Chapter 29
Fresh air, a shaded picnic table, a peanut butter schmear on homemade raisin bread for lunch, a cozy mystery, and the laughter of children climbing on a nearby playscape as background music.
This sliver of Jocelyn’s day couldn’t get any better.
A good mystery allowed her to shut out the worries that she shouldn’t be carrying around with her.
God must be so disappointed in her lack of faith in His plan.
Another worry to add to the pile.
Without looking up from her book, Jocelyn found her travel mug of lemonade on the table and sipped.
Bringing her lunch to the park had been a smart move.
Don’t think, read.
Leave behind her worries about Bonnie’s health.
About her daughter’s morose silence at the breakfast table this morning. The farm. Clyde Steadman’s offer. Theo.
Theo.
Bonnie.
Theo.
The farm.
Ha.
No matter where a person went, worries were sure to be there when she arrived.
They were persistent like that.
Jocelyn set the mug down and picked up her apple.
She could’ve eaten in the shop’s back room, but then she would’ve missed the sunshine and listening to the kids yell, “Wheee!”
as they whooshed down the slide.
They didn’t seem to care that the temperature crept upward toward the eighty-five-degree mark or that the sun warmed the playground equipment and threatened to leave them sunburned.
To be carefree like them for even a few minutes would be a gift.
Pine Street Park was within walking distance of Main Street and the shop.
The walk was good for Jocelyn too.
It gave her time to work out the kinks in her shoulders and burned some calories after a morning seated behind the sewing machine.
“There you are.”
Jocelyn didn’t look up.
No need.
The voice, so like her father’s, belonged to Uri.
Gritting her teeth, she stuck her crocheted bookmark in the paperback and closed it.
“How did you find me?”
She located her smile and directed it at her brother.
“Are you following me?”
At that moment, Theo came into her line of sight, ambling across the grass behind Uri.
He had dirt stains on his pants.
His shirt was missing a button.
His hat had a dark sweat ring.
He looked like a man who could use a woman to take care of him. Jocelyn grabbed a handful of corn chips and stuffed them in her mouth.
“Don’t sound so happy to see me.”
Uri slid onto the bench across from her.
He swiped one of her snickerdoodles.
“I’m in town getting a part.
I went looking for you at the shop.
Bonnie said you were here.”
“What did you need to see me about?”
“You’re going to hurt my feelings if you keep talking that way.”
“What way?”
“Like I only come to see you because I want something.”
“More like because you want to tell me what to do.”
“Ah, now I see why you’re so surly.”
“I’m not surly.
I’ve never been surly in my life.”
“I don’t know about that.”
Theo plopped onto the bench next to Uri.
“I might have seen a bit of surliness.”
“You men always stick together don’t you?”
Jocelyn thumped her brother’s hand just as he reached for another cookie.
It seemed better than meeting Theo’s gaze.
She hadn’t seen him since what had become known in her mind as the diner fiasco.
“This is my lunch.
Ask Frannie to pack one for you.”
“Don’t tell Frannie I said this, but your snickerdoodles are better.”
“Don’t you have alfalfa to cut? Why are you in town? Why are you looking for me?”
“I told you, I’m in town getting a part for the tedder.
Theo came along for the ride since he can’t do any work until we get it fixed.”
“Did you get the part?”
“I did.”
“Then shouldn’t you be hightailing it out of town?”
“Theo mentioned you had a visit from a man named Clyde Steadman.”
Anger descended from on high faster than a raptor hawk swooping in to capture a field mouse.
Jocelyn glared at Theo.
He busied himself tossing chip crumbs to a chickadee hopping in the sparse grass under a nearby poplar tree.
“That’s really not any of Theo’s business.”
“Don’t get your nose out of joint.
He just said the man came into the shop with that real estate agent.”
Uri helped himself to a drink from Jocelyn’s travel mug.
“You should’ve told me yourself.
You should’ve come directly to me about it.”
Jocelyn bit her lip.
Uri was the oldest of her siblings.
He was used to being in charge since their parents passed.
Marlin used to mull over business with her brother all the time.
Why hadn’t she gone to him after this new development? Pride. Like Bonnie said, pride went before the fall. “I wanted to think about it.”
She reached for a placating tone.
“I’m still trying to figure out how I feel about it.”
“While you were thinking about it, I dropped into Logan Knox’s office.”
“Before talking to me about it?”
Jocelyn used all her strength to keep angry words from breaking down her corral fences and trampling her brother.
Counting to ten didn’t even begin to do it.
Marlin’s smiling image came to her.
Uri meant well.
He knew more about land values and sales than she did. Pride. She exhaled. “And what did you find out?”
“He said he couldn’t give me a copy of the offer because I’m not the owner of record, but he did give me what he called a ‘high level’ view of what Steadman is offering.”
Jocelyn took a long drink of her lemonade.
So much for a quiet lunch.
Her stomach burned.
Her indigestion was back.
“And you think I should take it.”
“I’d like to see the entire offer.”
Uri adopted the same placating tone.
“I’d like to talk to Bart to see what he thinks.
Maybe some other men in the Gmay.”
It’s my life.
Mine and Bonnie’s.
Jocelyn kept her lips pressed together.
That was exactly Uri’s point.
She sneaked a peek at Theo.
He nodded encouragingly.
The rat. Maybe the raptor hawk would swoop down and get him. She pull the manila envelope from her canvas tote. Forcing a smile, she slid it across the table.
“I have to get back to the shop.”
She gathered the remains of her lunch and stuck them in her insulated bag.
“When you get through kicking around his offer, you’ll let me know what you recommend?”
Something like that.
More than likely he’d tell her what he, her other brothers, and the elders had decided she should do.
“I will.”
Without opening the envelope, Uri stood and tucked it under his arm.
“Do you want a ride back to the shop?”
“Nee.
The walk will do me gut.”
“Maybe it’ll improve your disposition.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my disposition.
I do get testy when a bruder comes along and eats my eppies and drinks my lemonade.”
“For sure and for certain.”
Uri did an about-face and headed toward the street.
After a few strides, he glanced back.
“You coming, Theo?”
“Jah.”
Theo hopped up, but he didn’t take off after Uri.
He leaned closer.
“How would you like to go fishing with me on Sunday? It’s our day off from church.”
Fishing.
Sunday. Day off.
An invitation.
It was an invitation.
From Theo.
To Jocelyn.
“I, well, I, I guess.
I mean, jah, jah.”
He winked, backed away, whirled, and caught up with Uri in three long strides.
She was fifty years old and she was going on what could only be described as a date.
And a good-looking widower had winked at her.