A Groom for Greta
A Groom for Greta
Anna Schmidt
THE WEDDING THAT WASN’TEveryone in their small Amish community expects Greta Goodloe to marry her longtime sweetheart—Greta included. So when he publicly ends their engagement, in front of newcomer Luke Starns no less, she is utterly humiliated. At least she can take comfort in matchmaking between Luke and her quiet schoolmarm sister.Yet the more she tries to throw them together, the more Luke fascinates her. A serious, no-nonsense schoolmarm should be exactly what Luke wants in a wife. Still, he can’t help but be charmed by Greta’s warm smile and impulsive ways. Does he dare to stray from the sensible choice and take a chance on happiness?Amish Brides of Celery Fields: Love awaits these Amish women.
The Wedding That Wasn’t
Everyone in their small Amish community expects Greta Goodloe to marry her longtime sweetheart—Greta included. So when he publicly ends their engagement, in front of newcomer Luke Starns no less, she is utterly humiliated. At least she can take comfort in matchmaking between Luke and her quiet schoolmarm sister. Yet the more she tries to throw them together, the more Luke fascinates her.
A serious, no-nonsense schoolmarm should be exactly what Luke wants in a wife. Still, he can’t help but be charmed by Greta’s warm smile and impulsive ways. Does he dare to stray from the sensible choice and take a chance on happiness?
“We’re quite a pair, aren’t we, Luke Starns?”
“How so?”
“Each of us being so certain that we were on the right path. Neither one of us prepared in the least for the bumps and gullies along the way.”
“You will find what you want—what God wants for you,” Luke assured Greta.
“And you?” She was nothing if not persistent.
He shrugged and concentrated on completing his work on the bridle bit, more to avoid her eyes than because the work was urgent.
“You know,” she said wistfully as she looked out toward the street, “Josef was not only the man I thought I would marry. He and Lydia have always been my two best friends. Now there is just Lydia.”
Her voice trailed off as she continued staring out at the street. He watched her for a moment, trying to decide if she might be shedding more tears over Bontrager. But she seemed calm and if not serene, then at least resigned. He wiped his hands on a rag as he walked to where she stood.
“I would be your friend, Greta Goodloe,” he said softly.
ANNA SCHMIDT
is an award-winning author of more than twenty-five works of historical and contemporary fiction. She is a two-time finalist for a coveted RITA® Award from Romance Writers of America, as well as a four-time finalist for an RT Book Reviews Reviewer’s Choice Award. Her most recent RT Book Reviews Reviewer’s Choice nomination was for her 2008 Love Inspired Historical novel, Seaside Cinderella, which is the first of a series of four historical novels set on the romantic island of Nantucket. Critics have called Anna “a natural writer, spinning tales reminiscent of old favorites like Miracle on 34th Street.” Her characters have been called “realistic” and “endearing” and one reviewer raved, “I love Anna Schmidt’s style of writing!”
A Groom for Greta
Anna Schmidt
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
But you delight in sincerity of heart
and in secret you teach me wisdom
—Psalms 51:6
For Larry
Contents
Chapter One (#u2ee23108-d5c7-542b-b950-33ebc06a66d2)
Chapter Two (#ua67c391f-2fe2-543d-8965-b084cd114c22)
Chapter Three (#ufca7b390-a2ee-50b4-9e60-8cf2aba5d0f8)
Chapter Four (#u64e8e269-567f-5485-b31c-b255048a412b)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Dear Reader (#litres_trial_promo)
Questions for Discussion (#litres_trial_promo)
Excerpt (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One
Celery Fields, Florida
Summer 1934
Luke Starns hammered the molten iron into shape, the sound of metal on metal ringing in his ears as the hammer struck the rod. He set the half-completed horseshoe on the white-hot fire and wiped his brow with the back of his bare forearm. Then he stretched as he pushed open the single window that offered relief from the shadowy darkness of his blacksmith shop and livery stable. He was hoping for a breeze, but this was Florida, not Ontario. And it was August, steamy and humid, and at four in the afternoon there was no sign of relief from the oppressive heat. He fanned himself with the wide-brimmed straw hat that was one of the unmistakable signs of his Amish heritage.
Business was slow but not nearly as slow as it was in the outside world—the rest of Florida. The economic depression that had gripped the entire United States had taken a huge toll on businesses and lives all across the state. Luke counted himself fortunate that he had skills that were still in demand—although with the growing number of cars and trucks crowding the roads, he wasn’t sure how long there would be enough customers to sustain his business.
He thought about taking a break, perhaps getting a dish of ice cream at the parlor next to the bakery. He wasn’t exactly dressed for shopping but it was late on a Saturday. Most everyone living in and around the Amish settlement of Celery Fields would have already headed home. As he rolled down the sleeves to his collarless shirt, he heard voices just outside the small window—a man and a woman—the man’s voice was stern and serious, the woman’s laughter was high-pitched and nervous.
“I can’t marry you, Greta Goodloe,” the man announced. Luke sighed. Quarrels between Greta and her long-time beau, Josef Bontrager, were so common that most of the townspeople tended to ignore them completely. Luke was inclined to agree that this was probably the best plan. He finished rolling down his sleeves and glanced out the window when he heard the soft plod of horse hooves in the sandy street and saw Bontrager’s dark buggy driving away. After that all was quiet.
Wiping his hands—black with the soot of his work—on a rag he kept hanging by the window, he removed his leather apron and checked the front of his homespun cotton shirt. Then he ran his fingers through his damp black hair and reached for his hat. A dish of Jeremiah Troyer’s vanilla ice cream was sounding better and better, but he wanted to at least make the effort to look decent before venturing out. His concern was not for himself, but he felt it was just good manners to make the effort for others. He was headed for the door of his shop when he heard a sound.
The two double doors to his blacksmith shop and livery stood fully ajar but there was no one there. At least that he could see. Then he heard the sound again. A soft keening like someone in pain. He moved closer to the door’s opening and there framed in the doorway, cast in silhouette by the late afternoon sun at her back, stood a woman—an unwed Amish woman, given the black ties of her prayer kapp that peeked out from beneath her bonnet. She was grasping the frame of the doorway.
Fearing that she had been struck ill or perhaps overcome by the heat, Luke rushed forward. On his way he grabbed the shop’s one battered chair. “Hold on,” he ordered, but before he could reach her, she took two steps forward and then started to crumple to the floor. Luke dropped the chair and caught the woman.
“What’s to become of me?” she whispered as she looked up at him from beneath the brim of her bonnet with fathomless sea blue eyes that belonged to only one female in Celery Fields.
Greta Goodloe.
“Are you ill, Greta Goodloe?” he asked, raising his voice in case she might be on the verge of passing out. “Wounded? Have you been in an accident?”
“Oh, he’s broken it,” she moaned miserably, her voice choking on her sobs.
“Who? What is broken?”
She looked up at him, her eyes widening in what he could only describe as horror. With surprising strength for one so petite, she pushed him away and stood without support for the first time since entering his shop. She glanced around and seemed stunned to find herself there, but she no longer appeared to be in danger of passing out.
“Sit down,” Luke ordered, sliding the chair behind her. “Let me have a look. Is it your...” He ran through the possibilities. She was standing without apparent pain on both legs. Her arms were flailing about like windmills as she apparently tried to regain control of her emotions. “Where is the pain, Greta Goodloe?” he shouted, hoping to break through what was clearly a case of hysteria.
“Right here,” she announced, clutching at her chest. “And please stop shouting. Do you want the whole town to witness my...” Fresh tears leaked down her cheeks and she sat down hard in the chair and buried her face in her hands as her entire body shuddered with the force of her crying.
She was awfully young for a heart attack but he seemed to recall that her father had died of one a year or so earlier and her mother had succumbed to heart failure when Greta was but a toddler. If it ran in the family...
“Stay there. I’ll go for the doctor.”
She was on her feet in an instant and looking mighty healthy for a woman having palpitations. “You will do no such thing,” she growled. “You will have the decency to forget that I ever came in here today, that you ever witnessed...” Once again her eyes filled with fresh tears. “My shame,” she whispered and sat down on the chair.
Only this time she did not fall to pieces as Luke might have expected. Instead she looked all around the shop, finally settling her gaze on him. Then she drew in a heavy sigh and fixed him with a look that seemed rather harsh, considering he had done nothing more than show her kindness and concern.
“So, Luke Starns, we have a problem. That is, I have a problem—several of them at the moment. But let’s begin with addressing the problem before you and me.”
“I’m listening,” he replied. “I’ll help if I can but I’m not sure what...”
“Oh, please do not pretend that you weren’t eavesdropping just now,” she snapped. “I saw you standing by that window there. You had to have heard and seen every horrible bit of it.”
Luke frowned. “And I am telling you that whatever might have taken place between you and Josef Bontrager...”
“There,” she interrupted pointing her finger at him, “you admit it. You were watching us. I have not so much as mentioned Josef’s name and still you...”
Luke had no time and little patience for her tantrum. “You are speaking in riddles, Greta Goodloe. This is my establishment and if I take a moment from my work to stand at my window that is my right.”
“Your window is open as are your doors. Do you honestly expect me to believe that you did not hear my conversation with Josef?”
“I cannot say what you will believe or not. I am telling you that whatever business you had just now with Josef is of no interest to me. And now if you are feeling better I have work to do.” He abandoned the idea of ice cream and headed back toward the fire. But given that Greta Goodloe was right there next to him when he turned to pick up his apron, it was evident that this was not yet over.
* * *
He was dismissing her. Greta was certain that the blacksmith had heard and seen everything. When Josef had driven away, she’d seen Luke Starns watching from his window—the window that overlooked the town’s main and only street. Her intent in entering the shadowy recesses of his shop had been to confront him and make sure that he did not speak of what he had seen to anyone else. For surely Josef’s announcement was some nightmare from which she would awaken any moment.
One minute she and Josef Bontrager—the man she would finally marry after five long years of courtship—were looking at a china teapot in Yoder’s Dry Goods. The next they were crossing the street on their way to the lane that led past the blacksmith and livery stables and on to the small house that Greta shared with her older sister, Lydia.
Suddenly Josef had stopped walking and when she had turned back to him, her chatter about plans for their wedding momentarily silenced, Josef had looked down at his dusty boots and said the very last thing she could ever have imagined coming from his mouth.
“I cannot marry you, Greta Goodloe.”
At first Greta’s mind had raced with any possible cause for Josef’s unbelievable declaration. “You mean this autumn?”
Tradition had it that marriages took place in late autumn after the fall harvest. At least that had been the way of things up north where most of the Florida Amish had lived before migrating to Celery Fields. Of course, in Florida late autumn was just when the planting started. The following day at services, Bishop Troyer would announce all the weddings that would take place that fall.
So Greta and Josef had planned their wedding for September to give themselves plenty of time to travel north for the traditional round of visits with family and friends. They’d be back in time to plant the fields of celery, the cash crop on the large farm that Josef had taken over when his father and brothers decided to move back north.
“I mean I know times have been hard,” she had rushed to add, wanting to assure Josef that in spite of his constant worries over financial matters, they would be fine. He was always talking about the depression and how even though business in Celery Fields had not been affected, there could come a time when the community would feel the ravages of the financial disaster sweeping the rest of the country.
“I suppose that we could wait one more year,” she added, hoping to find some way to quell his worries. She would be twenty-three by then, almost as old as Lydia was now. But still if Josef thought it best to wait...
Josef’s features had been shadowed by the brim of his hat. “This isn’t about hard times, Greta.” He sucked in air as if he’d been underwater for far too long. “Well, there’s that, of course, but what I mean to say, Greta, is that I can’t marry you—ever.”
“Oh, Josef, is this because you saw me talking to the Hadwells’ cousin last week?”
Josef snorted and transferred his gaze from the ground to the sky, still refusing to look directly at her. “You certainly seemed to be enjoying your time with him.”
“So, you’re jealous.” Relief mixed with irritation flooded her veins. This was not the first time that Josef had been upset with her for what he saw as flirting and she saw as simply being herself. “The Hadwells’ cousin has gone back home to Indiana,” she pointed out.
“There will be others,” Josef muttered.
Greta counted to ten. How many times had she reassured this man over the course of their lives together? How many more times would she have to apologize for being herself? She closed her eyes and prayed for guidance—and patience.
“Well,” she replied with a smile that felt as if it might actually make her face crack, “if that is your decision...” And with a toss of her head she had continued on across the street. She’d been so certain that Josef would come after her. He always did. He would apologize. She would accept his apology and reassure him that he was the one for her and that would be that.
She had almost reached the blacksmith shop before she realized that Josef was not coming after her. Indeed after a moment she heard the jingle of harness and the creak of buggy wheels headed out of town. He had left her. Her step faltered. Her mind had reeled with the possible options of where she might go. She could have gone to the school where Lydia would be preparing lessons for her students for the coming week. She could have gone to the bakery where her half sister, Pleasant, would also be preparing to close up shop for the day, or to Bishop Troyer’s house where his wife, Mildred, would undoubtedly offer her a sympathetic ear and a nice cold glass of lemonade.
That’s when she looked up and saw Luke Starns, the dark mysterious man who had shown up in Celery Fields just a few months earlier, standing at his window. He must have seen and heard everything. In an instant she had retraced her steps, determined to set Luke Starns straight about minding his own business.
But when she had reached the open doorway of Luke’s business, she had caught a glimpse of Josef’s buggy disappearing in a cloud of dust and the full force of what had just happened had hit her like a blow to her stomach. For one horrible instant she could not seem to breathe and her knees had turned to jam. She had grasped the rough door frame for support and barely noticed as a splinter pierced her thumb.
Now as the blacksmith loomed over her—all six feet and more of him—she sucked at her injured thumb and considered her options.
“Do you have a cut?” Luke asked, nodding toward her hand.
Greta instantly ripped her thumb from her mouth and curled her other fingers around it. “No. It’s a splinter—from your doorway,” she added as if he had purposefully left the offending object there to wound her.
“Let me look at it,” he said as he gently took hold of her hand and coaxed her fingers open. Then he held her hand closer to the light of the fire, examined the wound and frowned.
For her part Greta was taken aback at the contrast of her hand—small and very white—resting on his rougher, larger, burnished palm. He reached for a pail of clear water with a tin dipper resting in it and trickled a little of the cooling water over her thumb. Fascinated in spite of her determination to maintain her focus on the larger problems at hand, Greta watched as with surprising dexterity for one with such thick fingers he worked free the splinter.
“There,” he said, and the word came out as if he’d been holding his breath until the deed was done. He released her hand. Filling the dipper with fresh water, he offered it to her. “Drink this.”
She did as he asked, more to buy time than because she was thirsty. She found that the absence of his hand holding hers was troubling—as if she had been deprived of something precious. It was a ridiculous idea of course. She was simply missing the absence of Josef’s touch. This had nothing to do with Luke Starns, nothing at all.
“Denki,” she said, thanking him as she drank the water then handed back the dipper. She waited until he had turned to set the bucket back in its place before adding, “I want to set your mind at ease but first I must know how much you overheard?”
“Bitte?”
“Of the disagreement between Josef and me,” she reminded him. When he said nothing, she added, “We seem to have a lot of those these days.”
Luke remained silent.
“Nerves, I expect—for both of us,” Greta explained, warming to her tale. This earned her a flicker of curiosity from the blacksmith’s deep-set eyes.
“The wedding?” she reminded him. Men. How could they be so incredibly thickheaded about the important events of life?
She glanced toward the street and across the way she saw her half sister, Pleasant, locking up the bakery for the night. Her conversation with Josef had taken place right out in the open where anyone might have seen or heard—not just Luke Starns. Panicked anew at the thought of others witnessing the scene, Greta made a quick inventory of the businesses along the street. Yoder’s Dry Goods where Hilda Yoder was known to keep an eye on everything that might happen in town. But three local women had passed by Josef and Greta as they left the shop. So Hilda would have been busy serving her customers when Josef made his astounding announcement.
The hardware store next door to the blacksmith’s? Roger Hadwell and his wife, Gertrude, were known gossips but neither of them had been in evidence when Josef made his stunning pronouncement. Greta breathed a little easier and decided that she only had to worry about the blacksmith. She studied him for a long moment, trying to decide on her best strategy. Charm had always been her most potent weapon for getting herself out of any tight spot. But would charm work on this man?
Luke Starns was not someone she had had the opportunity to get to know. The truth was that she had kept her distance from him. There was something about him that stirred a shyness in her that simply was not there with anyone else. Perhaps it was his looks. Where most of the men in Celery Fields—as well as the women—were fair with white-blond hair and skin that freckled easily, Luke Starns was dark—his hair was as black as the leather apron he wore to do his work. His skin was deeply tanned as if he spent his days outdoors instead of hunched over a roaring fire hammering bridle bits and horseshoes into shape. And his eyes were set deep under a brow of thick black eyebrows and were the most unexpected shade of blue—like cornflowers, Greta had thought the first time she’d seen him at services.
Of course, from the minute he’d arrived in Celery Fields, every woman in town had begun planning a match for him. Theirs was a small community and that meant that the available number of eligible men for every single female in the town was limited. The preferred candidate for Luke Starns was Greta’s sister, Lydia. But Lydia had dismissed such idle speculation as she had all hints that this man or that might make a good match for her.
“Don’t you want to marry?” Greta had asked.
“Yes, that would be nice. But I will not settle, sister. I’d rather spend my days alone.”
Now Greta shuddered in spite of the oppressive heat of the August day. The very idea that in the face of Josef’s abandonment she might now spend her days alone was beyond her ability to comprehend. How would she survive? What would she do? Lydia had her students who adored her, but Greta—what did she have? Practically her entire life, everyone had simply assumed that one day she would marry Josef, keep house for him in the impressive farmhouse that set on the edge of town, and fill that house with babies.
That had been the plan—until twenty minutes ago.
She felt Luke watching her now. There was not a single reason to think he had any interest in what had happened between Josef and her. Oh, the sin of conceit, she thought as she stood up and pressed her hands over her green cotton skirt—the one that Josef had always liked.
“The wedding?” Luke prompted her now.
Greta pasted on a smile that came as naturally to her as breathing. “I am quite aware that you may believe that what you witnessed between Josef and me earlier was unusual. I assure you that it was not. Josef is having an attack of nerves, nothing more.”
He frowned. “Yah, you are probably right.”
“I am right,” she assured him and almost believed it herself. “So there is no need for you to concern yourself with my...”
“Might this mean that Josef Bontrager will not be available to drive you and your sister to services tomorrow then?” he asked.
The idea had not yet occurred to Greta. Oh, the ripples this thing was going to have if Josef didn’t come to his senses before morning. She was barely aware that Luke had continued speaking, so caught up was she in the ramifications Josef’s fit of pique might have.
“Because if that is the case then I would be pleased to drive you—and Lydia Goodloe. It is on my way.”
As she forced her attention back to the blacksmith, Greta bristled. The man had some nerve. “Luke Starns, it has not been yet half an hour since the man I thought for years I would wed has broken with me. And you want me to set all that aside so you can court me in his stead?”
She saw him stiffen with wounded pride. It was a male trait that she was well familiar with. After all, she’d observed it numerous times in Josef.
“Neh, Greta Goodloe.” He held up both hands as if to ward off such an unpleasant thought.
He didn’t have to look quite so repulsed, Greta thought. “Forgive me,” she said. “I misunderstood. It has been...”
But Luke did not allow her to finish her apology before blurting out, “It is not you but your sister that I wish to call upon.”
And suddenly the events of the day seemed far too ridiculous to be real. Were the tables to be turned so that Lydia was the one to be courted and wed while Greta spent her days alone? She couldn’t help herself. She started to laugh and could not seem to stop.
“Lydia?” Greta finally managed to form the word. “You have finally found your nerve and set your sights on Lydia?”
“I have.” Everything about his posture challenged her to dispute his decision.
“My sister is not seeking a match,” Greta warned. But the more Greta thought about it, the better the idea seemed to her. Why shouldn’t Lydia find happiness even if Greta herself seemed doomed to eternal spinsterhood? After all, everyone in town had speculated that the best possible match for the blacksmith would be Lydia. For months now the local gossips had been waiting for Luke to make his move. Apparently he had finally decided to do so. “On the other hand, perhaps she has not considered every available candidate.” She walked around him, studying him carefully. “Would you consider a bargain?”
“A bargain?”
“Yes. I will do what I can to help in your campaign to win my sister’s affection. And in return, you will say nothing to anyone about what you observed earlier between Josef and me.”
He sighed wearily. “How many times must I say this? I heard nothing. I did see you with Josef outside my window as I have seen the two of you and many other people in town numerous times before. I cannot be responsible for what takes place on the other side of the glass, Greta.”
“Yes or no,” she challenged. “I can be more influential than you may suspect in whether or not Lydia takes your attentions seriously.”
Luke chuckled. “Why, Greta Goodloe, are you threatening me?”
“Not at all. After all, I have no control over what you may do with whatever information you gathered while observing Josef and me earlier.” She fought to keep her voice steady. It was very important to her that the whole town should not know the embarrassing circumstances of Josef’s sudden decision to call off their engagement. She looked up at Luke, wondering if she could trust this relative stranger to hold his tongue when the gossip began—as it surely would. “Please,” she whispered.
“Very well. We have a bargain, Greta. One I fully intend to see that you keep. I will call for you and your sister tomorrow morning and...”
But Greta had lost interest in the conversation as she once again faced the fact that after five years of courtship—on the eve of the announcement of their plans to wed—Josef Bontrager had quit her. She sank down onto the chair and buried her face in her hands as the tears flowed anew with no sign of stopping.
Chapter Two
Luke was willing to admit that his offer to drive the Goodloe sisters to services had been a spur-of-the-
moment idea. For a good part of the day, he’d been trying to think of some way that he might approach Lydia Goodloe. He wanted to ask her if he could see her home from the Sunday evening singing that served as an opportunity for the single population of Celery Fields to socialize and court.
Circumstances in his past had forced Luke to make some major changes in his life. The first had been to leave Ontario and move here to Celery Fields where he knew no one—and more to the point, no one knew him. The second was to settle here permanently and that meant taking a wife. Now that his business was established, if not exactly flourishing, and he seemed to have been accepted by others in the community, it was time to marry and start his family. He was twenty-seven years old. By his age his parents had already had him plus three brothers.
Then just as he was planning his strategy for how best to approach Lydia, Greta Goodloe had suddenly appeared in his doorway and the way had seemed clear to him. If he could enlist her aid in courting her sister...
But after interacting with Greta over these last several moments, he was having second thoughts about involving her in his quest. At first the woman had been nearly hysterical. Then she had accused him of eavesdropping—no, spying—on her private conversation with Josef and when he had told her of his intent to court her sister, her mood had once again shifted. She had actually burst out laughing. He certainly saw no cause for such merriment—at his expense.
Now she was back to crying again—crying so hard that she had begun to hiccup. For the life of him Luke would never understand women. Not that he was all that used to being around women in the first place. His mother had died when he was just six and his younger brothers and father had been his world until he’d left the family home in Ontario this last spring. Blacksmithing was his trade, which did not bring him into much contact with the female of the species. That had worked out fine for him so far.
It occurred to him that a woman like Greta—a woman well known for her charm and beauty throughout the community—might logically assume that any man would be attracted to her. That explained her reaction when he’d offered the ride to Sunday services. And Luke had to admit that when he’d first begun to consider the single women of Celery Fields, he had—as any man would—taken notice of Greta Goodloe.
She had a smile that was as filled with sunshine as her golden hair—at least what he could see of her hair bound tightly beneath the covering of her black bonnet. And she was not the least bit shy about spreading the sunshine of that smile around. More than once he’d been working and had heard her musical laughter as she passed by his shop on her way home or to do some shopping at Yoder’s.
But he’d quickly learned that she and Josef Bontrager were together. In fact it was the idea that Greta would soon wed, leaving Lydia in her late parents’ house alone with no further responsibilities for her sister that had made him take closer notice of the teacher.
From what Luke had observed, Lydia was her younger sister’s opposite in just about every way. Greta was petite with a natural beauty. Her sister was attractive but her height and angular features gave her an aura of authority and more than a little intimidation. Luke supposed that suited a schoolteacher who needed to maintain order and control over children of a variety of ages. But away from school she was still wary and withdrawn when it came to socializing with others—especially those she did not know. Greta, on the other hand, was outgoing to the point of being a bit adventurous. Her ready smile and lively eyes reflected an innate curiosity about people. One more reason, Luke had decided, that he should set his sights on the quieter, more steadfast Lydia.
Determined to get on with the matter of pursuing his courtship of Lydia, Luke was beginning to lose patience with the way Greta’s mood could change from tears to laughter and back to tears with stunning quickness. But then she buried her face in her hands and her slim shoulders shuddered violently. “How is this possible?” she managed between hiccups.
“I believe that your sister and I would make...”
“Not that,” she snapped, the hiccups apparently cured by her sudden fit of temper. She looked off toward the direction that Josef Bontrager had gone as silent tears flowed freely down her cheeks. “Oh, what’s to become of me?” she moaned, wrapping her arms around herself.
“I expect you’ll do fine,” Luke said as he refilled the dipper and handed it to her. “You’re young and from what I’ve observed there isn’t an eligible man in town who...”
She looked up at him, her blue eyes wide with horror, her mouth working as if she wanted to say something but could not make her voice work. “You men think that it’s... How dare you for one minute...” she stuttered and shoved the dipper into his hand. “Do not plan to call for us tomorrow for services, Luke Starns,” she ordered, then turned and stalked off down the lane that led to the house she shared with her sister.
How dare I what? Try to console you? Treat your injured finger? Fetch you water?
“Women,” Luke muttered as he strode back inside his shop, hooked the halter of the heavy leather apron over his head and started pounding out the iron that he’d left on the fire.
Through the next half hour as Luke continued his work, Greta’s accusations stayed with him as did her tears. Clearly she remained convinced that he had passed judgment over whatever had passed between her and her beau. Still, thinking back on it, he realized that he’d been more aware of the disagreement than he’d fully understood. And the more he thought about the conversation he’d only partially paid attention to while he stood at the window, the harder he struck the iron on the anvil with extra force.
Josef Bontrager was a man given to the kind of bombastic announcements that carried above the normal sounds of a town going about its business. Though his announcement to Greta had come at the time of day when most folks had already gone home, his voice insured that anyone who happened to be nearby would hear what he had to say.
“I can’t marry you, Greta.”
No wonder the young woman had been so upset. This was no surely ordinary quarrel. The couple’s plan to wed within a month was to be announced the following morning at services. If Bontrager meant what he’d said...
“Guten tag, Luke.” Roger Hadwell stood at the door of the shop, watching Luke pound the iron into shape. “You’re working later than usual,” he observed.
“Yah. Just finishing up here. Have some water.” He nodded toward the bucket.
Roger helped himself while Luke made the last two strikes on the molten metal then shoved it into another bucket of water at his feet. Hot iron striking cold water produced the familiar sizzle of steam rising that Luke found somehow calming. “Come sit awhile,” he invited. He followed Roger outside to the warped bench he kept ready for just such visits.
Roger owned the hardware business next door and frequently stopped by to exchange bits of news with Luke during the workweek. He was uncustomarily quiet as he sipped water from the dipper. “Did something happen to Greta Goodloe?” he asked finally.
Luke stalled for time. “Why do you ask?”
Roger shrugged. “Me and the wife couldn’t help noticing that she stopped by your shop here after Josef drove off—and stayed a good little bit. My wife seemed to think that Greta was upset about something. She and Josef have another spat?”
Luke sent up a silent prayer for forgiveness for the lie he was about to tell. “It’s the dust.” He nodded toward the street where a hot westerly wind created little flurries of dirt and sand on the street. “Got something in her eye.”
“That was it then,” Roger said and Luke understood that this was a question.
“That and she’d gotten a splinter. I picked out the splinter and gave her some water. She took a few minutes to catch her breath and went on her way.”
They sat watching Jeremiah and Pleasant Troyer pass, their buggy loaded with kids and the week’s shopping. Pleasant nodded in greeting as Jeremiah turned the buggy toward home. The town would be pretty much deserted until everyone gathered at the Troyers’ place the next day for services and the start of a new week.
“When I saw Greta and Josef earlier,” Roger continued, “it looked like they were having words.”
I can’t marry you, Greta.
What kind of man just blurts out something like that in the middle of town where anybody might see or hear? What kind of man walks away without so much as an explanation for the woman he’s professed to love for most of his life?
Luke couldn’t imagine treating a woman—or any human being—with such callousness. He didn’t know Greta Goodloe very well—really not at all other than seeing her in town or at services—but she seemed a kindhearted person and surely did not deserve such treatment from a man who had professed to love her. He thought about her smile and the way it could bring a special radiance to her features. But she had not been smiling much during the time she had spent in his shop.
He realized now that he’d gotten lost in thought while Roger had continued to speculate on what might have gone on between Greta and Josef. “...wouldn’t be human if they didn’t have words now and again. Whole town knows that this is hardly the first time. I mean you take a fiery little thing like Greta and put her with a man as fence-straddling as Josef and there are bound to be some times when they don’t see eye to eye.” He chuckled and stood up. “Wait ’til those two are married and spending all day and night together. Oh, there are gonna be some fireworks then, I’ll guarantee it.”
Roger was still chuckling to himself after he’d tipped his hat and sauntered back to the hardware store—no doubt to report to his wife that Luke had not had any further information to offer. Luke started inside his shop, but a flash of color caught his eye and he paused to look down the lane toward the house where the Goodloe sisters lived.
In the gathering dusk, Greta was taking down laundry from the clothesline that ran from the house to a palm tree and back again. She yanked free the clothespins and dropped them into a basket at her feet, then snapped the sheet, towel or clothing item hard against the hot westerly breeze and folded it into a precise rectangle before adding it to the pile already in another larger basket.
Luke told himself that he remained where he was watching her until the line was empty because he wanted to be sure that she had recovered from her earlier distress. But the truth was that he could not seem to stop watching her. It was as if Josef’s harsh words had pried open a door. Suddenly the beautiful Greta Goodloe might be free to consider other suitors. And there had been a time when a much younger and more foolish Luke would have taken a good deal of pleasure in that news. But he had been different then.
“This is not the sister for you,” he told himself sternly as he forced his gaze away from her and headed inside.
* * *
Greta saw Luke Starns watching her. She’d also seen Roger Hadwell make his way over to the blacksmith’s, observed the two men talking and wondered if Luke had decided that since she had already broken their bargain by refusing his offer of a ride to services, he was free to tell Roger everything. In that case she had made a complete fool of herself confiding in the blacksmith and, no doubt by morning, everyone in town was going to know about it. She would be the subject of whispers and conversations that stopped the moment she entered the room when she and Lydia arrived at services.
Oh, who do you think you’re fooling? Sooner or later everyone has to know the whole story.
Well, let people talk. It certainly hadn’t been her idea to end her relationship with Josef. And the way he had done it—in the middle of town, with no explanation at all? Of course, she really hadn’t waited for him to explain. On the other hand, he could have followed her. But, oh no, he was too...
What?
Shy?
Proud?
Cowardly. Yes, that explained it. For as long as she’d known him, Josef had allowed her to have her way and deep down she had known that even the hint that she might be attracted to some other boy could have Josef falling all over himself to win favor with her. On the other hand, he had made it clear on more than one occasion that once they married, he would determine where she went and who she saw and when. Greta had accepted that, once she married, the man was in charge. But she had always assumed that after marriage she would be able to find her way around Josef’s jealousies and strict ways the same way she had during their courtship.
She paused for a moment—a clothespin clinched between her lips—as she looked at Luke Starns. As usual she had acted in haste—confiding in him without thinking through the possible consequences. She barely knew the man beyond seeing him at services and the occasional nod when she passed his shop.
Honest. Trustworthy. These were words she’d heard applied to the blacksmith. But could she trust him? It had been evident that he failed to understand the seriousness of what had transpired between Josef and her—of just how precarious things were. And yet he had listened and shown concern.
She had to trust someone. Perhaps he and Roger Hadwell had been discussing business or just passing the time of day. She would know tomorrow as soon as she and Lydia arrived at services. If Luke drove Lydia and her to services, as soon as they pulled into the yard of Pleasant’s house, there would be one of two reactions. Either the women would be whispering about her and giving her those pitying looks that she could not abide. Or they would be talking about the surprise of seeing Lydia and Luke arrive together, delighted that at long last the romance they had all anticipated had taken its first baby step.
An idea began to take shape in her mind and she smiled softly to herself. She placed the last folded pillowcase on the pile of laundry. Arriving with Luke was definitely the way to go. If he had gossiped, she would know it at once and would then inform him that he was not worthy of Lydia and could certainly not depend on Greta to help him court her. If, on the other hand, he had held his tongue under the pressure of Roger’s probing, then she could turn the attention of others to the prospect of a romance between Lydia and the blacksmith and all speculation about what had happened to her would be short-lived.
She hoisted the heavy basket onto one hip and headed back to the house. Somehow she had to get Lydia to agree to let Luke Starns drive them to services and see her home after the singing. While it would be nigh on to scandalous for Luke and Lydia to arrive for services without Greta’s company, Sunday evening singings were occasions where single people in the community could openly socialize, even flirt a bit. Of course, in most Amish communities such gatherings were intended as events for young people in the sixteen to twenty age group. And in most Amish communities they attracted additional young people from surrounding Amish towns.
But Celery Fields was the sole Amish community for miles around in Florida and so these social evenings included anyone who was single—regardless of their age. Greta had never seen Luke at a singing in all the time he’d been in Celery Fields but clearly his intention was to be there the following evening. Now if indeed she found that she could trust Luke then all Greta had to do was make sure that he and Lydia were seated across from each other at the long table set up in the barn with the males on one side and the females on the other. And then she could make some excuse as to why she could not ride back to town with them.
* * *
Early on Sunday morning Greta heard Lydia stirring. Usually her sister would already have seen to the horse and cow they kept, gathered the eggs, prepared their breakfast and dressed in the lavender dress she reserved for their biweekly services, all before Greta was even out of bed. But not today.
Still smarting from the events of the day before, Greta had not slept well at all and she felt restless and out of sorts as she dressed. Using the blackened pins lined up on her bureau, she anchored her skirt into place. Then she twisted up her hair into a bun and pulled hairpins from between her lips to stab it into submission. Finally she lifted the prayer kapp from its resting place on her bedside table and prepared to set it atop the tight bun.
Unfortunately Lydia’s answer to Greta’s distress the evening before had been to counsel prayer, Scripture and early to bed. There had been no opportunity at all to bring up the subject of Luke Starns. Furthermore, in the middle of the night Greta had realized that because she had rejected Luke’s offer to drive them after all, she needed to reverse that decision and hope that he would agree. Thus the urgency of her early morning errand—one that her sister must not observe.
Checking to be sure that Lydia was otherwise occupied, Greta picked up the note she’d prepared the night before and ran down the lane to the blacksmith shop. All was quiet through the little village and she thanked God for that. She crept up the staircase on the side of Luke’s shop that led to his living quarters and slipped the envelope under the door. When she heard the distinctive sound of a man clearing his throat from somewhere beyond that door, she ran down the stairs and all the way back to her house.
* * *
Luke had found the small white envelope when he’d headed out to hitch up his wagon.
Luke Starns,
Your kind offer to drive my sister and me to
services today is most appreciated. We will be
ready at eight.
Greta Goodloe
Luke couldn’t help but smile. So Greta Goodloe had decided to keep her end of their bargain after all. He wondered why. Greta did not strike him as a woman who did anything without a good reason—something that would be of benefit to her. Not that she wasn’t devoted to her sister. Their closeness was well-known through Celery Fields and it was seldom that one was seen without the other—even when Josef Bontrager was around.
He reread the note. The implication was that Lydia had agreed to this idea—and that surprised Luke. More than surprised him, it made him suspicious. Had Greta actually gotten Lydia to agree to the plan? He doubted it. But now that he’d been given the opening he’d sought to call upon Lydia, he hardly cared what Greta’s motives might be. Of far greater concern was that he return to his room above the shop and make sure that he had done everything he could to make the best possible impression on the schoolteacher.
He changed his shirt for one that he’d been saving for just such an occasion. He ran his thumbs down his suspenders making sure they were straight and without any twists. He brushed his navy wool pants to remove any possible traces of crumbs from his breakfast. Finally he picked up his wide-brimmed straw hat and set it precisely on his head, wishing for the first time in his life that he owned a mirror.
Pure vanity, he thought, chastising himself for such a lapse on the Sabbath of all days. He set his hat more firmly on his thick hair and headed downstairs to hitch up the wagon, thinking that it would be more proper if he had the courting buggy he’d been given when he had turned sixteen and left behind when he moved to Florida.
“Courting buggies are for kids,” he muttered to the horses as he fixed them with their bits and harness. “Lydia Goodloe and I are no longer young. And she is a practical woman. She will not mind the wagon.”
Outside he took special care hitching the team to the wagon and ran the flat of his hand over the seat to be sure there were no splinters that might catch on the sisters’ skirts. He paused as he thought about the splinter he’d removed from Greta’s thumb the day before. How vulnerable she had seemed standing there in the reflected light of the fire, licking at her wound like a kitten whose paw had been injured. How very smooth her skin had been especially in contrast to his rough and callused palms. For a moment he was carried back to Ontario—and another young woman whose hands had been as soft as that.
Luke shook off such thoughts. Those days were behind him. He lived here now. His life was here in Celery Fields and if God granted him his prayer, his future was with Lydia Goodloe—not her sister, no matter how pretty and lively she was.
* * *
Greta closed the door to her bedroom and sat on her bed, trying to catch her breath before going to share breakfast with Lydia. She was relieved that Lydia had long ago insisted that she would take care of the usual chores and preparing their breakfast on Sunday mornings. She took a minute to steady her breathing as she felt the flush of exertion from having run all the way back after leaving the note for Luke. She hoped she could trust the man.
Trust.
Perhaps Josef had looked to the future and seen a lifetime of uncertainty when it came to trusting her. For it was true—as often as he had declared his love for her, she had never once been able to bring herself to say the words to him. She had simply accepted that she and Josef were meant for one another and she had believed with all her heart that in time she would come to love him as much as she liked him.
Her head reeled with the need to find some logical explanation for his sudden decision to quit her, and then to find an equally agreeable solution to this sudden upheaval. On a morning when she had expected to arrive at services and hear her name linked with Josef’s in the announcement of coming nuptials, she must instead wonder how she could possibly endure the day. For endure it she must. Even if Luke found her note and showed up to drive them to services, chatter about a romance between Lydia and Luke would take time to develop. And there was always the possibility that Lydia would refuse to accept the ride.
And what of the added humiliation if Josef had failed to tell Bishop Troyer not to include them when he made the announcement?
“Liddy,” she called out, her voice shaking with panic as she flung open the door of her bedroom. “Liddy!”
Chapter Three
Lydia came running down the hall from the kitchen. “What is it? Are you all right?” Greta looked up at her sister with tear-filled eyes and an expression of pure panic. Lydia rushed to her side. “Come, sit. Take a deep breath.”
Greta did as her sister instructed. Since their mother’s death when Greta was only a toddler, she had relied on Lydia to show her the way through the travails of daily life. “What if...” She drew in a long breath and gasped, “What if Josef has not spoken with Bishop Troyer? What if...”
Lydia frowned, a sure sign that she had not considered this possibility and was even now working through the logistics of how best to handle this latest crisis in Greta’s life. “Well, we shall simply have to make certain that the bishop knows what has happened. Therefore, it would be best if we arrived at services as soon as possible.”
Greta nodded. “You’ll speak with him?”
“Bishop Troyer? Of course, but Greta, he is likely to want to speak with you—and Josef.”
Greta groaned.
“Now, sister, it’s not necessarily as dire as you may think. As I told you last night,” Lydia continued, “I suspect that Josef has simply had a bout of nerves. Marriage is a big step. There is every possibility that after a night’s lost sleep he regrets his impulsive action and has not yet figured out how to set things right again.”
When Greta had told Lydia the news over supper the evening before, she had taken great comfort and hope from her sister’s reassurances. But Lydia might know many things—might even be the smartest person in all of Celery Fields—still when it came to matters of the heart, Lydia had almost no experience and besides, didn’t Greta know Josef better than anyone did? Although he had a reputation for being wishy-washy, once he did settle on a plan of action, he could be as stubborn as any other man when it came to changing his mind.
And yet when she heard the snort of a horse and the soft plodding of hooves on the sandy road that ran past their house and on out to the countryside, Greta flew to the window. She could not help but hope that it would be Josef bringing his buggy to collect the two sisters for services as he had done ever since their father had died a year earlier. In that instant she played out the entire scene of how he would come to the door, hat in hand, eyes on the ground. And she would greet him as if nothing had passed between them the day before. The three of them would climb into his buggy and arrive at services as they had every other Sunday.
But when she looked outside there was no buggy. Instead there was a wagon with a matched team of black Percheron horses and climbing down from the driver’s seat was none other than the blacksmith, Luke Starns.
“What on earth?” Lydia had followed Greta to the window and was also watching Luke approach the house.
“He’s come to drive us to services,” Greta said. “He offered,” she added with a shrug as Lydia’s eyebrows lifted in surprise.
“And you accepted this offer of a ride with a man we barely know?” Lydia asked, her voice the one she used when questioning a student.
“Not right away,” Greta stammered. “I mean I thought about it and well, Josef is certainly not going to call for us.”
There was a knock at the door. It was five minutes before eight o’clock. “I told him to come at eight,” Greta added.
“Come drink your tea and eat something,” Lydia said with a resigned sigh. “I’ll get the door.”
Theirs was a small house and Greta did not really have to eavesdrop to overhear the exchange between Lydia and the blacksmith. She nibbled at a slice of rye bread as her sister greeted Luke.
“You are early, Luke Starns. My sister is just having her breakfast.”
Greta frowned. “Oh, Liddy,” she whispered to herself. “Show the man a little kindness.”
She heard Luke mumble an apology.
“Well, come in out of the heat,” Lydia instructed.
While Lydia marched down the hallway to the kitchen, Greta saw that Luke had remained uncertainly by the front door.
“Liddy,” Greta hissed, “offer the man some juice.”
“We do not have time for juice, Greta.” She took a cloth napkin and wiped a crumb from the corner of Greta’s mouth. “Now, come along or we’ll be late.”
Outside, Lydia stood aside, making it clear that she expected Greta to climb up to the wagon’s only seat first. “It’s going to be another hot day,” Greta said, trying to ease the tension that hung over the trio as heavily as the humidity. “Even for August,” she added when they were all three seated.
But it was apparent that she could not expect comments from either Lydia or Luke. Both of them were sitting as if someone had placed a board against their backs and they were each staring straight ahead, their mouths tightly set into thin lines. Clearly any attempt Greta might make to start a conversation was useless so she bowed her head and folded her hands in her lap. She might as well put the time to good use—praying that somehow she might get through this day.
At Pleasant’s house, where services were to be held, Pleasant’s husband, Jeremiah, came forward to welcome them. If he thought it odd that they should arrive with Luke Starns, he gave no sign.
“Is your great uncle inside, Jeremiah?” Lydia asked as he helped her down from the wagon. Jeremiah’s uncle was the head of their congregation.
“Yes. Is there a problem? Has something happened?” He was clearly mystified that Lydia’s first comment would be to ask the whereabouts of the congregation’s bishop without so much as a greeting for him. Greta felt a touch of relief as she realized that at least Jeremiah seemed to have no idea at all that Josef had quit her.
“Greta just needs to ask him a question,” Lydia replied with a smile. She waited for Jeremiah to help Greta down then turned to Luke. “Thank you, Luke Starns, for the ride. My sister and I will be staying to help Pleasant prepare the barn for tonight’s singing and can find our way home after that.”
In spite of her own worries, Greta rolled her eyes heavenward as if seeking God’s help. No wonder Lydia had never had a serious beau. She treated every man she met as if he were one of her students. She saw that Luke had been about to say something to Lydia, then thought better of it.
“Are you better?” Greta heard Luke murmur and realized that he was addressing her while Lydia was already halfway across the yard on her way to the large farmhouse.
“I am perfectly fine, Luke.” She offered him a tight smile. “And having kept my end of our bargain I trust that...”
“I’m not given to gossip, Greta, but you should prepare yourself because soon enough...”
“Greta.” Lydia was expert at delivering an entire lecture with a single word. In two syllables she had effectively reminded Greta that it was the Sabbath, that they were to turn their hearts and minds to God and that the bishop was no doubt awaiting her arrival.
As the two sisters walked toward the house, Greta glanced back over her shoulder toward the barn where Luke was now unhitching the horses while Jeremiah greeted more neighbors. Luke was right, of course. It hardly mattered what he might have said to Roger Hadwell. By the end of today’s service everyone would know.
“Let’s get this over with,” she said as she and Lydia reached the front door of Pleasant’s home.
Inside the modest white frame house, the backless wooden benches, transported from house to house for the biweekly services, had been set up in the two large front rooms that were a feature of every Amish home. From down the hall that led to the kitchen, Greta could hear the voices of those women and girls who had already arrived. They would gather there to deliver their contributions for the light meal that would follow the three-hour service. She and Lydia were each carrying a basket that held their contributions for the meal. It was a comfort to realize that the women all seemed to be talking in a normal tone, not whispering as she might have expected.
Pleasant rushed forward to greet them.
“Could you take these?” Lydia asked, handing Pleasant her basket. “Greta needs to speak with Bishop Troyer.”
“Of course,” Pleasant replied, taking Greta’s basket, as well. “Something to do with a certain announcement to be made today?” she asked and she actually winked.
Greta forced a smile as Lydia took her arm. “We won’t be long,” she assured Pleasant.
“Maybe it would be better if we just told everyone now,” Greta murmured. “At least then it would be out in the open.” On the other hand, there was still time for Josef to find her, tell her he’d been wrong, beg her forgiveness.
They passed through the front hall separating the rooms where services would be held. They dodged a group of small children racing up the stairs. The younger men and boys tended to linger outside until others took their places for the service.
Glancing around for any sign of Josef, Greta turned toward the hallway that led to a downstairs bedroom, knowing the bishop and other elders always gathered there before the services began. She was about to tell Lydia to go to the kitchen when she practically ran into Josef. Through the open doorway behind him, she could see Bishop Troyer and the two other preachers who would speak that morning. They were all looking at her, their eyes full of pity.
“Guten morgen, Josef,” she said brightly as she edged around him in the narrow hallway.
“I have just told them,” Josef said without returning her greeting or meeting her eyes.
“Gut,” Greta murmured with no further pretense at acting as if anything about this morning was normal.
“Greta?” Bishop Troyer had come to the doorway. “I wonder if I might have a word with you and Josef before services begin?” The other church elders left the room and Bishop Troyer closed the door.
Woodenly Greta sat down on the only chair in the room. Normally she would have remained standing out of respect but the truth was that, upon seeing Josef, her knees had gone weak and she wasn’t at all sure that she could maintain her balance without support. Josef stayed close by the door, studying the wide planks of the wooden floor.
“Josef has told me of your decision,” he began.
Her decision?
She glanced up at Josef and saw that his cheeks had gone red. “It was my decision, Bishop,” he muttered. “Greta...” He shrugged which only infuriated her more.
Greta what? Had no say in the matter?
Bishop Troyer seemed momentarily perplexed. “I see,” he murmured. “When you told me that you and Greta would not be marrying this autumn, I just assumed that...”
“It was my decision,” Josef repeated.
“The fact is, Bishop, that we won’t be marrying at all,” Greta added, surprised to hear the words come out of her mouth.
Josef looked up then, his eyes wide with shock. “Well, that is...”
“Isn’t that what you told me?” she challenged. She stood up and realized that her anger at the unfairness of the situation had given her strength. “It’s for the best, don’t you think?” This she directed to the bishop.
The kindly white-haired man who had been the head of their church for as long as Greta could remember looked at her and then at Josef, his brow furrowed with concern. “This is a time for prayer—not haste. You must both ask God to show you His plan for your lives. It is true that you and others have long assumed that His intention was for the two of you to share a life. And that may yet be the way of it. This is not for either of you to decide without first praying on the matter.”
“It was not a decision made in haste,” Josef replied.
“Then why?” Greta blurted out before the bishop could speak. “Is there someone else?”
Josef looked at her and she saw for the first time the pain that lined his features. “How many times have I asked you that question,” he said softly. “I have asked it time and again.”
“And time and again I have told you that you are imagining things.”
“And yet, not once have you said that you love me, Greta.”
It was true and there were no words to deny it. Fortunately she was saved by a soft knock on the door. “Pastor?” she heard one of the other ministers say. “It’s time.”
Josef opened the door and brushed past the two other preachers waiting in the hallway.
“Come along, child,” the bishop said as he led the way down the hall and into the front room where Josef had already taken his seat with the other men. Greta took her place next to Lydia on the first of two benches where the unmarried girls and women were seated.
* * *
In spite of the cool reception he’d received from Lydia that morning, Luke was determined to ask to see her home later that evening. If she refused him at least he would know where he stood. It would have complex ramifications, for if Lydia Goodloe turned him down, he might have to think seriously about moving on to another community. But one step at a time. Having settled on his plan, he was free to focus all of his attention on the words of Bishop Troyer—a lesson that seemed directed at him. But, of course, that wasn’t possible. He’d taken care to keep his past to himself since his arrival in Celery Fields. But the flicker of panic he felt whenever he thought there was the possibility of others learning of his past was never far from the surface of his emotions.
The lesson came from the twenty-ninth chapter of the book of Genesis. It was the story of Jacob’s love for Rachel and how her father, Laban, tricked Jacob into marrying his elder daughter, Leah, instead. Two sisters, the elder less desirable than the younger. And although the minister’s sermon was about Laban’s deceit, all Luke could think about was the biblical sisters. In the end Jacob had married them both but God had given him children by Leah while the much beloved Rachel remained barren. Had that been God’s punishment? And if so, why punish a man like Jacob who had worked years for the privilege of marrying the woman he truly loved?
Luke shifted uncomfortably on the hard wooden bench as he remembered another pair of sisters—this time in Ontario. Their father had also been anxious to see his eldest daughter married and he had set his sights on Luke as the best possible candidate. But Luke was drawn to the man’s younger, fairer daughter just as Jacob had been. And just like Jacob the father had tried to trick him into the match with the elder daughter. Only Luke— unlike Jacob—had refused to be drawn into such a plot.
When everything had turned out for the worst, Luke had often wondered if God had punished him for his refusal to even consider courting, much less marrying the older sister. But in that Biblical world multiple wives were allowed—Jacob could marry Leah and the beloved Rachel, as well. Luke did not have that choice. In the end his only real choice had been to leave the community where he had lived his whole life and move to a place where he could start over. Celery Fields had seemed the perfect place.
He glanced over to the bench where Lydia Goodloe sat, her eyes riveted on the pastor, her hands folded piously in her lap, her face intent as she took in the lesson of the sermon. Luke did not love her—how could he? He barely knew her other than to nod politely whenever they crossed paths. Still he had observed that she was a good and steadfast woman. In spite of her strictness, the children who were her students clearly admired her. Yes, Lydia Goodloe would be a wise choice to manage his home and raise his children in the faith of their ancestors. He could do a lot worse than Lydia Goodloe.
But then his gaze was drawn to the sister—Greta. Unlike Lydia, Greta’s eyes did not remain fixed on the minister. Instead, she glanced around, out the window, up at the ceiling, at some lint she picked off her dark green cotton dress. Although she sat relatively still, her eyes darted around the room like a butterfly pausing at one flower and then quickly moving on to the next.
It occurred to Luke that if he were successful in his courtship of the elder sister, he would no doubt be expected to take in the younger one, as well. In the absence of her late parents, he and Lydia would be Greta’s guardians, at least until she married. He could only pray that Josef Bontrager would reconsider his decision and take Greta for his wife.
Just then Greta’s eyes lighted on him for an instant and he saw her scowl before quickly ducking her head and folding her hands in her lap. Likewise, Luke turned his attention back to the minister. As the words of the lesson continued, Luke silently prayed for God’s guidance for this treacherous trip he was about to take down the path of courtship. At least this time he had chosen the elder sister with his eyes wide open. In this case there was no father to trick him as Laban had tricked Jacob or the man in Ontario had tried to deceive Luke.
No. The challenge facing him was to persuade Lydia Goodloe that they could make a nice life together. Convinced that he was up to that challenge, he risked one more look across the aisle at the Goodloe sisters and was unnerved when he realized that his gaze had settled first on Greta before moving on to Lydia.
Chapter Four
Greta squeezed her eyes shut tightly as the service came to an end, praying that God might forgive her for not listening to the lesson for the day. Oh, she had gotten the part about two sisters—one fairer than the other—but then her mind had started to wander. Surely the Lord would understand that she had so many things to consider—so many things to work out. The worst of it would be how best to handle the barely perceptible murmur that would surely spread through the congregation after Bishop Troyer announced the couples planning to marry that fall. That list, of course, no longer included Josef and her. So, soon everyone would know at least a part of the story. She brightened a little as it occurred to her that, like the bishop, most would simply assume that Greta had quit Josef rather than the other way round. Their pity would be directed toward him.
But then her relief collapsed as she realized that this was only a momentary reprieve. Soon enough everyone would know the real story. She glanced over toward the men’s section, meaning to see how Josef was handling things but her eyes had settled instead on Luke Starns. The man was watching her and the only way she could describe his expression was one of disapproval. At that very moment, Lydia nudged Greta with her elbow—her signal for Greta to stop fidgeting. Those two were going to make a perfect match, she thought, as she laced her fingers together in silent prayer. It would appear that Luke Starns followed the rules as strictly as her sister.
The announcement of coming nuptials was made and the congregation reacted exactly as Greta had imagined. When the service finally ended, the women moved as one toward the kitchen to lay out the meal while the men and boys began rearranging the benches into tables and seating. She heard Josef’s laugh and whipped around to see him stepping aside to allow Esther Yoder to pass by on her way to the kitchen.
Esther was the eldest daughter of the Yoders who owned the dry goods store. She was two years younger than Greta and it was well-known throughout Celery Fields that her mother thought it high time she found herself a husband. From the looks of things she had set her sights on Josef.
Well, she can have him, Greta thought swallowing her bitterness even as Lydia took hold of her elbow and turned her away from the scene.
“Come along, sister.”
On their way to the kitchen they crossed paths with Luke, one long black bench under each powerful arm. He looked from Lydia to Greta and then back again. To Greta he seemed rooted to the spot like the giant live oak tree that stood outside his shop and she couldn’t help but smile at the ridiculous comparison.
He cleared his throat. “May I speak with you later, Lydia Goodloe?”
Greta thought she had never seen her sister quite so shaken. Her lips were pressed together so tightly that no sound could possibly be expected to come out, so Greta took matters into her own hands.
“We are needed in the kitchen. But if you plan to attend the singing, then there will be time enough to have your say. Excuse us, bitte.”
Luke stepped aside and this time it was Greta who guided her sister the rest of the way to the kitchen.
“How could you say such a thing?” Lydia whispered when she had recovered her voice. “I had thought you of all people would wish to skip this evening’s singing.”
“Of course we must attend the singing, Lydia. Luke Starns wishes to see you home afterward. Will you accept or not?”
Lydia’s eyes widened in disbelief. “How do you know such a thing?”
“He told me so.”
Further conversation was not possible as they joined the other women in the kitchen. As Greta had feared, the room went silent the minute that she and Lydia entered.
Greta saw her choice plainly—she could pretend that nothing was out of the ordinary or she could address the matter and get it over with. She took stock of the glances flying among the women—lifted eyebrows of speculation and worried frowns of curiosity.
“Well,” she said brightly as she picked up the baskets that she and Lydia had brought and began setting out the goods. “It sounds like we’re going to have a busy season of weddings here in Celery Fields.” She grinned broadly at the three other women whose betrothals had been announced that morning. “Perhaps it’s a good thing Josef Bontrager changed his mind about marrying me.”
She couldn’t help it. Her voice broke on those last words, but she kept her tears in check and continued to place the food from the basket on the table.
Almost as one unit, the women gathered around her. She felt consoling hands placed gently on her shoulder and gratefully accepted the healing power of their murmurs of concern, which comforted her like a soothing balm for her jumbled spirit.
“Perhaps the Lord has another plan for you, Greta,” Pleasant said softly. “We sometimes think we know what He has in store for us but then things change.”
Of all people, Pleasant knew what she was talking about. Certainly she had thought she would never marry and then she had agreed to marry the widower, Merle Obermeier. He had died soon after, leaving her penniless with his four children from his first marriage to raise. And then Jeremiah Troyer, the bishop’s great-nephew, had moved to town, just as the depression was starting, to open—of all things—an ice cream shop.
But the likelihood of some stranger moving into town and making everything all right again for Greta seemed remote at best. With the combination of droughts and deluges that had plagued the fields of celery and other produce crops over the last few seasons, people were beginning to move away from Celery Fields—not settle there. The last person to actually come to town had been Luke Starns.
Luke Starns...and Lydia.
Suddenly Greta saw her opportunity to turn the attention of the women away from her and on to something that would give them far greater pleasure. “You are right, Pleasant. After all, who knows what the Lord has in store for any of us when it comes to matters of the heart.” She cast a sideways glance at Lydia, leading the other women to do the same.
As usual Hilda Yoder took charge. “I noticed that the two of you arrived for services with the blacksmith, Luke Starns. Has your horse pulled up lame, Lydia?”
“The blacksmith was kind enough to offer us a ride,” Lydia replied as she sliced a loaf of bread.
“Roger tells me that he will definitely be settling here permanently. His business is doing surprisingly well given the fact that there’s less call for services like his these days,” Gertrude Hadwell, wife of the hardware store owner, said with a sly glance at Lydia. “It’s hardly any secret, Lydia, that he has his eye on you.”
“Then offering you a ride was the first step,” Hilda announced.
“Toward what?” Lydia asked, her cheeks turning a deeper shake of pink than usual.
“Toward courtship, of course. I expect that he’ll ask to see you home after tonight’s singing? It’s no one’s business, of course. Such matters are private, but still...”
Lydia lifted her chin, hoisted the platter stacked high with sliced bread and said, “He will have to work up his nerve first, but if he asks I will accept.”
Greta was every bit as shocked by this announcement as any of the women in the kitchen. Lydia had always said that she could not be bothered with courtship unless she were truly in love. She barely knew Luke Starns so what could she be thinking?
* * *
Luke filled his plate but kept his eyes on Lydia Goodloe. The truth was that the schoolteacher intimidated him the same way his former teacher had back in Ontario. How on earth was he going to court this woman? Where would he find the words? And why did the mere intent to do so feel more like a difficult task—one he would rather not attend—than something that would lead to a pleasant conclusion?
Perhaps the best plan was to approach her with the idea that a match between them was a practical decision. He wanted a family. Her job as teacher of the community’s children might be in jeopardy if families kept leaving Celery Fields to return north. How would she and her sister make their way if she lost her position? Would it not be a relief for her to surrender the burden of trying to make ends meet?
The more Luke thought about it, the more it seemed to him that this could work out to the mutual benefit of both parties. And grasping that, his confidence grew. At least until he spotted Greta. She presented a problem. The idea of living in a house with two women was not especially appealing. The idea of living there with the capricious Greta Goodloe was unnerving altogether. Of course Greta might yet marry. But who?
Unless Josef Bontrager changed his mind, who was there?
“Would you like some pie, Luke?”
Lydia was standing next to him. She was smiling although somehow her smile did not seem to quite reach her eyes. In her expression he read something else—something more like resignation.
“Denki.” He took the plate and fork. “Did you make this?”
“I did.”
Luke speared a bite of the pie and ate it. Without a doubt it was the worst-tasting peach pie he’d ever had. The fruit was hard and undercooked and had none of the enhancement of cinnamon or sugar to help flavor it and the crust was doughy and heavy. He swallowed the lumpy mess and smiled. “Denki,” he said again, unwilling to tell a lie especially on the Sabbath.
To his surprise Lydia burst out laughing. “It’s horrid, I know.” She relieved him of the plate and replaced it with another that she picked up from the spread of desserts on the table. “Try this one. Greta and my half sister, Pleasant, are the bakers in our family. I thought you might want to know that if indeed you are intent on...spending time with me.”
And there before him was the opportunity he’d been seeking. In fact it appeared he did not even need to ask—although it would be rude and conceited not to. And the truth was that when she smiled, Lydia Goodloe was not quite so intimidating.
“I will be at tonight’s singing,” he began. “I understand that you—and your sister—will also be there?”
“We will indeed.” Greta Goodloe stepped up next to them, her eyes twinkling mischievously.
Luke swallowed around the lump that seemed to be blocking his ability to speak. “Das ist gut,” he murmured and speared another bite of the pie.
“My sister will need a ride home,” Greta prompted.
“We both will,” Lydia corrected.
Luke had not counted on seeing the two of them home. That was hardly the way things were done. “I would be pleased to drive you—both.”
“Then in that case,” Lydia said, “we will see you this evening.”
Luke watched the two of them move through the gathering, clearing plates and glasses as they went. Within minutes they had both gone back inside the farmhouse where the women would finish packing up the leftover food while the men moved the benches into the barn for the singing. He turned to help with the benches and found himself working next to Josef.
Luke had not liked Bontrager from the day he’d first come into the blacksmith’s shop to hire Luke to check the team of giant Belgian horses he used to plow his fields. The man had instantly reminded Luke of the milk toast his father used to make for him and his brothers—soggy. It was an odd word to use in describing another man, but it fit Josef Bontrager as far as Luke was concerned.
For all his booming voice, Josef was timid and indecisive when it came to business. And to Luke’s way of thinking, he was penny-wise but pound-foolish as the old saying went. On the one hand he had bought up the land of surrounding farms when those farmers had hit hard times and decided to return to their homes up north. On the other he was dickering over paying the price for a proper shoe for his horse. When Luke had told him that three of the team of four horses would need at least one shoe replaced, Josef had hedged.
“You’re certain we couldn’t get by one more season?”
Luke had shrugged. “In my opinion you’d be taking a risk but it’s your team.”
Josef multiplied what Luke had given him as the price for one shoe times the total number that he recommended replacing. He tapped the stubby pencil against the final tally for a long moment and then released a low whistle through his teeth. “That’s pretty steep,” he said.
“That’s my price,” Luke replied as he packed up his equipment and climbed onto his horse. “Let me know if you decide to go ahead.”
A full two weeks later—after Josef, according to Roger, had gotten at least two other bids—the farmer came to the shop and hired Luke to do the work. By that time all four horses were in need of his wares. And when Josef had hinted that Luke was simply trying to get more money for his work, Luke had told him the price he’d originally quoted would stand. He did this not for the owner, but out of pity for the horse. No, Luke did not much care for Josef Bontrager. And the more he saw of Greta Goodloe, the more he had to wonder what she had ever seen in the man.
* * *
Greta felt immeasurably better as she and Lydia worked together later that afternoon laying out the “thin book” version of the centuries-old Amish hymnal, the Ausband. The full version of the hymnal was used for regular services. It was thick—well over five hundred pages and contained the words of hymns passed down through the generations as far back as anyone could remember. The book contained no musical notations—just words. Because most of the hymns had been written during the time of persecution in Europe when Joseph Amman had broken from the Mennonites but not from the Anabaptist beliefs, the hymns they sang during services tended to be somber and even mournful in tone. By contrast the “thin book” version of the Ausband contained hymns that were lighter and more joyful and far more suitable for the kind of social occasion that the Sunday night singing was.
Greta was actually beginning to look forward to the evening. Her plan appeared to have worked. Instead of everyone buzzing about Josef’s breakup with her, they were speculating about what Lydia had been thinking offering Luke Starns that piece of pie and what might the two of them have had to discuss for such an extended time. Just wait until Lydia left with Luke after the singing.
“The blacksmith seems nice,” she ventured.
“Hmm.” Lydia was noncommittal as always.
“He’s very strong. Did you see the way he lifted two benches at once as if they were no more than small branches?”
“He’s a blacksmith,” Lydia pointed out. “In his line of work one develops strength.”
Greta gauged her sister’s mood. She seemed indifferent to the conversation, focusing instead on the precise alignment of each songbook. Every now and then she would reach across the long table and straighten a book that Greta had set in place before moving on.
“Still, he’s quite handsome. I mean in a dark, brooding sort of way. Do you think perhaps that’s the way men are in Ontario?”
“Ontario?” Lydia blinked at her as if she’d heard that single word and nothing else.
“Where he’s from,” Greta reminded her. “Canada?”
“I know where Ontario is,” Lydia replied. “And I know what you are trying to do, Greta.”
Greta bit her lip. “I’m just...”
“...trying to take the attention of others away from your current troubles. And that is understandable. Furthermore I am quite willing to help you in that, but do not for one minute think that I am the least bit interested in Luke Starns—at least romantically speaking.”
“You don’t even know the man,” Greta protested. “For all you know he might be...”
“I am sure that he is a good and kind man. From what I have heard from others, he is honest and fair in his business dealings and he seems quite determined to make a life for himself here in Celery Fields. The question I have is why?”
“Why does anyone come here? The weather for one thing. I mean, Ontario?” Greta shivered in spite of the oppression of the heat.
“But alone—no family ties here? At least when Jeremiah Troyer arrived he had connections—his great-uncle and aunt were here and he had visited them in the past.”
Greta sighed happily. “Yes, and then Jeremiah set his sights on Pleasant and it was so romantic.”
“You’re missing the point, Greta. Luke Starns simply...” She seemed lost for the right word. “He simply appeared one day. No one knew him or anything about him for that matter.” They had finished their task and as Lydia surveyed their work she added, “And once again you are losing sight of the point of our conversation.”
“Which is?”
“Which is, dear sister, that I am going to attend the singing tonight and allow Luke to see us home because it will indeed give people something to talk about other than you and Josef. However, get one thing straight.” She pointed her forefinger at Greta the way she often pointed it at students in her classroom. “After tonight you will need to face the fact that there will be gossip and speculation regarding you and Josef and your best path is to ignore it and move forward.”
Greta blinked back tears. “With what?”
“Pardon?”
“Move forward with what, Lydia?” Greta snapped peevishly. “You have your teaching. Even before she met Jeremiah, Pleasant had the bakery and the children. What exactly do I have to move forward with?”
And just like that, the misery returned, the misery she had felt once she realized that Josef was not going to come running back to her, not going to beg for her forgiveness, not going to—marry her. “I gave that man all my time—every waking hour was spent thinking about him, what would most please him and now...”
“Do not exaggerate, sister. You have our house to oversee—the cleaning and cooking, the laundry, the upkeep,” Lydia scolded. “You and Josef spent a great deal of time together. That’s true. Often, I might add, to the neglect of your responsibilities. Our house has not had a good cleaning in months. I think you will find that, if you keep yourself busy and away from the shops, in time you will find your way.”
So she was to be a castaway, banished to the house until the talk died away? Greta whirled around to face her sister. “I keep up with the housework just fine. Papa used to say that it was the best-kept house in all of Celery Fields and that Josef was fortunate to have won the heart of one who...”
Lydia was fighting to hide a smile—and failing. “Feeling a little better?” she asked.
It was an old pattern the sisters had established early in their motherless lives—whenever Greta felt sorry for herself, Lydia would turn the tables on her. She would find some fault with Greta, knowing that the criticism would not go unchallenged.
“Yah,” Greta admitted. “Aber...”
Lydia shushed her. “It’s the Sabbath, Greta. Time for us to gather our thoughts and ruminate on the week past and the week to come.” As was her habit on Sunday afternoons, Lydia retrieved the Bible she carried with her and walked outside where she sat on a bench under the shade of a tree and began to read.
Greta knew that her sister would spend hours reading scripture and praying before the cold supper they would share with Pleasant and her family. Ever since their father’s death a year earlier, Lydia had isolated herself this way on Sunday afternoons. At first Greta had been hurt by what she saw as her sister’s abandonment and had roamed the rooms of the house until it was time for Josef to come by so they could go out walking or for a ride in his buggy. But then Lydia had explained that it was Greta’s restlessness that had driven her to seek the refuge of her reading.
“You are in constant motion and I need the quiet,” she had said. “We each have our way.”
It was true. Greta did her best thinking—and praying—on her feet. Sometimes—like today—she would go for a walk. Fallow fields that had once provided enough to support the farmers stretched out as far as she could see. Here and there, those neglected fields were interrupted by a span of freshly plowed and planted fields—land that would yield crops to support the families remaining in the community. She turned her gaze to the distant silo that stood next to the large barn on Josef’s farm, marking the otherwise undisturbed horizon. On other Sundays she had waited for him to join her. But not this Sunday...or next...or the ones beyond that.... She turned away from anything that might remind her of Josef. How could he have been so cruel?
A motion outside the barn caught her eye. Luke Starns was taking something from the back of his wagon. Greta frowned. The man ought to have a proper buggy for courting her sister. She glanced to where Lydia sat reading and trying to catch whatever breeze there might be. She doubted that Lydia would care one way or the other about a buggy, but Greta cared for her. Maybe they did things differently in Canada. Greta folded her arms in her apron and continued watching the blacksmith—who seemed totally oblivious to her presence.
He took off the jacket he’d worn during services and placed it on the wagon seat. Then he pushed back the sleeves of his shirt and led one of his team of horses into Jeremiah’s barn before returning for the other. As he went about these tasks she could see his suspenders stretch over the muscles of his broad back. She couldn’t help thinking that in spite of the years farming and building furniture for the Yoders to sell in their store, Josef was given to the pudginess that had plagued him as a boy.
“Too fond of Pleasant’s pies,” he had often teased, patting his oversize stomach. And certainly he was a regular customer at the bakery. Since most of his family had moved north again, he lived alone and at least twice a week he was at the bakery buying a couple dozen of the large glazed doughnuts that were Pleasant’s specialty and always a pie—sometimes two.
Greta felt her cheeks flush at the realization that she was actually comparing Josef’s physical appearance to Luke’s. What was the matter with her? She forced herself to turn away. She needed to concentrate on how best to get Lydia to allow the blacksmith to court her. Her sister could be so stubborn sometimes.
* * *
After he’d finished helping Jeremiah and the other men set up the benches for the evening singing, Luke had intended to head to town. But the truth was that once there he’d have little more than an hour before he’d just have to turn around and come back again. And in this heat even if he washed himself and groomed the horses in town, he and his team were bound to be sweat-soaked and dust-covered by the time he returned. No, best to stay here.
Jeremiah wouldn’t mind and it would give Luke the time he needed to sort things out properly in his mind. Things that yesterday had seemed fairly straightforward now made little sense. His decision to persuade the schoolteacher that they would make a good match had seemed so simple in theory. In other parts of the country, there were several Amish communities within several miles of each other allowing for a much broader opportunity to get to know others. But in Celery Fields there were no outlying or neighboring Amish communities and so there were few options for single men and women.
The idea that Lydia might rebuff him had never even entered his thinking. Yet he’d had the distinct feeling earlier that she had agreed to be seen leaving the singing with him tonight for one reason only—to turn the attention of the gossips away from Greta and onto her. On the one hand he admired her loyalty to her sister. On the other the realization that Lydia found such a drastic move necessary only served to remind him that Greta was no longer a detail that he could overlook as he considered the future.
In the time he had spent considering how best to pursue Lydia as his wife, he had never given much thought to Greta. Like everyone else in town, he had assumed she would marry Josef and that would be the end of it. But now...
Now he found himself thinking about how the house he had thought to share with Lydia would also be home to Greta—at least unless Bontrager came to his senses or some other man in the community stepped up to court her. He and both Goodloe sisters would share meals and holidays and outings. She would be there when he came home in the evenings and when he left for his shop in the mornings. It was enough to try and imagine himself settling in with one woman. Two—especially when one of them was the mercurial Greta—was more than he had bargained for. But it was too late to rethink his plan. In a matter of hours the singing would be over and he and the Goodloe sisters would be riding back to town—together—in the dark.
Greta represented a fly in the ointment of his plan. Yet he could not deny that earlier on their way to services, he had been uncomfortably aware of Greta’s closeness, positioned as she was between him and Lydia on the high wagon seat. Her shoulder had been only a fraction of an inch from his upper arm. When he had tried to steal a glance at Lydia to see how she might be reacting to the clearly unexpected circumstances of riding to services with him, he had instead found himself looking at Greta—her fair ivory cheek and full pink lips just visible beneath the brim of her bonnet.
Yes, he had a problem. It was obvious to him that Lydia’s first and primary concern was going to be caring for her sister. Any interest she might have in him was going to be a distant second. It was also obvious to him that he was spending far too much of his time thinking about Greta Goodloe.
* * *
Sometimes Greta loved the fact that Celery Fields was such a small, close-knit community. But as young people began to arrive for the evening singing, she would have happily traded her surroundings for a bustling, impersonal city. The singing was a far livelier occasion than Sunday services. Everyone mixed together, talking and laughing and sharing refreshments. Along with barn raisings, festivals and other community events, this was an approved venue for courtship and for flirtation.
She had been naive to imagine that everyone would be focusing on Luke and Lydia. After all, the idea of a courtship between her sister and the blacksmith was something townspeople had speculated on almost from the moment Luke Starns had arrived in Celery Fields. It was old news whereas Greta’s breakup with Josef was fresh fodder for the gossip mill. Everyone would be far more interested in where she—and Josef— might choose to sit.
“Staying for the singing is a terrible idea,” she announced as she plopped down next to Lydia on the bench where her sister had spent the afternoon reading.
“But I thought...” Lydia studied her for a long moment. “I see. You are afraid of what people will say about you—and Josef.”
“I am not afraid,” Greta protested. “It’s just that it’s so soon and...”
“If we leave then I cannot accept Luke Starns’s offer of a ride home,” Lydia reminded her.
“Of course you can. In fact it makes more sense than my tagging along. I’ll just pretend...”
“No. Either you and I both go home now or we both stay.”
Greta could be every bit as stubborn as her sister. She folded her arms across her chest and said, “Then I guess we both go home. We can walk.”
“Fine. You will go and tell Luke Starns of the change in plans,” Lydia instructed. “Now.”
“You should be the one. It’s you he wants to see later,” Greta argued.
“It was your decision to accept his offer to drive us here for services and it is now your decision to leave before the singing. You owe the blacksmith an explanation—in person.”
“Fine,” Greta huffed. As the sister of the woman that Luke intended to court, there was no reason for Greta not to be seen talking to Luke. Anyone observing them would assume that she was simply furthering the courtship on her sister’s behalf. So Greta made no attempt to hide her destination as she stomped across the yard toward the barn. From inside the barn she could hear the snort of a horse and the deep, soft voice of Luke talking to the animal. She took a moment to close her eyes and pray for the right words and then she walked toward the stall at the far end of the barn.
“Luke Starns,” she called out, inching her way forward as her eyes became accustomed to the shadows cast by a late afternoon sun.
He stepped out from the stall, holding a grooming brush in one hand. “Yah?”
Greta pasted a smile on her face although she doubted he could really see it. “I’m afraid that... That is my sister...”
Luke turned and continued brushing the horse. “Your sister is having second thoughts,” he said flatly. It was not a question.
What it was though was a way out of this entire mess. If she agreed then there would be no further need for explanation. Greta chewed on her lip. But lying was a sin and that would definitely count as a lie.
“I am having second thoughts,” she admitted.
The brush rested on the horse’s hindquarters for a fraction of a second before Luke once again resumed the rhythmic stroking. “About me and your sister?”
“Oh no,” she hurried to assure him. “Not at all.”
“Then what?”
“Josef will be here for the singing.” It was all the explanation she felt he needed. After all, he knew the whole story.
“Yah. And at least a dozen other people.”
“All talking about us—Josef and me.”
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Anna Schmidt
THE WEDDING THAT WASN’TEveryone in their small Amish community expects Greta Goodloe to marry her longtime sweetheart—Greta included. So when he publicly ends their engagement, in front of newcomer Luke Starns no less, she is utterly humiliated. At least she can take comfort in matchmaking between Luke and her quiet schoolmarm sister.Yet the more she tries to throw them together, the more Luke fascinates her. A serious, no-nonsense schoolmarm should be exactly what Luke wants in a wife. Still, he can’t help but be charmed by Greta’s warm smile and impulsive ways. Does he dare to stray from the sensible choice and take a chance on happiness?Amish Brides of Celery Fields: Love awaits these Amish women.
The Wedding That Wasn’t
Everyone in their small Amish community expects Greta Goodloe to marry her longtime sweetheart—Greta included. So when he publicly ends their engagement, in front of newcomer Luke Starns no less, she is utterly humiliated. At least she can take comfort in matchmaking between Luke and her quiet schoolmarm sister. Yet the more she tries to throw them together, the more Luke fascinates her.
A serious, no-nonsense schoolmarm should be exactly what Luke wants in a wife. Still, he can’t help but be charmed by Greta’s warm smile and impulsive ways. Does he dare to stray from the sensible choice and take a chance on happiness?
“We’re quite a pair, aren’t we, Luke Starns?”
“How so?”
“Each of us being so certain that we were on the right path. Neither one of us prepared in the least for the bumps and gullies along the way.”
“You will find what you want—what God wants for you,” Luke assured Greta.
“And you?” She was nothing if not persistent.
He shrugged and concentrated on completing his work on the bridle bit, more to avoid her eyes than because the work was urgent.
“You know,” she said wistfully as she looked out toward the street, “Josef was not only the man I thought I would marry. He and Lydia have always been my two best friends. Now there is just Lydia.”
Her voice trailed off as she continued staring out at the street. He watched her for a moment, trying to decide if she might be shedding more tears over Bontrager. But she seemed calm and if not serene, then at least resigned. He wiped his hands on a rag as he walked to where she stood.
“I would be your friend, Greta Goodloe,” he said softly.
ANNA SCHMIDT
is an award-winning author of more than twenty-five works of historical and contemporary fiction. She is a two-time finalist for a coveted RITA® Award from Romance Writers of America, as well as a four-time finalist for an RT Book Reviews Reviewer’s Choice Award. Her most recent RT Book Reviews Reviewer’s Choice nomination was for her 2008 Love Inspired Historical novel, Seaside Cinderella, which is the first of a series of four historical novels set on the romantic island of Nantucket. Critics have called Anna “a natural writer, spinning tales reminiscent of old favorites like Miracle on 34th Street.” Her characters have been called “realistic” and “endearing” and one reviewer raved, “I love Anna Schmidt’s style of writing!”
A Groom for Greta
Anna Schmidt
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
But you delight in sincerity of heart
and in secret you teach me wisdom
—Psalms 51:6
For Larry
Contents
Chapter One (#u2ee23108-d5c7-542b-b950-33ebc06a66d2)
Chapter Two (#ua67c391f-2fe2-543d-8965-b084cd114c22)
Chapter Three (#ufca7b390-a2ee-50b4-9e60-8cf2aba5d0f8)
Chapter Four (#u64e8e269-567f-5485-b31c-b255048a412b)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Dear Reader (#litres_trial_promo)
Questions for Discussion (#litres_trial_promo)
Excerpt (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One
Celery Fields, Florida
Summer 1934
Luke Starns hammered the molten iron into shape, the sound of metal on metal ringing in his ears as the hammer struck the rod. He set the half-completed horseshoe on the white-hot fire and wiped his brow with the back of his bare forearm. Then he stretched as he pushed open the single window that offered relief from the shadowy darkness of his blacksmith shop and livery stable. He was hoping for a breeze, but this was Florida, not Ontario. And it was August, steamy and humid, and at four in the afternoon there was no sign of relief from the oppressive heat. He fanned himself with the wide-brimmed straw hat that was one of the unmistakable signs of his Amish heritage.
Business was slow but not nearly as slow as it was in the outside world—the rest of Florida. The economic depression that had gripped the entire United States had taken a huge toll on businesses and lives all across the state. Luke counted himself fortunate that he had skills that were still in demand—although with the growing number of cars and trucks crowding the roads, he wasn’t sure how long there would be enough customers to sustain his business.
He thought about taking a break, perhaps getting a dish of ice cream at the parlor next to the bakery. He wasn’t exactly dressed for shopping but it was late on a Saturday. Most everyone living in and around the Amish settlement of Celery Fields would have already headed home. As he rolled down the sleeves to his collarless shirt, he heard voices just outside the small window—a man and a woman—the man’s voice was stern and serious, the woman’s laughter was high-pitched and nervous.
“I can’t marry you, Greta Goodloe,” the man announced. Luke sighed. Quarrels between Greta and her long-time beau, Josef Bontrager, were so common that most of the townspeople tended to ignore them completely. Luke was inclined to agree that this was probably the best plan. He finished rolling down his sleeves and glanced out the window when he heard the soft plod of horse hooves in the sandy street and saw Bontrager’s dark buggy driving away. After that all was quiet.
Wiping his hands—black with the soot of his work—on a rag he kept hanging by the window, he removed his leather apron and checked the front of his homespun cotton shirt. Then he ran his fingers through his damp black hair and reached for his hat. A dish of Jeremiah Troyer’s vanilla ice cream was sounding better and better, but he wanted to at least make the effort to look decent before venturing out. His concern was not for himself, but he felt it was just good manners to make the effort for others. He was headed for the door of his shop when he heard a sound.
The two double doors to his blacksmith shop and livery stood fully ajar but there was no one there. At least that he could see. Then he heard the sound again. A soft keening like someone in pain. He moved closer to the door’s opening and there framed in the doorway, cast in silhouette by the late afternoon sun at her back, stood a woman—an unwed Amish woman, given the black ties of her prayer kapp that peeked out from beneath her bonnet. She was grasping the frame of the doorway.
Fearing that she had been struck ill or perhaps overcome by the heat, Luke rushed forward. On his way he grabbed the shop’s one battered chair. “Hold on,” he ordered, but before he could reach her, she took two steps forward and then started to crumple to the floor. Luke dropped the chair and caught the woman.
“What’s to become of me?” she whispered as she looked up at him from beneath the brim of her bonnet with fathomless sea blue eyes that belonged to only one female in Celery Fields.
Greta Goodloe.
“Are you ill, Greta Goodloe?” he asked, raising his voice in case she might be on the verge of passing out. “Wounded? Have you been in an accident?”
“Oh, he’s broken it,” she moaned miserably, her voice choking on her sobs.
“Who? What is broken?”
She looked up at him, her eyes widening in what he could only describe as horror. With surprising strength for one so petite, she pushed him away and stood without support for the first time since entering his shop. She glanced around and seemed stunned to find herself there, but she no longer appeared to be in danger of passing out.
“Sit down,” Luke ordered, sliding the chair behind her. “Let me have a look. Is it your...” He ran through the possibilities. She was standing without apparent pain on both legs. Her arms were flailing about like windmills as she apparently tried to regain control of her emotions. “Where is the pain, Greta Goodloe?” he shouted, hoping to break through what was clearly a case of hysteria.
“Right here,” she announced, clutching at her chest. “And please stop shouting. Do you want the whole town to witness my...” Fresh tears leaked down her cheeks and she sat down hard in the chair and buried her face in her hands as her entire body shuddered with the force of her crying.
She was awfully young for a heart attack but he seemed to recall that her father had died of one a year or so earlier and her mother had succumbed to heart failure when Greta was but a toddler. If it ran in the family...
“Stay there. I’ll go for the doctor.”
She was on her feet in an instant and looking mighty healthy for a woman having palpitations. “You will do no such thing,” she growled. “You will have the decency to forget that I ever came in here today, that you ever witnessed...” Once again her eyes filled with fresh tears. “My shame,” she whispered and sat down on the chair.
Only this time she did not fall to pieces as Luke might have expected. Instead she looked all around the shop, finally settling her gaze on him. Then she drew in a heavy sigh and fixed him with a look that seemed rather harsh, considering he had done nothing more than show her kindness and concern.
“So, Luke Starns, we have a problem. That is, I have a problem—several of them at the moment. But let’s begin with addressing the problem before you and me.”
“I’m listening,” he replied. “I’ll help if I can but I’m not sure what...”
“Oh, please do not pretend that you weren’t eavesdropping just now,” she snapped. “I saw you standing by that window there. You had to have heard and seen every horrible bit of it.”
Luke frowned. “And I am telling you that whatever might have taken place between you and Josef Bontrager...”
“There,” she interrupted pointing her finger at him, “you admit it. You were watching us. I have not so much as mentioned Josef’s name and still you...”
Luke had no time and little patience for her tantrum. “You are speaking in riddles, Greta Goodloe. This is my establishment and if I take a moment from my work to stand at my window that is my right.”
“Your window is open as are your doors. Do you honestly expect me to believe that you did not hear my conversation with Josef?”
“I cannot say what you will believe or not. I am telling you that whatever business you had just now with Josef is of no interest to me. And now if you are feeling better I have work to do.” He abandoned the idea of ice cream and headed back toward the fire. But given that Greta Goodloe was right there next to him when he turned to pick up his apron, it was evident that this was not yet over.
* * *
He was dismissing her. Greta was certain that the blacksmith had heard and seen everything. When Josef had driven away, she’d seen Luke Starns watching from his window—the window that overlooked the town’s main and only street. Her intent in entering the shadowy recesses of his shop had been to confront him and make sure that he did not speak of what he had seen to anyone else. For surely Josef’s announcement was some nightmare from which she would awaken any moment.
One minute she and Josef Bontrager—the man she would finally marry after five long years of courtship—were looking at a china teapot in Yoder’s Dry Goods. The next they were crossing the street on their way to the lane that led past the blacksmith and livery stables and on to the small house that Greta shared with her older sister, Lydia.
Suddenly Josef had stopped walking and when she had turned back to him, her chatter about plans for their wedding momentarily silenced, Josef had looked down at his dusty boots and said the very last thing she could ever have imagined coming from his mouth.
“I cannot marry you, Greta Goodloe.”
At first Greta’s mind had raced with any possible cause for Josef’s unbelievable declaration. “You mean this autumn?”
Tradition had it that marriages took place in late autumn after the fall harvest. At least that had been the way of things up north where most of the Florida Amish had lived before migrating to Celery Fields. Of course, in Florida late autumn was just when the planting started. The following day at services, Bishop Troyer would announce all the weddings that would take place that fall.
So Greta and Josef had planned their wedding for September to give themselves plenty of time to travel north for the traditional round of visits with family and friends. They’d be back in time to plant the fields of celery, the cash crop on the large farm that Josef had taken over when his father and brothers decided to move back north.
“I mean I know times have been hard,” she had rushed to add, wanting to assure Josef that in spite of his constant worries over financial matters, they would be fine. He was always talking about the depression and how even though business in Celery Fields had not been affected, there could come a time when the community would feel the ravages of the financial disaster sweeping the rest of the country.
“I suppose that we could wait one more year,” she added, hoping to find some way to quell his worries. She would be twenty-three by then, almost as old as Lydia was now. But still if Josef thought it best to wait...
Josef’s features had been shadowed by the brim of his hat. “This isn’t about hard times, Greta.” He sucked in air as if he’d been underwater for far too long. “Well, there’s that, of course, but what I mean to say, Greta, is that I can’t marry you—ever.”
“Oh, Josef, is this because you saw me talking to the Hadwells’ cousin last week?”
Josef snorted and transferred his gaze from the ground to the sky, still refusing to look directly at her. “You certainly seemed to be enjoying your time with him.”
“So, you’re jealous.” Relief mixed with irritation flooded her veins. This was not the first time that Josef had been upset with her for what he saw as flirting and she saw as simply being herself. “The Hadwells’ cousin has gone back home to Indiana,” she pointed out.
“There will be others,” Josef muttered.
Greta counted to ten. How many times had she reassured this man over the course of their lives together? How many more times would she have to apologize for being herself? She closed her eyes and prayed for guidance—and patience.
“Well,” she replied with a smile that felt as if it might actually make her face crack, “if that is your decision...” And with a toss of her head she had continued on across the street. She’d been so certain that Josef would come after her. He always did. He would apologize. She would accept his apology and reassure him that he was the one for her and that would be that.
She had almost reached the blacksmith shop before she realized that Josef was not coming after her. Indeed after a moment she heard the jingle of harness and the creak of buggy wheels headed out of town. He had left her. Her step faltered. Her mind had reeled with the possible options of where she might go. She could have gone to the school where Lydia would be preparing lessons for her students for the coming week. She could have gone to the bakery where her half sister, Pleasant, would also be preparing to close up shop for the day, or to Bishop Troyer’s house where his wife, Mildred, would undoubtedly offer her a sympathetic ear and a nice cold glass of lemonade.
That’s when she looked up and saw Luke Starns, the dark mysterious man who had shown up in Celery Fields just a few months earlier, standing at his window. He must have seen and heard everything. In an instant she had retraced her steps, determined to set Luke Starns straight about minding his own business.
But when she had reached the open doorway of Luke’s business, she had caught a glimpse of Josef’s buggy disappearing in a cloud of dust and the full force of what had just happened had hit her like a blow to her stomach. For one horrible instant she could not seem to breathe and her knees had turned to jam. She had grasped the rough door frame for support and barely noticed as a splinter pierced her thumb.
Now as the blacksmith loomed over her—all six feet and more of him—she sucked at her injured thumb and considered her options.
“Do you have a cut?” Luke asked, nodding toward her hand.
Greta instantly ripped her thumb from her mouth and curled her other fingers around it. “No. It’s a splinter—from your doorway,” she added as if he had purposefully left the offending object there to wound her.
“Let me look at it,” he said as he gently took hold of her hand and coaxed her fingers open. Then he held her hand closer to the light of the fire, examined the wound and frowned.
For her part Greta was taken aback at the contrast of her hand—small and very white—resting on his rougher, larger, burnished palm. He reached for a pail of clear water with a tin dipper resting in it and trickled a little of the cooling water over her thumb. Fascinated in spite of her determination to maintain her focus on the larger problems at hand, Greta watched as with surprising dexterity for one with such thick fingers he worked free the splinter.
“There,” he said, and the word came out as if he’d been holding his breath until the deed was done. He released her hand. Filling the dipper with fresh water, he offered it to her. “Drink this.”
She did as he asked, more to buy time than because she was thirsty. She found that the absence of his hand holding hers was troubling—as if she had been deprived of something precious. It was a ridiculous idea of course. She was simply missing the absence of Josef’s touch. This had nothing to do with Luke Starns, nothing at all.
“Denki,” she said, thanking him as she drank the water then handed back the dipper. She waited until he had turned to set the bucket back in its place before adding, “I want to set your mind at ease but first I must know how much you overheard?”
“Bitte?”
“Of the disagreement between Josef and me,” she reminded him. When he said nothing, she added, “We seem to have a lot of those these days.”
Luke remained silent.
“Nerves, I expect—for both of us,” Greta explained, warming to her tale. This earned her a flicker of curiosity from the blacksmith’s deep-set eyes.
“The wedding?” she reminded him. Men. How could they be so incredibly thickheaded about the important events of life?
She glanced toward the street and across the way she saw her half sister, Pleasant, locking up the bakery for the night. Her conversation with Josef had taken place right out in the open where anyone might have seen or heard—not just Luke Starns. Panicked anew at the thought of others witnessing the scene, Greta made a quick inventory of the businesses along the street. Yoder’s Dry Goods where Hilda Yoder was known to keep an eye on everything that might happen in town. But three local women had passed by Josef and Greta as they left the shop. So Hilda would have been busy serving her customers when Josef made his astounding announcement.
The hardware store next door to the blacksmith’s? Roger Hadwell and his wife, Gertrude, were known gossips but neither of them had been in evidence when Josef made his stunning pronouncement. Greta breathed a little easier and decided that she only had to worry about the blacksmith. She studied him for a long moment, trying to decide on her best strategy. Charm had always been her most potent weapon for getting herself out of any tight spot. But would charm work on this man?
Luke Starns was not someone she had had the opportunity to get to know. The truth was that she had kept her distance from him. There was something about him that stirred a shyness in her that simply was not there with anyone else. Perhaps it was his looks. Where most of the men in Celery Fields—as well as the women—were fair with white-blond hair and skin that freckled easily, Luke Starns was dark—his hair was as black as the leather apron he wore to do his work. His skin was deeply tanned as if he spent his days outdoors instead of hunched over a roaring fire hammering bridle bits and horseshoes into shape. And his eyes were set deep under a brow of thick black eyebrows and were the most unexpected shade of blue—like cornflowers, Greta had thought the first time she’d seen him at services.
Of course, from the minute he’d arrived in Celery Fields, every woman in town had begun planning a match for him. Theirs was a small community and that meant that the available number of eligible men for every single female in the town was limited. The preferred candidate for Luke Starns was Greta’s sister, Lydia. But Lydia had dismissed such idle speculation as she had all hints that this man or that might make a good match for her.
“Don’t you want to marry?” Greta had asked.
“Yes, that would be nice. But I will not settle, sister. I’d rather spend my days alone.”
Now Greta shuddered in spite of the oppressive heat of the August day. The very idea that in the face of Josef’s abandonment she might now spend her days alone was beyond her ability to comprehend. How would she survive? What would she do? Lydia had her students who adored her, but Greta—what did she have? Practically her entire life, everyone had simply assumed that one day she would marry Josef, keep house for him in the impressive farmhouse that set on the edge of town, and fill that house with babies.
That had been the plan—until twenty minutes ago.
She felt Luke watching her now. There was not a single reason to think he had any interest in what had happened between Josef and her. Oh, the sin of conceit, she thought as she stood up and pressed her hands over her green cotton skirt—the one that Josef had always liked.
“The wedding?” Luke prompted her now.
Greta pasted on a smile that came as naturally to her as breathing. “I am quite aware that you may believe that what you witnessed between Josef and me earlier was unusual. I assure you that it was not. Josef is having an attack of nerves, nothing more.”
He frowned. “Yah, you are probably right.”
“I am right,” she assured him and almost believed it herself. “So there is no need for you to concern yourself with my...”
“Might this mean that Josef Bontrager will not be available to drive you and your sister to services tomorrow then?” he asked.
The idea had not yet occurred to Greta. Oh, the ripples this thing was going to have if Josef didn’t come to his senses before morning. She was barely aware that Luke had continued speaking, so caught up was she in the ramifications Josef’s fit of pique might have.
“Because if that is the case then I would be pleased to drive you—and Lydia Goodloe. It is on my way.”
As she forced her attention back to the blacksmith, Greta bristled. The man had some nerve. “Luke Starns, it has not been yet half an hour since the man I thought for years I would wed has broken with me. And you want me to set all that aside so you can court me in his stead?”
She saw him stiffen with wounded pride. It was a male trait that she was well familiar with. After all, she’d observed it numerous times in Josef.
“Neh, Greta Goodloe.” He held up both hands as if to ward off such an unpleasant thought.
He didn’t have to look quite so repulsed, Greta thought. “Forgive me,” she said. “I misunderstood. It has been...”
But Luke did not allow her to finish her apology before blurting out, “It is not you but your sister that I wish to call upon.”
And suddenly the events of the day seemed far too ridiculous to be real. Were the tables to be turned so that Lydia was the one to be courted and wed while Greta spent her days alone? She couldn’t help herself. She started to laugh and could not seem to stop.
“Lydia?” Greta finally managed to form the word. “You have finally found your nerve and set your sights on Lydia?”
“I have.” Everything about his posture challenged her to dispute his decision.
“My sister is not seeking a match,” Greta warned. But the more Greta thought about it, the better the idea seemed to her. Why shouldn’t Lydia find happiness even if Greta herself seemed doomed to eternal spinsterhood? After all, everyone in town had speculated that the best possible match for the blacksmith would be Lydia. For months now the local gossips had been waiting for Luke to make his move. Apparently he had finally decided to do so. “On the other hand, perhaps she has not considered every available candidate.” She walked around him, studying him carefully. “Would you consider a bargain?”
“A bargain?”
“Yes. I will do what I can to help in your campaign to win my sister’s affection. And in return, you will say nothing to anyone about what you observed earlier between Josef and me.”
He sighed wearily. “How many times must I say this? I heard nothing. I did see you with Josef outside my window as I have seen the two of you and many other people in town numerous times before. I cannot be responsible for what takes place on the other side of the glass, Greta.”
“Yes or no,” she challenged. “I can be more influential than you may suspect in whether or not Lydia takes your attentions seriously.”
Luke chuckled. “Why, Greta Goodloe, are you threatening me?”
“Not at all. After all, I have no control over what you may do with whatever information you gathered while observing Josef and me earlier.” She fought to keep her voice steady. It was very important to her that the whole town should not know the embarrassing circumstances of Josef’s sudden decision to call off their engagement. She looked up at Luke, wondering if she could trust this relative stranger to hold his tongue when the gossip began—as it surely would. “Please,” she whispered.
“Very well. We have a bargain, Greta. One I fully intend to see that you keep. I will call for you and your sister tomorrow morning and...”
But Greta had lost interest in the conversation as she once again faced the fact that after five years of courtship—on the eve of the announcement of their plans to wed—Josef Bontrager had quit her. She sank down onto the chair and buried her face in her hands as the tears flowed anew with no sign of stopping.
Chapter Two
Luke was willing to admit that his offer to drive the Goodloe sisters to services had been a spur-of-the-
moment idea. For a good part of the day, he’d been trying to think of some way that he might approach Lydia Goodloe. He wanted to ask her if he could see her home from the Sunday evening singing that served as an opportunity for the single population of Celery Fields to socialize and court.
Circumstances in his past had forced Luke to make some major changes in his life. The first had been to leave Ontario and move here to Celery Fields where he knew no one—and more to the point, no one knew him. The second was to settle here permanently and that meant taking a wife. Now that his business was established, if not exactly flourishing, and he seemed to have been accepted by others in the community, it was time to marry and start his family. He was twenty-seven years old. By his age his parents had already had him plus three brothers.
Then just as he was planning his strategy for how best to approach Lydia, Greta Goodloe had suddenly appeared in his doorway and the way had seemed clear to him. If he could enlist her aid in courting her sister...
But after interacting with Greta over these last several moments, he was having second thoughts about involving her in his quest. At first the woman had been nearly hysterical. Then she had accused him of eavesdropping—no, spying—on her private conversation with Josef and when he had told her of his intent to court her sister, her mood had once again shifted. She had actually burst out laughing. He certainly saw no cause for such merriment—at his expense.
Now she was back to crying again—crying so hard that she had begun to hiccup. For the life of him Luke would never understand women. Not that he was all that used to being around women in the first place. His mother had died when he was just six and his younger brothers and father had been his world until he’d left the family home in Ontario this last spring. Blacksmithing was his trade, which did not bring him into much contact with the female of the species. That had worked out fine for him so far.
It occurred to him that a woman like Greta—a woman well known for her charm and beauty throughout the community—might logically assume that any man would be attracted to her. That explained her reaction when he’d offered the ride to Sunday services. And Luke had to admit that when he’d first begun to consider the single women of Celery Fields, he had—as any man would—taken notice of Greta Goodloe.
She had a smile that was as filled with sunshine as her golden hair—at least what he could see of her hair bound tightly beneath the covering of her black bonnet. And she was not the least bit shy about spreading the sunshine of that smile around. More than once he’d been working and had heard her musical laughter as she passed by his shop on her way home or to do some shopping at Yoder’s.
But he’d quickly learned that she and Josef Bontrager were together. In fact it was the idea that Greta would soon wed, leaving Lydia in her late parents’ house alone with no further responsibilities for her sister that had made him take closer notice of the teacher.
From what Luke had observed, Lydia was her younger sister’s opposite in just about every way. Greta was petite with a natural beauty. Her sister was attractive but her height and angular features gave her an aura of authority and more than a little intimidation. Luke supposed that suited a schoolteacher who needed to maintain order and control over children of a variety of ages. But away from school she was still wary and withdrawn when it came to socializing with others—especially those she did not know. Greta, on the other hand, was outgoing to the point of being a bit adventurous. Her ready smile and lively eyes reflected an innate curiosity about people. One more reason, Luke had decided, that he should set his sights on the quieter, more steadfast Lydia.
Determined to get on with the matter of pursuing his courtship of Lydia, Luke was beginning to lose patience with the way Greta’s mood could change from tears to laughter and back to tears with stunning quickness. But then she buried her face in her hands and her slim shoulders shuddered violently. “How is this possible?” she managed between hiccups.
“I believe that your sister and I would make...”
“Not that,” she snapped, the hiccups apparently cured by her sudden fit of temper. She looked off toward the direction that Josef Bontrager had gone as silent tears flowed freely down her cheeks. “Oh, what’s to become of me?” she moaned, wrapping her arms around herself.
“I expect you’ll do fine,” Luke said as he refilled the dipper and handed it to her. “You’re young and from what I’ve observed there isn’t an eligible man in town who...”
She looked up at him, her blue eyes wide with horror, her mouth working as if she wanted to say something but could not make her voice work. “You men think that it’s... How dare you for one minute...” she stuttered and shoved the dipper into his hand. “Do not plan to call for us tomorrow for services, Luke Starns,” she ordered, then turned and stalked off down the lane that led to the house she shared with her sister.
How dare I what? Try to console you? Treat your injured finger? Fetch you water?
“Women,” Luke muttered as he strode back inside his shop, hooked the halter of the heavy leather apron over his head and started pounding out the iron that he’d left on the fire.
Through the next half hour as Luke continued his work, Greta’s accusations stayed with him as did her tears. Clearly she remained convinced that he had passed judgment over whatever had passed between her and her beau. Still, thinking back on it, he realized that he’d been more aware of the disagreement than he’d fully understood. And the more he thought about the conversation he’d only partially paid attention to while he stood at the window, the harder he struck the iron on the anvil with extra force.
Josef Bontrager was a man given to the kind of bombastic announcements that carried above the normal sounds of a town going about its business. Though his announcement to Greta had come at the time of day when most folks had already gone home, his voice insured that anyone who happened to be nearby would hear what he had to say.
“I can’t marry you, Greta.”
No wonder the young woman had been so upset. This was no surely ordinary quarrel. The couple’s plan to wed within a month was to be announced the following morning at services. If Bontrager meant what he’d said...
“Guten tag, Luke.” Roger Hadwell stood at the door of the shop, watching Luke pound the iron into shape. “You’re working later than usual,” he observed.
“Yah. Just finishing up here. Have some water.” He nodded toward the bucket.
Roger helped himself while Luke made the last two strikes on the molten metal then shoved it into another bucket of water at his feet. Hot iron striking cold water produced the familiar sizzle of steam rising that Luke found somehow calming. “Come sit awhile,” he invited. He followed Roger outside to the warped bench he kept ready for just such visits.
Roger owned the hardware business next door and frequently stopped by to exchange bits of news with Luke during the workweek. He was uncustomarily quiet as he sipped water from the dipper. “Did something happen to Greta Goodloe?” he asked finally.
Luke stalled for time. “Why do you ask?”
Roger shrugged. “Me and the wife couldn’t help noticing that she stopped by your shop here after Josef drove off—and stayed a good little bit. My wife seemed to think that Greta was upset about something. She and Josef have another spat?”
Luke sent up a silent prayer for forgiveness for the lie he was about to tell. “It’s the dust.” He nodded toward the street where a hot westerly wind created little flurries of dirt and sand on the street. “Got something in her eye.”
“That was it then,” Roger said and Luke understood that this was a question.
“That and she’d gotten a splinter. I picked out the splinter and gave her some water. She took a few minutes to catch her breath and went on her way.”
They sat watching Jeremiah and Pleasant Troyer pass, their buggy loaded with kids and the week’s shopping. Pleasant nodded in greeting as Jeremiah turned the buggy toward home. The town would be pretty much deserted until everyone gathered at the Troyers’ place the next day for services and the start of a new week.
“When I saw Greta and Josef earlier,” Roger continued, “it looked like they were having words.”
I can’t marry you, Greta.
What kind of man just blurts out something like that in the middle of town where anybody might see or hear? What kind of man walks away without so much as an explanation for the woman he’s professed to love for most of his life?
Luke couldn’t imagine treating a woman—or any human being—with such callousness. He didn’t know Greta Goodloe very well—really not at all other than seeing her in town or at services—but she seemed a kindhearted person and surely did not deserve such treatment from a man who had professed to love her. He thought about her smile and the way it could bring a special radiance to her features. But she had not been smiling much during the time she had spent in his shop.
He realized now that he’d gotten lost in thought while Roger had continued to speculate on what might have gone on between Greta and Josef. “...wouldn’t be human if they didn’t have words now and again. Whole town knows that this is hardly the first time. I mean you take a fiery little thing like Greta and put her with a man as fence-straddling as Josef and there are bound to be some times when they don’t see eye to eye.” He chuckled and stood up. “Wait ’til those two are married and spending all day and night together. Oh, there are gonna be some fireworks then, I’ll guarantee it.”
Roger was still chuckling to himself after he’d tipped his hat and sauntered back to the hardware store—no doubt to report to his wife that Luke had not had any further information to offer. Luke started inside his shop, but a flash of color caught his eye and he paused to look down the lane toward the house where the Goodloe sisters lived.
In the gathering dusk, Greta was taking down laundry from the clothesline that ran from the house to a palm tree and back again. She yanked free the clothespins and dropped them into a basket at her feet, then snapped the sheet, towel or clothing item hard against the hot westerly breeze and folded it into a precise rectangle before adding it to the pile already in another larger basket.
Luke told himself that he remained where he was watching her until the line was empty because he wanted to be sure that she had recovered from her earlier distress. But the truth was that he could not seem to stop watching her. It was as if Josef’s harsh words had pried open a door. Suddenly the beautiful Greta Goodloe might be free to consider other suitors. And there had been a time when a much younger and more foolish Luke would have taken a good deal of pleasure in that news. But he had been different then.
“This is not the sister for you,” he told himself sternly as he forced his gaze away from her and headed inside.
* * *
Greta saw Luke Starns watching her. She’d also seen Roger Hadwell make his way over to the blacksmith’s, observed the two men talking and wondered if Luke had decided that since she had already broken their bargain by refusing his offer of a ride to services, he was free to tell Roger everything. In that case she had made a complete fool of herself confiding in the blacksmith and, no doubt by morning, everyone in town was going to know about it. She would be the subject of whispers and conversations that stopped the moment she entered the room when she and Lydia arrived at services.
Oh, who do you think you’re fooling? Sooner or later everyone has to know the whole story.
Well, let people talk. It certainly hadn’t been her idea to end her relationship with Josef. And the way he had done it—in the middle of town, with no explanation at all? Of course, she really hadn’t waited for him to explain. On the other hand, he could have followed her. But, oh no, he was too...
What?
Shy?
Proud?
Cowardly. Yes, that explained it. For as long as she’d known him, Josef had allowed her to have her way and deep down she had known that even the hint that she might be attracted to some other boy could have Josef falling all over himself to win favor with her. On the other hand, he had made it clear on more than one occasion that once they married, he would determine where she went and who she saw and when. Greta had accepted that, once she married, the man was in charge. But she had always assumed that after marriage she would be able to find her way around Josef’s jealousies and strict ways the same way she had during their courtship.
She paused for a moment—a clothespin clinched between her lips—as she looked at Luke Starns. As usual she had acted in haste—confiding in him without thinking through the possible consequences. She barely knew the man beyond seeing him at services and the occasional nod when she passed his shop.
Honest. Trustworthy. These were words she’d heard applied to the blacksmith. But could she trust him? It had been evident that he failed to understand the seriousness of what had transpired between Josef and her—of just how precarious things were. And yet he had listened and shown concern.
She had to trust someone. Perhaps he and Roger Hadwell had been discussing business or just passing the time of day. She would know tomorrow as soon as she and Lydia arrived at services. If Luke drove Lydia and her to services, as soon as they pulled into the yard of Pleasant’s house, there would be one of two reactions. Either the women would be whispering about her and giving her those pitying looks that she could not abide. Or they would be talking about the surprise of seeing Lydia and Luke arrive together, delighted that at long last the romance they had all anticipated had taken its first baby step.
An idea began to take shape in her mind and she smiled softly to herself. She placed the last folded pillowcase on the pile of laundry. Arriving with Luke was definitely the way to go. If he had gossiped, she would know it at once and would then inform him that he was not worthy of Lydia and could certainly not depend on Greta to help him court her. If, on the other hand, he had held his tongue under the pressure of Roger’s probing, then she could turn the attention of others to the prospect of a romance between Lydia and the blacksmith and all speculation about what had happened to her would be short-lived.
She hoisted the heavy basket onto one hip and headed back to the house. Somehow she had to get Lydia to agree to let Luke Starns drive them to services and see her home after the singing. While it would be nigh on to scandalous for Luke and Lydia to arrive for services without Greta’s company, Sunday evening singings were occasions where single people in the community could openly socialize, even flirt a bit. Of course, in most Amish communities such gatherings were intended as events for young people in the sixteen to twenty age group. And in most Amish communities they attracted additional young people from surrounding Amish towns.
But Celery Fields was the sole Amish community for miles around in Florida and so these social evenings included anyone who was single—regardless of their age. Greta had never seen Luke at a singing in all the time he’d been in Celery Fields but clearly his intention was to be there the following evening. Now if indeed she found that she could trust Luke then all Greta had to do was make sure that he and Lydia were seated across from each other at the long table set up in the barn with the males on one side and the females on the other. And then she could make some excuse as to why she could not ride back to town with them.
* * *
Early on Sunday morning Greta heard Lydia stirring. Usually her sister would already have seen to the horse and cow they kept, gathered the eggs, prepared their breakfast and dressed in the lavender dress she reserved for their biweekly services, all before Greta was even out of bed. But not today.
Still smarting from the events of the day before, Greta had not slept well at all and she felt restless and out of sorts as she dressed. Using the blackened pins lined up on her bureau, she anchored her skirt into place. Then she twisted up her hair into a bun and pulled hairpins from between her lips to stab it into submission. Finally she lifted the prayer kapp from its resting place on her bedside table and prepared to set it atop the tight bun.
Unfortunately Lydia’s answer to Greta’s distress the evening before had been to counsel prayer, Scripture and early to bed. There had been no opportunity at all to bring up the subject of Luke Starns. Furthermore, in the middle of the night Greta had realized that because she had rejected Luke’s offer to drive them after all, she needed to reverse that decision and hope that he would agree. Thus the urgency of her early morning errand—one that her sister must not observe.
Checking to be sure that Lydia was otherwise occupied, Greta picked up the note she’d prepared the night before and ran down the lane to the blacksmith shop. All was quiet through the little village and she thanked God for that. She crept up the staircase on the side of Luke’s shop that led to his living quarters and slipped the envelope under the door. When she heard the distinctive sound of a man clearing his throat from somewhere beyond that door, she ran down the stairs and all the way back to her house.
* * *
Luke had found the small white envelope when he’d headed out to hitch up his wagon.
Luke Starns,
Your kind offer to drive my sister and me to
services today is most appreciated. We will be
ready at eight.
Greta Goodloe
Luke couldn’t help but smile. So Greta Goodloe had decided to keep her end of their bargain after all. He wondered why. Greta did not strike him as a woman who did anything without a good reason—something that would be of benefit to her. Not that she wasn’t devoted to her sister. Their closeness was well-known through Celery Fields and it was seldom that one was seen without the other—even when Josef Bontrager was around.
He reread the note. The implication was that Lydia had agreed to this idea—and that surprised Luke. More than surprised him, it made him suspicious. Had Greta actually gotten Lydia to agree to the plan? He doubted it. But now that he’d been given the opening he’d sought to call upon Lydia, he hardly cared what Greta’s motives might be. Of far greater concern was that he return to his room above the shop and make sure that he had done everything he could to make the best possible impression on the schoolteacher.
He changed his shirt for one that he’d been saving for just such an occasion. He ran his thumbs down his suspenders making sure they were straight and without any twists. He brushed his navy wool pants to remove any possible traces of crumbs from his breakfast. Finally he picked up his wide-brimmed straw hat and set it precisely on his head, wishing for the first time in his life that he owned a mirror.
Pure vanity, he thought, chastising himself for such a lapse on the Sabbath of all days. He set his hat more firmly on his thick hair and headed downstairs to hitch up the wagon, thinking that it would be more proper if he had the courting buggy he’d been given when he had turned sixteen and left behind when he moved to Florida.
“Courting buggies are for kids,” he muttered to the horses as he fixed them with their bits and harness. “Lydia Goodloe and I are no longer young. And she is a practical woman. She will not mind the wagon.”
Outside he took special care hitching the team to the wagon and ran the flat of his hand over the seat to be sure there were no splinters that might catch on the sisters’ skirts. He paused as he thought about the splinter he’d removed from Greta’s thumb the day before. How vulnerable she had seemed standing there in the reflected light of the fire, licking at her wound like a kitten whose paw had been injured. How very smooth her skin had been especially in contrast to his rough and callused palms. For a moment he was carried back to Ontario—and another young woman whose hands had been as soft as that.
Luke shook off such thoughts. Those days were behind him. He lived here now. His life was here in Celery Fields and if God granted him his prayer, his future was with Lydia Goodloe—not her sister, no matter how pretty and lively she was.
* * *
Greta closed the door to her bedroom and sat on her bed, trying to catch her breath before going to share breakfast with Lydia. She was relieved that Lydia had long ago insisted that she would take care of the usual chores and preparing their breakfast on Sunday mornings. She took a minute to steady her breathing as she felt the flush of exertion from having run all the way back after leaving the note for Luke. She hoped she could trust the man.
Trust.
Perhaps Josef had looked to the future and seen a lifetime of uncertainty when it came to trusting her. For it was true—as often as he had declared his love for her, she had never once been able to bring herself to say the words to him. She had simply accepted that she and Josef were meant for one another and she had believed with all her heart that in time she would come to love him as much as she liked him.
Her head reeled with the need to find some logical explanation for his sudden decision to quit her, and then to find an equally agreeable solution to this sudden upheaval. On a morning when she had expected to arrive at services and hear her name linked with Josef’s in the announcement of coming nuptials, she must instead wonder how she could possibly endure the day. For endure it she must. Even if Luke found her note and showed up to drive them to services, chatter about a romance between Lydia and Luke would take time to develop. And there was always the possibility that Lydia would refuse to accept the ride.
And what of the added humiliation if Josef had failed to tell Bishop Troyer not to include them when he made the announcement?
“Liddy,” she called out, her voice shaking with panic as she flung open the door of her bedroom. “Liddy!”
Chapter Three
Lydia came running down the hall from the kitchen. “What is it? Are you all right?” Greta looked up at her sister with tear-filled eyes and an expression of pure panic. Lydia rushed to her side. “Come, sit. Take a deep breath.”
Greta did as her sister instructed. Since their mother’s death when Greta was only a toddler, she had relied on Lydia to show her the way through the travails of daily life. “What if...” She drew in a long breath and gasped, “What if Josef has not spoken with Bishop Troyer? What if...”
Lydia frowned, a sure sign that she had not considered this possibility and was even now working through the logistics of how best to handle this latest crisis in Greta’s life. “Well, we shall simply have to make certain that the bishop knows what has happened. Therefore, it would be best if we arrived at services as soon as possible.”
Greta nodded. “You’ll speak with him?”
“Bishop Troyer? Of course, but Greta, he is likely to want to speak with you—and Josef.”
Greta groaned.
“Now, sister, it’s not necessarily as dire as you may think. As I told you last night,” Lydia continued, “I suspect that Josef has simply had a bout of nerves. Marriage is a big step. There is every possibility that after a night’s lost sleep he regrets his impulsive action and has not yet figured out how to set things right again.”
When Greta had told Lydia the news over supper the evening before, she had taken great comfort and hope from her sister’s reassurances. But Lydia might know many things—might even be the smartest person in all of Celery Fields—still when it came to matters of the heart, Lydia had almost no experience and besides, didn’t Greta know Josef better than anyone did? Although he had a reputation for being wishy-washy, once he did settle on a plan of action, he could be as stubborn as any other man when it came to changing his mind.
And yet when she heard the snort of a horse and the soft plodding of hooves on the sandy road that ran past their house and on out to the countryside, Greta flew to the window. She could not help but hope that it would be Josef bringing his buggy to collect the two sisters for services as he had done ever since their father had died a year earlier. In that instant she played out the entire scene of how he would come to the door, hat in hand, eyes on the ground. And she would greet him as if nothing had passed between them the day before. The three of them would climb into his buggy and arrive at services as they had every other Sunday.
But when she looked outside there was no buggy. Instead there was a wagon with a matched team of black Percheron horses and climbing down from the driver’s seat was none other than the blacksmith, Luke Starns.
“What on earth?” Lydia had followed Greta to the window and was also watching Luke approach the house.
“He’s come to drive us to services,” Greta said. “He offered,” she added with a shrug as Lydia’s eyebrows lifted in surprise.
“And you accepted this offer of a ride with a man we barely know?” Lydia asked, her voice the one she used when questioning a student.
“Not right away,” Greta stammered. “I mean I thought about it and well, Josef is certainly not going to call for us.”
There was a knock at the door. It was five minutes before eight o’clock. “I told him to come at eight,” Greta added.
“Come drink your tea and eat something,” Lydia said with a resigned sigh. “I’ll get the door.”
Theirs was a small house and Greta did not really have to eavesdrop to overhear the exchange between Lydia and the blacksmith. She nibbled at a slice of rye bread as her sister greeted Luke.
“You are early, Luke Starns. My sister is just having her breakfast.”
Greta frowned. “Oh, Liddy,” she whispered to herself. “Show the man a little kindness.”
She heard Luke mumble an apology.
“Well, come in out of the heat,” Lydia instructed.
While Lydia marched down the hallway to the kitchen, Greta saw that Luke had remained uncertainly by the front door.
“Liddy,” Greta hissed, “offer the man some juice.”
“We do not have time for juice, Greta.” She took a cloth napkin and wiped a crumb from the corner of Greta’s mouth. “Now, come along or we’ll be late.”
Outside, Lydia stood aside, making it clear that she expected Greta to climb up to the wagon’s only seat first. “It’s going to be another hot day,” Greta said, trying to ease the tension that hung over the trio as heavily as the humidity. “Even for August,” she added when they were all three seated.
But it was apparent that she could not expect comments from either Lydia or Luke. Both of them were sitting as if someone had placed a board against their backs and they were each staring straight ahead, their mouths tightly set into thin lines. Clearly any attempt Greta might make to start a conversation was useless so she bowed her head and folded her hands in her lap. She might as well put the time to good use—praying that somehow she might get through this day.
At Pleasant’s house, where services were to be held, Pleasant’s husband, Jeremiah, came forward to welcome them. If he thought it odd that they should arrive with Luke Starns, he gave no sign.
“Is your great uncle inside, Jeremiah?” Lydia asked as he helped her down from the wagon. Jeremiah’s uncle was the head of their congregation.
“Yes. Is there a problem? Has something happened?” He was clearly mystified that Lydia’s first comment would be to ask the whereabouts of the congregation’s bishop without so much as a greeting for him. Greta felt a touch of relief as she realized that at least Jeremiah seemed to have no idea at all that Josef had quit her.
“Greta just needs to ask him a question,” Lydia replied with a smile. She waited for Jeremiah to help Greta down then turned to Luke. “Thank you, Luke Starns, for the ride. My sister and I will be staying to help Pleasant prepare the barn for tonight’s singing and can find our way home after that.”
In spite of her own worries, Greta rolled her eyes heavenward as if seeking God’s help. No wonder Lydia had never had a serious beau. She treated every man she met as if he were one of her students. She saw that Luke had been about to say something to Lydia, then thought better of it.
“Are you better?” Greta heard Luke murmur and realized that he was addressing her while Lydia was already halfway across the yard on her way to the large farmhouse.
“I am perfectly fine, Luke.” She offered him a tight smile. “And having kept my end of our bargain I trust that...”
“I’m not given to gossip, Greta, but you should prepare yourself because soon enough...”
“Greta.” Lydia was expert at delivering an entire lecture with a single word. In two syllables she had effectively reminded Greta that it was the Sabbath, that they were to turn their hearts and minds to God and that the bishop was no doubt awaiting her arrival.
As the two sisters walked toward the house, Greta glanced back over her shoulder toward the barn where Luke was now unhitching the horses while Jeremiah greeted more neighbors. Luke was right, of course. It hardly mattered what he might have said to Roger Hadwell. By the end of today’s service everyone would know.
“Let’s get this over with,” she said as she and Lydia reached the front door of Pleasant’s home.
Inside the modest white frame house, the backless wooden benches, transported from house to house for the biweekly services, had been set up in the two large front rooms that were a feature of every Amish home. From down the hall that led to the kitchen, Greta could hear the voices of those women and girls who had already arrived. They would gather there to deliver their contributions for the light meal that would follow the three-hour service. She and Lydia were each carrying a basket that held their contributions for the meal. It was a comfort to realize that the women all seemed to be talking in a normal tone, not whispering as she might have expected.
Pleasant rushed forward to greet them.
“Could you take these?” Lydia asked, handing Pleasant her basket. “Greta needs to speak with Bishop Troyer.”
“Of course,” Pleasant replied, taking Greta’s basket, as well. “Something to do with a certain announcement to be made today?” she asked and she actually winked.
Greta forced a smile as Lydia took her arm. “We won’t be long,” she assured Pleasant.
“Maybe it would be better if we just told everyone now,” Greta murmured. “At least then it would be out in the open.” On the other hand, there was still time for Josef to find her, tell her he’d been wrong, beg her forgiveness.
They passed through the front hall separating the rooms where services would be held. They dodged a group of small children racing up the stairs. The younger men and boys tended to linger outside until others took their places for the service.
Glancing around for any sign of Josef, Greta turned toward the hallway that led to a downstairs bedroom, knowing the bishop and other elders always gathered there before the services began. She was about to tell Lydia to go to the kitchen when she practically ran into Josef. Through the open doorway behind him, she could see Bishop Troyer and the two other preachers who would speak that morning. They were all looking at her, their eyes full of pity.
“Guten morgen, Josef,” she said brightly as she edged around him in the narrow hallway.
“I have just told them,” Josef said without returning her greeting or meeting her eyes.
“Gut,” Greta murmured with no further pretense at acting as if anything about this morning was normal.
“Greta?” Bishop Troyer had come to the doorway. “I wonder if I might have a word with you and Josef before services begin?” The other church elders left the room and Bishop Troyer closed the door.
Woodenly Greta sat down on the only chair in the room. Normally she would have remained standing out of respect but the truth was that, upon seeing Josef, her knees had gone weak and she wasn’t at all sure that she could maintain her balance without support. Josef stayed close by the door, studying the wide planks of the wooden floor.
“Josef has told me of your decision,” he began.
Her decision?
She glanced up at Josef and saw that his cheeks had gone red. “It was my decision, Bishop,” he muttered. “Greta...” He shrugged which only infuriated her more.
Greta what? Had no say in the matter?
Bishop Troyer seemed momentarily perplexed. “I see,” he murmured. “When you told me that you and Greta would not be marrying this autumn, I just assumed that...”
“It was my decision,” Josef repeated.
“The fact is, Bishop, that we won’t be marrying at all,” Greta added, surprised to hear the words come out of her mouth.
Josef looked up then, his eyes wide with shock. “Well, that is...”
“Isn’t that what you told me?” she challenged. She stood up and realized that her anger at the unfairness of the situation had given her strength. “It’s for the best, don’t you think?” This she directed to the bishop.
The kindly white-haired man who had been the head of their church for as long as Greta could remember looked at her and then at Josef, his brow furrowed with concern. “This is a time for prayer—not haste. You must both ask God to show you His plan for your lives. It is true that you and others have long assumed that His intention was for the two of you to share a life. And that may yet be the way of it. This is not for either of you to decide without first praying on the matter.”
“It was not a decision made in haste,” Josef replied.
“Then why?” Greta blurted out before the bishop could speak. “Is there someone else?”
Josef looked at her and she saw for the first time the pain that lined his features. “How many times have I asked you that question,” he said softly. “I have asked it time and again.”
“And time and again I have told you that you are imagining things.”
“And yet, not once have you said that you love me, Greta.”
It was true and there were no words to deny it. Fortunately she was saved by a soft knock on the door. “Pastor?” she heard one of the other ministers say. “It’s time.”
Josef opened the door and brushed past the two other preachers waiting in the hallway.
“Come along, child,” the bishop said as he led the way down the hall and into the front room where Josef had already taken his seat with the other men. Greta took her place next to Lydia on the first of two benches where the unmarried girls and women were seated.
* * *
In spite of the cool reception he’d received from Lydia that morning, Luke was determined to ask to see her home later that evening. If she refused him at least he would know where he stood. It would have complex ramifications, for if Lydia Goodloe turned him down, he might have to think seriously about moving on to another community. But one step at a time. Having settled on his plan, he was free to focus all of his attention on the words of Bishop Troyer—a lesson that seemed directed at him. But, of course, that wasn’t possible. He’d taken care to keep his past to himself since his arrival in Celery Fields. But the flicker of panic he felt whenever he thought there was the possibility of others learning of his past was never far from the surface of his emotions.
The lesson came from the twenty-ninth chapter of the book of Genesis. It was the story of Jacob’s love for Rachel and how her father, Laban, tricked Jacob into marrying his elder daughter, Leah, instead. Two sisters, the elder less desirable than the younger. And although the minister’s sermon was about Laban’s deceit, all Luke could think about was the biblical sisters. In the end Jacob had married them both but God had given him children by Leah while the much beloved Rachel remained barren. Had that been God’s punishment? And if so, why punish a man like Jacob who had worked years for the privilege of marrying the woman he truly loved?
Luke shifted uncomfortably on the hard wooden bench as he remembered another pair of sisters—this time in Ontario. Their father had also been anxious to see his eldest daughter married and he had set his sights on Luke as the best possible candidate. But Luke was drawn to the man’s younger, fairer daughter just as Jacob had been. And just like Jacob the father had tried to trick him into the match with the elder daughter. Only Luke— unlike Jacob—had refused to be drawn into such a plot.
When everything had turned out for the worst, Luke had often wondered if God had punished him for his refusal to even consider courting, much less marrying the older sister. But in that Biblical world multiple wives were allowed—Jacob could marry Leah and the beloved Rachel, as well. Luke did not have that choice. In the end his only real choice had been to leave the community where he had lived his whole life and move to a place where he could start over. Celery Fields had seemed the perfect place.
He glanced over to the bench where Lydia Goodloe sat, her eyes riveted on the pastor, her hands folded piously in her lap, her face intent as she took in the lesson of the sermon. Luke did not love her—how could he? He barely knew her other than to nod politely whenever they crossed paths. Still he had observed that she was a good and steadfast woman. In spite of her strictness, the children who were her students clearly admired her. Yes, Lydia Goodloe would be a wise choice to manage his home and raise his children in the faith of their ancestors. He could do a lot worse than Lydia Goodloe.
But then his gaze was drawn to the sister—Greta. Unlike Lydia, Greta’s eyes did not remain fixed on the minister. Instead, she glanced around, out the window, up at the ceiling, at some lint she picked off her dark green cotton dress. Although she sat relatively still, her eyes darted around the room like a butterfly pausing at one flower and then quickly moving on to the next.
It occurred to Luke that if he were successful in his courtship of the elder sister, he would no doubt be expected to take in the younger one, as well. In the absence of her late parents, he and Lydia would be Greta’s guardians, at least until she married. He could only pray that Josef Bontrager would reconsider his decision and take Greta for his wife.
Just then Greta’s eyes lighted on him for an instant and he saw her scowl before quickly ducking her head and folding her hands in her lap. Likewise, Luke turned his attention back to the minister. As the words of the lesson continued, Luke silently prayed for God’s guidance for this treacherous trip he was about to take down the path of courtship. At least this time he had chosen the elder sister with his eyes wide open. In this case there was no father to trick him as Laban had tricked Jacob or the man in Ontario had tried to deceive Luke.
No. The challenge facing him was to persuade Lydia Goodloe that they could make a nice life together. Convinced that he was up to that challenge, he risked one more look across the aisle at the Goodloe sisters and was unnerved when he realized that his gaze had settled first on Greta before moving on to Lydia.
Chapter Four
Greta squeezed her eyes shut tightly as the service came to an end, praying that God might forgive her for not listening to the lesson for the day. Oh, she had gotten the part about two sisters—one fairer than the other—but then her mind had started to wander. Surely the Lord would understand that she had so many things to consider—so many things to work out. The worst of it would be how best to handle the barely perceptible murmur that would surely spread through the congregation after Bishop Troyer announced the couples planning to marry that fall. That list, of course, no longer included Josef and her. So, soon everyone would know at least a part of the story. She brightened a little as it occurred to her that, like the bishop, most would simply assume that Greta had quit Josef rather than the other way round. Their pity would be directed toward him.
But then her relief collapsed as she realized that this was only a momentary reprieve. Soon enough everyone would know the real story. She glanced over toward the men’s section, meaning to see how Josef was handling things but her eyes had settled instead on Luke Starns. The man was watching her and the only way she could describe his expression was one of disapproval. At that very moment, Lydia nudged Greta with her elbow—her signal for Greta to stop fidgeting. Those two were going to make a perfect match, she thought, as she laced her fingers together in silent prayer. It would appear that Luke Starns followed the rules as strictly as her sister.
The announcement of coming nuptials was made and the congregation reacted exactly as Greta had imagined. When the service finally ended, the women moved as one toward the kitchen to lay out the meal while the men and boys began rearranging the benches into tables and seating. She heard Josef’s laugh and whipped around to see him stepping aside to allow Esther Yoder to pass by on her way to the kitchen.
Esther was the eldest daughter of the Yoders who owned the dry goods store. She was two years younger than Greta and it was well-known throughout Celery Fields that her mother thought it high time she found herself a husband. From the looks of things she had set her sights on Josef.
Well, she can have him, Greta thought swallowing her bitterness even as Lydia took hold of her elbow and turned her away from the scene.
“Come along, sister.”
On their way to the kitchen they crossed paths with Luke, one long black bench under each powerful arm. He looked from Lydia to Greta and then back again. To Greta he seemed rooted to the spot like the giant live oak tree that stood outside his shop and she couldn’t help but smile at the ridiculous comparison.
He cleared his throat. “May I speak with you later, Lydia Goodloe?”
Greta thought she had never seen her sister quite so shaken. Her lips were pressed together so tightly that no sound could possibly be expected to come out, so Greta took matters into her own hands.
“We are needed in the kitchen. But if you plan to attend the singing, then there will be time enough to have your say. Excuse us, bitte.”
Luke stepped aside and this time it was Greta who guided her sister the rest of the way to the kitchen.
“How could you say such a thing?” Lydia whispered when she had recovered her voice. “I had thought you of all people would wish to skip this evening’s singing.”
“Of course we must attend the singing, Lydia. Luke Starns wishes to see you home afterward. Will you accept or not?”
Lydia’s eyes widened in disbelief. “How do you know such a thing?”
“He told me so.”
Further conversation was not possible as they joined the other women in the kitchen. As Greta had feared, the room went silent the minute that she and Lydia entered.
Greta saw her choice plainly—she could pretend that nothing was out of the ordinary or she could address the matter and get it over with. She took stock of the glances flying among the women—lifted eyebrows of speculation and worried frowns of curiosity.
“Well,” she said brightly as she picked up the baskets that she and Lydia had brought and began setting out the goods. “It sounds like we’re going to have a busy season of weddings here in Celery Fields.” She grinned broadly at the three other women whose betrothals had been announced that morning. “Perhaps it’s a good thing Josef Bontrager changed his mind about marrying me.”
She couldn’t help it. Her voice broke on those last words, but she kept her tears in check and continued to place the food from the basket on the table.
Almost as one unit, the women gathered around her. She felt consoling hands placed gently on her shoulder and gratefully accepted the healing power of their murmurs of concern, which comforted her like a soothing balm for her jumbled spirit.
“Perhaps the Lord has another plan for you, Greta,” Pleasant said softly. “We sometimes think we know what He has in store for us but then things change.”
Of all people, Pleasant knew what she was talking about. Certainly she had thought she would never marry and then she had agreed to marry the widower, Merle Obermeier. He had died soon after, leaving her penniless with his four children from his first marriage to raise. And then Jeremiah Troyer, the bishop’s great-nephew, had moved to town, just as the depression was starting, to open—of all things—an ice cream shop.
But the likelihood of some stranger moving into town and making everything all right again for Greta seemed remote at best. With the combination of droughts and deluges that had plagued the fields of celery and other produce crops over the last few seasons, people were beginning to move away from Celery Fields—not settle there. The last person to actually come to town had been Luke Starns.
Luke Starns...and Lydia.
Suddenly Greta saw her opportunity to turn the attention of the women away from her and on to something that would give them far greater pleasure. “You are right, Pleasant. After all, who knows what the Lord has in store for any of us when it comes to matters of the heart.” She cast a sideways glance at Lydia, leading the other women to do the same.
As usual Hilda Yoder took charge. “I noticed that the two of you arrived for services with the blacksmith, Luke Starns. Has your horse pulled up lame, Lydia?”
“The blacksmith was kind enough to offer us a ride,” Lydia replied as she sliced a loaf of bread.
“Roger tells me that he will definitely be settling here permanently. His business is doing surprisingly well given the fact that there’s less call for services like his these days,” Gertrude Hadwell, wife of the hardware store owner, said with a sly glance at Lydia. “It’s hardly any secret, Lydia, that he has his eye on you.”
“Then offering you a ride was the first step,” Hilda announced.
“Toward what?” Lydia asked, her cheeks turning a deeper shake of pink than usual.
“Toward courtship, of course. I expect that he’ll ask to see you home after tonight’s singing? It’s no one’s business, of course. Such matters are private, but still...”
Lydia lifted her chin, hoisted the platter stacked high with sliced bread and said, “He will have to work up his nerve first, but if he asks I will accept.”
Greta was every bit as shocked by this announcement as any of the women in the kitchen. Lydia had always said that she could not be bothered with courtship unless she were truly in love. She barely knew Luke Starns so what could she be thinking?
* * *
Luke filled his plate but kept his eyes on Lydia Goodloe. The truth was that the schoolteacher intimidated him the same way his former teacher had back in Ontario. How on earth was he going to court this woman? Where would he find the words? And why did the mere intent to do so feel more like a difficult task—one he would rather not attend—than something that would lead to a pleasant conclusion?
Perhaps the best plan was to approach her with the idea that a match between them was a practical decision. He wanted a family. Her job as teacher of the community’s children might be in jeopardy if families kept leaving Celery Fields to return north. How would she and her sister make their way if she lost her position? Would it not be a relief for her to surrender the burden of trying to make ends meet?
The more Luke thought about it, the more it seemed to him that this could work out to the mutual benefit of both parties. And grasping that, his confidence grew. At least until he spotted Greta. She presented a problem. The idea of living in a house with two women was not especially appealing. The idea of living there with the capricious Greta Goodloe was unnerving altogether. Of course Greta might yet marry. But who?
Unless Josef Bontrager changed his mind, who was there?
“Would you like some pie, Luke?”
Lydia was standing next to him. She was smiling although somehow her smile did not seem to quite reach her eyes. In her expression he read something else—something more like resignation.
“Denki.” He took the plate and fork. “Did you make this?”
“I did.”
Luke speared a bite of the pie and ate it. Without a doubt it was the worst-tasting peach pie he’d ever had. The fruit was hard and undercooked and had none of the enhancement of cinnamon or sugar to help flavor it and the crust was doughy and heavy. He swallowed the lumpy mess and smiled. “Denki,” he said again, unwilling to tell a lie especially on the Sabbath.
To his surprise Lydia burst out laughing. “It’s horrid, I know.” She relieved him of the plate and replaced it with another that she picked up from the spread of desserts on the table. “Try this one. Greta and my half sister, Pleasant, are the bakers in our family. I thought you might want to know that if indeed you are intent on...spending time with me.”
And there before him was the opportunity he’d been seeking. In fact it appeared he did not even need to ask—although it would be rude and conceited not to. And the truth was that when she smiled, Lydia Goodloe was not quite so intimidating.
“I will be at tonight’s singing,” he began. “I understand that you—and your sister—will also be there?”
“We will indeed.” Greta Goodloe stepped up next to them, her eyes twinkling mischievously.
Luke swallowed around the lump that seemed to be blocking his ability to speak. “Das ist gut,” he murmured and speared another bite of the pie.
“My sister will need a ride home,” Greta prompted.
“We both will,” Lydia corrected.
Luke had not counted on seeing the two of them home. That was hardly the way things were done. “I would be pleased to drive you—both.”
“Then in that case,” Lydia said, “we will see you this evening.”
Luke watched the two of them move through the gathering, clearing plates and glasses as they went. Within minutes they had both gone back inside the farmhouse where the women would finish packing up the leftover food while the men moved the benches into the barn for the singing. He turned to help with the benches and found himself working next to Josef.
Luke had not liked Bontrager from the day he’d first come into the blacksmith’s shop to hire Luke to check the team of giant Belgian horses he used to plow his fields. The man had instantly reminded Luke of the milk toast his father used to make for him and his brothers—soggy. It was an odd word to use in describing another man, but it fit Josef Bontrager as far as Luke was concerned.
For all his booming voice, Josef was timid and indecisive when it came to business. And to Luke’s way of thinking, he was penny-wise but pound-foolish as the old saying went. On the one hand he had bought up the land of surrounding farms when those farmers had hit hard times and decided to return to their homes up north. On the other he was dickering over paying the price for a proper shoe for his horse. When Luke had told him that three of the team of four horses would need at least one shoe replaced, Josef had hedged.
“You’re certain we couldn’t get by one more season?”
Luke had shrugged. “In my opinion you’d be taking a risk but it’s your team.”
Josef multiplied what Luke had given him as the price for one shoe times the total number that he recommended replacing. He tapped the stubby pencil against the final tally for a long moment and then released a low whistle through his teeth. “That’s pretty steep,” he said.
“That’s my price,” Luke replied as he packed up his equipment and climbed onto his horse. “Let me know if you decide to go ahead.”
A full two weeks later—after Josef, according to Roger, had gotten at least two other bids—the farmer came to the shop and hired Luke to do the work. By that time all four horses were in need of his wares. And when Josef had hinted that Luke was simply trying to get more money for his work, Luke had told him the price he’d originally quoted would stand. He did this not for the owner, but out of pity for the horse. No, Luke did not much care for Josef Bontrager. And the more he saw of Greta Goodloe, the more he had to wonder what she had ever seen in the man.
* * *
Greta felt immeasurably better as she and Lydia worked together later that afternoon laying out the “thin book” version of the centuries-old Amish hymnal, the Ausband. The full version of the hymnal was used for regular services. It was thick—well over five hundred pages and contained the words of hymns passed down through the generations as far back as anyone could remember. The book contained no musical notations—just words. Because most of the hymns had been written during the time of persecution in Europe when Joseph Amman had broken from the Mennonites but not from the Anabaptist beliefs, the hymns they sang during services tended to be somber and even mournful in tone. By contrast the “thin book” version of the Ausband contained hymns that were lighter and more joyful and far more suitable for the kind of social occasion that the Sunday night singing was.
Greta was actually beginning to look forward to the evening. Her plan appeared to have worked. Instead of everyone buzzing about Josef’s breakup with her, they were speculating about what Lydia had been thinking offering Luke Starns that piece of pie and what might the two of them have had to discuss for such an extended time. Just wait until Lydia left with Luke after the singing.
“The blacksmith seems nice,” she ventured.
“Hmm.” Lydia was noncommittal as always.
“He’s very strong. Did you see the way he lifted two benches at once as if they were no more than small branches?”
“He’s a blacksmith,” Lydia pointed out. “In his line of work one develops strength.”
Greta gauged her sister’s mood. She seemed indifferent to the conversation, focusing instead on the precise alignment of each songbook. Every now and then she would reach across the long table and straighten a book that Greta had set in place before moving on.
“Still, he’s quite handsome. I mean in a dark, brooding sort of way. Do you think perhaps that’s the way men are in Ontario?”
“Ontario?” Lydia blinked at her as if she’d heard that single word and nothing else.
“Where he’s from,” Greta reminded her. “Canada?”
“I know where Ontario is,” Lydia replied. “And I know what you are trying to do, Greta.”
Greta bit her lip. “I’m just...”
“...trying to take the attention of others away from your current troubles. And that is understandable. Furthermore I am quite willing to help you in that, but do not for one minute think that I am the least bit interested in Luke Starns—at least romantically speaking.”
“You don’t even know the man,” Greta protested. “For all you know he might be...”
“I am sure that he is a good and kind man. From what I have heard from others, he is honest and fair in his business dealings and he seems quite determined to make a life for himself here in Celery Fields. The question I have is why?”
“Why does anyone come here? The weather for one thing. I mean, Ontario?” Greta shivered in spite of the oppression of the heat.
“But alone—no family ties here? At least when Jeremiah Troyer arrived he had connections—his great-uncle and aunt were here and he had visited them in the past.”
Greta sighed happily. “Yes, and then Jeremiah set his sights on Pleasant and it was so romantic.”
“You’re missing the point, Greta. Luke Starns simply...” She seemed lost for the right word. “He simply appeared one day. No one knew him or anything about him for that matter.” They had finished their task and as Lydia surveyed their work she added, “And once again you are losing sight of the point of our conversation.”
“Which is?”
“Which is, dear sister, that I am going to attend the singing tonight and allow Luke to see us home because it will indeed give people something to talk about other than you and Josef. However, get one thing straight.” She pointed her forefinger at Greta the way she often pointed it at students in her classroom. “After tonight you will need to face the fact that there will be gossip and speculation regarding you and Josef and your best path is to ignore it and move forward.”
Greta blinked back tears. “With what?”
“Pardon?”
“Move forward with what, Lydia?” Greta snapped peevishly. “You have your teaching. Even before she met Jeremiah, Pleasant had the bakery and the children. What exactly do I have to move forward with?”
And just like that, the misery returned, the misery she had felt once she realized that Josef was not going to come running back to her, not going to beg for her forgiveness, not going to—marry her. “I gave that man all my time—every waking hour was spent thinking about him, what would most please him and now...”
“Do not exaggerate, sister. You have our house to oversee—the cleaning and cooking, the laundry, the upkeep,” Lydia scolded. “You and Josef spent a great deal of time together. That’s true. Often, I might add, to the neglect of your responsibilities. Our house has not had a good cleaning in months. I think you will find that, if you keep yourself busy and away from the shops, in time you will find your way.”
So she was to be a castaway, banished to the house until the talk died away? Greta whirled around to face her sister. “I keep up with the housework just fine. Papa used to say that it was the best-kept house in all of Celery Fields and that Josef was fortunate to have won the heart of one who...”
Lydia was fighting to hide a smile—and failing. “Feeling a little better?” she asked.
It was an old pattern the sisters had established early in their motherless lives—whenever Greta felt sorry for herself, Lydia would turn the tables on her. She would find some fault with Greta, knowing that the criticism would not go unchallenged.
“Yah,” Greta admitted. “Aber...”
Lydia shushed her. “It’s the Sabbath, Greta. Time for us to gather our thoughts and ruminate on the week past and the week to come.” As was her habit on Sunday afternoons, Lydia retrieved the Bible she carried with her and walked outside where she sat on a bench under the shade of a tree and began to read.
Greta knew that her sister would spend hours reading scripture and praying before the cold supper they would share with Pleasant and her family. Ever since their father’s death a year earlier, Lydia had isolated herself this way on Sunday afternoons. At first Greta had been hurt by what she saw as her sister’s abandonment and had roamed the rooms of the house until it was time for Josef to come by so they could go out walking or for a ride in his buggy. But then Lydia had explained that it was Greta’s restlessness that had driven her to seek the refuge of her reading.
“You are in constant motion and I need the quiet,” she had said. “We each have our way.”
It was true. Greta did her best thinking—and praying—on her feet. Sometimes—like today—she would go for a walk. Fallow fields that had once provided enough to support the farmers stretched out as far as she could see. Here and there, those neglected fields were interrupted by a span of freshly plowed and planted fields—land that would yield crops to support the families remaining in the community. She turned her gaze to the distant silo that stood next to the large barn on Josef’s farm, marking the otherwise undisturbed horizon. On other Sundays she had waited for him to join her. But not this Sunday...or next...or the ones beyond that.... She turned away from anything that might remind her of Josef. How could he have been so cruel?
A motion outside the barn caught her eye. Luke Starns was taking something from the back of his wagon. Greta frowned. The man ought to have a proper buggy for courting her sister. She glanced to where Lydia sat reading and trying to catch whatever breeze there might be. She doubted that Lydia would care one way or the other about a buggy, but Greta cared for her. Maybe they did things differently in Canada. Greta folded her arms in her apron and continued watching the blacksmith—who seemed totally oblivious to her presence.
He took off the jacket he’d worn during services and placed it on the wagon seat. Then he pushed back the sleeves of his shirt and led one of his team of horses into Jeremiah’s barn before returning for the other. As he went about these tasks she could see his suspenders stretch over the muscles of his broad back. She couldn’t help thinking that in spite of the years farming and building furniture for the Yoders to sell in their store, Josef was given to the pudginess that had plagued him as a boy.
“Too fond of Pleasant’s pies,” he had often teased, patting his oversize stomach. And certainly he was a regular customer at the bakery. Since most of his family had moved north again, he lived alone and at least twice a week he was at the bakery buying a couple dozen of the large glazed doughnuts that were Pleasant’s specialty and always a pie—sometimes two.
Greta felt her cheeks flush at the realization that she was actually comparing Josef’s physical appearance to Luke’s. What was the matter with her? She forced herself to turn away. She needed to concentrate on how best to get Lydia to allow the blacksmith to court her. Her sister could be so stubborn sometimes.
* * *
After he’d finished helping Jeremiah and the other men set up the benches for the evening singing, Luke had intended to head to town. But the truth was that once there he’d have little more than an hour before he’d just have to turn around and come back again. And in this heat even if he washed himself and groomed the horses in town, he and his team were bound to be sweat-soaked and dust-covered by the time he returned. No, best to stay here.
Jeremiah wouldn’t mind and it would give Luke the time he needed to sort things out properly in his mind. Things that yesterday had seemed fairly straightforward now made little sense. His decision to persuade the schoolteacher that they would make a good match had seemed so simple in theory. In other parts of the country, there were several Amish communities within several miles of each other allowing for a much broader opportunity to get to know others. But in Celery Fields there were no outlying or neighboring Amish communities and so there were few options for single men and women.
The idea that Lydia might rebuff him had never even entered his thinking. Yet he’d had the distinct feeling earlier that she had agreed to be seen leaving the singing with him tonight for one reason only—to turn the attention of the gossips away from Greta and onto her. On the one hand he admired her loyalty to her sister. On the other the realization that Lydia found such a drastic move necessary only served to remind him that Greta was no longer a detail that he could overlook as he considered the future.
In the time he had spent considering how best to pursue Lydia as his wife, he had never given much thought to Greta. Like everyone else in town, he had assumed she would marry Josef and that would be the end of it. But now...
Now he found himself thinking about how the house he had thought to share with Lydia would also be home to Greta—at least unless Bontrager came to his senses or some other man in the community stepped up to court her. He and both Goodloe sisters would share meals and holidays and outings. She would be there when he came home in the evenings and when he left for his shop in the mornings. It was enough to try and imagine himself settling in with one woman. Two—especially when one of them was the mercurial Greta—was more than he had bargained for. But it was too late to rethink his plan. In a matter of hours the singing would be over and he and the Goodloe sisters would be riding back to town—together—in the dark.
Greta represented a fly in the ointment of his plan. Yet he could not deny that earlier on their way to services, he had been uncomfortably aware of Greta’s closeness, positioned as she was between him and Lydia on the high wagon seat. Her shoulder had been only a fraction of an inch from his upper arm. When he had tried to steal a glance at Lydia to see how she might be reacting to the clearly unexpected circumstances of riding to services with him, he had instead found himself looking at Greta—her fair ivory cheek and full pink lips just visible beneath the brim of her bonnet.
Yes, he had a problem. It was obvious to him that Lydia’s first and primary concern was going to be caring for her sister. Any interest she might have in him was going to be a distant second. It was also obvious to him that he was spending far too much of his time thinking about Greta Goodloe.
* * *
Sometimes Greta loved the fact that Celery Fields was such a small, close-knit community. But as young people began to arrive for the evening singing, she would have happily traded her surroundings for a bustling, impersonal city. The singing was a far livelier occasion than Sunday services. Everyone mixed together, talking and laughing and sharing refreshments. Along with barn raisings, festivals and other community events, this was an approved venue for courtship and for flirtation.
She had been naive to imagine that everyone would be focusing on Luke and Lydia. After all, the idea of a courtship between her sister and the blacksmith was something townspeople had speculated on almost from the moment Luke Starns had arrived in Celery Fields. It was old news whereas Greta’s breakup with Josef was fresh fodder for the gossip mill. Everyone would be far more interested in where she—and Josef— might choose to sit.
“Staying for the singing is a terrible idea,” she announced as she plopped down next to Lydia on the bench where her sister had spent the afternoon reading.
“But I thought...” Lydia studied her for a long moment. “I see. You are afraid of what people will say about you—and Josef.”
“I am not afraid,” Greta protested. “It’s just that it’s so soon and...”
“If we leave then I cannot accept Luke Starns’s offer of a ride home,” Lydia reminded her.
“Of course you can. In fact it makes more sense than my tagging along. I’ll just pretend...”
“No. Either you and I both go home now or we both stay.”
Greta could be every bit as stubborn as her sister. She folded her arms across her chest and said, “Then I guess we both go home. We can walk.”
“Fine. You will go and tell Luke Starns of the change in plans,” Lydia instructed. “Now.”
“You should be the one. It’s you he wants to see later,” Greta argued.
“It was your decision to accept his offer to drive us here for services and it is now your decision to leave before the singing. You owe the blacksmith an explanation—in person.”
“Fine,” Greta huffed. As the sister of the woman that Luke intended to court, there was no reason for Greta not to be seen talking to Luke. Anyone observing them would assume that she was simply furthering the courtship on her sister’s behalf. So Greta made no attempt to hide her destination as she stomped across the yard toward the barn. From inside the barn she could hear the snort of a horse and the deep, soft voice of Luke talking to the animal. She took a moment to close her eyes and pray for the right words and then she walked toward the stall at the far end of the barn.
“Luke Starns,” she called out, inching her way forward as her eyes became accustomed to the shadows cast by a late afternoon sun.
He stepped out from the stall, holding a grooming brush in one hand. “Yah?”
Greta pasted a smile on her face although she doubted he could really see it. “I’m afraid that... That is my sister...”
Luke turned and continued brushing the horse. “Your sister is having second thoughts,” he said flatly. It was not a question.
What it was though was a way out of this entire mess. If she agreed then there would be no further need for explanation. Greta chewed on her lip. But lying was a sin and that would definitely count as a lie.
“I am having second thoughts,” she admitted.
The brush rested on the horse’s hindquarters for a fraction of a second before Luke once again resumed the rhythmic stroking. “About me and your sister?”
“Oh no,” she hurried to assure him. “Not at all.”
“Then what?”
“Josef will be here for the singing.” It was all the explanation she felt he needed. After all, he knew the whole story.
“Yah. And at least a dozen other people.”
“All talking about us—Josef and me.”
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Anna Schmidt
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: THE WEDDING THAT WASN’TEveryone in their small Amish community expects Greta Goodloe to marry her longtime sweetheart—Greta included. So when he publicly ends their engagement, in front of newcomer Luke Starns no less, she is utterly humiliated. At least she can take comfort in matchmaking between Luke and her quiet schoolmarm sister.Yet the more she tries to throw them together, the more Luke fascinates her. A serious, no-nonsense schoolmarm should be exactly what Luke wants in a wife. Still, he can’t help but be charmed by Greta’s warm smile and impulsive ways. Does he dare to stray from the sensible choice and take a chance on happiness?Amish Brides of Celery Fields: Love awaits these Amish women.