The Promise of Palm Grove (11 page)

She was getting the feeling that an inheritance was all the Orange Blossom Inn was to him. A piece of property in Florida. “You've made your intentions incredibly clear, Mr. Wagler.”

He rolled his eyes. “It's Eric.”

“Seeing as you are about to take over my life, it would be best if we kept things on a more professional level.”

“Fine. I'll see you at nine in two days' time. Look for me then.”

She gave him only the briefest of nods before turning away.

She now felt sick and completely empty inside. Each step felt overwhelming. Everything did. Realizing that she was never going to actually take time to read them, she set her books on a random metal cart and looked for Ida and Jean.

As promised, they were waiting for her at the circulation desk. Their arms were laden with books and they were chatting with two library employees.

When they saw her, Jean waved. “Beverly, we've had such a
gut
time here.”

It took everything Beverly had to smile in return. “I'm so glad, Jean. That makes me really happy.”

Z
ack had no idea what was going on with Leona. Every time he glanced her way, wanting to share a smile about how good the sand felt on their bare feet, or how fresh the salty air smelled, she barely acknowledged him.

At first, he was worried about her comfort. Was she too hot? The noonday sun was particularly strong, especially for someone not used to it.

Or maybe she was thirsty? Hungry? Bored?

All he knew for certain was that something was wrong.

Was she mad at him? Was she regretting her decision to meet him? Did she not feel well?

Instead of smiling and chatting the way she'd done during their previous meetings, she was hardly saying a word.

She didn't seem as happy to be with him, either. Her smiles weren't as bright, she kept glancing beyond him, and more than once he'd felt her tense up.

If they'd known each other better, he would have wrapped an arm around her shoulders and offered her a comforting hug.

But that seemed like the absolute last thing she wanted at the moment.

He was glancing at her again, debating whether or not to say something, when she pointed to Mattie and Danny. “Look at them. They really seem to be getting along.”

“You're right about that,” he agreed, feeling more than a little relieved. Maybe she wasn't upset after all. Maybe she simply wasn't too interested in him.

“I didn't know they'd developed such a rapport, did you?”

“
Nee
. But I guess I should have,” he said with a grin. From the moment they'd gotten off the bus and started walking through the parking lot and down the cement steps leading to the beach, Danny and Mattie had been talking to each other nonstop. “Danny likes to talk.”

“Mattie does, too.”

That was, he supposed, his opening. “Yesterday evening, when we saw each other at the park, I thought you liked to talk, too. But you seem kind of quiet today.”

Her pretty brown eyes clouded. Then, to his dismay, they filled with tears.

Had he been that rude? Or was she that sensitive?

“I'm so sorry. Just ignore me, this has nothing to do with you,” she said around a sniff.

“I'm not going to ignore you crying, Leona. What's wrong?”

She dug around in her canvas tote bag, pulled out a tissue, and dabbed at her eyes. “To tell you the truth, I debated whether to meet you or not today. I was worried that this would happen.”

“That what would happen?” he pressed.

“I had a difficult conversation last night.”

“About what? You've got to help me out, Leona,” he added
when she looked like she didn't want to answer. “All I know is that you don't seem very happy. I was worried I'd done something wrong, but I have no idea what it could be.”

She swiped at her eyes again. “Oh, no. I promise, my tears have nothing to do with you. I mean, well, not really.”

“Not really?” Now he was really confused.

Looking torn, she leaned back on her hands in the sand. “Zack, I was engaged until last night.”

“Engaged to be married?” He didn't know whether to laugh or give her more space. He'd never met anyone who'd
stopped
being engaged. They'd all gone from engaged to married. Furthermore, no one simply broke things off in one night. Did they?

“
Jah
.” She held up a hand when he was about to scoot a little farther away. “This is bad, I know.”

He wasn't gonna lie. “It sure sounds like it.”

“I don't know if you'd understand, but what happened last night was a longtime coming. I've been having regrets for saying yes almost from the very beginning. But I had convinced myself that I was being foolish. That I should've been happy about Edmund. But I couldn't have been more wrong.”

He had no idea what to say. He couldn't believe he'd been thinking nonstop about a girl who'd been engaged. “I wish you would have told me you were promised to someone else.”

“I know. But how would I have explained everything?”

Glancing at her, he couldn't help but notice how the faint ocean breeze had pulled a few tendrils of hair loose from her
kapp
. Now, as those few blond strands blew across her cheeks, he unfortunately realized she'd never been more beautiful to him.

“It wouldn't have been that hard to explain things to me,”
he said, forcing himself to focus on their conversation. “I mean, you're doing right it now.”

“Zack, I promise, I wasn't meaning to lead you astray.” After she took a breath, she said, “My rocky relationship with Edmund was why I came here in the first place. I felt the need to get some space in between us. To clear my thoughts. I really thought that some distance would make me realize that I'd been foolish. Instead, I knew from the minute our bus left Holmes County that I wasn't happy with Edmund, that it was going to be difficult to
ever
be happy with Edmund. Then I met you and that silly cat.”

“What did I do?”

“Nothing.” She shrugged. “I mean, everything.”

Was she pinning part of the blame of her breakup on him? “Leona, when we first met, I was attempting to rescue a cat. That was it.”

She gazed at him, her brown eyes filling with a new warmth. “I know what you were doing. But, see, you were laughing. You were simply happy. And I realized neither Edmund nor my life with him was ever going to be that way. So I shared all this with Sara and Mattie. They got mad at me. Mattie is Edmund's sister, you see.”

This story was getting crazier and crazier. “Mattie is your fiancé's sister?”

“
Jah
.” She bit her bottom lip. “I mean,
nee
. Well, she is my friend, but now her brother isn't my fiancé. See, Mattie and Sara had me call Edmund yesterday to tell him that I was going to the beach with you and your friends today.”

“I would have never asked you to come here if I'd known you were promised to another man,” he said again. Actually, he was starting to think that he couldn't tell her this often enough.

“I know, Zack.” She sat up again, grabbed a handful of warm sand, and then slowly let it trickle through her fingers. “I'm sorry if you felt I was lying to you, but I truly assumed we would just be going as friends. I mean, we don't know each other.”

“You're right.” He had to give her that.

After giving him a relieved look, Leona shifted again, pulling her legs up beneath her. “So, last night, I called up Edmund and told him that a local man had offered to take us to Siesta Key and that I wanted to go. He forbade me. And then he said if I did go against his wishes he was going to break off our engagement right then and there.”

“Wow.” Zack had never been in love, but he couldn't imagine throwing away a whole relationship over the phone. “Since you're here, I'm guessing it happened?”

She nodded. “
Jah
.”

“Is that why you are crying? Do you have second thoughts?” He felt so ill at ease, he fired off another set of questions. “Do you miss him? Did he hurt your feelings?” Though it killed him to say it, he added, “I bet if you call him back tonight and say he was right, he would take you back.”

After glancing at the surf, she turned back to him. “I'm not going to do that, Zack,” she said quietly. “I am sad, but not because I regret coming here. I'm sad that I put him through all of it. I'm sad that I didn't trust my instincts and the Lord's voice in my ear. I'm sad about a lot of things.” Tilting up her chin, she continued. “I don't mean to make you uncomfortable, Zack. I know we hardly know each other. And I realize that we might never be more than friends this week. But the reason I said yes was because I wanted the chance to get to know you. I wanted to feel like I mattered.”

He thought about her words, about what it must have been like for Leona to feel that she didn't matter. From the time he'd met her, he'd known she was pretty special. Girls like her, girls who could be so honest, who were willing to take chances like she was . . . they were fairly few and far between.

And that's when he knew what he had to do. Even if nothing ever happened between them, even if they never saw each other again after they got off the bus, he knew she needed to at least hear one thing from him. “You matter, Leona.”

She smiled. “Obviously you matter to me, too.”

That smile touched him. Made him feel like he was something special and that he could slay dragons.

Made him feel too much.

“How about we go see what Mattie and Danny are doing?” he suggested as he got to his feet. “I don't know what you think, but I'm pretty surprised Danny is talking to her so easily. He's usually pretty reserved around girls.”

“Mattie is the same way around boys. But, you know, she did seem really eager to come here with me. I had thought maybe she was worried I was going to be moping around. Now I think I am beginning to understand why.”

“Maybe this trip was meant to happen for all of you,” he said as he reached down, took her hand, and pulled her up. “I've often wondered why the Lord does the things He does.”

She nodded. “Today, that gives me a lot of comfort. I hope you are right. I hope His plan was for all of us to meet . . . for whatever reason. I would hate to think that I disappointed Him by breaking things off with Edmund.”

Zack was tempted to point out that she actually hadn't been the one to break things off. It sounded like her idiot fiancé had simply been looking for a reason.

But it sure wasn't his place to say such a thing.

All he did know was that if a girl like Leona was his fiancé, he would have done a whole lot more to try to keep her. He wouldn't have let her go to Pinecraft without him. He wouldn't have made her feel like she couldn't talk to him or that he didn't want to listen to everything she had to say.

But more than anything, he wouldn't have broken up with her on the phone after she told him she simply wanted to go to the beach with a bunch of people.

As they walked toward their friends, the super-soft sand feeling like spun sugar under his toes, Zack knew that no matter what, he needed to keep his thoughts to himself. No good would come from him pushing his feelings on her too quickly or too forcibly.

He was simply going to do his best to make sure she had a good time with him today. If he did that, chances were good she'd want to see him again.

And then maybe even a whole lot more after that.

I
T HAPPENED RIGHT
in the middle of math. Effie had just turned in her assignment and was making her way back to her seat when Jennifer C. spoke to her.

For the majority of the class, this would not be a big deal. Jennifer C. wasn't a shy girl and she did talk to most everybody. Their teacher, Mrs. Bishop, really liked her, too. So did the boys. And the principal. Even the ladies in the lunchroom.

Jennifer wasn't mean. She never made fun of Effie. Actually, Jennifer C. was the type of person to hold the door open for her or ask if she needed help getting something off a counter.

Plus, she had pretty straight-blond hair, blue eyes, and two
older sisters who doted on her. Whether it was just her personality, her confidence, her looks, or a combination of all of it, she was really outgoing, and she talked to everyone.

So, everyone was pretty used to her stopping them and asking about their new jeans, or what show they'd watched the night before, or what their plans were for the weekend.

But Effie was not. She was only one of five Amish girls in the class. She was shy. And, well, until recently, she'd been confined to a wheelchair. It wasn't that she didn't have a lot in common with Jennifer, it was more like she had
nothing
in common with her.

Those things meant that she was pretty much invisible to girls like Jennifer C.

“Effie, hi,” Jennifer C. said from her desk. Loud enough for Josiah, who sat one row up and two rows over, to hear. “How are you?”

“I'm
gut
. I . . . I mean, I'm fine, Jennifer,” she said, hoping she sounded more mature and together. “How are you?”

She smiled. “Great. I think I got a hundred on the test.”

“I think I did good on it, too. Not a hundred, but at least an A or a B.” Effie paused, unsure of what else to say.

“Melanie and me and a couple of other girls are going out for ice cream after school. Do you want to come?”

She was getting invited out to ice cream? More than anything, she wanted to say yes, but she was afraid that her legs weren't going to be strong enough to support her for a long distance.

And the only thing worse than not getting invited to go out with the girls was making a fool of herself in front of them.

“Thanks, I'd love to, but, um, I told my
mamm
that I'd ride the bus home.”

“Couldn't you call her?”

“
Nee
. I mean, no. She's working. But thanks.” She started walking back to her desk, realizing that their brief exchange had been witnessed by all of the other kids around them.

“Maybe another time?”

Effie felt her cheeks heat. “Yes. Sure. That would be great,” she said right before she took her seat. As casually as possible, she darted a look Josiah's way. He was looking at her. When their eyes met, he smiled.

Smiled!

Now she was completely flustered. Luckily for her, Mrs. Bishop started telling everyone to get their things ready so they could switch classes. With a sigh of relief, Effie concentrated on doing just that.

Only when the bell rang and she was waiting until the rush of kids eased before she ventured out of the room, did her best friend in the class, Rosemary, walk to her side.

“What was that about?” she asked.

Effie didn't need to ask what Rosemary was talking about. She knew. Gosh, most likely, everyone was thinking the same thing. “I don't know.”