by Amy Lillard
Maybe not.
“I didn’t want to steal a kiss. I wanted to share a kiss with you.”
She was wrong. Those were the sweetest words she had ever heard. “Okay,” she heard herself saying.
“Okay?” His voice sounded a little like he’d stepped on a frog.
“Jah,” she said. “That is what I want, too.”
“Tonight,” he croaked. “When I take you home?”
She shook her head. “What’s wrong with now?”
In an instant he closed the small gap between them. Perhaps he too had been nearly tortured by the wait, the anticipation of wondering if the actual kiss would live up to the expectations building in their minds.
His arms wrapped around her as he lowered his head. His hat bumped her ear and fell to the ground at their feet, but she hardly noticed. She was too focused on him.
His lips were cool on hers, his kiss warm in the fall night. It was gentle and strong, soft and firm, and everything she could have asked for. And it was more.
She melted right there in the November night air. But it was okay, because he was there to hold her up. He was there to catch her sigh as he continued to kiss her like he couldn’t get enough.
Never before had she been kissed with such tenderness and passion all wrapped up in one restrained package. She never wanted it to end.
“Elam, is that you?”
Emily stepped back as Elam lifted his head. His eyes were dark and unreadable, but something in the light sparkling there told her they were lucky they had been interrupted. How long they would have stood there, locked in each other’s warm embrace was anyone’s guess.
“Jah.” His voice sounded rusty as he bent down to retrieve his hat.
How had they not heard the door to the house open? Or Andrew Fitch, Caroline’s husband, step out onto the porch? Even worse, how long had he stood there watching before he called out to them?
Shame stained her cheeks with a heat that could only be as red as Andrew’s horse barn. Shame and something else.
“Are you coming in?” Laughter colored Andrew’s tone.
“Jah.” Elam slapped his hat against his thigh, but never took his gaze from her. He placed the hat back on his head and offered her his arm. “We’ll be right there.”
Unfortunately Andrew waited for them to come into the house, leaving them no time to talk. Not that Emily could have put words to it. She wasn’t sure what had happened between them. She knew it was special and unexpected, but other than that, she was lost.
“Are you allrecht?” Lorie grabbed her elbow and steered her away from the milling party guests.
Caroline had set up a table across the back of their living room. She had piled it high with bread, turkey, all sorts of finger foods, some kind of meatballs, and a variety of chips. Emily couldn’t eat a thing.
“Jah,” she lied. She wanted to tell Lorie the truth, but she couldn’t find the words. Didn’t even know how to explain what happened to herself.
Lorie crossed her arms and eyed Emily with that pinning stare. “Tell me another lie, and I’ll report you to the deacon.”
Emily didn’t answer. Instead she glanced to the other side of the room where Elam stood. Andrew Fitch appeared to be giving him as much trouble as Lorie was giving her.
It didn’t take long for her friend to figure out what had happened.
“Oh, gut himmel.” Lorie grabbed her by the arm and dragged her into the kitchen.
Caroline stood at the stove stirring a large pot of something that smelled pretty gut, but Emily had no wits about her to tell what it was from its aroma alone. Joanie Yoder stood next to her.
“Joanie, Samuel King was looking for you.”
The girl dropped the stack of paper plates on the counter and hurried from the kitchen.
“Lorie,” Caroline admonished. “That wasn’t very nice. She’s had a crush on him forever.” She replaced the lid back on the pot and wiped her hands on a dish towel. “My word,” she exclaimed. “What happened to you?”
“Nothing,” Emily said, then shook her head. These were her friends, her best freinden. She could tell them anything. “Elam kissed me.”
“It must have been some kiss for you to be this dreamy-eyed,” Caroline said.
Emily shrugged. “It just surprised me is all.” That was what it was. Surprise. She had never kissed anyone but Luke. Elam’s kiss took her by surprise. Jah. That made perfect sense.
Surprise and nothing more. The next time wouldn’t be like that at all.
Elam waited until they were almost to Emily’s haus before he spoke. They had spent the entire evening avoiding each other. Not very mature of either of them, but he didn’t trust himself not to kiss her once more just to see if it would be that fantastic again.
Or maybe he was the only one who felt sparks fly.
It was a cold night. Instead of scooting closer like couples do to share their warmth, Emily held herself stiffly away from him.
Maybe courting was a bad idea. Maybe she wasn’t ready to move on from Luke.
He cleared his throat. “I won’t bite, you know.” He did his best to make his voice light and teasing, but somehow it sounded as rough as a cob. “I mean, it’s cold, and if’n you want to scoot closer . . .” That didn’t sound any better.
“I’m fine.” Evidently Emily thought the same thing.
He shouldn’t have waited so long to talk to her about what happened at the party. But he hadn’t known how to handle it. He’d been a little too stunned to think clearly, then Andrew on the porch. Elam hadn’t been left alone with his thoughts for more than three minutes all night long. How was he supposed to sort through this myriad of emotions while a party carried on around him?
If he had been smart, he could have pulled her aside at the house, in the warmth, and talked to her there. As it was, he wanted to pull to the side of the road and clear the air between them before they went one foot farther, but it was too cold to sit in a buggy and hash through feelings he couldn’t decipher on his own.
He pulled the buggy into the drive at the Ebersols’. First off, he noticed the lights shining in every window. It looked as if no one was asleep.
“So much for coming in and being alone,” he muttered.
“What?” Emily finally turned toward him. If he wasn’t mistaken, it was the first time she had looked at him since their kiss.
“We should talk about this.” He pulled the horses to a stop. “But it’s a little too cold out here.”
She bit her lip as she glanced at the house, no doubt coming to the same conclusion he had. There would be no privacy for them there. “The barn,” she said.
“What?”
She slid from the buggy without waiting for his help and raced toward the big double doors. He had no choice but to follow.
The inside of the barn was dark and quiet, the night interrupted only by the soft breathing of the stabled animals.
Emily lit a lantern and turned to face him. “Talk.”
“I shouldn’t have kissed you tonight. At least not in the middle of Andrew’s yard.”
She nodded. “I shouldn’t have asked you to.”
Not exactly the productive talk he had imagined. “Well, that clears things up.” He shoved his hands into his pockets, pretending like he needed the warmth when in truth he didn’t know what to do with them. They wanted to reach out and brush the wisps of escaped hair back from her face, show her that he could be kind and loving, everything she could want from a boyfriend and suitor.
“This is awkward.” She sighed. “But I feel I need to be honest with you.”
“You haven’t been?”
“Not totally,” she whispered. She took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “I have loved Luke Lambright for as long as I can remember.”
He tried to hide the frustration her words caused. Luke had left her behind for the pleasures of the world.
“When he left, I held the hope that he would forget about race car driving and
come back to Wells Landing.” She stopped, as if gathering her thoughts. “I talked to him the other day. He’s not coming back. Not ever.”
Elam wanted to call him a fool, but he was sure it wouldn’t change Emily’s feelings on the situation.
She raised her shoulders and let them fall, the gesture more defeated than he would have imagined. “I just need some time is all.”
He nodded. There was only one thing worse than her being in love with someone else, and that was her thinking she was in love with someone else.
But it was allrecht. He was a patient man.
Chapter Fourteen
“Are you awake?” Emily crept into Mary’s room. She needed to talk to her sister in the worst way. But she didn’t want to disturb Rose.
“Jah,” Mary whispered in return.
Emily heard the sound of the covers shifting as Mary scooted over to make room for her in the bed.
As quietly as possible she climbed into the bed next to her sister.
“Was iss letz?” Mary asked. “What is wrong?”
Emily sighed. She had seen the look of concern on her sister’s face when she’d entered the house that evening. Her talk with Elam hadn’t gone exactly as planned. But neither had the kiss. What had she been thinking, asking him to kiss her and get it over with?
And then the kiss itself.
“Elam kissed me tonight.”
“What?” Mary’s voice rose, and Emily shushed her. Across the room Rose turned over in her bed mumbling something before her breathing evened out once again. “What?” Mary repeated in a whisper this time.
“Elam kissed me.”
“What did you do?”
“I kissed him back.”
“Emily Jane, that is not what I meant, and you know it.”
“I told him that I’m still in love with Luke.”
Mary studied her in the darkness. Her sister had their mother’s eyes, the kind that could see through to the bones of the matter. Wise eyes that missed nothing. “Are you?”
“Still in love with him? Of course.” But as she said the words doubts crowded in. How could she love someone who’d left her for the outside world? Someone who would rather drive a car in a circle than bend his knee and follow God’s instruction. What made her hold on to the hope that he would change his mind and come back to her?
“It won’t be the same you know.” Mary’s words hung in the darkness between them.
“What do you mean?”
Mary shifted in the bed and took Emily’s hand into her own. “When Luke returns . . . if Luke returns. He won’t be the same. Things between the two of you won’t be the same. No matter how badly you wish for it to be different, this separation will change you both.”
As much as Emily wanted to tell her sister she was wrong, she had a feeling Mary was right. But change didn’t always mean for the bad.
“He says he’s not coming back,” Emily whispered. “But I can’t believe that he won’t. I can’t imagine Wells Landing without Luke.”
“You’ve been living in Wells Landing without Luke,” Mary pointed out.
“You’re right.” How come she had never seen it before? She had been living without Luke and he without her. He seemed so happy to be living out this crazy dream of his. She might not understand it, but that didn’t make it any less important to him.
“Just take things slow with Elam,” Mary advised. “Who knows where that might lead?”
It could be nothing or everything. Only time would tell.
“Luke? Your phone’s ringing.”
Luke dropped the air hose and made his way over to the toolbox where he’d left his phone. He’d heard the melodic sound, but wasn’t yet accustomed to it being associated with someone wanting to talk to him. Most probably because no one ever called him.
He knew Emily was busy and had a hard time getting away from her father long enough to call and chat. Her mother kept her busy with the goats and her sisters were always underfoot. She was as busy as he was these days. And it wasn’t like they had a great deal to talk about. He wanted to be able to call and tell her that he’d made it to the circuit, that he would move up from the amateurs to the dirt tracks. From there it was just a hop and skip to the big time. He had to be patient, pay his dues, and not give up. No matter how homesick he had become lately.
“Jah?”
“Luke?” The voice on the other side of the line was as familiar to him as his own.
“Jonah. Good to hear from you.” A wave of nostalgia and longing washed over Luke. He loved being a part of the Englisch world. He loved the excitement of race car driving and the freedom to wear blue jeans and soft cotton T-shirts, but there were a lot of things he missed about Wells Landing. A lot of people.
Luke tucked the phone between his shoulder and his ear and wiped his hands on an oil-stained rag. He smiled as Jonah told him about the buggy race that happened between two of their friends, young men who hadn’t yet joined the church. Even still, they needed to pray the bishop never found out about their shenanigans. Luke listened and laughed and tried not to let the loneliness creep into his voice.
“Speaking of the bishop,” Jonah said in a not so smooth attempt to change the subject. “I saw Emily the other night.”
“Oh, jah?” His heart gave a hard thump at the sound of her name. He had been so eager to come to the Englisch world that he had given up the best girl ever. Some days he thought he deserved a kick in the pants for leaving her behind. But once he made it . . .
“She came to Andrew Fitch’s Thanksgiving party.”
Thanksgiving. He had almost forgotten. It was the day after tomorrow. It wasn’t like it was a big holiday for the Amish. More often than not they had a wedding to attend instead of the big family dinner like the Englisch preferred.
“With Elam Riehl.”
His heart skipped a beat. Just because she went to the party with another guy didn’t mean a thing. Maybe they had become friends since Luke had been gone. Emily was a sweet and caring girl. That was what it had to be.
“I don’t really know if I should tell you this.” Jonah let out a reluctant bark of laughter. “Of course I have to tell you. I’m just not sure how to.”
Luke’s mouth tasted like ash. “Will you just tell me already?”
“Okay, now I didn’t see this with my own eyes, but Andrew swears he saw them kissing in the front yard before they came into the party.”
His heart fell to his feet. Emily. His Emily. Kissing another. And not just anybody, but Elam Riehl. He was so . . . old.
“Andrew said it looked pretty intense, but I don’t know. I thought you should hear it from me instead of someone else.”
“Do you . . .” He cleared his throat. Suddenly it was clogged with more emotions than he could name. “Do you think it was serious?”
He could almost hear his friend shrug. “I don’t know about that. But neither one of them would look at the other the entire time they were at the house. It was sort of weird.”
Good weird or bad weird? Luke wanted to ask. But he knew the answer. He was losing his girl.
He thanked Jonah for calling and hung up the phone.
“Bad news?” the garage owner asked.
“Something like that,” Luke mumbled. He sat down on a stained plastic chair and watched the others around him. They worked on their cars, changed the oil, filled up the tires, and topped off the fluids as if nothing earth-shattering had just happened. He supposed for them, nothing had happened. But for Luke . . .
He needed to get back to Wells Landing as quickly as possible. He didn’t have the money to travel back, but he had to. The season was over. He wouldn’t miss a race if he snuck away for the weekend, dropped in to see Emily. Let her know that he loved her and he would be coming back for her.
In all honesty, he hadn’t expected her to hang on this long. He’d hoped by the end of October she would give up her stubborn decision to stay with the Amish and would join him on the circuit. But she hadn�
��t.
Now he would have to do everything in his power to let her know that he cared about her. He wanted her, and she would always be his girl.
Emily had just laid her head on the pillow when a plink sounded at the window. She rolled over, convinced she had imagined it.
Plink.
She glanced toward the door to her room, thinking for a minute that her ears were playing tricks on her. But her door was firmly closed. Not a sister in sight.
Plink.
She flung back the covers and made her way to the window. The glass chilled her fingers as she pushed the sash up and looked down into the yard.
A young man stood below the window. He was wearing jeans and sneakers, a thick woolen coat of the Amish, and a baseball hat like the Englisch buwe preferred.
Despite his eclectic manner of dress, she would have known him anywhere. “Luke?” she whispered.
He waved at her, his smile lighting up the night.
Luke had come back for her!
“I’ll be right there,” she whispered, hoping he would hear her quiet words, praying he would still be there when she got outside.
As quietly as she could, she raced down the stairs, stopping only long enough to snatch her heavy coat off the peg by the back door. She slipped it on and hurried into the yard, straight into Luke Lambright’s arms.
“I can’t believe you came back.” She touched his cheek to prove to herself he was really there. “You came back.”
“It’s so good to see your face.”
“Kumm,” she said tugging him toward the barn. “It’s too cold out here.”
And it would be no gut a’tall if her father caught them together in the middle of the night.
The barn wasn’t much warmer, but at least they were out of the wind.
Emily turned on one of the battery-operated lanterns and settled herself down on a hay bale next to Luke. Her talk in the barn with Elam was brought to mind, but she pushed the memory away. Luke was back, and for now that was all she wanted to think about.