at her as he crossed the room to take his hat from the peg near the door. It fit a little snug because the emergency room doctor had shaved the back of his head and covered the six stitches with a thick bandage. But he could hardly show up at the matchmaker’s without his head covered. It wouldn’t be proper.
“Where are you going?” His mother removed the plate of chicken from the refrigerator where he’d just put it and covered it with a clean length of cheesecloth before placing it back in the refrigerator. “I think you’d best put your errand off for a few days,” she said. “No need for you to go out in this afternoon heat.”
“I’ll be fine,” Joseph assured her. “I won’t be long.”
“Where did you say you were going?” She dropped her hands to her hips and tilted her head in that way she always did that reminded him of a curious little wren. Her bright blue eyes narrowed. “Joseph?”
“I didn’t say.” He opened the back door. “I’ll be back in plenty of time to milk the cow before supper.”
“But Joseph—”
He closed the door behind him and kept walking. He loved his mother dearly, but if he let her have her way, she’d treat him as though he was twelve years old and not in his late twenties. He was blessed to have a mother who loved him so much, but she had a strong will, and it was sometimes a struggle as to who was the head of their house. She was sensitive, and if he was too firm with her, she’d dissolve in tears. He couldn’t stand the idea of making his mother cry and he felt relieved that she hadn’t wept when he hadn’t done what she’d wanted and stayed home.
Turning to a matchmaker to find him a wife had been his mother’s idea, and after hearing her talk about it for nearly two years, he’d weakened and agreed to let Sara Yoder see if she would have more success than he had on his own. He’d been reluctant and more than a little nervous because he’d always been tongue-tied around young women. He’d never imagined that he’d meet anyone like Ruby so quickly or in such an unusual way.
Whistling, Joseph descended the porch steps. Glancing back over his shoulder, he caught a glimpse of white curtain moving at a window. As he’d suspected, his mother was watching him. He strode around the house to his mother’s flowerbed, out of her sight, and quickly picked a bouquet of colorful blooms. A girl like Ruby probably had lots of fellows saying sweet stuff to her, but girls liked flowers. Maybe they could speak for him.
Everyone talked about his mother’s skill at growing flowers. She had beds of them that brightened the front yard and clustered around the house. She rarely cut them for the house, but from early spring to late autumn she had beautiful bouquets to sell at Spence’s Auction. He didn’t claim to know much about them other than to turn over the soil when she asked him or to fertilize and weed the beds, but he’d seen her create enough bouquets to know what flowers went with each other. For Ruby, he chose a rainbow of cosmos, sweet peas, zinnias and asters. He cradled the stems in peat moss and wrapped them in green florist’s paper just as he’d seen his mother do for her stand at Spence’s Market. He still had the headache, but he was whistling as he hitched up his driving horse to the cart.
All the way to Sara’s house, Joseph tried to think of something sensible to say to Ruby when he gave her the flowers. He even practiced saying the words aloud. It wasn’t difficult to be clever when there was no one to hear him but the horse. Should he speak to her in Deitsch or English? She’d told him that she was from Pennsylvania. Those Amish up there were less conservative. Maybe she’d think he was old-fashioned if he spoke Deitsch. So English. But what did he say?
“A little something to welcome you to Seven Poplars.” That was good, but should it be “welcome you” or “welcome you”? What word should he emphasize? Or maybe that would sound too put-on. They’d talked a lot in the urgent care waiting room. If he welcomed her, it might appear that he was acting like she was just another of Sara’s clients and she wasn’t special.
Joseph’s stomach flip-flopped. He felt a little light-headed. His head still hurt, but he didn’t think that was the cause of his distress. The truth was, he was scared. His mouth was dry and it was hard to think straight. He’d always heard of love striking a man like lightning cutting down a tree, but he’d never believed it until now. Ruby Plank falling into his arms was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to him and he didn’t want to mess it up.
The trouble was, when it came to girls, he always did. And he was terrified that this time would be no different. Joseph was still going over and over in his mind what he would say as he approached Sara Yoder’s back door. The yard had been quiet, without anyone in sight, and he couldn’t hear any talking from inside. Sara’s house was usually bustling with young people coming and going, but today he didn’t see so much as a dragonfly hovering over the flowerbeds along the drive. What if he’d come to find that some other fellow had taken Ruby buggy riding? Or worse, what if she’d changed her mind about making a match after yesterday’s disaster and returned to Pennsylvania?
Gathering his courage, he knocked on the wooden screen door. No one appeared, so he knocked again, and then called out in Deitsch. “Hello? Is anybody to home?” Again, there was only silence except for a bee that had gotten trapped on the screen porch and was buzzing loudly as it attempted to escape.
Joseph’s stomach turned over. Now his head was really hurting. He was hot and sweaty, and he’d crossed his mother and come here hoping to see Ruby again. All for nothing. But he wasn’t ready to give up yet. Maybe they were in the garden and hadn’t heard him. He left the porch and circled around the house. In the side yard, farthest from the drive, was a wooden swing, a brick walk, a fishpond and a fountain. “Hello?” he called again.
And then he stopped short. There was a blanket spread on the clover near the tiny pond. A young woman lay stretched out on her stomach, bare ankles crossed, apparently lost in a book. But the most startling thing to Joseph was her hair. Among the Amish, a woman’s hair was always covered. Little girls wore pigtails with baby caps or student kapps. Teenage girls and women of all ages pinned their hair up in a bun and covered it with a scarf or a prayer kapp.
This woman was clearly Amish because she wore a sky blue dress with a dark apron over it. Black leather shoes stood beside the blanket with black stockings tossed beside them. But the woman’s hair wasn’t pinned up under a kapp or covered with a scarf. It rippled in a thick shimmering mane down the back of her neck and over her shoulders nearly to her waist.
Joseph’s mouth gaped. He clutched the bouquet of flowers so tightly between his hands that he distinctly heard several stems snap. He swallowed, unable to stop staring at her beautiful hair. It was brown, but brown in so many shades...tawny and russet...the color of shiny acorns in winter and the hue of ripe wheat. He knew he shouldn’t be staring. He’d intruded on a private moment, seen what he shouldn’t. He should turn and walk away. But he couldn’t.
He inhaled deeply. “Hello,” he stammered. “I’m sorry, I was looking for—”
“Ach!” The young woman rose on one elbow and twisted to face him. It was Ruby. Her eyes widened in surprise. “Joseph?”
“Ya. It’s me.” He struggled to think of something else sensible to say.
Ruby sat up, dropping her paperback onto the blanket, pulling her knees up and tucking her feet under her skirt. “I was drying my hair,” she said. “I washed it. I still had mud in it from last night.”
Joseph grimaced. “Sorry.”
“Ne.” She shook her head. “It was all my fault.”
“An
