Sarah didn’t say anything. She looked so embarrassed. Well, that expression on her face wasn’t about to get any better. From here, our conversation would only get harder.
“I guess what I’m trying to say is that you shouldn’t let what our community shoved down your throat dictate your decision,” I told her, anticipating some incoming defensiveness. I steamrolled right ahead, though, before she had a chance to speak. “All that stuff about how a woman’s value is in her purity… out here, we call that misogynistic bullshit. A woman’s desire is no more impure than a man’s. And you have value just by being a damn good person, Sarah. You shouldn’t let those teachings make you feel otherwise.
“On the other hand,” I continued, “Reid might try to take advantage of your… innocence. There’s no doubt in my mind that one of the reasons he wants to take you to that cabin is to see if he can convince you to let down your guard when you’re alone. Even if he’s not actively aiming to get you into his bed, he won’t exactly cry himself a river if it happens. And I don’t want you to think that just because he’s good to you, you owe him something. Reid doesn’t need you to throw him a parade for being a decent human being. That’s the least he can do, you know?”
When I looked up from my laundry, I was surprised to see that instead of put-off, Sarah looked thoughtful. I felt my heart soften a little. I knew it couldn’t be easy for her, grasping concepts she’d never had to entertain before now. Everything out here was so new, so different, so contrary to the Amish way. Was it really any wonder she was stumbling? Was it really so surprising that she was apprehensive and afraid?
I couldn’t measure Sarah’s response by comparing it to Beth’s. They were two wholly different people with completely opposite personalities. It wasn’t fair. I had to start giving Sarah credit where credit was due.
“So what you’re saying,” she began, very slowly, “is that I should… see how I feel? Make the decision based on what I feel is right in my gut?”
I smiled. Now she was getting it. “Exactly.” I grabbed my purse from my vanity and opened it up, fishing around for a condom. I found one, easily. What can I say? I don’t trust most guys enough to leave the matter of my well-being up to them. “Keep this on you, though, just in case,” I told her.
Sarah took it from me with a frown. She wrinkled her nose, staring at it like it might bite her. “What is it?” she asked.
Poor Sarah. She really was brand new to all this. I grinned at her. “A condom. Goes over his dick so he doesn’t get you pregnant.”
Where her face had been red before, it now turned white. “Dear Lord,” she whispered.
“Nah,” I teased her, “that one’s a Trojan.” But in true Sarah fashion, she didn’t get the joke.
“Look, Sarah,” I began again, “the most important thing to remember is that you’re allowed to have fun. You’re allowed to enjoy your Rumspringa and to experience all the things you never will if you choose to go back home and commit yourself to the church. It’s a big decision—one you cannot make lightly, and one you cannot make effectively if you don’t have all the relevant information at your disposal.” I returned my purse to the vanity and set the empty hamper back on the floor, busying myself with the task of putting away my clean clothes.
“Think of it as… an adventure. A chance to find out who you really are, when you take the apron and bonnet away. That’s worth knowing before you put them back on again.” I looked at her over my shoulder. “Isn’t it?”
Sarah was sitting up now, her hands in her lap, her head bowed. Seeing her like this made me feel just a little guilty. After all, I wasn’t being honest with her. Not completely. Did I mean everything I was saying to her? Of course. But were there things I was refusing to tell her, too?
Plenty.
I hated that I couldn’t be honest with Sarah about what was going on, but after the other night, hearing the excuses she’d made for the community and our father… no. I couldn’t tell her why I’d left home. I couldn’t tell her she was in danger. She wouldn’t believe me. It might even drive us apart, when the safest thing for her was to keep her here, out in the English world and far away from that village where men used the Word of God to justify their wickedness. If I had to omit a few truths along the way, then so be it. That was a price I was willing to pay in order to save my sisters.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions, I heard a voice inside me say. It was my grandmother’s, the woman in our family people compared me to the most. She was called a lot of things in her time. Hard. Difficult. Severe. But I’d never seen her that way. To me, she was warm hugs and cooking lessons, the practical application of common sense, and drawing with sticks in the wet dirt by the creek. She taught me how to skip a stone and would always shrug when my mother asked her how it was possible, since I’d been forbidden from climbing trees after I reached a certain age, that I had come home with leaves and magnolia blossoms in my hair?
It wasn’t until I was an adult that I realized the people who relegated the character of my grandmother to what essentially amounted to “a tough old bird” were men who saw her as a threat to their power. The ones she took no shit from. The ones she refused to bow to, in subtle ways. My father was one of those men, but really, her coldness extended to the entire circle of elders.
Unfortunately, she died before I had a chance to confide in her. I was sure if she’d been the first person I’d told, rather than my mother, things would have turned out differently somehow. I probably would have still left the community, but would I carry with me such shame? It was hard to say. Sometimes, a single kind word can alter the course of our entire future.
To hear that warning from her now, in my head—it made me hesitate. But before I could reverse my decision on the matter, Sarah was standing and approaching me, wrapping me up into a long hug.
“Thank you, sister,” she said, her soft voice muffled by my shoulder. “Thank you for talking with me. For teaching me. For giving me courage where I previously had none.”
In Dutch hardly used since I ran away two years ago, I replied, “You have always had great courage in you, Sarah Miller. It is a spark that begets a flame, and it is something others will try desperately to put out. You mustn’t let them. Do you understand me?” I pulled away, taking her face in my hands. “Don’t let anyone make you forget who you are and what you are capable of.”
And then I kissed her forehead, just like I used to when she was a child. And I thought of Ash, that morning, pressing his lips against my skin in the exact same way. Not romantic. Not sexual. Just… loving. Tender. Instinct told me that meant something, that something was happening between us, but experience told me I was wrong. Ash was just a player. He would always be a player. Tanya was, if nothing else, evidence of this fact—that he had options, and that he regularly explored them.
Very probably, he was with one of them right now. Even though it was only the afternoon, he might even be in her bed. Or maybe he was at her place of work, fucking her in the bathroom. Maybe he’d taken her somewhere special, and he was telling her, between ragged breaths, that this was his first time—that he’d never had any woman there except for her.
These thoughts should have snuffed out the hope in my heart, but all they did was make it ache. I shouldn’t have cared. I should have let logic and realism spirit away the errant dream that had begun to blossom, like a night-blooming flower, in my mind’s eye—that sweet, intoxicating siren’s song that told me Ash and I could have something different and wonderful together. That he might be someone I could trust. Someone I could… love.
That possibility was almost too precious to bear. But if I opened myself to Ash that way—if I let him in, and then he hurt me… how would I ever recover?
At the end of the day, I had to admit to myself a very inconvenient and uncomfortable truth: that when it came to matters of the heart, I was just as fragile as Sarah was.
12
Ash
I’d been so dead-dog tir
ed when I left Hannah’s that I’d had to stop at a diner and grab a proper cup of coffee, just so I didn’t drive my bike straight into a telephone pole on my way back to my apartment. It was a Mom and Pop setup, the kind of quaint establishment you see a lot of in places like Bright Falls, one that still lingered despite the advent of the fast food chain and other, more trendy restaurants. Bea Figgins was the owner-operator, the woman behind the counter with silver hair and dark, wicked eyes who could either make your life a dream or a living hell. I swear to God, she must’ve been an old gypsy woman, because she could read the character of a person as easily as if it was written straight across their faces.
And for some reason, she liked me. Go figure.
But damned if I was going to question a possible gypsy woman.
I’d sat down in a booth near the back. It was still so damn early that barely anyone was there, leaving me with caffeine and solitude. One of those things ended up mattering just a little bit more than the other, and a few hours later, I found myself waking up in strange surroundings once again.
“Shit,” I muttered, and not for the first time that day. This was becoming a habit. I squinted at the sun crashing in through the blinds and sat up, doing my best to fix my hair and hoping for Bea to come by with a hot refill on my coffee—and maybe an explanation.
I got both—Christmas came early this year. “Snow White awakens,” she said with a chuckle, providing me with another splash of coffee and a new, clean mug. “And without true love’s kiss, no less.”
“Why’d you let me pass out, Bea?” I groaned, glancing at my phone. Christ, it was almost eleven o’clock! I had things to do today. What the fuck…
“You just looked so damn peaceful,” she answered, “like a baby angel. Tiny Lucifer, sleeping it off.” She grinned at me, her teeth still so perfect and white after all these years. Must’ve been dentures. “Who’s the lucky lady this time, huh? And how hung over are you right now?”
“First off,” I began, rubbing a sore shoulder, “that Lucifer crack? Not nice. Secondly, a gentleman never kisses and tells.”
“You’re not a gentleman,” Bea observed.
“Fuck off, Bea,” I replied. That was fine—it was how we talked to each other. “And third, I’m not hung over. Not at all. It was just… a long night. For reasons that don’t involve alcohol.”
“But you’re not telling,” Bea mused. She shrugged. “Well, whoever it is, she’s some kind of special.”
I finally pulled the mug toward me and took a sip. Ah, fuck—I forgot the cream and sugar. “What makes you say that?”
She watched me intently as I began loading my coffee with the essentials. “A woman knows these things. That’s all.”
“More like a witch,” I scoffed.
I had been trying for years to get Bea to admit it, but the old broad wouldn’t budge. There just had to be something mystical about her, something that gave her uncanny insight into the human condition. She regarded us, her customers, her city kin, as mere mortals in need of advice and occasionally assistance. She was never full of herself, never high and mighty… but there was something distinctly “other” about her. Something that made even the Bright Falls Beasts refuse to mess with her.
My dad hadn’t even been that stupid. And believe me, that motherfucker had some terrible ideas in his time.
Bea afforded me a half-hearted roll of her eyes. “Right. ‘Cause a woman who can see through a man must be practicing witchcraft. Ain’t that the way of things?” She flashed me a sly smile. “Could be you’ve just got that look about you, Brody. The one I seen on Keebler last time he fell in love.”
I stared at her as I stirred my coffee. Keebler was her dog.
“Keebler… fell in love?”
“Uh-huh.”
“With?”
“Classy little French poodle moved in across the way.”
“Mm hmm. She got a name?”
Bea waggled her brows at me. “Ms. Puffs. Ms. Sasha Puffs.”
“Of course. And I have that look, huh? Same one you saw on Keebler’s face when he saw that mighty fine poodle strutting her stuff?”
“Oh, yeah,” said Bea, her laugh lines deepening. “You definitely got that look. Saw it the moment you walked in here.”
“I see. Tell me, Bea—what kind of look do I have now?” I asked her.
Another turn of her lips. A crackle of something electric behind her eyes. “Murder,” she said. “Though if you’d be so kind as to settle up first, I’d be much obliged.” She set my check down in front of me.
I glanced at the total, then pulled my bank card out of my wallet and slid it over. “Sure. I take last requests.” The next sip I took of my coffee, I found it was much more bearable. I sighed. I just might make it home yet. “Oh, one more thing. The ending of your story.”
Bea took my card between her wizened fingers. “About Keebler?”
“Yeah. Did he manage to win over Ms. Puffs? Or is it Mrs. Puffs now? Has he made an honest poodle out of her?” Christ Almighty, this conversation made me feel like I was having a stroke.
But talking with Bea was like that. It made no goddamn sense, and yet in some strange way, it made you feel better. And sometimes, days or weeks or months later, it all came full circle somehow, and you found yourself questioning reality and the order of the universe because no way, no way could this have possibly been coincidental.
“Oh, that,” she said, tucking the card into a pocket on her apron. “I’m afraid it didn’t work out. Poor Keebler’s got a funny way about him, y’see. Any other dog in the world, he makes friends with right away. But Ms. Puffs? Well, she’s got some baggage, I think. Has a hard time getting friendly with mutts. And Keebler? Bless his heart, he just… tries so hard to show off for her. Brings his other doggie friends around. Makes a big deal out of it, like, see? I know how to be friends. Look at all the dogs that like me! But I think that makes Ms. Puffs feel a little intimidated, maybe. A little less… special. Anyway,” she waved her hand, “it’s a shame, because I think they would’ve made a helluva couple. Cute puppies, and all that. If it had worked out.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Yeah. Crying shame.”
“I’ll get this back to you straight away,” Bea said, sauntering over to the cash register. This was the part where she let her wisdom stew. It was supposed to percolate in my brain, becoming more potent with each passing minute, until I had my eureka moment and fixed whatever she perceived was wrong in my life. Shit, maybe I should bring Wyatt here. Now there was a problem that needed fixing.
I was so wrapped up in finding deeper meaning to her ramblings that I almost didn’t hear Bea walk up. I actually flinched when she slapped my card down in front of me. “All set, sweet cheeks. Now go on, get yourself home. You’ve got a long day ahead of you.”
I put my card back in my wallet. “And how would you know?”
As I stood up, Bea remained perfectly still. That put me awful close to her, so close I swore I could actually see her eyes changing color in the sunlight—from amber brown to golden honey.
“Because,” she said, “a woman knows these things.”
Well, that certainly didn’t bode well.
As I made my way out of the diner, I heard her call after me, “I think if he’d just sat with her, y’know—if he’d just been by her side, just her and him, to show her how important she was, that he could be there for her like that… I think maybe he would’ve won her over. But you know mutts. They don’t always think they’re good enough, or as deserving as the pure breeds.”
“Christ’s sakes, Bea,” I said over my shoulder. “Tell me we’re still talking about Keebler.”
Bea shrugged. “Dogs, men. In the end—what’s the difference?”
I had absolutely zero time to answer that. I needed to get home and take a shower, and after that, I needed to work on getting rested and ready for a job I had tonight, one that required me to spend a few hours at a strip club downtown. I’d be bouncing any rude fucks who
so much as thought about getting all handsy with any of the girls. Good pay. Good show. I could hardly complain. In my line of work, you took what you could get. It was rare that something this ideal came around.
But I wondered, what would Hannah think? If she knew I was going to a strip joint tonight, would she be pissed? Would she care at all? I wasn’t sure which scenario I liked better: the one where she bit my head off like a praying mantis, or the one where she just gave me that cold, thousand-yard stare I’d seen back at the fairgrounds.
Fuck. She really did have me all twisted up. I thought maybe jumping on the bike would help clear my head, not just of Hannah, but of Bea’s nonsense as well—but as it turned out, the universe wasn’t even gonna let me have that bit of respite today. About five minutes out of the diner’s parking lot, the Bluetooth alert in my helmet began to sing, letting me know I had a call. Hands-free, I answered it.
The regret I experienced was immediate. I really should have checked who it was.
“Ash. It’s Tanya.”
Goddammit.
“I was thinking about the other night…”
Fuck.
“…and I think we should talk.”
No.
“About us.”
Why?!
“Ash? Are you there?”
I almost hung up. But then she’d just call back. I heaved a sigh, one loud enough for the microphone to pick up.
“Yeah, Tanya. I’m here.”
“Listen… I know what happened at the fair wasn’t exactly… I know how I came off.”
“You were upset I ditched you,” I said as I leaned through a curve. I was trying to give her a way out, trying to give her an excuse. It was a subtle hint—don’t say you love me, Tanya. You know it’ll just screw up everything. If you don’t say it, maybe there’s something—a friendship—we can salvage. “That’s understandable.”
LUST: A Bad Boy and Amish Girl Romance (The Brody Bunch Book 2) Page 11
