The Heart's Journey: Stitches in Time Series #2 (7 page)

Naomi prowled the motel room, fascinated by everything she found inside it.

She’d settled her grandmother on one of the two double beds with a pillow under her ankle and the ice bag filled with ice from a machine she found down the hall.

Now Naomi was exploring every nook and cranny. An automatic coffeepot sat on a dresser in the room with a basket full of coffees and teas to sample. A small refrigerator was available to store cold drinks. In the closet, she found laundry bags and instructions on how to have your clothes laundered if you wanted the service.

She’d just expected a bed and here was every convenience, so you didn’t need to go out of the room.

Finally, done exploring, she sat on the bed in her nightgown and brushed her hair, finding the bedtime routine soothing.

“Aren’t you tired yet?”

“Oh, I’m so sorry! You are and I’m keeping you awake.”

“
Nee,
” Leah said. “I think having taken a nap in the car I might have trouble sleeping tonight.”

“Me too,” Naomi admitted.

“Maybe we need to talk about that nightmare.”

“Forgot to brush my teeth,” Naomi said and ducked into the bathroom.

When she came out a few minutes later, Leah was waiting, her arms folded across her chest.

“Teeth nice and clean?”

Naomi couldn’t help but smile. “Minty fresh, too.”

“Should be. That’s the second time you’ve brushed them in the last half hour.”

She sank down on her bed. “You don’t miss anything, do you?” She smiled slightly. “But I don’t need to talk about the nightmare. It was nothing. I was just overtired.”

“You’re sure?”

Sighing, Naomi studied her hairbrush and then looked at her grandmother. “I’m not happy that he showed up this morning to argue—to try to talk to me,” she corrected.

Leah shook her head. “I’m sure the two of you will be talking when we get home.” A huge yawn overtook her. “Well, maybe I
can
sleep tonight.”

Naomi pulled the comforter and top sheet down, climbed into her bed, and scooted around to get comfortable. “Well, the bed is soft but the sheets don’t smell like sunshine and lavender.”

There was no answer from the other bed. She raised herself on her elbow and looked over. Her grandmother was already asleep. Naomi turned off the bedside lamp and lay back. It felt so strange to be in a motel. She’d slept in bedrooms other than her own but never in a motel room.

The room had been set up to make travelers comfortable and give them a good night’s sleep. But the digital clock beside the bed told her she’d lain awake for more than two hours when she turned over and looked at it.

With a sigh, she flopped on her back. She was tired enough to sleep but suspected that the day had just been too stimulating.

Just as she finally drifted off she heard footsteps outside their room and through the gap in the drapes saw a man walk past, then retrace his steps, almost as if he were pacing instead of looking for a room.

She wondered about that for about a second, then sleep overtook her.

Nick knocked once on Naomi and Leah’s door. “It’s me, Nick. And coffee.”

Naomi opened the door. “Coffee? There’s a coffeemaker in our room.”

“Really? There wasn’t one in my room. Maybe someone took it with them and the cleaning staff didn’t notice. Anyway, there’s a little place right next door. And a Waffle House right down the road a piece.”

She removed a cup of coffee from the drink tray in his hand. “A piece? How far is a piece?”

“Mile or two.”

“Be right back,” she said and turned to go back into the room. When she returned, she took her cup from him. “
Grossmudder
says she’ll be just a minute.”

Nick gestured at the two lawn chairs placed just outside the room and watched her take a seat, then sat beside her. “Did it work okay for two women to share one bathroom today? Did she give you first chance at getting ready this morning?”

“What?”

“My three sisters always had to take turns to get ready with one bathroom in the house. One of them always got the others mad at her for spending too much time in there putting on makeup.”

He glanced at her and grinned. “I know. You don’t wear makeup. If my sister had skin like yours she wouldn’t, either.”

She blinked at the compliment and looked a little flustered. He knew then that he’d gone too far.

“Expect you got it from your mother and she got it from your grandmother,” he said quickly.

He took a sip of coffee and it was too hot, burning his tongue and then his throat going down. Served him right, he decided. This was an engaged Amish woman, for goodness sake.

“Ouch!” he said. “Careful, it’s a little hot.”

He watched her blow on the coffee and test it carefully before she took a sip.

Leah came to the door. “
Danki
for the
kaffe
, Nick.”

“Ready to go get some breakfast?”

“When you’ve finished your coffee,” Leah said. “We’re on vacation, remember? No need to rush.”

Nick watched Naomi’s enjoyment of the coffee and the quiet, contented way she was taking in the sight of the sun rising. Leah was right, but he thought remembering his place right now might be a good idea.

“Have a seat while I get the luggage,” he told her. “I can finish the coffee in the van.”

5

T
oo bad we’re driving straight through,” Nick said as they walked to the van after lunch in a small restaurant off the interstate. “I found some great places to visit on a road trip going to Florida.”

“Like what?” Naomi asked him as she helped her grandmother into the backseat.

“All sorts of little roadside attractions, unusual and strange things to see. I was on the Internet and made a list. I know we aren’t going to any of them but I got a kick out of seeing what was on the way. Maybe I’ll do it sometime. It’s in with the map.”

After fastening her seat belt, Naomi picked up the list. Virginia: “The Fletcher Farm Rhino? Someone has a rhinoceros on a farm?”

“Yeah. Don’t see that on an Amish farm, do you?”

She laughed. “I doubt you see it on any
Englisch
ones, either. The ABC Cemetery?”

“Now that was a man who was really organized. He wanted everyone buried in alphabetical order, so he’d move people’s coffins to keep it that way.”

“And changed his name to one starting with Z when he knew it was his time to go,” she said, reading the printout. “A car that runs on Kool-Aid—oh, I loved that stuff as a kid.
Mamm
let us have it once in a while in the summer. And there’s a chunk of meteorite you can visit.”

“Don’t forget Gilligan’s Island Bed and Breakfast.” He looked at her. “It was a television show. These people got stranded on an island.”

“So then why would they want to go back?”

He thought about it and then laughed. “People who watched the show loved it. They like to go to the B & B. Just like
Star Trek
show fans. They visit The Spock—the World’s Only Church of Star Trek.”

“The NASCAR Cap Museum. Guess we could go get you another cap.”

“A man can never have enough.”

“I saw five in the back of the van.”

“I know. I didn’t bring all of mine. Had to leave some room for the stuff you ladies needed to bring.”

Naomi laughed and rolled her eyes. “The World’s Largest Ten Commandments.”

“North Carolina?”

“The world’s largest strawberry. And the largest strawberry building. Why would anyone build something that looked like a strawberry?”

“Because they can?” he said, grinning. “What about South Carolina?”

“World Grits Festival. Oh, wrong time of year to go.”

“What about Pinecraft?”

“Pinecraft Park has shuffleboard and all kinds of sports to play like volleyball,” Naomi said, reading from the computer printout Nick had provided. “Siesta Key is the beach just a short distance away. The neighborhood of Pinecraft is really
small—less than a mile in each direction—but it says here that in the winter the population swells to thousands. Guess we’re adding three to those numbers.”

Leah leaned forward, “Anything interesting in Florida?” she asked. “I mean, other than Pinecraft?”

Nick heard the irony in her voice and he laughed. “A castle made of coral. Weeki Wachee Springs, which is an attraction with real live mermaids. Jungle Gardens in Sarasota.”

“Well, maybe we can visit one of those fascinating places in those places on the way back,” Leah responded dryly. “So what are you going to do after you drop us off, Nick?”

He glanced at her in the rearview mirror. “First, I need to thank your friend Ida for finding me a room to rent. Then I’m going to spend some serious time at the beach. I haven’t been to one in years. Got a whole lot of books to read.”

Naomi had noticed that Nick was a reader, often finding him with a book or his e-reader when he arrived a little early to pick them up at the shop. Today, a Bible lay on the seat between them.

She glanced out the window and watched the scenery. Too little sleep the last two nights, the monotony of the interstate, and the lunch she’d eaten were combining to make her sleepy.

“Tired?”

“A little. It was hard to get to sleep last night.”

“Excited about taking a vacation?”

She nodded, not willing to tell him what a country mouse she was, never having stayed in a motel—or, probably a bigger reason, that she was feeling guilty about John.

He glanced in the rear seat, then looked at her. “Try to relax and have a little fun even if you’re going there for her.”

She smiled slightly. “I’ll try.”

“Oh, the enthusiasm,” he said with a laugh. “Try to calm down.”

“Did you have trouble sleeping last night?”

“No. Slept like a log. Why?”

“Someone was walking back and forth in front of the room. I thought maybe you were having trouble sleeping.”

“Nope. Maybe it was someone having trouble finding his room. Maybe he went out and had a few too many at a local bar after getting a room, then couldn’t find it when he came back.”

“Oh.”

“Sorry, I shouldn’t say such things in front of you.”

“And why is that?”

“You don’t need to know about matters not of your world.”

“I’m hardly innocent.”

“What does that mean?”

Naomi rolled her eyes. She’d forgotten about her grandmother in the backseat. She turned and looked into the back- seat. “You know what I mean. Just because we’re Amish doesn’t mean that we don’t know about drinking and such.”

“How much do you know about drinking?”

“I just mean it’s not like we don’t know about the
Englisch
world. We hear things, we read things. That’s all. I certainly didn’t drink when I did my
rumschpringe
.”

She shrugged when Nick glanced over. “You know it’s just the
Englisch
media that thinks Amish youth run around being wild and drinking on their
rumschpringe
.”

“You don’t have to convince me,” Nick told her. “Remember, I’ve lived in Pennsylvania for a decade.”

“You said something about a road trip yesterday,” she said after a moment. “About how you and your buddies went on them during a break from college.”

His smile was reminiscent. “Yeah. Great times.” Then his smile faded. “Sorry, there weren’t a lot of PG moments.”

“Pig moments?”

He laughed until tears ran down his cheeks. “No, PG. That’s short for saying something’s clean enough to be discussed in front of kids.”

He glanced at her. “Or in front of Amish
maedels
.”

She sniffed and folded her arms across her chest. “You seem to enjoy telling me how backward you think I am.”

“I don’t think you’re backward,” he said seriously. “It’s just fun to tease you.”

“I don’t remember you doing it this much before,” she said.

“No. Guess that’s the perk of having more time with you. And not having Anna in the car. Teasing her’s like teasing your younger sister.”

A car slowed in front of them and Nick braked quickly. When the car picked up speed, he did the same.

“So what’s teasing me like?” she asked.

He glanced at her, then back at the road ahead. Opened his mouth and then shut it.

Interesting
, she thought. She’d never seen him at a loss for words.