Katie's Choice by Amy Lillard Read Free Book Online Page B

attention.
    But not that of the entire room.
    All eyes turned toward him, and whatever the ladies had been doing, forgotten, if only momentarily.
    “I’d like to get something to drink, please.” This would have been so much easier if the kitchen had been empty, even if the lemonade hadn’t been waiting on the table for him. As it was, he was reliant on the women before him since they filled up every available space, leaving him no room to maneuver.
    Mary Elizabeth nudged Katie Rose in the ribs and nodded in his direction. “ Aenti, would you get our guest a drink?”
    Katie Rose turned toward the rectangular box in one corner of the kitchen, her expression indifferent.
    Zane shifted from one foot to the other, ignoring the strange looks he received as one by one the women returned to their duties.
    He wasn’t entirely sure why Katie Rose was the one chosen to get him a glass of lemonade. It wasn’t her home, and he certainly wasn’t Mary Elizabeth’s guest since she lived with Gabriel still.
    He watched Katie Rose with hooded eyes as she poured him a tall glass and brought it around the counter toward him.
    “For you, Zane Carson,” she said, handing him the drink, her eyes not meeting his.
    “Thank you.”
    “ Danki ,” she said quietly.
    “Does that mean ‘You’re welcome’?”
    “It means ‘thank you.’” She turned toward the other ladies, and Zane had to fight the urge to reach out for her like Samuel and tag along behind her. Ridiculous.
    He looked for a place to sit, preferring the company of the busy women to his own. It had nothing to do with the willowy blonde. Nothing at all. He pulled out a chair from the table and moved it to an out-of-the-way corner where he could watch without getting in the way. Four ginormous pots bubbled on the stove, rows upon rows of jars lined every available countertop space, and the table was covered with mounds of cucumbers.
    “Pickles!” he said, sounding so much like the man who hollered “Eureka” that he almost laughed out loud.
    Gideon’s Annie turned to him, her orders put on hold momentarily. “Yes?”
    “You’re making pickles,” he reiterated, only quieter this time.
    Annie nodded. “That’s right.”
    “A lot of pickles.”
    “They’re for Ruth.”
    Zane glanced about the room. Ruth Fisher was nowhere in the fray of busy-bee workers. “I take it Ruth likes pickles.”
    “They’re to help pay for Ruth’s treatment.”
    He knew firsthand that was going to take a lot of pickles. He’d watched his uncle battle cancer and lose, his half-a-million-dollar life insurance policy barely enough to cover burial expenses after the doctor bills had been paid.
    Mary Elizabeth nudged her aunt once again. “Go explain it to him.”
    “It was Annie’s idea,” Katie Rose protested.
    “She’s busy,” Mary Elizabeth explained. “And you know more about the operation than anyone else. Maybe if he puts it in his magazine . . .”
    Mary Elizabeth didn’t need to say anything else. They all hoped that exposure in his story would spur pickle sales, so Katie Rose’s love for her mother convinced her to give him her attention.
    He tried not to appear too pleased. After all, it was only for a story.
    Katie Rose came around the counter again, Samuel watching her from his perch on the corner stool. He had a piece of string in his hands, making familiar designs that Zane remembered from his own childhood. Some things didn’t change.
    She pulled out her own chair, placed it as far from him as she could get and still be heard over the din, and took a moment to rest. He knew that Amish women worked hard, but a pickle-making production as big as this one had to require a ton of energy.
    Finally, Katie Rose spoke. “Well, I guess you could say that it all started when Annie came back to us.”
    “Came back?”
    She nodded, but didn’t elaborate, her gaze fixed on her lap. “She put her car up for sale and gave the money to the community fund. That went a