Wounded Heart (9781455505654) by Senft Adina

Author:Senft, Adina [SENFT, ADINA]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781455505647
Publisher: Hachette Book Group USA

Chapter 11

There was no church the next day, but Amelia and the boys were invited to the Stolzfus house for the midday meal to say farewell to the last of the relatives who had come for the funeral. So of course, when she most wanted to avoid the topic, it seemed everyone was determined to bring Eli Fischer to her attention. Oh, not that she was so self-centered as to think they were doing it on purpose. Surely they weren’t. But it was embarrassing just the same.

“I hear Eli Fischer is still in town.” Emma bumped her shoulder after dinner, while she was out in the yard watching the boys floating leaf boats down the creek. If the older boys got to horsing around, they might make little Elam lose his balance and fall in, so Amelia felt it was prudent to watch from a distance. “You’d think he’d have things to do at home after all this time away.”

“I’m not sure he does,” Amelia said finally, when the silence had grown so long that Emma had begun to regard her with more concern than curiosity. “His brothers run the farm with their dad. He’s out here looking for work to do.”

“Maybe he’s looking for more than that.” Emma gave her a sidelong glance. “I also hear he gave you a ride home yesterday.”

Amelia swung to stare at her, mouth open. “How…? What…?”

“My sister was on her way back from town and happened to see you getting into his buggy. What were you doing all the way out there?”

There was no escaping the Amish grapevine. It was more efficient than the Englischers’ Internet. “I was walking. Thinking. I’ll tell you and Carrie all about it on Tuesday, when we have some privacy.”

“We have privacy now. Let me get Carrie. You can’t tease me like this and expect me to wait two days for the rest of the story.”

And before Amelia could say a word, Emma hurried off into the house. When she came out again, Carrie was with her, buttoning her coat. The snow that had fallen last night was only a promise of greater things to come, but it still forced them all to put gums on over their shoes. They crossed the lawn, covered now with footprints and animal tracks, and joined her at the top of the slope, where they could see the boys hunched on the stones next to the water watching the bright leaves race away on the rumpled current.

“Eli gave you a ride home yesterday?” Carrie asked breathlessly, tugging her knitted scarf tighter around her throat. “And we’re only hearing about this now?”

“It wouldn’t even be now if Amelia had her way,” Emma told her. “She was going to make us wait until quilting day.”

“What kind of a friend would do that?” Carrie’s sparkling eyes belied the severity of her tone. To look at her, you’d think they were all sixteen and exchanging secrets about who had come with a flashlight and shone it in whose window in the middle of the night.

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