He laughed low, and the sound caught in her mind. She blinked. She was definitely thinking too much about the thief . . . the thief in the night who’d stolen her dreams. Luke ran a hand down her shoulder to the bend in her elbow, and she snapped back to the moment.
“I’ll take you home, Rose, but I’ve been thinking about what you said—about kissing more.”
She opened her mouth in shock. “Now? Now you want to kiss more?”
“Maybe. What do you mean by now? Aren’t we nearer still to our wedding day?”
She shook her head, confused, and he leaned closer. Against her will, she was intrigued. Luke had rarely been the initiator of kisses in the past.
“Unclasp your arms,” he murmured, sliding his hat off.
She lifted her nose in the air. “Nee—why?”
He smiled. “So you’re not all tense.”
“I’m not tense.”
“What happened here?” He touched the pinkish burn on the back of her hand with care, and she had to look away from him.
“I made blueberry pies last night.”
“Really?”
She’d never have guessed that he knew more than enough about her pie baking. And she didn’t like his teasing tone, even if it was feigned. Sometimes there was no fun in having someone know you well enough to understand even your baking weaknesses.
“Ya, really,” she snapped.
“I would have liked a taste,” he whispered, and she turned to look at him in surprise. Was there some undercurrent of meaning in his words? She searched his familiar face; his blue eyes were as innocent as always. She almost sighed. She was definitely confused by the encounter in the woods.
Then he let his fingers play up along her shoulder to the nape of her neck and slid a curl free from beneath her kapp. He moved to press his lips against her hair and gave a soft exhalation of pleasure.
She drew a sharp breath. “Luke!”
“What?” He bent his head, her hair still in his fingers, and tilted forward so that his mouth hovered a bare inch from her own. “What, Rose?” He trailed the tendril across her lips and waited.
Her breath caught, and she felt a near dizzying sense of his closeness. She wanted him to move—to start, to finish the kiss. But he held back, as if he were searching for something in the depths of her eyes. She felt his weight rock against her for a moment, and he placed a very soft, almost brotherly kiss on her forehead, dropping the strand of hair. She blew out a breath of frustration when he picked up the reins with an enigmatic smile.
“We’ve made a start,” he observed as he turned the horse.
Rose wasn’t sure why she felt such a loss at his idea of a beginning.
Chapter Six
IT WAS A WEEK LATER WHEN ROSE SANK DOWN AT THE Kings’ kitchen table to visit with her friend Priscilla. There was a palpable excitement and energy in the air, and Rose wondered if her own home would feel this way when her wedding was only a short few weeks away.
“So, Rose—you’ve been baking?” Priscilla smiled and nodded toward the pie sitting on the table. “I thought you’d rather add up a page of sums than make a pie!”
“As a matter of fact, I would,” Rose said flatly. “Just take it and enjoy. It’s actually not half bad.”
“Okaaay.”
Rose took a sip of the tea Priscilla had offered her and tried not to dismiss the past few days from her mind. But a blur of brown sugar, cinnamon, flour, and apple peels swirled in her head until she thought she’d never want to taste another pie again as long as she lived. “How are the wedding plans coming along?” she asked, hoping to dislodge her sugary vision.
Priscilla was engaged to marry in just a few weeks, and Rose was to be one of the attendants. It was a great honor, considering that Priscilla’s sister should have served in the position, but Hannah was due to deliver on the day of the ceremony.
Unlike Rose, Priscilla usually glowed with satisfaction over her impending wedding, but now she shook her head. “We’ve had a few—incidents, little glitches in our plans, but I’m sure everything will be perfect from here on out. I do think, though, that you and Luke have the right idea in marrying later in the season. It seems I can barely plan, with all of the weddings we have to attend on the weekends.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Rose murmured, breaking a piece of crust from the pie before her and crumbling it between her fingers.
“Rose, what’s wrong?”
Rose swallowed. Priscilla was her best friend, and keeping things from her was even more difficult than evading Aenti Tabby, but she just couldn’t bring herself to tell her Luke’s secret. More than that, she knew that her friend would never have gone looking for someone in the night, because she’d found the love of her life—it radiated in her face and convicted Rose’s heart.
“Nothing’s wrong.”
“Rose—I’ve wanted to ask . . . does it—well, scare you a little to take on a household of four men? Is that what’s bothering you?”
Rose sighed. If only it were that easy . . . It wasn’t the responsibility of caring for a ready-made family she feared, but her own treacherous thoughts, and her mixed-up attraction to the man she thought she knew so well.
“Sometimes I’m afraid. But it’s just work. I’ll delegate. They’re managing fine without me now, so one extra pair of hands has got to be a help. Luke would never just let them dump all the housework on me.”
Priscilla nodded. “No, he cherishes you far too much for that.”
Rose stood up abruptly. “Priscilla, I’d best be going. I just wanted—to give you the pie. Besides, I promised Luke I’d stop by the office and see him for a few minutes. I suppose I should do it.”
“Bensel . . . you sound like you don’t really want to!”
Rose summoned a smile. “That’s silly—of course I do.”
THEENGLISCH SEEMED TO HAVE AN EVER-GROWING FASCINATION with all things Amish, and Luke considered wryly that he’d much prefer to be wrestling with accounts than doing the other part of his job—dealing with customers.
He blinked from the throbbing in his temples and refocused on the woman across the desk from him. She was young and blond and had bright, carefully made-up blue eyes. She was also spoiled rotten by her husband, as far as he could tell. Mrs. Matthews had very distinct ideas about what she wanted for her own birthday gift, and apparently had even more particular thoughts about men in general falling under the spell of her obvious beauty. Luke had spent a mind-numbing half hour trying to verbally sidestep her, finally deciding that humoring her was the best possible recourse.
“So, let’s go over this again, Mrs. Matthews.” He leaned forward conspiratorially. “A carved headboard.”
ROSE SIGHED AS SHE LOOPED THE REINS OF THE HORSE over the post outside the woodworking shop and glanced at the car parked there. The vehicle shone with discreet elegance in the filtered sunlight of the row of brightly colored oak trees that lined the Lantzes’ lane. She hesitated, thinking maybe a wealthy client might be occupying Luke’s time, but she had promised to stop.
She entered the side door, breathing in the pungent smells of many woods—butternut, sassafras, black walnut. The accompanying sounds of hammers and shavers echoed with familiar comfort as she turned to the office. The door to the small room was half closed, and she lifted her hand to knock when a burst of pleased feminine laughter made her jump.
“Oh, Mr. Lantz—tell me another, please. You’ve got a wonderful sense of humor.”
“Call me Luke.”
Call him Luke? Rose felt an unfamiliar pang in her chest as she stared at the wooden door.
“Go on in, Rosie,” Joshua bellowed as he crossed behind her carrying a brace of two-by-fours. “He’s been in there forever.”
Forever? Rose frowned and eased the door open.
A blond-haired woman in faded blue jeans, fancy boots, and a becoming pink sweater sat on the edge of Luke’s desk. Her betrothed had his hat off and leaned back in his chair. The deep smile on his face
revealed a dimple in his cheek that Rose had forgotten even existed.
He turned easily in the chair while the woman looked up. “Rose, hiya. I forgot you were coming. I don’t know where the time’s gone.”
He made to rise, and Rose waved him back down with a quick swipe of her hand. Feelings of irritation and jealousy mingled in her mind like the dust motes in the shaft of sunlight from the small window.
“Um . . . I’ll just see you later since you’re busy.”
But the other woman slid down from the desk, a pile of neatly organized receipts falling after her. “Oh, I’m so silly!”
The woman bent her slender form to pick at the papers, and somehow Luke bent forward at the same time so that they knocked heads, his black hair touching the blond strands—and causing a red haze to temporarily mar Rose’s vision.
“Do you need some help?” she heard herself ask sweetly. But something in her tone must have conveyed itself to Luke, because he made haste to get up.
“Uh, Rose—don’t go. Mrs. Matthews and I . . .”
“Barbara,” the woman interjected with a purr. “Don’t forget.”
“Right. Barbara and I are finished, really. I was just tallying her bill and telling her some of the odd things people want carved in wood sometimes. Uh . . . Barbara, this is my betrothed, Rose Bender.”
Rose forced herself to shake the hand the other woman extended and resisted the urge to squeeze like she was working a hard milking cow. She was amazed at her own temper. Luke had done nothing but laugh, and after all, he had to be polite to the customers. She felt herself begin to calm down and silently prayed for forgiveness for the way she was feeling.
She cast her eyes quickly over the receipt Luke held and calculated the total with an easy computation in her head. She murmured the figure to him.
“How’d you do that so fast?” Luke smiled his thanks, but Mrs. Matthews was giggling.
“Oh, a wedding. I love weddings. You’ve got to let me congratulate you both!” She stretched to brush the air near Rose’s cheek with a kiss, then wound her slender arms up around Luke’s neck.
Not as long as I have breath in my body, Rose thought as she took a step forward and gave a soft cry. She let herself fall with dead weight against the other woman, knocking her clean from Luke to land sideways on the desk, with Rose grimly atop her. Silently asking forgiveness for the second time in as many minutes, she took her time letting Luke help her up and couldn’t resist a well-placed elbow in the design of the pink sweater.
“I’m so sorry,” she murmured, hauling Mrs. Matthews upright. “I must have tripped. You are all right, ya?”
The Englisch woman looked faintly bewildered, as though she’d been sidelined by some strange forest creature. She grabbed up her purse and nodded to both of them.
“I’ll call you when we have your order complete, Barbara,” Luke said.
Rose thought she detected the slightest hint of humor in his voice—but she couldn’t be sure. In truth, she was appalled at her reaction and hoped that it wouldn’t cost the Lantz family a customer. But Barbara nodded vaguely and headed out the door. When she’d gone, Rose raised guilty eyes to Luke, but he just looked at her with a calm gaze.
“Got to get that board fixed,” he commented.
“Board?”
“The one you tripped over. Might be bad for future customers.”
Speechless, Rose could only nod in agreement.
Chapter Seven
ROSE HADN’T SEEN THE “THIEF” AGAIN SINCE THEIR encounter the night of the storm, but for the third night in a row she set a trap for him. She snuggled beneath the quilt she’d dragged out onto a chair on the back porch and listened to the forlorn sound of occasional raindrops hitting the tightly sealed tinfoil on two apple pies on the rail.
She was a fool to long after another meeting with Luke in disguise.
She thought back again to the image of him laughing with the woman in the office that afternoon and tried to sort out her feelings. She’d watched Luke at singings and youth outings all through the years, and never had she thought to be jealous of his interactions with other girls. Not that he wasn’t attractive and well-spoken; he was simply too faithful a friend and follower to ever be doubted. But now . . . now, he was something else, something more. She was too curious by nature to resist another taste of his disguise. And she had to admit that as the thief he had stirred her senses in a new way. She sighed and wondered what kind of person she was to be attracted to the unknown in someone.
She distracted herself by thinking about the apple pies she’d made. She was becoming adept at the task and yielding a deft hand to the formation of the latticework top crusts. She’d kept her brothers from asking for their fair share by baking while they were in the fields and had apparently satisfied her mamm’s curiosity with her explanation that she was trying to be a better cook. She didn’t like the deception, but she rationalized that her doings were certainly harmless enough. She was going to marry Luke, after all, so she might as well give him another opportunity to tell her the truth.
She was half asleep, somewhere between dreaming and wakefulness, when she heard the sound of foil rattling. She popped open her eyes and clicked on her flashlight. The pies were gone, and someone was moving across the yard.
“Hey!” she hissed, arcing the light into the yard. The beam caught against a pair of blue-jean clad legs, and she dropped the quilt and stood. “Wait!” she called. “Please.”
“Put down the light and I’ll wait.”
She heard the hoarse yet familiar voice, and her hands grew damp with perspiration as she snapped off the light and put it where she had been sitting. She crept to the porch rail and then down into the yard.
“They’re apple—the pies, I mean.” She toyed with her fingers.
“They’ll be appreciated.”
“Ach . . . do you . . . take for your family? Because we have plenty to give . . . I mean . . .”
“What do you want?” His question was harsh but penetrating.
“I don’t—know what you mean.” Rose’s heart began to pound, wondering if he’d figured out that she recognized him.
“Yes, you do. A good Amish girl chasing after an Englisch thief. Why? What do you want?”
The rain seemed to be melting her sensibilities, her defenses, the very excuses she’d sustained herself on the past months when she thought of a lifetime with Luke. Suddenly he’d become the center of something she desired with all her heart.
“I want you,” she said baldly.
There was a long moment of silence, broken only by the falling of the rain.
“Me?” He laughed. “What do you know about me?”
“I want your way of being, your freedom. . . .” Who you are right now . . .
“If it’s your engagement that you want out of, why not tell your—best friend?”
“I don’t want out of it,” she cried, amazed at his perception. But then, he’d known her forever . . .
“Tell him. Tell him you’re so hungry to be free that you’d stand in the dark and the rain and long for a stranger’s touch—his kiss.”
She almost spun away from the deep voice, the mockery, and the powerful allure. His kiss.
She heard the shift of the foil, the damp footsteps, and then he swooped so close that she could feel his breath against her cheek, the press of the pie pans against her stomach. He smelled of the forest and something else that was tantalizingly familiar. But then his mouth was on hers, once, twice, two angry kisses, and then a yielding, a softening, and she was kissing him back with all of the withheld passion in her young soul. He broke away with a rasp in his breath, and Rose stood shivering, gasping for breath as the rain increased in tenor.
“Go inside,” he ordered, moving away.
She couldn’t obey, couldn’t think, as she raised a shaking hand to her lips.
“Don’t leave,” she gasped.
She heard him inhale. “I must.”
And then he w
as gone, running, the rain making an uneven and fading tattoo on the foil as she listened to some part of her dreams move far and away.
Chapter Eight
LUKE STARED OUT AT THE GRAY MORNING THROUGH THE kitchen window and wondered if the sun would break through. Rose had promised to come and help with the cider making. He took a deep swallow of the bitter coffee his brother had brewed and tried to suppress his mixed feelings about kissing Rose the night before. To be sure, he could still imagine his mouth stinging with the contact, but he’d been furious too. He’d risked a second encounter with her partially because he’d wondered how far her interest extended to some strange Englischer. He also wanted to see her again as he had the night of the storm, so striking in her beauty and so much as one with the wild darkness. He wondered idly whether she’d understand if he tried to explain . . .
Joshua entered through the back kitchen door. “Saw Abram Bender out this morning.”
Luke blinked as he sipped his coffee and turned to his bruder. “Mending fence?”
Joshua laughed. “Ya.”
It was a gentle joke among the Lantz and Bender families how much time Abram spent mending fence. It was almost as if the man could sense a weakening in the stone or wire even before the cows could.
Luke moved from the sink basin to give his brother room to wash.
“Nervous about becoming a married man, Luke?” There was enough curiosity in Josh’s voice for Luke to know he wasn’t just joking.
“Maybe,” he admitted, thinking of Rose kissing a supposed stranger.
“Wish Mamm could be here to see it?”
Luke tightened his grip on his cup. “Surely.”
Joshua toweled his arms, whistling through his teeth for a moment. “Well, you still going to that Englisch homeless shelter to help out like Mamm did?”
“Nee . . . I haven’t had the time of late.”
Joshua nodded. “Just as well. You’ve enough of your own to care for without chasing after the Englisch, no matter how fitting the cause.”
An Amish Wedding Page 3
