“Very funny. You know who I meant. I was just asking,” Susie said, and she leaned over to get a better look at Arden again. “He’s awfully handsome, isn’t he?”
Sarai felt a little tremor of jealousy at the way the girl was gawking at Arden, and she did her best to tamp it down. That was the way things always were with Arden. Girls stared.
“Have you no shame?” Verna said. “Stop staring like that!”
“I’m just looking.”
“Arden is too old for you, too,” Sarai added. “Trust me on that. There’s lots of time to find a nice boy.”
“Sometimes you stumble upon them, though,” Susie said with a twinkle in her eye. “Can you introduce me?”
“Go bring the cookies inside, would you?” Verna said tersely. “I’ll unhitch.”
“Is that a yes or a no?” Susie asked, her smile slipping and a petulant look coming to her face.
“That’s a no, young lady,” Verna replied. “Come on, now. Bring the cookies inside. Unless you’d rather wrangle the horse.”
“I’ll take the cookies,” Susie said, and with an exaggerated sigh she headed toward the house, taking a large plastic container out of the back of the buggy. When she disappeared inside, Verna shook her head.
“I have to keep my eye on her,” Verna said. “She’s such a flirt. She’s just figured out that she’s pretty, and all she can think of is how her dress fits or if boys are single. You’d think she was one of my Englisher at-risk girls at the knitting class. But even those girls are smarter than this! Mind you, they learned a lot of their lessons the hard way.”
A whole lot like Arden had been at that age. Sarai set to work on the other side of the horse, unbuckling the harness.
“Is that why her parents sent her here, to smarten up a little bit?” Sarai asked.
“Yah. She’s made a reputation for herself back home, and my brother asked me to talk to her about being more serious and sober. So far, she isn’t listening to me, mostly because she doesn’t want to end up like me.”
“She could do far worse!” Sarai said.
“Yah, but she’s completely boy crazy! It doesn’t help that she could pass for twenty.”
“That doesn’t help at all,” Sarai agreed.
They talked as they worked, and Sarai told her about Arden’s help around the place, but she stopped short at the rest of her concerns. When they had the horse unhitched and sent out to the corral to eat, Arden came up, a tool belt slung over one shoulder.
“Hi, Verna,” he said, and he gave her a polite nod.
“Arden Stoltzfus,” Verna said. “Good to see you. I heard you were around.”
“Yah, just visiting my dawdie.”
“And helping out here, I heard,” Verna said.
“Well...being neighborly.” Arden’s gaze caught Sarai’s, and his cheeks colored just a bit. “She almost shot me last night.”
“I did not!” Sarai laughed. “If you had been a coyote, that would have been a different story.”
“She’s a very good shot,” Arden said to Verna. “She’d put me to shame on a hunting trip.”
“I only shoot pellets,” Sarai said. “I don’t want to shoot a big gun. They’re too heavy, and I think the hunting and cleaning is a job for the men.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Verna said. “It takes a stronger stomach than I’ve got. But the coyotes were out?”
“Yah, coming after my coop,” Sarai said. “I’ll be glad when it’s solid again.”
The men came out of the house then, and Arden nodded in their direction. “I’d better get to work. See you. Nice seeing you again, Verna. Talk to you later, Sarai.”
Arden smiled at Sarai and headed in the direction of the coop. Her father was out there, as well as Jake, Joel and Moe. Arden strolled up and stood with his weight on one leg, the tool belt hanging over his shoulder. He always had stood out in a group of men, and Sarai hated how her eyes seemed to be magnetically attracted to him. And it wasn’t just his good looks, either. Arden was softer and gentler than he’d been before. And more vulnerable.
Verna leaned closer to Sarai. “He likes you.”
“I know,” she said dismally. She knew he liked her, but what did that mean? Was she just the last in a long line of women he’d already left in weepy heaps behind him? Was she a challenge to conquer? He said he wanted to win a woman like her... Was he proving something to himself?
“So if you know he likes you...” Verna gave her a curious look. “Do you like him?”
Yes. Immensely. Dangerously! She shouldn’t like him as much as she did.
“You remember Arden from before,” Sarai said. “He was a flirt. Can you imagine being married to a man who made girls giggle everywhere he went? That’s not a life for me.”
“No, I agree with you,” Verna replied. “Is he still like that?”
She had no idea. “I think he’s grown up a lot. He’s matured in other ways. He wants to be more serious.”
“But...?” Verna prompted.
“But he’s a risk,” Sarai said with a shrug. “Everyone has more than one side to them, and I’ve seen the other side to Arden. I’ve seen a sweet, uncertain part of him that wants to be better.”
“My knitting class wants to be better,” Verna said softly. “That’s what makes me so protective of them. They have had such hard starts in life, and they want so badly to set things right, and they don’t know how.”
