Hometown by Wendy Rich Stetson

Author:Wendy Rich Stetson [Stetson, Wendy Rich]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Amish; Widowed Hero; Girl Next Door; Doctor; Bake; Carpenter; Country Setting; Contemporary; Different Worlds; Disapproving Family; love triangle; Pen
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press, Inc.
Published: 2021-06-21T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

Several mornings later, Tessa knelt on rumpled sheets and peered out the window. Through the pines, she glimpsed the gazebo support beams standing strong and true. Mottled with bark, they looked almost like tree trunks themselves, as natural as the sunflowers in her garden. Jonas was more than a carpenter. He was a master craftsman.

After a few days, she stopped inventing tasks. When she wasn’t honestly weeding her gardens or planning the ball, she simply sat under the sycamore while he worked—to admire his skills and craftsmanship, of course. Definitely not his biceps.

He said he liked the company. “You remind me of Rebecca…and of someone I knew as a boy. Plus, I need your help.”

More and more unselfconsciously, she obliged. Sometimes, as she handed him a tool or held a board for him to hammer, their shoulders brushed, or their feet bumped. But inside, she waited, longing for his touch to be deliberate. When she closed her eyes at night, she could still conjure his fingers in her hair.

Days rolled by, delicious and summery. Most mornings, she woke early and combed her mother’s cookbooks over morning coffee. Her baking grew more adventurous. She lived for the moment every afternoon when Jonas sank his teeth into her homemade treat, his eyes closing as a sound of utter contentment rose from his throat. The rush was better than any thrill ride at Benton’s.

Richard’s brief evening calls were otherworldly. She could no more picture the places he described than the landscape of Jupiter. He was invited to stay in San Francisco another week, and she celebrated his good fortune. Somehow, conversation never drifted to how she spent her days. He knew about the gazebo and the Midsummer Ball, and she didn’t volunteer extra details. She said she missed him.

She did miss him…right?

What she didn’t miss was a single afternoon with Jonas. Like clockwork, she rolled up to the farm when the sun was high in the sky. He vaulted into the front seat, cranked down the window, and blasted the radio, peppering her with questions about auto mechanics and combustion engines until she exhausted her scanty knowledge, and all that remained was to goose the gas and ride. The man loved speed. When the old van kissed forty-five miles an hour, he grinned like a wingman in a jet fighter.

“How fast does this pop-top go?” he asked on the ride back to the farm just over a week into construction.

Dusk had fallen, and the salmon-colored sun dipped behind the western ridge. She checked her blind spot and merged onto Route 45. “The speedometer goes to ninety-five, but I think the car would explode above sixty.”

Whipping off his hat, he leaned in front of her and peered at the instrument panel. “How fast have you driven it?”

She inhaled deeply, relishing the scents of spicy cedar and clean sweat. “I don’t like to speed. Plus, the whole car shudders around fifty-five. I’m not kidding about it exploding.”

He sat back in his seat, bracing both hands on the dashboard, long, strong fingers splayed wide.

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