She lasted an hour and a half before she had to get busy at something. Carefully she slipped Betsy into her padded basket on the kitchen table and set about filling a carafe with hot coffee from the urn. She cut the frosted cinnamon rolls and arranged some of them on two trays along with brownies and cupcakes, figuring she could at least be a considerate hostess.
Leah stepped out of the kitchen with the carafe just in time to catch Naomi running her finger along the bottom of a windowpane—and then raising her eyebrow as though she’d found a frightful amount of dust. Leah’s throat got tight, and she hurriedly set the carafe on the sideboard near the quilting frame. As she returned to the kitchen, she tried to recall Jude’s long-ago reassurances that he wasn’t the least bit concerned about a little dust—or about the neighbors’ opinions of it—but it still took her a few minutes to settle her nerves.
When Leah figured Naomi would’ve returned her attention to Mama’s quilt, she carried one of the trays to the girls’ table and was met with an enthusiastic response.
“I just got a Yahtzee!” little Gracie crowed as she smiled at Leah. “I rolled five whole sixes!”
“Gut for you,” Leah said as she set the tray on the table. “I’m glad you girls are having fun together.”
When Leah returned to the front room with the other tray of treats, however, the Slabaugh sisters looked up at her as though she’d committed the ultimate sin. “Food is never served near a quilting frame,” Naomi informed her stiffly. “How do you think your mother’s quilt would look if we had frosting on our fingers as we stitched?”
Esther’s expression softened as she eyed the cinnamon rolls. “This would be a gut time for a goodie break in the kitchen, however,” she said quickly. “You can only sit and stitch for so long before you need to get up and stretch.”
Leah set the tray on the sideboard beside the coffee carafe, her eyes growing hot with unshed tears. Ordinarily she didn’t let criticism bother her—she’d grown accustomed to folks thinking she was an odd duck—yet Naomi’s brusque remark had only underscored her feelings of being different from other women.
“It was nice of you to think of us, Leah,” Mama put in consolingly.
Cora rose from her chair to stretch. “My word, we’ve been stitching for more than an hour and a half,” she said as she glanced at the wall clock. “The time just flies when I’ve got a needle in my hand—but my back will be telling me I sat in one position too long if I don’t move around a bit.”
As if they wanted to soften Naomi’s remark, the other ladies stood up, too, but Leah had lost all interest in the tray of treats she’d brought them. Anne Hartzler smiled at her, her freckled face alight with kindness. “Little Betsy’s asleep? She’s such a quiet, sweet little baby, and you seem as comfortable with her as if she were your own, Leah.”
“We—we’re blessed to have her,” Leah stammered, deeply pleased about Anne’s compliment. “I give thanks to God every day for guiding her desperate mother to bring Betsy to our home.”
A short, humorless laugh on the other side of the room made everyone turn toward the table where the girls were playing. “The more I see you and Betsy together, the more I believe that you are her mother, Leah,” Alice asserted loudly. “I mean, she looks just like you. I think you kept her hidden away while Dat courted you, and then had Lenore leave her on the porch with that fake note, to make it look like Betsy had been abandoned.”
“Maybe that explains why you’re always warning us to beware of guys who come on to girls and then get them pregnant,” Adeline chimed in as she and her twin gazed accusingly at Leah. “Could be you’re speaking from experience, ain’t so? Keeping your secrets and sins from Dat until after he’d married you!”
The bottom dropped out of Leah’s stomach. The front room rang with absolute silence as her guests stood wide-eyed, too flabbergasted to speak—while wondering if the twins had exposed the truth. As the blood rushed from her head, Leah fumbled for words to refute the twins’ incriminating remarks, yet she sensed that her crestfallen expression—her tongue-tied inability to defend herself—confirmed her guilt to the women standing around Mama’s quilting frame. The gleeful gleam in Naomi’s eyes made Leah pivot and rush to the kitchen.
By the time she reached the door, she heard Mama reprimanding the twins, but it was too late—Leah was too mortified to remain in the same room with those hateful teenagers. As she ran across the lawn toward the barn, all she could think about was getting away from this place where she’d never felt welcome, never felt accepted by Jude’s brazen daughters.
By sundown it’ll be all over Morning Star that I deceived Jude, because Naomi’s just waiting to spread the news! Alice and Adeline will never stop harassing me—and those ladies will believe their lies over anything an outsider like me can tell them, she fretted as she ran through the open barn door. Nearly blinded by tears, she headed straight for Mose’s stall, where her gelding looked up from the hay he was munching. His big brown eyes took in Leah’s agitation with an air of wise understanding that horses displayed so much more often than people
“Let’s go, Mose,” Leah blurted as she grabbed his bridle from its peg. “We’re getting out
