as he continued, “If we want to spend time together, we have to be very careful about it, always looking out and thinking ahead. Do you understand?”
I nodded.
He sighed, saying, “And have your brother call tonight—not you. It’s not proper for Amish girls to call boys on the phone.”
“But I’m not Amish,” I pointed out.
“But I am, and if we’re going to be able to see each other, you’re going to have to start acting a little more like an Amish girl.” As an afterthought, he said, “Just pretend, Rose. Make it a game.”
He said it as if he was talking to a small child, ticking me off a little bit. I couldn’t keep the huff from escaping my lips in agitation.
Annoyingly, he just laughed and asked, “Want to race back to the road?”
The irritation that had rippled through my insides slipped away, to be replaced with a sudden jolt to my heart. “You bet,” I answered, giving Lady a bump with my heels and grabbing her mane as she took off.
I almost reached the road first, but every time I glanced back, it didn’t seem as though he was trying very hard. I was starting to think he was going to let me win, which wasn’t the way that I wanted to beat him at all. I began pulling on my reins at the same instant that Noah’s horse had a burst of speed. Doing a totally unsafe guy thing, he passed by me, swerving hard before he nearly hit the wire mesh that ran parallel to the tree line.
“Crap!” I muttered as I pulled alongside him, our horses bumping each other again. I was starting to get the feeling that Lady had as much of a thing for Rumor as I had for his rider.
“Gotcha!” He grinned, reaching out for my hand.
Only this time I ignored it, trotting ahead of him. When I arrived at the gap in the fence, he wasn’t with me. Instead, he was standing behind a copse of trees about a hundred feet back.
Darn, I didn’t mean to make him mad. I was just aggravated with his daredevil riding. Whirling Lady around, I squeezed her with my heels and quickly closed the distance back to him.
“What’s up?” I asked, pulling up close to Rumor.
“You have to go home first, Rose. That’s what I mean about being careful. We can’t just ride up the road together. Someone might see us, and that would be a disaster. Just please trust me on this,” he implored.
“But how long are you going to wait, then?” The fact that there would be dire consequences if we were caught together or if I even called him on the phone was triggering little bells to go off in my head, but I chose to ignore them. My girlfriends back in Cincinnati would be locked up in jail for sure under these rules.
“I’ll hang out here for about fifteen minutes and then head home. Now, Rose, you ride straight home, and if any cars slow down for you, just gallop that mare as fast as I know she’ll go until you reach your driveway. Hopefully, everything will work out and I’ll see you tomorrow.”
The urgency in his voice finally got me moving, and I turned, cantering toward the gap. Once on the road, I trotted the rest of the way home, the darkness quickly descending around me. Goose bumps spread up my arms when the light vanished and I squeezed Lady back into a canter once I reached the driveway.
I couldn’t deny the way Noah made my body feel, that was for sure, but my mind was still struggling with the whole Amish thing. Where on earth could this relationship go?
But then, I didn’t care what the answer was. I just wanted to enjoy it while it lasted.
6
Noah
Walking the Amish Line
IT WAS GOING to be difficult to get away with it, I thought as I passed through the gap in the fence and rode onto the road. Rose was absolutely naive about what we were up against. And she certainly didn’t hide her emotions well either.
Whenever she looked at me with those lovely eyes, there was no doubt about her feelings. She wanted me as badly as I wanted her. And as much as I liked having those eyes directed at me in that way, she’d have to learn to control them or she’d get us in a whole heap of trouble. Secretly meeting up with an English girl was the type of thing that could get me sent off to a community in Pennsylvania. And I wouldn’t be able to come home until the bishop there felt I was truly rehabilitated.
Nathaniel Yoder barely missed making the trip out of state when his father caught him with a cell phone last year. Lucky for him, the worst punishment he received was being forced to smash the phone with a hammer.
Of course, I didn’t think Rose even worried about getting in trouble. It seemed she was allowed to do pretty much anything she wanted, and even if she did break a rule in her house, she’d probably be able to talk her way out of it with her father. She was very compelling. I certainly hadn’t planned to touch her hand, but when she talked about her mother and then looked at me with her sad eyes, I just couldn’t resist. And her hand had fit perfectly into mine. I really wanted to kiss her there in the cornfield, and had almost done just that, except somehow I’d been able to rein myself in before I got carried away.
It was just too soon for that. We weren’t even courting, and although I realized that the chance of doing so was slim at best, I still needed to try to make it happen. Somehow, in just a few short hours, I had developed feelings for Rose—strong feelings. And the thought of her being mine was intoxicating.
I’d never reacted to a girl this way before. My body was on fire when I was around Rose, and when I wasn’t with her, all I did was think about her. Today had been the longest day of my life, dragging on forever until it was finally time to go meet her in the field.
I was planning to sneak up on her, but when I saw her start to canter ahead of me, I was impressed by what a good rider she was, and impulsively kicked Rumor into a gallop to race her. If the field had been a little longer, she would have definitely whipped me. Rumor was carrying a lot more weight and beginning to labor. I was happy that we were even able to stay with the gray horse for as long as we did.
Not being able to keep the smile from stretching my mouth, I decided that the evening had been the most fun I’d had in a very long time—maybe ever. She was the perfect girl for me, I reckoned—except for not being Amish. But I didn’t care that she was English. My ideas about the people of the outside world had changed overnight—at least about one of them anyway. I knew that my feelings weren’t rational and that my behavior was dangerous, but I wasn’t willing to walk away at this point. I was driven now to see it through.
Cantering up the driveway, I quickly unsaddled Rumor and put him out in the pasture. I finished cleaning the stalls and then hurried to the house. The sky was coal-black by the time I entered the mudroom and pulled my boots off.
Seeing Jacob and Father sitting at the kitchen table under the dim light of the gas lamp with a pile of papers strewn out around them, I wasted no time asking, “Jacob, have you found a driver for tomorrow yet?”
Without raising his head, he replied, “No, I called several people, but they’re all busy.”
His voice held a hint of disappointment, and I seized the opportunity. “I found a driver for you.” Both Father and Jacob looked up at me speculatively and I continued, “While I was
