Courting Cate Page 11

  I turned the card over. It was handmade.

  “Pete’s so persistent,” she said. “Ignore Martin and Mervin—they’re just silly boys—and stop imagining things.”

  I met her gaze.

  “Cate Miller, Pete Treger is the best thing that ever happened to you.” She stood, placing her hands on each hip, looking as if she were five. “Don’t you dare blow this.” She turned and stormed from our room.

  I opened the card. Hope you’re feeling better soon. I miss you. Pete

  His handwriting was small and neat, and there was a blue heron drawn on the inside.

  I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes, managing to stop the tears that threatened to fall.

  I worked shorter hours the next couple of days, but by Friday I’d recovered, physically at least, and planned to make my regular visit to the bookmobile. After lunch, Pete knocked on my office door and asked if he could go with me. I was a little surprised—enough so that I agreed.

  I didn’t offer to let him drive. The day was hot and a little humid. I pushed Thunder down the lane. Pete tried to get a conversation going, but I kept my answers short and to the point.

  Once we reached the bookmobile, Nan handed me a few books she thought I might enjoy, including a romance.

  I frowned.

  “What?” she asked.

  I shook my head, putting it back on her small desk. She knew I’d sworn off romances two years before.

  After Pete checked out a few books, he said he was going across the street to the coffee hut.

  “So how’s it going?” Nan nodded toward Pete, who was jogging across the highway.

  Tears filled my eyes.

  “Ach, Cate.” She put her hand on my shoulder. “What is it?”

  I hadn’t planned to tell her, but her sympathy encouraged me. I told her about the kayaking trip and what had happened as far as M&M’s thumbs-up gestures and the two saying Pete was doing a great job and the plan was working. . . . My throat thickened. I couldn’t say any more.

  “What’s happened since?”

  I managed to tell her about Pete’s card.

  “And you think he would be manipulated by those two to court you? And then send you a sweet note.”

  I nodded.

  “Oh, Cate. I don’t think Pete would do that. Do you?”

  “He’s poor. He admitted he’s looking for a wife. He was interested in Betsy when he first met her—then a few days later he switched his interest to me. I think Martin and Mervin talked him into it.”

  Nan was shaking her head. “I’m sure he wouldn’t do that.” Nan’s tone was adamant. “I think he’s interested in you—for you.” She reached out and touched my face in a tender gesture.

  I swallowed hard.

  “But you should talk with him,” she said. “If there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s that Pete Treger would tell you the truth. Please give him a chance. He’s trustworthy. I’m sure of it.”

  And I was sure Nan was wrong. I stepped toward the door.

  He stood at the little coffee stand talking to the barista. I turned back toward Nan and asked her what she was reading.

  She gave me a rundown of the children’s books she’d reviewed for the magazine she wrote for but stopped midsentence. “Look.” She pointed behind me.

  I spun around. Pete was crossing the highway, holding three iced coffees, in a triangle, straight out ahead of him. He smiled under his straw hat when he saw us, holding the drinks up in a salute.

  “I’m telling you, Cate, he cares about you.” Nan put her arm around me and squeezed my shoulder. “And I think you feel the same way about him.”

  “Felt,” I answered.

  Nan shook her head, her mouth turned down in sadness.

  A pickup truck that was going too fast blew its horn at Pete. He just grinned and picked up his pace a little faster. When he reached us, he extended the first coffee to me.

  “A treat for my Sweet Cate.” His eyes met mine.

  I blinked as I took the plastic cup.

  Nan nudged me as he handed her the second one.

  “Denki.” I took a sip. Maybe Nan was right. But could I risk thinking, once again, that he cared for me?

  I didn’t get a chance to ask him about M&M on the way home because he decided to ride into Lancaster with Nan.

  That evening at supper Dat asked if I was feeling up to company on Sunday.

  “Perhaps.”

  “I thought we could ask Cap and his family for dinner, although I doubt the older boys will come.” None of them had joined the church yet and they pretty much avoided family gatherings. “And Nell too.” Addie’s aunt, on her mother’s side, had been living with the Cramer family since Addie was a Bobli.

  Betsy brightened. I frowned. That was a lot of people for dinner.

  “And Martin and Mervin’s family.” Dat took a bite of his sandwich. “Because Cap let Addie go on the kayaking trip, I think maybe he’s ready to let some hard feelings go with the Mosiers.”

  I started to ask for more details about the hard feelings but decided to let it go.

  Dat held his sandwich in front of his mouth. “As long as we’re at it, I thought we should ask Pete and his cousin Nan too.” He took a bite.

  My face grew warm. “That’s a lot of people.”

  “Everyone will offer to bring something. Take them up on it. We’ll do a couple of roasts and make the potatoes.” He chewed as he spoke. “I’ll run over to Cap’s. And I’ll ask the others too. Cate, could you call Nan in the morning?”

  I nodded, wondering what Dat was up to.

  The next morning, Dat took off in his buggy right after breakfast, probably to stop by Uncle Cap’s, Martin and Mervin’s parents’ place, and the Zooks’ farm to invite Pete. Betsy and I tackled the housework first thing. Sweeping and dusting, and scrubbing down the kitchen and bathrooms. Then we made a list for the grocery store. Betsy would stay home and weed the garden while I did the shopping, but first I went to my office and called Nan.

  She was delighted by the invitation and said she would bring two pies, a lemon cream and a chocolate cream.

  Feeling much more optimistic than I had earlier in the week, I hitched Thunder to the buggy and headed to the grocery store. I didn’t drive him hard, partly because the tourist traffic clogged the highway.

  When I pulled into the grocery parking lot, Hannah Lapp, who was a cousin of Addie’s on their mothers’ side, and Molly Zook, from the family Pete was boarding with, were walking into the store. The girls were a year apart, nineteen and twenty, and had been inseparable for as long as I could remember. They hadn’t gone to the same school as me, but I’d seen them at singings and volleyball matches through the years and at the farmers’ market at times.

  I tied Thunder to the hitching post and entered the store, my purse slipping off my shoulder as I did. I hoisted it back up and grabbed a shopping cart from the corral, heading down the first aisle, which happened to be the condiments. Betsy wanted to make an apple and walnut salad for the next day, and it called for a mayonnaise dressing. Next I headed to the baking aisle and grabbed a bag of walnuts. We’d used all of ours from last fall already, thanks to Betsy’s baking. Next I headed to the produce section for the apples. I saw Hannah and Molly’s kapped heads to the right of me as I stopped the cart.

  Molly was saying something, but I only caught the name “Bob Miller.” And then, “It must be working. He was just over at our place this morning, inviting Pete to dinner tomorrow.”

  “Did you ask Pete what’s going on?” Hannah asked.

  “Jah, but he ignored me.”

  “So what did Martin say?” Hannah’s back was toward me as she and Molly picked over the grapes.

  I strained to hear.

  “He said he and Mervin offered Pete money to court Cate.”

  My hand shook as it hovered over the apples. It was worse than I’d suspected! Not only had Pete been talked into courting me, he was being paid to do it.

&nbs
p; “And she doesn’t know?” Hannah’s voice was loud.

  “No,” Molly said. “But Betsy does.”

  My heart fell.

  “So did Pete take the money?” Hannah’s voice was lower now.

  Molly giggled. “Not yet. But he’s dirt poor. He will.” Then she sighed. “To think Martin still thinks he has a chance with Betsy.”

  “Really? Even after she leaves the singings with Levi every time? If she was sitting any closer to him, she’d be sitting on his lap. I—”

  My hand slipped, knocking over an apple, which nearly started an avalanche, and I quickly scrambled to shove them back into place. I didn’t dare look at Hannah and Molly, but a second later, they were pushing their cart toward the front, both a little hunched over as I picked up the apples that had hit the floor.

  I took a deep breath, willing myself not to cry. I’d been won back by Nan’s optimism and an iced coffee, but I should have known better. How many times would I let myself be made a fool?

  I grabbed the last few items on my list, including fancy creamer for the next day, and went to check out the bulk foods at the other end of the store, away from Molly and Hannah, but as it turned out, we all ended up leaving the store at the same time.

  “Oh, hi,” I said, as if I’d just seen them for the first time that day. “How are you two?”

  “Gut,” Hannah answered, a guilty expression spreading across her face. Molly waved.

  “Tell Pete hi,” I said to her. “And that I’m really looking forward to seeing him tomorrow.” My voice was incredibly calm, under the circumstances.

  Molly’s neck reddened and the color quickly spread to her face.

  I pushed my cart past them and loaded my bag of groceries into the buggy. I let them leave first, and by the time I turned back onto the highway, I didn’t care about the tourist traffic. I pushed Thunder hard again, feeling more like my old coldhearted self each time his hooves pounded against the pavement, beating out the rhythm of un-lov-able, un-lov-able, un-lov-able, each syllable taking me another step back to the truth I’d always known.

  Betsy claimed not to know what I was talking about when I confronted her as she put the groceries away. “That’s ridiculous,” she said.

  “Are you denying it?”

  She shrugged and turned back to the bag.

  “How could you? After all I’ve done for you!”

  “Whoa, Cate.” Betsy held out the jar of mayo. “Mervin and Martin were probably joking but Molly believed them.” Her voice trailed off. “And what do you mean all you’ve done for me?”

  “Taken care of you. Put your every need before my own. Raised you.”

  She had the bag of apples in her hand now. “Yeah, well, we can talk about that later, after you’ve calmed down.”

  “No, let’s talk about it now.” I held the empty paper bag in my hand as if I were about to stuff her inside it.

  “Talk about what?” Dat stood in the kitchen doorway. I’d thought he was out in his office.

  “Nothing,” I barked.

  Betsy put the apples in the fruit bowl, one at a time. “Cate was just having a little . . . relapse. But she’s better now.”

  “Gut,” Dat said. “Glad to hear it.” He headed to the back door. “I’m going to spend some time in the shop today. Sure am looking forward to tomorrow . . .” The screen door slammed shut behind him.

  I crossed my arms as the old familiar rage grew.

  Betsy hissed, “Don’t you dare mess this up.” Her eyes were barely slits, her back was hunched, and her mouth was pursed. “The best thing you can do for all of us is forget what Hannah and Molly said. They’re just a couple of silly girls.”

  “M&M are silly. And now H&M are too? My, there’s a lot of silliness going on, isn’t there? And it sounds like you’ve known about it all along.” I met her gaze. “How could you?” I demanded.

  When she only shrugged in response, I spun around in a fury. I marched out of the kitchen through the living room, and up the staircase, wounded to the core by the conspiracy that had been swirling around me. Why, oh, why hadn’t I heeded my suspicions? Why had I agreed to play along when I knew I couldn’t trust any of them?

  I wasn’t sure what to do about the next day, so I decided to hole up in my room. I didn’t usually read on a Saturday afternoon, but today was an exception. I’d renewed the pregnancy book and decided to skim through it. Ironic, jah, considering I’d never experience it for myself. I read about signs of pregnancy and prenatal care. Health care choices and complications. Weight gain and fetal development. Every bit of it was fascinating, except I couldn’t quite fathom why I was torturing myself.

  Betsy and I didn’t talk the rest of the day. I went down for supper—barley and beef soup—but we didn’t go to the volleyball game. She didn’t ask to, and I didn’t offer. Levi was helping to finish up the barn that had been started the weekend before, so I figured she didn’t have much of an incentive to go. It was becoming clear that he was the young man she would choose to marry or, more accurately, would have chosen to if the deal wasn’t null and void now.

  The next morning, I still didn’t know what to do about dinner, but I knew it was too late to cancel. After a silent breakfast, Dat escaped to the shop again. Betsy began readying the roasts to pop in the oven, and after I made a trip to the root cellar to gather the potatoes, I started peeling them, something I could manage.

  I held a peeled one in my hand. It was cold with flecks of dirt on its white flesh. It looked exactly like I felt. I plunged it into the bowl of water, swishing it around. That was what I needed. To be cleansed of all the scheming around me.

  I swallowed hard, knowing this would be a good time to say a prayer, but I was too hurt. Why had God allowed this to happen? I picked up another potato, grabbed the paring knife, and cut all the eyes off, one by one, digging deep.

  Betsy stood on the other side of the sink, glancing at me now and then. “How are you feeling?” she finally asked.

  “Fine.”

  “About yesterday—”

  “I said I’m fine.”

  “You’re not planning to make a scene or anything, are you? With Mervin and Martin? And Pete? Because if you are, I think we need to tell Dat what’s going—”

  “I said I was fine.” The paring knife slipped from my hand, clattering to the counter and then falling to the floor. I jumped back.

  Even though I was a peace-loving Amish girl, I wasn’t going to go down without a fight.

  CHAPTER

  10

  I continued to stew over the best way to confront Pete as our guests arrived. Surprisingly, Addie’s aunt Nell, who was known as a bit of a gossip and usually visited as much as she could, didn’t tag along. She sent her regrets, saying she needed a day of rest. The way Addie’s youngest brothers were running around, I didn’t blame her.

  Pete, along with Nan, who wore a yellow floral dress with a blue sweater and looked even prettier than usual, arrived last. She immediately cornered me in the kitchen and asked me what was wrong. I evaded her question.

  The twins’ mother, Eliza, pitched in to help while Aunt Laurel stood back and watched. She soon struck up a conversation with Nan. Pete asked what he could do to help, and I bit my tongue to keep myself from saying, Get lost.

  “Would you go tell Dat everyone’s here?” I managed to say. “He’s out back with the other men.”

  Fifteen minutes later we were all seated around the big table. Addie’s little brothers poked at each other at the far end, and Dat, Uncle Cap, and M&M’s father, Amos, sat together at the other end. Dat led us all in prayer, and then we started passing the food. Eliza oohed and aahed over each dish, pleased that Betsy had made almost all of it, except for the rolls, which Addie had brought, and the pies Eliza and Nan had contributed. I couldn’t help but wonder if Eliza thought Martin had a chance at Betsy. Finally she asked what I’d made.

  “Nothing,” I answered, dreading the rest of the conversation.

  “She p
eeled the potatoes,” Betsy offered up sweetly.

  Eliza didn’t seem to know how to respond.

  “Well, they’re delicious,” Pete said, a glob on his fork.

  “Betsy whipped them.” I looked away from Pete as I spoke. He sat across the table and down several spaces, and I kept my eyes averted, not wanting to make contact.

  Nan, who was sitting in the direction I turned, started to say something but then stopped. I dropped my eyes away from her too and kept them mostly on my plate for the rest of the meal.

  Afterward Dat suggested that we have dessert outside. He had the horseshoes ready to play, and there was also croquet. Addie’s little brothers practically fell over each other to get out the door. I was pretty sure they planned to make a contact sport out of our croquet set.

  The women offered to help clean up, but I insisted they go out. Betsy too. She’d already washed the pots and pans before we ate.

  “I’ll come out with the pies when I’m done,” I said. I knew it went against our principles of community for them not to help, but the day was gorgeous, and the thought of lounging outside in the sunshine must have been much more appealing than spending time in a hot kitchen with a shrew like me.

  “I’ll start a pot of coffee,” I said. “And bring it out as soon as it’s done. And I bought creamer yesterday at the store.” That was a special treat.

  That seemed to do it, because they filed out, one by one.

  However, Pete lagged behind.

  One of the calico cats had slipped into the kitchen, and I brushed it with my leg, turning it toward the door. As it scooted away from me, I knocked the step stool over.

  Pete jumped.

  It may or may not have appeared as if I’d kicked the stool on purpose. I didn’t take the time to upright it, but went after the cat, who had headed under the table. I caught it quickly as Pete righted the stool. I tossed the calico out the door, yelling, “Scram.”

  Pete jumped again as he stood at the door of the pantry and then laughed. “I thought you were talking to me,” he said.