.
Tessa said. She certainly understood why Gabby was so frazzled. Tessa would be, too, if she rarely got out of the house without taking an infant along. Yet at the same time, holding Aiden made her feel a strange loneliness for the heft of pudgy little Mercy in her arms. Regardless of her indignation at Turner’s comments the previous evening, Tessa decided after work she’d stop in at his house to see how he and the baby were faring.
Customers lingered in the shop until after closing time and because he needed the business, Joseph didn’t hurry them away. By the time the doors were locked, the shelves restocked and the floor swept at Schrock’s, the market down Main Street was closed. Tessa’s grocery supply at home was limited to a few boxes of pasta, which she supposed she’d have to eat with butter and salt. So, when Melinda Schrock invited Tessa to join her and her husband, Jesse, and several others at the bowling alley, Tessa was tempted.
“Please?” Melinda cajoled. “We only have five people so far, which means we can’t pair up for teams.”
“I don’t know,” Tessa stalled. Usually, Tessa would have been the one who suggested the outing, but tonight she felt torn between joining her peers and getting back to see how Mercy was doing.
“It won’t be a late night and we’ll give you a lift home,” Melinda persisted.
Tessa’s stomach growled. The bowling alley, a popular location for the Amish in Willow Creek, made fantastic onion rings. Her mouth watering, she agreed, “Okay, if you’re sure it’s not going to be a late night.”
But as it turned out, the only other person to join the trio at the lanes was Aaron Chupp, Anna’s husband’s cousin, which meant Tessa had to be his bowling partner. She suspected that Melinda, who once was courted by Aaron herself, was playing matchmaker on his behalf. Melinda could have saved herself the trouble. Tessa found Aaron to be unusually self-centered, a perception that was enhanced when he insisted they play several more frames—and then several more after that—when she expressed she wanted to head home.
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