Chapter 17
Jonas leaned over the top rail of the fence and looked at the flock of sheep spread out over the green, rolling hills like spilled beans across a wooden floor.
One little lamb stood by itself bleating pitifully, and Jonas looked around for the mother.
A ewe was a few yards off, looking around herself.
She bleated back. It took them a minute to find each other, and when they did, the lamb immediately started to nurse from her in relief.
Jonas noted that the sheep weren’t exactly spread out evenly.
They stayed in smaller groups that kept together.
Family units? It was hard to tell, but ewes had lambs at their sides—two or three each.
Wethers stayed close, too, and Jonas could only guess that they were last year’s lambs, still attached to their mothers.
This was Joyce’s Mutton Farm—a large sheep farm about an hour and a half’s drive outside of the Shepherd’s Hill community.
Jonas had come out here to ask more questions, and he’d likely come again before he purchased the first sheep in his own flock. A man had to learn from farmers who knew sheep.
“How many sheep are in this field?” Jonas asked.
“Eight hundred ninety-seven at last count.” Rob Gunther, the herd manager here at Joyce Mutton, smiled. “But you build up to that.”
“Yah, no doubt,” Jonas replied with a low laugh. Staring at this relative sea of sheep, he was starting to feel intimidated. Sheep were a great idea, but was he going to be able to pull this off?
“Like I said, if you start with something like ten sheep—six ewes, two or three wethers you can butcher for meat or use for wool, and a good sire ram—you’ll be growing in no time.
These are Finnish Landrace sheep, and they almost always have twins and triplets, sometimes quads and quints, but that can be difficult and dangerous.
If they survive, they’ll need human care. ”
“What would you suggest I do to get ready?” Jonas asked.
“Besides have the pasture prepared and a barn for winter?” Rob shrugged. “Get a good veterinarian and get a vaccination schedule started right away. Trust me, your flock’s health depends on it.”
“We do have a good local vet,” Jonas said. A very good vet. She was talented, insightful, beautiful, kind . . . And he had to stop thinking of her like that. He was going to be a married man.
“When will you be buying your first sheep?” Rob asked.
“In about a year. I’m . . . I’m getting married, and we’ll live with her folks for a year before coming back to my land. That was one of her requests.”
“Congratulations,” Rob said with a nod. “It’s a good thing that you’re planning early. Sheep are a lot of work—worth it, but they have a learning curve.”
“I believe you,” he replied. “But we have to start somewhere.”
“Absolutely. You’ll do fine.”
On his way back to Shepherd’s Hill, Jonas kept to the back roads.
Only once did a pickup truck go whipping past him, and it was otherwise a quiet drive.
His mind, however, was on Tabitha. She was their local vet, and when he and Christina returned to Shepherd’s Hill to live and raise sheep, Tabitha would be the vet that came out to the farm.
Could he face her? Would his feelings for her drain away?
Would Christina notice the tension? Would it upset her?
Because Jonas did still have feelings for Tabitha, and he had no idea how long it would take for those feelings to go away.
Had going to the matchmaker in Ohio been a mistake?
If he’d waited another few weeks, he wouldn’t be in this situation right now because he’d be proposing to Tabitha instead.
But he’d truly believed he was doing the right thing by leaving town and going to Ohio.
He’d been falling in love with his best friend, and she wasn’t available.
He’d needed to do something. He’d been trying to be moral and good. He’d been trying to do the right thing.
The back way he was taking home took him right past the Schrock farm.
Jonas and Tabitha hadn’t talked anything out yet.
He didn’t know how she was doing since Michael’s passing, not really, and he didn’t know what she really thought of his upcoming marriage.
They had let things go too far between them emotionally, but she was supposed to be his friend.
There was still time to smooth things out before he was a married man, wasn’t there?
So he pulled into the Schrock drive and hoped against hope that Abram was still out in a field somewhere.
That wasn’t to be the case, though. When he pulled up, Tabitha’s father was using the push mower on the front yard, sweat staining his blue work shirt in a dark patch over his back and chest, and his straw hat pushed back on a glistening forehead.
“Hello, young Jonas,” Abram called. This was an improvement from being called “that Peachy boy.” He’d graduated to having Abram use his actual name, although he always qualified it with young, as if there were any other Jonases to be told apart.
“Good evening, Abram,” Jonas replied.
“Veterinarian emergency?” the older man asked pointedly.
“Uh . . .” Jonas shrugged. “I’m just returning from a farm where I was checking out some animals. I have some ideas, and I wanted to ask Tabitha a few questions.”
Not a lie—he did want to ask her about the sheep. But there was more to it, of course, and the look on Abram’s face told him that he wasn’t fooled.
The screen popped open, and Tabitha appeared at the side door. She wore a gray kitchen apron over a blue dress, and her cheeks were flushed from the heat of the kitchen. She fanned her face with her hand, gaze flicking between Jonas and her father, and he could read the wariness in her eyes.
“Come on in, Jonas,” she said. “I’m wrist-deep in making tuna casserole right now, but I can answer questions while I cook.”
“Don’t let it slow you down, Tabby,” Abram called. “I’m starving!”
Abram’s dinner shouldn’t be held up on Jonas’s account—that was clear enough.
And Jonas didn’t even blame him. Jonas tied his horse to the hitching post and then headed up the side steps and into the kitchen.
Tabitha stood at the counter, shredding a block of cheddar cheese.
The door to the summer kitchen was propped open, so the stove was pumping heat out there, but the main kitchen was still hot.
“You have questions about sheep?” she asked. “I heard what you told my daet.”
“Yah, I do.” Now that they were alone, he didn’t know how to even broach the subject of her ex-husband’s death or his upcoming engagement. He swallowed. “I was told that we’ll need a good veterinarian for sheep.”
“You do.” She continued grating, but she smiled at him. “And I do know all about the veterinarian needs. We’ll have to start a vaccination schedule for each animal.” She stopped grating. “I know you’ve been wanting to do this for a long time now. When will you start the flock?”
“In a year or so.” He shrugged. “I admit that I’m using it as an excuse to come by.”
“Do you want to stay for dinner?” she asked, and she dumped the grated cheese on top of other ingredients in a casserole dish.
“Nee, I’d better not.”
“Right.” The color in her cheeks deepened. “I sometimes forget what’s appropriate and what isn’t. I don’t think our friendship was ever completely proper with me being divorced and you being single.”
“With me being a man and you being a woman, you mean,” he replied.
“That was the crux of it.” She used a large spoon to mix the contents of the casserole dish, then put a lid on top and carried it out the door. She was gone for a moment, and he heard the clank of the oven door opening and shutting. Then she returned, oven mitts tucked under one arm.
“The timing is miserable,” Jonas blurted out. “I leave for Ohio to meet someone, and your husband passes away while I’m gone. It’s—”
“Maybe it’s the way it’s supposed to be.” She lifted her chin as if trying to look brave. “Gott isn’t surprised.”
“Nee, he isn’t.” Jonas met her gaze, and he saw all the sadness there, the regret. Was that for him? “But if I’d known you would be free, I would have stayed.”
She dropped her gaze and was silent for a moment. “But you didn’t. You took a logical step to go start your life. And a very nice woman is counting on you.”
Christina was counting on him. He’d all but proposed. Her family approved. The matchmaker was optimistic. His parents were delighted. . . .
“If you’d somehow known the future, would you have encouraged me to go to Ohio?” he asked. “Or would you have asked me to stay?”
“I would have let you do what you wanted.”
“That’s an evasion.” He pointed a finger at her. “And you know it.”
“You can’t ask me what I’d do if I could have read the future, Jonas. That isn’t fair. We do the best we can with the information we have, and given what we knew, it was better for you to move on.”
“And now you’re free—”
“I don’t know how free I am,” she said. “I mean, yes, I’m free because he’s dead. That’s the blunt truth of it. But emotionally, I’m kind of a mess. Kelsie—his widow—wants to speak with me.”
“About what?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I think I do.” She heaved a sigh. “I haven’t forgiven either of them. Not deep down. I carry anger and resentment, and you know as well as I do that Gott can’t forgive me if I can’t forgive others.”
Was she really concerned about the state of her soul? Tabitha was the best woman he knew. She had done the hard thing and come home. She could have lived an easier life with the Englisch. She could have married again if she’d stayed away, but she’d returned.
“You’ll get there,” he said.
“I will,” she agreed. “I told her lawyer that I’d meet up with her.”
“When?” he asked.
“Tomorrow.”