“Maybe you need glasses then...” Levi’s words trailed off as he thought of Annie working in her wedding trailer, Annie driving the horses, Annie running beside him across the field.

  Joseph cleared his throat, and Levi forced his attention back to the conversation. “As far as Annie is concerned, you’ve got the wrong guy, or something.”

  “So you don’t have romantic feelings for my little schweschder?”

  Levi opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. He felt like a fish out of water. He felt completely disoriented.

  “Just be careful. Annie’s the youngest in our family, as you know, so we all feel as if we need to look out for her.”

  “You have nothing to worry about with me. She doesn’t...she can’t even stand...you’ve got this all wrong.”

  Joseph patted him on the shoulder. “Maybe you don’t realize how you feel at this point.”

  “And you do?”

  “I’m asking you to be mindful of how you treat her. If you don’t plan on staying—and from what I’ve heard from Dat, you don’t—then it’s probably best to not even go that direction with her.”

  “But if Alton and Lily move, then—”

  “My parents moving would be difficult for her, but does that mean she will too? Not likely.” Joseph crossed his arms, studying the scene before them. The fields, the picnic, the family—it could be an illustration for a book on Amish life. “Annie’s always had an independent spirit. She worked hard to build up a gut business, and she probably won’t give it up even when she marries, though she’ll have to cut back some or hire other workers to help her. But moving to Texas? I don’t see that happening even if Dat and Mamm go.”

  Joseph resettled his hat on his head. “So I’d appreciate you not leading her on.” With those words, he walked away.

  Suddenly Levi understood what had puzzled him since his arrival. He understood as clearly as if it had been carved on a tablet and handed to him.

  He wasn’t merely suggesting a move to her parents. If what he hoped would happen did happen, then Annie’s entire world would be turned on its head.

  * * *

  Annie saw Joseph talking to Levi. She hoped it had been about the harvest, or church or even the community he’d come from. Worst-case scenario, he was asking questions about Texas, but she didn’t see that happening. Joseph had a very prosperous farm as well as a woodworking business. She couldn’t see him starting over again somewhere else, especially with such a large family.

  But maybe she was wrong.

  Maybe he was already worried about land for his sons.

  Possibly Texas sounded like the promised land to him same as it did to Levi.

  The thought filled her with dread. Would she lose her entire family to Levi’s dream? She pushed the thought away, determined not to let her worries ruin such a beautiful fall day.

  The afternoon passed even more quickly than the morning had. She spent two hours on the back of the wagon, catching and stacking corn, another hour walking along the rows and pulling the cobs from the shucks and the final two hours driving the team.

  By the time her dat called it a day, she was so dead on her feet that sleeping in the field seemed like a valid option.

  “Tired?” Levi asked.

  “How can you tell?”

  “Because you’re standing still staring at the house instead of walking toward it.”

  She glanced at him, exasperated to see that he had enough energy to tease her. Annie sighed and began plodding toward the house, and Levi matched her step for step. If she was going to have to walk with him, she might as well ask what was on her mind.

  “What were you talking to Joseph about?”

  “Joseph?”

  “My bruder. The guy you stood with outside the barn after lunch.”

  “I know who he is.”

  “So what were you talking to him about? Please tell me it was not about Texas.”

  “Nein.” His answer was soft and he avoided looking directly at her.

  She didn’t think he would lie to her, but something was up.

  “Then what were you talking about?”

  “Oh...” Levi seemed to hesitate. When had he ever minced words before? Finally, he plunged ahead. “Joseph was warning me that they’re protective of you.”

  “Protective?” They were halfway across the field. She could see her father releasing the horses into the pasture, Nathan forking hay into the feeder and Joseph pouring water from the horse trough over his head. “Protective how?”

  Levi jerked the hat off his head, and that was when she noticed how red his ears were. Had he somehow sunburned them, or...

  “They think that we’re interested in one another—romantically.”

  Her mouth fell open. She tried to think of how to respond to that, but her thoughts were suddenly spinning in a dozen directions at the same time. She shook her head and snapped her mouth shut, though she continued to stare at him.

  “I know.”

  “You know what?”

  “That the notion is ludicrous. You can barely stand to be around me.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “My hat irritates you.” He waved the Stetson.

  “It’s not Amish.”

  “My boots irritate you.”

  “They’re cowboy boots.”

  “And my dream of moving to Texas irritates you.”

  The look he gave her reminded Annie of a child who had been scolded.

  “It’s not your dream that bothers me, Levi.”

  “It’s how it will affect your family. I know. I understand that now.”

  “You do?”

  He nodded, slapped the Stetson against his leg releasing a small cloud of dust and positioned it back on his head. “And I’m sorry.”

  “You’re sorry?” She could hear herself repeating his words like some sort of well-trained parrot, but she couldn’t seem to stop. “You’re sorry?”

  “I am, Annie.” His tone of voice, his posture, even his expression told her that he was no longer teasing. He was serious. Levi Lapp was seriously apologizing for disrupting her life and sending her future plans into a tailspin.

  She hadn’t seen that coming.

  How should she respond?

  She had no idea. So she resumed walking toward the house.

  “I was so focused on what I wanted, that it never occurred to me how it would affect you. When I came here, I only knew Old Simon. I certainly didn’t anticipate meeting your family.”

  “And yet you were looking for families just like mine.”

  “I was. That’s true, but maybe...maybe I should have backed off when I saw how much it upset you. Instead, I dug in deeper.”

  Her voice dropped, an image popping in her mind from her childhood. “There are times you remind me of our old hound dog whenever he found a bone.”

  They were nearly to the house. He put a hand on her arm and didn’t remove it until she’d stopped and turned to face him. “I don’t know how I’m going to fix this, but I promise you that I will try.”

  He waited a moment, maybe to see if she believed him, maybe to wait for her response which never came because she still had no idea what to say.

  Then he turned and trudged toward the barn, and Annie was left trying to figure out what had just happened.

  * * *

  Annie thought of trying to set her family straight. But everything she came up with sounded like a youngie protesting that she didn’t have a crush when she did. Instead, she vowed to keep quiet on the topic. She washed up, changed clothes and made it downstairs as her mamm was putting dinner on the table. Joseph and Nathan had headed home to eat with their own families. Mary had helped prepare the meal and then hurried home as well. As they settled around the table it was only Annie, her parents and Levi.

  She expected things to be uncomfortable, and indeed, at least three different times, she caught her parents sending each other silent looks. They’d done that as long as she could remember. It was as if they had their own wordless communication system. Was that what it was like to be married? To be able to know what your spouse was thinking without uttering a word? Annie wasn’t sure she was ready for that kind of intimacy. The idea that her family thought she wanted such a relationship with Levi Lapp almost caused her to laugh out loud.

  “Levi, you were a big help today.” Her dat reached for a second helping of potato casserole.

  “Danki. I enjoy harvest, always have.”

  “You haven’t talked much about your family other than to mention they’re in Lancaster.”

  Annie fought the urge to roll her eyes. She’d been through this before—once when she was dating a boy from Shipshewana and another time when she’d stepped out with a boy who had recently moved to Goshen. It was as if her dat had a list of questions for any prospective beaus.

  She barely heard Levi’s reply. She was too busy trying to think of a way to derail her parents’ confused ideas about her and Levi.

  Her dat continued to pepper him with questions about Lancaster. Bits and pieces of Levi’s responses registered: sixty-five-acre farm, a few dairy cows, all the children grown and gone but an oldest brother living on the family farm.

  Her mamm wanted to know how many siblings he had—two sisters who were older than Levi and two younger half sisters. Annie dropped her fork and stared at him at the mention of a stepfather.

  “My dat died when I was fifteen,” Levi explained. “We were living here in Goshen at the time, and then my mamm remarried. Not too long after that we moved.”

  Annie’s mamm carefully pressed her napkin to her lips and then folded it in her lap. “I’m sorry, Levi. I don’t believe I knew your parents. I guess even then Goshen was large enough to have divided into several church districts.”

  “Ya, we lived a gut ways from here, what I can remember of it.”

  “We are all sorry for your loss.” Her dat echoed her mamm’s sentiment. “Couldn’t have been easy for a young man to lose his father.”

  Levi shrugged and changed the subject, asking when they’d begin to plant the winter wheat. Soon they were deep into a discussion on crop rotation.

  Annie stood to help clean the dishes, but her mother made up a bogus excuse for Annie to see Levi out.

  “They’ve done this before,” she said as she walked him toward the barn.

  “Done what?”

  “Decided that I’m interested in someone, and gone out of their way to be accommodating.” She tried to laugh, but really it was humiliating. She didn’t need her parents’ help to find a beau.

  “They care about you.”

  “Ya, but they also think they know what’s best.”

  “Don’t all parents? Mine certainly thought they knew what was best for me—staying in Lancaster, farming a tiny place because that’s all we could afford, starting a side business to support the farm. It’s what my stepdad had done and what my brothers-in-law had done. They were convinced I should stay and do the same.” Levi shook his head. “They couldn’t grasp the idea that the life I wanted was different from the one they had.”

  “I understand firsthand how frustrating that is. Mamm and Dat have been supportive of my business, but I think at first they were convinced it was a phase I’d grow out of.”

  “Plainly they are proud of you.”

  “And plainly they want me married.” Her cheeks burned even saying the words. At least it was dark and Levi couldn’t see.

  She helped him hitch Old Simon’s horse to his buggy.

  “He’s had this mare as long as I can remember.” The mare was black with white socks. Annie stepped closer and rubbed her hand up and down the horse’s neck. “Old Simon’s wife named her.”

  “First mare I’ve ever known named after a flower.”

  “Petunia’s a gut name. Tabitha named the milk cows too—Rosebud and Daisy and Tulip.”

  Levi started laughing. “You’re making that up.”

  “I’m not.”

  Instead of climbing up into the buggy, Levi turned around, his back against the buggy, and stared up at the stars.

  “Please don’t tell me the stars are brighter in Texas.”

  He didn’t. Instead he began to sing “Deep in the Heart of Texas.” She’d heard it before. But she’d heard it as an energetic children’s song that they’d sung in school when they were learning about each state.

  Levi sang it like a lullaby, and for the first time Annie found herself curious about this state that had captured his heart.

  She moved beside him, stared up at the sky and wondered if it could be true. Were the stars brighter in Texas? She didn’t ask. She didn’t want to know.

  Levi nudged his shoulder against hers. “I’ve figured out what we should do.”

  “About what?” Annie was distracted by Levi’s closeness. She wondered what it would be like to kiss him.

  “About your family.”

  “Oh, ya. Tell me. I’m all ears. Because trying to persuade them something isn’t so only convinces them that it is.”

  “So we should do it.”

  “Do it?”

  “Step out together.”

  She squinted at him in the darkness, trying to make out his expression. Finally, she found her voice. “Did you hit your head today? Stay out in the sun too long? Maybe you’re having a small stroke?”

  “Why is it such a crazy idea?”

  “Well...we’re complete opposites.”

  “True.”

  “You’re not going to be here very long if your plan works.”

  “I didn’t ask you to marry me.”

  “And I didn’t ask you to ask me.”

  Instead of becoming exasperated with her, which he had every right to be, Levi began to laugh.

  “See?” He stuck his thumbs inside his suspenders. “This is what I enjoy about us.”

  “There is no us.”

  “You never say what I expect, and you always say what’s on your mind.”

  “Not always.”

  He laughed again, as if she’d said something very witty. She was beginning to wonder if he was a little daft, but then his tone grew serious.

  “Joseph warned me not to mislead you, but we’re being honest with one another here. I know you’re not really interested in me.” He said it as if he were relating the weather forecast. “Your parents plainly want us to step out, so we’ll do it, and then...”

  “Then what?”

  “I don’t know. Show them that we’re incompatible, I guess.”

  She wound her kapp string around her finger. “What about Martha?”

  Levi shook his head. “I’ve told you. There’s nothing between me and Martha. She’s like a nicer, kinder version of my little schweschder.”

  Martha had said practically the same thing about Levi to Annie the day before, but she hadn’t believed her. Why did she feel such a sense of relief hearing Levi confirm it? Why did she even care?

  Instead of pointing out how ridiculous their plan was, she found herself saying, “It might work.”

  “Really?”

  “I mean it might prove to my parents that we’re mismatched. We can step out a few times, and then when it’s obvious we don’t belong together—”

  “Plainly, we don’t.”

  “Then we can say we tried, and they’ll back off. This isn’t the first time they’ve poked their collective noses in my social life. And don’t say it. I know. They care about me.”

  “It’s a deal then.”

  He’d climbed up in the buggy, but he leaned back down and said, “I still want to go to Texas, still plan to. I’m going to find a way.”

  “I’m sure you will.”

  “But I’ve mucked things up for you, and I’m going to find a way to undo that.”

  “You mean with Dat?”

  “And your bruder Jebediah. Why wasn’t he here today?”

  “Had to get his own corn up, though his crop was much smaller and he was able to do it with the help of a neighbor. You know how it is—everyone harvests at the same time.”

  Levi stared out over the mare, out toward the fields they’d just harvested. “You have a nice life here. I can see that now. My future—it’s to the south, but my dream doesn’t have to be your dat’s.”

  “Maybe you could mention some of the bad things about Texas.”

  “I’ll have to be a little more subtle than that, but I’ll think of something.” He turned to look at her then. “I promise.”

  He waited until she nodded, then he picked up the reins, released the brake and guided Petunia down their lane. It occurred to her that Levi Lapp was a good man, and he’d make some Amish girl a fine husband.

  * * *

  Levi didn’t expect Old Simon to still be up when he finally made it into the house. The drive from Annie’s was only ten minutes, and he often walked. Since he knew they’d be working later and he’d be staying for dinner, he’d taken the buggy. Plus, Simon rarely took it out alone anymore. Levi didn’t hurry as he unhitched the buggy and cared for the horse. Those things calmed him, helped him to process all that had happened. By the time he stepped into the sitting room, it was well past the old guy’s normal bedtime.

  But there he sat, in his rocker, whittling on a cane.

  He carved crosses into the tops of them, sanded them until they were as smooth as the softest cotton and sold them at a store in town. It was a way to earn extra money, but more than that it was something he seemed to enjoy doing.

  “How was the harvest?”

  Levi sank onto the couch and told him about the day in the field.

  When he’d finished, Simon said, “Sounds as if our Annie has caught your fancy.”

  “Why do you say that?”

 

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