Huckleberry Harvest

Book 5: Matchmakers of Huckleberry Hill

by Jennifer Beckstrand

Genres: Amish & Mennonite; Christian Romance; Religious & Inspirational; Clean & Wholesome Romance

Synopsis

When Mandy Helmuth hears that her best friend Kristina's heart has been broken, she decides to visit her grandparents and cheer her up. Mandy never liked Noah Mischler anyway, with his rough exterior and outspoken ways. Unfortunately, she can't avoid him-especially after he saves her life.



If he weren't helping Felty with home repairs, Noah would be more than happy to stay away from uppity Mandy Helmuth. Of course, then he wouldn't have been able to rescue her, and she wouldn't have had the chance to discover the real Noah beneath the tough persona-the one she falls in love with.

Release date: May 26, 2015

Publisher: Zebra

Print pages: 352

Sample

The chickens gathered at Anna Helmuth’s feet as she scattered scratch from her pail. “Oh, dear,” she said. “I suppose I should have tossed it away from me if I wanted to keep my shoes clean.”

“You’re doing a fine job, Annie,” her husband Felty said. “The hens are getting fat.”

Anna tiptoed around the chickens as they pecked at the feed. Bitzy, the Plymouth Rock hen, put up a fuss when Anna accidentally stepped on her, but she recovered enough to squawk in disapproval before going back to her breakfast. “Did you bring the chopped carrots?” Anna asked.

Felty pulled a handful of carrot pieces from his pocket. “This is all we had.”

“It will be enough.” Anna took the slices from Felty’s hand and tossed them into the small flock of chickens. She beaned one chicken in the head inadvertently, but surely a carrot to the head wouldn’t have hurt anybody seriously. The chicken kept right on eating and didn’t seem to notice. “I’m planning a special breakfast for Mandy’s first day on Huckleberry Hill, and I want the eggs to be extra-bright yellow.”

“What special breakfast are you making for our granddaughter?”

“She’s only staying a month, so I want every meal to be memorable. Tomorrow morning we’re having Eggs Benedict. I’ve never made it before, but the picture in my recipe book looks delicious. I just have to figure out what a poached egg is, and we’ll be all set.”

“Do you still want to find a boy for Mandy while she’s in town?”

“Jah. But don’t worry. I’ll see to it that any romantic goings-on will not be detrimental to your blood pressure.”

“What about my ulcer?”

Anna propped a hand on her hip. “Now, Felty. You don’t have an ulcer.”

“I will by the time Mandy goes back to Ohio.”

“We can’t let Mandy leave Bonduel without a husband.”

Felty stroked his salt-and-pepper beard. “It’s a bit of a stretch to think Mandy will meet a boy, fall in love, get engaged, and plan a wedding in one month’s time.”

Anna bit her bottom lip. “Maybe we could talk her into staying an extra week.”

“We better encourage the chickens to lay more eggs if we need five weeks of Eggs Benefit,” Felty said.

“Now, Felty. We’ll have enough time. Our biggest problem is finding the right young man for our granddaughter. Her plans for a visit took me by surprise. I haven’t had the time to spy out prospective husbands like I usually do. I just don’t know what boy in Bonduel would do for our Mandy.”

Felty nodded. “She’s a spunky sort of girl.”

“Jah,” Anna said, dumping the rest of the scratch from her pail onto the ground. “She needs a spunky, cheerful boy to keep her laughing.”

Felty took the pail from Anna as they walked toward the house. “What do you think of Noah Mischler? He’s as gute a boy as ever there was.”

Anna furrowed her brow until the wrinkles piled on top of each other. “Noah Mischler? He’s as solid as a tree.”

“Is that bad?”

“Nae. It means he’s not afraid of hard work.”

“Being a hard worker is the most important quality for a grandson-in-law to possess.”

Anna ran her hands down the front of her apron. “Don’t get me wrong, Felty. I adore Noah Mischler. Saloma Miller tells me he put a new gas stove in her kitchen last April that practically makes dinner by itself. Noah is smart enough to fix anything that’s broken, and he’s so gute to his dat. But I don’t think he and Mandy would suit. He’s gloomier than three weeks of rain.”

Felty rubbed the back of his neck. “Maybe he don’t have much cause to smile these days.”

“Mandy won’t look twice at someone like him. We’ve got to think of somebody else.”

Felty opened the door for his wife of sixty-four years and followed her into the house. “How will we ever find someone in four weeks?”

“Five weeks. We’ll talk Mandy into five weeks. And I’m going to pull out my new recipe book. The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.”

“In that case, Mandy won’t have a lick of trouble finding a boy. Nobody knows how to cook like you do, Annie.” Felty paused inside the door, looked around the great room, and thumbed his suspenders. He grinned as an idea came to him. “Annie, how would you like a new gas stove for all this cooking you’re going to be doing?”

“Is this the house?” Mandy asked as she pulled Dawdi’s buggy in front of the run-down shack with paint peeling off the siding.

“Jah,” Kristina said, still sniffling after all the crying she’d done today.

Mandy set the brake and tied the reins. “Do you want to come with me?”

“No. Never.”

“I’ll talk to him. Keep an eye out. If he wants to apologize or get back together with you, I’ll wave to you. Okay?”

“Be sure to tell him I still love him.”

Mandy ground her teeth together. Kristina didn’t have a lick of sense about how to handle such things. “Remember what we talked about? That will only make you sound desperate. You’re not desperate.” She patted Kristina’s hand. “You’ve been treated very badly, and someone needs to put Noah Mischler in his place. If his conscience nags at him and he realizes he can’t live without you, all the better.”

“But what if he doesn’t know how much I love him? Maybe he broke it off because he thought I was going to break it off first.”

“I’ll fix it.”

“But how?”

“I’ll make Noah Mischler see the error of his ways. Believe me, I know how to make a deerich boy feel guilty. He’ll realize what he’s done, and everything will be set to rights.”

The grass in the front yard grew in tufts like the hair on a balding old man. Mandy tromped along the dirt path worn into the sparse lawn and climbed the two concrete steps to the small cement pad that served as a porch. Thick lilac bushes grew on either side of the house, creating a barrier as impassable as any stone wall. They grew tall and thick and undisciplined, as if they were trying to imprison the house. Without their blooms, they were quite unsightly. No trees or flowers graced the front yard, and a barbed wire fence, tangled and swaying, ran along the north side of the yard. The property looked sad, as if it had lived a long, difficult life and was ready to give up the ghost.

A droopy-eared hound lazed next to the door and didn’t even bark when Mandy approached. He looked as if he had barely enough energy to lift his head.

Pausing, she took the dog’s face in her hands and caressed his ears. “Pretty dog. Good dog,” she cooed. The dog responded by attempting to lick her face. She dodged his tongue and gave him a swift pat on the head before squaring her shoulders and knocking on the door.

Time to show her angry-yet-ready-to-forgive face. Noah Mischler didn’t stand a chance.

She waited for several seconds with no response from the inside and then knocked again—more forcefully this time. Six loud raps that told anyone inside she meant business.

A young man, sturdy and tall, answered the door. When he gave her a tentative smile, the air stuck in her throat, and she forgot to breathe. This pleasant-looking, muscular young man was Noah Mischler? The boy who had scornfully stomped on her best friend’s heart? By the way Kristina had described him, Mandy had expected a scowling, sinister boy with fangs and bushy dark eyebrows.

The boy standing before her was not at all what she had pictured. His wavy hair was the color of wheat just before harvest and his dark, lively eyes called to mind the deep browns and rich greens of the forest. His face, lean and tan from the summer’s work, looked as if it could belong to one of the statues standing in a museum in Milwaukee. No wonder Kristina wanted him back.

He tilted his head. “Can I help you?”

She realized she’d been staring and cleared her throat. This was no time to be distracted by a handsome face. Pretty is as pretty does, that was what Mamm always said. If Noah Mischler wasn’t a godly man in his heart, it didn’t matter how he looked on the outside.

“Are you Noah Mischler?”

“Jah,” he said, holding out his hand. Instinctively, she shook it even though she had determined that she wasn’t going to be friendly. Noah needed to see the stern side of Mandy Helmuth today. He must be made to understand the seriousness of his transgressions.

She quickly pulled her hand away. Puzzlement flitted across his face as he stepped out onto the porch and shut the door behind him. “And you are . . . ?”

“Mandy Helmuth.” She cleared her throat again.

“Helmuth. Are you related to Anna and Felty Helmuth on Huckleberry Hill?”

“Jah. I am their granddaughter. I’m visiting from Ohio.”

“Nice to meet you. Felty is . . . friends with my dat.” His eyebrows inched closer together as he studied her face and waited for her to explain herself.

Suddenly she found the words harder to push out of her mouth than she had expected. He seemed so nice, the way he eyed her curiously but with no apparent ill will.

She took a determined breath and arched her eyebrows. Looks could be deceiving.

“Noah Mischler, I came to tell you that what you did to Kristina Beachy is despicable, and you’d better repent right quick.”

His face immediately hardened like cement or, rather, like cold, hard granite. She’d never seen an expression so unyielding. “You don’t know anything.”

“I know that you flirted with Kristina for months and months and took her home from gatherings in your courting buggy and made her believe you loved her and then broke the whole thing off with a text message.”

He stared at her with fire in his eyes even as the rest of his face could have been chiseled out of solid rock. “Like I said. You don’t know anything about it.” He stepped back and took hold of the door handle, as if he were planning to leave her standing there. As if the conversation were over!

“I’m not finished,” Mandy said.

“I am,” he replied, opening the door and stepping inside.

Mandy pointed to the buggy. “There is a heartbroken girl in there, wondering what she did to deserve such cruelty from you.”

“Cruelty?”

“You treated her like dirt, and yet she forgives you.”

The lines of his mouth twitched with simmering resentment. “Kristina has an overactive imagination.”

“Don’t you think she at least deserves an apology for how you treated her?”

“Nae.”

“You won’t even apologize? Kristina hasn’t stopped crying since you dumped her.”

His eyes narrowed into slits. “She’s been crying for three solid weeks?”

Mandy shouldn’t have exaggerated. It made her sound childish. “All I’m saying is that she is devastated. You led her on. She has a right to an explanation.”

“I said all I needed to say in the text.”

She was losing ground. Not even the faintest hint of remorse tinged his features. “And that’s another thing. Kristina told me you’ve been baptized. Why does a baptized member of the church have a cell phone? I can understand Kristina having one. She hasn’t taken baptism classes yet. But why do you have one? What would the bishop think if he knew you were breaking the rules of the Ordnung?”

Nastiness crept into his voice. “Why don’t you go ask him and find out?”

“Maybe I will. Maybe if you lose your phone, you won’t be able to break more hearts. At least in a text.”

He folded his arms, moved closer, and stared her down with those fiery brown eyes. She resisted the urge to take a step back. She wouldn’t appear weak, not even if Noah Mischler was strong enough to break her like a twig. “Maybe, Mandy Helmuth, you should get your superior little hinnerdale off my porch.”

She nearly choked on his words. How dare he? Fighting the urge to hiss like a cat, she wrapped her arms around her waist until she felt composed enough to speak. “So, you refuse to see reason.”

“I’m not the one who refuses to see reason. You got precisely half of the story, which isn’t true, by the way, and you aren’t reasonable enough to ask my side. But it doesn’t matter, because my side is none of your business.”

“It’s my business when a dear friend gets hurt.”

He grunted so that Mandy knew exactly what he thought of that logic. “Why don’t you stick your little freckled nose into someone else’s life? I don’t care what you think.” He backed away and shut the door in her face before she had a chance to answer him. Before she could even give him a lecture about the proper way to treat girls and the punishments awaiting deceivers in hell.

Well then. If he refused to improve himself and repent of his wrongdoing, then his soul was not Mandy’s problem. She’d done all she could. Even her dawdi, as kind as he was, couldn’t have been expected to do more.

Mandy stomped down the stairs, gave the dog one last pat, and made a beeline for the buggy, not caring how many pathetic tufts of grass she trampled along the way. That lawn wouldn’t last another winter anyway. If she were them, she’d till up the whole thing and plant new grass seed next spring.

She couldn’t hide her indignation as she climbed into the buggy and got it rolling as quickly as possible. Noah Mischler would try the patience of Job.

“What did he say?” Kristina asked, as if Mandy held all her hopes and dreams in her hand.

“I don’t understand why you like Noah Mischler. He has no remorse for anything. He’s doomkop. Forget him, Krissy.”

“I can’t.”

“Jah, you can. There’s dozens of other boys who don’t scowl and who don’t say words like ‘hinnerdale’ right to a girl’s face. You can do so much better.”

“That’s not true. Noah is the most wonderful boy in the world, and I think I’ll die of a broken heart if he doesn’t take me back.”

Kristina always did have a flair for the dramatic. Still, Mandy sympathized with her completely. Insensitive, aggravating Noah Mischler had made her friend miserable, and Mandy had been left to pick up the pieces of Kristina’s heart.

Mandy would be perfectly happy if she never laid eyes on that boy again.

“In heaven I know there’ll be no weeping or dying, No chilly winds or tornadoes ever blow, It is a land of love and springtime beauty, Where purple flowers ever grow,” Dawdi sang as he swept the last of the ashes out of the wood box with a hand broom. Music floated around Dawdi like air floated around everybody else. He sang when he did his chores. He sang in the bathroom. He hummed while reading the newspaper. It seemed the only time he didn’t sing was at the dinner table because Mammi had made a rule against it. “Enough of my boys are singers that we had to make the no-singing-at-the-table rule,” she had told Mandy. “It’s nonsense to try to eat and sing at the same time.” Dawdi knew lots of tunes but often forgot the words. Most of his lyrics were made up on the spot.

The ashes from the cookstove floated into the pail, and Dawdi flipped the lid shut. “That’s the last time I’m ever going to clean out that old stove. The new one comes today.”

They’d eaten cold cereal that morning so the cookstove would be cool enough for the salvage men to haul away. Bran flakes weren’t Mandy’s favorite, but after something runny and gooey yesterday called Eggs Benedict, Mandy would have cheerfully eaten pine needles and twigs for the rest of her life.

“We’ve had this woodstove for forty years,” Mammi said, taking a rag and wiping the top of it.

“Sixty-four,” Dawdi said. “My dat gave it to us on our wedding day.”

Mammi nodded and looked at Mandy. “Your dawdi is so eager for a newfangled stove. I hope I’ll be able to get the bread just right in a gas stove.”

Mandy smiled sympathetically at her mammi. Poor Mammi had never gotten the bread just right in the old stove. But it was okay. Everybody ate Mammi’s cooking, no matter how bad it tasted. It gave Mammi so much pleasure to feed her family. A little dinner-table discomfort was secondary to Mammi’s feelings.

Dawdi put his arm around Mammi. “You’re the best cook in the world, Annie Banannie. A new gas stove won’t slow you down.”

“Of course not,” Mammi said. “I can learn. My doctor says your brain gets old if you stop learning.”

“When are they coming with the new stove?” Mandy asked. Lord willing, she’d get bran flakes two days in a row.

Dawdi glanced at the bird clock on the wall. “Should be here within the hour.” He chuckled as at that minute, someone knocked on the door. “They’re early.”

Mandy was closest to the door. The moment she opened it, she wished she hadn’t. Noah Mischler stood on Mammi’s porch holding a large metal box that looked as if it weighed fifty pounds. That boy was as sturdy as a tree and as handsome as a sunset.

And she loathed him.

Noah nodded at Mandy, his eyes two chips of brown ice and his face devoid of expression.

She was stunned, simply stunned, to see Noah Mischler on Mammi’s doorstep only a day after she’d given him a tongue-lashing and he’d ordered her off his porch. What was he doing here?

“I came to help with the stove,” he said, not acting surprised or annoyed to see her. Of course he wasn’t surprised. She had told him yesterday that she was staying with her grandparents. And even though his face betrayed no emotion, he was certainly annoyed with her. She’d called him to repentance. What boy would want to be in the same room with a girl who wasn’t taken in by his good looks and rock-hard arms?

“Noah,” Dawdi said, grasping Noah’s hand and pulling him into the house. It seemed to Mandy that he came reluctantly. “If there’s one thing I like, it’s a man who’s prompt.”

Mammi’s little white poodle, Sparky, waddled into the great room and nudged the leg of Noah’s trousers with her wet nose as if she and Noah were friends or something. As if Noah deserved a friendly greeting. He bent over and casually scratched Sparky’s curly head. “I thought I’d decide where to drill the hole before the stove gets here.”

Mandy moved out of the way. She wanted to run for the comfort of her room, but opted to pretend that something at the sink needed her full attention. Only after she got there did she realize that such a move put her much closer to where Noah would actually be working. Oh sis yuscht!

Dawdi’s eyes twinkled, and he thumbed his suspenders. “Noah, this is my granddaughter Mandy from Charm, Ohio.”

“Nice to meet you,” Mandy said, which was probably the biggest lie she’d ever told.

Noah merely nodded, which seemed to be all the response Dawdi expected. “She’s not going to be in town long,” Dawdi added.

Mandy could almost hear Noah giving thanks inside his head.

“You’re here, and the stove isn’t,” Dawdi said, motioning to the table. “Sit. Mandy made huckleberry pie. Have a piece while you wait.”

“No, denki,” Noah said, glancing at Mandy and quickly looking away. “I’m not hungry.” He probably suspected poison.

“Stuff and nonsense,” Mammi said, pushing a chair in his direction. “A boy your age is always hungry yet. And you only get fresh huckleberry pie once a year.”

Looking about as stiff as an icicle, Noah hung his hat on the hook, set his giant box near the door, and sat at the table.

“We had our huckleberry picking frolic last week,” Mammi said. “Most of the berries got made into jam. Mandy was kind enough to make a pie with the last of them. She’s a very gute cook.”

Mandy really, really didn’t welcome the warmth that traveled up her neck and no doubt tinged her cheeks bright red. She couldn’t have cared less if Noah liked her pie. Why should prickly Noah Mischler have the privilege of eating her pie anyway? He didn’t deserve it.

Noah still looked as if he wanted to refuse. Did he think he was too good for Mandy’s cooking? “I don’t want to impose.”

“No imposition at all,” Mammi insisted, not guessing how adamantly Mandy disagreed with her. “I’ll put some whipped cream on top.” Mammi’s baked goods always tasted better with several dollops of whipped cream. The Helmuth family used whipped cream like most people used salt.

When Mammi pulled the whipped cream from the fridge, Mandy realized that she was expected to slice the pie and serve a piece to Noah. Her chest tightened around the little pebble that must have been her heart. She’d be forced to walk over to the table and give him the pie with her own two hands. Would they make eye contact? Would he bite her fingers off?

Nae, he seemed the type to keep his emotions in check. She just didn’t know if she was capable of doing the same thing. She’d never been quite so uncomfortable. What would Mammi and Dawdi say if they knew what had occurred between Noah and Mandy yesterday?

Mammi would definitely be shocked that Noah had been so rude, but if her grandparents had known Noah’s true character, they would never have let him set foot in their house, and they certainly wouldn’t let him work on their new gas stove. He might get careless and set the house on fire.

She cut him a generous piece of pie, because she was a nice girl after all, and Mammi plopped a gute helping of cream on top.

Noah didn’t smile at her, but he looked less like an angry badger when she laid the pie on table. “Denki,” he mumbled resentfully.

“You’re welcome,” she mumbled, just as resentfully, while adding a twinge of disdain to her voice.

Mammi and Dawdi didn’t seem to notice, but he did. He pressed his lips into an inflexible line and picked up his fork as if it weighed a hundred pounds—not that he would have any trouble whatsoever lifting a hundred-pound fork. He raised the pie to his lips as if he thought it might bite him.

She took comfort in the fact that he was as uncomfortable as she was. Gute. It served him right. He should feel uncomfortable for the way he had treated poor Kristina.

He closed his eyes and savored his bite. Mandy could tell he enjoyed it by the slight upward curl of his lips.

“Mandy made it,” Dawdi said, in case Noah had already forgotten.

“All by herself,” Mammi added.

“It’s wonderful gute,” Noah said.

Mandy immediately felt irritated at how pleased she was by Noah’s compliment. One bit of praise, even from a boy she didn’t like, was enough to send her floating to the clouds.

She turned her back on him. “Mammi and Dawdi, do you want pie?”

Mammi waved Mandy away. “I’ll wait for the boys to get here.”

Mandy poured Noah a glass of milk and handed it to him. She turned her back on him again immediately. She wouldn’t do him the courtesy of paying him any more notice than she had to.

Once she put some distance between them, her mind caught hold of what Mammi had said. “What boys?”

Mammi’s eyes twinkled as she clapped her hands. “All handpicked.”

“The boys” sounded like a bushel of tomatoes. “What do you mean, Mammi?”

“We’ve got five eligible young men coming to haul the stove out of the house, and then we are going to feed each of them a piece of pie. While they eat, you are going to pick the one you want for a boyfriend.”

Behind her, it sounded as if Noah were quietly choking. Mandy whipped her head around to see him tapping his chest with his fist. “Sorry,” he managed to say between coughs. “Swallowed down the wrong pipe.”

Mandy did her best to ignore him altogether. He was only here to install the new stove. She didn’t have to speak to him if she didn’t want to.

Instead, she focused on her mammi and tried to make sense of what she was hearing. “You want me to have a boyfriend?”

Mammi’s grin was as wide as Shawano Lake. “I want you to have a husband, but I’m having trouble landing on just the right one yet. I’m going to let you have your pick.”

Mandy feared her face might burst into flames at the thought that disagreeable Noah Mischler was hearing this entire conversation. “Mammi, I don’t need you to find me a husband.”

“Of course you do, dear. All die youngie need help with romance. You’ll be pleased with the boys I’ve chosen. And you should feel special, because I haven’t let any of the other grandchildren pick their own spouses.”

“Do these boys know they are competing for my affections?”

“Nae,” Mammi said. “I don’t want the ones you reject to feel bad. They think they are coming to move the stove, but it’s the perfect opportunity to meet each of them face-to-face and decide which one you like the best.”

Mandy’s throat constricted even as she pasted a pleasant look on her face. Mammi’s matchmaking schemes were well known among the family. The dear woman couldn’t resist meddling with her grandchildren. But Mandy refused to be meddled with. There were plenty of boys in Charm to spark her interest, and if the rest of the boys in Bonduel were anything like Noah Mischler, she was definitely not interested.

But she wouldn’t for the world hurt Mammi’s feelings. “It’s such a lovely idea, Mammi,” she said, “but I’m only going to be here for four weeks. Hardly enough time to find a boyfriend.”

She glanced at Noah. He concentrated very intently on the last bites of his pie, avoiding eye contact like the stomach flu. She disliked him more than ever for making fun of her inside his head, because that was surely what he must be doing. A boy like him probably bullied small children and kicked puppies on a regular basis. Of course he’d be privately mocking Mandy and her grandparents.

“We hoped you’d stay for five weeks,” Mammi said. “That should give us enough time.”

“Please, Mammi. I’d rather not.”

Mammi bustled over and patted Mandy’s hand. “That’s what they all say, dear.”

Mandy looked to Dawdi for support. He merely grinned and winked at her. “Five weeks is better than four.”

Mandy blew at a strand of hair hovering over her forehead. She didn’t really mind the matchmaking. Mammi could do all the scheming she wanted. Mandy didn’t have to go along with any of it. But it certainly galled her that Noah had heard their strange conversation. What would he tell his friends? Helmuths’ granddaughter is so desperate, she needs her mammi to find boys for her to date.

Mandy frowned and shook her head. A boy like Noah Mischler probably didn’t have any friends to tell. That thought made her feel a little better.

With that grin firmly etched into his face, Dawdi took Mammi by the hand as his gaze skipped between Mandy and Noah. “Cum, Annie, there’s something in the bedroom I want you to see.”

“Can it wait, Felty dear? I want to be here when the boys arrive so I can introduce them to Mandy.”

“We won’t be gone long. Besides, the boys are going to be late yet.”

“Late?” Mammi said. “How do you know they’re going to be late?”

“Because I told them to be late,” Dawdi said, raising an eyebrow at Mandy, as if he were harboring a mysterious secret.

“Now, Felty, why in the world would you tell those boys to be late? You know we’ve only got five weeks.”

Dawdi tugged Mammi forward. “Cum see what I’ve got in the bedroom. We’ll be back soon enough.”

“Now, Felty,” she said, with a mild scold in her voice, “I’ve already seen your new toenail clippers.”

“It’s not my toenail clippers,” Dawdi said, coaxing her down the hall.

Mandy thought she might be ill when she realized that Dawdi and Mammi had left her all alone in the kitchen with Noah Mischler, who had no reason to behave himself now that her grandparents were gone.

In desperation, she grabbed a rag, turned her back on him, and started wiping down the front of the fridge. Anything to appear too busy for idle conversation.

She heard him slide his chair out from the table and come toward her. Oh sis yuscht! Was he going to yell at her to mind her own business or tell her to get her little hinnerdale out of his way?

“Denki for the pie,” he said.

Holding her breath, she turned her head and nodded slightly. That was all the acknowledgment she would stoop to give him.

She watched out of the corner of her eye as he turned on the water and rinsed off his plate. To her surprise, he found the dish soap under the sink, washed his dishes, dried them, and put them back in the cupboards where they belonged.

Had he done that to try to impress her?

Of course not. He despised her as much as she despised him. The cleaning up obviously came as naturally to him as walking. Whoever his mother was, she had trained him well.

She turned her attention back to the fridge. She refused to be amazed by anything Noah Mischler did or did not do. He was a low-down snake who’d broken Kristina’s heart and then had the nerve to scoff at Mandy about it. His washing three measly dishes didn’t mean much piled on top of his multitude of sins.

The tension between them expanded like a balloon until Mandy felt as if she were being squished into a corner by the silence. She glanced at him as he rummaged through that giant toolbox of his. Sparky the dog sat on her haunches a few inches from the toolbox and studied Noah with her black eyes as if he were the most fascinating thing in th. . .