“You navigate among your goats without stumbling. Even when you’re milking them.”
Leanna laughed, “Having them crowd around me hides a lot of my clumsiness. Besides, I’m sure you’re going to have wunderbaar ideas to help Caleb.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” Annie began to chop the rest of the carrots.
“You never used to hesitate sharing your ideas, Annie. I wish I had half of the ones you have.”
“Ideas come when they come.”
Ideas did always pop into her head. She used to speak them without hesitation, but that was before she’d started walking out with Rolan Plank three years ago. They hadn’t lasted long as a couple. After a month, he’d started to scold her for speaking up. He chided her for what he’d called her silly ideas. Yet, after he’d dumped her, he’d taken one of her so-called silly ideas and let everyone think it was his own.
“Either way,” Leanna said, “I’m glad you’re working for Caleb instead of me.”
“But you could have had a chance to get to know him better.”
“True, but I’m sure you’ll share many stories about your time with him.” Leanna paused for a long moment, then added, “I didn’t think we’d still be talking about jobs now. I assumed I’d be a wife and mamm, but that hasn’t happened.”
“It will when—”
“Don’t tell me it’s God’s will whether I marry or not.” Her twin kept moving, each motion sure and calm in comparison with her voice. “I’ve heard that too many times.”
Annie paid no attention to her sister’s words. Only to her heartbroken tone, and Annie’s heart broke, as well. Her sister had fallen hard for Gabriel Miller before they moved from Lancaster County, but Gabriel had wedded someone else. In retrospect, Annie wasn’t sure he’d been aware of Leanna’s feelings. As far as Annie knew, her sister hadn’t told him. Instead, she’d decided to let him pursue her as the heroes did the heroines in the romance novels Leanna loved to read.
In the months since they’d arrived at the settlement in Harmony Creek Hollow, her sister had begun to emerge from her self-imposed isolation. Being a member of the Harmony Creek Spinsters’ Club with two of their friends had helped. Now their friends Miriam and Sarah were married. In fact, there had been three weddings at the end of the year, and while Leanna was thrilled for her friends, each ceremony had been a reminder of what she wanted and didn’t have: a husband and a family of her own.
Annie scooped up the chopped carrots and dropped them into the stew. When Caleb had offered her the job—even if it’d appeared to be a mistake—God had opened a door for her to help her sister. She ignored the familiar twinge in her own heart as she tried to convince herself that persuading Caleb to walk out with her twin sister would be the best idea she’d ever had.
* * *
How was it possible the evening was growing colder by the second? Each breath Caleb took seemed to be more glacial than the one before. He hadn’t thought it could get any more bitter, but with the sun setting, the very air felt as if it’d turned to ice. He guessed by the time he’d left the bakery, got home and milked his cows, the mercury must have dropped to ten degrees below zero. It would be worse by the time he got up in the morning. The idea of heading into his comfortable house and calling it a day had been tempting, but he couldn’t cede his responsibility for his cousin and her kind to Annie. He’d told her he’d stop by, and he couldn’t renege on the promise.
As he led Dusty toward the Waglers’ barn so the horse could get out of the cold, Caleb glanced at the goats’ pen. It was empty, and he guessed the goats were huddling inside their shed.
Smart goats. He smiled at the two words he’d never thought he would put together.
Caleb’s shoulders ached by the time he walked to the house. Trying to halt the shivers rippling over him was foolish, because he couldn’t relax against the cold. His body refused to keep from trying to keep the polar wind at bay.
He climbed up onto the porch and rapped on the door. The faint call from inside was all the invitation he needed to open it.
Taking one step inside the mudroom connecting the kitchen to the porch, he was almost bowled over by a reddish-brown ball of fur. A sharp command from the table didn’t stop the excited puppy from welcoming him.
Kenny rushed into the mudroom to collect the dog. Caleb smiled his thanks to the dark-haired boy before shrugging off his coat. Watching Kenny try to get the puppy to behave with little success, Caleb wondered if the boy’s shoulders grew broader every day. Kenny wasn’t going to be tall, but he was going to be a sturdy adult. Hard work in the barn was giving him the strength of a man twice his age.
Caleb set his coat, scarf, gloves and hat on a chair by the door because the pegs were filled. He turned to walk into the kitchen and then stopped as he took in the sight of the families gathered around the table. Two families. The Waglers—Annie and her twin, as well as her grossmammi, sister and younger brother, who was sliding into his chair, holding on to the puppy—and two members of the Hartz family: his cousin and her son.
Yet they could have been a single family. No one acted disconcerted. One twin held Joey on her lap and offered him bites of her food while his cousin sat on the opposite side of the table between a girl close to her age and the other twin.
But which twin was which? He was embarrassed that he wasn’t sure.
His discomfort was overtaken by distress. He hadn’t been able to reach Becky Sue’s parents. He’d waited by the phone at the bakery for an hour, hoping for a call back. He’d left after that because his dairy herd got uncomfortable when he delayed the milking.
“Komm in...and join us,” Inez said, motioning to him.
The elderly woman was shorter than the twins, and though her hair was gray and thinning, she had the same blue-green eyes. It was more than a physical resemblance, because she said what she thought, exactly as Annie did.
“Komm...in, Caleb,” Inez urged again when he didn’t move. She paused often as if having to catch her breath. “Sit...so we...can thank God...for our food...before...everything...is cold.”
He entered the kitchen, which smelled of beef gravy and freshly baked bread. When his stomach rumbled, a reminder he’d skipped lunch, he was glad he was far enough away from the table so nobody would hear it. “You could have eaten without me.”
“See?” piped up Kenny. “I told you he’d be okay with it.”
“But...I wasn’t.” Inez’s tone brooked no argument, and the boy didn’t give her any as he bent to soothe the puppy, who was lunging to escape so it could greet Caleb as he neared the table. “Hurry. Join...us before hunger...makes Kenny forget...his manners again.”
When the twin holding Joey—Caleb was almost certain she was Annie—flashed him a quick smile, he dampened his own. He admired how Inez spoke her mind. Not that she ever was cruel or critical of anyone, though she denounced what she saw as absurd ideas. She, as one of his fellow firefighters was fond of saying, called it as she saw it.
The only empty chair was at the end of the table. He sat there and nodded when Inez asked him to lead grace. He was the oldest man present, and it was his duty. As he bowed his head, his thoughts refused to focus on his gratitude for God guiding his young cousin to the bakery where she could be found. He was too aware of both twins sitting at the table.
If he mistook one for the other...
Annie had given him an easy way to avoid admitting he hadn’t realized which twin he was asking to work for him, but he couldn’t depend on that happening again.
He cleared his throat to signal the end of grace. As he raised his head, he was startled by an abrupt yearning