Free A Perfect Match by Kathleen Fuller Page B

geh upstairs and get to bed?”
    Sarah Mae looked sheepish, and Naomi had her answer. She set the pitcher on the coffee table. “Get back to the haus , Sarah Mae.” She grasped her little sister’s shoulders and gently turned her around. “You don’t want Mamm mad at you.”
    Sarah Mae looked over her shoulder. “I wanted you to have some before it was all gone.”
    â€œI know. And danki for thinking about me. Now, geh home.” She kissed the top of Sarah Mae’s disheveled hair and gave her a gentle nudge out the door. She could only imagine what the rambunctious girl had gotten into tonight. With her mother preoccupied with wedding preparations, Sarah Mae sometimes got lost in the shuffle. Naomi made a mental note to spend some special time with her when the wedding was over.
    When her sister had left, she took the pitcher and set it on the kitchen table, then sat down to figure out how to fix the quilt. She should have volunteered to bake a cake instead. She’d wanted Priscilla and Chester to have something they could enjoy for years, and possibly pass down to their children. But at the rate she was going, she’d finish it by the time they had grandchildren.
    Thinking about Chester and her sister drew Zeke back into her thoughts. She had to get control of the situation with him, but she still had no idea how. Pushing him out of her mind, she focused on the quilt. She spent the next hour bent over the kitchen table, removing the stitches and carefully redoing them. She had just flattened out the fabric to inspect her work when she heard another knock on the front door. Glancing at the clock, she frowned. It was past eight thirty. Who would stop by for a visit at this hour?
    She got up and answered the door, and her stomach dropped. “Hello, Zeke.”
    He took off his hat and turned the battered brim in his hands. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” he said.
    In fact, he was interrupting everything—her organized routine, her placid emotions, and for the past twenty-four hours, every facet of her life. But she couldn’t just turn him away. She shook her head. “You’re not. I was just working on Priscilla and Chester’s quilt. Come inside.”
    As he walked through the doorway behind her, she heard him sniff. “Chocolate?”
    â€œI made some brownies earlier.” Although she wasn’t emotionally prepared for him to stay, politeness overruled. “Would you like one?”
    â€œSure.”
    The grin she was used to seeing on his face returned, and he followed her into the kitchen. She put a brownie square on a plate as he sat down at the table. “Would you like something to drink?”
    â€œThis looks interesting.” He pointed to the pitcher on the table.
    â€œOh.” Naomi smiled a little. “Sarah Mae’s special-recipe Kool-Aid. She usually doesn’t put enough sugar in, so I don’t recommend drinking it with the brownie.”
    â€œPour me a glass anyway. Never could resist cherry Kool-Aid.”
    She laughed despite herself. She poured him a small glass and joined him at the table. She started to fold up the quilt fabric when he stopped her.
    â€œThis is what you’re working on?” He studied it for a moment, and she squirmed under his scrutiny. Did he notice the uneven stitching? The puckered seam? “This is going to be a beautiful quilt, Naomi.”
    His compliment brought a blush to her face. She ran her hand across the soft fabric. “I don’t know about that. I’ll probably have to take half of it apart and redo it. Again.”
    â€œWhy? It looks fine to me.”
    â€œSpoken like a mann .”
    He smirked. “Are you saying that I don’t know my quilts from my roofing shingles?”
    She smiled. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
    â€œYou know, living on my own for a while, I learned to do more than cook. I