Harvest of Blessings (18 page)

Then she would become Plain Nora, forever.

When she swung open the door, she nearly ran into Hiram Knepp before she saw him in the shadowy hallway. He was leaning against the wall as though he’d been waiting for her to come out. He shifted quickly so he was blocking her exit.

“Looking
good
,” he murmured with a devilish smile.

Nora somehow contained her irritation. “Hiram,” she said with a curt nod. “If you’ll excuse me—”

“Oh, there’s no excuse for you today,” he quipped as his gaze roamed the length of her. “You and Hooley are as mismatched as a thoroughbred racehorse yoked to an ox. What do you see in him, anyway?”

Nora didn’t try to break past him, because that would bring her into contact with the arm he’d planted against the wall, right at her chest level. “You’re entitled to your opinion,” she muttered, “but—”

“But I’m really here with a proposition,” Hiram interrupted. “A business proposition, that is.”

As he moved closer, Nora had nowhere to go but backwards, into the deeper shadow. As her back found the wall she instinctively bent one leg up so her knee was in a strategic position. She remained silent, making Hiram talk while she figured out how to get out of this trap he’d set.

“Several friends have told me how excited they are to be consigning items to your new store,” Hiram continued. “What a shame it would be if your business went belly-up. Most small businesses—especially those owned by women—fail within the first year because they’re undercapitalized. I’d like to help prevent that.”

I just bet you would
, Nora thought, but she kept her mouth shut. Anything she said would give him more ammunition.

Hiram smirked. “Miriam Hooley and Andy Leitner can attest to that,” he stated. “ They couldn’t keep their doors open if they didn’t have a benefactor who owned their buildings and relieved them of all that overhead. So what if I bought my barn back?” he asked. “What if I became your silent partner, Nora?”

“No
way
,” she muttered. “I don’t care to pay the sort of
interest
you’d expect.”

Hiram’s chuckle echoed in the small hallway. “Nora, my dear,” he protested in a silky voice. “You misunderstand my—”

The door to the men’s room swung open so hard it hit the wall.

“The lady said
no
, Knepp,” Luke snapped as he stepped into the hallway. “I’ve got zero tolerance for snakes, so you’d better slither back into your hole. Got it?”

Hiram backed away from her. His jet-black goatee rippled with his grin as he pointed first to Nora and then to Luke. “There’s just no accounting for taste, I guess,” he said with a shake of his head. “If you care to reconsider my offer, Nora, my door’s always open.”

As Knepp strode away, Nora let her foot slide back to the floor. Her knees felt so wobbly she wondered if she’d make it back to the table. “Can’t thank you enough, Luke,” she rasped.

“Good thing I took a notion to powder my nose, eh?” he asked as he offered his arm. “I had no idea he was here until I heard him, uh,
propositioning
you outside the john.”

Nora’s face went hot. It was bad enough that she’d had to endure Hiram’s come-on, but even worse that Luke had been listening to their conversation. She gulped air to settle herself, happy to hang on to his arm as they returned to their table. Their orders arrived, but even though the grilled chicken salad looked really fresh and smelled delicious, she’d lost her appetite.

Luke, however, cut into his chicken-fried steak with gusto. “Has he done that before? Pestered you about your store, I mean.”

Nora sighed. “He came to the house once. Let himself in without being invited—so I’ve now installed dead bolts.” She watched as Luke forked up mashed potatoes and gravy, envying the way he was enjoying his meal. “Was it true, what he said? About Miriam and Andy having a benefactor who owns their buildings?”

“Yup. But it’s not Hiram—although he tried his best to finagle Miriam’s bakery away from her as revenge for not marrying him.” Luke sawed off another big bite of his meat.

“Ew,” Nora murmured. “I can’t picture them as a pair—not as sweet and honest and down-to-earth as Miriam is.”

“Hiram needed somebody to raise his younger kids,” Luke explained. “He was really mad when he found out that the English fellow who raised Rebecca had bought the place out from under him, with an assist from the banker.

“His name’s Bob Oliveri,” he went on after he’d chewed for a moment. “He bought the clinic building and helped with its renovation, too, so Andy Leitner—our local nurse—could become Amish yet still have the electricity he needs to run some of his medical equipment. Good guy, Bob is,” Luke added with a nod. “Willow Ridge is a better place because of him.”

Nora had to agree. Her pulse was returning to normal, but her thoughts wandered. If Hiram had told the truth about Miriam and Andy having a benefactor, should she believe what he’d said earlier about Luke and Ira leaving previous girlfriends behind—in the lurch, as he’d put it—and then being able to open the mill only because their brother Ben was bankrolling it?

A tapping sound brought her out of her woolgathering. Luke was gazing intently at her as the tines of his fork repeatedly struck the edge of her plate. “Do
not
let Knepp ruin your lunch, Nora,” he insisted. “He’s not worth your time, and he’s full of bull. Nuff said.”

Nora began to pick the chicken from her salad, sensing Luke would make her sit here until she ate most of it. And wasn’t that sort of nice? He was being a friend—even if he eventually wanted to be a friend with benefits. She wouldn’t ruin the moment by quizzing him about his past, especially considering
who
had insinuated such questionable details about it.

When she’d eaten most of her salad and had downed a couple of glasses of ice water, Nora felt much better. She and Luke climbed into the buggy again. They chatted about the fields of corn they passed, which would soon be harvested by the Hooley brothers’ Mennonite farm helpers to make cornmeal and yellow corn grits. Nora enjoyed listening to Luke discuss the details of his milling work, and she was impressed with how many acres around these Plain settlements he and Ira had under contract. Even so, in the back of her mind she realized that the minutes were ticking by. And once they returned home, they both had work to do.

Nora’s hand found the inside of Luke’s elbow. His skin felt smooth and warm beneath the short sleeve of his tan cotton shirt. His eyes were the deep green of the shaded cedar trees along the road, and the intensity of his gaze unnerved her. “Um, maybe before we get to Willow Ridge, we could . . .”

“Shall I pull over?”

Nora’s breath escaped her as she nodded. She felt like a nervous girl on her first date. Her heart hammered as Luke brought his horse to a halt on the side of the road. He just kept looking at her, waiting for her to make the first move. Nora was once again impressed by Luke’s control, because even as desire danced in his eyes, his hands remained on his lap.

When she reached for him, Luke pulled her close and kissed her for several long, lovely moments. His soft sighs mingled with hers as he explored her mouth. When she eased away, Nora knew she’d followed a path from which there was no retreat. No turning back.

“Wow,” Luke murmured as he caught his breath. “
Wow
.”

“You got that right,” she murmured. “ This is the first time I’ve ever been kissed in a buggy—which sounds odd, considering the reason Dat sent me away. But before Borntreger took what he wanted, I’d led a very sheltered, good-girl life.”

“Maybe I can reintroduce you to Plain dating,” Luke replied as he took the lines in his hands again. “The basics between a man and a woman don’t require a car or cell phones or electricity, after all.”

Nora grinned, for it seemed they had generated their own type of electricity—and it was very different from what she’d known with Tanner.

“Will you need a ride to pick up your painted van?”

“No, the Stutzman brothers offered to deliver it, to be sure everything drives the way it should after they’ve checked it over,” she replied. “Poor planning on my part, eh?”

Luke wrapped his hand around hers as the horse clip-clopped along the blacktop again. “The best parts about getting to know someone usually don’t follow a plan. Although I’ll confess that I accomplished everything on my agenda today. And I liked it. A
lot
.”

Nora smiled. Who could’ve imagined that cool, self-assured Luke Hooley would admit such a thing in a way that seemed so guileless? So sweet and open.

When the mill came into view, Luke kissed her once more, gently guiding her chin with his finger. He drove her to the front door of her house, and as Nora got out of the buggy, she felt so giddy she wasn’t sure what she said to him. When she entered her front room, the fabric hangings stacked on her couch reminded her that she had a million things to do to get ready for her store’s opening, but she went straight upstairs. She changed into a cape dress and pulled her hair into a bun with a
kapp
over it. In the bathroom, she washed off her makeup.

Grabbing the wardrobe boxes she’d used for her move to Willow Ridge, she went to her closet and quickly took out every pencil skirt, silk blouse, and pair of tailored slacks, plus all the sundresses and suits and high-dollar shoes and purses that went with them. She bagged her jewelry and colorful scarves, and yanked her T-shirts, jeans, and shorts from her dresser drawers. Waves of emotion rolled through her as she recalled the occasions when she’d worn some of this stylish clothing, but before she lost her resolve, Nora sealed the boxes shut with packing tape. She would haul this stuff to the thrift store in Morning Star as soon as her van arrived.

She felt purged. Clean. Her English wardrobe represented a life she felt good about leaving behind, even though she’d known some shining moments and had gained a world of experience that would never leave her. But it was time to move forward, even if that meant stepping back in time to the simpler life she’d known as a girl.

Nora looked in the mirror and smiled. The woman gazing back at her belonged in Willow Ridge. No matter what her father thought of her, she had come home. To
stay
.

Miriam opened the windows in the Sweet Seasons kitchen and dining room, welcoming the fresh breeze that came with a cool, rainy afternoon. This summer had seemed hotter and more humid than any she remembered, possibly because she was five months along in her pregnancy. A break in the heat had put her in a better mood after a very busy day.

Or was she smiling because all three of her girls were here? Rachel, beautifully round with her first child, sat in the kitchen beside a large crate of carrots, peeling them, while beside her, Rhoda peeled potatoes and dropped them into a big pan of cold water. Rebecca was wiping down the tables and chairs in the dining room.

“What a picture,” Miriam remarked as she gazed around the café. “Can’t recall the last time all three of ya were in the same place at the same time, even though I see each of ya nearly every day.
Denki
for bein’ here with me.”

Rachel looked up, her peeler poised over another carrot. “What with Micah and his brothers workin’ over in New Haven today, it’s better that I’m here helpin’ ya with this mountain of carrots than lookin’ for things to do. Aunt Leah must have a bumper crop of root vegetables in her garden this year.”

“
Jah
, she didn’t sell as much at the farmers’ market this mornin’ on account of the rain,” Miriam replied. Her sister, Leah Kanagy, who raised vegetables and kept bees, often sold Miriam the leftover items she’d harvested. “I’ve been wantin’ to try a new carrot soup recipe Rebecca found, and this seems like a fine time for it. And I’m gonna slice some of those onions Leah brought to make that cheesy onion casserole the fellas like so much.”

“You’d better enjoy your last weeks of peace and quiet, Rachel,” Rhoda teased. “Andy thinks your wee one’ll be here by the middle of September. That gives us a bit of time to spoil your baby and practice our diaperin’ technique before Mamma’s comes along.”

“It’ll be a new experience, havin’ my first grandchild and then birthin’ another baby of my own after all these years,” Miriam remarked. “I’m glad I’ve got you girls close at hand. I’m not sure how I’ll manage a wee one while Naomi and I keep the Sweet Seasons goin’. But I’ll figure it out.”

Humming, Miriam took a stockpot from a hook on the ceiling. She was in the mood to cook most of these carrots and make the soup for tomorrow’s lunch menu, and then simmer the onions for the casserole . . . maybe get a few pans of cornbread casserole in the oven while it was so pleasantly cool. These days, her energy seemed to come and go on its own schedule, so cooking ahead gave her some leeway for those days when she wasn’t as bouncy.

When the bell above the door jangled, she looked out to see Nora entering the dining room, wearing a speculative expression.

“Hope I’m not interrupting anything,” Nora said as she smiled at each of the girls. “I thought if I came after you closed, I’d not cause a scene with Dat.”

Miriam’s smile fell a notch. She sensed Nora was hurting inside even though she’d put on a good front. “Gabe’s not been here all this week,” she remarked. “I suspect he’s avoidin’ the lectures he’ll get from Bishop Tom—and me. Why he has to be so hardheaded is beyond me.”

“I can’t change him, so I’ve stopped fretting over it. I hope he realizes how hard it’ll be on Mamm and Millie if he gets shunned, though.” Nora peeked into the kitchen and her mouth dropped open. “That’s the biggest pile of carrots I’ve ever seen!”

“Mamma’s trying a new recipe for tomorrow’s lunch menu,” Rachel explained. She shifted her bulk, adjusting her posture in the chair. “Can’t say I’m looking forward to slicing all of these before she cooks them, though.”

“You don’t have a food processor?” Nora gazed around the kitchen, taking in the array of appliances.

“Nor a blender for after the carrots are cooked,” Miriam said, frowning at the recipe. “
Ach
, if I’d paid closer attention to
that
detail, I might’ve started something different. Sometimes I think this baby’s makin’ me absentminded.”

“Not to worry, Miriam,” Nora said as she headed for the door. “I’ve got a food processor I never use, and an extra blender that’s never been out of the box. I’ll be back in a few.”

“Talk about good timing,” Rebecca remarked as the bell above the door jangled again. She ran water in a bucket to mop the floor. “I think it’s so cool that Nora’s opening a store in that big barn. Can’t wait to see all the stuff she’s going to sell.”

“And it would be such a blessing for her and Millie if they could work together,” Miriam said. She shook her head as she grabbed a knife to peel onions. “Gabe’s got no idea how many lives he’s puttin’ on hold because he won’t let go of his old grudges.”

Silence filled the café as each of them went about their separate tasks. Rebecca made quick work of mopping the floor while the peelers went
flick-flick-flick
in Rhoda and Rachel’s hands. Time and again Miriam had wondered how she could convince Gabe to relent, but he seemed oblivious to everyone’s pleas. Thick white onion slices piled up in her metal pan as she wielded her knife, lost in thought.

“Here you go!” Nora crowed as she came in through the back kitchen door with a box under each arm. “Let me show you how to feed those carrots into the food processor and you’ll whip through them in no time.”

Once again Miriam gave thanks for Bob Oliveri, Rebecca’s English
dat
, who’d bought the building so her restaurant could have the electricity that health department standards required. Nora’s slicing demonstration took only a few moments, and then Miriam began feeding the carrots through the food processor’s top opening with an amazed grin.

“Can’t thank ya enough for lettin’ me borrow this handy-dandy contraption,” Miriam said above the
whirrrr
of its motor. “Come by for your lunch tomorrow when ya pick it up, all right?”

“Oh, keep it—and the blender,” Nora insisted. “I rarely use them, but I couldn’t bear to leave them behind when I moved here. And now that you’re going great guns with the slicer, I’ll talk some business with Rebecca. If I’m to open the store by the first weekend in September, I’ve got to get my website up and running.”

“She’s a
gut
one for doin’ that,” Miriam agreed. By the time she’d dumped a couple of bowls of sliced carrots into a stock pot, her English daughter and Nora were heading for the back kitchen counter, where Rebecca had stashed the laptop she was never without.

It made Miriam smile to watch the two young women discuss the website Nora wanted, using terms no Amish woman would ever understand. Rebecca plugged a little gadget of Nora’s into the back of the computer, and then began clicking to bring photographs onto the screen.

“Oh, look at this pottery!” Rebecca said. “And these look like quilts from the Schrocks’ shop next door.”

“They are,” Nora said as she leaned over Rebecca’s shoulder. She scooted aside as Rachel and Rhoda came to gaze at the pictures, and Miriam joined the cluster gathered around the computer, too.

“And those look like the horse collars Matthias makes,” Rhoda remarked. Then her eyes widened. “Oh, but look at these hangings! I’ve never seen the likes of that one, with the laundry on a real clothesline—”

“And these black calico cows looking over the fence are
too cool
,” Rebecca joined in.

“Those are Vernon Gingerich’s Black Angus, and that’s his silo,” Nora said as her cheeks turned a pretty shade of pink. “I made a banner for his nephew’s butcher shop and it was so cute I made a second one to put in the store.”

Rebecca clicked to make the picture bigger. “Just my opinion, but that cow design should be the header on your home page, Nora. And whenever you get the sign for your store, we could use that as the name for your website, as well.”

“Ben’s making my sign now, from wrought iron,” Nora replied. “I decided to call the place Simple Gifts. Do you think that’ll work?”

Miriam sucked in her breath, and so did her daughters. “Oh, but I like the sound of that, Nora!”

Nora watched Rebecca open more of the photographs, her expression waxing more serious. “Um, any idea how much my site will run me? I’m being careful with my—”

“Not one penny,” Miriam insisted as she slipped her arm around Nora’s shoulders. “That blender and food processor’ll more than cover whatever Rebecca’s gonna charge ya, honey-bug. She and I will work it out between us.”

Nora gasped. “But I couldn’t let you—”

“Don’t argue. It’s a done deal—
jah
, Rebecca?”

“Yup,” her daughter replied. She had already cropped the image of the cow banner so it would fit across the top of a web page and was experimenting with different colors for a background.

Miriam laughed at the expression on Nora’s freckled face. She looked younger, sweeter, in her
kapp
and a calico dress of little pink roses and green leaves. “Consider it my homecomin’ gift for your store, Nora. I’m so tickled you’re back amongst us. What with you and all three of my girls livin’ within a hoot and a holler, it’s just like old times.”

A smile stole across Miriam’s face then, and goose bumps tickled her skin. “I can still hear my little triplets gigglin’ at the songs ya sang for them when you’d come over so’s I could get some housework done.”

“Wow, I’d forgotten about that. I couldn’t have been but nine or ten,” Nora mused. “It was a treat to cross the road and come to your place. Nobody else had three cute toddler look-alikes.”

“That was before Rebecca washed away in the flood,” Rhoda murmured in a faraway voice. “I don’t remember us all being together when we were that little.”

“Me neither,” Rachel said. “Far back as I can recall, it was just you and me, Rhoda.”

Miriam wrapped her arms around as many shoulders as she could reach, drawing all four of the young women into a close huddle with Rebecca in its center. “Just goes to show ya how we made it through tragedies that tore both of our families apart,” she said in a voice that hitched a little. “But here we all are, together again. It’s God’s doin’. He’s never failed me, girls. And He’s not finished lovin’ us.”

As they let out a collective sigh, Miriam gave thanks for these kindred spirits—the daughters and the neighbor girl who were sharing this new life she lived with Ben, running her café. A year ago, she’d had no idea such joy and satisfaction awaited her.

“I was too young to realize it then,” Nora murmured, “but what a
loss
you suffered, Miriam, when Rebecca washed away in the river during that storm. I recall the men searching along the riverbanks downstream, but when they didn’t find her, no more was said about it.”

“It’s not our way to involve the police—then or now,” Miriam recounted in a tight voice. “Hiram and my Jesse and your
dat
declared that we’d done all we could do and the rest was up to God. We didn’t have a funeral, and we didn’t question the men’s authority. It was like my little girl had never existed—but of course I never stopped missin’ her, even though I still had Rachel and Rhoda to look after.”

“That must’ve been so awful, Miriam.”

The five of them turned to see Millie standing in the doorway between the kitchen and the dining room. She so closely resembled Nora that Miriam had to smile as she opened her arms to the young girl. “It was much the same when your mother left town, carryin’
you
, honey-bug,” she said. “Our Nora just disappeared. The women could only speculate about why she left until Wilma finally broke down and explained the predicament her daughter was in.”

“I don’t like it that the men make all the rules and tell us what to think and how to act,” Millie blurted. “It’s makin’ me think I don’t want to join the Old Order. I can see why Ira and Luke have dug their heels in about joinin’, too.”

Miriam closed her eyes, hoping God would approve of her reply to this vulnerable teenage girl. “Our faith has always been that way and I don’t see it changin’,” she murmured. “But in the meanwhile, we women learn to work within the Ordnung’s framework even as we handle our day-to-day livin’ in our own ways. Your
mammi
never stopped thinkin’ about Nora—or lovin’ her—just because she’d left town to have a baby without bein’ married. But Wilma kept the silence. She kept the faith, and she carried on.”

“And your
mammi
will love you no matter what you decide about your religion,” Nora said as she eased away from the group around the computer.

“When Mammi saw you gettin’ out of your black van over here, she told me to slip on over for a visit,” Millie replied with a grin. “Dawdi fell asleep in his chair, so here I am.”

Miriam’s heart thrummed as she watched the redheaded mother and daughter embrace. Rebecca turned from her laptop then to smile at the pair.

“If you ever want to talk about what you’ve gone through, Millie, finding out you had a different mother than you’d believed,” she said in a pensive voice, “I know all about that. You have a lot of conflicting feelings to deal with, and you don’t have to keep them inside just because your grandfather refuses to talk. Okay?”

Millie nodded shyly. “Mammi’s told me the same thing. We talk a lot more now that she’s doin’ so much better.” Her eyes lit up when she saw the images on Rebecca’s computer screen. “Is this gonna be your website, Mamma? I still hope I can help in your new store.”

Nora’s expression was priceless. Miriam could guess, by the profound mixture of love and joy and gratitude that lit up her freckled face, that Millie had just called Nora her
mamma
for the first time. It was the sweetest word Miriam knew, and she was so pleased that Nora thought so, too.

“We’ll work it out as best we can,” Nora insisted as she kept her arm around her daughter’s waist. “A lot depends on how your
dawdi
responds at the next church service—whether he confesses, or if Bishop Tom calls for a vote to shun him.”