Huckleberry Spring Read Free Page B

more devastating than ever. Her voice cracked as the hitch in her throat turned into a gut-wrenching sob.
    She loved Ben Helmuth. She loved him so much. And it hurt so bad.
    A torrent of tears flowed unchecked down her cheeks as she marched past the bare garden plot, dodged Felty’s peach trees, and ran into the safety of the woods.
    Just get over it, Emma. He doesn’t love you.
    He had been so repulsed by her that he had moved all the way to Florida so he wouldn’t be forced to lay eyes on her again.
    When she ran far enough to be assured that no one would hear her crying, she stopped to catch her breath, pulled a tissue from her pocket, and blew her nose loudly. Ben would probably find that repulsive too.
    She growled in self-condemnation. She’d worked so hard to bury her emotions and stifle the insistent tears. She usually cried over Ben in private, and now she’d done it out in the open twice in one day.
    The look of anxiety and concern she had seen on his face was the same one he had worn the day he broke off their engagement. Ben was so kind and so sensitive to other people’s feelings that she was sure it pained him to hurt her, even if he didn’t love her. The bitter truth was that she didn’t deserve him, and he pitied her for it.
    Her heart sped to a trot when she heard shuffling through the underbrush behind her. She turned to see Anna’s little dog, Sparky, waddling toward her. She must have followed Emma out of the house. Emma bent over and scooped Sparky into her arms. She rested her cheek against Sparky’s fur and scratched behind her floppy ears. Even if Ben didn’t like Emma, Sparky would always be her friend.
    She cried her last tears and wiped her eyes. Taking a deep, hiccupping breath, she played Mamm’s voice in her head.
    Buck up, Emma. It’s not the end of the world.
    Sparky had settled comfortably into her arms. “Sorry, Sparky,” Emma said as she placed Anna’s dog on the ground. With her handkerchief, Emma dabbed at her nose in a way that not even Ben would have found repulsive. She would go back into the house and show Ben how happy she was and how hard she was trying to be a girl worthy of a gute Amish man. And she would not trip over her feet, no matter what.
    “Emma?”
    Her heart all but somersaulted in her chest, and she thought she might be sick. She couldn’t face him, not looking like this. Ducking behind a tree, she did her best to gather up the pieces of her heart she’d strewn about the forest floor. She could just make out Ben’s tall frame through the budding trees as he stood in the garden plot and called her name. He didn’t know where she was. It gave her a few seconds to talk herself into being brave. Ben would admire someone with courage. She smoothed her dress, did up the buttons of her black sweater, and despite everything, pinched her cheeks.
    Mustn’t look pasty and pale for her reunion with Ben Helmuth.
    She snapped her fingers to bid Sparky to follow her and decided on a leisurely stroll out of the woods. Ben would assume she had taken a walk and never guess she’d been crying.
    Whom was she fooling? He’d know exactly what she’d been doing. Her eyes and nose were probably bright red and as puffy as Mamm’s special dinner rolls. Maybe she should rub a little mud on her face just in case.
    Ben didn’t love her. What did it matter how homely or disheveled she looked?
    “Emma?” he called again, the apprehension growing in his voice. He was always more concerned about other people than the other people were about themselves.
    Her foot caught on a lumpy tree root, and she stumbled noisily but managed to maintain her balance. “Oomph,” she grunted as leaves and pine needles crackled thunderously beneath her feet.
    “Emma?”
    Righting herself, she pasted a smile on her face. “Coming,” she sang, as if she were an irritating little bird chirping her way through the forest.
    He turned around and started walking in her direction, no doubt bent on