The Amish Christmas Kitchen Page 3

  Clara huffed at his poor joke, then nodded. She didn’t want to risk catching a chill and not being able to get on with her pralines. “All right. I’ll geh to your mamm’s room and, nee, I don’t need help.... If you’d just . . . point me to the right door.”

  He touched her shoulders lightly and turned in the direction of the door off the right of the large kitchen. “Right in there, Widow Loftus . . . Ach, and holler, sei se gut, if you need . . . anything.”

  She rolled her eyes and then hobbled off in the direction he’d indicated, hampered by her wet skirts and trying to ignore the unaccountable merriment she felt at his easy teasing. I do need to kumme down off the mountain more if it feels this nice . . . . Then she bit her bottom lip at the errant thought and concentrated instead on dismantling her many layers.

  CHAPTER 4

  “Whose goat is that, Dan?”

  Daniel spun from untying Blinks to stare down into the face of his ten-year-old bruder, Paul.

  “Why aren’t you in school?”

  The buwe rubbed the outside of his black coat. “Bellyache.”

  Daniel wanted to laugh. “Bellyache, hmm? How about that fractions test you were studying for last nacht after dinner?”

  “That’s why I got the bellyache. I’m goin’ in ta see Mamm.”

  “Whoa, little bruder. Mamm’s out and we have a guest.” Daniel caught the buwe’s shoulder gently.

  The little pug nose turned up suspiciously. “A guest? Like the goat here?”

  “This is Blinks. She belongs to Frau—uh—Widow Loftus, who is our guest. I was taking the goat in just now.”

  Paul giggled. “Into Mamm’s kitchen? She’ll whoop ya fer sure. I gotta see this.”

  Daniel ignored the premonition that his bruder was right and reasoned he’d have Blinks out as soon as he could. He led Paul and the goat around to the back entrance and carefully eased open the door, not wanting to startle Clara in some state of imagined undress . Stop the fantasies, Kauffman. . . . Isn’t it enough that you think she’s beautiful, that you’re doing the right thing for Seth, that you more than lo—He silenced the voice in his head. What was I about to say to myself? That I love Clara Loftus? I’m keeping a promise, that’s all... a promise. . . . He was so distracted by his thoughts that he let go of Blink’s lead rope, then promptly tripped over it, to fall sprawling in his own kitchen, right at a pair of delicate, feminine bare feet....

  * * *

  Clara had struggled out of the wet layers of clothing, discovering that she was soaked to the skin. She bit her bottom lip and considered opening one of the finely carved cedar dresser drawers and borrowing a shift, but then decided on simply binding herself up in Frau Kauffman’s housecoat, which happened to be a startling shade of pink. She tugged it off its peg on the wall and wound its voluminous folds around her waist, finding she could tie the long belt three times about herself. Thus girded, and feeling fairly confident that she could make it to the chair by the woodstove before Daniel got in, she tiptoed barefoot out of the bedroom.

  She heard a sudden tussle at the back door, and Blinks’s baaing, and then Daniel came through the open wood to fall at her feet. Blinks neatly jumped over his sprawled form, and Clara froze as her bare toes nearly came in contact with his long chestnut hair.

  Daniel lifted his head and looked up at her, and she wrapped her arms about herself, feeling as though his keen emerald eyes might see through the bulk of the housecoat. “Are you all right?” she asked, automatically reaching down to stroke Blinks’s stiff fur with nervous fingers.

  Then she watched as Paul Kauffman jumped on his bruder’s broad back. “Gimme a ride, Dan!”

  Clara stepped back as Daniel got to his hands and knees with a chuckle, then rose to his full height, his shoulders easily supporting the weight of his younger brother. He’d make a gut fater. . . . She took another step backward, horrified at her thought, and felt her face suffuse with color.

  She saw Daniel eyeing her quizzically, one dark brow raised in question, even as he jostled Paul and she sank into the chair she felt at the backs of her knees.

  “What is it?” he asked, and she shook her head in mute appeal.

  He slid Paul to the ground, then came forward to hunch down at her knees. “Clara, really, are you all right? You look as though you might be starting a fever.”

  Jah . . . this is a fever . . . in my blood . . . for you. . . . She stared helplessly at his mouth, wondering how it would be to test the contours and firmness of his perfectly shaped lips, then hastily looked away at the cream-colored wall.

  She almost jumped when he laid a firm hand against her brow and then her cheek.

  “Hmmm . . .” he murmured. “You are hot. Perhaps we should call for your sister to kumme and check you over?”

  Clara swallowed and smoothed the fabric of the robe over her knees. “Nee. I’m fine. Um . . . maybe just . . . a glass of water?”

  He frowned. “Of course. I’m being thoughtless.... I’ll make you some tea.”

  He got to his feet, and she watched him out of the corner of her eye as he easily navigated the kitchen as if it was second nature to him.

  “I’ve heard some folks say you’re odd, Widow Loftus. What’s that mean?”

  Clara turned to look at Paul and took in his wide, innocent green eyes and gap-toothed mouth. She was about to respond when Daniel snapped at his bruder.

  “Paul—let her be. Go on out to the store and help Daed for a bit.”

  “Nee,” Clara countered with a half laugh. “He’s fine. Let me answer. After all, how many women kumme to the store with a goat?”

  “Not many,” Paul concluded, reaching out to pet Blinks.

  “You’re right,” she said softly, liking the child’s forthrightness. “I’m not odd, really, Paul. I’m just . . . lonely at times.”

  “Then why do you stay up in that cabin all by yourself ’cept for the goat?”

  She wet her lips, aware that Daniel was listening as he waited for the kettle to boil. “Because it’s my home and I like it—sort of. I can talk to the trees and listen to the snow fall.... It’s beautiful really.”

  Paul scrunched up his pert nose. “Mebbe you are odd, after all—talkin’ ta trees.”

  “All right, little bruder,” Daniel said. “Out.” He handed her a cup and saucer of fragrant lavender tea and sighed as Paul scampered off. “I’m sorry about that. He means no harm.”

  “I know,” she said, taking a quick sip of the hot tea. She choked and he patted her back. She could feel the warmth of his large hand even through the thickness of the pink fabric. Her cup rattled in its saucer and she set it on the table carefully. She was about to suggest that she had dried enough when the back door banged open once more.

  Clara heard Daniel’s faint groan; then he spoke.

  “Hello, Mamm. You know Clara Loftus. . . .”

  Clara rose and tried to smile into Frau Kauffman’s kind but speculative eyes. “Hello.”

  The older woman nodded, then frowned at Daniel. “Why is that goat in my clean kitchen?”

  * * *

  “All in all, I think that went rather well. Don’t you?” Daniel tightened the reins a bit, and the cheerful jangle of sleigh bells rang out in the snowy afternoon. He glanced at Clara and hid a smile. Her beautiful mouth was set in a straight line, and she was studiously glaring at the landscape in front of them.

  “Nee,” she said finally. “I do not think it went well.”

  He laughed then, a full belly laugh that made him feel good for the first time in a long time. She turned baleful gray eyes upon him, and he hastily contained his mirth.

  “You enjoyed that,” she accused.

  “What? You mean, you sitting in my mamm’s pink housecoat in the middle of—how many people was it?”

  “Six,” she snapped tightly. “Not counting us.”

  Blinks grunted from her position beneath the lap robe, and Daniel had to stifle another laugh.

  Clara’s frown deepened. “Bl
inks is correct. Six people and three—unusual—goats. I cannot begin to think what your mamm must feel about me.”

  “Ach, so Clair Bitner came around the back of the haus for once with his goat’s milk to sell.... Of course, it makes sense that Benny, Scruffy and Teddy smelled one of their own kind and had to make an appearance. I think Blinks enjoyed the company. Besides, my mamm likes you.”

  “How do you know?”

  He waved a dismissive hand. “She likes everybody.”

  Clara sighed aloud and he leaned over to give her a spontaneous nudge with his shoulder. “And you know your sister, Sarah, was just concerned for your well-being.”

  “Ach, sure, and Edward, her big-bodied husband, simply had to kumme along.”

  Daniel nodded. “And they couldn’t leave the kids at home. Then Sarah must have mentioned it when she passed Bishop Umble’s, who himself only wanted to ask again for some of your, um—second best—I mean, pralines.”

  She ignored his teasing. “Which, come to think of it, your fater wouldn’t let me pay for when he came in.”

  “Yep, and the whole crowd was bound to have woken Da on the couch, and what’s a rousing lunch party without Auld Sol Kauffman, I’d like to know?”

  He saw the corner of her mouth lift a bit, and his heart kindled inside his chest. “Ach, don’t smile, Clara Loftus. That would truly be a crime after the way you held sway in my mamm’s housecoat. You were . . . captivating.”

  He saw her smile edge back into a frown, and he could have kicked himself. “Slow . . . Gotta take it slow with Clara. . . .”

  He cleared his throat in the cold air. “So, since you reassured the bishop you’d bake for his gathering tomorrow nacht, I was wondering if I might kumme pick you up.” He paused, thinking fast. Riled. Get her riled up. . . . “Unless you plan on backing out? I mean, my raisin-filled cookies, when warm, are absolutely the best things you’ve ever—”

  “Six o’clock will suit me fine.” She sniffed. “But only because I want my praline cookies to be at their . . . I mean . . . Jah, danki, in advance, for the ride.”

  He hid a grin and eased the horse and sleigh around a snowdrift. “No thanks needed. It’ll be my pleasure.”

  CHAPTER 5

  “What do you mean, he asked you to warm up?”

  Sarah’s voice was excited, and Clara blew out a breath of exasperation as she tried to concentrate on measuring sugar. “How did you get up here so fast? I just saw you at the store, and I told you—I’m fine.”

  Her older sister waved away her words with an impatient hand. “I know, but I want some details. I couldn’t hear a thing in all the ruckus of the Kauffman kitchen . . . so, tell me! You know Daniel Kauffman is absolutely beautiful and—”

  Clara gave her a sour smile. “I thought you were happily married.”

  “The idea is to get you happily married . . . again, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “Ach, kumme on, Clara, he’s perfect for you, and the girls have been after him for years. Maybe he finds you . . . mysterious, up here on the mountain alone, with a goat, and—”

  “All right—” Clara slammed the tin measuring cup onto the table. “That’s enough. I’ve got to bake.”

  Sarah flounced into a wooden chair. “You do not. You just don’t want to think about what life might look like with someone other than Seth.”

  “From anyone else, I’d consider that hurtful.”

  “I’m not trying to hurt you, my love. I only want you to have joy again . . . to have the abundant life Derr Herr wants for you. And if Daniel Kauffman would ask you to marry him, then—”

  “He already did,” Clara mumbled.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  Clara saw Sarah stand up and come ’round the table and soon found herself squashed in a full embrace. “Sarah . . . I can’t breathe. . . .”

  Her sister pulled back to smile with delight. “We’ll have a winter wedding.... Perhaps Bishop Umble would even allow a Christmastime wedding! Ach, Clara, I’m so happy for you!”

  “I told him no.”

  “You what?”

  Clara frowned. “I told him nee. Look, it was two years ago, all right? Two years, Sarah . . . The week after Seth died, and I didn’t . . . I couldn’t.”

  Clara saw her sister’s eyes fill with tears. “I understand,” Sarah whispered softy. Clara felt her lean forward and place a gentle kiss on her forehead; then she eased away.

  Clara drew a deep breath; she knew her sister. Despite her tears, Sarah wasn’t going to let this go, and she tried to ready herself for another round of questions by counting out pecans with unsteady hands. But to Clara’s surprise, her sister merely gathered her heavy cloak and moved to the door.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow at the bishop’s.”

  Clara nodded, watching her go, then swiped angrily at a stray tear that suddenly fell from her eyes. “Two years . . .” she muttered aloud, feeling Blinks press against her skirts. “Two years is too long.” The goat made a small sound of commiseration, and Clara went back to resolutely counting pecans.

  * * *

  The following morning, Daniel rose early to bake before he went to work that day. His plan was to get the raisin-filled cookies done before the kinner woke up. Then he would take the cookies with him over to Joe King’s woodworking shop to save them from being devoured.

  “I should have known better,” he groaned to himself when he heard the patter of small feet coming downstairs.

  It was Paul, still clad in his nacht shirt and somehow managing to look both endearing and mischievous at the same time. The buwe clambered onto the bench by the table and gave Daniel a wide grin. “You startin’ to make Christmas cookies, Dan?”

  “Nee.”

  “You bakin’ for that woman and her goat, then?”

  Daniel felt himself flush unaccountably but had to smile. “Nee. I’m trying to outbake her.”

  Paul pulled a face and casually snatched a plump raisin from the bowl. “What’cha mean?”

  “Stay out of the filling.... I mean, that I want to—well, sort of rile her up a bit by proving that I’m a better baker than she is.”

  “You love her,” Paul stated flatly, shaking his head as if Daniel was lost at sea.

  Daniel sank down on the bench beside his bruder, automatically beginning to roll out the dough. “I do not love her,” he whispered in case anyone else decided to make a sudden appearance in the kitchen.

  Paul raised a minute brow. “Uh-huh.”

  “Look, I like her, okay? That’s all. And since when have you become such an expert on . . . love?”

  The child shrugged and snagged a piece of dough. “I jest know. It’s like we learn in church—ya tell the truth about what you know. And I know that you love that lady who talks to trees . . . and goats.”

  Daniel frowned, staring down into the resolute little face, then he shook his head. “Go back to bed before Mamm catches you up this early.”

  “Naw. I might as well get dressed and start my chores before school. Thanks fer talkin’, Dan.”

  Daniel couldn’t resist returning the hug Paul threw at him, and he thanked Gott for having a little bruder who wasn’t afraid to tell the truth.

  * * *

  Clara told herself that she was being ridiculous when she checked her dress for the fourth time in the auld mirror above her dresser. She’d chosen to wear a cheerful dark green blouse beneath her dress and knew that the color did something for the paleness of her skin. As a widow, she did have to avoid the paler pastel colors, but the gut Bishop Umble was even lenient in this regard, so she knew he wouldn’t mind what she was wearing. But will Daniel notice?

  She scowled in the mirror and tried to push away the thought, but there was no denying that the man had gotten under her skin somehow. She sighed aloud, then nearly jumped when the sound of muffled, merry sleigh bells rang from outside. She hurried to swing on her cloak when there was a brisk knock at the door.


  She opened it and gazed up at Daniel’s ruddy handsomeness. He’d taken his hat off, and his chestnut hair caught the light from the lantern and shone with faint strands of red.

  “Hello,” he said with a smile, breaking into her wayward thoughts.

  “Hello. I’m—uh—ready,” she announced, tugging on her bonnet.

  He reached a hand up to graze her cheek, and she had the ridiculously exciting notion that he might be preparing to kiss her when he tucked her kapp string within the confines of her bonnet. “Are you really ready?” he asked in a husky tone and she nodded, flushing . . . hoping.

  “Nee, you’re not,” he declared with a whimsical smile, and she felt herself look at him blankly. “You need your cookies, right? Unless you’ve decided to bow out gracefully?”

  She felt her flush deepen, and she spun on her heel to grab the tinfoil-wrapped platter from the kitchen table. She turned back to face him just as Blinks chose that moment to butt her unflatteringly from behind, and she watched in dismay while the platter went flying.

  Daniel caught it with remarkable deftness and she gasped in relief.

  “No worries. I couldn’t let my competition lose out so unfairly. And”—he held up a hand when she would have made some rejoinder—“I need to let you know that we Kauffmans always let everyone assume that the cookies or whatever might be baked kumm from Mamm—not me.”

  She took her platter from his outstretched hand and gave him a saucy smile. “I have never truly seen you bake.”

  He bowed his head in acknowledgment, then put his hat on. “That’s a situation we’ll have to remedy sometime . . . if you’d like?”

  His question hung in the frosty air, warm and inviting.

  She lowered her lashes, then looked at him directly. “I’d like.”

  “Gut,” he said briskly. “And I imagine Blinks comes tonight, too?”

  “If you don’t mind?”

  He looked down at her, and she thought he was going to say something teasing, but instead he merely smiled and widened the door for her goat.