The Beekeeper's Son (The Amish of Bee County Book 1) (24 page)

“Can I think on it?”

“You can, but remember the emergency medical fund is for everyone’s use, and we have to do what is right to keep the costs down. One way you can help do that is to go to the dentist in Mexico.”

Another fierce pain stabbed her gum. She put a hand to her mouth to keep from moaning aloud.

“I’ll get you some aspirin for the pain.” Susan trotted into the kitchen. “I wish we had ice.”

Her voice carried even as she disappeared through the door. The others began to disperse. Phineas, who’d offered not a word toward the discussion, fairly flew from the table, while the girls picked up dishes, their chatter centered on what life must be like south of the border. Men in sombreros with handlebar mustaches and serapes. What book that had come from, Abigail could only imagine. She thought of warm, soft flour tortillas, rice, and beans when she thought of Mexico. That and pineapple.

“It takes four to six weeks to get the passport card.” Mordecai rose and stretched, his joints popping and cracking. “Don’t wait too long or that tooth will rot in your mouth.”

Four to six weeks. Could she stand it that long? Abigail rubbed her cheek, wishing she could will away the pain. Or pray it away.

“Get the picture taken.” Mordecai’s voice had gone gentle. “It’s not a sin.”

“The Holy Bible says no graven images.” She glanced at Hazel and Hannah. They were engrossed in picking up the dirty silverware from the tables. “Who are we to say exceptions should be made?”

“There’s nothing vain or proud about you, and Gott knows what’s in our hearts when we do this. It’s a matter of being good stewards of the bodies He gave us.”

Something in his voice made the skin prickle on the back of her arms. She ducked her head, not wanting to meet his probing gaze. “It feels strange.”

Mordecai slid his chair under the table, the scraping sound drowning the little girls’ chatter as they scampered into the kitchen with their loads of silverware. “If you really don’t want to do it, I can help with the expense of seeing a dentist here.”

“Nee, there’s no need. I can wait.” She didn’t want to be more indebted to him. “I should talk to Stephen about the passport card.”

Stephen who had raised a bumper crop of grapefruit, oranges, tomatoes, okra, and cantaloupe this year. He had orders to fill from the state’s biggest grocery chain. He was ready for the next step. His firm grasp on her waist said he was more than ready.

The concern on Mordecai’s face drained away, leaving a neutral stare. He slapped his hat on his head. “I best get back to my chores.”

At the door, he glanced back. “Stephen has never crossed the border.”

“You make that sound like it’s a bad thing.” Stephen’s conservative nature came as no surprise to her. “He’s surely trying to do what’s right.”

“Not a bad thing, necessarily. I only wonder what that says about his willingness to put the community ahead of his own needs.”

“He’s cautious and steady.”

“That’s what I like about you.” Mordecai’s smile seemed genuine. “You always see the good in people.”

“Stephen has done a good job with making the land here produce fruits and vegetables even though it’s not meant to do so.”

“You’re right about that. He is a hard worker.”

Still, Mordecai’s tone said he found something lacking in Stephen. His assessment stung. Abigail wasn’t sure why. His opinion shouldn’t be more important to her than Stephen’s.

The throb in her jaw seemed to take over her face. She swallowed against it. She needed that aspirin. She sucked in air and tried to breathe through it, but that only seemed to make it worse. “Ouch.”

“I hate seeing you in pain . . . I mean, I hate to see anyone in pain.” Mordecai paused, his big hand gripping the screen door frame. His knuckles were white. His pulse pounded in his jaw as he gritted his teeth. “I’ll go to the store for ice.”

“Nee—”

“I’m going.”

He let the screen door slam as if for punctuation.

Mordecai was one opinionated man with a streak of independence.

Why did those qualities seem so appealing?

Stephen’s steady, traditional ways should be important to a woman with five children to think about.

Still, here she stood with goose bumps on her arms and her hands shaking. Had to be the toothache.

Not the man.

TWENTY-FIVE

“I can’t believe you’re leaving.” Deborah plopped down on the front step next to Frannie, who sat with a chipped cup of kaffi in her hands, staring at the streaks of pink and yellow beginning to stain the heavens as dawn stole the darkness from the horizon. Even before sunrise the August heat made her dress stick to her sweaty body. “Who will I talk to?”

“Esther, I reckon. And your sisters.” Frannie sipped and lowered the cup. “You’re blessed. You have sisters close to your age. Me, I got brothers and they aren’t even close to my age. Hannah and Rachel are too young for much of anything.”

Picking at a smear of dried jam on her apron, Deborah watched as the men tossed the last of the boxes and garbage bags of clothes into the back of the second van. In a few minutes they’d say good-bye to everyone who’d come to see them off, load into the vans, and head for Missouri.

And leave Deborah behind. She would miss Frannie. She already had a fierce ache where her heart should be.

“The new house is better than the one that burned down.” Sighing, Deborah picked up a rock and tossed it at the rusted
trash can sitting next to the broken-down buggy. It made a
plinking
sound and disappeared into the scraggly, brown weeds. “I don’t see why Aenti Eve and Onkel John won’t stay here.”

“You were the one chomping at the bit to leave. You said yourself it’s the ugliest place you ever been, and farming here is hopeless.” Frannie set her cup on the step and slapped away a mosquito that buzzed her head. “At least you were until you started following Phin around. I’m guessing the feeling is mutual, him going into town for you and all.”

“He didn’t go into town for me. He went for Hazel. And I’m not following him around.” Deborah had more sense than that. Phineas ignored her and avoided her even more than he had before Hazel’s fall. Deborah had enough sense to know that meant he didn’t want her around. No matter what he’d said outside the medical clinic. No matter how tightly he’d gripped her hand and how his eyes had sparked with a consuming heat. He ran hot and cold, mostly cold, and she refused to chase after a man who couldn’t make up his mind.

“We live in the same house. I don’t have much choice but to run into him now and again. But that’s it. Nothing more.”

Not as much as a person would think. Being a beekeeper gave him plenty of excuses to stay out in the fields. Lately, the production of finished jars of honey seemed to fill the kitchen every afternoon. Phineas stopped in only long enough to drop off the bounty, leaving the women to do the rest of the work.

“As soon as Stephen and Mudder get married, I’ll go home. Or maybe I’ll come to Missouri to visit.”

“You still think Abigail and Stephen will marry?” Frannie wrinkled her nose. “I heard he was mighty peeved about the passport card.”

“I don’t think it’s the passport picture so much as the fact she went against his advice.”

“And took Mordecai’s.”

Deborah nodded. After two months in Mordecai’s house, she’d found herself settled into a comfortable routine with Phineas’s father. Much more than with the son. Mordecai told a good joke. He was kind. Hazel had taken to crawling into his lap for stories at night. He had a rare storytelling ability that held them all rapt. Stories about the pioneers who settled Texas and cowboys and cattle drives.

At first, it hurt to see Hazel there, like he was her daed, but then it had seemed natural. And Mordecai had an unfailingly kind and gentle way of speaking to Mudder that made Deborah want to shake her until she could see that the man had feelings for her.

True feelings. Not the possessive be-mine-and-let-me-tell-you-what-to-do feelings that seemed to billow from Stephen.

“You’re gonna love going to Progreso. You’ll stop at the beach on the way. Mordecai can’t pass up a trip to the beach, you’ll see.” Frannie’s words interrupted Deborah’s morose thoughts. She sounded equally morose despite the optimism in her words. “No beaches in Missouri.”

“Nee, but you saw that map. It had bunches of lakes. The Ozarks. You’ll be fishing in no time.”
“They had to make the best
of it.”
Daed’s words rang in her ears. Whatever
it
was. “Gott has a plan for you and me.”

“Yep.” Frannie stood and tossed the dregs of her coffee into the weeds. “I best get going. Mudder’s been real tired lately and she shouldn’t be lifting things.”

To Deborah’s surprise, Frannie enveloped her in a quick,
sharp hug that ended before she could reciprocate. She sniffed and wiped at her face with the back of her sleeve. “See you, cousin.”

“Don’t go yet.” Deborah traipsed after her. “Stop.”

Frannie scooped Hannah from her perch on a lawn chair and settled her on her hip.

“It’s not forever. We’ll see each other again.”

Frannie deposited Hannah on a seat in the van and ordered her to climb into her booster seat. Then she turned. “I don’t reckon I’ll ever be back here. I’ll find a man up yonder and settle down. You’ll be here with Phin. Unless you can convince him to move too.”

Her plain, freckled face creased in a grin. “That’s it. Y’all can move up to Missouri and live next door to me and my mann.”

“Your who? What husband?” Onkel John angled past them, bags in both hands. “You’re getting way ahead of yourself, girl.”

He tossed the bags in the back of the van and stuck his hands on his narrow hips, his expression self-satisfied. “Besides, Phin isn’t going anywhere. He bought the Schrock farm. They’ve been trying to sell it ever since they left to go up north. He finally made them an offer they liked.”

“Phineas bought a farm?” Disbelief made Deborah’s voice high and squeaky. “By himself?”

“That’s what he said.” John rubbed at his beard with bony fingers. “I wish he would’ve bought this one, but it’s a lot more land than the Schrocks had and he can’t afford it. No young man just starting out could, and I can’t afford to take less for it. Besides, he doesn’t want to live so close to the store and all the Englisch traffic it brings out this way. You know how he is.”

She did indeed know how he was.

Phineas had bought himself a farm as far from her as he could get and still live in their district. John’s house was a stone’s throw from the store. Phineas couldn’t have that.

Did he intend to live there alone? Now? No more seeing him at breakfast? Or supper? Deborah didn’t dare ask her uncle these questions.

“At least that’ll give y’all a little more room at Mordecai’s.” John surveyed the van. “Looks like we’re about packed. Let’s get moving. Get your mudder, Frannie, and tell the boys to get a move on.”

Frannie turned and scurried to the house. Deborah started to follow. John stepped in front of her. “You best take care of your mudder after we go.” His expression had turned stony. “Do as she says and don’t be giving her grief over marrying Stephen. You got that?”

“Jah.”

His lips pursed. “Your mudder is doing what’s best for all of you. Keep that in mind. Don’t be selfish.”

“I won’t.” She whispered the words, her throat dry and aching.

“And you might think of doing the same thing.”

What did that mean? Her confusion must’ve shown on her face.

“Time you get serious about going to the singings. Those boys are interested, if you’d show a bit of interest yourself. Know what I mean?”

Phineas didn’t go to the singings. “Jah.”

“We’ll be back in November for the wedding.” He jerked his head toward the house. “I told your mudder to write and let me know how things are going. I expect a good report.”

Like he was her father. Nee. He was not. She swallowed the angry retort. “Jah, Onkel.”

“Gut
.
Go make sure Frannie didn’t forget anything. I ain’t
turning around for some little something she thinks she can’t live without.”

Deborah tore into the house without looking back. She didn’t want to see the satisfied look on John’s face. He’d given her a talking to. He’d done his onkel duties.

Didn’t matter. She’d do her best to mind her mother. She always had. She didn’t need John to tell her what her duties were. What was right or wrong.

Daed had taught her those things.

Head down, eyes blinded with unshed tears, she barreled around the corner anxious to find a place—any place—where she could be alone long enough to rein in her emotions. She smacked into something hard and solid. And warm.

“Hey! You have to stop doing that.”

Phineas.

Deborah stifled a groan and closed her eyes.

“Are you going to look at me or what?”

She studied the wood under her bare feet. “Nee.”

“Why?”

Because he would see the tears in her eyes and he would think of the day outside the barn and the night of the singing. He would think she was a big crybaby. She ran a sleeve across her face and lifted her chin. She was no crybaby. “You always do this.”

“Do what?”

“Catch me at my worst.”

The corners of his full lips turned up in a hint of a crooked smile. “You look okay to me.”

It was his turn to duck his head and study his work boots.

What did he mean by okay? “Just okay?”

“Now you want compliments?”

“Nee, I don’t fish for compliments.”

“What is wrong with you?” His eyebrows rose and his forehead wrinkled. Phineas shuffled his feet, hands dangling as if he didn’t know what to do with them. “Did I do something? Something more than usual?”

“Did you buy a farm out in the middle of nowhere?”

This time his lips widened into a real smile. A rare appearance, like a flash of heat lightning on a dark night. Like the rare birds he sought with his binoculars. “I did.”

“You didn’t bother to tell anyone?”

“I told Daed. He helped me.” The smile died, much to Deborah’s chagrin. He crossed his arms. “What do you care, anyway? You have . . . It’s not like you and I have . . .”