“But badly bruised . . .” she murmured.
“Yah . . .” He held his breath and shifted his position slightly.
“What were you doing?” she asked, her heart finally slowing down again. If those ribs weren’t broken, then they certainly needed some ice. She stood up and went to the icebox. It was run on a gas engine, but it stayed nice and cold for most of the day without having to start the motor. She pulled out a freezer bag of frozen corn from last fall’s harvest and a tea towel, then went back to where he sat. She pulled a chair up facing him, and wrapping the bag in the towel, she placed it gently over the spot. He pulled back.
“You need cold,” she said, shaking the towel off the bag and trying again. This time he allowed the bag to touch his skin. “Is that okay?”
Rosmanda looked up to find his dark gaze pinned on her. He licked his lips. “It’s . . . not bad.”
She smiled in spite of it all. “What were you doing?”
“I dropped the saddle.” He smiled ruefully. “And like an idiot, I bent down to pick it up—”
“Oh.” She shook her head. “Not smart.”
“It would have been fine, but the door spooked him,” he added, shooting her a slightly annoyed look.
“Sorry. I was coming to see if you’d want lunch today. I saw you in the horse barn when I went for eggs, and if you weren’t coming for lunch, I’d”—she swallowed—“just make myself something small.”
“Ah.” His dark gaze met hers and they fell silent again. She held the corn against his body, and he slid his hand over hers. His fingers were rough and strong, but his touch was gentle. He touched the tip of her finger with his thumb and smiled slightly. He was teasing again.
“I should—” Rosmanda started to pull back, but he caught her hand.
“Stay,” he murmured.
She could have pulled back—he certainly couldn’t have stopped her if he tried, but there was something in his voice. His parents were out and weren’t due back for a few hours yet. There were no other workers on the farm right now, and no one to interrupt. Her cheeks heated at the thought.
His bare chest drew her gaze, and she looked at those swirls of chest hair for a moment or two, and then before she could think better of it, she reached up and touched it with the tips of her fingers. Levi caught her wrist, running his fingers over her pulse, and when she lifted her gaze, he smiled slightly.
“We’re alone,” he murmured.
“Yes, I’d noticed that . . .” She smiled back, then shook her head. “We were supposed to be careful, Levi.”
“Yah, I know.” He tugged her closer and laid her hand against his chest, then slid his fingers down her side. “Come here.”
“I’m already here . . .” she breathed, but she knew what he wanted. Those dark eyes stayed locked on hers.
“Closer.” His voice was deep and commanding, and she licked her lips, leaning a little closer. He caught her dress in a handful of fabric and tugged her against him. She fell into his chest, and she went to pull back, but he held her firm.
“I’m going to hurt you,” she said.
“I’m fine. It’s the other side.” Levi’s lips turned up in a smile, and his fingers moved in small, encouraging circles over her side through the fabric. “Come closer.”
“I don’t think I can—” She laughed softly, but she knew exactly what he wanted. She could see the stubble on his face, the small lines around his eyes, one eyelash that lay on his cheek. She pursed her lips and blew it off. His skin was smooth against her fingers, and she found her breath had become a little shallow. She wanted to touch him, feel him underneath her hands.
“I’ve always loved your lips,” he murmured.
She suddenly felt self-conscious of them as his eyes moved down to her mouth. She wasn’t sure what to say to him, and he lifted his hand and ran a finger down her cheek, across her jaw and down her neck. He stopped at her collarbone, tracing a line along the neck of her dress with the tip of his finger.
“I’d kiss you myself, but it’s going to hurt like hell if I sit up any more than this,” he said with a slow smile.
“Oh—” She was about to pull back when his hand came up to her cheek again and his thumb moved down to her lips.
“Kiss me, then,” he said.
She should say no. She should pull away and tell him it was inappropriate and—She swallowed, looking down at his own strong mouth, and she wondered if it would be so terrible if she did just that.... She leaned closer and just barely touched his lips with hers.
Levi’s eyes shut and he laughed softly. “Kiss me properly.”
Rosmanda leaned in again, and this time, she let her lips linger on his. He took it from there, his fingers moving up to her face, pushing deep into her hair, under her kapp as he pulled her closer. She could feel her hairpins come free as her kapp fell away. His kiss was hard and urgent, and he pulled his fingers through her hair, holding her close. His mouth moved over hers, and when she felt his tongue touch her lips, she sucked in a little breath of surprise and he deepened the kiss. It was a kiss that made her wish she could abandon all her principles and give herself over to him . . . because she ached for this, to be kissed like this, to be wanted the way he was wanting her right now.
This was the kind of kiss she’d never had in her marriage—not even once. And she’d been fine with it. She’d put it aside. She didn’t need it—until moments like this when she felt like she’d tear into pieces if she didn’t get more....
Levi started to sit up, then he stopped and let out a low moan, breaking off the kiss with a ragged breath.
“That hurt you . . .” she said with a soft laugh. He’d have taken this further if the pain hadn’t stopped him, and she felt the heat rise in her face.
“Yah . . . Never mind. Come here—”
“Levi, we shouldn’t,” she whispered.
“There’s no one to come home,” he murmured. “No one to interrupt. If not now, then when?”
She felt the urgency of his words, and she knew what he wanted—to think about it all later and to use this time to its best advantage. She longed for the same thing, but she’d only feel terrible about it later, even if they didn’t cross any ultimate lines and sleep together.
Her hair hung loose around her shoulders, and she put her hands up, suddenly embarrassed. A woman didn’t let her hair down in front of a man.
“Leave it,” he breathed.
She paused, his dark gaze moved over her slowly, methodically, as if he were undressing more than her hair. He reached up and took one of her loose waves between his fingers, let it run through.
“I’ve never seen your hair loose before,” he said, and he frowned slightly. “How is that possible?”
“I was careful to keep it pinned,” she said.
She’d been careful lest her aunt come by or call for her. She needed to make sure her hair was neatly back inside her kapp so that no one could question what she’d been up to around the side of the house by the string bean stakes.
“I want to see you like this more often. . . .”
“It’s not right—” She bent to pick up her kapp and the scattered pins. She couldn’t exactly stop him from looking at her as she rewound her bun and covered it with her white kapp.
“I know,” he said. “But I still want it.”
“That’s for a husband.” Her voice shook when she said it, and she tucked the last pins into her hair, securing the kapp into place.
“I’m not asking for . . . all of you,” he said. His voice dropped a little at the last words, and she felt the heat rise in her cheeks again.
“I know. But my hair is for a husband, you know that.”
“You’re beautiful,” he said quietly.
“And you’re badly hurt,” she said with a breathy laugh. And it was just as well that he was, because if he’d simply sat up and pulled her into his arms, she wouldn’t have stopped him. Levi reached up and tugged at a stray tendril playfully. She unwound it fro
m his fingers and tucked it away where it belonged.
“Stop that,” she said with a low laugh.
“Kiss me again,” he said.
“No. You’ll mess up my hair.”
“I won’t this time. I’ll be good.”
“Kissing me isn’t being good.” But she couldn’t help the smile that came to her lips. What was with Levi, asking for more and more from her? It was like he used to be, drowning in her eyes, his fingers slipping closer and closer to forbidden territory.
Levi grimaced sitting himself up taller, and he shot her a rueful smile. “Okay. I’ll survive.”
But looking at him on that chair, his shirt open and those dark eyes moving over her, slow and warm, she’d never been more tempted in her life.
Chapter Thirteen
Levi touched his bruised ribs cautiously, his gaze on Rosmanda’s retreating form. She adjusted her apron, her fingers moving back up to the pins that held her kapp in place. How wrong was it to enjoy that? He wasn’t meaning to toy with her, but get him alone with this woman and all the logic seeped out of his head. He couldn’t seem to stop himself, and the memory of her lips made him want to stand up and go make that happen again.
If she let him.
What was he thinking, though? Obviously, he’d have to cut this out. He put the bag of corn onto the table and pulled his shirt closed. Holding his arm out to button his shirt only made it hurt more, but he grimaced through the first three buttons, and then stopped.
“You need lunch,” Rosmanda said. “I’ll make some sandwiches. It’s something.”
She was trying to make it normal between them again, but when he looked at her, all he could think about was how her lips tasted, and how he wanted to do that again.
“Thanks,” he said.
Rosmanda’s gaze flickered toward him as she pulled out the bread. “The Englishers call it chemistry. This—the desire between us. They say it’s called chemistry, and you either have it or you don’t.”
“Yah, I could agree with that. You either feel it or you don’t. There’s no forcing this.”
Had she had a fraction of this with his brother? He wasn’t sure he wanted to know. But he could be sure that it wouldn’t have been the same. He’d been with other women when he’d been spending his time in the bars—Englisher women, mostly. So he knew what attraction felt like, but with Rosmanda there had always been something purer about it, somehow. Maybe it was that he’d always seen her as a girl he could have married.
“Well, see what happens to them?” She eyed him meaningfully.
“The Englishers?”
“They don’t have the stability we do. They—” Color suffused her cheeks, and he wondered if she’d just realized what he had, that they weren’t so different from the Englishers in this desire for each other. They weren’t engaged. They weren’t even courting.
“I can’t help the way I feel for you,” he said, and he felt like he owed her an apology for that, somehow.
“It doesn’t make it good for us,” she replied.
“You feel it, too,” he said.
“I know . . . but I’ve also nearly ruined my life by following feelings like ours. And I don’t blame you. I’m the same—I keep stumbling into this.”
“I’m not the same as Jonathan,” he said. “I’m not married. I’m not courting. I’m completely free, and I’m not trying to lure you into anything that’s going to ruin you.”
“If we were caught—” she said, then hesitated.
Levi eyed her for a moment. She might be slim and petite, but she was strong, and he didn’t hold any power over her. “You could tell me off. You know I’d stop.”
“Because—” She sucked in a breath. “There is something about being desired like this . . . And it isn’t just you wanting me . . . I don’t know. Maybe chemistry is a good way to describe it.”
“You don’t find it every day,” he said. He knew. He’d looked. It seemed like the best way to purge her from his system—find another woman who could wake up those feelings for him. It hadn’t worked. “I’m not even convinced it’s in every marriage,” he added.
Rosmanda dropped her gaze and didn’t answer that. Levi could see how easily Aaron had fallen into his relationship with Ketura, even if the whole community would be against it. Sometimes people didn’t want to think about the future when the present was so intoxicating. Like alcohol with a tortured soul.
“Rosie, I don’t know what this is, but it’s real,” he said. “It’s . . . nothing I’ve felt before, not with any other woman. So I know it’s messy, but we aren’t hurting anyone. We’re both single—”
“Someone will get hurt,” she interrupted him, and she met his gaze with a look of longing so deep that it made him catch his breath.
“You’ve had no problem tossing me aside before,” he said.
“Who said it was easy?” Rosmanda sighed.
“I don’t know what to say, Rosie.”
“Neither do I . . .” She looked at the clock. “Your parents should be home within an hour or two.”
“Yah, about that,” he agreed. Then there would be people around again—a human buffer between them and their feelings for each other.
Rosmanda pulled an envelope out of her apron pocket and put it on the counter. “My daet wrote me back. I got it this morning.”
“What did he say?”
“He went to see Jonathan and Mary as soon as he got the letter, but he was too late. As we know already. And he said that Mary was a wreck. She was certain something was wrong and she was worried sick.”
As she would be. Her husband had just up and left her with five kinner to care for.
“Did Jonathan tell her why he’d left?” Levi asked.
“Apparently, he told her that he had some business to attend to, and didn’t know how long it would take.”
A lie to keep his wife from suspecting too much . . . and for what? To keep the furor down until he’d convinced Rosmanda to run off with him? The thought was infuriating—and not only on his wife’s behalf, but because this slug wanted to lure Rosmanda off with him.
“If Jonathan comes near you, I’ll deal with him,” Levi said curtly.
“In your condition?” She raised an eyebrow.
Levi didn’t answer that. He’d heal. He wouldn’t be quite this helpless for long, and his friendliness toward the other man had officially been spent.
“But Daet asked me to . . . send Jonathan home.” Rosmanda sighed and pulled out the sauerkraut and cheese, her attention now on the food in front of her.
“Is that your responsibility?” Levi asked. “You didn’t ask him to come out here.”
“Whose responsibility is it, then?” she asked with a shrug.
“We don’t even know if he’s in town still,” Levi said. “He might be on his way already.”
Rosmanda raised her gaze to meet his. “Do you think so?”
“Why would he stay?” Levi shook his head. “He has no one here but you, and he hasn’t been in contact again . . . has he?”
“No, he hasn’t,” she said.
“It doesn’t make sense to just hang out here,” he replied. “Letters take a bit of time, and for all you know, he’s already back at home with Mary, lying about where he’s been.”
Rosmanda nodded. She added a layer of roast beef, then added the top piece of bread, her fingers working quickly.
“Rosie . . .” he said softly, and she looked up. “Do you need my help with this?”
“With Jonathan?” she said, then shook her head slowly. “I don’t even know what he’s doing.”
“Do you want me to check around town tomorrow, see if he’s around?” he asked.
“If you ask people, you’ll only cause interest where there might not have been any before,” she replied. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“Maybe not,” he agreed. “But I’ll help you if I can. You only need to ask.”
Rosmanda carried the plate to the table, th
en set it down in front of him. He glanced at the clock—it was nearly noon. He grimaced and leaned forward to stand up, but pain shot through his side at the effort.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“To feed the calf.” It had to be done. There was a calf waiting on milk, and there was no other man to do it.
“You stay.” Her gaze moved toward the stairs. “I’m going to check on the babies, and then I’ll go feed the calf. Would you watch my daughters?”
“What if they wake up?” he asked.
“They shouldn’t. If they do . . . I’ll hurry.”
Rosmanda didn’t wait for him to argue, and her shoes tapped up the staircase. Levi sank back into his chair. The sandwich smelled good, but it felt wrong staying here while she went out. Was she running away from him? Maybe . . . and she was also just doing what needed to be done, like any of them. And one of these days, they’d have to face reality, like Aaron and Ketura were doing now.
Would Aaron marry the woman he loved? It was hard to tell. But Aaron and Ketura’s was a cautionary tale—but not because the community would be against Levi marrying his sister-in-law. They would likely encourage it. The caution came because starting something like this was dangerous, because feelings this deep didn’t always dissipate. . . Sometimes, three years later, as both he and Aaron had found out, a man found himself still helplessly in love with a woman who was still utterly wrong for him.
* * *
Rosmanda put the bucket of milk down in front of the calf and watched as it hungrily drank. The calf was grown enough to drink on its own, but she still needed to wait to make sure it didn’t knock the bucket over in its exuberance.
That kiss was still seared into her mind. She could still feel the sensation of his fingers pushing into her hair, his lips moving over hers with such intensity—and she didn’t regret it. She should—that much was certain—but she didn’t. There was something about being caught alone with Levi that made all the perfectly good reasons for her to keep away from him evaporate.
And she’d missed those passionate feelings that sparked so easily between them.
When her sister married an older man she hadn’t been terribly attracted to, Rosmanda had sworn she’d never do the same. But she had. She’d chosen the more stable brother—the strong, single-minded, pious man who asked her to marry him before he even courted her. And she had found a warm, safe place in his arms. They’d had a very affectionate marriage after dark, just not a terribly exciting one.
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