Katie's Way Page 7

  “I’ll keep an eye on Becky,” he said abruptly. “I hope you’ll do the same for your sister.”

  For an instant Katie felt like bursting into tears, but a flare of anger came to her rescue. “My sister is fine. She doesn’t need anyone to keep an eye on her.”

  The fact that Katie had come for just that purpose was none of Caleb’s business.

  His jaw clenched. “Yesterday—”

  She’d known he’d bring that up sometime. “What happened yesterday was a misunderstanding. It was between me and my sister. No one else.”

  “You mean it’s none of my business,” he said, clearly not agreeing.

  “It’s not.” She gave him back look for look. He could make of that what he wanted.

  Finally he turned away, making a small gesture with his hand that seemed to dismiss her and her sister entirely.

  Clearly he didn’t approve of the way she’d handled Rhoda yesterday. But then, there didn’t seem to be anything about her that didn’t draw that same reaction from him, did there?

  That moment when they had touched was different, a small voice in the back of her mind said. Very different.

  “Sosome of Becky’s friends are going to get together to go shopping on Saturday, and they invited me.” Rhoda’s tongue had been running faster than her hands as she and Katie got ready to open on Monday. “I can go, can’t I?”

  The efforts Becky had made to introduce Rhoda into Pleasant Valley’s teenage society were obviously working, but that left Katie with one challenge after another.

  “That is ser gut of them, but I’ll need to know a bit more about it. Who is going, and how are you getting there, and—”

  “And, and, and,” Rhoda interrupted her. “You sound like Mammi. Can’t you trust me?”

  Katie reminded herself that she’d been just as impatient to grow up at sixteen. “Mamm and Daadi left you in my care. I have to do things the way they would. I didn’t say no, just that I must have more information. That’s not too much to ask, ain’t so?”

  “If I find out all that, will you say yes?” Rhoda was nothing if not persistent.

  “If it sounds appropriate,” she said cautiously.

  “Ach, you’ll see. They are all nice girls, Becky’s friends.” Her good humor restored, Rhoda seized the end of the sheet Katie had put over the quilts on the display bed and began folding. She paused, sheet in her arms. “Should we put a different quilt on top?”

  Katie touched the Tumbling Blocks quilt Caleb’s mother had made. “Let’s leave this one on top a bit longer. There hasn’t been much traffic in the shop since I put it out.”

  And there was the crux of her problem. How long could she keep going if sales didn’t pick up? Of course, Saturday had been the Mud Sale, so people hadn’t been out shopping in town. And she couldn’t expect to have fantastic sales the first week. Things would get better.

  She kept telling herself those same reassuring words. They were beginning to sound a little hollow.

  “Thomas Esch is awfully nice-looking, don’t you think?” Rhoda asked the question with such studied casualness that it was obviously important.

  “Thomas?” Katie mentally scanned the faces of the young folks she’d met at the singing. “Tall? Kind of gawky?” Of course that described at least half the boys there.

  “He’s not gawky,” Rhoda said, her tone indignant. “I think he’s handsome, with those brown eyes and light hair.”

  “Ach, ja. I was thinking of the wrong boy.” Katie tried to make amends. “Thomas is good-looking, for sure.” Rhoda thought so, and that was the important thing. “Did you talk to him?”

  Rhoda shrugged. “A little. He’s in the same gang as Becky, and they said I could be, too.”

  “I’m glad.”

  The word gang probably had a different meaning in the outside world. To Amish teens, it was a loose group of friends who did things together. For sure it was important to a newcomer like Rhoda to belong to a gang, and Katie could be confident that Becky’s group would be an appropriate one.

  She felt a surge of gratitude toward Becky. Despite Caleb’s attitude, Becky had gone out of her way to welcome Rhoda.

  Not that Caleb was always so judgmental. Katie uncovered the quilt rack, letting her hand rest on the smooth curved wood for a moment, and glanced into his shop. No one was there, but from the second floor came the rasp of a saw. Caleb was obviously getting in some work time before he opened up.

  Rhoda, humming something Katie suspected was a popular song, began sweeping the floor. Despite Caleb’s unbending attitude toward her sister, there had been moments when she’d almost thought they might be friends.

  When Caleb had helped her out with that Englisch dealer, for instance. She might very easily have given in to his ridiculously low offer for the crib quilt, just for the sake of selling something, if not for Caleb’s timely warning.

  She touched the fine feather stitches of the quilting. The piece was worth every penny of the price she’d put on it, and she’d be foolish to take less.

  Thanks to Caleb she hadn’t. And when he’d brought the quilt rack in to display, she’d thought surely they were done with disagreeing.

  Not so. Caleb’s disapproval of how she’d handled Rhoda set her back up. Unfortunately, it made her question her judgment, as well. What did a maidal like her know about raising a teenager?

  Still, Caleb was no more a parent than she—

  Katie cut that thought short. Caleb was a parent, if Molly’s story was true. Somewhere out there in the Englisch world, he presumably had a child. It was inexplicable.

  “Katie, someone’s here.” Rhoda, picking up the broom and dust pan, scuttled behind the counter.

  She was right. Lisa Macklin approached the door, and in a moment she’d entered, a smile crinkling the fine lines around her eyes, her short gray hair ruffled from the spring breeze.

  “Good morning, Katie. I said I’d stop by, and here I am.”

  “Wilkom, Mrs. Macklin.” She handed the sheet she held to Rhoda, brushing a thread off her skirt. “You are out early.”

  “I don’t open my shop until ten on Mondays, so I thought I’d stop by. And you’re going to call me Lisa, remember?” She approached the counter, turning her smile on Rhoda. “And who’s this?”

  “This is my sister, Rhoda, komm from home to help me with the new shop. Rhoda, this lady is Mrs. Macklin. She has the gift shop down the street—the one with all the candles in the window.”

  Rhoda nodded politely, still clutching the broom. “I have seen your shop.” She glanced at Katie. “Shall I sweep in the back room, then?”

  “Ja, do that.” Had Lisa come to buy, perhaps? Katie fervently hoped so.

  Rhoda and the broom disappeared into the back room, and Katie returned to her visitor. “Can I help you find something?”

  “I’ll just look around a little,” Lisa said. Katie’s heart sank. People who said that were seldom serious about buying.

  She tried to think of something to say that wouldn’t sound as if she were pushing Lisa to buy. “Have you had your shop for a long time?”

  Lisa shook her head, a tinge of sorrow in her eyes. “No, only about two years. It was a retirement dream of my husband’s—to run a little gift shop in a small town like this. Mark was so enthusiastic about it. He had so many ideas for the place. But he passed away after we’d only been open a few months.”

  “I’m so sorry.” Katie’s heart went out to the woman, whose dreams had been shattered so quickly. “Yet you still run the shop?”

  Lisa tilted her head to the side, as if she were considering the question. “It does seem strange, in a way. The shop was Mark’s dream, not mine. At first I suppose I found the routine comforting, and the idea of selling the place was overwhelming when all I could do was get through one day after another. Then one day I woke up and realized that I was enthusiastic about it, too.”

  “So your husband’s dream became yours.”

  “I guess so. Mark
would laugh about that.” She smiled, though a hint of sorrow touched her eyes. “Running the shop suits me, and I want to make it a success.”

  Success was not a word an Amish person would use readily in that regard. A business should pay its way and provide a living for its owner and a means of supporting the community.

  The trouble was, Katie had begun to worry that her place would not even do that. “Tell me,” she said impulsively, “do you make enough sales here in Pleasant Valley to . . . well, to be worth it?”

  “Not as much as I’d like,” Lisa said. Her gaze sharpened on Katie’s face, as if she’d said something insightful. “It’s not easy to make a go of a shop in a small farming community unless you’re selling something lots of people need. Like Bishop Mose and the harness shop, for instance.”

  Katie nodded. What the woman said was true enough, and folks here didn’t need quilts.

  “That’s why I’ve been trying to organize the shop owners to try and increase the number of visitors to town,” Lisa said, her eyes sparkling with enthusiasm. “We need people coming to Pleasant Valley who will want the unique things we have to offer, like your quilts and Caleb Brand’s furniture.”

  “Ja, I see. But how would you get more people to come?”

  “That’s not as hard as you might think. We need to reach the people who would stop by if only they knew about us. For instance, a website on the Internet would draw people’s attention.” She gave Katie a questioning look, and Katie nodded.

  “Ja, I understand about that.”

  “Good. And I thought if we ran some special promotions it would help. For instance, say we all had sales at the same time. Or we could have an outdoor sidewalk sale on a particular Saturday. Or place an ad in the tourist booklets they put out in Lewisburg. Or—”

  Lisa cut herself short, laughing a little. “Sorry. I do run on, but for someone who wasn’t that enthusiastic about running a shop, I suddenly find I have too many ideas. I can’t go into anyone else’s shop without thinking what I’d do if it were mine.”

  “Ja?” Lisa’s enthusiasm was infectious. Katie found she was smiling back. “So if this shop were yours, what would you do?”

  Lisa glanced around. “Well, the decor is just right . . . so cozy and colorful. What you need is something to bring more people into the store. For instance, what if you had a quilting class, or if you started a quilting group that met here? I’ll bet you’d find lots of people who were interested in that. And once they came, they’d want to support you.”

  “You mean, Englisch people?” Katie turned the idea over in her mind.

  “Sure thing. It would be a big attraction to learn quilting from an Amish person. Or, even if a person were an experienced quilter, it would be nice just to be in a group that met and quilted together. People enjoy the comradeship, and there isn’t a quilting group here in town.”

  The dozens of quilting parties Katie had attended helped her visualize that clearly. What Lisa said was true—the joy of a quilting party wasn’t just the finished product. It was the pleasure of working together, with tongues flying as fast as the sewing needles.

  “You really think people would come to something like that?”

  “I really do.” Lisa’s eyes sparkled. “Tell you what—let me make up a flyer for you. I’ll give them out in my shop, you can give them out in yours, and maybe Paula Schatz would do that at the bakery. I bet you’d have a group in no time.”

  Lisa was going almost too fast for Katie, but she found her mind racing. She couldn’t just sit around and hope she got more customers. She had to make it happen.

  “If I’m rushing you . . .” Lisa began.

  “No, you’re not. You’re waking me up.” A wave of energy swept through her. “Let’s do it.”

  “You’re on,” Lisa said. “I’ll be the first one to sign up. And what about the other idea? Will you join me in trying to promote Pleasant Valley’s shops?”

  Caution put a hand on Katie’s enthusiasm. “Let me speak to Bishop Mose about it, ja? If he doesn’t object, then I will help you if I can.”

  “It’s a deal,” Lisa said promptly. “Now, let’s go ahead and pick the day and time for the first quilting meeting, and I’ll run off some flyers.”

  Katie pulled a calendar from under the counter, feeling all the excitement she’d had that first day bubble within her. She had friends and allies here now, and with their help, in a year’s time she would be signing the shop lease on her own.

  He hadn’t been acting unreasonably. Caleb had been telling himself that since the awkward encounter with Katie at the singing Sunday night. The problem was that after three days of saying so, he still didn’t quite believe it. He’d interfered in his neighbor’s business. Maybe his motives had been good, but that didn’t excuse him.

  He wiped down the rocking chair with a soft cloth. Another coat of wax, and the chair would be ready to put on display. He glanced around the front room of the shop, vaguely dissatisfied. In comparison to the quilt shop next door, his own place looked kind of bare, especially on a day like today, when rain dripped down from a gray sky. The only spot of color or softness was his mother’s baby quilt, hung over his rack in the archway between the shops.

  He tossed the cloth on the counter. Not only was Katie causing him worry over his niece—now she had him questioning his running of the shop.

  That was foolish, for sure. He had plenty more experience in business than Katie Miller did. He didn’t need to learn a thing from her.

  His shop door creaked in a welcome distraction, and he had a quick smile for his cousin William Brand.

  “William. I hoped you were a customer on such a wet day, but it’s gut to see you anyway.”

  William snatched off his hat, showing his thick thatch of light hair, damp at the neck where the hat didn’t protect it from the rain.

  “S-s-sorry.” William’s face creased in a grin. His stammer kept him from talking easily to others, girls in particular, but around family he didn’t let it bother him. “Was ist letz, Caleb? Isn’t business gut these days?”

  Caleb shrugged. “You know how it is. Folks seem to be watching their money tighter anymore. But I’m doing all right. What brings you into town?”

  “I s-s-stopped at the house, b-but you’d left.” He laid his hat on the counter and leaned across it to get a better look at the rocker. “Th-th-that’s turned out fine, it has.”

  “Ja.” Caleb ran his hand along the curved back, feeling the grain like a living thing under his palm. Pride was a sin, but he couldn’t help knowing when a piece turned out even better than he’d expected. “The grain came up wonderful gut on this one.”

  William came around the counter to bend over the chair for a closer look. Even though he spent most of his time working his brother’s farm, William had a bent for carpentry. It was a shame he had so little chance to put that gift to use.

  William ran his fingers along the arm of the chair much as Caleb had done, his touch gentle. Then he straightened. “Ach, I am near f-forgetting why I came. You w-wanted some help carrying a piece down from upstairs, ain’t so?”

  “Ja, denke.” Caleb had nearly forgotten mentioning that after worship. “I guess with the rain, Isaac didn’t need to keep you close today, ja?”

  William’s oldest brother, Isaac, was a worthy man, but he had a tight rein on anybody who depended on him. Too tight, Caleb sometimes thought.

  “Right.” William started toward the stairs, and Caleb followed. “S-s-seems like there’s not as much for me to do anyway, what with Isaac’s boys getting b-big enough to be a real help. And now that Rachel and Gideon are married, she d-doesn’t need me so much.”

  That sounded a little . . . well, lonely maybe. Caleb felt sure William didn’t begrudge Rachel her happiness in marrying Gideon more than a year after his brother had died, but William no doubt still thought her a member of his family, since she’d been his sister-in-law for so long, and he was onkel to her three kinder.

 
They reached the top of the stairs, which led into the large, loftlike area where Caleb had his workshop. The space that had been turned into a small apartment on Katie’s side of the building had been left open here, and it suited him perfectly, with plenty of room for two workbenches, storage, shelves, and racks for his tools. On a sunny day the light poured through windows at the front and side, but today it seemed a bit gloomy.

  “This cabinet is what I want to take down.” He indicated the large piece that an Englisch owner would probably use to hold a television. Well, it wasn’t his business what someone bought it for.

  “Nice.” As always, William had an appreciation for the quality of the piece. He glanced around. “You’ve g-got some quilt r-racks to finish, ja?”

  “Ja, I started a few of them. They sell pretty well, and they don’t take long to make.”

  “W-w-with the quilt s-shop next door, you’ll maybe sell more.” William jerked his head toward the adjoining wall. “Getting along all right?”

  That depended on who you asked, Caleb supposed, but all he could do was nod.

  “Rachel l-likes K-K-Katie Miller,” William volunteered, putting his hands on one end of the cabinet. “I saw the s-sister with your Becky at church.”

  “Ja.” That was too short a response. Caleb didn’t want William thinking there was a problem. “The two girls have got to be friends.” He picked up the other end of the cabinet. “I’ll go backward.”

  William lifted, and they edged together toward the stairs. The cabinet was a big piece, too much for one man to move, especially since Caleb didn’t want to go knocking it against the wall on the way down.

  He stepped back carefully, his chest against the side of the piece. “Take it slow.”

  “I w-won’t make you t-tumble.” William started down. In a couple of minutes, with William’s muscle added to his, they got the piece down without a nick.

  Caleb set it down at the foot of the stairs, catching his breath for a moment.