He laughed. “It’s spring fed. Wait until you feel it on your belly.” He squatted and immersed two metal containers, securing them with rocks. At the edge of the dam, he cocked his head, surveying the structure. “Doesn’t look bad, all things considered.”

Sensation returned to her hand with a zing. She shook it, clenching and unclenching her fist. “Who made it?”

“I did. With my brothers. Some summers we had up to six feet of water.” He sat on the bank and pulled off his boots.

Was he serious about swimming? She, for one, did not have a bathing suit.

He tucked his socks into neat balls, shoved one in each boot, and stood. “You going to help me?”

“With what?”

He shot a thumb over one shoulder. “The dam. It needs repair.”

Did he bring her all the way out here for creek maintenance? She only signed up for the picnic. “Uh…okay.” She toed off her sneakers and socks and tiptoed through prickly, dry grass to the edge.

Jonas tossed aside his hat and sloshed in, long pants and all. “Careful. The stones are slick.”

“Not my first rodeo,” she muttered. She waded in two steps, and icy fingers shot up her legs, gripping her lungs. All around, tiny bubbles surfaced from underground springs. Her entire body seized. As a girl, she swam in lakes from Maine to Montana. This creek was, without a doubt, the coldest water she ever felt.

He rolled up his sleeves and pulled a big, round stone from the creek bottom, turning it in his hands. The stone wedged into the wall with a resonant crack of rock on rock.

Or was that sound her teeth chattering?

“Wonderful, isn’t it?” He prized another stone from the bed and glanced over his shoulder, grinning.

“Just great.” She clenched her jaw and promptly stumbled, one foot sliding between rocks. Her ankle twisted, and she yelped. Long limbs flailing, she fought to stay upright. She was used to creeks, but her bare feet long since lost the summer toughness of youth. Scraping her heel along a rough edge, she extracted it and planted it in spongy mud. Annoyance buzzed in her ears like angry bees. “Why do you always look at me like that?”

He shifted the stone from hand to hand. “Like what?”

Struggling for balance, she shot out an arm. “Like you’re laughing at me.” What was she even doing in this stupid creek? The whole event was like some cruel joke—pranked by the Amish. Any second, Jonas’s brother Samuel would leap from a bush with a contraband video camera.