A Wells Landing Christmas Read online

  “I disagree.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t want to talk.”

  “I’ve heard all sorts of talk, Ivy.”

  He didn’t need to tell her what about. She tossed her head. “Talk is talk.”

  “I think there may be more to it than that.”

  She shrugged and stepped around him, prancing to the door and flinging it wide. “So sorry you can’t stay.”

  “Ivy.”

  She gestured out the door. “It’s really a shame you can’t linger.”

  “We need to talk about this, Ivy.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about.” But he could see it in her eyes, the pain, the confusion, the doubts.

  But she wasn’t ready. He wanted to talk. He needed to get it out. He had returned to town and was faced with more memories and emotions than he cared to stare down, and he needed to work through it all. But she had remained. She had been there all along. She had faced it all and didn’t want to turn back. He could understand that, but he couldn’t honor it. There was still too much at stake.

  “Leave, Zeb. I don’t want you here.”

  He gave a solemn nod. “Jah. Fine. I’ll leave but I will be back. There’s still too much—”

  “Goodbye, Zeb.”

  Suddenly he was face-to-face with the porch side of the front door. Just how had he gotten on this side? He wasn’t quite sure. As always when he was around Ivy Weaver, he had gotten lost in her sky-blue eyes and forgotten nearly everything else. Including the conversation he had been mulling over for the last two years.

  He raised his fist to knock again, but managed to lower his hand before it met with wood. It had waited this long. One more day wouldn’t matter.

  * * *

  “Helen Ebersol said you might be needing some help.” Ivy resisted the urge to shift in place. Why was she so nervous? She had been on countless job hunts since she had turned fourteen. She had interviewed, gotten jobs, and started to work all in the span of an afternoon. So why did walking into Esther’s Bakery feel like the biggest task she had ever undertaken?

  Because it was important to her. Not just because she needed the work, but this, a job in the best bakery in town, was something of a dream come true. She might not like to sew or crochet or knit, but she could bake a pie that could bring a grown man to his knees. If she could work there, even if just through the holidays, she could show Esther and Caroline her baking skills. Hopefully, with a few prayers and God on her side, she would be working there for a while to come.

  Esther Fitch nodded. “Jah. We are. Caroline can’t work as much since Grace Ann was born.”

  Ivy nodded understandingly. Grace Ann was Caroline’s third child, but the birth hadn’t been easy on her. Not that anyone had told Ivy that directly. But she had heard talk. “With the holidays coming up I figured you might need some help.”

  “For certain.”

  “Esther, can I talk to you a moment?” Jodie Miller, the bakery’s part-time help, wiped her hands on a towel, then motioned for Esther to step behind the counter.

  The baker’s forehead puckered into a frown, but she nodded and excused herself.

  Ivy’s stomach clenched. Jodie Miller wasn’t in her youth group. Like she went to group functions these days. Most everyone had gotten married, and it was no fun being the only single person there. Even though, Ivy knew that Jodie didn’t like her, working with someone who glared at her after church would be a small price to pay for having the job of her dreams. That was, if she actually got it. It seemed Jodie was against that as well.

  She couldn’t hear all of what was said. But she heard enough. She caught the words “no hope for redemption” and “bad for business.” And there was nothing she could say in her own defense. She knew what everyone said about her, and she knew why. Not that it helped matters any.

  “Everyone deserves a chance,” she heard Esther explain.

  Then Ivy remembered that Caroline herself had received a second chance from Esther. Not that Caroline’s reputation had been in question. No, when she had arrived in Wells Landing, she was recently widowed with a baby on the way. Caroline and Esther had become fast friends as Esther allowed her to work in the bakery and make herself a name in the community. And Esther herself had had a second chance with Abe Fitch, marrying him after a short courtship. But Ivy’s situation was a little different.

  If only she could be allowed to do the same. To start over. That was what she would do.

  Jodie said something else, but Ivy couldn’t understand her words. Her tone, however, was unmistakable. She felt like Esther was making a huge mistake.

  “Danki, Jodie,” Esther said and with a nod of finality started back to where Ivy waited. “I appreciate your input.”

  “But you’re still going to hire her.” Jodie’s words were flat.

  “Jah. I’m hiring her.”

  * * *

  Ivy fairly floated all the way home. Finally something was turning out. She would work harder than she ever had before. She promised herself and God that she would do everything in her power to deserve the chance Esther was giving her. And everything in her power to show Esther how worthy she was of the position. When doubters like Jodie Miller tasted Ivy’s pumpkin pie, everything would change. At least it did in her daydreams. A girl had to have hope.

  Ivy turned her tractor onto the short lane that led to the house she shared with her grandfather. She had more than her share of hope. She said a prayer each morning when she left, every afternoon when she returned, and again at night before she went to bed. She prayed that the Lord would take care of her grandfather in the time she had to spend away from him. And aside from the incident on Friday, He had answered her prayers. God was good.

  Now she had a job with an employer who would understand and be more helpful if things went a little sideways. Right then, in that moment, she had more than hope. She had an air of anticipation like she had never felt before.

  Then she saw his tractor. Zeb.

  Her confidence deflated a bit. Or maybe it was just her elation.

  What was he doing there? Well, she knew what he was doing there. She just wished that he wasn’t. There.

  How was she supposed to get over everything that had happened between them if he was always underfoot? It had been much easier when he was in Florida. Why hadn’t he just stayed there?

  She swung down from the tractor, her frustration and anger rising as she stomped toward the house. Zeb wasn’t waiting on the front porch like Helen had been the day before, which meant her grandfather was home. That was good, she had to admit. She wanted him to be home, warm and safe. She just didn’t want Zeb Brenneman there with him.

  Anger mounting, she flung open the door and stepped into the house, removing her scarf from her head as she did so. She felt her prayer kapp shift with the motion, and she straightened it a bit without the benefit of a mirror before storming toward the kitchen. If she knew her grandfather at all, he had invited Zeb in for a cup of coffee and some of the cookies she had baked last night. Worry over going to the bakery today and talking to Esther had sent Ivy into a baking frenzy. Any sort of large agitation could do that to her. The upside was a big problem could result in loaves of bread, dozens of cookies, and pies enough to share with their Englisch neighbors. The day her mother told her she was marrying Alan Byler, Ivy had stayed up all night baking everything she had a recipe for. In the morning she had enough food to host her very own bake sale.

  It wasn’t that she minded Zeb having a few cookies. On second thought, she did mind. He was the one who had run out. He was the one who left for nearly two years, then wanted to come back like nothing was amiss.

  But if she stomped in there now, demanding that he put down the cookie and leave, her grandfather might get suspicious. If Dawdi was having a good day, that was. If he was having a super day, he might even put it all together and realize that Zeb was the one who had broken her heart. Well, almost. Thankfully, he’d left, taking only a small piece with
him to the Sunshine State.

  She pulled herself up short and took a deep breath to calm her pounding heart. She would walk in there calmly and act as if it were a normal occurrence, Zeb coming by to see her grandfather. Then she would excuse herself and head out to the barn to do her evening chores. With any luck and maybe a prayer or two, Zeb would take the hint that he needed to go home and that would be that.

  Ivy swept into the kitchen as if she were breezing by without a care in the world. Nothing could be further from the truth, but neither man needed to know that. “Hi, Dawdi.” She bent to kiss his cheek and raised herself to coolly eye Zeb. “Zeb Brenneman. What brings you out today?”

  “I came to talk to you.”

  Oops. Wrong thing to say. “Oh?” Nice recovery. She blinked at him balefully, then she shifted her attention out the window to keep from looking too interested.

  “Jah.”

  Her gaze strayed back to Zeb.

  His green eyes were serious, and his hair was a bit messier than usual. He and Obie were the only people she knew who could brush their hair and still have it look as if it needed a good combing.

  “That’s unfortunate,” she heard herself say. “I need to go out and do my chores.”

  “I’ll help you.” He was on his feet before she could utter one word of protest.

  “That’s a fine idea.” Dawdi’s eyes were clear of confusion. Leave it to him to pick today to hold his memory and mind together.

  She shrugged as if she hadn’t a care in the world. “Suit yourself.” She made her tone as offhanded as possible when she really wanted to scream, stomp her feet, and tell him in no uncertain terms that he could not help with the chores and he should get on his tractor immediately—if not sooner—and leave.

  She swept from the room and back toward the front of the house. Zeb’s footfalls sounded behind her, but she wasn’t about to look at him. She didn’t want to see him following behind her as she had so many times before. All those times when they’d snuck off to Millers’ Pond to swim alone. Picnics in the woods, even stolen moments in the hayloft away from prying eyes.

  “What’s wrong with your covering?”

  Ivy’s hands flew to her head. She couldn’t go around with her prayer kapp crooked. She had straightened it before she went into the kitchen. Granted, it wasn’t like she had used a mirror, but she had worn the covering since she was thirteen. She knew when it was on right and when it wasn’t.

  She stopped by the front door and peered at herself in the mirror. Everything looked fine to her. She turned her head from side to side. Nothing amiss.

  “It’s in the back,” Zeb said, gently pushing on the back of her head. “There’s a big hole right here.”

  “A hole?” Her eyes widened in alarm.

  “Not a hole-hole. A dent, I guess I should say. Rough morning?”

  Anger flooded her. The laughing light in his eyes looked less like jovial teasing and more like he thought he knew the secrets she kept. Well, he did. But that didn’t mean she wanted to talk about them. “What did you say?”

  Zeb eyed her cautiously now. “Nothing. Just that I want to talk to you. Alone.” He cast a quick look over his shoulder, back toward the kitchen, where her grandfather sat, still enjoying his cup of coffee.

  “That’s unfortunate.”

  “You have chores to do. Jah, you already explained that. But I’ll help.”

  “That’s not necessary.” Ivy donned her coat and retied her knitted scarf around her head.

  “I think it is.”

  “Why?”

  “I just think it is.”

  It was a lie, that much she knew. She had been lying so much about everything to everyone: her grandfather, Helen Ebersol, anyone she had come into contact with over the last couple of years.

  “We can’t go back, Zeb.” The words fell softly from her lips.

  Then she stepped out of the house and into the sobering, cool shelter of the porch.

  “We can go forward.”

  She shook her head.

  “Sideways?”

  He was trying to make her laugh, and the last thing she wanted was to show that weakness. She started down the steps and across the yard. Her breath leaving little puffs of smoke in her wake.

  “I said I’d help.” Zeb started after her.

  She didn’t slow down. “I said it wasn’t necessary.”

  “You are about the most stubborn person I have ever met.”

  “Sweet talker.” She ducked into the barn and continued through to the corral on the other side. Zeb was behind her the whole way. One thing was certain: he was as stubborn as she was. Anything she said would be twisted and used against her. The more she protested, the harder he would dig in his heels. Her only hope was to ignore him. Pretend he wasn’t there and go about her chores. He would either give up or he wouldn’t. Nothing she could say would change it. It had always been that way between them. Why should this be any different?

  * * *

  “You’re in early.” Her grandfather peered at her over the rim of his glasses. He sat at the table, reading the paper while pots bubbled behind him.

  “I had help,” Ivy groused. She hadn’t wanted help, but she’d had it all the same. And the worst part of it all? She had finished her chores in record time. She had been afraid that Zeb would hang around and want to talk. It had been hard enough to ignore him as he worked next to her, side by side, mucking out stalls, feeding the animals and giving them water. But to have him sit, look at her, and want to talk? No, thank you.

  “Dinner won’t be ready for another half hour.” He turned the page in the newspaper and snapped it into place.

  Ivy and Dawdi had an arrangement. She would take care of the outside chores while he took care of the inside ones. That was fine with her. She had never liked to cook. Baking, on the other hand, was a different matter altogether.

  But he sat there, reading the paper while pots boiled behind him, looking like they needed to be stirred . . .

  Maybe the division wasn’t a good one. He couldn’t burn the house down feeding the hens.

  “Collard greens and venison stew,” he said, turning his attention to his paper once more. “Everything’s just simmering now. Plenty of time to make some corn bread.”

  He was hinting. He always said her corn bread was better than his. She thought they tasted the same. Yet he conspired to get her to bake it every chance he got. Same ol’ Dawdi. Maybe she had been hasty in her worrying. He was reading the paper, teasing her, and their supper was gathering flavor on the stove top.

  “Sure,” she said, giving him a nod and a smile. She meant them both, so why did it feel so forced?

  She moved toward the cabinet where she kept the cornmeal.

  “That boy has a crush on you.”

  She stumbled, but somehow managed to catch herself. “Zeb Brenneman?”

  “That’s the one.” Dawdi didn’t take his eyes from the paper.

  “I can’t date,” she protested with a wave of one hand. “I haven’t even joined the church yet.”

  “About that . . .” This time he did look up, peering at her once again over the silver rims of his glasses.

  “I will.” She took the container of meal from the cabinet. She couldn’t look at him, not and talk about the church and all her shortcomings. “When it’s time.”

  “You don’t think it’s time?”

  It was long past time. Yet too many things had happened. How could she bend her knee and pretend to be holy after all that she had done? How could she stand before the church and confess her sins? There were more than anyone knew. She was so unworthy . . .

  Even thinking about such things at Christmastime seemed a sacrilege. “I didn’t tell you the best news,” she said, her voice overbright. She pulled out her large mixing bowl and started measuring the ingredients.

  “Jah?”

  She didn’t look back at him as she spoke and wasn’t certain if he was looking at her or the paper. “I got a jo
b at Esther’s Bakery. I start tomorrow.”

  “That’s wonderful!” He was on his feet in an instant, the notion of her joining the church suddenly lost. “Forget the corn bread. Let’s have cake to celebrate.”

  * * *

  “Zeb? Is that you?”

  He let himself in the house. “Jah, Clara Rose. It is.”

  His sister-in-law came through the kitchen door, Paul Daniel tucked into some contraption that snuggled him to his mother and still allowed her hands to be free. She carried a dust rag and a spray can of furniture polish.

  “You’ve been to see Ivy.” Her words were wise, not a question.

  “Obie had no right to tell—”

  She shook her head. “Obie didn’t tell me anything.”

  “Then how—?”

  “I have eyes, you know.”

  Was he that easy to read? Could she take one look at him and see through his every defense?

  “It’s easy to spot love in others when you’re in love yourself.”

  “I don’t love her.” He shook his head. He didn’t. He never had. They had potential was all. Maybe they could have had something. Maybe they could have loved one another, but that time had long ago passed.

  “You just keep telling yourself that.” She gave him that smile—the one women gave men when they thought they knew what was best for them.

  He decided to leave that one alone. “Where’s Obie?”

  “Over with Gabe Allen. They’ve been partnering up. Obie sells the puppies. Gabe Allen makes the doghouses.”

  It was a smart plan.

  It should have been yours.

  He should be the one in business with his brother. But he wasn’t. And all because of pride.

  And a broken heart.

  Broken hearts were bad enough, but they didn’t “go before a fall.” His own pride had been his undoing. His own pride had sent him to Florida, had caused him to stay there. His own pride was the reason his heart was broken in the first place. No one to blame but pride.

  “Zeb?”

  He roused himself out of his thoughts. “Jah?”

  “I said he’d be back in a little bit.” She shifted the baby and patted his little rump through the sling thingie. What he would have given to see Ivy standing there, holding a baby, telling Obie that he, Zeb, would be home soon.