Courting Emily (A Wells Landing Book 2)

by Amy Lillard

  “Your hair is so schpass.”

  “Pretty? My hair?” Emily scoffed. “It’s the color of mud.”

  “It’s the color of chocolate.”

  If her sister hadn’t been in the middle of a long stroke, Emily would have shaken her head. She didn’t have the honey blond hair that Mary had gotten from their mother. Or the pale blue eyes. She favored their vatter in both looks and temperament, which was a blessing as well as a curse.

  “Are you going out to meet him again tonight?” Mary asked.

  Emily shrugged. She didn’t need to ask who Mary was talking about. “If he comes, I guess.”

  “He’s been here every day this week. You know he’ll come tonight.”

  “Perhaps,” she said, though Mary was right.

  “Don’t go meet him.” Mary’s words were heartfelt and softly spoken, a plea between sisters.

  “Why not?” Emily turned and Mary was forced to stop brushing her hair and step back.

  “It’ll be baremlich when Dat finds out. Worse than terrible. And you know he will find out.”

  Emily took the brush from her sister and gave her hair one last hard yank before pulling it back for bed. “It’s not like that.”

  She and Luke had come to an understanding of sorts. They didn’t talk about the future, and they didn’t talk about the past. Dreams were also off the list of acceptable subjects. They simply . . . talked. She brought up church and God every chance she found, and she knew Luke was listening. It was only a matter of time before he saw the truth in her testaments. Only a matter of time before he realized God’s plan and consented to join the church.

  “Dat will think the worst.”

  She shook her head. She had no intentions of starting her relationship back up with Luke. They were simply friends. Funny how her dreams of marrying Luke and having a family had turned into marrying Elam and starting a family with him. That was truly what she wanted, and since she couldn’t have it, she wasn’t sure she wanted to settle for less.

  “Dat is not going to know.” She smoothed a hand over her sister’s forehead. “Now quit frowning before you’re as wrinkled as Maddie Kauffman.”

  Mary managed only a smile at her joke. “Think about what I said, okay?”

  Emily smiled. “It’s all going to be okay, Mary. Stop your worrying.”

  Luke came as expected. Emily met him in the barn, and they talked for a couple of hours. Was it too much to ask to enjoy this new friendship that the two of them had forged?

  Mary was right: If her father were to find out about her meetings with Luke, Dat would be furious. But only if he were to find out before Emily had a chance to change Luke’s mind about staying in Wells Landing and joining the church. Once that happened, her vatter would be so happy to welcome Luke back into the fold. And Emily was about to make that happen.

  Luke had been such an important part of her life for so long, she was unwilling to give him up entirely. They may not love each other in a romantic sense, but he was quickly becoming her best friend again. She cherished all the time she could spend with him, even if it meant hiding out in the barn in the middle of the night.

  “I can hardly believe it’s New Year’s Eve,” Luke said.

  “Soon it will be Three Kings Day,” Emily added since it was a much bigger holiday for the Amish.

  Luke plucked a straw of hay from the bale where he sat and pitched it at her.

  She dodged it with a laugh, and it fell harmlessly to the side.

  “All my friends are out at parties,” he said with a wry shake of his head.

  “Is that where you want to be?” It was the first time she had asked him how he felt about leaving his new life behind. She hadn’t wanted to pressure him, but support him in his decision to leave the Englisch world.

  “I don’t know anymore.” His eyes grew dim with confusion. “All I ever wanted was to be with you, and then I discovered racing.”

  Strange, but losing Luke to racing didn’t hurt as much as it used to.

  “Then all I wanted to do was drive a car. Now . . . I don’t know what I want anymore.”

  She pushed herself off the hay bale and made her way across to where he sat. “You don’t have to decide right now.” Baptism classes wouldn’t start until next spring. He had plenty of time to get used to being back among the Plain people.

  She knelt down in front of him and took his hands into her own. “Give yourself some time. Who knows what you might decide?”

  He worked one of his hands free to trace the healing scar over her right eye. “I’m so sorry I hurt you, Em.”

  “I know.”

  “What is going on in here?” At the sound of her father’s voice, Emily pushed to her feet. She whirled around to face the bishop’s angry, accusing glare. She only had a split second to register his fierce expression before she was blinded by the glare of his flashlight.

  “Nix.” She raised one hand against the harsh light.

  Then he moved the beam to pin it on Luke.

  He pushed to his feet and squinted into the glare. “Nothing,” he repeated.

  Emily hastily smoothed her hands down the front of her coat. Even though it was buttoned up against the cold, the fact that she wore only her nightgown underneath was evident.

  “This does not look like ‘nothing’ to me.”

  “Dat, I—”

  “Go to the house, Emily Jane.”

  “Dat.” She moved to stand in front of Luke as if the action alone could protect him. She had come so far in helping him, she didn’t want to give up on him now.

  Her father stopped, and for a moment, the night stilled as she defied him.

  “Now, Emily.”

  “We’ve done nothing wrong,” she said, silently urging Luke to say something—anything—in their defense.

  What had happened to her fair and objective father?

  “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that to me. Now get back in the house.”

  “Dat—”

  “Now!”

  “Emily, go.”

  Had it not been for Luke’s words she might not have obeyed her vatter. It was hard to say. But until Luke spoke, she had no intentions of leaving. Yet staying and making her father angrier would not help either of them.

  She glanced back at him one last time. Luke nodded, and she stiffly left the barn.

  She could hear her father’s voice as she hurried toward the house, but she couldn’t make out any of the words he said. His tone was enough to let her know he was upset. Cephas Ebersol didn’t yell or raise his voice when he was really angry. He became quiet. Almost too quiet. And it was enough to scare even the worst sinners in their district.

  Emily didn’t catch the screen door as she entered the house. It snapped behind her like the pop of a child’s balloon. She anticipated the sound, but still she jumped from nerves.

  “Oh, my, Emily, you scared me.” Mary hopped to her feet, one hand pressed over her heart.

  “Did you tell him I was out there?” She didn’t mean for her words to sound so harsh. She shook her head and rubbed her eyes with her good hand.

  “I didn’t mean to.” A sob hitched in Mary’s throat. “He came in and asked me where you were. I think he already knew.”

  Emily immediately regretted her tone. “Shhh . . .” she hushed, pulling Mary close as she wrapped comforting arms around her. “It’s allrecht.”

  “I was so afraid you would be angry with me.” She hiccupped into Emily’s shoulder.

  “You’re my shveshtah. I could never stay upset with you.”

  “What about Luke?” Mary asked. She cast a quick look at the door as if that could tell her what was going on outside in their barn.

  Emily pressed her lips together. “Dat is overreacting.” But tomorrow, after he calmed down a bit, she would talk to him, explain what she had been doing in the barn with Luke. How she wanted to give Luke a new view of the Amish church and all the reasons why he should attend the baptism classes in the sprin
g. Not because she wanted to marry him, but because it was the right thing for him to do.

  Her father was in a foul mood when he came back into the house twenty minutes later. He simply brushed past them, telling them to go to bed as he went by.

  Nor had his demeanor changed after milking the next morning. Emily tried to talk to him, but he wouldn’t discuss the matter at all. Instead he hitched up his buggy and headed out.

  “Where do you think he’s going?” Mary asked.

  Emily shrugged. “He could be going anywhere.” But she had a feeling he was on his way to Joseph Lambright’s to talk to Luke. Maybe in the light of day Luke would have more to say about what had happened in the barn. Or rather what had not happened.

  Perhaps her father would listen to him. For sure and for certain, he was not willing to hear Emily out.

  Emily sighed.

  “What’s wrong, shveshtah?”

  “At the beginning of the summer I was worried that my life would be boring.”

  Mary chuckled.

  “I had to quit teaching and work in the market. Luke left, Caroline got married.”

  “Since then your life has been anything but dull.”

  “Jah.” What she wouldn’t give for a little bit of that boring back.

  Luke heard the rattle of the horse and buggy and went to the window. He was not surprised to see the bishop’s rig pull to a stop.

  Cephas Ebersol hopped down from the carriage and made his way to the house. His steps were sure and true, each one with a deeper purpose. The fact that he hadn’t unhitched his rig told its own tale. The bishop had a plan, and he wasn’t staying long.

  Luke walked out onto the porch to face the talk head-on. As he stepped out of the house, his uncle ambled around the corner from the backyard to see who had come calling. Despite the crisp temperatures, Luke didn’t grab his coat, and he wasn’t about to invite the bishop in.

  “I thought we cleared the air last night,” Luke said instead of a greeting.

  His uncle’s eyes widened at his gruff words, but he didn’t say anything to correct Luke.

  The bishop stopped before reaching the porch steps. He stroked his beard and squinted as he faced the midmorning sun. “I prayed all night for God to give me answers.”

  “Did you get them?” He knew he was being insolent, rude even, but he had taken a tongue lashing the night before, and he wasn’t willing to do so again. He and Emily had done nothing wrong. He had apologized for the wreck and all the trouble he’d caused. Couldn’t her father see past it all to the fact that he loved Emily more than anything in the world?

  More than racing?

  He pushed the thought aside and concentrated on the man before him.

  “Luke Lambright, you have reached the age of baptism.”

  He couldn’t argue with that. Instead he nodded and crossed his arms, waiting for the bishop to continue.

  “You’ve left our community for the pleasures of the Englisch world, and now you’ve come back. As the bishop here, I must say it’s time for you to bend your knee and join the church.”

  “And if I say no?”

  “Then I’ll ask you to go back to the Englisch or into another district. The teens entering rumspringa have enough temptations. You are not setting a gut example.”

  Luke stiffened. He had been afraid it would come to this. What was he going to do? “I’ll be gone by the end of the week.”

  “Luke—” Onkle started, but Luke shook his head to stop his words. He had made his decision long ago. Regardless of everything that had gone wrong for him in the Englisch world, he could not remain with the Amish.

  The bishop issued a curt nod. He turned on his heel to leave, then stopped. Facing Luke once again he said, “And I’ll thank you to steer clear of my dochder.”

  As he watched, the bishop swung himself back into his buggy and set his horse into motion. Luke remained on the porch, not moving until the bishop’s buggy disappeared down the road. Then he collapsed into the old lawn chair his onkle kept on the porch.

  “Are you really leaving again?”

  He had almost forgotten his uncle was there.

  “Jah,” Luke said as Onkle made his way around the house and eased down onto the middle step.

  Joseph Lambright stared out at the pasture as if it held the answers to all life’s problems. “I tried my best all these years to do right by your parents—”

  “That has nothing to do with it.”

  He waved a hand as if to brush away Luke’s protests. “I could have done a better job. Looking back I see that. What can a bachelor offer his brother’s child?” He shook his head.

  “This is not your fault.”

  “It is,” Joseph said. “If I had only done more for you.”

  “You took care of me after my eldra died,” Luke said, his voice suddenly thick with tears. “A bu can’t ask for more than that.”

  “If I had done more,” Joseph continued as if Luke hadn’t spoken, “then maybe you wouldn’t be leaving.”

  “Nay.” But the truth was, they would never know. Joseph had been ill-prepared to care for the young son of his recently deceased bruder. But as the next of kin, the burden had fallen to him.

  Luke couldn’t complain. He had been grateful not to have to leave Wells Landing. His uncle had done the very best for him that he knew how. Perhaps there were times when he wasn’t strict enough or stern enough, but Joseph was too easygoing to hold Luke accountable. Still, Luke had been loved, and that was enough.

  Joseph stood, his knees popping with the motion. He turned back to Luke, his eyes full of hope and sadness. “You be careful out there among the Englisch.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Supper time and Emily’s vatter still hadn’t said more than two sentences to her. They had worked in the milking room side by side in complete silence, then trudged into the house to eat. The atmosphere around the table was strained at best. Everyone looked to the others to see who was going to cave first. Who was going to initiate the conversation from which there was no return?

  After they ate and prayed again, Emily helped her sisters clean the kitchen, then went to find her father. Enough was enough. Time to get it out into the open. The thought of confronting her father made her a little sick to her stomach, but she couldn’t let him go around believing the worst in her, believing the worst in Luke.

  She pulled on her coat and went in search of her dat. She found him on the porch smoking his pipe. The habit was sporadic at best since her mother frowned upon it. That he was smoking now was a testament that he was just as upset as she was.

  “Dat?”

  “Jah?”

  She could barely make out his face in the dim porch light. He had lit a lantern on the table behind him, but his expression was hidden. Only when he took a draw on his pipe did the shadows disappear enough for her to see his eyes.

  “About last night . . .” She drew her coat a little tighter around her.

  “It is done, Emily Jane.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Luke is leaving Wells Landing.” His tone was unreadable, flat and matter-of-fact.

  Her heart gave a painful lurch as her stomach tightened. “Why?” she whispered.

  “Because I asked him to.”

  Her knees trembled even as her teeth wanted to chatter in the cold. But it wasn’t that chilly. “Why would you do something like that?”

  “It’s not your place to question my judgment. I did so as the bishop of this district.”

  “You did it out of spite.” The words flew from her mouth unheeded.

  He stood and in an instant loomed over her. “I’ll not have my authority questioned, Emily Jane. I did what was best for the community.”

  Hot tears stung her eyes. “You never liked Luke.”

  “I do not like what he has done.”

  “We weren’t doing anything wrong. I’ve been trying to get him to stay and join the church.” The tears she had been fighting spilled
down her cheeks. She dashed them away with the back of her uncasted hand and continued. “And you ruined it.”

  Her father took a step closer, his eyes steely. “What’s done is done. We will not speak of it again.” He pushed the words through gritted teeth, the closest she had ever seen him to yelling.

  But she wanted to yell, to scream and stomp around. Luke was one of the best friends she had ever had and her father had sent him away. Just like that. He hadn’t given him a chance to join the church or even think about it.

  She opened her mouth to say more, but no words would come. Not even a squeak. She pivoted on one heel and stormed back into the house.

  “Emily?” Mary sat on the sofa working on some sewing, but Emily didn’t acknowledge her sister’s concern.

  Instead she stormed up the stairs and slammed her door shut. With a decisive click, she locked the door and threw herself on her bed. Then and only then, with her face pressed into the pillow, did she let go of her sobs, her screams, and her overwhelming frustration with it all.

  Elam, her father, Luke, everyone thought they knew what was best for her, yet no one knew what she was going through, nobody bothered to ask how she felt about it.

  A soft knock sounded on her door followed by “Emily?”

  Mary.

  “Go away,” she said, knowing the words would hurt her sister but unable to face her care and concern.

  “Will you not open the door for me?”

  “Nay. I—I need some time alone.”

  “I understand,” Mary said. “But I don’t think you should be by yourself at a time like this.”

  Emily rolled over and stared at the plain white ceiling above her bed. That was her life: plain, white. All her life had been plain and white. The entire Amish existence: plain and white.

  “I don’t want to talk about it right now, Mary. Maybe later.”

  A small thump sounded, and Emily imagined her sister resting her head against the plain varnished wood of the door. “I will leave you only if you promise to come to me when you are ready to talk.”

  “I promise.” Fresh tears welled in her eyes at her sister’s concern. But these were silent.