A Heart Made New (31 page)

Annie watched Luke scrub his hands in the kitchen sink. He ducked his head and splashed water on his face and head. When he turned and reached for a towel, their gazes met. Annie figured he jumped three feet.

“Don’t sneak up on a man like that, schweschder.” He folded the towel and laid it on the counter. “Could give me a heart attack.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“What are you doing here? You’re home early from the bakery.”

He was early too. Annie didn’t ask why. Farmers came and went, depending on a whole host of factors that influenced what work had to be done. She didn’t want to get sidetracked. “I was looking for you. I saw Leah out in the garden and she said you’d come inside.”

“I need to repair a part and get back out there. We’re almost done with the alfalfa.”

“Gut.”

“Spit it out, girl. What do you want?”

He sounded so much like Daed. His response likely would be the same. The idea that Luke would give her permission to go to the trial with Charisma seemed mighty far-fetched now that she stood in front of her brother. A sudden powerful thirst hit Annie. She picked up a glass.

Luke brushed past her. “I reckon you can ask me at supper.”

“I want to go to the courthouse with Charisma tomorrow.” The words flew out of Annie’s mouth of their own accord. She didn’t even have time to polish them. “She needs me.”

“Needs you?” Luke laughed low in his throat, no mirth in the sound. “We’re feeding her and giving her and her children beds to sleep in at night. Don’t you think we’ve done enough?”

“She has to testify. She’s scared.” Annie set the glass back on the counter. “It’s not about physical comforts; she has no one to lean on.”

“You go into that courtroom and the lawyers will see you. They’ll want you to testify. Do you want to get up there and be asked to swear an oath and tell those people that the man robbed you at gunpoint?”

Annie pictured Logan’s panicked face. The
pop-pop
of the bullets pinged in her ears.

“No. No, but they won’t see me. Sergeant Parker showed me…” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. “I mean…”

Luke’s face froze. His figure, framed in the doorway, seemed to grow bigger. “Sergeant Parker showed you what? When?”

Annie swallowed hard. She shook her head. “I…I meant to say…I…”

Luke clomped three steps toward her. He towered over her. “Showed you what?”

“He showed me a balcony. He said I could sit up there and no one would be able to see me. They won’t know I’m there.”

Luke’s face darkened with barely contained fury. “Why are you asking me for permission when you’ve already been in the courthouse? After I told you not to go there.”

“I didn’t mean to go in. I walked with Charisma to the door so I could carry the baby for her while she minded Gracie. Sergeant Parker came out to take her to see Logan. He said he could show me a place where I could see—”

“You were alone with this policeman on the balcony.”

“Just for a minute.”

“After everything that’s happened with Josiah and Catherine, I expected you to know better.” Luke slapped his hat on his head so hard he probably gave himself a headache. “You’ll not go to the courthouse. In fact, you will stay here on the farm until the trial is over.”

Without giving her a chance to respond, Luke stomped past her. He paused at the screen door. “David’s buggy is still out by the corral. I’ll stop by and tell him so he can let Sadie know you won’t be working at the bakery until the trial is over.”

Annie flew after him. “No!”

“No?” His face was hidden in the shadow of his hat, but Luke’s tone didn’t bode well. “Are you telling me no?”

“I mean, let me tell David.” Annie pushed through the screen door and followed Luke down the path that led to the barn. “You have work to do. I’ll tell him.”

“Gut.”

Annie couldn’t contain herself.
“Gut.”

Luke glared at her, but to her relief, said nothing more.

She waited until his figure was a speck in the distance before heading to the barn. Willow Navarro’s car was gone. The lesson had ended, then. The sight of David’s buggy still parked by the corral fence told her he hadn’t left yet. She took a deep breath, let it out. If she couldn’t go to the courthouse, maybe David would go for her. Still shaking with anger, she covered the distance in less than half the usual time. How could Luke be so unfair? Nothing had happened with Sergeant Parker. Luke hadn’t even let her explain. If Mudder and Daed were here…no point in finishing that thought. They weren’t here. They never would be. This was her life.

She shoved through the barn door with more force than necessary. “David?”

For a second she couldn’t see in the shadowy light cast from the window in the hayloft. As her eyes adjusted, she saw a dark form huddled on a bale of hay. “David?” she asked more softly.

His arm covered his bowed head. “Go away. Now!” The muffled words were filled with an anguish that tore at her heart. “Get out!”

A
nnie hesitated, one hand still on the barn door. David sat doubled over on a bale of hay. He raised his head. His pale face looked wet in the shaft of light that held him captive. His expression kept her from rushing toward him. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. Get out.”

Not in a million years. “This is my barn.”

“Your barn?”

“You know what I mean.” She stopped short of stomping her foot in frustration. David’s skin seemed to hang on his bones like clothes that were too big and his cheeks sank into his face under cavernous eyes encircled by bruised smudges. The chemo had ended, but the effects lingered. Maybe he needed a doctor. Maybe he’d passed out again.

Letting the barn door swing closed behind her, Annie barged in. A thought slammed into her. She halted. Her heart hammered in her chest so hard she could barely frame the question. Just saying the word might make it so.
God, give me strength.

“Did the treatments fail again?”

David wiped at his face with his sleeve. He pulled the brim of his hat down so it hid his eyes, then jerked to his feet. He grabbed the reins of his horse and led him from the stall. “I was just leaving.”

“David, answer me. What’s wrong? What did the doctor say?”

“Nothing.” He said the word with a sharp snap that spoke of contained agony. “I don’t know yet.”

He shoved past her and through the door, his stride unsteady. Annie stood not moving for a long moment in the still quiet of the barn. Why did he choose to suffer alone in silence and shadow? Why could he not trust in her?

She strode into sunlight so bright she had to squint and raise a hand to shield her face. It seemed to mock her. All that light on such a dark day. David didn’t look up at her approach, but he pulled the hat down even farther. Annie smacked her hand on the wheel of his buggy. “Then what’s wrong with you? And I’m not talking about your health. Why are you so pigheaded?”

“Pigheaded? It’s one thing for Josiah to call me that, but you… you’re a…”

“A woman?” Annie tapped her boot on the ground, impatient with his words and his attitude. “Jah, I said pigheaded. Do you need to clean your ears?”

“With the silky way you wield those words, it’s a wonder you don’t have a beau already.” His horse did a little side-step two-step that forced David closer to her. He didn’t meet her gaze. “Are you sure you want to be so plainspoken?”

“Fine. Be alone. Be all alone. If it makes you happy to see me like this, forget I ever said anything.” His sarcasm fueled her anger like dry grass eaten by flames on a windy day, racing across fields with complete, unfettered abandon. “If you don’t like me anymore, that’s fine. I’ll get over it. Starting right now.”

His hands stopped moving on the harness. “Is that what you think?”

“What else would I think?” Annie put both hands in the air as if to push him away even though they did not touch. “You avoid me. You barely speak to me. You’d rather give riding lessons to a little girl than take me for a buggy ride. As far as I can tell, you either lost your flashlight or you’ve forgotten what it’s for.”

“That’s not fair.” His Adam’s apple bobbed and he wiped at his nose
with his sleeve again, like a little boy who needed a tissue. “You know that’s not how it is.”

“Then tell me how it is.”

“Annie.”

She put her hands on her hips and stomped her foot. Now who was acting like a child? He drove her to it. “Don’t
Annie
me. What is the problem?”

“I can’t love you.”

“You either do or you don’t.”

“I can’t.”

Annie bit the inside of her lip. She focused on the physical pain, trying to block out the hurt his words brought her. When she thought she could say the words without crying, she posed the question. “Can’t or won’t?”

“Both. I won’t be yoked to you, knowing you’re going to end up alone.”

“I’m alone now.”

“You’re young and easy on the eyes and half the men at the singings are in love with you.”

“No.”

David climbed into the buggy. “Did you come out here for a reason?”

The conversation with Luke flooded back over her. “To tell you Luke won’t let me come to the bakery again until the trial is over.”

David looked confused for a second. Then he shrugged. “I’ll let Mudder know.”

“Don’t you want to know why?”

“It doesn’t matter. If that’s Luke’s wish, then Mudder will understand.”

Men. Always the united front. “Fine.”

“Goodbye, Annie.”

Annie refused to say it. She stood there, rooted to the ground. She wrapped her arms around her middle and tucked her hands under them, trying to stop the shaking. She’d incurred Luke’s wrath, David
wanted nothing to do with her, and Charisma still had to face the trial alone.

Finally, she stumbled on weak legs to the porch and sank on to the top step. One of the new kittens, apparently separated from its mother, meandered across the yard, stopping every now and then, one petite white paw in the air as it scanned the horizon. Finally, it made a mad dash toward the porch and climbed straight into Annie’s lap. Its pitiful mewing sounded so familiar, like a poem she’d known but forgotten somehow. She smoothed a hand across its soft fur and lifted the kitty to her cheek. “I know exactly what you mean.”

D
avid strode across the field, letting his long legs eat up the uneven ground. He lifted his face to the sun and inhaled the scent of fresh cut alfalfa. It felt good to be outdoors, to look forward to hard physical labor. The time had come to get back to work. It was over with Annie. He had ended any chance of her waiting for him. David tried to ignore the vision of her hurt, tear-streaked face in that moment. The memory banged around in his head and bruised his heart, forcing him to confront the truth. He wanted his own child to teach. Not just riding, but farming, and all the things a child should learn from a father. He wanted that child to be his and Annie’s. God’s plan didn’t seem to include that so it was time for him to move beyond old unreachable dreams.

In the distance, Timothy drove the flatbed and Jonathan handled the hay loader that would pick up the dried alfalfa hay from the ground where it had laid drying since the previous day when they’d cut it. Their shirts were soaked with sweat and their faces shiny. Anxious to escape his thoughts, David increased his pace until he loped up to the flatbed wagon and climbed aboard. He grabbed a rake and began spreading the hay in the bed as Timothy operated the loader, letting the tines pick up hay as the horses moved forward. “Looks like a good haul.”

“Jah. We’re in good shape.” Jonathan brought the horses to a halt
and the ground-driven loader stopped. Timothy shoved his hat back and wiped at his face with the back of his sleeve. “What are you doing out here?”

“I told Mudder I’m helping you finish this off so we’ll be done in time to start cutting the wheat next week.”

“You’re supposed to help her with deliveries.” His face creased in a frown, Timothy took the rake from David and began smoothing the load. “Mudder needs you at the bakery.”