Free Huckleberry Hill by Jennifer Beckstrand Page B

of his van and gave Felty a curt wave of his hand. Moses’s mamm would call Roy portly. He’d confessed to Moses that he had a weakness for cheese fries and donuts, and sitting in a van all day didn’t help his waistline. At age sixty-five, Roy had retired from his day job and now he drove Amish folks to weddings, funerals, and auctions all over Wisconsin. Roy sometimes delivered cheese to La Crosse for Moses when it was on his way.
    “I brought her safe and sound,” Roy said as he slid the door open.
    A short blonde hopped out of the van. She looked at Moses and put her hand to the nape of her neck to smooth an imaginary strand of hair. “Hi,” she said, studying him from top to bottom. Her eyes lit up, and she fluttered her long eyelashes. “Hel-lo,” she said, drawing the word out so long she had to take a deep breath afterward.
    Why did the girls have to look at him like he was the next thing up for bid on the auction block? Moses stuck his head inside the van. Mattie and Noah Schrock and their daughter, Nan, sat in the backseat.
    “ Gute maiya , Moses,” Nan said. “How are you?”
    “Fine,” Moses replied. He looked at the short girl standing next to him. “Where’s Lia?”
    The girl sidled too close. “She’s not coming.”
    By this time, Mammi and Dawdi had made their way around the side of the van. “Not coming?” Mammi said, the wrinkles around her mouth deepening to a frown.
    The girl beamed from ear to ear. “I’m here instead,” she said, as if this were the best news they could have heard all day.
    Moses stared at her in puzzlement. “Who are you?”
    “I’m Rachel, Lia’s sister.”
    “Where’s Lia?” Mammi asked.
    “Dat thought it would be better if I came to Bonduel in Lia’s place.”
    Mammi pasted a sweet, mildly concerned expression on her face, but Moses wasn’t fooled. Mammi was hopping mad. A vein in her temple pulsed wildly, she wrung her hands, and her voice cracked in about five different places when she spoke. “Your dat thought it would be better?”
    Rachel leaned close to Mammi’s ear and lowered her voice, but Moses still heard every word. “He thinks I would be a more fitting choice,” she inclined her head toward Moses, “for a certain person. How could you have known that when you asked Lia to stay with you over the summer instead of me? Dat says we’ve got to make hay, and all that.”
    Moses couldn’t conceal his astonishment. He stared at Rachel as his jaw fell to the ground. Mammi’s harmless scheming was nothing compared to Lia’s dat’s rudeness. Had he actually switched daughters because he thought Lia was an unlikely match and her sister a sure thing? The sheer audacity of such a suggestion left Moses breathless.
    It seemed her dat moved his daughters around like pieces on a chessboard. Lia was the expendable one, and Rachel played the queen.
    Well, Moses refused to be the pawn.
    Mammi looked at Moses, and even with that sugary-sweet smile still hanging on her lips, her eyes flickered with fire. “What does Lia think about making hay?”
    Rachel waved her hand around as if swatting a fly. “Oh, I don’t know, but she was in one of her moods when I left. She wouldn’t even come out to see me off. She can be so petty sometimes.”
    Roy handed Rachel her bag from the back of the van. Moses promptly took it from her. He might not be happy about her being here, but he remembered his manners. Rachel gave him an approving look. “I must say, I had my doubts, but you are just as Lia described.”
    Moses couldn’t say the same about Rachel. Lia had told him that her sister was pretty, that she had broken dozens of hearts over the years. She possessed stunningly beautiful features with round blue eyes and rosebud lips, and her silky golden hair surely attracted many suitors. But she was a puny thing who carried a self-satisfied air about her that Moses found unappealing. Any girl who took pleasure in hurting boys’ feelings was not worth his