The Amish Sweet Shop Read online

“Didn’t I just say that? Grab an apron hanging from the hook behind the counter. Everything’s self-explanatory. Prices are marked. We just got a new digital scale. I’ll be here if you need help.”

  The woman in the pink jumpsuit approached Rose. “Excuse me, miss. Is your fudge fresh today?” she asked, squinting from behind pink jeweled glasses. She had a big pink fuzzy scarf wrapped around her neck. “I like my fudge fresh.”

  “Freshly made every day,” Rose assured her. “Let me grab my apron, and why don’t I get you a little sample to see for yourself.” She glanced in Clara’s direction and Clara winked at her. Smiling, Rose hurried to grab the apron with the Beechy’s Sweets logo on it and get to work.

  Watching Rose make conversation with the customers, Clara reached for her notebook on the table. It wouldn’t do to leave it out and risk Jacob seeing it. Or Rose, for that matter. There was no need for them to know that the job applicants she’d interviewed for the last three days weren’t just interviewing for a job behind the Beechy’s Sweets counter, but also for that of a bride.

  Clara smiled to herself, pleased with her own creativity at solving two problems at once. Jacob needed help in the shop, whether he could admit it or not. At thirty-six years old, it was also clear he needed a little help in the marriage department. The past was the past and it was time he was wed and gave her grandchildren before she was too old to enjoy them.

  Clara had to give herself a pat on the back for coming up with this idea. Of course, in the end, all would be left to God’s will, but there was nothing wrong with giving young folks a push in a certain direction. The moment she’d set eyes on Rose, she knew she was the one for Jacob. And now not only would Clara have someone in the shop to help them, but she’d get a chance to get to know her daughter-in-law-to-be.

  Clara glanced in Rose’s direction. Rose was busy ringing up the Englisher in the pink outfit. And not only had Rose sold her two pounds of fudge, but some taffy, too. And Rose had had no trouble figuring out the fancy scale or the cash register.

  She chuckled to herself as she headed for the door to the kitchen to tell her son that she’d hired a shopgirl. If this went as well as she hoped, Clara thought she just might go into the matchmaking business.

  * * *

  Rose glided beside her cousin on a borrowed push scooter and laughed at Mary’s retelling of a neighbor’s encounter with a goat in her kitchen. The cold morning exhilarated Rose as well as the anticipation of her second day at Beechy’s Sweets. Having Clara hire her on the spot had surprised her, but not any more than the strange questions the older woman had asked during the interview.

  Rose had ended up working all day and the hours had slipped by like sugar through her fingers. She found that not only was she capable of dealing with customers, both English and Amish, but she enjoyed it. And Clara had been as good as her word, available anytime she had a question. The only unsettling thing of the day was the fact that the proprietor, whom she technically worked for, never stepped into the front of the shop, even to say hello. When Rose had told that to Mary, her cousin had laughed and said that sounded like Jacob Beechy. She said he had a reputation for, while being a godly man, having a less than pleasant disposition. That didn’t prevent the occasional young woman from trying to catch his eye, Mary said, but so far, no woman had done so. She’d hinted that he’d once had a sweetheart, but had said she didn’t know the story firsthand, and she worked hard at not being a gossip. Rose had asked Junior what his opinion of Jacob Beechy was over dinner. He’d just muttered something about it being better for people to make up their own minds when it came to summing up a man and asked her to pass the corn muffins.

  “How long until Clara goes to Indiana?” Mary asked.

  Mary had offered to accompany Rose into work this morning. Rose had assured her she could find the place on her own again, but her cousin had whispered that her mother-in-law had offered to watch the new baby for an hour or so, and Mary was eager to have a few moments without her four children and the bustle of her farmhouse kitchen. Worried about the cold, Mary’s husband had suggested he drive them to town in the buggy. The two women had, however, been eager to be off and alone for a few minutes, so they had taken scooters the two miles into Bluebird. Mary would drop Rose off at the sweet shop and then go to the market to get a couple of things before heading home to a day of cleaning and cooking and childcare.

  “Clara leaves in three weeks. The Monday after Valentine’s Day. Between now and then, they have several big orders to fill for shops in Lancaster. The last one has to be delivered on Valentine’s Day. Clara said he’s a shrewd business man, Jacob. Fair of course,” she added, glancing at her cousin. They were dressed identically in heavy black wool cloaks and their black bonnets over their prayer kapps. Both wore gloves and pretty scarves Mary’s mother-in-law had knitted for them for Christmas. Rose’s was blue, to match her eyes and Mary’s green, to match hers.

  Rose had settled easily into Mary and her husband’s household. It had been so kind for them to invite her to stay with them indefinitely. A change of scenery, a good way to start a new life, now that she was ready, her mother had insisted. An opportunity to find a husband, she meant. Only Rose wasn’t offended by the idea. It was time. Past time. It was every Amish woman’s dream and duty to be married with a family. God had brought peace to her heart over the last year and she really was ready.

  So here she was, in little Bluebird, Pennsylvania. She had a job and her cousin was already plotting to introduce her to several eligible bachelors.

  “You want me to send Junior to pick you up after work? It will be dark.” Mary looked at the sky. “With maybe more snow on the ground.”

  “I’ll be fine.” Rose laughed. “We have snow in Delaware, too.”

  “Not like this.”

  “Ne.” Rose gazed out over the field as they approached the edge of town. “Not like this. Not so pretty.” She shivered as the wind tugged at her wool cloak. “Not so cold.”

  “Call if you change your mind, ya?”

  “Call?” Rose frowned, slowing her pace. She was used to a push scooter at home, but not going so far. And there were no hills in Delaware. Kent County was as flat as her applesauce pancakes.

  “Ya. The store has a phone, I know. How else would they take these big orders from the fancy candy stores in Lancaster that Clara was telling you about?”

  “Ya, they have a phone. I answered it yesterday. Even took an order.” She fell in behind Mary as she heard an automobile approaching from behind them. “I meant how would I call you?”

  “Junior has a cell phone.” Mary hopped off her scooter and began to push it up the last hill that led into town.

  Rose did the same. “A cell phone?” she murmured, unable to hide her surprise.

  Old Order Amish had no phones, at least not where she came from. Of course, Amish businesses had them, and sometimes teenaged boys sneaked them, but not families. Not for personal use. The Amish were meant to be detached from the Englisher world and that meant no telephone or electric lines. Of course, the rules had been easier to decipher in the past, back in the days before cell phones, when all phones had actual physical lines.

  “For emergencies.” Mary waved at a man in a red truck that passed them. “I keep it in the kitchen drawer.” She waited for Rose to catch up, and they walked their scooters side by side. “You can give the number to Clara. In case she needs to call you for something. I wrote it down and put it in your lunch box in your bag.” She indicated the backpack Rose was wearing, something else Rose didn’t have in her parents’ home. Inside was a lunch box with several slices of thick sourdough bread, a hunk of yellow cheese, and a thermos of hot peppermint tea.

  “Don’t look so shocked,” Mary teased. “We don’t use it to call the weather channel recording to get the forecast.”

  Rose didn’t even know there was such a thing.

  They stepped up onto the sidewalk at the edge of the quaint, picturesque town that Rose thought could have
come right out of a picture book. Only three blocks in each direction, there were quaint little bungalows, two-story homes, and quite a few stores for a community so small. Within Bluebird, there was a quilt shop, several gift shops, a market selling bulk groceries, an ice cream shop, a hardware store, and a couple of other places Rose had yet to explore. And of course, Beechy’s Sweets.

  On the second block, the two came to a stop in front of Beechy’s storefront. Mary gazed up, dabbing at her nose with a man’s red handkerchief she’d plucked from beneath her wool cloak. “You want I should come in with you? Jacob might be there alone.”

  “I’m going to be alone with him when Clara’s gone,” Rose countered, suddenly feeling nervous at the mention of the store owner. Between what Mary had said about him at dinner the previous night and what her husband hadn’t said, Rose was worried about meeting him now. “Times have changed. We all agreed it was all right for a single woman my age to work with a single man Jacob’s age. You mother-in-law said herself that there was plenty of coming and going of others in the shop for it to be respectable.”

  Mary stared at the front door. “I didn’t mean that. I mean what if he’s in one of his moods? I told you he has a reputation for being stern.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Rose insisted. “Besides, Clara will be here. And I have to meet him at some point, don’t I? Go to the market, Mary. I’ll be home in time to help with supper.”

  She watched Mary step back on her scooter and head in the direction of the grocery store, then walked up the freshly shoveled sidewalk to the door. She knew she was a few minutes early, but that would give her a chance to get some more bags out of the storage closet in the back and get them arranged by size before they opened for business.

  At the door, she stood for a moment in indecision, wondering what to do with her scooter. The snow was coming harder now; it didn’t seem smart to leave it outside. Maybe Clara would have a place in the back where she could park it. She walked up to the door where a “Closed” sign hung, the window shade still turned down, and turned the knob. It was locked. She glanced over her shoulder at the street. She’d seen fresh buggy tracks going up the little driveway into the back, so she knew Clara had to be there.

  She turned back to the door and knocked.

  A brusque male voice from just the other side of the door startled her. “Not open yet!”

  Chapter 2

  Jacob stood on the stepladder shaking his head as he plucked a finishing nail from his pocket. Could the Englisher at the door not read the sign? They weren’t open for another twenty minutes.

  Holding the nail in place in the molding above the door, he pulled the hammer from where it hung on his leather belt and tapped it lightly to align it before striking it home. He’d come in early this morning to repair the piece of molding that was at risk for falling and striking a customer in the head. The little house they’d converted into a shop was in the perfect location on the main street in town, but it had been in terrible shape when they’d bought it. Even after the major renovation he and his cousin had done, it seemed as if there was always something left to be repaired or re-repaired. He and his mother kept a running list, a list that never seemed to get any shorter.

  She hadn’t seemed well this morning, his mother, and he was concerned. She’d come downstairs late. She’d made oatmeal for their breakfast after he milked their cow and fed the livestock, but there had been no scrapple or eggs to go with it. It was her arthritis, she’d explained, opening and closing her hands to demonstrate. She’d still been in her nightgown, nightcap, and flannel robe, something he rarely saw. When he’d suggested she stay home for the morning and rest, she’d jumped at the offer. Then she insisted he take the buggy and she’d catch a ride into town late morning with their neighbors, as she did some days when she had work to do in the house.

  Another tap came at the door, this one more of a bang. It startled Jacob as he took a final swing at the nail and he missed and hit his thumb. “Ow!” he hollered, shaking his injured hand.

  “Hello? Are you all right?” came a feminine voice from the other side of the door.

  Jacob climbed down the stepladder, pushing his injured thumb into his mouth as he slid his hammer back into place on his belt. “I said we’re not open!” He knew he should be thankful for the Englisher customers that provided the finances to allow him to care for his mother and the farm his father had left him. And he truly was, most days. But the fact was, some Englishers didn’t have any manners.

  He jerked the old roller shade on the door’s window back to peer at the intruder. “Can you not read—”

  Jacob halted mid-sentence as his gaze met a young Amish woman’s. Bright blue eyes framed in thick lashes. The prettiest eyes he thought he’d ever seen. The pertest of noses.

  She studied him from beneath the brim of her traditional Old Order black bonnet, a concerned look on her face. Her brows furrowed. “Are you all right, Jacob?”

  He stared at her through the glass, feeling a little light-headed. Maybe he’d come down the ladder too fast. Who was this girl who knew his name?

  “Jacob?” she repeated.

  Then he realized that while he couldn’t identify the face, he recognized the voice. From the previous day. It was the girl his mother had insisted on employing to help him out in the shop, help he didn’t need. Only she wasn’t a girl, she was a woman.

  The new employee had worked several hours out front after his mother hired her on the spot. Jacob had been so annoyed with his mother that he’d finished up the batch of fudge he was making and then gone home to muck stalls, cut wood, and catch up on some other chores that needed his attention at the farm. He’d not returned to the shop until five-thirty and the girl . . . woman was gone by then. What was her name? Rhonda? No . . . something with an R, but an unusual one for an Amish woman.

  “Will you let me in? It’s cold out here.” She looked peeved, now. It was snowing harder than when he’d arrived this morning and flakes swirled around her black bonnet, striking her rosy cheeks and freckled nose.

  “And why would I let you in?” he asked. “No customers until ten. It says so right on the sign.” He tapped on the window where the hours were posted in the corner.

  Jacob didn’t know why he pretended he didn’t know who she was. Maybe to see what mettle she was made of. If she had even a chance of being able to work for him, which was doubtful, she needed to be bright . . . and thick-skinned. There were a lot of people, Amish and English, who believed him to be abrupt, harsh even. Jacob just thought he was honest. And not wasteful of people’s time. He wasn’t about small talk, he was a man of honest communication and hard work.

  The woman with the pretty blue eyes pursed her lips. And then he remembered her name: Rose. “Because I work here and if I don’t get the bags from their case before you open, your customers will be carrying their fudge and taffy out of your shop in their hands!”

  Jacob didn’t know why that struck him as funny, but it did, and he had to press his lips together to keep from grinning. Her quick retort had earned her entrance. His thumb still smarting, he turned the deadbolt on the door. She grabbed the knob and turned it, pushing in. The bell attached to the door rang as she stepped onto the homemade mat that said Welkom.

  Jacob stepped back and watched as she dragged her scooter in behind her, leaving a trail of snow across the wide-planked pine floor he’d just refinished a few months ago.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  She set the scooter down on its side and whipped off her black bonnet, also dotted with snow. “Which part? The coming to work or the taking off my bonnet and cloak so I can do my work?

  “You’re making a mess with that thing.” He pointed to the scooter.

  She shook out her bonnet. “A little snow in Pennsylvania troubles you?” She shook her cloak next, adding more snowflakes to the floor that turned into little drops of water.

  “Why did you bring the scooter in,” he demanded, pointing again. r />
  “I couldn’t well leave it in the snow. I’ll put it in the back. And then mop up.” She walked to the pegboard to hang her cloak and bonnet. “I should probably have a key to let myself into the back.”

  He drew himself up indignantly. “I’m not giving you a key to my business.”

  “Then I’ll keep bringing my scooter in the front door, ya?”

  He shook his head. Annoyed and against his will . . . enchanted. Though not a word heard often among the Amish, it was the only word he could think of. Like one of the fairy tales his mother used to read to him when he was a little boy. Not exactly what an Amish woman was supposed to read to her child, and certainly not her little boy, but Clara had always been an odd duck. Everyone in Bluebird had always said so. And a more faithful woman one would never meet; she was always the first to help when a friend, family member, or even stranger was in need.

  “Look at the time.” Rose glanced up at the clock on the wall, seeming unruffled. “I’d best get this parked and you’d better get that ladder put away.” She stood the scooter up. “Is Clara in the back?”

  “Um . . .” He was so taken aback by her response to him . . . or lack of response to his tone, as his mother liked to call it, that he didn’t reply at once. “N . . . ne.”

  “No?” She raised her eyebrows, then frowned. “She said she’d meet me here first thing. She was going to show me how to pack up individual mail orders and ship them.”

  “I usually ship the mail orders.”

  “She said they were getting out later than they should.”

  “She said what?” Obviously, this woman had no idea how much work went into running a shop like this. “I—There’s a lot to do, this time of year.” He pushed his thumb into his mouth and tasted blood. Apparently, he’d hit it harder than he first realized. “Not just making the candy, but ordering the bulk supplies.”

  “She was going to show me how to do that, too.” She flashed a smile. “Is she coming in later?”

  “Yes, she just . . . she was feeling a little under the weather. Arthritis in her hands.” Though the more he thought about it, the more he wondered just how under the weather she was. It wasn’t like her to shirk responsibilities, yet she’d seemed eager to send him off alone this morning.