Elizabeth nodded. “I will be. I’m sorry.”
“I’ll never bring it up again,” Bridget said, and she put her glasses back on. “It’s over. We’ll pretend this discussion never even happened. Now, off you go. And use that cell phone if you see that Englisher, you hear me?”
“I will.” Elizabeth picked up the money pouch and turned toward the door. She escaped into the warm July sunlight and sucked in a ragged breath. To be lectured by Bridget Lantz—it was almost more than her pride could bear.
Bridget was right, of course. But she was wrong that they’d simply been playing around. Elizabeth wasn’t the kind of woman to do that.... Somehow Solomon, with all the reasons to stay clear of him, had managed to soften her heart. So this might be more dangerous than Bridget feared.
As Elizabeth walked up the drive, the twitter of birds overhead were in stark contrast to the turmoil inside her. Solomon stood at the stall arranging a row of zucchini on the slanted display shelf. He looked up as she approached and silently went into the stall to put the money into the box.
“Everything okay?” Solomon asked.
She looked up to find him at the stall doorway. He met her gaze easily enough.
“Your grandmother saw us last night,” she said woodenly.
Solomon’s face paled and he dropped his gaze. “Oh . . . wow.”
“Yah. And she gave me a very thorough lecture about what good girls do or don’t do,” she said. “I’m not sure she’ll want me to stay.”
“If she wanted you to leave, she’d have you out the door already,” Solomon replied. “Trust me on that. My grandmother is a very decisive woman. She and my mamm have that in common.”
“Great.”
“Hey—” His voice firmed. “Lizzie, I kissed you and you kissed me back. That’s it. Nothing more. I understand my grandmother’s reaction, but—”
“Nothing more?” Elizabeth said. “So this is just a pastime for you?”
“Nothing more to be guilty about,” he said softly. “That’s what I meant.”
She nodded curtly. Right—just some kisses that heated her blood and drained all reason from her brain. Just leaning into those strong arms, even when she knew it wasn’t good for her. Only a few kisses that seemed to mean a great deal less to him.
“What did I say wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing.” She licked her lips and raised her gaze to look at him. “You told me the truth. It was only a few kisses. No big deal.”
“Hey.” He crossed the few feet between them and caught her hand. Then he lowered his lips over hers in a tender, agonized kiss. “This isn’t nothing, okay? I’m not kissing you to pass the time. I’m kissing you because”—he slipped his hand behind her neck and looked into her eyes—“because I can’t help myself, because when I’m holding you, I feel alive. And I care about you—about your thoughts and your worries and your feelings. Okay? This isn’t nothing.”
“Okay . . .”
Elizabeth stood there for a moment, watching him. “But neither of us are staying here, Solomon. We both have plans—lives we hope to live that are very different. And this is quickly becoming very complicated.”
“What do you want, then?” he asked. He hadn’t backed up, and she could feel the heat of his body emanating against her. He looked down into her face. His mouth was a breath away from hers, but what she wanted was very different from what she needed.
“I need to stop this,” she whispered. “Before one of us gets hurt.”
“One of us?” he said.
How she wished she could just ignore the wisdom of her elders and turn off her mind. It would be a wild relief to simply slip into his arms and let him hold her close, ignoring what it would mean for her reputation, for her heart, for her life.
“Me,” she said, her voice trembling. “Before I get hurt.”
Solomon closed his eyes and pressed his lips together. She could see the battle on his features, words he wanted to say but wouldn’t. Then he took a purposeful step back.
“Okay,” he said, opening his eyes again. “For you.”
* * *
Solomon went back out to pull the buckets of flowers into the shade so they wouldn’t wilt while Elizabeth stayed inside the shelter. A car passed, not even slowing down, followed by another.
His heart was beating hard in his chest and he moved the bucket of flowers back a foot to make sure they stayed solidly in the shade. Then he looked over at the stand again. He couldn’t see Elizabeth from here, but he felt like he could feel her over there.
Was this on him? Was he toying with her feelings? Because he wasn’t fooling around with her. This was sincere . . . and if she’d consent to come live an English life with him, he’d be overjoyed.
Except she wouldn’t. He knew that plain as day. All the things that drew him to her were the reasons she’d stay Amish. She was an Amish woman to the core—stable, reliable, kindhearted—and she wouldn’t be lured off by promises of an easier life. Amish women faced hard times with faith and dignity.
But she’d asked him to stop whatever this was between them, so he would. He wasn’t like that Englisher bruiser who’d refused to take no for an answer. Solomon might have made mistakes, but he’d never force himself on a woman in any way—even emotionally.
A pickup truck came up the road, and his heart hammered to a stop. He straightened, staring at it hard, and it felt like his heartbeat only kicked in again when he saw that this was a middle-aged couple. They pulled to a stop and both of them got out.
“Good morning,” the man said. “Glad to see you up and running.”
“Yah,” Solomon said. “What can we get you?”
“Do you have fresh potatoes?” the woman asked.
“Sure do—” Solomon gestured to the bin of potatoes, and for the next few minutes he helped the couple select the produce. The woman also bought two bouquets of flowers, and when the man pulled out his wallet, Solomon stood back and watched as Elizabeth accepted the cash and made change.
“Thank you,” Elizabeth said. “’Bye now.”
The truck rumbled off, and Elizabeth finally met Solomon’s gaze. He could see the sadness there, and his heart squeezed hard. But there was nothing else to say about the matter—she’d made a good point.
Behind him, he heard the rattle of a buggy and he turned to see an Amish buggy approaching. He almost didn’t recognize Elizabeth’s brother Isaiah with his married beard, but Abe Yoder was immediately recognizable—looking just the same as Solomon remembered him.
“Lizzie—”
But when he turned, he saw Elizabeth had spotted them, too, and stood there, her face as pale as paper and her lips parted as she sucked in shallow breaths.
“Daet—” she whispered, and she moved toward the door, pushing outside into the sunlight. Her hands were trembling, and when the buggy arrived and Isaiah reined in the horse, Elizabeth didn’t move.
She turned toward Solomon for the first time, and he could see the excess of emotion tumbling through her. Here was the father she’d resented and raged against, loved and worried about, and he was in front of her. This was her chance to get answers, to have her fears relieved, to vent all that anger that had been building up. She deserved that much.
“I’m fine,” Solomon said. “I can watch the stand alone. Go see your daet.”
She smiled and nodded, tears glistening in her eyes, and she got up into the buggy, and her father moved over to give her room.
“I’ll bring Elizabeth back this evening,” Isaiah said. “If you could just tell your grandmother—”
“Yah, of course,” Solomon said. “She’ll understand.”
But as the buggy carried on past, it wasn’t Elizabeth who met his gaze but Abe. That once-revered preacher’s gaze was filled with sadness and something sharper, something harder, that other people wouldn’t understand, but Solomon recognized immediately. That sharp, cautious look was what was left over after time in prison.
* * *
Solomon was just about ready to close up for lunch and head to town to look for work when a silver sedan slowed to a stop. Another customer.
Solomon came out of the shelter and crossed his arms over his chest, waiting, but when the door opened, he was surprised to see a familiar face. It was Jeff Sparks, his parole officer. The man looked drab and plain outside his office, too, and he smiled mildly in Solomon’s direction.
“Checking up on me?” Solomon asked.
“Yes, sort of,” Jeff replied. “I might drive by from time to time and just . . . check in. It’s part of the job. But I didn’t have a way to reach you, so—” His gaze fell on the cell phone in Solomon’s hands.
“This isn’t mine,” Solomon said.
“No?” Jeff squinted at him.
“It’s for emergencies, and we had it here at the stall in case I needed to call the police,” he said.
“Why would you need the police?” Jeff asked.
“You know . . . emergencies,” he said feebly.
Jeff nodded. “Do most people around here do the same?”
“No,” Solomon admitted. “There are some people I want to avoid if I’m starting over.”
“Good,” Jeff replied. Solomon wasn’t sure if he believed him or not by the tone of his voice, but he went on. “Speaking of starting over, I have something I wanted to tell you about—a program offered by Bountiful’s Church of St. Mary.”
“The Catholic one?” Solomon asked uncertainly. Images of the priest from prison rose in his mind, a mild young man with a rather extensive education who’d taken a good deal of time with Solomon talking about faith, redemption, starting over . . .
“They have a program for newly released inmates,” Jeff said. “Well, their diocese has the program, but they extend it to communities when necessary, and they’re offering it to you.”
“What program?” Solomon asked.
“It’s a work placement for you as long as you’re enrolled in some form of education,” Jeff said. “They’d provide odd jobs that would give you a variety of work experience to help you build up a decent résumé. That’s incredibly valuable these days, and there would even be a chance at getting some reference letters if you worked hard and impressed them.”
“Would I get paid?” he asked.
“Yes. Five dollars an hour above minimum wage, too,” Jeff replied, and he turned back to his car and opened the passenger side door and grabbed a file folder. “I’ve got some information about it here, but if you’re interested in taking advantage of it, I’d have to get you enrolled in your GED and give them proof of that, and then we could apply for it.”
It was generous, but it was also almost as far from the Amish life as just being English had been.
“I talked to a Catholic priest in jail,” Solomon said. “He would come visit us. Some inmates were Catholic, and they’d do confession and whatnot, and then he’d stick around a bit longer for men like me, who just wanted to talk about Gott and if we might be able to find some forgiveness.” Solomon rubbed a hand over his chin. “I liked him. He didn’t see us as lower than him.”
Jeff was silent.
“Thing is, if I do this, it’ll take me outside the Amish life,” Solomon said. “The Amish are . . . Amish. We’re Anabaptist. We do things a certain way. We stick to the Ordnung—we call it the narrow path. If I go back to high school and work with a Catholic agency and find a job in computers or something that pays me something decent . . . I’m not coming back to be Amish. I can see that.”
“Do you need to think about it?” Jeff asked. “There are only a couple of spots for this and I do have other people on my list. I just thought you could benefit, and I wanted to give you the chance first, before I moved on.”
So this came with a time limit. Solomon looked down the drive toward the old, white house, and then up the road in the direction in which the Yoder buggy had disappeared. Elizabeth wasn’t staying—and without her, would he be content living in the family home again with his mother and grandmother? He’d left the Amish life for a reason, even if things had gone disastrously wrong.
“No, I don’t need to think about it,” he said. “It’s a generous offer and I’d be dimwitted not to take it. Do I have to do anything?”
“I’ll take care of the paperwork,” Jeff said. “You can sign everything at your next appointment in my office.”
“Thank you,” Solomon said with a nod. “I do appreciate you doing this for me.”
“You bet,” Jeff said, and he reached for a basket of tomatoes. “Maybe I’ll get some of these gorgeous tomatoes while I’m here.”
“Take them,” Solomon said.
“I’ll pay—” Jeff said.
“No, really,” Solomon said quickly. “I insist. Take them with blessings.”
Jeff smiled and gave him a nod of thanks. “I’ll see you next week. I’ll get started on this paperwork today. I’m glad you’re taking advantage of this.”
Jeff got back into his car and pulled a U-turn, then carried on down the road again, his car sending up a cloud of dust. Solomon dropped the cell phone back into the money bag and put out a little bucket with a sign that read, “Please Pay and Take Your Purchase. We Appreciate Your Honesty.” And then he started down the drive toward the house.
His grandmother would be pleased with the morning’s income and intrigued by Abe Yoder’s return.
For today, at least, he’d just be an Amish man, part of a family and connected to a community. For today at least, he was no longer the newest convict back in Bountiful.
Chapter Twelve
Elizabeth sat next to her brother on the couch in the small sitting room of his small farmhouse. It felt almost like a dream to be looking at her father again—his beard the same, his familiar hands resting on his knees where he sat in a rocking chair. Daet was home—except this wasn’t their family home either. That had been sold along with the farm to pay off the victims who’d lost their life savings to that too-good-to-be-true scam. Abe shifted uncomfortably.
Bethany had taken the baby outside with her to do some gardening, providing for a little bit of privacy while Elizabeth and Isaiah talked with their father. Elizabeth was grateful for that, but now that they were all in the same room together, they simply stared at one another.
“Are you hungry, Daet?” Isaiah asked. “I know Bethany did some baking yesterday.”
“No,” Abe replied. “Not really. Maybe later, Son.”
Isaiah nodded. “Lizzie, we were talking on the way to pick you up. Daet was telling me that they let him have his Bible in his cell and he read through it three times.”
“That’s good,” Elizabeth said, and she felt her hands shaking, so she put them on her knees to still them. She’d been wondering about that—if he’d have the comfort of his Bible or not.
“I missed all three of you more than you’ll ever know,” Abe said. “Have you heard from your little sister?”
Elizabeth shook her head. “No. None of us have.”
“Not even Johannes?” he asked with a frown.
“No. Not even him . . .” Elizabeth sighed. “And the bishop wants Johannes to marry someone else—a widow from Edson.”
“So they’ve given up on her coming back,” Abe said, his voice low.
Elizabeth and Isaiah exchanged a look.
“Isaiah, you were the man of the family while I was gone,” Abe said. “What did you do about this?”
“Me?” Isaiah shook his head. “What was I supposed to do, demand that Johannes wait for my sister after she broke up with him and left town?”
“She’s young,” Abe replied. “She’s willful. She always was. She’s tender and sweet, but underneath that is a core of steel. If I know my daughter at all, she’ll come back.”
“Daet, she left because of you,” Elizabeth said, her voice tight. “She said so in the letter she left. The shame of what you did was too much for her to bear.”
Abe’s face paled and he sucked in an audible breath.
“Was she trying to find me?”
“She was trying to escape your reputation,” Isaiah replied bluntly. “Lizzie and I have had to face this ourselves. We’ve been treated like criminals and we’ve had the entire community talking behind our backs. No one trusts us because of you, Daet. This has been misery for us, and not just because we missed you. It’s because we lost everything!”
“They hold my mistakes against you,” Abe said quietly.
“Yah. We’re your kinner. I was helping you convince them to invest, Daet!” Isaiah’s voice was getting louder. “Why should they think I’m any different from my own father? I wanted to be just like you, remember?”
“But as Christians, we have to forgive,” Abe replied, shaking his head. “There is no choice. There is no debate. Jesus commanded us to forgive!”
“It’s the forgetting they’re having trouble with,” Elizabeth said bitterly.
Her father looked over at her, his gaze hurt and somewhat aghast. Daughters didn’t talk to their fathers that way, and she knew better.
“Daet, at this point we get to speak our minds,” Isaiah said. “That includes Lizzie. She might have lost more than I did. How is she supposed to get married and have kinner of her own now, Daet? I’m still amazed that I have Bethany. I didn’t think I’d find anyone to trust me after what you did.”
“What’s done is done,” Abe replied.
Elizabeth stared at her father, anger building up inside her, but it was her brother who spoke next.
“That’s how you see it?” Isaiah demanded. “We’re just supposed to get over it?”
“I don’t mean that exactly,” Abe replied slowly. “I mean that I don’t think I can fix it. I want to. If I could go back and do things differently, I would.”
“So why did you do it, then?” Elizabeth asked, her eyes misting with tears. “Why would you cross that line and turn to fraud to exact revenge? You’re the one who just said as Christians we’re supposed to forgive. What happened to that forgiveness after Mamm died?”
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