Plain Return (The Plain Fame Series Book 4)

by Price, Sarah

  He shook his head and held a finger to his lips. She heard him slip on a pair of pants and bend down to retrieve the rest of his clothing that was scattered across the floor. He tried to be quiet as he slipped out of the bedroom. Moments later she heard the water running in the bathroom.

  Sighing, she reached over and retrieved his phone to check the time. Four thirty. He never got up this early. Amanda wondered why he had gotten dressed. Surely he wasn’t planning on helping Jonas and Harvey. Alejandro needed his sleep, and everyone on the farm knew it.

  She got out of bed and pulled on her robe, padding across the floor and opening the bedroom door. The cold air chilled her, and the floor felt like ice under her bare feet. She hoped that Isadora had enough blankets covering her, and for a split second, she contemplated checking on her.

  “Go back to bed,” her husband said when he saw her standing there. He buttoned the front of his shirt and avoided her eyes.

  “What’s going on, Alejandro?” She took a step toward him and covered his hand with hers. The warmth of his skin caused her to remember the previous night and his words of love. She felt light-headed and wanted nothing more than to linger in his arms, to feel his heartbeat against her back and to smell the musky scent of his skin as he held her. “Why are you up? You need sleep.”

  He shook his head, one of his dark curls, still damp with water from the sink, falling over his forehead. “My car is picking me up at five.”

  “Your car?” She removed her hand and stepped backward. “What do you mean your car?”

  He finished buttoning the shirt and began tucking it into his waistband. “I told you yesterday, Amanda, that I am leaving. I meant it.”

  “But . . .” She couldn’t even form words to speak. He was leaving? It was the furthest thought from her mind, especially after his declarations of love to her during a magical night spent in each other’s arms.

  His shirt now tucked in, Alejandro tightened his belt. “I need to be in Los Angeles for the weekend.”

  “What about us?”

  He paused and looked at her. “I told you once that my world was not like here. That it is ugly and not good. That you would find reasons to hate me for bringing you with me.”

  “It’s not all ugly,” she said. “Look at the good that you do. The people you touch.”

  He made a scoffing noise.

  “It’s true. You bring so much joy to so many people, Alejandro.”

  “Amanda,” he said sharply. “This is where you belong. This is where your life is. It is not with me. Not on the road, not with the paparazzi and the fans.” He gestured toward the staircase that led to Isadora’s small bedroom. “And that is certainly not the life for her.”

  “You’re leaving us?”

  He gave her a noncommittal shrug. “You already left me, Amanda. Remember? The tabloids announced it to the world.”

  “I left you for two weeks,” she retorted. “To take care of your daughter.”

  “It was your choice to do so.”

  Her heart began to race, and she felt a sense of panic build inside her chest. “It wasn’t my choice, Alejandro. It was my responsibility. Let me wake her. Let us come with you to Los Angeles.”

  He lifted his hand, stopping her. “You left me and you returned to Lancaster,” he said. “You are happy here, Amanda, and so is she.”

  “I’m happy where you are, and she’ll be happy anywhere. We just need to be together.”

  Alejandro leaned over to kiss her. “I’m headed to Los Angeles and then Europe. It’s clear we have a lot to think about, Amanda. Choices to make. It’s better to not procrastinate.”

  She stood there, stunned that he was actually leaving. She realized that had she not awakened, he would have left her without saying good-bye. That wasn’t like her Alejandro, the man she had fallen in love with and married. Even though South America had ended on a bad note, she knew that it was because of the stress and not because of lost feelings on either side.

  “You’re pushing me away on purpose,” she said. “Don’t do that. Please, Alejandro.”

  He paused and for the slightest moment she held out hope that he would change his mind. He reached out his hand and brushed his fingers across her cheek. Feeling desperate, she clasped his hand and clung to it, her eyes shut and her heart aching.

  “I love you, Amanda Diaz,” he said softly. “And I’m leaving because of that very reason. You once asked me if there was any part of me left for me.” He squeezed her hand. “There is, and that is the part of me that loves you. But I love you enough to know that there will be no part of you left for you if I let you change my mind. It is better here, on the farm, for you and Isadora. What happens later, time will tell.” He kissed the back of her hand and then, abruptly, released it. He turned his back to her. “We have choices in life, Amanda. You chose to leave the tour with Isadora despite your love for me, and I . . .” His shoulders lifted as he took a deep breath. “I am choosing to leave you here because of my love for you.”

  Without another word and without looking back, he walked out the door. Amanda stood in the center of the room, feeling as if the walls of her world were caving in around her. She ran to the door and flung it open just in time to see him approach a waiting car. Not once did he look back. She saw the headlights of the car turn on as he opened the passenger door and disappeared inside. And then, as quietly as it had slipped into the driveway, the car rolled away, turning before it disappeared around the side of the barn. The illumination of the headlights faded away, and she knew that Alejandro was gone.

  It didn’t make sense. None of it made any sense. He loved her, yet he had left her under the cloak of darkness, having not even intended to say good-bye. He had spoken of choices, for both of them . . . decisions that had to be made that would be best made apart and not together. He had spoken of the happiness she felt being back in Lancaster, not realizing that she could not be happy without him.

  A wave of panic washed over her once she realized that Alejandro had just left. The idea of not seeing him for six weeks was more than she could handle. She leaned against the doorframe and slid down to the floor, her heart racing and her mind whirling as she replayed everything in her head, from the moment Isadora had been turned over to their care until the night before, when he had told her that he was leaving.

  And she realized that he had been right, that she had made a choice: a choice between him and Isadora. She would not doubt her decision, not now or ever. What she did doubt was his ability to realize that she had done the right thing for the sake of his child.

  The sound of little feet running down the wooden stairs and across the linoleum floor of the kitchen redirected her anxiety. She wiped at her eyes, hoping that in the darkness of the early morning Isadora wouldn’t notice that she had been crying.

  “Gut mariye, Mammi!” Isadora whispered, wrapping her arms around Amanda’s neck and sliding onto her lap. “Gut mariye!”

  Amanda shut her eyes, feeling the warmth of Isadora’s skin against hers and inhaling the scent of lavender from her hair. She held the little girl close to her heart and rocked her back and forth, just enough so that Isadora fell back asleep within minutes. As Amanda sat in the doorway and watched the sun rise over the field, Isadora sleeping in her arms, Dali’s words echoed in her ears: Your strength is given to you from God. He will not lead you anywhere that you should not be.

  Pushing thoughts of Alejandro’s departure out of her mind, Amanda focused on those words. She had put too much worldliness before God over the past few weeks. It was time to return to him and let his plan unfold. She realized that if Alejandro was part of that plan, God would make that known.

  Still, her heart ached as she took a deep breath and watched the sky change from the dark of night to the orange-red of morning. Protect him, God, and keep him safe, she prayed, shutting her eyes and letting her head fall agains
t the doorframe. Bring him back to me if that is your will. Bring him back to me . . .

  Glossary

  Pennsylvania Dutch

  ach vell

  an expression similar to oh well

  boppli

  baby

  Daed, or her daed

  Father, or her father

  danke

  thank you

  dochder

  daughter

  Englische

  non-Amish people

  Englischer

  a non-Amish person

  fraa

  wife

  g’may

  church district

  grossdaadihaus

  small house attached to the main dwelling

  gut mariye

  good morning

  gut nochmidawk

  good afternoon

  ja

  yes

  kapp

  cap

  kinner

  children

  kum

  come

  Mamm, or her mamm

  Mother, or her mother

  nee

  no

  schwester

  sister

  vell

  well

  wunderbar

  wonderful

  Spanish

  ay, mi madre

  an expression; literally oh, my mother

  buenísimo

  excellent

  bueno

  good

  buenos días

  a greeting; good day

  claro

  of course

  dígame

  talk to me

  Dios mío

  my God

  gracias

  thank you

  linda

  pretty

  listo

  ready

  mamacita

  little mama

  mi amor

  my love

  mi hija

  my daughter

  mi querida

  my dear

  pobrecita, probrecito

  an insult, literally “little poor one” or “poor baby”

  qué

  what

  sí

  yes

  vamos

  let’s go

  ven conmiga

  come with me

  Chapter One

  Amanda stood at the crest of the small hill at the back of the property, wiping the sweat from her brow. The sun had barely crested the horizon—the full impact of its powerful heat still hours away—but she still needed a moment’s break to catch her breath. Her dress, a simple floral pattern on cotton fabric that brushed against her knees, did not keep her cool enough, given the work that they were doing.

  Up ahead, she saw her brother-in-law, Jonas, and their hired man, Harvey, working the team of Belgian mules as they plowed the fields in preparation for the planting of corn. As the mules pulled the plow, the earth parted behind the moldboard. It was like watching the ocean as it rose up in gentle waves, the only difference being that the footprint of the plow left behind neat rows of tilled soil, whereas the ocean continued to roll onto the sand and then back to the sea.

  The ocean.

  She wondered if Alejandro was in Miami or Los Angeles since she knew that he had not yet departed for Europe. Less than two weeks had passed since he had left her on her Amish parents’ farm in Lititz, Pennsylvania. Almost two long weeks in which she had done her best to remain unemotional and calm, knowing that her five-year-old adopted stepdaughter, Isadora, needed stability, not more drama, in her young life.

  But on the inside, Amanda’s emotions churned, switching from heartbreak to humiliation, from angst to anger, a constant roller coaster of different depths of despair that she had never before experienced.

  As much as she tried, Amanda could not erase from her memory the image of Alejandro leaving her on that morning. The coldness with which he had spoken to her, the dismissive way in which he had merely turned and walked away, conflicted with everything else that she had learned about the man she called her husband. Wrapping her mind around the fact that she had been deserted was impossible. Not her, she thought, and certainly not by her Alejandro. Where had everything gone wrong? she wondered.

  “You all right, then?” a deep voice said from behind her.

  Amanda shifted her attention from her inner sanctuary to the man who approached from the other side of the hill. She tried to smile as she turned to face Harvey, the Mennonite farmer hired by Alejandro to help with the farmwork. Without Harvey, Amanda knew that she never could have balanced working the dairy barn while helping her mother with her father after his stroke. Thankfully, her sister and her husband were now taking over the farm, although neither one of them seemed in a great hurry to sever the work relationship with their hired hand.

  When he stood before her, his tall, willowy frame blocking the sun from shining in her face, Amanda wrapped her arms around her waist, as if that would help hold everything together. Amanda nodded her head in response to his inquiry. “Ja, I’m just fine,” she said.

  He reached out and placed his hand on her shoulder, a gesture that caused Amanda to look away. “You don’t have to be out here, Amanda,” Harvey said. “We’ll do just fine the two of us. ’Sides, Izzie will be looking for you shortly.”

  Again, she nodded her head. “I know” was her simple response.

  “But you do what you have to,” Harvey said, a soft expression on his tanned face.

  She managed to smile at him, a way of letting him know how much she appreciated his compassion.

  Two weeks, she thought as she watched him walk back to Jonas, who was adjusting the harness on one of the mules.

  It was hard for her to face the truth, that her husband had left her in Lititz and gone off to continue his own life, separated from her and their daughter, Isadora. After all that they had been through, she could not comprehend that their marriage might actually be over. So much had happened in the past year, from the accident in New York City to the onslaught of paparazzi in Lancaster County to the whirlwind romance that took her to Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Miami.

  And then they had gotten married.

  She had known that marrying Alejandro would not be easy. It wasn’t that she didn’t love him. That had never been the question. But the clash of their lifestyles merging together had been the final cut to the ties that had bound them together.

 
; The South American tour had been especially hard for Amanda. On a continent where she did not speak the language, both linguistically and culturally, their differences had begun to emerge. From the women with their sophisticated mannerisms and exotic beauty to the arrival of Alejandro’s friend, Enrique Lopez, Amanda had watched as Alejandro transformed into Viper, the womanizing international sensation who charmed everyone he met. His nights began to stretch into the morning hours, and with all of his interviews and obligations, she rarely saw him. Their time alone disintegrated until she found herself alone more than with him.

  Neither one of them had been prepared for the arrival of Isadora, his five-year-old daughter from a one-night stand with a Brazilian woman. Amanda had known about the daughter since Alejandro had told her about the child when they first met. But because he maintained no relationship with either the mother or the child, Alejandro never mentioned them again.

  So when the Brazilian government worker arrived with the child, explaining that Isadora was headed to an orphanage if Alejandro and Amanda did not take her, the shock of suddenly becoming parents had overwhelmed both of them.

  “Amanda?”

  She looked up at the sound of her name carried on the morning breeze. Jonas was waving to her, beckoning her to help them.

  Obediently, and grateful for the interruption to her racing thoughts, she hurried down the field and joined the two men.

  Her brother-in-law stood by the larger of the two mules, examining a piece of leather. “Ach, it’s broken, I reckon.”

  Amanda peered over his shoulder at the tie strap. The ring that held it to the trace carrier, the piece of leather that lay across the mule’s rump and kept the plow attached to the harness, had indeed torn off. “That’s not gut,” she said. “I don’t think I remember Daed having an extra one.”