Christmas in Apple Ridge (24 page)

Mackenzie slipped on her coat and went outside. Mattie continued talking with her Mamm, but she noticed a small group of shop owners standing outside without their coats. Some stared toward the sky. Others appeared to be talking intently.

Mamm wanted to know all about the cakes she’d been making and how she and Sol were doing, and most of all she wanted to be reminded over and over when they’d see each other again. “Next week, Mamm. I’ll be there late Wednesday and stay until late Saturday.”

Mackenzie tapped on the window, motioning for her.

“Mamm, I need to go.” She’d barely gotten the words out of her mouth when her mother said good-bye and hung up. That was her Mamm. She loved to talk to Mattie, but she never wanted to hold her up if she needed to work.

Mackenzie stepped inside. “Mattie, there’s smoke coming from somewhere down the block.”

Concern charged through her. She put on her coat and gathered the scattered papers filled with diagrams and notes for the cake. When she stepped outside, she saw black smoke billowing from the direction of her shop.

Mattie’s heart burned as if it were on fire. She ran down the sidewalk with Mackenzie right beside her. She turned the corner where her place sat off the main road. Flames licked the walls and roof.

“No!” Tears sprang to her eyes.

Mackenzie pushed numbers on her cell phone.

Through one of the first-floor windows, Mattie saw movement inside. A flash of burgundy caught her eye, reminding her of the dress her niece had on that morning.

“Esther!” Mattie threw down the papers she was carrying and took off running.

“Wait.” Mackenzie grabbed her arm and stopped her. “You can’t go in there.”

Mattie jerked free and ran inside. “Esther!” She couldn’t see anything but thick gray smoke. Turbulent flames lashed out but did nothing to light her way. “Esther!” Heat seared her dress, and her lungs burned. Wondering if Esther had tried to get away from the fire by going upstairs, Mattie dodged flames and embers and hurried to the second floor.

T
he empty, almost-finished home echoed as Gideon built the doorjambs. Nothing felt as good as having the strength to work. It was something he never took for granted. Not anymore. Today he could hold a hammer and make a nail disappear into wood with little effort. But what about tomorrow?

He ignored the question and placed a level on one side of the closet doorframe, making sure the casing was aligned correctly. He struggled to keep the wood in place as he shifted from one tool to the next. Work on an oversized closet like this required two men, but the rest of the Beiler Construction team labored to get a new home dried in before winter. If snow or rain hit before the house was complete enough to keep the weather out, they’d have to replace damaged particle board, framing, and insulation, and all work might have to stop until spring.

His brother had promised Beth and Jonah, the owners of this house, that Gideon would be the one to complete it, including the punch list. He still had a ways to go on the job.

“Hello?” Jonah called.

“Master bedroom,” Gideon answered.

Jonah’s distinct tempo echoed through the unfinished place. He was only thirty, but as a teenager he had been injured in a sleigh ride accident that left him walking with a cane. “I came to lend a hand.” Jonah already had on his tool belt. “I’ve cleared my schedule with the boss, and I have the rest of today and most of tomorrow to be your assistant.”

“Good. I could use it.”

Jonah was an artist by trade. He carved beautiful scenery into wood, bringing it to life, but he’d been a lead carpenter while building his previous home. And then he met the woman he lovingly referred to as “the boss.” Now Jonah had little time to devote to working on the new home he and Beth would live in. After they were engaged, Jonah had spent another year living in Ohio, fulfilling contracts by carving doors, chairs, mantels, and cabinets for a cabin resort near him. As soon as he’d finished that job, he’d moved here to be near Beth. Since then he’d spent his days carving large items to sell and helping Beth and her aunt Lizzy expand and operate the dry goods store.

Without needing instruction, Jonah steadied the far side
of the closet’s doorframe while Gideon leveled and nailed it into place.

They each added the needed hardware and then hung the folding wooden doors. It took a bit of effort to get them on the runners and operating smoothly.

“So what’s next, hanging more doors or doing trim work?” Jonah asked.

“Baseboards and window casings. Can’t hang doors. There’s some sort of holdup on those,” Gideon teased. The problem was that Jonah hadn’t yet found the time to carve scriptures on them, and Beth didn’t want them hung until they were completed. Jonah was capable of carving beautiful scenery, but since this would hang inside his home, he needed to use caution so that no one in the church considered the visual adornments a graven image.

Jonah laughed. “I’ve assured my fiancée I’ll get to them by the time she and I have two or three little ones running around. But regardless of how busy it gets, it feels so good to be living here now. Beth said you moved from here and lived elsewhere for a couple of years, right?”

“Ya.” Gideon hoped Jonah wouldn’t ask anything else. He did his best not to lie to anyone, but he had secrets to keep. Falsehoods weren’t the only thing he detested. He’d hated living in a city away from everything familiar and only returning for the Christmas holidays.

“Jonah.” Beth’s voice came through the Amish intercom—PVC piping sticking up through the floor and running underground to the store. “Are you at the house?”

Jonah moved closer to the pipe and spoke into it. “Ya. You need something?”

“I’ll walk over. I just wanted to be sure you were there.”

“We’re in the master bedroom.”

“Denki.”

Gideon chuckled while measuring the length of the wall. “I’ve always thought Beth had a good head on her shoulders for business.”

“She does. She’s amazing at it.”

Gideon took note of the length of the wall and released the tape measure. “Then how come every time I turn around she’s asking you for your opinion? It’s like she can’t make a decision lately without your input.”

Jonah slid an uncut baseboard onto a makeshift bench. “In any serious relationship, if you don’t gather your partner’s opinion before making a decision that impacts you both, you’re just storing up trouble for the future.”

Gideon scoffed. “If you figure out a way to avoid trouble in relationships, let me know, okay?”

He measured the board and marked it. Sometimes watching Beth and Jonah interact was like sitting on the porch of an old, run-down trailer while looking at wealthy neighbors. It
didn’t matter how much he loved them, the reality of their happy relationship chafed.

Three years ago Gideon had let go of the woman he loved. The only woman, really.

He set the wood on the miter box and lowered the battery-powered saw to the board. He never talked to Beth or Jonah about what he had done or why. Actually, he never talked to anyone about it. His family had put together pieces of the truth, but no one discussed it.

Despite Gideon’s secretive nature, Jonah seemed to see past his silence. Jonah’s perceptiveness was one reason he’d won the heart of the once-wounded and distant Beth Hertzler.

Gideon could only imagine what it’d be like to have the privilege of marrying
the one
. He’d found his
one
. Thoughts of Mattie Lane tormented him. She was.

He stopped his thoughts cold. “Good grief,” he mumbled, trying to focus on the work at hand. He took the wood to the base of the wall.

“Having one of those days?” Jonah grabbed one end of the plank, and they set it on the well-placed shims.

“I guess.” Gideon hammered nails into his end of the baseboard while Jonah steadied the other end.

Beth’s steps echoed through the empty rooms.

Jonah looked up and gave her a welcoming smile that ended quickly. “Something wrong?”

“Remember me telling you about my cousin Mattie, the one I wanted to make our wedding cake?”

Gideon kept pounding in nails as if he had no interest in hearing this conversation. The fact was, he always wanted to know what was happening in Mattie’s life. But he could bet money on what Beth was going to say next. Mattie had once again turned down their offer to pay her way home for the wedding and had declined making a cake for their big day.

She didn’t return to Apple Ridge often. He knew she had too much business in Berlin, Ohio, to close up shop and come here for a wedding. Even if she could hire someone to fill in for her, she wasn’t likely to do so, not even for Beth. He could thank himself for that. Mattie Lane avoided him at all costs. She didn’t have to be the one to leave home. He’d left, and he hadn’t planned on coming back.

Beth cleared her throat. “Her place burned to the ground this afternoon.”

Gideon wheeled around. “What happened?”

“I don’t think anyone really knows.”

“But Mattie Lane must have some idea how it started.”

Beth glanced at Jonah. “She’s in the hospital, unconscious.”

Dizziness hit Gideon full force, and the hammer in his hand fell to the floor with a thud.
God, not Mattie Lane, please
. “What happened?”

“I can’t say for sure. Her sister-in-law called the dry goods store. Aunt Lizzy’s taking a message to her parents.”

“Beth,” Gideon said, “did Dorothy give any indication of how Mattie’s doing?”

“She said she has only minor burns, but she inhaled a lot of smoke.”

“Smoke inhalation can do as much damage to the insides as flames do to the outside. I don’t understand. Her place had excellent smoke detectors.”

“How would you know?”

Gideon had made sure Mattie’s brother had installed good ones, but he wouldn’t tell Beth that. “Go on, Beth.”

“Oh, ya.” Beth shook her head, as if to refocus her thoughts. “Dorothy said a friend of Mattie’s told her that Mattie wasn’t at the shop when it caught on fire.”

“Then how did she inhale so much smoke?”

“When Mattie arrived, she thought her niece was inside, so she ran into the building, but the shop was empty.”

“That’s just like her, risking her own life to help when it’s not even needed.” Gideon wasn’t far from having a raging fit.

Beth tilted her head, studying him. “I don’t understand you. If you feel this strongly about her, why’d you break up with her to date other girls?”

He rubbed his forehead, trying to control his emotions.
“Even though we aren’t together, that doesn’t mean I don’t care about her well-being. I want what’s best for her, and until now that’s exactly what she’s had. Ya?”

Beth’s face creased with lines of concern. “Ya. She loved building up her business and getting better at making decorative cakes.” She chuckled. “From the time she was little bitty, she used to get into such fixes, and you always managed to get her out of them.” She turned to Jonah. “Mattie is six years younger than me, about three years younger than Gideon. Her ability to create cakes seems boundless, but she can be as flighty as a sparrow.”

Beth grinned at Gideon. “Remember when she was fourteen and she won the Hershey’s Cocoa Classic contest for her age group? She was so excited that a few minutes after the announcement, she walked straight into a metal pole and about knocked herself unconscious. You grabbed her before she hit the ground and carried her all over those grounds searching for the medic.”

Gideon hadn’t thought about that in years. “That’s classic Mattie Lane.” He drew a breath, knowing he had to see her, even at a distance. “Listen, I know you want your home done in time for the wedding to take place here, but I need to check on her for myself. I won’t hang around. I just … need to see her.”

“We’re fine.” Jonah picked up the hammer in front of Gideon’s feet. “You do what you need to.”

Beth pressed a small piece of paper into his hand. “This has the name of the hospital and her room number.”

Gideon hurried to the dry goods store and wasted no time calling driver after driver, trying to find someone who could drop what they were doing and take him to see Mattie Lane, hopefully one who didn’t mind pushing the speed limit a little.