Christmas Comes to Morning Star Page 17

  The man across the table pretended to weigh the pros and cons of the situation. “Under the circumstances, Molly, I believe I can trust you to steer my nephew onto the straight and narrow if I say you can take that ride with him,” he said lightly. “Denki for reminding him that a steadfast church member knows and follows our Ordnung as a part of everyday life in the faith.”

  “And denki for your understanding and your permission, Bishop Jeremiah,” Molly said sweetly. She gazed at Pete full on, a hint of victory shining in her deep green eyes. “It won’t be long before you get rid of your pickup, Shetler, so I’d better ride in it this afternoon, jah? With my buddy Riley.”

  Pete reminded himself that Molly would always have the upper hand when it came to getting in the first—and last—joke. And that was fine, as long as she was joking only with him.

  “That’s the plan—and we’ll be riding in my new courting buggy, once Saul gets it built,” he confirmed as he reached for the platter of sandwiches to his left. “Let’s eat and have some birthday cake—and then we’ll start the real celebrating.”

  Chapter 19

  Molly laughed out loud. As soon as Pete—who was being exceptionally polite—opened the passenger-side door for her, Riley leaped into the truck and planted himself in the center of the front seat.

  “Riley, move!” Pete muttered. “I’m sitting by Molly—”

  “But Riley wants to be next to both of us,” she pointed out as she took her place between the dog and the door. “And that way I don’t have to sit between those two seat belt fasteners.”

  Frowning, Pete got in on the driver’s side. “But I got a truck with a bench seat and the gearshift on the column so somebody could sit in the middle—”

  “Your girlfriends?” Molly teased. She leaned forward to look around Riley so she could nail Pete with her gaze. “It’s only a matter of time before those other ladies—and your truck—are history anyway, ain’t so? When you join the church and get a buggy, I’ll sit next to you, Shetler.”

  When his mouth clapped shut, she knew she’d won this round—and Riley congratulated her by giving her a wet, sloppy kiss on the cheek. Molly wrapped her arm around the big, affectionate golden, chuckling at his excitement. “It’s gut to see you, boy,” she said in the singsong voice she reserved for Pete’s dog. “Marietta and I have really missed having you around, Riley, but it sounds like you’ll be back soon—at least while your dat does the remodeling work at our place. By the time he’s finished, maybe he’ll have earned enough brownie points that you can live there all the time! Would you like that?”

  Riley woofed loudly, thumping the seat with his tail. He was so excited that the windshield fogged over with his panting.

  Pete closed his door and started the engine, shaking his head. “I should’ve known the dang dog would get more attention than I—”

  “Jah, you should’ve!” Molly put in with a laugh. “Riley will always be cuter than you, so you might as well accept that. I only spend time with cute boys who wiggle when they see me—which might explain why I’ve reached the ripe old age of thirty-five without being married, jah?”

  “Oh, there are lots of reasons you’re not married, Moll,” Pete shot back. “What man in his right mind would put up with you?”

  Molly smiled. He was back to trading insults with her, just like in the earlier days of their friendship. It felt good to know he hadn’t given up that part of his personality just because he’d made some serious changes in his life. “So how old are you, Pete? Not that it really matters.”

  “Oh, it matters. I’m old enough to know better than to take up with the likes of you,” he replied as he prodded the gas pedal. His truck shot down to the next intersection, fishtailing on an icy patch before he could bring it to a stop. “I’m twenty-eight. A late bloomer, compared to most guys who decide to stay with the Amish faith and—and maybe get serious about marriage. Never thought I’d cave in on those two situations, but hey. I’ve learned never to say never.”

  Molly nodded, following his conversation with a rising sense of hope. “I’m sure folks are wondering why a prime fellow like you is interested in a stubborn, outspoken maidel who’s a much later bloomer than you are, Shetler.”

  “Puh. I feel sorry for you, Moll. It’s a mission of mercy, plain and simple.” Pete whipped the truck around the corner onto the county highway, focusing on the road rather than on her. “And now that you’ve told me Detweiler has plans for your sister and that new house of his, I’m really feeling bad for you. You’ll be alone on the farm, making noodles all by your lonesome in that factory—”

  “Why do you think that?” Molly demanded playfully. “Marietta’s schedule will change when she hitches up with Glenn, but she and I were making noodles with our mamm when we were wee girls. She’ll keep working with me, Shetler—it’s our family business, after all. And she’ll no doubt bring Reuben and Billy Jay along as helpers.”

  “Jah, but then she’ll go home to fix supper and see to her new family, and there you’ll be, the odd woman out,” Pete continued without missing a beat. “Breaks my heart to picture you sitting at the supper table all by yourself, Moll. If you make a pan of noodle pudding, how long will it take you to eat it if no one else is around?”

  Molly blinked. In her mind, she pictured the scene Pete had described, and it took her aback. He was teasing . . . but he wasn’t.

  “Well, don’t go sacrificing your young, smart-aleck self for my sake, Shetler,” she fired back. “I’ve lived this long without a husband, and I’ll do just fine. I have a thriving business to run. My sister will invite me to her new home several times a week, you know—because we’ve always done everything together—”

  “And no matter what—if you’re single or married—that will change when Marietta takes up with the Detweilers. Are you ready for that?”

  For a teaser like Pete, that was a question with a lot of perceptive depth. And it smacked her right between the eyes, too.

  Molly remained quiet for a few moments. “Okay, so you’re right about that part,” she conceded softly. “But we Helfings have always found a way to push beyond change and hardship—like when Marietta conquered her cancer. I—I’ll be fine, Pete. Really I will.”

  She blinked. Even to her own ears, her words sounded wistful and plaintive.

  Molly hugged Riley harder. She refused to admit it aloud, but maybe Pete would be the man to save her from herself after Marietta followed her heart into the Detweiler family.

  She pondered this as Pete drove up the street leading to Morning Star’s park. The swings were swaying in the wintry breeze, as though invisible children sat in them. The splash pad was deserted, as were the slide and the jungle gym. A snowman with a carrot nose, a cowboy hat, and two sticks for arms showed the earlier presence of children, but at this hour on Sunday afternoon it seemed she and Pete—and Riley—were the only souls present.

  Pete killed the engine and opened his door. “Out you go, boy.”

  The golden sprang eagerly over Pete’s lap and hit the ground. After he ran in a few circles, he stopped to gaze back at them.

  Without a word, Pete stepped outside and came around to open Molly’s door. As he waited for her to step down from the truck, his brown eyes shone with an intensity she wasn’t sure how to interpret.

  “Come here, you,” he whispered.

  Molly blinked. Something told her not to smart back at him this time, because he was a man on a mission—and he was making her a part of that mission. Her feet had barely touched the parking lot when he took her in his arms and kissed her.

  Although she’d often dared to wonder what it would be like to kiss cocky, unpredictable Pete Shetler, Molly was caught totally off guard when his lips pressed firmly into hers. She’d heard on the grapevine that he’d dated a number of English girls, while her own social life had been very limited—especially for the last ten years or so, when men had apparently assumed she was destined to remain single.

  As the br
eath left her lungs in a gust of surprise, she heard Pete gasp, as well. He eased away to look into her eyes, but then moved in again, more gently this time. Molly allowed him to take the lead, responding in a way that she hoped was what he wanted—

  But as soon as her eyes fluttered shut and her heart took over, her soul took flight and soared effortlessly with his. Molly forgot that they were in the middle of a public park leaning against the side of his truck on a cold day in December. She was bundled in her winter coat and heavy bonnet, and Pete wore a flannel-lined barn coat and stocking cap, yet a different sort of warmth surged through her system. She wrapped her arms around his neck, responding to his every nuance as for several long, lovely moments, his lips led hers in a dance that felt instinctual, perfect.

  When Pete eased away this time, his brown eyes were wide, with very dark pupils. Was that awe softening his handsome face? Molly wasn’t sure of anything anymore, except that their first kiss had been nothing like what she’d expected. It was so much more.

  “Molly,” he whispered.

  She swallowed hard, nodding.

  “That was . . . incredible.”

  “It—it was,” she agreed.

  “Um, about those sketches,” Pete began hesitantly. “I should’ve given you more of a clue about—”

  “I shouldn’t have shot off my mouth this morning about—”

  “—and I shouldn’t have assumed you’d like it if I remodeled your home,” he continued, gazing intently into her eyes. “I just thought you might prefer that to moving into a home where the Detweilers are already set in their patterns and—”

  Molly pressed a gloved finger across his lips. “Why are we talking about Glenn?” she murmured. “Kiss me again, Shetler. That’s something else you’re really, really gut at.”

  His delighted laughter rang out in the cold air. He slipped his arm behind her neck to cushion it before moving in for another mind-boggling meeting of their eager mouths.

  Molly got lost in the wonder of Pete’s affection. His teasing sense of swagger had melted away, and the man in her arms seemed as genuinely attracted to her as she was to him. His kiss wasn’t out to prove anything. Pete’s lips made her feel feminine and desirable, indescribably buoyant.

  If he wasn’t holding me against his truck, I might float away.

  A yip and an insistent paw on Pete’s leg made them move apart, chuckling. Riley sat in the snow at their feet, gazing up at them as though he, too, realized something wonderful had just happened—even if it didn’t include him.

  Pete cleared his throat. He held her gaze as though he couldn’t possibly look away. “Wow. We’re in trouble now, Moll.”

  Her cheeks tingled with the awareness of their closeness, both physical and emotional. “Jah. Gut thing we both know how to dish up trouble and then deal with it when it’s flung back at us, ain’t so?”

  His brown eyes reminded her of fresh-perked coffee. “How do you come up with these ideas just off the cuff like that? Maybe that’s why I like you, Molly,” he added in a pensive tone. “You’re a quick thinker. I need somebody like you in my life, because I tend to act first and then think about it—usually too late.”

  “You do need me, Shetler,” she agreed, brushing a windblown lock of blond hair from his face. “High time you admitted that, ain’t so?”

  * * *

  Monday afternoon, Pete was still high on his newfound love for Molly. He was determined to live up to the standard she’d set for him and to be the man who’d make her happy. Forever hadn’t been a concept he’d pondered in his days of roaming around in his truck with his dog—especially when it came to settling down with a wife.

  But Molly’s kiss had brought his life into sharper focus. He felt like a man with a purpose now.

  As he eased his way higher on Glenn’s new roof to replace a shingle that had blown off, Pete realized the light drizzle they’d gotten earlier had frozen into more of a coating than he’d anticipated. But he’d gotten out the ladder, and he was only a couple of feet from completing his quick task. He carefully clambered into place and positioned the shingle, planting his feet firmly on the textured surface of the roof to steady himself.

  As he raised his hammer, Molly’s beautiful face—those long lashes that brushed her cheeks when she closed her eyes to kiss him—sent a surge of adrenaline through him.

  Pete struck the first tack just as his lower foot slipped. When he scrambled for traction, his body went into a slide that he was powerless to stop. As he plummeted past the guttering into a free fall, all he could do was cry out in shock and anger at himself. Only an idiot repaired a roof on a slick winter’s day. Glenn had warned him, and had Molly been there, she would’ve told him in no uncertain terms to stay on the ground.

  When he hit the snowdrift and landed—racking his body with the impact—everything went black.

  Chapter 20

  Tired and cold to the bone, Glenn walked toward the Helfings’ home early that evening filled with a lingering sense of dread. When Pete had hollered that morning, he’d looked out the window just in time to see his friend hit the snowdrift. As Glenn and Gabe and their Mennonite friends Howard and Chuck had rushed outside, the unnatural angle of Pete’s body had sent a frisson of fear through him.

  What was going on with God and His world that Glenn had lost his wife, his mother, and his home in recent months, and now Pete’s life might be hanging by a fragile strand, as well?

  Howard, the local fire chief, had called nine-one-one on his cell phone, so help had arrived quickly. Glenn had accompanied Pete in the ambulance, and not long after the folks in the emergency room had whisked him away, Bishop Jeremiah had arrived.

  “What happened?” Pete’s uncle asked, his brow furrowed with worry. “He was on top of the world this morning, happier than I’ve seen him in years.”

  Glenn shrugged, exasperated. “Not five minutes after I warned him not to replace that dumb shingle, I heard him setting the ladder against the house,” he replied hoarsely. “Next thing I knew, he was sprawled on the ground, unconscious. Probably doesn’t have a bone in his body that’s not broken or dislocated. I—I’m sorry I couldn’t talk him out of—”

  “Don’t blame yourself,” the bishop had said with a shake of his head. “Pete was on another planet when he came home from driving around with Molly yesterday. After all these years it took us to convince him to join the church and get hitched, now he falls off the roof. Denki for taking care of him, Glenn—or trying to, anyway.”

  Lost in his troubling thoughts, Glenn stumbled in the darkness and nearly hit the ground himself before he reached the Helfings’ porch steps. It was small comfort that Molly was at the hospital with Pete so he wouldn’t wake up terrified and alone, attached to monitors and racked with pain. Just when the new house had been coming along so well—Glenn thought they might move into it after Christmas—the man who’d spearheaded its construction would be out of commission for months. If he survived.

  Pete still hadn’t regained consciousness when Glenn had left the hospital, nearly two hours after nurses had whisked Shetler’s motionless body away on a gurney.

  Glenn stepped in out of the cold and shut the mudroom door behind him. It seemed a minor miracle that after all he’d been through during the past hours, the aroma of baking chicken wafted around him. He shrugged out of his coat and entered the kitchen, where the table was set for supper and a pie waited on the counter—such ordinary details, yet he no longer took them for granted.

  Voices came from the front room. As often happened at this time of day, Marietta and Billy Jay were working on his recitation for the Christmas Eve program, so Glenn remained in the kitchen. Keeping out of his son’s sight, Glenn peered through the door. What he beheld made his breath catch in his throat.

  Marietta sat on the sofa, cradling Levi in the crook of her arm as she held a bottle of goat’s milk to his lips. Dat sat tipped back in the recliner, probably snoozing. And Billy Jay stood near the end table, in the glow o
f the battery lamp, facing Marietta.

  “‘And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night,’” he recited in a calm, steady voice. Then the boy’s eyes widened, and his face lit up. “‘And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.’”

  Glenn blinked. That was his son in there, his rumple-haired second-grade scholar with a gap where a front tooth was missing, telling this ancient story with a precision—a quiet excitement—that grabbed Glenn by the heartstrings and wouldn’t let go.

  Marietta was nodding her encouragement, hanging on the child’s every word. She looked proud enough to pop.

  Billy Jay took in a deep breath and raised his voice. “‘And the angel said unto them, fear not! For, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people,’” he said, quickening his pace with the urgency of the words. “‘For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.’ ”

  Filled with wonder, as though he stood among those long-ago shepherds, Glenn pressed his lips together to keep from blurting out his praise as Billy Jay continued. This kid—his kid!—who couldn’t sit still and do his homework for ten minutes at a time was recounting the ancient story of Jesus’ birth with an amazement that bespoke a deep, trusting faith. And who could’ve guessed that Billy Jay would have the patience to learn these passages, much less speak them with an obvious understanding of what they meant?

  “‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men!’”

  Billy Jay’s voice filled the front room, as though he was playing the part of the entire heavenly host all by himself.

  “You did it, Billy Jay! You said your whole passage, and you said it exactly right!” Marietta crowed from the couch.

  When she extended her arm, Billy Jay rushed over to land beside her on the couch. As they cuddled, Glenn suddenly envied his son . . . and he knew he was in love. In slightly more than a week, with her gentle, regular assistance, Marietta had taught his little boy an entire passage of the Bible—not just the words, but the feeling behind them.