Promise Lodge by Charlotte Hubbard

Author:Charlotte Hubbard [Hubbard, Charlotte]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2016-01-11T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

“I thought you and Noah worked everything out while you were fishing the other night,” Rosetta remarked as she shook out a wet magenta dress. “But at breakfast you both looked like you’d been chewing on lemons again.”

Deborah smiled in spite of how low she felt. She was helping Rosetta with the laundry while the other women were weeding the gardens. The steady whack-whack-whack of hammers out by the road announced the men’s progress on the produce stand. “Who can tell what’s on Noah’s mind?” she murmured as she took a wet green shirt from the laundry basket. “I’ve given up trying to figure him out.”

“Oh, don’t throw in the towel!” Rosetta arranged the dress on a plastic hanger so the polyester-blend fabric would dry without wrinkling. Then she hung it on the short clothesline that spanned the end of the porch. “You two are meant for each other—truly—if only you’d keep talking instead of turning your backs when you get miffed about every little thing.”

Deborah’s eyebrows rose. The main clothesline Amos had rigged up for them extended between the end of the porch and the roof of the chicken house. She cranked its big pulley to send a row of shirts out of her way and bring a clear stretch of line within reach. As she hung the green shirt with wooden clothespins, she considered what Rosetta had said. “Is this the voice of experience I’m hearing? I never knew you to get crossways with anybody, let alone a man.”

“That’s because you’re too young to recall my dating days, before I decided my purpose in life was to look after the folks,” Rosetta replied pertly. “Before I got engaged to Tim, I had my eye on Denny Coblentz, and I dated Paul Lapp for a long while, too. But other girls caught their attention, and after Tim died and Mamm got hurt in a buggy accident, I knew where my time and efforts would be better spent.”

Deborah took the opportunity to steer the conversation away from herself. She shook out a blue shirt until it snapped. “Were you ever sorry you didn’t marry? I mean, not to be nosy or anything—”

“Once I realized that God was showing me the way He wanted me to go, I didn’t second-guess Him.” Rosetta smoothed a cape over another hanger and hung it beside the dress it matched, smiling as though she had a secret. “That doesn’t mean I didn’t look at men,” she clarified. “But it all worked out the way it was supposed to. Now I’ve got a nice new life here—a dream of providing apartments for other unattached women—and the fellows I once fancied are married with families now.”

“Not Truman Wickey.”

Rosetta’s laughter echoed under the porch roof. “Jah, he’s a nice guy and he’s gut-looking, for sure. But I don’t see him changing from his Mennonite faith any more than I intend to leave the Old Order,” she said with a shrug. “We can be friends, though—just like you and Noah can be friends even if you’re not courting again.

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