The Dawn of Christmas by Cindy Woodsmall Page B

huge load of unsorted laundry while Sadie was at the store? on a Friday afternoon? Mondays were washdays, and Sadie didn’t wash her dresses and undergarments with towels and black aprons.
    She should never have come to Apple Ridge. The only reason she washere was to take a break from her parents. Well, that and she’d also needed to do some business with Beth.
    And she’d wanted to see Levi.
    What a mistake on every count. Clearly she’d put Levi on a pedestal. He’d seemed so nice, like a salt-of-the-earth person. How many times in life could she be fooled? How many times was she to feel this way … like an injured animal with nowhere to hide? December and the flight to South America could not come soon enough for her.
    Mammi Lee pulled wet clothes out of the washer and put them into the clear water of the mud sink. “How you live isn’t normal. You need to settle down, move back home permanently.”
    “I’m hoping that one day you’ll accept that I’m not normal.” She moved to the mud sink and plunged her hands on top of the soapy clothes, swishing them around. She pulled them out and plunged them again, not caring how wet she got. Her goal was to get this done and hang out the clothes by herself.
    Mammi reached into the sink and pulled out a black apron. “You know the saying about bad apples? If Daniel was one, he doesn’t ruin the whole barrel of them.”
    A knife plunged into Sadie’s heart. “If?” She grabbed two handfuls of wet clothes from the sink and slung them into the basket. Forget running them through the wringer. She wanted out of this room. “So you’re like everyone else and still stuck on
if
Daniel did what I said he did?”
    Without saying a word, Mammi ran the black apron through the wringer.
    Sadie picked up the basket and headed for the door. With her back against the door, about to push it open, she realized that Mammi was going to follow her. “I can do this by myself.”
    “I shouldn’t have said ‘if.’ ”
    “But it’s still what you think, isn’t it?”
    Mammi Lee pursed her lips, looking unsure. “I’ve never heard of an Amish man behaving like that. Not ever. But if you think that’s what happened even all these years later, I tend to believe you saw it as you said.”
    That wasn’t good enough, but Sadie wouldn’t challenge her or anyone else on that topic. One couldn’t make another believe. It was just that simple.
    She drew a breath and stepped onto the front porch. Levi was at the hitching post, tying an unfamiliar horse. Of all the things she did
not
want to do, talking to him was at the top of her list.
    Mammi stopped cold at the top of the steps, but Sadie descended, intending to ignore him.
    “Afternoon, Verna,” Levi called out. “I’d like to speak to your granddaughter for a few minutes if you don’t mind.”
    “I mind,” Sadie mumbled as she passed him on her way to the clothesline.
    “It’s mighty gut to see you again, Levi,” Mammi spoke loudly. “You go right ahead, but she’s testier than a yellow jacket in fall.”
    Levi fell into step with Sadie and leaned his head close to whisper to her. “That’s the mood I’ve been in today. Maybe it’s contagious.”
    “Go home, Levi.”
    “Come on, Sadie. Don’t be like that. I know nothing about getting along with women. So cut me some slack.”
    She dropped the basket onto the ground and grabbed a dress out of it. It dripped, and she slung it, spraying water freely before pinning it to the line.
    He glanced toward the house. “Could we maybe go for a walk or something?”
    “No thank you, but please, by all means, go for a walk.”
    “So this is how you’re going to be?”
    “Pretty much.”
    He sighed and walked off. She didn’t want him to go, yet she couldn’t make herself do anything about it.
    “Whoa!… Whoa!”
    At Levi’s holler, Sadie turned, then gasped. He was almost at her feet, flat on his back. Had he slipped on the wet grass? She knelt beside him.