His hands tightened on the reins, and his horse looked back as if to ask what was wrong. Caleb grimaced. It was stupid to think about the woman who’d ridiculed him. Verba was in Lancaster County, and he was far away. And...
He pushed the thoughts from his head as the back door opened and a bundled-up woman emerged. Her shawl flapped behind her as she hurried—with care, because there were slippery spots everywhere—to the buggy. He slid the door on the passenger side open, and she climbed in, closing it behind her. The momentary slap of wind had been as sharp as a paring knife.
“Sorry to be so long,” she said from behind a thick blue scarf. “My grossmammi asked me to get some canned fruit from the cellar.”
“It’s fine.” Which twin was sitting beside him? Too late, he realized he should have asked straightaway by the goats’ pen.
How could he ask now?
Giving his brown horse, Dusty, a gentle slap of the reins, he turned the buggy and headed toward the road. He tried to think of something that would lead to a clue about which Wagler twin was half-hidden behind the scarf. He didn’t want to talk about the weather. It was a grim subject in the midst of a March cold snap. What if he talked about the April auction to support the local volunteer fire department? The Englisch firefighters found it amusing when the plain volunteers called it a mud sale. He wondered if the ground would thaw enough to let the event live up to its name.
“Caleb?”
He wanted to cheer when she broke the silence. “Ja?”
“You know I’m Annie Wagler, ain’t so?”
“Ja.” He did now.
“I wanted to make sure, because people mix us up, and I didn’t want you to think you had to give me the job if you’d intended to hire Leanna.”
She was plainspoken. He prayed that would be gut in his shop, because he wasn’t going to renege on his offer. It could be embarrassing for her, and him, and the thought of the humiliation he’d endured at Verba’s hands stung.
And one thing hadn’t changed: he needed help at the bakery. It shouldn’t matter which twin worked for him.
Who are you trying to fool? nagged a tiny voice inside his head. The one that spoke up when he was trying to ignore his own thoughts.
Like thoughts of how right it had felt to put his hands on Annie’s shoulders as he kept her from falling in the barnyard. He didn’t want to recall how his heart had beat faster when her blue-green eyes had gazed up at him.
He must keep a barrier between him and any attractive woman. Getting beguiled as he had with Verba, who’d claimed to love him before she tried to change everything about him, would be stupid.
“Do you and your sister try to confuse people on purpose?” Caleb asked to force his thoughts aside.
“We did when we were kinder. Once we realized people couldn’t tell us apart, we took advantage of it at school. I was better at arithmetic and Leanna excelled in spelling, so sometimes I’d go to the teacher to do Leanna’s math problems as well as my own. She’d do the same with spelling.”
“You cheated?”
“Not on written tests or desk work. Just when the teacher wasn’t paying attention.”
He laughed, “The other scholars never tattled on you?”
“They wouldn’t get any of Grossmammi’s delicious cookies if they did.”
“I didn’t realize we had a pair of criminal masterminds in our midst.”
“Very retired criminal masterminds.” She smiled. “Our nice, neat plan didn’t last long. A new teacher came when we were in fourth grade, and she kept much better track of us. Our days of posing as each other came to a quick end.”
“So you had to learn to spell on your own?”
“And Leanna did her arithmetic problems. She realized she had a real aptitude for it and surpassed me the following year.” Annie hesitated, then said, “I’m sure the whole thing was my idea. Leanna always went along with me.”
He glanced at her. She was regarding him as if willing him to accept her words. He wondered why it mattered to her. For a moment, he sensed she was struggling with something big.
Again, he shut down his thoughts. Annie was his employee, and it’d be better to keep some distance between them.
“So you’re now the better speller?” Caleb asked, glad his tone was light.
She laughed, “I don’t know. We haven’t had a spelling bee in a long time.”
“Maybe we should have one. I read somewhere that Englisch pioneers used to hold spelling bees for entertainment.” He gave her a grin. “Something we could do in our spare time.”
“When we get some.”
Miriam had told him how much fun she had with the Wagler twins, but he hadn’t known Annie possessed a dry sense of humor. She wasn’t trying to flirt with him, either, and he’d heard several of the community’s bachelors saying Leanna was eager to marry. Maybe asking Annie instead of her twin hadn’t been such a mistake after all.
When they reached the main road, Caleb held Dusty back. Traffic sped past. Most cars were headed to ski resorts in Vermont, and the drivers couldn’t wait to reach the slopes. Local drivers complained tourists drove along the uneven, twisting country roads as if they were interstates.
Two minutes passed before Caleb felt safe to move onto the road. They didn’t have to go far before he signaled a left turn. He held his breath as a car zipped by him, heading east, but he was able to make the turn before another vehicle, traveling as fast, roared toward Salem.
“Everyone’s in a hurry,” Annie said as she turned her head to watch the car vanish over abandoned railroad tracks.
“I hope they slow down before they get hurt.” Pulling into the asphalt parking area behind the building where ghosts of painted lines were visible, he said, “Here we are.”
“Your bakery is going to be here?”
“Ja.” He was still amazed he’d been able to buy the building in October.
It had served as a supply depot for the railroad until the mid-1960s. The parking area and the pair of picture windows on the front were perfect for the shop he had in mind. Its wide eaves protected the doors. The building needed painting, but that had to wait for the weather to warm. As a few stray snowflakes wafted toward the ground, he couldn’t help imagining how it’d look in May, when he planned to open.
“Why a bakery?” she asked.
“My grossmammi taught me to bake when I was young, and I enjoyed it.” He didn’t add he’d been recovering from an extended illness and had been too weak to play outside.
She glanced at him, and he suspected she wanted him to explain further. He didn’t.
Walls. Keep up the walls, he reminded himself. Getting close was a one-way ticket to getting hurt again. He wasn’t going to do something that dumm again.
Not ever.
* * *
The wind tore at Annie’s coat and shawl when Caleb opened the door on his side and got out. When she reached for her door, he called to her. She had to strain to hear his voice over the wild