Like a Bee to Honey (18 page)

“Do you love my Rosie?” she said.

The question stopped his heart. Maybe he couldn't imagine its ever beating again if he lost her. “
Jah.
I love her.”

“More than Dan loves Lily? Or Luke loves Poppy?”

“No one can ever love anyone as much as I love her.”

Bitsy seemed satisfied with this answer, even though all the words in the whole world were inadequate to express how he really felt. She took her hands from his face and frowned. “Then I'll let you decide.”

“Decide what?”

“I'll let you decide whether to tell Rose or paint the barn and erase all the evidence. After me and her sisters, you are the one who loves Rose the best. You can decide.”

He studied her face doubtfully. “Do you really mean that?”

“I really mean that, though I might regret it for the rest of my life, just like I regret this hair color. It was rash and imprudent. Don't make the same mistake.”

Josiah thought he might weep with relief. He had promised Rose that he would protect her. She never need worry as long as he was around. “
Denki,
Bitsy.
Denki
. I am only thinking of Rose, you know.”

“
Jah.
She's all you've thought about for a very long time.”

He stood and brushed the dust off of his trousers. “I'll be back soon,” he said. “I'm going to buy some paint.”

* * *

“I never want to go back to that paint store again,” Luke said as he got out of the car. “Did you know that Wal-Mart has about two hundred different shades of red? No wonder the barn door ended up orange.”

“And then pink,” Dan said.

Luke, Dan, and Josiah had painted the Honeybee sisters' barn door twice in the middle of the night to cover up messages painted there by the troublemakers. The first time, the door had turned out orange. The second time, it had come out a deep shade of pink. Josiah refused to let that happen again. Rose must never suspect the back of the barn had been painted over.

He hefted the five-gallon bucket of red paint from the trunk of the car. It was probably much more than they needed, but he didn't want to risk running out. He'd gone to the phone shack down the road from the Honeybee Farm and called a driver to take him to Luke's, and then Dan's, house. They had both gladly agreed to help him paint. He hadn't expected anything less, but his friends' generosity had nearly overwhelmed him, just the same.

The driver had driven the three of them into Shawano for paint. The
Englischer
at the paint store had helped Josiah carefully match the color of the Christners' barn.

Josiah paid the driver while Dan and Luke carried the paint and rollers behind the barn. Josiah grabbed the ladder from the barn and met his friends in the back. The afternoon sun beating against the side of the barn nearly blinded him. Painting would be a warm job. Not that he cared about his discomfort. It was a pleasure to do anything for Rose.

While Josiah pried the lid off the paint, Luke and Dan stood back and surveyed the big, bold letters that had been spray-painted on the side of the barn. Luke muttered something under his breath, and Dan let out a long, low whistle.

“We've got to find out who is doing this,” Luke said.

Josiah's chest tightened. If he thought about it too hard, his fear and anger would render him useless to his friends or Rose. He could go home and stew about it later. Right now, they needed to concentrate on finishing the barn. Rose would be home in the morning.

“It helps knowing who they're mad at,” Dan said. “We can narrow down our search.”

Josiah scrubbed his hand down the side of his face. “Why would they be so mad at Rose?”

Dan looked at the ground and shuffled his feet. Luke stared straight at Josiah and folded his arms. “It's something that happened a long time ago.”

“What?”

“It's Rose's to tell,” Dan said, looking apologetic that he had to keep a secret from his best friend.

The pain ambushed Josiah, so intense that he had to press his palm to his chest to keep from crying out. One more reminder that he was not in the Christner family circle. One more reminder that he truly was an orphan. And Rose hadn't trusted him with her secret, whatever it was.

Maybe she would never trust him.

Another ambush. This time like a rock to the head. Rose certainly wouldn't trust him if he hid things from her. He wanted to protect Rose, the same way he wanted water or sunlight, and he couldn't bear the thought of her being upset. It was better if she never found out.

He clamped his eyes shut and tried to clear his head.

What would Rose want?

He tried hard to push that question out of his head. It didn't matter what Rose wanted. He knew what was best. He'd seen her face when she'd discovered the slashed buggy. It would have been better if she hadn't seen it.

But she had wanted to know, all the same.

Oy
, anyhow.

Josiah threw his head back and growled like a badger. Luke and Dan stared at him. They must have thought he'd gone crazy.

He hated the very thought of Rose's terror-stricken face, but if he truly loved her, he would treat her the way she wanted to be treated. She didn't want Josiah to pity her. She didn't want anyone to keep secrets from her, no matter how painful. She wanted to be given the chance to be brave, even if she was scared to death.

He gazed at the black, hateful words on the barn wall. He pictured her face when she read them, felt her hands tremble and saw her eyes fill with tears. How could he do that to her?

He kicked the open bucket of paint at his feet. Red droplets splattered into the air. He'd have to tell her. And he hated the very thought.

“Oh sis yuscht,”
Luke said, jumping back to avoid the flying paint. “We've got a paint stirrer. You're going to break your toe.”

Dan grabbed Josiah by the shoulder with a firm hand. “Are you okay?”

Josiah gave up trying to destroy the bucket and gave the dirt at his feet one last hard kick. “Someone threatened Rose. I'm furious.”

“We're right there with you,” Dan said. “Rose isn't the only one in danger, and even if she were, we'd still feel the same way.”

Josiah pressed his fingers into his forehead. “What can we do? I need something to do or I'll go crazy.”

“We can paint,” Dan said. “That's something.”

Josiah suddenly felt as weak as a kitten. “We can't paint. Not until Rose sees it. She wouldn't want us to hide it from her.”

Dan frowned. “Even if it will scare her?”

Josiah rubbed his forehead harder. “
Jah.
Even then. It's what she wants, no matter how much I don't want her to know.”

“Are you sure?” Dan asked.

Josiah nodded. “When she comes home tomorrow, we'll show it to her, and then we'll paint.”

Dan's lips drooped. “I'll paint with you, but you've got to promise not to kick any more paint buckets. Luke does not look good in polka dots.”

Some of the specks of flying paint had landed on Luke's shirt and face. He looked like he was coming down with the chicken pox. Luke glanced down at his cream-colored shirt and groaned. “Josiah Yoder, it's a
gute
thing you're my best friend, or you'd have a mouthful of dirt right now.”

Josiah just shook his head. A friend like Luke Bontrager truly made Josiah appreciate Dan Kanagy.

At least he was good for something.

Chapter Twelve

Josiah, Luke, and Dan had been sitting on the porch since eleven o'clock, listening for the van that would bring the Honeybee sisters home from Cashton. Luke was whittling a stick, Dan was reading
Summer of the Monkeys
, and Josiah wasn't doing anything but worrying. Rose was going to be devastated, and he alone would be responsible.

More than once in the middle of the night, he'd considered jumping out of bed and coming to the farm to paint the barn himself. It was his love for Rose that compelled him to get up, and it was his love for Rose that ultimately kept him at home. This was what she would want, no matter how hard it was to bear.

He didn't know if it would be harder for him or her.

At three minutes before noon, a white van pulled up the lane. Josiah didn't know whether he was dreading the sight of that van or hoping for it. He wanted this to be over. He wanted the Honeybee sisters to be safe and the troublemaker to be caught so that Rose would never have to be afraid again.

Well, he supposed that wasn't all he wanted.

He wanted to marry Rose more than anything in the world. Would
Gotte
think he was being greedy?

Lily, Poppy, then Rose emerged from the van, each with a canvas bag slung over her shoulder. Josiah's heart did a double somersault. Lily and Poppy both smiled at their fiancés, but Rose positively beamed at Josiah, as if he were the most
wunderbarr
sight in the world. He wasn't sure what to make of it, but it had to be a
gute
thing. She was happy to see him. At least for another minute or so.

Someone inside the van said good-bye, and Rose waved as the van turned around and drove back the way it had come.

Dan, Luke, and Josiah walked down the porch steps in unison. Even as happy as he was to see Rose, Josiah couldn't smile. Not when he was about to shatter what little sense of security Rose had left.

“What a nice surprise,” Lily said. “Are you our welcoming committee?”

“Something like that,” mumbled Luke. He took Poppy's bag and slung it over his shoulder.

Dan took Lily's bag, and Josiah reached for Rose's. Her eyes glowed with warmth as she handed it to him.

“How was the funeral?” Dan asked, glancing at Josiah. They had decided they should ease into the bad news slowly. Now Josiah was having second thoughts. Maybe they should just get it over with, like ripping a bandage from a wound. Or maybe they didn't have to say anything. They could still sneak over tonight and paint before Rose was the wiser.

His mouth felt as dry as sawdust. No matter how painful, he knew he had to tell her. And he should use the bandage method before he talked himself out of going through with it.

“Rose,” Josiah said, before any of them said a word about the funeral.

It was better this way. It was better this way.

If he told himself enough times, he might start to believe it.

She looked at him with those trusting eyes. He'd worked hard to earn that trust. He couldn't betray it now.

“Rose,” he said again. “There is something I need to show you. Will you come?”

They had decided that Josiah would show Rose the spray-painted barn first, and the others would come later. That way, if Rose fell apart, she wouldn't feel like she had embarrassed herself in front of everyone. Josiah had told her that he didn't mind if she cried, but he knew how unnecessarily ashamed she felt.

Bitsy had insisted he should be the one to tell Rose. Bitsy liked him, and she knew how much he loved Rose. His heart swelled. He wouldn't disappoint either of them.

Rose glanced at her sisters doubtfully while trying to pretend she had no doubts. “
Ach
. Okay. Where are we going?”

Needing to touch her, to assure her of his faithfulness, he took her hand firmly in his. He didn't even care if Bitsy was watching from the window. He needed Rose's comforting touch probably more than she needed his. He glanced at her and suddenly felt overwhelmingly sad.

Maybe she didn't need his at all.

A blush tinted her cheeks as she looked down at her hand in his, but she didn't pull away. He shouldn't hold her hand. Rose was too kind to reject him, even if she didn't want him to touch her.
Oh sis yuscht.
His heart felt as if it were breaking, and she hadn't even said a word.

She furrowed her brow. “Are you all right?”

“Will you come with me?”

She seemed to sense that he needed the solace of her hand in his. Her sisters made no objection, and Bitsy was nowhere to be seen as they strolled around to the back of the barn.

“Rose,” he said softly as they got closer to the chicken coop. “Something terrible has happened.”

She squeezed his hand tighter. “Aunt Bitsy?”

“
Nae. Nae.
Bitsy is fine. She's in the house making apple cake with caramel topping. Everyone is fine. It is something else.” He pulled her up short. “It is something that Luke and Dan and I can paint over, and you will never have to see it. A message that the troublemakers painted on the barn. If you would rather not know, we can go back to the house right now.”

He hoped against hope she would ask him to take her to the house.

She turned pale but didn't even glance behind her. “I'd like to see it.”

His heart sank, and he pulled her closer and tucked her arm beneath his elbow as they walked. “I'm going to watch out for you, Rose. I don't want you to worry.”

They walked the short distance around the barn. Josiah's hand shook as he turned and pointed to the ugly words that would surely upset her.

She turned to stone beside him as she read the message. For a moment, her face was a mask of calm indifference. And then she began to tremble. Holding on to her arm, he could feel the tremor of her deepest fears. “It's all my fault,” she whispered. “All because of me.”

“
Nae
, Rose. This is not your fault.”

Tears pooled in her eyes. “I have gone against
Gotte
, and hurt my family.” She put her hand to her mouth, as if to contain the sorrow that wanted to spill out. It didn't work. She began to sob.

Rose's pain felt like a stab to his heart. He should have known that, along with the terror, she would blame herself. Not caring about consequences, he gathered her into his arms and pressed his lips to her forehead. He didn't know if she would pull away or welcome his embrace, but he couldn't think of what else to do to stop both of them from falling into a dark place.

Instead of resisting his arms as he'd half expected her to, Rose buried her face against his chest and cried as if her heart were breaking. He tightened his hold around her, letting his warmth mingle with hers, hoping his touch would give her comfort but drawing more strength from her than she ever could from him. If he could keep her this close to him forever, he would.

They stood almost motionless while Rose cried and Josiah's heart ached for her. “I'm getting your shirt wet,” she said, almost as if that upset her as much as the painted message on the barn.

He reluctantly took one arm from around her and pulled three tissues from his pocket. “I don't mind the wet shirt.”

Still in the protective circle of his arms, she wiped her nose and let out a shuddering sigh. “I didn't think I could humiliate myself any more than I already have.”

“You haven't humiliated yourself. You've only proven you care deeply. If you weren't so soft, you wouldn't take things so hard. But your softness is your greatest strength. You use it to love and minister to people. I would never change that about you, not for all the dry shirts in the world.”

“I'm scared,” she said, as if she were confessing her worst sin to him.

The ache in his chest was nearly unbearable. “I almost wish I would have painted it over yesterday.”

“Yesterday?”

“They painted it the night after you left for the funeral. Bitsy showed it to me. I wanted to paint over it before you came home.”

She caught her bottom lip between her teeth. “They've left messages before, haven't they? That's why our barn door used to be orange and now it's pink.”

He frowned. “It's hard to match paint color in the middle of the night.”

“Were those messages for me too?”

“
Nae
, but we wanted to protect your feelings. That's why I nearly painted over this message too. You never would have known it was there.”

She lifted her head to study his face. “Why didn't you?”

“Because as much as I knew it would upset you, I also knew you would want to see it. You don't want to be afraid, but you don't want to be treated like a child. It's impossible to fulfill your two greatest desires at the same time, so I chose the one I thought would make you the happiest. Now I'm not so sure.”

It was as if someone lit a candle behind her eyes. “You think I am brave enough to handle the truth.”

“Of course. But I hate it when you're frightened.”

To his surprise, her mouth widened into a breathtaking smile. “You don't think of me like a child, do you?”

He could barely focus on her question. Her smile knocked him flat.
“Nae.”

“You don't pity me or think I'm a project.”

He curled one side of his mouth. “How many times have I told you?”

“But you've never shown me before.”

Pressing his lips together, he shuddered to think how close he had come to painting the barn. He would have ruined everything. Would she trust him with more? “Bitsy said that now we might know who is making the trouble on the farm. Do you know what she meant by that?”

It was as if all the anxiety and fear came flooding back. Only this time, she didn't want him close to her. She pulled away from his embrace and turned her back on him. “I did something I shouldn't have when I was a little girl, seven years old. We had to move away from Wallsby because of it.”

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

She ran her hand along the rough wood of the chicken coop and glanced at him. The light in her eyes had gone completely out. “A lot of people were mad at me.”

Josiah wracked his brain for anything a seven-year-old might do to make a whole community mad at her. He couldn't think of a thing. “You know that I would never be mad at you,” he said softly.

“Don't say ‘never.' It is a very long time.”

She trusted him, but she didn't trust him enough. The pain of it felt like something hot against his skin. “I . . . you don't have to tell me anything,” he said, choking on every word.

She gazed at him, and he could see something shift in her expression. Though he'd tried to mask it, she saw his hurt. She would never do anything to cause another person pain even at great expense to herself. “I was in the haymow with my friend Mary Beth.”

“Rose,” he said. “What do you want?”

“What?”

“Do you want my tube of paint or don't you?”

She frowned. “That makes no sense.”

“While it's true I'll feel bad if you don't tell me your story, my feelings don't matter as much as yours do. This is your story, not mine.” He went to her, reached out, and smoothed one of her
kapp
strings between his fingers. “What do you want?”

“If I don't tell you, you'll think I don't trust you.”

“Do you?”

She hesitated. “I'm afraid.”

His gut clenched. “What are you afraid of?”

“That I'll be a disappointment.”

He wanted to shout from the rooftops that she would never be a disappointment. But she didn't like “never.” And she didn't like shouting, and she was afraid of heights. Rooftops were out.

“You'll never know the strength of my friendship until you test it.”

She wrapped her arms around her waist, fell silent, and stared at the barn. He ached for her to trust him, but he wouldn't force her and he certainly didn't want the story because she felt sorry for him. Like her, he didn't want to be pitied. But he longed to be loved. “
Cum
,” he said. “Let's go back to the house. Bitsy will want to hear about your trip, and I promised her I'd fix your wobbly folding chair.”

To his amazement, she reached out and took his hand. He thought his heart might forget how to beat. Gazing at him doubtfully, she bit her bottom lip. “Mary Beth and I were playing in the haymow with her
dat
's harness. He came up the ladder and shoved me off the haymow. He had been drinking, and I broke my arm.”

Josiah winced. “You broke your arm?”

“I don't think I ever recovered from that. Aunt Bitsy called the police. She'd lived among the
Englischers
for so long, it was a natural thing to do. She was furious. She really is quite terrifying when she's mad.”

“I don't wonder that she is,” Josiah said.

“I testified against him, and they sent him to jail.”

Josiah rested his shoulder against the side of the barn. “It's not the Amish thing to do. The elders want to deal with those matters inside the church.”

“
Jah.
The community didn't shun us, but they might as well have. The boys pulled my hair. Poppy got in a lot of fights. The girls wouldn't talk to any of us, even at
gmay.
We had to leave after that.”

“I'm sorry.”

A thin tear trickled down her cheek. “His whole family hated us. They said I'd stolen their
fater
from them, that
Gotte
would punish us for what I had done. The night before we moved out, someone dropped a note on our porch. It said, ‘Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.' That's why Aunt Bitsy thinks she knows who it is. It is a very familiar phrase.”