The Keeper (18 page)

She should have been insulted—she
was
insulted—but at the same time, an urge to laugh had come over her. Rome was so arrogant! And he was also right. Sometimes, she was too bossy. Some of the fire left her. “I really would like to know why you would go out of your way to help me.”

He took a few deep breaths to get himself back under control. “All right. You win. The truth? Even though I didn’t intend to make your endless engagement to Paul even more endless, I did you a disservice.” He glanced over at her. “My folks raised me to believe that every wrong should be made right.”

“And where exactly were you raised? Nobody seems to know where you’re from, or who your family is or how many brothers and sisters you have.” She looked at him expectantly. “And why bees? Of all things, why bees?”

“I’m touched, Julia—to think that you have so many thoughts about me.”

She stiffened her spine and looked straight ahead. “It’s flattering yourself to think I have any thoughts about you at all.”

His face broke into a smile, and she couldn’t help smiling in return. The moment seemed to last forever, even as Julia heard the crack of a softball leaving the bat. Then she realized that people were shouting and waving their arms. She looked around and up . . . and saw the ball sailing, a high arc through the air.

“Look at that!” Rome said. “Your brother just hit one that’s headed over the fence!” He shouted out to Menno and waved to him. Menno stopped running to see who was calling him, so M.K. ran out on the field and dragged him around the bases.

Rome seemed so genuinely pleased about Menno’s accomplishment that something inside Julia melted a little, right along with the ice cream cone in her hand. She quickly licked it before it dripped on her dress.

She wrinkled her nose. So what if Rome was slippery and elusive, not to mention too charming for his own good? He seemed genuinely sincere about helping her win Paul back. Maybe it was time to rise above her dislike.

Rome glanced at her. “You’ve got ice cream on your nose. Never gonna catch a fella with those kinds of table manners.”

Julia gasped and rubbed her nose with her dress sleeve. She promptly yanked back her imaginary olive branch toward Rome. He was incorrigible!

Still, Julia felt curiously elated. She knew it came from the emotion she had felt when she saw the look on Paul’s face. That, she felt, could only be a wordless affirmation of the fact that nothing had changed. Paul still loved her, she was sure of it. How strange. How wonderful.

Later on that night, though, doubt returned as Julia was sitting at the kitchen table, glancing through the
Budget.

Sadie sat down beside her with two cups of herbal tea. “Try this. It’s made of a combination of dried herbs from the garden. It’s supposed to help digestion. Or maybe it’s a cure for a headache.” She shrugged. “One or the other. Maybe both.”

Julia took a sip and tried not to cringe. It tasted like something made from rancid garbage. “Really . . . tasty, Sadie.”

Sadie took a sip and spit it out. “It’s awful. Needs more mint to camouflage the taste.” She pushed the mug aside. “Paul was watching as you left the game with Rome. He was obviously bothered by the idea of you spending time with Rome. That’s encouraging. I really think he’s coming around.”

Julia propped her chin on her hand. “Then why don’t I feel encouraged?”

When Paul first saw Julia drive off from the softball game with Rome, he felt strangely disturbed. But the longer he thought about it, the more it seemed like an opportunity in the making. If Roman Troyer was after Julia, then Julia would let Paul go. He wouldn’t have to be known as a heart breaker. It was a free pass! He could start courting Lizzie. He planned to tell her the good news on the buggy ride home.

But as soon as the words came out of his mouth, the smile slid off Lizzie’s face. “No,” she said. “I can’t do that to Julia. She’s my friend.”

“I already told her that I wanted to postpone things. I thought I’d give her time to get used to that. Next, I’ll tell her that you and I are seeing each other.”

“Paul,” Lizzie said, shaking her head sadly.

“What?”

“Go to Julia and take it all back,” she said.

“Are you saying you don’t want me?”

“It was just a few kisses, Paul. And now someone’s gotten hurt.”

In late March, Lizzie had needed a ride from a singing on a Sunday evening. Paul had agreed to drop her off—he passed right by Rose Hill Farm—and they started talking. And talking. Then something happened between them as he helped lift her out of the buggy. It started slowly. One kiss, another kiss, more kissing. He couldn’t stop thinking about those kisses with Lizzie. They were nothing like the kisses he shared with Julia. Not even close. He dropped by Lizzie’s house every chance he got, hoping there would be a chance for more kisses. So far, no such luck.

“Just go to her,” she said. “I’m not coming between you and Julia. You should be with her. I’m just a friend, Paul. That’s all I’ll ever be.” She jumped out of the buggy before he could stop her.

He listened to her footsteps crunch across the loose gravel. What had happened? How could this be? This was too much: to lose them both.

Monday morning arrived and Uncle Hank arrived with it. He was sitting at the kitchen table when Julia came downstairs with a load of sheets in her arms. “JULIA!” he bellowed. “I told you I would help get those weeds in the orchards. I’ve got a plan all worked out!”

Julia stopped by the kitchen table. “Let’s hear it.” She slipped into a chair beside Sadie and Menno and braced herself for the news.

“I got to talking to Ira Smucker. He said he would loan us his herd of goats. I just need to set up a wire fence. Something I can move around that could be goat proof.”

Rome appeared at the kitchen door while Uncle Hank was explaining his idea. He took a seat at the table. Fern brought both of the men a cup of coffee and sat down herself.

Uncle Hank was delighted to have an audience. He turned to Rome. “What do you think, Bee Man?”

“I’ve seen a lot of folks using goats to get rid of undergrowth,” Rome said. “Only thing is that they’ll eat the blossoms right off the trees. They’ll eat anything they can get their mouths close to.”

“That’s the beauty of my plan!” Uncle Hank said. “They’re pig goats! Little tiny things!”

“You mean, pygmy goats?” Rome asked.

Uncle Hank banged on the table with his fist. “That’s it! That’s their name. Why, you’ve never seen such cute little critters—”

“Hank Lapp, just when were you supposed to get that goat-proof fence up by?” Fern asked, looking out the window. “Because your goats are heading this way.”

Uncle Hank bolted out of his chair and stood behind Fern. Ira Smucker and his son, Gideon, were heading up Windmill Farm’s driveway with a horse pulling a trailer full of small goats. “Blast! What day is it, anyway?”

“Monday,” Rome said, looking out the window.

“Double blast! I didn’t think Ira meant this particular Monday morning. I thought he just was talking about some Monday morning in general.”

“Some of us live in reality,” Fern said. She looked at Uncle Hank with an arched eyebrow. “And others live in their
own
reality.”

Uncle Hank huffed, thrust the coffee cup in her hand, and went outside to meet Ira Smucker.

“Hurry with your breakfast, Menno,” Julia said. “Our morning just got rearranged.”

“I’ll help,” Rome said. “You don’t have to, Julia. Menno and Hank and I can handle the job.”

Julia gave him a sharp look. “I thought you had honey to collect today.”

Rome gave a half shrug. “Tomorrow is as good a day for honey as today. I’m here to help.”

Footsteps came thundering down the stairs as M.K. flew into the kitchen with Amos’s breakfast tray. She passed it off to Fern and ran to the door. “Sadie! Gideon Smucker is here! He’s so sweet on you he can’t put two words together in a sentence.” She waved her arm like a windmill. “Come on, Sadie! Let’s go see his ears turn red when he tries!”

“Oh, M.K. Schtille,” Sadie said.
Quiet.
But she smoothed out her hair and dress and followed behind M.K. Menno hurried to join them.

“Well, well, maybe Sadie might be willing to consider other fellows besides Rome, after all,” Fern said.

“Rome doesn’t mind sharing one devotee,” Julia said, picking up the laundry basket of sheets. “There’s plenty of other girls to take Sadie’s place.”

Rome wasn’t paying any attention to them. He was frowning at Amos’s breakfast tray. “He hardly ate a thing.”

Later that day, M.K. hurried home from school. She had told everyone at school about the pygmy goats and couldn’t wait to see them. She ran through the kitchen to drop off her lunch pail and grab a snack. Fern caught her, gave her a large white bucket, and told her to pick some cherries as long as she was lollygagging in the orchards.

Lollygagging? Fern! So bothersome. As if M.K.
ever
lollygagged.

She slipped through the wire fencing that Rome and Menno and Uncle Hank had fixed up and walked among the small goats. There were goats of all colors, and they looked up at M.K. with mild interest before turning back to their weeds. She picked a favorite—a small black-and-white female goat with peaceful eyes—petted her for a while, then took her white bucket to start picking cherries. The bucket was about a quarter of the way full when she heard laughing sounds, like a hyena. Or jackals. Or . . . ! She jumped off the ladder and scanned the orchard for the source of that hideous noise—it came from Jimmy Fisher and his sidekick, Arthur King. They were laughing so hard they had to hold their sides.

She stomped over to them and called over the fence. “What’s so funny?”

“That!” Jimmy said, pointing behind her. She turned around to see a large goat that stood out from the rest. He surveyed his new home with an air of disdain and shook his head.

She knew that particular billy goat! “You stole Ira Smucker’s goat, Jimmy!”

“Didn’t steal him,” Jimmy laughed. “Just borrowed him!”

M.K. pointed at him. “Don’t you know that the ninth commandment says ‘do not lie’?”

Jimmy nudged his friend, Arthur. “Loss dich net verwiche, is es elft Gebot.”
“Don’t get caught” is the eleventh commandment.

M.K. heard a bleating sound and her head swiveled in its direction. Ira Smucker’s yellow billy had lowered its head and was charging right at her. M.K. darted to the nearest cherry tree and climbed it. The goat bumped his head against the trunk of the cherry tree several times for good measure. Each time, Jimmy and Arthur’s laughing fit started up again. M.K.’s outrage nearly choked her, and she could barely hold on to her temper. She was trapped in a tree with a mad billy goat underneath her, and Jimmy and Arthur were enjoying her humiliation at a safe distance.

Boys! So horrible! She broke off branches and threw them down at the billy, but he only chewed up the branches. He gazed at her with his weird yellow eyes as if to thank her for the snack.

Finally, the yellow billy returned to the rest of the herd who had continued eating, unconcerned with the big intruder. M.K. slipped carefully down the tree. She knew she had to get that pail before the billy goat ate up her cherries. She tiptoed over to the pail, bent to get it, heard another bleating sound, and turned to find the billy charging at her with lowered head. She didn’t have time to get to a tree, so she took the pail and jammed it on top of the billy goat’s head. He shook and shook his head, trying to get that pail off of him. If M.K. weren’t so furious with Jimmy and Arthur, she might have even enjoyed the ridiculous sight. As it was, she lost her cherries and her pail. The other goats milled around, curious, and finished off the cherries that scattered on the ground.