Free Her Restless Heart by Barbara Cameron Page B

a gift from God, but he had never seen any outward sign they appreciated Mary Katherine. Her grandmother, though . . . why she just adored Mary Katherine and her cousins.
    "What I mean is, most boys really make life interesting for their mothers, don't you think?"
    "I wouldn't know about boys," she said, sounding subdued. "But I don't remember you being like your brother."
    "I had my moments." Few, admittedly, compared to his brother. But he wasn't about to tell Mary Katherine how he'd managed to get his mother and one of his sisters upset with him this week.
    "I don't know what you want to spend, but I think your mother would really love this laptop quilting frame," she said, moving quickly to its display table. "She's looked at it quite a few times when she's been in, but like with the fancy thimble, she doesn't seem able to buy it for herself."
    It was a bit pricey. But as he thought about what he'd said— how you couldn't do enough for your mamm, especially when she had lost her mann and worked so hard to raise her brood without complaining. Had he been guilty of taking her for granted the way his sister had said he'd done with them? He'd had a good year with his crops. Why shouldn't his mamm have the quilting frame?
    "I think you're right," he said. "I'll take it."
    She smiled again. "Shall I gift wrap it for you? There's no charge."
    He nodded. " Danki. I think I'll look around a little more while you do that."
    "If you need any gift suggestions for your sisters, just let me know. I saw them looking at a few things this week."
    "You—what? When were they in?"
    "Well, I can't tell you the exact days each of them was here. But they were all in this week. Even your mother."
    He couldn't have moved if his life depended on it. All of them? Even his mother?
    "I had no idea. Do they all come in often?" He got his feet moving and followed her to the front counter.
    "No. That's why I thought it was kind of strange."
    Jacob remembered how he'd blurted out that he was thinking of someone when they were nagging him about finding a wife. As he'd left that day, he'd overheard his sister ask his mother about the thimble.
    So she'd obviously put two and two together and come up with five. So all of them had waltzed in here to see what they could find out. Since Mary Katherine was acting so casual, he figured his mother and sisters hadn't said anything to let her know what he'd said. Most Amish couples—not that Mary Katherine and he were a couple—kept their relationship, their dating—quiet until they were engaged, so even if they had been thinking about more he doubted any of them would get anything from Mary Katherine, anyway.
    He watched her tear a piece of wrapping paper from a big roll behind the counter. She put the box on top of it on the counter and began covering it with the paper.
    "Here, give me your hand."
    Jacob held it out, not sure what she was after. She placed it on top of the paper to hold it closed, pulled a length of tape from a dispenser, and sealed the seam, doing the same with each end. His fingers tingled at the contact. He shoved them inside his pocket and tried not to let her know that her touch had affected him.
    " Danki," she said.
    " Wilkuum."
    She added a premade bow and set aside the package. When she looked at him, he realized she was waiting for payment. He counted out the bills and watched her write up his receipt.
    Books displayed on a shelf nearby caught his eye. He wandered over to look at them when he realized that they were spiral-bound cookbooks by a local Amish author.
    What could be better than a cookbook with authentic recipes for the kind of food he loved? As he flipped through the pages of the book, he saw recipes that didn't look so hard to make. He hoped.
    "I'll take this, too," he said, pulling out his wallet. It was already feeling a good deal lighter.
    "One of my grandmother's friends wrote that," she said, taking the money, making change, and then adding it to the receipt. "Who's