Love Finds You in Sugarcreek, Ohio (3 page)

“Is something wrong?” Kim asked, as Rachel stood staring out the window with the phone in her hand.

“No.” Rachel replaced the handset. “My aunt was calling to tell me that she’s cooking my favorite meal tonight.”

“So—what’s she making?”

“Mashed potatoes, roast, homemade egg noodles with cabbage, green beans, and sugar cookies flavored with orange rind. That has been my favorite meal since I was a kid.”

“Wow. You are
so
lucky. I was raised on TV dinners. Mom didn’t like to cook.”

At the look of envy on Kim’s face, Rachel felt a small, guilty jolt of satisfaction. The girl’s comment about not answering the phone because Lydia was old still rankled. How
dare
she judge the woman’s worth by her age?

Rachel shoved away her negative thoughts and hurried to finish her desk work so she’d be on time for supper. A couple of hours out at her aunts’ farm beckoned like an oasis in what she knew would be a crazy two days. Neither she nor any other town official would draw a free breath until Sunday when the Swiss Festival would be over.

The sign said W
ELCOME TO
S
UGARCREEK
,
THE
L
ITTLE
S
WITZERLAND OF
O
HIO
.

Joe didn’t care if it was the
real
Switzerland as long as it had a decent mechanic. His truck had suddenly developed a loud and disturbing noise. He desperately scanned the various businesses, looking for a place that might be able to fix it.

Finally he noticed what appeared to be a small, working garage. At least he
hoped
it was a working garage. Oddly enough, it was housed in a building designed to resemble a Swiss chalet, and it shared space with a craft store. Tires and tools leaned against the outside of the building. Nearby sat an eye-catching, ancient jalopy, developing multiple layers of rust.

As he nosed up to the open bay, his truck shuddered to a stop. From the sounds coming from beneath the hood, he feared the stop might be permanent.

“Are we home yet, Daddy?” Bobby craned his neck to see out the window.

Joe sighed. The never-ending question. “Not yet.” He tousled his son’s blond curls. “Our truck’s not running right.”

“Did it break?”

“I don’t know, but it’s got a bad cough.”

He knew that Bobby understood coughs—the little guy had been fighting one ever since yesterday morning. Joe was starting to get worried. The over-the-counter cough syrup he had bought had given Bobby little relief.

He climbed out of the cab and lifted the hood, hoping that whatever was wrong with his vehicle would be easy to fix.

“Daddy! Catch me!”

He peered around the hood. Bobby had both arms stretched toward him and was leaning out of the open window—
too
far out.

“Watch out, son! You’ll fall.” He caught Bobby just as he toppled from the window. “Careful, buddy. Don’t do that again. I might not catch you in time.”

Bobby stuck his thumb in his mouth and mumbled around it. “Don’t’eave me!”

Thumb-sucking was something Bobby had outgrown two years ago. Now it was back.

“I won’t leave you. Ever. I promise.”

Bobby dug his face into Joe’s chest. “’kay.”

With his son’s arm looped around his neck, they checked out the engine—as they did everything these days—together.

“Need some help?” A man dressed in blue coveralls walked toward them, wiping his hands on a rag.

“My truck’s acting up,” Joe said.

“I heard. Sounded like a blown head gasket.” The man stuck his head beneath the open hood. “Looks like it too.”

Joe’s heart sank.

The mechanic stepped back from the front of the truck and glanced at the Texas license tags. “You’re not from around here.” He made it sound like an accusation.

“Just traveling through.” There was no need to explain that although the truck was from Texas, he and Bobby were not.

“It’ll take a day or two to pull the engine head and resurface it. And another day to put it in, maybe two.” He stuffed the rag into his right back pocket. “I could order the part before I go home tonight. You want me to do the work?”

“I’d appreciate it.”

The man considered. “I’m a little backed up. It might be a couple days.”

“I suppose we have no choice.” Joe shoved a hand through his hair. “How much?”

“Depends. The parts and resurfacing aren’t too expensive, but there’s a lot of labor involved. Probably run you around five hundred. Maybe a little more.” He looked him over doubtfully.

Joe knew the mechanic was evaluating his ability to pay, and who could blame him? The scruffy beard Joe had affected and the worn clothes he had picked up at Goodwill had not been chosen to inspire financial confidence. If anything, the exact opposite.

“I’ll need a deposit if you want me to order it.”

“Sure.” Joe shifted Bobby and groped his back pocket for his wallet—but it wasn’t there.

Frantically he searched his other pockets. No luck.

“I’ll be right back.” He rushed to the truck and tore the cab apart. The only thing he found were a couple of stray twenty-dollar bills and some change he had tossed into the console earlier in the week. Desperately, he tried to remember the last time he had seen his wallet.

Then it came to him—the truck stop where he had filled up with gasoline this morning.

He had gone into the restroom, carrying Bobby in his arms. Two men had jostled him as they passed in the doorway. He had not felt the hand slip into his back pocket, but he would bet money—if he had any—that one of them had lifted his wallet. It had contained several hundred dollars in cash, a credit card, and the card accessing his bank accounts—his lifeline.

He felt the blood drain from his face.

“You okay?” the man called. “You don’t look so good.”

“I think someone stole my money.” He ran a hand over his face and realized that he’d broken out into a cold sweat. “Could I leave my truck parked here until I can figure out what to do?”

“I suppose. There’s a place in back I can store it for a couple of days.”

“I’d appreciate it.”

They maneuvered Joe’s vehicle to an empty spot behind the station while Bobby watched with wide, frightened eyes from the cab. His little forehead was furrowed with worry, his gaze glued to his father’s face. Joe wondered when it would end, when his son’s fear of letting him out of his sight would cease.

After what Bobby had been through, maybe it never would.

Bobby coughed—a wrenching sound that made Joe wince.

“I thirsty, Daddy,” Bobby said.

Joe set the emergency brake and pulled Bobby out of the truck, rubbing a smear of dirt off his son’s cheek with his thumb. He dredged a juice box from a cooler in the back. It floated, alone, in a puddle of lukewarm water. The ice had melted hours ago.

He tore off the attached plastic straw and its cellophane, inserted it into the box, and handed the drink to his son, wondering when he could afford to buy more.

As Bobby slurped the juice, Joe nervously dug at an itch beneath his chin. He hated growing a beard—but it helped to hide his identity.

“Is there a really cheap place in town to stay?” he asked.

The mechanic choked out a laugh. “There isn’t even an
expensive
place to stay in town right now. Let alone a cheap one.”

“Why?”

“You don’t know?” The man stared at him in surprise. “I figured that’s why you were here. This is Swiss Festival weekend. Everything in town has been booked for weeks. The place is crawling with visitors.”

“I’ve got some camping equipment. Is there a state park or public land close by?”

“There’s a campground up ahead.” The man shrugged. “The Wally Byham Airstream Caravan Club is probably already set up there by now. They come every year.” He pointed down the road. “Turn left on Edelweiss and keep going. You’ll see it.”

“How far?”

“It’s a bit of a hike.” The mechanic hesitated. “I’d take you, but like I said, I’m kind of backed up here.”

“Thanks anyway.” Joe set his son on the ground and pulled a small tent and a duffel bag out of the truck. “Come on, partner; we’re going camping.”

“I wanna go
home,
Daddy.” Bobby’s voice was plaintive.

“I’m sorry, son. We don’t have a choice.”

The mechanic disappeared into the depths of his garage as Joe walked toward the outskirts of town with Bobby hanging onto his belt.

He considered the odds of getting enough money together to fix his truck in the next couple of days. Without his credit cards and ID, they weren’t good. By now, his money would be enhancing someone else’s lifestyle, and his empty wallet was probably residing at the bottom of some dumpster. Fortunately, the code to his bank card would be near impossible for a common thief to break.

What should he do?

He turned onto Edelweiss, and what appeared to be miles and miles of cornfields lay ahead.

“Carry me, Daddy,” Bobby demanded.

Joe was already lugging a tent and a duffel bag. Carrying forty solid pounds of little boy would be difficult.

“Daddy needs for you to walk, buddy.”

Bobby, at the end of his emotional rope, plopped himself down on the asphalt road and began to cry.

Fearful that a car might come, Joe scooped up Bobby. The child’s sobs stopped. The baggage, in addition to Bobby’s weight, tugged at Joe’s bad shoulder. Pain shot down his arm.

So many operations over the past two years—all from the best surgeons in the world. None, however, had been good enough to turn him back into the well-oiled throwing machine he had once been.

Instead of a car, once again he heard the
clip-clop
of horse hooves. Turning around, he saw the same old Amishman who had stopped to talk to him outside of town. Joe wondered what the old man must be thinking now—finding him and Bobby on foot.

“Wie geht’s.”
The man pulled back on the reins. “Hello. Where is your vehicle?”

“It has a cough,” Bobby reported importantly.

“Ach.” The old man’s eyes danced with amusement. “That is a pity. Perhaps you should buy a goot horse and buggy!” He slapped his knee and chuckled at his own joke.

Joe shifted Bobby in his arms. “Right now, that sounds like a pretty good idea.”

“Put the
boovli
—the little boy—in here.” The old man shoved a box of apples toward the back. “I can take you a piece further.”

Gratefully, Joe eased Bobby onto the buggy seat and wedged himself in next, putting the tent on the floor and holding the duffel bag on his lap.

“Giddyap!” the old man said. The horse took off with a start, throwing Joe against the back of the seat. He automatically reached for a safety belt before realizing the vehicle didn’t have one.

He felt exposed and vulnerable riding inside the buggy. It swayed with every movement. Visions of that monster truck surfaced.

“I am Eli Troyer. And this”—he nodded toward the sleek brown horse—“is Rosie.”

The horse acknowledged the introduction by raising her tail and depositing a steaming pile of fresh manure on the road. She followed that by passing gas—loudly.

Bobby was wide-eyed as he stared at the horse’s rear end.

Eli seemed oblivious to Rosie’s faux pas. “My Rosie was a racehorse,” he said. “Can you not imagine her on the track as a young mare?”

“I’m sure she was something else,” Joe said.

He had visited a racetrack a few times with friends. Never had he dreamed that any of the powerful horseflesh there could end up pulling an Amish buggy.

A low-slung red car zoomed past, rocking them in its wake. Rosie shied and danced a few steps to the right, into the gravel.

“You must get tired of all the tourists,” Joe said.

“That was no tourist. That was a local.” Eli steered Rosie back onto the blacktop. “The tourists are usually polite and careful. They stay far behind us when they follow us up a hill. It is our locals who lose patience.” He clucked for Rosie to pick up her pace. “The worst are the ex-Amish who have chosen to ‘jump over’ into the Englisch world. Some act angry when they pass us. It is as though they are saying”—Eli raised a fist in the air and shook it to demonstrate—“‘Get out of my way, old man! I am so smart to leave the church!’”

Eli pointed at the car disappearing down the road. “I know him.” His voice was filled with sadness. “He used to be one of our people.”

Joe had no idea what to say. This wasn’t his battle.

Eli changed the subject. “What is your boy’s name?”

“This is Bobby, and I’m Joe Matthews.” Joe noticed that the buggy’s rocking motion was causing the tent to edge toward the open door. He secured it with his foot.

“It is goot to meet you. Do you have shtamm—family—here?”

“No,” Joe said. “No family here. The mechanic back in town said there’s a campground up ahead.”

“Sure is. But it is not so big, and it will be full.”

“How do you know?”

“It is Swiss Festival time.”

Everywhere Joe turned, it seemed he was hearing about the Swiss Festival. Obviously, he could not have come to this town at a worse time. Where would he and Bobby sleep tonight? Joe looked at the huge cornfield they were passing and wondered if the farmer who owned it would mind if a man and a small boy pitched a tent at its edge.