Christmas in Apple Ridge (50 page)

“Businesswise,” Levi mumbled, watching Sadie’s carriage disappear over a hill. “I don’t think that’ll help me at all.”

Jonah stared at the horizon. “I don’t know what happened, but I believe you are right about that.”

Levi shoved the rolled-up papers into his pocket. “Apologizing to a woman doesn’t come easy, does it?”

Jonah scratched the side of his face. “No, but it gets easier—for you and her.”

Levi had never needed to apologize to a woman before, not really, certainly not like this. Oh, he’d apologized for some thoughtless incident at a church meeting or family gathering or such, for spilling a drink on a clean floor or nonsense like that. Those apologies came easy. The words flowed out of his mouth without his needing to think about them.

Apologizing to Sadie, though. That would’ve required him to make himself vulnerable. When he’d looked into her fiery eyes, it’d felt as if a team of wild horses couldn’t have dragged the words out of him.

Levi debated whether to go home where work waited for him or to rush after Sadie. “This was my first argument with a girl. Not that I said much. But she sure said plenty.”

Jonah chuckled. “Beth and I had our first argument the day she realized who I was. Long story, but I have to say you’ve nailed exactly how it went and how it felt. I think it’s a female thing. They’re usually more emotional than we are, and they’ve spent a lifetime trying to understand how they feel. They can think fast and argue with the past, present, and future in mind.” He dug the bottom of his cane into the gravel. “If a
couple cares for each other, though, you’ll both learn to fight fair, and then you’ll come away with a better understanding of her and yourself.”

Levi stared at the storm clouds on the horizon. He wasn’t interested in all that, but he did want to keep Sadie as a friend. He wanted letters from her when she was in the mission field. He wanted visits with her when she returned home. Twenty years from now, when they were both turning gray and their families had finally accepted who they were, he wanted to be on her to-visit list whenever she returned to the States.

“Jonah, I need to go. Tell Beth that I need to reschedule our meeting.”

“Will do.”

Levi untied his horse and climbed into his wagon. He soon pulled onto the main road, encouraging the horse to pick up speed. Even with his decision made, his chest had a weird heavy feeling to it. A kind of unfamiliar sadness.

But he wasn’t sure why.

Maybe it was because of how he’d treated Sadie compared to what she deserved. Or maybe the sadness was because he knew he’d damaged her, and some part of him understood that they’d never get back the easy-flowing friendship they’d had.

Sadie ran wet towels through the wringer and dropped them into the clothesbasket. Why had her grandmother started a huge load of unsorted laundry while Sadie was at the store? on a Friday afternoon? Mondays were washdays, and Sadie didn’t wash her dresses and undergarments with towels and black aprons.

She should never have come to Apple Ridge. The only reason she was
here was to take a break from her parents. Well, that and she’d also needed to do some business with Beth.

And she’d wanted to see Levi.

What a mistake on every count. Clearly she’d put Levi on a pedestal. He’d seemed so nice, like a salt-of-the-earth person. How many times in life could she be fooled? How many times was she to feel this way … like an injured animal with nowhere to hide? December and the flight to South America could not come soon enough for her.

Mammi Lee pulled wet clothes out of the washer and put them into the clear water of the mud sink. “How you live isn’t normal. You need to settle down, move back home permanently.”

“I’m hoping that one day you’ll accept that I’m not normal.” She moved to the mud sink and plunged her hands on top of the soapy clothes, swishing them around. She pulled them out and plunged them again, not caring how wet she got. Her goal was to get this done and hang out the clothes by herself.

Mammi reached into the sink and pulled out a black apron. “You know the saying about bad apples? If Daniel was one, he doesn’t ruin the whole barrel of them.”

A knife plunged into Sadie’s heart. “If?” She grabbed two handfuls of wet clothes from the sink and slung them into the basket. Forget running them through the wringer. She wanted out of this room. “So you’re like everyone else and still stuck on
if
Daniel did what I said he did?”

Without saying a word, Mammi ran the black apron through the wringer.

Sadie picked up the basket and headed for the door. With her back against the door, about to push it open, she realized that Mammi was going to follow her. “I can do this by myself.”

“I shouldn’t have said ‘if.’ ”

“But it’s still what you think, isn’t it?”

Mammi Lee pursed her lips, looking unsure. “I’ve never heard of an Amish man behaving like that. Not ever. But if you think that’s what happened even all these years later, I tend to believe you saw it as you said.”

That wasn’t good enough, but Sadie wouldn’t challenge her or anyone else on that topic. One couldn’t make another believe. It was just that simple.

She drew a breath and stepped onto the front porch. Levi was at the hitching post, tying an unfamiliar horse. Of all the things she did
not
want to do, talking to him was at the top of her list.

Mammi stopped cold at the top of the steps, but Sadie descended, intending to ignore him.

“Afternoon, Verna,” Levi called out. “I’d like to speak to your granddaughter for a few minutes if you don’t mind.”

“
I
mind,” Sadie mumbled as she passed him on her way to the clothesline.

“It’s mighty gut to see you again, Levi,” Mammi spoke loudly. “You go right ahead, but she’s testier than a yellow jacket in fall.”

Levi fell into step with Sadie and leaned his head close to whisper to her. “That’s the mood I’ve been in today. Maybe it’s contagious.”

“Go home, Levi.”

“Come on, Sadie. Don’t be like that. I know nothing about getting along with women. So cut me some slack.”

She dropped the basket onto the ground and grabbed a dress out of it. It dripped, and she slung it, spraying water freely before pinning it to the line.

He glanced toward the house. “Could we maybe go for a walk or something?”

“No thank you, but please, by all means, go for a walk.”

“So this is how you’re going to be?”

“Pretty much.”

He sighed and walked off. She didn’t want him to go, yet she couldn’t make herself do anything about it.

“Whoa!… Whoa!”

At Levi’s holler, Sadie turned, then gasped. He was almost at her feet, flat on his back. Had he slipped on the wet grass? She knelt beside him. “Levi?”

He smiled. “You’re nicer to me when I’m on my back and you think I’m injured.”

“You faked that!” She got up, grabbed the basket of wet clothes, and dumped them on his face.

“Sadie!” Mammi yelled. “What has gotten into you?”

But he lay there, unmoving. “Denki.”

She scoffed, trying to sound perturbed, but laughter stirred within her, and she cleared just enough wet clothing from around his eyes so he could see. “What is wrong with you?”

“I have a confession to make.” His voice was muffled by the clothing.

She picked up most of the clothes and dumped them into the basket. “Doubt you can come up with one I haven’t already figured out.”

“Sadie!” Mammi sounded anxious.

Levi sat upright, picking a few more items of wet clothing off his chest and stomach. “It’s my fault, Verna. Could you give me a few minutes to get it straight?”

Mammi pointed her finger at Sadie, giving a silent warning before going into the house.

Levi remained on the ground while he held the wet clothes out to
Sadie. When she took them, he hesitated about letting go. “I want to make things right between us.”

“Ya, why?” She pulled the items free from him. “So you can start some other rumor of convenience behind my back when I leave?”

“Do you have to be ridiculous about this?” He stood, catching a last article or two of clothing that fell into his hands. “I came here to make it right. Isn’t that enough?”

“
I’m
ridiculous? You’re the one letting people think we’re dating when you couldn’t be bribed to ask me out.”

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. If you thought I wanted a date, you’d bar the door and hide under the bed.” He held out the last item to her, and they both noticed it was a pair of her sky-blue lace underwear.

She jerked the underwear away from him. “You can’t use the word
stupidest
when talking about how I feel.”

“Okay, I promise not to use that word again. How about
dumbest
, most
blockheaded
, or
dimwitted
? Will those work for you?”

“Golly, you really
don’t
know anything about getting along with women, do you?” She threw a wet towel in his face.

“No.” He peeled it off. “But I know when I’m making progress, and you just hit me with one item instead of the whole basket.”

Their eyes met, and she saw the same man who’d recognized her voice when she came to see him and had smiled before he opened his eyes. The same man who’d planted her feet in the path of an oncoming horse because he trusted she’d know what to do if need be.

She bent, picking some black stockings off the grass. “You shouldn’t say disrespectful things about someone who’s passed. We all make mistakes, and unlike us, they can’t defend themselves or have one more day to try to make it right.”

“I said something about a dead guy?”

“Eva! Remember?”

His eyes grew large. “
Ach
, ya, I do, but I didn’t realize I’d said that. Look.” He took the basket from her and set it to the side. “The subject of Eva is one I try not to think or talk about. I told you she’s gone, and she is, but she packed her bags and left four years ago. That’s when I moved in with Andy.”

Eva wasn’t dead? She’d abandoned her husband and son? That explained a lot. “And that’s when you decided you’d never marry.”

“It’s a little more drawn out than that.”

“It always is.”

“If it helps, I never lied to anyone about you or us.”

“Ya, it helps a lot.” But that was it? He wasn’t going to apologize?

She pinned a washrag to the clothesline, not at all sure she understood him, but the nice thing about being only friends was that she didn’t have to. She could benefit from the enjoyable parts of their knowing each other and ignore the rest. That’s what she’d done with her two roommates. “Katie said we’re the buzz of the community. How’d that happen?”

“My guess is Mamm has been doing some hopeful whispering, and that with all the other connections Beth and Mattie know about—my getting your address and visiting you and our combining items to sell at the store—it just grew in people’s minds.”

“Why would your Mamm say anything?”

He explained about his parents being at his brother’s house when he came back from her place with the boxes of crafts. The timing made it such that he couldn’t hide where he’d been.

She secured a dress onto the line. “And since then we’ve been writing to each other, and I send letters and packages.”

“Ya, and Tobias told my folks about the horse candle you made for
me. All of it had Mamm so hopeful that I was seeing someone, and I couldn’t tell her the truth.”

“There’s no way to keep that up for long. When were you going to tell them?”

“I don’t know. Soon. But I went a few weeks with no one griping at me about not going to singings or needing a girl. It was really nice, but it was also selfish.”

Maybe he was onto something. As long as Levi and Sadie knew where each stood, what could be wrong with people thinking they were dating? “It’s not that I care whether people think we’re dating or not.”

“Wait. I’m confused. So what’d you get angry about?”

“I thought you had lied to me and about me.”

“Oh, ya, I can see where that’d be angering.”

She paused from hanging laundry and studied him. Did he know that hurt masqueraded as anger easily and often in a woman’s heart? “It hurt, Levi. A lot.”

Regret filled his eyes. “I’m truly sorry that I did anything to make you think I’d lie to or about you. I’d never do that.”

Finally she had the heartfelt apology she’d wanted. And more. She believed in him again. “Forgiven.” Ready to walk and talk, she left the clothes and went toward the dirt lane that meandered across the back field. Levi went with her.

“I think you were more selfish than you know.” She poked his shoulder with her index finger. “You benefited from this, uh, misunderstanding. Why not let me?”

“I’m confused again.”

“Maybe you don’t need to set this straight with everyone. My parents are insisting I return home after I get my business with Hertzlers’ squared away. It’s so hard to be back there after living on my own for years. But
they’d let me stay in Apple Ridge if we were courting. And Mammi Lee likes you, so she’d leave me alone about hiding from men. I could put all my focus on earning what I need to go with my mission team again.”