Hearing a soft click from the kitchen, Clara looked over her shoulder. Isaiah walked toward her, his face lengthening when he saw the kind in her arms.
“I saw the light,” he whispered. “Is everything all right?”
“It will be.” She glanced at the kind cuddling close to her. Ammon had fallen asleep. “I thought he’d had a bad dream. I heard him crying and went to check. He wasn’t asleep. I think he’s missing....” As she had before, she chose her words with care, knowing if she said “mamm” and “daed,” she might rouse the little boy. “He wants those who aren’t here.”
“What about the others?”
“Asleep when we came down.”
“That’s a blessing.” He turned a chair around and sat, facing her. “They went to bed tonight for you better than they have for me.”
“They’re exhausted.” She didn’t pause as she added, “You are, too. You should get some sleep while you can.”
“A few more minutes won’t matter, and that guy is pretty heavy for you to tote upstairs. I don’t want you stumbling and getting hurt.”
“I appreciate that.”
Standing, he held out his arms. “Let me take him.”
As Isaiah leaned toward her, Clara realized her mistake. When he lifted Ammon out of her arms, Isaiah’s face was a finger’s breadth from hers. She held her breath and kept her eyes lowered while they made the transfer. Isaiah’s work-roughened fingers brushed against her skin, sending heat along it.
As soon as he took Ammon upstairs, she pushed out of the rocker. She gripped the top of it, her knuckles turning white, as she fought for equilibrium. She couldn’t react like this every time a casual touch brought her into contact with Isaiah. She gripped the chair and was trying to slow her heart’s frenzied rhythm when he came back down the stairs.
Her hope that Isaiah wouldn’t notice her bleached fingers was dashed when he said, “I’m sorry, Clara, for Marlin asking you if you’re walking out with someone. He can’t seem to help himself sticking his nose into matters he believes are his responsibility.”
“That’s a deacon’s job,” she said, not wanting to speak of how she scurried away like a frightened rabbit in a hedgerow.
“This deacon’s job seems to be focused on finding me another wife.” With the cockeyed grin Isaiah seemed to wear whenever he was trying to be self-deprecating, he sighed. “I’m sorry. I know you didn’t figure on being the subject of matchmaking when you took this job.”
“I don’t like matchmaking.”
“I agree. One hundred percent.”
She appreciated his blunt answer and that he hadn’t asked her to explain her comment. She didn’t want to tell him that she was too well acquainted with matchmaking and the heartbreak it could cause.
“Clara, don’t worry. We’ll ignore everyone’s matchmaking.” He walked toward the door to the dawdi haus before facing her again. “In a way, we should be grateful to Marlin for bringing the subject out in the open, so neither of us has to act like we need to hide something.”
“Ja,” she said, as he urged her to try to have a gut night’s sleep.
He closed the door, and she heard the lock slide into place. She reached for her flashlight. Her fingers trembled as she picked it up and turned off the lamp. She hadn’t been honest with Isaiah. She already was hiding something from him. The way her heart took a lilting leap whenever he touched her.
“You can jump about all you want,” she whispered to her traitorous heart while she climbed the stairs. “There’s nothing you or anyone else can do to change my mind. I won’t be made a fool of by another man. Not ever again.”
As the sun rose the next morning, Isaiah finished his second cup of kaffi and put the empty cup beside his plate with a regretful sigh. Clara brewed kaffi strong, as he liked it when he had a long day ahead of him. He’d already finished milking the cows and let them out in the meadow as well as feeding the chickens and the horses. He wanted to finish the final upright for a double gate ordered by an Englisch horse breeder in Maryland. He needed to make a few curled pieces and a half dozen twisted lengths to complete the pattern. When the gates were finished, they would be shipped to the man’s farm to be hung on either side of a driveway. A truck was collecting it at the end of next week.
With Clara’s arrival, he should be able to finish the job on time. He couldn’t let her delicious French toast tempt him to have another serving and linger at the table with her and the Beachy twins. The kinder were eating their second servings, dripping maple syrup and melted butter on the oilcloth Clara had spread across the table before serving breakfast. Seeing Nettie Mae dipping her fingers in the syrup and then licking them, he smiled. She caught him looking at her and grinned.
“Yummy, isn’t it?” he asked.
“Yummy, yummy, yummy in my tummy, tummy, tummy.”
“Is that your new saying, Nettie Mae?”
“Ja. Yummy in my tummy.” She turned the phrase into a little song.
“I see happy faces. What did I miss?” Clara asked as she brought a new stack of steaming, eggy toast from the stove. She set the platter next to him.
“Nettie Mae said the toast is yummy in her tummy,” Isaiah replied. “And she’s singing about it.”
“And a fun tune it is, too. More kaffi?”
He pushed back his chair and stood. “Danki, but I need to get to work.”
“Do you come home for dinner at midday?” Clara asked, sitting where she had the night before.
“I’ve been since...” He glanced at the kinder who were too intent on their French toast to pay attention to the conversation.
“I can move the main meal to the evening if it’s easier for you.”
“I appreciate that. Once the forge is at the right temperature, I don’t want to cool it down and have to wait to reheat it again. I appreciate your flexibility, Clara.”
She shrugged off his compliment. “Anything else I should know about your work schedule?”
“Usually I am done around four. That allows me time to milk the cows and get cleaned up before the evening meal.”
“I’ll have dinner ready around six.”
“Gut.” He stamped down the thought that Clara had avoided joining them at the table until he got up to leave. That wasn’t fair to her. She’d been busy preparing breakfast and trying to stay ahead of four enthusiastic youngsters who seemed to have bottomless stomachs. But he couldn’t ignore how, when he looked at her, it was as if he faced a closed door.
“Will you need a lunch packed for today?”
He motioned for her to stay where she was. “I’ll get something at Amos’s store today. You finish your breakfast before it’s cold.”
Going to the door, he took his straw hat off the peg above the low row where smaller hats and bonnets waited for the kinder. He put it on his head and reached for the doorknob.
“Onkel Isaiah!” cried Nancy as she jumped up.
Her booster seat slid forward, pushing her toward the table. Her elbow hit her plate, and everything seemed to move in slow motion.