Beneath the Summer Sun

by Kelly Irvin

  She longed for that air.

  She crouched on her hands and knees. “Leo! Mary Kay!”

  “Jennie.”

  Leo’s voice was hoarse, barely a whisper. “Here. She won’t wake up.” Jennie scrambled toward his voice. Menacing flames danced along the walls. Leo knelt over a body in the far corner, next to an open door.

  “Are you all right?”

  “It’s Mary Kay.” Leo coughed, a gut-wrenching, hacking sound. “She’s breathing, but she’s passed out. I can’t find Lazarus. We have to get her out.”

  “Take her. I’ll find Lazarus.” She crawled around him and kept going. It was so black she could see nothing.

  She bumped into a wall.

  “Nee, don’t go in there. That’s where it started. The storage room.”

  The heat intensified. It scorched her cheeks. Fear enveloped her. Gott, I can’t see. Help me.

  Her hand landed on something warm and soft. And limp.

  “Lazarus? Lazarus!” She patted harder. An arm. Then his face. “I found him. I have him.”

  Leo’s outline loomed in the black smoke. “I’ll drag him. You get Mary Katherine. She’s lighter.”

  Jennie tried to rise.

  His arm gripped hers. “Stay close to the floor. Less smoke.”

  On her belly she inched back to Mary Katherine. She rose to her knees, tucked her arms under her friend’s armpits, and began to drag her out. Time stood still. The flames leaped higher and closer. A wall collapsed. She shrieked and ducked as embers flared and floated around her.

  “Keep going. It’s spreading fast,” Leo yelled. He sounded close but she couldn’t see him. “Move!”

  She coughed, bent double under Mary Katherine’s weight, but she kept going. She had to keep moving. For their future. “Come on, Mary Kay, come on.”

  For Leo’s. Even for Lazarus’s.

  And her children. They’d lost their father. They couldn’t lose her too. She pushed forward.

  The door appeared. A gush of fresh air flowed over her.

  Air—sweet, fresh air.

  A firefighter in his slick yellow jacket burst through the door. “You got them?”

  Jennie recognized him as Lou Stover, an employee from the hardware store. “We got them,” she yelled. “Help us.”

  Lou tugged Mary Katherine’s weight from Jennie. Craig Lohman, a plumber who had his own shop, squeezed in next to him and helped Leo with Lazarus. “Anybody else?”

  “No, the store wasn’t open yet.”

  “Get out.”

  They pushed through the door and out into the lovely, beautiful, fresh air. Jennie inhaled big, gulping breaths. Leo sank to his knees, his fingers rubbing at his soot-blackened face. “What were you thinking?” He gasped and coughed. “I told you to wait.”

  “I had to rescue you. You think you have to rescue everyone.” Adrenaline ebbed, then flowed again at the thought of losing him. “Sometimes you have to be rescued.”

  Jamesport’s Fire & Rescue pumper and tanker trucks filled the street. Sirens screamed as a Daviess County ambulance sped toward them and halted behind the trucks. Firefighters dodged around them, unwinding hoses. Shouted orders reverberated. Water sprayed. Leo loomed over her, sweat—or smoke-induced tears—creating rivulets down his dirty cheeks. “I didn’t need help.”

  “Jah, you did, and I wasn’t going to stand here and watch my life go up in smoke.”

  Firefighters helped the EMTs ease Mary Katherine and Lazarus onto waiting gurneys. Lazarus’s entourage clustered around him. The man stirred and groaned. “My shop, my antiques.”

  “You’re alive.” The EMT—her name escaped Jennie—slapped an oxygen mask on him, stopping further outbursts. “You’re lucky. Running into a burning building isn’t smart.”

  “What about Mary Kay? Is she all right?” Jennie brushed past Leo and laid her hand on her friend’s arm. The woman’s face was red, her lips cracked and blistered. Her kapp was missing. Jennie smoothed her dirty apron over her skirt. She looked so old and vulnerable. “Mary Kay, wake up, please wake up.”

  The EMT—Diana, Diana something—applied an oxygen mask to her face. Mary Katherine’s eyelids fluttered. Her fingers moved, then her hands. She tugged at the mask until she had it down around her chin. She coughed so hard she began to wretch. “The store is burning up.” She gasped. “It’s burning.”

  “Don’t talk. Just rest.”

  “I tried to stop it.”

  Around them firefighters pulled hoses and yelled instructions. A cooling mist floated in the air around them. Puddles formed around their feet. Sweet, cool water. “It’s okay. We’ll survive.”

  Mary Katherine wiped at her mouth with shaking fingers. “I’m glad you finally figured that out. You are a survivor.”

  “I meant—”

  “I know what you meant.” Mary Katherine coughed again and tried to sit up. “I don’t need to go to the clinic.”

  “Lie back, right now. You’re going.”

  “You’re not the boss of me.”

  “I am right now.”

  She sank onto the gurney. “I’ll rest for a minute while you go apologize to Leo.”

  “Why do I need to apologize?”

  “From the look on his face, you did something.”

  “Did not.”

  “Go.”

  “Fine.”

  Mary Katherine closed her eyes again.

  Diana settled the oxygen mask back over Mary Katherine’s mouth. She turned to Leo and Jennie. “And you two? Let me get a look at the stupid hero and heroine.”

  “I’m fine.” Leo took a step back. Angry red burnt spots marred one cheek. His hat suffered from a big hole on top. Fire had singed the hair on both arms. “Look at her first.”

  “I’m fine.” Jennie crossed her arms. Her lungs and nostrils ached. Burnt holes from floating sparks and embers peppered her dress and apron. A patch on her palm looked and felt like it did when she grabbed a pan without a pot holder. “Just worry about them.”

  “It’s primarily smoke inhalation.” Diana took Jennie’s hand and examined it closely. She made a tut-tut sound and let it drop. “We’ll take them over to the clinic in Trenton so the doctors can examine them both. You should go as well. Get this looked at.”

  “I can doctor it at home. I’ve doctored seven kids with worse.”

  Leo turned his back and stomped away. He coughed, his hands on his hips, his shoulders bent.

  “You need to have her look at your face.” Jennie strode after him. “You’re not fine.”

  He whirled. “You didn’t listen to me. You didn’t stay safe.”

  “You can’t keep people safe. You have to take chances and trust in Gott.” She stopped, listening to her own words. “Trust Gott. And I’ll do the same. I know what I want now. Do you?”

  His blackened hands gripped her waist. She could think of nothing else, only him, and what it would be like to lose this second chance, to have to fill each day that might come without the hope of the life Leo offered her.

  She leaned in. He met her more than halfway. His lips tasted salty. The heat had nothing to do with the fire that raged behind them. She inhaled the scent of him, saving the memory for when he was beyond her grasp.

  The sound of clapping and a few ragged cheers reminded her where they were. She didn’t care. She wanted this to last forever. Leo stepped back. His gaze startled, and he shook his head. “Sorry. To be continued.”

  “That’s not quite what I meant by apologize,” Mary Katherine called, her voice hoarse. “Courting is private.”

  “Sorry.” Leo looked the way she felt. Stunned. “We’ll talk later.”

  Talk and touch and kiss the way people who loved and cared for each other did. With no price to pay and no hurt or pain to bear in return. It seemed almost too good to be true.

  Trust. You have to trust.

  Gott, help me trust.

  “Jah, we will.”

  He leaned close, his lips near her ears. “I p
romise I will never hurt you.”

  He was so close it was all she could do not to raise her lips to his again. “I’m scared.”

  His smile was ragged. “Me too.”

  FORTY-TWO

  “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

  Jennie looked up from wiping her sooty hands on her apron to see Nathan standing at the door to the store. He wore jeans and a red Kansas City Chiefs football jersey. The suspenders were gone, replaced by a brown leather belt with a big silver buckle. Red-and-black Nikes replaced his work boots. He looked tired.

  She glanced at Mary Katherine, who shrugged and went back to sorting through wet, stinking black rubble with garden-glove-clad hands. Jennie smiled at him. “Sure. Come on in, but be careful where you step.”

  “You’re making progress.”

  She nodded. The others would arrive soon to help. Everyone—Laura, Bess, Aidan, Peter, even James and Olive would come. Mary Katherine had been a rock throughout the aftermath of the fire. She said God had other plans for them. They need only wait to see what those plans would be. The store would be Lazarus’s once he got back on his feet. It would be a while. He’d suffered a heart attack on the way to the clinic. The ambulance had diverted to the hospital in Chillicothe.

  Fire & Rescue did what they could, calling in fire departments from five surrounding towns. They managed to contain the fire to this one building, a minor miracle considering the closeness and the age of the buildings in Jamesport’s downtown.

  In the meantime Jennie and the others were doing what they could to clean up before they had to turn the place over to Lazarus. What could be salvaged would be removed. Everything else thrown out. It would be up to him to renovate and rewire. The fire, caused by old, faulty wiring, had destroyed almost everything in his antique store as well as Amish Treasures.

  Life would go on, of that Jennie had no doubt.

  “I came to tell you I’m leaving today.” Nathan’s Adam’s apple bobbed. His periwinkle eyes were troubled. “I wanted to tell you in person and see you again.”

  She didn’t need an explanation, but he was a friend going on a trip and stopping by to tell her was sweet. “Your dad is coming home?”

  “Yeah, my mom gets into Wichita tonight with his body.” He shifted from one foot to the other. “I’m going down to get her. I wanted to talk to you about something first.”

  She leaned over and picked up a faceless doll covered with soot and sopping wet. “Go ahead.”

  “Could I have your undivided attention?” He took the doll from her and tossed it in the growing discard pile. His hand, callused from a summer of backbreaking work, turned black. He didn’t seem to notice. “I want you to know I meant everything I said to you at the lake. I thought I would have more time, but I don’t. I need you to know I care for you now. I love you. I know I could make you happy.”

  “Nathan—”

  “Let me finish, please.” He took off his cap and folded it in two in his sooty hand. “I have a calling. I’ve been avoiding it, trying to outrun it, trying to hide from it, but I realize now I can’t. I can’t join the Amish faith. God’s calling me. I have to go. I want you to go with me.”

  He was so sweet and so earnest and so full of love. Hurting such a kind heart made Jennie’s own heart ache. To make his declaration in front of Mary Katherine must’ve been doubly hard. To spare him more embarrassment, she would risk being seen with him again. Soon he would be gone and the flapping tongues would have nothing to gossip about.

  She threaded her way past him and pushed through the doors, looking back to make sure Nathan followed. Together, they sat on a wooden bench in front of the burnt, sodden remains of the store. “I’m so sorry, but you know that can never happen. I won’t leave my faith or my children.”

  “You have family here to care for them. My mother did it.” His breathless tone told Jennie his mother’s choice had come with great cost—to her and to her son. “I didn’t want to see it for a long time, but now I realize women have this calling too. They give up even more than men, sometimes. I’m working on letting all that go, not letting it get in the way. I need to answer the calling. If you go with me, you can trust me. I would never hurt you.”

  “Plain women, or men, for that matter, don’t get this calling you talk about.” She took a breath. There was another reason she couldn’t go with him. She had the hope—the promise maybe—of another love, but it wasn’t with Nathan. “Regardless of that, we’re not meant to be together.”

  The wounds had begun to knit, bit by bit. The scars grew smoother with each passing day. She had only to think of Leo. God had blessed her with this second chance. She didn’t understand why she had to go through the trials in her past, but she was stronger for them. She sought words that wouldn’t hurt Nathan any more than necessary. “There’s someone who cares for me. A Plain man. If there is such a thing as a calling for an Amish woman, it’s to be a wife to a good husband and to be obedient to God.”

  Understanding spread across Nathan’s face and, with it, chagrin. He smoothed the cap and slapped it on his head. “Leo.”

  She rubbed at the soot on her fingers, then forced herself to look up at Nathan and nod.

  “Do you . . . care for him?”

  “I do.” Heat spread through her at such an admission to a man on the sidewalk in broad daylight in downtown Jamesport. “There’s something about him that makes me feel brave.”

  “A person should shoot for more than caring. Shoot for the moon.”

  “I’ll get there with time.” She shooed away the desire to pat Nathan’s arm, to give him comfort. He wouldn’t want it from her. “He is patient.”

  Nathan sighed and slapped his hat on his head. “He’s a lucky man.”

  “We don’t believe in luck.” Jennie kept her gaze on her hands in her lap. “I’ll pray that you encounter someone in your travels who’ll love you the way you deserve to be loved.”

  “Thank you.” He stood. “I need all the help I can get.”

  Her curiosity got the better of her. “Does God talk aloud to you, then?”

  Nathan looked back, his expression somber. “It’s more that He shows me His will in everything that happens to me, in the people He places in my path and the words they speak to me. I only have to pay attention and have the courage to step out in faith.”

  Pay attention. For the first time in years, she too was paying attention. Leo stopped by the farm the night before. They had walked together and talked together for hours. About Matthew’s newfound excitement over learning the trade of blacksmithing. About her budding friendship with Olive. About his shop. For a man who never talked, he suddenly had much to say. He hadn’t spoken of the future, but everything about his face, his hands, his lips, his eyes, said he saw one future for them. Every kiss. Every touch.

  Jennie smiled. “Blessed be, Nathan Walker.”

  “Godspeed, Jennie Troyer.”

  She sat still and watched him get into his car. He waved and drove away as Leo pulled up in his buggy. He tied the reins to the hitching post and strode toward her. “Nathan was here.”

  “Jah.”

  An uncertain look flitted across his face.

  She stood and slipped closer. “He’s gone to fetch his mother and father in Wichita. He’s not coming back.”

  His expression lighter, Leo nodded. “Gut for him.”

  The warmth of his eyes and the line of his jaw and his lips mesmerized Jennie. “I hope Gott blesses him the way He has us.”

  His big hand squeezed hers. “Me too.” He dropped her hand and his thumb wiped at her cheek. He grinned. “You have soot on your face. I smeared it.”

  “Now you have soot on your hands.” Goose bumps prickled up her arms at his touch. Her breath caught. “I must look terrible.”

  “Not to me.” He tugged her toward the buggy. “Come with me. I want to show you something.”

  “What?”

  “You’ll see.”

  Thirty minutes later they turn
ed from the highway onto the dirt road that led to Leo’s place. Instead of continuing on, Leo pulled off onto the shoulder and halted. Jennie surveyed the fence and the tree line. “What are we doing here?”

  He grinned and hopped from the buggy. “Come on. You can help me.”

  She followed him to the back of the buggy where he pulled out a sign. A big, handmade, wooden sign that read Handcrafted Amish Furniture For Sale. He’d used a wood router to create the cursive letters and painted the background a deep blue. Underneath were an arrow and the smaller words one mile down on the right.

  “You’re inviting people to your shop to buy your furniture.” Others might not understand the significance of this, but Jennie did. “I’m so happy for you.”

  “And for you too, I hope.” He handed her the sign. She held it while he tugged a mallet from the buggy. Together, they carried the sign to the intersection, and he banged its poles into the ground until it was firmly entrenched. “Would you like to give it a whack?”

  “I would.” She took her turn and then stepped back to survey their work. “It’s gut.”

  His hand slipped into hers. He faced her. “I’m starting my own business. I’m close to the road and only a few miles from town, no farther than some of the other Amish stores visited by the tourists. I’ve already talked to the Chamber about being added to the tourist map and their website.”

  “You’ve been hard at work.”

  “I was thinking we could make it a combination store.”

  “We?”

  “You, Mary Kay, the others. We could sell your wares at the store too. We could even expand the space.” His smile was tentative. His eyebrows lifted under a furrowed forehead. “If you wanted, I mean. If you think it’s a good idea.”

  “I think it’s wunderbarr.” He believed in them. He saw a future for them. “Mary Kay will lieb it.”

  “I lieb you.” His voice cracked and he studied the ground.

  She swallowed back tears. “Leo—”

  “I know. It’s too soon. You’ve been through a lot. Things I wish I could have shielded you from. We have time. Lots of time.”