Unable to bear the thought of her shouldering the sorrow all by herself, Josiah slid his hand over hers. “They’ll never be forgotten as long as you carry a part of them in your heart.”
Her eyes pooled with moisture, and she sprang to her feet. “I think it’s clean,” she said, turning her back on him and marching to the sink with her towel.
Josiah felt so low, he could have slid underneath the crack between the door and the floor. He had made Rose cry or at least think about crying. If Bitsy caught a glimpse of Rose’s face, she’d probably point her shotgun at Josiah and kick him out of the house.
“Your mater had hair like Lily’s, a mouth like Poppy’s, and eyes like yours,” Bitsy said. She took a big bite of her pickle, laid it on the counter, and ambled into the storage room, still talking. “She had pretty long fingers and wasn’t clunky like I am.”
Feeling like there was an anvil tied around his heart, Josiah watched Rose out of the corner of his eye. She stood at the sink with her back to him and splashed water on her face. She came back to the table, and he tried to communicate an apology with just a look. She wouldn’t meet his eye.
He leaned toward her. “I’m sorry, Rose,” he whispered, so Bitsy in the storage room couldn’t hear. “I’m sorry if I said or did anything to upset you.”
She drew her brows together. “Ach, nae. Nae. Of course not. I was just thinking about my parents.”
He didn’t feel much better, but she seemed to be telling him the truth. Still, he hated to think that he’d been the one to make her unhappy. Ach, du lieva, couldn’t he do anything right?
Rose smeared ointment onto the four scratches on Josiah’s arm, then covered them with a square of gauze. She wrapped several layers of medical tape around the gauze, securing it better than he secured his hay in the winter. “Do you think that will be okay?”
Josiah lifted his arm and flexed his hand. “This wouldn’t get wet on a leaky boat in a hurricane. Can I come over every time I need a Band-Aid?”
She blushed and stared faithfully at the wood grain on the table.
Could he just kick himself now and get it over with? “I’m sorry. I won’t tease if you don’t like it.”
She dared a glance at him. “It’s okay.”
He stared at her for a second longer than he should have before scooting his chair out and standing up. “I should go.”
Bitsy seemed to shoot out from the back room. “Before you leave, Josiah Yoder, I have some things I need you to lift.”
“Lift?” Rose said.
Again, Josiah tried not to act too eager. “You need me to lift something?” If Rose saw how useful he was, maybe she’d give him a chance to win her heart.
Bitsy pointed to the storage room. “There’s a fifty-pound bag of flour in there that I need you to dump in the flour bin.”
“But Aunt Bitsy . . .” Rose said.
Josiah jumped right in. “Ach, I don’t mind. I’m happy to help carry the heavy stuff so you don’t have to.”
Rose seemed confused, but she didn’t say anything else.
Bitsy took him into the storage room where there were rows of shelves covered with jars of golden honey, dozens of bottles of peaches and cherries and spaghetti sauce, and bags of wheat and rice stacked five high. She pointed to a bag of white flour on one of the shelves. “That one.”
Josiah slid the bag off the shelf and threw it across his shoulder. Fifty pounds wasn’t that much. He’d hefted hay bales twice this size. “Where to?”
“Into the kitchen,” Bitsy said. She led the way and directed him to set the flour on the butcher-block island. She glanced at Rose. “You’ve got muscles. I’ll give you that, Josiah Yoder. You don’t mind muscles, do you, Rose?”
Rose quickly averted her eyes as if she’d been caught staring. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Bitsy grunted. “They come in handy on the farm, I suppose.”
Josiah smiled. “They do.”
Bitsy opened a cupboard underneath the island and pulled a bin from one of the shelves. “Ach,” she said. “This is already full.”
“I was trying to tell you,” Rose said. “Poppy filled it last night.”
Bitsy shrugged. “Back to the storage room then.”
Josiah hefted the bag of flour over his shoulder and took it back to the shelf in the storage room.
Bitsy followed him with a rag in her hand. “I’ll just wipe up this flour dust,” she said. “You can go now, Josiah. You’ve overstayed your welcome.”
Josiah tried not to feel dejected. He had been allowed to stay several minutes longer than in his wildest dreams. He mustn’t be greedy. He went back into the kitchen. Rose seemed less composed than ever. She was fidgeting with the strand of hair again. “Before you leave, would you like a loaf of bread?” she said.
He gave her a guarded, not-too-eager half smile. “I’d like that very much.”
She nodded, took a box of tinfoil out of the drawer, and tore a piece off the roll.
Bitsy emerged from the back room just as Rose wrapped Josiah’s loaf of bread in the tinfoil. She squinted in Josiah’s direction. “What are you doing, baby sister?”
Rose drew her brows together. “I’m sorry, Aunt Bitsy, but I’m sending some bread home with Josiah.”
Bitsy gave Josiah the stink eye, for what he didn’t know, but he’d kind of been expecting it all morning. “Absolutely not.”
“But, Aunt Bitsy, we have an extra loaf.”
Bitsy looked as if she were ready to pounce on him. “Josiah should know the rules.”
“What rules?” Josiah said.
Bitsy held up one finger. “Number one. No kissing on the porch.”
Rose turned bright red. “Aunt Bitsy!”
Bitsy put her arm around Rose. “That’s just for Lily and Poppy, baby sister.” She glared at Josiah. “Right?”
Josiah’s throat constricted. The thought of kissing on the porch probably gave Rose nightmares. How could Bitsy be so cruel as to plant that thought in her niece’s head and scare her off ever wanting to talk to him again? No matter that Josiah was hoping to kiss Rose on somebody’s porch, it was Rose’s feelings that mattered right now. “No kissing on the porch,” he finally said.
Bitsy eyed him as if she didn’t believe a word he said and held up a second finger. “Number two. No allowing Paul Glick into the house.” Paul Glick was Lily’s ex-boyfriend, and he had a mean streak a mile long.
Josiah couldn’t much blame Bitsy for that rule. Lily’s fiancé Dan Kanagy was Josiah’s best friend, and Paul Glick had made Dan’s life wonderful miserable.
“Number three. Don’t feed the boys. They are like stray cats. If you feed them once, they will keep coming back. I don’t need another stray cat.”
Josiah took a deep breath to try to clear off the wagon that seemed to have parked on his chest. “I’m sorry. I don’t want any bad feelings. I won’t take not even one slice.”
Rose wrapped her arms around her aendi’s neck and leaned her head so they were touching foreheads. “Aunt Bitsy, Josiah lives all alone without a soul to cook for him.”
She was defending him? He felt like singing. “It’s okay. I completely respect your aendi’s rules. Nobody asked me to barge into your house.”
Bitsy was firm as a mountain. “His sister feeds him sometimes, and he’s twenty-one years old.”
“Twenty-two,” Josiah said. “I’ll be twenty-three next week.”
Bitsy nodded. “Plenty old to take care of himself.”
“I’ve taken care of myself for four years.”
“He won’t starve,” Bitsy insisted.
Josiah met Bitsy’s eye with a steady and earnest gaze. “And I wouldn’t see Rose upset for the whole world.”
She narrowed her eyes into slits. “Neither would I.”
Rose was on the verge of tears. “But, Aunt Bitsy, he’s an orphan. Like me.”
Bitsy scrunched her lips together as a sigh rumbled deep in her throat. The sigh turned int
o a grunt, which came out of her mouth as a growl. She lifted her gaze to the ceiling. “You know I have a soft spot for orphans. Why does he have to be an orphan?”
Was she talking to Gotte? Probably, unless someone Josiah didn’t know about lived upstairs.
Bitsy threw up her hands in surrender. “Fine. Give the orphan a loaf of bread if it makes you happy.”
Josiah pinned Rose with a serious gaze “But only if it makes you happy.”
Rose curled her lips slightly. “It does.”
“It’s just a loaf of bread, Josiah,” Bitsy said. “You’ve got to promise not to take it the wrong way.”
“I promise,” he said, with no idea what the “wrong way” was. Anything to make Bitsy happy. And Rose.
Rose handed the loaf to Josiah.
“You made this?” he said.
“Jah. It’s honey wheat.”
He smiled. “I think I’ve died and gone to heaven.”
“Just so long as you do your dying somewhere besides my yard,” Bitsy said. “Bees are funny about things like death.”
Josiah opened the door, rested his hand on the handle, and looked at Rose. “If you ever need anything—jars to be opened or basil or fennel or new shoelaces—please let me know. I’ll do whatever you need. Okay?”
“Okay,” Rose said, seeming all the more embarrassed. He should probably quit talking.
He stared at the loaf of bread in his hand. Rose had freely offered him this bread, even when her aunt had resisted. She had smiled at him in an unguarded moment. Maybe she wasn’t terrified of him. Maybe she liked him okay. Maybe there was hope he could soften her up.
“You’re looking at that bread as if you’re contemplating scripture,” Bitsy said. “Don’t you have crops to get to? You shouldn’t let all those muscles go to waste.”
He tucked the loaf under one arm. “Sorry. I just want you to know that I’m very grateful for the bread. Not everyone gets something from Rose Christner’s kitchen.”
“Oh sis yuscht,” Bitsy said, wrinkling her nose in disgust. “You’re taking it the wrong way. Against my better judgment, I let Rose give it to you, and now you’re taking it the wrong way.” She looked up to the ceiling. “Heaven help us.”
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jennifer Beckstrand is the bestselling author of The Matchmakers of Huckleberry Hill series and the Forever After in Apple Lake series, set in two Amish communities in beautiful Wisconsin. She has always been drawn to the strong faith and the enduring family ties of the Plain people and loves writing about the antics of Anna and Felty Helmuth. Jennifer has a degree in mathematics and a background in editing. She and her husband have been married for thirty years, and she has four daughters, two sons, and two adorable grandsons, whom she spoils rotten. Readers can visit her website at JenniferBeckstrand.com.
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Jennifer Beckstrand, A Bee in Her Bonnet
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