The Beekeeper's Son (The Amish of Bee County Book 1) (18 page)

“I talked to John. He’s hired a van too.”

And Stephen? What would Stephen say to this crazy plan? Abigail could only imagine. He’d barely spoken to her at Sunday service. Her refusal to move up the wedding plans had hurt him, something she hadn’t intended. She needed to be careful of his feelings. Abigail edged toward the kitchen door. She should stick to her plan, make breakfast, start the laundry, and churn out more clothes for the kinner. Tonight Stephen would come for a visit, as he’d taken to doing on a regular basis. “I’ll stay here. I’m far behind in making new dresses for the girls and I haven’t even started on pants for the boys.”

“They’ve been given hand-me-downs that will tide them over.” Mordecai squatted and did something to the line on one of the poles, his head bent over them. He touched the handle on the spinner and the line spun and whirred, a soft sound that reminded Abigail of summer. His tone had softened. “Everyone deserves a day away. Not just a Sunday of rest, but a day of play.”

He didn’t say it, but his expression spoke to Abigail. Mordecai thought she needed a day away. Why? She’d tried hard to pull her own weight, not to whine about her situation, to put on a happy face. Something told her Mordecai saw through her facade. “Work first, play later.”

“You have worked hard.” Mordecai cleared his throat. He worked the spinner some more as if not satisfied with its performance. “You’ve had loss. You’ve had more loss. Today, you play.”

He had no right to tell her what to do. He wasn’t her husband.
Still, she lived—if only temporarily—in his house. “The sooner the new house is built, the sooner we’ll be out of yours.”

“Everything in its time.”

Maybe so, but living in a stranger’s house, taking his charity, one shouldn’t do that for longer than necessary. “Guests are like fish—they schtinkich after three days.”

Mordecai laughed, a deep, rich chuckle that sounded like musical notes. Butch raised his head, his expression perplexed, then let it drop again. “Around here, fish get eaten long before three days. We’ll have a fish fry and eat watermelon and spit seeds.”

The last time they’d done that, lightning struck John’s house and it burned to the ground.

“It doesn’t seem right.”

“I learned something when my fraa died. I reckon you’ve noticed it too.”

“I suppose I did.” She’d learned how to get up each day, get dressed, cook, clean, grow crops, and be a mother and father to her children. She’d had no choice. “I learned to go on.”

“I learned to take each day as it comes, to enjoy it, to thank Gott for it, to appreciate the blessings of this earth. We’re only passing through, but this is Gott’s creation and it is worthy of our praise and thanksgiving.”

“I do thank Gott for it.”

“Do you?”

His gaze seemed to drill right through her. “I do.”

“Then let’s go fishing. Today.” He’d won the battle, and the smile on his face said he knew it. “Pack the fixings to go with fish. Susan will be up any second. She’ll help. The van will be here in about an hour.”

A day at the lake with Mordecai King. The thought sent her
mind into a tizzy that made her body feel off balance. “We could invite Stephen and Caleb. Caleb loves to fish.”

The laughter in his face died away. He cocked his head side to side, his neck popping. “We could.”

Abigail missed her son. Stephen? She didn’t want to delve too far into that train of thought. Stephen worked hard and it was good for Caleb to be with him. He would train him up right. He would get practice being a daed, and Caleb would learn to see him as his new daed. A little boy needed a father. She could ignore the overzealous kiss and the messy house. Those things could be fixed. She had to try harder. Caleb needed a man at the head of their house.

Timothy would always be his daed, but Stephen would raise him. The old ache in her chest returned. Everyone deserved a day off now and then. Her son surely did. “This state park. Does it cost money?”

Mordecai wrinkled his nose as if he smelled something sour. “That’s no concern of yours.”

“It is. I can’t let you pay. You’re already paying for the van. You won’t let me help with the food—”

“A person should learn to accept a gift with grace.” Mordecai straightened and grabbed the poles. “Each time I pick up my earnings from the store, I set money aside for the emergency fund, and for the fun-day fund. That money will pay for this trip. For all of us. Kinner twelve and under are free. Chuck Weaver wants to go fishing too, so he’s giving us a discounted rate on the van. Come on, Butch.”

He trudged toward the door without looking back, his four-legged buddy close behind.

Abigail followed. The memories of Timothy standing on the shores of the Bylars’ pond, casting his line, went with her. “Mordecai.”

He swiveled, eyebrows raised as he put his hand on the screen door.

“Do you use lures or fresh bait?”

He grinned, his craggy face lighting up. “Today, stink bait. I got a hankering for catfish. The lake is down, but a guy who came into the store yesterday said the channel and the blue catfish are biting. Phineas and Abram like the black bass. They’ll probably use those soft plastic worms. Jacob and Samuel will use a little of both.”

“Abram is going fishing too?”

“Yep. Bringing his fraa. The whole family will be there.”

The way he said it made Abigail feel included. Right along with the King boys and Abram’s fraa. Theresa was expecting soon. Sitting outside in the hot sun while her husband fished might not be her idea of fun, but at least she would be off her feet.

“Pancakes, fried potatoes, and squash in twenty minutes. Don’t be late.”

“Don’t you worry. I’m never late for a meal that involves pancakes.”

He shoved his hat down on his forehead and eased the door open with one elbow. Butch trotted thorough and Mordecai followed, letting the screen door slam behind him.

Abigail stared at the empty space where he’d stood. Something more than fishing and breakfast had been said between them, but she had no idea what it was.

To her great surprise, she wanted to find out.

NINETEEN

Deborah wiggled in her seat so she could turn a little sideways. Hazel had dropped off to sleep the minute the van hit the highway’s asphalt pavement, and Frannie, who sat on the side, was busy reading the paperback she’d brought—a prairie mail-order-bride story from the looks of it. Phineas sat in the backseat with his brother Samuel who also snoozed, his mouth open, little fluttering snores escaping now and then. So far, Phineas hadn’t said a word. Not a word.

He continued to do a good job of avoiding her. He left the house early and often didn’t come home for the noon meal. At supper he wolfed his food and slipped from the table the second he finished. Any attempt to start a conversation on her part had been quickly thwarted. Just as well. She didn’t really want to go birding with him. Why should she, when he acted like this?

Why was he avoiding her? More importantly, why did she care? She wiggled some more. What drove her to sneak peeks at him now? She turned until her leg touched Hazel’s booster seat and leaned into the crook of the seat, her back to the window. By swiveling her head just a tad, she could study him out of the corner of her eye.

In the shadows inside the van, his scars looked more gray brown than red. His blue-green eyes were darker, but still his best attribute, along with wide shoulders and a lean body. His black hair stuck out in tufts under his straw hat. He needed a haircut. He clutched a book in his hand, but thirty minutes into the trip, he hadn’t opened it. Did his mind wander back to another van trip every time he got into one now? Deborah could only imagine. Maybe he didn’t remember what happened. Maybe God blessed him with loss of consciousness until the pain subsided with the medicine the doctors would’ve given him.

Of course the pain would come back. Especially when they broke the news that his mother had died.

“It’s not polite to stare.”

Deborah ducked her head. He’d turned from the window so suddenly she didn’t have time to look away. “I wasn’t staring.”

“Lying is a sin.”

“So is being prideful. Why would I stare at you?”

“My ugly mug seems to fascinate people.”

“Fascinate?”

“More like horrify.”

“Self-pity is a sin too.”

His mouth opened, then closed. He went back to staring out the window.

Deborah glanced around. Frannie had fallen asleep, her head resting against the window, one finger still holding her place in her book. Mudder, Susan, and the girls were chattering about who knew what. Mordecai sat up front discussing the drought with the driver, an Englisch man who favored a red-and-blue plaid shirt and overalls even in this heat. She leaned closer to the seat that separated her from Phineas. “Can I ask you something?”

“Nee.”

“Are you always so grumpy?”

“I said nee.”

“That wasn’t the question.”

He gave an exaggerated sigh. “What is the question?”

“Were you . . . afraid to ride in a van after what happened to you?”

The blue green of his eyes flared, the color dark, then light and golden like water reflecting in the sunlight. For one beat, two beats, he held her gaze, then looked away, his face throbbing a painful red that made the scars all the more livid.

She shouldn’t have brought it up. Even now, it was a painful subject. What had she been thinking? “I’m sorry. I don’t have a right to ask questions like that. I just thought, if it were me—”

“If it were you, I’d say Gott had an even crueler streak than I already thought.”

His voice was low, hoarse.

“What do you mean?”

“To take a face like yours and do this to it?” He pointed to the scars. “It doesn’t matter so much on a man who wasn’t much to look at to start with.”

He thought God had a cruel streak? She’d wondered about that herself, when He took her father away so soon. “Looks don’t matter. They sure don’t matter to Gott.”

His gaze returned to the window. Deborah eased back into her seat, painfully certain he didn’t believe her. No wonder he didn’t want to talk to her. She had no words of comfort to offer to a man so in need of them and too prickly to accept them.

“I don’t remember much.” The words were spoken so softly she could barely hear him. “Before in the van, yes. We were singing
songs and acting silly. It smelled like the taco meat Mudder had made for the lunch we were going to eat at the coast. The driver gave us pink Bazooka bubble gum as a treat and we were blowing bubbles. Mine popped on my face and I was peeling it off . . .” The sentence trailed off. His jaw worked. “That’s it. Until the hospital. I don’t remember the accident. None of it.”

“I guess that’s gut.”

“Yeah, it’s a long way to the coast on horseback.” The laugh held no humor. “And more dangerous with the way folks drive cars.”

“True.”

“We’re here.”

Deborah turned to look out her window. She didn’t really know what to expect. How much water could there be in this place, with this drought? Where would it have come from? Not from the sky. Through the sparse trees that lined the highway, she caught glimpses of a vast lake that seemed to wind in the same direction as the road. The sun sparkled on the water, even at a distance.

“It’s pretty.”

“It’s down about twenty feet because of the drought.” Phineas’s voice seemed closer to her ear. He’d leaned forward. “Still, it’s enough for fishing. Makes it easier for the alligators to nip at your heels when you go wading.”

“Alligators?” Surely he was joshing her. “You do like to make things up, don’t you?”

“You calling me a liar?”

“I think you like to tease the new girl.”

“You wait. You’ll see the sign that says to watch out for them. The parks department even has a hunting season. You can buy permits to hunt them.”

“Yeah, I read in the paper the other day that a kid caught an eight-hundred-pound alligator right here in this lake during hunting season.” Frannie’s head popped up from the window. Had she been feigning sleep and eavesdropping on their conversation? Deborah felt her cheeks flame. Frannie looked wide awake. “It was the biggest ever.”

“What would they do with an alligator?”

“Some folks eat the meat.” Phineas’s voice held a note of suppressed laughter. He was enjoying her horror. “Tastes like chicken, they say.”

The barely perceptible turn-up of the corners of his mouth told Deborah he wanted to laugh at the effect his words had on her. The chill dancing up her spine. The hair standing up on her arms. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. “That’s what I heard about rattlesnake meat.”

“One of these days we’ll ask Susan to fry some up for us. See how you like it.”

“I’m not frying any snakes in my skillets.” Apparently Susan had good ears as well. “Don’t let him give you a hard time, Deborah. Mostly hunters want the skins. They make boots and belts and such out of them.”

“The alligators or rattlesnakes?”

“Both.”

Such a lovely place, south Texas. Rattlesnakes. Wild hogs. Alligators. What happened to good old livestock? Even coyotes seemed tame compared to this menagerie. Determined not to let Phineas see her discomfort at the thought, she forced herself to lean back in the seat and fan herself with the notebook she’d brought along, thinking she would write a letter to Josie on the ride. As the days passed, it became harder and harder to think
what to say to an old friend. How would she explain someone like Phineas to Josie?

The van came to a stop, brakes squeaking. Mordecai handed a few bills to Mr. Weaver, who in turn handed them through the window to a young woman dressed in a brown uniform. Seconds later Mordecai attached a permit to the inside of the windshield.

Another short ride and they came to a stop again. Phineas squeezed from the backseat first and turned to help Hazel out. He smiled at the little girl and plopped her on her feet with a flourish, but when his gaze met Deborah’s, the smile disappeared. Fine, his goodwill didn’t extend to her. So be it. Deborah stretched and tried to take everything in. The lake was indeed low. Trees stuck up in the water, their branches barren and white. Even so, motorboats buzzed across the lake, tiny dots in the distance. Birds chattered, sounding very much like women scolding their kinner.