“I know.”
“Do you forgive me for that?” he asked.
“I will,” she said with a quirky little smile. “Eventually.”
He couldn’t help but grin. That was Maggie—never saying the sweetly appropriate thing. She’d been like that as long as he’d known her, and it was why everyone loved reading her words so much. She was honest, heartbreakingly so. Hilariously so. She said it like she saw it, and while it was entertaining for an audience, it was dangerous in a wife.
His daet had been right. Maggie wasn’t a traditional woman and she’d never make a traditional wife. She wanted more than the role of Amish wife could fulfill.
“Thank you for eating with me,” he said.
“Thank you for lunch.” She smiled—her brown eyes warming and that one dimple in her cheek deepening as her gaze met his. He knew she wasn’t right for him . . . he had proof of it. So why were those old feelings flooding back in spite of all the logic in the world?
He couldn’t make his brother’s mistake. His heart couldn’t lead him into a lifetime of regret.
Chapter 3
The next afternoon, Maggie flicked the reins and leaned back in the buggy seat. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and the sun sparkled on all that new-fallen snow. She’d been trying not to think about Atley, but Christmas had always reminded her of him and all the hopes she’d had for the future that first Christmas they were officially courting.
Amish gifts were always small and useful, but that Christmas, Atley’s gift for her was special. He’d found her a pincushion shaped like a strawberry, and he’d given it to her so that she’d remember how he liked to kiss the tips of her fingers. She still had it, hidden deep in a drawer where only she knew of its existence.
Funny that those silly words about her fingertips would have meant so much to him, too. Young love was a strange thing. It seeped into the cracks. For better or for worse. Amish girls were warned to be careful in their dating so they’d have no regrets. No one warned them that even if a girl behaved herself perfectly, only letting him kiss the very tips of her fingers, she’d never be able to scrub away the last of her feelings for him.
And now he was back—just for a few days—and she was trying to push him from her mind. She had bigger problems right now, and the last thing she needed was to be reliving old heartbreak. She was determined to leave those days in the past. What other choice did she have?
The horse’s hooves plodded in a comforting rhythm along the road. She hadn’t seen a car since she’d started back from her younger sister’s home. Naomi was married to a farmer, with two kinner of her own, and Naomi was pregnant again. Three years younger, and already a mamm to a toddler and a bobbily who’d just gotten her first two teeth. Naomi had more experience than Maggie did now. She was the one giving out advice about finding a husband and how to balance two children with the housework. She was the one doing her Christmas baking and putting a hand up to her head and sighing, “It’s harder when you’re pregnant. I get so tired out.” It was Maggie helping her younger sister with housework at this delicate time, keeping her mouth shut because she had nothing to add to the conversation.
The winter wind blew cold and moist. Maggie drew her gloved hands underneath her shawl for extra protection from the elements. Was she fooling herself by thinking that her voice was worthy of being heard out there with the Englishers? Because behind a false name she could wax eloquent. In her sister’s kitchen, she was less sure of herself. With her own family, simply being Amish wasn’t enough if she wasn’t married.
Ahead, along the side of the road, she could see a man working on a fence. His movements were slowed by the deep, wet snow, and he paused in his work, shading his eyes against the bright sunlight to look in her direction. This was the Graber property, wasn’t it? The far side of it, at least. The Grabers could afford to hire some help and she was used to seeing their farmhands around, but she recognized something in that man’s stance that made her heart stumble in her chest. It was Atley. He didn’t seem to recognize her, though.
He turned back to his work again, pulling out a hammer and after some fiddling giving some solid, echoing thwacks. Farther into the field, there was a feeder overflowing with hay, and cattle surrounded it, tails flicking. A curious steer was standing closer to the broken fence. Given a chance, it would make a run for the other side of the road.
As Maggie approached, she reined in her horses and watched for a moment while Atley worked. The steer walked closer, and Atley looked from the steer toward her and shot her a grin.
“I thought that was you,” he said. “So you drive yourself around now, do you?”
“I’m twenty-five,” she replied. “I might as well.”
The steer angled toward the sagging part of the fence.
“Hey! Get back!” Atley barked, and the animal stopped; then Atley turned back to her. “Did you open the envelope?”
“What?” Maggie tied off the reins and tossed the lap blanket off so that she could get down from the buggy.
“The envelope—the one the Englisher fella gave you,” he said. “Did you open it?”
Maggie felt some heat in her cheeks. “Yah.”
She’d gone out to the barn on her way for gathering eggs and opened it out there.
“And?” he prodded. “Look, if we’re not going to get any more columns, at least satisfy my curiosity. What was in the letters?”
Maggie chuckled. “Watch out. The cow—”
Atley turned and waved his hand at the approaching animal. “Get back! Hya!”
The steer was getting braver now, and Maggie looked up and down the road. They were alone. She sighed and pulled up her skirt to her knees as she stepped into the deeper snow.
“Maggie, you don’t have to—” he started, and then when she took a long step over the ditch he shot out a hand and caught her, tugging her against him as she landed. She let out a laugh and looked up into his face. His cheeks were red from cold, and their breath mingled in a cloud together between them.
“You need help,” she said.
He released her, but his dark gaze followed her as she stepped around him. She bent and picked a reed that hung broken from the ditch, and she thwacked the steer’s nose with it. The steer took a step back.
“That does help,” Atley said, and he turned back to mending the fence. He put two nails between his lips and started hammering again. He glanced up at her, then said past the nails, “Well?”
“The letters, you mean?” she said, and she waved the stiff reed at the cow again warningly. “Well, one was from a girl who said that she wanted to get married, but her boyfriend wanted to live together first. She wasn’t sure what to do.”
“Ah.” Atley straightened. “What would your advice be?”
“I always tell the readers what we do as Amish,” she said. “I’d tell her that we get married if we’re serious and break up if we’re not. Period. We don’t play with anything in between.”
“Right.” He met her gaze. “So your advice would be . . . ”
“To either get married or move on,” she said. “Of course.”
“And the heartbreak?” he asked. “That’s what’s stopping her, most likely.”
“Heartbreak, like hard work, can’t be avoided if you’re going to do the right thing.”
“Would you say that?” he asked.
“Of course.”
Atley took a nail from between his lips and moved down the rail. “Why do the Englishers like your advice, I wonder? It goes against their ways.”
“They come to me for a reason,” she said. “Maybe they like things a little more defined, after all.”
“Maybe she wanted to be told to break it off and it was easier than making the choice herself,” Atley replied.
“Maybe.”
Atley had broken it off with her . . . and then again with the girl he’d been courting in Bountiful. He seemed willing to take the emotional beating that came with hard choices. But Mag
gie could sympathize with a girl caught between the boy she loved and the life she wanted. It wasn’t an easy position to be in.
Atley hammered another nail firmly into the wood before he straightened. “Any other letters?”
“An older woman who had a misbehaving grandson,” she said. “He’s ten, and horribly rude. Won’t listen to adults, swears, and defies guidance.”
Atley raised his eyebrows.
“I can’t answer that one,” she said with a small smile.
“Because you don’t have children?” he asked.
“There is that,” she agreed. “Have you seen the men younger than you with kinner of their own?”
“Yah.” He looked up at her, and their eyes met. He smiled ruefully. “They’re men with families already, and I’m . . . wasting time.”
“It isn’t so simple, though, is it?” she countered.
“No, not so simple,” he agreed.
But it was easier for him—he was a man. He didn’t come with an expiry date attached. He could decide to marry at any time, if he were less afraid of marrying wrong.
“I’m better with the teenagers’ questions, really,” Maggie said. “I’ve been their age before. With parenting questions—I’m no expert. But it’s more than that. Sometimes we can’t say what we Amish would do. With that boy, I’d tell her to whip him. I gave that advice once, and Horace said I can’t say that. He had me answer a different letter instead.”
“You can’t say it, even if it’s honest Amish advice?” he said.
“Apparently.” She shrugged. “If that child were raised Amish, the whipping wouldn’t even be necessary. He’d know better at this point.”
“Yah,” he agreed.
Atley dropped his hammer headfirst into his pocket and took a high step through the deep snow, coming closer to her.
“What other letters?” he asked.
“A boy . . . ” She licked her lips. “He didn’t have much money but wanted to get his sweetheart a gift.”
“Ah.” Atley was close enough to her that she could feel the warmth of his breath in the air between them. “That’s a problem as old as time.”
“Yah,” she agreed.
“Well?” His dark gaze moved over her face. “What would you tell him?”
“What would you?” she countered.
“Me?” He laughed softly. “I’m not Miss Amish.”
“Still, you were a boy once,” she said. He’d been a handsome boy with eyes that made her melt into a puddle.
“I don’t know what I’d advise, really,” he said. “I remember giving you something sentimental and silly. You probably find it funny now.”
“I have it in my dresser drawer,” she breathed. “In the back corner. It’s safe there.”
“I’m embarrassed about it now,” he said.
“It was perfect. It reminds me—” She stopped. “It reminded me of sweet days in the barn loft with the hay tickling my legs and you—”
She stopped, not wanting to say exactly what it reminded her of. But she could vividly remember the way he’d hold her fingers and kiss the tips, his hat on the hay beside them, their fingers twined together.... His lips had been so soft, and even as she remembered those hazy days her breath caught in her throat.
He dropped his gaze, smiling slightly. “I was laughable.”
“You loved me. . . . ”
His gaze flickered up to her again, and his dark eyes were filled with tenderness. “Yah, Maggie. I did love you.”
Atley reached out and caught her hand. They were both in gloves, so she couldn’t feel his skin against hers, but she licked her lips and looked up tentatively.
“If love had been enough, Maggie . . . ” he murmured.
But it hadn’t been. She tugged her hand free of his. Her feet were cold in her boots, and some snow had drifted in over the tops of them.
“I need to go home,” she said.
“Right. Yah.” He cleared his throat. “I was going to help out your daet this afternoon. We’re going to finally patch that hole in the wall before a storm comes in.”
“Do you want a ride back?” she asked.
He smiled that relaxed, boyish grin of his. “Yah, if you’re offering.”
It was like nothing had changed, and her heart skipped a beat like back in the days when they were sneaking around to see more of each other and parking the buggy under some trees to get a few minutes before he had to drop her off after singing....
Except they weren’t young anymore, life had only gotten more complicated, and love hadn’t been enough. Whatever this was—memories, torment—it had to stop. Her life might not be what she’d hoped, but she had to move on.
* * *
Atley hopped across the ditch and held out a hand. Maggie eyed him, then looked down into the slushy marsh between them. She squinted into the sunlight, her dark hair shining. She was beautiful—more than he remembered. Back then, she’d been a girl, barely a woman, but now she’d matured, he found himself looking at her differently.
She was wrong for him—anyone could tell him that. But when it came to Maggie, he couldn’t look away. Those dark eyes, the lustrous hair that he could only see a glimpse of before it disappeared beneath her white kapp . . . And then there was that one dimple in her cheek that had always made him want to make her smile so he could see it.
“I’ll catch you,” he said.
She smiled halfway. “You’d better not drop me, Atley Troyer. That ditch is all slush.”
He shot her a grin. She wasn’t very big compared to him, and the last five years of hard work had hardened him into manhood. He certainly wouldn’t drop her.
“Come on. Jump.”
“I’m serious,” she said.
“So am I. I’ve caught beams heavier than you. Come on.”
Maggie eyed him skeptically for a moment. “Are you ready?”
“Jump already!” He laughed.
She leapt, and he reached out, caught her arm as her foot came down onto solid ground, and pulled her against his chest. Her eyes widened as she landed against him, her chest rising and falling with her quickened breath. Her gaze met his, and he felt a smile tug at his lips.
“See?” he said. She felt good in his arms. Too good . . . “I’m not exactly an old man yet, Maggie.”
She didn’t answer, and he was about to let her go but couldn’t quite make himself do it. She was warm and soft, and she smelled ever so faintly like fresh baking. She’d always smelled good, like sunshine and vanilla.
“Atley—” she began, and his gaze flickered down to her lips.
He’d missed her so much more than he’d realized, and as he stood here with her lips so close to his the only thing he could seem to think about was dipping his head down and catching them. But he’d never kissed those lips before—not even back when they were dating.
The sound of a car’s engine floated on the wind, and he shut his eyes, then dropped his arms. A car slowed as it passed the buggy, the occupants looking out the window at them, and he pressed his lips together. The Englishers were always so curious, staring at regular Amish folk like they were animals in a zoo. But maybe that was a veiled blessing. He and Maggie were out in public, and he shouldn’t be thinking those kinds of thoughts about her anyway.
“We should get back,” he said gruffly.
“Yah.” Maggie turned toward the buggy, and he felt like miles had suddenly slipped between them.
He’d upset her. He could feel it, and he inwardly chastised himself. What was he doing? Would he really have kissed her, if that car hadn’t interrupted them? It would have been stupid, and she likely wouldn’t have forgiven him. He was the one who’d broken her heart all those years ago, after all. And he couldn’t offer her anything more now.
The horses shuffled their hooves, and Atley made a point of keeping his hands at his sides as he and Maggie made their way through the snow back to the buggy. She hoisted herself up without any help from him, and he pulled himself up afte
r her, settling next to her in the seat.
“Maggie, back there—” He winced. “I hope you don’t think that I . . . That we . . . I hope you don’t . . . ” He didn’t have the words, but he wanted to fix this, somehow.
“We need to be more careful,” she said simply.
“I’ve missed you,” he admitted.
Maggie looked over at him, sadness welling in her eyes. “I’m glad you did. It’s only right.”
She flicked the reins and the horses started onto the road again with a jerk. The wheels crunched over the icy gravel.
“Why did you come for Christmas?” she asked with a sigh. “Of all times, Atley?”
“My uncle asked if I’d—” He stopped. He knew what she was saying. He’d known that he’d see her, and Christmas, of all times of the year, would be difficult.
“Did you think it would be easy seeing each other again?” She fixed him with those glittering dark eyes, and he wasn’t sure what answer she wanted.
“No, not easy,” he said. “I’ve been reading your column, after all.”
“What does that mean?” She flicked the reins, her movements practiced.
“Maggie, we all fell halfway in love with you reading that column,” he said with a low laugh. “I’m no exception.”
She didn’t answer, but her brow furrowed. He wasn’t explaining himself very well, and to any other Amish woman that would sound like a proposal. Who was he fooling? Maybe it sounded that way to her, too. Except she didn’t look at him again. She kept her gaze riveted to the road.
“I’m looking for some human foibles in you,” he went on. “I’m looking for the real woman, because Miss Amish is just a little too—”
He stopped. Alluringly open. Intoxicatingly honest. An Amish woman with an English boldness about her. She was all wrong for him, always had been. So why couldn’t he just let her go, move on with his life, and find that sweet Amish girl he knew he needed?
“But you know that I’m not what you want. You’ve known that for years,” she countered.
“You want the truth?” he asked.
“I see little reason to ask for anything else,” she replied. He’d annoyed her, and somehow he liked that. It made this easier. She wasn’t like the other girls, breathlessly awaiting some declaration of feeling from him.
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