Czytaj książkę: «An Amish Proposal»

Chapter One

Paradise Springs

Lancaster County, Pennsylvania

When the night sky opened and it started raining, Katie Kay Lapp stopped by the side of the road, covered her face with her hands and began to cry. The cold downpour was the final insult in a day that had begun badly and gotten worse with each passing hour. How had she gotten to this point? Months ago, she’d been the center of attention of young men at any gathering. They’d vied for time with her and for the chance to take her home in their courting buggies. Now she was abandoned and afraid and had no place to go.

You could go home.

Ach, it was easy for the little voice in her head—the one nagging her endlessly about doing the right thing—to say that. But she’d burned her bridges behind her and in front of her and around her. She couldn’t go home. Her sisters would welcome her, but Daed would insist on knowing every detail of what she’d done since she ran away. He’d want to pray with her and ask her to repent for any sins she’d committed.

And she’d committed a bunch. Some intentionally and others by accident. In the eyes of Bishop Reuben Lapp, what she’d done would need to be repented for with prayer before it could be forgiven.

She moaned aloud when she imagined telling her daed about her fear that she was pregnant. Many plain women her age were married with one or more bopplin, but she hadn’t been ready to settle down and lead an Amish life, the only life she’d ever known until she left home four months ago to find out what the rest of the world was like. It hadn’t been a carefree rumspringa decision. Instead, she’d made the choice with care and a lot of deep consideration.

Or so she’d thought at the time.

Raindrops slid beneath her T-shirt and down her spine like a cascade of ice cubes. October could be a beautiful month in southeastern Pennsylvania or unforgiving like tonight.

Straightening, Katie Kay looked around. She wasn’t sure where she was. Somewhere in rural Lancaster County, she knew, but not exactly where. She hadn’t paid any attention. She’d been surprised when Austin, whom she’d described to others as her Englisch boyfriend because she’d foolishly believed he cared about her, had driven her and a couple of other Englischers out of Lancaster City, but she hadn’t watched where they were going. Rain had been falling, and the streetlights had glittered on the windshield, disguising any landmarks in splattered light. She hadn’t expected she’d need to know. She’d thought she was returning to the apartment she shared with Austin and their friends.

Not her friends, she knew. Neither had protested when Austin snatched her cell phone from her purse and ordered her out of the car. Maybe Vinnie and Juan, his Englisch friends, had been as astounded as she’d been, never guessing he’d drive off and not come back for her.

She kept walking. She didn’t have any other choice. The country road was two narrow lanes that curved and rose and fell over the rolling hillsides. It was edged on both sides by harvested fields. She peered through the darkness, but the lights she could see appeared to be a mile or two in the distance. Was she somewhere without many houses? Or were there ones between her and the distant lights? Amish houses wouldn’t be lit this late in the evening because the people living in them usually rose before the sun and were in bed soon after sunset.

Two cars raced toward her. If the drivers saw her, they gave no sign, not swerving to the middle of the road to make sure they avoided her as they passed. The tires of the second sent a shower of dirty water over her.

“It’s not fair!” she cried out. Nothing had been fair since her mamm died five years ago. Everyone had expected her to step into the role of housekeeper for her daed. After all, her half sister had when Daed’s first wife died. But Priscilla was the perfect Amish daughter and now was the perfect Amish wife and mamm. Katie Kay had been the one who questioned everything and was too curious to accept things just because someone told her so.

But look where curiosity had gotten her. A part of her wanted to pray, but she silenced that longing as she had for four months. Reaching out to God seemed like admitting she couldn’t survive on her own among Englischers.

And why would God want to hear from her after she’d turned her back on Him and the life He’d given her? Another bridge she’d burned and wondered if it could ever be rebuilt.

A familiar sound came from behind her. Metal wheels on asphalt accompanied by iron horseshoes clip-clopping in a steady rhythm.

Katie Kay knew the source of those sounds. They’d been a part of her life since her earliest memories. Stepping off the edge of the road, she considered going down the slope toward a shadowed hedgerow until after the buggy had passed. An Amish person wouldn’t go by her without stopping as the cars had, but she needed to avoid plain people until she figured out where she was.

Her feet refused to move. Her own body rebelled against standing a moment longer than necessary in the cold rain. Maybe she should try to hitch a ride with the buggy, so she could find shelter before the rain turned to sleet. Who would recognize her as the wayward daughter of Reuben Lapp, a beloved bishop?

The clatter of the wheels began to slow, and she knew she’d been seen in the lights connected to the buggy. Again, she was torn between running away and running toward it. How could she have gotten herself to this point? A few months ago, she’d been the pampered daughter of a respected Amish bishop. Now she was cowering by the side of a country road, left behind like a discarded kitten dropped by a heartless owner.

Which wasn’t far off from the truth. Austin hadn’t tossed her out of the car, but he’d raised his hand when she hesitated to follow his orders. Though he’d never struck her, she’d seen him flatten a man a head taller than him with a single blow. Again she told herself she shouldn’t have been honest with him about her suspicion she might be pregnant until she was absolutely sure. Austin Moore prided himself on being a man without a single obligation to anyone or anything, and she should have known he’d refuse to take responsibility if she’d conceived. She wasn’t sure, though signs pointed in that direction. By now, he’d be at the apartment in Lancaster they’d shared with two other Englischers, and he’d be watching sports and drinking whatever was in the fridge. He wouldn’t spare her another thought. It wasn’t as if he loved her.

And that realization was the most painful of all.

A voice called from the buggy that had pulled alongside her while the rain fell relentlessly on her bare head. “Katie Kay? Katie Kay Lapp, is it you?” Surprise lifted the deep voice several notches, but she recognized it.

Micah Stoltzfus!

Out of everyone in Lancaster County, why did he have to be in the buggy?

Micah had taken her home—several times—from social events, and she’d even let him kiss her. She’d decided she liked him well enough, and she’d enjoyed his kisses, but she wasn’t interested in someone who kept talking about the future. She’d been happy focusing on the present, when there were a lot of gut-looking guys eager to take her home.

Why not enjoy what was going on and let tomorrow worry about itself?

That had been her motto, but now she was being forced to see where such a shortsighted plan had left her.

Alone.

Possibly pregnant.

And about to have to beg help from a man she’d told to get lost a year ago.

* * *

The petite woman standing beside his buggy bore little resemblance to the vivacious beauty he’d admired for years, but Micah Stoltzfus knew he wasn’t mistaken. Though she didn’t answer him and confirm her identity, he recognized Katie Kay Lapp’s oval face and very large blue eyes. Her blond hair was no longer pulled back beneath a white organdy kapp. It’d been cropped short with bangs above her tawny brows and hung around her shoulders, weighed down by the rain. He guessed the strands which had been silken when they escaped her bun and brushed his face would, when dry, bounce with each step she took. Instead of a simple dress, she wore blue jeans and a black T-shirt that looked as if it’d been ruined before she’d stood outside in the storm.

He wanted to ask her where she’d been and what she’d been doing since she had left her daed’s house after a big argument. Reuben had been troubled about her vanishing, fearing what might happen to his naïve daughter. Katie Kay had left behind a message stating she was going to live with an Englisch friend. She hadn’t said which one or where or when she might come home. The burden of not knowing had bent Reuben’s shoulders, and Micah believed only his plans to marry Wanda Stoltzfus, Micah’s mamm, and his strong faith had kept the bishop from being ground down completely. Reuben was a shadow of the vibrant man he’d once been.

Instead of asking the questions taunting him, Micah called through the open door on the driver’s side of his buggy, “Don’t you want to get out of the rain?”

She nodded, biting her lower lip.

For a moment, he wondered if he was wrong about her being Katie Kay Lapp. The Katie Kay he knew never had been abashed or quiet. Instead she’d had a quick retort and an easy laugh. This pale wraith might look like the woman he’d known, but where had her bright sparkle gone?

He was being silly. The woman was Katie Kay Lapp. She was walking in the direction of Paradise Springs, where both her family and his lived.

“Komm in,” he said as he reached across the buggy to open the passenger side door. He shut the one on his side while she hurried around the buggy. The rain was falling harder, and he didn’t want to get soaked before he reached home. He would have been there by now if he and his business partner, Sean Donnelly, hadn’t needed to meet with a new client tonight.

He hoped he and Sean would get the job installing solar panels for a new client. Otherwise, it would have been a waste of an evening and a slow, cold ride home. Sean’s wife, Gemma, had asked Micah to stay at their house overnight, but he hadn’t wanted his family to worry when he didn’t return to the farm.

And Katie Kay would have been left to walk along the road connecting Paradise Springs and Ronks in the heart of Lancaster County. He hadn’t seen another vehicle, other than a couple of cars driving at an unsafe speed along the twisting road. Certainly no buggies, because any person with sense would be inside on an inclement night.

When Katie Kay climbed in and slid the door closed, she sat as far from him as possible in the small buggy. Which wasn’t very far. If they both put their hands on the seat between them, their fingers would overlap.

As they used to when he took her home after a singing.

That’s over and done with, he reminded himself. She’d made it clear the last time he took her home in his courting buggy that if he disappeared from the face of the earth, she’d be fine. Instead, she had gone away, jumping the fence to live with Englischers.

She didn’t look at him or speak, but in the glow from the buggy’s lights, he saw she was shivering.

“Here.” He stretched his arm behind the seat and pulled out a towel he kept among his tools. He used it when he washed up after a hot day of working on a roof while installing solar panels.

“Thanks.” She hesitated as if he’d be upset her first word to him wasn’t in Deitsch, the language of the plain people, and he’d order her out of the buggy. Before he could ask why she acted like a beaten pup, she added in not much more than a whisper, “Danki.”

“Sounds like you’ve gotten used to talking to your Englisch friends.”

“They aren’t my friends,” she snapped and then turned away to dry her dripping hair.

At last! A glimpse of the self-assured Katie Kay, though he wished he hadn’t had to be irksome to get her to respond. When they’d first started walking out together, he’d admired that aspect of her. He’d thought then that she could be the special one for him. When she’d selected him from among her admirers, he’d believed it meant something. What a fool he’d been!

Taking the reins, he slapped them on Rascal’s back. The horse was the same dark gray as the storm clouds overhead. Rascal stepped on the road. Micah didn’t need to convince him to a faster pace. The buggy horse was eager to get home and dry.

Katie Kay didn’t say anything as they drove through the night. From the corner of his eye, he saw her squeezing water out of her hair and into the towel. She never glanced in his direction. He might as well have been invisible.

He pulled on the left rein to turn Rascal onto the road to the Lapp farm. The horse resisted.

“Let’s go, Rascal,” Micah said past clenched teeth. He couldn’t let his irritation with the woman beside him make him upset at the buggy horse. Rascal wanted to go right to reach his dry stable.

A damp hand settled on his left arm. He hated the tingle erupting out from where Katie Kay touched him. After a year, she had the same effect on him. He was a bigger fool than he’d thought.

“Go some other way,” she ordered. “Any other way.”

“This is the fastest way to your house.”

“No! You can’t take me home.”

“Of course I’m taking you home.” He frowned. “Where else did you think I was taking you?”

“I don’t care. Anywhere else.” Her voice broke, and her whisper was raw. “Just not home. Please, Micah. Don’t take me home.”

He didn’t bother to hide his shock. What had happened to her? He’d never heard her beg anyone for anything.

“You need to go home, Katie Kay. Your family has been beside themselves with worry about you. I’m taking you home.”

“No, you’re not!” She grabbed the passenger side door. “If you think I won’t jump out of this buggy, then you’re wrong.”

“Don’t be silly. You could hurt yourself.”

“I didn’t before,” he thought he heard her mutter, but before he could ask if he’d heard her correctly, she said, “If you’re going to be like that, Micah, stop and let me out.”

“I’m not leaving you out here in the middle of a stormy night.”

“And you’re not taking me home.” Again her voice broke. “I’m not ready to face them. Not yet.”

Hardening his heart to her was impossible. They’d known each other all their lives. He’d counted her among his gut friends before he’d fallen for her. Her daed was marrying his mamm in a month.

Was that why Katie Kay had returned? For the wedding? If so, Reuben and Mamm would be overjoyed to see her. But why didn’t she want to relieve her daed’s fears? Too much didn’t make sense.

“Micah,” she said softly, “please take me somewhere else.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you have any money? One of the hotels out on Route 30 might not be completely booked on a weeknight.”

She rolled her eyes. “I don’t have enough to pay for a room.” Opening her soaked purse that sat in a damp spot on the seat, she gasped.

“What’s wrong?”

“He took my money! I thought he was just taking my cell phone.”

Micah’s hands tightened on the reins. “He? Were you robbed?”

“Not exactly.”

If she was trying to be baffling tonight, she was succeeding. Maybe if he tried a different approach...

“Katie Kay, I don’t want to have to lie to Reuben when he talks about wondering where you are.”

“I’m not asking you to lie. I’m asking you not to say anything about seeing me.”

“That’s splitting hairs.”

“Maybe it is.” Again she looked away. “But I can’t face my family right now.”

It was the second time she’d said those words. He wanted to ask why she intended to avoid her family, but she looked dejected and lost, so unlike the girl he’d known. He pushed aside his objections. The Bible taught that they were supposed to help one another. Yet it also was at the very heart of God’s commandments that the duty to honor one’s parents must never be set aside for any reason.

He drew in the horse and sat with his elbows on his knees as the buggy slowed to a stop by the side of the road. He knew what he should do. He should haul her at top speed to her family’s house. But that might do more damage than gut. She obviously needed time to prepare herself before she spoke to Reuben. Letting her have a day or two wouldn’t make a big difference, and granting her a favor might be the very thing that kept her from jumping the fence again. At least until after she and Reuben had a chance to meet. Not knowing where she was had been hardest on the bishop. If they could reconcile, perhaps it would smooth over the situation, even if she chose to leave again.

“All right,” he said, hoping he wasn’t making a complete mess of everything and praying both Reuben and God would understand. “I may know someone who can put you up for tonight.”

“Not among the Leit. The news would reach my family before dawn.”

That was true. The Amish didn’t use phones or email except for business, but nothing stayed a secret long in their tight-knit community. Jokingly referred to as the Amish grapevine, gossip and rumors flew faster than anything in cyberspace.

“These people are Englischers.” He glanced at her clothing. “I’m sure you’re accustomed to folks who aren’t Amish. I’ll ask my friends Sean and Gemma Donnelly to let you stay with them tonight.”

“Danki, Micah!” Her frown eased for the first time since she’d gotten into the buggy, and his heart did a crazy little flip as it always did when she smiled at him. But, this time, he ignored it. He wouldn’t make the same mistake of thinking she cared for him as much as he’d cared for her. He wouldn’t make that mistake ever again!

“Don’t thank me yet. I’m not helping you unless you agree to do what I ask.”

At his stern tone, her smile faltered.

Micah plunged forward with what he knew he had to get her to agree to do. “I will help you find a place for tonight and won’t mention to anyone you’re here, but only if you agree to speak with your daed. Not tonight,” he added when she started to protest. “Within a week.”

“That’s too soon.”

“Then tell me how long you need.”

“I don’t know.”

“I told you what I think is long enough. Tell me what you think is long enough before you speak with Reuben.” He couldn’t relent on this, though he wasn’t sure she’d honor any agreement. The Katie Kay he used to know would have, but the one sitting beside him was a stranger.

“A month.”

He sat straighter. “What? A whole month? Why do you need a month?”

“You don’t need to know why. I need time to be sure about things. A lot of things.” She raised her face toward him, and he could see the glitter in her eyes. Determination to get her way or tears or both? “If you’ll find me a place to stay, Micah, I’ll talk to my daed before a month’s gone by. Agreed?”

He considered her words. If he said no, that wouldn’t change anything. She wasn’t going to talk to her daed. If he said ja, there was a chance she might do as she said. He owed Reuben that much.

Turning the horse’s head back in the direction they’d come, he said, “Agreed.”

She thanked him, but he paid no attention as he stared out into the darkness. He’d made the best decision he could have under the circumstances or the worst. He wasn’t sure which.