb’s straw hat.
Caleb’s head snapped up. He grabbed his hat and glared. “What are you doing here?” His bewildered gaze enveloped Mercy and then whipped back to Spencer. “Oh. I mean, I came . . . never mind.” He stood and slapped the hat back on his head of straight, sandy-brown hair. “I’m sorry if I interrupted something.”
“You’re not interrupting.” Mercy’s voice sounded high and tight in her ears. “Spencer just happened on me sitting out here and we took a walk around the block. That’s all.”
“You don’t owe me an explanation.” With an awkward nod he trudged past Spencer to his buggy. His hands smoothed his horse’s sleek neck. The glance he aimed at Mercy held apology. “The garage door was open. The chair sitting there empty. I figured you were awake. I knocked. Your daed came to the door. He’s in there getting us some lemonade. He said tea would just keep us awake. I guess he’s having trouble sleeping too.”
“Stay. Have your lemonade.”
“Yeah, you should stay.” Spencer edged toward the sidewalk. “I was just leaving.”
“I guess I’m more tired than I thought. I should turn in.” His gaze studied Spencer. “It is late and dawn comes early. Church is at Bishop Noah’s.”
With that pithy observation he hoisted himself into the buggy and drove away.
The clip-clop of the horse’s hooves punctuated the silence for several seconds.
“I should go too.” Spencer moved in her direction. “He’s right. It’s late.”
Despite herself, Mercy stumbled back a step.
Spencer halted. His expression dark, he scratched at his five o’clock shadow. “I don’t mean to step on any toes or cross any lines. If I did, I’m sorry. I just wanted . . . to talk to you.”
“You’re fine. Don’t worry about it.” The conversation with Spencer had been different than any she’d ever had with a Plain man or any man. Food for thought. “Everything is changing. The Plain aren’t much for change, but sometimes it’s thrust upon us.”
