Caleb was undeterred. “I committed to working here until the day after Labor Day, and that’s what I want to do. And since you owe me a favor, you’re going to let me stay.”
“I’ll do no such—”
“You gave me your word, Rose.”
She snorted. “And you think I’ll keep my word just because I’m Amish?”
“Neh. Because your onkel is ill and there’s a community event coming up. And because I still want to help you meet your goal—”
“Liar!” Rose shrieked, spinning to face him. “You want to stay so you can look for some stupid ancient coins that can’t even be used for currency anymore!”
Caleb couldn’t blame Rose for distrusting him, but he winced at being called a liar. “Neh. I’ve given up looking for the coins. I want to stay in spite of knowing I’m not going to find them.”
Rose turned her back to him again. She was stirring frenziedly. Finally she allowed, “If you stay, you are to remain out of my sight. I will not eat with you. I will not talk to you. And you aren’t ever to discuss your...your identity with anyone else here. Agreed?”
It’s as if I’m under the Bann and I’m not even Amish. “Agreed,” Caleb said.
* * *
On Tuesday, the second evening Caleb didn’t show for supper, Eleanor came into the kitchen where Rose was drying the last dish and inquired, “Caleb’s not really still outside harvesting potatoes, is he? You two had a lovers’ quarrel?”
“Stop saying such things,” Rose warned her through gritted teeth. “Or I’ll tell everyone you were alone with a man in the woods near Kissing Cove the other day.”
“I was not,” Eleanor protested adamantly before scuttling into the dining hall to help Maria wipe down the tables.
Rose didn’t know what, when or where Caleb was eating, but she was glad he kept his word and didn’t come to the dining hall at mealtime and avoided her throughout the day, too. She was mostly glad anyway. As the week wore on, there were short-lived moments when her acrimony toward him softened enough so that some small part of her hoped he’d approach her again. She hoped he’d say he was playing a joke that went too far and he really was Amish after all. It was the same kind of wishful thinking that made her long to turn back time to when she still believed he wanted to kiss her...
Then she’d be disgusted with herself for entertaining the thought and even more disgusted with Caleb for toying with her emotions. With God’s grace and a lot of prayer, she’d eventually forgive him for that, and for the other ways he’d betrayed her trust. Meanwhile she poured her energy into earning the three hundred dollars she still needed for the lease, while also serving guests at the camp.
The week seemed to last a month but finally Saturday arrived: August 27, the day of the fish fry and canoe race. As Rose waited for Helen to pick up her order near the produce stand, she remembered Jaala suggesting Rose and Caleb should pair up for the canoe race. I hope she doesn’t say anything to him about that this afternoon, Rose fretted.
“I won’t see you again before you leave, but Sally will be here on Monday morning to collect the order,” Helen said after they’d put the pies in her trunk. Rose had forgotten Helen and her husband were going to Europe for three weeks. The Englischer gave Rose a small envelope, as well as a hug, and Rose waved until Helen’s car disappeared around the bend. Then she hustled back to help Miriam and Eleanor check guests out and clean the cottages.
It seemed the last Englisch family had just driven away when the first Amish families rolled up the dirt road. There was a flurry of activity as the women brought food into the dining hall and the men set up charcoal grills outdoors. Because the Unity settlement was also invited, Rose didn’t know half of the people in attendance, and she tried to guess which young boy Hope had expressed interest in. It’s too bad the twins can’t be here. They were really looking forward to this, she was thinking as Jaala approached.
“Are you going to join the canoe race?” she asked, just as Rose feared she would. “The last teams to race are taking their places now.”
“Neh. I need to help fry the fish.” The men who were participating in the tournament had been on the lake since the wee hours of the morning and they were starting to come back now. It was their responsibility to clean what they caught and then the women would prepare the fish for frying.
“You’ve been making meals for guests all summer—let someone else do it for a change. Go join the schpass.”
Rose didn’t want to take part in the race, for fear she’d see Caleb. Since this was a relay, he was helping transport participants to their designated locations on the lake. She figured as long as she stayed near the dining hall they wouldn’t cross paths. But Henry had overheard Rose’s conversation with Jaala, and he pestered Rose to be his partner until she finally relented.
The teams consisted of four members, with one female and one male racing together in each canoe. Five canoes raced at a time, for a total of twenty participants in the race, and teams wore matching colored arm bands to identify themselves.
The race began at Relaxation Rock. From there, the teams paddled past Kissing Cove and in between the two islands. When they reached the shoreline near the trailhead for Paradise Point, the first pairs of partners would get out and hand off their canoes to their teammates. The second pairs then raced back to the camp, leaving the first group behind to be picked up later.
Isaiah Gerhart used the rowboat to transport Henry and Rose to the area of shoreline below Paradise Point. While they were waiting for Abram to bring the last pair of racers over from the camp, Rose sat on a fallen log beside Henry. Maria and Otto, as well as Levi and Sadie Swarey, were also racing and the four of them perched on the edge of the embankment, dangling their bare feet into the lake. Another young couple Rose didn’t recognize—they were likely from Unity—stood off to the side in the shade without talking to anyone else.
“Here comes the fifth team,” Maria said, pointing to the water. To Rose’s discomfort, Isaiah was ferrying Eleanor and Caleb across the lake.
Once Eleanor came ashore, she taunted Henry and Rose, “I know we can beat at least one team here, can’t we, Caleb?”
We’ll see about that. Irritated, Rose walked over to speak to the couple standing by themselves. Pointing to the small cooler the man gripped in his hand, she remarked lightly, “You brought your own supper? Your team won’t take that long to get here, will they?”
She’d only been joking, but the man frowned without answering and the blonde woman with him averted her gaze. Rose realized there was something about her that seemed familiar. Rose was about to ask if she was related to someone in Serenity Ridge or if she’d visited their church when Eleanor began to clap and shout.
“Here they kumme! I see yellow—that’s our team, Caleb!”
“Ours is right behind them. Quick, Rose, get over here.” Henry beckoned.
As she and the couple from Unity joined the others on the edge of the embankment, the men began hollering and whistling at the incoming canoes.
Eleanor cupped her hands over her mouth and shouted, “Go, go, go!”
The woman from Unity copied her and the two of them elbowed their way in front of Rose as they vied for position nearest the water. They were both even taller than she was, so Rose had to stand on her tiptoes to see how her teammates were faring. As she peeked over the blonde woman’s shoulder, Rose’s eyes registered something odd before her mind could process what she was seeing. There was a tiny hole in the woman’s ear, as if from a piercing. I shouldn’t judge, she scolded herself. I did things on my rumspringa I regret now, too.
There was a commotion as Caleb and Eleanor’s teammates got out of the canoe and Caleb and Eleanor got in. Rose and Henry’s teammates arrived right behind them, and the blonde woman and her partner’s crew came next. Rose’s skirt got soaked to her knees as she helped her teammates out of the canoe, but she
didn’t care. She was so intent on beating Caleb and Eleanor she looped her life vest around her neck but didn’t take time to buckle it. “Go, Henry, go!” she urged as she picked up her paddle.
Henry must have wanted to defeat his sister as much as Rose wanted to defeat Caleb, because he paddled with a ferocity Rose didn’t know he possessed. Ten strokes later they were within two canoe lengths of catching up.
“We’re gaining on them!” Rose exclaimed. Suddenly their canoe was jolted from behind to the right and Rose had to grab on to the side with her free hand to keep her balance. As she and Henry lost momentum, the blonde woman and her partner pulled ahead of them.
“Oops, sorry,” the woman said, grinning facetiously as her canoe overtook Rose and Henry’s.
Her brilliant smile reminded Rose of diamonds and suddenly she realized why her ears were pierced: she was Julia, the woman who’d requested a tour of the waterfront earlier that season. All at once, everything clicked. The coins! The cooler! Paradise Point! Rose’s reflexes kicked in and she leaped to her feet.
“Caleb!” she screamed. Eleanor kept paddling, but Caleb gave Rose a backward glance.
“Stop them!” Rose bellowed, frantically waving her paddle as Julia and her partner headed in the direction of Relaxation Rock instead of toward the camp. “They’ve got the coins. They’re going to—”
Before she could complete the thought, Rose toppled sideways, shattering the surface of the water like glass.
* * *
Even over his shoulder, Caleb had noticed Rose’s life vest wasn’t fastened around her chest, but before he could warn her to sit down, she foundered. In one swift motion, he stood, twisted around and discarded his own vest before hurtling himself off the back of the canoe. Caleb cut through the water as if his arms and legs were fins, and he didn’t come up for air until he was within twenty feet of Rose. She was thrashing violently with one arm, and with the other she clung to the life vest, which was bunched up beneath her ears. Henry must have dropped his paddle because he was using his arms like oars to row toward Rose. Caleb reached her first.
“Relax. Let the vest do the work,” he said. He gripped her by the arm to stop her from flailing. “Here, let’s get this buckled—”
It took some wrestling with the straps, but once the vest was properly secured around her torso, Caleb pulled Rose back toward land. By then, the other racing teams had arrived and a couple men waded into the lake up to their chests so they could usher Rose and Caleb the rest of the way in. Eleanor must have fished Henry’s paddle out of the water for him because the brother and sister pulled to shore in their canoes a minute later.
“I know you wanted to distract us but jumping overboard was a lappich thing to do just to win a race,” Eleanor joked, clearly oblivious to what Rose had yelled about the coins.
Caleb waited for Henry to pipe up, but he must not have heard, either, because he busied himself with squeezing water from his pant cuffs without saying a word. Must have been the shouting from shore drowned out Rose’s voice, or else it was because she was facing away from him...
“I guess I got overly excited,” Rose said. “Sorry I frightened everyone.”
Was she protecting herself from getting involved, or protecting him from the public humiliation of having his identity exposed? Either way, Caleb was grateful Rose didn’t say anything else.
“I think you frightened Caleb the most,” Sadie Swarey commented. “He’s shaking.”
Her husband replied, “He’s probably cold. We should get back to the camp so Rose and Caleb can change their clothes.”
“There’s not enough room for all of us to go at once,” Maria pointed out. “I wonder why that other couple took off for Relaxation Rock.”
“They weren’t from Serenity Ridge so they probably got mixed-up about where they were supposed to go,” Rose said, further confirming she had no intention of disclosing Caleb’s secret. “They’ll kumme back when they realize their mistake.”
Caleb knew as well as she did if they really were the thieves, the couple wouldn’t come back. Most likely, they’d already abandoned the canoe and run through the woods to where they had a car waiting on the main road. By the time Caleb returned to the camp they’d probably be halfway to Canada. While it grieved him to know they were getting away, there was virtually nothing he could do to stop them now, short of involving law enforcement agencies. But the very idea of them disrupting the Amish community’s celebration or bringing Rose into the station to tell them what she knew made his stomach turn. Caleb had promised her he wouldn’t go to the police and he was going to honor his word. He owed Rose that much; he owed all the leit of Serenity Ridge that much.
Gott, please don’t let the thieves get away, Caleb prayed simply as Levi ferried him and two other passengers back to the camp. He made the same silent request throughout the evening, which passed in a blur. And after everyone left and he retired to his cabin, Caleb knelt beside his bed and asked again, Please don’t let them get away.
While he was praying, someone knocked on the door and he opened his eyes, expecting to see a straggler from the fish fry, but it was Rose.
He’d barely stepped outside before she asked, “Did you hear what I shouted before I fell in?”
He nodded. “You told me to stop them. You said they had the coins.”
Rose threw her hands in the air. “Then why didn’t you go after them? After everything you went through to come here—and after everything I went through because you came—you threw it all away? That was just plain dumm! You should have chased them, Caleb. Then at least all of your...your deception wouldn’t have been for nothing!”
In the pause following Rose’s tirade, Caleb thought about Ryan saying he and Sheryl had decided to stop fighting each other and start fighting for their marriage. Caleb and Rose weren’t married, but they’d had a friendship—a close relationship—that was worth fighting for, too. “I came back because of you, Rose. I was afraid you’d drown.” He mustered his courage and added, “I couldn’t imagine anything worse.”
Rose’s lips parted in disbelief. She shook her head. “I had my life vest. I would have been fine.”
“It wasn’t fastened, so I couldn’t be sure of that.”
She let her arms go limp at her sides. “Well, denki for pulling me to shore.”
“Denki for trying to help me stop the thieves. You didn’t have to do that, either.”
“I didn’t think it would be fair to your brother if they got away just because I was mad at you.” Rose smiled weakly before asking, “Have you called the police?”
“Neh. I’m not going to, either.”
Rose looked at him askance. “If you expect me to go to them—”
“I don’t expect you to. I’d appreciate it if you went—and so would Ryan—but I respect your decision not to and I trust Gott will work the situation out,” he told her. “But will you at least tell me why you believe they were the thieves?”
A smug smile played at Rose’s lips. She described how she’d noticed the woman’s ears were pierced and then recognized her as being Julia, posing as an Amish woman. How she’d realized it was likely the same woman they’d seen with a man near Kissing Cove, and the same woman Oliver’s friend told the twins he’d spotted in the woods near the camp carrying a shovel. “What else would she be searching and digging for except the coins?”
Caleb was skeptical. “But what makes you think she found them today?”
“The man with her was carrying a cooler.”
“It might have been their supper.”
“Not likely. They wouldn’t have taken off so fast in the other direction if all they were hiding was a ham sandwich.” They both chuckled and then Rose said, “Besides, when you consider the Bible verse on the note your brother received, it makes perfect sense the coins were buried at Paradise Point.”
“What do you
mean?”
“‘Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven,’” Rose quoted the first part of Matthew 6:20. “Paradise is another name for heaven. Paradise Point... Get it?”
“Wow. I never made that connection.” Caleb still had a lot of unanswered questions, especially about who’d sent the note to his brother, but now he was absolutely convinced Rose was right; Julia and her partner had definitely made off with the coins. “Hey, do you think they were the ones who pushed our canoe in the water on the Fourth of July?”
“Neh. The waves carried it off.”
“Waves? The waves weren’t big enough—” Caleb objected before he realized she was teasing him, almost like old times.
Rose sighed. “This was a long day, so I’ll let you get some sleep now.”
Caleb was tempted to ask if he could accompany her to church one last time but that would be like asking her to pretend she didn’t know he was Englisch. “Good night,” he said instead. “I’ll see you...around.”
* * *
When the full realization of what Caleb had sacrificed for her sank in, Rose pressed her face into her pillow to muffle her sobbing. It wasn’t only that he’d let the thieves go in order to pull her from the water that made her weep; it was the hundreds of ways he’d helped her and demonstrated kindness and affection all summer. The thought of being without Caleb in her life was, as Maria had put it, splintering Rose’s heart to pieces, and she cried herself to sleep.
The next morning, as she was preparing for church, she found the card Helen had given her on the desk in the hall. She opened it to read: “Rose, here’s a small token of appreciation for making this the sweetest season the inn has ever experienced. Remember my offer—I’m sure our guests would relish your apple, pumpkin and mincemeat pies, too!” Helen had enclosed five hundred dollars in cash, which was over two hundred dollars more than what Rose needed for the lease, and she was simultaneously filled with gratitude for the gift and grief about returning to Pennsylvania.
Her Amish Suitor's Secret (Amish 0f Serenity Ridge Book 3) Page 18
