A Wells Landing Christmas Read online

  She started the coffee and sat down at the kitchen table. Chester wove around her legs, in and out and back in again, rubbing her face against Ivy’s calves and purring all the while.

  Ivy set the card on the table as she waited for the water to boil. Then she picked it up again. She turned it over and discovered that Logan had written his number on the back of a witness card. At least that was what she thought they were called. She had heard some of the members of the Englisch churches talking about them. They were printed so that the church members could hand them out to people who needed God. At least that was what she had gotten from her eavesdropping. But she had never seen one. It was pretty. The background was blue, like the noon sky on a summer day. Clouds floated behind the black lettering and a cross stood proudly in one corner. John 3:16, it read. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

  Everlasting life. Heaven. That was what that meant.

  On the stove, the water started to boil, but she could only stare at the words printed on the card.

  Whosoever believeth.

  That included her. She believed. Then Zeb’s words came back to her. They had been talking about Florida, and he’d shared about the church he had been going to, how they believed that all a person had to do was believe in Jesus and they were saved. Saved by grace. The concept was as foreign to her as Costa Rica, but it sent a pang through her heart. Excitement, anxiety. Longing.

  She believed. This could be her. She could have everlasting life. She didn’t have to worry. She didn’t have to confess her sins. She believed, and because she believed, God loved her and forgave her. It was as simple as that.

  A warmth came over her. It started in the vicinity of her heart and spread through her until it reached the ends of her fingers and the tips of her toes. God forgave her.

  She bowed her head and prayed. She might be forgiven, but she asked for it. She held her own little confession, nothing like what Ethan had talked about, but she could see how they were beneficial. God might know everything she had done, but to recount it to Him was cleansing somehow. She felt refreshed, her soul revived. God loved her. He forgave her. She couldn’t have asked for a better gift.

  Tears rolled down her face as the warmth inside was replaced with joy. The sweetest and purest joy she had ever experienced, and she wanted to feel this way for the rest of her life.

  * * *

  It took a couple of hours, but she managed to get ahold of the doctor and get her grandfather’s prescription changed. It wasn’t normally allowed to transact business on Sundays, but Ivy knew that her slip would be accepted. This was a special situation, and Cephas was fair.

  She hitched up the buggy and started into town. The tractor would have been so much quicker and easier, but she figured one transgression a day was enough. But she didn’t want to leave her grandfather alone for so long. Thankfully Daryl agreed to come sit with him until Ivy got back. He figured it was the least he could do since her grandfather had fallen on his property, but Ivy guessed that he was just thankful the Amish didn’t sue.

  Be brave rang in her ears as she drove back from town. She had her grandfather’s new medication and a new hope that everything was going to be just fine.

  But brave . . . brave about what? She had turned away from everything she had been taught growing up. She remembered reading the passage of John 3:16 when she was a kid, but not how it played into their beliefs. Now it held so much importance. Now it had freed her.

  Almost.

  There was still the matter of being brave and loving Zeb.

  Realization shot through her with such a force that she pulled back on the reins. Her horse whinnied and shook his head, blowing out his disapproval.

  She could be brave. She should be brave. And she should tell Zeb how she felt about him. Only then would she be able to continue on this path of healing. But first she had the little matter of Dawdi and how he felt about the whole situation.

  * * *

  “How are you feeling?” Ivy eased into the room, a glass of water in one hand and the new bottle of pills in the other.

  Her grandfather was in the bed, propped up on pillows and blankets to help ease the pressure on his broken bones and bruised body.

  “Like I fell off a barn.” His bad attempt at humor brought a small smile to her lips. This could have turned out so much worse than it had. And it had turned out bad enough, to be certain.

  She handed him the water glass and opened the bottle of pain pills, shaking a couple into her hand and offering them to him. “This is something different. Hopefully they’ll help you sleep.”

  “Bah.” He popped the pills into his mouth and washed them down with the water before handing the glass back to her.

  “Dawdi,” she said slowly, easing into the chair at his bedside. “What do you remember about yesterday?”

  He rubbed his chin and eyed her with a look she had never seen before. “You think I’m going crazy, don’t you?”

  She drew back. “Of course not, but . . .”

  “But what?”

  “It was a little unnerving seeing you up on that barn.”

  “I suppose it was.” He did that chin-rubbing thing again, and Ivy wondered if perhaps it was his way of distracting her.

  “Do you remember how you got up there? Or maybe why you climbed up there?”

  He nodded. “Of course I do.”

  She waited, but no other explanation was forthcoming. “Why is that?”

  “You want to know about the war.”

  She wouldn’t have been more shocked if he had burst into song. “The war?”

  He shook his head. “I won’t tell you about it. Never told anyone.”

  “Dawdi, what were you doing in a war?” She didn’t have to tell him that fighting was against everything the Amish stood for.

  “There are a few things a man is called to do in his life. Mine was to accept the notice when I was drafted and sent to Vietnam.”

  “But . . . but . . .” He could have explained that he was a conscientious objector. Many men were called up in the wars that had activated the draft, but there were jobs other than combat. The Amish might not study so much of Englisch history, but this was one thing they all knew. So why had he . . .

  And why had he never mentioned it until now?

  But she knew those were answers he would carry with him always. Answers she might not ever know.

  “Did Mammi know?”

  He nodded. “She was the only one. Her and Tassie.”

  And there was some connection between this war and the grudge between Tassie and her mammi. She didn’t know how she knew it; she just did.

  “Mammi—”

  He held up one hand to stop the stream of her words. “You’re right. These pills are making me sleepy.”

  Ivy nodded and stood, pulling on the sleeves of her sweater as she did so. “Just one more thing,” she started.

  “Jah?”

  “What do you think about Florida?”

  “To tell the truth, I don’t think about Florida much at all.”

  “How would you feel about moving there?”

  His eyes took on a bright twinkle despite the glaze the medication had caused. “Are you talking about you and Zeb?”

  Her breath hitched in her throat. She had better get used to saying the words. Be brave. “If he’ll have me.”

  “He’ll have you. That boy loves you more than anything in the world.”

  How she hoped he was right.

  “What does this mean for me? You go to Florida, and where will I be?”

  “That’s up to you, I suppose. You can go to Indiana, or maybe stay here.”

  “What about Pinecraft?”

  “You would want to go to Florida with me . . . with us?”

  He smiled even as his eyes grew heavy. “Someone’s got to keep the two of you out of trouble.” And on that note, he fell asleep.


  * * *

  Zeb was sitting next to the front window as a buggy hurried down the lane.

  “Clara Rose,” he called. “Someone’s visiting.” But he had no idea who. In the time that he had been gone to Florida, buggies had switched hands from fathers to sons and daughters. New ones were bought, old ones sold. It was a never-ending cycle.

  Clara Rose bustled down the stairs, cheeks pink. “Who is it?” she asked.

  He shrugged. And if he wasn’t mistaken, he saw the light of disapproval in her eyes. He knew he hadn’t pulled his weight these last couple of days, but he couldn’t motivate himself to do the things he knew needed to be done. It should have been easy, but Ivy’s flushed and angry face kept circling inside his mind. She had been so angry when she told him to leave.

  He had seen hurt from her, something close to betrayal, but this was pure anger. Well, no matter. He had made up his mind. He was going back to Pinecraft just as soon as he could make the arrangements. It was Sunday, and he put off leaving out of respect for Obie and Clara Rose. But tomorrow, first thing, he was going into town and getting on the first bus out of there.

  The thought should have made him happy. But it didn’t. It made him . . . pensive. He wanted to see Yonnie one last time before he went. Who knew when he would ever get back out this way. But Ivy had made her position very clear. He had been worried about her, concerned that she had been out with people she shouldn’t have been out with. Okay, and maybe a little jealous that she would run around with an Englischer and not even pretend to give him the time of day. And after all that he had been through. It was a knife to the heart.

  One thing his time back in Wells Landing had taught him was that he belonged in Florida. He belonged with like-minded people. He had been fooling himself to think that he could come back and live—even for a time—the way folks lived in Wells Landing. Ivy included. For a while there he had thought he had seen a kindred light in her eyes when he talked about the beliefs of the Beachy Amish, but he hadn’t forced the issue. That wasn’t his place. But he knew that if she tried, the different beliefs would set more easily on her shoulders. It was a lesson he’d discovered soon after setting foot in Pinecraft. And whether she wanted anything to do with him or not, it was a peace he wished he could give her now.

  Clara Rose made her way to the window and looked out while Zeb pretended to read. The words jumped around on the page and made no sense at all. But he had discovered that his courteous sister-in-law wouldn’t bother him if she thought he was reading.

  “It’s Ivy Weaver.”

  The words sliced through him. “Ivy?” He did his best to make his voice sound like nothing, but it hitched on the end. Hopefully Clara Rose didn’t notice. Zeb didn’t want to explain why he and Ivy could have nothing though he loved her so.

  Clara Rose made her way to the door and opened it before Ivy even had the chance to knock. “Ivy Weaver, come inside here. It’s freezing out. Obie will get your mount.”

  Zeb didn’t have to look up to know what was playing out before her. Ivy was unhitching her horse, and Obie was coming out of the barn on his wife’s cue.

  “No,” Ivy said. Just the sound of her voice made his fingers tingle, made his heart happy. Yet another reason why he needed to get back home, to Florida. He couldn’t live in the same town with someone who only had to say one word and he was like half-set gelatin. “I came to talk to Zeb,” she said.

  His heart soared, then sank. He couldn’t keep doing this with her.

  “Zeb?” Clara Rose took a step back from the door as if he was about to get up and come walk through it. Not happening. The last person he wanted to talk to was Ivy Weaver. Okay, maybe not truly, but he had no business talking to her. Why break his heart into more little pieces when he could avoid her altogether? Until tomorrow, even after. Once he got on that bus he was not looking back. Not even for her.

  “I don’t want to talk to her.”

  “Why don’t you come on inside where it’s warm?” Clara Rose invited.

  “Clara Rose,” he hissed under his breath. That was not what he had told her to do. But Clara Rose had always been something of a stubborn girl.

  “I just need to tell him something.”

  “Zeb.” Clara Rose cut her eyes toward him. He shook his head. “Really? You can’t even talk to her?”

  She wasn’t going to let the matter rest. Zeb shut the book and slid it onto the table next to the window, only then realizing that it had been so hard to read because he had been holding it upside down. When had that happened?

  He released a long breath out his nose, something akin to a bull snorting, then stepped in front of the threshold. There she stood, Ivy Weaver, still holding the reins and waiting for him. She shouldn’t have looked so good.

  “What is it, Ivy?” He did everything he could to make his voice sound bored and apathetic. He couldn’t have her knowing how she affected him.

  “I came to tell you that I love you.”

  Behind him Clara Rose gasped. He wasn’t sure if the sound was a happy one or not, but it didn’t matter. Their love hadn’t been able to grow. Not two years ago, and certainly not now. “That doesn’t matter, Ivy.”

  She didn’t even flinch from his harsh words. He had expected her to take a step back, but she held her ground as if she knew he was lying. But how could she know that? “I beg to differ. It matters a great deal.”

  “Is that all?” He had to get back into the house, away from her, before those blue eyes captured him and he got lost in the spaces between every sweet freckle on her even sweeter face.

  “Yes.” She stammered, stuttered, tried to find the words. He knew she wanted to say more. “No. I need to tell you something, Clara Rose.”

  “Me?” She stepped out onto the porch, pointing at herself just to make certain.

  Ivy nodded. “And Obie too.” She waited until Obie came around and stood next to his wife. “Zeb and I . . . well, before Zeb went to Florida, I discovered that I was pregnant.”

  Clara Rose gasped, but Obie merely nodded as if he wasn’t surprised at all.

  “We found out early, and before we could make any plans about what to do, I lost the baby.”

  Clara Rose murmured something he was sure was meant to be consoling, but once again Obie merely nodded. Zeb hadn’t told his brother any of this, so he could only assume that Obie had known as twins often do that something big had been bothering Zeb. And when the time was right Obie would know what it was.

  “Zeb went to Florida, and I—”

  “Tried to keep everyone away by making up stories about yourself.” The words slipped from Zeb unbidden. He hadn’t meant to say anything. He wanted no part of this. Any role he could play would only draw him in. He was struggling enough now as it was. “I’m leaving tomorrow,” he said, the words like bullets, fast, staccato.

  “When were you planning on asking me to go with you?”

  His heart pounded wildly in his chest. “What?”

  “I said, when were you planning on asking me to go with you?”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Her heart seemed to stop, her mouth to turn to ash, and she waited for what Zeb was going to say. Please Lord, she silently prayed. I’ve done everything You’ve asked of me. I was brave.

  “You want to come with me?” His words were quietly spoken and gave away nothing as to what he was feeling inside. Had she made a mistake?

  “Jah. Me and Dawdi. If you’ll have us.”

  “And if I won’t?”

  Those words sent her heart back to stuttering, erratic life. “I hope that you will.”

  “I think this is where we leave,” Obie said.

  Clara Rose looked about to protest, but Obie shook his head and directed his wife into the house. The front door shut behind them, and Zeb and Ivy were left alone.

  She looked at him, studying his expression, though he was giving her no hint as to his thoughts. She had been brave. But what if this wasn’t what God was talking about? W
hat then?

  She had been more than brave. She had been downright forward. And still he merely stared at her.

  “Why?”

  “What?” He had taken so long to answer that she had almost forgotten the question.

  “Why do you want to go with me?”

  “I told you that I love you. Is that not enough?” She swallowed back the tears clogging her throat.

  “Pinecraft is different,” he said.

  She nodded. “I know. And I want to embrace those differences. I want all of that and more.”

  “And Dawdi?”

  She shook her head. “He fell yesterday. He might not be ready to travel for a while, but I think he would enjoy Florida.”

  He only nodded, but the action didn’t seem to be in agreement to anything she had said. “Is he okay?”

  “He will be.”

  “And this is what you want?”

  She frowned at him. “Why do you keep asking me that?”

  “Because . . .” His voice choked. “Because I’m afraid that you don’t really mean what you say. That you’re going to change your mind and walk away.”

  She held her arms out at her sides. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “You mean that?” A piece of his mask chipped away, leaving the residue of hope behind it.

  “More than anything I’ve ever said before.”

  He still seemed to hesitate.

  “I let you leave me once before. I will not do that again.” She started toward him. If she could touch him, run her fingers down his face, maybe she could show him how much she meant what she was saying.

  “If I say yes, you can’t change your mind.”

  “Why would I do that?” She took another step.

  “I don’t know. I just—”

  She drew even with him. And placed one finger on his lips.

  Be brave.

  She raised up on her toes and pressed a kiss where her finger had been.

  A small sound escaped him as she stepped back. Bravery could only take a girl so far.

  “If you go to Florida, you’ll have to marry me,” he said.