seemed to be patiently waiting in the wings for her.
“Tell me you care about me, Katie. Tell me I’m not the only one feeling this way.”
She stared at him, bemused, and found herself nodding. “I do have feelings for you as well. But I can’t say that I love you, Daniel.”
He reached for her hand lying on the seat of the buggy between them. “Are you sure you don’t love me a little, Katie?”
She gently, but firmly, pulled her hand back. “Don’t ask that. It’s not fair to pressure me.”
“You haven’t been dating anyone else. I’d know.”
“You’re right. I haven’t. But that doesn’t mean that I feel the way you want me to.”
Daniel took off his straw hat, tossed it onto the seat, and ran his hands through his hair in a frustrated gesture. “I really thought—” He sighed, shoved his hat on his head again.
“You thought it would be nice to have what Rachel Ann and Abram have.”
“Ya. Stupid of me.”
“Not stupid. Who wouldn’t want to have the kind of love those two have for each other? The home they’re creating?”
“You do, too?” He looked at her hopefully.
“Ya. But you know, it wasn’t just that they knew each other for a long time. Things weren’t smooth for them. They had to find out that they were supposed to be together. I know, I talked to Rachel Ann a lot about it before the two of them decided to get married.”
“Abram never told me.”
She smiled. “Girls talk.”
“Then maybe there’s hope for us?”
She twisted her hands in her lap. “I wouldn’t want to lead you on. I don’t know where things might go between us. If they even go. Well, if they happen, I mean. Maybe you should think about going out with some other women.”
He shook his head firmly and pulled the buggy back onto the road. “I don’t want anyone else.”
“But—”
“I don’t want anyone else, Katie.”
She watched him, saw how stiff his shoulders were, how his knuckles showed white as they clenched the reins.
As the miles grew, as silence stretched between them, Katie felt miserable at hurting his feelings.
“Daniel? If you’d rather not go out to lunch, I’ll understand.”
For a long moment, she thought he’d refuse and say they should go to the restaurant. Instead, with a nod and heavy sigh, he checked traffic and made a U-turn.
A few minutes later, he pulled into her drive. Katie got out and climbed the steps to her house. She sat down in a rocking chair on the front porch and watched Daniel’s buggy roll on toward town.
Well, that was interesting. She watched other buggies pass by, others out for a drive after church. Occasionally, someone waved and she waved back. Finally, hunger drove her inside to fix herself a sandwich and a cup of tea.
How had she not seen it coming? she asked herself as she bit into the sandwich. She should have noticed that Daniel had feelings for her. He was two years older than her, and his youngest bruder had gotten married last year. Maybe he was thinking it was past time he married and started a family.
Summer and a man’s mind turned to the upcoming harvest and then the weddings.
Well, she was sorry, but she didn’t feel that he was the man God had set aside for her. She finished her lunch and then, restless, got her journal from her bedroom and went outside to sit on the porch and write in its pages.
But first, she flipped to the section where she’d made her wish list, where she’d written what she wanted in a mann.
***
Why had she ordered spaghetti and meatballs? Rosie asked herself.
Here she was sitting in the restaurant on her first ever big date with a man, trying to look calm and confident, and she’d ordered something that was so messy to eat.
She twirled the pasta around her fork and managed to get the bite into her mouth without having to slurp a long strand of spaghetti that slipped from the fork or dripping sauce all down the front of her cape dress. Success!
Then, just as she stabbed a meatball, Jacob asked her a question, and her concentration wavered. He laughed, and she looked in the direction of his glance. The meatball was rolling toward him like a little snowball down a hill.
“Runaway meatball!” he said, laughing.
She blushed, but then, seeing how lines crinkled around his eyes, she joined in, chuckling as the meatball came to rest against his plate.
“It’s not easy eating movable food,” he said, cutting into his own lasagna. “I ended up with spaghetti in my lap last time I ordered it. Never again. I’ll eat it in the privacy of my own home next time. Besides, my mamm gave me her recipe for spaghetti and meatballs when I moved here, and I think I do a pretty good job making it. I’ll make it some time for you, and we’ll see if you like it as much as what you’re eating.”
“That would be nice.” She liked how what he said implied he wanted to see her again although she didn’t know how they’d work out her going to his house for supper. The two of them couldn’t be alone together unchaperoned.
They talked about his growing up in Ohio in a family of five bruders and schweschders, and how he’d visited Lancaster County last year to see a cousin who introduced him to Abram. Together they’d found the perfect small farm.
Rosie chose a breadstick from the basket on the table and took a bite. “I found a recipe for sourdough bread that’s gluten-free. That’s something people are very interested in these days. I got to wondering about Amish friendship bread and whether it’s gluten-free and how this might be something gut to offer our customers. Of Two Peas in a Pod, I mean”
“I thought you did jams and jellies and preserves, that sort of thing.”
“I want to have a bigger garden, do a home-based business at some point, offer meals and have a small shop to sell Two Peas in a Pod products at home. I mean, we could still sell at Elizabeth and Saul’s store, but it would be nice to do it right from home.”
She stopped and looked down at her plate. “It probably seems like a wild idea to you.”
“It doesn’t sound wild at all,” he said, looking surprised. “Not any wilder than my wanting to move away from Ohio to Lancaster and buy my own farm.”
Fascinated, she listened to him tell her about how there had been carpenters for generations in his family. He was the first to want to farm, something he learned doing an apprenticeship with an uncle.
Their server came to clear their plates and returned to tempt them with a tray of the restaurant’s dessert specialties. Rosie bit her lip and hesitated, but Jacob saw her looking at the tiramisu and insisted she order it.
“What about your family?” he asked as he sampled his slice of lemon cake.
She savored the creamy mixture of chocolate, coffee, and lady fingers. Tiramisu must be Italian for heaven. “Katie and I have five brothers and sisters. We were a surprise, born five years after the last of them. Our parents were killed in a buggy accident two years ago.”
He touched her hand. “I’m sorry. I lost my dat two years ago. He was only in his forties, had a heart attack. I hesitated about moving away, because I felt I had to stay and look out for my mamm, but my two sisters encouraged me to follow my dream here.”
It seemed that they had a lot in common. Rosie thought about how grateful she and Katie had been that their schwesders and bruders had supported their parents’ wish