Revealing, The (The Inn at Eagle Hill Book #3): A Novel Read online

  It was a game they played, and one that Bethany hoped would entice Jimmy to think about how nice it would be not to have to say good night. To get married and live happily ever after. Shootfire! Was that too much to ask?

  Jimmy was waiting with the flashlight, which he turned off the minute he saw her framed in the doorway. Once Bethany walked outside, he caught her in his arms and tipped his forehead against hers. She could feel his breath, his words, falling onto her. He tilted his face so that their mouths came together.

  She wedged her hands up between them to set her distance. “And where were you on Sunday night, Jimmy Fisher? You can’t just show up like I’m at your beck and call and think I’m available for kissing.”

  She looked at him, daring him to say he was sorry. Instead, he said, “My mother was so distraught . . . you know . . . after you dumped her out of the wheelchair—”

  “Dumped is a strong word. I prefer to think of it as tipped.” Edith Fisher was recuperating from bunion surgery, and Bethany wheeled her outside after the fellowship lunch at church to get some fresh air and a little sunshine. There was a ramp, after all, and the air was unusually warm, almost springlike.

  But Bethany had never taken a wheelchair down a ramp. As she guided Edith backward, the wheelchair started to gain momentum. Edith’s weight, plus the wheelchair’s, surpassed Bethany’s. At the bottom of the ten-foot ramp, the wheelchair flipped sideways and dumped Edith out, facedown on the grass.

  Naomi, Edith’s favorite girl, ran for a wet rag to hold against the scrapes on her forehead and a towel for a pillow. Edith, furious and humiliated, wouldn’t accept Bethany’s profuse apologies. Jimmy ended up taking his mother home early.

  “—after I finally got her settled down, I fell asleep on the couch and when I woke up, it was morning.”

  “Did you happen to hear that Susie Glick and Tim Riehl have an Understanding? And Elizabeth Mast and Eli Miller do too.” She squeezed his hands. “Eli said he’d like to marry before spring planting starts.” That’s exactly what Bethany would like to have now . . . a formal Understanding. She would like to know where she stood with Jimmy Fisher.

  “Hmmm,” Jimmy said, nuzzling that tender spot on her neck that he knew she liked.

  “It’s nice, isn’t it, when a couple has an Understanding? When the fellow steps up and makes a decision to move forward.”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “Folks say that weddings always come in threes.”

  “Yup.”

  “You haven’t heard a word I’ve said, have you?”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  Bethany’s temper went up like a March kite. She broke away from him and thrust her hands on her hips. “Ever since you’ve been taking care of those chickens full-time, you have turned right back into the boy I first met. As immature as can be.”

  Enjoyment fled Jimmy’s face. He sighed and met Bethany’s gaze. “I know. You’re right. There’s something about those birds that makes me feel like I’m thirteen all over again. It’s those chickens. They’re running me ragged . . .” His voice trailed off. “You know, I’ve hated chickens for as long as I can remember. They stink, they squawk, they peck at me. They make me stink and squawk and act peckish.”

  He was always griping about those chickens and she was tired of hearing about it. It wasn’t just the chickens. It was living under his mother’s thumb. As Galen King always said, Edith Fisher cast a long shadow on her boys. She sucked the joy of life out of them. And when Jimmy was away from his mother, like now, he acted like a silly schoolboy on summer break. Nothing on his mind whatsoever. She walked a few steps away from him and looked up at the clouds gliding past the moon. He followed behind and slipped his arms around her waist.

  “Jimmy, the solution is simple. You need to find someone to work for your mother.”

  “It’s not that easy.” He sounded a million miles away. Miles from Bethany and from Eagle Hill.

  “You’d better figure it out. And you’d better start making noises about our future together, Jimmy Fisher, because if you don’t take me more seriously—”

  Spinning her around to face him, Jimmy put a finger to her lips, reached for her hand, and pulled her out of the moonlight and into the shadows. “I take you plenty seriously! You’re my best girl, Bethany.”

  Immediately her temper sizzled. “I’d better be your only girl, Jimmy Fisher!” She knew her voice had risen an octave and sounded sharp, and she regretted it. But he was always saying they would get married someday, and someday never seemed to come. Perhaps the rainbows had gone and the glow had dimmed for Jimmy. If so, she’d rather know it now.

  He lifted his eyes. “That’s what I meant. You’re my only girl. My best and only girl.” He took his hat off. “Aw, Bethany, what’s the rush? We’re young. We have our whole lives ahead of us.”

  “Maybe you do, but I’m not about to waste my life on a fellow who hates chickens and won’t do anything about it. I only agreed to go out with you because I thought you were a fellow with some plans for himself.”

  “I did have plans! I did. Good ones. But without Lodestar as the cornerstone, my entire horse breeding business fell apart.”

  She rolled her eyes. “There are other horses.”

  He cut a smile in her direction. “None like that horse.”

  She let out a big sigh. “Have you looked for him?”

  “Every chance I’ve had. That’s what I’ve been doing on Saturday afternoons.” So that’s where he’d been when he was supposed to be stopping by Eagle Hill.

  “What about Galen? Have you asked him to look for you?”

  “He’s no help at all. He told me I needed to let that horse go and stop making excuses for being a man.” He rubbed his chin. “I’d like him to have a week living with my mother, then he can tell me all about being a man.”

  “So you’re saying that if you had Lodestar back, your life would be back on track. You’d have your future mapped out.”

  His dark eyebrows lifted.

  “Did you hear me?”

  “I heard you.” He cleared his throat. “If I could ever get Lodestar back, I think everything else will fall into place.”

  “Like . . . our future.”

  Jimmy ran his finger around his collar and smiled at her ruefully.

  Lately, Jimmy Fisher had begun to feel something like . . . the word “panic” crept into his head, but he pushed it away. He didn’t do panic. He just felt . . . unsettled, that was it.

  As he had left Bethany last night, all the emotional jumble inside him came together in his stomach. He was crazy about Bethany Schrock. Her smile, when she turned it on him full force, was numbing. It made his bones turn to butter. She was the girl he saw himself growing old with. She was everything he’d ever wanted. Why was he scared to death to ask her to marry him? Was old Hank Lapp’s prediction about him true? “Always shopping, never buying.” He frowned, hearing Hank’s loud voice echo in his head.

  No. It wasn’t that. There were just too many unsettled things in his life right now.

  He adjusted the brooder lamps, checked the feeders, muttering away about how much he hated chickens, and walked over to the workbench to get a Band-Aid for his finger. He kept a big box of Band-Aids in the pullet barn, on the ready. There were a couple of hens who had it in for him. He was convinced they waited for him to enter the pullet barn, then sent a secret signal down the line of the nesting boxes so they would all come flying at him, beaks and claws sharpened. Today, one of them drew blood from his hand as he refilled the water trough.

  He glanced through the open barn door and smiled at the sight of Honey, grazing in the pasture. She was a fine little mare, almost like a pet. He would take carrots from the garden and feed them to her by hand. He delighted in her so much that he always gave her a brushing before he harnessed her. He kept a little horse brush in his back pants pocket just for that purpose. This was the mare he had hoped to breed with Lodestar. The perfect complement to Lodestar. She was the one. />
  Galen King had given him Honey as a sorry filly and wouldn’t take a dime for her. “Not fast enough to race,” he told Jimmy, “too small for a full day’s work, not strong enough to pull the team.” But as smart as Galen usually was about horses, he wasn’t thinking about Honey as a broodmare. And he certainly wasn’t factoring in Lodestar’s fine genes. A sorry filly, indeed.

  If only Jimmy could find Lodestar’s whereabouts. He was sure everything would work out once he had Lodestar back in his stall, locked up good and tight because that horse had a streak of Houdini in him, and his breeding business could begin. Bethany was right. Once Lodestar was back with Jimmy, everything else would fall into place. He swallowed past a knot the size of a goose egg in his throat. Even the part about Bethany Schrock.

  The air smelled of lightning, and the breeze from the south carried a scent of heavy rain. All the signs were good that rain would arrive soon.

  As soon as Naomi saw the barn door slide shut behind Galen, she pulled out her box of stationery from the kitchen desk and sat down to write a letter to Tobe. If she hurried, she could get it into the mailbox before the postman drove by.

  Dear Tobe,

  When I arrived home on Sunday afternoon, there, on the kitchen table, was the bus schedule. Just what I was afraid of! But you must have been praying: although Galen had beat me home, he hadn’t gone in the house yet. The deacon and the bishop were waiting for him in the yard. They had a few suggestions for an apprentice for Galen’s horse work, but he turned them all down. You know how finicky he can be about anyone around his horses. Anyway, I was able to dash into the house and hide the bus schedule before they all came in for coffee. My hands shook as I poured coffee in the bishop’s mug. Shook like a leaf!

  How much longer, Tobe? I can’t keep this up. We need to tell him. Them. All of them.

  Love,

  Naomi

  The storm that blew through Stoney Ridge this morning split two trees near the creek that ran alongside Eagle Hill. Water flowed over the road like a river. Behind the farmhouse, a trail that led up the ridgeline had turned into a small waterfall.

  To Bethany Schrock, there were few displays on earth more thrilling than a thunderstorm. Her friend and neighbor, Naomi, felt quite the opposite. She was sure Naomi had passed the whole of the storm with a shawl pressed to her eyes.

  By the time the rain was letting up, Bethany was on her way to the Sisters’ House, where she worked a couple days a week for five elderly sisters. Once a week, she and Naomi made lunch for the down-and-outers of Stoney Ridge at the Second Chance Café held in the Grange Hall, but that was volunteer work. She’d been volunteered for it by the sisters. Her main job was the Sisters’ House.

  Her job entailed cleaning out and organizing the ancient sisters’ home so they could take a long-overdue turn at hosting church, but it was an endless task. She loved them, though, each one. Ella, the eldest, insightful, kind. Ada, sensitive and cheerful. Lena, the middle sister, tender, a peacemaker. Fannie, efficient, determined, bossy. Sylvia, the youngest, capable, creative.

  Today, Sylvia met her at the door and waved a letter in her face. “We have exciting news, Bethany! You have to stop your downstairs organizing and start right away on the guest bedroom.”

  “The second-floor guest bedroom,” Fannie clarified.

  “Yes. That’s the one,” Sylvia said. “I haven’t been up there in years and years.”

  Bethany took off her bonnet and tried to find an empty wall peg by the door, frowning because she had just emptied those wall pegs of umbrellas and old bonnets and a man’s straw hat a few days ago, and they were completely filled up again. “Are you expecting company?”

  “Yes!” Sylvia said. “A relation. He’s come to Stoney Ridge to investigate the family tree. It’s very exciting.”

  As they walked into the living room, Bethany nodded to Ella, Lena, and Ada, all seated in their favorite chairs.

  “It’s terribly exciting,” Lena said, looking up from her knitting project.

  “He told us he was hitting brick walls,” Ada said, engrossed in a crossword puzzle in an old copy of the Stoney Ridge Times.

  Ella, a woman with a soft fan of wrinkles beside each eye and curly gray hair that peeked from under her prayer cap, looked from sister to sister. “That sounds painful.” At ninety-three, she was easily confused.

  “I don’t think he meant it literally, Ella,” Fannie said. “It’s genealogy lingo that means he is stumped.”

  “How do you happen to know about genealogy bingo, Fannie?” Lena said.

  “Lingo,” Fannie said in a brisk tone, “not bingo.”

  As Lena paused to ponder her response, Bethany knew she had to jump in and veer the sisters back to the original subject quickly or it would be lost forever. It often happened. Most of their conversation ended up on little bunny trails that led nowhere. “How close a relative is he?”

  The sisters looked at each other blankly.

  “Distant,” Fannie said.

  “Fourteenth cousin twice removed,” Sylvia said. “He’s coming soon, he said. By week’s end. You can manage, can’t you?”

  Bethany sighed. If the second floor looked anything like the first floor, basement, and carriage house, her week had just taken a dismal downhill turn.

  Five hours later, Bethany stopped by Naomi’s house before she headed home to Eagle Hill. She was exhausted. Discouraged too. That upstairs bedroom was going to take her all week to clean out. And where would she put things? Managing that Sisters’ House took every spare ounce of energy she had.

  She was eager to show Naomi the quilt top she had finally finished last night and also to share a letter from her brother, Tobe. Under Naomi’s tutelage, Bethany was finishing her first quilt for her eventual-but-not-official wedding to Jimmy Fisher. She’d started plenty of quilts over the years but abandoned them because she hated to sew. But Naomi was adamant that she needed to finish something. She gave her assignments to do and checked up on her tasks: cut, trim, sort, sew. Then: undo, rip out, redo. Bethany had hoped the quilt would be finished by now, but Naomi kept insisting it had to be perfect.

  Good thing Jimmy Fisher didn’t seem to be in a rush to get married, because this quilt wasn’t making much progress. She frowned. Shootfire! What was taking Jimmy Fisher so long to propose? Just once she’d like him to behave the way she expected, but the fact that he never did was one more reason she couldn’t seem to get enough of him.

  As Naomi opened the door, Bethany inhaled a sweet scent of cinnamon and nutmeg floating in from the kitchen. “What did you make?”

  “A new recipe for pumpkin cinnamon rolls,” Naomi said. “I thought I’d practice the recipe before serving them at the next Sisters’ Bee. Want to try one?”

  Bethany nodded. Baking was her favorite thing in the world. Her younger sister, Mim, preferred to read or write. Naomi would rather quilt. But Bethany would rather be in the kitchen than anywhere else. As she grabbed a fork and sat down to eat, she slid Tobe’s letter closer to Naomi and watched her reaction. Naomi stilled as she saw the thin gray envelope, addressed in Tobe’s sloppy handwriting. Then she snapped to attention and went back to stirring sugar into her tea. “You brought the quilt top for me to see?”

  “Yes, and I brought Tobe’s letter for you to read, if you might be interested.”

  Naomi took a sip of tea. “Any news?”

  “He hopes he’ll be released soon. But no date yet. That lawyer is trying to pea bargain for him.”

  “I think you mean plea bargain,” Naomi said.

  Bethany pushed the letter closer to Naomi. “You can read it for yourself.”

  “No need,” Naomi said breezily. “You’ve told me what’s in it. Now, let’s see about that quilt top.”

  Bethany was sure Naomi was sweet on Tobe, just sure of it, though she could never get her to admit it.

  And wouldn’t you know that Naomi insisted she rip out the last row of the quilt top just because a few corners didn’t match u
p? “Why should it matter?”

  Naomi sighed a deep sigh. “Bethany . . . imagine adding a tablespoon of salt into a recipe when you were only supposed to add a teaspoon. It would matter a great deal. Same with quilting.” She held out the quilt top. “You need to redo the binding before the next Sisters’ Bee. We had planned to help you quilt it.”

  Naomi was turning into a bossy hen, that’s what she was.

  Bethany took the quilt top back and examined it. She’d only been going to the Sisters’ Bee for a few months and she was already tired of the quilting business. But she loved Naomi and she loved the old sisters and she was even feeling a twinge of affection now and then for Edith, Jimmy Fisher’s mother. Nothing more than a twinge, but at least she wasn’t frightened of her anymore. She might not be Edith’s choice for a future daughter-in-law—everyone in Stoney Ridge knew her favorite girl was Naomi King—but at least she was accepting that Jimmy and Bethany had an Understanding.

  At least, she thought they did, until last Sunday’s unfortunate incident.

  Bethany sighed. The wheelchair tipping might have set back her and Jimmy’s Understanding.

  After finishing the pumpkin cinnamon roll, she gathered up Tobe’s letter—which Naomi never even bothered to read—and her quilt top with the unaligned border corners and went on her way.

  Naomi snipped off the end of a piece of thread with her teeth. Last evening, Bethany had brought over her re-sewn quilt top and together they had spread it across the frame, over a layer of white batting and the backing to the quilt. She had promised Bethany she would help quilt it, but she was regretting that promise. It pained her to see the mismatched corners, the triangles with missing points, the crooked seams.

  Naomi idly threaded a needle and bowed her head over a quilt square, making small, even stitches without the benefit of a ruler or a machine. She remembered what Tobe had said once about her stitches: “They’re so tiny, they almost seem to disappear.”

  Her thoughts wandered to their brief time together last summer, when he had finally returned home after being a nomad for over a year. They spent every minute they could snatch together after that first time, when she had chanced upon him at Blue Lake Pond, sitting on an old log. He moved over to make room for her and she sat down, but he didn’t say anything and neither did she. Somehow, she seemed to understand his need for silence. Instead, she had fixed her gaze out over the lake. It was so calm, not a ripple. A perfect summer day.