A Match For Addy (The Amish Matchmaker Book 1) (12 page)

Why wasn’t it enough that a decent man like Joseph wanted to court her? She could respect him, and her mother always said that respect was most important. First, there must be a consensus of faith, then respect and finally love. So why wasn’t she more excited by the prospect? By the presence of Joseph walking with her?

By the time they reached her Aunt Hannah’s farmyard, the house and barn and outbuildings were in deep shadow. But it didn’t matter. Addy didn’t need a flashlight. She knew the way home like the back of her hand: along the lane that led past her aunt’s orchard, through the woods and onto her father’s farm.

When they reached the orchard, the only light came from the crescent moon rising in the sky. Joseph’s hand closed over hers, and she let him. He stopped, and she had no choice but to stop. “Addy...” He turned to face her, standing very close.

He’s going to kiss me, she thought. I should stop him. Her heart was pounding; her throat constricted.
He is
. Any minute now and—

Joseph’s lips brushed hers. It wasn’t an unpleasant sensation, but it made her vaguely uncomfortable. She didn’t go weak-kneed like she’d heard other girls talk about. Her mouth didn’t even tingle. She just stood there, not sure what to do next.

Joseph moved away.
“Danki,”
he said.

Now she felt even more awkward than before. And disappointed. “We...we’d better go,” she stammered. “My mother and father will be expecting me.”

“Ya.”

They walked on in silence, and finally Joseph said, “I want to tell you...I don’t make a habit of kissing girls.”

What did he want her to say? Was she supposed to tell him that he was a good kisser? Was he? She’d never kissed a boy before. How would she know? But she had the suspicion that the kiss should have been better than that. She quickened her step.

“Do you think that we... That the two of us...” He broke off. “You are a nice girl, Addy, a pretty girl and a
goot
softball pitcher.”

“And you are a good man. I like you, Joseph, and I think I would like Howard, but...”

He sighed loudly and chuckled in the darkness. “But there is no lightning between us.”

“Exactly.” Something tight loosened in her chest, and she giggled. “There is no lightning.”

“But it’s better we should learn this now.”

She smiled and nodded. “Exactly,” she repeated. “And you deserve better.”

“Not
better
,” he corrected her. “Just someone different. For both of us.”

“Someone different for both of us,” she agreed, having even more respect for him now. “Friends?”

“Friends,” Joseph agreed. And then after a moment, he said, “Was it wrong that I kissed you? I meant no disrespect.”

“I think it was right,” she said, and meant every word. “I think it was exactly right. And if Sara finds you a girl who makes lightning for you, I will be honored to come to your wedding.”

Chapter Ten

“I
don’t know how to thank you young people for this,” Willard said. “It’s kind of you to take your Saturday to help me out. If it wasn’t for my bad knee, I could do it myself.” The man tugged at his scraggly gray beard, propped his cane against the wood box and dropped onto a weathered bench to watch.

“It’s no trouble at all,” Gideon said, trying to speak around the three nails he was holding in his mouth. More than two weeks had passed since the softball game, and it seemed as if, day by day, he’d become more a part of the Seven Poplars community. Today, he, Joseph, Thomas and a younger man named Andy were repairing Willard Troyer’s kitchen and back porch, which had been damaged by a fire.

Willard, a widower in his seventies, lived alone. He was in good physical shape for a man his age, but he’d recently been kicked by a cow and was recovering from a knee injury. The fire had been started by lightning. A strike had ignited a maple tree beside the house, and a falling branch had set the porch roof ablaze. Fortunately, a downpour had accompanied the thunderstorm, extinguishing the fire and limiting the damage to a scorched back door, a broken window and a smoke-stained kitchen wall and ceiling. The porch roof hadn’t fared as well, but the main structure of the home was fine, and Willard and his three house cats were unharmed.

Since Old Order Amish didn’t believe in insurance, Willard’s neighbors and church community pitched in to help. Samuel Mast had taken up a collection to buy new building materials, and the four young men had come to repair the damage. Three girls—Addy, Ellie and Jane—had volunteered to do the interior painting. Gideon didn’t know Jane well, and this was the first time that he’d met Andy, but Joseph and Jane had been seeing a lot of each other in the past week. Gideon assumed that Jane had come because Joseph would be there. Andy was from another church district in the county.

Gideon was busy repairing the back steps, and Joseph was nailing shingles on the roof. Willard kept up a steady conversation, talking about how much he missed his late wife’s cooking, the Japanese beetles on his crookneck squash, the sermon a visiting bishop had preached on forgiveness and the high price of everything. Gideon nodded, made appropriate remarks whenever Willard paused for breath and generally paid little attention to his chatter, which had been running nonstop since they’d arrived at eight that morning. It hadn’t taken long for Gideon to realize that once Willard covered his current subjects, he’d begin repeating himself, stating almost word for word his exact opinions and smacking his cane on the floorboards to emphasize key points.

Gideon hoped he wasn’t being rude by not being more attentive to the older man. It was obvious that Willard was lonely and eager to talk, and Gideon felt compassion for him. Coming from such a big family, Gideon couldn’t imagine waking up each morning to a quiet house, having no one with whom to share his meals, chores and leisure time. In the course of the morning, Gideon learned from Joseph that more than a year had passed since Willard’s wife had died, and that she’d been an invalid for a while before that. Willard had a snug little house, a big garden and didn’t appear to be wanting for money. He wondered why Willard hadn’t remarried. Very few Amish men in good health remained single, and Willard seemed fit, other than his recent mishap. Most widowers, even those who were on in years, didn’t go long without finding a like-minded widow to join them in matrimony.

Joseph had certainly wasted no time in moving on to another young woman once he and Addy had decided that they weren’t cut out for one another. After Addy—and Gideon hadn’t been able to figure out what had happened between her and Joseph after the softball game—Sara had introduced him to a girl from Ohio whose family was visiting relatives in Kent County.

Joseph seemed pleased with her, and asked to see her again, but apparently the young woman already had an agreement with a farmer that her parents weren’t aware of when they’d contacted Sara. So Joseph struck out with the Ohio girl, too. Undaunted, Sara had immediately invited the Stutzmans to supper, and Joseph and Jane seemed to have an instant attraction to each other.

So Joseph had lost two potential brides-to-be, while Sara hadn’t yet found anyone for him. Gideon wasn’t sure how he felt about that. He didn’t want a wife any more than Ellie wanted a husband. He had no intention of returning to Wisconsin with a bride. But Sara had promised his parents that she’d find him a match, and he couldn’t help feeling just a little neglected that she hadn’t even tried...especially since she’d outdone herself on Addy’s behalf. Suddenly, Sara was producing one prospective husband after another, like a magician pulling rabbits out of a hat.

First there was Joseph. Then came Nathan King, too old and set in his ways to make a good match for Addy, in Gideon’s opinion. Why Sara had thought the butcher a possibility, Gideon couldn’t imagine. Nathan had come to Saturday dinner, immediately after Addy’s stroll home with Joseph, and he wasn’t what any of them had expected. Not a broad and smiling man, but tall, pinch-faced, thin as a rail and concerned more with asking Sara about Addy’s work ethic than trying to get to know her. And when he wasn’t asking pointed questions, he ran on and on about his prosperous business and his status as deacon in his church.

Addy had been polite, seemingly giving Nathan the benefit of the doubt, as he was a stranger and a guest, and had even attempted to turn the conversation to recipes for scrapple. But Nathan seemed ignorant of the process. His wife had always taken care of that, he’d said, and now he had a hired hand. Nathan had abruptly interrupted Addy’s question about his meat-grinding process to criticize her lavender dress. He disapproved of the color, considering it too fancy for a
Plain
woman and not anything that he would ever permit a wife of his to wear. And as if that wasn’t crass enough, Nathan sprinkled his ramblings with awkward attempts at humor about Ellie’s lack of height.

The butcher stayed long past the time he should have made a gracious departure, ate enough dinner for two blacksmiths, ending with two enormous slices of German chocolate cake and a quarter of a cherry pie. When he was gone, Gideon, Ellie, Sara and Addy had discussed Nathan’s behavior. The four of them all agreed: cousin to the bishop’s wife or not, he wasn’t suitable material for Addy or any of Sara’s prospective brides. Sara had brought out her black book, drew a thick line through the name of Nathan King, and they all had laughed over the experience.

After the butcher’s blessed departure, Sara brought up the possibility of a widower with five small children in Pennsylvania for Addy. This candidate, a bricklayer, had been unwilling to come to Delaware, but offered to pay Addy’s way to visit his community to be inspected by his mother, his sister and the elders of his church. Addy had wisely turned him down, sight unseen, saying that she wasn’t a cow at auction, and if the bricklayer didn’t have time to come to Seven Poplars, she didn’t have time to travel there. Sara had concurred, crossing him off her list, as well.

Gideon took the last nail out of his mouth, set it and drove it into the oak support. Taking a half-dozen more nails, he turned his attention to the railing. When he was finished, the stairs would be better than before the fire. He was proud of his craftsmanship. His father had taught him that if a thing wasn’t worth doing right, it wasn’t worth doing at all.

He wondered why Sara didn’t look at her matchmaking for Addy the same way. Addy deserved the best. Surely, there was someone out there who could overlook her sometimes prickly exterior to see the beautiful, caring and bright woman beneath. She should have a husband who would cherish her, who could provide for her, someone as strong in their faith as she was. If Sara was so good at her job of finding the best match for each of her candidates, why hadn’t she done better for Addy?

And now, Sara had dragged in this Andy Mast, a distant cousin of Thomas. Gideon set another nail. He knew he should be listening to Willard and paying more attention to his task, but his thoughts kept going back to Andy. Thomas’s cousin claimed to be twenty-four, looked nineteen, and while able enough at laying shingles on a roof, didn’t appear to Gideon to be the smartest piglet in the pen. This wet-behind-the-ears boy was obviously smitten with Addy, because he’d already taken her to a singing in his own district, and driven her home from church in an open courting buggy. Gideon couldn’t say what it was about the boy he distrusted, but he instinctively felt that Andy wasn’t right for Addy. He seemed too eager, too impulsive, proof of which being that when Andy found out that she would be painting here at Willard’s today, he’d suddenly felt compelled to volunteer for the workday.

“I
said
, why is it that you’ve not taken a wife?” Willard’s raised voice penetrated Gideon’s musings. “You’re long past the age. I can’t imagine that your mother and father would be pleased to have a healthy young whelp like you with his feet still under their table. Haven’t your community elders reminded you of your responsibility to...provide for a
goot
woman...to start your own family?”

Gideon glanced up so quickly that he took his eyes off what he was doing. The hammer head struck the nail off center, bounced off and came down on his thumb. He gasped, dropped the hammer and grabbed his thumb. Gideon clenched his teeth, not wanting to appear like a wimp, but his thumb hurt. Bad. Blood seeped between his fingers. He ventured a quick look and involuntarily shuddered. “Jerusalem.”

Thomas hooted. “Hit the nail, Wisconsin, not your finger!”

Gideon wanted to throw back a jaunty taunt, but all he could think of was the pain radiating out of his thumb. He glanced at it again.
Ya
. He would probably lose the nail. Stupid. Stupid, not to watch what he was doing.

“Maybe you should be painting with the girls,” Thomas teased. “The worst you could do is whack yourself with a brush.”

Gideon grinned back at him. Thomas meant no offense, and he took none. If Thomas had been the one to hammer his finger, he’d probably have given him an equally hard time. The thumb was pounding now; the bleeding continued.

“First rule of a carpenter,” Willard advised. “Watch what you’re doing.”

Good advice, Gideon thought, but a little late.

“Somebody better get a wet cloth!” Willard ordered. “Gideon’s bleeding on my new steps!”

“Sorry.” Gideon moved his hand away and glanced down at the step. No blood that he could see. It was all running down his arm. And some had dribbled onto his jeans. “No need for anybody to wait on me. I think there’s a little ice left in my cooler. I’ll just put some of that on my thumb.” They’d stopped at a little market that morning and bought ice for their packed lunches. Still holding his thumb, Gideon walked into the kitchen. The first thing he saw was Addy on her knees, painting the molding that ran along the floor. Andy was there, close beside her, a brush in his hand, showing her how to use a piece of cardboard to keep from getting paint on the wall. Much too close, to Gideon’s way of thinking.

“I’ve had an accident,” he declared.

“You’re hurt?” Addy started to get up. Andy was ahead of her, reaching out to take her hand, helping her to her feet. She paid him no mind, but hurried across the kitchen. “How bad is it? What did you do?”

Andy followed her, and stopped not a foot behind her. He was no longer holding her hand, but he seemed to be standing nearer than was proper. It wasn’t like Addy to allow such familiarity, Gideon thought, but she did seem at ease with Andy, laughing at his jokes, paying attention to every word he said.

Gideon sank into a chair. “I need ice,” he said between clenched teeth. “In the cooler.”

“I’ll get it,” Ellie offered.

Addy leaned over his hand. “Let me see.”

He gave her a stoic look. “I hit my thumb with the hammer. I think it’s broken.” The thumb was already turning black-and-blue, but the bleeding had become a slow ooze.

Andy rested his hand on Addy’s shoulder and peered down. “It’s probably not broken,” he said, helpfully. “My brother split his thumb in half with a hatchet when he was chopping kindling. It looked a lot worse than that.”

Thomas and Willard came into the kitchen and took a look. Willard whistled. Thomas just shook his head.

“I think you’d better go home and clean it up,” Ellie said when she returned with some ice wrapped in a cloth towel. “Do you know when you last had a tetanus shot?”

“Since Christmas,” Gideon replied. “Sometime in February. I stepped on a nail.”

“In February?” Andy chuckled. “Wisconsin winters must be a lot warmer than Delaware. Not much running barefoot here in February.”

Gideon didn’t comment. His mother and sisters had given him plenty of grief about the stupidity of being out on the side porch in his bare feet when there was snow on the ground. He was feeling foolish now, and just a little sick to his stomach. “Maybe I should call it quits for the day.”

Thomas nodded. “We can finish up here. Go and see what Sara thinks. Doubt if a doctor could do much for you. I think it would look worse if it was broken.”

Gideon glanced at Addy. “I hate to ask, but would you mind driving me home? I feel a little lightheaded.”

“That’s a good idea,” Ellie said. “I’ll finish this trim, clean up the kitchen and catch a ride home with Thomas.” She looked at Thomas, and he nodded.

“Maybe Ellie should drive you,” Andy suggested. “I’d be glad to take Addy home.”

“You live in the opposite direction,” Gideon protested. He looked to Addy. “Jasper might be a little hard for Ellie to handle.”

“Ya.”
Addy sighed. “I’d better take you.”

Gideon thought he caught a note of disappointment in her voice. Had she planned on having Andy drive her? Surely, his injury should come before the boy’s need to show off that fast black horse of his.

Fifteen minutes later, Gideon and Addy were in Sara’s buggy, heading down Willard’s lane. When Gideon looked back, he saw Andy Mast standing on the porch staring wistfully after them. Gideon sat on the passenger’s side of the front seat, Addy next to him, holding the reins. Jasper gave no trouble, and Gideon hadn’t expected any. Jasper was always somewhat reluctant to leave home, but always eager to get back to his stable. As traffic-wise as the mule was, it wouldn’t have surprised him if Jasper could have pulled the buggy home to Sara’s without a driver.