Before he could answer either Nettie Mae or the woman, a cloud of dust exploded out of his unlit forge. He sneezed and waved it away. The other three-year-old girl was pumping harder and harder until a wheezing warning sound came out of the leather bellows. He opened his mouth to tell Nettie Mae’s twin, Nancy, to stop before she broke something, but one of the five-year-old boys who’d been poking at each other with the metal staffs yelped in pain and began crying.
Isaiah took a lumbering step toward the boys, hobbled by Nettie Mae, who clung like a burr to his trousers. How could he have lost control over four preschoolers so quickly?
The task wasn’t one for a man who’d never had kinder of his own. Maybe if Rose hadn’t died soon after they married and they’d had a boppli, it would be easier to anticipate what the youngsters might do next. The Beachy kinder were active and inquisitive, but every time he thought about scolding them, he recalled how they’d lost their parents two weeks ago. He didn’t want to upset them more, yet somehow every situation escalated into pandemonium.
But the woman who had been a silhouette in the doorway didn’t seem to have the same qualms. Without a single word, she walked into his smithy as if she’d been there dozens of times. A flash of sunlight danced on her lush, red hair, which was pulled back beneath her black bonnet. Her brown eyes glanced in his direction before she focused on the kinder. She plucked the shafts out of the boys’ hands and scooped their sister off the cold forge in a single motion, scattering ashes across her own dark blue dress. Placing the metal bars on a nearby table, she settled Nancy on her hip and knelt in front of the boys.
“Where does it hurt?” she asked one twin—Andrew, Isaiah noted—as she wiped tears from his pudgy cheeks and almost dislodged his straw hat.
“Ouch,” the towhead said, pointing to his right thumb that was already bright red.
Isaiah watched in amazement as the woman cradled the little boy’s hand as she ran a fingertip along his thumb. When the kind flinched, she murmured something too low for Isaiah to hear, but Andrew must have understood because he nodded, his eyes wide and filled with more tears.
“I don’t think it’s broken,” the woman said in the same serene voice, but loud enough so Isaiah could hear. “And I suspect as soon as little minds are focused on other things, the bruise will be forgotten. However, just in case, we should watch it over the next couple of days.”
“We?” Isaiah asked, his voice rising on the single word.
“You are Isaiah Stoltzfus, aren’t you?” She looked at the youngsters, then him. No doubt she was thinking there couldn’t be another overwhelmed man with two sets of twins wrecking his smithy in Paradise Springs.
“Ja. Who are you?”
“Clara Ebersol.”
“You are Clara Ebersol?” He shouldn’t stare, but he couldn’t help himself.
As she set Nancy on the floor and came to her feet, he held out his hand to help her. She must not have seen it, because she didn’t take it. When she was standing, he was startled to realize he didn’t have to look down far to meet her gaze. She was, he noticed for the first time, very tall for an Amish woman, because he wasn’t a short man. None of the Stoltzfus brothers were, but her eyes were less than a handbreadth below his. She was also lovely—something he had already noticed—possessing a redhead’s porcelain complexion. Not a single freckle marred her cheeks or dappled her nose.
He forced his eyes to shift away, glad nobody else was there. If he as much as talked to a woman for more than a minute, someone mentioned she would make him a gut wife. Everyone seemed eager to get their widowed minister married. Finding him staring at Clara Ebersol would have given the district’s matchmakers cause to start sticking their well-meaning noses into his life again.
“Weren’t you expecting me?” Clara stroked Andrew’s hair, and the little boy leaned his head against her skirt. “Your brother Daniel learned I was looking for a job, and he asked me if I’d be willing to help you take care of these kinder. He said I’d find you here.” For the first time, her composure showed a faint crack as she looked at him again. “Didn’t he tell you?”
“Ja, he told me.”
When Daniel had stopped at the Beachys’ house on his way home a couple of nights ago, he’d been pleased to tell Isaiah that he’d found someone to help take care of the twins. Isaiah had been grateful when Daniel had said he’d talked to Clara Ebersol himself, and she seemed perfect for the job. Arrangements had been made for her to meet Isaiah at the smithy today, because he’d hoped to finish a few tasks. But what Daniel had failed to mention—and Isaiah had never thought to ask about—was that Clara Ebersol was not a well-experienced grossmammi who’d already raised a household of kinder. She was a lovely young woman. Was his brother, who’d recently fallen in love and found a family, matchmaking? That was the only reason Isaiah could think of why his brother hadn’t mentioned Clara’s age. If he had to guess, Isaiah would say she must be close to his thirty years.
Or had Daniel told him?
Isaiah wasn’t sure he could recall anything during the past two weeks accurately. Maybe if he got a gut night’s sleep, he’d be able to think. Every thought had to battle against the appalling memories of his friends’ funeral playing over and over through his mind, refusing to be forgotten.
Reaching into the pocket of her black apron, Clara drew out four lollipops. The twins focused on her hand.
“I’ve got a red, an orange, a yellow and a green.” She raised her head and asked, “Do they know their colors?”
Again Isaiah wasn’t quick enough to answer, as Ammon, usually the quietest one, shouted, “Want that one!” He pointed to the red lollipop.
She squatted again and made sure each kind got the lollipop he or she wanted. Taking the cellophane off each piece of candy, she led the two sets of twins out of the smithy. She looked around, unsure where to have them eat their suckers.
The space between the long, low building that housed the Stoltzfus Family Shops and Isaiah’s smithy was more cramped with each passing day. His brother Joshua’s buggy shop was outgrowing its space. Last week, Joshua and his two older sons had spent hours setting up a canopy where buggies could be parked out of the weather until Joshua had time to fix them.
“How about over there?” he asked, pointing to the back step of the grocery store his brother Amos ran.
“Perfect.” Motioning for the kinder to follow, she waited for each of them to select a spot on the concrete step. Once they were settled, the girls on one side and the boys on the other by unspoken consent, their tears and mischief were momentarily forgotten.
“Let’s talk,” he said, motioning for her to come back to him.
She hesitated, then walked to where he stood by the smithy’s door. For a second, he wondered if she preferred the kinder’s company to his. Telling himself not to be foolish, because she didn’t know any of them, he recognized he wasn’t in any condition to make judgments. He was so tired he had trouble stringing more than three words together.
Quietly so her voice wouldn’t reach the kinder, Clara said, “Your brother Daniel told me that they’re orphans. That’s terribly sad.”
He nodded, words sticking in his tight throat. It had been only two weeks ago that he’d been roused out of bed in the middle of the night and learned his best friend Melvin Beachy had been killed along with Melvin’s wife, Esta. They’d been traveling in an Englisch friend’s truck coming home from an auction when something went wrong. The truck had gone through a guardrail and rolled, killing all three and leaving four small kinder without parents.
Nobody had been prepared for their deaths, but the whole community came together to help with the funeral. In the past two weeks, he hadn’t made a single meal for the Beachy twins,