Free Rosemary Opens Her Heart: Home at Cedar Creek, Book Two by Naomi King Page B

looked up from the clean sheets she was tucking around the mattress. “So how was the
     wedding?”
    Rosemary stepped to the other side of the bed to help. “Nice enough. But I’m mighty
     tired of Titus saying how much greener the grass is on the Cedar Creek side of the
     fence and Beth Ann declaring how
wonderful
it would be to live closer to Sam Lambright’s mercantile, and—”
    Rosemary bit her lip. She should speak more carefully. Her daughter had picked up
     the faceless Amish doll from the hand-carved cradle in the corner, which her mother
     kept there for her to play with. Katie was only three, but she had a knack for repeating
     what she’d heard—usually at the most inopportune times.
    “Sorry, Mamm,” she murmured. “I didn’t intend to dump all my complaints on you. Yesterday
     was…more difficult than I had anticipated.”
    Her mother smoothed the Dresden plate quilt with her hand. Bertha Keim was quiet by
     nature, so she didn’t respond except to raise her eyebrows.
    “I felt like a fish out of water,” Rosemary explained. “Everyone else was having such
     a gut time. Beth Ann made a new friend andTitus gave us money for fabric and kitchen supplies, so now she’s all excited about
     the new clothes she’ll make for herself and Titus and Katie—”
    “You didn’t pick out fabric for yourself?” her mother asked. “You ought to oblige
     Titus when he offers to buy you things, Rosemary. You’ve done him quite a favor, moving
     into his home and taking care of him and Beth Ann.”
    Rosemary bit back a remark. While her mother’s reply was true enough, she had hoped
     for more…support. “It’s just not time for colored dresses yet, Mamm. And while Titus
     arranged an exchange of rams with the Lambrights’ son, our girl here”—Rosemary tilted
     her head toward Katie, who sat on the floor, rocking the doll—“couldn’t stop playing
     with the D-O-Gs. To make it worse, the owner of those D-O-Gs kept gawking at me, even
     though I told him I wanted no part of his attention. Then he called this morning,
     saying he had Titus’s rams picked out and that he was…looking forward to bringing
     them to Queen City. I don’t know why I agreed to talk to him on the phone tomorrow.”
    Her mother stuffed a fat feather pillow into a fresh pillowcase. “And does Treva Lambright
     still run her greenhouse there on the county road, alongside the mercantile?”
    “Jah, that’s where they served the two meals.” Rosemary grabbed the other pillow and
     jammed it into the remaining pillowcase.
    “I’ve been wanting some hostas to plant under the tree out front,” Mamm mused aloud.
     “And maybe Malinda will want to go to Cedar Creek this week for some tomato and cabbage
     plants. A tree branch fell on her cold frame—broke it open—and the deer ate her seedlings.”
    Rosemary squeezed her eyes shut. Why didn’t anyone understand that she had no interest
     in Treva’s Greenhouse or in the Cedar Creek Mercantile—or in Matt Lambright? “You
     could find starter plants closer to home than— Oh, forget it,” she said with a sigh.
     “Just forget it.”
    Her mother glanced at Katie, who was now spinning in a circle, swinging the doll by
     its arm. “Sounds like a gut time was had by all except for you, daughter,” she remarked.
     “Time marches on. The world won’t stand still because you lost your Joe. You’ve got
     a little girl to raise, and you need to find a new life for yourself—something besides
     being Titus Yutzy’s housekeeper and Beth Ann’s stand-in mother. What don’t you like
     about the Lambright boy? He comes from a gut family.”
    And what did that mean? Surely her widowed mother understood the heartbreak and loneliness
     she was going through…It wasn’t like Mamm had been looking for another husband, even
     though that’s what she was telling Rosemary to do.
    “I…I’m still in love with Joe, Mamm. I miss him every day.”
    “I didn’t say those