Susanna's Dream: The Lost Sisters of Pleasant Valley, Book Two (9 page)

“What did you do with the quarters?” Seth tapped the top of David’s straw hat that was exactly like the one his daad wore.

“Gave them to Mammi,” Daniel said promptly.

Of course. Everyone, even the little ones, learned to work for their families. Lydia would have showed the boys that she valued their quarters just as much as she did the checks Adam received for his handcrafted clocks. It was a good way of teaching children Amish values.

The boys, happy with Jessie’s show of interest, were tugging her by the hands, wanting to show her something about the way they’d arranged the baskets of apples. Laughing, she let herself be led away, and the sound of the laugh warmed Seth’s heart. If only Jessie could always be that way—open and happy.

Adam was sorting apples on the long picnic table in the backyard. Seth walked over to join him. Better not make it too obvious that he’d come because he wanted to see Chloe.

“Looks like you’ve got a couple of eager salesmen manning the apple stand.” He nodded to the boys.

Adam’s wary look vanished in a smile. “The boys like to sell the apples, that’s certain-sure. They’re not so gut at sorting, but at least David has stopped taking a bite out of every one he fancies.”

Seth laughed. David was definitely what the Amish would call a schnicklefritz, a mischievous child. “You must be having a job getting the picking done with all the rain we’ve been having.”

“You’re right about that.” Adam’s hands moved quickly through the apples as he talked. “The ground’s pretty well saturated, and I heard talk in town that a storm is moving up the coast, all set to bring us even more.”

“Guess I did hear something about that on the weather.” Seth glanced around at a sound on the porch, hoping he wasn’t being too obvious. Sure enough, Chloe appeared, but Lydia was with her.

It looked as if he’d miscalculated. It was all very well to come over here intending to have it out with Chloe, but there were just too many people around.

He handed the wrapped loaf to Lydia. “From my mamm, with her love.”

“How kind of her.” Lydia cradled the package against her. “You must take some apples back for her.”

“She did say she’d like to buy a basket if you have enough to spare.” Seth tried to catch Chloe’s eye, but she seemed to be looking everywhere except at him.

“Ach, we’re not taking money from our neighbor for a few apples,” Adam said. “I’ll make up a basket. I know what she likes.”

“Did I hear you two talking about all the rain when we came out?” Lydia asked, her forehead wrinkling.

“Ja, I was telling Seth what I told you, about how there might be a storm coming up the coast with heavy rain.”

“I thought rain was good for the orchard,” Chloe said, apparently responding to the concern on Lydia’s face.

“Not if it keeps us from doing the picking when we need to,” Lydia said.

“And a storm could break branches, as heavy as they are with the fruit,” Adam added. He glanced at Chloe. “You’d best keep an eye on that creek behind your place. It floods awful easy.”

“The cottage sits well above the water,” Chloe said. “I can’t imagine it would get that high.”

For a moment Adam looked as if he’d dispute the point, but then he turned away and began filling another basket. Adam was reluctant to argue with his Englisch sister-in-law, Seth suspected. He was only too aware of how much it hurt Lydia to see those she loved disagreeing.

“I’m going to need a few more baskets.” Adam glanced toward Lydia.

“I’ll get them—” she began, but Seth, seeing his opportunity, cut her off.

“I’ll do it,” he said. “In the barn, are they? Chloe can help me.”

Before she could come up with an excuse, he seized Chloe’s hand and propelled her toward the barn.

Fortunately she was either too smart or too polite to make a scene. Once they disappeared from view of the others behind the barn doors, she yanked her arm free and faced him, obviously seething.

“What’s going on?” she demanded. “You practically shanghaied me to get me out here.”

“That’s just what I want to ask you. What’s going on?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” With her hands on her hips and her green eyes shooting sparks, Chloe looked ready for battle.

“You. Me.” He flung out his hands, frustrated. “You care to explain what happened on Saturday? One minute we’re having a good time together, and the next you’re looking at me like I’m something you scraped off the bottom of your shoe.”

Her color heightened, but her gaze slid away from his. “I didn’t do any such thing.”

“Come on, Chloe. At least be honest with me. The temperature in the room dropped from mild and sunny to frigid in a matter of minutes, and you know it.”

Chloe shook her head, but not as if she disagreed with him. It was more as if she was arguing with herself. “I didn’t mean to come across that way. I just thought . . .” She let that trail off, and she turned slightly away from him. “We agreed to move slowly, didn’t we? Because of family and . . .” Her gesture seemed to take in the world. Or maybe just the Amish portion of it.

“We did,” he said, feeling his way, trying to understand what she seemed unwilling to clarify. “But I didn’t think that meant coming to a complete halt. Come on, Chloe. Something happened to make you act that way, and I don’t know what. Tell me. You owe me that much, at least.”

“I owe you a lot,” she said, a spark of the anger back in her face. “My relationship with my sister, for instance. Do you think you need to remind me?”

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.” She seemed to be deliberately misunderstanding him. “I’m talking about us. You and me, totally separate from families.”

“That’s the whole point.” The words burst out of her. “Don’t you see that? Our relationship, whatever it is, doesn’t exist in a vacuum. And just lately I’ve been getting the impression that you’re reconsidering where you belong. Which are you, Amish or Englisch?”

He felt as if she’d thrown a bucket of cold water in his face. He was still groping for an answer when she spoke again.

“You aren’t sure, are you? Every time you talk about what you owe your family and how much you love being here, I get the feeling that you’re thinking about becoming Amish again.”

He hadn’t been, not consciously, but the moment he heard the words he knew that possibility had been in the back of his mind all along. He studied her face.

“I don’t know, and that’s as honest as I can be about it. But is that so bad? I thought you’d gotten over your prejudice toward the Amish.”

“It’s not a question of prejudice.” The pain was evident in her voice. “You ought to know that by now. But I’m not remotely willing to commit to that way of life for myself. And until you decide if you are, it’s better if we call a halt.”

With that she was gone, leaving him to collect the baskets and wonder what it was he really wanted.

* * *

Chloe
walked up the street toward Susanna’s shop the next day, glad the rain seemed to be over for the moment. She wasn’t sure what kind of reception she’d get from Susanna, but worrying about her was at least a change from fretting over her relationship with Seth. She’d done far too much of that last night, lying in bed unable to sleep, listening to the creek pour over the rocks.

Trading that for her concern about her relationship with Susanna was rather like exchanging a sore throat for a sprained wrist. They both hurt, but it seemed a person could only concentrate on one at a time.

Chloe had been impatient with Lydia’s slow approach to Susanna, but she had to admit that it seemed more effective than her tactics had been. Maybe Lydia understood Susanna better because they were both Amish, while she was an outsider. She couldn’t hope to compete in that area.

Still, she’d been the one Susanna had confided in about the threat to her shop. They’d been friends then, and despite what had happened since, she had to believe that that basic friendship was still intact. And if so, she was determined to build on it. She was going in the shop, and she wouldn’t come out until she’d made some positive forward progress with her sister.

The usual assortment of items was displayed on the porch. Two milk cans, decorated with painted hex signs, stood next to a fanciful bird house, designed to look like an Amish barn. It must be a struggle for Susanna to haul all this stuff in every evening and put it out again every morning. She touched a bentwood rocking chair, setting it gently rocking. If she hung around until closing, she could help.

Susanna was busy with a customer when Chloe entered the shop, so Chloe didn’t approach them. Instead she paused to admire the handcrafted toy display. A row of faceless Amish dolls called to her, and she picked up one.

If their parents hadn’t died in that freak accident on an Ohio highway, she’d probably have one of these tucked away someplace. It would be a battered, much-loved remnant of a happy childhood. If Lydia’s baby proved to be the longed-for girl, she could get one for her new niece.

With an exchange of pleasantries, the customer said her good-byes and left the shop, a well-filled bag hanging from her arm. Chloe faced Susanna, trusting her expression showed confidence.

“I hope I’m still welcome to carry on with my project.” She gestured with the camera bag that she carried slung over her shoulder.

“Of course.” Susanna seemed to make an effort to produce a smile. “You’re well, I hope. And Lydia—she wasn’t too upset after we talked yesterday?”

Taking that as an invitation to visit, Chloe set her camera bag on the counter. “I don’t think so. Lydia seems to have the gift of taking things as they come. That’s probably what makes her such a good mother.”

“The little boys.” Susanna’s smile had a touch of wistfulness. “I would like to meet them, one day.”

“Anytime you say,” Chloe responded, reminding herself that Lydia would be telling her to go slowly. “When you’re ready, Lydia would love it.”

“I would be a little nervous,” Susanna said with a sudden burst of honesty. “I never thought to have any nieces or nephews. What if they don’t like me?”

Chloe had to laugh. “You’re exactly the way I was, the first time I was going to meet them. What would they think of me? But they’re just as loving as their mamm is, and they’ll be delighted to have another aunt.”

This was good. They were talking, sharing their feelings, with no lingering awkwardness over her having blurted out the secret.

“I wanted to ask you . . .” Susanna seemed to run out of words, and a small wrinkle had appeared between her eyes.

“What? You can ask me anything.”

Susanna nodded, apparently accepting her words at face value. “When you told me about our relationship—why did you decide to do it then?”

She hadn’t expected that question, and for a moment she couldn’t think how to answer. “Well, I suppose it was because you’d told me about your problems with Dora’s son about the shop. I wanted you to know that you had family that would be on your side.”

“I didn’t want to think it was because you felt sorry for me.” Susanna’s intent gaze wouldn’t be satisfied with less than the truth.

“Not sorry for you, no. Just . . . hurting, because you seemed so alone.” Chloe managed a smile. “I’m not an expert, but I think that’s what sisters do. They hurt for each other.”

Susanna’s eyes shone with sudden tears. “Denke,” she murmured.

Chloe’s heart leaped. For once it appeared she’d said the right thing. Now if she could just follow up correctly—

“If you decide you want to buy out Dora’s share of the shop, I’d like to help you.”

She knew the answer even before Susanna spoke, reading it in the instinctive shake of Susanna’s head.

“No. I could not take your money.”

“But it would only be fair.” She should probably shut up, but she longed to explain. “I’m not rich, by any means, but I did receive some money from my grandfather when he died. He was your grandfather, too, and I’m sure if he’d gotten to know you, he’d have made provisions for you.”

Susanna’s heart-shaped face was an image of distress. “Please don’t, Chloe. I know you mean well, but I can’t.”

Once again, it seemed she’d rushed ahead of herself in her eagerness to help. Well, if Susanna wouldn’t accept financial help from her, there might be another way.

“All right.” She reached across the counter to pat Susanna’s hand. “I won’t bring up the subject again, but I can’t help worrying about it. The shop means so much to you. It wouldn’t be right for you to have to give it up. Dora’s son must be the most inconsiderate man on earth.”

“He’s not that. He’s very kind and caring of his mother. I’m sure he just doesn’t realize how difficult the financial side is right now for me. Everything will work out.” But the words rang hollow.

“Have you considered a business loan from a bank?” Chloe made an effort to keep her tone casual. “That’s done all the time in situations like these. Unless it’s against the rules for Amish to borrow money, that is.”

Once again, she’d bumped up against something she didn’t know about her sisters’ beliefs.

“No, it’s not forbidden. Amish do borrow sometimes, for new equipment and the like.” Susanna actually seemed to be mulling over her words. “But I wouldn’t begin to know how to do such a thing.”

“I’d be happy to help, if you want to try.” Chloe had to fight to control her eagerness. “I can’t tell you the number of forms I’ve filled out in my life. I could stop by the bank today and see what’s involved in making a loan application.”

Susanna seemed to teeter on the edge of hope. “If I could do that . . . of course, I’d need to find out what Dora would consider a fair price.” A shadow crossed her face. “And her son.”

Yes, the son. Well, now that she was finally making progress with Susanna, Chloe was not about to let Nate Gaus mess things up. If he tried, he’d have to deal with her.

C
HAPTER
S
EVEN

N
ate
had been telling himself there was no need for him to stop by the shop to see Susanna. No need at all. He could easily have left a message on the business phone to tell her his mother wouldn’t be in this afternoon.

So why was he approaching the gift shop? It annoyed him that he didn’t have an immediate answer to that question. He always knew his own mind. Anyone would say that about him.

He was trying to be fair about this situation, as he’d told Susanna he would. Still, it was time to come to a conclusion about the business.

This should be a simple enough matter—settle things with Susanna, and then tell Mamm what they’d decided. He tried to ignore the little voice in the back of his mind that insisted it wouldn’t be that easy.

He stepped inside, pausing for a moment by the door to let his vision adjust after the bright sunshine outside. At first he thought the shop was empty, and then he realized Susanna was at the back counter with another woman—the Englisch woman who’d been here the day Mamm took sick. The one who was, oddly enough, Susanna’s sister.

He walked toward them. Maybe the Englischer would take the hint and leave if he said he had to talk to Susanna. He glanced at her and discovered she was glaring at him with obvious dislike.

Switching his gaze, he greeted Susanna. “Susanna.” He nodded to her. “How are you?”

“Fine,” she said automatically. He thought she looked a little surprised, maybe even unsettled, at the sight of him. Then she glanced toward the Englisch woman. “You remember Chloe Wentworth, my . . . my sister.”

So. He hadn’t thought Susanna was ready to claim the woman as her sister. It seemed he’d been wrong.

“Is Dora having a problem? Why are . . .” Susanna let that trail off, probably thinking it rude to ask him why he was here.

“Mamm won’t be in this afternoon. She wanted me to let you know.” There, that was his ostensible purpose for coming.

“She’s not ill? She seemed fine at church.” The worry in Susanna’s face threw him off stride. Her love for his mother was obvious, and it had to be figured into the discussion they must have.

“I’m afraid she had another bad dizzy spell late yesterday.” He glanced at Chloe, hoping she’d accept that this was a private matter.

She didn’t show any signs of moving, however. She leaned against a table filled with baskets, her arms crossed.

“Oh, no.” Susanna’s eyes were dark with distress. “I hoped the change in medication would put an end to the dizziness. She must feel frustrated.”

That was exactly what his mother felt. She couldn’t accept anything that prevented her from doing what she thought she should.

“Ja, that’s it,” he said. “We called the doctor’s office, and he wants to do some more tests. So we don’t have any answers yet.”

“Please tell her not to worry about the shop,” Susanna said. “I’ll take care of everything. She must concentrate on getting better, ain’t so?”

He nodded, glad she’d given him this opening. “It seems to me that we—you and I—should come to some conclusion about the future of the shop. Then Mamm can stop worrying about what’s happening here when she should be thinking about herself.”

Susanna frowned. “She wouldn’t like to think we were making decisions that should be hers.”

Each time he thought he was making headway, he ran up against the same roadblock. Susanna was as stubborn about protecting his mother as Mamm was about looking after her.

“Not making decisions for Mamm,” he said, trying to sound persuasive and to ignore the other woman glaring at him. “It’s just a matter of showing her that she doesn’t have to feel guilty about giving up the shop. Changes will be easier to take if Mamm knows we all agree on what will happen, ain’t so?”

Persuasion didn’t seem to be working. Susanna’s gaze was doubting, while Chloe’s was outright hostile. Well, he had no choice but to forge ahead.

“It seems to me the first question is whether you want to sell the shop outright if Mamm can’t go on with it.”

Susanna’s face set firmly, making her appear momentarily older than her years. “No.”

That was blunt and decided. Well, better to know than wonder. Still, had she really thought this through?

“You’re sure you don’t want to go back home to Ohio?”

Susanna looked almost surprised at the question. “This is my home now.”

Did she mean Oyersburg or the shop? He didn’t know, and maybe she didn’t, either.

“Well, then, the logical thing is for you to buy out my mother, ain’t so?”

“I suppose so.” She seemed to lose some color. “How much are you thinking her share of the shop is worth?”

Nate glanced around, hoping the women couldn’t tell that he was at a loss, an unusual thing for him when it came to business. He’d been so sure that after thinking it over, Susanna would have decided that they should sell the shop outright. Setting a price that way would be simpler than trying to establish an appropriate cost for Mamm’s share.

“There is the value of the stock, in addition to the value of an established business, to consider.”

“What about the amount my father put up for my half of the business? Wouldn’t that be fair?”

Her question startled him. He hadn’t thought she’d have an opinion already. “That’s true, but the shop has far more stock now than it did then,” he pointed out. “You’ve been on the verge of running out of space for the past year or so.”

“The increase in the number of craftspeople the shop represents and the amount of the stock they carry is due in large part to my sister’s effort.” Chloe’s interruption seemed to startle Susanna as much as it did him. “You can’t simply divide that in half.”

“But I . . .” Susanna began.

“My mother’s reputation and knowledge made the shop what it is,” he countered, glaring at Chloe.

“My sister’s vision and efforts expanded it far beyond the original concept.” Chloe came right back at him, and he thought she was enjoying this battle.

He wasn’t. “This is a matter for Susanna to decide.”
Not you.

“And for your mother,” Chloe retorted. “Maybe we should get an independent valuation of the stock.”

“Amish don’t bring outsiders into their business decisions,” he snapped.

“Stop, both of you.”

Susanna’s decided voice had both him and Chloe swinging to look at her. Emotion had brought a pink flush to her cheeks, and he was startled at how pretty she was with a bit of animation in her expression.

“I won’t have quarreling about the business Dora and I built together.”

“No, of course it’s not right,” he said, regretting that he’d let the woman egg him into a battle. “I apologize, Susanna.” He took a breath, trying to come up with a reasonable way to deal with this situation. “Suppose you think it over and decide on an amount you think is fair. I will check through the tax records and do the same. Is that acceptable to you?”

Susanna nodded.

“We’ll talk about it later, after we’ve both had a chance to prepare,” he said. And he could only hope they’d be able to do it without her sister.

* * *

By
Tuesday afternoon, Seth was feeling a little stir-crazy. He’d been cooped up in his small furnished apartment by a steady downpour that had started before dawn. All this rain was courtesy of Tropical Storm Leo, which had worked its way up the East Coast during the past few days.

The apartment was an improvement over the motel where he’d stayed when he’d first begun to spend so much time here, but it still wasn’t suited for extended periods indoors. It made him feel like a gerbil in a cage.

He’d been trying to concentrate on his latest project, but his thoughts kept straying to Chloe and her outrageous suggestion that he was leaning toward becoming Amish again. The trouble was that maybe the idea was less fantastic than it seemed.

Was he really considering joining the church? Reversing the action he’d taken years ago when he’d jumped the fence to the outside world?

People did, of course. It was common enough not even to cause much comment when a young man left the community before baptism, stayed in the Englisch world for a couple of years, and then came home, much to his parents’ relief. It even happened with young Amish women, though much less often.

He ran his fingers through his hair. That wasn’t remotely his situation. He’d been away more than ten years, and he’d built a successful career in a technological field that was about as far as it could be from Amish life. Six months ago he’d have laughed at the suggestion that he’d ever give that up.

He wasn’t laughing now. Seth paced to the window and stared out at the rain. Maybe these thoughts had been building up ever since he’d moved his base of operations back here in January, when the situation with Jessie had reached a crisis and his mother, still in a rehab facility after she’d broken her hip, had been unable to cope.

At first the change had been a matter of necessity. He couldn’t ignore his family’s needs, and they couldn’t be farmed out to someone else. He’d had to deal with them. But gradually, as winter turned to spring and then summer, he’d found himself adapting to the slower pace and rediscovering the forgotten joys of a quieter, simpler life.

Unfortunately his job, flexible though it was, demanded speed, busyness, movement. It called for teleconferences in the middle of the night and flying off across the country at a moment’s notice.

This last was the source of his current stress. It had begun simply enough, with a conversation with his boss over the new project. Steve was a friend as well as a boss.

As a friend, he understood Seth’s reluctance to commit to a lengthy stay in San Francisco at this time. As the head of the company, he had to make decisions that were best for business. He’d made it clear that as valuable as Seth was to them, if his heart wasn’t in the work any longer, maybe he should consider making a change.

Seth’s lips twisted. Steve had no idea just how great a change Seth was thinking of.

Could he do it? Could he give up the technology he loved? And if he did, what about Chloe?

He’d accused her of being prejudiced, but maybe the truth was that she simply knew where she belonged, unlike him.

Frustrated with the direction of his thinking, Seth grabbed the remote and switched on the television. Even a steady dose of political chatter was preferable to his thoughts.

But the news networks weren’t preoccupied with the latest Washington chatter. Instead, they were focused on the storm. Hurricane Leo, the news reporter announced, weakening now to a tropical storm, was still packing a powerful punch in terms of the rain it was pouring on the vulnerable areas of the northeast.

Seth watched, riveted, as the most endangered areas were outlined. The entire Susquehanna River basin was in the worst flood threat zone.

He flipped to one of the local channels, to find that it had given up normal programming to focus on the storm. Water was inching toward the top of the flood walls in Wilkes-Barre, volunteers were asked to report for sandbagging, and every downriver town was in danger.

Including Oyersburg. Chloe. The creeks would flood first, before pouring into the river. The whole lower end of Oyersburg was vulnerable, including Chloe’s cottage, with the creek on one side and the river on the other. And Chloe was blithely ignorant of just how bad it could get.

Snatching up his phone, Seth hit her number even as he yanked a hooded water-resistant jacket from the closet. The call went straight to voice mail. Praying that meant someone else was already calling a warning to her, he left a message, telling her to get out as quickly as possible. Grabbing his keys, he hastened to the door.

The rain drenched him the instant he stepped outside. Ducking his head, he ran for the car, slid in, and spun out of the parking lot. The rain pounded the roof of the car, so loudly he could hardly think. Only one thing was clear—he had to reach Oyersburg and get Chloe out of that cottage. She had no idea how fast the creek could come up or just how dangerous it could be.

Muscles tensed as he gripped the steering wheel. There was a vivid picture in his mind of a flood that had hit when he was a teenager. He’d been among the group of Amish who’d spent days in Oyersburg helping with the cleanup. It seemed he could still smell the mud they’d shoveled out of basements. And that had been minor, as floods went. People still talked about the big one in 1972 that had devastated up-river towns.

And Susanna—he’d forgotten about Susanna in his anxiety over Chloe. Her shop was in the flood-prone area, too. Still, she’d lived in Oyersburg long enough to be aware, and no doubt her partner’s family would be there to help her.

The windshield wipers worked furiously, but visibility was still terrible. He found he was leaning forward, as if another inch or two might make him see more clearly. The wind had power lines swaying. A branch flew across the road, striking the hood and skittering off again.

Seth’s apartment was in a complex near the interstate, about equidistant from Pleasant Valley and Oyersburg. Pleasant Valley would probably see some stream flooding, but Mamm and Jessie would be all right—there was nothing near enough to endanger them.

Not daring to take his eyes from what he could see of the road, he felt for his cell phone and tried Chloe’s number again. Still straight to voice mail.
Where are you, Chloe? Are you safe?

Flashing red lights ahead alerted him, and he slowed to a crawl as he approached. He stared, appalled, at the water flowing freely around the edges of the bridge over a creek so small he didn’t usually even notice it was there.

A yellow-slickered figure approached his window. He lowered it, getting a splash of cold water in his face.

“Where you trying to get to, sir?” The kid looked barely old enough to be out of school, his thin face tense with the importance of his job. He’d be volunteer fire police, probably, more used to directing traffic at parades than dealing with a flood.

“Oyersburg. No chance of getting across here?”

“Nope. Creek’s eating the ground away on this side. They’re saying the bridge will go for sure this time. Your best bet’s to go round by Jefferson.” The crack of a branch breaking punctuated his words, and he glanced toward it, looking scared for a moment before getting his emotions under control. “The bridge there’s a little higher. You know the way?”