The Beekeeper's Son (The Amish of Bee County Book 1) (32 page)

“You were thinking. That’s almost always a good thing.”

Phineas came by his penchant for sarcasm from Mordecai apparently. “We don’t have a horse and buggy. We’ll need one to work and sell our own produce and such. How much does a buggy cost?”

“Better to get a wagon.” He grabbed a pencil and began to add up the purchases of an elderly Englisch lady who had picked up a candle and some of the lip balm he’d made. “Cheaper. But your mudder knows enough to talk to Leroy about it. She’s already talked to Andrew about two horses.”

“She has?”

“Abigail knows what’s needed to run a farm in these parts. She doesn’t necessarily tell you everything.”

But she told Mordecai? When? On those nights when she’d sat in a folding lawn chair a dozen yards from Mordecai’s chair and they watched the same sunset, together but apart? Or had they talked since she moved her family from his house? Had there been a flashlight in the window and Deborah had missed it? “Why not?”

He folded the lady’s bills and tucked them into a metal box on the counter next to a handwritten sign that listed the prices for a variety of produce—none of which they had in the store now. “She wants you to do your chores, watch out for your bruders and schweschders, and not worry. She’s being both mudder and daed.”

So she was. “I thought I could get a job in town.”

“The district has permitted that a few times. Mostly with the boys, though. Have you asked your mudder about it?”

“Nee, not yet.”

“Talk to her first.” Mordecai waved at a young Englisch couple holding hands like newlyweds who slipped out the door without buying one thing. “She’ll have to decide if that’s something she wants her girls doing, and then if she does, she should talk to Leroy.”

“I know. I don’t think—”

The door opened and a man shaped like an enormous pear waddled through it, bringing with him a gust of hot, dank air. Butch hopped to his feet once again and barked, this time his tone surly.

“Butch! Stop it. Out. Out!” Mordecai waved the dog out the open door. Growling deep in his throat, Butch stalked through it. “Sorry about that, Jerry. Come on in.”

“No problem. Good guard dogs are hard to come by. Good to see you, good to see you.” The man started talking the second he crossed the threshold, his bushy, silver mustache bobbing in time. “Just stopping by because I know you folks ain’t got Internet out here and it’s not like you’re sitting around the boob tube watching the weather channel.”

“What is it?”

“The storm in the Gulf got upgraded to a category-three hurricane this morning.” The man paused to run a red bandana across his forehead above round wire-rimmed spectacles and then across his sunburned bald head. “And it’s gathering steam, could be a category four by late this afternoon.”

“Where will it hit land?”

“They’re thinking it’ll be somewhere between Corpus and
Beaumont.” The man stuffed the bandana into the back pocket of red-and-black checkered pants belted below his potbelly. His gaze went to Deborah as if registering her presence for the first time. “Sorry, ma’am. I guess you’re new here. Jerry Cummings.”

Mordecai made quick work of the introduction. “Deborah and her family have lived here about four months now.”

“Welcome. I guess this will be your first hurricane.”

Deborah reckoned it would. She’d experienced a tornado and some downright bad storms, but no hurricanes in Tennessee. “I reckon it’s probably a lot like the tornadoes we had back home.”

“Just as cantankerous. Hurricanes are straight—high winds and heavy rain like you’ve never seen before. Eighty-five miles an hour or more. Sometimes tornadoes spin off them to make the situation worse.”

“But hurricanes come from the ocean. We’re a long way from the ocean.”

“The big ones, like this one, just keep on coming through the Gulf until they run out of steam, and this looks to be a big one. We don’t get the full force of it, but plenty of wind and rain. Sometimes flooding.”

“Nothing we can’t handle.” His features the picture of calm, Mordecai handed Jerry a bag of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. The man took them with a nod and a smile. Mordecai grinned back at him. “We mostly get the rain and some wind. We board up the houses and hunker down in the basements if it gets too bad. Last time we told some good stories. The kinner get a kick out of it.”

“True, true. I also thought you should know they’ve already set in motion the evac plan for the prisoners.”

“Prisoners?” Deborah’s mind’s eye conjured up the bus with
its DOCJ lettering on the side that she’d seen outside the medical clinic in Beeville. “What does this have to do with prisoners?”

“If it looks like they’re gonna take a hit in Cuero, they evac their state prisoners to McConnell. Just up the road.”

“I see.” She did. They’d lost a house to fire and now hurricane-force winds and torrential rains were next, bringing with them a herd of criminals. A different series of plagues? “But they never escape, do they?”

“You never heard of the Texas Seven?”

“Like I said, she’s new.” Mordecai helped himself to a cookie from Jerry’s bag. Jerry chomped on one the size of a saucer and chewed. Both men made her wait for a response while they enjoyed Naomi Glick’s best cookie recipe. “A few years ago seven prisoners escaped from the Connally Unit down in Kenedy, Texas. They was eventually all caught, but not before they shot and killed a police officer up in Irving.”

Despite the heat, goose bumps rippled up Deborah’s arm. “That’s sad.”

“It is, but it’s the only time it’s happened in all the years I’ve been here.” Mordecai brushed crumbs from his beard and reached for another cookie. “No point in looking for trouble. We need to set our minds to getting ready for a nice storm. We can use the rain.”

“Best batten down the hatches. We’ll have the evacuation centers open in town.” Crumbs settled onto Jerry’s mustache. Grinning, he brushed them away. “A good mustache serves as a better cookie duster than a beard, you know. Y’all are welcome to come into town.”

Mordecai shook his head. “We have basements.”

“That’s what I figured. Do you have enough plywood to board up your windows?”

“We’ll be fine. Take some honey home to your wife.” Mordecai held out a jar. “I know how she likes it on her toast.”

Jerry pulled a worn leather billfold the size of a large waffle from his pocket, but Mordecai waved away his money. “On the house for taking the time to be so neighborly.”

“Take care.” Jerry waved stubby, fat fingers at Deborah. “Tie down everything that can’t be brought in. Take care of your animals.”

“We will.”

Deborah watched him go, then turned to Mordecai. “What do we do first?”

“I’ll close the store and start boarding the windows here.” He tapped his fingers on the glass countertop, his forehead wrinkled. “Run back to the house and let Naomi and your mother know. Have them send the boys out to tell folks.”

He paused, a pulse jumping in his jaw. “Send Caleb to let Phineas know.”

Before she could take the time to reflect on it, her mouth opened and she made the offer. “I can do it.”

After a fleeting second of indecision, Mordecai shook his head. “Nee, tell the women first.”

“You could tell him yourself.”

“I have to board up here and then get to Susan. My oldest son and his fraa are at the house today.” His gaze dropped for a brief second, then met Deborah’s. “There’s a baby coming.”

She ducked her head. “Everyone will be fine.”

“I know. Go tell your mudder—I mean, go tell Naomi.”

Mordecai was worried about Mudder. Surely he saw her worry for Phineas. “I will.”

And then she would find Phineas.

She tromped from the store. The patches of blue sky that had lingered overhead when she entered it had fled, chased by the massive, roiling black clouds that had once hung on the horizon. The wind kicked up dirt in her face. Deborah shivered in the dank, heavy air. If Phineas hadn’t been so intent on getting away from her, he wouldn’t be alone right now.

She would find him and tell him that.

THIRTY-THREE

Rain clouds hung so low Abigail could feel their bounty of sweet water brush her face. The fierce heat and humidity pummeled her body, dampening her dress. Rain would be a relief. She tugged the basket of old towels from the buggy and laid the canvas bag filled with her birthing-baby supplies on top of it. Abram King’s fraa had picked quite a day to have her baby. Rather, the baby had chosen a whopper of a day to come into this world.

She smiled to herself. She surely knew about that. Deborah had been born in the middle of a late-spring snowstorm, while Rebekah had caught her off guard at a school fund-raiser auction. Babies had minds of their own when it came to these things.

That train of thought naturally drove her right where she didn’t want to go. Mordecai. Another one with a mind of his own. She didn’t see him boarding up the windows on his house. Only Abram and Samuel. Maybe he had taken on the back side or was out making sure the livestock were tucked inside the barn.

Sooner or later he would come inside and see her.

Nothing she could do about that. Naomi and the kinner were busy boarding up their house and loading in supplies to
the basement for the long night ahead. Leila and Rebekah would ride herd on Hazel and Caleb. That left Abigail to assist with this birth. She’d never been through a hurricane-spawned storm, but she had a passing acquaintance with all manner of bad weather. They would all do what they had to do, even if that meant being uncomfortable around Mordecai.

Uncomfortable. There was an understatement. Just the thought of his gaze made her stomach flop and her breath catch.
Stop
it. Stop it now.
She wasn’t a teenage girl suffering from puppy love.

The
clip-clop
of horse hooves made her look back as she approached the Kings’ porch. There he was, coming up the road. Plain as day. Mordecai. She hadn’t even made it in the door.

He eased from the saddle and tied the reins to the hitching post. “You’re here.”

“You’re nothing if not observant.”

“And I thought I was the one with the smart mouth.”

“You are. It’s catching.”

He stomped up the steps, his boots leaving dusty tracks on the wooden porch. His expression was indecipherable. “Why are you here?”

“Susan sent Samuel to fetch me. It’s time.” Struggling for something to say in the awkward pause that followed that statement, she looked beyond him to the horse and then the road. No Butch. The dog hadn’t left Mordecai’s side since that first day they went to the lake. It seemed like a hundred years ago. “Where’s your shadow?”

“I’ve been abandoned.” He shrugged. “Butch apparently has taken a liking to your daughter.”

A deliberate choice of words? She’d never abandoned Mordecai because he’d never been hers to abandon. But he wasn’t talking
about her. He was talking about a dog. She forced her tart comments back. “Daughter? I have four.”

“Deborah. She came into the store to drop off the jam and he left with her. He wasn’t with her when she got back to Leroy’s?”

“I don’t know. She stopped at the corral and told Joseph about the storm, then left again.” Naomi had told her not to worry. Deborah had plenty of time to get back before the storm hit. “She said she had to go warn some other folks. How long until the weather takes a turn for the worse, do you think?”

“Not long, but there’s no point in worrying about it.” Mordecai tugged his hat down against wind that whipped up leaves and dirt in dervishes around them. He opened the screen door for her. “I reckon she’s gone out to Phineas’s place.”

“What makes you think that?”

“I had to stay to mind the store for Leroy, so I told her to go back to Leroy’s and tell you—tell Naomi about the storm. I figure Deborah, being her mudder’s daughter and all, ignored me and went to Phineas’s.”

“I don’t ignore you and neither did she. She came by Leroy’s first. She’s a good girl.”

Mordecai stalked through the living room, leaving her standing there with her basket. “Theresa will be in Susan’s room. I need to help the boys finish up outside and get the livestock battened down.”

Gut. Better to put some distance between them. She whirled and gave him her back. A moan told her Mordecai had been right about the room. Ignoring the urge to say something snippy, she hurried back to Susan’s room.

Esther met her at the door. “I’m fetching some clean sheets. Go on in. Susan could use someone to spell her.”

“I’m here to help.” Abigail squeezed up against the door to let the younger woman pass. Esther glowed with excitement. Probably thinking and wondering when her time would come. Every young woman did.

Susan sat perched on the edge of the double bed where Theresa huddled, her dress wrinkled and her sweaty face flushed a deep red. Susan looked up and smiled, the picture of calm. “Good, you’re here. Could you bring her a glass of water to sip? Poor thing is parched.” She dipped a washrag in a bowl filled with water and dabbed at Theresa’s forehead and cheeks. “The wind was blowing in so much dirt, I had to close the window. We don’t want the baby to get an eyeful first thing.”

Abigail settled the basket on the floor and took a moment to squeeze Theresa’s hand. The girl’s eyes were bloodshot with tears and her fingers clammy. Abigail remembered what that first labor was like. It wasn’t the pain so much as the anticipation and the uncertainty of being able do it. “The first one’s the hardest. But it’ll be worth it when you hold that baby in your arms, you’ll see.”

“I know. I’m fine.” Theresa gasped and shrieked. “Another one already.”

“That’s gut. You’re doing fine.” Susan glanced at a pocket watch in her lap. She smiled up at Abigail. “About two minutes apart. It won’t be long now.”

“You sure you don’t want me to spell you? I could sit with her while you get a drink of water and stretch your legs.”

“Is Mordecai out there?”

What did that have to do with anything? “Jah, he just returned as I was arriving.”

“Gut. You go. You two need to have it out, once and for all.”

“Have it out? There’s nothing—”

“I’ve been living with that man for the two weeks since you moved out, and I’m fed up with the moping around and the morose, vacant stares. I’m tired of talking to myself because he never hears me. And I’m especially tired of him not eating my cooking. The man refused a piece of pecan pie last night. This can’t go on.”