to be able to experience the comfort of a crackling fire and the sense of wholeness he felt when he sat with his family here in the living room in the evening. Because something told him, something he saw in the depths of her blue eyes, that she didn’t have enough of that comfort in her life.
“I’ve been looking for you.” Bay Laurel stood in the doorway, her hands on her hips.
From out in the kitchen, he could hear the hubbub typical of that time of day. The women were bustling around the kitchen getting supper on the table, and the men were finishing up with chores, coming and going and settling the animals for the night. The house smelled of fresh bread baking and...contentment.
“I see you fetched Mam’s cousin.” She tilted her head in the direction of the kitchen. When he’d entered the house a few minutes ago, his arms full of firewood, Phoebe was helping prepare supper with his sisters. She had been busy opening canning jars of spiced pears and apples. Rosemary’s table was never anything fancy, but the food was always hearty and some of the best he’d ever eaten.
“Ya, I picked Phoebe up at the bus station.” Joshua stacked two more logs in the wood box to the right of the fireplace. He’d chosen apple wood to burn this evening. It had come from one of the trees he and Jacob had cut down from the old orchard in the far northern corner of the property. He loved the smell of apple wood burning. He thought Phoebe might, too.
“Met her, did you? She’s nice,” he went on, not waiting for Bay to respond. “Smart, but not too serious. Not full of herself. And kind. She was helping an Englisher lady at the bus station when I got there. Not all girls would do that. Help a stranger. Did you get a chance to talk to Phoebe? Did you like her?”
“Ya.” Bay drew out the word. “I liked her well enough. Joshua, I was hoping we could get together today. Maybe after supper, once everything is cleaned up?”
He moved the last of the logs from the pile on a piece of tarp on the floor to the wood box, and then scooted over in front of the fireplace. He thought he’d go ahead and start the fire, so it would be burning well by the time the family gathered together in the living room.
“We’ll have to see about that,” he hemmed. It wasn’t that he wasn’t eager to sit down with Bay. He just wasn’t sure that tonight was the night for him and Bay to go off on their own. Not with this being Phoebe’s first night there. It wouldn’t be right for Bay and him not to be with the family. “Might have to be tomorrow. I told Levi that after morning chores, I’d give him a hand clearing out that section of the barn he and Dat are making into a work space for their buggies. But after that...” He gave a nod, indicating there would be time then.
His father had been in the business of making harnesses and other leather goods since he was a young man. That experience had expanded into running a large retail shop here in Delaware. But Benjamin Miller had always had a place in his heart for buggy making. His grandfather had been a buggy maker. Now that he had boys old enough—and trustworthy enough, he teased them—he was interested in trying his hand at building buggies. He planned to build one for his family first, then maybe one for Rosemary’s married daughter, Lovage, whose family was growing. Joshua’s brother Levi was keen on the idea. Though Levi was a hard worker and good with leather, his heart wasn’t in the harness business, so he was eager to get the work space created so he and their father could start their first project.
Bay folded her arms over her chest. “Josh, we need to get all of our hens in a row before we go to your father with our plan. We need to go over the numbers. How much we plan to spend on seeds, how many plants that will yield. What we think we can sell them for—” she ticked off. “Everyone is in the potted plants business. I think we need to consider adding some indoor varieties—indoor plants folks can take in after the growing season. I know there’s a risk...”
Joshua nodded, trying to give his sister his full attention and not let his mind wander. But it was hard. He just couldn’t stop thinking about Phoebe. And not just about how pretty she was, but how much he liked her. How he’d liked her from the moment he first met her, the moment she’d spoken. Something was calming about her voice, something about her manner that just made him feel... He didn’t know how to describe it. She just seemed like no one else he knew. None of the young women he knew, at least. Most girls her age were so flighty and hard to have a real conversation with.
Not that he had a lot of experience with women, not his stepsisters, his age. Sure, he occasionally drove a girl home from a singing, the Amish version of a date. In July he’d taken his friend Caleb Gruber’s sister-in-law home from a taffy pull and then a picnic, but it hadn’t been anything serious. She’d gone back to Kentucky, and he heard she was courting a blacksmith’s son. But none of the girls he’d taken home were as mature as Phoebe. Not that she seemed old to him, though he suspected she was older than him by a year or two. She just seemed wiser than the young women he knew. More levelheaded.
“Do you know how old she is?” Joshua asked suddenly. “Phoebe, I mean.” It wasn’t until he spoke her name that he realized Bay must have still been talking.
The look on Bay’s face left no doubt in his mind. She narrowed her gaze. “If you’re not serious about wanting to build this greenhouse and garden shop with me, Josh, you need to tell me now. You need to—”
“No, no,” he interrupted, getting to his feet. “Of course I’m serious about it. And I want to add the lean-to onto the barn so we can sell our plants, I just...” He grabbed a bundle of kindling and went back to the fireplace.
“You just what?” Bay asked, taking on a stern tone of voice. She sounded like his older sister Lovey now. Lovey’s voice always changed when she became annoyed with someone. “What’s got you so preoccupied?” She lowered her voice. “What’s the reason for all this talk about Cousin Phoebe?”
He knelt on the redbrick hearth and began to stack the larger pieces of kindling on top of the smaller pieces, taking care to leave plenty of open space between them to allow the fire to breathe. “No...no reason,” he said, suddenly feeling self-conscious. He’d never felt this way about a girl the way he thought about Phoebe. Fluttery in his chest. He knew he was attracted to her. He’d been attracted to girls before, but this was different. This wasn’t just about a pretty face.
“You know she came here because she had to,” Bay intoned.
He concentrated on stacking the wood just right so the fire would catch on the first try. “I don’t care about that sort of thing. Men don’t care about gossip the way women do.”
“Joshua, it’s not—” She didn’t finish her thought.
Bay was quiet for a moment, quiet long enough that he glanced over his shoulder at her. She was still standing in the doorway. Her arms were crossed over her chest again. She didn’t seem pleased with him, but he wasn’t exactly sure why. Did she really think he wasn’t serious about wanting to build the greenhouse? Sometimes it was hard to know what women were thinking.
Who was he kidding? He almost never knew.
“Fine,” she said. “We’ll go over the figures tomorrow. Supper’s about ready. You’d best wash up. You know how Mam is about coming late to the table.”
“Just about done here,” he answered, crumpling a piece of newspaper to push beneath the neatly stacked kindling.
He heard her turn to go, then stop in the doorway.
“Joshua,” she said softly. “It would be best if you didn’t—” She went quiet midsentence again.
“Best I not what?” he asked, looking over his shoulder at her.
She shook her head. “Never mind,” she said. “Wash up.”
“Ya,” he answered, getting to his feet. He needed to clean up any mess he’d made, and then if he was quick he’d have time to get upstairs and not just wash his hands, but brush his hair, too. And maybe even put on a clean shirt. Not that his shirt was all that dirty, but there was nothing wrong with a man wanting to look his best