Love Inspired April 2021--Box Set 1 of 2 Page 3

  “Now that you mention it, ya. It did. I’d planned to stay with my parents a few more years until my business was established. But there’s too much work with the animals. They need me morning, noon and night. The travelling back and forth didn’t make sense. So I bought a cot and walled off a small area of the barn.”

  “That’s what I’m talking about. You have to think things through. Otherwise you end up sleeping on a cot in the corner of a decrepit barn.”

  “I suppose, but in my mind, it’s also a balance between thinking and trusting.” Two rabbits hopped closer, and he pulled a small carrot from each pocket, squatted down and held the offering out in the flat of his palm.

  To Grace’s surprise, both rabbits hopped forward and took the carrots from him.

  “They trust you.”

  “They do. And I try to trust Gotte in the same way.”

  Grace couldn’t resist rolling her eyes. He sounded like a child. Trust was all gut and fine until the baby needed diapers or new clothes or a visit to the doctor.

  “Can you tell me what—exactly—bothers you about having a tour group here?”

  Adrian’s question was like a knife twisting in her heart. How could she explain her fear that Nicole’s father would turn up one day? She’d first have to explain that Nicole was her doschder, and now wasn’t the time for that. She had pie shells to roll out and bake.

  “Nein. I can’t.”

  “Okay.” He said the word slowly, as if he didn’t understand. Of course he didn’t. How could he?

  “When my parents agreed to your plan, they didn’t realize what they were getting into.”

  “They’re adults, Grace. I’m sure they understood.”

  “Mamm’s all atwitter about having a way to sell her knitted things.”

  “Which is gut, right?”

  “As if she didn’t have enough projects going. I think her yarn supply is multiplying, like some sort of fungus.”

  “Your dat liked the idea of a tour group, too. He said you all could use the money.”

  Grace waved that comment away. Her dat didn’t fully understand the situation. He didn’t even know who Nicole’s father was. That might sound strange to some people, but in Amish homes, things were often left unsaid. He’d told her that he loved her and would pray for her and the baby, then he’d promptly shipped her off to Holmes County in Ohio—a virtual mecca of Amish and Mennonite.

  Only Grace didn’t want to live in Ohio.

  She wanted to live and raise her child here.

  And she didn’t want to do it next to a wildlife farm or in the midst of a tour group.

  “We’ve already sold out our first tour—it’s next Tuesday.”

  Grace pinched the bridge of her nose and squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them, Adrian was still there, still watching her, still waiting.

  “I will cook for your group next week, but I want you to try and find someone else, and I don’t mean Widow Schwartz. Try to find someone that won’t scare your guests away. Maybe...maybe someone would be willing to come here and cook?”

  Even as she said it, she knew the odds were slim. From what she’d heard, Adrian didn’t even have a kitchen. He had a two-burner stove and a half-size refrigerator.

  Adrian assured her he’d keep asking around, then he thanked her for agreeing to help. He wasn’t just mouthing the words, either. That was one thing she knew about Adrian Schrock—he was genuine and always said what was in his heart.

  He really was grateful.

  Which didn’t alleviate her fears about having Nicole around Englischers one bit. Well, if Adrian couldn’t see her side of things, then she would find ways to encourage him to look elsewhere for a cook.

  Maybe her cooking wasn’t as good as he thought it was.

  * * *

  Adrian managed to add a camel to his menagerie before the first tour date. The female he purchased was a dromedary, meaning it had only one hump. Simon Lapp in Middlebury had purchased the animal to sell the milk, but after three years, he’d decided it wasn’t a cost-effective venture.

  “It should have been profitable,” he lamented. “Camel milk sells for forty dollars a quart.”

  Adrian let out a long, low whistle as visions of a fat bank account and the funds to buy more animals popped into his head. “I didn’t realize it was worth so much. Why?”

  “People with Crohn’s disease or diabetes seem to digest it well. That’s why I got into the business in the first place. One of my fraa’s cousins was having trouble—she has Crohn’s disease.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Saul.”

  “The thing is, no matter how I try, I still can’t make a profit.”

  Adrian’s vision of more animals popped like a child’s balloon. “Oh.”

  “The beasts aren’t easy to milk, either... Their milk will only let down if the calf is in the next pen, and even then, it only lasts three to four months. Then it’s necessary to impregnate the female again.”

  “So you’re out of the camel business?”

  “Officially, if you’ll take this one.”

  “What will you do?”

  “I’m going back to goats.”

  Saul hadn’t given the camel a name. Adrian couldn’t imagine how a person could own an animal for three years without naming it. He immediately named the camel Cinnamon, then ordered a large load of sand to be delivered to his place. He’d already researched the animal’s nutritional needs, and he had plenty of hay, which the books recommended, plus small quantities of alfalfa. He wouldn’t need to build a hut for shelter until the following winter.

  Unfortunately, once delivered to his place Cinnamon wasn’t sure about her new digs. She stood in the corner of the fenced area where Adrian had the sand dumped and refused to come close when Adrian called to her. For the first tour, the visitors would have to view her from a distance.

  Adrian rose early Tuesday morning and spent most of the day cleaning out pens and making sure the place looked in tip-top shape. Unfortunately, Kendrick escaped again, and he spent an hour locating the llama. He found him half a mile down the road and had to walk him back home. By the time Adrian got back to his place, he barely had time to feed everyone before the tour guests were due to arrive.

  He rushed into his home, which was basically a single room on one end of the barn. There was no time for a shower, so instead, he washed up at the kitchen sink and changed into clean clothes. There were twenty people signed up when he’d checked with George, who had arranged transportation from three of the local families. By the time Adrian stepped back outside, Triangle, the cattle dog, was running in a circle and yipping as the buggies pulled up to his gate.

  Adrian hurried over and opened the gate, making sure that none of his animals escaped.

  The Englischers who stepped out of the buggy were wide-eyed and all ears. They’d already been over to Old Saul’s, so they’d had a peek at Amish life. Now Adrian was shattering all of those expectations—he was a bachelor, living alone in a barn, raising exotic animals. They’d never heard of such a thing.

  He briefly explained that he’d purchased the property a little over a year ago, and he currently had one camel, two llamas, two emus, four alpacas, six exotic birds, rabbits, goats, six wild turkeys and turtles.

  “Plus a three-legged dog.” A gray-haired man knelt to hold his hand out to the dog.

  “That would be Triangle. The vet says he’s part cattle dog, and he sort of found me.”

  “How did a dog happen to find you?” an older woman asked.

  “Just showed up, and I couldn’t send him away.”

  “Sounds like my husband—our place looks a little like yours.” The man with her immediately started laughing and reaching for his phone to show pictures of their newest rooster.

  “You live in the barn?” This came from an older Englisch woman who wore a T-shirt that said What Happens with Nana, Stays with Nana.

  “Ya, though that’s only temporary.”

  “How do you make money off your animals?” an elderly man asked.

  “Well, that’s why you’re here. The price you paid to enjoy this tour helps to purchase the animals’ food.”

  “So why do you do it, if not to make a living?”

  “Hopefully one day that will happen. Until then...” Adrian shrugged.

  “At least you’re not tied to a time clock. That’s something to be grateful for, even if you don’t have much money.”

  “Henry David Thoreau agrees with you.” When the man looked at him in surprise, Adrian quoted, “I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual.”

  “Thoreau said that?” The old gent shook his head but smiled. “I’ve been on Amish tours in Ohio and Pennsylvania...never heard a Plain person quote Thoreau before.”

  Adrian laughed with them, then invited the guests to stroll around his property and enjoy themselves. “Kendrick the Llama may spit, but he won’t bite,” he added.

  The guests wandered off, chatting and pointing at various animals. Adrian walked over to Seth, who was one of the drivers.

  “Gut group.”

  “Ya. Thought the old guy was going to drop his teeth when you quoted Thoreau.”

  “How did it go at Old Saul’s?”

  “Fine, I suppose. Can’t imagine why anyone would want to walk around and look at dairy cows.”

  “But that’s not what they’re looking at.” Adrian glanced around the farm, taking in the animals and the guests, and smiled in satisfaction. “They’re looking at a different life, a life probably very unlike the one they live, and
many of them... They’re looking into the past, maybe the way their parents or grandparents lived.”

  He wanted to ask if Seth had talked to Grace or her parents, but Kendrick was stalking the Englisch woman wearing a large floppy hat. Adrian took off to save both the woman and her hat, Triangle bounding at his heels.

  He spent the next hour talking with his guests about animal habitats, what the various animals ate, and what they needed to feel safe and comfortable. Sometime in the middle of that hour, he relaxed. This was what he’d envisioned years ago. It was what he’d wanted to do for as long as he could remember, and a deep contentment flooded his heart.

  When Seth signaled it was time for dinner, they walked next door to the Troyer home.

  Grace’s dat had placed three picnic tables out under the front fir trees. They were adorned with tablecloths and small mason jars filled with wildflowers. It looked as if Grace had come around to his way of thinking. Plainly, she’d gone all out to make their guests feel at home.

  When she stepped outside, wearing a fresh white apron over a peach-colored dress, Adrian felt his pulse accelerate. How had he not noticed how pretty Grace was? Holding a basket of freshly baked bread and with Nicole clutching the hem of her dress, he couldn’t think of anything that better personified their Amish life than the two of them.

  He hurried over to her. “Anything I can do to help?”

  “Ya. Carry these rolls over to the first table, then come back for the pitchers of water and tea.”

  For the next twenty minutes, he hurried between the tables and the kitchen. Grace’s mamm sat at one table and her dat sat at the other. There was a place for him at the third. The Englischers soon felt comfortable enough to ask questions, and laughter could be heard as the chicken casserole was passed around the table.

  Adrian was relaxed and happy and hopeful.

  If all the tours went this well, word would get around. They’d soon be filled to capacity both Tuesday and Thursday evenings, and hopefully all involved would be willing to add a third weeknight tour or possibly a Saturday one.

  The day had gone better than he could have hoped.

  Then he took a bite of the casserole, nearly choked and realized that perhaps things weren’t going so well after all.

  He attempted to swallow the bite, found he couldn’t and reached for his glass of water to wash it down. Had Grace dumped the entire box of salt in the casserole? He tried another bite and found it no better.

  Adrian’s temper rarely showed itself. He couldn’t remember the last time something had caused his pulse to rocket, his muscles to quiver and a red tint to descend over his vision.

  And yet all of those things were happening as he tried to understand how Grace could have done this.

  What would possess her to stoop to sabotage?

  And what was he going to do about it?

  CHAPTER THREE

  “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Grace snatched up a casserole dish that was still half full and strode into the house.

  She hoped that would stop him. She hoped that maybe Adrian would go back to his menagerie next door and leave her alone. Why couldn’t he concede defeat?

  “You purposely made terrible food. How could you do such a thing?”

  “Adrian, I have a lot of work to do cleaning these dishes. Perhaps we should talk about this later.” Her mamm had taken Nicole upstairs for her bath, and her dat was checking on the two buggy horses. Unfortunately, that left her alone with Adrian.

  “Later? As in, after you poison our next group of guests?”

  “Salt is not poison.”

  “So that’s what you did.”

  She mentally slapped her forehead. The idea was not to confess to Adrian, and honestly—anyone could accidentally add a little too much salt or pepper, or half a bottle of garlic powder.

  “I don’t understand, is all. How could you do such a thing?”

  “Because I don’t want Englischers traipsing all over our farm. I told you that.” She turned on him suddenly, catching him by surprise. The look of confusion on his face tugged at her conscience, but it didn’t weaken her resolve. She was doing this for Nicole. She was protecting her child. She needed to stand firm.

  “Have you had any success looking for a new dinner stop?”

  “I haven’t had time to even begin checking into that, what with trying to get the place ready and then spending extra time with Cinnamon, who is not feeling safe in her new pen yet.”

  Grace did not want to talk about Adrian’s camel. Honestly, she felt as if she’d stepped into a scene straight from a Doctor Doolittle movie—one of the few she’d seen as a rebellious teenager.

  She stomped outside to grab another armful of dishes, Adrian dogging her heels.

  At least he was able to carry quite a few plates at once. Why had they not opted for paper plates? Englischers were used to casual dining, but her mamm had insisted that anyone eating at her house would eat on a proper plate. She’d claimed it was important that each guest left fully satisfied, which succeeded in making Grace feel even more guilty. Her parents actually wanted the tours to be a success. She was surrounded by people who were determined to make this foolish scheme work.

  The only trouble was they didn’t realize what was at stake—her doschder’s safety.

  As she plunged her hands into the dishwater, it occurred to her that perhaps Adrian wasn’t her problem. Her problem was that no one understood why she was so against this. Maybe she should talk to someone about her worries, about Nicole and about Nicole’s father.

  The few times she’d tried to broach the topic, her mother had created a lame excuse to leave the room. Once she’d even muttered Best to leave the past behind you, dear.

  If only things were that simple.

  “Where did you go?”

  Grace jumped at the nearness of Adrian’s voice, spraying them both with soapy dishwater.

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” He accepted the dish towel she handed him and swiped at his shirt. “I know you said you don’t want Nicole around strangers, and that you can’t explain why, but I want to understand.”

  Instead of answering, Grace turned back to the tower of dirty dishes, tears stinging her eyes. Why was she so emotional? Because she wanted to talk to someone. She wanted a friend or confidant. She didn’t need romance. That had been her mistake to begin with—thinking that Nicole’s father could offer her a new and more meaningful life. Romance couldn’t do that.

  But a friend? A friend was something that she sorely needed. Maybe Adrian could...

  What was she thinking?

  She was a terrible judge of men.

  She could handle this by herself.

  So instead of answering Adrian, she took her frustrations out on the dishes, scrubbing them with renewed vigor. To her surprise, Adrian picked up a dish towel and began drying. They worked in silence, until the entire tower of dishes was washed, dried and put away.

  When they were nearly done, he stepped next to her—close enough that their shoulders were touching—and said, “Can I have your word that you won’t ever do that again? It’s not fair to the guests who pay gut money for a decent meal.”

  Of course he was right, which only made her feel worse.

  “Ya, you have my word.”

  She wasn’t conceding, though. Fine, she’d cook delicious meals, but perhaps she could dissuade this dinner idea another way. She had a few ideas that had kept her tossing and turning the night before. Not that she planned to share those with Adrian. Instead, she smiled up at him, and said, “Or maybe I won’t even need to cook again. Maybe you’ll find someone else.”

  Which earned her a frown and a growl.

  Ha ha. She was plainly annoying him. Excellent.

  By that point, her dat had walked through the kitchen, declaring, “Guests wear me out. Think I’ll put my feet up and read the Budget.”

  She rolled her eyes. Unfortunately, Adrian caught the expression and started laughing. Leaning closer and lowering his voice, he said, “It’s not as if he spent all day cooking.”

  “What I was thinking exactly.”

  “Even if it was terrible cooking.”