Heart in Hand: Stitches in Time Series #3 Read online

  “You’re steaming up the windows,” Anna said with a grin. “Get inside before you get arrested.”

  Nick leaned over and gave Naomi one last kiss. “Have a great day.”

  “You’ve been cheating on me!” she exclaimed, licking her lips. “Whose oatmeal cookies have you been eating?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he told her as he brushed crumbs from his tie.

  “You!” Naomi said, pointing a finger at Anna. “You’ve been tempting him with your oatmeal cookies.”

  “Guilty,” Anna agreed, grinning. “Maybe if you help me with a design idea I’ll share the recipe.”

  Naomi climbed out of the van. “Maybe I should rethink this wedding if my mann can be so easily tempted.”

  Nick got out and rounded the hood. “You know you don’t want to do that,” he told her, his eyes alight with mischief.

  He swept Naomi up into a kiss that had some tourists laughing and clapping as they stood observing on the sidewalk.

  She beat her hands on his chest. “Stop that! You know you can’t behave like that!”

  “I’m not Amish yet,” he told her, unrepentant.

  Backing away, Naomi tried to look stern. “And at that rate, you’re not likely to be.” She glanced around her. “What if the bishop had seen you?”

  He winked at her before strolling back to his side of the vehicle and getting in.

  “Men!” Naomi huffed, and she walked inside the shop.

  “Ya, men,” said Anna, suddenly feeling like a balloon that was deflating. She sighed and went inside.

  The interior of the shop, crammed with colorful fabrics, yarns, and supplies, raised her spirits. What would she have done if her grandmother hadn’t asked her and her two cousins to join her in opening it? She wondered about this as she walked to the back room to store the sandwiches in the refrigerator.

  She’d needed the creative work, the company, the daily routine so much after Samuel died. What did people who were grieving do when they didn’t have the support of their loving family and community, the people they worked with in a job that fulfilled them?

  Chiding herself for the way she’d vacillated between self-pity and sadness during the sleepless night, she stopped, closed her eyes, and thanked Him for reminding her that she should be grateful for all she had and not focus on what she didn’t.

  Determined to live with a grateful heart—even if today it meant moment by moment—she walked back into the shop to ask her grandmother what she should do first.

  2

  If business is as good this afternoon as it was this morning, this may go down as one of our best days,” Leah announced as she turned the sign to “Out to Lunch” and locked the door. “I don’t know about you two, but I can’t wait to get off my feet for a few minutes.”

  “Me, too,” said Naomi.

  They walked to the back room where Anna insisted that her grandmother allow herself to be waited upon.

  “You look as tired as I feel,” her grandmother said.

  “That’s the second time I’ve been told I look tired,” Anna said, frowning as she got out the sandwiches. “You’re just making me feel worse.”

  “Sorry, kind, you’re right.” Leah sighed. “Wonder when Mary Katherine’s going to get here? We really could have used her help.”

  “Where is she?” Anna asked as she passed around plates and sat down.

  “I don’t know. She just asked for the morning off.”

  “Don’t go asking if she’s pregnant when she comes in,” Naomi warned.

  “Don’t look at me,” Anna told her, making a face at her cousin. “I’m not the only one who’s been asking her.”

  They heard the shop door being unlocked, and Mary Katherine called in that it was her. A few moments later, she walked in with Jacob.

  “We just got the most amazing news,” Mary Katherine announced.

  Anna, Naomi, and Leah exchanged hopeful looks.

  “The farm next to ours came up for sale,” Jacob announced. “We put in an offer, and it was accepted!”

  Anna, Naomi, and Leah exchanged disappointed looks.

  “I thought you’d be excited for us,” Mary Katherine said, frowning.

  “We were hoping for different news,” Leah told her gently.

  “Different news?” Jacob sounded puzzled.

  “I think she means they were hoping we were going to say I was going to have a baby,” Mary Katherine said.

  “Oh.”

  “We’re happy for your news,” Leah gave Anna and Naomi a look.

  “Yes, of course,” Naomi said, jumping up to give Mary Katherine and Jacob an enthusiastic hug.

  Suddenly everyone was talking at once. It was like looking into a mirror to see her cousins, Anna thought. Mary Katherine and Naomi looked more like sisters and were just as close as if they were siblings. Mary Katherine was taller and her hair a bit more auburn but other than that they might have been triplets.

  But things were changing. Her cousins would be doing more with the men in their lives—had already been doing so—and soon much of Mary Katherine’s time would be taken up with a baby when she had one.

  Anna felt a mixture of joy and melancholy. “I’m so happy for you both,” she said, rising to give Mary Katherine and Jacob a hug.

  “Jacob, can you stay and eat with us?”

  He looked to Mary Katherine. “I was going to take Mary Katherine out to celebrate—”

  “I’d rather stay here,” she said quickly. “Can we?”

  Jacob didn’t even need to say anything. Anna didn’t think she’d ever seen any man so hopelessly in love with his wife.

  Her heart actually hurt at that moment. Samuel had looked at her like that. Anna looked away, and as she did, she saw that her grandmother was watching her. She smiled to show that everything was okay because she was determined not to behave in any way that would take away a moment of her cousin’s and her husband’s happiness.

  Mary Katherine walked out to say good-bye to Jacob, and Leah went to open up the shop.

  “I can clean up,” Anna told Naomi as they cleared the table.

  “I know.”

  Anna glanced up at her as Naomi continued to help.

  “I know that you can do whatever you have to,” Naomi said quietly. She touched Anna’s shoulder. “But I want to make sure you’re okay.”

  “I’m fine,” Anna said. “People have been getting married and having babies all around me since Samuel died.”

  “I know.”

  Naomi held out her hands for the dishes Anna held, and for a moment there was a tug-of-war over them until Anna was forced to look at her.

  “I’m proud of you for how you behaved just now. You thought of Mary Katherine and Jacob and not of yourself.”

  She set the dishes in the sink and then surprised Anna by hugging her.

  Anna hugged her back, and then she turned to the dishes. “Why don’t you go see if anyone’s come in before we think about doing these?”

  “Good idea. Be right back.”

  She ran water into the sink and squirted in dish soap. When she heard footsteps behind her, she reached for a dish towel and held it out. “I’ll wash, you dry.”

  A hand took the towel, and then Anna felt herself hugged from behind.

  “I’m okay, really,” she said. “Come on, we don’t want Mary Katherine walking in and thinking I’m not.”

  “Mary Katherine’s afraid that you’re not and you’re protecting her feelings.”

  Anna closed her eyes. It was Mary Katherine.

  She turned, and her cousin kept her in her embrace. “I’m happy for you. I truly am.”

  “I know. Because you’re a good person, Anna. But I’ve seen your face when you hear this kind of news, and it can’t help but make you think of Samuel.”

  Anna hugged Mary Katherine, and then she stepped back. “It makes me think of the happiness I had with him, and I’m glad to see someone else having it.”

>   “Mary Katherine? Fannie Mae’s here to pick up her order.”

  She hurried into the shop, and Leah walked over to the sink and took the towel Anna clutched in her hand.

  “How are you doing?” she asked Anna as she turned back to the dishes.

  “Will it do any good to say I’m fine?”

  Her grandmother met her eyes. “Schur,” she said. “You can say it, but I know it’s not easy.”

  Anna stared down at the bubbles popping in the sink. “So many people came up to me after Samuel died and said they knew how I was feeling. But they didn’t. They hadn’t had a husband die. But you had. You knew.”

  Leah slipped an arm around Anna. “But that didn’t mean I knew exactly how you felt. I didn’t lose my mann so soon after we married.”

  “No.” Anna washed a plate, rinsed it, and handed it to her grandmother.

  She felt the loss of comfort when her grandmother had to remove her arm to have both hands to dry the dish, but it helped her not to sink into self-pity at the moment.

  “It helped when Waneta and I talked since her husband died young,” Anna said after a moment. “But then it wasn’t long before she remarried and moved away.”

  “Another loss,” Leah said, setting the plate down and holding out her hand for another.

  Anna nodded. “But it was so nice to see her happy again. I got a letter from her from Indiana last week. She had a little girl. They’re both happy and healthy.”

  “I hope for that for you, too, if it’s God’s will. There’s no reason to believe that God hasn’t set aside another mann just as wonderful as Samuel for you.”

  “I know,” Anna said, summoning up a smile for her grandmother.

  But deep in her heart, she didn’t believe that.

  “Well, well, look who’s here,” Naomi said, peering out the shop window.

  “Who?”

  “Gideon Beiler.”

  “What’s he doing coming to our shop?”

  “He’s got his daughter with him.”

  “Oh, she’s so sweet.” Anna frowned. “But too quiet.”

  “I’m going to go help Grandmother in the back room,” Naomi said, and she turned away.

  “Wait! I need to finish this hat for—”

  But Naomi had already hurried toward the back of the store.

  Sighing, Anna got up and tucked her knitting in the basket beside her chair. She walked to the front counter and watched as Gideon strode toward the store, his daughter’s hand tucked safely in his. She looked a lot like her father with his sandy brown hair and brown eyes, but her face was more delicate and heart-shaped. Anna remembered Gideon’s wife and could see her in the way she looked up at him, lifting one brow as she listened to him.

  Anna had always thought that Gideon was cute when they were in schul, and he’d grown into a handsome man, tall and strong and hardworking.

  But like her and Samuel, Gideon and Mary had only had eyes for each other.

  And like Anna, Gideon had been widowed early. Mary had died not long after Samuel.

  Anna opened the door. “Welcome! What brings you to the store today?”

  Gideon reddened. “I brought Sarah Rose to get some sewing stuff.”

  “Daedi! Stuff?”

  He spread his hands, looking clearly out of his element. “You know, whatever it is you need.”

  She stared up at him. “I don’t need any of it. Save your money.”

  Gideon looked at Anna. “I want her growing up knowing how to do girl things.”

  “Girl things?”

  He grew even redder. “You know. Sew. Knit. That kind of thing.”

  Anna noted that Sarah Rose’s bottom lip was jutting out. “What sort of thing do you like to do?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t care.”

  Looking at Gideon, Anna tapped her lips with her forefinger. “Who’s going to teach her?”

  “I—don’t know. I guess I thought we’d learn together.”

  Anna pressed her lips together and tried not to laugh. After all, it was so terribly sweet that he was obviously trying to be both dat and mamm to her.

  “Well, are you interested in knitting, quilting, what?” she asked him.

  Gideon knelt down so that he could meet his daughter’s gaze eye to eye. “Let’s decide on something together.”

  “But I like it when we play catch.”

  “We can still do that. But I made a promise to your mother that I’d see that you would grow up a young lady, not a little wild thing.”

  He’d certainly tried, thought Anna. She’d seen the zigzag part in Sarah Rose’s pigtails as he learned how to do them in the early days after Mary’s death. There had been an occasional burn mark on a dress and that sort of thing, but gradually he’d learned. Anna supposed it wasn’t easy to know how to do such things. After all, he’d grown up male.

  And a handsome one at that, she couldn’t help thinking now. Her cousins would probably be surprised that she was attracted to Gideon. But after all, she wasn’t dead.

  Shaking off such irreverent thoughts, Anna gestured at the rocking chairs in the center of the store.

  “Let’s think about this a minute,” she said as they took their seats. “Maybe we can figure out something you like.”

  “My sisters have taken her to a quilting or two, but they said she’s not interested.”

  “I never liked quilting as much as my cousin Naomi when I was growing up,” Anna said. “I didn’t have the patience for all those little stitches. Mary Katherine loved weaving from the time she sat down at a loom. I like working with yarn—just the feel of it, the colors, all the shapes and designs I can make. I think my favorite is making hats for babies. Like those over there. We call them cupcake hats because they look like little cupcakes.”

  Sarah Rose smiled one of her rare smiles. “They’re silly.”

  Anna saw Gideon shoot her a quick glance to see if his daughter had offended.

  “I know.” Anna grinned at her. “That’s probably why I like them so much. We need something silly sometimes, don’t we?”

  “There are lots of easy and fun projects to knit if you’d like to try one.” She looked at Gideon. “Men knit, too. Probably more often than quilt.”

  He gave her a dubious glance but got up and held out his hand to Sarah Rose. “I’m willing to try.”

  Anna led them to where the children’s crafts were grouped, and the three of them enjoyed a discussion of what might be a fun project. Father and daughter decided on the simplest knitted muffler, hers in shades of pink, her father’s in blue.

  The bell over the door jangled as it opened.

  “Gideon! So you took my advice!” a woman said loudly.

  Anna recognized the voice. Gideon’s oldest sister had a voice that was like no other—loud and a bit shrill. She knew it wasn’t nice to think such a thing. But truth was truth.

  “I thought you were going to get Sarah Rose some quilting supplies.”

  It wasn’t polite to eavesdrop. But then again, Martha made it impossible for what she said not to be heard.

  “This is what Sarah Rose wants to do.”

  “But I don’t knit much,” his sister said. “I don’t know how much help I can be. I was thinking if she went to a quilting circle she could learn to quilt there.”

  “But she did that and didn’t seem very interested,” Gideon pointed out. “So we decided to come here and see what she might like to try.”

  Sarah Rose slid her hand into her father’s and gazed up at him. “Daedi will teach me how to knit. He’s going to make something, too.”

  “Really?”

  “It’ll probably be the blind leading the blind,” Gideon admitted. “But Anna helped us pick something simple.”

  He picked up a multicolored skein of yarn and held it to his face. “What do you think of these colors?” he asked his daughter. “Do they flatter my skin tone?”

  Anna couldn’t help smiling when she heard Sarah Rose giggle. What a sweet sound
, she thought. She hadn’t heard her laugh since Mary died.

  When she glanced at Gideon, she saw his grin widen. She must have made some movement because he looked over at her then. No one understood loss like one who’d suffered such a loss, and in that moment, she saw his expression lighten for a moment. She smiled, happy for him. He was so lucky to have someone in such a time of grief, someone who made it worth getting up each day.

  She realized she’d stopped and forced herself to keep walking toward the front counter where Gideon’s sister stood, watching her. Her heart sank. The other woman was regarding her with a calculating look. Oh no, Anna thought. Martha loved to gossip. If she took a simple shared moment as more than it was, if she thought that Anna was interested in her brother, it would take little more for her to speculate—and maybe start a rumor. Marriage, family—both were such touchstones of the Amish life that those who were widowed didn’t stay single long.

  There were many reasons to be attracted to Gideon. But no man held a candle to Samuel . . .

  And since Gideon hadn’t remarried, she suspected that no woman had matched Mary in his eyes, either.

  “How can I help you today?” she asked Martha.

  “I need some thread. These colors,” she said, holding out a piece of paper she’d taped pieces of several colors onto.

  “Schur.” Anna walked over to the thread display and quickly found what was needed. “Anything else? No black or white? They’re used so often many people often forget to get them.”

  “You’re right. I’ll take a large spool of each. You’re a good saleswoman.” She turned and nodded toward the display of baby hats. “And an amazing knitter.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Maybe you can give Sarah Rose and her father some lessons, ya?”

  Anna avoided meeting the other woman’s eyes by concentrating on adding up the order and taking Martha’s money. She counted out change into her hand, then piled the threads and a schedule of upcoming classes into a bag.

  With a big smile, she handed the bag to Martha. “All of our customers know we’re here to help however we can.”

  Martha smiled and nodded. “Ya, I know.” She glanced back at her brother and wiggled her fingers. “See you on Sunday at Mamm’s.”