Huckleberry Hearts (25 page)

Titus nodded eagerly. “Okay. Thanks for helping Emma. I wouldn't want her arm to fall off or something.”

Norman stormed off in the direction Titus pointed. For him, the world in general must have been one big nuisance.

“I know how to use a drill,” Zach said as soon as Norman was out of earshot.

Titus grinned. “Of course you do. You drill into people's teeth every day.”

Zach curled his lips and raised his eyebrows. “I'm a doctor, Titus, not a dentist.”

This news seemed to make Titus excessively worried. “Oh. I was going to have you look at this filling that's been bothering me.”

Zach chuckled. “I can't help you. But if you ever need a mole removed, I'm your guy.”

“Maybe I shouldn't let you use the drill.”

“You'd be amazed at how good I am with a drill.” He clapped Titus on the shoulder. “This tree is tapped. Should we go find another one?”

“No,” Titus said. He leaned very close to Zach and whispered, “We need to stay right here. Ben and Emma have a plan. We're playing musical trees.”

“Sounds like a fun game.”

“Ben went to Cassie's tree and sent Elmer Lee to Tyler Yoder's tree. Then they told Luke to go find Emma's tree, but Emma is hiding. So now Ben is going to send Cassie to your tree, and I will go back to Cassie's tree and make sure Elmer Lee is too busy to go looking for Cassie.”

Zach cracked a smile. “What about Cassie's mamm?”

“Do you really think Aunt Esther is going to be able to untie this knot? We'll be done before she knows she's been
ferhoodled
.”

Zach had the feeling he'd been ferhoodled. Titus's game of musical trees was a little difficult to follow.

All confusion cleared like the sky after a storm when Cassie appeared from among the trees and walked toward them. She glanced tentatively at Zach and Titus. “Ben said you needed me?”

Yep, he needed her. The need was an ache in his gut the size of the Grand Canyon. The need was a hole in his heart big enough to park a truck in. He cleared his throat. “Uh, yes. I thought you could help me tap the next tree. Titus was just leaving.”

Titus glanced at him sideways. “I was?”

“Weren't you going to help Elmer Lee?”

Titus brightened. “Oh, jah. Step seven of the plan.” He slid his hand in his pocket, pulled out another toothpick, and stuck it between his lips. “I'll go see if Elmer Lee needs me.” He leaned his head close to Zach's. “Um, just to be cautious, hide behind a tree if Aunt Esther comes by.” He took three steps, turned back, and pointed his toothpick at Cassie. “Don't let the doctor use the drill.”

He trudged east even though Cassie had come from the west. Titus might never find Elmer Lee's tree.

Cassie laid her palm against the tree. “I have a feeling there's some sort of scheme going on.”

Zach tried to look innocent. “I have that feeling too.”

Cassie eyed him suspiciously. “What have you been up to?”

“Me? I've been patiently enduring Norman's dirty looks and daydreaming about you.”

Her lips twitched skeptically.

He took off his coat and hung it on the branch of the tree. “Ben and Emma took pity on me and decided that I shouldn't have to spend the day with Norman when I'd much rather spend it with you.”

Her mouth kept twitching, but a grin grew behind it.

“But I'm being selfish. If you'd rather tap trees with Elmer Lee, I understand. I'll probably die of a broken heart, but I'll understand.”

The slight grin bloomed into a smile. “I'm confident you won't die of a broken heart.”

“You want to go running back to Elmer Lee?”

A giggle tripped from her lips. “Elmer Lee is a very nice boy, but he doesn't have a matching scarf or a matching car. And his nose is perfectly straight. What's exciting about that?”

Zach couldn't have been happier if Norman had decided to take a vow of silence. Did the Amish do that? Maybe that was just monks and nuns. “And I'll bet Elmer Lee doesn't look very good in pink.”

“Definitely not. I kinda like the pink.”

“If Elmer Lee wants any chance with you, I'll have to break his nose in a wrestling match.” He picked up his stack of buckets. “Let's go tap another tree. I'm getting good at it.”

Cassie stopped as if she had run into a wall. “What do you mean you'll have to break his nose?”

“If . . . if he wants it to be crooked like mine.” He held his breath as he saw the wheels turning in her head. He shouldn't have said that.

She looked ill, as if she'd eaten a whole bottle of Anna's canned peaches. “Elmer Lee was talking about broken noses, and he said he hurt his arm in a wrestling match.
Oh sis yuscht.
He's the one who broke your nose.” She caught her breath and looked at him in horror. “Did you . . . did you attack him?”

His heart sank to think that was what she thought of him. “That's not how it happened.”

Cassie would do anything to avoid conflict, but from her labored breathing he could tell how upset she was. She wrapped her arms around her waist and paced back and forth in a four-foot square next to the tree. “No wonder he turns pale every time he looks at you. He would never purposefully hurt anyone.”

“I know, Cassie. Look—”

Her voice shook, but she wouldn't look at him. “Did you provoke him? The Amish are peaceful, Zach. How could you do that?”

“I'm the one with the broken nose.”

Her expression was bleak as she backed away from him. “I'll go help Dawdi tap trees. You are fine without me.”

He broke his rule not to touch her and laid a hand on her arm. “Will you let me explain before you decide to hate me?”

“I don't need an explanation.”

“That's what you thought that night you and Tonya came to Finn's apartment.”

She hesitated. He jumped at the opportunity. He took two buckets from his stack, overturned them, and sat down on one, motioning for Cassie to sit beside him.

“It's cold,” she said.

“Pretend you're at the Reg.”

She sat down on the uncomfortable chair and crossed her arms over her knees, gazing into the distance, looking anywhere but at him.

“You're right. I deserved the broken nose. My temper and my inner soccer player got the better of me, but I didn't attack anybody. Norman upset you. I challenged him to a friendly wrestling match.”

She turned her head and stared at him in disbelief. “Norman? You could break his arm just by shaking his hand too hard.”

“Elmer Lee took his place. It seemed only fair since I'm a lot bigger than Norman, but Elmer Lee wasn't happy about it. That's when I should have just let it go.” He wanted to take her hand in the worst way possible. Instead, he leaned forward and gazed into her eyes. “I know how offensive fighting is to your people. But, Cassie, I couldn't stand by and let Norman treat you like that. He promised to stop bullying you if I won the match.”

“And if Elmer Lee won?” she murmured.

“I promised not to come to Huckleberry Hill again.”

She lowered her eyes and nodded.

He clenched his fists and folded his arms. He could look, but he mustn't touch. “It just about killed me to make that promise, but I did because I knew it was the only way I'd get him to leave you alone.”

She raised her head. There might have been a spark of warmth in her blue eyes.

“Norman agreed to the wrestling match because he wanted to keep me off Huckleberry Hill,” Zach said. “How could he know that the possibility of not seeing you was all the motivation I needed?”

It was a very good sign that one side of her lip curled upward as if she were thinking about smiling. “So you won the match, but Elmer Lee doesn't have a mark on him?”

“I didn't want to hurt him, and he didn't want to hurt me. He caught me with an errant elbow. When I started bleeding on him, he stopped fighting back. It was just the diversion I needed to take him down.”

She still resisted a smile. “Any advantage you could get, I guess.”

“I wasn't about to lose.”

“You meant well. Thank you.”

“Thank you?” He was definitely making progress.

“Nobody's ever come to my defense like that before. I am astounded that you got a broken nose for me.” She reached over and curled her fingers partway around his upper arm. He tensed, but if she was the one doing the touching, it was probably okay. “But you must let me deal with my family in my own way. It's easier on everyone if I don't make a fuss.”

“It's not easier on me. Seeing the way they treat you makes me want to pull out my hair. It's okay for you to defend me, but it's not okay for me to defend you? That doesn't seem fair.”

“They're my family.”

And you're the girl I love.
“But you won't stand up to them.”

“I don't want to. It only stirs up trouble and hard feelings.”

“No matter what, I will defend you. All you have to do is ask. I'll be there.”

She turned a light shade of pink. “That's very kind of you.”

“So will you forgive me for being an idiot?” he said.

Her smile finally broke through. “You're not an idiot. Just overzealous.”

“Like Sir Galahad, maybe?”

Her eyes danced. “No. Not really.”

He groaned in mock defeat. “I'm sure Sir Galahad never wore pink.”

“He was more of a chain mail kind of guy.”

After letting himself stare at her for a minute too long, he slapped his knees and stood up. “We should get tapping trees or people will begin to suspect that the only reason I came today was to see you, which is true, but we wouldn't want Anna to get her feelings hurt.”

Cassie didn't lose her smile. He was definitely making progress.

Her lips formed into an
O
. “I almost forgot,” she said, stuffing her hand into her coat pocket. “I have something for you.” She pulled out a small gray rock and handed it to him.

“What's this?”

“Luke found a trilobite last fall while he plowed the fields. I mentioned your dad liked fossils, and Luke thought you might want to have it.”

Zach turned the small stone over in his hand and examined the bumpy, oval-shaped impression left on the rock thousands of years ago. “My dad would have loved this.”

Keeping her eyes on Zach, Cassie walked toward another good tapping tree. “A good memory of him to hold on to.”

Zach's heart seemed to expand two sizes. It still wasn't enough to hold all the love he felt for her. “Denki. I'll think of both of you whenever I look at it.”

They found a good thick maple within twenty paces of the first one. Cassie let Zach use the drill, even though Norman and Esther would have given her detention if they found out. He drilled the hole and hammered the spiel into place. Cassie propped the bucket under the spiel as the sap began to dribble out. “Here,” she said, sticking her finger under the flow of sap. She popped her finger in her mouth. “Have a taste.”

Zach got a little sap on his finger and tried it. It tasted like weak sugar water. “I'm not impressed,” he said.

She grinned and cuffed him on the shoulder. “The maple flavor comes out when we boil it down. It's like faith, which without works is dead.”

He picked up a lid and set it on top of the bucket. “It works, you know,” he said, keeping his gaze squarely on the bucket.

“The drill?”

“Faith. Yesterday a patient came in with a strange rash. It had me baffled. I went into my office, locked the door, and knelt down to pray. The minute I said ‘amen,' the answer came to me. Hot tub folliculitis. I don't know that an answer has ever been that sudden before.”

Her smile was like the sun reflecting off the lake. “God will always give you an answer. ‘Seek and ye shall find.'”

“I'm beginning to believe it.”

They both turned their heads when they heard a car honk its horn. The noise came from the lane in front of Anna and Felty's house. “It wonders me who that is,” Cassie said.

Zach winked at her. “You haven't got a date with Mr. Florida State, have you? Is he here to pick you up in his red Corvette?”

“It's a Mustang,” she said.

He snapped his head around to look at her. Did this Florida guy actually exist?

She laughed at his shocked expression. “Maybe it's somebody for you. You know more people who drive cars than all my relatives combined.”

Zach's heart leaped inside his chest. “I turned off my phone because I'm not on call. Maybe they've been trying to get hold of me about Austin. He's going in for surgery tomorrow, and he wasn't doing very well last night. Marla and Jamie know to look for me here.”

“Do you have any messages?”

Zach pulled his phone out of his pocket and turned it on. Three voice messages and seven new texts. Someone definitely wanted to get hold of him. Had they come all the way to Huckleberry Hill because they couldn't reach him by phone?

He quickly opened his text messages. They were all from Blair. His heart skidded to a stop.

How could he have forgotten that she'd be in town this week? The good news was that Stevens Point was far enough away to give him a good excuse not to see her.