The can was cool and tasted of metal and the slightest hint of soap. Plum juice dribbled down her fingers, leaving a sticky coating on the inside of her wrist. She made a silent pledge never to buy grocery store whipped cream again. When he returned the canisters to the creek, she curled up on the blanket, sated and content. Sunshine weighted her eyelids. Not certain she wasn’t already dreaming, she dozed.

When she lifted her lids again, the blanket was in shade. The crack of stone against stone echoed from the creek. Sun-baked and slack, she reveled in a long stretch and rolled onto her belly.

Thigh-deep in water, Jonas again worked on the dam.

She propped on her elbows and spied through tall grass with seed tufts like squirrel tails. Apparently, while she napped, he doffed his shirt and undershirt. She spotted them spread out to dry on a bush. He bent low, pants stretched tight over his backside, and wrestled with a submerged rock. Corded muscles in his back and arms rippling, he wrenched a stone the size of a compact car from the creek bed. Water poured from it like a mini waterfall, and he stumbled beneath its weight. Revolving, he maneuvered the rock atop the dam. Sunlight caught his torso. His collarbones were pink with fresh sunburn, and his arms were bronzed in a deep farmer’s tan.

She dragged her upper teeth lightly over her bottom lip. She could just imagine him as a child, straining to carry rocks with his younger brothers, hour after hour until the creek slowed and the pond formed. If she admired anything about the Amish, it was their single-minded dedication to work—even when that work was as frivolous as building a secret swimming hole in the middle of the woods.

Turning from the dam, he scanned the creek and then drew up short. He sloshed to the far bank, tilted his head, and reached into the brush.

She squinted and pressed to her knees, but she couldn’t see what he sought until he pulled it out. One wild tiger lily—still holding out in late July.

Fingering the petals, he waded along the rock wall. When he reached the center, he stopped and rotated the blossom, taking it in from all angles. Then he tossed it over the rocks and watched it bob in the current until it rounded the bend and vanished. He hoisted himself atop the dam and hung his head.

She picked her way across the creek and climbed up next to him. The remnants of a rope swing dangled from a branch, the ends frayed and graying. Did Jonas climb that tree and tie the rope? Every inch of this farm must hold memories.

“Do you believe in God?” he asked after a moment.

“Yes.” She wiggled her toes in the mushy mud. “Do you?”