A Time to Heal(7)

Joshua passed him the bowl of mashed potatoes. "Mamm makes good potatoes. She makes everything good. Well, she's still working on her biscuits."

"You'll never let me live those down, will you?" Jenny said with a shake of her head. "Just because the wildlife wouldn't even eat them when we threw them outside on the lawn."

"Your cinnamon rolls are the best," he said loyally, then he dug into his meal and didn't say another word.

Chris couldn't help being surprised to see Jenny dressed in Amish clothes, with a plain high-necked dress with long sleeves. Her dress was a rich blue, though—not dark like Phoebe's—and the color made her skin glow. The happiness he saw in her eyes convinced him that he'd been right to come here to talk to her.

She reached to wipe Annie's chin with her napkin, and Chris saw that she didn't wear a wedding ring. A quick glance at Matthew's left hand showed that he didn't either.

Some men didn't wear a wedding ring, but he'd never known a married woman who didn't wear one. Wondering at that, he looked away and saw that Hannah watched him. She frowned.

Jenny was full of questions. "So when did you get out of the hospital? What are you doing now?"

She stopped and bit her lip, then grinned at him. "Sorry. It's the reporter in me. I was born asking questions."

"You talked when you were borned?" asked Annie, looking at her. "I thought babies couldn't do that."

"It's an expression," Joshua said. He rolled his eyes, caught his father looking at him, and bent his head over his plate again.

"You're one of Mamm's Englisch friends?" Mary asked him as she passed the basket of rolls. "Were you with her overseas?"

Chris shook his head. "I was overseas but I did a different kind of work."

He hesitated and glanced at Jenny and Matthew, wondering if he should say any more. But although they didn't signal him with their expressions that he should censure what he said, he decided to change the subject.

"I met your mother at the hospital here in the States." He spread butter on his second roll. "These have got to be the best rolls I've ever eaten. The whole meal is wonderful."

"Have a second helping," Phoebe invited, handing him the meatloaf platter.

"I already have," he confessed.

"Three shows you really appreciated it," she told him with a twinkle in her eye.

"And you were hungerich," Annie told him. "Your bauch went groowwwl like a lion!"

"Annie!" Matthew looked stern.

"No, she's right!" Chris said, laughing. "I guess I was really hungry for supper, wasn't I?"

"So did you come here for vacation, Chris?" Jenny asked as she got up to serve dessert.

"Yes," he said. "I remembered you'd told me you lived here and decided to look you up. I wondered if you could show me around a little."

"Oh, I wish you'd let me know you were coming. I have to be in New York for a few days this week," Jenny told him, looking distressed as she stood beside the table with a pie.

"It's okay. I should have called or written first."

Jenny placed the pie on the table and began cutting it."Maybe Hannah could take you around?"

He glanced at Hannah and glimpsed a frown before she quickly schooled her features into a bland mask.

"Of course," Hannah said politely.

"There's no need if you're busy—"

"I'd be more than happy to do it," she insisted, handing him a plate with a piece of pie on it. "Here, you must try Jenny's pecan pie. It's her best pie."

She handed him a plate with a slice on it and met his eyes.In them he saw wariness instead of the aware, intense look he'd seen when she'd lain breathless on the hayloft and stared up at him.

Something had changed in the minutes since they'd left the barn. And it hadn't been for the better.





Perhaps her brother's suspicion had rubbed off on her.

But Hannah couldn't help wondering if she really wanted to be with this man again for any length of time. Jenny had said he'd been a soldier—might still be—and Hannah had lived her whole life as a member of a Plain community. They were as opposite as opposites could get.

She didn't blame him for being a soldier. That wasn't her business. God alone—not man or woman—was the sole judge of man. But what would she have to say? Would he judge her and her community the way she'd so often seen others do? Had he come here to see them as a tourist attraction?

Yet there was something that didn't seem quite right. He didn't seem like the "type" of person who came to visit the area as so many had done in recent years. Some were interested in a more surface type of visit—look at some farmhouses, eat a number of Amish meals, buy souvenirs. It was as though they had a set of expectations, a list of what to see in a limited time.