Charley nodded. Eli was his friend and Ruth’s intended. Charley had been working on the foundation for their new house today. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been at the Yoder place and close enough to reach Miriam when the accident happened. God’s mysterious ways, he thought, and then said to Eli, “Maybe we can get together some night after chores.”
“Ya,” Eli agreed with a twinkle in his eye. “No problem.”
“I don’t know what we would have done without you,” Miriam said to John as he opened the stall door for her. “When the hay wagon overturned, I was so afraid…”
Charley could hear the emotion in her voice. It made him want to walk over to her and put his arms around her. It made him want to protect her from anything bad that could ever happen to her. Instead, he stood there, feeling like a bumpkin, listening in on her and John’s conversation.
“You didn’t panic. That’s the most important thing with horses,” John said, speaking way too gently to suit Charley. “It’s a good thing you didn’t try to get them up without help. It could have been a lot worse if I hadn’t been able to sedate them.”
I’m the one who told Miriam to wait, Charley wanted to remind them. That was my decision. But again, he didn’t say what he was thinking. He knew he was being petty and that pettiness could eat a man up inside. How did the English refer to jealousy? A green-eyed monster?
Miriam looked over toward Charley, noticed him watching them and smiled, making his heart do a little flip. Why hadn’t he ever noticed how sweet her smile was?
“You were there when I needed you, too,” she said. “I was so scared. One of them could have been killed.”
I was terrified, but for you more than the horses. It seemed like it took an hour for me to run across the field to see if you were hurt. The words caught in his throat. He couldn’t spit them out, not in front of John and Eli. Usually, he had no trouble giving his opinion, flirting with girls, cracking jokes, being good-natured Charley, everybody’s friend. But not today…today he was as tongue-tied as Irwin.
He couldn’t tear his eyes away from Miriam. She was wearing a modest blue dress now, a properly starched kapp and a clean white apron. As soon as they’d gotten the horses out of the creek and headed back toward the barn, her sisters had rushed her to the house to put on dry clothes. The blue suited her. It was almost the color of a robin’s egg, without the speckles. Her red hair was freshly-combed and braided, pinned up and mostly hidden under her kapp, but he couldn’t help remembering how it had looked in the sunlight.
This morning, he’d been a bachelor, with no more thoughts of tying himself down in marriage any time soon than trying to fly off the barn roof. He’d certainly known that he’d have to get serious in a few years, and start a family, but not yet. He had years of running around to do yet—lots of girls to tease and frolics to enjoy. Now, in the time it took that wagon to overturn, his life had changed direction. After seeing Miriam this way today, he realized that what mattered most to him was winning her hand and having the right to watch her take her kapp off and brush out that red-gold hair every night.
Unconsciously, he tugged his wide-brimmed straw hat lower on his forehead, hoping no one would notice his embarrassment, but Miriam didn’t miss a trick. She reached up and pressed her hand to his cheek. The touch of her palm sent a jolt through him, and he jumped back, heat flashing under his skin. He was certain it made him look even more the fool.
“Charley Byler, what’s wrong with you?” she demanded. “You’re red as a banty rooster. And your clothes are still soaked. Are you taking a chill? You’d best come up to the house, and drink some hot coffee.”
“Can’t.” He backed off as if she were contagious. He couldn’t take the chance she’d touch him again. Not here. Not in front of the Mennonite. “Got to pick up Mary,” he said in a rush. “Thursdays. In Dover.” Every Thursday, his sister cleaned house for an English woman and his mother depended on him to bring her home. “She’ll be expecting me.”
“I forgot,” Miriam said. “That’s too bad. Mam and Anna are cooking an early supper, since we all missed our noon meal. I think they’ve been cooking since Mam got home from school. She wanted me to invite you and John to join us for fried chicken and dumplings. You’re welcome to bring Mary, too.”
“Ne.” He pushed his hat back. “Guess we’ll get home to evening chores.”
Shadows were lengthening in the big barn, but Miriam could read the disappointment on his face. She could tell he wanted to have dinner with them, so why didn’t he just come back after he picked up his sister? She didn’t know what was going on with Charley, but she could tell something was bothering him. She’d known him long enough to know that look on his face.
“Another time for certain,” Charley said, and fled the barn.
“Ya,” she called after him. “Another time.”
“Well, since Charley can’t come, maybe there’s room for me at the table,” Eli said.
She folded her arms, turning to him. “I didn’t think I had to invite you. You’re family. I bet Ruth’s already set a plate for you.” She smiled and he smiled back. Miriam was so happy for Ruth. Eli really did love her, and despite his rocky start in the community, he was going to make a good husband to her.
“Good,” Eli said, “because I’ve worked up such an appetite pulling those horses out of the creek, that I can eat my share and Charley’s, too.”
Eli lived with his uncle Roman and aunt Fannie near the chair shop where he worked as a cabinetmaker, but since he and Ruth had declared their intentions, he ate in the Yoder kitchen more evenings than not.
Miriam looked back at John expectantly. “Supper?”
“I don’t want to impose on your mother.” John knelt beside a bale of straw and closed up his medical case. “Uncle Albert is picking up something at the deli for—”
“You may as well give in,” Miriam interrupted. She rested one hand on her hip. “Mam won’t let you off the farm until she’s stuffed you like a Christmas turkey. We’re all grateful you came so quickly.”
John picked up the chest. “Then, I suppose I should stay. I wouldn’t want to upset Hannah.”
She chuckled, surprised he actually accepted her invitation, but pleased. She knew that he rarely got a home-cooked meal since he’d come to work with his grandfather and uncle in their veterinary practice. None of the three bachelors could cook. When he stopped by her stand at Spence’s, the auction and bazaar where they sold produce and baked goods twice a week, he always looked longingly at the lunch she brought from home. Sometimes, she took pity on him and shared her potato salad, peach pie, or roast beef sandwiches.
Blackie thrust his head over the stall door and nudged her, hay falling from his mouth. Miriam stroked his neck. “You’ve had a rough day, haven’t you, boy?” She took a sugar cube out of her apron pocket and fed it to him, savoring the warmth of his velvety lips against her hand. Then she walked back to check on Molly. The dapple-gray was standing, head down dejectedly, hind foot in the air, unwilling to put any weight on it. That was the hoof that she’d been treating for a stone bruise for the last week, and the thing that concerned John the most. He was afraid that the accident would now make the problem worse.
“Do you think I should stay with her
