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

think about it before I say anything.”
    He returned to the sheep lot. As he refilled the wooden creep feeder at the pasture
     gate with finely ground grain for the new lambs, to get them accustomed to solid food
     before he weaned them from their mothers, Matt tried to remain objective about Titus’s
     request…reminding himself that Rosemary might have differentideas altogether from Titus when it came to moving away from her home. Even so, as
     he gazed across the county blacktop toward the Graber acreage, separated from Preacher
     Paul’s cornfields by only a wire fence, he could envision sheep grazing there. Such
     a conversion would mean feeding Titus’s sheep more processed rations—or pasturing
     them here, with his own flock—until those cropland acres across the road could be
     plowed and replanted with pasture grasses. It would require some sturdy new livestock
     fencing, too, which wasn’t cheap.
    But it could be done.
    His dat was right, though: while Titus would willingly invest in the changes required
     to keep his sheep, building a house was a far-fetched proposition for a fellow of
     that age who didn’t have a wife. Even with a daughter to raise and Rosemary looking
     after him, Titus wasn’t the sort to spend any more than he had to on a place to live…Matt
     had heard of displaced Amish families living in trailers or manufactured homes, but
     that idea went against the grain here in Cedar Creek. His dat and other folks had
     donated lumber and supplies, and local carpenters had built Rudy and Adah Ropp’s new
     house in less than a month—in freezing December weather—because they believed in helping
     each other live in real homes, which fostered permanent roots.
    Matt filled the bucket feeder, equipped with two big nipples, and watched his orphaned
     twin lambs suck their milk. He rubbed his dogs’ ears, smiling at them. “All this thinking
     isn’t doing one bit of gut—for me, or for Titus, either,” he murmured as Pearl and
     Panda leaned into the strokes he was giving them. “You pups take care of the flock
     while I go across the road. I won’t have any answers unless I ask some questions,
     will I?”
    As soon as he’d finished his chores, Matt headed for the Graber Custom Carriage shop,
     which sat closer to the road than the rambling white house where James, his sister
     Emma, and their parents lived. It was a relief to see that Emma wasn’t out working
     in thegarden. He wasn’t eager to talk to her while he was on this mission for Titus. He
     entered the shop’s front door and then paused to look around.
    The large, open work area was filled with a couple of farm wagons and an enclosed
     carriage in various stages of completion, while along the walls shelves and workbenches
     held the tools of James’s carriage-making trade. Noah Coblentz, who was now an apprentice
     here, waved at him from the bed of the wagon he was painting, while Perry Bontrager,
     the preacher’s son, stood at the rear of the other wagon, welding a wheel. The whine
     of a pneumatic saw filled the big room until Leon Mast spotted Matt and shut it off.
    “Hey there, Matt,” he said with a grin that split his thick, dark beard. “Let me guess—you’ve
     come to order a courting buggy. After the way you were watching that gal from over
     Queen City way—”
    “Nope, you guessed wrong, Leon.” Matt hoped the sudden heat in his face wouldn’t give
     away his embarrassment. Had every guest at Zanna’s wedding noticed the shine he’d
     taken to Rosemary? “I was hoping to have a word with James.”
    “Other room,” Noah replied, pointing with his paintbrush. “He’s finishing another
     of those fancy-dancy carriages like a princess would ride in for a parade.”
    “Jah. Denki.” Matt walked carefully around Perry’s sparks and smoke. He knocked playfully
     on the welder’s helmet and then made his way past the new carriage’s fiberglass body.
    He hadn’t given it much thought, but