The Amish Quiltmaker’s Unattached Neighbor (The Amish Quiltmaker #6)

Chapter 4

T he sun was just peeking over the mountains as Ada tromped to the wooden fence that separated her property from Enos’s. Her rifle was slung over her right shoulder, feeling heavier and heavier with each step. She’d stared at her rifle for ten minutes this morning before deciding to bring it, and now she was starting to think she’d made the wrong decision. It was heavy, and she had no intention whatsoever of using it. Did it make her look threatening? Or foolish?

She reached the edge of the fence where their property met the highway, because she figured that if Enos was going to dismantle it, he’d start at the end and work his way south. The property in dispute was a two-hundred-foot-wide swath that ran parallel to the fence and several hundred feet southward. Whoever had put up the fence had spent hours and hours and a great deal of money. Ada tapped her fist on the top of the first fence post. It was more than sturdy. Beth had been right when she said it would be incredibly hard to move. Lord willing, Enos wouldn’t decide to take an ax to the whole thing and put up ugly metal and wire in its place. The farm already had enough chain link.

Ada propped her arms on the top rail and laced her fingers together. The Connor house had been vacant for five years. When Myra Connor passed away, her family fought over whether to sell the house, then they fought over who was responsible to clean up the property, then they fought over how to split the money. The house and property had deteriorated over the years, and Ada had always thought it was a shame that a nice family didn’t buy the property and fix it up. Ach , vell , she should definitely be careful what she wished for.

Ada had a good view of the house from where she stood. It was on the west side of Enos’s property and not two hundred feet from the fence. The siding had peeled to the point that passersby wouldn’t have been able to guess what color it used to be. But it looked as if Enos had already started making improvements. The door to the shed, which he was using as a barn, had been put back on its hinges, and a large, six-section solar panel sat in the front yard, ready to be attached to a pole that had been cemented into the ground. He was going to need help with that. Maybe Clay and Menno would be willing to give him a hand.

Ada crinkled her nose in disgust. Why was she thinking of helping Enos with anything? He was the intruder, and he wanted six acres of what was rightfully hers.

Ada eyed the sturdy old house. It had nice lines and good bones. She’d relish the chance to fix up a house like that. With enough love and hard work, it could be beautiful again.

“I told you it is a hesslich house, dirty and unlivable.”

Ada caught her breath. Tabitha Hoover ambled toward her, strolling along the fence line with her cane. “ Hallo , Tabitha. I didn’t see you there.”

Tabitha narrowed her eyes. “Ada Yoder, Enos says you won’t give up the extra six acres he owns.”

“It’s all a misunderstanding. I’m sure we can work it out.” She wasn’t sure of any such thing, but Ada did not want to discuss the matter with Tabitha. She still had a bad taste in her mouth from yesterday’s fellowship meal.

Tabitha smiled nastily. “He’s up to his eyeballs in debt, you know. I warned him not to buy this worthless piece of property, but he wouldn’t listen to me. It is always the way with him. He only honors his mater and fater when it suits him. He lost his foot when he was six because he disobeyed his fater and was horsing around the hay baler. I guess he learned his lesson. Gotte punishes those who pay no heed to their parents.”

Ada drew back even farther. Tabitha blamed six-year-old Enos for an accident? She thought he deserved his injury because it was Gotte’s punishment? Ada refused to believe that Gotte would ever chasten someone for a childish mistake. “I’m sorry you think so, Tabitha, but bad things happened to gute people all the time. Gotte makes his sun to shine on the righteous and the wicked. Gotte is love. He would never do a destructive, malicious, or unfair thing to any of His children. He is always and forever good.”

Tabitha acted as if Ada’s opinion was irritating, like a pebble in her shoe. “I never said He wasn’t. I’m not talking about Gotte. I’m talking about Enos. He’s stubborn and foolish, and he brought me here to this dry, desolate place against my will. I pray every day that Gotte smites him so he’ll take me back to Bird-in-Hand.”

Just in time, Ada remembered that Gotte loved Tabitha just as much as He loved Ada and Esther and even Enos. “You . . . you want Gotte to smite your son?”

Tabitha placed her hand on the top fence rail and smiled smugly. “Don’t look so shocked. You want Gotte to smite my son too. He’s trying to take your land.”

When Tabitha put it into words, Ada realized she had been wishing bad on Enos. And that was wrong, no matter what happened with the farm. She would have to go home and repent right quick. “I don’t want Gotte to smite anybody. I just want Enos to give up trying to take my land.”

Tabitha nodded as if Ada had agreed with her. “I’m on your side. If this farm fails, Enos will move us back to Pennsylvania, and I’ll get my old life back.”

Ada’s heart sank. Why had Tabitha said that? Ada didn’t want Tabitha on her side. Tabitha didn’t seem to be on the right side of anything. Now Ada was torn between fighting for her farm and giving up the six acres just to spite Enos’s mater .

She’d never had such a dizzying conundrum.

“Mamm, are you all right?” Enos came jogging from the direction of the house with a shovel in one hand and a leather bag slung over his shoulder. He was breathing heavily when he reached his mater , and the concern in his eyes was deep and painful. He eyed Ada, and it surprised her to realize his concern was for her.

“Ada and I were just having a little talk,” Tabitha said. “She wants you to go back to Pennsylvania where you belong. She thinks you’re a bad son.”

Enos looked at Ada as if he cared more about her opinion than what his mater thought of him.

Ada pried her tongue from the roof of her mouth. “I . . . I never said that.”

Tabitha cackled. “But you were thinking it.” With a disdainful look at Enos, she walked away, her cane dangling from her hand completely unused. Just how helpless was she really?

“Is everything okay?” Enos said breathlessly. “I hope she didn’t say anything to hurt your feelings.”

Ada felt like she needed to apologize to Enos for his own mater , but maybe that would embarrass him more than he already obviously was. “I don’t let my feelings get hurt. Life is too short, and I have more important things to do.”

He studied her face, then smiled weakly. “I wouldn’t have expected anything less from you.”

The way he looked at her sent a trickle of warmth down her spine. It was the most pleasant, unexpected sensation Ada had ever felt, and she wasn’t in the mood. “It’s too bad your mamm doesn’t like it here.”

Enos grimaced. “She’s just . . . she’s not herself. It will take her some time to adjust to the elevation.”

“It’s probably none of my business, but the solution is easy, isn’t it? Why don’t you just take her back to Pennsylvania to live with one of your bruderen ?”

He hooked his fingers around the back of his neck. “ Ach , vell , that is the question I hear every day, and you’re right. It is none of your business.”

If Ada were inclined to be offended, his bluntness would have irritated her. But she appreciated his honesty, even if his lack of tact was a little irksome. “She . . . uh . . . she says she’s on my side.”

“I suppose you think that surprises me.”

Ada had to laugh at the tinge of sarcasm in his voice. “Not at all.” She pointed to his shovel. “Looks like you’re ready to tear down my fence.”

He motioned to her rifle. “Looks like you’re ready to stop me.”

“I wanted you to feel threatened. Is it working?”

“ Nae . You’re a very difficult woman, but I don’t think you’d stoop to shooting me. I bet there aren’t even any bullets in that gun.”

Oh, sis yuscht . He was smarter than she gave him credit for. She stretched her lips across her teeth. “You don’t know for sure, do you?” She leaned her elbows on the rail. “I came out here to stop you by any means necessary, but I can see you’re not going make any progress. It’ll take you all day to dig up the first fence post. It’s set in cement. The fence job alone will take you all spring and summer. If you want to farm your land, you’ll have to abandon your plan to move the fence.”

He scrubbed his hand down the side of his face, acting resigned but not defeated. “I was hoping for some help from the gmayna , but it seems all the families are loyal to the Yoders. Everyone was very nice, but none of them want to come within a mile of this fence and our nasty feud.”

Ada tilted her head to one side. “Hmm, very nasty.”

He propped his shovel against the fence post. “Is Clay Markham related to you?”

“He’s my bruder -in-law. Mary’s husband.”

“A former Englischer?”

“ Jah ,” Ada said. “His accent is quite bad.”

“He’s a big man. He was the first one I asked to help me with the fence. He could probably pick up the whole fence and move it by himself.”

“Probably.”

Enos swiped his hand across his mouth as if wiping away a smile. “He cautioned me to give up on the land. He said you are the strongest, most determined woman he knows and that you will have me curled up in a corner whimpering like a buplie in less than a week.”

“Clay is now my favorite bruder -in-law.”

“I told him I’d welcome the challenge,” Enos said. Ada didn’t know why, but her heart beat a little faster. Enos palmed his forehead. “Menno Eicher is also related to you too, isn’t he?”

She nodded. “My other bruder -in-law.”

“He said you’d kill him if he helped move the fence, and he has two children and one on the way. He doesn’t want to get shot with that fancy rifle.”

“He’s wonderful smart.” Ada slid her rifle off her shoulder and propped it against the fence as a show of goodwill. “You have plenty of work to do on your own forty acres. Why do you want to take six of mine? The outside of the house by itself is a year’s long project.”

Enos turned and looked at the house. “It has gute bones, doesn’t it? I’m going to paint it and put on a green aluminum roof. It will be very nice, a place Mamm can be proud of.”

“I don’t wonder but you’ll take gute care of the property. You seem persnickety about such things.”

His eyebrow twitched. “Do I?”

“Persnickety in a gute way.”

A smile played at his lips. “You seem persnickety in a gute way too. I mean, the pleats on your church apron were ironed to perfection yesterday.”

Ada gave him an arch look as a warning to not tease her. “Beth hates it. Sometimes I make her do her bed all over again, and I can’t trust her to clean a toilet. I won’t live in unsanitary conditions.”

He nodded. “I bless my mamm for teaching me how to clean a toilet.”

Ada kept her mouth shut about Enos’s mamm . Ada couldn’t see a reason to bless Tabitha for anything. “What color are you going to paint the house?”

“White, although I almost changed my mind when I saw the exciting house colors in Monte Vista.”

Ada laughed so hard she snorted. “Did you see the pink house on the highway? Or the brown one with lime-green trim?”

“A little too fancy for my taste.” Enos paused, then pressed his hand against the fence post as if seeing how hard it would be to push over. “I hate to disappoint you, but your bruderen -in-law can’t discourage me. I’m even more persistent than you are, and if I get desperate, a box of matches will solve my problem in no time.”

Ada felt her eyebrows crash into each other. “You can’t burn down my fence. Cathy says it’s quaint, and I think it’s beautiful. Much prettier than chain link.”

“It is pretty.”

Ada folded her arms and propped her elbows on the fence rail. “Besides, Byler is dry as a bone. You’ll start the whole county on fire if you try to burn down this fence. They’d throw you in jail and make you pay a fine.”

“I guess a fire would be unwise.” He leaned his arms on the fence rail, and there were barely five inches between their arms. Why did he have to be so annoying? “What I am supposed to do, Ada?”

She was momentarily distracted when she heard her name from his lips. It sounded almost like a caress, even though she was sure he hadn’t meant it that way. A slug in the arm was more his intention. “You can leave it where it is and give up trying to steal six of my acres.”

He surprised her when he smiled. “You’d like that. And so would my mamm .”

A small, very loud white car pulled off to the side of the road and backfired when the driver turned off the engine. A skinny young man in a suit and tie unfolded himself from the driver’s seat and loped toward them, smiling widely and holding an official-looking clipboard.

“Hello,” he called. “I’m looking for Enos Hoover.”

Enos stiffened like a bowl of Jell-O on a cold day. “That’s me.”

The man shook Ada’s hand, then reached over the fence and shook Enos’s hand. “Hello, Mr. Hoover. My name is Tyson Carruthers, and I am Miss Yoder’s representation.”

It took every shred of discipline Ada had to keep any expression from her face. She had never seen this person in her entire life.

Enos slowly turned his head and looked at Ada, a suspicious glint in his eye. She could tell he didn’t believe it, but as long as Ada kept a straight face, he couldn’t be sure. “Miss Yoder’s representation? Like an attorney? Sounds expensive.”

Tyson Carruthers pulled a pen from his suit coat. “I understand you are disputing Miss Yoder’s claim to the fence line.”

Ada pressed her lips together. Enos looked dizzy, like someone had hit him in the head with his own shovel. She felt a little dizzy herself.

Tyson Carruthers thumbed through the papers attached to his clipboard. “I regret to inform you that Miss Yoder is completely within her rights to dispute your claim to the property. Have you ever heard of boundary by acquiescence?”

“No.”

Tyson grimaced sympathetically. “Don’t feel bad. Most people don’t know about it. If two neighbors put up a fence between their property and no one claims the property beyond the fence for more than twenty years, the court considers the property owners to have acquiesced.”

Ada had no idea what Tyson had just said. He sounded like a walking dictionary. But he’d come here on her behalf, so it must be gute news. “Could you explain that more clearly to Enos?” And to her, though it was plain that she had to pretend to know what her lawyer was talking about.

Tyson nodded. “Of course. If a fence has been up for more than twenty years, it becomes the new and legal property line, no matter what the deed says.”

“Oh,” said Ada. Well, then. That was the solution to all her problems. It didn’t matter what Enos’s deed said. The property was hers.

So why didn’t she feel as happy as she thought she would? What was wrong with her? This was what she had wanted since last week when Enos had told her about his claim to six acres.

The answer was standing across the fence from her. Enos’s expression didn’t change one bit, but his knuckles whitened around the fence rail, and he drew in a deep breath as if he wasn’t expecting to breathe again ever. Ada wanted the land and she wanted the sturdy fence, but she didn’t want Enos to give up on his farm, and she didn’t want his mater to rejoice at her son’s failure. More than anything, she didn’t want Enos to lose if it meant Tabitha would win.

Ada swallowed past the lump in her throat. Enos was strong and determined and thirty-five years old. Maybe he wasn’t hurt by Tabitha’s harsh words and critical judgments. Maybe Ada was assuming he had feelings he didn’t really have. Maybe she felt bad enough for both of them. He certainly hadn’t backed down when she’d insulted and chastised him. Maybe his thick skin went all the way to his heart.

Even so, she felt compelled to help him feel better. “You still have forty acres, Enos. That’s a lot of alfalfa.” She instinctively reached out to him, but pulled her hand away before she went too far. She wasn’t usually so sympathetic. She told Beth to “buck up” all the time, and she never had trouble feeling justified when someone got their just desserts. “You still have forty acres.”

He pinned Tyson Carruthers with an intense gaze. “What did you say this law about the fence was called?”

“It’s boundary by acquiescence.”

Enos took a small notepad from his pocket along with a stubby pencil. “Will you spell that please?”

Tyson had to think about it. “B-O-U-N-D-A-R-Y-B-Y-A-C-Q-U-I-E-S-C-E-N-C-E.”

“Thank you very much.” Smiling like he had a secret, Enos shook Tyson’s hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Carruthers. Where may I call you if I have questions?” He held his pencil at the ready.

Tyson’s gaze flicked between Ada and Enos as if he had something to hide. “Uh, I guess you can call my cell phone.”

He gave Enos the number, and Enos wrote it down. “Okay,” Enos said. “You can go now, Mr. Tyson.”

Tyson’s smile stuttered. “It’s Carruthers. With two Rs.”

Enos nodded. “I’ll call you if I need you.”

Tyson clomped back to his car, and it took him five tries to get it to start. Enos and Ada watched until he turned onto the highway and disappeared into the distance.

“That kid is not an attorney,” Enos said.

Ada was immediately on the defensive, though she didn’t know why. Tyson Carruthers was a perfect stranger. “You’re not as clever as you think you are.”

“But I’m more clever than you think I am.”

Ada couldn’t keep from laughing. Tyson had knocked her for a loop, like a buggy doing donuts in an icy parking lot, and Enos was not easily fooled. “To be honest, I’ve never seen that boy before in my life.”

“Don’t you think I guessed as much? You looked so surprised, I thought your eyes were going to pop out of your head.”

Ada’s mouth fell open in mock indignation. “I thought I did a fine job not showing any emotion.”

He looked at her as if trying to see through her skull to the back of her head. “I saw how the tiny lines around your eyes bunched up and your lips thinned. You can’t hide something that big from me.”

Ada looked away from the deep fathoms of his eyes. “To be fair, he said he was my representation. He didn’t utter the word attorney. And just because he’s not an attorney doesn’t mean he’s wrong about the boundary by acquittal thing.”

Enos glanced at his notepad. “Acquiescence. It is a very big word, and I intend to find out what the law really says.”

“So you don’t believe him?”

Enos sighed. “I think he’s sincere, and I think one of your friends put him up to this, but you can’t get rid of me that easily, Miss Yoder.”

When he said “miss,” he hissed like a snake and pumped his eyebrows up and down.

Ada laughed so hard, anyone might have thought she was on Enos’s side.