Twice Blessed. Barbara Cameron

from the oven and set it on a hot pad next to the salad.

      Katie sniffed the casserole. “Mmm, smells good. You know, you could ask him out.”

      Rosie sat down. “I couldn’t do that.” She poured the dressing over the salad, tossed it, and served them each a bowl. She paused and studied Katie. “Have you ever done that?”

      “Sure.”

      She sighed. “That sort of thing is easier for you.”

      “It’s not that hard once you do it. Just ask him if he’d like to go for a drive after church, maybe have lunch.”

      “Oh, I don’t think I could do that.” She ate a bite of salad.

      “Give it a try. All the man can do is say nee. It won’t kill you, I promise.”

      Maybe it wouldn’t kill Katie, but Rosie wasn’t sure she could handle the rejection. Especially from Jacob.

      “This is really good. Even if I don’t like strawberries as much as you.”

      “I’m glad you like it.”

      “The casserole is delicious, too. Why aren’t you eating yours?”

      Rosie pushed it around on her plate. “I’m not very hungry.”

      “Your head is hurting, isn’t it? I can see it in your eyes.”

      “It’s not as bad as yesterday.”

      “I felt it that night, you know. Your head hurting. That’s how I knew to come home. Daniel acted like he didn’t believe me, but Rachel Ann said I should come home.”

      “I’m sorry you had to come home early. And had to sit in the emergency room with me.”

      “You’re my schweschder. Where else would I be but with you?”

      Katie rose and got the prescription bottle and a glass of water. “Here, take a pill and maybe by the time you finish supper you’ll start to feel better.”

      Rosie hated taking pills, but the pain was building so she gave in and swallowed one with the water. “I feel like a big baby.”

      “You’re not a big baby. Doctors don’t give you pain pills if they don’t think you need them. Speaking of babies, Lovina brought Anna to the store today. She’s getting so big.”

      “I’d love to have seen her.”

      “She loved the cookie Elizabeth said I could give her.” Katie pushed her plate aside and took a sip of her iced tea. “Wonder if Jacob ate the zucchini bread we sent home with him today?”

      Rosie felt warmth rush to her cheeks. “I don’t know.” She stabbed a bite of chicken with her fork and ate it.

      “So what are you going to do to thank him for the flowers?”

      “I should do something?”

      Katie grinned. “Well, it’s a nice thing to do and a way to see him again. Then you can decide if you want to ask him out if he doesn’t ask you first.”

      “You never stop, do you?”

      “If you’re interested in him, you need to act. There are other maedels who won’t be shy about showing up on his doorstep to welcome him to the community.”

      Rosie ate the last of the casserole on her plate and got to her feet to begin clearing the table. She knew Katie was right but she just wasn’t sure she could be so . . . bold. She’d have to think about it.

      Katie took her dishes to the sink, filled it with warm water, and squirted in some dish soap.

      “Let me do them. You worked today.”

      “I want you to rest and get better. Go lie down.”

      She wasn’t tired, so instead she fixed herself a cup of tea and sat at the kitchen table to keep Katie company. “I wish I could have gone into work today. I was so bored.”

      “You’ll get to go back soon enough. If you take care of yourself.”

      “I’ll go to bed in a minute.” She propped her elbow on the table, rested her chin in her hand, and stared into her tea. “Katie, sometimes I wonder if I’ll become an old maid.”

      Chapter 5

      5

      Long after Rosie went upstairs to lie down Katie thought about what she’d said.

      Rosie was afraid of becoming an old maid? Where on earth had that come from? She and Rosie had just celebrated their

       twenty-third birthday. They certainly didn’t need to think they were going to become old maids because they hadn’t gotten married yet. Amish women—just like Englisch women—were getting married later these days.

      Her eyes went to the daisies. She dried her hands on a dish towel and sat at the table to study them. Rosie thought Jacob had brought them because she’d been injured. But Katie wondered if that was really true. She’d seen the way the two of them looked at each other. Why didn’t Rosie see that he was expressing interest in her? She knew that Rosie had always seemed less self-confident than she did—especially around the opposite sex—but didn’t realize just how much until tonight.

      She sighed. Maybe it was just a strange mood Rosie was having. The sheet of information they’d been given at the emergency room had warned that depression could be an aftereffect of a concussion. If Rosie seemed depressed tomorrow, she’d give their doctor a call. Katie glanced around the kitchen and, finding nothing that needed to be done, headed upstairs. It was early to be going to bed but as tired as she was she looked forward to it.

      She stopped at Rosie’s room and found her tucked in bed, her eyes closed, a book open on her chest. Katie tiptoed into the room and dimmed the battery-operated lamp on the bedside table. If Rosie woke, she didn’t want her disoriented by a dark room. She eased the book out from under Rosie’s fingers and set it on the table.

      Just as she reached the door she heard the rustle of bedcovers behind her. “’Night.”

      Katie smiled and walked out of the room, leaving the door ajar just in case Rosie needed her. She changed into a nightgown, brushed her teeth, and climbed into bed, pulling her quilt up over her shoulders and snuggling in gratefully.

      Rosie was already in the kitchen when Katie went downstairs the next morning. She stood at the stove scrambling eggs in an iron skillet while the percolator bubbled merrily on a back gas burner. Katie got a mug from a cabinet and waited until the percolator stopped and Rosie poured coffee into it. She sat at the table, took a deep breath of the steam rising from the mug, and blew on the coffee to cool it enough to take a first wary sip.

      “You might have been born first, but you sure aren’t a morning person,” Rosie told her as she set a plate of scrambled eggs in front of her.

      “No toast?” Katie looked up at her.

      Rosie pushed the basket of toast closer to Katie’s plate and patted her shoulder before going to the stove to pour herself more coffee.

      “Oh.” Katie drank more coffee and yawned and drained the mug. She got up and refilled the mug, then sat and ate her eggs and toast, her eyes focused on her plate. Rosie sat across from her, drinking her own mug of coffee as she checked off items on her to-do list.

      “Don’t do it,” Katie muttered.

      “Don’t do what?”

      “Don’t be one of those disgusting morning people who has to tell the rest of us just how much you accomplished already this morning.”

      “I wouldn’t dream of it,” Rosie responded. She ripped the page off the pad of paper, rose and dropped it onto the table next to Katie’s plate. “I’ll just leave it here for you to peruse.”

      With a sigh, Katie pushed away her plate and sat back with the remainder of