Daniel nodded. "I was on my way to take a look at Mary Katherine"s shop. I thought I"d pick up a present to take back to my mamm."
He looked at Jacob. "Guess now that the harvest is finished you have a little more time?"
"Ya. While I was in town picking up supplies, I thought I"d see if Mary Katherine wanted to have lunch."
"Are the two of you dating?"
Mary Katherine choked on her tea. She looked at Jacob, but it was Daniel who rushed to pat her on the back.
"Why do you ask that?" she asked him when she got her breath back.
"He was coming to take you to lunch."
"He was coming to ask," she corrected. "That"s different."
"I see," Daniel said slowly. He looked at Jacob. "So, are the two of you dating?"
Jacob watched Mary Katherine"s gaze drop to the cup before her.
"We"re friends," Jacob told him. "Just friends."
"Ya? I thought the two of you might be seeing each other."
He watched Daniel go back to eating and studied him for a long moment. As a rule, he tried to accept people at face value and not be looking for ulterior motives. But he couldn"t help wondering if Daniel was interested in Mary Katherine.
If only Mary Katherine had agreed to have lunch with him. Then they wouldn"t have run into Daniel. He wouldn"t have had to sit here and watch another man look interested in her. He wouldn"t have felt unaccustomed feelings of jealousy washing over him.
There was no way he could compete with Daniel. The man had known how to charm girls since he attended school, and he"d gotten even better at it since then. Mary Katherine had been smiling at him more than he ever remembered seeing her do since he"d known her. And every time the subject of Florida came up . . . well, it was obvious that it sounded romantic to her because she looked so dreamy when Daniel mentioned it.
What did he have to compete with that? A farm in Pennsylvania. That was hardly romantic to her. After all, she"d grown up here, worked on her family"s farm, and always acted like she hated it. Florida with its mystery and warm weather was obviously appealing.
As was Daniel. Both of them were tanned from working in the fields, but his hair had been streaked by the sun, too. Women liked blond men, didn"t they?
No, Mary Katherine wasn"t so shallow that looks were that important to her.
And she was happy here. He knew that. Her work at the shop was obviously the fulfillment of everything she"d ever wanted. That dreamy girl who sketched in school instead of doing her lessons now worked at her loom all day at the shop and sold her work. She and her cousins were like sisters, and there were no closer sisters than Amish schweschders.
She attended Sunday services but hadn"t yet been baptized into the church. However, that wasn"t unusual. Sometimes people waited to be sure. Once they"d joined, if they changed their minds it meant they couldn"t stay, that they"d be shunned. So such serious decisions merited serious consideration. Marriage, too. Once entered into, a marriage was for life, so most didn"t rush to marry in their teens.
Mary Katherine wasn"t even dating.
Maybe there was no need to worry that Daniel or some other man would be stepping in ahead of him to try to date her. And why had he even worried about Daniel? He"d be leaving soon, after he took care of selling the family farm.
Relieved, Jacob resumed eating and even found himself nodding when the waitress returned to ask if anyone wanted dessert. He ordered a slice of pumpkin pie and sat back with a second cup of coffee to listen while Mary Katherine talked animatedly about her weaving.
"How is your mother?" Daniel asked.
Jacob realized that he was talking to him. "They"re fine." As the only son, he"d taken over caring for the farm after his daed died. His mother had moved out of the house later when she remarried.
"What about your parents? I guess they like it in Florida if they"re selling the property?"
"They love it. Mamm was so tired of the snow here."
He set down his fork and wiped his mouth with his napkin. "If you"ll excuse me, I should check the weather back home."
From his pocket he drew out a cell phone, one Mary Katherine recognized as the latest fancy kind she often saw the Englisch tourists carrying. Flipping it open, he tapped his forefinger on the screen and a dizzying series of images flashed past. Pausing on one, he studied the screen.
"You use AgWired.com?" Jacob asked, leaning forward for a closer look. He pulled out his own cell phone and copied Daniel"s steps. "I do, too."
"You men with the cell phones," Mary Katherine said. "You don"t see us women using them."
"That"s because we"re the ones in business," Daniel murmured and then his head jerked up when he apparently realized what he"d said. "I mean, we"re just usually the ones who have to conduct business and-"
Mary Katherine just raised her eyebrows. Jacob chuckled as he watched Daniel redden.
"It"s all right," she told him. "I"m sure you"ve noticed that even with us Plain folk there have been some changes. Women have taken care of the business of the home for years so it"s only natural that they are sometimes in business outside the home."
She leaned closer to see what the two men were so interested in on the cell phone. "What"s that?"
"Weather website."
"It"s for farmers?" Mary Katherine asked slowly.
Daniel looked up. "Ya."
"But you"re selling your farm here."
"I farm in Florida."
"I thought people just raised oranges there."
Daniel laughed. "Some people do. We grow celery, among other things." He tapped the screen again, and a photo of a farmhouse popped up. "That"s the house. And here"s one of the fields."
Jacob watched Mary Katherine. She"d seemed interested when Daniel talked about Florida earlier but now, as she gazed at the phone, a stillness came over her face.
"Very nice." She stood. "I have to go. I"ve been away from the shop longer than I should have been."
She pulled some money from her pocket and put it on the table. "I"ll see you both later."
Jacob got to his feet, but she was already hurrying toward the door. When Daniel looked at him, his eyebrows raised in a question, Jacob shook his head and shrugged.
The little bell over the door tinkled as Mary Katherine entered the shop. She hurried to hang up her bonnet and coat. "I"m sorry I was gone so long."
"You weren"t," her grandmother a.s.sured her. "And it"s been slow."
"Did you have a good time with Jacob?" Anna asked, her eyes sparkling with mischief.
Mary Katherine stopped. "How do you know I b.u.mped into Jacob?" She narrowed her eyes. "Or wasn"t it an accident that I b.u.mped into him?"
Shrugging, Anna pushed a needle through the quilt she was working on.
"Anna?"
She looked up, the picture of innocence. "Yes, Grossmudder?"
"Are you matchmaking?"
Anna blinked. "No, Grossmudder."
Mary Katherine moved to stand near Anna. She put her hands on her hips and gave her a stern look. "So our running into each other was a coincidence?"
"No." She knotted the thread and resumed sewing. "He asked what time we ate dinner each day, and I told him we ate at the shop but you liked to take a walk about noon each day."
"I see."
Anna"s lips twitched, and then she started giggling. "I"m sorry. But I saw the two of you talking last Sunday and you seemed interested in him."
"Mary Katherine"s interested in someone?" Naomi asked as she walked out of the supply room. "Here, can you help me with these bolts of fabric?"
Taking several of the bolts that were threatening to slip from Naomi"s grasp, Mary Katherine carried them to the cutting table. Naomi began unfolding a bolt and pulled a pair of scissors from a drawer.
"I"m not interested in Jacob," Mary Katherine told Naomi. "I was polite. Nothing more."
"You were gone a long time." Anna glanced up and batted her eyelashes. "That must have been some walk."
Mary Katherine walked over to the window and looked out. "We ran into Daniel-" she stopped and looked at Anna.
"I haven"t talked to Daniel," Anna said quickly.
Nodding, Mary Katherine glanced out the window again. "Daniel and Jacob hadn"t eaten, so I sat with them and had some tea."
Frowning, she walked over to her loom, sat down, and placed her feet on the treadle. Picking up the shuttle, she ran her fingers over the smooth wood. She touched the fibers that were the color of the ocean and began weaving the shuttle in and out, back and forth, and felt peace settling over her as she sat in her favorite place in the world.
"You were with two handsome men?"
"Anna, enough teasing!" Leah said sternly.
"Yes, Grossmudder."
Mary Katherine felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up.
"Are you allrecht, liebschen?" her grandmother asked, her blue eyes filled with concern.
"I"m fine." She looked over her design for a moment.
"Did Jacob say something to upset you?"
She shook her head.
"Daniel?"
She shook her head again.
"Then-?"
"I"m sure they"ll be very happy together," Mary Katherine muttered.
Naomi"s scissors clattered to the table. "Are you saying that Jacob and Daniel uh-um, don"t like women?" she stammered, and her face went as scarlet as a rotrieb.
Mary Katherine laughed, and then she sighed. "Nee. I doubt they think about women much. Farming holds too much of their hearts."
The bell over the door jingled merrily as someone opened it. Mary Katherine glanced over and was surprised to see Daniel and Jacob entering the shop.
Anna greeted Daniel with a smile and after speaking with him a moment, led him to a display of yarns. Mary Katherine remembered that he"d said he wanted to get a gift for his mother.
Jacob stood by the front counter and looked over at Mary Katherine with that intense look of his.
"He seems very interested in you," Leah murmured.
"It doesn"t matter," Mary Katherine said, pulling her gaze from him and returning to her weaving. "I told you. He"s in love with farming."
Leah stared at her, perplexed. "There"s something wrong with farming? Your father is a farmer."
Then she paused. "Oh, I see the problem," she said slowly.
"Do you?" asked Mary Katherine. She stopped and stared at the multi-colored pattern on the loom before her, wishing she could find one for her own life. Lifting her gaze, she looked into her grandmother"s eyes. "Do you?"
3.
The shop door swung open and shut so quickly the bell over it gave a funny clanging noise as a man stepped inside the shop.
Mary Katherine glanced up from her seat at her loom and her heart sank.
"Your grossmudder in the back?" he asked in a brusque tone.
She nodded and watched him walk toward the back of the store, then open the door and shut it firmly behind him. It took a couple of minutes before she could return to her work. Even then her hands shook, and she fumbled with the pattern and had to redo half an inch.
The store was so quiet she could hear the tick-tock of the clock. Or was it the beat of her heart?
The bell rang merrily again, and when Mary Katherine looked over, she saw Naomi and Anna stroll in, arm in arm, their faces lit with laughter.
They stopped when they saw Mary Katherine and rushed over.