Her Restless Heart Part 23

"I'll go open up," Mary Katherine offered.

"Are you sure?"

She nodded. "You and Naomi gave me a break earlier."

"Great," said Anna, reaching for a book she kept on a nearby shelf.

Mary Katherine went out to the front door, turned the sign around, and unlocked the door. She remembered how Jacob had seemed to pursue her two months ago when Daniel returned to town. And then when she'd insisted that she wasn't interested in dating, he'd backed off abruptly.

But he was looking more and more attractive to her lately, she thought, biting into the cookie she'd brought from the kitchen. Oh, not just physically, either-Jacob seemed to understand her better than anyone she knew. She wasn't used to that.

Be careful what you ask for, she told herself. Well, she hadn't asked for it, for him. She'd actually been pretty vocal about not wanting a mann. She'd felt too restless, too undecided about getting baptized. It wasn't a good time to think about dating.

But there was Jacob, seeming to insidiously make himself a part of her world, subtly making her look at who she was and what she wanted.

And-that question he'd asked as he left before she had time to answer-about what might have happened to the two of them if her father hadn't made her feel so unloved.

What would have happened? she asked herself now.

Young women in her community talked a lot about G.o.d setting aside a man for them. She'd seen enough of them match up with one and marry. She'd been so caught up in her restlessness, her indecision about whether this was the place for her, that she'd never thought a complication like Jacob would appear.

Complication. She smiled and shook her head. Wonder what Jacob would think of being called a complication?

12.

Apounding on her bedroom door woke her. "Mary Katherine!" her father bellowed.

She scrambled from her bed and opened the door. "What is it? Is it Mamm? Is she sick?"

"She's downstairs, fixing breakfast, while you laze in bed! If you're here to help, then help!" He turned and stomped downstairs.

Furious at the way he'd behaved-she'd been up late trying to finish a project that had been commissioned-Mary Katherine dressed and hurriedly bound her hair in place, donning her kapp as she raced downstairs.

"Guder mariye," her mother said with a smile as she turned from the stove, a spatula in her hand. "I was hoping you'd sleep in. I'm making French toast. Your favorite."

Mary Katherine blinked. Apparently, her mother hadn't heard how her father had awakened her.

"Sit down and let me finish that," she said, reaching for the spatula.

"No, I want to do it," her mother said, refusing to let go of the spatula. "I'm enjoying being back in my kich."

They had a brief, friendly struggle over the utensil, and then Mary Katherine released it.

"Where's Dat?"

"He went out to the barn for a minute. I told him to come right back, breakfast is nearly ready."

"I'll go get him." She was so revved up, she didn't even think to take her shawl. The weather was cool outside, but she didn't care.

She pushed open the barn door. It was dim inside, but she easily found her dat wiping the side door on the buggy.

He did nothing inside the house, but the buggy, like the inside of the barn, was spotless. Somehow, that just made her angrier. Her mother needed help, but he stuck to thinking he only needed to do the routine tasks that he'd always done. Not only did he barely acknowledge her presence, he'd never once said he appreciated anything . . . far from it, he'd even been abusive to her this morning.

"Breakfast ready?" he asked, as if nothing had happened.

"Not yet. I wanted to talk to you," she said, fuming when he returned his attention to the buggy.

"Dat!"

He turned and straightened. "Don't use that tone to me."

"Then don't be rude to me!"

"The Bible says to honor thy parents."

"And it also says, 'And ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord,' " she responded evenly.

His eyebrows went up. No doubt he was surprised. The women of the house had never spoken up to him. But the way that honoring your parents was so consistently stressed had bothered her so much that she'd looked it up in the Bible. Several times. Now she knew what she'd just recited by heart. She didn't think G.o.d would make the mistake of urging children to honor parents while not giving those parents instruction in behaving well toward their offspring.

"I have cooked and cleaned and-"

"Done as you should," he interrupted her.

"Let me finish!" she cried. "And I am glad to do all those things for my mother, for she's shown me love as a parent should. It's good that I did all those things without expecting any thanks, because I would never get them from you. I haven't said anything to you up until now so I wouldn't upset my mother. But the time to stay silent is gone. I will not be spoken to as you just did when you woke me up so rudely-"

"I'll speak to you as I wish in my own home."

She drew herself up. "No, you will not speak to me that way or you may not speak to me at all. It's no good for either of us if I let you treat me that way, walk all over me the way you have my mother."

"Your mother has not complained-"

"No, and she'll end up dropping dead if she continues like that," Mary Katherine said, s.p.a.cing her words slowly and carefully. "She can't do and be what she used to be. So if you have any love for her in that selfish heart of yours, then you'll start lending a hand to this woman who's been at your side for so many years."

The anger drained out of her, leaving her feeling exhausted and empty.

"She doesn't need me anymore but she needs you. She needs you to show her that she's your fraa-your partner and not your slave. I'm going back to Grossmudder's to live."

She turned and stalked out of the barn and didn't stop at the house. Instead, she turned down the drive and kept walking and walking, and when she reached the end of the drive, she stepped onto the side of the road toward town.

A rumble overhead drew her attention to the sky. A cloud as dark and stormy as her mood hovered overhead.

She sighed and shook her head. Wasn't that always the way when you let yourself build up a bad mood? But surprisingly, she felt lighter now that she'd said what she'd wanted to her father. It wasn't right to leave without saying something to her mother, but she'd had to do it. She'd stop by after work and apologize-but just to her mother, not her father!

A car and a truck pa.s.sed, but no one stopped. Rain began falling, large, cold drops that plopped on her head and ran down her face and her shoulders. Then a deluge poured down from the heavens.

Drawing her sodden shawl closer, she wondered if she'd ever felt more miserable. She shivered. Great. Was pneumonia next?

She heard the clip-clop of horse's hooves behind her. Edging closer to the right side of the road, she glanced behind her and squinted, trying to see through the curtain of rain.

A man stuck his head out the window of the buggy. "Mary Katherine! Get in!"

"Jacob?" Water squished in her shoes as she walked back to the buggy he'd pulled off the road and stood staring at him inside.

"Get in! You're soaked!"

"I'll get everything wet and muddy."

"I don't care! Get in!"

She did as he said and watched the water run down her skirt onto the floor of the buggy.

"What are you doing out in this?"

"It wasn't raining when I started." Well, she hadn't exactly looked up at the sky, but . . .

"Where were you going?"

Anywhere away from my father, she wanted to say. "To work."

He gaped at her. "You can't have been thinking to walk that far and with no jacket."

She shrugged.

Jacob reached into the back seat for a blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders. "You're shivering."

"I know," she said, her teeth chattering.

"I was driving past your house-your parents' house-" he corrected, glancing back at the road before pulling onto it again. "Your mother was trying to hitch up their buggy."

She closed her eyes and leaned against the seat. "Oh, no!"

"She was arguing with your father when she was doing it. She looked so upset. I stopped to see if I could help, and she asked me to look for you."

"That's nice of you. I'm sure you had a lot more important things to do than go looking for me."

"I can't imagine what they might be."

Mary Katherine sighed. "What a day Dat's having."

"What do you mean?"

She pulled the blanket closer and wondered when she'd feel warm. "We had a little argument. From what you said, my mamm had some things to say to him as well." She glared out the window. "It was a mistake to go there."

"Do you really believe that?" he asked quietly. "Your mother needed you."

Leaning back, she closed her eyes. "I know." She sighed. "You're right. I'm not sorry."

She opened her eyes and looked at him. "I wish I knew why things happened sometimes."

"Maybe you're supposed to forgive him." He held up his hands when she opened her mouth. "Whoa, wait a minute before you yell."

The rain was coming down harder. He pulled into a parking lot and turned to her. "I'm sorry he wasn't the kind of father I had, that many of us had. He's a hard man who only knows his way."

He was silent for a long moment. "If you don't feel sorry for him now, maybe you will one day."

"Sorry for him!" She stared at him in disbelief. "Why would I ever feel sorry for him?"

"Look at what he lost."

"What has he lost?"

He turned and looked at her, then away. "You," he said.

The rain drummed down on the top of the buggy, and the windows fogged up, enclosing them in their own world.

He knew they shouldn't be alone together, but visibility was near zero and people didn't watch out for Amish buggies in the best of driving conditions.

Her shivering had stopped. "Are you getting any warmer?"

She nodded. "Can we go now?"

He shook his head and gestured at the windshield. "Not a good idea. We need to wait out the rain. You can't have been in a hurry to be somewhere if you were walking."

She gave a half-laugh. "I was too angry at my father to think about how far it was to town. I just started walking." Her eyes narrowed. "What's so funny?"

Apparently, he hadn't been able to hide his smile. "I was just thinking I hope I never get you that mad at me."

She couldn't help it-she laughed. "No, even your brother didn't get me that mad with his pranks when we were scholars."

Looking down, she grimaced. "I look a sight."

Mary Katherine wasn't like other girls. She didn't have a trace of artifice, didn't know how to fish for a compliment. In fact, she'd never looked lovelier to him. She had beautiful skin, and now, damp from the rain, it seemed to glow. Her hair, drawn back and tucked into a bun under her kapp, was escaping in long tendrils around her face. It made him remember how she looked with her hair hanging loose around her face, all glorious and touchable-he hadn't been able to look away that night he'd seen it down.

What would she have thought if he'd touched it that night?

What would she think if he touched it now?

They sat so close in the small buggy. So close. He could smell the rain on her, the faint scent of something flowery she'd washed her hair with. Her slender hands clutched the blanket over her wet clothes. He'd just caught a glimpse of how they'd clung to her slender figure before she'd climbed into the buggy.

If he thought about how desirable she'd looked then, he'd need to stand in the cold rain.

Deliberately he forced his attention away. He swiped at the moisture on the inside of the windshield. The rain was clearing.