A Wells Landing Christmas Read online

  He stopped short. She knew good and well when he’d arrived. She had been the one to take him home. Apparently no one else knew that. It seemed strange to think that no one had seen them together Saturday afternoon as they chugged along, but he was sure anything was possible. “Yesterday.” He forced the word out between clenched teeth and a forced smile of his own. “How have you been?”

  “Good, good. And you?” She shifted, and he could tell that she would rather be anywhere than there, talking about everyday matters and nothing at all. But why?

  “Oh, you know.” He shoved his hands into his pockets and gave a quick shrug.

  “No,” she said quietly. “I don’t.”

  A moment held in the air between them, and for a time, everything around them seemed to melt away. There they stood, like they had all those many months ago. Except it hadn’t been this cold then. Ivy had been dry-eyed and stern, belligerent even as she raised her chin and told him to do whatever it was he had in his heart. If only she had asked him to stay . . .

  “Nice talking to you,” she said. “But I need to go see about Dawdi.” Her gaze shifted to a spot over his left shoulder. Then she nodded in the same direction and brushed past him.

  Zeb turned and watched as Ivy started toward the row of buggies. Yonnie Weaver, Ivy’s grandfather, was walking around each one as if they were lined up for purchase. He made it around two more before Ivy caught up with him. Zeb was too far away to hear the conversation, but it seemed to him as if Ivy was trying to coax him back toward the milling throng of church members. He took a couple of steps toward the house, then started back toward the buggies. Ivy stopped him, then pointed in the general direction of the pasture where the horses had been let out for the afternoon. Next she pointed toward one of the buggies. It was as if she was saying, Our horse is there. Our buggy right there. But any other interpretation was lost as Obie sidled up next to him.

  “You’re staring,” Obie said.

  Zeb jerked his head in what might be considered a nod, then rolled one shoulder in a possible shrug. “Something’s up.”

  “It’s okay. I don’t think anyone noticed.”

  Zeb turned to his brother. When they stood together like this, side by side, he wondered what others thought of them. Matching bookends with dark, rumpled hair? Mirror images with green eyes and crooked smiles? Once upon a time they were trouble in suspenders, always into something or another. But these days Obie was the model husband and father, and Zeb was . . . lost. “What difference does that make?”

  Obie gave a shrug of his own. “Things have changed a bit since you were here last.”

  “Which means?”

  “Ivy sort of . . .”

  “I heard.” He shook his head. “Thomas Lapp gave me an earful.”

  Obie chuckled. “I’m sure Thomas was kinder than most.”

  Zeb sighed and watched as Ivy escorted her grandfather to the pasture to pick up their horse. They were headed home. He wouldn’t be able to talk to her again today. Was that a good thing or bad? “Why didn’t you say something?”

  “When?” Obie asked. “Last night at supper when everyone was so happy to have you back that they couldn’t stop talking? Or this morning when Clara Rose was making breakfast and Paul Daniel was screaming his little head off?”

  “Point taken.”

  Paul Daniel, Obie’s three-month-old son, was the spitting image of his father. It was strange, seeing himself reflected in the child of his brother. It made him wonder about things best forgotten.

  Zeb inclined his head toward the line of buggies. Ivy and Yonnie were still down there hitching up the horse as if they were headed for home. “Are they leaving already?” Things were really just gearing up. Some families left a little earlier than others. Elam and Emily Riehl headed out before others, as well as Abbie and Titus Lambert. But they were dairy farmers and had to do the milking done before it got too late. Yonnie Weaver was not a dairy farmer.

  Obie looked to Ivy and her grandfather, then back to Zeb. “Ivy’s sort of alienated herself.”

  Zeb growled in frustration. This had something to do with what Thomas had been trying to say, but Zeb was now getting the distinct impression that it was worse than Thomas had let on. Much worse.

  Lots of Amish teens ran around with Englisch kids, sneaking rides in cars and going to parties. It all depended on their parents and what they would let the children get away with. Not that Ivy was a child. She was twenty-one now. Most of their friends were married and had started families. And her mother would never have allowed her to . . .

  “Where’s Ivy’s mother?” Zeb asked.

  “Indiana. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. Irene got married and moved away about a month after you did. Ivy’s been sort of wild ever since.”

  * * *

  Sort of wild. The words knocked around in Zeb’s head for the rest of the morning and on into the afternoon. Sort of wild.

  It had been four years since Ivy’s father had died. It was a strange and sad accident, and it had hit them all hard. Irene most of all. She had never been a particularly strong woman and Zeb wasn’t surprised that she had remarried, only that it had taken her so long to do so. And now Ivy was “sort of wild.”

  He wasn’t sure what that meant, but he knew one person who would tell him the truth.

  * * *

  “Clara Rose?” He spoke her name quietly, but still she jumped.

  “Goodness, Zeb. You scared me.” She was standing at the changing table, little Paul Daniel cooing and reaching for the strings on her prayer covering.

  “I’m sorry.” He leaned against the doorjamb and watched as she fastened the diaper into place. “I was hoping I could ask you about something.”

  “Of course. But I have to feed Paul Daniel in just a bit.”

  “It shouldn’t take long.”

  Clara Rose smiled, her face lighting up like the full moon, glowing, beautiful, sweet. “Would you like to hold him?”

  He couldn’t say no. Not really. How could he tell the love of his brother’s life that he didn’t want to hold their sweet child? That he was afraid he would drop him. That he was simply afraid. He cleared his throat. “Uh, jah.” He straightened as Clara Rose came toward him.

  “Just support his head . . .” She handed the baby over, like Zeb could be trusted with such a small creature. He had handled newborn calves, colts, puppies, and kittens, but somehow this small human was beyond anything he had ever seen.

  “His eyes are blue,” he murmured.

  “Most babies have blue eyes.”

  Did he know that?

  “But they could stay that way,” Clara Rose continued. “We’ll just have to see.”

  Wait and see. This child he held in his arms would change, grow, evolve, and they would have to wait and see what he became. The idea was miraculous. And it filled him with thoughts of what could have been and what might be.

  Clara Rose returned to the table where she had changed Paul Daniel’s diaper and straightened the products she had there: powder, wipes, lotion. Babies needed a lot of stuff. More than Zeb ever dreamed.

  Paul Daniel fussed and shook his tiny fists. Zeb bounced him as he had seen Clara Rose do the night before.

  “What about Ivy?”

  Clara Rose stopped. “Weaver? What about her?”

  He cleared his throat. “I’ve heard some things . . .”

  Clara Rose stopped. “What things?”

  “Are they true?”

  She turned back to her work with a small shrug. “I don’t know.”

  “But you have an idea,” he guessed. In his arms, the baby started to kick, his tiny face crumpling into what seemed might be a never-ending cry.

  She pressed her lips together and shook her head.

  Zeb bounced Paul Daniel a little more enthusiastically, with no results.

  Clara Rose sighed and took the baby from him. “At first I thought they were.” She shushed the baby, propping him on her shoulder and gen
tly patting his back. His cries lost their shrillness and died away in a couple of hiccups and one small cough. Miracle.

  “I’m not sure I understand.”

  She opened her mouth to explain, but Paul Daniel started crying once again. “I need to feed him.”

  Zeb wanted to protest, to tell her that he needed to know, that it wouldn’t take long. But the baby took priority over everything, even broken hearts.

  “Jah,” he said with a resigned nod.

  “Once I get him to bed we can talk, jah?”

  Zeb nodded again and let himself out of the room.

  Obie was out in the barn checking on one of his golden retrievers who was about to have a litter of pups. Zeb was proud of his brother and all he had built with his business, but right now babies, mothers, and the miracle of life were the last things he wanted to see. He wanted to know about Ivy and nothing more.

  He prowled around the house, barely noticing the changes. Their mother had died when he and Obie were young, and their father wasn’t the kind to run out and get married right away. Zeb often wondered if it was part of his defense mechanism from losing the wife he had depended on so desperately. Paul Brenneman hadn’t wanted his boys to be lost without a woman, and instead of marrying another, he made them work through being motherless.

  If that truly were the case, then Paul had succeeded in making his children more independent than most, but their house had suffered. Growing up, there were always hanging cobwebs and a thin covering of dust on most everything. But these days the house was spotless. A vase of fresh flowers even sat on the end of the kitchen counter. Since the blooms were out of season for Oklahoma, Zeb was sure that they had come from the small flower shop inside the Super Saver grocery store.

  He wandered out onto the porch and immediately wished he’d put on a coat, or at the very least a jacket. With the sun down, the air was downright frigid. He’d heard talk of a cold front coming in. It was hard to tell if his chill was from that or from the fact that he had grown accustomed to more balmy temps.

  The night was clear, and millions of stars twinkled in the dark sky, surrounding a fat moon that hovered lazily above the tree line. Despite the cool air, he lingered on the porch. If he was going to stay in Oklahoma through Christmas, he’d have to get used to the cold sometime. He said a small prayer of thanks that his family wasn’t from farther north. He might not survive that kind of change.

  “Zeb?”

  He turned as Clara Rose eased out onto the porch beside him. “Did you get the baby down for the night?” he asked.

  “Jah.” She stopped next to him, bracing her hands on the railing and gazing up at the clear sky. “So many stars,” she murmured. Then she pulled her shawl a little closer around her shoulders. “About Ivy—”

  He shook his head. “I changed my mind,” he said. “I don’t want to know.” After only a few minutes in the cool night air he realized that Clara Rose’s opinion was valuable, but it might also give him false hope. False hope where there was really no hope at all. He and Ivy were finished and done, nearly before they ever got started. Their relationship had begun all wrong, with them sneaking around and dating when she hadn’t joined the church. If she wasn’t a member, could he even call it dating? Whatever. It didn’t matter now. She was doing her own thing, and he was doing his. Nothing was going to change that.

  He turned to go back into the house, but Clara Rose stopped him, placing one hand on his arm. “I think she gets talked about a lot, but I don’t think half of it’s true. Which half?” She gave a quick shrug. “Who’s to say?”

  * * *

  At one of the parties she had attended, one of those Englisch parties that Luke Lambright had taken her to, Ivy had heard a song about Mondays. The singer hated Mondays. Monday, Monday. She’d never understood that song.

  Until today. Today she hated Mondays.

  Just as she had expected, she had arrived at the Super Saver to find that she only had one shift. She usually worked four or five days a week. Not this week. They had cut her hours because she’d had to leave too many times to check on her grandfather. She understood that it was a business decision. Bill, the assistant manager, and Carla, the manager, had a store to run. And they couldn’t run it if their employees weren’t trustworthy. She was trustworthy, but her loyalty had to lie with her grandfather first. She was all he had left, and he her.

  But still, the idea of losing her job over something she couldn’t control didn’t sit well with her, and by the time she clocked out to come home, she was inwardly seething. She worked hard to provide what she could for her and her grandfather. He bought and sold hay when he could, but these days his memory was getting the better of him. Sometimes she figured he simply forgot what he was supposed to be doing and missed the necessary appointments. She had been trying to come up with a solution, but hadn’t devised a plan, as of yet. Now seeing as how she had all but lost her job at the grocery store, she was going to have to do something different. They were going to need the two incomes to make ends meet. Tomorrow she would go look for another job. Maybe if she worked a couple of days at the grocery store and a couple more somewhere else it would be like not having her hours cut at all. She could hope, couldn’t she?

  But first she had to deal with . . . this.

  She pulled her tractor to a stop, set the brake, and turned off the engine.

  Helen Ebersol sat on her front porch, as if she had nothing better to do than wait on Ivy to return home.

  “Helen.” Ivy nodded toward the woman. Why hadn’t she noticed the rusty red tractor parked to one side of the big oak tree in the yard? Because she had been too busy thinking about her problems to realize they might be bigger than she even knew. “What brings you out today?” she asked. Like that was really necessary. Helen was there to check up on her and Dawdi.

  He must be gone, Ivy thought, or Helen wouldn’t be sitting on the front porch with her cape flung over her shoulders to ward off the chilly air.

  Helen stood as Ivy climbed the porch steps. “I came to check on your grandfather. I heard he ran into a little trouble last week.”

  Ivy nodded and took the key from her bag. Nothing like Sunday to recount the week and Monday to follow up. “He’s fine. Really.” She smiled as if to lend more credibility to the words, then froze as she tried to pull herself out of her own depressing thoughts.

  “Where is your grandfather?” Helen asked. “I knocked, but no one answered.”

  Ivy popped the door open with one hard nudge of her shoulder and motioned Helen inside. It was too cold to be lingering on porch steps today. The weather had taken a turn, complete with heavy gray clouds and the promise of December.

  “He’s at an auction.” She said the words with more confidence than she truly felt. But if God was listening and He answered prayers—and she knew He did—then she would surely be blessed. Please let him be at an auction, she silently prayed. Please let him be where he is supposed to be.

  She put down her purse, took off her coat, and scooped her cat into her arms. Chester was a calico with short fur and a decided crook in her tail. Ivy had had her long enough that she couldn’t remember why she had named her Chester. She simply had. She scratched the cat behind her eyes, smiling as the feline began to vibrate with a loud purr.

  “Fred Conrad came by to tell me that he saw your grandfather out in Daryl Hicks’s field Friday afternoon.”

  The mailman was as bad about gossiping as an old woman, but Ivy couldn’t voice that thought. What good would it do anyhow? “Oh, jah?” She set Chester down, picked up her bags, and made her way into the kitchen. Helen followed close behind.

  “Is that true?”

  Ivy stopped unloading her bags from the store. She had picked up a few things after her shift ended. Better get them now, while she still had an employee discount. It was only ten percent, but it was better than nothing. These days she could use all the help she could get. She sighed. “Yes, but he was just a little confused.” She closed her eye
s.

  “I’m not accusing,” Helen said quietly. “I’m concerned.”

  Ivy met Helen’s gaze once again. “He’s fine.” Maybe if she kept saying it, it would somehow become true.

  Helen nodded, and Ivy knew. If Helen was concerned about her grandfather after one misstep, she had to be doubly worried for Ivy. If not more. “Ivy—”

  Here it comes.

  “—can we—”

  Helen broke off as a knock sounded at the door.

  Could it be her grandfather returned? Why was he knocking? Had he forgotten his key? She hadn’t locked the door.

  She stared at Helen for a moment more, then turned to answer the summons.

  But it wasn’t her confused dawdi lingering on the porch.

  “We need to talk.” Zeb Brenneman pushed past her and into the house.

  Chapter Three

  Zeb drew up short when he saw Helen Ebersol standing in Ivy’s kitchen. “Helen,” he said with a small nod of greeting. The oomph drained from him, his urgency leaking out like water through a sieve. He wanted to talk to Ivy. Alone. Maybe he could have coaxed her away from her dawdi, but how was he going to work around the bishop’s wife?

  “Good to see you, Zeb.”

  They stood there for a few moments, each one sizing up the other and what they needed to say. Finally Helen shifted. She pulled her cape a little closer around herself and moved toward the front door. “If you need anything, Ivy . . .”

  “Danki, Helen,” Ivy murmured.

  Zeb stayed where he was, waiting for Helen to leave. He never took his gaze from Ivy, but he heard the front door creak open, then close.

  He waited a heartbeat more before turning to Ivy.

  “Goodbye, Zeb.” She started toward him, her intentions clear. She was trying to force him toward the door the way a sheepdog herds an animal into a pen.

  He planted his feet, refusing to budge. “I came to talk, Ivy.”

  She drew up short when it became evident that he wasn’t about to back away. “There’s nothing to talk about.”