The Harvest of Grace (34 page)

They stepped onto the main driveway and turned toward the house.

“Was there anything else you needed to talk to me about?”

“There is one thing I’ve been wanting to ask.” He shoved his hands into his pockets, and they walked in silence. The minutes dragged by as he fought to ask a question he wasn’t sure he wanted answered. “Do you still love him?”

“Who? Elam?” She rolled her eyes, looking disgusted. “No. A woman can’t remain in love with a man she doesn’t respect.” She took a sip of her coffee. “Old feelings and unfulfilled dreams tugged at us. But even then I knew what I felt for him wasn’t love or respect or anything else worth having.”

“It sounds as though you really spent some effort trying to understand your feelings. Until I went into rehab, I’d always tried to bury my emotions instead of examining them.” He didn’t know if he was making sense, but it was part of the reason he’d started drinking. It wasn’t that his parents had been unfair or that he hated being a farmer. He drank to bury emotions that needed to be felt, dealt with, and released or expressed.

She grabbed him by the suspenders, and they both stopped walking. “Be that as it may, you are a good man.” He smiled down at her, loving the way she thought. And the way she expressed her heart to him. “I like who we are together.”

Something unfamiliar to him flickered through her eyes before she released his suspenders and stepped around him.

He fell in step beside her. “I know we’ve muddied the waters. But let’s take a little time to think, and then we’ll talk.”

Dust billowed on the driveway toward the main road. A vehicle was heading their way. Their time alone for the day was coming to an end too quickly.

He’d made no promises, and she’d asked for none. But he was connected to her more than he’d known was possible.

“Aaron,” Dusty Randall called while pulling his truck to a stop beside them, “you ready to discuss moving fence lines?”

“You want to go with us?” Aaron asked Sylvia.

“No. You need to head up the fence-line project. I’ll take care of the rest of the chores.”

With a nod to Brian Clayton in the front passenger seat, Aaron opened the door behind Randall and climbed into the cab of the truck.

He couldn’t stay on this farm. That much he knew. If he asked, and if he gave Sylvi time for the idea to grow on her, would she be willing to leave with him?

Thirty-Two

The rain pounded on the roof as Cara wrote “Happy Birthday, Sylvia” in yellow icing across the cake’s chocolate frosting. Ada walked out of the room, carrying a load of freshly folded towels.

Ephraim dipped his finger in the bowl of frosting. “So I finally make it here again midweek and on a perfect night, since Ada’s House has no business on rainy days, and you’re leaving. What’s with that?”

Cara passed him a spoon with remnants of the gooey chocolate. “Poor planning on your part?”

He took the spoon from her, gazing into her eyes. “It’s your loss, you know.”

“Hey, no being mean to me. It’s bad enough I’ll miss out on enjoying a rare night off with you. Between your workweek and the weekend busyness at Ada’s House, I feel deprived enough already. Of course, you could go with us.”

“To an all-girl event? No thanks. Besides, there’s only one of you I wanted to spend time with tonight.” He pulled her close. His lips had almost touched hers when Lori ran into the kitchen.

“Ew!” she screamed.

“Cut it out, you two.” Ada’s laughter-filled voice came from the other room.

Ephraim backed away and passed the spoon of frosting to Lori. Her eyes grew large, and she ran to show Ada. Ephraim focused on Cara, moving his eyebrows up and down. “Now where were we?”

Cara closed the gap between them. “About here …” She held his face, but just before she kissed him, Deborah walked into the kitchen.

“Oh, sorry.” She went to the refrigerator. “I forgot to mix up a pitcher of lemonade for tonight’s gathering.”

Cara released him and shrugged. “Who’d have thought a simple kiss was too difficult a task to accomplish—in private, no less!”

Ephraim shrugged. “Eventually there will be only one interrupter in our house—Lori.”

Deborah set the lemons and hand juicer on the island. “But not for long.” She sang the words.

Ephraim grinned, and although he’d not said much on this topic, Cara knew that he really looked forward to having children. She did too. Still, it was strange being around men who looked at marriage as an honor and a multitude of children as a gift. Unlike newly married Englischer couples, Amish ones hoped to conceive as soon as possible—just another way that the ideology still felt foreign to her.

When Cara had found out she was pregnant with Lori, she feared her husband would be angry with her. He wasn’t, but he hadn’t wanted children until that moment. And after Lori was born, he didn’t intend for them to have a repeat performance. She understood and had embraced that line of thinking herself, but here, where family wove itself together like a huge safety net, her view on conceiving was completely different.

Deborah cut a lemon in half and nudged it and the juicer in front of her brother. “If you want me out of here, get busy helping.”

Ephraim made quick work of his job, and soon the two-gallon jar of sweetened lemonade was ready. Deborah left it on the counter and headed for the swinging door.

Trevor walked in as Deborah walked out, and Cara’s eyes met Ephraim’s. Maybe they’d have to move the refrigerator to block the door.

“Nice work, Cara.” Trevor pointed at the cake. “I left the Blank farm about fifteen minutes ago. Everything is calm and quiet. The cows and calves are tended to and the barn scrubbed, and Sylvia went to her cabin for the night rather than working on a puzzle or playing a game with Michael.”

Cara put the cake into a dessert box. “Good. She’ll be surprised when we show up.”

Ephraim and Cara walked onto the porch with their hands full. The cloud-covered daylight had little power behind it, but it wouldn’t be dark for another two hours. Ephraim held a large umbrella over Cara, and streams of water ran off it as they huddled by Trevor’s trunk, loading the birthday items.

Cara caressed Ephraim’s face. “I feel sort of bad about messing up your plans.”

“Don’t. I like what you’re doing.”

“But you had a driver bring you and made arrangements for him to pick you up four hours from now.”

“I’ll cancel with Robbie. He’ll be more than glad not to come get me. And Trevor can drop me off on his way to taking you and Deborah to Sylvia’s.”

“We’re going by Lena’s to get her too.”

“You’re enjoying yourself with your girlfriends. How could I possibly mind that?”

She leaned in and stole a kiss. “I like you, Ephraim Mast.”

“I was hoping for more than
liking
me.”

She rested her head on his chest, wanting to tell him how she really felt, but saying the words
I love you
seemed impossible. Not all that long ago, she’d recalled as a child telling her dad that she loved him. Maybe that was her hang-up—she and her dad had openly said they loved each other, and then he’d abandoned her. In truth, she didn’t know what her real problem was, but unless she was talking to Lori, those words turned to ash inside her throat. Telling Lori she loved her was easy. That was what moms did, and she had told Lori the first time she held her. But that was different. Cara wasn’t vulnerable in that relationship. In other relationships she always skirted actually saying those words.

Always.

Even when she and Ephraim first spoke of marriage, she didn’t tell him that she loved him. When he said it to her, she said things like “Well, duh” or “Of course you do.” He knew she loved him, but she’d like to be able to say it.

The front door to Ada’s House slammed, causing them both to glance that way. Trevor and Deborah stood on the porch, wrestling with an umbrella. Her dad wasn’t anything like she’d expected. He seemed to have an understanding of commitment and love.

Cara walked Ephraim to the front passenger side door and then took the umbrella. “I’ll be right back.”

After going inside and giving Lori a hug and extracting a pledge that she’d be good for Ada, Cara piled into the car with the others, and they headed out. Ephraim was dropped off first. Then Trevor stopped at Lena’s house.

Lena hopped into the front seat where Ephraim had been minutes earlier. “I’m so glad you thought of this, Cara. Is it an all-girls night, or will Aaron be there too?”

“He might drop by. I see him for a few minutes fairly regularly when Sylvia’s teaching me songs in your language. But he won’t stay long. He never does.”

“Is there anything between him and Sylvia?” Deborah raised her eyebrows quickly several times, obviously hopeful of Cara’s answer.

“Sometimes I think there is,” Cara said. “Other times I don’t.”

One thing Cara had learned about riding in a car with the Amish was that they seemed to forget the driver was listening.

Trevor glanced at her in the rearview mirror and smiled before focusing on the road. He looked at her and treated her differently than any other man she’d ever known. Then it dawned on her. He responded to her like a dad.

His daughter
. The words churned inside her brain. It wasn’t such a horrid thing to think of him as Dad, was it?

He stopped a couple of hundred feet from Sylvia’s cabin and turned off his lights. The rain had quit, and Cara got out of the car quickly. They took the items out of the trunk as quietly as they could and sloshed along the muddy path. Before they reached the porch steps, Cara unboxed the cake, and Deborah lit the candles. They stood at the bottom of the porch like Christmas carolers, singing “Happy Birthday.”

Sylvia walked outside, took one look, and broke into a huge grin. “Cara Moore, what have you done?” She hurried down the steps.

“Make a wish.”

Sylvia closed her eyes before blowing out all the candles. “You’re the best student I’ve ever had.” She hugged Cara.

“Uh, yeah, I’m the
only
student you’ve ever had.”

Sylvia hugged Deborah and Lena. “Is she always this sassy?”

“No,” Deborah said. “Sometimes she sleeps.”

Her friends chortled, and Cara stuck out her tongue.

The idea of Trevor driving off without even a “thanks” from her bore down heavy. They were making progress, and she should show her gratitude.

“You guys go on inside.” Cara passed Deborah the cake. “I’ll get the lemonade and join you in a minute.”

The three women went up the porch steps, chatting feverishly as they peeled out of their muddy shoes. She couldn’t hear all of what was said amid the laughter, but she caught bits about cutting huge slices of cake.

By the time Cara returned to the car, Trevor had already lifted the jug out of the trunk. “Here you go. I’ll pick you up around nine?”

“Perfect. Sylvia turns in early.”

“You would too if you got up at four. Ephraim would probably still be up then. You want to stop by and see him?”

“Yeah, uh … thanks.” There, she said it.

“Be here then.” He climbed into his car.

He treated her like a beloved daughter, and she treated him like a servant. What was she, fourteen? Yet she still hated the idea of really thanking him.

He started to pull away.

“Trevor.”

He stopped the car and got out. “Did you need something else out of the trunk?”

He had the track record of a drunk and the heart of a father. What did he really want? If she fully forgave and embraced him, would his work be done and he’d leave?

No longer able to justify withholding love, she set the jug of lemonade on the hood of his car. “I forgive you.” As the words left her mouth, her chest felt weird and prickly. “Do you think maybe you could forgive me too?”

“You’re my Carabean. I’ll always forgive you.”

“You scare me.” Her voice cracked, a lifetime of longing trying to force its way free from where she’d locked it up years ago.

“You’re the only good thing I’ve ever done.”

For a moment she saw an image of what had to be his life—a barren wasteland, miles and miles of parched, dried earth. Then she saw herself, not as an oasis, but as this man’s one lost pearl.

Words failed her, but she put her arms around him. He held her.

She backed away. “You’ll pick us up at nine?”

“I’ll be here, Carabean. Whenever you need me, for as long as I’m able, I’ll be here.”

She swallowed hard. “Thanks, Dad.”