Free Brightest and Best by Olivia Newport Page A

it should have the place of her bedspread or instead be arranged casually on the back of the reading chair she kept beside the bed. What to do about the Amish conundrum was much more pressing.
    Conundrum.
Not a very friendly word.
    Ice cream.
Ice cream would soothe a ragged day, and making it would give her body something to do. Margaret lit the stove and pulled eggs and milk from the icebox and sugar and vanilla from the pantry. She stirred and mixed, her taste buds already anticipating a sensation still hours off.
    The knock on the door, just as she took the mixture off the stove, startled her. That Margaret heard neither the approaching engine on the street nor the footsteps on her porch stairs testified to her preoccupation. At the front door, she glanced through the slender pane of glass and saw Gray Truesdale—and regretted she had not looked in the mirror before she left the bedroom and exerted herself in the kitchen. Smoothing her hair with one hand, she opened the door with the other.
    Of course she was glad to see him, though befuddled how she had lost track of the likelihood that he would call tonight.
    “I was in the middle of making ice cream,” she said.
    “I’ll help,” he said.
    Margaret pointed to the wooden ice cream maker situated decoratively in the corner of the porch, and Gray bent to pick it up and carry it into the kitchen. He held the inner canister while she poured the mixture in and then added the dasher before securing the lid and handle.
    “I hope you have plenty of ice,” he said. “And salt.”
    “Both,” Margaret said, “though I should have chipped off the ice before I began.”
    Gray smiled and rolled up his sleeves. “I’ll do it.”
    She watched as he opened the bottom of the icebox and chipped enough ice to fill the wooden bucket far more efficiently than she could have. Effortlessly, he carried the assemblage out to the front porch, positioned himself on one knee, and began to crank. The muscles in his arms rippled in a captivating rhythm, and Margaret felt heat rise in the back of her neck at her inability to turn her eyes away from the movements of his lanky frame.
    “I went out to the auction today.” She forced herself to do something other than gawk at this man who had come into her life ten years later than she would have liked.
    “I was there, too.” He looked up. “Working with my brother.”
    “I didn’t realize you had a brother.”
    “All my life.” Gray grinned.
    “Perhaps I’ll meet him someday.”
    “I hope so.” Gray’s expression sobered. “He’s my only family.”
    “Your parents?”
    “Gone long ago. I’ll tell you about it someday. Not tonight.”
    Margaret sucked in one cheek. Gray was thinking of their future.
    “What kind of work were you doing today?” she asked.
    “Helping to set up some tents. I left my brother on his own to get them down, but he’ll be fairly paid for the extra work.”
    Gray cranked.
    Margaret watched in admiration.
    “I wanted to ask a question,” he said.
    “Of course.”
    He cranked.
    She admired, hoping he did not see the unabating blush.
    “Tomorrow is Sunday.”
    “Yes, it is.”
    “Church is at eleven.”
    “Yes, it is.”
    “I’d be pleased if you’d allow me to call for you at quarter till.”
    “I’d be pleased if you would,” she said.
    He cranked.
    She made herself look away.
    “Then I look forward to the Lord’s Day all the more.”
    “Likewise, I’m sure.”
    He cranked. They made small talk—what they had seen at the auction, the fine weather, the headlines in the newspaper out of Cleveland about the war in Europe and spreading influenza. Gradually, the cranking slowed.
    “It will have to sit for a while,” Gray said.
    Margaret crossed to the corner of the porch and unfolded a rug to lay over the ice cream maker.
    “I have blackberries,” she said.
    “Is that so?”
    “I mean, if you might like to come back after supper. We could put blackberries over the ice