Beginnings (14 page)

He swallowed a chuckle. Her fervent defense of Sommerfeld was almost amusing in its intensity. He wondered briefly whom she tried to convince: him or herself. Biting off the end of a french fry, he raised his brows to indicate interest. “Harness-making demonstrations and carriage rides? I thought the Mennonites had converted to using automobiles.”

“Most in Sommerfeld have,” Beth said, “but their Amish neighbors have not. They combine forces for these weekend events, since the visitors are mutually beneficial.”

“I see.” Sean chewed and swallowed thoughtfully while Beth pushed the remainder of her salad around on her plate with the prongs of her fork. Something struck him. “You don’t claim to be Amish or Mennonite. You must feel like an odd duck in that community.”

She dropped her fork with a clatter against the plate. Fixing him with a steady look, she took in a deep breath through her nose. “Sean, I’m not moving my studio. My mother is settled in Sommerfeld, and she’s my only family. I’ve told you several reasons why my location works for me. Please do not continue to try to influence me to go somewhere else even if it’s more convenient for you. ‘Odd duck’ or not, I won’t disrupt my life again for any man.”

Ah. Suddenly the wariness, the defensiveness, the mood swings all made sense. Setting the french fry down, Sean pushed his plate aside and said softly, “So what was his name?”

Beth’s cheeks streaked with pink. She fiddled with her napkin, her eyes downcast. “Whose name?”

He released a low, light chuckle. “The man who disrupted your life.”

The red stain in her cheeks deepened. She shot him a stern look. “That isn’t important.” Flopping her napkin over her plate with one hand, she lifted her glass with the other and took a long draw that helped return her face to its natural color. She put down the glass, jiggled it to make the ice clink, then set her chin at a proud angle. “I believe the purpose of this evening was to discuss the church window. So let’s get to it, huh?”

Her meaning was clear. Her personal life was
her
personal life, and he would need to keep his distance. Well, he’d follow her lead ... for the moment. He could stick to business for now. But as their business relationship grew, he fully intended to pursue her on a more intimate level. Beth Quinn was far too intriguing for him to remain forever distanced.

***

Beth yanked open the drawer containing goggles and snatched up a pair. The rubber headband caught on something, and when she gave a hard jerk to free the goggles, the band snapped against the side of her thumb.

“Ouch!” She sucked the stinging spot. The back door swung open, and Andrew stepped through, catching her with her thumb in her mouth. She swung her hand abruptly downward and slammed her wrist on the edge of the open drawer. With another yelp, she thumped the drawer shut with her hip. The tail of her shirt caught in the drawer, holding her captive.

Releasing a loud “Uh!” of aggravation, she grabbed her shirt and tried to jerk it free, only to hear the flannel tear. She puffed her cheeks and blew a noisy breath toward the ceiling.

Andrew’s laughter rang, filling the room.

For one brief moment, she glared at him. Then she felt a grin twitch her cheeks. How ridiculous she must have looked first with her thumb in her mouth and then attached to a drawer by her own shirttail. Imagining it from his viewpoint, her frustration evaporated, and she couldn’t help but laugh, too.

He strode forward, pulled the drawer open a few inches, and removed the tattered tail of her shirt. He stuck his fingers through the tear, chuckling. “And how is your morning?” Dropping the fabric, he grinned at her.

“I think you already know the answer to that,” she retorted in a saucy tone, but she smirked. His easy laughter and teasing comment gave her heart a lift. With an exaggerated sigh, she added, “I hope this start isn’t an indication of how the whole day will go.”

“Stay away from the drawers, and you should be okay,” he advised.

She teasingly held up her hands and took one giant sidestep away from the storage unit.

Andrew grinned at her, but then his brow pulled down. He crossed his arms. “Did you get any sleep last night?”

“That obvious, huh?” She moved toward the worktable, forcing him to shift back a few feet. The truth was, she’d gotten little sleep. Her mind had kept replaying bits of her dinner conversation with Sean McCauley. Even after prayer, she felt troubled by his seeming overzealous interest in her studio and subtle attempts to convince her to relocate.

If only he weren’t such a handsome package, it might be easier to set thoughts of him aside. Unfortunately, the feminine side of her felt drawn to his boyish charm and obvious intelligence. But, she told herself firmly, he wasn’t worth losing sleep over!

Andrew leaned against the opposite side of the worktable and watched her slide the goggles into place. “Did McCauley keep you out all night?”

The easy camaraderie she’d felt only moments before now swept away. “No!” She slapped the goggles onto the tabletop and pointed at him. “And don’t even think of mentioning something like that to anyone in your family! My mother doesn’t need to be worrying about me.”

Andrew drew back, his eyes wide. “I—I don’t talk about you to—”

“Oh yes, you do. But not this time, Andrew.” Her anger grew, tiredness and frustration welling up to spew like steam from a boiling pot. “In fact, not ever again, for any reason. Do you know how tiresome it is to have everyone knowing my business? To go to the café for a cup of coffee and have people mention things that don’t concern them at all? I don’t like being the topic of gossip. If you’re going to continue working here, I’ve got to be able to trust you. And that means
you
—
don’t
—
talk.
”

She glared into Andrew’s stricken face. Guilt smacked her. What was she doing, haranguing him in such an unprofessional manner?

Her mother’s admonition to think before she spoke came back to haunt her, but it came too late. She couldn’t take back the words she’d just poured out.

The expression on Andrew’s face, however, made her wish she could.

She closed her eyes, asking God to calm her racing heart and tumbling thoughts. When she opened her eyes, she found Andrew still leaning on the worktable, seeming to examine his hands. She reached across the table and tapped his wrist. When he raised his gaze to meet hers, she spoke.

“Andrew, I’m sorry I snapped at you. I am tired. It’s not because I was out all night—I was home by nine o’clock.” Why she felt the need for him to know that, she wasn’t sure. She only knew she felt compelled to assure him. “But I had a lot on my mind, so I didn’t sleep well, and I guess I’m grumpy.”

His expression didn’t change.

She sighed, fluttering her eyelashes and peeking at him out of the corners of her eyes. “I’m grumpy a lot?”

He sucked in his lips—an obvious attempt to stop a grin from growing.

Now that he’d lost the hurt look, she stopped goofing around and faced him squarely. “I really am sorry. I do get aggravated when Trina or Henry mention things they could know only if you told them. It makes me feel like people are talking behind my back.”

Andrew straightened and placed one hand against his chest. “I don’t talk about you out of maliciousness. It’s because I’m excited for the things happening here for us.”

Beth’s antenna went up. She carefully tempered her tone. “You mean for
me.
It’s my studio, Andrew, not ours.”

His ears glowed. “That’s what I meant.”

She nodded slowly. “I hope so. I need your help on projects, and I need McCauley’s contracts to get everything up and running around here, but both of you are going to have to understand that the studio is
my
business. It’s going to stay that way.”

Andrew remained silent, his narrowed gaze pinned to hers. She held her breath, waiting for him to tell her she was out of line in her expectation.

“Okay. You’re the boss.”

At his flat comment, she nearly sagged with relief. Although his words were pushed past a tense jaw, she hoped she’d made herself clear about where he fit in the studio. She also hoped it would be the end of his possessiveness concerning the studio. And her.

“Great.” She slid the goggles back in place. “I’ve got to sand the edges of these pieces for the McCauley window. With the number of pieces involved, I speculate I’ll be sanding all week.”

“And you need me to...?”

She nodded toward the cutting wheel as she picked up the carborundum stone and began whisking it across the edge of a piece of cornflower blue glass. “It wouldn’t hurt to make up a few more crosses and butterflies. The e-mail I got from the organizer of the President’s Day Extravaganza said they expect a great turnout. I’d rather have too many than not enough.”

Andrew’s jaw dropped. “The craft show—it’s this Saturday.”

Beth’s hand paused. “Yes. We’ve had it on the calendar for months.”

He slapped his forehead. “I didn’t make the connection.”

Beth put the stone down. “What’s the problem?”

“The men are meeting at Uncle Henry’s on Saturday to put up the walls and roof for his addition. They want to get it going before the farmers need to be out in the fields. I had hoped...”

Beth didn’t need to hear the remainder of his sentence to know what he’d hoped. But she’d already lost time this week with the meetings with Sean. She couldn’t take Saturday off to man her booth, yet she counted on those sales to cover the expense of having made the suncatchers plus expenses involved with keeping the studio open. Andrew already knew all of that; she wouldn’t spell it out for him. She simply waited for him to decide what to do.

With a sigh, he gave a nod. “There will be plenty of men around to help with the addition. I’ll go to Salina like we’d planned.”

“Good.”

Andrew turned toward the drawer that contained the patterns, and Beth leaned over her pieces of glass. As she whisked the stone along the edge of the diamond-shaped piece, her thoughts skipped ahead to Saturday. She had fully intended to work all day in the studio. But after the community—organized by Henry—had rallied around her in erecting the building that housed her business, didn’t she have an obligation to help in the construction of the room addition?

Once more the question stabbed her heart:
Where do I fit in?

THIRTEEN

Beth and Andrew worked in quiet amity the remainder of the week—Beth grinding until her fingers ached from gripping the glass and stone, and Andrew constructing another dozen suncatchers. Sean McCauley called twice to check on progress and forward a couple of questions from the church in Carlton. Each time, Beth sensed Andrew’s disapproval, which gave her a slight feeling of unrest, but she managed to sweep it away. On the Saturday morning of the craft show, she watched him load the boxes of foam-cushioned suncatchers into the back of his pickup truck.

As usual, he’d dressed in his Sunday suit for the fair. In his workday clothes of dark trousers, solid button-up shirt, and suspenders, he could blend in with farmers outside of Sommerfeld. But the black homemade suit with no lapels on the jacket, a light blue shirt buttoned to the collar, and the black, flat-brimmed felt hat marked him as Mennonite. Each time they’d attended a fair, his attire had drawn curious gazes and a few bold questions. She’d recognized his unease in fielding queries about his “Amish” clothing in the past, and she had frequently explained the differences between the Amish and Mennonites who lived in Sommerfeld. Today he’d have to answer questions himself, and his silence told her he wasn’t keen on going alone.

“It’s too bad Trina can’t go with you.” Beth knew Trina was the favorite of many of her cousins, Andrew included. Her bubbly personality added a healthy dose of fun wherever she went.

Andrew grunted. “Yeah, I’d like that, but Aunt Deborah would never let her loose from the café. Especially today, with half the town turning out to help Uncle Henry. Aunt Deborah plans to take lunch over for all the workers, and she’ll need Trina to get it accomplished.”

“Sure seems like Kyra or someone might have been willing to take Trina’s place,” Beth mused. Kyra, one of Beth’s many cousins, often helped out in the café.

“She
is
helping,” Andrew said, giving the hatch of his pickup a firm slam. “Aunt Deborah needs both Trina and Kyra today.”

“Oh.” The crisp air tugged strands of her hair free of her ponytail and whipped them beneath her chin, tickling her. She shoved the errant strands behind her ear and squinted up at Andrew. Beneath the brim of his hat, his shadowed eyes appeared uneasy. “Well, I’m sorry you have to go alone, but you look very handsome.”

The instant the word
handsome
slipped from Beth’s tongue, embarrassment washed over her. It increased when she saw his ears turn bright red before he ducked his head, pulling his hat brim lower. But it was true. Andrew, with his close-cropped hair, dark eyes, and solid frame, was a handsome man. The unpretentious clothes in some odd way seemed to accentuate his rugged attractiveness rather than detract from it. Maybe if he realized it, he would set aside some of his insecurities and feel more confident.