When Grace Sings (20 page)

Amusement tinged Grandmother’s face. “In Arborville? Every person I know does her own cooking and baking. And when they have get-togethers, everyone contributes to fill the banquet table. I can’t imagine anyone in town hiring someone to prepare food for them. We don’t even hire caterers for weddings. We do it all ourselves.”

Alexa plopped onto the edge of Grandmother’s bed and bounced her fist on the mattress. “Well, then, I’ll advertise in some of the towns around us.”

“Would that really be cost effective? You’d have to add transportation expenses to your services. I imagine the larger towns already have caterers available, making the competition tough.”

Even though her grandmother spoke reasonably rather than condescendingly, Alexa felt foolish for making the suggestion. She threw her arms wide. “Then what? I can’t just sit here month after month with no income. I need to pay my way.”

Grandmother rolled her chair close and took Alexa’s hand. “You’ll have the check from the newspaper in Chicago when Mr. Forrester has completed his article. Given the length of his stay, it should be sizable.”

Alexa nodded slowly. Even though she’d offered a discounted weekly rate rather than charging the full daily rate, she still anticipated a profit. “Yes, and I’m grateful for that income. I just wish …” She hung her head.

“You wish what?”

She murmured, “I wish I didn’t feel like a freeloader.”

“Alexa!” Grandmother caught Alexa’s chin and raised her face. She looked sternly into Alexa’s eyes. “Why on earth would you say such a thing?”

“Because it’s true.”

“It’s not true!”

“Yes, it is.”

The V between Grandmother’s snapping eyes sunk deeper.

Alexa sighed. “It’s at least partly true. I took over your house, promised to pay for the privilege, then couldn’t do it. What else is that besides being a freeloader?”

Grandmother’s frown remained intact. “A freeloader does nothing to earn his keep. A freeloader is lazy. Something you certainly are not.” She pinched Alexa’s chin, driving home her point. Then she patted Alexa’s cheek before lowering her hand to her wheelchair’s armrest. “Think of all the ways you’ve contributed to this household other than with money. You cook and clean, and your decorating makes it feel like new. And—more importantly—you are my granddaughter. Family members are never considered freeloaders, even when they behave like ones.”

Alexa managed a weak smile. “Thank you, Grandmother.”

“A freeloader … honestly …” She tsk-tsked and rolled her eyes. “The things you say …”

The telephone jangled, stealing Alexa’s opportunity to defend herself. She scurried to the kitchen and grabbed the receiver from its cradle. “Hello. Grace Notes Bed-and-Breakfast Inn. How may I help you?”

“Hi, Alexa, it’s Sandra.”

Alexa erupted with a sigh.

“What’s wrong?”

Did she really want to tell her favorite aunt she’d hoped a prospective guest was calling? Sandra would think she wasn’t welcome to call. “Sorry. Nothing. Just caught me off guard.”

“Okay. Two things … First, the fellowship men plan to meet at the Meiers farm tomorrow to repair the barn. I had volunteered to be in charge of the drinks table, but Ian started running a fever last night.”

“Is it serious?”

“I don’t think so—just a cold. But I shouldn’t take him out until he’s been fever-free for a full day. I wondered if you’d fill in for me.”

She’d wanted to go and watch the men work, anyway. “Sure I will.”

“Thank you, Alexa. I knew you’d come to my rescue.”

Alexa smiled, envisioning herself in a cape, flying in to save the day. “What’s the second thing?”

“I finally heard from Anna—Grace.”

The amusing images disappeared. “And …”

“She agreed it would be better to stay closer to the Meiers farm. She’ll take the room.”

Alexa eased against the wall, in need of support. “Oh.” She swallowed. “Good.”

“Good?” Sandra’s voice held hesitance. “Are you sure?”

She straightened her spine. “Of course I’m sure. I offered, didn’t I? It’ll be better for her to be here, close to Steven and close to …” She couldn’t bring herself to add
Grandmother
. She didn’t want to share the grandmother she’d only recently met with the girl who truly belonged in the family.

“So you know, I did tell her if you got calls to rent the rooms, she’d need to come stay with me instead.”

Alexa appreciated Sandra more by the minute. “Thanks.” She blew out a soft breath. “But given how many times the phone hasn’t rung with requests to stay here, I don’t think we need to worry about it.”

“Just the same, if something changes, the hideaway bed is available.”

“All right. Thank you, Sandra.”

“Thank
you
for being such a sweetheart. Your mama raised you right.” They laughed together before Sandra disconnected the call.

Grandmother rolled her chair into the kitchen. Anticipation glowed in her eyes. “Was the call about a guest?”

Alexa forced a smile. “Yep. Anna—Grace will be staying with us instead of with Sandra.”

“Good for her.” Grandmother gave a brisk nod that crunched her cap’s
ribbons against the shoulders of her gray-checked dress and then sent them springing. “And good for us, too. Even though she won’t be a paying guest, her being here will give you a chance to practice your hotel-keeping skills and also provide you with some company besides a crotchety old lady and her outspoken nurse.” Her expression softened. “And I confess, Alexa, I’ll enjoy having two girls in the house for a while. This old house needs the voices and laughter of young people.” She turned the chair and wheeled out of the room, leaving Alexa alone.

Alexa chewed her thumbnail and tried to imagine what it would be like to be with Anna—Grace every day. Instead of images forming in her head of the two of them getting along together, she pictured herself donning a cape and flying far, far away.

Briley

He’d heard of Amish barn raisings, but he’d always been a little cynical. Putting up a shed maybe, but an entire barn in a day? Yeah, right. But by noon that Saturday, Briley’s cynicism had packed a bag and moved to another state.

Despite the promised cold front dropping the temperature a good twenty degrees and sending a nose-numbing breeze across the plains, twelve men with tool belts clanking on their hips and seven boys eagerly waving paintbrushes arrived by eight o’clock in the morning. Armed with a load of lumber, pouches of nails, and buckets of red paint, they swarmed the barn, as industrious as a hive of bees. Briley snapped close to a hundred pictures, but even though he recorded the event frame by frame, he could never determine who was in charge. Shouldn’t there be an unofficial foreman directing everyone? If one existed, he remained well hidden. The workers simply seemed to know what needed to be done, and they did it, all sharing equally in the barn’s reconstruction.

While he watched, something Aunt Myrt had told him eased through his memory.
“Every man has two equal abilities—to build up or tear down. The challenge lies in knowing which is the right choice.”
The Mennonite men had decided to build up the barn instead of tearing it down and starting over. Briley wasn’t sure he’d have made the same choice given the appearance of the
structure, but watching the barn’s transformation made him think they’d chosen wisely.

When the walls and roof were repaired and the building bore a proud new coat of rusty-red paint, the boys cleaned their brushes in the gushing flow of water from the pump behind the barn, and the men gathered around the food table set up by a half-dozen women. Alexa was off to the side at a second, smaller table. Pitchers of lemonade and tall, silver, spigoted urns and stacks of mugs covered the table. The sandwiches, two inches thick and filled with slivered ham and slices of white cheese, looked wonderful. He hadn’t done any work on the barn, so he didn’t feel as though he should take a plate, but he’d gotten a whiff of what filled those urns, and he couldn’t resist asking Alexa to fill a mug for him.

He drew a deep breath as she lifted the spigot handle and a stream of steaming apple cider flowed into the mug. The spicy scent carried him backward in time. Aunt Myrt stirred up a kettle of cider mixed with Red Hots candies for Christmas every year he’d been with her. The memory warmed him as much as the mug he gripped between his palms. He sipped, enjoying the tang on his tongue, and waggled his eyebrows at Alexa. “Mmm. Good stuff.”

She offered a shy grin. She looked very girlish and cute with furry pink earmuffs forming puffballs on both sides of her head and a thick blue-and-green plaid jacket buttoned all the way to her chin. “One of the fellowship members has a small grove of Granny Smith apple trees, and he recently purchased an apple press to make cider. This is from one of the first batches. It’s much better than store-bought.”

Briley mentally recorded this piece of information. “You people are pretty self-sufficient, aren’t you?”

Alexa blinked at him twice, as if he’d startled her. Or maybe offended her. He decided to explain himself.

“Look at this.” He waved his arm, indicating the immediate surroundings. “I bet the lumber used on the barn came from the lumberyard in town. And
no grocer sold the bread or sandwich fixings, right? The bread probably started with wheat grown in the fields nearby, the ham from pigs raised behind the barn. You’d definitely want pigs far from the house.” He chuckled at his own joke. “I’d wager the cheese was made by one of the ladies in her kitchen, using milk from a neighbor’s cow.” He raised the mug as if making a toast, careful not to waste even a drop of the flavorful cider. “If you had a kiln in town, you’d probably even make your own cups and plates.”

Her eyebrows pinched together. “Is there something wrong with purchasing from local merchants?”

Briley repeated something Len had told him. “You people are more than eager to sell your wares to visitors in your town, but when it comes to spending your dollars and making purchases, you keep it close at hand. Kind of a double standard, isn’t it?”

Her gaze narrowed and she set her rosy lips in a firm line. He’d irked her. Maybe deliberately. But how else would he get underneath the cheery, helpful, all-is-well veneer to the truth of the person? He took another sip of his cider, waiting to hear what she’d say.

Two men ambled over. The older of the two nodded toward the waiting mugs. “I would take some of that hot cider, please.”

Without a word Alexa filled a mug and handed it to him. The second man lifted a pitcher and poured lemonade into his mug. Lemonade Man wandered toward the porch, where others were sitting along the edge with plates in their laps, but Cider Man turned his gaze on Briley.

“I saw you taking lots of pictures.” His thick eyebrows, above eyes so brown the pupils were nearly swallowed by the color, formed a worried line. “What will you do with them?”

Briley curled his hand protectively around the digital camera hanging from his neck. “Most of them are for my own use—satisfying my curiosity about the Old Order practice of barn raising. A few might end up being used as illustrations in my article. Why?”

Cider Man crunched his lips into a crooked scowl, as if contemplating
whether or not to answer. “Some of our members … having photographs taken makes them uncomfortable. They feel it goes against the biblical warning about making graven images. Before you use them in a publication, would you please show them to the men who worked here today and be sure they approve having their pictures printed?”

The stubborn, rebellious side of Briley Forrester raised its head. “I tell you what …” He was prepared to inform the man that this was
his
article, and
he
would decide which photographs were used, but the spicy scent of cider rising from the mug—its essence a reminder of the woman who’d tried so hard to straighten his defiant bent—brought forth a different reply. “I’ll get the pictures I took this morning printed and bring them to your church service tomorrow. Anyone who’s interested can take a peek at them, and if someone opposes me using any specific photos, I’ll mark them so they won’t turn up in the newspaper. Fair enough?”

A relieved smile appeared on the man’s face, softening his chiseled features. He nodded. “Yes. Yes, that is very fair. Thank you, Mr. Forrester.” With plate and mug in hand, he headed to the porch and joined the others.

Briley shifted to find Alexa staring at him, wide-eyed. “What?”

She shook her head slowly. “I can’t figure you out. One minute you’re annoyingly obnoxious, and the next you’re understanding and agreeable.”

He placed his hand on his chest and feigned innocence. “Obnoxious? Me?”

She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t have to. Her expression spoke volumes.

He burst out laughing. “Oh, Miss Zimmerman, you are priceless.” With effort he brought his amusement under control. “You’re right, I admit it. I lean toward obnoxious. I always have, and it’s a hard habit to break. You can thank the apple cider for helping me rein it in today, but I make no promises for tomorrow.” He drained the mug, placed it on the table, then took two backward steps and lifted his camera. “I got photographs of the barn workers and the
women at the food table, but I neglected to record the lovely lady providing us with beverages. Say ‘cheese.’ ”