An Amish Kitchen, page 3
FERN TRIED TO COMPOSE HERSELF ON THE WALK BACK to her grandmother’s house; there was no way she was going to let the keen old eyes see how flustered she had been by being held by Abram Fisher. Had he been going to kiss her?
It certainly had felt like it. But maybe it was just wishful thinking.
She entered the coolness of her kitchen and saw her mammi at the table, carefully taking rose petals off several of the big fragrant roses that they grew in the kitchen garden.
“I had a taste for some rose tea,” Mammi said with a smile.
For the second time that day, Fern looked at her mammi with concern. “I thought rose tea was only for special occasions.”
“It is.”
“Well, what’s so special about today, or is your bauch ailing you? You know, maybe we should pay a visit to Dr. Knepp. You haven’t been in a while, and I know that—”
“Fern, you’re warbling on like a pretty songbird on the first of spring. Everything is fine. More than fine, really.”
Fern blew at her forehead where a loose strand of hair had escaped her kapp, then flushed as she remembered Abram’s comment about her hair being down. She sat down at the table and plucked at a rose, accidentally tearing one of the petals.
Her grandmother eyed her with a faint smile. “Did the Fisher boys like the fruit?”
“Ya, danki.”
“And how is Abram faring?”
Fern looked at her squarely in a game effort to throw her off the scent. “He’s fine. Doesn’t need any help at all.” She didn’t quite succeed in keeping the dryness out of her tone, and her grandmother laughed.
“Gets to you, he does,” the old woman said, her brow wrinkled in satisfaction.
“Nee.” Fern told herself to remain calm. “He is going to give us a new ladder, though. Mary had a bit of a spill when I took the tomatoes over.” And I nearly did too, she reminded herself.
“Well, I guess you can get at those windows, then.”
Fern hesitated. “Uh . . . Abram said he’d bring the ladder round tomorrow and do the windows himself.”
“Ach . . .”
Fern rose abruptly. She felt flustered and distracted and needed to do something to unwind. “I think I’ll have a bath and wash my hair after supper.”
Her grandmother looked up. “Didn’t you do that yesterday?”
“Ya . . . but . . . what’s the special occasion?” Fern said, remembering the roses.
“Hmm?”
“You never said, Mammi . . . the special occasion for the rose tea?”
“Never mind, child. Simply something that makes an old woman have faith. You wouldn’t understand quite yet.”
And with that, Fern knew she had to be content. Her mammi would talk when she was ready.
By the time Abram had waved Joe off, spent a few pointed moments with Mark, and got the kids seated to supper under Matthew’s watchful eye, the gloaming had faded to darkness. He needed a lantern to light the way to the Zooks’.
He’d wrapped Luke’s burned fingers in a cool cloth, settling his tears somewhat, but the boy still let out a faint sob now and then as he hopped to keep up. Abram slowed his steps and looked down at his little bruder in the circle of light from the lamp.
“Hurt bad, does it?” He softened his voice, suddenly remembering pinching his own fingers as a child in between floorboards in the hayloft and then lying manfully to his fater that he’d felt no pain.
“Ya . . . a little now.”
“Well . . . she’ll make you feel better.”
She’ll . . . she . . . As though Fern Zook had become definitive of all that was healing and feminine, like he’d corralled an idea of her goodness and tenderness in a corner of his mind, a soft reference point on a lost map.
What had other girls been to him? Too skinny for one thing, too eager with their kisses, too many elbows and angles and hasty touching in the crunched confines of the buggy . . . and Englisch girls at that, not ones who’d know how to tend a little girl or soothe a boy’s pride . . . not like Fern Zook.
“Can we, Abram? Can we?” Luke was jumping up and down, and Abram realized he’d come to a full stop on the dark path while his mind wound with slow satisfaction toward the idea of a woman he’d seen all of his adult life and never given more than a passing glance before today. It was like he was under a spell.
“What do you want?” he moaned, more to himself than to Luke. But the boy’s face grew cheery in the ring of light.
“I said, for the thirteenth million time, can we catch lightning bugs on our way back? Can we?”
“Sure . . . ya. If the Zooks will loan us a jar.”
“Ach, she will,” Luke said with a confident grin that belied the pain of his burns.
She will. Abram felt the words pulse with curious promise down the back of his neck with each step he took toward Fern Zook’s home.
Her grandmother had retired to her bedroom on the first floor when Fern slid the metal tub and screen into place in the middle of the kitchen floor. Many Amish had modern showers, but that was an unnecessary convenience as far as her mammi was concerned. She said an herbal bath brought as much cleanliness, plus a sense of peace that no newfangled showerhead could ever provide.
Fern didn’t usually take such an early bath, as people sometimes came to the door seeking help after dark. But this evening she felt grubby and decided to take the chance. When she’d filled the tub with warmed water, she turned to consider various herbs in their neat rows of jars. Then she spied a bowl of citrus fruit on the end of the counter. The juice from a lemon and an orange, in addition to a few floating circles of fruit, soon gave off a zesty, pleasant scent that had her senses tingling.
She peeked behind the screen once to make sure she’d latched the door, then hastily stripped off her clothes and let down her hair. She wiggled her toes in the water, flicking at an orange slice, before slowly sliding in with a murmur of satisfaction. She had just finished pulling on a clean dress and stockings when she heard a knock at the door. She listened carefully, hoping she’d misheard, but the sound came again. Yet why should she be surprised—it was why she changed into clothes and not a nightgown after a bath. Perhaps she should call for her grandmother. But then, the old woman had not quite seemed herself today, and Fern hated to disturb her. She quickly bent over and bound her long hair up in the towel, turban style, and decided that it would have to be gut enough for whoever had come calling, needing treatment at this hour.
She padded over the hardwood floor and flung the door open in frustration, then felt the color drain from her face when she saw Abram Fisher, his blue eyes gleaming in the light of a lantern.
“What do you think you’re doing, answering the door like that?” Abram heard the angry words but somehow couldn’t connect them with his own voice.
“I beg your pardon . . . I was having a bath,” Fern Zook snapped. “My hair might be down, but it’s well covered.”
“Well, obviously you were having a bath. Do you realize that anyone could come along here, any stranger, and you fling open the door, carefree as a bluebird, when you look like—” He broke off in midbluster, unsure how to describe how she looked without giving away how much of an effect it was having on him. He felt his face flush with warm blood when he took in the way that the towel turban she wore only revealed more of the soft contours of her face, widening the twin pools of her green eyes and forcing her light brows into a higher arc. And she smelled like Christmas, all citrus and spice, enough to make a man forget everything but the pleasure of the moment. He wondered briefly what it would be like to come home late from the fields and find her waiting, like this, for him . . .
“My fingers are burnt bad!” Luke’s interjectory wail shook Abram from his treacherous thoughts.
He glared at Fern. Clearly, she could not provide treatment without her hair up properly . . . and safely. They’d have to come back tomorrow.
“Well, why didn’t you say so?” Fern asked, widening the door so that her small feet became evident.
Abram swallowed hard. “It’s only a bit of a burn; it can wait until tomorrow.”
But Luke jerked from his hand to run and cling to Fern’s waist, leaving Abram to wish he might exercise the same privilege.
“Of course you’re not leaving,” she sniffed. “Come in and I’ll help.”
Oh no, you won’t . . . , he thought grimly. Not with what apparently ailed him. He swallowed his thoughts with determination, trying to get the idea of touching Fern Zook’s delicate ankles out of his foolish brain.
“Are you coming?” she asked, then let go of the screen door so that he had to catch it quickly with his elbow. He entered the kitchen and saw the puddled floor, the screen, and the silhouette of the tub. He rubbed the back of his neck and tried to look everywhere but at her while he listened to her soft voice soothing Luke as she examined his fingers.
“This should have been attended to sooner,” she murmured. “Why did you wait?”
Abram felt irritation mingle with attraction in a strange dance down the center of his chest. “Look, at least I knew enough not to smear it with butter.”
“I’m simply pointing out that it might have spared Luke some pain to have had it looked at sooner.”
“I had the kids to feed, and I—”
“Never mind.” She waved him off and turned to the windowsill, half in shadow, and broke the pointed stems off a healthy aloe plant. She returned to Luke and squeezed the juice of the plant out onto his fingers.
He gave a small gasp of relief, and Abram couldn’t resist the half smile that tugged at his lips. So simple. Aloe vera. His mamm probably had some growing in a pot at home.
“I should have thought of that,” he said.
“It’s not always easy to think of the right thing to do in a stressful situation.”
“Ya,” he agreed, his irritation forgotten as he considered her words.
Ya, stressful . . . like right now, when my bruder’s a half foot from your hip and the lantern light’s illuminating you like a candle, and I feel that if I touched you, you would disappear into a fevered dream.
Abram swung on his heel away from her abruptly. “Luke, let’s move. Who knows what the kids will have gotten into by now.”
“But I thought we wuz gonna ask for a jar to catch lightning bugs,” the boy protested.
“I’ve got plenty of jars,” Fern offered.
Abram felt the light brush of her dress against his back as she swept past him.
“Never mind,” he said hoarsely. “Come on, Luke. I mean it.” He spoke over his shoulder to Fern. “I’ll do the downstairs windows tomorrow too, to pay for tonight.”
“Forget it—the aloe was nothing.”
“I said the downstairs too . . . Gut night.” He shepherded a glum-faced Luke out the door and escaped the citrus-smelling, feminine torture chamber.
Fern doused the lights and went to lie down in her simple bed upstairs. She snuggled deeper under the nine-patch quilt her grandmother had given her long ago and tried to sleep, but she was met with visions of Abram Fisher’s not-too-happy face at every toss and turn. She should have known that a man who’d be bothered by a loose strand of hair would have no tolerance for a woman answering the door with a towel on her head.
“Besides, he probably thinks I’m plump,” she muttered aloud to herself. Most likely Abram Fisher favored someone as slim as a wand—and someone who definitely would not come to the door with her hair wrapped in a wet towel. She found a comfortable position and started to pray, but long before her petitions and praises were finished, she fell fast asleep.
CHAPTER FIVE
“SAY YOU’VE GOT A WOMAN WHO GETS A BIT BLUE OR cranky before her monthly time.”
“Are you asking about me in particular?” Fern joked, but her grandmother frowned. Their Friday weekly herbal review sessions were not to be taken lightly, and Fern knew it. She straightened up in her seat at the kitchen table and answered properly.
“Evening primrose oil.”
“Properties of garlic?”
“Antiinflammatory in nature, increases anticlotting potential . . . though the FDA may debate the last.”
Her mammi grunted. The two often disagreed about what the Food and Drug Administration did and did not know, with Fern favoring the testing and potential regulation of herbs as healing agents.
“Migraine . . . which you’re giving me right now, impertinent child.”
“Feverfew.” Fern leaned across the table and peered into the beloved face of the older woman. “Do you really have a headache, Mammi?”
“Nee, now sit back. Upset bauch?”
“Green tea.”
“Abram Fisher?”
Fern opened her mouth, then closed it again.
Her mammi gave her a mischievous smile. “That was for your FDA remark.”
Fern had to laugh out loud. “Very nice. But tell me, what would you prescribe for one Abram Fisher?”
“Hmm . . . as an ailment or cure? Or both, as the case may be.”
Fern rose and came around the table to give her grandmother a hug. “You are impossible, but dear. So what do you want us to take to Our Daily Bread tomorrow?”
Our Daily Bread was a local Amish store that housed a women’s prayer group on the second floor every Saturday afternoon. Both of the Zook women were faithful attendees and often brought refreshments for afterward.
“Gingerbread.”
Fern raised a brow. Gingerbread was too quick and simple for her grandmother, who liked the challenge of outbaking Leah Mast, prayer meeting or not. Nee . . . the gingerbread was for the Fisher boys, Fern had no doubt. But she dutifully went to get the chipped yellow mixing bowl down from its shelf.
She’d just assembled ingredients when a brisk knock sounded on the screen door. Ignoring the sudden catch in her heart, she tried not to be too hasty in turning round as her grandmother called, “Kumme in.”
“Danki.” The voice was that of Abram Fisher.
Fern was making what she considered to be a graceful turn when the bowl somehow slipped and she practically had to drop to her knees to catch it from meeting a crashing end on the floor.
She got back up, feeling a blush mount in her cheeks.
“Are you all right?” he asked politely, and she had to look at him then.
He looked even more handsome today, in his burgundy shirt and black suspenders and softly curling hair. Then she remembered his hasty departure the night before and resolved not to make herself look silly in front of him.
“I’m fine. You’ve come to do the windows? Where are the children?”
“I turned them loose to weed in your kitchen garden. Even little Mary can tell a gut plant from a bad.”
“Well, don’t let us keep you, then.” There. She sounded composed and dismissive.
“Fern Zook.” Her grandmother spoke sternly. “At least offer the man a cup of coffee before he begins.”
Abram held up a large hand. “Nee, danki. I’ll get to work.” He flashed them a smile, then headed back outside.
Her grandmother nodded. “A fine figure of a man, as I said before. He’d produce gut-looking kinner.”
“Mammi!” Fern was shocked, but her grandmother merely gave her a conspiratorial smile.
“Ya, indeed . . . gut-looking kinner.”
Abram had a good view of the Zooks’ kitchen garden from where he perched on the ladder outside the second-floor window. He was pleased to see the kids working quietly, but he still felt wound up inside. Seeing Fern’s rosy complexion in the light of day was more than charming, and he forced himself to scrub hurriedly with his rag.
He was surprised to note that the windows in the older house, casements and all, were in such good shape. As he thumbed the wet edge of a well-set pane, he noticed movement from the room inside. He bent his head to look closer and saw Fern pick up an apron off the bed, then leave the room. It must be her bedroom. He sloshed the rag in the bucket and let the soapsuds run their race down the glass before peering more intently inside. A simple room, but pretty, with a mason jar of roses on a bureau amid a tangle of kapp strings and feminine clutter . . .
“Having a gut time?”
He jumped and nearly lost his balance as he stared down to the ground where Fern stood, one hand shielding her eyes from the sun.
“Don’t sneak up on a man like that.”
“Even one who’s peeking in my window?”
He shook his head. “I was but admiring the fine windows and—”
“Never mind the windows; they’re not fine. I came outside to ask if you and the children would like some gingerbread.”
Something in her voice made him shift his weight on the ladder, and he slowly came down to stand next to her. “Why aren’t they fine?”
“What?” she asked, her pretty brow wrinkling.
He nodded upward with his chin. “The windows . . . Tell me why they’re not fine.”
He was alarmed to see her beautiful green eyes suddenly well with tears before she whirled away. He caught her arm. “Wait, was iss letz? What did I say?”
“Nothing. It is an old hurt, best forgotten. Do you want the gingerbread?”
“Sure.” Sure . . . but you’ve got me curious, Fern Zook. And I don’t like the feeling one bit . . .
He loosed her arm and saw the damp imprint of his hand on her sleeve. “I’ve got you wet,” he said roughly.
“It’s no matter. Please . . . come inside. I’ll get the kinner.”
He watched her go, then glanced back up at the shining window frames. He shook his head . . . Definitely too curious.
CHAPTER SIX
“THEY ATE IT ALL,” GRANDMOTHER ZOOK SAID, satisfaction lacing her tone.
“I should say so.” Fern smiled from where she wiped plates at the sink. “I’ll have to make a new batch for the prayer group tomorrow.”
“Ya . . . and the windows look nice. I took a walk round while you and Abram were talking. He seemed real interested in those window frames.”
Fern stifled a frown. It was true that Abram had not been content with her answer to his question about the windows earlier. She had put him off by concentrating on the children. And she was surprised that the subject of the silly windows had still pained her to embarrassed tears.
