by Amy Lillard
She pushed the thoughts aside, the situation still too fresh. Maybe later, in a day or two—in a month—she would look at the events of the afternoon in detail. For now, she was going back to Dallas.
Home.
She received more than her fair share of stares as she found her seat. Many more than she ever got in Clover Ridge. She supposed the people in the small Oklahoma town were much more accustomed to seeing the Amish than the travelers at Tulsa International. Or maybe it was because she dressed Plain, but carried a Louis Vuitton bag and a first-class ticket. What a joke.
She settled into her seat, carefully folded the handles of Louie’s bag, and pushed it under the chair in front of her.
She was certain she looked as if she had been run over by a bus. Her frack was wrinkled, the apron creased in more places than she could count as she had twisted it in her hands on the ride to the airport. Her eyes were red and swollen, her nose stuffy, and all she wanted to do now was crawl into a hole, and . . . well, crawling into a hole would be enough. The “and” could come later. At least, she had managed to get her tears to stop, but only because crying would do her absolutely no good.
“Good God, Avery, take that thing off your head.” Her father waved a hand around, motioning toward the prayer kapp she had pinned in her hair a lifetime ago. This morning. She had been wearing it for so long, she had forgotten she still had it on.
She pulled the pins and released the head covering, crumpling it in her hands. She wouldn’t even bother to tell her father not to use the Lord’s name that way. She didn’t have the energy to fight with him.
“And that dress. Is that the going thing in Aruba?” He had managed to keep his opinion to himself on the forty-five minute drive to the airport, but it seemed he couldn’t hold his tongue any longer.
“Leave her alone, Owen.”
“Come now, Maris. She’s put us in quite a bind these last few weeks, hiding out. Lying about where she was.” He raised his eyebrows at her in that accusing manner he had perfected long ago, but Avery refused to take the bait. What did it matter now?
“Leave her alone, Owen.”
“I’m just saying, we turn our backs for a couple of weeks, and she goes all . . .” He waved his hand again, his vocabulary failing him once more.
“I said, leave her alone.” This time the words were pushed between Maris’s gritted teeth.
Even Avery’s father stopped to stare at his fiancée.
Maris had never been her champion before, and Avery couldn’t figure out why she wanted to start now. Maybe the petite blonde knew what it was like to be hopelessly in love with the wrong person.
And Avery was in love. She had poured her heart out to Gideon, and he hadn’t even responded. She had all but begged him to let her stay, and he hadn’t even looked her in the eyes. She had promised Ruth not to break his heart, and in the end, it was he who broke hers.
Maybe she should have begged. Maybe . . .
Maybe not.
If nothing else, she left Amish country with a few shreds of her pride intact. Not that it would do her any good now. He didn’t want her. And he was starting to court another. A proper Amish woman, who wasn’t English or mouthy and didn’t challenge his decisions and try to force him to raise alpacas. By this time next year, that lucky woman would most likely be his wife.
The thought stabbed Avery’s already-wounded heart. She had thought she was in love with Jack, but now she knew she had been in love with the idea of being in love. Her feelings for Jack were nothing but a wisp of smoke compared to what she felt for Gideon. This love was real, and she knew she would love him until the end of time. She would do anything for the man. And in the end she had to leave him behind.
Owen Hamilton adjusted his seat back. “Very well.” He unbuttoned his suit coat and tried to appear as if backing off was his idea, while Maris stared out the window, a strange look on her face. Avery closed her eyes and tried to pretend that her heart was not broken in two.
Another hour and they would land in Dallas. Sixty more minutes, and they would pull into the gated drive at her father’s house. By supper, today would seem like another lifetime. Next week, she’d probably forget the taste of Ruth Fisher’s shoofly pie or the exact color of the sky over Gideon’s farm.
But it would be a long, long time before she could erase the feel of his lips beneath hers.
Lord, please take care of him. Lead him where You want him to go. Be with him while we are apart. And Lord, please bless Gideon and his family in every way. Amen.
She couldn’t bring herself to utter even a small prayer on her own behalf.
The house looked strangely empty when he pulled up in front. It was empty. Annie wasn’t there, making a mess of things, learning to cook, trying to convince him to buy livestock.
Slowly, he climbed down from the buggy, in no hurry to continue on with this day. He’d unhitch the horses for now, as he wasn’t planning on going anywhere anytime soon. Maybe tomorrow he’d head over and take a look at the new horses that Gabriel had picked up at the auction, but today he had no desire.
He led the horses through the barn where he brushed them down and turned them loose in the pasture. His body went through the motions, but his mind was on other things. Breathin’. Gettin’ through right now. Learnin’ to go on.
One day at a time. Isn’t that what they said? Well, that’s what he’d do. He’d take it one day at a time. Surely in a week or two, it wouldn’t hurt so bad that he’d lost love not once, but twice.
Coming back through the barn, he spied the quilts he’d used for his makeshift bed. Better take those on in the house. Maybe throw them over the porch railings and let them air out before toting them inside. He gathered them in his arms and stepped into the bright sunshine.
One day at a time.
“Onkel.” Mary Elizabeth pulled her bicycle to a stop in front of the house, waving to him earnestly.
He nodded his head in return, unable to mirror her enthusiasm.
“Where’s your Annie?” she asked as she set the kickstand. “In the haus? I have something for her. It’s—”
“She’s gone.”
“What?” Mary Elizabeth blinked her clear blue eyes.
Gideon was loathe to say the words again. “She’s gone,” he repeated, this time a little louder.
One day at a time.
“I don’t understand.” A frown puckered her brow, and she looked toward the house, as if she expected Annie to appear on the front porch. Maybe she thought he would tell her he was just playing a joke.
“It was time she went back to where she came from.”
“She’s gone?”
He nodded. “She has a family, a father.” And a beau.
“But I thought she liked it here . . .”
“She couldn’t stay here, Mary Elizabeth. She isn’t one of us.”
“But . . .” He hated the tears that welled in her eyes, spilling across her lashes to slide down to her chin. “She didn’t even say good-bye.”
Because he had never given her the chance. If he had, he wouldn’t have been able to let her go—and that would have been the worst thing for everyone involved. Despite the pain it caused, it was best to get it over quickly and move on.
One day at a time.
“And Louie . . .”
Jah, he would miss her mutt almost as much as he would miss her.
“I—I.” She opened and closed her mouth like a fish out of water, but no more words would form. Then she clamped her hands over her lips, and fell into his arms.
Gideon dropped the blankets at his feet. He wished so badly that he could do the same. Rail to the heavens, cry, stomp his feet, and rid himself of the poison of this new grief that consumed him. It would do no good, for the grief would be with him the rest of his days, along
with the hole in his heart that her leaving had left behind.
“Why? Why? Why?” Mary Elizabeth sobbed into his shirt front. “Why did she have to leave?”
He wrapped his arms around her more tightly, trying to comfort the sobbing girl, gaining a little comfort in return. The question he wanted answered was why he had to go and fall in love with an Englischer in the first place.
The first night without her was the hardest. Moving back into the house only made it worse, as it served as a constant reminder that she was really gone. And that he was truly alone.
It was as if she had left a piece of herself in every room. The afghan she had tossed at the foot of the couch. The box of rags he had fixed up for Louie to sleep in. An extra prayer kapp, the cookbook from the library, and her scent. That lingering fragrance seemed to float all around him no matter where in the house he stood.
He picked up the Bible she had left on the lamp table along with the German-to-English dictionary. He smiled, turning it over in his hands.
She had been full of surprises, his Annie. Reading in German, learning to cook, trying her best to fit into his world.
Had he been too hasty to make her leave?
Then he remembered the talk he’d had with the elders. He was to start courtin’ again. It wouldn’t do to have an outsider livin’ in his house while he set his intentions on another.
With Annie underfoot, he surely wouldn’t be able to focus his attention on Rachael.
With a sigh, he placed the Bible back on the table and headed for his room.
First he had to confess his sins and the errors of his ways. Then he would let Rachael know of his plans. His heart wasn’t quite in it, but it would be. Soon, he’d forget the color of Annie’s eyes. The scent of her hair. The way she tilted her head to one side when she smiled.
He pulled his suspenders from his shoulders and shucked off his pants, laying them neatly over the back of the chair.
It was best for him and Annie, he thought as he changed out of his shirt. Best for the community and Rachael. He crawled into bed. Surely God will see fit to help me through.
One day at a time.
Gideon was bleary-eyed the next morning as he stumbled from his bedroom into the kitchen. He yawned and stretched, pulling the suspender straps over his shoulders as he prepared to go out for his morning chores.
He wished he had a cup of coffee, but none was made. That was something he’d have to do once he came back from milking Honey. He pulled on his boots and stomped to the front door, missing Louie who made the trip with him every morning.
It wasn’t like he needed another dog. He had a few of his own and even more that seemed to show up on a regular basis. He just missed the little Yorkie, city dog turned country. And he couldn’t help but wonder how the whelp would adjust back to city life.
Just fine, he told himself. It was much easier to go back to the Englischer ways than it was to embrace the hard, old-fashioned lifestyle of the Plain people. Louie might not have an endless supply of butterflies to chase in all of the concrete and steel that made up the city, but he would find other things to occupy his time that were just as enjoyable.
Just like his mistress.
He would miss his Annie much more than she would miss him. She would look back on her time in Amish country with a faint smile and think Once, I . . . while he’d wish every day that she was at his side.
He shook his head and walked into the barn. Those fanciful thoughts would get him nowhere. It was time to move on. One day at a time. But even as he completed the task himself, Gideon had to push aside the memory of her learning to milk Honey.
He headed back into the house for coffee, then breakfast. After that, he would head out to check on the hens and maybe walk down and make sure his scarecrow still stood.
He opened the cabinet, but the coffee tin wasn’t in its usual place. He checked the cabinet over, and the one next to it on the other side, and even the one down below. Still no coffee.
He was just about to give up, thinking Annie had used the last of it the day before and forgot to mention it to him, when he spotted a new canister on the counter. Made from some sort of ceramic, it was painted blue with a shiny, slick finish.
Annie.
He pulled the jar toward him and sure enough it was filled with the missing coffee.
He smiled as he filled the straining basket with coffee and started the water to boil. But as he tasted his own brew, his smile disappeared quickly enough. Jah, that was the reason he’d stopped making coffee. His efforts were barely palatable.
Still grimacing, he fried up some dippy eggs and ate them, hating that he was alone. He and Annie never talked much at meals. That just wasn’t the Amish way. Mealtimes were for refueling the body, not for chatting. But he missed having her across the table from him, just a mere touch away.
He held back a sigh as he finished off the last of his eggs and toast, and took his plate to the sink. His day stretched before him, a chasm of loneliness.
He looked to the clock on the mantel remembering as he did so that it needed new batteries. But it worked—another of Annie’s legacies.
At just after six, he had a lot of work to do. That was the Amish way, just part of life in the Plain community. Although it felt next to impossible to put one foot in front of the other to get the work done, it was necessary.
He took a deep breath and started for the door, again noticing the stack of books at the end of the couch.
He sighed again. Annie.
She might have gone back to Dallas, but she’d left several pieces of herself behind.
The book on top was the German-to-English dictionary she’d used to look up words from the Bible. Below that was a cookbook, then one on the alpacas she had been telling him about. He picked up the dictionary and turned it over in his hands. With a sad smile he opened it, running his fingers over the title page. Mayes County Library was stamped inside, the name of the library in town. He’d have to return those soon. He didn’t have any idea how long a person could keep books from there. Maybe tomorrow he’d run them into town and drop them off at the library. It would give him something to do. For now he had stalls to muck and hay to spread. He gave the tome on alpacas one last look before placing it on the stack and heading for the door.
Gideon took a deep breath; the sweet smell of a Clover Ridge spring filling his lungs. What a beautiful day to be out in the fields. It was May, the most perfect time of year. The grass was green, and the sky that wondrous shade of impossible blue.
He had everything he could possibly want. He took another satisfied breath and tamped down the swell of pride. It was a sin to be prideful. God had given him so much that he turned his pride to prayer and thanked the Lord for the gifts he’d received.
Off in the distance he heard the bleat of a sheep. But that wasn’t his lamb. It couldn’t be. He had sold all the lambs after the accident.
“Gideon.” He heard her voice so soft and yet so near it sounded like she was right next to him. He turned, and she was. So real, he could see the creases in her prayer kapp, the neat stitches in her pale blue frack.
“Miriam.”
“Come,” she said, holding a hand out to him. “The lambs need you.”
“But,” he started to protest.
“But what?” she asked, that sweet smile on her lips, her eyes sparkling.
“There are no lambs.” Then again, if she were still there, then surely the lambs were too.
Gideon realized his second chance had come home again. He took her hand, allowing her to lead him toward the pasture. “Where’s Jamie?” he asked.
Suddenly rain started to fall. Soft patters at first until it came down in sheets. Miriam didn’t answer, just walked on as if the sun was still shining.
“There.” She pointed toward the creek.
Gideon turned, expecting to see their son, but Jamie wasn’t there. The water had risen with the rain, nearly flooding the banks as it rushed on by. It was dangerous. But he could keep her safe now. All he had to do was keep her at his side—and find his son.
“Gideon!” Annie, his sweet Annie, stood on the other side. She was dressed in a plain blue frack with a sparkling red dress on top of the conservative Amish garb. She had on one flip-flop and one high-heeled sandal.
“Stay there,” he told her. She’d be safe as long as she didn’t try to cross the creek. If she could just stay there until the rains stopped.
She nodded, wringing her hands as if she wasn’t as confident in his decision. She inched closer to him, to the swollen banks of the creek.
“Stay there!” he yelled again. But the wind had picked up and carried his words away before they could reach her ears.
“What?” she cried, taking one step more.
He tried to tell her again to stay put, but as he opened his mouth to say the words, she disappeared. She was gone in the blink of an eye. One second she was there, the next she was gone.
He ran to the creek, but no sign of her. He tried to wade out into the water, but Miriam pulled him back. “I have to find her,” he said, unable to break free from her grasp. With that red dress on, Annie would be easy to spot. He’d find her, he would. But Miriam held him back.
“Let me go,” he commanded and begged, all in the same breath.
Miriam tilted her head, her expression serene and confused. “But Gideon, you’ve been free all along.”
He looked down at his arm. Miriam was no longer holding him. He turned toward her, but she was standing yards away, Jamie stood behind her, half buried in her sodden skirts. Wet, but fine.
His family was safe. He could get Annie now. He could save her.
He ran toward the creek, stumbled—and fell.
Gideon jerked awake, drenched in sweat, breathing heavily.
His hands shook as he pushed his hair off his forehead and rubbed his eyes.
