by Tami Hoag
“You just wanted to sleep with me,” he said, the bitterness in his tone as caustic as acid.
Sarah reacted without thinking, slapping his face hard. “How dare you,” she said, her voice trembling just above a whisper. “How dare you say such a thing to me.”
She turned away from him and through her tears stared at the hand she'd struck him with. Never in her life had she raised a hand to anybody. Now in anger she'd hit the man she loved. Shame throbbed inside her in a physical ache. Shame and despair and heartache. She ran for the relative darkness of the barn, stopping just inside the door, welcoming the coolness and the absence of bright light. For a moment she just let those things absorb her. She breathed in the sweet scent of hay and the mustiness of cobwebs. She listened to two cats playing in the straw of Otis's stall.
“Sarah?” Matt s voice came to her through the haze of her suffering, sounding higher than normal and strained. He cleared his throat and shuffled his feet on the cracked concrete of the barn floor. “Sarah, I'm sorry.” He sniffed and cleared his throat again. “I shouldn't have said that.”
“I came to you out of love,” she whispered, tears spilling past the barrier of her lashes and rolling down her cheeks.
“I know. I know you did,” he murmured, hurting more from the pain he'd inflicted on her than from anything she had done to him.
Trembling, he slid his arms around her and pulled her back against him. He brushed his cheek against the top of her head, encountering the stiff gauze of her kapp rather than the softness of her hair; the barrier of her Amishness in a tangible form. He wanted to tear it off and throw it aside, and at the same time he called himself a hypocrite. Wasn't it her Amishness that had first drawn him to her—her simplicity, her naivete, her sweet nature? He couldn't both change her and have her remain the same.
“I wanted to know what it was to be in love,” she said. “Was that so wrong of me? I knew in the end you would go back to the city and I would be left here to my life, but I fell in love with you. Was it so wrong of me to want to hold on to that for a little while?”
“No.”
'I don't think there can be sin in loving someone,” she said shakily. “Only joy and pain.”
Blinking against the sting of his own tears, Matt turned her in his arms and held her close. Love, the most complex of emotions. Sarah had reduced it down to its simplest elements: A time of joy and a time of pain. Was that really all they were to be allowed? It seemed so little when he had waited so long. He wondered if Sarah felt as cheated as he did. She sounded resigned. He would go back to “the world” and she would remain here, and their love would fade into pain, then into memories. He ached with emptiness just thinking about it. That was the way it would be, though. Even as he wondered if she would go with him if he asked, he knew her answer. She had already given it to him. She wouldn't leave her way of life, wouldn't leave her family.
“What happens now?” he asked. “I don't want to get you in trouble with your people.”
Sarah felt her heart crack. What had she expected him to say? Had she really expected him to ask her for a future? He couldn't change who he was and, no matter how often she had dreamed of it, she couldn't either. There was her family to consider. She couldn't shame them, couldn't leave them. The thought of never seeing them again tore her apart. Then there was the world to consider. What would the big world do with the like of her? She had seen the way it had battered Matt. It would chew her up and spit her out. Matt would tire of her eventually; her novelty would wear off. He was quick to defend her now, but the fact of the matter was she would likely embarrass him if she were transplanted into his world.
No. She'd known all along what they had was this time, the here and now.
“No one knows about us,” she said, hating the need to hide their love. “What we have between us is ours alone. I don't want to give it up, not until I have to.”
Matt tightened his arms around her. “Me neither.”
He wanted to cling to her every minute they had left. He wanted to store up the feel of her and the taste of her and her sweet scent so that when the end came he would have something to take with him. The injured pride that prodded at him to walk away couldn't hold a candle to his desperate need to take as much love as Sarah would give him.
He turned her in his arms and bent to kiss her. Sarah met him halfway, just as hungry to gather memories, to stockpile them for the long nights ahead when all they would have was longing for a touch, the memory of a kiss, the ache of a missing corner of a heart. Their mouths clashed and dueled greedily, insatiably. Each framed the other's face with trembling hands, trying to memorize the texture of skin, the angle of bones. They took deep, thirsty kisses, drinking in flavors and feelings and each other's tears, and heat flared through them in the flash fire of sudden and desperate passion.
Matt tore his mouth away and crushed her against him in an embrace that attempted to imprint his body with the outline of hers. His gaze settled on the bales of hay stacked in tiers beside the aisle and on the heavy woolen horse rug that lay folded over the door of a stall. Within minutes they had the rug spread on a wide flat section of bales and they knelt facing each other, snatching kisses and unfastening buttons.
Too eager to go through the process of undressing, they merely uncovered essential areas. Matt's shirt fell open so Sarah could stroke her hands over the hard panes of his chest and tease his flat nipples through the fine dusting of curling black hair. The bodice of her dress fell down around her hips, baring her breasts for his gaze and touch.
Carefully, he lay her down on their makeshift bed, his mouth trailing reverent kisses from her mouth to her throat to her collar bone, savoring every delectable inch of her When his lips, warm and wet, closed over her nipple, she let out a sound of desperation. Her fingers tangled in his short, thick hair, pressing him closer, urging him to nuzzle and nurse.
After a long moment he raised his head just enough to study the sweet bud of flesh, watching it pucker as the air cooled the heat his mouth had generated. He brushed a thumb across the distended peak, wringing a gasp from her and causing her to arch against the pressure of the hard thigh he had wedged between her legs. Then he bent to the task of giving her other breast equal treatment, sucking, nibbling, laving her nipple with his tongue, relishing the sweet taste of her and the way she offered herself to him with nothing held back. He took what she yielded, seeking to satisfy his own selfish needs and to give her all that was in his heart, as well
Settling his mouth on hers once again, he knelt between her legs and worked the fly of his pants with fingers that fumbled in their hurry. Breaking the kiss, Sarah reached between them and did the work herself, popping the button and easing the zipper down. She took him into her hand, her fingers tracing the hard length of him, testing the weight, closing around the heat. She stroked him and guided him toward her, lifting her hips and opening herself to him.
Matt slid into her on one slow stroke. A shuddering sigh slipped from his lips to hers as her tight, warm woman's pocket enveloped him, welcoming him into her body.
“I do love you, Sarah,” he said on the softest of whispers.
“I know,” she answered, though her heart throbbed with sadness at the knowledge that the love he was willing to give could never be enough, that their worlds would eventually pull them apart.
But for now, for this achingly tender moment, they were together. They were as close as two souls could be. If this was all they were to be allowed, then at least she had the knowledge that this was perfect. She had never felt more womanly, more cherished, more loved than she did in that moment, sharing herself with the man of her heart.
They moved together, the desire to prolong the moment overrun by the urgency to take everything they could while they had the chance. Matt clutched her to him, his arms around her shoulders as he thrust and withdrew. Sarah clung to him, wrapping herself around him, her hands pressed to he straining muscles of his back, her legs wrapped tightly around h
is hips as if she intended to hold him within her forever.
The end came for Sarah first. It was an explosion of feeling that for a long moment blotted out all else. Matt felt her stiffen in his arms, then groaned as her inner contractions tugged him, luring his body toward the same sweet oblivion. He forced himself to hold back, ruthlessly checking his own desires as he moved into her again and again, prolonging Sarah's climax and building it into a second shattering burst. This time when she cried out, his voice joined hers as he let go of his control and surrendered himself to the bliss of completion.
As they walked back to the house the sun was just slipping past the horizon in a blaze of orange so intense, the countryside was drenched in color—the farm buildings, the cornstalks, the thin blond weeds that waved along the edge of the road. Silhouetted against the vibrant sky a V formation of Canada geese flew south, their mournful honking sounding the way. Daylight gave way to dusk. The sun snuck away, leaving the air crisp with the promise of a hard frost.
Matt took Sarahs hand as they walked. They moved slowly because neither wanted to leave their closeness behind and because Matt was suddenly feeling his injuries, both physical and emotional. He limped toward the back of the big farmhouse, feeling worn-out and bat tered, once again without hope. Neither of them voiced the question that was uppermost in their minds—how much time did they have left together?
As they approached the foot of the back porch steps the screen door swung open and the answer to their question stared them in the face. Their time was up. Isaac Maust had come to fetch his daughter home.
Sarah took one look at her fathers face and stopped in her tracks at the bottom of the steps. The fury and condemnation in his eyes stung like a slap across the face. She let go of Matt's hand, then had to endure his look of hurt as well as her own feelings of guilt.
“Pop,” she said quietly, not quite able to ask why he had come. She didn't want to know.
Isaac stared down at her with a thunderous scowl, drawing his beetle brows together and carving deep brackets beside his mouth. He spoke to her in harsh German. “Are you a daughter of mine, Sarah Troyer, that you would shame me so?”
Sarahs eyes flooded, but she refused to let a single tear fall. Old wounds cracked open inside her. He had never understood her, had never tried to. All her life he had disapproved of her spirit, her hunger for learning, the insatiable yearning for something she couldn't define. He had never taken the time to understand how hard she'd tried to be the kind of daughter he wanted.
“Do you ask or do you accuse?” she said, meeting his hard gaze head-on.
Isaac left the question unanswered, ignoring her as if he didn't understand the language she spoke. His gaze raked down over Matt with contempt. “Is this how the English have you care for their guests? This holding of the hands and walking with a man who is not your husband nor even of your faith?”
Sarah turned his own tactic around on him, refusing to answer. Beside her, Matt shuffled his feet restlessly, planting his hands on his lean hips.
“What's he saying?” he asked, his gaze shifting uneasily back and forth between the old man and Sarah. He could sense the tension and he didn't like it. He especially didn't like the tears welling in Sarahs eyes. That alone stirred dislike for her father inside him. “What does he want?”
“Why have you come here, Pop?” she asked in English. As much as she didn't want to hear this in any language, it wasn't right to force Matt to wonder what was going on.
Naturally, Isaac didn't agree. He went on speaking in the guttural dialect out of stubbornness more than habit, she suspected. “There is family business. You are needed at home. Come and pack your things.”
“What family business? Why am I needed? Is Mom ill?” Sarah asked, concern for her fam ily overriding all else. Wringing her hands nervously, she moved closer to the steps to get a better look at her father's impassive face. “What's wrong?”
“Plenty is wrong. We had visitors today. First, Micah Hochstetler, then the deacon.”
Sarah felt a deep chill settle in her bones at the mention of the deacon. If her father was there because the deacon had come, then it hadn't been a social call; it had to do with her. It was the deacon's duty to approach any member of the community suspected of disobeying the Ordnung, the rules of the church. Deacon Lapp was a close friend of Isaac. He would have gone to Isaac first in any matter concerning one of the Maust children. What she didn't know, what she was afraid to know, was what the concern might be about.
“I've spoken with Deacon Lapp and also with the bishop about my job here,” she said, grasping desperately for what she hoped was the root of the trouble. “They said I could—”
“This isn't to do with the work,” Isaac interrupted. His face grew dark and his hand trembled as he raised it and pointed a gnarled finger at Matt. “This is to do with this Yankee.”
“Whoa, wait a minute here!” Matt protested angrily, bringing his hands up in front of him to halt Isaac's verbal assault. “I may not speak the lingo here, but I think I know when I'm being insulted.”
“Insults?” Isaac said, finally consenting to using English. “You speak to me of insults when you shame my daughter before God and her people?”
The look in Matt's eyes hardened to something like hatred. He stared at Isaac Maust and saw the personification of what would forever keep him from the only woman he'd ever loved. He cherished Sarah with everything that was in his heart. To have that love sullied by accusation was something he wasn't going to stand still for, and it didn't matter if the accuser was Sarah's father or God himself.
“Sarah hasn't done anything to be ashamed of. Your daughter is a bright, vibrant, loving young woman. I happen to care for her very deeply.”
“What has Micah Hochstetler to do with this?” Sarah asked, jumping in as quickly as she could to derail her father from the train of conversation Matt had started on. She didn't know yet what damage had been done or what the deacon had had to say, but she didn't want the hole to get dug any deeper.
Her father turned to her with a sour expression. “As he was driving past here yesterday with a load of corn he saw you out on the lawn chasing around with this Englishman, behav ing wild, your hair loose and down for all to see. Do you deny this?”
For an instant Sarah had the wild urge to make up a story that might excuse what her father's neighbor had seen, but none come to mind, and she only felt wretched for even thinking it. How could she consider degrading the love she felt for Matt just for the sake of placating her father? What kind of coward was she?
“Do you deny it?” Isaac demanded again, coming down a step to loom over his daughter like a righteous judge. The breeze caught the ends of his beard, and the porch light backlit him like a holy aura, making him look as formidable as Moses on the mountain. “Do you denyit?”
“Do you ask for an explanation?” Sarah questioned softly, tears crowding her throat. “Do you give me any benefit of doubt?”
“Do you deserve it?”
That wasn't the point, Sarah thought sadly, but she didn't waste her breath saying it. Isaac wouldn't hear her. She looked away from him, tears sliding down her cheeks, hurting too badly to go on looking for some hint of approval or understanding or even compassion from him. Her father was a hard man, unyielding, severe. He loved his family, but he tolerated nothing save absolute obedience. Pity she had been born as stubborn as he was and with a spirit that defied authority at most turns.
“Go and pack your things,” he said, his voice thick with disgust and disapproval.
Sarah's first instinct was to defy him, but she thought of her mother and her family, especially Jacob, and curbed her rebellion. In that moment she didn't care how Isaac might suffer from her disobedience, but she couldn't cause the rest of her family undue anxiety just for the sake of spite. Besides, if it were possible for the trouble to be cleared up by a simple visit to her home for a few days and perhaps an earnest talk with some of the church elders, then she knew she
had best take the opportunity and save them all a lot of pain.
She moved toward the steps, but Matt reached out and stopped her with a hand on her arm.
“Wait a second,” he said, glaring at Isaac. “This isn't Sarah's fault. I didn't know it was against her religion to have fun. I was just teasing her. It was harmless.”
“Was it?” Isaac said, his gaze going meaningfully to the hand Matt had unconsciously settled on Sarah's arm. “Let me tell you something, Mister English,” he said, wagging a finger in Matt s face. “You may not know our ways, but Sarah knows them well. It is for her to resist the temptations of the world and when she don't, it is for her to atone for her sins.
“She hasn't committed any sins!”
Isaac gave a snort and took hold of his daughters other arm. “That is sure not for you to decide.”
“And it is for you?” Matt questioned angrily. His grip tightened on Sarahs arm. “Who do you think you are? God?”
Isaac's weathered face colored deeply. “I am not God,' he hissed. “I am God's servant. I obey his laws.” He tried to jerk Sarah toward him, but Matt held fast.
“You obey your own laws,” Matt sneered. “Sarah isn't guilty of anything but being in love. That might be a sin in your eyes, but I doubt it is in God's.”
“Love.” Isaac spat out the woitl as if it made a foul taste in his mouth. “I know of your kind of love, Englishman. Love of the flesh. Have you defiled my daughter so?”
A red mist washed before Matte eyes. It was all he could do to not let got of Sarah and take a swing at her father. His muscles tensed to the hardness of granite, his left hand clenched into a fist, but something told him his most important priority was holding on to Sarah, so he clung to the leash of his temper as he clung to the woman beside him.
“I've never defiled anyone,” he said, his tone dangerously low and thrumming with fury.