The Heart's Journey: Stitches in Time Series #2 (13 page)

“We haven’t made many plans yet,” she finally said. It wasn’t exactly the truth, but it wasn’t a lie either. She sent up a quick fervent prayer that God would forgive her for it.

“I always wondered about the two of you—you and Daniel, I mean. I always liked you.” She smiled and shrugged. “Well, it wasn’t God’s will.”

“So, I know you quilt for a living, and you and your cousins and Leah have a shop,” Mary from Ohio said as she paused from her stitching to take a sip of tea. “Have you designed a special wedding quilt?”

Naomi felt a momentary panic. She just hadn’t expected questions about this and didn’t know what to say. She looked at her grandmother, hoping for guidance.

“We’ve been so busy we haven’t had a chance to discuss that,” Leah said.

That was the truth, Naomi thought. She’d been so busy with commissions. Stitches in Time had received some nice publicity when Mary Katherine spoke at the college, and holiday business had been bigger than usual.

The teapot was empty. Naomi went to make more tea, grateful for the chance to escape more questions. Even though she was in the same room, she hoped that looking busy would discourage them. Once again, as she stood at the sink filling the teakettle, she found herself looking at the shells. The question about designing her wedding quilt made her think about how she could make a quilt with colors and shapes that would remind her of her time here in Florida with her grandmother.

Maybe she’d make some sketches while she fished with Nick in … she checked the clock. Less than an hour now.

Remembering how Nick loved to eat, she decided to pack a picnic lunch. She quickly made sandwiches with the leftover roast chicken from dinner, adding some carrot sticks and a
handful of cookies. Iced tea was a staple in Florida all year ’round, she’d discovered. Sweet tea, they called it, and she knew Nick liked it. She filled the small jug they’d brought along on the trip and set it in the refrigerator until it was time to leave.

Her grandmother watched her but didn’t ask any questions in front of the other women. When she brewed more hot tea and made the rounds of the room pouring it, Naomi whispered to her that she was going fishing for a few hours with Nick.

“Are you sure you should go out again with that nose?”

“It’s the only nose I have,” Naomi said with a straight face. “I’ve had it all my life.”

“Oh, you,” Leah said, chuckling. “You know what I mean.”

“Nick promised he’d bring something so I wouldn’t make it worse.”

“Very funny!” Naomi said, glaring at Nick when she climbed into the van and saw what he’d brought for her nose.

Nick wiggled his eyebrows and modeled a nose protector for her. “You don’t like it?”

“Where did you find a clown nose?” she demanded, pretending to be offended but having trouble keeping a straight face.

He pulled his off and took the one he’d handed her. “I was just kidding. Here, I bought you something else.” He pulled a package from a bag and gave it to her.

“This is still pretty silly looking,” she said, hesitating as she read “Surfer Nose Protector” on the packaging and opened the triangular hard plastic thingy.

She sighed, but since she wanted to go fishing she applied the thick white cream to her nose and face before applying the plastic piece.

“And here’s the final part of the disguise,” he said, reaching into the backseat for a big, wide-brimmed straw hat.

She hesitated at putting it on but then nodded. “There’s enough shade under here for two people,” she told him, then realized it sounded like an invitation for him to get closer.

Fortunately, he didn’t take it as such, instead starting the car and moving out onto the road. The Pinecraft speed trap was in effect: several police officers patrolled on horseback, making sure there was no speeding with so many pedestrians and bike riders around.

Phillippi Creek ran beside the shuffleboard court, and today a few people stood or sat along the shore and dropped their lines in the water. Nick found a place to park and they walked down to the water’s edge, Nick carrying their fishing poles in one hand, Naomi carrying their picnic lunch in one of hers. When Naomi stumbled on a tuft of grass, Nick reached over and took her hand in his.

The contact with his hand felt electric and she glanced over at him. He gave her a half smile, his eyes dark, but she couldn’t read his expression. His fingers grew firmer on hers and he continued to hold on while they walked down the incline, and she didn’t withdraw her hand.

She told herself she appreciated the help so she wouldn’t trip and fall—after all, they didn’t need two women with sprained ankles—but she felt troubled by how she felt when he broke contact when they reached the water.

They spread out an old quilt that Naomi had tucked in the back of the van for the trip and Nick got their lines in the water. Other people nearby nodded a welcome but there was little talking. Naomi’s brother had always told her that fish were scared away by noisy conversation. She’d believed him but suspected her brother liked her being quiet as well. When
she was younger she’d been quite the talkative younger sister. Now, she realized he might have been telling the truth.

She chuckled at the memory, and when Nick glanced over, she whispered what she’d remembered.

“You were lucky he took you,” he whispered back. “Guys don’t like to drag their sisters along anywhere. That only changes when they get older and having a baby sister along can get girls interested in them.”

Naomi laughed and shook her head. Then, as he continued to stare at her, she felt her face grow warm, her mouth grow dry.

It was the sun, she told herself. She wasn’t attracted to Nick.

She couldn’t be.

8

Y
ou’ve got a bite!”

Naomi blinked. She’d been sketching a quilt design on a pad of paper and saw that her line was bobbing. Jumping up, she began reeling in the fish that splashed in the water.

“Easy, easy,” Nick cautioned at her side.

A flick of the wrist and Naomi pulled the fish from the water and dropped it to the grassy bank where it flopped around. She looked up at Nick and found him grinning.

“Good job! I wasn’t sure when you said you liked to fish if you were good at it,” he told her.

“Too small, have to toss it back,” she muttered. Naomi unhooked the fish and saw his surprise when she looked up. “What?”

“Nothing,” he said.

“Were you expecting me to be squeamish and say, ‘Oh, please, Nick, I can’t touch it!’ and make you do it?”

“Well …”

“I can’t speak for all Amish women, but we’re not wimps,” she told him. “We help with farming, milk cows, anything and everything we have to do.”

“I know, I know,” he said. “You are woman; I hear you roar.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Just something from a song. About women being strong, independent.”

She gave him a skeptical look as she tossed the fish back into the water. “You are a strange man, Nick.”

He laughed. “You have no idea.”

Naomi dropped the line back in the water and sat down again on the quilt. “Would you please get the hand sanitizer out of my purse for me?” She held up her hands and made a face.

“Sure.”

“Not that one!” she exclaimed. “That’s the lunch bag.”

Nick regarded the striped bag with the shoulder strap. “Really?”

“Figures you’d pick the lunch bag,” she said as he rooted through her purse and found the sanitizer. “I think you have a hollow leg.”

“Only when I’m around good food.” He opened the sanitizer cap and squirted some of the gel into her hands.

Naomi rubbed her hands together and then wiped them on a tissue from her purse. “I brought sandwiches and cookies. I had the feeling you might get hungry.”

“Speaking of hungry,” he said when his line bobbed. He reeled the fish in, a nice-sized one, and after unhooking it, put it in a bucket he’d brought.

“You said something about lunch?”

She shook her head. “Men. All about their stomachs.”

A little while later, fellow fishers began going home. Naomi sketched and didn’t catch anything else. Nick caught four more fish in quick succession—all big enough to join the fish in the bucket. He checked her nose, suggested she apply more sunscreen, then plopped himself on the quilt.

When she finally got a nibble on her line, Naomi jumped to her feet in a surge of excitement—and promptly slid on the grass and into the water.

She stood there, up to her ankles, stunned speechless. Laughter rang out. She raised her eyes and saw that the laughter came from Nick.

“Very funny!” she said. “The water’s not exactly warm.”

And she wasn’t the only one in it. Something brushed against her leg and she let out a yelp. Just a fish, she told herself, taking a cautious look. Not a snake. She tried to lift her foot and found the mud clung and wouldn’t let go.

He rose and hurried toward her. “It’s okay, you’re in shallow water. Just step out.”

“Be careful!” she cried. “That’s how I ended up in here!” He held out his hand. “Here, let me help you.”

But when she tried to lift her foot it was like being in an awful nightmare of being caught in quicksand. She looked down and tried to pull her foot out again but felt herself sinking, the mud sucking at her.

“Nick, I can’t lift my foot,” she said, starting to get panicky.

“Give me your hands,” he said.

Something bumped her again, something that was cold and slimy. She started to look but Nick jerked her hands.

“Look at me,” he commanded, and she raised her eyes and looked into his.

The thing in the water scraped her skin.

“Don’t look,” he said. “I’ve got you!”

When it touched her again, she looked down. The
thing
that swam around her foot looked prehistoric—a big greenish-brown fish with a long snout.

And row upon row of jagged teeth.

She never knew if it was the sight of the fish or Nick’s strong hands that lifted her from the water. She only knew that she was a quivering mass of nerves as he led her to the quilt.

“What
was
that?”

“Garfish.”

She looked up. An Amish man had strolled up with his pole.

“I hear some of ’em can get to be three, maybe four feet long,” he said, nodding and stroking his long beard. “Up to two hundred pounds. They’d make a meal for a lot of folk but they don’t taste
gut.
”

Speaking of tasting, thought Naomi, checking the ankle the thing had brushed against. Her skin wasn’t broken but she couldn’t wait to get the mud off and put some disinfectant on it anyway. The water hadn’t looked clean.

“It’s time to go home,” Nick said.

It wasn’t really a question. He was already picking up her purse and the lunch tote and pulling at the corner of the quilt she sat on.

“I just need to get my breath back,” she said.

“Do it in the car,” he said in a curt tone. “I just saw a log move in the water.”

She looked up and sure enough, what had looked like a log now had protruding eyes and a length of scales. And it was moving across the creek under its own power, leaving a rippling wake behind it.

“It’s okay, the gator won’t bother you if you don’t bother him,” the Amish man called behind them.

Naomi made it back to the van in under five seconds. Only when she’d slammed the door shut did she realize that she’d left her flip-flops behind in the creek.

Nick jumped into the driver’s side, throwing their things into the backseat once he’d closed his own door.

“Well,” he said. “That was a fishing trip I won’t soon forget.”

“Me, either,” she told him, her hand pressed to her chest. “Sorry for the mud.”

“No problem,” he told her, starting the van. “Sorry, I dropped the lunch bag.”

“The alligator will be disappointed,” she said dryly. “You ate everything.”

Then her hand flew to her head. “My hat! I lost the hat!”

Nick chuckled. “I wonder if the alligator is wearing it right now.”

The image made her laugh. “The whole thing is funny. Now.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Now that we’re safely in the car.”

Nick drove her home, and as he pulled up to the curb of the rental cottage, Naomi gasped. She’d thought the afternoon couldn’t get any worse.

She’d been wrong.

John Zook sat on the steps of the cottage, a bouquet of flowers in his hand.