The Calling (14 page)

No one had ever needed Jimmy before, not really. Not the way Bethany did.

7

S
hootfire! Not another word of excuses!” Bethany pointed to the house. “You boys get right up to your rooms and think about how’d you feel if you were that goat!” Sammy and Luke climbed the porch stairs in tandem, with her watching all the way.

To Bethany’s annoyance she saw Jimmy watching her from the hole in the privet with an amused grin on his face. “Sorry,” she said, trying to make light of it.

“Don’t be,” Jimmy said. “I’m glad to see that you lose your temper with other people as well as with me.” He walked toward her. “What did those two do now?”

“Look for yourself.”

Over by the patch of grass along the side of the house was the billy goat with a push lawn mower harnessed behind him. “I told them to mow the lawn and this is what they came up with.”

Jimmy grinned. “I tried that once myself. Didn’t work. The goat didn’t budge.” He walked toward her. “You have to give them credit for creativity.”

“Lazy. That’s the only thing they get credit for. I’m about
fed up with those two. If I give them any slack they run headfirst into trouble. You can never guess what may be going on in the minds of boys—”

“Usually not much. Speaking from personal experience.”

“—but it doesn’t pay to let them out of your sight very long.”

“Aw, Bethany, they’re just being boys.”

“They’re savages, I tell you. Savages. They don’t give anybody a moment’s peace from dawn to dusk.”

Right under the open window of the boys’ room, Bethany could hear Sammy and Luke arguing about something. She looked up at the house and frowned.

“My father used to say that sometimes there wasn’t any better music than two brothers bickering.” She looked back at Jimmy. “He should have told that to Mammi Vera. Her favorite saying about those two is ‘Buwe uffziehe is so leicht as Eise verdaue.’”
Raising boys is as easy as
digesting iron.
“Just this morning, she gave them something to chew over for breakfast: ‘Sand and sin are one and the same. Tolerate a little, and soon it’ll be a lot.’ Then they come up with a trick like roping the goat into mowing the lawn. They can’t learn a blessed thing without getting in trouble, those two.”

Jimmy stared at her for what seemed like forever. She could almost feel his gaze moving over her, like the touch of the wind, before it shifted to the poor goat stuck with a lawn mower roped to its harness. Then came one of those unexpected and dazzling smiles. “Come with me a minute.” He went over to the goat to unbuckle the harness and untie the rope that held it to the push mower. Then he took hold of the goat’s harness and locked the goat in the fenced yard. He led Bethany over to Galen’s yard and pointed to a large wagon,
where tools and wood were stacked. He jumped easily onto the wagon bed. “Rakes, shovels, chicken wire for the base of the beds, nails, hammers. Everything we need for the community garden. Practically a fully outfitted hardware store.”

She walked around the wagon, examining everything inside of it. “This is terrific! Where’d you get all the tools?”

“The hardware store provided nails, Galen King provided wood from a fence he was replacing, Amos Lapp is delivering topsoil. He told Chris Yoder to donate vegetable starts from the Lapp greenhouse. Even the Sweet Tooth Bakery is offering pastries for the frolic.” He wiggled his eyebrows. “Day-old, of course.” He jumped off the bed and stood beside her.

Her delight amused him, and once again that slow grin claimed his face.

Bethany looked at all the supplies, thought of all the work he’d done, the time he’d spent, and put a hand on his arm. “I don’t even know what to say. You’ve done so much. Thank you, Jimmy. You’re really . . .” He looked at her, and Bethany didn’t turn away, wondering if something might be blooming between them. “Thank you,” she said simply.

He covered her hand with his. “So, then, how about letting me take you home from Sunday’s singing?”

The warm wind kissed her face and rustled the ends of her capstrings. A sense of anticipation skittered over the top of her skin, traveling up her arm, brushing her elbow, tickling the back of her neck. His eyes were shaded by the soft brim of his hat, so their color was a simple dark blue, and his mouth was very still. He leaned forward, bringing his face close to hers. Too close, so that she wanted to pull back from him, but she didn’t.

“You know you want to say yes,” he said, giving her one
of his cat-in-cream smiles. “And I know a place we can talk privately.” The wind blew between them in a gush of warmth.

She narrowed her eyes. “Said the spider to the fly.”

“I mean it. I’d like to get to know you better.”

There was such a sweetness in his voice that she almost got lost in the sound of it. Maybe, she thought, this was something possible. The thought made her smile.

Then the kitchen door opened and Naomi came out of the house with Katie Zook at her side, and Jimmy’s head jerked in their direction. He waved and gave the girls his best grin.

His best grin. The one she thought he saved just for her. Bethany tried not to let her disappointment in him show, but she knew her eyes would give her away. Her father used to say that her eyes were like a weather vane for her feelings. “Save all your charm for the other girls,” she said, sounding a tad more haughty than she intended. She softened, just a little. “I like you just fine without all that embroidery.”

He looked surprised. “But I do want to spend time with you! I meant it.”

She nodded and started back to Eagle Hill. “I’m sure you always do,” she tossed over her shoulder.

Jimmy hurried to catch up with Bethany before she disappeared into the house and before Katie Zook could trap him. She was dropping by more and more often, to see Naomi she said, while cornering him in the barn.

The lady preacher drove in the driveway and Bethany stopped to say hello, giving Jimmy just enough time to reach her. The woman got out of her car and waved. “I saw you at
the Grange Hall the other day but I don’t think we officially met,” she said. “I’m Geena Spencer.”

“I know. You’re the lady preacher everyone’s talking about,” he said.

“Actually I’m a youth pastor.”

“His name is Jimmy Fisher,” Bethany said in a schoolteacher’s voice.

Geena shook Jimmy’s hand. “What are you two up to?”

Jimmy grabbed his chance. “Bethany and I were just heading over to the Grange Hall with donations for the community garden.”

“I never said anything about going with you,” Bethany said, frowning at him.

“But you were thinking it.”

Flustered, she jerked her gaze away from his.

“Is there room to store everything in the Grange Hall?” the lady preacher asked.

Jimmy half shrugged his shoulders. “Won’t need to. Saturday is the day set for the frolic.”

“Frolic?” Geena said.

“That’s what we call a work party,” Bethany said. She glanced over at Jimmy. “Mim and I have started to spread the word.”

“Wait a minute,” Geena said, confused. “Saturday?
This
Saturday? You came up with the idea for the garden on Monday, and you’re going to start it on Saturday? Don’t you need work permits? Time to coordinate volunteers?”

Bethany and Jimmy exchanged a look. “If there’s a need, we just get to it,” Jimmy said. “As for volunteers—like Bethany said, we just spread the word around the church. And we’re not just starting on Saturday. We’re ending on Saturday
too. By the end of the day, the gardens should be built and planted.”

“But . . . that’s so fast!”

“Well, it’s already the first week of July,” Bethany said. “We can’t wait any longer if people want any produce this summer.”

Geena tilted her head, amazed. “Count on my help. I’ll be staying in the guest flat through Sunday. Longer, if the heat wave continues and someone else cancels their reservation.” She went back to her car to unload some groceries.

“I sure hope this hot spell breaks,” Jimmy said, trying to keep Bethany’s interest. He had spotted Katie Zook, popping her head over the privet, watching, waiting for him, and he wanted to stay clear. “This is one summer I won’t miss. Galen and I can’t even work the horses like we want to—they get too overheated. I want to get Lodestar out on the roads but the blacktop feels like it’s melting.” He sidled a half turn to keep Bethany from noticing Katie at the privet.

“How’s it going with that horse?”

Jimmy squeezed his eyes shut in disgust. “Bethany, he’s not
that
horse. He’s one in a million.” Lodestar was Jimmy’s pride and joy. He was a stallion that Jimmy had bought, several times, off that swindler Jake Hertzler.
Never mind.
Despite how he had ended up with Lodestar, the horse was worth every penny. Jimmy had plans to start using Lodestar as a stud horse, just as soon as he broke him of his bad habit of running off. It would never do to deliver his stud to a mare for a few days’ work, only to have him disappear.

“So sorry,” she said, feigning her apology. “How is your one-in-a-million horse behaving?”

“We’re making progress. Patience is required, you see, when
you’re a serious horse trainer.” And when you’re serious about a certain girl. He gave her his most charming grin. “So let’s get back to the important matter. What about Sunday’s singing? How about letting me take you home?”

She lifted her chin in that saucy way she had. “Well, you’ll just have to keep practicing your newly found patience. I haven’t decided yet.”

He watched her head back to the house. Before she went inside, she turned and gave him a grin. All he could think when she gave him that grin was that he wished he were a better man.

Then his smile faded. Katie Zook was still waiting for him by the privet hole.

Mim bent down and put her eye to the lens. It was a very good telescope, with powerful magnification and a sturdy tripod, even if it was taped together with electrical tape. When she looked through it, the stars popped vividly forward, with one glowing brightly in the middle. “So majestic,” she murmured, then stepped away and looked straight up to the sky, crossing her arms over her chest.

Then Danny came over to bend down and take a look in the telescope. “Amazing, isn’t it? I never get over the night sky.”

“Do you know the names of those constellations?”

“Some.” He straightened up and craned his neck to look at the sky. “That’s Cassiopeia, right there,” he pointed, “and the Big Dipper, of course, and Gemini.”

She tried not to think of how close Danny was standing to her, of how he smelled of bayberry soap, and how good and kind and smart he was. She tried not to think about sneaking
out of the house to join Danny tonight and how much trouble she would face if Mammi Vera were to find out where she was and why. Instead, she tried to focus on those beautiful sparkling stars, diamonds on black velvet, and soon she fell into the vastness of the darkness, the far-away-ness of the stars, the possibilities of so many stars lighting so many systems. “So many stars,” she murmured. “Millions upon millions.”

Danny nodded. “Each star has a place in the sky, a purpose to fulfill.”