Winter of Wishes (12 page)

Why did it have to be Ira Hooley who had spotted her? Ira, who had flirted and acted
interested in taking her out but had taken Millie Glick instead.

“Oh, Mamma, I had no idea . . . it was just this one time.” Rhoda covered her face
with her hands, wishing her frightened thoughts would stop spinning so fast. “It only
lasted a few seconds—”

“
Jah
, well, you’re no stranger to our ways, Daughter,” her mother said softly. “What’s
done is done, but there’s the consequences to face. Better to come clean with Preacher
Tom sooner rather than later, so he’ll know you’re sincerely tryin’ to stay right
with the Lord and the
Ordnung
. And since Millie and Annie Mae are pretty thick, be ready for the bishop to come
callin’, askin’ for your answers, as well.”

Rhoda sighed heavily. She stepped on the folding ladder they kept handy and grabbed
the awkward bin full of Christmas cookie decorations from the top shelf. “Here ya
go,” she said, aware of how dead her voice sounded in this tiny room.

“Preacher Tom left a bit ago. With his milkin’ done for the mornin’, and after all
the snow plowin’ he did around his dairy barns yesterday,” her mother said, “he’s
probably gonna spend a quiet day in his warm house.”

With a resigned sigh, Rhoda put away her thoughts of savoring Andy’s kiss just a little
longer. “Does Rachel know? Or Naomi?”

“Not the details. Only that ya came back real late from New Haven,” Mamma said with
a shake of her head. “It’s not my place to tell them, ya see. But this little tidbit
won’t stay under Millie’s kapp for long, even if Ira doesn’t gossip about it.”

Rhoda gazed into her mother’s doelike eyes, sorry she’d been the cause of the doubts
and worry that now clouded Mamma’s usually cheerful nature. “I’m on my way over to
Tom’s, then.”

Rhoda pounded loudly on Preacher Tom’s front door. She waited for what seemed like
forever . . . Maybe he was out in his barns working on his milking equipment. Maybe
she should scuttle on home rather than admit to kisses that still seemed more wonderful
than anything she’d ever known. The wind whipped the edges of her bonnet, chilling
her.

Then she heard a familiar voice inside the house. “
Jah
, I’m gettin’ there! Don’t go away!”

When the door opened, Preacher Tom gazed at her over rimless glasses that were ready
to slip off the end of his nose. “Well, now! This was worth comin’ to my door for,”
he said with a smile. “Come on in! But you’ll have to tell me if you’re Rachel or
Rhoda.”

Oh, but for a moment she was tempted to give her sister’s name! Except Preacher Tom
would see through that lie in a heartbeat once she told him why she’d come. “I’m Rhoda,”
she murmured as she stepped into his big kitchen. “And I’m real sorry to interrupt
whatever you’re doin’, but . . . well, I’ve gotta talk to ya, Tom.”

“Been paintin’ on a Nativity set,” he said as he led her through his cluttered kitchen
and into the sunny front room. A large worktable sat by the picture window. “Keeps
me busy on these cold days. Seems that for every set I sell to tourists in Zook’s
Market, I get orders for three more.”

“That’s because ya do
gut
work, Tom.” Rhoda picked up a wooden figure still awaiting paint—a wise man with
a broad-brimmed hat and a beard, holding a big apple as his gift for the baby Jesus.
Brett and Taylor would love such a Nativity set. What a perfect gift, to help them
understand the Amish culture and the way Plain folks celebrated Christmas.

But she hadn’t come to ooh and aah over Preacher Tom’s crafting. Rhoda removed her
bonnet and coat, suddenly warmer than she wanted to be.

Tom perched on the wooden stool he sat on to paint, gesturing toward the rocking chair
nearest his table. He was a few years older than Mamma, with just enough silver in
his hair and beard to resemble tinsel. His clothes looked rumpled, on account of how
he didn’t always get them pressed: his wife, Lettie, had run off with an English fellow
last spring. And while Ben Hooley’s aunt Nazareth now seemed to be carrying a torch
for Tom, it wouldn’t be proper for her to spend time here in his home. Lettie had
divorced him, but the
Ordnung
stated that Tom wasn’t free to remarry until she died.

“And what might be on your mind on this cold, snowy mornin’, Rhoda?” he asked gently.

She knew that confession was the way to handle what she and Andy had done last night,
but she felt flustered. Suddenly tongue-tied. This was the first time she’d done anything
she needed to confess. Rhoda clasped her hands in her lap, finding a worn spot in
the rug to focus on. “I guess ya know I’m workin’ for an English family,” she began.

“
Jah
, your
mamm
talks like it’s goin’ well. You’re well suited to that sort of work.”

Oh, but that stung like a paper cut! “Andy’s a fine man, devoted to his nursin’ work,
and, well—we both knew better,” she mumbled, “but last night he had to stay at the
hospital real late, so he drove me home. We . . . kissed in his car.”

Tom’s eyes widened. “Oh my. That’s not the way to—”

“We won’t let it happen again!” Rhoda blurted, her eyes stinging with tears. “But
we were stopped alongside the road—had no idea Ira Hooley and Millie Glick saw us
while they were out in a sleigh. And Mamma noticed the car had stopped, too . . .
and she guessed what had happened from the look on my face.”

Tom sighed wearily. “Ya won’t like hearin’ this, but ya have to quit workin’ for this
fella, here and now. You’re only puttin’ yourself in temptation’s way if ya keep goin’
to his home.”

Her heart clenched. Preacher Tom had said what any leader of the church would say,
and much more gently than Bishop Knepp would’ve handled it. But it tore at her soul
to think about not seeing Taylor’s and Brett’s bright smiles anymore. And poor Betty
was starting to show some real recovery . . .

“
Jah
, you make a
gut
point, Preacher Tom,” she said with a sigh.

He gazed pointedly at her. “But?”

Rhoda met his eyes and saw great concern but great compassion, as well. “What if I
believe I . . . belong in his family?”

“Oh, Rhoda, it’s way too soon to be thinkin’ such a thing, even if it is right!”

“But—but I took to his kids right off. And his
mamm
is comin’ out of her shell, recoverin’ from her stroke, and—” Rhoda nipped her lip,
knowing her thoughts were headed down the wrong road. But if she were to truly confess,
didn’t she need to lay all her feelings out in the open? “Andy’s a special man, Tom.
Not like any of the fellas I’ve been on dates with.”

“Rhoda Lantz, if ya take up with an Englishman—if ya forsake the vows ya made when
ya were baptized into the church—we’ll have no choice but to excommunicate ya,” the
preacher said earnestly. “And that would break your mother’s heart. Take it from a
fella who lost the one he loved when she kept thinkin’ the grass was greener on the
English side of the fence.”

She sighed. “I know that. I had to say it out because I didn’t want to lie to ya.”

“All well and
gut
,” Preacher Tom affirmed. “But you’ve been taught obedience—to God and to the
Ordnung
—from the cradle. There’s right and there’s wrong here. No middle ground.”

Rhoda closed her eyes against tears she didn’t want him to see. Why was this so difficult?
What he had said was absolutely true: there was no middle ground. And if she entertained
the wild idea of giving up her Plain life—even though she wasn’t nearly at that point—it
would make Mamma look like an ineffective parent who had lost the most basic control
over her child . . . even if that child was twenty-one years old.

She clutched at another straw. “It wouldn’t be right to just up and quit, though,”
she murmured. “The kids need an adult there after school, because Betty’s not strong
enough to keep track of what-all they’re doing.”

Preacher Tom’s gaze didn’t waver. “And ya really think one kiss won’t lead to another?”
he demanded. “Anybody could see why a fella would be attracted to a young woman who
keeps his house runnin’ while he’s away, and English men don’t understand what they’re
gettin’ into when they flirt with an Amish gal. They’ve no idea what trouble they
make for her, pretendin’ to care for her when there’s no
gut
direction for the courtship to go.”

Andy was doing more than pretending to care. Even after such a short time, Rhoda believed
he was as sincere about his feelings, his needs, as she was.

“If ya promise me here and now, Rhoda, that ya won’t go back there—that you’ll call
this fella first thing when ya get home, tellin’ him ya can’t sacrifice your soul
to work for him,” Tom said earnestly, “then this confession between you and me’ll
be the end of it. Ya did right by comin’ here. But I can’t keep this under my hat
if your relationship goes any farther. Then you’ll have to confess at a Members’ Meeting—a
kneelin’ confession that might lead to puttin’ ya under the ban.”

“
Jah
. That’s the way of it.”

“Use my phone in the barn, then. Make the call right now.”

Rhoda’s jaw dropped. While it was the right thing to do according to what the church
demanded, it felt like a betrayal of a decent man, a responsible father who was depending
on her. “I—I don’t know the phone number.”

“Even so, I can see your answer in your eyes,” he murmured. Tom sounded disappointed
yet determined to help her through a difficult situation. “I know a little about fallin’
head over heels for somebody special—love at first sight, if ya will. First time I
ever saw Lettie, I knew I had to marry her.”

Rhoda and everyone else in Willow Ridge knew how that had turned out—even though Tom
and Lettie Hostetler had been married long enough to have four kids who were now married
themselves. The rumors and signs of Lettie’s involvement with that English fellow
had popped up all along the way. It wasn’t like she’d left Tom on a whim, with a stranger.

“I’m real sorry that happened to ya,” she murmured. “Everybody is.”

“Well,
sorry
hasn’t put my life back together,” he said with a sigh. “I’m warnin’ ya about such
things, Rhoda—about such
pain
. We Amish believe that everything that happens to us is God’s will, but that doesn’t
make this empty house any easier to live in.”

Rhoda picked up her coat, wishing she could do the right thing effortlessly, but every
muscle in her body resisted walking out to his phone. And it would be a lie to tell
him she’d call from the Sweet Seasons.

Tom stood up with her. “If ya get in that bind again, where ya have to stay late workin’
someplace and ya don’t want to call Sheila for your ride, call
me
, Rhoda,” he insisted. “Might sound silly or pathetic, but I’ve got a bell in the
house here, in case the phone rings in the barn. Sure, it’s the way my milk haulers
keep in touch with me, but truth be told, if Lettie needs me to come and get her,
I’ll know it right off. Just promise me ya won’t go back to this Andy’s house.”

Her throat went tight. How sad, that this fine man lived at the ready to fetch his
runaway wife, even though she had divorced him. “Might not look like it, but I really
appreciate what you’ve been tellin’ me, Tom. I—I’ll let ya know when I’ve made that
call.”

Rhoda stepped outside, tying her black strings to keep the wind from snatching her
bonnet. She wasn’t ready to return to the café, where Mamma would once again know
how she’d fallen short, so she walked down Preacher Tom’s long lane to the county
road instead of taking the shortcut through the fields. Even though the big plows
had driven past, clearing the snow and spreading cinders and salt, the pavement had
a lot of icy patches that made walking tricky. She picked her way along, head down
against the wind, wondering how to resolve this problem about Andy and his kids .
. .

When she looked up a while later, Zook’s Market was just a few minutes ahead. She
was unaware of how she’d gotten this far along, but ducking in out of the wind seemed
like a fine idea, even if she would need a plausible reason for being there instead
of at the Sweet Seasons helping Mamma. Had Henry and Lydia heard about last night’s
escapade? How strange it felt, wondering if she was already being talked about—being
judged—by folks she’d known all her life. What would she tell the Zooks if they asked
any difficult questions?

When she stepped inside Willow Ridge’s general store, however, she saw the perfect
inspiration: one of Preacher Tom’s Nativity scenes was on display near the door. Along
with a manger watched over by an angel and a star, Baby Jesus and His family, three
bearded wise men, two shepherds, and an assortment of sheep, cows, and a donkey completed
the scene. Men in Bible times didn’t wear black broad-brimmed hats, nor did the animals
in that long-ago stable have colorful Amish quilts for blankets, but such artwork
that depicted Plain folks at the manger appealed to tourists. And it was still a way
to spread the joy of Jesus’s birth.

If I take this along tomorrow, Taylor and Brett
—
and Betty and Andy
—
will know how much they mean to me. Even if I have to leave them.

Rhoda read the little sign:

She swallowed hard. Few Plain folks would pay such a price—but then, they often made
their own Nativity scenes or handed them down from one generation to the next. Wasn’t
this the perfect way to spend the money Andy had paid her?

Rhoda looked between the tall white shelves of the store, which was very quiet this
afternoon. She was relieved to find Katie Zook over by the cutting table where they
sold fabrics. “Katie! Will ya box up this Nativity scene by the door for me? Meanwhile,
I’m gonna pick up a few cookie-makin’ supplies, too. It’s time for that kind of bakin’.”

Her friend smiled up at her, looking as though she’d heard nothing about Rhoda’s kisses
in a car. “Would this be for those kids you’re watchin’?” she asked as she took a
box from under the cutting table.

“Jah,”
Rhoda replied, pleased she didn’t have to explain anything further. “They’re curious
about our beliefs, and this’ll be a
gut
gift for keepin’ Christmas the way it was meant to be.”

She chose flour and butter, along with four colors of sanding sugar and a box of food
coloring, and by the time she left Zook’s Market with her packages she felt much better.
Rather than not showing up without an explanation for Betty and those dear children,
she would spend just one more day with the family she’d grown so close to. Surely
it wouldn’t be a sin to say a proper good-bye . . . to give Andy more time to find
her replacement . . .