Free A Home for Lydia (The Pebble Creek Amish Series) by Vannetta Chapman Page B

because it wasn’t. Destroying an animal’s habitat was a serious offense.
    “Aaron, this is David King, my wife’s bruder , and his son Seth.”
    “Pleased to meet you.” Aaron’s face was still red, but Lydia noticed he’d loosened his grip on the garden shears.
    “I suppose you both know Lydia?”
    “ Ya ,” David nodded. “How are you?”
    “ Gut .” The word slipped from Lydia’s lips before she realized what a lie it was. She was actually horrible! Her apron was filthy from cleaning, and she could feel her hair slipping loose beneath her kapp . Young Seth was looking at her as if she had crawled out from under one of the cabins.
    All of that didn’t matter as much as working around Aaron Troyer. He was making her narrisch ! Maybe they could take him back to the bus stop, where he could catch a ride all the way back to Indiana.
    Instead of asking if they would be willing to return her boss, she yanked her apron down straight, tugged her kapp into place, and folded her arms. Best to glare at the river. Better than meet Aaron’s gaze.
    “We thought we’d stop by to see if we could lend a hand,” David said. “Gabe explained you’d come to see to Ervin’s things.”
    “True, but I believe we have it under control.”
    Lydia didn’t even try to keep the exasperated expression from crossing her face. Seth must have seen it because he snorted. When his father gave him a pointed look, he crammed his hands into his pockets. Gabe seemed to be the one person enjoying himself.
    “ Ya , I can see that.” David said, glancing back at the branches and leaves littering the walkway between the first three cabins.
    Gabe stepped forward, reached up and pulled at a branch of the speckled alder that was caught in the roof’s eave. “Truth is, we can’t plant our crops yet. The ground’s still too muddy. I came to town looking for something to do.”
    “And my fraa decided we were underfoot.” David hooked a thumb under his suspenders. “We were planning on offering to help anyway, but she sort of…”
    “Sent us over today.” Seth finished up for his father, a smile crossing his face for the first time since they had arrived.
    Aaron glanced from Gabe to David. “You’re saying I’d be doing you a favor to let you stay and work the rest of the day?”
    “ Ya . Pretty much, that’s true.” David actually sounded eager. “All the work around my place is done.”
    “Same at mine,” Gabe admitted.
    “How are you at trimming shrubs?”
    Lydia didn’t wait to hear their answer. One stubborn Amish man she might be able to outlast, but three men and a boy with an attitude? Not a chance. She trudged back toward the cabin she’d been mopping and satisfied herself with saying a prayer for the birds who would need to find new lodgings once their habitat had been chopped to the ground.

    Aaron was more than a little surprised when Gabe showed up, and with friends! Of course, he had seen his share of barn raisings in his life, even helped in quite a few.
    But he wasn’t working on barns. He was working on cabins.
    And they didn’t need raising. If anything, they could use leveling.
    That was exhaustion and frustration talking. He knew the cabins weren’t as bad as he was making them out to be. As they chopped away Lydia’s precious speckled alder, plus Virginia creeper, trumpet honeysuckle, and poison ivy—yes, poison ivy—he could see that the cabins were well constructed.
    The shutters might be falling off, but he supposed Wisconsin winters could do that to a window shutter.
    No, the reason for his foul mood could be traced back to two females. One didn’t quite reach his waist and had eyes that looked at him with such trust. He still had the picture she’d drawn in his pocket. The other he barely knew, but she was family nonetheless. What fouled his mood was the knowledge that he was responsible for them both, for them and for the other four girls in Ervin’s family.
    He had thought he could show