Romancing Nadine

by Amy Lillard

  Nadine scoffed. “He didn’t.”

  Charlotte swallowed the rest of that piece and broke off the corner of another. “Let me tell you something—if he did, you should marry him.”

  Chapter Four

  Amos made his way into the bakery, the sound of the bell over the door signaling to everyone that he had arrived. He didn’t mind. He kind of liked the bell. And he was certain it came in handy when there were no customers and work to do in the back.

  Esther Lapp came out of the storeroom wiping her hands on a towel. She was as plump as she ever had been, maybe even a little more so now that she had married Abe Fitch. Abe owned the furniture store down the way there on Main and had always seemed to care for wood grain over human contact. At least he had as long as Amos had known him. Yet somehow Esther had got him to notice her and the rest was history, as they say.

  “Hi, Amos. What can I get you today?”

  He took another step forward and cleared his throat. This was his third trip in to try and talk to Esther, and suddenly he found himself jittery. Nerves. He cleared his throat again and noticed that the look of helpfulness she had worn had turned into a mask of patience.

  “Amos?”

  “I’m looking for a job,” he said. “Nothing big, maybe a couple of days a week. I saw the sign.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder where the NOW HIRING sign sat in the front window.

  Esther looked as if someone had poked her with a cattle prod. Her eyes grew big and wide, and she fairly jumped in place as he said the words. “How did you know that I needed help?”

  “I saw the sign,” he said again. This time, he turned and pointed to it.

  She shook her head. “I just hung that a few minutes ago.”

  Time to come clean. Well, mostly clean. “I was in the other day and thought you might be looking for a new employee.”

  He didn’t want to tell her outright that he had seen Caroline Fitch, and she looked about ready to give birth in the back room. Men and women didn’t talk about such matters. And he definitely wasn’t telling her that he had overheard a couple of women at church talking about Caroline and how she had had a tough time with the last baby and they were praying that this time would be easier. The next time he had seen Caroline, he had counted her brood, four with a fifth on the way. He didn’t know what sort of stake she had in the bakery, but he knew from his sisters and his nieces that juggling that many children and a job was more than most women had the time for. Which meant ... a new job for Amos. Hopefully, anyway.

  “I see.” Esther propped her hands on her ample hips and carefully studied him. “You want to work here?” she asked. “Here? You?”

  “I can bake, you know. Some of the best chefs in the world are men.”

  She nodded. “Just not Amish men.”

  He smiled. “Then I can be the first.”

  Esther looked from side to side and back to him. “Are you really serious?” she asked. “This isn’t a joke that you’re playing on me?”

  “Why would I play a joke on you?”

  “Not you, but Abe, maybe Danny, Andrew. Even Caroline. I tell you there’s no trusting that girl sometimes.”

  “This is no joke.” He held out a baggie containing a piece of the banana bread that he’d baked on Saturday. He had taken the most of it to Nadine but kept a little for himself. Now he might as well put it to good use. He had been so disappointed when Charlotte had told him that Nadine wasn’t home. And after brooding most of the day on Sunday, he had decided to come into town and apply for a job today.

  Esther looked at the bag, then up to his face. “You really are serious.”

  “I really am.”

  She took the bread from him.

  “It’s a couple of days old,” he rushed to tell her as she pinched off a bite. It wouldn’t be nearly as moist today, but still good enough to eat. Maybe he should have baked a new batch.

  “Mmm,” she said, getting another bite before she had even finished the first. “And you made this?”

  He nodded. “I did.”

  “Well,” she said when she had finally stopped eating. “This is definitely a good baking test. But why do you want to work here?”

  He shifted from one foot to the other. “I retired, you know.” Then he scoffed at himself. “Whoever heard of an Amish man retiring, right? But I worked for the shed company and when it was time to go, it was time to go. I’ve still got money coming in from them, but . . .” He trailed off, having never admitted the next to a person before. “I’m bored. I just need something to get me out of the house a couple of days a week.

  “I’m old, but I’ve still got a little muscle. I can load up things for you and I’m still pretty handy with a hammer and a screwdriver.” Just this morning, he had repaired the weather skirting on the trailer and hung a new front door. And he had all the materials he needed to start working on a new front porch, but even then, he needed more. Something to get him out around people.

  “Next Tuesday,” Esther was saying.

  “I’m sorry.” His mind had wandered off a bit. Just another one of the side effects of living alone and not having a job. He wasn’t about to blame it on age. That was too easy.

  “Next Tuesday at eight. Sound good?”

  He smiled. “That sounds just fine.”

  Amos walked out of Esther’s Bakery and resisted the urge to snap his heels together. He had a job! And not just any job, but baking. It was a love and a talent he had only recently discovered. Just another something to come out of his boredom with retirement.

  He felt twenty years younger, though he still wasn’t brave enough to try the heel-kicking thing. A man had to know his limitations. Speaking of which . . .

  Nadine. He had done everything he could to get her to spend time with him, and she simply wasn’t interested. Part of it made him want to try harder, overcome the challenge that she presented, but he was confused. Had he misinterpreted what God wanted for him? He’d thought the Lord had put them there in Wells Landing to be together. After all, what were the chances that a farm boy from Missouri and a grandmother from Kansas would meet up in Oklahoma?

  Okay, so that didn’t sound exactly the way he wanted it to, but he knew what he meant. He had been about to move back to Missouri. He had no family left in Wells Landing, and since he’d returned, he couldn’t cry off that he had a job to do. Then he’d seen her and he’d known. Well, he’d thought he had. Maybe he had been wrong.

  Amos hopped on his tractor and headed home. All the while, the thoughts twisted around in his head, confusing him even more. Was he right? Was he wrong? What did God want from him where Nadine was concerned? Did God want anything from him at all when it came to her? Maybe Amos was seeing signs where there were none.

  Things seemed to be so much easier in Moses’s day. A burning bush and water turning to blood were pretty clear indicators. Definitely not what God handed out these days.

  Amos parked his tractor to the side of the trailer and made his way up his porch steps. He really needed to build a bigger porch. It had been on his to-do list for quite some time and now that he was officially retired, he couldn’t claim that he didn’t have the time. There was no day like the present. Wasn’t that what his mamm was always saying? He had never been one to put things off, but living alone and away from family wasn’t easy in a community that thrived off togetherness. He knew several men who would help him, but he hated to ask. They had their own porches to build, so to speak.

  He walked through to the kitchen and poured himself a glass of water. He would start the job at the bakery on Tuesday, which left plenty of time for porch building.

  Amos placed the glass upside down in the dish drainer and let himself out back. The wood for the porch stood ready and waiting, covered with a tarp to protect it from the rain. It had been delivered three days ago, but he had been too busy running around after Nadine Burkhart to pay it any mind.

  Now that Nadine was out of the picture—and he was pretty sure that she was
—it was time to build a porch.

  Amos rolled up his sleeves, pulled back the tarp, and got down to work.

  He had the frame in place when he heard the sound of a tractor. The corn surrounding his house was barely out of the ground, but he still couldn’t tell the identity of the person chugging up his drive.

  A couple of seconds later and his jaw dropped. Was that who he thought it was? It had to be. He wouldn’t have been more surprised if Nadine herself was coming to see him. Yet it was still a little shocking to see Buddy Miller and Jenna Burkhart heading toward him.

  He stopped and waited for them to park and make their way over to where he worked.

  “We’ve come to talk to you,” Buddy said without any greeting.

  Jenna elbowed him in the ribs, then smiled at Amos. “Hi, Amos. We thought we might come visit with you for a while.”

  “That’s what I said,” Buddy protested, talking out of the corner of his mouth.

  “No. It wasn’t,” Jenna returned in the same manner. “But it looks like you’re busy,” she added to Amos.

  Amos smiled. They really did make a sweet couple. “Never too busy for friends.” He went around the side of the house and brought the lawn chairs back for them to use. It was too pretty of a day to stay indoors.

  “Anyone want something to drink?” he asked.

  They both nodded, and he went inside to get them all a glass of water.

  When he came back out, they were both sitting on their respective chairs, perched on the edges as if they might have to make a run for it any minute now. If he was reading that sign right, then they were a little nervous about the subject they wanted to discuss.

  He handed them their waters. Buddy gulped his down like he’d been lost in the desert for the last few days. Jenna gave hers a dainty sip; then she cleared her throat.

  “You like my grossmammi, jah?”

  In all honesty, he had no idea why the two of them had come to his house, but he had to admit that Nadine was the last subject he’d expected to discuss. Or maybe it was talking about liking Nadine that was doing him in.

  He took a swig of his water, but it went down sideways. He gave a little cough and tried to formulate an answer. Like he had much of a choice in answers. Either jah or no. So the problem was lie or tell the truth? And considering whom he was talking to, he felt lying was completely out of the question.

  He coughed again. “Jah,” he finally said. “I do.”

  “But do you like her like her?” Buddy asked. He stared down into his glass as if he wished it contained more. Of the three of them, Amos thought perhaps Buddy was the most nervous.

  “It’s not a matter of whether or not I like her. She doesn’t seem to like me back.”

  Jenna shook her head. “She likes you all right.”

  It was Amos’s turn to down his water. Talking so frankly about Nadine and them liking each other was a bit rattling. “She doesn’t act like she does.”

  “That’s how I know it’s true.”

  Amos frowned. He knew a little about Jenna from the talk around town. He knew that she had almost drowned and had brain damage from the event. Most people he heard talking said she was as sweet as apple pie, but no one mentioned that despite her brain injury she was as intuitive as the next person. Maybe even more so.

  Unless she was wrong. Which was also a possibility.

  But the truth was he wanted Nadine to be hiding her feelings. He wanted Jenna to be right. He wanted this to be a setup from God. He had always believed that there was someone out there for him, and now he knew. He just knew that someone was Nadine Burkhart.

  “You’re thinking of giving up, aren’t you?” Jenna asked. She pinned him with her stare. It was knowing and gentle, but firm all the same.

  “A man can only beat his head against stone so long before the headache sets in and he has to rest.”

  Jenna nodded. Buddy started rocking back and forth—not a big movement, but Amos could see it all the same. He reached out a hand and laid it on Buddy’s knee. “Were you nervous coming over here?”

  Buddy nodded.

  “Why?” Amos asked.

  “I didn’t want you to be mad at us.”

  Amos stifled his chuckle, lest Buddy think he was laughing at him. “Why would I be mad?”

  “Most folks don’t like meddlin’.”

  “I told him that it would be okay,” Jenna said. She laid her hand on top of the two of theirs. “You’re a good man. You don’t mind us coming to visit and asking you to court my mammi.”

  Amos stopped. “Wait . . . what?”

  “I came to tell you not to give up. You should court Mammi and win her heart. She deserves to be happy.”

  It appeared Jenna was like most folks who fell in love and wanted the world to be in love at the same time.

  “You came to tell me to court her.” It was half question, half statement.

  “We wanted to tell you about our courtship. Maybe it will give you some ideas.” Jenna smiled, so Amos nodded, signaling for her to continue.

  He listened to their tale about picnics, the Candy Land game, and learning to swim. None of which seemed appropriate for his relationship with Nadine. Almost relationship, he corrected himself.

  But he had decided. He wasn’t giving up on Nadine. He could show her that she could have love a second time. He had to. For both of their sakes.

  He promised to do everything in his power to make her grandmother happy, and then Buddy and Jenna climbed back onto their tractor and disappeared down the drive.

  It was really sweet, that visit, and it gave him hope. But it didn’t give him ideas. And the only people he knew who would be able to talk openly about women, and who knew more than most men, were the employees of the shed company.

  Amos washed out the glasses they had used during the visit and placed them in the drainer. He’d give it a few days, just to make sure, then he would head into town to the only people he knew could help.

  * * *

  “Hey, Amos is back!” A chorus of greetings went up as he entered the Austin Tiger Shed Company.

  It looked and smelled the same, as if he hadn’t been gone for the last few months. The place was nothing more than an open room with five desks in the area and one more hidden behind the flimsy interior walls that were used to make an office. They all joked that it was a good thing their sheds were better constructed than the boss’s tiny cubicle.

  “What brings you in today?” Tony asked.

  Just as he had hoped, only three of the desks were occupied. Tony Eldridge, Dan Foster, and Pete Wilson. His three best Englisch friends.

  “Where is everyone?” Amos asked.

  “Gone for the day,” Pete said. “You know Gary.”

  He did. It was Saturday and Gary lived to go fishing.

  “And Sandra went out to a site.”

  That was just fine with him. Sandra Barnes was the last person he wanted to see. He didn’t want to air his secret in front of a woman. He would be mortified for her to know that he was asking their advice.

  “Sit down, sit down.” Tony hooked one foot around the legs of a nearby chair and pulled it out for him to use.

  He did so without hesitation.

  “You look like a man with something on his mind.” This from Tony.

  He nodded. “I’ve met someone.”

  Pete hooted while Dan and Tony clapped.

  “You met someone?” Tony asked. “Like a woman someone?”

  Amos nodded.

  “Sixty-two years old and you’ve finally found someone you want to spend your life with?” Pete asked.

  “Oh, be quiet,” Dan said. “Not every man can fall in love with the wrong woman four times in their lifetime.”

  Tony laughed, but Pete looked almost hurt, though it was true. Pete had been married four times and divorced the same. Amos had tried to explain it to them that Amish marriage was different, but they had waved away his theory, claiming that there was no true difference. Men were me
n and women were women, and the only thing different was Amish couples couldn’t get a divorce while Englisch couples seemed to be taking a number for an attorney before the ink even dried on their marriage certificates.

  “We’re real happy for you,” Tony said.

  Pete and Dan nodded.

  “Danki, but I didn’t come here for that.” He stopped just long enough to make sure they were paying attention. “I need advice on how to woo her.”

  Tony shook his head. “Are you telling me that after all these years, you’ve finally met someone and she doesn’t even know you like her?”

  He shook his head. “She knows. She just wants nothing to do with me.”

  “Now that is a hoot.” Pete slapped a hand against his knee.

  “That’s terrible,” Dan said with a quick frown at their friend. “What are you going to do?”

  “I was hoping y’all could help me. I’ve done everything I know to do, but it’s been almost fifty years since I tried to get a girl to let me take her home from a singing. I don’t know what to do anymore.”

  “What have you done so far?” Dan asked.

  “I made her some banana nut bread, but I had to leave it for her. I went to her birthday party and gave her a present.”

  “Yes,” Pete said. “Presents are always good.”

  “What’d you give her?” Tony asked.

  “I bought her a can opener.”

  “What?” Pete’s face froze into a mask of disbelief.

  “A can opener. You know, the kind for when you’re getting older and you can’t twist it so good anymore.” He demonstrated.

  The men nodded.

  “I’m sure she appreciated that.” Tony’s voice was gentle, and Amos wondered if that was how he talked to his golden retriever. “But that’s not exactly a romantic gesture.”

  “Which is why I came here. Help!” Amos cried.

  The men pushed their chairs so they were all close together. Amos had seen a similar action in an Englisch football game the guys had played on the little TV in the corner. The team had gathered in close and made plans where the other team couldn’t hear.

  Nadine was nowhere around, but he appreciated the gesture.