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

Chapter 17

A da doused the campfire, sat back in her chair, and gazed at the stars. The constellations seemed especially bright tonight, as if the sky was rejoicing with her. The Big Dipper pointed to the North Star, which winked and danced merrily as if putting on a show just for Ada.

It was entirely too late, but she had a feeling she wouldn’t be able to sleep even if she crawled into her sleeping bag and curled up tight. Her mind was racing in a thousand different directions, and no matter how exhausted she was, she couldn’t turn it off. Hope could do that to a person. Would Tabitha stop being such a pill? Would she quit blaming Enos? Would Enos finally have a chance to be happy? Would Cathy and Tabitha be at each other’s throats when they quilted tomorrow? Cathy was very picky about whom she let take stitches on her quilt. Had she extended the invitation to Tabitha just to be nice? Cathy wasn’t the “nice” type, but she certainly cared deeply about right and wrong and doing the right thing, even when it was inconvenient or downright painful.

Ada glanced toward Enos’s house, bathed in dim starlight. Wilford Brenchly had brought Tabitha and Enos home from the hospital late this afternoon. From the zip-up window in her tent, Ada had watched Enos help Tabitha out of the car and into the house. Tabitha hadn’t been smiling, but she hadn’t been frowning either as she’d hobbled up the steps, her cane tapping an uneven rhythm on the wooden porch. Enos had looked his same serious self, so Ada hadn’t been able to tell how he was feeling.

Tabitha was home, and the best Ada could hope for was that Enos’s mater wouldn’t end up in the hospital again in a few days. Maybe she had taken Cathy’s words to heart, but Ada couldn’t be sure with Tabitha. She had sixty-six years of bad habits to overcome, and surely there wouldn’t be much improvement in a few hours. At the hospital, Tabitha had been surprisingly willing to listen. Maybe she was also willing to change.

Enos’s tent was still standing just on the other side of the fence, but Ada hadn’t heard him leave the house, so maybe he’d come to his senses and decided to sleep in his own bed tonight. She certainly hoped so. He had to be exhausted from spending all night at the hospital.

Was it time for Ada to take down her tent and quit bothering Enos? At least he’d sleep better if she wasn’t camping out in the potato field. Her head told her she needed to put his health before her own selfish desires, but the thought of moving back home left her empty. She just wanted to be close to Enos. Was that so wrong?

Probably. Enos needed his sleep, and he needed his field, and Ada was getting in the way of both. She really was a horrible person, just as Enos said she was.

Her heart weighed as heavy as a stone. Maybe it was time to give up whatever it was she was holding on to, but right now, she was too tired to make any sort of rational decision. Lord willing, she’d have more clarity in the morning.

Ada stood and stamped out a glowing coal with her boot. Then she turned on her flashlight to illuminate a path to her tent door. “ Ach !” A wave of shock and disbelief washed over her, and she sucked in a breath. Coiled right outside the opening to her tent was a huge rattlesnake, as thick as her arm, its rattler raised and hissing, its head poised to strike.

Ada slowly stepped backward, her heart pounding against her chest, her vision blurred. How fast could a rattlesnake slither? How far away could she get before it decided to attack?

She backed into a tall, immovable wall. “Ada, get behind me.”

If she hadn’t been staring down a rattlesnake, Ada would have turned around and argued with him about putting himself in danger, but her only thought was to do as she was told. She jumped behind Enos, who was clutching a shiny silver shovel in his hands, his attention riveted to the snake in front of him. After one breathless heartbeat, the snake lunged at Enos with a speed Ada could not comprehend. Enos shoved Ada backward, and she fell hard on her hinnerdale but still managed to keep hold of the flashlight.

Enos used the shovel as a shield and a weapon, smacking the snake on the side of its body, then hitting it away from both of them. Before Ada could take a breath, the snake glided rapidly away, disappearing into the darkness among the potato plants.

Enos heaved his shovel to the ground and roughly pulled Ada to her feet. With trembling hands, he drew her to his chest. “Are you okay? Where are you hurt?”

Aside from a very bruised backside and a scrape on her hand that she was sure was bleeding, she was okay. She hadn’t been bitten, and she hadn’t died, and Enos was standing on her property where he swore he’d never set foot again. All was right with the world. Sort of. “I’m okay. Denki for saving me. I don’t know what would have happened.”

He abruptly nudged her away from him and scowled. “What are you still doing here, Ada?”

“Uh, you mean right now or in general?”

“I told you your stubbornness was going to get you hurt. It’s a gute thing I heard you call out, or you’d be dead.”

“I don’t know that I’d be dead. With a rattlesnake bite, if you get immediate medical attention, you should be okay.”

He scrubbed his fingers through his damp hair. “You think that makes me feel better?”

“I guess not.” Ada clasped her hands together, feeling sheepish, but not wanting to admit it. “Except I didn’t get hurt, so you can’t really say ‘I told you so.’”

“You think that makes me feel better?” he asked again, anger flashing in his eyes. “Ada, I’ve tried to be patient, but there is a limit to my goodwill. So now I’m demanding you go home and sleep in your own bed where there aren’t any snakes or coyotes or bad men lying in wait to harm you.”

Ada was too shaken up to be mad. Surprisingly, all she felt was an overwhelming sense of love for this man who always, always tried to do the right thing, even when Tabitha or Zeb or Ada fought him on it. But she had to be contrary, or Enos would have suspected she was ill. “You know better than to demand anything from me. I always dig in my heels.”

Enos was beside himself with frustration. “I’ve already said you can have your six acres. Go home and leave me alone.”

“I can’t go home, Enos.” It was a very inconvenient time for her voice to crack. “Don’t you see I can’t go home? You need me.”

“I need you?” He paced back and forth in front of her tent. “Are you saying this because you think I can’t take care of myself and my family?”

Ach , but he was pigheaded. “ Nae .”

“Do you feel sorry for me because I’ve only got one foot? Or do you pity me because I’m so deep in debt all you can see is my hair above ground? I’ll never be gute enough, will I?”

Ada wanted to both pull her hair out and kiss that wounded look off his face. “Shut up, Enos. Just shut up.”

He looked at her as if she had lost her mind.

Maybe she had, but not for the reasons he imagined. “Quit talking about yourself like that. You are strong and capable and not someone people feel sorry for.” She huffed out a breath. “I said you need me, but I said it wrong. What I really mean is that I need you .” She swallowed hard and decided to risk raw, vulnerable honesty. “The truth is, I love you,” she said, hoping she wouldn’t come to regret it. “And there’s nothing you can say to make me change my mind.”

He looked as if she’d smacked him in the head with his shiny new shovel. “What?”

“I’m sorry if you find the thought unpleasant, but I’m too tired to spare your feelings.” She squared her shoulders. “I know you think I’m a bad sister and an irritating, devious neighbor, but I have come to see you as the kindest, most faithful, best man in the world. I love you, and you can burn down my tent, but I’m not leaving.”

He studied her face as if seeing her for the first time. His eyes shone with pain and hunger and defeat. “Ada,” he whispered. “I can’t.”

Drawing a breath was impossible. A crushing weight pressed into her chest like a vice tightening its hold. “I’m . . . I’m froh you didn’t kill the rattlesnake. It’s illegal in Colorado.”

He reached out his hand. She took a step back. “Ada, it’s not what you . . .”

“Don’t be upset, Enos. I understand. You can’t love me back. How could I expect you to? I’m critical and stubborn, and I’d rather argue than submit. I’ve insulted you several times, I stick my nose in your business, and you yourself pointed out how unkind I’ve been to Beth. Who could love that?”

He grimaced. “Shut up, Ada. Just shut up and listen for once.”

It was her turn to be stunned into silence.

He came at her as if he was going to tackle her, clamped his arms around her waist, and kissed her as if he couldn’t bear the pain of being apart. Ada had never experienced an emotion so heart-wrenching and urgent, as if every hope and longing was in that one kiss. She didn’t know how to react to such a kiss, especially from a man who didn’t love her and had no right to make her knees buckle as if they were made of gelatin. He drew away from her slightly but kept a tight hold on her waist. “Ada,” he whispered. “I refuse to let myself hope.”

“Hope what? That I’ll shut up and listen?”

His lips twitched upward. “I’d be deerich to hope for that.” He pressed his lips together. “I am deeply in debt. The farm will most likely fail, and I’ll have nothing to offer you.”

Nothing to offer her? “I don’t need anything. I already have six acres, a tent, and a field of potatoes.”

He released her and turned his face toward the fields. “It doesn’t matter. I will not come into a marriage empty-handed. I would feel like less than a man.”

Her pulse was off to the races. Ada hadn’t said anything about marriage. Enos had brought it up, and she wasn’t about to derail his train of thought. “That’s just your pride talking.”

“ Jah , it is.” He hooked his fingers around the back of his neck. “Ada, I love my mater , but I won’t ask any woman to shoulder the burden of her bitterness. Lilith and Ardy can’t do it. I don’t blame them, but neither can I do what they have done. I can’t abandon her. It would destroy her if I were to marry. She said so herself. I know you think I shouldn’t let her control me, but I can only do what I think is right. I know that frustrates you, but I am who I am. Take it or leave it.”

“I’ll take it,” she blurted out, but he was too deep in his own thoughts to hear her.

“I promised my dat I’d look out for my mamm . It’s the only thing I can do to honor his memory.”

She tilted her head to look at him. At that moment, he looked so young, so sad, so trapped by his own devotion. “Is this why you were so snippy with me that day you came back from Pennsylvania?”

He smirked. “Snippy? You make me sound like a dog.”

“You were snippy, and you should be ashamed of yourself for talking to me like that.”

“After being in Pennsylvania and seeing how dead-set Zeb and John were against Mamm, I didn’t see a way forward for you and me, so I decided to give you up. It shattered me.”

“I’m sorry.”

He brushed his fingers tenderly down her cheek. “You have been in my heart ever since that day you fell from your irrigation system. You weren’t being very careful, and I got frustrated.”

Ada’s heart soared to the heavens. Enos loved her! She could die a happy woman. “I was being careful. You startled me.”

He chuckled, but there was anguish below the surface. “You can blame everything on me if it makes you happy. You’re wrong, but I want you to be happy.” He gathered her into his arms. “Ada, I want to marry you so bad, my hair is turning gray and I’ve chewed my fingernails to stubs, but I don’t see any way forward for us. I won’t abandon my mater . Even more important, I’m not gute enough for you. You’re wasting your time loving me. There are dozens of boys you could marry, and it’s time to give me up and find someone to make you happy.”

Ada protested loudly, not caring if she woke up the goats in her barn. “You’re the only one who could make me happy.”

“And you are the only one who could make me happy, but it doesn’t matter.” He took several steps back and put what seemed like a mile between them. “Can we just be friends?”

Did he have any idea what a slap in the face that question was? She felt the sting clear to her toes. How could he be so cruel?

Ada balled her hands into fists. She’d camped out for weeks, eaten too many tinfoil dinners to count, plowed Enos’s fields, planted potatoes, and gotten sixty-one mosquito bites. Everything she’d done had been for Enos. She’d fought for him when he didn’t have a friend in the world. She’d defended him and worried about him and cared for his well-being. She didn’t need thanks, but she longed for an acknowledgment that she meant something to him. Obviously, she wasn’t going to get it.

She took a deep, purposeful breath and determined not to waste one more tear or minute on Enos Hoover. If she had less self-respect, she would try to cajole him into loving her, choosing her, marrying her, but begging was beneath her, and she refused to talk him into something he so clearly didn’t want to do. She choked on her answer but said what he wanted to hear. “ Jah , of course we can be friends.” She forced an insincere and painful smile onto her face. “I’d like that very much.” It was the worst moment of her life.

And the finest.

Without giving him a second glance, she ducked into her tent and grabbed her pillow and her fuzzy blanket. By the time she emerged, her composure was nailed firmly into place. “I’ll come by in the morning to take down the tent and clean up my campsite. Lord willing, we’ll both get a better night’s sleep this way.”

He didn’t look entirely comfortable, but she was done trying to make him feel better for anything. His happiness was no longer her concern.

She turned away and set her face and her flashlight toward her house where people loved her and the goats were always happy to see her. As soon as she was out of earshot, she indulged in a sob and a thousand tears, but no one would ever know that her heart had broken into a million pieces.

She didn’t and wouldn’t look back.