Light Shines on Promise Lodge Page 3

  “And who knows?” Bishop Monroe asked before Phineas could respond. “You might come to enjoy our settlement so much that you decide to stay. All of us here came for a visit and liked what we found, so we relocated.”

  “Let’s not make any rash assumptions,” Phineas said bluntly. He looked around the dining room, where the women were picking up the dirty dishes as the guests chatted at their tables or visited with the wedding party on the eck. “Why do I have to stay in one of those dilapidated cabins out back? The lodge looks like a much nicer place.”

  “The apartments upstairs are for ladies only,” Gloria explained. Why was Phineas so determined to be disagreeable? And how could he judge the condition of their ten cozy cabins before he’d even looked inside them?

  “When the gal who owns the lodge wanted to rent out rooms, the bishop at that time decided that men couldn’t live upstairs with women—for obvious reasons,” Preacher Amos continued. “We’re sorry if you feel these arrangements are inhospitable, Phineas. It’s not our intention to put you off.”

  “All of the families who’ve come here stayed in the cabins while their homes were being built,” Bishop Monroe pointed out. “We were quite comfortable—and we paid for our meals, too—so it’s not as though you’d be doing anything we haven’t done ourselves.”

  Phineas glanced at the clipboard again and rose from his chair. “All right, young lady, let’s get on with it. Maybe I’ll be in a better mood after I’ve rested from the long drive out here to track down my wife.”

  Gloria’s heart faltered, until Bishop Monroe and Preacher Amos stood up to go with them. Amos gestured for Phineas to precede him toward the front door, striking up a conversation about where in Ohio he’d come from. As the bishop fell in beside Gloria, he winked.

  “You’re doing just fine, Gloria,” he murmured beneath the sound of other folks’ voices.

  “Are we being rude and inhospitable?” she whispered as they walked several paces behind Amos and Phineas. “Maybe I should’ve waited until tomorrow to mention the part about paying rent. Maybe he’s only staying a couple of days—”

  “Phineas impresses me as a man who feels entitled to special treatment, and who doesn’t like young women being in charge,” the bishop put in quickly. “I hope he’s truly here to reconcile with Annabelle rather than to make her see things his way. The rent we’re asking is peanuts, compared to the debt he owes for breaking the vows he made to God and to his wife.”

  Gloria nodded, stepping out onto the porch after Bishop Monroe held the door for her. “Some of the women are saying he’s committed the one unforgivable sin,” she said softly. “Is that true, Bishop?”

  Monroe sighed as he walked alongside her. “In more conservative Amish settlements, folks wouldn’t even be speaking to Phineas for what he’s done,” he replied. “But he’s come a long way to visit with Annabelle, so I prefer to watch and wait—to watch the way he treats his wife, and to wait on the advice I get from God and our three preachers.”

  Gloria was grateful that such a wise, patient man had taken over as bishop after her dat had died several months earlier. Ahead of them, Preacher Amos told Daisy to be quiet and lie down under a tree so she wouldn’t pester them. The black-and-white dog did as she was told, but she watched Phineas warily.

  When Amos held the door of the cabin nearest the lodge, Phineas stepped inside. He emerged quickly and was entering the second cabin before Gloria and the bishop joined them. Phineas’s expression was impossible to read when he stepped outside again.

  “The fourth cabin’s a bit bigger, and it’s available,” Gloria remarked, “but number three is occupied by those brothers who work at the nursery.”

  Phineas gave her a purposeful look. “Single, are they?” he asked. “I can’t understand why an attractive girl like yourself hasn’t latched on to one of them.”

  Gloria’s cheeks burned as she held the clipboard to her chest like a shield. Why had his statement begun as an apparent compliment, only to smack her in the face by the time he’d completed it? She wasn’t about to admit that the two young men she’d fallen for had chosen other girls—and the longer he looked at her, the less inclined Gloria felt to talk to Phineas at all.

  No wonder Daisy barked at this guy. Dogs know who’s trustworthy and who’s not.

  “Gloria’s a sensible young lady, waiting for the right man to come along,” Preacher Amos replied. “We might as well warn you that the women here are more independent—progressive—than you’re probably accustomed to, Phineas. It takes some getting used to, but we believe we’re following God’s will by allowing our ladies to think for themselves.”

  “Really.” Phineas’s eyebrows rose in disapproval. “I suppose I should thank you for tipping me off about the attitude I’ll be dealing with when I speak to Annabelle. I can’t think you’ve done me any favors, however.”

  Somehow Gloria kept her opinions to herself as Phineas quickly looked at the remaining cabins and chose the tenth one, farthest from the lodge. After he scribbled his name on the rental agreement, he pulled a money clip from his trousers pocket and peeled away four bills.

  “This should keep me in your good graces for a while,” he muttered. “Since I can’t claim the cabin until the wedding guests leave, I’m going to walk around the property for a while. I need a lot of fresh air to prepare myself for what lies ahead.”

  Phineas strode off abruptly, leaving Gloria, the bishop, and the preacher to stare after him.

  “Odd duck,” Amos murmured. “Bears out the old adage about how opposites attract, I’d say.”

  “Jah, I can’t imagine Annabelle putting up with Phineas’s surliness,” Bishop Monroe said with a shake of his head. “But then, in a lot of Amish homes the woman doesn’t have any say about it.”

  Gloria was staring at the money he’d given her. She’d never handled hundred-dollar bills. “He must be doing pretty well these days, considering that he was searching the pantry for her egg money before he left Annabelle,” she whispered. “This cash covers two months’ rent, and he just whipped it out of his pocket as though it was no big deal.”

  Preacher Amos grunted. “Money talks. But it doesn’t necessarily tell you the truth about the man who flashes it,” he observed. “It’s best if we allow this situation with Annabelle to play out without judging either one of them. God’s the only one who has the right to do that, after all.”

  “At least he paid ahead,” Bishop Monroe said. “If he ducks out on Annabelle again, he hasn’t left you short.” He followed Phineas’s progress up the road that passed everyone’s homes before he smiled at her again. “Shall we return to the party? Must be about time for Marlin and Frances to cut their cake.”

  As Gloria folded the bills into her apron pocket, she wasn’t sure what to think. Was Phineas planning to stay until the first week of December? Or was he subtly wielding his power, expecting his money to override any objections the bishop and the preachers might make about the way he’d abandoned his wife and their faith?

  * * *

  Cyrus Helmuth sat taller as Gloria entered the dining room behind Bishop Monroe, holding her clipboard. She looked especially fetching in a dress of deep red orange that set off her olive complexion and the dark brown hair tucked under her kapp.

  “You know,” he remarked to his brother Jonathan, who sat beside him at the table, “I think Gloria might be coming around. Now that she’s our scribe for The Budget, along with managing Rosetta’s rentals, she doesn’t seem like such an airhead anymore.”

  Jonathan’s eyebrows rose as he, too, watched Gloria enter the kitchen. “Spoken like a man in love,” he teased. “Since when are you sweet on Miss Lehman?”

  “Lay off that talk, man!” Cyrus replied as he playfully punched Jonathan’s arm. “I’m just saying that Gloria’s changed. Remember how she used to follow Allen around like a lovesick puppy, spying on him and baking those brickbat brownies for him?”

  “Why would you care, unless you’re inter
ested?” his brother challenged. “It’s one thing to take our instruction for joining the church with Allen so he’s not the only one in the class, but it’s another thing altogether if you’re eyeballing Gloria. Maybe today’s wedding and Allen’s engagement to Phoebe are getting you in the mood, eh?”

  Jonathan’s remark caught Cyrus by surprise. The two of them had been working six days a week all spring and summer to help their older cousins, Simon and Sam Helmuth, establish their landscaping nursery, so they hadn’t had a lot of time for dating. He’d flirted with Maria Zehr, who’d briefly operated a bakery at Promise Lodge before she’d moved back to Cloverdale, but other than that, the only available girls had been Gloria Lehman and Phoebe and Laura Hershberger.

  And now that Phoebe’s hitching up with Allen, only two are left—unless you broaden your horizons and start scouting around Forest Grove . . . or Cloverdale, where Maria is.

  “I rest my case. If you have no response, you’re susceptible to wedding fever,” Jonathan remarked lightly. “Better stay away from that cake Frances and Marlin are cutting, or you’ll catch it bad.”

  Cyrus turned for a better view of the eck, where the middle-aged newlyweds stood together holding a cake knife. As they made the first cut, folks in the dining room clapped and cheered them on. Gloria’s mamm was blushing like a young woman, and Preacher Marlin—who had his own married children—appeared absolutely ecstatic. They’d both lost their original longtime spouses, yet they seemed as head over heels as a couple just starting out.

  “Maybe you’d better have my piece of cake as well as your own,” Cyrus challenged his brother. “Here you are at twenty-four—much older than I am—and you’ve got no prospects at all. What’s your problem?”

  “Puh! I could have women swarming around me like bees if I—”

  “So why don’t you?” Cyrus shot back. “You’ve had the same opportunities I’ve had.”

  “Are you calling me out? Saying I couldn’t latch on to any girl I wanted?” Jonathan said in a deceptively calm voice.

  Something about the tilt of his brother’s eyebrows and the light in his brown eyes sent a surge of adrenaline through Cyrus’s system. When they’d been growing up in Ohio, they’d attended a one-room schoolhouse and their church district’s Singings with the same neighborhood girls. It was a matter of personal pride that he’d bested Jonathan at baseball, volleyball, and anything involving physical prowess even though he was four years younger and four inches shorter than his more studious, laid-back brother.

  Coming from a large family with four other sons, they’d jumped at the opportunity to move to Missouri with Simon and Sam, who’d offered them steady work and a way to see a different part of the country—not to mention a chance to meet young women who weren’t distantly related to them. Was it the ticking of his biological clock goading him, or was he rising to Jonathan’s challenge?

  “So prove it,” Cyrus heard himself say beneath the happy chatter that filled the dining room. “If you’re not engaged by Thanksgiving, you owe me five hundred bucks!”

  Jonathan let out a short laugh. “Where am I supposed to come up with that kind of cash? And what about you? Money burns a hole in your pocket.”

  Cyrus shrugged, suddenly tingling with his brazen idea. “You don’t fool me for a minute, big brother—you’re cheap and you never spend any money, so you’ve got to have a bunch of it stashed away. And if you’ve got a woman by then, you won’t have to worry about paying me off, ain’t so?”

  “And you think I’m going to let you sit idly by while I’m out busting my butt for the next month and a half?” Jonathan demanded in a voice that throbbed with Cyrus’s challenge. “Same goes for you, kid. If you’re not engaged by Thanksgiving, you’ll be paying me that five hundred bucks!”

  “You’re on!” Cyrus blurted, pumping the hand Jonathan offered. They sat almost nose to nose, silently daring each other to back down—but Cyrus refused to look away first. “Hey, if we’re soon to take our vows and join the church, we might as well have some fun along the way, jah?”

  “Jah, it’ll be great fun watching you scramble to get a girl when I’ve got all the best ones throwing themselves at me!”

  “Like that’ll ever happen,” Cyrus fired back.

  “We’ll see about that, won’t we?” Jonathan challenged him. “And because you’re younger and full of hotshot ideas today, you can bring me back a piece of that cake when you go to fetch your own.”

  “Already playing the age card,” Cyrus teased as he rose from his chair. “We’ll see what your excuse is come Thanksgiving, when I’ve got a woman by my side and you don’t.”

  He joined the line of guests going toward the eck, where Mary Kate and Minerva were now cutting the cake and plating it. When Gloria joined them to hand filled plates to the folks in the line, Cyrus was once again struck by her poise. Her movements were graceful and fluid, and she beamed at each person as she handed him or her a slice of cake.

  She’s really a looker, he suddenly realized. He’d been at Promise Lodge slightly more than eight months, yet he’d never noticed what potential Gloria Lehman had. Because she’d been pursuing Allen Troyer so ardently—and making a fool of herself in the process—her big brown eyes and long lashes had gotten right past him. As he stepped up to the table to receive his cake from her, however, Cyrus felt a tickle of excitement along his spine.

  “There you go, Cyrus,” she said, smiling sweetly. Her fingertips brushed his as she handed him a plate.

  “Say, could we—could we maybe take a boat ride on the lake this evening?” Her touch had muddled him, so his thoughts were awkwardly somersaulting forward. “Or if you’d rather do something else—”

  “I love being on the water,” Gloria interrupted softly. “What time?”

  Cyrus suddenly felt about fourteen, and he could only hope his brain was connected to his mouth so he sounded coherent. If he recalled correctly, Gloria was three years older than he was, so he had to rise to her level—and stay there. “How about six? After all the wedding activities are over?”

  “I’ll meet you at the dock.” Her smile appeared a little dazed, as though his invitation had caught her off-guard. Then she noticed how many people were behind him, awaiting their cake. “See you later, Cyrus!”

  “Jah,” he murmured. “Later.”

  He was taking his place at the table beside Jonathan when it occurred to him that he hadn’t gotten his brother any cake. Cyrus stuck a big forkful of the traditional white-on-white confection in his mouth, making Jonathan speak first.

  “Forget something?” his brother asked, tapping the edge of Cyrus’s plate.

  Cyrus nailed him with a triumphant gaze. “It’s every man for himself now, so get your own cake,” he said with a chuckle. “I have a date with Gloria this evening.”

  Chapter Four

  Phoebe Hershberger sighed with delight as she stood in the unfinished front room of what would soon be the home she shared with her beloved, Allen Troyer. She’d splattered paint on her oldest dress and the kerchief covering her hair, but she didn’t mind.

  “It’s a dream come true,” she murmured as she recoated her roller with paint. “You and your dat and the other men have outdone yourselves building this place! And look at the shade we’ll have on sunny summer evenings—every day for the rest of our lives.”

  Allen glanced up from the baseboard he’d been painting. “You chose a gut spot for your house, Phoebe,” he said with a grin. “I’m just lucky you want me to share it with you.”

  “And I feel like the Queen of Everything, looking out over the lot you chose next to mine, right alongside the lake,” she replied. “Thanks to our generous parents, we have the prettiest plots in Promise Lodge, if you ask me.”

  As she covered the upper section of the wall with butter-yellow paint Phoebe laughed, something she did often these days. In a few short weeks, Allen would be baptized into the church and then they would marry, after a summer courtship during which they’d
helped build the house that overlooked Rainbow Lake. When she’d covered the wall with paint, she came down from her ladder to stand in front of the big picture window. Every time she gazed out, she was amazed at the array of wildflowers and trees in the yard—not to mention the view she had of the large plots where Mattie Troyer raised vegetables for her roadside stand, and beyond that, the lodge and the Helmuths’ nursery.

  “The leaves are starting to turn,” she remarked softly. “We’ll soon have a yard full of yellow, red, and orange leaves from all these maple trees.”

  “And since we don’t have any grass seeded yet, we’ll just let those leaves stay where they land,” Allen said. “With the orders I’ve taken to build more tiny homes before winter, I won’t have much time for raking anyway.”

  “I don’t anticipate a decline in the number of pies Irene and I bake, either,” Phoebe remarked. “So we can sit on the porch of an evening and take in the fall foliage—and watch the folks who come and go. Hmmm,” she added as she watched a lithe figure cross Allen’s grassy lot down the hill. “Why do you suppose Gloria’s heading for the dock on the far side of the lake?”

  Allen set down his paintbrush before he joined her at the window. “I haven’t the foggiest. I’m just glad she finally got the message and stopped pestering me about—aha!” he said, pointing toward the line of cabins behind the lodge. “That’s Cyrus, ain’t so? Do you suppose the two of them are an item now?”

  Phoebe eased against him as he slipped his arm around her. “I have no idea. I didn’t see any sign of that at the wedding or the meal today—but there were a lot of people there, and I was busy.”

  “After all the times Gloria’s spied on us, it’s sort of fun to be watching her,” Allen said with a chuckle. “I had no clue that Cyrus was interested in her.”