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“All gut things I hope.”
“From Dat? Ya. But Annie, well...you know how Annie is.”
“I do? I’ve only known her a few days.”
“She’s not exactly a mystery.”
“Meaning?”
“She told me she told you that she doesn’t like all this Texas talk.”
“I guess she did mention it.”
Jebediah and Nicole both laughed at that as if he’d told a joke. It made him squirm, not that they might be laughing at him, but that he might be up against a force to be reckoned with. Instead of delving into the details of Annie’s opposition, he changed the subject.
“What are your children’s names?”
“The twins are Micah and Mitchell—nine months old.” Jebediah readjusted both babies in his arms. “Our oldest is Rachel.”
“I’m three,” Rachel proclaimed, holding up a pudgy hand and bending down her thumb and pinky.
Levi remembered what Jebediah had said about their expecting another. He glanced at Nicole’s stomach, then quickly averted his eyes.
She again laughed. “I’m five months along, in case you were wondering.”
“I wasn’t.” And now his cheeks were burning.
When everyone else surged forward to be in the first seating of folks who would eat, Levi hung back.
“You can come with us into the first group,” Jebediah said.
“No need. I don’t mind waiting. Gives me time to watch folks.”
Annie had stepped out of the trailer to deliver two platters of food. When she stepped back inside a small tabby cat crept in after her.
“Uh-oh,” Jebediah said.
His astute comment was immediately followed by an ear-piercing scream. He handed the babies off to Nicole, but Levi was already on his way toward Annie.
The scene in front of him when he stepped into the trailer was something he wouldn’t forget for a very long time.
An Englisch woman was holding two large bowls of side dishes up high and trying to move around Annie without dropping them. She wore a conservative dress and a handkerchief over her hair, which was red and braided into a long ponytail down her back. She most certainly was not Amish.
Annie wore a light gray Amish dress with a white apron. A fresh kapp covered her hair, and her cheeks were a bright red. She had a pot lid in one hand and a dish towel in the other. She was slapping at the cat with the towel and holding the pot lid like an early Christian in Rome’s Colosseum fending off the hungry lions.
As for the cat, he was clearly a terrified kitten, but that didn’t stop him from arching his back and hissing at Annie.
Levi wanted to see how this would unfold. He wanted to burst out laughing, but another look at Annie told him that wouldn’t be a wise move.
So instead, he pulled off his Stetson, dropped it over the unsuspecting cat, scooped it up in his arms and fled the trailer.
“Who was that?” Priscilla was still holding the two dishes of corn casserole high, as if the cat might return at any moment and leap on the food.
“I’ll explain later. We need to get this food out there.”
The next hour passed in a blur of activity. Annie loved nearly every minute of it. She liked feeding people, liked seeing the bride and groom and families relax. This was their day of celebration. They shouldn’t be worried about chicken and hot rolls and casserole dishes. The fact that she did her job well meant that they could enjoy the wedding. And she didn’t mind admitting that she was very good at guiding families through these special days, when there weren’t feral cats hopping into her trailer.
She sighed and stood in the doorway looking out over the tables.
“Take a break,” Priscilla said. “In fact, take some food and go sit down somewhere.”
“You’re bossy, you know that?”
“Which is why I make a good partner.”
“I guess.”
“You’re still staring at him.”
“Who?”
“The Amish cowboy.”
Annie snorted at that. It sounded so ridiculous. It was ridiculous.
“So what gives?”
“He arrived here a few days ago.”
“Why?”
“Looking for families to move to Texas.”
“I didn’t realize there were Amish communities there.”
“There’s one, and it’s quite small and located in South Texas. Levi wants to start another.”
“Ahhhh...” Priscilla’s single word said she finally understood the problem. She’d been around Annie long enough to know how excited her dat could be when he first dove into a new idea.
“We’re not moving,” Annie said.
“Have you told your dat that?”
“You can’t tell Dat anything. You have to...wait it out.”
“Like the camels.”
“Ya. Like that.”
“If it’s any consolation, I have family in Texas—Fort Worth. I’ve visited a few times. It’s not such a bad place to live.”
Annie shook her head and picked at the plate of food that Priscilla had pushed into her hand. “I need a plan.”
“Uh-oh.”
“What if Dat went through with it? I mean usually he doesn’t, but this time could be different. I’ve never seen him this focused before. He even checked out some books on Texas from the library. Spent some time on their computers looking things up too.”
“That does sound serious.”
“I need a plan to distract Levi.”
“What did you have in mind?”
“I don’t know. What are men interested in...” At that moment, a swell of laughter arose from the newlyweds’ table. Both Annie and Priscilla stuck their heads out of the trailer to see the bride blushing and the groom ducking his head.
“Women,” they said at the same time.
“That’s it.” Annie reached for her glass of tea and made her way down the trailer steps.
“Do you need help?” Priscilla called after her.
Annie turned so that she was walking backward. “You already helped. You gave me the idea.”
“I did?”
She made her way to an empty seat, sat down and enjoyed the plate of food. The chicken had not dried out, the vegetable casseroles were tasty and the bread practically melted in her mouth. She was a good cook, a good businesswoman, and she wasn’t going to lose everything she’d built to a guy who had stumbled into town with a dream.
It was later that afternoon before she had a chance to implement her plan. She and Priscilla had cleaned the dishes and made sure everything was ready for the evening meal. With nearly two hours before they had to do anything else, Priscilla decided to drive into town and do some shopping. Annie made her way to the pasture fence, where Beth’s parents kept their small herd of goats. They were playful animals. One stuck its nose through the fence when she approached, so she reached into her pocket and pulled out a piece of carrot.
“Now they’re going to stampede over here.” Levi walked up and crossed his arms on the top of the fence.
“Maybe that’s what I wanted.”
“A goat stampede?”
She dusted off her hands and shooed the goat away. “I saw you talking to Dat earlier.”
Levi raised his hands in surrender. “Not the way you think.”
“So you weren’t talking to him about Texas?”
“I didn’t bring it up. I told you I wouldn’t, and I didn’t.”
“But...”
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t answer questions. He brought it up because he had a few questions that cropped up from his reading.”
“And it didn’t hurt that a few other men were standing around listening.”
Now Levi smiled. “Come on, Annie. It’s why I’m here. You can’t fault me for that.”
“Except your plan could bankrupt my business.”
“Ten families moving wouldn’t affect you at all.”
She shook her head so hard that her kapp strings bounced back and forth. She had promised herself she wouldn’t get into an argument with him. That wasn’t her plan.
But she needed for him to see what was at stake.
Suddenly she thought of the brainstorming sessions she’d had with Priscilla, before they’d started Plain & Simple Weddings. Part of their initial challenge had been convincing families that they needed their services, and that in the end, it would be less expensive for them. She was up against the same sort of thing with Levi. He simply didn’t understand that he needed her services, and she wasn’t talking about catering.
Levi Lapp thought he needed a fresh start, but that wasn’t the case at all. When had moving away from your problems ever solved anything?
Levi didn’t need to move; he needed to believe in himself.
He needed to be able to envision his future here—in Goshen, Indiana.
He needed a woman, and she knew several that were available.
Annie cleared her throat and looked back toward her trailer. “Priscilla and I started our business three years ago.”
He seemed surprised at the change of subject, but he turned as she had and looked out at the trailer.
“She put up two-thirds of the initial money.”
“You mean buying the trailer?”
“It’s actually a mobile kitchen and cost a little more than twelve thousand dollars.”
Levi glanced at her in surprise. “Seriously?”
“Ya. Stoves, refrigerators and enough dishes for five hundred...not to mention the trailer itself and the licensing fees.”
“I had no idea.”
“We broke even the first year.”
“Wow.”
“She’s a gut partner too. Since she’s Englisch, she drives a truck that can pull the trailer. She can also order a lot of what we need wholesale on the computer.”
“You’re saying you two make a wunderbaar team. I can see that. You have every right to be proud of what you’ve done, Annie.”
“Pride goes before destruction as my mamm often reminds me, but I am pleased with our success. More importantly I enjoy what we do. I like making this...” She waved at the large group of people sprawled across the green yard—full, content, some of them growing sleepy. “I like making it all possible. I enjoy seeing others happily wed.”
“What about you?”
“Me?” Her thoughts scrambled for an answer to his question. It wasn’t the first time someone had asked her why she wasn’t married, but somehow it was different coming from Levi Lapp while he smiled at her with his cowboy hat tilted at an angle.
