Her Forbidden Amish Love

by Jocelyn McClay

  He was going to make the most of it.

  Frowning, Gabe repacked his jump bag as he regarded the precisely pleated back of the kapp covering Hannah’s neatly pinned golden blond hair. As he retraced his steps to the back of the shop at a much slower pace than when he’d entered, his new landlady looked up from cutting fabric and called out to thank him. His glance at Hannah was rewarded only with a brief, cool nod before she studiously continued her task.

  Her composed profile was the last thing Gabe saw before he ducked through the cheerful rear door. Climbing the steps to his apartment, he snorted wryly. What had he been expecting? That she’d just fall into his arms once she saw him again? Gabe’s lips twisted as he recalled she’d done just that, for a moment. But whatever had prevented her from meeting him that night still had her shutting him out. Well, he faced challenges every day in his job. He wasn’t one to shy away from a tough situation. Gabe knew convincing Hannah to marry him would be that and more.

  Chapter Two

  Hannah was glad to be out of The Stitch for even the few minutes it took to walk to the post office and retrieve the shop’s mail. At least these were moments when her ears weren’t tuned to the bang of the shop’s back door. After two days, she could finally resist whipping her head toward the door at any sound generated behind it, as it might announce Gabriel Bartel’s appearance. It was surely understandable to be jumpy regarding Gabe’s actions. The man had just popped unexpectedly back into her life. It certainly wasn’t eagerness to see him that had her looking in that direction at the sound of his feet on the stairs. Or so she told herself.

  Ruth, thankfully, seemed to have recovered from the incident. Hannah didn’t know if she ever would. The night she’d forced herself to stay home from meeting with Gabe had been one of the hardest things she’d ever done. Second only to watching her pregnant sister, Gail, walk away from home and the Amish community earlier that day.

  If Gail hadn’t left, Hannah might’ve made a different choice. But seeing what her departure had done to her family had made Hannah ill. The heartache of her parents. The whispering of those that gossiped. The pitying looks of those that didn’t. The suspicious eyes on her and her younger brothers, wondering if they too might abandon the Amish lifestyle. Hannah, who’d always abided by gelassenheit, obeying the will of those in authority, had felt the heavy weight of their stares and disapproval.

  She’d vowed, in the lonely bedroom she’d shared with her sister, to never disappoint her parents. And so her dreams for a life with the Mennonite man she loved had disappeared down the road with Gail.

  Hannah jumped at the harsh scrape of metal on concrete behind her. Spinning around, she and Socks, who’d been trotting on a leash at her side, watched as a man hastily exited the car that’d just slid its rusted nose onto the high sidewalk. Hannah backed away as the man lunged up the steep step and stood swaying before her. She flinched again at Socks’s unexpected soft growl.

  The man’s stringy hair blew over his face. He made an attempt to straighten his jacket, a futile action, as the coat was buttoned crooked. Something had congealed into dark patches on his worn blue jeans. A sliver of unease rippled up Hannah’s spine. She slid another step back as Socks brushed against her leg.

  “Nice dog.” The man’s voice was low and rough, like scraping a shovel over a bed of rocks. There was something in it that made the comment sound not like a compliment, but a threat. Giving a faint nod, Hannah slipped her hand through the end of Socks’s leash and tightened her grip on the leather.

  “Border collie, right? They’re good working dogs. Does she bite?”

  Hannah huffed out a tight breath when another car pulled up to the sidewalk, briefly drawing the man’s attention. “I...I need to get back to work.” Pivoting, she doubled her speed, willing to take her chances of sliding over the snow-frosted surface. Several steps farther, she risked a glance back. The man was watching them. Hannah was used to Englisch visitors to town staring at times, curious about Amish dress and lifestyle. But this one wasn’t looking at her. His attention was on Socks.

  Hannah was breathless when she and Socks swept into the shop and closed the heavy door behind them. A condition that wasn’t helped when she looked over the tops of the myriad bolts of fabric to see the curly-haired man talking with her employer. Striving to collect herself, she leaned down and unsnapped Socks’s leash.

  Upon straightening, she almost headed out the door again at Barb’s words. “We were just talking about you.”

  “Oh, really?” Chagrined to hear her voice an octave higher than normal, Hannah cleared her throat and tried again as she hung up her cloak on the wall peg by the door. “How so?”

  “Gabe was asking if we made the quilts.” The older woman gestured to the collection of intricately designed blankets that lined the walls of the shop. “I was telling him I make some, but you’re the more talented one.” Barb turned back to Gabe who, one muscular shoulder leaning against the wall, was watching Hannah as she threaded her way through the maze of fabric.

  After facing the unsettling man on the sidewalk, Hannah blinked her eyes at the surge of temptation to tuck against Gabe’s side. Feel his arm slide over her shoulder. Relax in the remembered comfort of being close to his solid form. Stumbling, she reached out to put a hand on the smooth cotton of a bolt beside her, steadying herself. She could not fall again for this man. He was not for her. She should’ve forgotten him years ago. Pressing her lips together, Hannah stiffened her resolve and her knees along with it.

  His eyes never leaving her face, Gabe tilted one corner of his mouth into a crooked smile and straightened from his slouch against the wall when she reached them.

  “Who made the rest of them?”

  To Hannah’s relief, Barb fielded his question. “Some of the Amish ladies in the community bring their projects in, and we sell them on commission. I’d love to carry more, but they’re busy women.”

  “I can imagine.” He winced, frowning in consideration. “That might make my request unfeasible.”

  “Much is lost for want of asking.” Barb repinned some loose fabric back onto a bolt on the counter and returned it to the shelf.

  “I was wondering if it would be possible to get some curtains for the windows upstairs that face the street. I never know when I might be called out and I don’t want to disturb neighbors when my lights come on in the middle of the night.” He shrugged. “I suppose I could stop at the big box store in Portage my next time through and buy some premade ones, but I noticed some of your...art.” He glanced around him at the displays. “There’s really no other word for it. I thought something like that might be cheery, as well as functional upstairs.”

  “It is pretty dreary up there, isn’t it? I should’ve thought of that. I haven’t rented it out since the young Hershberger couple lived there for some months after they were married, waiting for their house to be built.” The gray-haired woman grinned. “With Ophelia the oldest of thirteen children, there wasn’t room for them to stay with her folks other than the traditional night after their wedding.”

  Hannah frowned. Freeman and Ophelia Hershberger already had a two-year-old son and another one on the way. Why hadn’t Barb rented out the apartment since then? Why now? It would’ve been considerably easier on Hannah’s peace of mind to have another young Amish couple banging their way through the back door to the alley instead of the current tenant.

  The shop owner leaned an elbow on a row of various shades of blue fabric. “Which reminds me of something else. Besides curtains, do you have everything you need? The apartment has electricity, but it hasn’t been used by an Englisch person for some time.”

  Hannah sucked in a quiet breath at Gabe’s grin. The sight of it still made her stomach jump like a summer night full of fireflies.

  “I did find that I’m well supplied with oil lamps in case the power goes out. And the additional heat source is nice. And I�
�m Mennonite. As were the Amish originally. There was a falling out sometime in the 17th century and we’re a bit more comfortable with technology, but there are still similarities to the Amish. Some of us even speak the same language. At least we used to. Ja?”

  Hannah’s cheeks heated when Gabe turned to her with a raised eyebrow. She knew he was referring to their earlier time together, not Pennsylvania Dutch, the dialect Amish and some Mennonite spoke. She and Gabe used to want the same thing—to live their lives together. Hannah wasn’t sure what he wanted now, dropping back into her life. But what she wanted had changed. It had to have. She wanted to stay in her community. To not cause ripples. To submit to the will of the Diener—the district’s elected officials—and not distress her parents. Still, her mouth grew dry and the flush crept down her neck under Gabe’s intent regard.

  “Well, we’re glad the grant went through to establish an EMS program in town. But there are probably better places in the area to rent.” Barb wagged a finger toward the ceiling and the living space above it. “Whatever prompted you to want my little apartment upstairs?”

  “Oh, the price was right. And I liked the location.” Gabe smiled at her employer, but his tone and the glance he returned to Hannah were deceptively neutral. Still, Hannah figured her cheeks were now the hue of the brightest red fabric in the shop. Peering at the door, she willed a customer to walk in. To her dismay, their side of the snow-covered street was empty. She focused her attention on Barb, only to find her employer looking between her and Gabe speculatively.

  The older woman straightened away from the bolts of fabric. “So you need curtains. You’re right. You’re living above a quilt shop. We can’t let you put store-bought curtains up there. Hannah can make them for you.”

  Hannah’s jaw dropped. She barely managed to squeak, “Me? Amish don’t generally have curtains.”

  “Englisch customers love to see you working on the treadle sewing machine when they come in. Helps make the shop seem quaint. Besides, you’re a better seamstress than I am. If you can figure pattern calculations for quilting, you can figure out curtains. I can handle other things while you work on them.”

  “But...”

  Ignoring her, Barb turned to Gabe and waved her hand at the surrounding shop. “What color did you have in mind?”

  His attention on Hannah’s rounded eyes, Gabe offered, “I’m partial to blue.”

  The shop owner patted the fabric beside her. “We can certainly do that. Anything here you like?”

  Gabe’s eyes remained locked with Hannah’s. “Yes,” he drawled.

  She looked away. He was flustering her, charming her, all over again. She couldn’t let it happen.

  Striding over to the row of blue fabrics, she smacked the bolted material. “Pick one.” Forcing a smile, Hannah released a breath. Her smile faded as she recalled how close she’d come to disrupting her world for this man. Crossing her arms over her chest, Hannah reminded herself Gabe was as out of place in her life as his muscular and masculine form was in the bright-colored quilt shop that surrounded him.

  Although she stood her ground, her heart rate escalated as Gabe strolled closer to survey the vast collection of fabrics, some plain in keeping with Amish needs, some with printed design to accommodate Englisch shoppers. All in shades of blue from the lightest pastel to the deepest navy. “Hmm. That’s a tough one.” He glanced over at Hannah, standing stiffly at the end of the row.

  “Well, it’d be nice to wake up to something beautiful. Although beauty isn’t everything. It’s more how it makes you feel.” Reaching out a hand, he traced a finger down the length of a nearby bolt. Hannah forced her attention away from it. “I’d like something that seems cool at the outset.” Gabe paused as his eyes slid to the fabric before returning to her rigid form. “But vibrant upon closer scrutiny.”

  Pressing her lips together, Hannah glanced over to see Barb watching with raised eyebrows. She wanted to put her hand over Gabe’s mouth to keep him from continuing. But the thought of touching him reminded her of the warm skin of his cheek, and the soft bristle that grew there when they would meet late in the day. Hannah curled her hands into fists to dismiss the sensation. Her short nails dug into her palms as he continued.

  “I want something that makes me feel alive as I start the day, but is restful at the end of it.” Gabe squinted thoughtfully as he deliberated. “Something that’s more complicated than it actually seems. Something that has a bit of glow to it.”

  At each description, Gabe’s gaze shifted from the fabric to her face. Hannah fixed her gaze away from him and blew out another breath, determined not to let him fluster her further. She remembered how he’d always made her laugh. She’d never laughed so much as when they’d been together. Hannah frowned. She’d missed that. It was almost as if the colors of her life were somehow muted now that Gabe was no longer in it.

  She narrowed her eyes at the row of material she faced. Beige. A neutral color, normally a background in the concept of the quilt. That was her. She wasn’t a vibrant blue. Gabe was describing someone Hannah didn’t recognize. One who didn’t exist anymore. Or maybe only had with him. Hannah swallowed. And she wasn’t just beige. She was beige without a pattern in the fabric, like the Englisch preferred. Bland. Muted.

  Only Gabe had made her feel like the primary focus of a design.

  Hannah’s eyes burned. She blinked until the fabric went from a blur back to individual shades of pale, sandy, yellowish-brown.

  Biting the inside of her cheek, Hannah reminded herself that background colors were always needed. She’d heard murmurings from the district’s Diener. According to those ministers, she’d soon be bound into some arrangement with another for life. Just not one of her choosing. With a slight turn of her head, Hannah met Gabe’s green eyes. No, she’d given up her chance for creating her own design.

  And it was past time Gabe finished this and choose his. Whirling to face the blue fabrics, Hannah jerked a bolt out of the row.

  “No, not that one. The one next to it,” Gabe directed.

  Hannah stuffed the one she had back and pulled the one he’d indicated. Striding over to the counter, she dropped it with a thud next to Barb.

  “Nice shade,” Barb commented as she eyed the bolt before sliding it over to the side. “It matches Hannah’s eyes. But before I cut it, I need to know the required length. Hannah, you’ll have to go up and measure the windows for him.” The shop owner returned her attention to Gabe. “I’m assuming you know what style you want?”

  “Plain,” he responded immediately, his eyes dancing. “I like a plain style.”

  Hannah stifled a snort, her face flaming again. He’d keep this up until the silly curtains were made and hung. Her best recourse was to avoid him and be coolly pleasant when he was around. No one needed to know they had a history. And she couldn’t allow them to have a future. Snagging the tape measure from the counter, Hannah strove for a composed stroll toward the back door. The sooner the measurements were taken, the sooner she could finish the project. These would be the fastest curtains ever made. And then she could go back to being beige. Where she’d been content these past few years.

  Hadn’t she?

  * * *

  Watching Hannah march to the store’s rear exit, Gabe couldn’t suppress the grin that spread across his face. He pulled out his billfold.

  Barb waved it away. “Don’t know what the cost is until we know how much material you’re getting. Besides, I’ll provide these with the apartment.”

  He repocketed the billfold. “When we know, I’ll pay. I have a feeling I might take them with me no matter where I go.” They both looked over when the back door slammed behind Hannah.

  Barb narrowed her eyes at Gabe. “Where did you say you two had met?”

  Gabe headed for the rear exit when he heard Hannah’s determined tread on the stairs. “I didn’t,” he tossed back over his sho
ulder.

  Since the door to the apartment wasn’t locked, Hannah was already inside and at the window with her tape measure by the time Gabe stepped through the door. He wasn’t surprised she had went straight to the task. From her behavior since he’d arrived, he figured it was so she could leave immediately, continuing to avoid him as much as possible.

  She wasn’t fooling him. Hannah was as aware of him as he was of her. Although she didn’t turn when the door clicked closed, under the dark green fabric of her dress he saw her shoulder give a barely discernible flinch at the sound.

  Gabe sighed. He paused, then reached back to open the door again. Maybe that’d been part of the problem before. The wonderful times they’d had together, the joy they’d felt with each other, the relationship they’d built—innocent except for their growing feelings—it hadn’t been in the open.

  If he was going to convince her to marry him, he’d have to drag it there.

  Hannah rose on tiptoe, a lovely slender silhouette in front of the window, the weak winter light shining in around her. She stretched out her arm toward the top of the frame. Her reach was about four inches short of the wooden trim on the tall window.

  “Here, let me help.” Gabe’s feet echoed on the bare wood floor as he hustled over to where she stood.

  “I think you’ve helped enough,” Hannah responded as she let the end of the tape measure dangle, leaving ample room for him to grab it without touching her fingers.

  Gabe took the metal end tab and held it up above their heads. The stiff organza of her kapp was right under his chin. Her golden-blond hair was within kissing distance. Gabe was sorely tempted to drop a tender caress upon it as he’d done years before. Appreciated then, that action now would probably send Hannah skittering down the stairs. Frowning, he considered the scarred wooden trim of the window. “Where do you want it measured from?”

  When Hannah looked up to assess, their eyes met and held for a moment before she slid hers away to peer at small holes in the wall just outside the trim. “Are those nail holes? They’re probably from brackets for previous shades or curtain rods. Measure from there.”