The clerk, dressed in Plain clothing, stood at the counter cutting fabric. She glanced up and greeted Hannah. "Hi, didn't expect to see you today. You don't have a lesson until Thursday, do you?"
"No, I decided not to wait until then to get some fabric to start a new quilt."
"Can I help you with something?" the clerk asked Chris.
"He's with me. Chris, this is Naomi, one of the owners of the store. Naomi, this is Chris, a friend of Jenny's."
She turned to Chris. "Naomi, Anna, and Mary Katherine are sisters. They and their grossmudder own the shop."
"Hi, Chris. So, are you interested in quilting too?" she asked, tucking her tongue in her cheek.
He grinned at her. "Nope. Thought I'd try knitting."
"Knitting? Did someone say knitting?" Another young woman, who looked a lot like Naomi and dressed like her, approached.
Hannah laughed. "Chris, meet Anna. She can help you with any knitting supplies."
Another young woman joined them, looking similar to the other two and dressed the same. "Hi, I'm Mary Katherine.Maybe you'd like to look at our weaving section?"
"Now, now, don't tease the poor man," an older woman said as she walked up. She turned to Chris. "I'm sure he's here to learn how to make the little Amish dolls I'm known for."
Chris backed up. "I think I'll just wait in the buggy for you, Hannah."
Feminine laughter followed him and he slunk off to the buggy. Geez, he'd faced down men with guns, but surrounded by a bunch of Amish women teasing him about making crafts he'd turned tail.
Outside, he became the subject of curious stares from passing tourists who obviously wondered why he was dressed in Englisch clothes but sitting in an Amish buggy.
Yes, it is an interesting time, this trip to Paradise, he thought.
The minutes ticked by and he became aware that he was being watched, the itch between his shoulders was back. He glanced around but didn't see anything out of the ordinary.Tourists walked around dressed in logo T-shirts, food in hand, looking in shop windows and carrying bags of things they'd already bought.
None passing by gave him any cause for concern. He wasn't sure if that meant they truly didn't warrant concern, or if it was because he was getting soft.
Surely there was no need for him to be thinking about watching his back now that he wasn't a soldier—now that he was in a place called Paradise.
When Hannah returned to the buggy, she was carrying a big bag with the store name imprinted on it. Chris got out to put it in the buggy for her and she looked surprised.
"What? Is there no chivalry among the Amish men?"
"I don't know this 'chivalry' but I'm capable of carrying a shopping bag."
Chris pretended to heft the bag with great effort. "I don't know about that. I think you bought a piece of every bolt of fabric in the store."
Hannah put her hands on her hips. "I did not!"
"And spent all your salary from teaching there last week."He could tell his words hit home when she blushed.
"Not all," she said primly.
"Because you got an employee discount."
Her eyes widened and she opened her mouth to protest until she saw him grin and hold out his hand to help her into the buggy.
"How do you know about employee discounts?" she asked him as she climbed in by herself.
"My first job was at a store, and I spent most of my paychecks buying things," he said, chuckling at the memory. "I only stopped when my dad refused to pay for my car insurance."
He glanced at her as she called to Daisy to get the buggy moving. "No sixteen-year-old boy can go without his wheels."
"It's much the same here," she said with a smile. "Our young men have courting buggies and some of them deck them out with radios and such."
Her smile faded. "Some of them leave before being baptized because they want the cars. And the music. Well, what some of the young people call music. It sounds like—"
She stopped and shook her head. "Well, it doesn't sound like any music I remember listening to during my rumschpringe."
"Caterwauling," Chris told her. "My dad always called it caterwauling. Now I think it's just blasphemous calling heavy metal that kind of name."
He stretched out his long legs as best as he could within the confines of the buggy. "So anyway, I stopped buying this and that so I could keep my wheels." He chuckled again. "Of course, the car was one big rust heap and held together with duct tape. And prayer. I did a lot of praying when I drove, that's for sure.
"Prayer stood me in good stead when I went into battle," he said, looking inward. "I don't know of anyone who doesn't do it on the front lines." He fell silent. "I remember doing a lot of prayer there. But I know now I was trying to bargain with God, asking him to keep me alive. And later, after my friend was killed in front of me and when I was hurt, I was just so angry at Him."