“I know. I’m sorry.”

  “Well, Klaus, the man who took one look at me and ran, is Mose’s second cousin.”

  Claire’s eyebrows rose. “Oh!”

  Naomi carried a pie over to the counter to cover it with plastic wrap.

  “Wait... Mose Klassen?” Claire frowned, then went over to the Amish newspaper and picked it up. She flipped through, then held up a page that Naomi couldn’t see from where she stood but knew exactly what page it would be. “Not the same Mose Klassen from The Budget...”

  “Yah, the same,” Naomi said. She’d been following his column on Ordnung observance for the last couple of years since he’d started writing it. He had a simple, honest way of communicating the details of their faith to other Amish believers.

  “I didn’t know you knew him!” Claire said.

  Naomi shrugged, but she felt her cheeks heat. She had kept him private. “We were friends as children. That’s all.”

  “And friends now, it seems,” Claire pointed out.

  “Well...newly acquainted.”

  “Seriously, though,” Claire said, “would you consider him...romantically?”

  “You see the kinds of articles he writes for The Budget,” Naomi said. “He’s very conservative, and intelligent, and has a wonderful mind, but I wouldn’t do well with a conservative farmer. I’m too free-spirited.”

  “Hmm.”

  “And his cousin ran from me! I don’t know what it was about me that he hated, either. My sister won’t say.” Naomi shrugged. “I’m not putting myself into that kind of situation again. I’ll be courted properly by a man who’s actually interested. No more arrangements.”

  “I understand why you wouldn’t want to do that again,” Claire agreed. “The problem was with Klaus, not you.”

  “And yet I’m still single. He’s married now, you know. My self-confidence has taken a hit,” Naomi said. “One day, I truly believe Gott will bring me the right man. He made me too good a cook to not give me a man to cook for. But he’ll have to be a man who doesn’t want to run out screaming because of my liberal views...or whatever it was that spooked Klaus like a young horse. And trust me—Mose will be driven straight up the wall by my liberal ways. I saw it in him already.”

  Claire chuckled. “I do love how you see things, Naomi. And I do think Gott will bring the right man to eat your good cooking. Gott never lets a talent go to waste.”

  Naomi did pray that Gott would bring the right man to her. Or even fling her into the right man’s path. Naomi wasn’t picky about how Gott worked in her life, just so long as He was working.

  “You have to know that Mose has a very noticeable stutter,” Naomi said. “He’s going to be coming here to practice chatting with someone—that’s part of my sister’s plan to get him ready for proper marriage discussions—and it’s important that Mose feel comfortable. He’s very self-conscious about it.”

  “Oh, that’s why he’s coming...” Claire sobered.

  “Yah, that’s why.”

  “And you said that you think you’ll drive him up the wall with your liberal ideas. What will you talk to him about so that he’ll be comfortable?”

  “Well...quite honestly, probably things that frustrate him,” Naomi admitted. “I don’t need him to agree with me. Maybe he’ll be sparked into talking more just because he disagrees.”

  “So you’ll argue with him for his own good?” A smile tickled at her friend’s lips.

  Naomi considered for a moment, then nodded. “If it comes down to that, I will. But he’s very self-conscious about his stutter.”

  She found herself feeling protective of Mose all the same, just like she used to when she was a girl. Claire wiped Aaron’s hand from his cookie’s melted chocolate chips.

  “Naomi, I’ve got my own little boy to attend to,” Claire said, glancing up with a knowing smile. “I’m sure after dinner I will be ever so busy with him. There’s bath time, and worship time, and I might even take him out for a little walk before I tuck him in tonight. Mose won’t even notice I’m around.”

  Claire was going to make herself scarce, and while it was welcome, Naomi didn’t want to make it so obvious that she wanted the kitchen to herself this evening.

  “That’s not what I meant,” Naomi said, and now she was quite certain she was blushing.

  “Your sister sent him.” Claire shot her a grin. “She’s got something up her sleeve. And Mose is very single. As are you...”

  “As are you!” Naomi retorted, but she regretted the words immediately because she didn’t want to share Mose’s company...at least not right away. “But it would be nice to just catch up with him a little bit. He was my best friend when I was little. We played for hours together.”

  “Did you make him little pies and pretend that you were keeping his house?” Claire asked with a chuckle.

  “I did not!” Naomi laughed. “I pretended I was dying of poison and made him help me plan my funeral.”

  “Really?” Claire rolled her eyes in good humor. “You were quite dramatic.”

  “I got him to explore about three miles of creek with me, too,” she said. “I wanted to see if it ever turned into a river. It didn’t.”

  “It does eventually,” Claire said. “All creeks do. If you follow them downstream far enough.”

  “Yah, I knew that,” Naomi replied. “But there is only so far two children can walk on their own before they get hungry, or wear a blister, or a neighbor sees them and sends them back home with an armload of cut flowers or a jar of jam. That’s how the neighbors would make sure I went back—give me something for my mother.”

  “Clever.” Claire looked down at her son with a wistful smile. “He’ll grow up, too, one of these days, won’t he?”

  “Never,” Naomi said, and she ruffled Aaron’s curls. “He’ll stay little and sweet always.”

  The women exchanged a smile. It was their joke—that Aaron would never grow up, and they would never grow old, and somehow everything could stay fresh and lovely always. Naomi knew it wasn’t true, but it seemed to keep Claire cheerier.

  “What will we make for dinner?” Claire asked.

  “I have that lamb shoulder,” Naomi said. “That should feed us all.”

  “I like lamb,” Aaron said. “And mashed potatoes.”

  “We will mash them just for you, Aaron,” Naomi said.

  “Now you can run outside to play,” Claire told her son. “Naomi and I have work to do. But don’t go far. You stay in the yard.”

  “Yah, Mamm.” He smiled sweetly and headed for the side door.

  The women were silent for a couple of moments, and then Naomi said, “You should let my sister find you a husband, Claire. A daet for Aaron.”

  “It isn’t in my future.” And the sad look was back in Claire’s eyes again. “I don’t need a husband. I need a job to keep my son fed.”

  And that was what Claire always said. Was it possible that Adel had been thinking of matching Mose and Claire when she sent Mose here? Was it selfish of Naomi to feel a spark of jealousy at that thought? Naomi pushed it back with a silent prayer.

  “A good man will understand about Aaron,” Naomi said quietly.

  “Would he, though?” Claire shook her head. “Don’t worry about me. I’ve got a job, a roof over my head and food to feed my son. And I have a true friend in you. I’m blessed beyond measure.”

  “Amen,” Naomi murmured. “So am I.”

  In so many ways. She just had to keep that fact front and center in her mind so she could be satisfied with her lot in life. She’d be the friend Mose deserved, and she wouldn’t drag him along on any more of her foolish adventures. She was a grown woman now, after all. Life was no longer a game.

  * * *

  “Naomi Peachy has always been a little too interested in the Englishers,” Mose’s aunt Linda said as she dried a dish and put it away. Mose sat with his uncle at the table next to a pile of books, his Bible at the top of the stack.

  “Now, Linda.” Abram adjusted himself in his chair, still in a little bit of pain from his recent surgery.

  “She has been,” Linda said. “You know it’s true, Abram. She’s always been just a little wild. It’s one of the things Klaus mentioned, too.”

  Wild. Mose smiled at the word. Yah, it did describe Naomi as a girl, for sure and certain. She’d never been a quiet, demure Amish girl. She’d been full of games and ideas and fun, and the woman he’d seen this morning still had that sparkle about her. She talked readily, and she was smart. She could roll right over him if she wanted to.

  “Well...” Abram spread his hands. “She’s been loyal to our community, and she’s running that bed-and-breakfast for her sister. She’s a wonderful cook—” Abram caught his wife’s eye and paled. “Not as wonderful as you, my dear. But a competent cook, who has won contests at the fair. If you entered, Linda, you’d win, too.”

  “An Englisher fair,” Linda said with a shake of her head. “And what would I do that for? To put myself above others? No. I cook for those I love. That’s how it should be.”

  Mose hadn’t heard about these things in Ohio, and his gaze flicked between his aunt and uncle as they discussed local gossip.

  “And what about that Englisher boy she spent so much time with during her Rumspringa?” Linda clucked her tongue.

  “B-b-boyfriend?” Mose asked. That detail mattered to him, somehow. It shouldn’t. Naomi’s Rumspringa was a long time ago, and her relationships certainly weren’t his business. Still he waited for whatever information he might glean on the subject.

  “Not that she’d admit to,” Linda said. “Just a good friend, she said. But come, now. At that age, spending all her time with some Englisher boy who’d drive her around in his pickup truck with that worldly music playing... It was a boyfriend.”

  “Worldly...well, it was their church music, if I recall,” Abram said.

  “With guitars and drums—” Linda shuddered. “Worldly, Abram.”

  “Now, Linda, Mose isn’t going off to marry Naomi, he’s going to get some practice in talking. And if he can relax enough to talk with Naomi Peachy, then he’ll do quite well with other available young women who are quieter and more reserved.”

  “That’s true...” Linda sighed. “The thing is, Mose, she’s a very nice woman. I like her. I sew with her in quilting circles, and she has a good heart. She was born Amish, she lives Amish, she abides by the rules, but all the same, she’s just so...”

  Linda couldn’t seem to find the word to describe Naomi, and the men stayed silent. Mose understood. Naomi was hard to pin down and hard to describe. There seemed to be something inside of her that grabbed hold of the bars of a cage and rattled them.

  “It’s why she’s still single, I think,” Linda said quietly. “And it’s a shame, because she really can cook. A man could do worse than coming home to a meal cooked by Naomi Peachy. He’d just have to be the right man.”

  Abram didn’t answer and fixed his gaze on his folded hands in front of him. It was probably the wisest course of action.

  “I’ll... I’ll... I’ll find out...to—” Mose closed his eyes, frustrated.

  “You’ll find out tonight,” his aunt finished for him, casting him a fond smile. “You’ll eat well, Mose. And I hope this trial by fire that Adel has in mind works to help you talk more easily. Because you deserve a wife and little ones of your own. It’s time for you to settle down.”

  “Yah,” he said. That was why he was here. He did want to settle down with a family of his own. He longed to rock a baby in his arms, to come home after a hard day at work to the scramble of little feet, and to a wife’s warm embrace. But that couldn’t happen if he couldn’t talk to a woman long enough to get her to fall in love with him!

  He pushed back his chair and tapped his watch.

  “Right—” Abram looked at the clock on the wall. “You’ve got a tour to pick up soon. Thank you for helping me with this, Mose. The doctor said I had to take off a full two weeks, and your aunt insists that I listen to him. One more week and counting.”

  “I do insist,” Linda said with a smile at her husband.

  “You’re a real blessing, Mose,” Abram said.

  “It’s no...no...no...problem.” He gave his uncle a nod. “See you lat-lat—” He cleared his throat. “See you.”

  Mose drove another group of tourists around the town of Redemption, stopping at shops in town, and then driving out to the country for a glimpse of Amish farms. They would head back past a popular dairy that had an ice cream shop attached. His uncle had drawn the maps for him, and it was simple enough. But as the horses’ hooves clopped merrily along, his mind kept skipping back to Naomi.

  Funny—he’d heard a little bit about Naomi and her family from his aunt and uncle over the years. Just information in passing—family members who had died, or were ill, marriages, babies, that sort of thing. Naomi hadn’t factored into much of it, but it had been connected to her.

  He’d always cared, listened for news of her, prayed for her to have a happy life. She’d taken a lonely little boy with a stutter, and she’d given him the gift of friendship. It had meant the world to him. But he’d never questioned that she’d find a good husband and settle into her life. The fact that no man had managed to marry her was surprising. She seemed to be rather liberal in her views, but she was still beautiful and fun to be around.

  The Englishers in the wagon chattered behind him, pointing out the obvious.

  “Cows! Look at them all!”

  A boy attempted to moo at them, to no effect, and Mose smothered a laugh. One of the older people in the wagon told the boy that since brown eggs came from brown hens, then chocolate milk came from brown cows, and Mose almost turned around then, but he stopped himself. What was he going to do, just see if the words would come out fluently or not? It wasn’t worth the bother. They’d set the boy straight eventually. They were only having fun.

  “Did you see that?” a woman asked excitedly. “I see laundry on that line. It looks like sheets...wait—there’s some dresses, too!”

  “Do you see those pants on the other end? It’s a whole family’s laundry, all in a row.”

  “Let me get a picture!”

  “Zoom in.”

  It was amusing to hear them so excited over everyday things. If only the women in those houses could hear the utter delight over their washing. The tourists were also enthralled with buggies, horses and some kids playing in a splash pool on the warm September day. He didn’t turn around to see them taking pictures with their phones, even though he knew they’d snapped a few of his stubborn back already. He didn’t encourage questions, either, and he knew he came off as unfriendly, but it was easier than trying to talk to them.

  Mose waited in the wagon while they got their ice cream, and one woman came back with a vanilla soft serve cone for him that she handed over with a smile. He accepted it, feeling a twinge of guilt that he couldn’t be friendlier with these people, and he ate it in silence until the wagon filled up again, and they headed back into town to end the tour. Not all the tours passed the bed-and-breakfast, unfortunately.

  He was watching the time. Three thirty, four thirty, and finally five. When he dropped off his last tourist group, he turned the wagon around and headed back out of town toward the Draschel Bed and Breakfast, which wasn’t far. This was what he’d been waiting for.

  He turned in the drive, and he spotted the little boy playing by the garden. He stood up and waved and Mose reined the horses in.

  Mose would be staying more than a few minutes, so he started to unhitch the horses right away, and the little boy came bouncing up to him as he worked.

  “Hello,” he said. “Who are you?”

  “I’m...M-M—” He hated this. “I’m Mose.”

  “How come you said it like that?”

  He sighed. “Because I stutter.” The words came out haltingly.

  “Oh. Can you stop it?”

  Mose looked down at the little boy, whose expression was entirely earnest.

  “No,” he said simply.

  “Oh...” The boy chewed the side of his cheek. “My name’s Aaron.”

  “Hello, Aaron.” And those words came out smoothly. It was always a pleasant surprise when that happened.

  “Are you coming for supper?” Aaron asked.

  “Yah.” He finished unhitching the first horse and walked him over to the corral.

  “Naomi and Mamm are making lamb,” Aaron said. “And mashed potatoes. And gravy.”

  Mose could smell the cooking from out here, and he smiled down at the boy. Aaron rubbed a hand over his forehead, leaving a dirty smear behind.

  “Are you h-h-hungry?” Mose asked.

  “Yah. I’m starving.”

  “Me, too.”

  Mose went back to the second horse and started on the buckles while Aaron watched.

  “The tourist ladies like my hat and my suspenders,” Aaron said, hopping from one foot to the other. “And they say I have good manners.”

  “That’s a good thing,” Mose said, the words halting again.

  “And they say that I’m handsome, too,” Aaron said. “But my mamm says I shouldn’t care about being handsome so long as I have a good heart.”

  “Hmm,” Mose said, listening to the boy chatter. He undid the last of the buckles and led the second horse toward the corral where they could eat and drink for a few hours until he hitched them back up. The horses had already worked all afternoon on the tours.

  “Do ladies call you handsome?” Aaron asked.

  Mose headed up toward the side door, Aaron in tow. “Not...not...not...often.”

  “But sometimes?” he asked.

  Little boys were called handsome by Englisher ladies more often than grown men were, and it wasn’t a good thing for a boy’s character to be told that he was good-looking too often.