A Groom for Greta

After he’d finished helping Jeremiah and the other men set up the benches for the evening singing, Luke had intended to head to town. But the truth was that once there he’d have little more than an hour before he’d just have to turn around and come back again. And in this heat even if he washed himself and groomed the horses in town, he and his team were bound to be sweat-soaked and dust-covered by the time he returned. No, best to stay here.

Jeremiah wouldn’t mind and it would give Luke the time he needed to sort things out properly in his mind. Things that yesterday had seemed fairly straightforward now made little sense. His decision to persuade the schoolteacher that they would make a good match had seemed so simple in theory. In other parts of the country, there were several Amish communities within several miles of each other allowing for a much broader opportunity to get to know others. But in Celery Fields there were no outlying or neighboring Amish communities and so there were few options for single men and women.

The idea that Lydia might rebuff him had never even entered his thinking. Yet he’d had the distinct feeling earlier that she had agreed to be seen leaving the singing with him tonight for one reason only—to turn the attention of the gossips away from Greta and onto her. On the one hand he admired her loyalty to her sister. On the other the realization that Lydia found such a drastic move necessary only served to remind him that Greta was no longer a detail that he could overlook as he considered the future.

In the time he had spent considering how best to pursue Lydia as his wife, he had never given much thought to Greta. Like everyone else in town, he had assumed she would marry Josef and that would be the end of it. But now...

Now he found himself thinking about how the house he had thought to share with Lydia would also be home to Greta—at least unless Bontrager came to his senses or some other man in the community stepped up to court her. He and both Goodloe sisters would share meals and holidays and outings. She would be there when he came home in the evenings and when he left for his shop in the mornings. It was enough to try and imagine himself settling in with one woman. Two—especially when one of them was the mercurial Greta—was more than he had bargained for. But it was too late to rethink his plan. In a matter of hours the singing would be over and he and the Goodloe sisters would be riding back to town—together—in the dark.

Greta represented a fly in the ointment of his plan. Yet he could not deny that earlier on their way to services, he had been uncomfortably aware of Greta’s closeness, positioned as she was between him and Lydia on the high wagon seat. Her shoulder had been only a fraction of an inch from his upper arm. When he had tried to steal a glance at Lydia to see how she might be reacting to the clearly unexpected circumstances of riding to services with him, he had instead found himself looking at Greta—her fair ivory cheek and full pink lips just visible beneath the brim of her bonnet.

Yes, he had a problem. It was obvious to him that Lydia’s first and primary concern was going to be caring for her sister. Any interest she might have in him was going to be a distant second. It was also obvious to him that he was spending far too much of his time thinking about Greta Goodloe.

* * *

Sometimes Greta loved the fact that Celery Fields was such a small, close-knit community. But as young people began to arrive for the evening singing, she would have happily traded her surroundings for a bustling, impersonal city. The singing was a far livelier occasion than Sunday services. Everyone mixed together, talking and laughing and sharing refreshments. Along with barn raisings, festivals and other community events, this was an approved venue for courtship and for flirtation.

She had been naive to imagine that everyone would be focusing on Luke and Lydia. After all, the idea of a courtship between her sister and the blacksmith was something townspeople had speculated on almost from the moment Luke Starns had arrived in Celery Fields. It was old news whereas Greta’s breakup with Josef was fresh fodder for the gossip mill. Everyone would be far more interested in where she—and Josef— might choose to sit.

“Staying for the singing is a terrible idea,” she announced as she plopped down next to Lydia on the bench where her sister had spent the afternoon reading.

“But I thought...” Lydia studied her for a long moment. “I see. You are afraid of what people will say about you—and Josef.”

“I am not afraid,” Greta protested. “It’s just that it’s so soon and...”

“If we leave then I cannot accept Luke Starns’s offer of a ride home,” Lydia reminded her.

“Of course you can. In fact it makes more sense than my tagging along. I’ll just pretend...”

“No. Either you and I both go home now or we both stay.”

Greta could be every bit as stubborn as her sister. She folded her arms across her chest and said, “Then I guess we both go home. We can walk.”

“Fine. You will go and tell Luke Starns of the change in plans,” Lydia instructed. “Now.”

“You should be the one. It’s you he wants to see later,” Greta argued.

“It was your decision to accept his offer to drive us here for services and it is now your decision to leave before the singing. You owe the blacksmith an explanation—in person.”

“Fine,” Greta huffed. As the sister of the woman that Luke intended to court, there was no reason for Greta not to be seen talking to Luke. Anyone observing them would assume that she was simply furthering the courtship on her sister’s behalf. So Greta made no attempt to hide her destination as she stomped across the yard toward the barn. From inside the barn she could hear the snort of a horse and the deep, soft voice of Luke talking to the animal. She took a moment to close her eyes and pray for the right words and then she walked toward the stall at the far end of the barn.

“Luke Starns,” she called out, inching her way forward as her eyes became accustomed to the shadows cast by a late afternoon sun.

He stepped out from the stall, holding a grooming brush in one hand. “Yah?”

Greta pasted a smile on her face although she doubted he could really see it. “I’m afraid that... That is my sister...”

Luke turned and continued brushing the horse. “Your sister is having second thoughts,” he said flatly. It was not a question.

What it was though was a way out of this entire mess. If she agreed then there would be no further need for explanation. Greta chewed on her lip. But lying was a sin and that would definitely count as a lie.

“I am having second thoughts,” she admitted.

The brush rested on the horse’s hindquarters for a fraction of a second before Luke once again resumed the rhythmic stroking. “About me and your sister?”

“Oh no,” she hurried to assure him. “Not at all.”

“Then what?”

“Josef will be here for the singing.” It was all the explanation she felt he needed. After all, he knew the whole story.

“Yah. And at least a dozen other people.”

“All talking about us—Josef and me.”