Free Breath of Spring by Charlotte Hubbard Page B

as he stood beside her, drying plates. Instead of bemoaning her responsibilities, Annie Mae was facing them—and for a girl who wasn’t yet eighteen, she’d acquired more than her share. It was the only decent thing to do, helping her tonight. He was just being a friend when she needed one.
    As she put away the dishes, Adam set around a few mousetraps he’d found in the mudroom. “Will you be okay here while I get my wagon?” he asked. “Between the two of us, we can load your sewing machine and then set it in Ben’s smithy until you figure out where ya want it, jah? ”
    “ Denki for makin’ this a whole lot easier,” she murmured gratefully. “You are a gut man, Adam. And that’s the long and the short of it.”

Chapter Seven
    It was pitch-black, only four o’clock, when Annie Mae slipped into the back door of the Sweet Seasons kitchen the next morning. For a moment she lingered in the comfort of the dim lights, soaking up the homey warmth and the heavenly aroma of Miriam’s daily baking—the perfect antidote to the troubling dreams she’d had during her fitful night’s sleep. Just breathing deeply . . . just the sight of Miriam rolling out dough for piecrusts set Annie Mae to rights again.
    Miriam turned and smiled. “You’re up way before the chickens, Annie Mae,” she said cheerfully. “I’m guessin’ you’ve figured out that early morning’s the best time to think your best thoughts while ya work, ain’t so?”
    Annie Mae hung her coat on a peg beside the door and then washed her hands. “That’s when I could get a few things done at home, too—before the kids were up,” she replied. “And it’s better than wakin’ Nellie and Rhoda with my tossin’ and turnin’.”
    “Ah. There’s that—although I think my Ben could sleep through a tornado.” Miriam turned back to her dough, rolling out circles of the pastry with quick precision . . . waiting for Annie Mae to explain why she hadn’t slept well. It was a strategy Annie Mae recognized, and she felt compelled to confide in Miriam, knowing her thoughts and secrets would go no farther than these sunny yellow walls.
    “What can I help ya with?” Annie Mae asked as she glanced at the pans along the back counter. “My word, you’ve already baked all these Danish and breads and cupcakes?”
    “It’s my therapy.” Miriam met her gaze then, with deep brown eyes that glimmered with patience and wisdom. “The squabblin’ between Ben and his brothers yesterday got me wound up. I suspect we’ve not heard the last of it.”
    Had Miriam read her mind? Spotting the big bowl of apples in the sink, Annie Mae picked up a paring knife. “Well, ya won’t be seein’ me with Luke anymore, because I told him to hit the road. When we left your place, I asked him to run me by the house to see if the sewing machine was still there—”
    Miriam’s eyes widened. “And how did that go? How did the house look?”
    “—and you’d’ve thought I asked him to move every stick of furniture there,” Annie Mae fumed. “Honestly, I wonder what I ever saw in him. Pigheaded doesn’t begin to describe that man!”
    As Miriam arranged crusts in pie pans, she chuckled. “Now don’t take this wrong, honey-bug,” she murmured, “but I always figured that you and Luke dated mostly to get your dat ’s goat. And now that your dat ’s not around, maybe the goat’s not so much fun to chase after, either.”
    Annie Mae’s knife stopped halfway around a large, red apple. This woman certainly had a way of nailing a situation. “I . . . hadn’t thought about it that way.”
    “Of course not. We seldom see ourselves the way other folks do—and we girls refuse to believe that a fella we’re sweet on is all wrong for us, even when folks we trust tell us so.”
    Annie Mae let this observation soak in as she sliced the apple into the bowl and began to peel another one. How many times had her dat and plenty of other people told her that Luke was too old