The Brody Bunch Collection: Bad Boy Romance

by Sienna Valentine

  Mother was already busy, standing by the counter cutting vegetables. That was a chore that was usually left to me, and my fingers itched to take over. Instead, I seized the opportunity to attempt a conversation. In the last few days, Father had been around constantly, watching me like a hawk and barely letting me out of sight. Both he and Mother had barely spoken to me except when absolutely necessary. With Father gone this morning, though, maybe I would be able to convince my mother to break her silence.

  After days of hearing nothing but Deitsch, I no longer had to consciously avoid speaking English.

  “How long am I to be treated as an outsider?” I asked, at once doubting the confrontational tone of my question. I’d always spoken my mind in the past, often leading to trouble. Today a softer touch was needed, since trouble was what I was already in. “I’ve apologized to Father for defying him, but I don’t know what else to do? It’s been days and no one even wakes me in the morning.”

  The knife in Mother’s hand paused mid-chop for a moment, and I thought I heard a small sigh escape her lips before it continued. At first she remained silent, long enough that I had almost given up hope, but then she spoke.

  “Father believes you need the extra time alone for quiet contemplation of your sin.”

  “Sin?” I ask, my mouth suddenly dry as I try desperately to force an innocent sound to my voice. My mind immediately flashed back to Wyatt and the basement of his father’s old clubhouse. Or what we’d done in the forest by the cave. Surely they couldn’t know about that? How would they?

  “Were you gone so long that you’ve forgotten your Commandments?” she asked. “Honor your father and mother. You were expressly forbidden from leaving, yet you and Sarah went anyway. Your father does not take such disrespect of his wishes lightly.”

  I was careful to let my breath of relief slip from me silently. Of course. That sin. Despite my reprieve, I still felt annoyed at the injustice I felt over the situation. “It’s not fair that Sarah and I would be banned from Rumspringa simply because Hannah decided not to return. It’s our right to go out and decide for ourselves how we want to live our lives.”

  “Better you not let your father hear you speak like that,” she replied quickly. For my mother, the mere fact that she didn’t reprimand me herself for saying it was as much as admitting that she was at least partly on my side. She would never contradict Father directly. After she’d barely spoken a word to me over the last few days, that little gesture was enough to fill me with hope.

  “What further must I do to atone for this?” I said, more to myself. I knew enough not to push my luck with Mother. She would only go so far in even hinting at disagreement with Father. Best to retreat now and take my small victory before pushing further and turning it into a loss.

  “Your father wants only to give you time to settle back into our ways. I can only imagine what temptations and sins you were exposed to out in the English world. Your father believes that you might need this extra time to ask the Lord for forgiveness.”

  “I was only a week gone, Mother. How many sins could I have committed?” As I said it, the image of Wyatt’s hard, naked body flashed through my mind. I was thankful that my mother was still facing away, focused on her vegetables, or my sudden flush would have given her more information that I cared to share. Perhaps I hadn’t committed sins in quantity, but the depth of my transgressions had run deep. I’d lain with a man outside of marriage. There was barely much I could have done that would have been worse. Certainly in the eyes of Mother and Father.

  The irrational fear returned to me that they knew the details of what I’d done. Maybe that was why they felt I needed days of atonement?

  No. Stop. It’s but guilt and shame giving rise to such thoughts. And those feelings came from being brought up here. In the English world, what I’d done was barely thought twice about. Which is exactly why it’s called the Devil’s Playground! I could almost hear those words being said in my father’s booming voice as they echoed through my head.

  “What you did or did not do is between you and the Lord,” my mother said. “I don’t even want to know.”

  Relief flooded through me again. Of course they didn’t know. But while my mother might not want to know the details, I couldn’t say the same about my father. I’d been expecting his questions to come ever since I stepped through the front door at my return. I couldn’t imagine that I would be able to avoid them forever. Then I’d definitely be able to add lying to the list of sins I’d committed. Or did that still fall under not honoring him?

  “Whatever happened out there, I’m simply thankful that at least one of my daughters hasn’t forsaken her home completely.” There was an audible hitch in her voice, and the knife had stopped moving again.

  “Mother…” I began. “Sarah didn’t leave because she was unhappy here. You know that, right? She just wanted to see the world outside of this community.” I felt a twinge of guilt in saying that. Sarah likely would have been more than happy to stay and not go on Rumspringa at all had I not pushed her into it. But I wasn’t the reason she hadn’t returned.

  “And yet now that she’s seen it, she has not returned. Why?”

  Mother’s shoulders slumped forward. She put the knife down and held the edges of the counter, leaning into it. Her hair—once as blond as mine but now more gray than anything else—obscured her face from me even as I moved towards her. She hadn’t yet bothered to put it up in a bun as she normally did when she’s at home.

  “Mother,” I said, gently laying my hands on her shoulders. “It has nothing to do with you or our home.” The truth was, for the first couple of days that I’d been back, I had fully expected Sarah to show up at any moment, angry at me for leaving her behind when she was the one that hadn’t even wanted to leave in the first place. But after a time, it became obvious she wasn’t going to return. And obvious why. Her and Reid must have made up. And for her to have decided to stay with him instead of coming back, it meant even more than that. “She’s found love.”

  My mother took a long and shuddering breath, and I turned her to face me, brushing back her hair so that her round and time-worn face was visible. Her blue eyes were fringed in red, but there were no tears. “And what of Hannah?” she finally asked. I couldn’t even recall the last time my mother even mentioned her name. “Is she… well?”

  “Yes,” I nodded. “Very well. One of the first things she asked about was you. She misses you, but I think… I think she’s found love, too.”

  My mother’s face was sad, but there was a flicker of something else there as well. Pride, perhaps? As unhappy as she was at losing two of her daughters, she was also happy to learn that they were doing well. At least I saw no anger there. I couldn’t say the same when I imagined how Father would feel. I didn’t believe knowing that his daughters had found love in the English world would change the anger and betrayal he felt at them leaving home for good.

  “Well, at least I still have my baby.” Then my mother gave me a tight hug, and I couldn’t help but return it with the same vigor. Despite everything, I had missed her while I’d been away. Yet given the choice, would I have come back here over staying with Wyatt?

  I had been given the choice. I chose to come home.

  No.

  That wasn’t fair. I almost shook my head at my own runaway thoughts. I didn’t leave because of Wyatt. I left because it didn’t seem safe. I left because I was scared. Maybe I was the baby that everyone still thought me to be. Even Sarah, who was terrified to leave home in the first place, had enough sense to stay with the man she loved. The man who loved her.

  But did Wyatt love me? He had never said so. But I had never said it to him, either. I hadn’t really even known I had loved him until he was gone. Now he was all I could ever think about.

  Even if he did love me, he probably hated me now for leaving. Certainly hated me for judging him so hastily, not giving him a fair chance to explain or giving us enough time to work things out as Sarah had ob
viously done for Reid.

  Or maybe he was still waiting for me, hoping that I will return after all?

  “I’m so glad you came home,” my mother whispered, her mouth close to my ear. “I don’t know what I would have done if I had lost all of my daughters.”

  The words were sweet and filled with love, yet they still caused my heart to sink. Even if Wyatt was waiting for me, I couldn’t leave again. I couldn’t let my mother lose her last daughter.

  “Maybe there’s a way they can still visit,” I reply. If that were true, then it would be a compromise that might even allow me to go back and see Wyatt again. Find out if leaving was a huge mistake, or—

  “That would be quite impossible.” Father’s booming voice caused me to release my grip and jump back away from Mother. My heart was pounding in my chest as I turned to see his stern eyes glaring at both of us. As if our display of emotion towards each other was yet another cardinal sin. If he had still been expecting mother to shun me today, then that just might be the way he saw it.

  “You know the rules, Beth, although you seem to have no problems breaking them. Rumspringa is tolerated as the last bit of adolescent disobedience before moving to adulthood. Those who make the choice not to return to our way of life are making the choice to forgo it completely and are not welcome back under any circumstances.”

  It was true. For those that decided not to return, they would become an outsider, not only shunned from the community, but their family as well. There was no coming back from it, which is why many families tried to dissuade their children from ever going in the first place. Including ours. Especially after already losing one child. Although in truth, Father had never really been a big supporter of the practice even before Hannah’s disappearance.

  “When you came back the other day, Beth, you made a promise to me that you would honor our rules. If you are to stay here, you must commit to this promise. That means I will hear no more talk of Sarah or Hannah. They’ve made their choice to leave, and they both are old enough to understand the consequences of that decision. You must promise to never attempt to contact them again, nor do I want to ever hear their names come from your lips. If you can’t agree to that, then you should leave now and join them. But if you do, I do not want to ever see you come back here again.”

  For a moment, the ultimatum almost sounded like a welcome choice. Like Father was providing me with an excuse to leave and run back to Wyatt. For that single moment, my heart leapt at the possibilities.

  But then my gaze swept back to my mother. I could see in her eyes that she knew what I was thinking, and the idea almost broke her. Her own expression was almost like an audible plea for me not to go, not to leave her completely childless and broken hearted.

  It was still a tough choice. In the end, I think the only reason I was able to make the decision I did was because I really wasn’t sure whether Wyatt still wanted me to come back. If he and my mother had been standing across from each other, and he was asking me to run away with him, telling me that he felt for me the same as I felt for him, then my choice would have been unbearably difficult, and I’m not sure I could have made the same decision that I eventually made.

  But he wasn’t here.

  So all I could do was nod and say “Yes father. I understand. I’m here to stay.”

  22

  Wyatt

  “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

  As much as I normally resented hearing that angry, disappointed, fatherly tone coming from Ash, this time I deserved it.

  “You already said that on the phone,” I reminded him.

  “Well it bears repeating. I have half a mind to leave you the fuck in here. Maybe someone will beat some sense into your stupid head.”

  I looked behind me but the only other guy in here was snoring on one of the cots behind us and even if he was awake, was no match for me.

  “Look, just get me out of here, will ya? You can remind me of what a fuck up I am when I’m on the other side of these bars.”

  But Ash wasn’t in a forgiving mood. “No. First you tell me what the fuck happened, and where the fuck you left Beth while you were being an asshole, and then I’ll decide whether you’re worth bailing out.”

  I felt my teeth clench reflexively, but I held my breath for a moment and then let it slowly out to release the tension. Going off on Ash right now wasn’t about to help my case. Especially given what I had to tell him about Beth. I’d been dreading it since I’d called him to come and bail me out of the drunk tank in the first place.

  “Nothing happened,” I said wearily. It had been a few hours since my last drink, but I’d probably had enough over the last few days to keep me legally drunk for a week. “I was just drunk and decided to be an asshole. Someone called me on it, and we ended up getting into a fight. It was my fault.” I had no excuses this time. My anger and frustration over losing what may have been the love of my life needed to come out after days of being greased and fueled with booze. The guy at the bar had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  “Why the fuck were you getting that drunk? And where the hell is Beth?”

  “Beth is why I was getting that drunk,” I said. “She left.”

  “Left? What the fuck do you mean she left? Left to go where?”

  “She left to go home.”

  Ash’s face grew very serious as he stared at me. “I hope that by home, you mean back to Hannah’s place.”

  I shook my head. “No. Home home. Back to her village. Back to her parents.”

  Ash’s face grew white and his hands gripped the bar separating us. “When? When did she leave?”

  “I dunno, days ago. Right after the barbecue. She got spooked by those guys and said she needed to go home where she felt safe.”

  By the look on Ash’s face, you’d have thought I’d told him I’d sent Beth off to war rather than back home to her mother and father. “And you let her go back?” His voice was rising to almost a yell. The guy behind me snorted once, as if he was about to wake up, but then resumed snoring almost immediately. The guard standing at the door on the other side of the room looked up with a raised eyebrow, like he thought he was going to have to break up another fight.

  “What did you want me to do?” I asked with an angry shrug. “Stop her? It’s not like I wanted her to leave but what could I have done? Throw her over my shoulder and drag her back to Hannah’s place like a caveman?”

  “If that’s what it took then, yes, you idiot,” he snapped. Ash had a wild look, and it was starting to make me nervous. So much so that I completely ignored the names he was calling me.

  “What are you talking about, Ash? Why are you so concerned over the fact that Beth left me? It’s not like she was your girlfriend. What the fuck do you care?”

  “Fuck,” he just said, shaking his head. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” He turned and stalked away, stopping at the guard for a moment and then both of them disappeared, leaving me to wonder what the hell was going on.

  Why did Ash care so much about Beth disappearing? Did he worry that if she went home, the other girls would follow her? Maybe Sarah would, but why would Hannah? She had left her sisters there years ago and had never gone back to join them. Why would she do so now? None of it made any sense.

  I was left to stew in my own thoughts for about twenty minutes before Ash and the guard returned to free me, my brother having finally posting my bail. It wasn’t until we were outside the station that he finally spoke.

  “You really fucked shit up this time,” he growled. I stopped and grabbed his arm, spinning him around violently.

  “What’s going on, Ash?” I asked. My own voice was low and steady, but that was only because I was doing my best not to lose my temper again right in front of the police station. “Tell me.”

  “Those guys from the other night,” he said. “They were sent by Beth’s father.”

  “What?” I felt like the wind had been kicked out of me.

  Ash was scrubbing
his hand through his hair, a pained look on his face. “I promised to keep it a secret, but… their father, he’s a piece of shit.”

  “Well you’ve been saying the same thing about ours for years.”

  Ash shook his head. “No, not like ours. Worse.”

  How could an Amish guy be worse than a guy that’s behind bars for running a motorcycle gang?

  “He… he did things to Hannah. Or at least, he allowed others in their village to do things to her.”

  “What kind of things?” I couldn’t stop myself from asking, but from the look on Ash’s face, I already knew.

  “Very fucking bad things. She was beautiful, and they considered that a fucking sin or some shit. Or at least, that was his justification. And so he’d let others in the town have their way with her. If she resisted, he’d tie her down, shove something in her mouth to keep her from screaming, whatever it took. And when she tried to finally tell someone, her own fucking mother, she wasn’t believed. Her father denied it. Called her a whore and claimed he found her fucking some kids in the woods. Her mother bought the whole thing, took his side. He was even going to punish Hannah for it, but that was the last straw. She left the next day and never looked back.”

  I just stared at my brother with my mouth open, suddenly feeling more sober than I’d ever felt in my life even though I knew that alcohol still flowed through my veins. It was being quickly replaced by something else though. Something hotter and more violent. My fists clenched so hard my knuckles hurt.

  “And Beth went back to that? To him?” I asked, incredulous.

  “She doesn’t know. Neither does Sarah. Hannah was scared to tell them. Scared they wouldn’t believe it either. As far as she knows, her father never touched them. Not yet, anyway. She said he was into other shit, too. Uses the fact that everyone sort of ignores the Amish to do whatever he pleases. Earns himself a lot of money that way, which he then uses to buy himself more influence in their community.”