The Amish Sweet Shop Read online

  “I’m sorry to hear that. I have a good recipe for a poultice wrap. I’ll make it up for her tonight.” She nodded at him. “You all right? Your thumb.”

  “It’s fine. I hit it with the hammer. Fixing the molding over the door.” He dropped his hand to his side. The thing was really smarting now, throbbing to the rhythm of his heart beat. “I’m handy with a hammer.” He had no idea why he’d said such a ridiculous thing. She made him feel like he was back in the one-room schoolhouse he’d attended down the road. That year he’d been smitten with Mary Joe Yoder. Seventh grade. He’d said ridiculous things to her for weeks.

  Again, Rose raised her brows, but she didn’t say anything. Instead, she wheeled her scooter toward the door that led into the back, leaving a slick track of water behind her. “I’ll get the mop and turn on the kettle. Make us both some tea.”

  It was on the tip of Jacob’s tongue to tell her he didn’t drink tea. Amish men his age didn’t drink tea, only boys and old men. But the truth was, he did like a good cup of strong tea, especially with a piece of peanut butter fudge. He made an excellent peanut butter fudge.

  She glanced over her shoulder at him. “You probably should move that ladder away from the door.” She nodded in the direction of the clock. “We open in ten minutes.”

  Jacob took a step forward, intending to respond, but his mind was blank. Instead, he went to fold the ladder, nursing his thumb.

  * * *

  “You and Jacob have a good morning?” Clara asked.

  Rose and Clara sat at the little table under the painting of a blue Pennsylvania sky, a farmhouse, and rolling fields. Painted by a neighbor, Clara had told her. Rose didn’t know any Amish painters. He’d passed the winter before at the age of ninety-three, Clara had explained.

  “What did Jacob say about our morning?” Rose took a bite of the savory beef stew Clara had brought from home. That, with the homemade bread and cheese Rose had contributed, made a hearty lunch on such a cold, snowy day.

  Clara’s mouth pursed and then she smiled as she reached for the pepper shaker between them. “Other than try to hide his bandaged thumb?” She chuckled. “Not much.”

  Both Clara and Rose had invited Jacob to share lunch with them out front. There was plenty of room for a third at the wooden kitchen table and an extra chair in the back. The snow continued to fall, so they’d only had two customers since eleven. But instead of joining them, muttering something about billing, Jacob had taken a big ladle of stew from the pot on the back of the stove in his tea mug. He’d then retreated to one of the rooms in the back of the shop that served as his office.

  “But he thinks you’re pretty. And smart,” Clara said quickly.

  Rose frowned. “I don’t think he wants me here.”

  “What man likes change?” Clara took fresh butter with her knife from a plate and slathered it onto her bread. Then she added a slice of the soft cheese. “He’ll appreciate you once he sees how much of a help you can be. He keeps talking about streamlining the business. He says our retail sales are good enough, but there’s a big business in wholesale. That’s why these orders for Valentine’s Day are so important to him.” She took a bite of the bread and cheese, smacking her lips with pleasure. “Truth is, he’s worried. There’s talk of one of those big mart stores opening nearby. A place like that, he says, could shut the doors of every business in Bluebird. If we don’t make changes.”

  Rose nibbled on a piece of bread with the soft cheese. She and Mary had made it over the weekend and it was their best batch yet. She wanted to ask Clara if Jacob had really said he thought she was pretty, but she didn’t. It wasn’t the Amish way to dwell on looks; what was in a man’s or woman’s heart was what was important. Still, they were humans, made in God’s eyes. And she couldn’t deny Jacob was handsome . . . and had nice forearms. She’d seen them when she stepped into the kitchen earlier and he’d been stirring a pot of caramel with a big wooden paddle, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. For just a moment, she imagined what he would look like stirring a pot in her own kitchen. Which was silly. He wasn’t her type.

  His type being grumpy.

  “So back to what I was saying, it takes Jacob a little while to warm up to folks,” Clara explained. “Women. He’s had a hard time with women. Single women,” she added.

  “Because they don’t like him?” It came out of Rose’s mouth before she could stop it.

  But Clara didn’t seem offended. In fact, she chuckled, her cheeks growing rosy. “We all have our pasts that make presents.”

  Rose nodded in agreement. She knew she wasn’t the girl who had married her Chester eight years ago. How could she be after all that had happened? “So, it’s his past is it?”

  “Partly at least. He was in love with a girl. Adel,” Clara said softly. “They were going to be wed.”

  Rose glanced up at Clara. “She broke it off?”

  Clara shook her head. “She died.”

  “Oh my.” Rose pressed her hand to her chest, her heart instantly going out to Jacob. She knew loss, the sort that could take over your life if you let it. “I’m so sorry. How long ago?”

  “Eight years.”

  “Eight years?” Rose repeated, more than a little surprised. It wasn’t the Amish way to hold on to grief. Better to give it to God and move on, her mother often told her. “And he’s not . . . met anyone else?”

  “Ne. My son guards his heart, I think.” Clara glanced up slyly. “But if he met the right woman . . . a woman like you, maybe . . .”

  “Me?” Rose wiped her mouth with the blue cloth napkin Clara had brought from home. “I don’t think I . . .” She knew she blushed. “I don’t think I’m his sort.”

  Clara leaned across the table, lowering her voice. “And what sort is that? Pretty, a hard worker? A woman who doesn’t put up with his nonsense?”

  Rose pressed her lips together, pushing back from the table. She didn’t quite know what to make of this conversation, though it didn’t make her uncomfortable, per se. Mostly because she didn’t know an Amish mother with a single child of married age, male or female, who didn’t like to put in a good word for him or her.

  “I suppose we should get to work. I have a lot to learn in the next few weeks.” Rose stood, picked up her bowl, and looked down at Clara. “If you’re done, I’ll wash up the dishes. It’ll only take me a few minutes and then I’ll cut that fresh fudge. It should be cool by now.”

  “Thank you, dear.” Clara used the heel of her bread to sop up the last bit of gravy from the stew in her bowl and slid it across the table. “You’re attentive to your elders. Jacob admires that in a—”

  The ring of the old-fashioned dial telephone on the wall drowned out Clara’s last words.

  “I’ll get it.” Rose set the dishes down and hurried through the swinging half door, to the phone behind the counter. “Goot afternoon, Beechy’s Sweets,” she said, just as Clara had instructed. “Rose speaking.”

  “Goot afternoon,” a friendly female voice said in Deitsch, the language most Amish spoke amongst themselves. “Is Clara there?”

  “Ya, just a minute.” Rose held out the phone receiver to Clara. “For you.”

  “Ach, wonder who that could be.” Clara got up, wiping her mouth with the napkin. “Englisher or Amish?”

  “Amish.”

  Behind the counter, Rose handed the phone to Clara, then she went back to the table to clean up. She’d get the dishes done and then cut the fudge. Maybe she’d even get to taste a little sample. Jacob’s disposition might not be the sweetest, but his fudge was the best Rose thought she’d ever eaten. The new batch was maple walnut and she couldn’t wait to try it.

  “Oh my,” Clara said as Rose carried the dishes through the half doors between the shop and behind the counter, and then stepped out of the front room, into the kitchen.

  “Ya, ya, I suppose I could . . .” Clara went on.

  Rose carried the dishes to the large stainless steel sink meant only for cleaning. Jacob ha
d pointed it out that morning, as if he didn’t think she would understand why in a commercial kitchen, one sink would be for cleaning while another for food prep. As if she wouldn’t be able to read the little signs he had printed neatly on index cards. If it was just him and Clara working in the kitchen, she wondered what the need for the signs would be, but she didn’t ask.

  Rose was just finishing up the lunch dishes when Jacob walked into the kitchen, carrying his bowl and plate. He’d taken a slice of her bread and a large piece of cheese into the back with him. “I’ll take that,” she said cheerfully. Before he could protest, she took them from his hands.

  “Th . . . thank you. The cheese was . . . it was goot. Tangy for soft cheese.”

  She smiled at him. Knowing he had lost the woman he loved. Knowing he had once loved a woman made her suddenly look differently at him. “My cousin and I just made it last weekend. I’ll bring more tomorrow.”

  “Jacob! Rose!” Clara called, bursting into the kitchen. “I have news! I . . .” She seemed flustered and excited at the same time. “That was Lizbet, Sadie’s sister. Sadie’s gone into labor.” She fluttered her hands. “I have to call Wilma and see if she can take me to the train station. Baby’s early but she’s gone to a hospital and Lizbet says that Sadie’s husband Joe says everything’s going to be just fine. Sadie’s in no danger. The baby might just be a little small.” She clapped her hands together. “So that means I’ll be on my way and you two . . .” She looked from Rose to Jacob. “Will be on your own.”

  Jacob took a step toward his mother, his face suddenly stormy. “Absolutely not. You can’t leave her here with me. Not with all the orders we have to fill in the next two weeks.” He gestured toward Rose. “She . . . she doesn’t know the first thing about candy making,” he sputtered. “Or . . . or running a store.”

  “Well, I’m going to Indiana on the evening train.” Clara clasped her hands together, grinning. “So I suppose, the two of you best figure it out together.”

  * * *

  The following morning Jacob stood in the dark candy shop staring at the clock. She’d be there in five minutes. Rose. Half the night he’d lain in bed trying to figure out what to do with her. He’d tried to convince his mother to stay another day or two, at least to train Rose. After all, she was the one who thought he needed a shopgirl; she was the one who had hired her. But his mother had been uncharacteristically stubborn. Usually he could convince her to see things his way. But not yesterday. She had bordered on obstinate. She went home, packed a bag, and had their favorite driver pick her up and take her to the Amtrak station in Lancaster. She hadn’t even made him supper before she went. And the last thing she’d said as she left the house was that she loved him and that she hoped he saw an opportunity when God presented it to him.

  He had no idea what she was talking about. And didn’t have time to figure it out. The previous morning, before the call from Indiana, he’d accepted yet another wholesale order for chocolate fudge and peanut butter. Twenty-five pounds each. It would be a stretch to deliver them in the week leading up to Valentine’s Day, with all the orders he’d accepted already. The last order had been impulsive. Prideful. And now he regretted it. Now that he knew his mother wouldn’t be here to help him with it.

  It was something about the upheaval in the shop that had him unsettled. Usually he was so clearheaded. Always God-and task-minded. But Rose . . . no . . . his mother hiring Rose, had set him off-kilter. Kept him from thinking clearly. Yesterday he’d actually added too much butter to a kettle of caramel fudge he was working on. He intended to layer it with chocolate fudge. Instead, the batch went into the bucket for his neighbor’s pigs.

  Jacob glanced at the clock. Two minutes. She’d be arriving in two minutes full of smiles and suggestions. The previous day she’d convinced Clara that if they stacked the boxes they used for the candy on end instead of flat, they would be easier to grab quickly when filling large orders. His mother hadn’t consulted him, hadn’t even given the idea some thought. And now all of his white boxes with the words Beechy’s Sweets and their phone number and address stamped on them were put together, arranged by size, under the wooden counter.

  Jacob glanced at the door. Last night, when he couldn’t sleep, he’d considered the idea of telling Rose when she arrived that he wouldn’t be needing her any longer. He told himself he could pay her an additional week’s wages and send her on her way. That was more than fair, and it would give her a whole week to look for another job. He didn’t know why she was working anyway. Very few Amish women worked outside the home. At her age, she should have been married by now, with children. What was she doing working in a candy shop?

  A sound coming from the back of the shop startled Jacob and he turned in the direction it had come from. It was the back door he’d heard, the one that led out to the lean-to where he stalled the horse during the day. He was certain he’d heard it open. But who could be letting himself in the back door? It couldn’t be thieves; they’d never had a theft in Bluebird for as long as he could remember.

  But that was definitely the door and the sound of—

  As he walked out of the kitchen and into the hallway, he spotted a push scooter lying in the entryway. Then Rose in her black cape and bonnet appeared. She was wearing a large backpack and also carrying a lunch pail covered with stiff fabric. “Good morning,” she said, sounding far too cheerful to suit him.

  He stopped short. “How did you get in? We always keep the back door locked.”

  She set down the pail and held up something shiny. “Which is why Clara gave me a key.” She dropped it inside the pocket of her apron, removed her backpack and then her cloak. Next came her bonnet. She hung them on the peg rack beside the door right beside his heavy denim coat and wide-brimmed wool hat.

  “I brought coffee. Ground this morning fresh. Clara said we were almost out.” She patted her starched prayer kapp to be sure it was in place. “She said you liked your coffee freshly ground.” Another smile.

  She was a pretty thing, he’d give her that. Not flashy like some of the younger single Amish women he knew. She was dressed neatly in a clean, rose-colored dress with a white apron, black stockings, and sturdy black shoes. Rose for a rose, he thought.

  Then he felt silly and looked away. “We’ve got a lot to do today. I made a list.”

  “I love a list.”

  Her cheerfulness grated on his nerves. “We’ve got to start making boxes for the Valentine’s Day shipments. We’re going to need hundreds. That’s time-consuming. And the roses that go on the truffles need to be premade.” He pressed his fingers to his forehead. His hair was shaggy. He should have had his mother cut it for him before she left. “I need an inventory of the pantry, too. Not sure I have enough sugar. And we’ll have more customers coming in. It’s always busy leading up to the Englisher holidays.”

  She was gathering up her belongings. “Just write it all down.”

  He watched her. She didn’t seem intimidated by him, not like most young Amish women. He wondered what was different? Himself or her?

  She walked past him, the backpack on her shoulder, the lunch pail in her hand. “If I have any questions, I’ll ask.” She headed down the hallway, then looked back. “You better get to work, Jacob. Not just stand there lollygagging.”

  “Lollygagging?” He meant it to come out stern, but his voice sounded a little playful. Like hers.

  She smiled. The prettiest smile. “I’ll start the coffee, open up for business, and then bring you some coffee and a cinnamon bun. Fresh made this morning.”

  Before he could tell her that he tried to avoid sweets, she was gone. The key to his back door in his shop in her apron pocket. What had his mother been thinking when she’d given this girl the key to his shop?

  He glanced at her scooter. She’d brought it right inside. As if this were her place.

  Chapter 3

  Late in the afternoon, an hour before closing, Rose glanced up at the ceiling light that was flickering
again. She returned her attention to her work. It had been quiet all afternoon with only a few customers coming in, which was a good thing because in the morning they’d been overrun. At one point, she’d actually had to call Jacob to join her behind the counter. He hadn’t been happy about the prospect, saying he was too busy. Something about mixing up more of the peanut butter that he made for his sweets. But Rose hadn’t taken no for an answer and she’d had him cut and box fudge while she rang up customers. The crowd had just died down when Clara called to check in. She told Rose she was having a wonderful time and the baby was adorable. Then she’d spoken to Jacob.

  He’d taken the phone through the swinging door into the kitchen, stretching the curly phone wire so far that Rose thought for certain he’d pulled it right out of the wall. He’d then proceeded to talk in a quiet voice, but not so quiet that Rose couldn’t hear him. He was talking about her, saying it wasn’t going to work. From his response to Clara, Rose suspected the older woman hadn’t agreed with her son and he hadn’t liked it one bit. But men rarely did like it when a woman knew best and said so. After the call, he’d hung the phone up loudly and gone into the back. Rose hadn’t seen him since.

  It had crossed her mind more than once in the last few hours that maybe she should quit. Or rather just make the agreement with him that they weren’t suited to work together. But she was never one to give up, or give in. And there was something about Jacob that, despite his grumbling, she liked. She’d realized this earlier in the day when they’d had a conversation over a cup of tea. Maybe it was his work ethic. Or his devotion to his mother. Or maybe it was his forearms. She smiled, then chastised herself for inappropriate thoughts. She was a widowed woman. Had once been a mother. She knew better. Hard work was one of the best ways to rid oneself of such thoughts, that and a preacher’s long sermon, but for today she just had the work.