It was ironic that Carmen had been thinking about Paul lately. In fact, she couldn’t seem to get him out of her mind, no matter how hard she tried. Even before her boss called with this new assignment, her conscience had been bothering her about the strained relationship. Was it right to blame Paul for her sister’s death? Was she using him in order to have someone to blame? Could her anger against him just be a cover-up for her own grief? Maybe the best thing to do was apologize to Paul for having blamed him and then ease into the request for him to introduce her to his Amish friend.
Dark brown eyes stared back at Carmen as she smiled at her twentyfour-year-old reflection in the mirror above her dresser. Her hair looked pretty good, even in its tangled state. Just like her sister, Carmen had long black, lustrous hair she could style any way she wanted. As she pulled her thick locks into a ponytail, her plans seemed to fall right into place. She would apologize to Paul. This trip might work right in with the new assignment she’d been given and ease her guilt at the same time. At least it was a step in the right direction.
CHAPTER 2
Mishawaka, Indiana
Blaine Vickers hated his job. Well, maybe not all of it—just when he was asked to do something he didn’t feel comfortable with. Like only moments ago when his boss, Stuart Johnston, had asked Blaine to give a demonstration on fly-fishing to a group of wannabe fishermen who’d be visiting the sporting goods store tomorrow afternoon.
“Can’t someone else do it?” Blaine asked as he and Stuart entered the break room together.
Stuart shook his head. “None of the other employees knows fly-fishing as well as you, my friend.”
Blaine grunted. “But you know I’m not comfortable talking to people.”
Stuart gave Blaine’s shoulder a quick thump. “What are you talking about? You’re a salesman, right? You talk to people every day.”
“That’s different. I talk to people one-on-one, not in a group setting where all eyes are on me.” Blaine had never mentioned it to Stuart, but he hoped to someday own his own fishing tackle store. It wouldn’t be a big place like the sporting goods store—just a small place where he’d sell only things fishermen needed. It was probably nothing but a pipe dream, but it was nice to have a goal and something to focus on rather than thinking he’d be stuck working here for the rest of his life. Not that working for Stuart was bad; Blaine just wanted to do his own thing.
Stuart raked his fingers through the back of his curly dark hair. “You’ll do fine talking to those people. Don’t sell yourself short.”
Blaine meandered over to the coffeepot. What choice did he have? Stuart was his boss, and even though they were friends, if he wanted to keep his job he’d have to do what he was told, like it or not.
“Say, Blaine,” Stuart said, joining him at the coffeepot, “I’m going fishing at Lake Shipshewana on Saturday. Since you’re not scheduled to work that day, why don’t you go with me? Unless you’re gonna be busy doing something with your lady friend, that is.”
Blaine shook his head. “Sue and I broke up a few weeks ago. I thought I’d mentioned it.”
“If you did, I must’ve forgotten. Between staying busy here at the store, going to my kids’ games, and trying to keep Pam happy, I can only focus on one thing at a time.” Stuart added a spoonful of sugar to his coffee and took a sip. “How come you and Sue broke up? I mean, you’ve been going out for a few years now, right?”
Blaine sighed. “It’s complicated.”
“It or Sue?”
“Both.” Blaine pulled out a chair and took a seat at the table. He was glad he and Stuart were the only ones in the room, because he wasn’t about to spill his guts in front of anyone else. “It’s like this—I’m ready to get married, but Sue says she’s not. I made the mistake of pushing the issue, and she broke up with me.” As Blaine recalled the painful conversation, he rubbed his finger over the small scar on his chin, which had been there since he’d fallen off his bike as a child. “Things were going along fine between Sue and me, but I guess she thought it would mess up our relationship if we made a more serious commitment. For some reason, I think she’s afraid of marriage.”
“You’re right about marriage being a commitment. It takes a lot of work to keep the fires burning.” Stuart rubbed the side of his head. “Just ask me. It took months of marital counseling, not to mention six weeks in Emma’s quilting classes, for Pam and me to get our act together and put our marriage back on track. But it was worth the effort. Our relationship is a lot stronger now than it was before all that, and we’re communicating in a more civilized way.”
“You two do seem to be getting along pretty well these days. Maybe it’s for the best that Sue and I have gone our separate ways, since we don’t see eye to eye on the merits of marriage.”
“Yeah, it’s better to break things off now than have her decide to bail after you’re married.”
Blaine sat quietly, drinking his coffee. He was thirty years old and still single. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to get married, because he did. What really bothered him was when his family got together for holidays and other special events. His two brothers were both married and living in Canada. Seeing how happy Darin and Steve were and watching how their wives looked at them with love and respect, made Blaine envious. He wished he had a wife who’d look at him that way. His sister-in-law, Sandy, adored her husband, not to mention her and Stephen’s little boy, Chad, who was four years old, and a miniature replica of his daddy. Even at his young age, Chad seemed to idolize his father, often looking at him like there was no other man on earth. The last time Blaine’s family got together for Easter, Darin and his wife, Michelle, had announced that they were expecting their first child.
Blaine was happy for his brothers, but he couldn’t help wondering what it would be like to meet the right person and know she was the one for him. That was what he thought he’d found in Sue, but he’d obviously been wrong. Since their breakup, Blaine had spent a lot of time asking himself if he and Sue had ever been right for each other, or if he had so wanted what his brothers had that he’d been trying to force the relationship to work. Maybe it was best that he’d found out now how Sue felt about marriage. If Sue had agreed to marry him, they might have ended up needing counseling like Stuart and Pam. One thing was for sure: Blaine was tired of going home every night to an empty condo and having a one-way conversation with the fish in his aquarium.
“You know, Stuart,” Blaine said, shaking off his thoughts, “I think a day of fishing sounds pretty nice, so if the offer’s still open, then yeah, I’d be happy to go with you this Saturday.”
“That’s great.” Stuart thumped Blaine’s back. “Say, how about we have a contest to see who can catch the biggest fish?”
“Sure, why not,” Blaine said with a shrug. He’d always had good luck fishing, so he was confident that he would catch the biggest fish. “Is there a prize for the winner of this bet?”
“I don’t know. Guess there could be. Better yet, let’s make the loser pay a consequence.”
“What kind of consequence?”
Stuart snapped his fingers. “I’ve got it! If you catch the biggest fish, I have to buy you a new fishing pole.”
Blaine grinned. “That sounds good to me.”
“But if I catch the biggest fish, you have to take Emma’s next six-week quilting class.”
Blaine’s mouth opened wide. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Nope. You gave me a hard time when Pam forced me to take that class, so it’ll be your turn to eat crow.”
Blaine chuckled. “I’m not gonna be eating any crow, ’cause I’ll catch the biggest fish.”
“Does that mean you’re agreeing to the bet?”
“Sure, why not?” Blaine smiled to himself. After all, I’ll never have to take those quilting classes.
Goshen, Indiana
Cheryl Halverson glanced at the calendar on her desk. In two months her grandmother would be celebrating her eighty-eighth birthday,
and Cheryl wanted to give Grandma something special. But she couldn’t decide what. Grandma didn’t need much, not since Cheryl’s mother had put her in a nursing home. When Cheryl asked Mom why Grandma couldn’t live with her and Dad, Mom said due to the demands of her bank manager job, there was no way she could take care of her aging mother, who needed ’round-the-clock care. Cheryl’s mother, Katherine, was fifty-five years old and wasn’t ready to give up her job. Cheryl couldn’t blame her for that. She didn’t know what she’d do without her job as a secretary for an attorney in town. When Cheryl and her boyfriend, Lance, broke up six months ago, moving to Indiana to take this position was what had kept Cheryl going.
“Lance is a creep,” she mumbled under her breath. “Wish I’d never met him!” Cheryl and Lance had dated two years, and just when she was sure he would ask her to marry him, she caught him cheating—with her best friend, April Roberts. To add insult to injury, since their breakup, Lance had called Cheryl several times to talk about April and ask her advice about a few things. Talk about weird, Cheryl thought, tapping her newly manicured fingernails on her desk. Who but Lance would be unfeeling enough to call his ex-girlfriend and ask stuff like that? If I ever get involved with another man, I’ll need to know I can trust him.
Glancing once more at the calendar, Cheryl thought about Grandma’s birthday. She remembered that her pastor’s wife, Ruby Lee Williams, had taken some quilting classes awhile back. Maybe I could take Grandma’s tattered old quilt to Ruby Lee’s Amish friend and have it repaired. For as long as Cheryl could remember, that quilt had been as much a part of her grandmother as the warm smiles and comforting hugs Grandma had always given her.
When Cheryl moved to Indiana, Grandma had given her the quilt to remind her of all the fun times they’d had together. The more Cheryl thought about it, the more she realized it might offer Grandma some comfort to have the quilt now that she was doing so poorly.
Shipshewana
“Where we headed next?” Terry Cooley asked his boss, Jan Sweet. They’d finished tearing the roof off a house in LaGrange that morning and had just entered Shipshewana.
“We need to get started tearing off Emma and Lamar Miller’s old roof,” Jan replied. “After talking to Lamar the other day, I think he’d like to have it done soon, because if no one signs up for their next quilting class, he’s taking Emma on a vacation.”
“Where they going?”
“Florida, I think.”
“Sounds like a good place to be. Nice, warm sunny beaches…Wouldn’t mind going there myself for a few weeks.” Terry took a drag on his cigarette and flicked the ashes out the driver-side window of his truck.
Jan grunted. “Sure wish you’d give up that nasty habit. It ain’t good for your health, ya know.”
Terry gripped the steering wheel tightly and kept his focus straight ahead. Jan was not only his boss, but they were good friends, even though Terry was twenty-nine and Jan forty-one. Terry supposed for that reason, Jan thought he could lecture him about his smoking habit, but he wished he’d quit bugging him. Terry was surprised that Jan didn’t smoke, too. He had other bad habits, though. He used to drink, not to mention riding his motorcycle too fast. Of course, those days were behind him now. Ever since Jan had been reunited with his daughter, Star, he’d cleaned up his act. That, plus being around Lamar and Emma Miller, had turned Jan into a different man. He was still a bit rough around the edges, but there was a softness to him that hadn’t been there before his quilting days. Terry still couldn’t get over the fact that Jan had actually made a quilted wall hanging and proudly hung it in his living room. You’d never catch me at no quilting class, he thought.
“How are things with Star these days?” Terry asked, offering a change of subject.
Jan turned his head to look at Terry and grinned. “Good. Real good. Whenever we both have a free day, we spend it together.”
Terry nodded. “Yeah, I know. That’s why you hardly ever go bowling with me anymore.”
“What are ya talking about, man? Me and Star went bowling with you and Dottie two weeks ago.”
“I don’t think taking your daughter bowling hardly counts as a double date.”
Jan lifted his broad shoulders. “Never said it did.”
“If you’ll recall, when I invited you to go bowling, I said you oughta find a date, since I’d be bringing one.”
“And I did.” Jan smiled. “I don’t need to explain that I have a lot of catching up to do with Star.”
Terry took another puff from his cigarette. “You got that right.”
“You know,” Jan said, “I waited over twenty years to find my girl, and now that I have, I plan to spend as much time with her as I can.”
“That’s fine, but you need a social life, too. I’m sure your daughter has one.”
“Humph! What would you know about a social life? All you ever do on your day off is bowl, play pool, and ride your Harley.”
“For your information I took Dottie out to see a movie last weekend.”
“Speaking of your girlfriend, how much longer are you gonna string her along before you pop the big question?”
Terry’s brows furrowed. “I ain’t stringing Dottie along. I’m not the marrying kind, and Dottie knows that, so things are just fine the way they are between us. Besides, Dottie and I are just good friends, same as you and me—except that she happens to be a female.”
Jan shrugged his shoulders. “Whatever.”
“Hey, isn’t that your nosey old neighbor over there?” Terry said, pointing out the front window at an elderly woman walking along the shoulder of the road, wearing a lime green jacket and floppy beige-colored hat.
Jan nodded. “That’s Selma Nash, all right. I see she’s picking up aluminum cans, which is better than her running around our neighborhood, making a nuisance of herself.”
“Has she been hollering at you about Brutus again?”
“Nope. Not since I started keeping the dog penned up while I’m at work. She likes to tromp around the neighborhood, telling others what she thinks.” Jan grunted. “That woman is nothing but a busybody. She needs to get a life that don’t involve telling other people what to do.”
“Selma’s jacket reminds me of that spicy green apple juice Dottie had me drinking the other night. Ugh, that was some nasty stuff!” Terry wrinkled his nose and coughed several times. After he cleared his throat to get the spastic cough under control, he asked, “Why don’t you put Selma in her place if she bugs you so much?”
“I’ve tried, but it hasn’t done any good. She can’t seem to keep her big nose outta other people’s business.” Jan paused a moment, rubbing his tattooed arm. “It’s sorta like me telling you to quit smoking.”
“Yeah, I hear you,” Terry retorted. “Maybe Selma has too much time on her hands. Could be if she had something to do, she wouldn’t have time to stick her nose where it don’t belong.”
Just as Terry pulled into Emma and Lamar’s yard, Jan slapped his knee. “I’ve got it! I’ll enroll Selma in Emma’s next quilting class. It’ll occupy her time and give her something to do besides snooping on everyone in the neighborhood and telling ’em what to do.”
CHAPTER 3
Selma Nash groaned as she bent to pick up a rubber ball she’d found on her lawn. She’d been out collecting cans all morning, like she did most weeks, and every bone in her sixty-eight-year-old body ached. She shouldn’t have to come home and pick up the neighbor children’s toys! “What’s wrong with their parents?” she mumbled. “Those kids ought to be taught to keep things in their own yard.”
Between the dogs and kids on her block, it seemed her yard always had something that shouldn’t be in it. Thankfully, Jan Sweet, the burly biker who lived next door, had been keeping his German shepherd penned up when he wasn’t at home. The big brute of an animal used to run all over the neighborhood, taking things that weren’t his and digging up people’s flowers. Of course Jan had replaced the flowers Brutus dug up in Selma’s yard, and he�
�d been compliant when she asked him to keep the mutt at home. But other dogs lived in the neighborhood, and their owners hadn’t been as willing to listen.
Selma marched over to the Bennetts’ house, which was on the other side of her place, and knocked on the door. When no one answered, she knocked again. Still no response. She’d thought her days of cleaning up after someone had ended when her husband, John, passed away from a heart attack five years ago.
Selma scoffed, remembering how all the complaining in the world hadn’t changed her husband’s bad habits over the course of their forty-year marriage. All her grumblings hadn’t made one iota of a difference, and in hindsight, it had caused a sense of sadness in her every time she thought about how things stood between her and John before he died. It was hard to admit, but she sometimes missed picking up after her husband.
Selma’s thoughts went to her daughter, Cora, who’d left home when she turned eighteen.
The last time Selma had seen Cora was when she’d come home for John’s funeral, but of course, Cora hadn’t stuck around very long. Hadn’t even said good-bye to her own mother, for goodness’ sake! The spiteful young woman had tossed a rose on her father’s casket, jumped in her car, and headed off down the road. It was probably for the best that Cora came back only for the funeral. Selma was so mad at her that any more time spent together would have deteriorated into a series of arguments. Selma tried not to think about it, but many times she asked herself how things would be now if John were still alive.
Heaving a sigh, Selma set the ball on the porch and pulled a notebook and pen from her pocket. She scribbled a quick note and left it with the ball, letting the kid’s parents know that if she found any more of his toys in her yard, she’d throw them away. “Guess that’s probably a bit harsh,” Selma muttered, “but maybe they’ll get the point.”
The Half-Stitched Amish Quilting Club - 02 - The Tattered Quilt Page 2
