A Wedding for Julia Page 3

  Chapter 4

  Caleb was aware of the exact moment Julia’s mood changed.

  She had briefly relaxed when she handed the raisins to Red. A smile had even appeared, though it wasn’t the smile he was accustomed to seeing.

  What could have happened that had upset her so much? And what was this talk about a café?

  “So you had a disagreement with Ada.”

  Julia pulled in a deep breath as they walked toward the barn. Caleb led Red to the western side of the building. Though the sun was headed down, the afternoon was still pleasant. He tied Red to the hitching rail next to the barn.

  “I’ll be right back.” Julia disappeared inside before he could argue. She returned in a jiffy with a small bucket of oats.

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  She smiled slowly, and then she turned her back to the barn, leaning against the metal railing and studying the property. Red ate greedily from the bucket she still held. From where they stood, what was left of the Beechy place spread out in front of them. Caleb could see the corner of Julia’s garden, which extended down the western side of the house and beyond it by a good ten feet. How did she work such a large plot alone?

  The property west of that included what had been sold to Tim Elliott—the Englischer who was trying Amish ways, or at least Amish farming ways. He’d stuck with it for more than a year, which was longer than most. That piece of land also included a smaller house. Caleb hadn’t seen it himself, but Aaron had told him about it once.

  Pebble Creek ran behind the entire property, to the north, and he was surprised to find he could actually make out the rooftops of a few of Aaron’s cabins.

  “I didn’t realize the Plain Cabins were so close.”

  “Sometimes I can hear children playing and laughing.” Julia met his gaze before glancing away. “It’s one of the reasons I thought a café would be a gut idea. The cabins are doing well, and I think Aaron’s customers would like a place nearby that serves gut healthy food.”

  “And you want to provide that here at your home?”

  “The house is ridiculously large.” Julia waved at it with a hand that said more than her expression. “Mamm and I hardly need two floors and nine rooms.”

  “You’d need help.”

  “I would, but you know as well as I there are always Amish girls looking for work. I spoke with David, and he has several tables and chairs ready to purchase.”

  Caleb closed his eyes and walked back through the house in his mind. The sewing room would nicely hold two tables, two more in the breakfast area, and three or four in the living room. She had the space to do what she was describing.

  “You’d have the café downstairs and live upstairs.”

  Julia waited to answer until he had opened his eyes. “Ya. Of course, we would eat downstairs, but there’s plenty of living space upstairs. We hardly use it now.”

  “And you have enough money saved to get started?”

  “I do, from my baking and our produce stand. And my customer base is right across the creek. I feel I need to start now, though, while everyone is coming to see the fall colors.”

  “Why didn’t you do it this summer?”

  Julia glanced back out over the property. “Dat had been sick for several years. Selling off the land to the Elliotts wasn’t difficult for me. We hadn’t been able to farm it for the last five, maybe six years.”

  She turned to him and looked him full in the face. Once again Caleb had that sensation of the ground shifting, of falling. For some unknown reason, his mind flashed back to Lois, to when he was young and didn’t have control over his emotions.

  “That was my dat’s vision, to farm the land and make it productive. I suppose it’s every Amish man’s dream.”

  Caleb nodded, more to keep her talking than because he agreed with her. He’d never been much of a farmer himself. He knew how. He’d helped often enough back home, but it wasn’t where his heart lay.

  “When he could no longer work the land, he was happy to help me with the garden. That’s part of the reason it’s so large.” Julia ran her hand along the metal rail they leaned against. “So we sold the land to the Elliotts to help with the taxes and expenses, and none of us missed it much. Dat was too sick by then to do more than nod his approval. Mamm quoted something from the Psalms, fifty-five I think.”

  “Fifty-five?”

  “Give your burdens to the Lord…It’s one of her favorites. Anyway, I didn’t miss it. The land wasn’t something I could use, and the other house was a constant reminder that—”

  She cut herself off, as if she’d said too much.

  “I didn’t miss it,” she repeated. “And the Elliotts seem like nice folks.”

  “Ya. They do.”

  The silence stretched between them until Caleb again became aware of Red, waiting patiently beside them. He’d finished his bucket of oats and was nudging the weeds that grew next to the barn.

  “I don’t know when the idea of a café first sprouted in my heart, but I do know I waited the first year or so because dat was sick and the timing seemed poor. When he died last March, I felt I should wait through summer. But this morning, when I looked out my window and saw the leaves turning to gold and red and brown, I knew today was the day I should lay out my plan to my mamm.”

  “And she said no?”

  Julia nodded.

  “She doesn’t want strangers in the house?”

  “It’s not that at all.” Julia reached down and pulled at one of the weeds. When she did, her kapp strings fell forward and brushed against his pants leg. A small, unintended contact between them, but it stirred something in Caleb’s heart.

  “Julia.” Caleb waited until she stood straight and looked him in the eye. “Ada’s mind is clear, and she has always seemed devoted to your welfare and our community. What was her reason for denying you this dream?”

  Two bright spots of color appeared on Julia’s cheeks, but she didn’t look away this time.

  Julia pulled in a deep breath and repeated the words that had been circling around and around in her mind all day. She couldn’t believe she was saying them to Caleb Zook, to a man she knew casually at best, but she had to say them to someone or her head was going to pop like an overripe watermelon.

  “She said I couldn’t open a café here because I wouldn’t be living here anymore.”

  Caleb had been leaning against the metal rail with his arms crossed, but now he stood up straight and his hands fell to his side. “What?”

  “She said she couldn’t leave me here alone after she passed. She said it wouldn’t be proper, and that this—” Julia’s hands came out and she waved at the house, the garden, and the banks of Pebble Creek. “All of this is to be sold.”

  “Sold?”

  “And used to support me, but only if I agree to return to Pennsylvania to live.”

  “Return?”

  “My parents are from there, but I’ve never been before. I suppose for me it wouldn’t be returning as much as moving there for the first time.”

  Caleb stared at her, and the shock on his face did more to ease the burden in her heart than any words he could have said. His inability to speak helped her to spill the rest.

  “She told me to seek God’s answers in His Word—beginning with Psalm Forty-Six, ‘God is our refuge.’” Having shared nearly everything, she was able to finish. In a lower voice and no longer looking directly at Caleb, she confessed, “They had hoped I would marry.”

  His laughter was the last thing she expected.

  “I see nothing funny about this.”

  “Nein. It’s not funny at all, but I can just see your sweet little mother quoting ‘God is our refuge and strength’ as she informs you that you’ll be moving soon. She’s a feisty one, that Ada is.”

  “Easy enough for you to laugh. No one is uprooting you and crushing your dreams.”

  “True enough, and I’m sorry for your troubles, Julia.” Caleb reached out and touched her arm,
sending goose bumps all the way up her shoulder. No doubt that was the exhaustion having its way. “Can she do it? Will she do it?”

  “Ya, my mamm is very stubborn, and apparently she and dat drew up legal papers long ago.”

  Caleb nodded as if that made sense.

  Julia helped him turn Red around so they were headed back down the lane, and together they walked the rig past the barn and to the front of the house.

  She felt better, having shared her problems with someone, though she still had no solutions. Perhaps Pennsylvania wouldn’t be so bad. Perhaps her mother would live to be one hundred, though even if she did, it seemed there was no café in her future.

  How could she begin something she might have to abandon at any moment?

  “You know, Julia, it’s plain that Ada does care for you, and she’s doing what she thinks is best.”

  “Which doesn’t help me at all, but danki for trying to put a rosy face on it.”

  “I was thinking.” Caleb climbed up into the seat of the buggy and smiled down at her. “There is a way you could stay and have your café.”

  Now she knew he was teasing her, but he had stayed late and listened to her whine, so she smiled slightly and tilted her head to the right. “You don’t say. And how is that?”

  “Find someone to marry.”

  With another smile, he called out to Red and trotted off down the lane.

  Chapter 5

  Sharon Zook knew she was late for dinner, and her parents did not abide lateness. She jumped from James’s battered green pickup before he’d properly stopped it.

  “I can take you closer,” he hollered over the roar of the muffler, which he’d promised to fix. There was no sneaking in with all of that racket shattering the peaceful Indiana countryside. Though James wore Englisch clothes and drove the old truck, his hair was still cut in typical Amish fashion. With one foot in both worlds, even he didn’t seem to know if he was merely enjoying his rumspringa or whether he was actually considering leaving the Plain life.

  “Nein. I’ll be in enough trouble already.” Waving, she ran toward the house. She heard James’s laughter as he shifted the transmission into reverse and drove away. The old truck rattled and bounced, but she had to admit it was better than a buggy. It never nipped, and it was bound to be warmer in the winter.

  Slipping between the barn and the kitchen door, fall leaves crunching beneath her feet, Sharon didn’t want to even think about spending another winter on the remote farm in Indiana. She had to find a way to get to the city. It seemed James was willing to take her there.

  “Wash up,” her mother said when she tried to quietly take her place at the table.

  Eight sets of eyes stared at her—five younger brothers and her baby sister, plus her parents. Sharon bit back the retort she had washed her hands before coming in the house, which she had—in town. There was no sense in arguing, though. It was easier to do as her mother asked.

  After she’d sat down again, they all bowed their head for grace. Sharon found herself thanking God for James and his 1972 Ford truck which might or might not make it to Indianapolis. She tried to think of something else to be grateful for, but she couldn’t. Was that bad?

  Dishes rattled and she realized she was the only one still praying.

  Her brothers ranged in age from seven to fifteen. Jonas, the oldest, was now working with her dat in the fields because he was finished with school. How did he stand it? Didn’t he want more? Obviously not, by the way he talked constantly about crops and animals and manure.

  Sharon stole a glance at the phone in her pocket, which turned out to be her fatal error.

  “That’s pretty,” Ruthie said. “Can I see, Sharon?” She dropped her spoon against her plate and attempted to reach for the phone.

  Sharon’s mother sent her a warning look and the conversation between her dat and Jonas stopped.

  “Sharon, what is that you’re fiddling with?”

  Heat began to creep up her neck. She wouldn’t lie to her father, but she didn’t want a confrontation, either.

  “Ruthie needs more milk.” Sharon’s mother was good at running interference. “I’ll get it.”

  “I asked you a question.” Norman stared at Sharon, waiting for an answer. Silence fell on the table like a cloth they might use to cover it with if company were coming.

  “It was my phone, dat. I’m sorry.”

  Norman closed his eyes for a few seconds, a sure sign he was attempting to control his temper. “I have told you I will not abide those things in our home.”

  “I know. I meant to leave it in the barn, but I forgot.”

  “You forgot.”

  “I was in a hurry because I was late, and—”

  “Forgetting is not an excuse for disrespecting the rules of this house, the rules of our faith.”

  “Those rules don’t even make any sense!”

  “Do not raise your voice to me.” Norman’s palm came down and slapped the table.

  When Sharon had been a young girl such a display of authority would have sent her scurrying. Now it made her sad. If he weren’t careful, he would break the old rickety table, and then they would need another.

  “Hand me the phone.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. Hand me the phone.”

  “Mamm—”

  “Do as your father says, Sharon.”

  Sliding her hand into her pocket, she pulled out the small, sleek, blue mobile device—her one connection with the outside world. Standing, she walked around the table and placed it in her father’s outstretched hand.

  “Tomorrow I will return this to the store where it belongs. You need to focus on other things, dochder. On the things that matter.” Pushing back from the table, Norman stood and trudged out of the room.

  Would he take her phone back to town? Or would he leave it in the barn, tucked away on some bale of hay?

  Either way, she was trapped.

  Chapter 6

  Caleb stood beside Aaron, holding the board steady as David hammered it into place. He’d awakened the next morning to the sound of hammering and had been instantly caught up in the building project—one of the drawbacks of living on Aaron’s property.

  Normally he was off on Sunday and Monday, but someone at the grocery had needed to change shifts. He was off today instead, and he usually spent his off days down by the creek.

  Didn’t work out that way this morning.

  Since Aaron and Lydia had taken over the cabins, they had become quite the success. When Caleb moved to Wisconsin, he’d planned on looking for a place to rent until he could decide where or if he wanted to purchase land. Aaron had admitted they could use a night watchman on the property.

  “Watchman” was a loosely used term. Caleb didn’t watch much. He did a final walk around the cabins and office buildings before retiring each night. If the guests had a problem, a sign on the office door directed them to his room, which Aaron had built on to the back of the barn. It was snug enough in the winter with the stove they had added, and the summers were perfect.

  The cabins had continued to increase in popularity until they were full nearly every night, except for Sunday and Monday evenings when they were closed. On Sundays Lydia and Aaron weren’t actually on the property, but guests were often still about from Saturday evening. Lydia made sure they had paid the night before and left them fresh bread, coffee, and juice in the main office. All Caleb had to do was unlock the door.

  Today’s project involved the building where Aaron and Lydia sold goods from area families. The sign above the door said “Plain Shop.”

  Aaron had added it to the property when he took over the cabins, but it had become something of a problem. Basically, it was too small and did too much business. It was always crowded, and there wasn’t enough room to keep the stock they needed to display.

  “When we put this up a year ago, we had no idea so many people would want to sell their goods here.” Aaron stepped away and swiped at the sw
eat running down his face.

  “Ya, if we’d known that we would have built it bigger to begin with.” David slipped his hammer into his tool belt. “I thought you were a little narrisch, building a store on the property when you couldn’t even attract an overnight guest.”

  All three men turned and looked at the full parking lot and guests spilling from the cabins.

  “Gotte is gut,” Aaron declared, picking up another board.

  “That He is.” David walked over to the jug of water Lydia had left and poured himself a glass. Downing it in one long drink, he ran the back of his hand across his mouth.

  Seeing Lydia walk toward the shop, Caleb hollered out, “Sorry I was late with the groceries last night.”

  “No problem.”

  “Explain to me why you would be late,” David said. “You’re always on time, much like the Englisch trains.”

  Aaron laughed. “It’s a woman’s fault.”

  “It’s always a woman’s fault,” Caleb muttered.

  “I heard that.” Lydia waddled into the front door of the shop and turned the sign from “Closed” to “Open.” Aaron’s wife was far along in her pregnancy, and Caleb was surprised she still insisted on coming to work each day at the cabins. “What is our fault this time?”

  Caleb closed his mouth and studied the board they had just finished nailing into place.

  “We were saying it’s your fault the cabins are doing so well.” Aaron’s grin widened as he lifted another board. The room they were adding to the shop would more than double the size.

  “‘Fault’ would be an unusual choice of words in that case.” Lydia walked back out on the porch and crossed her arms as she surveyed their work. “You’re all doing a nice job, so I’ll forgive any intended insult. And as I have no customers yet, I believe I’ll go help my schweschder serve breakfast to our guests.”

  When she was out of earshot, David said, “Before she returns, catch me up. It’s obvious you’re too shy to talk around her.”