A Love Undone (13 page)

He didn’t have trouble getting along with people—men, women,
and children of all ages. What was his problem with Jolene? He knew part of it. He was used to focusing on the horses, not worrying about the person in the pen next to him. Her inexperience in a pen with a wild horse had him jittery, and the horses he’d worked with today seemed to pick up on it, making his task of calming them harder. How was he supposed to focus on his work when he was worried about her safety?

However, for the first day as a volunteer on a job, she’d done really well. So why hadn’t he been able to simply talk to her and share a few encouraging words?

She went to her book, picked it up, and brushed off the dust. “Are you okay, Jolene?” she asked herself. “I’m scraped and bruised, but I’ll be fine. Denki,” she answered. “I appreciate your efforts today,” she mocked. “Denki,” she said. “I hoped you would, because like it or not, we’re stuck in this situation for a while.”

That was the problem. They were trapped in a situation that had him every bit as skittish and overwrought as the horses. “You shouldn’t be out here. You can’t read a book while in the pen with a wild horse.”

The fire in her eyes equaled that of the angriest horses he’d worked with, only there was no fear lurking behind her fury. But she said nothing.

“Jolene!” Hope called. “Van’s on the phone.”

Her shoulders slumped slightly, and her face showed a different kind of dread now than when she’d entered the pen with a wild horse this morning. Since it was apparent she didn’t want to talk to the blacksmith, should he offer to do it for her? He knew the answer. Definitely not. Any woman this determined to handle tough
situations wouldn’t appreciate being treated as if she needed to be rescued from a phone call.

“Be right there.” She thrust the book toward him. “Maybe if you’d talked to me about what I needed to do, I wouldn’t stand in a pen with a wild horse while reading!”

When he took the book from her, she walked off. It didn’t have a title on the outside, but when he opened the thin, hardback book, he read the title page and realized what it was.

“Great,” he mumbled as his face flushed with guilt and embarrassment. The one flaw he’d found in her wasn’t a flaw after all.

As Jolene walked toward the phone shanty, the blue sky and green grass seemed to fade into each other like watercolors on canvas. Her hands trembled, and her knees threatened to give way. Was it from the hurt Andy had inflicted or from a day of too much stress and too little food and water? She removed the helmet, causing her now-smashed prayer Kapp to almost come off too. Shoving the head covering back in place, she sat in the folding chair near the homemade desk in the shanty and took a shaky breath. The receiver of the black rotary phone lay on the desk, its short line leading to the old cradle. She put the helmet on the desk and picked up the phone but didn’t speak. What should she say? “Hello”? “This is Jolene”? “Hi, Van”?

She cleared her throat. “Denki for returning my call.”

“Sure, Jo. Anytime. You know that. Is there something I can do for you?”

His kindness hit hard, and tears welled as the toll of the last two days threatened to pull her under. Who would’ve thought the most encouraging voice she’d come in contact with this week would belong to Van Beiler?

Of course he’d never been unkind, at least not in words or tone. About nine years ago she’d read a book called
The Five Love Languages
, and she’d found the love language for each of her siblings, as well as her own. She hungered for kind words and an encouraging
tenor in someone’s voice. Keep the gifts, hoard your time, don’t be of any help, and withhold all hugs, but when you speak, do so with kind, reassuring words. Of all that had been taken from her when she lost her parents, she missed their spoken affirmations the most.

Her hands and arms were covered in dirt, bloody, and scratched up. But more than the physical discomfort, her feelings were hurt, and now she felt like the awkward, lonely girl she’d been after her parents died.

“Jo? You there?”

All she could manage was a nod, hoping the words would follow.

Andy came to the door of the phone shanty, and the pooled tears in her eyes spilled down her cheeks. Ignoring him, she took a deep breath. “Ya, I’m here.” Her voice trembled, and she wanted to smack Andy for it.

“You okay?” The concern in Van’s voice was frustrating. She had gone all this time standing on her own, and now she sounded like a weepy, brokenhearted girl again, just as she had the day he said his final good-bye.

Why had Andy come to the phone shanty? Whatever his reasons, he’d caught her as she fell apart, and he seemed as tied in place as a horse to a hitching post.

She covered the mouthpiece with her palm, wiped her cheeks with the back of her wrist, and drew several deep breaths before removing her hand. “I’m fine, Van. And you?” But her voice broke again, and she had to cover the mouthpiece and gasp for air. She had to face facts. She simply wasn’t up to talking right now. “Actually … could I call you back in about fifteen minutes?”

“Sure. I’ll wait right here for your call. You name what you need and when, and I’ll do it, okay?”

No, it wasn’t okay. Why did she have to be in this position of needing to ask him for a favor? “Denki.” She hung up the phone and stared at it, trying to bite back more tears. She refused to look at Andy. “What?” She sounded every bit as exasperated with him as she felt.

He set the book on the desk in front of her and brushed more dirt off of it. “I’m sorry.”

His words made another wave of sappy emotions crash over her, but she kept herself in check, not so much as flinching.

He grabbed a folded chair that was leaning against the far wall, opened it, and sat. “You’re untrained and working with rogue horses, and it scares me, but more than that, I’ve apparently become a crotchety old horse’s rump.”

Her throat seemed to close, and fresh tears threatened. “You really hurt my feelings.”

“And there was no call for that and no excuse.”

She finally looked at him. His tanned face had smudges of dirt, making him look rugged and handsome, but far more important, she saw sincere repentance in his eyes. She didn’t want to imagine how ridiculous she looked with grimy clothes, a flat head covering, boy’s boots, half-fallen hair, and dirt-stained cheeks smeared with tears. “Girls get their feelings hurt. Have you and Tobias been on your own so long you’ve forgotten?”

“No.” His lone word was barely audible. He sighed, shaking his head. “I didn’t forget. It seems as if I’ve just grown callous.”

Fighting back more tears, she nodded and left the phone shanty. She went to the cast-iron water pump, removed the hand towel from it, and pulled and pushed the handle a few times until the water poured. She cupped her hands under it, pocketing water to wash her face. When the water stopped, Andy stepped forward and pumped it for her. She buried her face in a handful of water, grateful for a bit of reprieve from the emotional overload. Gaining a bit of composure once again, she scrubbed dirt and blood from her hands and arms with the hand towel, and then she walked to the shade of an oak and sat in a metal chair. Like Lester’s phone, the lawn furniture was probably from the mid-1950s. How many lunches had she shared out here with the old man over the last several years? The view of the surrounding pastures with tame horses grazing was picturesque as the orange sphere eased toward the horizon. It made her wish she was free to go to the attic and pick up a paintbrush. She would start with the thickest one her Daed had given her, with its wooden handle covered in beautiful, vibrant stains. Reaching deep into her hidden pocket, she touched the key, and a moment of feeling free to be herself brought a bit of peace.

Andy walked to where she sat, his face and arms dripping water. She dangled the towel on two fingers.

He took it and scrubbed his face. “Do you want time alone, or do you want to vent?”

“It’s not just the yelling at me. Why did you stop talking and simply walk out on me this morning? Why not one kind or encouraging word while we worked?”

He shifted, staring into the distance. Was he at war with himself
to answer her? “I stand by my assessment that the job is too dangerous for a novice. Why would I say anything that might encourage you to stay inside the ring?”

His demands for her to leave the ring were consistent with the following hours of his silence. Could she fault a man for being true to his beliefs? She took a shaky breath and leaned back in the chair. “My meltdown wasn’t all you. I arrived this morning with my emotions pushing and shoving me. Sometimes all the little feelings and stresses pile up until it’s a mountain crashing down.”

“Ya. It is, isn’t it?” He sat beside her in Lester’s usual chair.

“I’m not leaving you to do this job by yourself.”

He tapped the ends of his fingers together, looking heavenward and shaking his head. “Ya, that’s pretty clear at this point.”

“Can we do this?” She nodded toward the corrals to their far right.

“It’ll be weeks of harder work than today, because we’ll have to juggle taming with washing and shoeing, but I think we’ve already proved we can do it. The first horses should be ready to be washed late this afternoon. The question is, can we do it without you getting hurt?”

“You can teach me the safest ways to do the job, but”—she gestured toward the tame horse just on the other side of the fence—“pain and life go together like pastures and horses. Still, you could try to keep yourself from being the source of it.”

“You don’t pull any punches when it comes to saying what you’re thinking or feeling, do you?”

In a lot of ways, she stayed quite hidden; she kept far more to herself than she spoke aloud. But with Andy it was different somehow.
Since he was neither sibling nor church-district member, she found that surprisingly liberating. “If that’s a problem, I can work on keeping more to myself.”

He propped his forearms on his legs and stared at the ground between his feet. “It’s unnerving.” He shook his head, seeming as confused by his behavior today as she was. “But I like it … I think.”

She chuckled. “Ya, that’s how I feel too.”

“Have you always been so direct?”

“Honestly, I’m not sure why I’m being so straight with you. I tend to keep a lot to myself. I have since I was nineteen and lost my parents. They were two of the most open people you could meet.” Why had she begun this conversation?

He angled his head, and his brows furrowed as he looked up at her. “Jo … both parents?” The disbelief in his whisper sent chills over her. He sat upright, the ground no longer holding his interest. “I’d like to hear more.”

“Our last moments together had been amazing—direct, open, and filled with such love and joy that I still call on those memories for strength and peace. If my life hadn’t been redirected that day, maybe I would be more like they were. At least it seemed I was headed that way.” She was supposed to have moved to a district that would allow her the freedom to pursue becoming an artist. Yet here she was, a woman who painted in an attic as if it were a sin and doled out parental advice to younger siblings as if she had the benefits that came with age. “But it’s good to know I’m capable of being open with you. Maybe that’s because your uncle pushes me to be my real self whenever I’m here. So … can we manage to get along, or do you have a problem working with a woman?”

He looked unsure. “Lester told you of my … marital situation, right?”

“He didn’t volunteer it, but I asked him about it this morning before breakfast.”

He studied her. “It’s not a problem?”

“Should it be?”

He shrugged. “I guess not.” He leaned in. “Who raised Hope?”

“As the oldest with five younger siblings, I guess the answer is me. But I couldn’t have done it without the help of the district. If it hadn’t been for your uncle Lester, I’m not sure we would’ve managed to stay together. Three of my siblings are married now. I can’t imagine what my life will be like when the other two marry, but I’m sure it will look to most as if I’m too heartbroken over Van to—”

“Van? You and he …”

“Ya. We were engaged when my parents died. The breakup wasn’t his fault any more than it was mine. He wanted … 
we
wanted to marry, but it was too much stress and responsibility. My heart and all my underpinnings and perspectives were shattered, so I wasn’t the same person he thought he was going to marry. Can’t fault a guy for that. It was years before I could find one familiar piece of myself again.”

“Hey.” Hope’s voice caused Jolene to turn. She and Tobias were coming across the yard, each holding a tray. “Lester said it was time to make you two eat.”

Jolene’s heart jumped. She’d forgotten that Van was waiting on her to call back. She stood. “What day and time do you want Van to be here?”

He looked up at her. “We can find another blacksmith, Jo.”

“No need. Van is the answer we need, and I’m fine with it.”

Andy remained in place, studying her. His blue eyes seemed to look beyond her disheveled outer and inner selves and see straight into the heart of who she was. And it dawned on her just how many years she’d missed the camaraderie that came with talking to a man who was about her age.