The Heart's Journey: Stitches in Time Series #2 Page 4

  Why couldn’t he have developed feelings for a woman from his own world? Oh, he knew the answer to that. He’d been restless and disenchanted with so much the last year or two. He’d stopped going to his own church. Just been walking—well, driving—through his life.

  Then Leah had become one of his clients. Leah and her three granddaughters. They’d been clients of his father for years.

  At first, it wasn’t about the granddaughters. Oh, he wasn’t someone who was attracted to an older woman. It wasn’t like that at all. Leah seemed to recognize that he was feeling adrift. Searching for something.

  He suspected she did that with everyone. There seemed to be more to her relationship with her granddaughters than just a grandmother’s affection. She had a way of helping someone find this … spark in them and bring it out. He’d watched the way she’d encouraged each of the women—and not just with their creativity. Each of them had seemed to blossom not only in their craft but in their confidence too.

  Well, except for Naomi. Lately, she seemed to be withdrawing, to be quieter and more serious.

  He picked up the book again and tried to concentrate. A shadow fell over him.

  “Well, you’re looking really calm. I guess a trip’s no big deal for you.”

  Nick looked up at Naomi. “What, me worry?”

  Naomi frowned. “Excuse me?”

  “Alfred E. Neuman. You know, Mad Magazine.”

  “There’s a magazine for people who are angry?”

  He chuckled as he got out of the vehicle and helped her load her suitcase into the rear. “Long story. I’d say I’d tell you on the way, but it’s really not that interesting.”

  “I see.”

  “Is Leah ready?”

  “I have her suitcase by the door.”

  “I’ll get it. You climb in.”

  She reached out and touched his arm. “Nick? I—I wanted to thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “You know. For picking me up last night and bringing me home.”

  “It’s what I do for a living, Naomi. I drive people where they need to go.”

  “Yes, but I wasn’t planning on finding my own way home. I thought that—well, I wouldn’t need a ride, and then things changed. And I called you right at supper time and I feel like—”

  He touched her hand, and as he did, she jumped back, swiftly withdrawing it.

  “Sorry,” he said quickly. He frowned. She’d never reacted in such a skittish way to him before.

  “No,” she told him, looking flustered. “It’s all right.”

  “Who my passengers are and where they go is no one’s business,” he assured her. “Unless you have the police after you. I charge extra for alibis.”

  “Police? Of course not.” She looked even more flustered, averting her eyes, pretending that her already severely drawn-back hair needed to be restrained under her kapp.

  There had been something strange last night when he picked her up at the shop. He’d been told she wasn’t going home because she was having supper with John, and the lights had been turned off at the shop. He’d pulled up before it and she’d stepped out and looked around, then locked the door and rushed into his car.

  “I don’t want my grandmother to know—” she broke off and looked toward the door.

  “I don’t intend to say anything.”

  “It’s not that I’m keeping secrets.”

  “Naomi, it’s your business.”

  She sighed. “It’s just that she’d worry.”

  “There she is,” he warned as Leah opened the door and looked out.

  He hurried over and picked up the suitcase sitting by the door. “Anything else?” he asked.

  She pointed at the picnic basket just inside the door. “I packed a thermos of coffee and some sticky buns. Sandwiches for midday.”

  He could smell the coffee and the buns and tried not to groan. Breakfast had been a bowl of cereal and a cup of coffee—and not Leah’s coffee, either.

  His expression must have been comical because she laughed. “How about we stop in an hour or so for the coffee and buns?”

  “Maybe half an hour?”

  She grinned. “Schur.”

  He settled Leah into the backseat and belted her in, then stowed her crutches in the back. Naomi climbed into the front seat next to him and gave him one of her quiet smiles.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  Shrugging, he put the key in the ignition. “You’re welcome.”

  He was carefully backing out of the driveway, cautious of any traffic that could swoop up quickly in this area, when he caught sight of a buggy parked beside the road and a man standing next to it.

  Leah caught his gaze in the rearview mirror and shook her head. “Don’t stop.”

  “Okay,” he said, shifting gears and stepping on the accelerator to move forward.

  “What is it?”

  Nick watched Naomi glance back, and her eyes widened when she saw John.

  “Do you want me to stop?” he asked quietly.

  She turned in her seat and stared forward. “No. Thank you,” she said as an afterthought.

  Nick gave the rearview mirror a last look and saw that John’s hands were clenched.

  Something was going on, he thought. Had Naomi broken up with John? he wondered. And why did he feel a sudden lift in his spirits as he headed down the road with her sitting beside him?

  He drove and stayed silent after that, concentrating on the road.

  Naomi and Leah didn’t say a word.

  “It’s been an hour,” Leah finally said from the backseat a little while later. “I thought you said half an hour.”

  “I’m trying to develop some self-restraint.”

  “An admirable goal,” she said. “But since it’s to my sticky buns, I’m not sure I’m happy to hear that.”

  “It was difficult,” he told her. “A struggle of epic proportions. I’m surprised Naomi wasn’t pushed out of the front seat by my fight with my conscience.”

  “We’re stopping already?” Naomi asked, coming to attention. “Why?”

  Nick wondered if either of them—she or Leah—realized neither of them had spoken for a whole hour as they drove.

  “I got a whiff of Leah’s sticky buns and coffee when I carried them to the car,” he told her, looking for a place to pull over. “She promised me I could have some in a half hour.”

  “You want to take a break after a half hour on the road?” she asked disbelievingly.

  “It turned into an hour.”

  Naomi rolled her eyes. “Men and their stomachs. Why, I bet it didn’t take John—”

  She stopped.

  “He’s not going to forget you while you’re gone.”

  Her expression changed. It was like a lightbulb went out it was such a sudden shutdown. Now what had he said? he asked himself.

  She’d had a narrow escape, Naomi couldn’t help thinking as they drove.

  When she’d looked back at John standing in the driveway, Naomi had thought of the biblical reference to Lot’s wife turning into a pillar of salt as she turned to look back.

  Thankfully, all Naomi had from doing so were some tears on her cheeks, tears she turned and surreptitiously wiped away.

  It hadn’t been right to walk out on John at the restaurant last night but she didn’t know what else to do. She owed it to her grandmother to accompany her to Florida for a vacation. And she badly needed to think over her relationship with John.

  Her grandmother had told her she needed to break up with him, that men like him didn’t change. But she wanted to believe he was still the man she’d fallen in love with. That he could be the mann she thought he could be.

  She couldn’t be so wrong about him, could she? Wasn’t she supposed to love him as the child of God he was? Weren’t the Amish supposed to be forgiving?

  He’d said he hadn’t meant to hurt her.

  “Hungry?” Nick asked, breaking into her thoughts to ask as they helped Leah negot
iate the grass surrounding the picnic table.

  Naomi shook her head. “I had breakfast.”

  “So did I.”

  “I’m not a bottomless pit.”

  He just laughed. “If you don’t want your sticky bun, I’ll eat it for you.”

  She remembered how John had finished her dinner at the restaurant. Men were certainly different from women.

  “We’re not going to stop every hour to eat, are we?”

  He sighed. “Sounds like a great road trip. But no.”

  “You couldn’t have just eaten it in the car while you were driving?”

  “Safety’s number one,” he told her with a grin, setting the basket down on the table and withdrawing the wrapped package of buns.

  Leah seated herself, pulled the thermos out, and poured coffee into the disposable cups Naomi held out.

  Nick ate two buns in quick succession and then gave Naomi a rueful look. “What can I say? Leah’s baking rocks.”

  “I made them,” she told him, swallowing the last of her coffee.

  Taking her hand in his, Nick gave Naomi an impassioned look. “Please tell me you’ll marry me.”

  “Very funny,” Naomi told him as she got up, tossed the empty cup into a nearby trash can, and walked back to the vehicle.

  Leah’s delighted laughter followed her.

  4

  The trip picked up speed from there.

  Nick actually drove more than an hour without stopping. Naomi was thrilled. She couldn’t take her eyes off the passing scenery.

  “Have you ever been out of the state?” he asked.

  She turned and smiled at him. “Never gone more than a hundred miles or so for a wedding or a funeral. Always stayed in Pennsylvania.”

  “I remember some great road trips. Some with my parents, some with my college friends. Why, we’d go on a trip together and …” he trailed off.

  “I can just imagine what happened,” she said dryly.

  “You?”

  “I have two grown brothers. They’re Amish, but they weren’t saints.”

  “I’ll say,” Leah spoke up from the backseat.

  “You doing okay back there?” Nick asked her.

  “Ya.”

  “Let me know when you want to take a break, stretch your legs.”

  “You too,” she said.

  They rode for a while longer. Naomi glanced into the backseat a little while later and saw that her grandmother had drifted off.

  “We both stayed up too late getting ready,” she told him. “I was packing—”

  “And making the world’s best sticky buns.”

  He glanced back at the sleeping Leah. “Maybe I shouldn’t say that. I thought that Leah had made them until you spoke up.”

  She smiled slightly. “I’m afraid she’s worn out. I caught her up late making notes about the shop for Mary Katherine and Anna. I feel a little guilty. I’m going to go have fun with Grandmother while Mary Katherine and Anna have a lot of responsibility.”

  “You’re making the trip Leah wanted to take possible,” he told her. “I’m sure that they’re happy to do whatever they can to keep things running.”

  “They’re both just a little too trusting.”

  “Oh? And you’re not?”

  She frowned. Did he suspect that things weren’t as they should be between her and John? She hoped not. Privacy was very important to engaged couples—to all Amish.

  “I just wouldn’t want someone to take advantage of them.”

  He was silent for a long moment and she wondered what he was thinking. “Your parents—not just yours but Mary Katherine’s and Anna’s—surely they’ll be checking in to see if any help is needed. And Hannah Marlowe stops in to teach quilting classes, right? I’m sure she and other women in the community will be available if anything’s needed.”

  Naomi felt a weight lift from her shoulders. “Why, of course you’re right.” She leaned back in her seat.

  Nick glanced into the backseat, then at Naomi, before returning his gaze to the road. “It’s a wonderful thing you’re doing for Leah.”

  “The injury’s been hard on her. She needs a break.”

  She shrugged. “Besides, she’s done so much for me, for my cousins. The shop’s been like a second home for us.”

  “Are you going to continue working after you get married?”

  “Of course. Until we have a family. But even after that I’ll be able to continue my quilting and work part-time at the shop.”

  Nick nodded and kept his eyes on the road. She sensed that he wanted to say something but was holding back.

  “What is it?” she asked when he stayed silent.

  He raised his eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

  “You want to ask me something, but you’re holding back.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say that.” He checked the traffic and merged into another lane. “Go ahead.”

  “I dunno. I guess I’m just surprised. John seems pretty traditional to me.”

  She had trouble repressing a smile. “The Amish are traditional. I guess you hadn’t noticed.”

  He laughed. “Ya, I’d noticed,” he said, using the slight inflection the Amish gave to the language. “I just didn’t expect to hear that he’d want you to work outside the home after the two of you married.”

  “Couples discuss these things and they work them out,” she said, and she heard how prim she sounded.

  She bit her lip as she thought about how that wasn’t exactly the truth about the relationship she and John had. How had Nick guessed that it had been a thorn of contention in their relationship? But what was between the two of them was private, not to be discussed even with someone like Nick who’d become a friend.

  The miles sped by. Naomi watched the landscape change as they left the state and headed into the next.

  “How good’s your geography?”

  “It’s been a while since school,” she admitted. “And it wasn’t my favorite subject.”

  She hadn’t been a daydreamer in school, doodling designs like Mary Katherine had, or already certain that she knew who she wanted to marry and followed him everywhere like Anna. But she hadn’t really been all that much better at applying herself to subjects she didn’t think were interesting or something she’d use later in life.

  “Look in the glove compartment,” he said and gestured at it with one hand. “I made something for us.”

  She opened it and looked inside. “Why do they call it that when you don’t have any gloves in here?”

  “Why do they call it a pocketbook when it doesn’t have a pocket and it’s really a purse?”

  Naomi shook her head and laughed. “I have no idea. I call it a purse.”

  “My grandmother calls it a pocketbook.”

  She pulled out a stack of papers with directions and maps. “Is this it?”

  He nodded. “I have a GPS but I had AAA make it up for our trip in case you or Leah wanted to follow it. They estimate the trip’ll take about seventeen hours.”

  “Where are we stopping for the night?” she asked, looking up from the trip itinerary. “We are stopping for the night, right?” She yawned.

  “Yes. When I talked to Leah yesterday, she and I thought we’d stop in North or South Carolina. I was a little concerned about her being cooped up with that ankle and it swelling.”

  “Sorry,” she said when she had to cover her yawn with her hand again. “I was up late.”

  “Why don’t you take a nap?”

  “That doesn’t seem polite.”

  He chuckled. “I’m used to having people fall asleep while I’m driving them. I won’t mention names but several people do it on their way home from work sometimes after a long day.”

  Naomi shifted in her seat to get more comfortable.

  “Want me to get you a pillow? I packed a couple in the back.”

  “No, I don’t want to wake Grandmother.”

  “Let me know if you change your mind.”

  Th
e endless stretch of interstate and the sun shining through the windshield didn’t help. She couldn’t keep her eyelids open.

  In her dream she was running, running from a man. She hadn’t gotten a clear look at him, just heard her name spoken and she knew she had to run for her life.

  Her heart was racing and her lungs burned as she ran faster, harder than she ever had. It was dark out. No one was around. Her scream for help had gone unheard.

  But as the footsteps behind her grew closer she knew she’d never outrun him. Her fear should have outpaced his anger, but his anger was too great. There was no reasoning with him now. She had to run and pray he wouldn’t catch her. His hand grasped at her sleeve and she fought it off without slowing.

  Sweat ran down her back. Tears ran down her cheeks. She couldn’t go on. With the last of her breath she screamed for help, knowing no one was around.

  She prayed for God’s help, prayed and prayed, but still could almost feel the hot breath of the man behind her breathing down her neck. And then, with a prayer on her lips, she tripped and sprawled on the road, the breath whooshed out of her, and she cried out in pain.

  The man yanked her over to face him and her head banged against the concrete. “You’re mine! Mine! Do you hear me?”

  Jostled awake, Naomi jerked against something that constricted her and she screamed and tried to fight it off.

  “Naomi, wake up!” a male voice demanded. She stared in horror at Nick, her breath heaving in her chest.

  The vehicle shuddered to a stop as he pulled it over to the shoulder and killed the engine.

  “What happened?” Leah leaned forward. “Did we have a flat tire?”

  “Naomi had a nightmare,” Nick told her, looking over his shoulder at her. “Are you okay, Leah? I tried to pull over without jostling you too much.”

  “Ya, I’m fine,” she said, reaching out to touch Naomi’s shoulder. “Calm down. You’re safe.”

  Naomi hugged herself for warmth and tried to take a deep breath. The dream had felt so real. But she wasn’t lying in the road with a man leaning over her, his hand lifted to strike her.

  Glancing over at him, she saw that Nick was staring at her in concern, quietly waiting for her to calm down. He twisted the cap off a bottle of water in the drink holder and offered it to her.