Chapter 13
Putting on a happy face took far more energy than simply letting your true face hang out for all to see.
Jocelyn heaved a sigh as she turned to go back into the house.
Chet’s van left a trail of dust and gas fumes behind as it disappeared down the dirt road that led to the highway.
The driver was in fine form today with his “Top of the morning to you,”
hat-doffing, and smile that seemed to spread from east to west as far as the eye could see.
Maybe he would cheer up Bonnie.
Likely tired from staying up so late the night before, the girl had been as mum as a monk practicing a vow of silence at breakfast.
She’d hardly touched her waffles.
Jocelyn had been tempted to take her temperature to see if she was coming down with something.
Only that would be classified as coddling a grown woman.
Jocelyn snorted.
She grabbed a plate sticky with maple syrup and plunged it into soapy water.
Bubbles and a lemon scent arose, lightening her mood for a second.
Bonnie might be a grown woman, but she often acted like a child when it came to taking care of herself the way her disease required. Maybe Jocelyn did bug her about it too much. “How am I supposed to know when enough is enough, Gott?”
No answer.
God probably wasn’t happy with Jocelyn’s less-than-placid mood today.
“Es dutt mer, Gott.”
Momma Cat meowed at the screen door.
“Jah, jah, I’m coming.”
Drying her hands as she went, Jocelyn trotted to the back door and let the feline in.
“This is our little secret, missy.
Don’t be telling Bonnie I let you in the house.
She’ll get a big kick out of it.
Don’t take your sweet time either. I have to leave for Uri’s as soon as I wash the dishes. All the other chores are done.”
Bonnie had fed the chickens and collected the eggs while Jocelyn took care of the horses and their two dairy cattle.
Milking them always made her feel closer to Marlin.
He loved fresh milk with his fresh over-easy eggs in the morning, fried potatoes, thick slabs of bacon, and homemade toasted bread slathered with her strawberry preserves.
“I’m a growing bu,”
he would say with a grin when she added another piece of toast to his plate and topped off his coffee mug.
Jocelyn was lucky if Bonnie wanted a single slice of bacon with her toast smeared with apple butter.
Those trips down memory lane didn’t hurt the way they once had.
A twinge of guilt grew and rippled through Jocelyn.
Was she forgetting him already? No, simply learning to live without him.
That realization felt like a bandage ripped off with no allowance for the skin it took with it.
Momma Cat wound herself around Jocelyn’s ankles.
Her purr filled the quiet kitchen.
“I know, I know.
I get distracted easily, don’t I?”
A sign of impending old age.
Or of a person who slogged around in the miry pit of worries instead of taking them to the throne and leaving them there like a good Christian believer.
Jocelyn filled a bowl with water and set it on the welcome rug in front of the door.
She opened a can of salmon-flavored food from the stash she kept behind the canned goods on the bottom shelf.
It smelled almost good enough to eat herself.
Almost.
“Here you go. You’re queen of the cats for the day, aren’t you?”
Momma Cat didn’t deign to respond.
She was too busy chowing down.
A sudden knocking quickly turned into pounding.
An impatient someone was at the front door.
Maybe it was Theo.
What reason would he have for turning up on her doorstep now? The frolic had left the house and grounds in tip-top shape.
Plus surely he knew Jocelyn was due at Uriah’s today for the canning frolic. Past due.
She strode down the hallway to the door.
“Coming, coming.”
She swung it open.
“I’m here.”
A tall English man—a stranger—stood on the porch.
He wore tan slacks, a crisply starched long-sleeved white shirt, and a thin red tie.
The scent of spicy aftershave wafted from him on a humid breeze that felt like summer.
It was only nine o’clock and already warmer than the previous day.
In one hand her visitor clutched a leather briefcase. “Hello, ma’am. Would you be Jocelyn Yoder?”
“We don’t need any insurance.
We bought books from the salesman who came through last month, and we’re stocked up on smoke alarms.”
Jocelyn moved to close the door.
“But thanks for thinking of us.”
“I’m not selling anything.
I’m buying, and I think you’ll want to hear me out.”
His smile, full of unnaturally white teeth, brought out deep dimples.
He sounded so sure of himself.
“I promise if you don’t, you’ll kick yourself later.”
“I doubt that.
I don’t have anything for sale.”
The stranger swept his free hand to his left, then his right.
A ray of sun caught the gold watch band on his wrist.
It sparkled.
“Oh, but you do.
I’m Logan Knox. I’m a real estate agent, and I’m authorized to make a very substantial, significant offer on your farm, Mrs. Yoder.”
“It’s not for sale—”
“Please hear me out, Jocelyn.
Can I call you Jocelyn? Such a pretty name.
I’d love to sit down with you over a cup of coffee and talk about the terms my client is willing to offer you.”
Irritation welled in Jocelyn.
The man knew how to gab, but he didn’t seem to use his ears for much.
“My farm is not for sale.”
She hung on to her manners by the hair on her chinny chin chin—yes, they were there and no amount of plucking kept them at bay.
“My husband left it to me and my daughter.
I wouldn’t dream of selling it.”
Nor would she invite an unrelated man into her house for coffee or any other beverage.
The man knew nothing about Plain people if he didn’t know this simple edict.
“It’s just you and your daughter, isn’t it? A good piece of farmland, a hundred acres that haven’t been planted in two years.
You’re paying taxes on a piece of nonrevenue-producing property.
It’s obvious it’s too much for you and your daughter alone to manage.
Your daughter is disabled, isn’t she?”
“That’s none of your business, Mr. Knox.”
Her manners flagged a tad.
How dare he bring Bonnie into this? She was a hard worker.
She co-owned a business.
Any faults in the management of the farm were Jocelyn’s alone.
“Thank you, but this conversation is over.”
Jocelyn almost had the door shut.
Mr.
Knox squeezed a white card through the crack—his business card.
Jocelyn took it.
She turned and leaned against the door. More to prop herself up on shaking legs than to make sure he didn’t try to breach her house. The fancy script told her Virginia Realty was located on Third Street, not far from Homespun Handicrafts. Not interested in buying or selling real estate, she’d never noticed it. Why had he zeroed in on her property? How did he know it hadn’t been planted since Marlin’s death? How did he know about Bonnie? Had he been spying on them?
All questions she couldn’t answer.
It didn’t matter.
She’d said no and that was the end of the conversation.
An hour later the conversation started all over again when she told Uriah about it the minute she hopped from her buggy parked in front of his house.
“How much were they offering?”
Her brother tied the reins to the hitching post, but his gaze stayed on her.
“Who’s his client?”
“What? Why does that matter?”
Jocelyn held out the offending business card.
Uriah took it, read it, and instead of handing it back, stuck it in his pants pocket.
Why? “The farm isn’t for sale, obviously.
Why are you keeping his card?”
Uriah craned his neck side to side.
He swiped at a horsefly that buzzed near Jocelyn, then took aim at another.
“The man’s not wrong.
It’s a nice piece of property sitting idle.
We haven’t had the workers to farm both my place and yours. I’d hope to do it this year, but I’m not sure we’ll have enough workers in the district.”
So many of the Plain men now worked in other occupations as family farms became harder to sustain.
Some farmed hogs or chickens and didn’t have time to work her land.
The money she and Marlin had saved over the years had tided her over so far.
Bonnie earned her keep with the store, but her income wasn’t enough to cover all the bills.
“I’ll farm it myself.”
“Just you with your bad back and Bonnie with her rollator.”
“I’ll hire a couple of workers.”
“A couple won’t be enough, and with what money?”
Uriah smoothed the Morgan’s silky withers.
Buster responded with an appreciative neigh.
“I’m not trying to discourage you, Schweschder.
I’m trying to be realistic.
If they offer a good price, you’d have a nest egg. We have room for you and Bonnie here. Or you could stay with Nan or Luke or John.”
Passed from sibling to sibling with no place to call their own.
How had this suddenly become a thing? Just because some stranger showed up at their door.
“Why hadn’t you brought this up before?”
“We agreed to wait until you had time to grieve.
It didn’t seem right to spring it on you so soon after Marlin’s passing.”
As if there’d ever be a good time.
Then it hit Jocelyn.
“So you’ve actually been talking about this for a while?”
“The topic came up.”
Now Uriah had the good grace to look uncomfortable.
“You and Bonnie shouldn’t be living there alone, especially with her health being what it is.
You’d be better off with family.”
“I’m capable of taking care of Bonnie and myself.”
“For now.
But what about later when you’re older?”
“One minute you’re trying to fix me up with a man I don’t even know.
The next you’ve got me living with brieder or schweschdre because I’m older than dirt and not able to fend for myself.
Which clearly makes no sense because you’re older than I am.
So which is it?”
The difference being that he was a man.
The sound of a throat clearing filled the pause necessary for Jocelyn to draw a breath.
Startled, she glanced over her shoulder.
The usual faint amusement on his face, Theo approached from the direction of the barn.
It was hard to know if he’d heard her tirade or just found life that humorous.
“I’m older than both of you.
I guess that makes me older than two tons of dirt.”
He brushed hay from his pants with hands big enough to hold a watermelon in each one.
“I’m feeling it today after planting corn all morning.”
He’d heard.
Heat scalded Jocelyn’s cheeks.
Her neck burned.
Words refused to behave and line up so she could gloss over her earlier statement.
“Fix me up with a man I don’t even know.”
“It’s just, I was, I’m, someone’s trying to buy my farm.”
“It’s a sweet piece of property, for sure and for certain.”
Sweat darkened the band on Theo’s straw hat.
He tugged a bandanna from his pants pocket and wiped down his face and neck.
“I wouldn’t sell it for less than seven hundred thousand.”
“You think? That seems high.”
Uriah walked past Jocelyn like she wasn’t even standing there.
“I’ve seen some properties in Cumberland County go for as little as five thousand an acre.”
“You have to figure in the location, plus the house, the barn, the other outbuildings, the farm equipment.
I may even be lowballing it.”
“You can stop selling off my farm out from under me right now.”
Jocelyn grabbed her sewing basket from the buggy.
She needed to get inside before she said something she regretted.
“I don’t see either of you talking about selling your farms.”
Because they were men.
“I did sell my farm.”
Theo’s voice turned low.
“Right after my fraa died.
They say you shouldn’t make any big decisions in the midst of grief.
They’re right.”
Caught by the pain he tried to hide, Jocelyn swallowed against a sudden lump in her throat.
She gripped the basket handle so hard it hurt her fingers.
“You regret it, then?”
“I wanted a fresh start.
I got one.
But I wasn’t thinking of my suh.
He’s farming with his special friend’s father, so I don’t get to see him much.
It pains me to know I hurt him by not consulting him first. He grew up in that house. Worked the fields with me. Now it’s gone to a nice English couple who don’t know anything about farming.”
The lines around Theo’s eyes and mouth deepened, making him look older than his years.
His face was red with heat and humidity.
His gaze met hers head-on, the teak eyes so full of veiled emotion.
She swallowed hard.
“But you got your fresh start?”
He shrugged.
“I did.
I paid a price, but I did.”
“I don’t need a fresh start, so I’d thank you to keep that nose out of my business.”
There was that big nose again.
An odd, undefinable emotion flitted across Theo’s rugged face.
His shrug was almost imperceptible, and this time he didn’t smile.
“No need to be rude.”
Frowning, Uriah stuck his hands on his hips.
“Theo knows a lot more about this stuff than you do.”
“She’s right, though.
It’s none of my business.”
The emotion was gone, replaced with a neutral tone that matched his blank stare.
“I keep sticking my nose where it don’t belong.”
It had been funny that day at the house.
Not so now.
“I better get inside and get to work.”
“We’ll talk about this later.”
Uriah’s voice followed Jocelyn up the steps to the door.
“When you’re not so wound up about it.”
Wound up? Her brother hadn’t seen wound up.
Not yet.
In the end women had to submit to the men in their lives, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t speak her piece first.
Good thing, or she might blow an artery trying to contain it.