Buttermilk bleated from behind them. Joseph, who had hovered at her elbow since Peter’s arrival, turned his attention to the livestock.
“She’s hungry,” Joseph muttered, mostly to himself. He leaned and grasped Cream’s lead rope. “Come on, mama,” he urged the sleepy cow. “Let’s get you up so your baby can eat.”
Peter scratched his nose again. “Mr. Stoll?”
“Hm?” Her pa was already invested in his work on the wheel. Whenever he worked with wood, his mind was so focused that evening could turn to night without him realizing it. “Oh, yes, Peter. Please, make yourself at home. I will have your wheel this afternoon.”
“Much obliged.” He touched the tip of his hat. “Miss, might you be able to show me to the watering hole?”
The weight of his stare was heavy upon her shoulders, but Rebekah managed a slight nod. “Ja. Excuse me a moment.”
Rebekah knelt to gather her quilting supplies. Careful not to look around, she uttered the soft words she knew only Joseph would hear. “Please, komm mit mir.”
Joseph’s whispers, which were probably mistaken by Peter as simply the blowing of the Indiana breeze through the barn loft, answered her. “Of course. I will come with you.”
Rebekah brushed past Peter as she carried her quilting supplies in trembling hands toward the house. Something about the way the strange Englishman looked at her sent a cold drop of fear slivering down her backbone.
After she stowed her kit safely in her quilting room, she allowed herself a quick peek out the window overlooking the yard. There, Peter and Joseph stood without speaking or even looking at one another. The differences between the two men in her yard were like flour and salt. The moon and the sun. The English and the Amish.
She adjusted her deep purple cape and gauzy covering and hurried back down the steps. She slowed and drew in a long, deep breath before she stepped back out into the chilly sunshine.
Peter’s gaze fell upon her in an instant. “Shall we find that watering hole?”
Rebekah dipped her head in a curt nod. “We have a creek behind the homestead when the rains fall right. Joseph, you were there this morning, weren’t you?”
The trio stepped in solemn silence toward the riverbank.
“Yes. We have had good rains.” Joseph’s words were stiff and formal. “The creek is flowing, and the water should be cold.”
He dipped one hand beneath the surface and took a slurp.
Peter imitated him and drank from cupped hands. When he had finished, he wiped his mouth on a bandana he produced from the neck of his shirt. “Much obliged.”
Rebekah watched the forced politeness with troubled eyes.
What is it about this Englishman that makes me so uneasy? Immediately sorry for being suspicious, she said a mental prayer.
“You two brother and sister?” Peter perched on a large, flat rock. The question was obviously directed at her.
Unwilling to speak first, she diverted her glance to Joseph as he eyed the contents of Peter’s glossy black holsters.
“Well? Joseph?” Peter’s voice turned mocking. “Are ya?
“Nay, we are no relation.”
Rebekah’s heart went from a steady beat, beat, beat to a too-quick thud, thud, thud, thud.
I hope nobody can hear my heart.
The muscles in her neck and back tightened as the uncomfortable tension from earlier settled over them once more like a death shroud.
“Sweethearts, then?”
Heat flashed within her and burned in her cheeks.
“What about your family?” Joseph countered. “What’s in Philadelphia?” His voice was patient and flat, but Rebekah had known him long enough to be able to pick out the little inflections in his tone that could change his entire meaning. She didn’t like the turn this watery visit had taken.
“I got some kin back in Philadelphia, so I heard tell. Ain’t never met ʼem. Intend to, though.”
“What are you doing in Indiana Territory if your family is in the east?” Joseph’s voice was smooth and serene, as though merely coaxing an unwilling sibling up the steps of the schoolhouse.
Rebekah watched first Joseph, then Peter, with fearful intrigue.
An insulted glint flashed in Peter’s emerald eyes. “Why, workin’, of course.”
“Of course,” Joseph echoed. “What kind of work?”
Peter snorted. “Not farmin’ like you folks.”
He turned, looked off toward the distant north, and sighed. A long, uncomfortable moment passed before Peter spoke again. “I was a lehr boy in a glass factory for a while.”
Rebekah was powerless to keep her curiosity at bay. “What’s a glass factory?”
The hard planes of Peter’s face softened as his green eyes met hers. “Yup. I was only ten when they hired me on. Carryin’ all that hot glass’s how I got this.”
Though the words were almost foreign to her and held no meaning, her uneasy feeling was replaced by genuine interest.
She looked on as the man rolled his right sleeve up and revealed a swirled, raised scar. “A new mold boy was blowing glass beside me. Blew it too full and hot glass flew all over me. Rest of it got my clothes.”
