Ethan didn’t drive the buggy to the place where her car was parked. Instead, he took them across a bumpy field toward a wooded area. At the edge of the tree line, he halted the buggy, hopped out and helped Leah down. “Come,” he said. “I will show you a place like no other.”
She followed him through the woods. A soft summer breeze stirred through scented pine needles, making a whispery, papery sound. They came into a clearing where a giant rock rested on a cushion of leaves and needles. He lifted her up and settled her on top of the boulder.
“This is my favorite place,” he said. “Here, I feel peace. Whenever I am confused or angry, this is where I come.”
She turned her face heavenward. A thousand stars twinkled above her. Moonlight bleached the ground snowy white. “It’s really beautiful, Ethan. This is where the Christmas tree came from, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” He stood gazing down at her, his face lit on one side by the silvery moon.
Leah said, “It’s more like a church than some churches I’ve been in. I’ve been going to a church back home, you know.” She wasn’t sure why she was telling Ethan this, except that she knew his faith was important to him. “I figure I owe God something, I mean, since my bout with cancer and all.” She reached for Ethan’s hand and rested it on the knee where her cancer had been discovered. The warmth from his palm spread through the material of her skirt. “I’m glad you were there for me. I’m not sure how I would have made it if it hadn’t been for you and Charity.”
“Knowing you has been special to me, Leah.” He touched her hair.
Her heart skipped a beat. “I’m sorry your friends don’t approve of me.”
“I do not care what my friends think.”
“What did Jonah mean when he said ‘schnitzel’? Is it a bad word?”
He chuckled. “It’s a made-up word that some Amish use for ‘kissing.’ An older Amish girl usually kisses—schnitzels—a boy when he turns sixteen.”
She felt the stirring of jealousy. Had the kiss she and Ethan shared in the hospital truly been his first? “So tell me, do I measure up? Do I schnitzel as well as an Amish girl?”
He cupped her face in his rough, work-worn hands. “I do not know. You are the only girl I have ever kissed.”
Her body began to tingle. “It’s hard to believe you weren’t kissed before.”
“It is the truth.” He offered no other explanation.
Leah burned with curiosity to know why not.
“But,” he said, “I want very much to kiss you now.”
All other thoughts fled her mind. She slid off the rock to stand facing him. “I would like for you to kiss me.” She raised her arms to encircle his neck.
He pulled her body closer, pressing his hands against the small of her back. He lowered his mouth to hers, touching her lips with a velvet softness that left her dizzy. And longing for more.
SIX
“Hi. I’m Kathy Kelly. You must be Leah.” A cute girl with a tangle of brown curly hair grinned at Leah.
Leah returned the smile. “I guess we’ll be working together.”
The two of them stood in the hallway of the Sunshine Inn Bed and Breakfast, dressed in the shapeless uniforms that Mrs. Stoltz insisted her helpers wear. Kathy said, “This is my second summer working at the inn. I’ll only be here through July Fourth weekend, though. Then I’m off to cheerleading camp. How about you? You ever do this kind of work before?”
“No. I worked in a fast-food place when I lived in Dallas.”
“Dallas—wow, lucky you. I’ve been stuck here in Dullsville since my parents moved here when I was in seventh grade. I’m saving for college. How about you?”
“Just living here for the summer.”
“You mean you chose to spend the summer here?”
“It’s a long story.” Leah certainly didn’t want to go into her life history at the moment.
“You’re not Amish, are you?”
Leah shook her head.
“Me either.” Kathy rolled her eyes.
“What’s wrong with being Amish?”
“Nothing … if you like being ignored. I went to school with some of them and they sure keep in their own little circles. Tight as gum stuck to your shoe.”
“Do you know the Longacres? I’m kind of a friend of theirs.” Leah wanted Kathy to know that she didn’t want to hear her trash the Amish.
“Oh, don’t get me wrong,” Kathy said. “I like a lot of the Amish kids, but no matter what you do, you’ll always be an outsider to them. They don’t really have much use for us English.”
Kathy’s words felt like a splash of cold water to Leah. Was she fooling herself about Ethan? The night before, he had kissed her in the moonlight until her blood fairly sizzled and her knees went weak. And he’d told her he would see her every chance he got. Now Kathy’s remarks were making her wonder.
Kathy tipped her head and puckered her mouth in thought. “Longacre … Let me think.”
“Ethan and Charity,” Leah supplied.
“I sort of remember Ethan. He was in eighth grade when I started in seventh. He was really cute. But the Amish kids hardly ever stay in school beyond eighth grade, so once they’re out of middle school, we don’t see much of them. You interested in Ethan?”
“Sort of,” Leah said.
“Well, good luck, if you have a thing for him. Really strict Amish parents never let their kids mingle with the likes of us.”
Leah felt an enormous letdown. She didn’t have time to dwell on it, however, because Mrs. Stoltz dashed out of the kitchen and started issuing orders about the day’s work. Soon Leah was up to her elbows in soapy water. She and Kathy changed bed linens, scrubbed bathrooms and washed windows the entire morning. Mrs. Stoltz clucked her tongue over every streak they left behind and every piece of brass that didn’t sparkle. She told them that the next day they would have to work faster. When Leah went to her car, she felt ready to collapse from exhaustion.
“The first day’s always the hardest,” Kathy told her as they stood in the small parking lot adjoining the inn. “And Mrs. Stoltz is pretty nice once she sees that you’re trying to do a good job and not goofing off.”
Leah rubbed the back of her neck. “Who had time to goof off?”
Kathy laughed. “See you tomorrow. Oh. Here’s my phone number if you ever want to do anything on weekends.”
Leah took the piece of paper Kathy handed her and got into her car. Weekends. She remembered Ethan’s promise to spend as much time as he could with her, but after what Kathy had said, Leah wondered if it was going to be possible. Absently she rubbed her knee. It felt sore. Fear jolted her. The soreness was in the same knee where bone cancer had been discovered. It’s nothing, she told herself. I just overworked it today. She threw the car into gear and screeched out of the parking lot.
———
Because Charity and Ethan had no phone, Leah couldn’t call. She had no way of knowing if they missed her or even thought about her. On Friday, she drove to the farm. She had hardly shut off the engine when Rebekah came racing to the car, her long skirt flapping behind her. “Leah! Come quick! I have something to show you.”
Leah jogged behind the little girl all the way to the henhouse. Inside the low wooden building, the warm air smelled like chickens and chicken feed. “Wow, this place needs some air freshener,” Leah joked. “What’s so important?”
Rebekah took her over to a small, wooden, bowl-shaped trough. “Look.” The trough was an incubator, and in it eggs were in various stages of hatching. Rebekah scooped up a fuzzy baby chick and handed it to Leah. “Are they not wonderful?”
“He’s cute, all right.” Leah cradled the soft yellow creature against her cheek. The downy feathers tickled. Below, the others peeped noisily. “So now you have even more chickens to look after.”
“Would you like to have one for your very own?” Rebekah asked.
“How can I keep it at my apartment?”
Rebekah thought for a moment. �
��I will keep it here for you. I will feed it and take care of it. But it will always be yours, Leah. And you can come visit it whenever you like.”
Leah’s heart melted at the girl’s sweet gesture. “Thank you, Rebekah. This is the nicest present anyone has ever given me.”
“I told Charity you would like my present. She said she didn’t think a grown-up English girl would like a chicken, but I knew you would because you’re my friend. You helped me in the hospital, even when no one made you help me.”
“Do you remember the hospital?”
“Oh, yes. I remember the shots and the Christmas party and the funny bed that moved up and down.” Rebekah giggled. “I liked to push the buttons and make it move.”
“Do you remember Gabriella? The nurse who sometimes came to visit us?”
“She was pretty,” Rebekah said. “She held my hand when I was scared and when you were asleep.”
Leah was glad that someone else had seen the elusive Gabriella. There were times when she wondered if she’d imagined her. “Gabriella helped me too.”
“I can’t wait to see her again,” Rebekah said confidently.
“How do you know you will?”
“She told me so the night before I went home.”
Leah figured that Charity and Ethan had not shared with Rebekah Leah’s ideas about Gabriella’s being an angel. If they had, Rebekah would certainly have mentioned it to Leah by now. “Well, tell her hi from me if you do see her,” Leah said. “Where’s Charity?”
Rebekah slipped her hand into Leah’s. “Everybody’s in the kitchen making jelly. We can help.”
Leah hesitated. She wasn’t sure she’d be wanted, but Rebekah fairly dragged her into the farmhouse kitchen. She found the women in the family hovering over pots boiling on the woodstove. Charity was washing jars in the sink and lining the clean ones up on the countertops and tables. “Leah!” Charity said. “How nice you are here.”
Leah shifted from foot to foot self-consciously. Tillie and Oma smiled at her, but she thought the smiles looked stiff. “I’ll just stay a minute. You look busy.”
“We make jelly a couple of times during the summer. And we put up vegetables from our garden so we’ll have plenty to eat during the winter,” Charity explained. “Soon Rebekah, Simeon and a few of their friends will set up a roadside stand for the tourists to buy what we don’t use.”
“I guess I’m used to just going to the grocery store and buying what I want,” Leah said. “My mother didn’t cook very much when I was growing up because she worked.”
Leah saw Charity’s mother and Oma exchange glances. She recalled how Charity had spoken about Amish women and their devotion to home and family. “Of course, Mom had to work,” Leah added defensively. “Sometimes I’d cook supper. I have my grandmother’s favorite recipes. Maybe you could come over sometime and we could bake bread or something.”
Charity flashed Leah a big smile. “That would be fun for me.”
Charity’s mother asked, “Would you like to help us make jelly now, Leah?”
“Sure,” Leah said, surprised by the offer. She really wasn’t looking forward to going back to her tiny apartment and spending the evening alone. “What should I do?”
Tillie led her over to a large basket of green apples. “You can peel these. And when we’re finished, you can take some jars of jelly home with you.”
“Thanks,” Leah told her, and set to work, grateful to be busy. Grateful to be a part of the busy household, if only for a few hours.
Leah was putting gasoline in her car later that evening when she encountered Jonah Dewberry filling up a battered green car at the pump in front of her.
“Hello, Leah,” he said cordially. “Do you remember me?”
“It’s Jonah, isn’t it?”
He nodded. “How are you liking your stay?”
“I’m liking it fine, so far.”
“I saw your car out at the Longacre farm this afternoon.”
“I was visiting.” She didn’t fully trust Jonah and didn’t want to get overly chatty with him.
“Ethan speaks well of you.”
“Oh? What does he say?”
“That you are … different. Special.” But before Leah could feel pleased, Jonah added, “For English.”
She stiffened. “I can’t help who I am, Jonah.”
He pulled the gas nozzle from his car, put it away and screwed on his gas cap. “The elders have a saying that we are taught from the time we are small children. It is, ‘If you only date an Amish girl, you can only fall in love with an Amish girl.’ ”
His rebuke stung. “Do you mean, ‘Play safe’? Do you always play safe? Don’t you do things you’re not supposed to do? I thought that was the whole point of taking a fling.”
“My family would not approve of all that I do. But I have never brought home an English girl. It is a kind of fire that I know better than to play with. There are many Amish girls to pick from. I know one day I will want to be baptized, and marry, and have a family. Be careful, English, that you do not take my friend where it will be impossible for him to get back home.”
Stunned into silence, Leah watched Jonah climb into his car and drive away.
SEVEN
Back home Leah usually slept in on Saturday mornings. But that Saturday, the ringing of her doorbell startled her awake. She grabbed her robe and stumbled to the door, peered through the peephole and saw Ethan standing on her doormat. She unlocked the door and pulled it open. “Well, hello,” she said, not hiding her surprise. “I didn’t expect you.”
He took a step backward. “I am sorry. I have awakened you.”
“It’s okay. Really. Come in.”
“I have come to call on you.” He held his straw hat in his hand.
Leah glanced out the door, half expecting to see his buggy down in the parking lot. “How did you get here?”
“I caught a ride with a farmer headed into town.”
She rubbed sleep from her eyes. “Give me a few minutes.” She hurried off to make herself more presentable, returning quickly dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, her teeth and hair brushed. “You want a soda? I start every day with one.” She felt unnerved. She’d not seen much of Ethan since their night in the woods in the moonlight. Suddenly, here he was, acting as if no time had passed.
He followed her into the shoe-box-sized kitchen. “I came too early. I waited as long as I could, but I wanted very much to see you. I did not mean to wake you.”
She glanced at the clock. It was ten A.M. “What time do you get up?”
“Five-thirty.”
She groaned. “That’s indecent. I can hardly get myself to work at seven every morning.”
“I would like to call on you tomorrow too,” he said.
She took a gulp of soda. “But tomorrow’s Sunday. Don’t you have church?”
“I have decided not to go.”
The news sobered her. She knew what it meant. “Your family might not like this decision.”
“Papa is not pleased. But he knows it’s my right.”
“Ethan … Are you sure about this?” Her run-in with Jonah came back to her. She felt guilty. Would Ethan have made this choice at this time if it hadn’t have been for her?
“I know what I want, Leah.”
Momentarily overwhelmed by emotion, she handed him a soda and walked back to the sofa. She noticed a large bag bearing the name of a department store propped against a cushion. “Yours?” she asked.
“I bought these things last week. May I use one of your rooms?”
“Sure. Use the bathroom.”
She waited on the sofa, thoughtfully sipping her soda. She looked up and stared when he emerged. His Amish clothes had been exchanged for jeans and a blue chambray shirt, his wide suspenders for a belt with a shiny silver buckle. “You look great,” she told him.
He seemed pleased. “Not Amish?” He sat on the sofa with her, holding his homespun clothing rolled up in a ball on his lap.
�
��Less Amish.”
“How can I look less so?”
She frowned. “Ethan—”
“It is what I want.” His eyes, made even bluer by the hue of the shirt, were serious.
She cleared her throat. “You probably need a stylist to cut your hair.”
“Ma and Oma have always cut my hair. What should it look like?”
“We can look through some magazines at guys’ haircuts. There’s got to be a stylist in town who can cut—”
“I cannot!” Ethan interrupted. “Not in Nappanee. It would shame me.”
She thought for a moment. “Look, I have to go in for a checkup in Indianapolis at the end of the month. Maybe you could come along and get your hair cut there.”
His expression turned to one of concern. “You should not have to go for this checkup alone.”
“It’s no big deal,” Leah said, but deep down she knew it wasn’t the truth. She was scared about the checkup. Often her knee throbbed at the end of the workday. She didn’t want bad news from her doctor. And she certainly didn’t want to hear it by herself.
Ethan scooted closer. “My haircut is not important. Would you like me to go with you to your appointment?”
“I’ll have to go during the week because of testing. What about your farmwork?”
“I wish to be with you, Leah.”
“I’m supposed to get a letter telling me when to report, so I’ll let you know. Thanks so much, Ethan. It’s nice of you to offer.” She felt greatly relieved at not having to go by herself. “I plan to see Molly—you remember her, don’t you? The nurse who was so nice, whose sister’s diary Gabriella helped us find?”
“I remember her.”
Leah took the bundle of clothes from his lap, running her palms over the rough weave of the white shirt and black trousers. The pants had no cuffs and only buttons, no zipper because zippers were considered prideful. She wondered if Ethan could put off his Amish upbringing as easily as he had the clothing. She picked up the bag, saw several other shirts and pairs of pants and dumped the old clothes inside. “So,” she said, “what would you like to do today?”
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