A Heart Made New (15 page)

Annie smacked the basket of cookies on the table in front of him. “Miriam brought more sandwiches. Do you want another?”

“No.” The pause stretched. Finally he added, “Danki.”

“Come on! How about a cookie? Look, these are chocolate chip pecan. They’re your favorites.”

“Danki.” He snatched one from the basket as if a snake might hide in the midst of the bounty.

“Miriam has the recipe for these.” Annie nodded toward her friend. “She makes really good cookies too.”

“I’m sure she does.” He stood. It always amazed Annie that her little brother now towered over her. He squeezed between the benches.

Annie grabbed a handful of cookies and handed them to Miriam. “I’m sure he’ll want another one.”

A petrified look on her face, Miriam shook her head, but she accepted Annie’s offering. Annie jerked her head toward Josiah’s retreating back.

“But my daed—”

Annie glared and jerked her head again. Miriam turned and scurried after Josiah.

Annie grinned at Emma, who put her hand over her mouth as if to stifle a giggle.

“Doing a little matchmaking, eh?” Peter Blount helped himself to a cookie. “Dangerous game.”

Her cheeks burning, Annie smiled. “But worth it.”

He shrugged and went back to his glass of iced tea.

Now, to solve the twins’ problem. Annie grabbed her sister’s hand and steered a course toward the road that led to the corral and barn. The men had already finished clearing the benches. The barn would be empty. This was a conversation better held in private.

“I don’t see why Leah can’t ask her sisters for help. They’re older and their daughters are doing most of the work around the house by now,” Emma said after they were out of earshot. “All she has to do is ask and all three of them will run to help her.”

“True. I think she’s too proud to ask. She doesn’t want Luke to think she can’t handle the household.” Annie tried to imagine Luke’s response. And Thomas’s. “What about Thomas? Do you think he’ll agree to bringing the twins into his home? You already have Eli and Rebecca. And the bobbeli on the way.”

“Mary and Lillie are my sisters, and it’s my home now too.” Emma linked arms with Annie. “Mudder would want me to watch over them. Daed too. Besides, they are very helpful with small chores. Rebecca is older than her years. She already sews and bakes pies and helps me with the washing. Being without a mother until a few months ago made her grow up a little more quickly.”

“Still, she’s seven,” Annie said. “She can’t be any more help than the twins when it comes to cooking and laundry.”

“It’s different with Rebecca. She was alone with Thomas for a long time and she so wants to please him. Sometimes I think she’s a little too
grownup for her own good. It would be good for her to have Mary and Lillie to share chores and play.” Emma smoothed her apron in a soft, circular motion. “By the time the baby comes, Rebecca will be eight and the girls seven. Eli will be eleven. Old enough to be very helpful.”

“Then it’s settled.”

Emma giggled. Annie joined in. Nothing was settled until the men said so. Besides, Annie could imagine Leah saying no simply because she didn’t know how to be agreeable. Then Luke would feel obligated to take his
fraa’s
side. She took a deep breath and exhaled. “Will you ask Luke or should I?”

“Let me talk to Thomas first. If he says yes, we’ll ask you all to come to supper. We can talk about it over the meal. Have a family meeting.”

A family meeting. Those words brought back the dark days after Mudder and Daed’s accident. And then Catherine’s decision to leave. So many empty spaces at the table.

Sending Lillie and Mary to live with Emma would mean more empty spaces, but it would be best for them. That was what mattered. Not the empty spaces in Annie’s heart.

“You know you actually have to go up to her and say hello or she’ll never know you’re here.”

David turned at the sound of Thomas Brennaman’s voice. Sudden heat told him his neck had flamed red. He’d been caught leaning against a fence in the shade of a tree watching Annie walk by with her sister. He could only hope his longing had not been naked on his face.

Thomas chuckled. He leaned against the trunk of the old oak tree, shaded under its heavy boughs of leaves. David shifted and propped his boot on the bottom rung of a nearby fence. Annie and Emma had already passed, so engrossed in their conversation they hadn’t noticed him in the shadow of the tree.

“What do you mean?” To his dismay, his voice sounded raspy. He cleared his throat. “I’m just getting some peace and quiet.”

“Admiring from afar doesn’t get you anywhere. I learned that the hard way.”

It had taken Thomas forever to ask Emma to marry him. Now they seemed the picture of marital accord. David straightened. “I’m just enjoying a good day.”

“A fine prayer service, good food, fellowship, the sun on your face. Blessing upon blessing. It is indeed a good day.”

Thomas had lost his first wife to cancer. He understood about good days and bad days. David leaned down and plucked a long blade of grass. He rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger. “And fleeting.”

“Exactly.”

“What are you getting at?”

Thomas ambled over to the fence and leaned against the railing. “I never regretted one day of my marriage to Joanna. Annie won’t regret marrying you—cancer or not.”

“If Joanna were here, she might see my side of it.” David trod carefully. Thomas might be remarried, but those wounds surely remained tender. “She might have wanted to spare you the pain, if she had the chance to do it over again.”

“No.”

“How can you be so sure?”

Thomas pointed toward the open pasture across the road. The children were tugging at volleyball net stands, setting them up. Their high-pitched voices mingled with laughter. Balls bounced back and forth before the net even straightened. Thomas’s son and daughter were in the thick of it, Rebecca with her kapp in danger of blowing away and Eli scampering after a ball that rolled toward the road.

Finding no words, David simply watched the play for a few minutes. Thomas seemed to need to say nothing further. After a while, he stretched and started toward the road. “I thought I saw a cherry pie up at the house. Now that the sandwiches have settled I might have room for a piece.”

“Wait for me.”

The other man slowed. David fell into step beside his tall form.
“You still have that black stallion you bought at auction a couple of years ago?”

“No. I sold him to a farmer up by Emporia last year. He didn’t take to the plow very well. Why do you ask?”

David tossed the blade of grass aside. “There’s a little girl at the hospital who has a wish. Something about a story and a horse named Black Beauty.”

“I think the Glicks had a black horse.” Thomas grinned. “You ought to go in the barn and check.”

David heaved a sigh. The last person he expected to start matchmaking was Thomas. “You’re not coming?”

“I don’t think you really want more witnesses. My experience has been it’s embarrassing enough.”

He was right. David picked up his pace.

“God be with you.”

Thomas’s words poured over David like early morning sunlight. This was Annie, after all. And he wasn’t alone.

Annie stood and brushed hay from her dress. Emma remained seated on a bale, her back against the barn wall. She looked so relaxed, so happy. Annie longed for that contentment. She strode over to the stalls. “Do you still miss Mudder?”

“Yes.” Emma shifted. “But I’m more at peace than I used to be.”

“That’s because you have Thomas and his children.”

“Have you seen David?”

“He gave us a ride home yesterday.”

“That’s a start—”

The barn door opened with a squeak. For a moment Annie couldn’t tell who stood in the opening, silhouetted against the bright sunlight behind him. She held a hand over her eyes. “Josiah?”

“No, it’s me. David.” He eased into the barn, moving like a man
afraid his horse might bolt and take his buggy with it. “I wanted to…I wanted to look at the Glicks’ horses.”

“Why?” Emma stood. “I mean, they’re very similar to your horses.”

Annie laughed. Emma joined in. David snapped his suspenders, a small grin on his face. “You always were a smarty-mouth, Emma. I don’t know how Thomas puts up with it.”

“He likes my cooking.”

“I’m sure that overcomes many obstacles.” David edged toward the stalls. “They don’t have a black stallion. Do you, by any chance?”

He knew they did. Her heart raced in a funny pitter-patter that made her feel breathless and light-headed. He had sought her out. Well, he’d come to the barn to see the horses and she was here. He might have known that and come anyway. Inhaling the odors of manure and hay and old leather steadied her. This was David, Josiah’s friend. Her friend. “We do. He has a very original name too. Blackie.”

“A good name for a Plain man’s horse.”

“For any man’s horse.” Annie sidled closer to the stall. Closer to David. “Why are you interested in a black horse in particular? Ours isn’t for sale. Luke is trying to buy another horse, not sell one.”

David smoothed a hand over the Glicks’ sorrel. The horse nickered and tossed his head as if joining the conversation. “I need to borrow a black horse.”

“You need to borrow a black horse? Why black?” Annie glanced at Emma. She shrugged and cocked her head toward David. He couldn’t see her pointing a finger at him and smiling. Annie glared at her and shook her head. David had come to look at a horse. Nothing else. “Have you talked to Luke about it?”

“It’s just that…well, I think you might understand better.” He stuck both hands on the stall railing and stared at his scuffed work boots. “You, with your homeless woman and child living in your house.”

Annie leaned against the railing, close to him, yet still a proper distance. “Why? What is this about?”

“Kinsey, the little girl at the hospital.” David’s face reddened. He ducked his head. “The one you saw the other night.”

“Before you kicked me out of your room?” Annie couldn’t keep the tartness from her voice. She ignored Emma’s scowl. “Before you told me you didn’t want me to read to you from our favorite book from when we were schoolchildren?”

“Annie, we’re not schoolchildren anymore.” David stopped. He swiveled and glanced at Emma. She smiled as if to encourage him. Traitor. “This little girl, Kinsey, she has cancer. She’s a city girl. Her dream is to ride a black stallion like she read about in some book called
Black Beauty
.”

“Black Beauty.” Annie and Emma spoke the words in unison. Annie could already see little Kinsey on the back of Blackie. He wasn’t a beauty, but he was a good piece of horseflesh, as Luke liked to say. “So you want to make her dream come true.”

“I want to give her riding lessons.”

“Teach her to ride.” Emma clapped her hands. “Make her dream come true.”

“No. Dreams are the stuff of fairy tales.” David smacked both hands on the railing, a hard rap that must’ve hurt. “I just want to give her what she wants. Not what the doctor or her mother thinks she needs.”

“You want her to believe she will be coming back for more lessons, and someday she’ll own a horse and teach her children to ride.” Annie dared to put the words on his lips. He might not be able to put his feelings into words, but she knew him. He believed. He had faith. He had hope. At least, there had been a time when faith and hope were tightly woven into every part of his being. “You want her to live.”