Why did she have to sound so desperate?
* * *
Fannie wasn’t making enough headway in swaying Noah. She took a deep breath and pulled out her last tool of persuasion. “What are your plans for this summer?”
He looked suspicious at her abrupt change of topic. “We are putting up hay this week. We’ll start cultivating the corn after that if the rain holds off.”
“I didn’t mean farmwork. Are you playing ball again this summer?” She flicked the brim of the blue ball cap he wore instead of the traditional Amish straw hat. Once he chose baptism, he would have to give up his worldly dress.
He ducked away from her hand. “I’m in the league again with the fellas from the fire department. I’m their pitcher. If we keep winning like we have been, we have a shot at getting into the state invitational tournament.”
She twined her fingers in Hank’s mane. “You must practice a lot.”
“Twice a week with games every Saturday. In fact, we have a makeup game tonight with the Berlin team, as we were rained out last weekend.”
“You wouldn’t mind missing a few of your practices or even a game for a family picnic or party, would you?”
“What are you getting at, Fannie?”
“I’m not the only one you’ll be helping if you go out with me. Your mother has been shopping around for a wife for you. Did you know that?”
His expression hardened. “You’re narrisch. Up until this minute I was starting to feel sorry for you.”
She almost wavered, but she couldn’t let Connie down. “I’m not crazy. With all your brothers married, you are the last chick in the nest.”
“So?”
“So she’s worried that you are still running around instead of settling down. She has asked a number of her friends to invite their nieces and granddaughters to visit this summer with the express notion of finding you a wife among them. They’ll be here for picnics and dinners and singings all summer long, so you can size them up.”
“Mamm wouldn’t do that.” Amish parents rarely meddled in their children’s courtships.
“Well, she has.”
“My mother isn’t the meddling sort. At least, not very often.”
Fannie shrugged. “Mothers are funny that way. They don’t believe we can be happy unless we are married, when you and I both know we are perfectly happy being single. Are you ready to spend the summer dodging a string of desperate-to-be-wed maidens?”
“Nee, and that includes you and your far-fetched scheme. No one will believe I’m dating you of my own free will.”
She felt the heat rush to her face. “You kissed me once.”
He arched one eyebrow. “As I remember, you weren’t happy about it.”
“I was embarrassed that your brother Luke saw us. I regretted my behavior afterward, and I have told you I was sorry.”
“Not half as sorry as I was,” he snapped back. “That glass of punch you poured on me was cold.”
She was sorry that evening ended so badly. It had been a nice kiss. Her first.
She and Noah had slipped outside for a breath of fresh air near the end of a Christmas cookie exchange at his parent’s house the winter before last. She had been curious to find out what it would be like to be kissed by him. Things had been going well in his mother’s garden until Luke came by. When Noah tried for a second kiss after his brother walked away, she had been so flustered that she upended a glass of cold strawberry punch in his lap.
“That was ages ago. Are you going to berate me again or are you going to help me?” Fannie demanded.
He leaned over the pony’s back, his expression dead serious. “Find some other gullible fellow.”
Her temper flared and she didn’t try to quell it. “Oh! You’re just plain mean. See if I ever help you out of a jam. You were my last hope, Noah Bowman. If I wasn’t Amish I might actually hate you for this, but I have to say I forgive you. Have fun meeting all your prospective brides this summer.” She spun on her heel and mounted her horse.
“If I’m your last hope, Fannie Erb, that says more about you than it does about me,” he called out as she turned Trinket around.
She nudged her mare into a gallop and blinked back tears. She didn’t want him to see how deeply disappointed she was.
Now what was she going to do?
Noah regretted his parting comment as he watched Fannie ride away. She didn’t have many friends. She was more at ease around horses than people. Her reputation as a hothead was to blame but he knew there wasn’t any real harm in her. Her last bobby pin came loose as she rode off. Her kapp fluttered to the ground in the driveway.
Willy raised his head and neighed loudly. He clearly wanted the pretty, golden-chestnut mare with the blond mane to come back.
“Don’t be taken in by good looks, Willy. A sweet disposition lasts far longer than a pretty face. I don’t care what Fannie says—Mamm isn’t in a hurry to see me wed.”
He walked out and picked up Fannie’s kapp. At the sound of a wagon approaching, he stuffed it into his back pocket. His cousins Paul and Mark Bowman drove in from the hayfield with a load of bales stacked shoulder high on a trailer pulled by Noah’s father’s gray Percheron draft horses. The chug-chug sound of the gas-powered bailer could be heard in the distance where Noah’s father was pulling it with a four-horse hitch. Noah’s brothers Samuel and Timothy were hooking the bales from the back of the machine and stacking them on a second trailer.
“Who was that?” Mark asked.
“Fannie Erb.” Noah watched her set her horse at the stone wall bordering her family’s lane. Trinket sailed over it easily.
“She rides well,” Paul said with a touch of admiration in his voice.
“She does,” Noah admitted.
“What did she want?” Mark asked.
Noah shook his head at the absurdness of her idea. “She’s looking for a beau. Are you interested?”
Mark shook his head. “Nee, I’m not. I have a girlfriend back home.”
His brother Paul nudged him with an elbow. “A man can go to an auction without buying a horse. It doesn’t hurt to look and see what’s out there.”
Mark and Paul had come from Bird-In-Hand, Pennsylvania, to stay with Noah’s family and apprentice with Noah’s father in the family’s woodworking business. The shop was closed for a few days until the Bowmans had their hay in, and Noah was glad for the extra help.
Mark scowled at his brother. “A man who doesn’t need a horse but goes to the auction anyway is wasting a day Gott has given him. You know what they say about idle hands.”
“I won’t suffer from idle hands today—today—today. I’ll have the blisters—blisters—blisters to prove it,” Paul called out in a singsong voice. The fast-talking young man was learning to become an auctioneer.
Mark maneuvered the hay wagon next to the front of the barn. The wide hayloft door was open above them, with a bale elevator positioned in the center of it. Noah pulled the cord