had walked out and left the child alone?
Once doubt had crept into his mind, Caleb began to worry in earnest. The thing to do, he decided as he slid a chisel into place on a rack, would be to walk back home and check on them. It wasn’t unreasonable that a father make certain that his new housekeeper was doing her job and watching over Amelia. It was still spitting rain, but what of it? And there was the matter of the blister on his heel, where his shoe had rubbed against his bare foot for the past few hours. Putting a Band-Aid on the blister made sense. He couldn’t afford to be laid up with an infection, not with the important contract to fulfill in the next thirty-eight days.
Caleb surveyed his new workbench and tables. This was a larger space than he’d had on his farm back in Idaho. Once everything was in place—drills, fretsaw, coping saws, hammers, mallets, sanders, planes, patterns and the big, gas-powered machinery—he could start work. Many of his tools were old, some handed down from his great-grandfather. The men in his family had always been craftsmen and had earned their living as cabinetmakers and builders of fine furniture. Only a few of his family’s personal antiques had survived the fire: a walnut Dutch cupboard carved with the date 1704, a small cherry spice cabinet, and an aus schteier kischt, a blanket chest painted with unicorns, hearts and flowers that would one day be part of Amelia’s bridal dowry.
A tickle at the back of Caleb’s throat made him swallow. He didn’t want to think of Amelia growing up and leaving him to be a wife. He knew it must be, but she was all he had and he wanted to keep her close by him for a long, long time. Impatient with his foolishness—worrying about her marriage when she had yet to learn her letters and still slept with her thumb in her mouth—he pushed away thoughts of Amelia as an adult. What should concern him was her safety right now. He’d abandoned her to the care of a girl barely out of her teens. For all he knew his daughter might be neglected. She could be sliding down the wet roof or swimming in the horse trough.
Slamming the pack of fine sandpaper down on the workbench, he turned and strode toward the door that led outside to the parking lot. He swung it open and nearly collided with Rebecca Yoder, who was just coming in. In her hands, she carried a Thermos, and just behind her was Amelia with his black lunchbox. They were both wearing rain slickers and boots. Caleb had no idea how they had found Amelia’s rain slicker. It had been missing for days.
Caleb sputtered his apologies and stepped out of their way. He could feel his face flaming, and once again, he couldn’t think of anything sensible to say to Rebecca. “I...I was on my way home,” he managed. “To see about Amelia.”
His daughter giggled. “I’m here, Dat. We brought your lunch.” She held up the big black lunchbox.
“And hot cider.” Rebecca raised the Thermos. “It’s such a raw day, Amelia thought you’d like something hot.”
“Not coffee,” Amelia said. “I hate coffee. But...but I like cider.”
“There’s a table with benches in the next room,” Rebecca suggested. “Eli and Roman eat lunch there when they don’t go home. I know Eli’s there.” She pointed toward a louvered door on the far side of the room.
“I helped cook your lunch,” his daughter proclaimed proudly. “I cooked the eggs. All by myself!”
“She did,” Rebecca agreed. “And she filled a jar with coleslaw. There’s some chicken corn soup and biscuits we made. But Amelia said you liked hard-boiled eggs.”
“With salt and pepper.” Amelia bounced up and down so hard that the lunchbox fell out of her hands.
Caleb stooped to pick it up.
“Ooh!” Amelia cried.
“It’s all right,” he assured her. “Nothing broken.” He followed Rebecca and a chattering Amelia into the lunchroom. He didn’t know what else to do. And as he did, he noticed that under her raincoat, Amelia looked surprisingly neat. Her face was so clean it was shiny and her hair was plaited into two tiny braids that peeked out from under an ironed kapp. Even the hem of her blue dress that showed under her slicker was pressed.
“What...what did you two do this morning?” he asked Amelia.
“We cleaned, Dat. And cooked. And I helped.” She nodded. “I did.”
No tears, no whining, no fussing. Amelia looked perfectly content.... More than content. He realized that she looked happy. He should have been pleased—he was pleased—but there was something unsettling about this young Yoder woman.
Rebecca stopped and glanced back over her shoulder at him. Her face was smooth and expressionless, but a dimple and the sparkle in her blue eyes made him suspect that she was finding this amusing. “Do you approve?”
“Wait until I see what my kitchen looks like,” he answered gruffly.
Amelia giggled. “I told you, Dat. We cleaned.”
Rebecca’s right eyebrow raised and her lips quivered with suppressed laughter. “A week’s trial,” she reminded him. “That’s all I agreed to. By then I should know if I want to work for you.”
Chapter Four
On Friday, Caleb left work a half hour early and started home. He’d finished the ornate Victorian oak bracket that he’d been fashioning all afternoon, and he didn’t want to begin a new piece so late in the day. Three years ago, he’d switched from building custom kitchen cabinets to the handcrafted corbels, finials and other architectural items that he sold to a restoration supply company in Boise. Englishers who fixed up old houses all over the country spent an exorbitant amount of money to replicate original wooden details. Not that Caleb wasn’t glad for the business, but he guessed his thrifty Swiss ancestors would be shocked at the expense of fancy things when plain would do.
He rarely left his workbench before five, but he was still uneasy leaving Amelia with the Yoder girl. Better to arrive early and check up on them. So far, Rebecca Yoder seemed capable, and he had to admit that his daughter liked her, but time would tell. Amelia sometimes went days without getting into real mischief. And then, it was Gertie, bar the door—meaning that his sweet little girl could stir up some real trouble.
The walk home from the shop took only a few minutes, but his new workshop was far enough from his house to be respectable. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have been fitting for him to have an unmarried girl housekeeping and watching his daughter for him. He left in the morning when Rebecca arrived and she went home in the late afternoon when he returned from work. The schedule was working out nicely, and as much as he hated to admit it, it was nice to know that someone would be there in the house when he arrived home. A house could get lonely with just a man and his little girl.
When Caleb arrived home, Rebecca’s pony was pastured beside his driving horse, and the two-wheeled, open buggy that she’d ridden in this morning was waiting by the shed. A basket of green cooking apples, three small pumpkins and a woman’s sewing box filled the storage space at the rear of the buggy. As he crossed the yard toward the house, Caleb noticed that one of the kitchen windows stood open. Wonderful smells drifted out, becoming stronger as he let himself in through the back door into an enclosed porch that served as a laundry and utility room.
Fritzy greeted him, stump of a tail wagging, and Caleb paused to scratch the dog behind his ears. “I’m home,” he called. And then, to Fritzy, he murmured in Deitsch, “Good boy, good old Fritzy.”
Amelia’s delighted squeal rang out, and Caleb grinned, pleased that she
