The Letters (4 page)

Bethany was clever and headstrong. She acted first, thought about things later. Being full of vinegar and spunk wasn’t a bad trait, but that combined with being prettier than a girl had any business being . . . mix in her poor judgment and—oh my!—she was a continual worry to Rose.

She was well aware that Bethany kept holding out hope that they would return to their old town, back to Jake Hertzler. He was a good enough fellow, charming and amusing, but Rose was never quite convinced that Jake was as besotted with Bethany as she was with him. She had hoped that Bethany’s enthrallment with Jake would fade away, that she wouldn’t hold out hope to return to their former town. Besides, they had no home to return to. Vera’s farm was their only refuge. Bethany, nineteen now, should have an understanding of their circumstances, but maybe she was expecting too much from her. For all of Bethany’s charm and beauty, she gripped tightly to cockeyed optimism. She was like Dean that way.

She remembered when Dean had hired Jake, almost two years ago. Was it that long ago? Jake had an accounting
background and was a whiz with numbers. Rose had questioned the wisdom of hiring someone—even an hourly employee—when the business’s profit margins were so thin. Schrock Investments had been paying over 6 percent dividends a year until the recession hit. Then, those same investments were barely paying out 1 percent and Dean was scrambling to keep up the same rate of dividends. He assured her that with Jake handling the paperwork details, he and Tobe were freed up to find more investors. “It’s the answer to our cash flow problem,” he had told her. “An inflow of more investors will keep us afloat. We’ll weather this downturn in the economy and be back on our feet.” He snapped his fingers, to indicate how quickly things could turn around.

Rose had been curious, bordering on suspicious. It struck her as slightly off—as if they were using money from the new investors to keep the old investors from fleeing. It didn’t seem like it was addressing the basic problem—the investments were no longer bringing in high returns. But what did she know? She didn’t ask Dean anything more. Now she wished she had.

Harold, their big Barred Rock rooster, strutted along the gable of the henhouse, all puffed up and sassy. Rose led Silver Girl out to the far pasture to graze in the morning sun. She ran a hand along the horse’s big belly. As she unclipped the lead off of the horse’s harness, she saw her neighbor, Galen King, try to corral their straying goat through an opening between their yards. She hurried to meet him.

“I’m sorry, Galen!” The boys had forgotten to bring the goat in for the night. To their way of thinking, he was never hard to catch, so they didn’t bother tying him. The goat wasn’t given to wandering far from anything green he could nibble. Usually, that meant Galen’s yard.

Galen shooed the goat into the pasture. His manner was slow, befitting a man who worked with animals and knew not to frighten them. He lifted his chin toward the pregnant mare. “How’s she doing?”

She turned back to look at Silver Girl. “Just fine. She’s not due for another month or so.” Nearby, Harold let out a piercing crow.

“Every day, that rooster thinks he’s king of the world and has to tell everyone all about it.” Galen glanced up at him and cupped his hands around his mouth. “Graeh net zu gschwind, Harold.”
Don’t crow too soon.

Rose grinned. Dark and wiry, Galen had a quiet, watchful look about him—until he gave up one of his rare smiles. He had been Vera’s neighbor for years, yet up until the last year, Rose hadn’t spoken to him of anything more than weather or horses. He wasn’t overly blessed with the gift of conversation, but she had found his words always held something good in them—like a satisfying drink of cold lemonade on a hot summer day. Rose shielded her eyes and looked at the crowing rooster, strutting along the roofline of the henhouse. “Sometimes I wonder if we’re all a little like Harold. Real life carries on around us while we strut in our own yards, thinking we’re the ones in charge of things.”

As she spoke, she turned to look at Galen. She saw his eyes lift quickly to the hills behind the farmhouse, as if he didn’t want to be caught looking at her.

“Rose, I just bought some new Thoroughbreds off the racetrack. Turning them into buggy horses. They’re green, very green, and they’re skittish. They’ll bolt at anything.”

Oh. Rose latched the pasture gate behind her, wanting Galen to see that they did, occasionally, latch gates around
here. “We’ll take care to make sure the goat doesn’t wander off.”

Galen gave her a quick nod. That was what he had come over to hear.

“Did the goat cause you any trouble?”

Galen lifted a shoulder in a half shrug. “Just the usual. It likes the compost pile.”

“I’ll send the boys over to clean it up.”

He shook his head. “Don’t worry yourself. Naomi was raking it up as I brought the goat over.” He folded his arms. “Sure you need a goat, Rose?”

No, she didn’t need a goat. Or twelve cranky hens. Or five sheep. Certainly not a bossy rooster. But especially, she didn’t need a goat. A goat was nothing but a nuisance. She wished she could sell it, or just give it away, but Dean had brought it home for the boys on a whim. Rose didn’t have the heart to get rid of it. She couldn’t take that away from Luke and Sammy. Too hard to explain all that to Galen, though. “I haven’t seen Naomi lately. Is she well?”

Naomi was Galen’s seventeen-year-old sister, the baby of the family, the only sibling still at home. She suffered from fierce headaches that forced her to stay in bed for days. Galen was very protective of her. It was a quiet joke around the church that if Naomi sneezed, Galen dropped everything to be at her side with a tissue. “She’s had a headache the last few days but seems to be feeling better today.”

He started to leave, so she quickly said, “Would you like a cup of coffee? I just brewed a fresh pot for Vera.”

“Can’t.” He was in a hurry, usually was.

Rose knew Galen wouldn’t slow down for a cup of coffee. But she needed to talk to him and hurried to catch him before
he slipped through the privet. “Galen, could I ask your advice on a matter? A business matter?”

He stopped, turned to face her, didn’t say anything, but he was listening.

“I’m thinking of converting the basement into an inn,” she went on. “As a business.”

Galen was quiet for a moment, thinking. “Why would you want that kind of an undertaking? You’ve got a lot on your shoulders as it is.”

With the Securities and Exchange Commission lawyer hounding her, he meant. With children at home, especially two young boys, who needed constant surveillance. With a mother-in-law who was ailing.

“The thing is . . . it seemed like a way to support my family.” She bit her lip, waiting for his reaction.

Tipping his head, he studied her, his lips a speculative twist. “I see.” His expression said he didn’t see at all.

Rose’s heart sunk. She shouldn’t have told him. She braced herself, expecting him to point out that she had no real idea what she was doing. And wasn’t that the truth?

What if Galen said something to Bishop Elmo? To others? She wasn’t ready to discuss this. The last thing she needed was another reason to have folks eyeballing her. She couldn’t afford to make mistakes in this new church. Why had she said anything to Galen? They were neighbors, that’s all. He’d always been kind to them in his quiet way, especially after what happened to Dean, but she shouldn’t expect him to be an advisor to her. Gracious sakes, the man had enough troubles of his own with his frail sister.

“Why?”

Hadn’t she just told him? “To make a living.”

“No,” Galen said firmly, almost impatiently. “No, that must not be all there is to it.”

The past seven months had been difficult as she adjusted to widowhood and being a single mother. She knew it was time to pick up the threads of her life and move forward.

“You’re here in Stoney Ridge for a reason. Is this the reason?”

Rose spotted her mother-in-law on the front porch steps to the house. The easy answer to Galen’s question would be to say they were here for Vera. For the longest time, the older woman just stood there, looking out at the yard and pastures, a slightly confused expression on her face. Rose watched her turn and head back into the house, feeling a spike of concern. Vera was getting more and more forgetful.

Galen cleared his throat. “There must be one hundred easier ways to make a living than operating an inn. Think. Why do you really want to do this?” His voice was urgent. “What was it that gave you the idea in the first place?”

Rose closed her eyes, conjuring the image in her mind. “I’ve always wanted to have people come to my home, to be restored and refreshed. I love the feeling I get when people are eating at my kitchen table. It makes me feel so good inside, deep down.”

An awkward feeling slid over her. She looked down, watching her own fingers make a pleat in her apron. Galen’s eyes were on her, waiting for her to continue. She could practically feel them boring in her soul.

“I like the idea of it,” she continued. “Of creating a place where folks can catch their breath and feel welcomed. And I do need to find some ways to bring in money. I don’t want to have to work in town and have the boys come home to an empty house.” Not entirely empty. Vera would be home. Nearly empty.

She chanced a glance at him.

He gave her a soft, slow smile. “Well, let’s check out the basement and see what it would take.”

For a moment, all she could do was stare at him, stunned. Galen King was
nothing
like she’d thought he’d be. He was a helpful neighbor to Vera but preoccupied with the task of raising his younger siblings. Ten years ago, his father had broken his neck after being thrown from a horse and Galen became the man of the house, overnight, without warning. People tended to think that Galen was surly, recalcitrant, a real grump. He had a tough exterior that made him seem older than he was. It was an image he liked to cultivate, but he was never able to pull it off for long. Underneath his curmudgeon exterior, he had a heart as soft as butter left on a sunny windowsill.

Over the last seven months, Galen had gone out of his way to look after the Schrocks—fixing fences, finding the right horse for Rose, returning straying animals and straying little boys. He made himself quietly useful. Soon, Rose began to see that was what he did, the kind of man he was—and that everyone, including the Schrocks, depended upon him to do it.

Rose took the basement key from her pocket as she walked to the basement door. Even that was a plus—the basement had its own exterior opening. That topped the list of Bethany’s many objections—that guests would be interfering with the family. Meals and all. Rose didn’t see it that way—as soon as she got the basement fixed up, guests wouldn’t need to go to the house. She would deliver breakfast to them. As for dinner, she didn’t plan to offer dinner at all. She only did so last night because Lois and Tony were in a fix on a stormy night. She reached into her pocket and felt the one-hundred-dollar bill. Imagine that! God’s blessing.

Galen and Rose walked toward the musty, dusty basement. She hadn’t been in it since they’d moved to the farmhouse last year. That realization triggered memories of their move. Her mother-in-law was the one who had insisted that Dean and Rose bring the children and live with her after their home was taken over by the bank. Dean had put it up as collateral to the bank for loans, and lost that bet. “I’ll have someone in the church help me set up that small room beyond the kitchen for a bedroom for me and we’re right as rain,” Vera had told them.

“But it’s putting you out of your own house—” Rose had said.

“No, it’s not. I’m not really able to climb those stairs anyway. Bad knees. This way I have company and a little place to myself. What could be better? I’ve been waiting for the day when Dean and his children would come back where they belonged.”

Vera kept insisting, Dean acquiesced, so Rose knew she had no choice. They moved the family and all their belongings into the large farmhouse in Stoney Ridge—about an hour’s drive from Dean’s office in York County. Rose had hoped that moving to Stoney Ridge might be a turning point. Instead, it became a point of bracing oneself for the storm.

Rose worked the key in the lock. The door was warped, so Galen had to use his shoulder to push it open. As they stepped inside, something scurried by their feet—a gray mouse. Then another. When Rose’s heartbeat returned to normal, she followed Galen the rest of the way inside. She could see just enough to make her cringe. She waited for Galen to say something, the way she waited for her children to talk. People would talk when they got their mind around the subject.

When Galen had looked all through the basement, he folded his arms across his chest. “It’s worth a try.” It wasn’t entirely below ground, another plus. The house was built into a hillside, so the front window of the basement was large and the room was filled with sunlight. It was a big enough space that Galen thought it could be divided into two bedrooms and a sitting area. Maybe a small kitchen could go against one wall—cabinets and a refrigerator and an oven. And a bathroom. Definitely a bathroom. He took the pad and paper from her hands, his fingers brushing hers.

He scribbled down a list of things Rose would need to do to make the basement ready for company. He started a new page with a list of people he thought she should talk to, including his sister in Indiana who had started a bed-and-breakfast. When he was finished, he handed Rose back the paper. There was something fundamentally reassuring about how he took her idea seriously, and she was touched. Rose felt an excitement for the future she hadn’t felt in months. Years, maybe.

“You’re doing a lot for a neighbor,” she said.

He held her gaze. “A friend, you mean.” He walked to the door, then turned to her. “Of course, you’ll need to run this all past Bishop Elmo.”

Rose noticed how smudged and dirty the windows were. She could get the boys working on that this very afternoon.

“Rose? Did you hear me? I think you should talk to Bishop Elmo.”

She glanced up at him. “Dean used to say that it was easier to apologize later than to ask for permission first.”