“I thought I’d find you with another man standing guard and it would help me to picture you differently. I’d stop remembering you as . . . mine.”
“I am different now,” she said. “Even without a guard. And I’m most certainly not yours.”
“Yah.” He chuckled softly. This was what he’d come for—a forthright tongue-lashing. Her gaze flickered over toward him, and he sighed. “Maggie, I thought I could set whatever I felt for you to rest. I haven’t moved on. I should have been able to. It’s been a long time. The fact that I couldn’t marry a very sweet girl just because she wasn’t you—”
He stopped. He didn’t want to say all of this, expose himself. This was supposed to be a private affair where he got to see Maggie again in her life, as she was, and maybe that would help him to make his peace with it all—see how right his father had been.
And his father had been right, but somehow, that didn’t fix it.
“And has this helped?” she asked, her voice tight.
“Not a lot,” he admitted. As if almost kissing her on the side of the road weren’t proof enough.
The horses knew their way home, and without any urging from her, they turned into the Lapps’ drive. She drove in silence as the buggy’s wheels rattled over the icy gravel drive. Finally, she reined in next to the buggy barn. Another buggy was already parked under the visitors’ shelter, and they both looked instinctively toward the house.
“I’ll have to help my mother serve the guests,” she said.
“I’ll unhitch. You go ahead,” Atley replied.
“Are you sure?”
He shot her a grin. “Let me do this much.”
Maggie turned toward the house, the side door opened. Atley recognized his brother immediately, and he frowned. Abram might live in Morinville, but he wasn’t supposed to be here this Christmas. He spotted them and headed in their direction with a cordial smile.
“Hey, little brother!” Abram said, and he clapped an arm around Atley’s shoulder, giving him a rough hug.
“Abram,” he said, hugging his brother back. “Freulich Kristag! I didn’t think I’d be seeing you and Waneta this trip. You decided to stick around?”
“Are Waneta and the kinner inside?” Maggie asked.
“No, they, uh—” Abram cleared his throat and dropped his arm. “They’re with Waneta’s aunt in Pennsylvania.”
“Oh.” Maggie nodded, her smile faltering. “Right. Well, Freulich Kristag. To your Waneta and the kids, too.”
“I’ll let them know. To you, too.”
“I’ll just head in, then. . . . ” Maggie met Atley’s gaze.
“I’ll unhitch. Go on in,” Atley said. “Abram will help me, right?”
“Of course,” his brother said.
Maggie headed toward the house, and Abram fell in beside Atley as they unhitched the horses together.
“It’s good to see you, Brother,” Abram said. “You’ll look better with a married man’s beard, though.”
“Yah, pester me about marriage instead of explaining yourself,” Atley retorted now that Maggie was out of earshot.
“I heard about the fire,” Abram said, his tone chilling. “I’m here to lend a hand. It’s what neighbors do.”
“It is. But husbands and wives normally travel together over Christmas.”
Abram fell silent; the only sound was the jingle of breeching as Abram pulled it off the horse’s back.
“Abe?” Atley turned, looking his brother in the face. “Are you two separated then?”
“No, we’re not separated,” Abram sighed.
“Then why are you spending Christmas apart?”
“I’m here to help,” Abram replied.
“That sounds like a lie.”
Abram’s face colored and he scowled in Atley’s direction.
“Will you press me to speak of personal matters between my wife and me, little brother?” Abram snapped. “We fought. She’s taking some space. That’s it. Not that it’s your business.”
And maybe it wasn’t, but Atley did care. They carried the saddles and breeching into the stable and put them away. The brothers worked quickly—they both knew their way around the Lapp stable; it was a regular stop for church services.
“Is it that bad, Abe?” Atley asked.
“You’re single. You don’t get it,” Abram said. “Just do your duty and find a wife of your own and leave me to mine.”
“I’m glad to see you all the same,” Atley said as they went back out to bring the horses in for hay and water.
“Don’t tell Mamm and Daet about this when you go back,” Abram said. “I’ll sort it out.”
He’d have to. There was no divorce for the Amish. There were a few couples who separated, but that was only in extreme cases. They weren’t permitted to marry again until one of them died.
“What happened?” Atley asked as he closed the last stall door.
“I can’t make her happy,” Abram replied. “She calls me obstinate and stubborn. She accuses me of not loving her like I used to.”
“Do you?”
Abram sighed. “Marriage is about duty, Atley. It’s about children and raising them right.”
So it was as bad as that. “Is that what she thinks?”
Abram cast him an annoyed look.
“What are you going to do?” Atley asked.
“I’m going to pray that God will speak to her,” Abram said.
“You could speak to her yourself,” Atley said.
“I’ve tried. This is where it has gotten me. The Lord will have to soften us both, if we are to go on.”
“And the kinner?” Atley prodded. “They are having Christmas without their daet.”
“Marriage is complicated, Atley. You have no idea. Don’t try to meddle in another man’s relationship.”
Atley didn’t answer. His brother was right—he didn’t know about marriage firsthand, nor did he know the details about his brother’s. It was this volatile relationship that served as a warning to him and any other young man thinking of blithely following his heart.
“Let’s go lend a hand, Brother,” Abram said. “Whatever a man’s hand finds to do, he must do it with all his might.”
It was never a good sign when Abram started quoting scripture, but a marriage was private business and Atley knew better than to press too hard. His brother was in town, and Atley would make the most of the time with him this Christmas.
And they’d do their duty to the community and help the Lapps fix their barn. This was how life went forward when a man’s heart was wounded: one duty at a time.
Chapter 4
That evening, Maggie slipped her envelope into the egg bucket and headed out the side door. That moment in the snow by the fence had been haunting her thoughts. She knew Atley well once upon a time, but this was a much older version of that young man. He was stronger, more direct, and that tenderness that had simmered in his eyes as his gaze had settled on her lips made her stomach flip to think about. He was now a hardened man, and he was better looking now, if that were even possible. The strength and certainty of manhood had broadened and deepened him, and he was more tempting this time around. And so much more dangerous.
She wasn’t that twenty-year-old girl anymore, either. And she knew better than to play with these emotions. He didn’t want an outspoken woman like her, and she didn’t want to give up this newfound outlet to her energies. Whatever they had was in the past, and it had to stay there, because the last five years had only made them more of themselves. It didn’t matter how she once felt about him . . . it didn’t matter how she felt about him now! It would end in heartbreak all over again, and she wasn’t sure her heart could survive it.
Her future and her ability to distract herself from Atley’s charms lay in the letters that tickled at the back of her mind. The voices in those letters tugged at her. They wanted answers, advice . . . they wanted her.
It was a tempting feeling to be wanted for something. So far, she felt
more like a disappointment to everyone. It had been her duty to find a husband and carry on the traditions, and she would have done so if it were possible. She’d even gone to another community for a little while, but there were meek, quiet girls there, too. And she hadn’t settled in very easily. She’d come home, lonesome and discouraged. Her parents, her uncles and aunts, the members of her church, all looked at her differently after that. They now saw an old maid.
But these letter writers were reaching out to her, and when she sat alone and thought about them she didn’t feel like a failure. She had something other than housework in her childhood home to occupy her thoughts, and she liked it so much more than she realized. She might not be married, but she was a grown woman, and she was ready for a home of her own. Her independence would be difficult to achieve just now and it would require finding a way to financially support herself, but she itched for something more. This column had been more than her secret; it had been her chance.
The sun had already set, and as Maggie trudged through the snow past the buggy barn she could hear her daet mucking out the horse stalls, the sound of shovel against wooden floorboards echoing out into the icy stillness. That meant that Daet was done with the cattle. She picked up her pace. She’d told Mamm that she was checking on one sickly late-born calf in the barn, and it wasn’t a lie—she was doing just that. But she was also looking for solitude.
The silvery full moon was low in the sky, making the patches of snow that remained untrampled sparkle. When she got to the barn, she looked over her shoulder once with mild guilt at her secrecy, then slipped inside to the warmth and tangy scent of cattle.
Maggie lit a kerosene lamp and looked toward the charred corner of the barn. The hole had been patched over with boards, but the black licks remained on the wall. She stared at it a moment, then headed over to the stall where the calf lay curled up in the straw. It opened large, liquid eyes as she approached.
“Hello, my bobbily,” she crooned, and she grabbed an old blanket, then opened the stall and settled it over the calf’s body for some extra warmth. Then she pulled the envelope out of the egg bucket, turned the bucket over, and used it as a stool, wrapping her shawl a little closer around herself.
She opened the envelope and pulled out the stack of fluttering pages. People wrote on different stationery—one had scrawled her question on a piece of lined paper. Others were emails that her editor had printed off for her. She paused to look at the strange lettering in that block before the actual letter began.
She’d been answering these English letters for some time now, and she still wasn’t used to the look of a printed email. It was complicated, confusing.
Time passed as she reread the letters. Perhaps she could send some personal responses that wouldn’t be published in the actual paper. Would that be acceptable to the bishop? It would be more like having many pen pals instead of putting herself into the public eye. Even if she only answered these, she would feel better.
She pulled out some lined paper and scanned the first letter. Then she started to write:
Dear Diana,
The young man who isn’t ready for marriage now will likely not be ready for marriage in the near future. What he means when he says that he just wants to live with you is that he wants the benefits of a wife without promising her his future or his fidelity. With the Amish, we often tell girls not to do anything that will make for regrets later. And that isn’t only about her reputation, which is important to us. This is about her heart. Hearts are not so easily mended as the youth seem to think. Once you have given everything of yourself to this young man, what will it do to you if he decides to move on to another girl and marry her? What will happen to your heart if he decides that you are not what he wants in a wife? These things happen, and while a young man is declaring his love for you, if he isn’t willing to commit at the same time, you should be wary. You must think pragmatically, too....
As Maggie wrote, she felt her muscles start to relax, and the pressures of the day lift. She answered the first letter and then the second. She’d moved on to the third when she heard the barn door open, and she turned, straining to see beyond the stall slats. She hurriedly pushed the papers back into the envelope, her heart pounding.
“Daet?” she called.
“No, it’s me.” Atley’s deep voice echoed through the barn.
“Maggie?”
She rose to her feet, bathed in the yellow light of the kerosene lamp. There was no need to hide the envelope from him, but she still held it instinctively behind her.
“What are you doing here?” she asked with a breathy laugh of relief.
“I forgot my work gloves here in the barn, and I’ll need them come morning.”
“Oh. . . . ”
Atley looked around. “I can’t see enough. Could you bring your lamp over?”
Maggie adjusted the envelope under her shawl, then picked up the lamp and let herself out of the stall. She made her way over to where he stood. He watched her approach, and she felt self-conscious under that scrutiny. She stopped a couple of feet from him, and he put his broad hand over hers, then lifted the lamp higher. He looked around himself, then released her hand and headed over to the bales of hay and picked up the pair of black gloves.
“Found them,” he said, then came back over to where she stood. “What are you doing out here?”
She slowly pulled out the envelope, then shrugged weakly. “Answering letters.”
“Answering them?” His eyebrows climbed. “But . . . does that mean you’ll continue with the column?”
“No—not exactly.” She licked her lips. “I can’t go against the bishop’s orders, can I? But I wanted to answer these letters individually—not to be published, but to be sent back to them. They wanted answers.” She hesitated. “Are you going to tell your uncle this?”
“No. It isn’t going against his orders,” Atley replied. “And even if it were—”
“You’d keep a wicked secret?” she asked, eyeing him uncertainly.
“Maggie, you aren’t wicked.”
“Just dangerously opinionated.”
“Well, you are that.” He smiled teasingly.
Maggie hung the lamp from a nail and rubbed her hands together. Atley put his hands over hers, and the warmth from his palms was a welcome relief. They shouldn’t be touching each other or standing this close. It was a whole new scandal if someone saw them. He lifted her hands to his mouth and blew his breath over her hands.
“Atley, you shouldn’t. . . . ”
“You’re cold.”
“I could go back to the house.”
“You could.” He smiled faintly. “Are you going to?”
She shook her head mutely, and he pressed his lips against her knuckles. His lips were warm, and she could feel the scratch of his stubble on his chin against her fingers. He was a grown man now, and his stubble was rough.
“I’m trying very hard not to miss you, Atley,” she said quietly.
“I know.”
“And this isn’t helping. . . . ”
He lowered her hands. “Seeing you again—I’d thought I’d feel less for you, prove to myself it had been a youthful infatuation. It didn’t work.”
“Just because it was real love back when our hearts were easier to fill doesn’t mean it’s real now,” she said.
“Is that Miss Amish talking?”
“It’s Magdalena. It’s Miss Amish. There is no difference. I only write what I think.”
“Can’t we be friends again?” he asked quietly. “Before we started courting, we were friends.”
“We were kinner, then,” she said with a short laugh. “And if I recall, you had a wild crush on Miriam Peachy with her blond hair and perfectly ironed creases.”
“All the boys had crushes on her,” he replied. “And you hurt my ego. You always won in target practice.”
They used to play together, running through the fields. They’d set up cracked canning jars on the fence posts a
nd stand back behind a predetermined line and throw their stones. She hadn’t known how to throw properly at first, but when he taught her how to throw overhand, the right moment to release, she’d quickly surpassed him in skill. She could still remember Atley Troyer in dirty bare feet. And she hadn’t been any neater, her hair coming free of her kapp and her glittering gaze fixed on her target. He’d hated that she was a better shot, and she didn’t care. When her rock hit glass, it was a beautiful, shattering sight.
“You gave Miriam your prize rock,” Maggie said. “And I hated you for it. She didn’t deserve that rock. I did.”
“True, but I gave that rock to her because she smiled at me,” he said. “And you wanted it as a reward for beating me.”
Maggie laughed softly. “I still say I deserved it.”
“Yah, you did,” he agreed with a low laugh. “That was before I forgave you for being a better shot than I was. But you see? We were friends. We used to walk to the creek together and catch minnows. We used to climb haystacks. Friendship is forged on the top of a haystack.”
“We aren’t kinner anymore.”
“No, we’re definitely grown enough to know better. . . . ” He stepped closer, then reached out and touched her arm through the shawl, his hand gentle, tentative.
Somehow being grown didn’t make this any easier. Back when they were kinner, she’d longed for him to pine for her the way he pined for Miriam. But maybe that was for the best, after all. Miriam Peachy grew up to be an appropriate Amish woman. She kept her apron gleaming white, and she never had a hair come loose from her kapp. She was married by nineteen. Atley could have done worse.
“Be my friend again, Maggie,” he murmured.
“I’m a scandalous friend to claim right now,” she said, attempting a joke.
“I’ll take the risk.”
His voice was low and deep, as warm as low-burning coals. She didn’t have anything to say to that and she knew she should step back, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She opened her mouth to say something—a very appropriate excuse to leave—but nothing came out, and when he stepped closer still, his lips hovering a breath away from hers, it was she who closed that distance between them, pressing her lips against his as her heart threatened to explode inside of her chest.
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