She nodded, but she wasn’t sure if he saw the motion because he’d already turned to lash his horse to a hitching rail. The building would provide a windbreak for the horse.
After hurrying through the back door, she paused to cup her hands and blow on them. She wore heavy gloves, but her fingers felt as if they’d already frozen.
It was dusky inside. Large boxes were stacked throughout the cramped space. She wondered what was in them. Not supplies, because the room didn’t look ready for use. Paint hung in loose strips between the pair of windows to her left.
She stood on tiptoe to look for writing on the closest box. She halted when she heard a quiet thump.
It came from beyond the crates. She peered around them. A door led into another room.
Was someone there?
Should she get Caleb?
A soft sound, like a gurgle or a gasp, was barely louder than her heartbeat. If someone was in trouble in the other room, she shouldn’t hesitate.
God, guide me.
She took a single step toward the other room, keeping her hand on the wall and trying to avoid the big crates. Her eyes widened when she saw a silhouette backlit by a large window. She edged forward, then froze as a board creaked beneath her right foot.
The silhouette whirled. Something struck the floor. A flashlight! It splashed light around the space. A young woman was highlighted before she turned to rush past Annie.
“Wait!” Annie cried.
A boppli’s cry echoed through the building.
“Stop!” came a shout from behind Annie.
Caleb!
“There’s someone here,” she called as she spun, hoping to cut off the woman’s escape.
She ran forward at the sound of two bodies hitting each other.
Caleb yelled, “Turn on the lights.”
“Lights?”
“Switch...on the wall...by the door.” He sounded as if he was struggling with someone.
She flipped the switch and gasped when she saw the person trying to escape from Caleb.
It was a teenage girl, holding a boppli. Blonde and cute, the girl had eyes the same dark green as Caleb’s. The boppli held a bright blue bear close to his cheek and squinted at them in the bright light.
Annie started to ask a question, but Caleb beat her to it when he asked, “Becky Sue? What are you doing here?”
Becky Sue?
Caleb knew this girl and the boppli?
Annie wondered why she was surprised. Caleb knew everyone who came to Harmony Creek Hollow. Was this young woman part of a new family joining their settlement? There was one empty farmstead along the twisting road beside the creek.
Annie faltered when she saw the shock on Caleb’s face. His green eyes were open so wide she could see white around the irises, and his mouth gaped.
Then she remembered what he’d said after calling the girl by name.
What are you doing here?
He wasn’t shocked to see Becky Sue. He was shocked she was in his bakery.
What was going on?
As if she’d asked that aloud, Caleb said in a taut tone, “Annie, this is my cousin, Becky Sue Hartz. She and her family have a farm a couple of districts away from where Miriam and I grew up.” He closed his mouth, and his jaw worked with strong emotions.
The girl shared Caleb’s coloring and his height. Annie wondered how alike they were in other ways.
Stepping forward with a smile, she tried to ignore the thick tension in the air. “I’m Annie Wagler. I should have guessed you were related to Caleb. You look alike.”
“Hi, Annie.” Becky Sue’s eyes kept cutting toward Caleb. Her expression announced she expected to be berated at any second.
Why? For being in the bakery? It wasn’t as if she’d broken in. The door had been unlocked. However, even if Becky Sue had jimmied a window and climbed in, her cousin would have forgiven her.
“And who is this cutie?” Annie tapped the nose of the little boy in the girl’s arms, and he chuckled in a surprisingly deep tone.
For a moment, Becky Sue lost her hunted look and gave Annie a tentative smile. “This is Joey. He’s my son.”
Her son? The girl didn’t look like much more than a kind herself. If Annie had to speculate, she would have guessed Becky Sue was sixteen or seventeen. At the most. The little boy, who had her flaxen hair, appeared to be almost a year old.
Shutting her mouth when she realized it had gaped open as Caleb’s was, Annie struggled to keep her smile from falling away. Though it wasn’t common, some plain girls got pregnant before marriage as Englisch ones did. Or had Becky Sue been a very young bride?
As if she’d cued Caleb, he asked, “Is your husband with you?”
Becky Sue raised her chin in a pose of defiance. A weak one, because her lips trembled, and Annie guessed she was trying to keep from crying.
“No,” the girl replied, “because I don’t have a husband. Just a son.” When Caleb opened his mouth again, she hurried to add, “I’m not a widow, though that would be convenient for everyone, ain’t so?”
“Everyone?” He frowned. “Do your parents know where you are?”
“Ja.” When he continued to give her a stern look, she relented enough to say, “They know I left home.”
“But not where you’re going?”
She didn’t answer.
“Where are you going?” Caleb persisted.
Again the girl was silent, her chin jutting out to show she wasn’t going to let him intimidate her. Though the girl was terrified. Her shoulders shook, and her eyes glistened with unshed tears.
Knowing she should keep quiet because the matter was between Caleb and the girl, Annie couldn’t halt herself from saying, “I’m sure you and Joey would like something warm to eat. It’s cold here, ain’t so? Though I was here last winter, I can’t get used to it. Caleb, we need to get these two something warm to eat.”
Caleb aimed his frown in her direction. She pretended she hadn’t seen it. Didn’t he understand they wouldn’t get any information if the conversation dissolved into the two of them firing recriminations at each other? Once the girl and her boppli weren’t cold and hungry—and exhausted, because Joey was knuckling his eyes with tiny fists and dark crescents shadowed his mamm’s eyes—Becky Sue might be willing to come clean about why she and her son were so far away from home.
But Annie’s comments were ignored as Becky Sue said, “I told you, Caleb. I left home, and I’m—we’re not going back.”
“And you decided to come to Harmony Creek Hollow?” Annie asked, earning another scowl from Caleb.
“I heard about the new settlement.” Though she answered Annie’s question, she glared at her cousin. “I didn’t know this was the one you were involved with, Caleb. If I had—”
“Well, isn’t it a wunderbaar coincidence, Becky Sue?” Annie hurried to ask. “And your timing is perfect.”
“It is?” Becky Sue seemed overwhelmed