The Search (38 page)

Jonah watched her carefully. Her words and posturing were bold, but only skin deep. As if she was on a precipice. “Lainey, please?” His question, and the gentleness in his voice, disarmed her. He kept his hands extended, waiting for her to take a step toward him. Just waiting.

A silence came between them then. A silence she could feel, for it was thick with words that had never been spoken.

Jonah’s face opened for an instant: trust and hope.

She felt a sense of perspective wash over her. This was
Jonah
. Her Jonah. Jonah wasn’t the kind of man Robin and Ally thought him to be—mean-spirited and controlling. Why, in fact, she suddenly realized they were describing a man like Simon! Jonah wasn’t like Simon, not at all. Just the opposite. He asked her opinion about things and really wanted to know her thoughts. He helped her set up her pie business. Why had she allowed Robin and Ally to influence what she knew to be true? How could she have let that happen? Her friends said Amish women had no self-esteem. If only they had met Bertha Riehl! Bertha had a stronger self-esteem than anyone she’d ever known. And Bertha was Amish to the core.

Lainey’s heart lifted. She knew Jonah’s heart—knew it in some fundamental, important way. Yet she’d held herself back from him, not trusting this love that had come so unexpectedly, from such an unexpected source. She looked at him long and hard, tears in her eyes, then reached out and tangled her fingers with his. He tugged on her hands and drew her close. She felt his arms go round her, and they clung to each other as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

On Tuesday evening, Mrs. Stroot dropped by Lainey’s cottage with an order for one hundred little six-inch pumpkin pies and seventy nine-inch pecan pies for the Stoney Ridge Veteran’s Day Parade, to be delivered on Friday afternoon. Lainey was thrilled and quickly agreed when Mrs. Stroot told her about the order. She needed the money; setting up a home business had cost more than she expected, and her savings account was dwindling rapidly.

The gray light of an autumn dawn was beginning to appear at the window as Lainey sat at the kitchen table the next morning and decided she must have temporarily lost her mind. How could she possibly bake that many pies in such a short amount of time? She was still getting accustomed to a propane stove. Not every pie turned out like the one before. Even with Bess’s help, she was facing a daunting task. She sat at the kitchen table, notepad in her hand, and tried to make a list of all of the ingredients she would need. Then she put the pencil down and stared at a point on the ceiling.

“I can’t do it,” she said to herself. “It’s my own fault. I got greedy. I thought I could do it, but I can’t.”

“Yes, you can,” Simon said.

Lainey hadn’t even noticed that he had come into the kitchen for coffee and had been watching her. “My pies are too inconsistent. I would need to make double the quantity, just to make sure I have ones to sell.”

Simon lifted one shoulder in a careless shrug. “I’d sooner have a slice of your worst pie than anyone else’s best.”

Lainey’s head snapped up. She couldn’t believe her ears. Was Simon actually paying her a compliment? She couldn’t quite tell.

He looked away, embarrassed. “Keep writing that list. I’ll head into town and get the supplies. You better get moving.”

Tears came into her eyes. “Simon . . . I don’t know what to say . . .”

“Don’t say anything or I’ll take back my offer,” he groused, but he looked pleased.

There followed two of the busiest days Lainey had ever known in her life, and certainly so for Simon. The two of them, plus Bess and even Jonah, rolled out endless mounds of pastry dough, cracked open pecan shells for the nuts until their fingers were stained and blistered, stirred fillings, and sampled the results. The kitchen, in a white fog of flour, had a heavenly scent of vanilla and cloves and pumpkin and blackstrap molasses. The pies were laid out on baking racks, like little works of art. Lainey displayed a streak of perfectionism; only the best would be delivered to Mrs. Stroot. She had to keep sending Simon up to the store for ten-pound bags of sugar and another big can or two of Crisco. He went without complaint, which amazed her. He drove Jonah’s horse and buggy as if he’d done it every day of his life. Boomer rode along as shotgun, just the way he had accompanied Bertha. Simon liked to gripe about Boomer, but he whistled for the big dog to come along whenever he was going anywhere.

By Friday morning, Lainey had the pies ready for delivery in pink boxes that Mrs. Stroot had provided. Jonah and Simon, with Boomer shadowing him, took the pies over to the lunch grounds for the parade. Then they came back for the pies that didn’t make the cut and delivered those to grateful neighbors.

“She’s been working me like a whole pack of bird dogs,” Simon groused to Caleb on Sunday afternoon. “She’s aiming to put me back in the hospital and kill me for certain.” Boomer lay sprawled right by Simon’s side.

Lainey was used to him now and paid no attention to his tone of voice. “Don’t you lie to the bishop, Simon,” Lainey called out from the kitchen. She wiped her hands on her apron and leaned against the doorjamb. “But I will say you’ve been a big help. I couldn’t have done that big order for Mrs. Stroot this week without you.”

Simon turned to Caleb. “That’s the gospel truth. I saved the day.” He stroked Boomer’s big head.

Then Simon smiled—for the first time, thought Lainey—and it was not a smile that lasted long. But still, Simon had smiled.

Billy tossed some pebbles up at Bess’s window late one evening. He cupped his hands around his mouth and whispered loudly, “Can you come down?”

Bess’s heart left the ground and sailed into the night sky. She dressed quickly and hurried downstairs. Maggie had said she was pretty sure he was courting Betsy again, but Bess didn’t believe it. Would he be coming to see her now, if he were still interested in Betsy?

She opened the kitchen door as quietly as she could and met him at the bottom of the stairs. She stopped on the last step so she was eye level to him. She couldn’t pretend; she was thrilled to see him. But her delight seemed to distress him. A flicker of fear came and went through her, but she dismissed it.

“Oh Bess,” he said, taking her hand and holding it to his face.

Bess’s intuition rang an alarm. Something was badly wrong, she felt sure, though she did not know what. She looked into his eyes. His face was working with emotion. He was struggling for words. She could almost hear him trying out different words in his head.

“I need to tell you something. I want you to hear it from me first.” He swallowed hard. “It’s about me. About me and Betsy. We’re going to get married. Soon. Betsy doesn’t want to wait.”

So it was true. Bess said nothing, unable to take it in. She blinked away tears and looked down to hide her confusing emotions. Then one strong feeling broke through: disappointment that felt like a knife wound.

Billy grasped her arms and pulled her close to him. “You know, don’t you? That you’ve meant something special to me?”

He kissed her mouth. It was a new kind of kiss, different from the one he had given her the night before her surgery. It was as if he was determined to remember the moment. She realized, with dismay, that he was thinking this would be their last kiss.

She clung to him, wanting it to go on forever, but all too soon he drew away and turned to go down the drive. Bess stared at him as he walked away, chin to chest, hands jammed in his pockets, beautiful in the moonlight. So this is what it felt like to have your heart break.

When Billy was out of sight, Bess went back to the house, up to her room, closed the door behind her, and lay down on the bed. Her body started to shake with sobs. Once she started to cry, it was hard to stop. She cried because she had lost Billy for good. She cried because life seemed so unfair sometimes. She cried because she missed Mammi. She wanted her grandmother.

Billy walked home from Rose Hill Farm that night feeling lower than any man on earth. He hated hurting Bess like that. Her face looked so trusting, so eager to please, when she first came outside to him tonight. Unfortunately, she looked particularly pretty. Her soft white skin seemed to glow, and the light blue dress she was wearing made her eyes the color of a tropical sea.

Then, after he told her about planning to marry Betsy, her face looked as pained as if he had wounded her. It tugged at his heart, and tears came to his eyes. He had to look away so that she would not see. He wished she would have yelled at him or thrown something at him. The disappointed look on her face cut him to the quick. He had dreaded telling her about him and Betsy. What he truly feared, he realized, was hurting Bess. He could bear her anger; it was her pain he could not face.

She must have heard some gossip about him and Betsy. She must have noticed how he had been unable to meet her eye the last few weeks. But she seemed shocked by his news. It shamed him, how she always believed the best in him.

Could he be in love with two different girls at the same time? And such different girls. Bess was so full of curiosity, eyes as big as saucers, and her face would light up with excitement over new things. He found himself thinking of her at the oddest moments, when he saw a soaring Cooper’s hawk or found a hummingbird’s nest with that delicate fir bark lining its cup. He’d never forget how thrilled she was when he brought her the newspaper clipping that the United States Supreme Court agreed to hear the case of
Wisconsin vs. Yoder
. With her face lit up with happiness, she kissed the clipping and declared she was never going to have to step into a school again as long as she lived. He thought it was ironic that she was so glad to be done with school. She was the smartest girl he knew.

But then there was Betsy. He’d been crazy about Betsy for as long as he could remember. Finally, she seemed to be equally as smitten with him. They kissed every chance they got: behind the barn at gatherings, when they met on the road, in the buggy, and—best of all—when he was at her house and her parents went off to bed and they found themselves alone. He thought about kissing her before he dropped off to sleep, and it filled his mind as soon as he woke up. He lived for those moments.

So why did he often feel a painful jumble of anxiety?

He rubbed his hands over his face, exasperated. What was wrong with him? What kind of man was he?

He would have liked to have slowed things down with Betsy, but she seemed insistent to get baptized and married soon. Six months ago, he would’ve jumped at the chance to hear Betsy Mast say she would marry him. Now, it made his stomach twist up in a tight knot. In fact, it suddenly occurred to him that he hadn’t actually
asked
Betsy to marry him. They were necking down by the pond and she started talking about how nice it would be to not have to stop but to wake up in each others’ arms every morning. He must have murmured that he agreed because next thing he knew, they had a meeting set up with the bishop. He knew he had to talk to Bess before they spoke to Caleb Zook.

Billy loosened his collar. Lately it felt like it was cutting off his air supply.