Priscilla's Escape

by Diane Craver

  With his free hand, he raked his fingers through his hair. Okay, I’m getting way ahead of myself. Even though it would be romantic to tell Priscilla here on the beach how much I love her, it has been a long day with traveling, so I’ll wait. I should be rested when I tell her my feelings.

  “Stephen, is everything okay?” Priscilla asked. “You’re awfully quiet, and you stopped walking. We can turn around and go back to your car. I’m sure you’re exhausted.”

  He shook his head. He was feeling tired but didn’t want the night to end yet. His eyes met her clear blue ones. “Nee, I’m fine. I slept some while Tobias drove. I’m glad I didn’t have to drive by myself.”

  “It’s great you have a vehicle. The bus schedule is tricky to get to this beach from Pinecraft. And the bus doesn’t run at night.”

  He took both her hands in his. “I was quiet because I was thinking about you. I see why you love the beach. It’s nice smelling the salt air and hearing the waves crashing on the shore.”

  “I’m glad you feel the specialness of this place.”

  When they had arrived at Madison’s house, Priscilla had showed him her three paintings. She’d managed to finish the last one, so was happy to have three beach ones. At the time, he had told her how beautiful they were, but she had been in a hurry to hit the beach. Now he needed to try and express how he realized that there was a deeper side to her. “You captured everything about the ocean in your paintings . . . the mysterious side of the vastness of it. The one made me wonder what was underneath. There’s a depth to each painting that is remarkable. The one with the family building a sandcastle captured the energy of each person. The realistic detail of each scene is shown on the canvases. And the one with the high waves showed the strength and brutality of the ocean during a storm. The shimmering white foam of the waves is amazing. You’re so talented.”

  Her face lit up with pleasure. “Danki. Your opinion means a lot to me.”

  Chuckling, he said, “More than Sabrina’s?”

  She grinned. “Not more, but just as important to me. Okay, what you think matters to me a lot.”

  “You matter a lot to me.”

  Priscilla gently squeezed his hands. “Let’s sit for a moment and talk. The sand is so soft.”

  He nodded as he sat next to her. “It is soft.” Priscilla must want to talk about something serious. Or maybe it’s just about the camera. Putting his arm around her shoulders, he said, “I can return the camera. It’s okay if you don’t want to keep it. I’ll buy you something else. I want the birthday girl to be happy.”

  She was quiet for a moment and stared at the ocean. “I don’t want you to return it. I’m excited about taking pictures of us this week. And not just of us, but it will be fun to take shots of the beach and of scenic spots in the area. But the camera and your car did get me to thinking. Are you considering joining a more liberal Amish church or a Mennonite church?”

  “I’m not. If that was the case, I’d have talked to you about it first. Do you want to take the baptism classes now?”

  She shook her head. “I’m not ready yet. I want to stay in my rumspringa for a little longer before I decide.”

  “I did think about selling my car and using the money to remodel an old farmhouse.” Her beautiful eyes studied him with a questioning look, so he continued, “There is an empty house that I heard might be going on the market, but in some ways, I’d rather build a new house.”

  “At first, I didn’t want to date a committed Amish man because I wasn’t ready and didn’t know if I’d ever be ready to join. Then you came into my life and I loved you were unsure too. It seemed we became bound to each other because of that.”

  He kissed the top of her head. “I’ve never felt bound to you because of us both being in the same boat about our faith. The first time I saw you at church, I knew I wanted to court you.” Was it the time to tell Priscilla his deep feelings? They hadn’t known each other long, but he knew she was the one for him.

  A small, adorable crease appeared above her nose. “I shared a lot with you from the beginning. I only talked to you and Hannah about my decision to come here. You never tried to discourage me.”

  “I could tell how much it meant for you to be here. When you love someone, you want them to be happy. I love you, Priscilla.”

  She took a breath. “I love you too.”

  His heart soared at her words, and her radiant smile warmed part of his soul. He dipped his head and kissed her full on the mouth. When she laid a small hand on his chest, he heard his own quick intake of breath.

  After a long moment of kissing, Stephen knew they better stop. He cherished Priscilla and felt physical things that were meant for marriage. “I hope we can decide sometime soon what God wants us to do about our faith, because I want to marry you someday.”

  “Ach, Stephen, I want to marry you too. That’s why I worried about you having a car. Sometimes I think we shouldn’t feel pressured by our parents to join their Amish faith.” Priscilla sighed. “I’m afraid if we live as Mennonites or Englishers, we will feel apart from our families. It might be hard to bridge the difference. Then I wonder if we join, but later decide it isn’t for us and leave, we will be shunned.”

  “We don’t have to rush into anything.”

  She nodded. “We shouldn’t rush into marriage or be in a hurry to commit to being baptized.”

  “It will all work out in God’s timing. He’ll guide us in the direction we need to go.”

  * * *

  Priscilla and her dude were so into each other that they had no clue they were being watched. Following them from a distance as they walked back toward the beach house worried him. What if she decided to take her beach paintings with her?

  When they stopped walking, he decided to take a stick of gum out of his pants pocket. He needed something to do. After he popped the fruity gum in his mouth, he put the wrapper in his pocket.

  He rubbed his forehead, wishing he had aspirin or something to get rid of a throbbing headache. It’d been a long and nerve-racking evening. First, he had to wait until dark to break into the house to grab Priscilla’s beach paintings. Before that happened, Priscilla and her Amish guy showed up at the house. They had gone into the house before their walk.

  Why did Sabrina want to include some simple Amish girl’s paintings in Heidi’s art show? It was crazy and unfair. Mitch never should’ve suggested Heidi’s art show to Priscilla. She lived in Ohio and was only going to be in Sarasota for a short time. He’d fixed Sabrina when Priscilla’s beach paintings disappeared. Then only Heidi’s paintings would be in her art exhibit. He chewed harder on his stick of gum. Just thinking about Priscilla and her artwork raised his temperature.

  When they resumed walking, he was glad. Soon, he’d be able to do what he came for tonight.

  Although it was wrong what he planned to do, Grayson owed it to Heidi. She’d always been there for him. Before Heidi had gone off to college, she’d been the one to help him with his homework, fix something to eat for them, and play games with him. Their parents were not home much. Heidi had even considered not going away to college in another state because she worried about him being alone a lot.

  After ten minutes, he saw Priscilla and what was her boyfriend’s name . . . oh yeah, he remembered she said it was Stephen. They left the house and walked to the car. He didn’t think Amish drove cars. He squinted, realizing they weren’t carrying the paintings. Whew, he felt an immense amount of relief that she didn’t have them.

  As soon as they leave the driveway, I’ll break into the house and get the paintings. I’m guessing they are still downstairs. I need to get all three. I saw she finished a third one a couple of days ago while she was on the beach. He moved away from his spot by Mitch’s rental. It should be safe to walk under the outside light to get to the back of the house. He had two bobby pins in his jean’s pocket. He should be able to use it to get the latch to release on the bottom door lock. One time, Heidi and he were locked out of their
home. Since neither of them had their house key, and they didn’t want to call a locksmith, Heidi managed to get the door opened by using two bobby pins.

  Grayson never had a chance to get the bobby pins out of his pocket, and he jumped when he heard, “Hey, Grayson, what are you doing here?”

  Are you kidding me? he thought. I’m an idiot. I should’ve realized it was too early to break in. “Hi, Mitch. I thought I heard an animal moaning and was checking it out. It must’ve been my imagination, because I don’t hear it now.”

  Mitch frowned. “It looked like you were nosing around to me. Where’s your car?”

  “I walked from my girlfriend’s place. She doesn’t live far from here. We got into an argument, so I decided to walk for a bit.”

  “I hope you get things straightened out with her.”

  “Me too.” Grayson knew he had told too many lies. What if Mitch asked Heidi about the girlfriend he didn’t have? They had broken up a couple of months ago.

  “I better get back to Kayla’s place.” He grinned at Mitch. “Maybe she misses me now and will want to make up.”

  Oh man, I should’ve stuck to the plan of taking the paintings during Priscilla’s birthday party. I can’t take them tomorrow night now. Mitch will remember I was lurking around the house tonight. He’ll mention that maybe it was me. Either I do it and have one of my friends vouch for me that I was somewhere else or get someone to do it for me.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  As soon as Priscilla and Stephen were at the Pinecraft Park, shouts of “happy birthday” rang through the air from a large group of young people.

  A stunned and speechless Priscilla observed the mixed crowd of Amish, Mennonite, and English people. After a moment, she grinned. “Danki so much.”

  Hannah laughed. “I love seeing the astonished look on your face.”

  “I am surprised. I never expected this. I don’t know how you managed to keep this a secret.” Priscilla looked at the tables decorated with blue and white balloons. Streamers in various shades of blue floated from the high beams in the shelter. “The decorations are great, and there are so many.”

  Priscilla tilted her face up to look at Stephen. “I can’t believe you kept this a secret.”

  “Hannah threatened my life if I let it slip. She used her mean teacher voice and—”

  “I did not,” Hannah interrupted. Then she turned to face the guests. “Hey, I thought we’d play volleyball first, then eat. We have too many here for everyone to play at once, so we can have three teams. The winner of the first game will play the third team for a second game.”

  A Mennonite girl, wearing a short-sleeved dress in a flower pattern, said, “Some of us aren’t playing volleyball, but we’ll enjoy watching you all play.” Priscilla recognized her from the Pinecraft Amish and Mennonite church. She recalled her name being Amanda.

  A few other women nodded in agreement. One of them said, “Amanda’s right. I don’t want to play.”

  After teams were divided up, Priscilla, Mitch, and Tobias were on the same team, while Stephen and Hannah were on the other team with Heidi.

  Priscilla stood next to Mitch in the back of the court. “I’m glad Heidi came to my party.”

  “I only know you and Hannah.” Mitch shrugged. “I haven’t been introduced to your boyfriend, but I know who Stephen is, since you came with him.”

  Priscilla positioned herself in the back boundary of the court while Mitch went to serve first. The ball flew over the net and Hannah hit it back. One of the girls in the middle missed the ball, so Priscilla smacked it over the net before it touched the ground on their side. Mitch gave her a high five quickly.

  When Priscilla saw Heidi tap the volleyball to the young woman next to her, she realized they were setting up an attack. “Hey, team, be alert.”

  Stephen used the third contact for their team and spiked the ball over the net. It landed on her team’s court where it couldn’t be defended. No surprise there, Priscilla thought.

  She looked at Mitch. “They have the first point. Stephen killed the ball in our court.”

  In the rotation, it was Hannah’s turn to serve. Priscilla said to Mitch, “Hannah always does an underhand serve. It’ll be easier to get the serve back. I hope.”

  Mitch grinned at her. “I never saw this competitive side to you.”

  “Hey, great job,” Priscilla yelled to Tobias, as he touched the ball lightly, causing it to land on an area that was not being covered by the defending team.

  “Woohoo, it’s Priscilla’s turn to serve,” Tobias yelled.

  Priscilla tossed the ball up, striking it with an overhand throwing motion. She directed the ball to a weak spot in the defense side. When Hannah touched it twice, Priscilla kept her serve.

  When she served the next time, Heidi hit it hard. As the ball flew over the net, Priscilla yelled, “I got it.”

  Mitch scrambled to help her, and they collided hard. Mitch put his arm around her. “I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

  Priscilla saw Stephen frowning at Mitch, as he continued to keep his arm around her shoulders. She laughed, wanting to lessen Stephen’s tension. “I’m fine. I don’t bruise easily, but the next time I say that I have it, it means you don’t have to help me.”

  After twenty minutes of vigorous playing between the two teams, Priscilla’s side won the game.

  Although there was a breeze, Priscilla felt hot and thirsty. “I need water.”

  Mitch said, “I’ll get us both bottles of water.”

  Before he got back to her, Hannah said in a loud voice, “There’s plenty of food, everyone. There’s water in one cooler, and other ones have cans of pop.”

  Priscilla glanced at Hannah’s pink pants with a polka-dotted blouse. “I see now why you wanted me to wear my jean capris and the blue blouse you bought for me. I could have worn a dress to play volleyball. I do when we play back home.”

  Hannah shrugged. “I’ve seen how you play volleyball. I was afraid the long dress you wanted to wear would get in the way of your athletic moves. And I want to take birthday pictures and you look lovely in blue. Where is your camera?”

  Priscilla pointed to her bag on a picnic table. “It’s over there in my purse.”

  “Ach, I almost forgot.” Hannah waved at the food table. “Sadie sent a lot of cookies with Stephen. She made oatmeal raisin, chocolate chip, and M&M cookies. Sorry I didn’t get you a birthday cake.”

  Priscilla gave her friend a quick hug. “I don’t need a cake.” She looked at the table food with bowls of potato chips, pretzels, and two deli trays. “You bought a lot of food, and you did great hiding everything. I’m sorry I made it hard on you by not staying at Madison’s.”

  Hannah tucked a lock of her dark hair behind her ear. “It’s okay. I don’t blame you for not wanting to stay alone. And Naomi appreciated you making breakfast for the guests this morning. I’ll go grab your camera.”

  “What? You worked on your birthday?” Mitch asked, as he handed a bottle of water to her.

  Before she got the lid unscrewed, Stephen came up beside her and kissed her cheek. “Great game. I want to be on your team the next time.”

  Stephen’s kiss startled her, because Amish couples never showed signs of affection in front of people. Did he do it because Mitch had touched her during the volleyball game? Was he jealous of Mitch’s attention to her?

  Mitch extended his hand to Stephen. “I don’t think we’ve met. I rent the small house next to Madison’s. I’m Mitch Levitt.”

  Stephen shook his hand. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Will you be able to come to the art show in July?” Mitch asked Stephen.

  “As much as I’d like to be here for it, I don’t know if I can come again,” Stephen said.

  Why is Mitch asking Stephen that? Mitch won’t even be around by then. Priscilla smiled at Stephen. “It’s okay. It’s not that big of a deal.”

  Hannah returned with the camera and nudged Priscilla. “Okay, you two, let’s tak
e some pictures by the creek. It will make for beautiful memories. Just don’t tell your daed I took them.”

  “It’ll be great having photos of my birthday, as long as my parents don’t see them. They won’t like that we took pictures, and that we’re wearing English clothing.”

  Mitch stuck his hands in his khaki shorts. “I can’t imagine not being allowed to take pictures of your family and friends.”

  With a quick nod, Hannah said, “It would be nice to be able to take school pictures of my class each year.”

  “If you drive during your running-around time, you need a photo ID for your driver’s license,” Mitch said.

  “That’s right,” Stephen said.

  “Several Amish even have photo IDs for traveling purposes, but other Amish refuse to have them,” Hannah explained. “The government does make allowances for the Amish and Old Order Mennonites who won’t have photos taken of them. They have non-photo forms to use when crossing the border.”

  “It’s our rumspringa, so it’s our time to do non-Amish things.” Stephen took Priscilla’s hand in his.

  When he squeezed her hand, her pulse quickened. “I can’t imagine a more perfect birthday. I never had a surprise party before.”

  A couple of hours later, all the guests had left except for Mitch and Heidi. While Hannah, Tobias, and Stephen carried the left.overs to Stephen’s car, Mitch handed Priscilla a wrapped gift.

  “He wouldn’t tell me what he got you,” Heidi said, looking cute with her blonde hair in a ponytail. Her white top and very skimpy jean shorts showed off her tanned arms and legs.

  Priscilla had already opened Heidi’s birthday card with a Chipotle gift card tucked inside. Heidi knew Priscilla loved eating Mexican food because it was different than the Amish food they fixed back home. Priscilla was embarrassed by receiving several gifts. She barely knew Amanda, and she had given her tea towels and pot holders for her hope chest. After she’d opened the present, Amanda had teased her, “I think my kitchen towels will be used soon. Stephen is crazy about you.”