“Did you know she visited him in prison?” Elizabeth asked.
“Yah, of course.” Bridget put a sandwich on Elizabeth’s plate using only her fingertips. They’d eat at the counter, it seemed. “He’s her son. I went once, too, but they limit how many visits the men there can have, so I didn’t want to take that time away from Anke.”
“Did you know that she refused to visit him again?”
Bridget froze in the act of getting her own sandwich, then looked up. “What?”
“That’s what he told me. He said she walked out on him and said she wouldn’t come back. I think it”—Elizabeth sucked in a breath—“broke his heart.”
“Anke wouldn’t do that—”
“Would Solomon lie about something like that?” Elizabeth asked. Because she didn’t think he had. He’d opened up.
Bridget shook her head and put down the sandwich on her plate, staring at it mutely for a moment. Then she looked up. “They had a difficult relationship, those two. Anke had trouble raising him after my son died. Sol was always so hardheaded, and Anke was prone to overreaction. They both were, honestly. My son was the one who brought balance to that family, and when he died, I tried to be an influence, but it wasn’t the same. Any little thing Sol did, Anke would lecture him about how it would ruin his entire life. I told her that she was going too far, but she wouldn’t listen. She said she was his mother and I needed to respect that. And I did! But she went too far . . .”
“Was she . . . harsh?” Elizabeth asked. “Did she beat him?”
“No, no, not like that.” Bridget sighed. “She just thought that every little thing was a sign of him going down the wrong path.”
“In her defense, he did jump the fence,” Elizabeth said.
“Did he do that because he really wanted to, or because he believed he was halfway to hell already?” Bridget asked. “I love my daughter-in-law—I do. She stayed with me even after my son’s death, and we’ve taken care of each other. Most people would support her trying to use a strong hand with Sol—in fact, most of the family encouraged her in that. But Sol was more sensitive than his brother and sisters.”
“Yah?” Elizabeth frowned. “He always seemed . . . tough.”
“That’s just on the outside,” Bridget replied. “He was always very tender. He felt things deeply. His mamm didn’t see it.”
Elizabeth shrugged weakly. Obviously she hadn’t either. The Solomon she’d known back then was stubborn and constantly teasing. The Solomon she’d become reacquainted with recently was gentler, even after that time in prison.
“This is why I wanted you to befriend him,” Bridget said. “He needs to feel like he belongs with someone—he needs to see the potential here.”
There was movement behind them and Elizabeth and Bridget both turned to see Solomon standing in the doorway, his hat in one hand and a streak of dirt down his white shirt. His dark gaze flickered between Elizabeth and Bridget, and she could read the betrayal in his eyes.
“You asked her to be my friend?” Solomon asked, his voice low.
“We didn’t hear you,” Bridget said feebly.
“I oiled the screen door this morning,” he said, and he shook his head. “Maybe I shouldn’t have. You could have had some warning. Is that what this was—you were pretending to care?”
“Sol, this isn’t what it seems,” Bridget said. “I’m sorry to have been talking about you.”
But Solomon’s gaze was locked on Elizabeth. That accusation had been for her, and she could only imagine that he was remembering the same thing she was—a kiss on the steps, shared confidences . . . That hadn’t been because his grandmother asked her to be nice.
“Never mind,” he said.
Solomon turned and headed down the steps—and this time, Elizabeth could hear his footfalls. She rubbed a hand over her face.
Bridget hurried across the kitchen and pushed open the screen door. “Sol! Come back, Sol!”
The clatter of a buggy brought Elizabeth to the door, too. Edith and Lydia had arrived, but it was Seth who was driving them. Seth reined the horse in and his wary gaze followed Sol as he disappeared into the stable. The he looked back at Elizabeth and Bridget at the door.
“Everything okay?” Seth called.
“Yes, fine!” Bridget replied, forcing a smile.
“I’ll go talk to Solomon,” Elizabeth murmured.
Bridget caught her arm. “We don’t breathe a word about that fight, Elizabeth, do you hear me?”
“Of course.”
Because if word got out about that, Solomon could be sent back to prison. He’d made mistakes and he’d likely leave the Amish life for good, but he didn’t deserve more punishment.
* * *
Solomon grabbed a bale of hay and hauled it across the stable. He’d kissed her. Maybe it had been a stupid thing to do, but he’d at least thought it was mutual! He’d thought that Elizabeth had been talking to him because she wanted to. But his grandmother had pushed her into it? If it weren’t for Bridget, would Elizabeth have spoken to him at all?
He dropped the bale next to a stall, his brain spinning. He’d said a lot—he’d opened up. It was only occurring to him now that she might have been reporting back to his grandmother. He’d thought it would stay private. Was he the fool here for having thought a girl like Elizabeth could actually care for him? Maybe.
He grabbed a utility knife from a shelf and cut the twine on the bale of hay. It popped, but the hay stayed compressed—an older bale, apparently. He pushed the pitchfork into its depths and twisted the hay loose.
The stable door opened and Solomon looked up to see Elizabeth. She stood in the doorway, eyeing him uncertainly for a moment, and he hated that he still thought she was beautiful.
“What part were you mad at?” Elizabeth asked, the door falling shut behind her.
“It doesn’t matter,” he replied. “I’m up to speed now.”
“So what do you think you know?” she asked.
“My grandmother asked you to keep an eye on me . . . something like that?” he said.
She was silent.
“So, what was that last night?” He dropped the pitchfork tongs against the cement floor with a clang.
Her cheeks tinged pink.
“Did you actually want that kiss? Or did I just surprise you?” He shook his head. “Do you feel like I forced that kiss on you?”
“No—” She shook her head.
“When I told you about jail and what it was like . . . did you care, or was that so you could tell my grandmother where I was at in my head?”
“Of course, I care!” she shot back.
He met her gaze, and for a moment, they just stared at each other.
“I feel a little stupid,” he admitted. “I thought there was something genuine between us.”
Elizabeth’s gaze dropped. “Your grandmother did ask me to be your friend. That part is true—”
“I should have realized that,” he muttered. Of course, Mammi was trying to make things easier on him. He should have sensed her influence on this.
“But that isn’t why I was talking to you, or why I . . . why we . . .” Elizabeth looked up at him helplessly “It doesn’t explain that kiss.”
“No?” he asked, and he couldn’t help the hope that seeped through his tone. He hated it—wished he could hide it better.
“I started to get to know you again, Sol, and you’re not the boy who used to pester me.” She swallowed. “You’re . . . a man.”
There was something in her voice that gave him pause. She wouldn’t meet his gaze.
“You mean years have passed and we’ve both grown up, or you’re seen me . . . as a man.” He leaned the pitchfork against the wall and walked out to where she stood. She didn’t move, and when he reached her, she looked up at him. She licked her lips.
“They’re the same thing,” she breathed.
Did she really think so? It was almost sweet that she’d be that naïve.
“No
, they aren’t.” He glanced toward the window, then back down at her. “One is a friend. The other is . . . on a different level. It’s like when I look at you, I don’t just see little Lizzie who I mercilessly teased. I don’t see a pal, or a buddy. And to be clear, I’m not asking for anything, but if I have to be honest, when I look at you, I see . . . a woman.”
Elizabeth sucked in a breath, and for a beat, she met his gaze. Then she looked down.
“Does it matter?” she asked. “It’s not like you’re staying.”
“Yah, it matters,” he said quietly. “Because you kissed me back.”
She looked away, annoyance shining in her eyes.
“You felt something with me,” he went on. “You saw me as a man, and you felt something—”
“I . . . did.” She shrugged. “I shouldn’t have, though—”
“I don’t think there is a lot of control over those things,” he said with a short laugh.
“There’d better be!” she retorted.
“Yah, over our actions, absolutely,” he replied. “But over attraction? You think you can muscle up your virtue and stop feeling even that?”
“I should try, at least,” she said, her voice faint.
He ran a hand down her arm, and he felt the goose bumps rise on her flesh. That was from his touch, he realized. His fingers on her skin made her shiver like that. He caught her hand and she didn’t pull back.
“If you didn’t want to kiss me, you should have stopped me last night,” he said, and he dropped her hand.
“It’s just—” Her gaze flickered up to meet his, and then she looked away, closing her fingers into a fist. “I’d never been kissed before.”
Solomon’s heart thudded to a stop. “What?”
“I know it sounds ridiculous at my age, but . . . I’ve been careful.”
Very careful, it would seem. And that kiss might have meant something to her that he hadn’t realized.
“Then why kiss me?” he asked.
She didn’t answer and he caught her hand again. “Lizzie—”
This mattered. If she’d never kissed a man before, why had she deigned to kiss him?
“Because you saved me!” Tears misted Elizabeth’s eyes. “Because I was terrified, and then you were there, and you defended me! And when we were talking, you felt like a real person again instead of just the boy who jumped the fence, and—”
“And?” he breathed.
“. . . I wanted to.”
He couldn’t help the smile that tickled his lips. “Yah?”
He’d sparked something inside her, too, and he liked that. She’d seen the man in him, and she’d responded. He wasn’t just some foolish teenager anymore.
“I don’t want to kiss you again,” she clarified.
“Of course not,” he said, but he couldn’t help the mild sense of victory. “That would be debasing, and a mistake.”
She gave him an annoyed look. “There’s no future between us, and I don’t toy with those things. If I waited that long for a first kiss, I’m not about to fool around. I’m looking for a husband, not a boyfriend.”
“Yah . . .” He let the joking go. “I know. And I’m not exactly husband material. You don’t have to point that out. I just needed to know that you weren’t out there with me because of my grandmother. That would have been wrong—on too many levels.”
“No, it wasn’t because of your grandmother,” she replied quietly.
“I won’t kiss you again,” he said quietly. “You can spend time with me and not worry that I’ll try.”
“Okay.” She nodded.
What was it about Elizabeth that brought out the nobility in him? He wanted to be the kind of man she could relax around. He wanted her to be able to lean into him, to let down her guard. And that would mean exercising his self-control. With her hand on his arm, he was tempted to step closer again and close that distance between them. But he wouldn’t.
“Look,” he said, clearing his throat. “I can go man the roadside stall with you to make sure you’ll be okay, but I’d rather find a job so that my grandmother can just leave the stand closed this year.”
Elizabeth nodded. “I’m sure she’d appreciate that.”
“But getting a job isn’t going to be easy,” he said. “If Seth wouldn’t hire me, I doubt there’s some Amish farmer just waiting to bring an ex-con onto his land.”
“There has to be somewhere,” Elizabeth said. “Where do other men with your . . . history . . . work?”
“For the most part, they don’t. They get back into crime and go back to jail,” he replied.
Elizabeth didn’t answer.
“But something did occur to me,” he added. “Your family is the one that might actually understand me. With your daet in prison, you’ve got a more personal connection to all that, and you might understand a man who made a mistake and is trying to go right.”
“I’m not sure we understand my daet at all,” she said.
He was silent for a moment. “But you’d want him to have a way to keep himself when he gets out, right?”
“Yah. Of course.”
“Do you think your brother might be willing to help me get a job, then?” he asked. “He works with his father-in-law at the book bindery, doesn’t he? I mean, I can do pretty much anything they asked of me, and then I could hand my wages over to my grandmother. And I have a feeling she’d like that—some Amish-earned money.”
Elizabeth smiled faintly. “Yah, she would like that.”
“Will you ask him?” Solomon asked.
She sucked in a breath. “I can’t promise that he’ll do anything, but I’ll ask.”
“Thank you.” It was something.
He wasn’t trying to use her tenderness toward him for his own gain. This was different—he was trying to be worthy of it. Because whatever had sparked between them on a chemical level, he craved something deeper than her touch. He wanted her respect.
Was it too much to ask?
Chapter Eight
The next morning Elizabeth looked out the side of the buggy, watching the birds flit from fence post to fence post as the horses plodded along. The sun shone hot already, without even the faintest of breezes. Elizabeth plucked at the neckline of her dress, looking for some cool air.
“What will happen at your parole meeting?” she asked.
“No idea,” Solomon replied. He rubbed a hand over his healing split knuckles.
“Are you nervous?” she asked.
“A bit,” he said, and he cast her a smile. “I’ll be okay.”
Was he as confident as he looked, or had he gotten good at faking it? Elizabeth eyed him for a moment, watching him fiddle with the reins.
“Do you believe in Gott still?” she asked.
He raised an eyebrow. “Yah. Hard not to.”
“Do you believe Gott wants you to live a good, moral, Amish life?” she asked.
He smiled ruefully. “Good and moral, yah. Amish? I don’t know. There is more out there than we ever knew, you know. My mamm used to tell me about Adam and Eve, and how they were given everything good, and they still wanted to see what was beyond it,” he said. “She said I was just like that, always wanting to peer beyond the fence.”
“Do you agree with her?” Elizabeth asked hesitantly. “That it’s dangerous out there?” Because she did.
“No,” he said. “I don’t. I think there is good and bad right here in the Amish community, and there is good and bad outside it. And we can choose the apple from anywhere.”
“But when you left, you ended up with wicked people,” she countered. “That must mean something . . .”
Could he not see it? He’d been safe here in Bountiful, even if he felt a little restrained or bored. But when he left, that was when all his misery had begun. Would he still defend that one choice that started it all?
“Jesus talked about pleasing Gott. He said we need to feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, visit people in prison.” Solomon’s gaze st
ayed on the road ahead of them. “It was a Catholic priest who sat with me and talked to me about my soul, about how I could be a different man if I chose to be. Do you think that priest is part of the wicked world out there? According to our own Bible, he was doing right.”
Elizabeth sighed. “It’s just safer here . . .”
“Even if you go another year or two unmarried?” His glaze flicked in her direction, and she felt the prick in his words. “What if you get too old, and your hopes of finding a husband dry up? What then? What if you could choose between living an English life with a husband who loved you and as many babies as you wanted to have or an Amish life as a spinster?”
That was every woman’s fear in this community, and it felt cruel for him to point it out.
“That isn’t fair,” she said.
They were approaching Isaiah’s drive and she pointed to the mailbox with block letters spelling Yoder.
“It’s perfectly fair,” he said quietly. “It just might be reality.”
“We don’t know how anything will work out,” she said. “Gott doesn’t give us choices like that.”
Solomon reined in the horses and the buggy came to a stop at the top of the drive under the dappled shade of some trees that tickled the hard top of the buggy with their branches.
“If you looked at things as they are,” he said quietly, “you might realize that is your choice exactly. Or it will be if you don’t find your perfectly Amish, deeply spiritual, obnoxiously attractive husband very soon.”
Elizabeth stared at him, her breath coming shallow.
“Who says marrying Englishers is any easier?” she asked.
He reached out and ran the back of his finger down her cheek, and she felt a shiver down her back in response to his touch.
“You don’t know how beautiful you are, do you?” he murmured.
Her breath caught in her throat, and for a heartbeat his eyes locked onto hers. Then she heard the slam of a screen door behind her and she looked over her shoulder and saw her sister-in-law, Bethany, on the step holding her infant son in her arms.
“I have to go,” she said.
“Yah,” he agreed. “I’ll come by again on my way back.”
“Thank you.” She scooted to the edge of the seat and hopped down. Her heart was beating at a quicker pace and she looked once over her shoulder as she headed down the drive to find Solomon watching her with a solemn expression on his face.
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