“I’ll bet you can’t beat me in a footrace,” she said, feeling quite pleased with herself. “I’ll race you to the bridge just to see who’s faster.”
He shook his head. “I’ve got work to do.”
“If I win, you teach me how to build a chicken coop.”
“And if you lose?”
She swallowed hard. Would she be willing to surrender? “Then you don’t.”
He rubbed the stubble on his chin. “And you quit bothering me?”
“Jah,” she said, frustrated at the little prick of pain that he thought she was a bother. Her dawdi had often told her the same thing.
He eyed her as if sizing up the competition. “Hmm. You think you’re faster than me?”
“Jah. I do.”
He lowered his gaze and shook his head. The movement almost looked like resignation. Or determination. “You’re going to get beat.”
“I’m giving you a clear advantage because I have to run in a dress.”
He cracked a smile. “I’m not the one who needs an advantage. I should give you a head start, just to make it close.”
“I don’t want any favors.”
Another great sigh, as if he were carrying the weight of the world. “Okay. Even though I’ll regret this, I agree to a race.”
Poppy grinned. Even his agreement was a huge victory. “You’ll regret it because I’m going to win.”
He gave her a smug, sideways glance. “Not in a hundred years, Poppy Christner.” He took off his hat and hung it on one of the wheelbarrow handles. “Let’s get this over with.”
She ambled toward the lane that ran in front of the barn with the orange door. “And you’ll let me help if you lose?”
“Against my better judgment, I’ll teach you all you need to know about chicken coop building. But it’s not going to come to that.” They got to the lane, and Luke scratched a line in the dirt with his boot. “The first person to step on the bridge wins, and the loser goes back in the house and leaves me in peace.”
Poppy merely nodded. She could be irritated later. Right now, she needed to save her energy for the race.
Luke stood at the starting line as if he were standing in line at the market. He truly thought he was going to win. Gute. Overconfidence would be his downfall. Her dress was a disadvantage, but his work boots couldn’t have been light.
“Should I say go or you?” he said.
“Ready ...” Poppy said, putting her toe on Luke’s line and leaning forward. Luke didn’t even crouch. “Set ... Go.”
Since Luke was bigger and slower, Poppy came off the starting line ahead of him, but it didn’t take much for him with his long stride to catch up. She glanced to her right, but didn’t let him distract her. She had to run with all her might. She lengthened her stride, grateful she was wearing her black rubber-soled shoes and that she could run well enough in her dress.
The long lane, lined on one side with flowering bushes, curved to the left. Her hand throbbed with every jarring step she took, and it didn’t take long for her lungs and legs to feel like they were on fire. Lord willing, her legs wouldn’t give out before her determination did.
All those recesses spent trying to prove herself to the boys paid off. She pulled ahead of him, but only by a little, and she could hear his heavy steps close behind her. Oh, sis yuscht! Luke Bontrager was a lot faster than he looked.
The bridge waited twenty feet ahead. In a surge of speed, Luke came even with her. She made the mistake of glancing at him. He grinned, as if he were enjoying himself or confident he was going to win. “You’re pretty fast for a girl, Poppy Christner,” he said, panting and chuckling as he pulled ahead of her.
Luke Bontrager would not win this race. His laughter slowed him down enough to give Poppy a chance to catch up. She didn’t think she was even breathing as she ran for all she was worth, stretched out her foot, and stomped on the bridge half a second before Luke did.
She felt so happy, she could have taken flight. Unfortunately, she didn’t have wings. Her last desperate stretch to reach the bridge catapulted her through the air with no place to land gracefully. Though she was too busy falling to see it, for sure and certain it was a truly spectacular landing.
And truly painful. By the grace of the good Lord, she caught herself with her left hand—instead of her already injured right one—and her knees. Her left knee hit the bridge hard. She’d probably have a very large bruise by the end of the day. Her right knee landed on something sharp, like a pebble or the edge of one of the boards on the bridge. The searing pain took her breath away.
Oy, anyhow.
Since her face was getting to know the bridge up close, she didn’t see him, but she could feel Luke looming near her like a black storm cloud. “Are you okay?” he said, with more anxiety in his voice than Poppy would have expected.
Before she could right herself, he slipped a firm arm around her waist, pulled her to a sitting position, and squatted next to her. Taking her left hand in his, he brushed the tiny pieces of gravel from her palm and examined the scrape she’d gotten from falling. His big hands were amazingly gentle, and she could almost have believed he cared that she’d gotten hurt. “Does it sting?”
She nodded, not about to let Luke hear her shaky voice. He had enough to gloat over. Her embarrassment was almost as acute as the pain, but she met his eye, ready to show him contempt if he wanted to laugh at her.
He didn’t laugh. Gone was the arrogance and self-assurance of a few minutes ago. His eyes glowed like dark, liquid chocolate. She saw nothing but concern. She hadn’t expected that. His look made her iron will feel sort of mushy.
“Where else does it hurt? Did you get your knees?”
Her knees throbbed with every breath she took, and she could feel warm, sticky moisture oozing down her right leg, but if Luke knew there was blood, he’d probably insist that she go into the house and take a nap. Or he’d run to the phone shack and call for an ambulance to take her to the hospital. She didn’t want a nap or the emergency room. She wanted to build a chicken coop.
“I’m okay,” she said, trying to sound perfectly healthy. “No harm done.” Almost no harm done—if she managed to stand up.
A lock of hair had come loose from the scarf around her head. He nudged it behind her ear with his thumb.
A butterfly fluttered its wings in her stomach.
Okay.
Luke Bontrager wasn’t the kind of boy who tenderly smoothed girls’ hair. He was the kind of boy who wouldn’t let her join in a game of tackle football.
She held perfectly still and watched him carefully, just in case he did something else unexpected.
“Can you stand up? Do I need to carry you?”
If she needed any motivation to stand, that was it. Luke Bontrager wasn’t going to carry her anywhere. “Nae. I can do it.” She wanted to jump to her feet and take off running, just to show him he didn’t have any reason to feel smug. Instead she decided to try for simply standing. He didn’t need to know she wouldn’t be running again.
Probably ever.
She pushed herself from the ground, and he took her arm and tugged her to her feet. If he hadn’t helped her up, she might have been crawling home. She stifled a groan as she took a few tentative steps.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I will live,” she said, flashing what she hoped passed for a smile. It hurt too much to manage much more than a grimace.
“I should never have agreed to a race,” he said. “I didn’t want you to get hurt.”
Suddenly a smile came easily. Amidst the pain she had almost forgotten. “There is a happy thought in all of this.”
“What’s that?” he said.
She arched an eyebrow. “I won.”
Chapter Six
Poppy Christner was a pain in the neck.
And an unexpectedly fast runner.
And, ach, du lieva, very good with a hammer.
And a pain in the neck.
Luke would
never say out loud that she was good with a hammer. He didn’t want her to get her hopes up that he would ever let her build something with him again. It was too nerve wracking trying to do his own job while watching her closely to make sure she didn’t injure herself yet again.
He pried the last of the planks from the pallet and stacked them in a pile next to Poppy. He had insisted on using the crowbar because it took two good hands and a lot of arm strength. Poppy didn’t even have one good hand, but he had given up trying to get her to go into the house, even if she winced every time she put hammer to nail. He wasn’t going to get her to agree with him on anything, and he wasn’t going to argue. He’d argued enough already.
He’d lost the race.
But only because he had on his heavy work boots—that and because Poppy had looked so cute running with all her might, and he had let himself get distracted by her green eyes. The distraction had only lasted for a second, but it turned out to be enough for Poppy to take advantage and beat him.
Still, Poppy had won fair and square, and he was a man of his word. He would teach her how to build a chicken coop, and he wouldn’t complain about it. No use stewing over it now anyway. Besides the fact that he had given his word, he felt guilty for agreeing to race in the first place. He’d given in to a childish notion, and Poppy had gotten hurt.
Poppy picked up another plank and hammered it into the cross planks of another pallet. Luke had gotten the pallets for free. The coop wouldn’t cost nearly so much if they used old wood.
Poppy finished hammering and ran her finger along the planks. “Nice and sturdy,” she said, pressing down with her hand to test the panel’s strength.
Pain flitted across her face. She didn’t fool him for one minute. Hammering was not a job for someone with a bad hand.
“Okay,” he said. “That was very good.”
Her smile might have bowled over a weaker man. “Surprised?”
“Jah.”
Laughter tripped from her lips, as if his reluctant compliment had made her very happy. “I used to follow my dat all over the farm. He bought me a small hammer and a box of nails and let me play with scraps of wood from his shop, even though my dawdi Sol told him it was useless to teach a girl anything. I got to be very gute.”
“I should probably be glad you didn’t spend your time playing with dolls. At least I don’t have to worry you’ll smash your finger with a bad swing.”
Still kneeling in the dirt, she brushed off her hands and picked up the hammer. “I cuddled my share of dolls. Rose would have been heartbroken if I hadn’t played house with her at least once a day. And we cooked with Mamm.” A shadow of something deep and longing darkened her features but passed as quickly as it had come. “I think of her every time I bake a loaf of bread. I think of her all the time, but especially when I bake.”
“How old were you when she died?”
“Seven. My favorite thing was to watch her long fingers shape dough into pretzels. At night when she read to me, I would listen to her soft voice and trace the veins in her hands with my finger. I’ll never forget her hands.”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She tilted her head and studied his face. “I’m sorry too.”
“Bitsy took you in after your parents died.”
“We stayed with our grandparents until the courts sorted out custody.” Poppy stiffened, as if every muscle in her body had pulled tight. “Aunt B moved us to Wellsby for a short time, but then she bought this farm and we came back up here.” She sighed and tried for a resigned smile. “Our grandparents are strict, but Aunt B thought it best to live close to our mamm’s only relatives. At least we didn’t have to live with them.”
Sol Kiem, Poppy’s dawdi, was a stern and rigid man, with a long, gray beard and a perpetual frown. He and Poppy’s mammi lived in town in a little house on a couple of acres with a gute-sized garden and a small stable for their horse. Luke could only imagine how having a granddaughter like Poppy would rankle Sol’s sense of what was right and proper.
Sol wouldn’t look too kindly on a tomboy for a granddaughter.
“I’m sorry,” Luke said again. Maybe there was a reason for Poppy’s stubborn insistence that she help with the chicken coop.
“Aunt B says that one day all tears will be wiped from all faces. I hope that’s true, but if I ever get to heaven, I’m going to sit down with Gotte and give Him a piece of my mind.” She frowned. “You probably think that’s wicked of me—to want to scold Gotte for taking my parents.”
“There’s nothing you can tell Gotte that He doesn’t already know. He doesn’t want you to hide yourself from Him. He wants you to give yourself over to Him with your whole heart, not just the nice pieces.”
“I don’t know if there are any nice pieces.”
He looked to the sky and pretended to think about it. “There must be something.”
With a tentative curl of her lips, she waved her left hand as if swatting flies. There was a nasty scrape on the palm from her fall this morning. Luke flinched for her. Did pain ever stop this girl? “Don’t worry, Luke Bontrager. I know exactly what you think of me.”
It was the closest to teasing each other they’d ever gotten. He felt like a little kid with his hand in the forbidden cookie jar. Would she smack him down if he let down his guard? Better to not find out.
“We’ve got six more pallets to do,” he said. “Are you up for it?”
She smirked. “You’re having a hard time keeping up with me.”
He hadn’t hoped for a quick surrender, but it didn’t hurt to ask.
She shifted on the ground slightly and smoothed her dress around her ankles. “Ready when you are.”
Luke gasped. There was a smear of blood in the dirt by her leg. “Poppy, are you bleeding?” He didn’t mean for it to come out like an accusation, but it did anyway.
Her gaze traveled to the dirt, and she pursed her lips. “It’s nothing. I’ve had more blood with a paper cut.”
He studied her foot and nearly fell over. The black stocking on her right leg seemed to be saturated in blood. Why had he not noticed it before? “Let me see.” Ach, he should have tempered his harsh tone. Poppy didn’t like to be told what to do, even if it was for her own good. Stifling a growl, he marched to the five-gallon bucket that held about ten thousand nails. He overturned it, not caring that the nails spilled all over the ground, and set it upside-down in front of Poppy.
“Please, Poppy,” he said, making his voice soft and low. He had to reach deep for the humility to coax her instead of browbeat her. “I really think we should look at that leg.”
Perhaps he caught her off guard. She didn’t even open her mouth to argue as he took her hands and gently pulled her onto the bucket. He knelt down and motioned to her foot. “May I?” He’d never touched a girl’s leg before, and it was probably all kinds of improper, but the only thing that mattered was Poppy’s injury. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed so much blood.
She stared straight ahead, as she had the day he’d looked at her hand. That emotionless expression seemed to be her brave face, and it made Luke’s heart hurt. It must have stung something wonderful if she had to put on the brave face. He carefully pried first her shoe and then her stocking from her leg. She reluctantly nudged her dress slightly above her right knee to reveal a nasty gash just below her kneecap, an inch wide and at least a quarter inch deep. The heavy bleeding had stopped, but it oozed blood yet.
He eyed her in astonishment. She’d been kneeling on this for over an hour, hammering nails and pretending nothing was wrong. Again, he chastised himself for not noticing the blood.
“Poppy,” he said breathlessly. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want you to have an excuse to get me into the house.”
He widened his eyes. “It’s not an excuse. You’re really hurt.”
“You still would have told me to go in the house.”
He scrubbed his hand down the side of his face. What would
his dat say if he knew of Luke’s negligence? “I’m sorry, Poppy. I should never have agreed to the race.”
Her lips formed into a frown. “It’s not your fault. I take the responsibility and the consequences for my own decisions.”
“I’m supposed to be looking out for you. For all girls.”
She seemed more concerned than annoyed. Luke didn’t know if he’d ever seen that before from Poppy. “I didn’t ask you to look out for me, Luke. I’m not helpless.”
He drew his brows together. “But you’re stubborn.”
“So are you.” She tilted her head to one side and twisted her lips upward. “It’s not a bad quality.”
Her expression drew a half smile from him. “So is it okay for me to stubbornly insist that we go tend to your knee?”
“I can stand the pain, Luke. Let’s keep going on the pallets. Our chickens need a coop.”
He grunted. “Stand it any longer, Poppy Christner, and you’re going to need a blood transfusion.” He stood and held out his hand. “I don’t bite,” he said when she looked as if she was going to resist him yet again.
She huffed her disapproval. “You just touched my leg in broad daylight. Nothing would surprise me.” She gave in and put her hand in his, and he pulled her to her feet. Gasping in pain, she nearly fell over. She must really be hurting. Poppy wouldn’t purposefully show him any reaction quite so vulnerable.
Besides that, she was trying to walk on one bare foot. She’d never make it to the house.
He didn’t wait for permission or a debate. In one swift motion, he scooped her into his arms and walked quickly toward the house. She caught her breath, and her eyes nearly popped out of her head. “Put me down right now, Luke Bontrager.”
“Don’t even think about slugging me,” he said. “I am not about to stand idly by and let your leg fall off, and I’d like to get to the house before dinnertime.”
“My leg is not going to fall off, and I don’t slug people anymore.”
He marched toward the house with long and jolting strides. If she didn’t want to fall, she’d have to hold on. It didn’t work. She pushed against his chest with both her injured hands, and he nearly dropped her twice.