Wounded Heart (9781455505654) Page 20

  “You do have a solid offer?” Josh’s gaze held hers, intent. “What range are you thinking?”

  “Josh, maybe Amelia isn’t comfortable talking business among all these people.” Erica touched his arm, and Josh took a step forward. Amelia fell back. “Let’s go into the kitchen.”

  Before she could think of a polite way to refuse, she found herself cut out of the group and herded across the kitchen to the back door as though she were a heifer and the Yoders a pair of blue heelers.

  It looked as if she was going to talk business whether it was appropriate or not. Fine, then. At least she had a direct view of the front door. Please, dummle sich, Carrie. When she finally arrived, Amelia would go and greet her, even if she had to leave Josh in midsentence.

  “I’ve had three solid offers,” she said, “in a range between seventy and a hundred thousand dollars.”

  Erica sucked in a soft breath, then laid the baby against her shoulder and patted its back, hiding her face in its soft warmth. “So much?” Josh looked stricken, as if she’d set the price high on purpose to cut him out. “A hundred thousand? Who has that kind of money?”

  “One of my customers.”

  “I heard that an Englischer was interested. Is that him?” When she nodded, his cheeks, already ruddy from the warmth in the house, flushed dark. “But you’re not going to consider it.”

  “I’m considering them all.”

  Behind her the door opened and Brian Steiner stepped in, his brother Boyd on his heels. A blast of cold air broadsided them, and Erica turned her body to shelter the baby until they got the door shut. Brian raised an eyebrow as he looked from Josh to Amelia.

  “Nice to see you, Josh. Having a nice visit?”

  Josh straightened, as if to make himself as tall as Brian. “Just talking business with Amelia, here.”

  “Ja? Interested in pallets?”

  “Maybe. And you?”

  “Maybe. I got my licks in earlier in the week.”

  Josh turned to Amelia. “You didn’t tell me that.”

  “I said I was entertaining other offers.”

  “You did. So…Brian, this Englischer, who else?”

  “Melvin Miller,” Amelia said reluctantly.

  “I heard that Eli Fischer was one of them,” Erica offered softly. “But maybe that’s not true anymore? Since he has gone away?”

  Amelia set her teeth. She would not talk about Eli. “I would not say so.”

  “So that’s four of you, then,” Boyd said. “Pretty hard decision there.”

  “Only three.” Joshua gazed at her. “Because you can’t really be serious about the Englisch man’s offer if you’re thinking about the good of the Kingdom.”

  Why shouldn’t she be? If you left the good of the Kingdom out of it, Bernard Burke was the obvious choice. And therein lay the rub. Who could leave the good of the Kingdom out of any decision?

  “Are you serious about that one, Amelia?” Brian asked. “You’d give some thought to letting a profitable business go to the Englisch?”

  “Have you been talking with my parents?” A question of her own would be useful while she tried to think whether it would cause less offense to answer truthfully or simply to decide now was the time to fetch Emma from the Daadi Haus, with or without Carrie.

  “Ja.” She raised her eyebrows, and Brian went on, “You obviously have, too, if you know your father’s feelings about it. I think you should take Isaac’s counsel. He’s a wise man and has given this some thought.”

  “I’ve given it thought, too.” She did little else, it seemed. “But there are circumstances that make it necessary for me to get the best price I can.”

  “As a friend, let me caution you,” Erica said, her voice soft and earnest. “Don’t let human nature get the better of you. Greed can come disguised as many things, even ‘circumstances.’”

  Wrestling with a spurt of temper, Amelia swallowed the hot words that flooded her mouth. Erica was only doing what she herself planned to do for Emma—give her good advice. She must not speak sharply to a woman who was trying to help.

  “It’s not a question of greed,” she said at last, her voice as steady as she could manage. “I have to have some medical treatment. It’s expensive. That’s why I’m selling.”

  No one reacted.

  Of course not. Because they already knew. The whole settlement probably did.

  “I understand,” Joshua said.

  Do you really? Amelia wanted to ask. His hands could save a child from falling in the snow. Hers could not. If he couldn’t do that, would he be standing here asking all these questions?

  But Joshua wasn’t finished. “I just think you should take the needs of others into consideration as well as your own, that’s all.”

  “I am. I’m considering them very carefully.”

  “And the needs of your brothers and sisters would come before this Englisch man’s.” That was hardly fair. He’d never even met Bernard Burke. She said nothing, and Joshua persisted, “Because to do otherwise would be to put the world first, before the church. You wouldn’t want to do that.”

  He had backed her into a corner. If she said no, she would be obliged to cut poor Mr. Burke out of the running. If she said yes, she would be condemned in their eyes for doing the very thing the preachers talked about on Sundays. Drat Joshua Yoder anyway. If he hadn’t been born into an Amish family, he would certainly have been a fancy lawyer by now.

  Brian Steiner looked as though he was thinking the same thing. “Ach, now, don’t be too hard on her, Joshua. It’s not as if she would be put in the Bann if she sold to this Englisch man and not one of us.”

  “Wouldn’t she? But if it hurt our ability to make a living, we might think of going to the bishop and asking him to intervene.”

  Erica paled, but Amelia had had enough. More words burned their way to her lips, icy as wind chill. But before they could fly out to do their damage, Matthew and Elam and two other little boys rattled down the staircase, coats on, and dashed out the front door, nearly knocking over Melvin and Carrie as they came up the steps.

  So instead of blistering them with her opinion, she stretched her mouth into a smile. “I need to make sure my boys haven’t done any damage to that box Carrie has in her hands. Excuse me.”

  With the skill of a skater, she wove between them and intercepted Carrie in time to take the box from her. “Keep your coat on and go over and wish Lena happy birthday,” she whispered, the words running together in her haste to say them. “Then meet me at the Daadi Haus. I have to get out of here.”

  Chapter 17

  It took only moments to consign the box to the women in the kitchen, rescue her coat and shawl, and slip out the front door into the cold darkness of the yard. Past the garden and down the path, both frozen into crunchiness, she walked as fast as she could until she reached the line of poplars. There she waited in her black coat and dress, a shadow as dark as any cast on the snow by the skeletons of the trees.

  Tiny shivers were just beginning to coast up her back when she heard boots squeaking in the snow. “Carrie?”

  “Ja, it’s me. What’s going on? Joshua Yoder practically jumped on Melvin, and now they’re all talking a mile a minute in one of the downstairs bedrooms.”

  “Joshua’s angry with me because Bernard Burke has more money than he does.”

  Carrie fell into step beside her. “That’s a funny thing to be mad at you about.”

  Lamplight from the Daadi Haus shone across the snow. Emma was still there, then. She seemed to be having a hard time locating that medicine.

  “He’s afraid I’m going to sell to an Englisch man and do him out of a way to make a living.”

  Carrie sniffed. “He may as well be mad at Melvin, then. Or Brian Steiner. Or Eli.” She sneaked a sideways glance at Amelia, who chose not to see it.

  “He said he might even go to Daniel Lapp and ask him to have a little visit with me.”

  Carrie clutched at her scarf, her hand twist
ing in it convulsively. “He said that? To you? Right out loud?”

  “Ja to all three.”

  “Said what out loud?” And there was Emma, standing in the open door. “I could hear you two talking all the way from the windbreak.”

  A little breathlessly, Carrie told her as they crowded inside after knocking the snow off their shoes. “That Joshua.” Emma shook her head. “Even when we were scholars, it took so little to set him off. He’d turn all red and bluster and bellow, and if you didn’t know better, you’d think he meant it.”

  “I think he meant it.” Amelia unbuttoned her coat for the second time in half an hour. “I thought I had a battle with my temper. Maybe I should be thanking God for His good work. Especially when Joshua took care to counsel me that I would be putting the world ahead of the church if I sold to Bernard Burke, and wouldn’t that be a sin.”

  “That’s not fair,” Emma said. “He should mind his own business.”

  “I think he’s trying to,” Carrie pointed out. “He’s just a little ahead of himself.”

  They didn’t have much time, if Lena was to get her medicine anywhere near six o’clock. Amelia would be just as happy to change this subject anyhow. “Speaking of folks minding their business, I heard something that you should know about, Emma.”

  Carrie shot her a look, and Amelia met it steadily.

  Emma didn’t seem to notice as she waved them to a seat on the couch. “And what is that?”

  “A while back I saw Aaron King walking down the road here. It’s miles from their place, and yours is the only drive besides mine on this side.”

  “So he must have come from here, is that what you’re saying?” Amelia nodded, and Emma rolled her eyes. “Let me guess. Folks are talking, aren’t they? What are they saying now?”

  “Some seem to think that…I mean, obviously it’s not true, but…” Carrie floundered to a stop. “He was really here?”

  “He could have been visiting over at the big house,” Amelia said. “Is Karen’s John taking on some help?”

  “No.” Emma sighed and seemed to come to a decision. “If I can’t tell you two, then I can’t tell anyone. Yes, Aaron King has been here. Late at night, after Mamm went to bed. Several times, in fact.”

  Amelia goggled at her, and then she and Carrie turned simultaneously to gape at each other. “Are…are you— It’s true, then?”

  “Is what true? That he was here? Ja, I just told you so.”

  “No, not that. They’re saying that the two of you are…courting.” Amelia almost couldn’t get the word out. It couldn’t be. Emma wouldn’t. Aaron King? With the Englisch haircut and the custom speakers and the colored reflectors plastered all over his buggy?

  Now it was Emma’s mouth that hung open. Then it snapped shut. “Is that so? I suppose they think that’s hilarious, do they?”

  “I…I don’t know.” So it wasn’t true. Emma was too incredulously angry for that to be the case. What a relief. “But there has been talk. Emma, you must be more careful. It wouldn’t do to stir up any more.”

  But Emma had recovered herself. “Well, I suppose I’d rather they thought that.” She smiled, a wicked smile. “Maybe we should play it up a little more, he and I. Build a— What do the Englisch call it? A smoke screen.”

  “A smoke screen for what?” Carrie demanded. “Emma Stolzfus, what are you and that boy up to?”

  “Not just him. I don’t suppose you heard any whispers about me and Alvin Esch, too?”

  Alvin Esch, the great-nephew of poor Lila, had just turned sixteen. Amelia had seen him across the field last Sunday, showing off his brand-new buggy.

  At their blank faces, Emma grinned. “I can see what you’re thinking, and you’re wrong. They haven’t suddenly developed a thing for older women, and both of them are little brothers to me. Don’t you remember I looked after Alvin and his tribe of brothers and sisters back when I’d finished school?”

  “Then what…?” Amelia couldn’t even think how to finish her sentence.

  The self-mockery faded from Emma’s eyes. “We’re writing. That’s all. Me, Aaron, Alvin. Writing. It’s like a club. We meet here after Mamm goes to sleep, and we read one another’s papers.”

  Silence fell in the sitting room. Emma reached over to pat their knees, as if giving them comfort.

  “Don’t look at me as though we’re all going straight to a lost eternity. It’s harmless. Aaron is working on a short story, and Alvin is…” She paused. “Well, promise it won’t go any further than this room.” She looked at Amelia until she was forced to nod. “He wants to go to college in Lancaster, so he’s working on his high-school diploma by correspondence. The packets come here, and he does his homework assignments while Aaron and I write.”

  “And his parents don’t know?” Carrie breathed. “Oh, Emma.”

  “I’m not deceiving anyone,” she retorted. “If his father asked me, I would tell him. But Alvin isn’t a church member, so there’s nothing to stop him.”

  “But how can you encourage him to leave the church?” Amelia asked softly. Because of course he would have to. Hardly anyone went past eighth grade to high school, and by the time you were of age to go to college, you were also of age to join church. It boiled down to a choice of one over the other, and once they chose an education, very few ever came back. “This will break Will and Kathryn Esch’s hearts.”

  “It’s not my choice to do so, Amelia. It’s his.”

  “But you’re making it possible.”

  “Maybe I am. Maybe I…” Her throat seemed to close up, and she cleared it. “Maybe I want to see him do what I could not, because of Mamm and Pap.”

  “Emma, you would never leave the church,” Carrie said stoutly.

  “Not now, but there was a time when I thought about it.”

  “We all think about it. That’s what Rumspringe is for. And then you make the right choice and give your life to God.”

  “But Alvin isn’t in that place yet,” Emma said. “So he comes here, where no one is going to judge him or force him to make a choice before he’s ready.”

  Again silence fell as Amelia tried to take it in. She’d always known that Emma had a rebellious streak hidden deep under her dutiful exterior. Who wouldn’t whose choices had all been sacrificed for love? But it was one thing to rebel on your own. It was quite another to involve other people—and even to aid and abet them in their disobedience.

  “How long do you plan to let this go on?” Amelia asked.

  “Until the boys get tired of it, I suppose,” Emma said. “But that doesn’t seem likely. Alvin has at least another year of correspondence courses left. And Aaron…well, once he got bit by the writing bug, there was no holding him back. One of his letters to the editor was published in the Whinburg Weekly, did you know?”

  Carrie shook her head.

  Amelia said, “I see it in the newsstands in town, but I never pick it up. The pictures on the front aren’t what I want Matthew and Elam looking at.”

  “Maybe not, but it was Aaron’s first published piece.” Emma moved the balls of wool in her knitting basket to one side and took out a folded-up paper. “Page three.”

  And there it was. Amelia read it quickly and lifted her head. “He wants the school basketball courts to be left unlocked for public use?”

  Emma shrugged. “He has a right to his opinion. Whether anyone listens is another thing. But that’s not the point. The point is, he got to speak, and people will hear him. It doesn’t actually matter if anything comes of it or not.”

  Amelia could only imagine what Martin and Anna King would think. Amish folk did write letters to the editor, of course. Emma certainly did—there was her ancient manual Smith-Corona right there under the window. They wrote about worthy things, though—traffic safety and privacy from the tourists and the importance of family life. Things that might affect the whole Gmee. They did not write to urge the use of the basketball courts for frivolous play. Only Aaron would think of such a thing.


  She couldn’t understand why Emma supported it, but obviously there was nothing more to be said. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  Emma nodded. “I know what you’re thinking. You think I’m encouraging them to sin. But I disagree.”

  “I’ll pray that God changes your mind,” Carrie said gently. “Because if their families find out, there will be trouble, and you know it.”

  “How will they find out? Everyone is too busy laughing about Aaron courting me. If that keeps everyone distracted, then I’ll bear it gladly.”

  If she was so blind to good sense, there was no reasoning with her. Maybe later, when she’d had some time to think it over, they’d bring it up again. “Emma, your mother will need her six-o’clock medicine.”

  Emma nodded. “I know. But I needed a few moments of peace by myself.” Then, at their distressed faces, she added, “Not that I’m not glad to see you. I am. But you know me. I like the quiet much more than I ever get to enjoy it.”

  She would have more quiet if she weren’t helping teenage boys to disobey their parents. But Amelia merely put her coat back on, let herself out into the snow, and kept her mouth shut.

  It wasn’t until after a lovely sheet cake had been cut and passed around that Amelia noticed with some relief that Josh and Erica Yoder were missing. Even if they planned to leave early, surely they wouldn’t have taken the baby out to the barn while Joshua hitched up their buggy? It’s none of your business. This was evidently the lesson the good Lord wanted her to learn this winter. She had enough troubles of her own to deal with, so what was she doing looking around for the young mother? Checking to make sure she was doing the right things for her newborn?

  You’d do better to go and find your own boys and make sure they’re not up to something.

  As a matter of fact, that was a very good idea, seeing as they’d run out an hour ago and not come back.

  “Karen,” she said when she found her in the kitchen, “did your David come in? My boys were with him.”

  Karen turned from the sink, where she was up to her elbows in dishes, scrubbing the plates and bowls people had brought so they could take them home clean. Two of her sisters-in-law were wiping them dry as fast as they came out. “I think he took a bunch of the boys up the hill behind the barn to go sledding. They tried to take my cookie sheets to use, but luckily I caught them just in time. I told them they’d better find something in the barn to put dents in.”