Their Secret Amish Arrangement
Autore
Lucy Bayer
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Chapter One
Henry Barrett stared at the mess, fuming.
There was graffiti on the living room wall. Graffiti that hadn’t been there three days ago, when he’d done a final walk-through with Dad before his father had closed on the house.
A glance beyond the living room showed glass shattered on the kitchen floor. Someone had broken in. Kids? Whoever the troublemaker was, they’d created more work for Henry. Now he would have to board up the window. Replace the glass.
It could add an entire day to his already-tight schedule. He needed to renovate this house in two months to meet the deadline Dad had set for this project. His father owned a business that bought and flipped houses and Henry had worked with Dad since he was a junior in high school.
Dad had laid out the plans for this house, including retexturing and painting the walls, but would it take extra primer to cover the deep red spray paint?
He scowled.
He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, ready to call his brother Todd and vent some of his frustration. Not Dad. Dad was trusting him with this job. And he needed to prove himself after the last failure.
Todd had changed his whole life earlier this year. Henry’s big-city doctor brother had left behind the ER job at Barrett Lakeview Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, and instead taken over the small-town general practice here in Hickory Harbor.
Todd loved it here. He sang the town’s praises. Made it sound almost idyllic. But perfect towns didn’t have break-ins.
At the last second, Henry froze with his hand on his phone. He couldn’t call or text his brother. When Todd had moved, he’d also joined the Amish church, which meant giving up technology. Like his cell phone. And his beloved car.
Sometimes, Henry still couldn’t believe it.
He dialed the nonemergency line for the police instead of calling Todd.
They promised to send an officer over.
Henry hoped the officer arrived soon. He couldn’t afford to lose a day of work but needed to document this for insurance purposes.
Walking past the living room and down the hall toward the bedrooms, he prayed he wasn’t going to find more damage.
He’d written a list of everything he was going to renovate in this single-story farmhouse. Rip up the carpets and put in hardwood flooring. Scrape the ceilings, which still had the popcorn texture from forty years ago. Retexture everything. Paint every wall in the place. Henry was going to make the biggest changes in the kitchen. Kitchens happened to be his specialty.
But first, he had to get all this garbage cleared out.
He’d had a huge metal trash container delivered to the driveway. Now he just needed to fill it up with all the junk.
Who would leave a house in this poor condition?
Henry kicked at a piece of debris in the hallway with his steel-toed work boot. Old clothes. Pizza boxes. A disgusting mattress in one of the bedrooms. Broken children’s toys. Crumpled paper.
There was trash everywhere.
That’s what happened sometimes when a house went to auction. The previous tenants trashed it.
And it wasn’t fun to be the new owner and have to clean it up.
Henry had hired someone from a local cleaning company to come out and help him for the day.
With two bodies filling up trash bags and hauling trash, they’d get through the mess in no time.
He hoped.
“Hello?” a timid female voice called out from the other end of the house.
Was that his cleaner? He would’ve expected a police officer to have a more strident voice, so it probably was.
He strode out of the farthest bedroom and down the hall. He found her just inside the front door.
She was indeed carrying a caddy of cleaning supplies, but the young woman standing gingerly on the threshold—and staring in dismay at the wreck of a house—wasn’t what he’d expected.
She was Amish.
She wore a pale blue dress that went down to touch her tennis shoes. A long white apron covered the front of the dress. She had hazel eyes and her dark hair was pulled up behind her head and covered in one of the white head coverings he’d seen on other Amish women.
She was fresh-faced and looked barely old enough to be eighteen.
This was who the cleaning company had sent him?
Her startled gaze collided with his stare and she recoiled slightly, looking like she might run away. Probably because of the scowl he could feel twisting his lips.
“I’m from the cleaning company,” she said faintly. The words were barely a breath.
Was she shy or had he frightened her?
He held up his hands in front of him to show he wasn’t a danger. “I’m Henry Barrett. I’m the one who called the cleaning company.” He shook his head. “There must’ve been some mistake.”
He had been sure he’d called a non-Amish company. He’d even checked their website for references. Amish people didn’t use computers and such, did they?
He didn’t actually know a lot about the Amish people in Hickory Harbor. Todd was the one who’d been interested, ever since they’d discovered they had a long-lost brother who’d been raised here. Raised Amish.
Henry didn’t care to know.
But now his inattention might cost him.
He sighed. “I told the company it wasn’t going to be dusting and cleaning windows and such. I need someone to help me bag up all this trash and haul it out to the dumpster.”
He saw her scan the floor, register how much work it was going to be. It would take all day.
She still didn’t say anything. She’d barely said two words since she’d arrived.
“I’m going to call the company,” he muttered, reaching for his cell phone a second time. “Ask them to send someone—” he gestured to her without really looking “—else.”
She really did look like she’d blow away if pushed by a brisk wind. He needed someone with a strong back.
Before he could find the website and phone number for the cleaning company, he heard the crunch of tires on gravel and a car shut off.
A glance out the window confirmed it was a uniformed police officer. The young woman—he realized he hadn’t even got her name—scurried a few steps inside, out of the doorway.
He figured he’d deal with her after he made his police report. What a mess. He already felt behind and now he was going to have to sort out the cleaner.
Henry met the officer outside and gave him his statement. They walked around the outside of the house together, and Henry was dismayed to see that graffiti covered the side of the small barn at the end of the driveway behind the house, too. The barn was in good condition and he didn’t want to replace any of the walls. It was an expense he didn’t need. He’d have to scrub off the spray paint.
It was another mark on the day that made his mood even blacker.
The officer asked whether he could walk through the house and Henry allowed it, standing next to his truck as he tried to gather his thoughts.
He rubbed one hand through his hair, frustration mounting. Dad was counting on him, had given him a second chance.
He wasn’t going to let a couple of setbacks ruin this for him.
The police cruiser pulled away and Henry went inside to tell the cleaner that she wasn’t needed.
He didn’t see her when he walked inside, but there was noise coming from one of the back bedrooms. When Henry passed by the kitchen, he saw her caddy with cleaning supplies on the counter. Next to it was a small brown bag. Her lunch, he assumed.
He found her in the farthest bedroom. She’d grabbed a black trash bag—he didn’t know where she’d gotten it—and already filled it half-full.
Henry stood there in surprise for a moment as she kept scooping up more trash to put inside.
Clara Templeton felt her face heat as she registered the presence of the Englisher man from the doorway.
Henry Barrett.
He’d given her his name, but she’d found herself tongue-tied and hadn’t given hers.
This is a mistake.
She pretended to ignore him as his words from earlier played in her brain.
It was eerily similar to something Great-Aunt Dorcas would’ve said and Clara’s instant reaction was a desire to prove him wrong.
She gingerly picked up what might’ve once been a sweatshirt but was stained and ripped until it was unrecognizable. Underneath was a broken glass bottle, pieces of it ground into the ugly carpet under her feet.
“Stop.”
Henry Barrett’s barked command made her freeze, clutching the trash bag in her hands. Her eyes went to him, unbidden.
He was angry. Or frustrated maybe.
And handsome.
Wait. Was she supposed to think such things? Even after two years, she was still learning the ways of the Amish. Clara knew that it was a sin to be vain, to care too much about her own appearance. Was it also a sin to admire someone else’s?
He was pleasing, she amended internally. He had dark hair and blue eyes, tanned skin that made her think he spent a lot of time out in the sun, and a chiseled jaw that was covered in two days of stubble.
Right now, a muscle in that jaw was ticking. He crossed his arms over his chest and she realized she’d been staring without saying anything.
A blush scorched its way up her neck and into her face.
“I was planning to call your company and ask for a replacement.”
“Please don’t.” She whispered the words before she realized the way he’d phrased it. I was planning...
“I’m a hard worker,” she said quickly, when the silence stretched beyond a moment. Her tongue felt as if it was glued to the roof of her mouth and she couldn’t seem to raise her voice above a whisper. “I can clean all this up.” She waved her hand vaguely. There was trash everywhere.
He sighed. “How old are you?”
Does that matter? The words popped into her brain but she swallowed them. Don’t sass. That was her late grandmother’s voice and it stuck in her memory like a fingerprint on a newly-scrubbed window.
“I’m twenty-three,” she said.
Something glinted in his eyes. Maybe surprise. She’d been told she looked younger than her actual age. She didn’t see why it mattered. Eighteen or twenty-three, this job needed to be done, and she was here.
She started to squat down and reach for the broken bottle.
“Hold on,” Henry snapped.
He was certainly bossy.
“I’ve got an extra pair of gloves in my toolbox. In the truck,” he added.
He seemed to want her to follow him, so she left the trash bag behind and trailed him out of the house into the bright morning sunlight. He was muttering to himself, but she couldn’t make out the words.
She swallowed back a half dozen questions. Was this his house? Was it a case of bad renters who’d trashed the place? Or had he bought it like this? She racked her brain and thought she remembered a for-sale sign out in front of the yard recently. Why would someone buy a house in such terrible condition?
She didn’t ask any of the questions tumbling through her mind.
Grandmother Mildred and Grandfather Titus had wanted a little girl who would be seen and not heard.
When she’d arrived on their doorstep after a terrible car accident had taken the lives of her mom and dad, Clara had been lost and alone. And full of questions.
And her paternal grandparents hadn’t been equipped to nurture a six-year-old. She’d learned quickly that asking too many questions or being too loud in general would result in her being sent to her room.
She’d been schooled at home from that time and worked on the small farm they owned. She’d been isolated and lonely.
And her shy nature had grown and grown.
It hadn’t gotten any better when she’d been forced to move in with Great-Aunt Dorcas.
She hung back as Henry Barrett rifled through the toolbox in the bed of his truck.
“Where’d you come from?” he asked.
What?
“There’s no buggy,” he continued over his shoulder when she didn’t answer.
Did he think all Amish people drove a buggy?
She cleared her throat. “I walked.”
He turned to her, a pair of leather gloves in his extended hand. His eyes darted to the sky and back. “It’s cold out,” he murmured. Then, “What’s your name?”
“Clara Templeton.”
“Clara.” Her name sounded different somehow, the way it rolled off his tongue. The blush that hadn’t seemed to leave her face all morning burned even hotter.
“I guess we’re working together today, Clara.” He didn’t sound thrilled about the prospect. “Please be careful. I saw that broken bottle. There may be other things you could cut yourself on. I’d rather you let me handle anything dangerous or heavy.”
That was...thoughtful. When was the last time someone had been protective of her? She couldn’t remember. She knew he was probably only saying what he’d said because of liability. He didn’t want to have to pay for a doctor’s visit. But it was still nice.
She took the gloves. “Thank you.”
He sighed again.
She had heard sighs like that like for as long as she could remember. It was a sound that meant her presence wasn’t wanted. That she was doing some chore wrong. Or that she should go away.
Usually a sigh like that made her want to run and hide. But right now, a different feeling filled her. She could do this job. And she wanted to prove it.
She took the gloves and went back inside the house. She started filling the trash bag. And then a second one, once the first was bulging and full.
She didn’t know Henry Barrett. He didn’t know her. But she needed the money from today’s job, and maybe it was a culmination of everything she’d been through in the past twenty-six months.
She needed to do a good job.
Her back and arms were aching from hauling the bags of trash to the dumpster on the driveway by lunchtime. It took her two tries to ask Henry Barrett if she could take a short break to eat the sack lunch she’d brought with her.
He waved her off from extracting a toilet that had been broken from the floor. She took that as permission.
She went outside and sat on the front stoop, thankful for the brisk autumn breeze and a break from the stale, dirty air inside.
All morning long, she’d heard sounds from inside the walls concentrated at the back corner of the house. She thought it was mice.
As she ate her peanut butter and jelly sandwich, she heard rustling beneath the same corner of the house.
She looked over to see a hole in the wood board that covered the crawl space. That must be where the mice were getting in.
She hadn’t told Henry Barrett. She figured he would hear the noises himself.
Finished with her sandwich, she tossed her unpeeled orange between her hands. Something moved under the corner of the house.
That was definitely bigger than a mouse.
She thought she heard a mewling sound.
And the little girl inside her who’d never stopped loving animals had to investigate.
She was on her knees in the dirt at the corner of the house when she heard Henry’s voice behind her.
“What are you doing?” Clara tensed at Henry’s rough question.
