Of course it wasn’t okay. Luke hated Poppy. Poppy hated him. They’d probably end up yelling at each other.
Aunt B paused for a good, long time. “Are you going to pester Poppy to get a tetanus shot or an X-ray?”
Luke didn’t take his eyes from Poppy. It made her nervous. “No pestering. I just want to help.”
“We don’t need your help,” Aunt B replied. “You can go home.”
Lily picked at a tree to Poppy’s right. “That’s not true, Aunt B. We’ve got to get these cherries before the wind takes them, and Poppy’s only got one gute hand.”
“And you won’t let her get on the ladder,” Rose called from somewhere behind Poppy.
Poppy ground her teeth together. Her sisters were way too welcoming. They might have needed Luke’s help, but Poppy didn’t want it. She’d rather happily pick her measly amount of cherries than be miserable for weeks because of Luke. Or longer. Right now she felt so downhearted, she could see the misery going on for years.
Luke raised his bucket even though Aunt B couldn’t see it. “I brought my own bucket.”
“I don’t know why you think that makes a difference,” Aunt B said.
He turned to Poppy with a pleading look in his eyes. “I’d really like to help. It’s my fault you can’t use both arms.”
His fault indeed.
What could she say? If she said no, her sisters would be stuck with the extra work. If she agreed to let him stay, it would be a rotten day.
She pressed her lips together. She was having a rotten day anyway. How much worse could Luke make it?
She didn’t want to know the answer to that question.
“We’d be grateful for your help,” she heard herself say, in a surprisingly polite tone. She wouldn’t have to say a word to him. He wouldn’t be forced to talk to her. She knew how unpleasant that must be for him.
His smile bloomed like a sunflower. “Denki. I can stay until supper time.”
Aunt Bitsy rattled her tree again. “Just watch yourself. Every time you come over, Poppy gets hurt.”
His smile lost some of its luster. “I hope that won’t happen again.”
“Show him how to pick, Poppy,” Aunt Bitsy said.
Poppy grimaced. She didn’t even want to be in the same orchard with him. “You have to pick them with the stems,” she said, showing him how to snap the cherries off the tree. “They stay fresher that way.”
Luke nodded, climbed up Poppy’s ladder, and started picking, just like that. He didn’t yell at her or show disapproval of any kind.
But the day was still young.
Billy Idol sauntered into the orchard, stationed himself at the foot of Luke’s ladder, and gazed up as if all the cat food sat at the top of the tree. Did Luke smell like catnip or something? Billy Idol placed his paw on the bottom rung, hesitated for a second, and climbed carefully up the ladder. Luke nearly fell as Billy Idol clawed his way up Luke’s trousers and came to rest on the top of the ladder next to Luke’s bucket.
“Go away, cat,” Luke said.
Billy Idol hissed and scowled and stayed put. Poppy grinned. She wouldn’t mind if Billy Idol gave Luke a little trouble today.
Poppy chose a tree at the other end of the row. It wouldn’t take her long. There was only so much she could reach before moving on. She could hear Luke and Lily having a conversation, with occasional help from Rose, but Poppy felt no obligation to join in. She had no interest in what Luke Bontrager had to say about anything.
It sounded as if Luke was grasping a branch and shaking it with all his might. What was he doing to their poor tree?
“You’re going to break something,” Aunt B said. “Don’t be so rough.”
“I want to be fast,” he said, but the violent rustling settled down a bit. “I can hear the bees from up here.”
Ten hives sat at the edge of the orchard, and they made a pleasant hum that could be heard from several feet away.
“They never rest,” Rose said.
“I like the pictures of flowers painted on the hives,” Luke said.
Aunt Bitsy climbed down from her ladder and moved it a few feet around the tree. “Rose painted all our hives.”
“They’re beautiful.”
Poppy pursed her lips. She didn’t care how agreeable Luke acted. It wouldn’t last long.
“How are the kittens doing?” Lily asked.
Why did Lily have to bring up the kittens? Every tear Poppy had shed in the last decade was because of those kittens.
“Dorothy and Joann couldn’t be better mothers. They feed them by hand and brush their fur and keep them in their room to sleep,” Luke said. “I hate cats, but my sisters have never been happier. Even Mamm tolerates them for my sisters’ sake.”
“Luke?” Rose said, and even from four trees away, Poppy could hear the timidity in her voice. “Aren’t you glad Poppy saved them?”
Poppy hadn’t the least interest in Luke’s answer, but she held her breath and stopped picking so she wouldn’t miss it.
“Glad?” Luke said. “My sisters would have been devastated if those kittens had drowned. I’m more than glad. I thank Gotte every day for what Poppy did. I lashed out at Poppy when I should have thanked her.”
Poppy almost snorted out loud. Luke didn’t mean any of what he said. He’d been furious. He blamed her for putting his sisters in danger. He surely hadn’t changed his mind. He only said what he thought Lily and Rose wanted to hear.
She furrowed her brow. She’d never known Luke to be a liar. He always spoke his mind, even if what he said offended everybody.
“It’s no excuse for how I treated Poppy,” Luke said, “but I get anxious when it comes to my little sisters and other girls. I even get concerned for Poppy, who can take care of herself in any ditch in Wisconsin.”
Lily climbed down from her ladder and poured her full bucket of cherries into the wooden box sitting in between the row of trees. “Maybe your mamm’s accident made you overly cautious.”
Luke paused long enough that Poppy wondered if he’d even heard Lily’s question. She squinted among the branches of his tree but couldn’t see his face. “Maybe it did,” he finally said.
Even with a cat sitting on his ladder and getting in the way, Luke proved to be a lightning-fast cherry picker. He finished two trees before Rose or Lily had even finished one. Leaves tumbled from his trees as he picked, as if he were stripping the branches instead of merely plucking off cherries. It’s how she would have expected Luke Bontrager to pick. He dove in headfirst with any job he did and worked with every ounce of energy he had until the job was done. It was how he’d tackled the chicken coop. It was how he cut watermelon. It was even how he ate pie and how he pestered her with such persistence.
It took three hours for Poppy to pick every cherry she could reach. She refused to say a word to Luke, even when he hovered seven feet above her head picking the tree she was working on. Sometimes he talked to Lily and Rose; sometimes he kept quiet. He even whistled occasionally. But he didn’t seem to mind her silence. He didn’t seem to mind anything about her, even though he’d found plenty to say on that subject in the past.
The first time she had needed to empty her bucket, she’d realized that she couldn’t do it by herself. She hated to ask for help, especially because Luke gloated when she admitted weakness, but she couldn’t dump the cherries into the box with one hand. She had asked Lily to help her, but Luke had practically vaulted from his ladder before the words were out of her mouth. There hadn’t been a hint of smug superiority when he’d emptied her bucket, but Poppy couldn’t be comfortable. Every smile he gave her was like a stab to the heart, and her chest felt heavy, as if she’d lost something that she’d never get back.
She hated that she needed the help, but at least he didn’t gloat, not even when he helped her two more times.
Poppy set her full bucket next to a half-filled box of cherries and brushed her hand down the front of her apron. Before she even stood up straight, Luke was off his ladder pour
ing her cherries into the box. She made the mistake of looking at him, and his smile stole her senses. She didn’t like it. That smile made her want to let down her guard, to give Luke her friendship again. But that would be very foolish indeed. Was it supper time yet?
She turned away from him. To protect herself, she had to be strong.
“Aunt B,” she said, pretending Luke wasn’t standing three feet away from her, “I’ve picked everything I can reach.” Luke watched intently as she tucked a lock of hair beneath the scarf tied around her head. “If I just stood on the bottom rung of the ladder, I could get more.”
“You shouldn’t be on a ladder,” Luke said, before clamping his mouth shut and stuffing his hands in his pockets. He lowered his gaze and didn’t utter another word.
Poppy’s argument died on her lips.
Aunt B tilted her head so Poppy could see it below the branches. “No ladders.” She stood up straight again so all Poppy could see were her feet. “We’ll finish up. You can go clean toilets.”
Poppy expelled a puff of air. Too bad she didn’t need two hands to clean a toilet. Luke was surely laughing at her. He’d probably never cleaned a toilet in his life. “Okay,” she said with little enthusiasm. The only gute part about cleaning toilets was that Luke wouldn’t be around. His presence made her whole body hurt.
“Luke, why don’t you help her? You’d do very well with your face in the toilet.”
“I’d enjoy that, but I have to go soon. I have a customer waiting for me at the shop.” He smiled, no doubt ecstatic to be leaving the toilets to Poppy. “Can I walk you back to the house?” Oy anyhow, he was pushy.
“I know the way.”
“Can I follow you?”
She didn’t even answer, just tromped out of the orchard, not pausing to see if he would follow. She heard him fall into step behind her, with the cat meowing in step behind Luke. That cat was the only one who could tolerate Luke Bontrager.
Poppy turned on her heels and halted Luke in his tracks. She had to put a stop to this now, or she’d be on pins and needles forever trying to outguess exasperating Luke Bontrager. “It wonders me why you are here.”
He smiled uncertainly. “Dan said you needed help with the cherries.”
She narrowed her eyes. “That’s your excuse for being here. Why are you really here? Do you want to gloat or get another chance to yell at me? Because I’ll tell you right now that I won’t let you hurt me anymore.”
She shouldn’t have let her voice crack, and she shouldn’t have said anymore. He didn’t need to know that he had hurt her in the first place.
She squared her shoulders. He hadn’t hurt her. Not really. Luke’s yelling had been more of a nuisance than anything else.
He seemed immediately contrite. “I want us to be friends again.”
She closed her mouth and searched his face. Wasn’t he going to argue? “Why do you want to be friends?”
“Because I like you.”
The Luke she knew would never admit that. “I don’t believe you.”
He lowered his eyes. “I know. I want to change that.”
He seemed sincere, but she wouldn’t trust his sudden humility. Luke had let her down before.
An idea lit up his face. “Race you to the house?”
She didn’t even flinch. “We’ve already raced, and you lost.”
“I know,” he said. “You’re fast.”
What happened to You’ll never be better than a boy at anything?
He jogged a few steps ahead of her, all the way to the lane in front of their house. “I brought you a present,” he said. “I left it on the porch when I came out to the orchard.”
Poppy felt her face get warmer than a woodstove during a cold spell. “Why?” She’d asked that question too many times to count.
He bounded onto the porch, tossed the body of a dead mouse off the welcome mat, and picked a white grocery sack off the floor. She knew what it was without having to look. Her heart felt as heavy and dense as a lump of coal. Was he mocking her?
“I want you to have this,” he said. “I never should have kept it.”
She took a deep breath and wrapped her arms around her waist. “I don’t need your permission to use a drill.”
His smile faltered. “I’m not saying you do. I thought it might come in handy.”
“I know you feel guilty, but you don’t have to be nice to me simply to make yourself feel better. I know what you think of me. You don’t have to pretend.”
He ran his fingers through his hair. “I’m not pretending, and you know it. Why won’t you admit it?”
Poppy glared at him and dared him to contradict her. “Because I’m stubborn.”
He didn’t even hesitate. “I love that about you.”
He loved that about her?
He held out the drill. She wouldn’t touch it. “Please take it. I want you to have it.”
She lifted her chin a little higher. “You said a girl should have a drill to fix things around the house. I went and bought my own.”
His face fell so far, he had to scrape it off the ground. “Ach. I see. I suppose I deserve that.” The plastic grocery bag made a crinkly sound as he clutched it in his fingers and pulled it close to his chest. “I guess Walmart will take it back again. Can I come back tomorrow?”
“Why tomorrow?”
“I want to help with the cherries again. And maybe I can teach you how to use your new drill.”
Poppy didn’t even blink. “I can read the instructions.”
He stepped off the porch and shuffled his feet across the flagstones. Turning back, he nodded, bowed his head, and walked away as if she’d killed all his dreams.
She was definitely imagining things.
Chapter Eighteen
Poppy blew a strand of hair out of her eyes and knelt on the floor. She found it impossible to lift a bag of wheat with one good arm. She’d have to get what she needed cupful by cupful. It took about eight cups of wheat for four loaves of bread. At least she could grind the wheat with one hand. Kneading might be a little trickier, but she was determined to pull her weight.
The wheat berries sounded like rain as she poured them into the bowl. It was too bad they had rain last night or they might have heard Queenie making a fuss in the barn or someone skulking around their farm. The troublemaker had sneaked into their barn last night and cut off Queenie’s tail, right down to a nub. All of them, even Poppy, cried over the loss of that beautiful tail, and Poppy didn’t usually cry over anything. But Gotte was gute. Whoever did it hadn’t docked the tail, and Aunt B said it would grow back. Poppy was ready to sleep in the barn every night until she caught the mischief maker in the act of something. This vandalism had to stop.
The wonderful-gute news was that the cherries were done. Luke and Dan had helped her sisters and Aunt B finish the picking yesterday. They had even loaded them into Luke’s wagon and taken them to market in Shawano. Poppy sighed. Now that the cherries were picked, he wouldn’t come around anymore. That thought shouldn’t have made her sad, but it did. Luke had behaved himself very well, picking cherries so fast no one could keep up with him, and letting Billy Idol climb onto his lap because it made Rose happy.
Someone knocked on the door, and Poppy’s heart raced at the thought that it might be Luke. Luke or the mischief maker, come to attack Poppy while she was all alone in the house.
Please, Gotte, let it be Luke.
Had one of her prayers ever been answered so fast? Luke stood in her doorway smiling that devil-may-care smile that left her feverish and aggravated at the same time. If he was as handsome on the inside as he was on the outside, Poppy would have fallen for him years ago. A ribbon of electricity threaded up her spine. She didn’t think he’d come back. How nice to be wrong.
Billy Idol sat at his feet on the porch, and Luke held a dead mouse by the tail, swinging it back and forth like a clock pendulum between two of his fingers. “I think Billy Idol has been playing a trick on all of us,” he said
, nudging the mouse closer to her so she could get a better look.
“I’d rather not,” she said.
His eyes sparkled. “This mouse has a spot on its back exactly the same as the mouse I threw off the porch yesterday.”
Poppy frowned. “What does that mean?”
He chuckled and looked down at Billy Idol, who scowled and hissed as if he was getting ready for a catfight. “It means that every time I throw this mouse off the porch, Billy Idol goes and brings it back. He’s been deceiving all of you.”
Poppy smirked and squatted to be closer to Billy Idol’s scarred face. “You naughty cat. How many times have I thrown dead mice off the porch?”
“Don’t be too mad at him,” Luke said. “He wants to be accepted into the family. You might not appreciate his gifts, but he’s trying real hard yet.”
Poppy stood up and came face-to-face with Luke and his dark, brooding gaze. Wasn’t he standing a little too close? She cleared her throat. “Do you want to come in?”
“Nothing I’d like better.”
She stepped way back so he would have room to enter without getting uncomfortably near. He held a strange handful of—was that hair?—in his other hand.
“What is that?” she said, putting her hand to the hair at the nape of her neck. After having done the dishes and dusting the furniture, she must have looked a sight.
He didn’t seem to mind her stray hairs or the dust that smudged her apron. In fact, his gaze didn’t leave her face. “Dan told me your horse’s tail got cut last night.”
“Jah. But it wasn’t docked, so it will grow back.”
“It makes me mad what people will do to animals.”
“Me too,” Poppy said. “It’s one thing to take your anger out on three grown-up girls, but quite another to hurt the animals. They can’t defend themselves.”
A deep furrow appeared between his eyes. “I don’t like the thought of them doing anything to harm you or your sisters either.”
“Aunt B called the sheriff again, just so he knows, but he said he couldn’t do much about it.”
He took off his hat and ran his fingers through his dark, thick hair. Poppy held her breath. Why was she thinking about hair at a time like this? “What can I do to help you, Poppy? I wish I didn’t feel so helpless.”