"Jah. Levi hasn't married all these years for a reason."

"Twelve years pa.s.sed before you found the fraa for whom you waited."

"Gott blessed me, and I pray He does the same for you."

"What makes you think Levi is not that man?"

"He hasn't come to grips with his loss."

The image of Levi sitting in the chair next to her on the Fourth of July floated before her. The pain in his voice reverberated around her. "It's time he looked forward rather than backward."

"Sometimes it's easier said than done. He lost his fraa in childbirth. A moment of great joy confounded by terrible loss. Such a confusing, terrible confluence would change a man."

She slapped the carrot on the cutting board and chopped in a rhythmic motion born of years of experience. "You think he might not want to take a chance on such a thing happening again?"

"I think you have sacrificed much for others in your life and now it's time to consider how much more you're willing to give up." The clomp, clomp of his boots and scent of sweat told her he'd risen and stood close by. "You're still young. Young enough to be a mudder if you think that's something you want."

"He might not want it, I know. He's said as much, in that garbled way men do."

"It's in the way he looks at Liam. Such pain and joy in one dreadful bundle. It hurts a heart to see a man so torn over the blessing of a son."

Her throat ached with the desire to let go a floodgate of emotion. She breathed and picked up another carrot. "Love can heal anything."

"I hope you're right." He paused in the doorway. "I hope you plan to make an extra-big ca.s.serole."

She could stretch a ca.s.serole with extra noodles with the best of the fraas out there. "Why is that?"

"I invited Levi and his kinner for supper."

Susan turned, paring knife in midair. After a second she remembered to close her mouth. Her brother had already fled.

THIRTY-FIVE.

Susan sc.r.a.ped the food from her plate onto the saucer she kept on the back porch for Butch. The hund was getting a delicacy tonight. The chicken had turned to sawdust in her mouth the minute she peeked across to the men's table and saw Levi looking at her. He'd looked away right quick and so had she. Still, he'd seen her looking at him. She hadn't been able to swallow more than two bites of her supper after that. Silly woman. She sc.r.a.ped harder.

Butch raced around the corner and came to a screeching halt in front of her, his nails making a tickety-tackity sound on the wooden porch. "Go on, you old hund, eat my supper. You'll like it better than I did."

She turned and found Levi standing in the doorway, propped up on his crutches. "Do you always have to sneak up on a person?" "I didn't sneak." He waved a crutch. "Hard for a man to do on these things."

"Did you get enough supper?" She waited for him to move so she could get past him and back to her dirty dishes. "There's more dump cake if you're interested. Kaffi too."

"Nee." He didn't move. "I was thinking I'd like to get a look at a couple of things at the shop. Tobias is working on a saddle for a ranch hand over by Victoria. I usually do the fancy work, but he's not wanting to take me to work. Says it's too soon."

He stopped, his breathing hard as if he'd sprinted around the bases in a game of kickball. Why was he telling her this? "I figure I'm a grown man. If I decide to go to my shop, I go."

"So what's keeping you from going?"

"Nothing, I reckon."

This was the strangest conversation yet. His face with its skin the pallor of a man fresh out of the hospital turned a deep red. Susan wanted to take pity on him, but she couldn't for the life of her figure out what to say.

"So you want to see the shop?"

Bells dinged in her head. She was denser than the densest stone. He was asking her to take a ride with him. "Are you sure you're up to it?"

His mouth, with its full lips, turned down. He positively glowered at her. "Not you too?"

"Sorry, sorry!" She put her hand on his. Without thinking. When she did think, heat exploded in her head. She s.n.a.t.c.hed her hand back quicker than if he were a rattlesnake curled up on her front step. "I mean, jah, I can go. If you want me to."

"If you want to."

"I want to."

"Your bruder is loaning me a buggy." He slung himself backward on the crutches, leaving a s.p.a.ce just wide enough for her to squeeze through. "I'll leave the wagon for Tobias to take the kinner home once he's worn them out."

Susan took the opportunity and swiped past him, inhaling his scent of wood and sweat and soap. "I should finish the dishes."

"We're doing them." Abigail stood at the counter, both arms plunged into the tub of soapy water, a grin plastered across her smug face. "You did all the cooking. Let Martha and the girls and me take care of the cleaning."

She cast a knowing glance at Levi, who clomped past, his gaze on his boots, as if he hadn't just asked her to take a ride with him.

"Go on, take a load off." Abigail c.o.c.ked her head toward him. "Go find something to do."

She knew. She surely did.

Martha should do the same. And Rebekah. Where was Rebekah? She should be out with Tobias. Because they were young, they would go later. They needed less sleep. Muttering to herself, Susan marched through the front room with a quick, surrept.i.tious glance at Mordecai. He sprawled in the rocking chair, the newspaper in his lap. He pretended to read it, but she was fairly certain he was actually dozing. Had he known when Levi asked to borrow the buggy that he intended to ask Susan along for the ride? Mr. Matchmaker.

She slipped out front and found Levi waiting in the buggy. "Quick, before the kinner catch on and want to go along."

Or realized Levi had asked Teacher to take a ride with him. What would his kinner think? Were they ready for their daed to court? Was this courting?

Susan hopped into the buggy and slid onto the seat, careful to keep a decent amount of s.p.a.ce between them. Heat shimmered in the air. She patted her face with her sleeve. "Hot tonight."

The weather. Always the fallback position. Levi nodded but said nothing.

The ride was quiet, but not uncomfortably so. Something about Levi seemed different. Away from the house. Away from his kinner. He seemed to simply be. He was in control of the buggy, maybe not of his life, but he seemed content to be in this moment.

She settled back and waited. Twenty minutes later they pulled into the new saddle shop. Levi manhandled his crutches, easing himself to the ground. He came around to her side as if to help her down. She smiled at his rueful expression. "It's okay. I've been getting out of buggies all my life."

She waited while he unlocked the door and opened it. "You first."

It was warm and dank in the shop. Levi set aside a crutch and began opening windows with one hand. She helped even though his expression said he could handle it on his own. A half-finished saddle sat on a saddletree in front of the line of windows on the east. "Tobias likes the morning sun when he works." Levi eased onto a stool near the tree and let the crutch rest on his outstretched leg. His hand smoothed the light cream-colored cowhide. "He has a nice touch."

"He learned from you, I imagine."

"Have you ever seen how a saddle is made?"

"Nee."

"You start with a whole cow and a sheep."

Susan didn't know whether to laugh or simply nod. "A whole cow."

"The hide. You get two long pieces of cowhide, basically both sides of the cow. And you need all the wool of a sheep for the underside that's closest to the horse."

"I see."

He seemed to warm to his subject. "I take a big oval piece of leather and get it soaking wet and throw it over the tree and start banging on it, getting some shape to it. Then I trim away a part and shape it some more and trim it some more, shaping it and shaping it."

Susan nodded, more interested in the way he moved his hands as he explained it to her. In his head he was making that saddle. "Not much gets wasted then?"

"Nee, not much. Some of it has to be sewn to the cantle. I take about a sixteen-inch piece of leather lace and take this awl and make holes through about an inch of leather and use two needles to sew it down by hand. I can do one in an hour if everyone leaves me alone, but it wears you out."

"Are you worn out, then, from all these years of making saddles?"

"Nee."

There was a point to this. Some reason he wanted to tell her this. Wanted her to see this. "Not any more than Gott is tired of working on you, then?"

His gaze lifted and he smiled for the first time. She felt like a student receiving a good grade. "I think we're like that leather in Gott's hands. He keeps shaping us and shaping us, smoothing away the rough edges and cutting away the excesses. He has a pile of shavings around His feet and He keeps smoothing and shaping, thinking eventually He'll see that honed character, that person He expects each of us to be."

"I reckon you're right." Susan eased onto a footstool a full yard away from Levi. She cupped her hands in her lap, unable to take her gaze from his chiseled face. "Sooner or later, He'd like to look up and say, 'It is good.' "

Levi nodded. He stood, his weight swaying against the crutches. "Exactly what I think. Would you like to try carving something?"

"I would." Her hands were trembling. He would see and he would know this was the first time in years she'd been alone with a man. The quiver in her voice surely had given her away. "I don't know if I'll be any good at it."

"The fun is in the trying. Come here."

She followed him to the counter made of bare plywood. Rows of small boxes held a cornucopia of tools. Above them, he and Tobias had hammered horseshoes onto the wall so leather laces could be hung from them. The air was ripe with humidity and dust and the smell of wood shavings and leather.

Levi handed her the basket stamp he'd held that night on the porch on the Fourth of July. He laid a square patch of leather in front of her, leaning so close she could see the beads of sweat on his neck. He leaned the crutches against the counter and balanced his weight against it. "Hold it like this."

His fingers wrapped around hers, calloused, strong, yet gentle. Her breathing sounded loud in her own ears. "I don't know if I-"

"Like this." His hand guided hers and the pattern began to appear, each notch laid against the next, neat and delicate. "Would you like to make a leaf?"

"I . . . jah . . ."

He leaned closer. All she had to do was meet him halfway. Those missed opportunities of years past would fade away and she might find what she'd been looking for all these years. "Levi."

"I know." He slipped back a step and held out another tool. "This is the camouflage tool. It hides things. You use it to finish out lines and corners of other designs."

The man spoke in riddles. She held out her hand. Instead of giving her the new tool, he took her hand and pulled her toward him. "Levi."

"I know." The crutches fell to the floor. He leaned down until his head hovered above her face. His eyes held a torment she knew must be a reflection of her own. His pulse jumped in his jaw. "Gott help me."

He kissed her. Or maybe she kissed him. Susan couldn't be sure who moved first, but his lips touched hers and it didn't matter. She found herself on her tiptoes, trying to reach more of him. His hands were on her shoulders and then cupping her cheeks. His arms wrapped around her waist and lifted her so she could slide her own around his neck. His lips moved from hers and left small, delicate kisses on her cheeks, her forehead, and then her neck. "What is it about you?" he whispered. "All this time I didn't think of another woman, until you."

"I'm not known to be irresistible." She tried to make a joke about it, but heat scurried across her neck and burned her cheeks. Truth be told, she didn't care. She wanted him to kiss her again. Soon. "Is it that I'm your kinner's teacher?"

His chuckle tickled her ear. "It doesn't seem likely."

Her feet still dangled in the air. He should put her down. She shouldn't rest on his chest this way. She found herself hoping he wouldn't. Ever. "What are we doing?"

"Are you so old you don't remember courting?"

"I'm not old-"

A high-pitched laugh mingled with a lower, rumbling one. The door opened. In tumbled David and Bobbie McGregor. Levi's son had his arm around Bobbie's shoulders. "Daed, what are you doing here with her?"

Susan found herself unceremoniously deposited on her feet. "What are you doing here?" Levi's growl left no doubt as to his understanding of the answer to that question. "With her."

THIRTY-SIX.

Rebekah flung herself in the air, smacked the ball with all her strength, and flopped to the ground. The volleyball zipped over the net and thudded against the hard, sun-dried ground between Tobias and Caleb. "Score! We win. Girls win!"

Tobias planted his hands on his hips, his belly laugh belying the frown on his face. Whooping, Caleb scampered after the ball. "No way, no way. One more game."

"Nee. No more games. It's too dark." Tobias started toward the porch. "I can't see the ball anymore. That's the problem."

"Maybe you need gla.s.ses." Rebekah scrambled to her feet, slapping dried leaves and dirt from the back of her skirt. "It's not that dark."

"It's time to start moseying home." Tobias kicked at the stubbled gra.s.s with a dirty boot, his head bent. "Ch.o.r.es to do."

"I'm hungry." Caleb slapped the ball from one hand to the other. "I reckon Mudder has cookies in the kitchen."

Hazel took off after her brother. The other kinner followed. "Me too, me too."

"I guess you'll have to wait a minute or two." Rebekah eased onto the porch step. "That's about how long it will take for them to inhale every cookie in the kitchen."

Tobias settled next to her. She fought the urge to scoot closer. He tapped the ground with his boot. "We could sneak away for a quick ride."