Anna's Return (17 page)

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Authors: Marta Perry

BOOK: Anna's Return
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“Have you lost something, Anna?” Samuel’s voice came out of the dark beyond the range of her light. She swung around, the beam striking his blue shirt, his tanned face.
He put up a hand to shield his eyes from the glare, and she lowered the torch immediately.
“I’m sorry. You startled me. I didn’t realize anyone was out here.”
“Just making the rounds of the barn and henhouse,” he said, moving closer.
“Don’t you need a light for that?”
He gave a low chuckle. “It’s not dark out yet, Anna. Switch that off and let your eyes get used to it. You’ll see.”
When she didn’t move, he put his hand over hers on the flashlight and turned it off. She began to protest, and he held up his hand.
“Just wait.”
They stood, not speaking. The rhythm of the evening settled over her—the rustle of the breeze among the tall sunflowers along the fence, the chirp of crickets, the lonely call of some night bird, answered by the whoo-whoo of an owl.
Her tumbling mind seemed to still along with her body. She inhaled. Exhaled. Saw the rhythmic flashes of the lightning bugs rising from the grass.
Gradually, as if the lights went up slowly in a theater, she realized she could see. Her eyes picked out the picnic table, the chairs, even a ball one of the children had forgotten. And there, in the grass almost at her feet, the small carved dog.
She bent and picked it up, closing her fingers around the smooth wood. “This is what I was looking for. Daadi made it for Gracie. I must have dropped it when I was taking her in.”
“Ja?” He took the dog from her, turning it over in his hand. “I saw her playing with it, but I didn’t realize Elias made it. He’s a gut grandfather, he is.”
“And father.” Daadi understood so much, it seemed. All the things she didn’t say.
“Ja.” The word came out a little rough, and she remembered about his own father, who’d lost himself voluntarily in the English world, leaving his family to fend for themselves.
“I heard what you said to him about the car,” Samuel said. “It’s ser hatt for you, giving that up.”
So hard. She nodded. “That car was the first one I ever owned. The only one, maybe. I guess it meant freedom to me.”
“Ja, I know. I wanted a car first thing when I jumped the fence.”
She should go in, but it sounded as if Samuel wanted to talk. Given Myra’s worries about him keeping everything to himself, she couldn’t discourage him. She sat on the picnic bench and patted the space next to her.
“Komm, sit for a minute. Tell me about it.”
He folded his long frame onto the bench, propping one elbow on the table behind them. “Not much to tell. I found out that it’s not so easy to get a car when you don’t have a job or a credit card or even a telephone.” He shook his head. “I was so green. Totally not ready for what it was like out there.”
She studied his face in the dim light. “Why did you go, then? It seems so out of character for you. You were never a rebel.”
“Like you,” he said, his teeth flashing in a smile.
“Like me,” she agreed, not even sure now what had been so important about that rebellion of hers.
Samuel looked down, his face growing serious. “It was my daad’s leaving, first off. It unsettled all of us. I kept trying to fill his shoes, thinking I’d be able to go on without him.”
“But you couldn’t,” she finished for him.
“I tried. I got baptized into the church, I courted Rebecca Miller, and we talked about marrying. But the closer it came, the more doubts I had. Mamm was still grieving about Daad, and I couldn’t seem to feel right about anything, not knowing why he’d left. I got it into my head to go after him.”
It made sense, and it also made her reasons for leaving seem frivolous in comparison. “You risked so much.”
“I did. The church doesn’t look lightly on baptized members leaving. I could have talked to Bishop Mose, explained what was in my mind. That’s what I should have done. Instead I went running off, not telling anyone what I intended, hurting my family even worse.”
His voice roughened, and the sound hurt her heart.
She touched his hand lightly, wanting to comfort him. “I’m sure your mamm understood.”
“I hope so. But it pained her. It made it seem like I was siding with him.” His fingers curled around hers, as if he needed something to hang on to.
“Did you find him?”
He was still for so long that she thought he wouldn’t answer. Then he took a ragged breath.
“I found him. You know, I pictured him living in a shack someplace, maybe drinking himself to death, ashamed of what he’d done.” His fingers clutched tighter and he stopped, as if he couldn’t go on.
“It wasn’t like that,” she guessed, trying to help him along.
“No. Instead I found he had a whole different life, living with a woman who had a farm outside Columbus, Ohio. He looked prosperous and happy. He was so at ease that you’d think he’d never lived any other way, even though it was her money that put the clothes on his back and the car in his driveway, I’d guess.” His words were heavy with bitterness.
“I’m sorry.” Anna tried to imagine it and couldn’t.
“I felt like I’d never known him. Like maybe he didn’t even know himself.”
Through the bitterness, she sensed what it was that Samuel feared. She longed to comfort him as she would Gracie.
“You’re not like him. You’re not.”
“I hope I’m not. But how would I know for sure? When I came back, Rebecca wanted to pretend my leaving had never happened, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t marry her, not knowing if I wouldn’t suddenly make up my mind to walk away.”
“You wouldn’t,” Anna said again, searching for a way to convince him of what she saw so clearly. “You’re not someone who gives up once you’ve set your hand to something.”
Surely his endless patience with the horses, his steadfast determination to run the shop for Joseph, proved that.
He was shaking his head, and she put her hand to his cheek, wanting to stop him. To comfort him. But his skin was warm against her hand, and the touch sent that warmth shimmering along her skin.
He looked at her, something startled and aware visible in his eyes even in the dim light. The breath caught in her throat.
Then his head came down, and their lips met. She ought to pull away, but she couldn’t. She caressed his cheek, felt his arms go around her, drawing her close, and lost herself in his kiss.
After a long, dizzying moment he drew his lips away slowly. Reluctantly, it seemed. He brushed a trail of kisses across her cheek before he pulled back and looked at her.
“I didn’t mean for that to happen,” he said gravely.
“Neither did I.” She could only be surprised that her voice sounded so calm.
“But I’m not sorry.” A smile lit his face with tenderness. “I’m not sure what it means, but I’m not sorry.”
He rose, clasped her hands for an instant and then let them go. “Good night, Anna. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She put her fingers to her lips, watching him stride off toward his place until the gathering dusk hid him from view. She didn’t know what it meant either, but for once, she wasn’t running away.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Are
you still working on that old corn binder?” Samuel looked up at the sound of Joseph’s voice to see him leaning in the shop doorway. “As you can see. This time I’m going to get it working if I have to rebuild it from scratch. Should you be out here?”
Joseph moved a few more steps, listing a bit, and lowered himself to the wooden chair next to the desk. He was still hurting, clearly.
“Not according to your sister. She put me in a chair in the yard like she was putting a puppy in a pen and told me to stay there.”
Samuel grinned. “Myra’s getting a bit bossy, I’d say. Still, maybe you ought to go back out there and behave before she catches you. She might blame me.”
Although truth to tell, he was glad to have some company about now. It might keep him from reliving over and over those moments with Anna last evening. He kept catching himself staring into space with a silly grin on his face.
“Ach, it’s not going to hurt me to sit here a bit instead of out there in the yard. I’ll take the blame if Myra catches me.”
“That you will.” Samuel tinkered with a stiff bolt, finding that his stubborn imagination still refused to be diverted from the image of Anna’s face in the moonlight.
The why of it was simple, wasn’t it? Anna had been a lovely girl, one anybody would want to kiss. When she’d come back, a grown woman, he’d thought at first that she looked hard, with her English clothes and her tight, wary expression.
Changing to Amish dress had made her fit in, but it had taken time for the wariness to fade. She probably hadn’t even realized how her expression had countered her clothing.
Now it seemed that the bright, sassy manner and pert look of her teenage years had mellowed into a very appealing maturity.
Joseph’s chair squeaked as he moved. “Do you think Anna is settling down all right?”
The question, coming out of the blue, made Samuel instantly guilty. Did Joseph know about last night? How could he? Anna wouldn’t have gone in the house and said she’d been kissing him—that was certain-sure.
Samuel cleared his throat. “She seems contented enough.”
At least he thought that was true. They had all been too busy since the accident to do much sitting around and thinking, except for Joseph, who probably had too much time for that.
“Ja, she does,” Joseph agreed. “And she’s keeping busy, what with helping Myra and taking care of the boppli.”
“Then what has you so worried?” A thread of uneasiness went through Samuel.
“I guess I was just thinking about the girl she used to be, always running from one thing to the next, always so enthusiastic. She’s changed.”
Samuel sat back on his heels. Joseph’s thoughts were following the same trail as his, though not for the same reason.
“She’s grown up, is all. She probably took some hard knocks out there in the English world. That would change anyone.” It had changed him.
“I guess.” Joseph’s gaze seemed to look into the past. “When I think about how she used to be, I remember that we all wished she’d settle down, especially when every boy in the district was looking at her.” He smiled. “You, too, as I recall.”
“Ach, no, not me.” Samuel studied the bolt he’d just detached. “Well, maybe I looked at her from time to time. Such a pretty girl, who wouldn’t look?”
“Well, then,” Joseph began.
“I knew she’d never have time for someone like me,” he added quickly. “I was too much a stick-in-the-mud for Anna.”
He hadn’t been last night, though. He wasn’t the only one enjoying that kiss. They’d both grown and changed in the past three years.
“That Anna never wanted to take responsibility for anything.” Joseph stretched a bit and then winced, putting his hand to his side. “Then the baby was dropped in her lap. Nothing takes more responsibility than being a parent does.”
“True.” Samuel gave Joseph a questioning look. “But I’m thinking you surely didn’t come out here to talk about how your sister has changed. What is worrying you about her?”
“Not worrying, exactly.” Joseph linked his hands together. “Just thinking about Myra and the new boppli. Myra’s getting so she depends on Anna a lot.”
Samuel mulled that over for a moment. “You’re afraid Anna might go off and leave Myra flat, is that it?”
He had to admit that the thought had crossed his own mind a time or two. The longer someone spent in the English world, the less likely it was that he or she would ever come back to stay.
“It could happen. I don’t want to think that, either for Anna’s sake or ours.” Joseph’s forehead furrowed, the lines of his face deepening. “Myra needs all the support she can get right now. This worrying about the boppli . . .” He let that trail off.
“I know,” Samuel said softly. “I am praying about it, too.”
Joseph nodded, the corners of his mouth pinching in. “If only there was something I could do to make this waiting easier for Myra. Whenever she sees me looking at her, she puts on this smile like everything is fine. It near to breaks my heart.”
If Joseph could do something, anything, he probably wouldn’t fret so much. It was the inactivity that was eating at him, as much as anything, Samuel guessed. Joseph was used to working hard, dawn to dusk, not sitting in a chair, waiting to heal.
He gestured toward the corn binder’s innards, knowing they made more sense to Joseph than to him. “Can you take a little look at this? Would it do any gut to tear this down already?”
Bending forward, Joseph peered at the machine, but he quickly sat back with a muttered exclamation. “Ach, I can’t get my eyes to focus enough even to see. What if I never do? What will happen then?”
“Your eyes will heal,” Samuel said quickly, regretting that he’d said anything about the binder.
“How do you know?” It was nearly a snarl.
“They will.” He tried to sound sure. “You just have to give it time, like the doctor said.”
Joseph nodded, but Samuel didn’t think he was convinced.
Nor was he himself convinced. He’d been hoping that in a week or two, Joseph would be able to come back to the shop. If he couldn’t . . .
Well, if he couldn’t, then Samuel would carry on, even though he was beginning to think he might want to work at something other than the machine shop for the rest of his life.
Maybe he’d have begun to think that anyway, once he’d started working with that horse of Mr. Bartlett’s. But Anna had something to do with the turn his thoughts had been taking lately. She’d stirred him up, making him think of possibilities. Maybe he’d been too mired in routine since he’d come back.
That was one characteristic that hadn’t changed about Anna. She’d always come into any group and sparked it up. She might have grown up in many ways, but she still seemed to have that effect on people.

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