He suspected that wasn’t true, but recognized her stubborn expression. She didn’t like tattling on her brother, and he didn’t blame her.
Zeb stayed closemouthed over dinner, too, and Gideon decided to let him get away with it, this once. He would be angrier, except that it was true he hadn’t told either of his kinder everything. Hannah had somehow heard what he didn’t say, and it seemed she was right that Zeb could, too.
How was it that she saw him more deeply than anyone else ever had?
After Gideon had gone to talk to Bishop Troyer again this morning, it was likely Bernice’s and Yonnie’s parents would have to explain themselves a second time to their bishop. Gideon would not want to be in their shoes. Tomorrow, they’d see what happened at school.
Hannah was quieter than usual when she arrived in the morning, only nodding politely at him as he took charge of her mare. He saw her hug Rebekah as always, though, and lift Zeb’s hat off his head so she could ruffle his hair. No eight-year-old boy would like to know he was blushing by the time she placed the hat back where it belonged.
“Now, let’s go see what we have for lunch,” she said.
He went straight to work, leaving Hannah to do her job. Taking advantage of the cooler temperatures before the sun got too hot, Gideon took down a good-size maple tree and began cutting it up. Maple was one of his favorite woods for heating the house, and if he cut it into rounds now and then split those rounds, it would have plenty of time to season before winter. This afternoon, Isaac and Jake Miller had promised to join him to make some repairs on the barn roof. It wasn’t a job he’d want to do alone. When they needed help in turn, they’d call on him.
By the time he hacked the limbs off the tree, he’d acquired scratches on his face and hands. He took time to separate the branches that were large enough to be worth sawing for firewood from the ones he’d leave in the woods to compost.
When he went into the house for the midday meal, he didn’t immediately see Hannah, although she couldn’t have gone far, since good smells came from the oven and stove.
A small mirror hung in the downstairs bathroom so that anyone using it could be sure a kapp was on securely or to clean up more effectively. Gideon splashed water on his face and started to reach for a towel, but took a look at himself first and grimaced. Oh, ja, that was why any exposed skin stung. He washed more carefully before he risked using a towel. At least his beard had provided some protection, although he had to pick leaves and twigs out of it.
When he returned to the kitchen, he saw a crock held ham and beans, and Hannah had baked his favorite cornbread, as well.
With her back still to him, she said apologetically, “I should have set the bread to rising earlier, but I brought some cabbage rolls I made yesterday at Daad’s house, and I can run down to the cellar for applesauce. I did make a streusel cake—”
“I will not starve, Hannah. That’s plenty. I saw the clean clothes on the line.”
She poured coffee for him, and they took their places at the table. He bent his head in prayer and knew she was doing the same.
The moment he lifted his head, he reached for a muffin and the butter.
Hannah dished up a small helping of ham and beans for herself. “You look like a rabid barn cat leaped on your head this morning.”
One side of his mouth lifted. “That’s what it feels like. I’m cutting up a tree for firewood. Branches have a way of springing back unexpectedly.”
Her gaze moved over him, taking note of the damage to his forearms and the backs of his hands, too. But when she spoke again, it wasn’t about his scratches. Instead, she said, “Zeb was quiet this morning.”
Hearing the note of inquiry in her voice, Gideon said, “Last night, too. Rebekah admitted that some of the older kinder talked to him when they knew Tabitha wouldn’t notice.”
“Oh, no,” she said softly.
“Ja, so I think.” He filled his plate and ate for several minutes before saying tautly, “Rebekah says he won’t talk to me because he thinks I won’t be honest with him.”
He hadn’t intended to tell her that. Maybe he’d been fooling himself. His worries had been like muscle cramps, waking him frequently during the night. Sharp and painful, easing, then making themselves felt again.
Being able to talk with her about the kinder had become important to Gideon. He didn’t always like knowing that, but it was true. No, the compulsion he felt to talk to her wasn’t limited only to the kinder. He liked knowing she told him things he had no doubt she usually kept to herself, too.
She stirred food around on her plate, but didn’t actually take a bite. Still, it was a minute before she lifted her gaze to meet his. “You know, I had the impression, when you talked to Zeb and Rebekah, that you were holding back some of what happened. Maybe you only did because I was there, and you didn’t like saying too much in front of me.”
That would have given him an excuse, but he didn’t take it. “No,” he said gruffly. “I hated some of what was said after Leah died, and I thought the kinder were still too young to hear it. Or never needed to.”
“But they’re hearing plenty, anyway,” she pointed out, in her gentle way. “And Zeb, at least, is old enough to guess there’s more you didn’t say. He’s probably been thinking ever since of what that ‘more’ could be, and some of his ideas might be worse than the reality.”
“Does he need to know that Leah’s drunk Englisch friend hit another car head-on?” Gideon demanded. “That she killed a boy, barely seventeen, along with herself and Leah? That their mamm had just told me we were to have another kind, but our boppli died along with her?”
He groaned and let his head fall forward. Even Leah’s mamm didn’t know. But here it had just burst out of him.
“Oh, Gideon.” The ache in Hannah’s voice echoed the hurt inside him.
After a minute, he lifted his head and looked at her. Of course, her face had softened with sympathy. Just seeing what she felt was a balm to him.
“You won’t tell anyone?” he asked.
“No. Never.”
He nodded. Why not finish this ugly story? “There was talk that Leah was drunk, too. I never saw her drink. A time or two, a smell of alcohol seemed to cling to her when she came home from visiting her friend, but I thought it was like cigarette smoke. Her friend smoked, too.”
Hannah only waited.
After a moment, he continued. “That day, she had lunch with her friend. Brooke. The police chief talked to the owner of the restaurant where they ate. He knew what time Brooke and Leah left. The accident didn’t happen until three hours later.”
“Maybe they went to this Brooke’s house.”
“Maybe, but if so, nobody noticed her car.” He shrugged. “Neighbors might have been at work. I don’t know. Now, we’ll never know.”
“Surely if they’d gone to a bar, or, I don’t know, a tavern, someone would have noticed them. An Amishwoman would have stood out.”
“Ja. The police chief asked if I wanted him to test Leah’s blood for alcohol, but I said no. How could I doubt her? She was a good wife, a good mother. I refused to believe she would ever drink alcohol, and especially when she was pregnant.”
Hannah heard something in his voice he hadn’t meant to betray, because she said, “But?”
He looked at her in torment. “But I did doubt her.” The next words were torn from him. “I blamed her. How can I ever say that to my kinder?”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Hannah twined her fingers together. To keep herself from reaching out to him?
“That’s a normal, human reaction, I think,” she said carefully. “Not something that you need to feel ashamed about.”
His throat worked. “She would have trusted in me.”
She groped for the right thing to say. So much of life, she’d watched from a distance. But she’d started this,
and she couldn’t have stopped herself from offering him solace.
“I think . . . we always want to believe a tragedy didn’t have to happen. We insist on believing that, if only she’d done something different, everything would have come out fine. Worse yet, we think, ‘If only I’d done something different.’ Of course, you asked those questions. But do you still blame her in any way?”
Gideon stared at her with those burning dark eyes. “No.”
“If she’d made a mistake, you would have forgiven her, surely.” Oh, how much easier to say this was now that she’d forgiven her mother!
“Ja.” He sounded hoarse.
“Whatever the answers are to your questions, you have to quit torturing yourself, Gideon. I’ve . . . seen what a good man you are.” She nibbled on her lip, wondering who she was to offer counsel. But he’d been open with her, and the best she could do was summon the same Bible verse that had so perfectly described how she felt after forgiving her mother. “Do you remember this passage from John? ‘Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.’ ”
He didn’t move or break that stare for the longest time, but at last he closed his eyes and made a muffled sound. “I thought I’d found peace, until all this started again.”
Oh, this was none of her business, but . . . “Weren’t your parents a help?”
“No.” A familiar gruffness in his voice meant he was reluctant to make this admission. “My father is a stern man, a minister in our church district. He never allows himself to depart from what he believes is the right way.”
“The narrow way,” she murmured.
“Ja. My mother . . . she would never argue with him, never quietly speak a word he wouldn’t have approved, never sneak a treat he wouldn’t have liked to one of us.”
Hannah pictured him as a boy with tousled dark hair, defiant eyes, and a questioning mind.
“Did you get in trouble?”
He grimaced. “Often. Sometimes when I hadn’t done anything wrong. Nobody would listen to me. I resented that.”
“And vowed you would be a different kind of father.” And husband, it occurred to her. Of course, his parents hadn’t supported him.
“We don’t make vows.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Ja.” He pressed his lips together, and then resumed eating.
Hannah hopped up to grab the coffeepot, and topped off his mug.
“I hope today goes better for Zeb.”
“Ja.”
His usual short answer made her feel as if he’d decided to shut her out. He was probably right to do so. She was an auslander, however she dressed and whether she spoke his language or not. He had talked to her only because she was taking care of his kinder, not because he felt close to her.
Her cheeks felt hot. She shouldn’t have asked about his childhood.
He knows all about mine.
They hadn’t agreed to share and share alike. She worked for him. He’d hired her only grudgingly, probably because Samuel had asked him to. If sometimes it felt as if Gideon, Zeb, and Rebekah were her family, this the home she’d craved all her life, she’d been deluding herself.
I should be applying for jobs, she thought, with a familiar surge of panic. Not . . . not lingering here, as if—
She swallowed, trying to dislodge a lump in her throat. As if I intend to stay.
Had she really made that decision? If so, maybe that had been a mistake.
Confused, sad, angry with herself, she rose to start clearing the table. She dished up a slice of the vinegar pie she hadn’t been able to resist trying and set it in front of him while averting her gaze from his face. The filling did taste astonishingly like lemon, without any citrus in its ingredients. Still, she vowed to make some lemon meringue pies this week.
“You’re not having any?” he asked, when she started running dishwater.
“No, I’m not very hungry.”
She didn’t look at him once until she heard the sound of his chair scraping back.
“I’ll talk to Zeb tonight,” he said. “You were right in suggesting I need to be more honest with him.”
She turned. “I don’t remember saying that. Well, not exactly.”
He actually grinned, making her pulse skip.
Oh, she had it bad. How could she keep working here, now that she couldn’t block out her awareness of him as a man? When she couldn’t stop herself from blushing? And, yes, she was doing it again.
“You’re good at prodding me to do what you think is right,” he said, amusement lingering in the curve of his lips. “Any man with sense listens when a woman like you—” He broke off, his shock apparent.
She was stunned, but tried to counter it with a smile. “When a woman won’t quit nagging, you mean?”
“Ja,” he said slowly. “Something like that.”
“Speaking of, unless you’re going back out to do battle with that tree, you should put some antibiotic ointment on those scratches. The deeper ones, anyway.” Not letting herself see how he’d react to another order, Hannah took a tube of ointment from a drawer. She’d used it just the other day on Zeb’s knee after he’d skinned it.
“The scratches will get dirty, anyway.” His voice came from right behind her.
Hannah jumped before she summoned enough dignity to turn to face him. “Better put this on before dirt gets into them.”
“Ja.” But he didn’t reach for the tube. Instead, he looked down at her.
Her heart pounded hard, but not from fear. She wanted . . . she needed . . .
He bent his head slowly, as if to give her time to retreat. How could she, with her feet rooted to the floor? Creases between his brows formed something like a frown, but not quite. Hannah waited in breathless hope.
His lips touched hers, softly. She lifted her hand to his cheek, liking the texture of his beard and the hard line of his jaw beneath it. He kissed her again, and this time she rose on tiptoe to respond.
Cupping her face with his calloused hand, he adjusted the tilt of her head, and kept kissing her. Hannah heard herself make a sound—a small whimper?—and was sorry when Gideon straightened.
But then she heard what he had: a horse and buggy passing the house, stopping at the hitching rail. One of Gideon’s horses in the pasture let out a nicker.
“I . . . maybe that’s Julia?” she said shakily.
Gideon’s hand dropped to his side and he took a step back. “No. Jacob and Isaac Miller are here to help me replace shingles on the barn roof.”
“Oh.”
He didn’t allow himself to look away, but she hated the expression on his face. This was the well-guarded man she’d first met.
“I shouldn’t have done that,” he said. “I let myself forget you’re an Englischer.” His lips tightened. “And you work for me.”
Mind whirling, Hannah couldn’t think of a single thing to say.
“We’ll talk about it later,” he said. Ignoring the tube of ointment in her hand, he clapped his hat on his head and went out the back door.
Hannah stood where she was, fingertips pressed to her lips. Tears stung her eyes.
* * *
* * *
The entire afternoon, Gideon berated himself. Several times, he caught himself about to make a mistake because his attention wasn’t on what he was doing. That was especially foolish when he sat on the steep slant of the barn roof, high above the ground. Yet he couldn’t seem to prevent himself from thinking about that kiss.
He hadn’t smooched with a woman in three years, not since Leah died. He hadn’t wanted to. He’d been driven to make a good living from the land, to protect his kinder, to raise them to be confident, caring, and solid in their faith.
Despite the attentions of single
women back home and then here in Tompkin’s Mill, too, he hadn’t even been tempted. He was honest enough with himself now to recognize that changed the minute the strange Englischer had rolled down her car window to ask him a polite question. Hannah, and only Hannah, had tempted him from the beginning, although he hadn’t let himself acknowledge the truth at first.
If he had, he couldn’t have hired her. When he spoke to Amos about her, it didn’t occur to him to say, I like her too much, although even then . . .
He heard a scraping sound and turned his head to be sure Jacob hadn’t slipped, but his neighbor was only pulling a bag of shingles closer.
The sun baked them, and Gideon’s sweat stung where he was scratched. He might have felt better if he’d applied the ointment.
If he’d spread the ointment on his scratches, he might not have surrendered to impulse and kissed Hannah. Perhaps the burning on his hands, face, and neck was God’s way of rapping His knuckles on Gideon’s head as a reminder that a believer should keep a distance from unbelievers.
For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness?
He felt a stirring of rebellion. He couldn’t equate Hannah with darkness. Her faith in the Lord was a deeply felt part of her. Nor was she lawless.
Still, if he let this go on, he would do damage to himself. Letting himself love a woman from outside his faith would tear him apart. And trusting that, even if she did convert, she would never have regrets about giving up the life she once had? No.
He liked even less knowing how much Hannah would be hurt, too. Her strength, her belief in God, her instinctive generosity and ability to love covered the sadness she couldn’t entirely hide, her damaged ability to trust. She might not be able to endure yet more wounds.
I should ask her to find a different job, he realized, even as his rib cage tightened until he couldn’t draw a breath. If he did that, he’d be protecting himself, but stealing something precious from Rebekah and Zeb.
He came in for dinner not knowing what to expect. What he found was much as usual: Hannah and Rebekah bustling to prepare dinner, while Zeb sat at the table scowling over a book and notebook covered in his messy writing.
Finding Hope Page 25
