Rose pressed her lips into a determined line. “
Cum
into the house. I will wrap it up for you.” She was too tenderhearted to let anyone suffer. Though fear often paralyzed her, she would brave a whole roomful of strangers if someone needed her help. It was one of the things Josiah loved about her.
Spending even three more minutes in Rose's company sounded
wunderbarr
, but knowing how uncomfortable she was, he would be selfish indeed if he took advantage of her kindness. “I don't want to be a bother.”
She lowered her eyes. “Please come into the house. I'll feel better knowing someone saw to it.”
“Rose,” Josiah said. He paused long enough for Rose to lift her gaze to his face. “What will make you happy?”
“What do you mean?”
“Would you be happier taking care of my scratch or having me out of your hair?”
She cracked a smile. “You're not in my hair.”
He returned her smile with an uncertain one of his own. “I don't want to be a pest, and I want you to be happy.”
She started playing with that strand of hair again. “What I feel doesn't matter.”
“It's what matters most to me.”
That seemed to trouble her more than anything. She swaddled both arms around her waist. “It's better if we just do what
you
want. If you do what I want, then it's my fault if you're unhappy about it.”
He smiled to prove to her he didn't care either way. He cared deeply, but she wouldn't see that from him. “Maybe it is my fault if you're unhappy. I can be very pushy. Your cats were right to try to scare me off your farm.”
Rose's lips curled slightly. “Would you like to come in, or would you rather I stay out of
your
hair?”
He took off his hat and ran his fingers through his hair, cropped short, courtesy of his nephew. “I don't have enough hair to answer that question.”
Her smile bloomed like roses in late spring.
His heart swelled until his chest felt crowded. “Although you have cleverly tried to change the subject, I'm going to walk to my buggyâbackward so you don't see the big spot of blood on my shirt. If you want me to come into the house, stop me now. Otherwise, I'll climb in my buggy and go. No hard feelings either way.” He made the gesture of buttoning his lips together and took four steps backward.
She glued her gaze to his, and he could see the choices struggle with each other on her face. “I'd feel better if you came in the house,” she finally said.
He stopped short and smiled with his whole body. “Me too.”
She smiled back and motioned toward the house. He let her lead the way up the porch steps. A tiny dead mouse lay on the welcome mat. Rose shuddered but pasted a pleasant look on her face. “Billy Idol is such a dear cat. He's always leaving presents for us. He has taken care of our mouse problem, but Aunt Bitsy isn't happy about the dead mice. She keeps threatening to give Billy Idol away.”
“She'll never have to know about this one,” Josiah said, picking up the mat and shaking it so the mouse tumbled into the dirt to the side of the house off the porch.
“
Denki
,” she said, not meeting his eye but smiling anyway.
He opened the front door for her and followed her into the house, where the heavenly smell of freshly baked bread met them.
“It smells delicious in here,” Josiah said.
Rose's Aunt Bitsy stood at the butcher-block island, straining at the lid of a jar of pickles, and Josiah grew more agitated than he already was. According to Lily's fiancé, Dan Kanagy, Bitsy did not like boys in the house, even if it was for something as harmless as a Band-Aid. She owned a shotgun, and she wasn't afraid to point it at people.
Bitsy wasn't old. She couldn't have been more than fifty or so, but she seemed to have a permanent frown on her face and it looked as if the worry line between her eyebrows had been ironed into place. Even though she wasn't elderly, she had salt-and-pepper gray hair that she often tinted pastel colors. Today, her hair was a light shade of green. With her kelly-green dress, she looked a little like a houseplant.
Bitsy narrowed her eyes when Josiah followed Rose into the house. “Josiah Yoder,” she said. His name sounded like a grunt when she said it. “I'm glad you're here.”
Josiah nearly choked on his surprise. “You are?”
“Well, not really glad. I don't want you to get the notion that I'm happy to see you. But I need this bottle opened, and you're just in time to do it. Then you can leave.”
Bitsy was the door Josiah would have to go through to get to Rose. He would do a backflip off the roof if it would win Bitsy's approval. He strode to the island and took the jar from her. “I'm honored you would ask for my help.” The jar opened with one easy twist of his wrist. He smiled and handed it back.
“Don't get cocky,” Bitsy said, setting the jar on the counter. “I loosened it for you.”
Josiah wasn't offended by her brusque manner. Everybody knew what a
gute
and charitable woman Bitsy was, always the first to a sickbed, always baking or sewing for someone who needed a hand. She was a tough nut to crack. That was all. “I'm glad I could help.”
Bitsy eyed him unapologetically, as if trying to figure out why he was standing in her kitchen. “Well. I always say
denki
, so
denki
. You can go now.”
Rose smiled at her
aendi
before pulling the ointment and bandages out of the drawer and setting them on the table. “Leonard Nimoy gave Josiah a bad scratch, Aendi Bitsy. I told him I'd give him a Band-Aid.”
Bitsy propped her hands on her hips. “Leonard Nimoy? We haven't even had her a week, and she's already scratching people. I've half a mind to send those cats to obedience school.”
Josiah followed behind Rose as she slipped a towel from the drawer, got it wet, and squirted a little soap on it. She turned before he had the chance to back away, and he found himself face-to-face with her, with only inches between them.
She caught her breath. He cleared his throat and backed away a bit.
Oy
, anyhow. He wanted to kick himself. How could he gain Rose's trust if he kept startling her?
But he liked being close, for sure and certain.
She didn't relax. “Do you want to sit down?”
“Where do you want me to sit?” He wanted to sit next to her, wherever she was going to sit.
She pointed to a chair at the table.
He knew how uncomfortable she was, and he wished he knew how to make everything all better. He'd have to settle for a reassuring smile. Would she see the concern behind it? He sat down, rested his injured arm on the table, and stretched it out so Rose could reach it easily. She hesitated for only a moment before sitting next to him and dabbing at the scratches with her wet towel.
“Does it hurt? I don't want to hurt you.”
He would rather let Leonard Nimoy scratch him again than let Rose think that she was causing him any pain. “You're very gentle. I can barely feel it.”
“Josiah is a farmer,” Bitsy said, still standing at the island. She skewered a pickle with her fork. “His life is pain.”
Josiah chuckled. “It's not as bad as all that.”
“You're at the mercy of the weather,” Bitsy said.
“Not so much the weather as the grace of
Gotte
,” Josiah said. “Farming is hard work, but it's taught me to trust in the Lord. He might send rain or drought or an early frost. I've learned to surrender to His will, no matter how hard the lesson.”
Bitsy nodded. “After all you've been through, I suppose you've learned that.”
After all he'd been through.
Jah.
The pain of his parents' deaths still felt like a fresh, untended wound. He glanced up to see Rose studying his face, her own eyes soft and misty, her expression lined with sympathy and pain. He'd lost both his parents, just like Rose had, but he had been old enough when his parents died to make some sort of sense of the whole thing. Rose had been a little girl.
“I'm sorry,” Rose whispered.
“I'm sorry about your parents too.”
He could see her struggling for a carefree smile. “I almost don't remember them. I was only five when they died, too little to remember much.” Something even deeper than grief briefly darkened her features. “And of course, there were no photos.”
Unable to bear the thought of her shouldering the sorrow all by herself, Josiah slid his hand over hers. “They'll never be forgotten as long as you carry them in your heart.”
Her eyes pooled with moisture, and she sprang to her feet. “I think it's clean,” she said, turning her back on him and marching to the sink with her towel.
Josiah felt so low, he could have slid underneath the crack between the door and the floor. He had made Rose cry, or at least think about crying. If Bitsy caught a glimpse of Rose's face, she'd probably point her shotgun at Josiah and kick him out of the house.
“Your
mater
had hair like Lily's, lips like Poppy's, and eyes like yours,” Bitsy said. She took a big bite of her pickle, laid it on the counter, and ambled into the storage room, still talking. “She had pretty long fingers and wasn't clunky like I am.”
Feeling as if there were an anvil tied around his heart, Josiah watched Rose out of the corner of his eye. She stood at the sink with her back to him and splashed water on her face. She came back to the table, and he tried to communicate an apology with just a look. She wouldn't meet his eye.
He leaned toward her. “I'm sorry, Rose,” he whispered, so Bitsy in the storage room couldn't hear. “I'm sorry if I said or did anything to upset you.”
She drew her brows together. “
Ach, nae
.
Nae.
Of course not. I was just thinking about my parents.”
He didn't feel much better, but she seemed to be telling the truth. Still, he hated to think that he'd been the one to make her unhappy.
Ach, du lieva
, couldn't he do anything right?
Rose smeared ointment onto the four scratches on Josiah's arm, then covered them with two Band-Aids and a square of gauze. She wrapped several layers of medical tape around the gauze, securing it better than he secured his hay in the winter. “Do you think that will be okay?”
Josiah lifted his arm and flexed his hand. “This wouldn't get wet on a leaky boat in a hurricane. Can I come over every time I need a Band-Aid?”
She blushed and stared faithfully at the wood grain on the table.
Could he just kick himself now and get it over with? “I'm sorry. I won't tease if you don't like it.”
She dared a glance at him. “It's okay.”
He stared at her for a second longer than he should have before scooting his chair out and standing up. “I should go.”
Bitsy seemed to shoot out from the back room. “Before you leave, Josiah Yoder, I have some things I need you to lift.”
“Lift?” Rose said.
Again, Josiah tried not to act too eager. “You need me to lift something?” If Rose saw how useful he was, maybe she'd give him a chance to win her heart.
Bitsy pointed to the storage room. “There's a fifty-pound bag of flour in there that I need you to dump in the flour bin.”
“But, Aunt Bitsy . . .” Rose said.
Josiah jumped right in. “
Ach
, I don't mind. I'm happy to help carry the heavy stuff so you don't have to.”
Rose seemed confused, but she didn't say anything else.
Bitsy took him into the storage room, where there were rows of shelves covered with jars of golden honey, dozens of bottles of peaches and cherries and spaghetti sauce, and bags of wheat and rice stacked five high. She pointed to a bag of white flour on one of the shelves. “That one.”
Josiah slid the bag off the shelf and threw it across his shoulder. Fifty pounds wasn't that much. He'd hefted hay bales twice this size. “Where to?”
“Into the kitchen,” Bitsy said. She led the way and directed him to set the flour on the butcher-block island. She glanced at Rose. “You've got muscles. I'll give you that, Josiah Yoder. You don't mind muscles, do you, Rose?”
Rose quickly averted her eyes as if she'd been caught staring. “I don't know what you mean.”
Bitsy grunted. “They come in handy on the farm, I suppose.” She opened a cupboard underneath the island and pulled a bin from one of the shelves. “
Ach
,
”
she said. “This is already full.”
“I was trying to tell you,” Rose said. “Poppy filled it last night.”
Bitsy shrugged. “Back to the storage room then.”
Josiah hefted the bag of flour over his shoulder and took it back to the shelf in the storage room.
Bitsy followed him with a rag in her hand. “I'll just wipe up this flour dust,” she said. “You can go now, Josiah. You've overstayed your welcome.”
Josiah tried not to feel dejected. He had been allowed to stay several minutes longer than in his wildest dreams. He mustn't be greedy. He went back into the kitchen. Rose seemed less composed than ever. She was fidgeting with the strand of hair again. “Before you leave, would you like a loaf of bread?” she said.
He gave her a guarded, not-too-eager half smile. “I'd like that very much.”
She nodded, took a box of tinfoil out of the drawer, and tore a piece off the roll.
Bitsy emerged from the back room just as Rose wrapped Josiah's loaf of bread in the tinfoil. She squinted in Josiah's direction. “What are you doing, baby sister?”