“Sssh, we won’t tell him, will we, John?”
He chuckled and patted her cheeks as she carried him and followed Emma into the back room where she stashed her purse and slipped John’s bottles into the refrigerator.
“I had a gut morning. I sold the wedding ring quilt. The woman who bought it said it’s for her niece who’s getting married.”
“Oh, that’s wunderbaar. It’s a beautiful quilt.”
“I don’t know if you’ve heard that Sarah’s mann is having chemo for the cancer.”
“Nee, I hadn’t heard. I’ll say a prayer for them.” She frowned. “Sarah’s my mudder’s best friend.”
Hannah touched her arm. “Emma, Sarah said she really needs the money so she’s coming into town later today to pick up the check.” She watched Emma’s face for her reaction.
Emma squared her shoulders. “I knew when I came back that I’d see people from the community. I’ve been lucky not to run into anyone since I’ve been staying in town.”
They walked back to the front of the shop. “Eli and I talked last night,” Emma told her. “I told him I’d decided to stay for a while. That you’d hired me to help part-time. He wants me to give him a second chance, Hannah, and if I do, that means that we won’t be able to hide that we have a relationship.” She reached out to touch John’s head. “That we have John. It’s not going to be easy. But I’m not afraid of things not being easy.”
She picked up John and hugged him. “That’s what John taught me. He taught me not to be afraid. I was terrified when I found out I was pregnant, but there was no saying I wasn’t going to have him. I didn’t think I could go through childbirth.” She laughed. “Well, you can’t exactly escape it. That boppli has to come out. So, I got through it. And I’ll get through this.”
She shook her head and looked rueful. “Brave talk. Eli told me he wants a second chance and all I could think to say was I’m afraid of trusting my heart to him again.”
John yawned and snuggled against her neck.
“Time for a nap,” Emma said.
Hannah watched her tuck John into the crib, and then they used the time without customers to organize some shelves.
“I almost forgot,” Emma said suddenly. “You went out with Gideon last night. How was it? Bet you didn’t have a woman Gideon had dated show up at your table.”
“What?” Hannah stared at her.
Emma filled her in on the previous night’s drama, and it was Hannah’s turn to shake her head.
“Well, as he said, I was gone and he didn’t know if I was ever coming back. And maybe I’d have dated too, if I hadn’t been so busy taking care of John and living the lie that I was a widow.”
She bent to retrieve a box on the bottom shelf. “What’s this?”
Hannah glanced at it. “A quilt I started. I haven’t had the time to work on it much.”
Emma spread the quilt out on the cutting table. “I love it. I’ve never tried something this complicated before.” She looked at Hannah. “The owner of a quilt shop ought to be seen working on her own quilt, don’t you think?”
“There isn’t much time when we’re busy. And I need us to be busy to earn a living.”
“Well, maybe now that I’m here to help you’ll have the time to work on it during store hours. So, tell me about your supper with Gideon last night.” She laughed. “Must have been nice. You’re blushing.”
“Eli’s not the only one who can be charming,” Hannah said after a long moment. “It was such an elegant restaurant. So romantic with linen tablecloths and candles on the table and music playing. And he brought me flowers. They were from his mudder’s garden, but they reminded me of how he’d picked Leah’s roses for me years ago.”
She broke off and stared off into the distance, remembering. Then she caught herself.
“Anyway, I didn’t need such a fancy supper and for him to spend so much money. I enjoy being with him, even when we just have coffee in the morning before work. Gideon’s quiet and he doesn’t flirt like Eli, but he’s got this way of just looking at me and listening as if I’m the most important person in the world to him. And Gideon’s always had this ability to know what I’m thinking.” She stopped and smiled “Did I ever tell you he suggested I open the shop?”
“Nee.”
“It was like this secret in my heart I was afraid to even dream about. I had never told anyone I wanted to have a shop, but one day I told him because I just knew he wouldn’t think it was some wild, silly dream. So when the space came available to rent he was the one who pushed me to do it.”
“You’ve always sewn the most beautiful quilts. And you’re so gut with people. I’m not surprised you wanted to open a shop.” She glanced at John, then at Hannah. “I don’t know what I’d have done if I hadn’t had your help since I came back.”
Before Hannah could say anything, the shop door opened and Sarah walked in. She took one look at Emma and stopped. “Emma Graber!”
* * *
Gideon walked the fields of their farm with Eli after work on Monday.
It was just April but it was already getting warm with the sun beating down, making the scent of earth and growing corn plants strong and familiar. The deep green stalks waved in the breeze and looked healthy, promising a gut crop.
He’d missed this working in his shop.
“Looking gut,” he said. “You’ve worked hard.” He glanced at Eli when his bruder stayed silent. “What?”
“I guess I’m waiting for the criticism.”
He frowned. “I’m not Daed.”
“True.” Eli sighed. He took off his straw hat, wiped his forehead with a bandanna, then put the hat on again. “Sorry.”
“The two of you butted heads for schur.” He chose his words carefully as they walked between the rows of corn, and Eli occasionally checked an ear for bugs or other problems. “I think he was so afraid you were going to walk away from this, from the land he worked so hard to hold. And the more he said the further the distance grew between the two of you.”
“So it’s my fault?”
Gideon shook his head. “That’s not what I’m saying at all. What we try to hold on to too hard can slip from our grasp.”
“I needed some time to know this way of life was for me. You’ve always been schur of it. But I haven’t.” He stopped and chuckled. “And allrecht, I enjoyed my rumschpringe.”
“A lot.”
Eli’s grin was unrepentant. “A lot,” he agreed. His grin faded. “It wasn’t just that. Daed didn’t want to listen to my ideas about what to plant. Everything had to be his way.”
“And it was never that you wanted change just for the sake of change?”
“Nee.”
“Nee?”
Eli chuckled. “Ya. I remember Mamm saying one day, God willing, you’ll have a kind just like you.” He sobered. “What do you think she’s going to say when I tell her about John?”
Gideon took out his own bandanna and wiped the perspiration from his face. “What do you think she’ll say?” he asked, turning the question on his bruder.
“She’ll expect me to marry Emma.”
“And?”
“I’m working on it,” Eli muttered. “Last night she told me that it was hard to trust me not to hurt her again.”
Eli stopped and gazed at the farmhouse. “I don’t have to wonder what Daed would have said. I can hear his words in my head every time I think of him. He’d have insisted I do the right thing the minute I found out. And if he’d been here, he’d have done everything in his power to make it happen even if I wanted to fight him on it and say I wasn’t ready when she told me.”
He kicked at a clod of dirt. “Emma says we need to talk things out, not act rashly. But who knows how much time we’ll have before someone sees her in town? The waitress in the pizza restaurant remembered her, and we could tell she was curious about John but she was too polite to ask. But you know when someone from our community sees her word will get around fast. There�
�ll be gossip about her having John outside marriage, and church members will shun her when they run into her.”
“The Amish grapevine is faster than the internet. I’d be expecting a visit from the bishop.”
Eli nodded grimly.
They walked into the barn and began feeding and watering the horses, working with an easy rhythm they’d developed from childhood.
When they finished they went inside the house and washed up. “It’s your turn to cook supper, Eli.”
“Nope,” Eli told him as he poured himself a glass of water and chugged it down. “It’s your turn. I cooked last time, remember? Chicken and dumplings?”
Gideon groaned. “That’s right.” He pressed a hand to his stomach as he remembered tough chicken swimming in a greasy gravy and gummy lumps Eli had called dumplings. “Fine. I’ll make supper but you’re washing the dishes. And you have to work on your cooking. A man should be able to cook a few things and not depend on his mudder or his fraa.” He frowned. “Or his bruder.”
“I’m going to go take a shower. Some of us don’t get to sit in a shop and not sweat all day.”
Gideon made a face. “Go right ahead, Stinky. But make it quick—otherwise I’ll eat without you.”
He went to the refrigerator and poked around. He’d put a frozen package of ground beef in the refrigerator to thaw before he left for work that morning. He browned the meat, started a pot of water boiling for spaghetti, and headed down to the basement. Shelves of vegetables and fruits canned by his mudder after the harvest lined the shelves. He found a large jar of spaghetti sauce made from tomatoes grown in his mudder’s kitchen garden and a jar of peaches, and carried them upstairs.
“Wow, smells amazing,” Eli told him when he walked into the kitchen ten minutes later.
“Danki, dear, grab some bread and butter and let’s eat.”
Eli laughed. “Two old bachelors having supper,” he said as they sat and began eating.
“Nothing like Mamm’s sauce.” Gideon twirled spaghetti around his fork and closed his eyes as the taste of summer tomatoes filled his mouth.
“Is it as gut as the supper you and Hannah had at that fancy new restaurant the other night?”
“Better. Except for my supper companion.”
“Ya, well, it’s no fun looking at your ugly mug, either.”
“You’re looking in a mirror, pal,” Gideon reminded him. They were as identical as zwillingbopplin could get.
Eli laughed. “Point taken.” He buttered a slice of bread, bit in, and chewed. “I figured you took Hannah to such a fancy place to propose to her.”
“Nee.” Gideon couldn’t help remembering watching the Englisch man seated near them proposing to the woman with him. He knew Hannah had seen them too, but hadn’t said anything.
“What are you waiting for? Why didn’t you ask her?”
“I have my reasons,” he said shortly. He wasn’t going to share with his bruder how he’d had everything planned but John’s appearance had changed things. No way he wanted anything to stand in the way of Eli doing the right thing and marrying Emma.
“You’re slower than molasses on a winter morning,” Eli said, shaking his head. But he didn’t press it.
Gideon finished his spaghetti and served himself a bowl of peaches. They were just the right finish to the big meal. He rose and put his dishes in the sink. “Dishes are yours. I’m going to get some work done.”
“Fine. You play with your toys,” Eli said, snickering as Gideon reached into a bottom cupboard and pulled out a box with pieces of wood and tools and set it on the table.
He gave him a mild look. “Pays my bills.”
Eli sobered. “You know I’m just kidding. I’m glad you have work you like. You always enjoyed working with wood more than raising crops.”
Gideon used a pencil to sketch on the wood before he began carving. “I like farming but I like my job better. Seems we both found what we like.”
“And maedels to love.”
He nodded. “Ya. Even better.”
Eli turned, filled the sink with soapy water, and left him to work.
Chapter Thirteen
Things are really working out,” Hannah told Gideon as they ate lunch at his shop. “Emma’s come in three days this week and I’ve gotten so much accomplished having her help. Katie Ann was only able to come in one or two half days a week. I’ve already got my Christmas stock ordered, reorganized a few display tables, and we’ve done more sales because between the two of us we have more time to spend with customers.”
She took a sip of her iced tea. “And she says she doesn’t mind working Saturday afternoons. So I can finally schedule a quilting class for the Englisch customers who work during the week and can’t take the weekday ones.”
“Sounds like it’s working out well.”
She nodded. “I was worried when Sarah came in—Sarah Byler. We knew it was just a matter of time before someone found out Emma was in town and had a boppli. I was really worried Emma might think about leaving. But she handled it well, said she’d been expecting she’d have to deal with our community at some point. But I don’t think Sarah’s said anything to anyone. No one’s stopped by, and you know how fast the Amish grapevine works.”
Then she frowned. “Then again, Sarah has a lot on her mind. She picked up her check for a quilt I sold for her. I told her I’d be happy to drop the check by her house but she wanted to get it into the bank right away. And she said she needed to pick up a prescription for her mann. He’s got the cancer, you know.”
“I know. Eli’s been helping tend his fields along with some of the other men from the church. They’ll harvest his crops when it’s time.”
“I’ll be stopping by with some food my mudder and I are cooking for them this weekend.” She brushed crumbs from her hands and drained the last of her iced tea. “Well, I should get back to the shop. It was nice of Emma to come in a little early so I could eat with you, but if it gets busy I don’t want her to be overwhelmed her first week.”
“Do you think Emma would be interested in working a few hours for me some afternoons when she isn’t working for you? I could use the time to get some things done here. I need to do some planning myself.”
“I can ask her for you, or you can call her on the shop phone.”
“Ask her for me. If I call her I could catch her during a busy time.”
“I’ll do that.”
He stood and leaned over the counter to kiss her. She felt a blush creeping up her cheeks. “I— what was that for?”
“Because I want you to think about me.”
She pressed her hand against her lips. “I think about you often.” She tried and failed to give him a stern look. Someone could have come into the shop and seen his PDA. It wasn’t seemly, but she couldn’t deny that she liked it. She gathered up her lunch tote and hurried to the door. “See you later.”
* * *
Emma was indeed busy when she returned to the shop. Hannah didn’t take the time to put her lunch tote in the back room but instead shoved it under the front counter and went straight to work cutting fabric for a customer waiting patiently.
“I’m so sorry you had to wait,” she apologized to the woman.
“It’s no problem. This young gentleman kept me company,” the woman told her, smiling at John in his crib beside the table.
“We don’t trust him with the scissors just yet,” Emma joked as she walked over with a bolt of fabric.
“I think it’s just so wonderful when you can bring your baby to work with you.”
“We love it, don’t we, John?” Emma asked him and he waved a rattle and grinned at her.
As soon as the shop cleared Hannah turned to Emma. “Gideon was wondering if you’d want to work for him for a few hours now and then. I’m schur he’d move the crib there for you so you could have John with you, or I could watch him for you.”
“Schur. That would be fun and give me some more money for expenses.”
“What was I thinking?” Hannah said. “I can advance you your first week’s salary.”
“There’s no need for that. I’ll be allrecht until you pay me.”
Hannah shook her head. “I insist.” She did the math on a piece of paper and withdrew the cash from the register. “Once you open a bank account I’ll pay you by check.”
Emma tucked the bills into her pocket. “I should see about doing that soon.”
It started to rain a little while later, and tourists and locals hurried past with their umbrellas without coming inside. So the two of them spent the time cleaning and rearranging some shelves.
When it cleared Emma glanced at the time. “Would you mind if I took a quick break and walked down to talk to Gideon?”
“Not at all.”
“John should sleep for a little while longer,” she said after glancing over at him.
“It’s no problem.”
Hannah got out a bank deposit slip and began filling it out. She had just finished when everything happened all at once. Several customers walked in and John woke up squalling. Frowning—John never woke like that—Hannah reached for the bank deposit bag under the counter, couldn’t find it, and quickly shoved the money from the register into her lunch tote before she hurried over to see to him.
“Let me know if you have any questions,” she told her customers.
John held up his arms and cried piteously as she leaned over his crib. “There, there, lieb, I’m right here and your mamm will be right back.” As she picked him up, she noticed that one of the customers was standing near the counter. It was the sole male—a teenaged boy—who’d come in with the group. But he didn’t have anything in his hands, so he didn’t appear to need help.
A woman walked up to her. “Miss, do you carry metallic thread?”
“No, sorry, we don’t.”
“You’re sure?” The woman stepped closer, uncomfortably closer.
“Yes. Sorry.” She stepped aside and glanced around to make sure no one else needed her.
Other women were browsing the aisles, but the teen was gone. She guessed he was like other males and didn’t want to wait for his mother. But when she glanced at the door as Emma walked in she didn’t see anyone sitting on the bench outside. That was where men usually parked themselves while the women shopped.
The Amish Baby Finds a Home Page 9
