The Marriage Bargain

by Stephanie Dees

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  The Promised Amish Bride

  by Marta Perry

  Chapter One

  The country road was as familiar as Aaron King’s own body, even after all these years away. Here was the spot where his brother, racing a buddy in the family buggy, went into the ditch. There was the bank where they’d picked blackberries, and there the maple tree where he’d stolen a kiss from Becky Esch when they were both fifteen. The maple’s leaves were scarlet now that fall was here, but it had just been budding out that spring.

  One more bend in the road, and he’d be able to see the family farm. The realization was like a rock in his stomach.

  What was he doing? Did he really want to accept the role of the prodigal, returning to the Amish fold in Lost Creek after failing in the Englisch world? That was what they’d think, surely—his two brothers and his uncle. They’d assume he’d messed up, and they’d also assume he’d come back to stay.

  They’d be right on the first count—he had to admit it. The memory of the scene that had destroyed his job and the tenuous place he’d made for himself still scalded.

  As for coming home to stay...that he wasn’t so sure of. To give up modern life, to sink back into the restrictions he’d once left behind, to kneel before the brothers and sisters of the church and confess his wrongs...

  The lead weight in his belly grew heavier. He didn’t think he could do it. But how many choices did he have left?

  He rounded the bend, and the sight ahead of him chased his fruitless thoughts away. A horse reared between the shafts of a buggy, heedless of the efforts of the Amish woman struggling with the lines. Dropping his backpack to the ground, Aaron raced forward. If the horse bolted—

  When he reached the animal’s head, it was making a determined effort to kick the buggy to pieces, but at least it hadn’t run. Sucking in a breath, he lunged, dangerously near the flailing hooves. He caught the leather strap of the headpiece and held on tight, all the while talking in the low, steady voice that could calm the most jittery beast.

  “Get away from him before you’re hurt. I don’t want help.” The woman spoke in English, not dialect. She thought him an Englischer, and why not? That’s what he was now.

  Ignoring her, he focused on the animal, watching the flicker of the ears, the shudders that rippled the skin. He kept his voice low, saying soothing, meaningless words. Slowly, very slowly, the kicks grew half-hearted. They stopped, and the gelding stood, head drooping, shivering a little, but starting to relax.

  “There now,” he crooned in the still-familiar cadences of Pennsylvania Dutch. “You’re all right. Something scared you, yah?”

  “Nothing more fierce than a paper cup blowing across the road. Could be he wasn’t ready to venture out of the farmyard yet.” The light amused voice startled him out of his preoccupation with the animal.

  He took a cautious look, his hand still smoothing the gelding’s silky neck. The woman set the brake and secured the lines. She jumped down with a quick, agile movement that told him she wasn’t much more than a girl.

  “Denke. If I’d known it was Aaron King coming to the rescue I wouldn’t have told you to go away, that’s certain sure.” A hint of laughter threaded through her voice.

  He frowned. Who was it that knew him right off the bat, even in his jeans and denim jacket? But looking did him no good. Foolish, since she recognized him, but he hadn’t the faintest notion who she was.

  “Ach, you don’t know me, do you? That’s a blow to my self-esteem, all right. Here I thought you’d never forget me.” A teasing voice, a lively, animated face and laughing blue eyes confronted him. Her silky blond hair was parted in the center and drawn back under a snowy kapp, but... Then she smiled, showing the dimple in her right cheek, and he knew her.

  “It’s never Sally Stoltzfus.” Aaron had to shake his head, even knowing that after nearly ten years away folks would have changed. “You grew up.”

  “People do.” She patted the gelding. “Though I’m beginning to wonder about Star.”

  “Your daad never picked out a flighty animal like this for you, did he? He’s always been a gut judge of horseflesh. Or is it a husband who did the choosing?”

  That gave him a pang, thinking of the little girl who’d had such a crush on him when he’d been a grown-up seventeen and she barely thirteen.

  “Not a chance,” Sally said, the amusement still in her expressive face. “Everyone knows I’m an old maid by this time, or so my sister-in-law says. And a schoolteacher besides. And no, Daad didn’t pick the animal. Star was a present from my onkel Simon.”

  “That explains it,” he said, with half his mind still wondering how that skinny kid had grown into such a pretty woman. “Simon Stoltzfus never could seem to pick a decent buggy horse. So he passed this failure of his on to you, did he?”

  It was pleasant standing here talking to Sally, letting the dialect fill his head and come more easily out of his mouth. And incidentally putting off the moment at which he’d have to face his family.

  “Some things don’t improve with time,” she said. “Like Onkel Simon’s judgment of horseflesh. Too bad you weren’t around to save me from myself when I accepted Star.”

  “You wouldn’t have taken my advice. The Sally I remember always went her own way.” The teasing came back to him, lightening his mood. “I don’t expect that has changed.”

  “Probably not. Ach, what am I doing?” Her blue eyes turned serious, her smile slipping away. “I’m keeping you standing here talking when you must be eager to get home. And the family longing to greet you, I’m certain sure. I can get this beast home for myself now.”

  “I’m not in that much of a hurry,” he said, and knew it to be true. “It’s gut to catch up a little.”

  “But they’ll be looking for you, ain’t so? I’d guess Jessie has been baking half the day with you coming home.”

  Jessie was his brother Caleb’s wife, and he’d never even met her. There were two young ones, his niece and nephew, that he hadn’t met either. And his brother Daniel was planning a wedding himself next month. Would there even be a place for him with the family so changed?

  “Maybe so. If they knew I was coming.” He found he didn’t want to see her reaction to that.

  “You didn’t tell them?” Sally’s eyes widened. “Aaron King, why ever not? Don’t you know anticipation is half the fun? Your onkel Zeb was just saying the other day how much he wanted to see you. Ever since Daniel visited with you in the spring, he’s been hoping to hear word you were coming.”

  He might have known that folks would hear about his meeting up with Daniel at the racing stable where he’d been working. Nothing stayed secret long in the Amish community. Sally was a close neighbor, of course, but most likely the whole church district knew by now. They’d have had time to talk. To judge.

  When he didn’t respond, Sally grasped his arm and gave it a shake. “Wake up, Aaron. Why didn’t you let them know you were coming? You are staying, aren’t you?”

  He yanked away from her, suddenly irritated. He should have walked right past and let her manage that nervy horse on her own. Leave it to a woman to complicate matters.

  “That’s between me and my family.” It came out as a snarl, but that was about how he felt...like a wounded animal ready to bite a helping hand.

  She took a step back, her hand dropping to her side. “It is. And of course you wouldn’t wa
nt to say anything to me, knowing that I’ll spread it all over the community in the blink of an eye, being such a blabbermaul as I am.”

  The tart tone and sharper sarcasm caught him off guard. This wasn’t the little Sally he’d known any longer. This was a grown woman whose clear eyes, showing every change of mood, were now sparkling with anger.

  The realization startled him into a muttered apology. “Sorry. I didn’t mean...”

  The ready laughter came back into her eyes again. “Yah, you did.”

  Funny, that she could make him feel like smiling on a day when he’d thought he had nothing to smile about. “Were you always this annoying about being right?”

  “I guess you’ll just have to strain yourself to remember that, won’t you?” She began turning the horse into the lane to the Stoltzfus place, across the road from the King farm. “Star will come along all right now that we’re moving toward home. And that’s where you need to be headed, as well. Go home, Aaron.” She hesitated as if wondering whether to say more. “It will be all right.” Her voice was soft. “Go home. You’ll see.”

  * * *

  Sally forced herself not to look back until she was halfway down the lane toward the farmhouse. Then a quick glance over her shoulder assured her that Aaron wasn’t looking her way.

  Instead, with his backpack slung on one shoulder, he walked down the lane at the King place, headed for the house and whatever welcome awaited him. Here was the Prodigal Son returning, that was certain sure.

  Sally took a deep, calming breath. It had shaken her, seeing Aaron after so many years. Not that she’d forgotten him. A girl never forgot her first crush.

  She didn’t doubt that Aaron would be welcomed warmly, just as that prodigal had in the story Jesus told. The only reason Onkel Zeb wasn’t running down the lane to greet him, like the father in the parable, was that he didn’t know Aaron was coming.

  Ach, how foolish Aaron was, not to realize they’d be eager to see him. After all, hadn’t Daniel traveled all that way out to Indiana just to talk to him once they’d found out where he was?

  It was the same with most Amish families who’d had a child jump the fence to the Englisch world. They waited, they prayed and they longed for the time when their child came home. The happy ending they wanted didn’t always come, of course. But it looked as if the King family would have their prayers answered, at least for today.

  Star nuzzled her as if to ask why they’d slowed down, and Sally patted him absently. Funny that she hadn’t seen Aaron for so many years, and yet she’d known him the instant she saw his way with the horse. Aaron had always had that gift—some said he must have been born with it.

  That had been what she’d recognized, rather than his face. Her steps slowed again. He’d looked older, of course. She had to expect that. But she couldn’t have anticipated those deep lines in his face—lines of bitterness, she suspected. And the golden-brown eyes that once danced with amusement or flashed with lightning anger were now wary and watchful. The charm that had once had all the girls in a tizzy was gone. Aaron had looked braced as if ready for an attack. What had happened out there in the world to change him so?

  Sally gave herself a shake. She couldn’t stand here dreaming. She had things to do, and even now she saw Elizabeth, her sister-in-law, peering from the window to see what was keeping her. Suppressing any negative thoughts about her brother’s wife and her endless curiosity, she hurried on toward the barn.

  When Sally entered the kitchen after tending to the horse, Elizabeth was rolling out pie dough. And lying in wait for her, it seemed, as she instantly swung around, a question on her lips.

  “Here you are at last. Who was that Englischer you were talking to out on the road?”

  Sally had implied to Aaron that she wouldn’t spread any rumors about him, but she could hardly deny it was he. And little though she knew the Aaron who’d returned, she could be sure he wouldn’t imagine he could keep his being here secret.

  “It wasn’t an Englischer at all. It was Aaron King, on his way home.”

  “Aaron King!” Elizabeth’s round face flushed with excitement, probably at being one of the first to have the news. She swung round as Ben, Sally’s brother, came in the door. “Did you hear that, Ben? Aaron King has come home. With his tail between his legs, I’ve no doubt.”

  As usual, Elizabeth managed to rouse Sally’s ire in a matter of minutes. Sally took firm control of her tongue, something she’d had to learn to do since her parents went to her sister’s for an extended visit and Elizabeth and Ben moved in. School days weren’t so bad, since she was out and occupied, but weekends could be difficult.

  “I wouldn’t say that, Elizabeth. You know Daniel had asked him to come, even if just for a visit. They’ll all be so happy he decided to, I’m sure.”

  Ben, with his characteristic slow reaction, mused for a moment and then smiled. “Aaron finally home. That is gut news, ain’t so? It seems like just yesterday that we were walking down the road to school together.”

  “I don’t know what call you have to be so happy,” Elizabeth said. “He wasn’t much of a friend, never getting in touch with you in all these years.”

  By the time her parents returned from their lengthy visit and Ben and Elizabeth moved back to their own house, Sally figured her tongue would have calluses from biting it.

  “He could hardly be in touch with Ben without letting his folks know where he was,” she pointed out.

  “That’s so,” Ben said. “Aaron back again, think of that. Too bad tomorrow is an off Sunday for worship, or he’d have been able to see the whole church at once.”

  Sally smiled. Ben couldn’t imagine that someone might not want to be confronted with the rest of the Leit all at once.

  “Maybe it’s just as well he has a chance to settle in before greeting the whole community,” she suggested.

  “Yah, maybe so,” Ben admitted. “I heard he was working with horses somewhere out west.”

  “I don’t know about out west, but it looked as if he was giving Sally a hand with that fractious gelding. That animal’s too much for her.” Elizabeth frowned, then launched on her repeated refrain about Onkel Simon’s gift.

  “Star was just a little leery of being on the road, that’s all,” Sally said, no more eager to get on to this subject of conversation than to talk about Aaron. She wasn’t about to admit how scared she’d been before Aaron came to the rescue.

  “You’re making light of it, but I know what I saw.” Elizabeth gave the rolling pin a decided thump. “Ben should have refused that animal for you the minute your uncle showed up with it.”

  The quick retort she’d been congratulating herself for keeping under control slipped loose. “That was not Ben’s decision. It was mine, and I’ll thank you to remember it.”

  She was sorry, of course, the instant the words were out, but then it was too late. She sent up a penitent prayer. Would she ever learn to control her unruly tongue?

  Elizabeth swung on her husband. “Tell her, Ben. Tell her that horse is too much for her.”

  Ben, after a cautious glance at his sister’s flushed face, shook his head. Then he sent Sally a pleading look that she could hardly refuse.

  She took a deep breath and fought for patience. “Don’t worry so much, Elizabeth. I won’t take any chances with Star.” She’d have to give more, if only to restore peace. “If he’s not learned to behave himself by the time Daad gets back, we’ll let him decide what to do.”

  Elizabeth still looked a bit miffed, but she nodded. “I only want you to be safe,” she said.

  To do her credit, that was probably true. Elizabeth had a kind heart to go with that tart tongue.

  “That’s settled, then.” Relief filled Ben’s voice. Poor Ben. He only wanted peace, something he couldn’t get with two strong women after him.

  But nothing was settled as far as Sally w
as concerned. She had no intention of giving up the liberty granted by having her own buggy horse. And she’d just had a thought that might well solve her problem.

  Aaron King. If anyone could do anything with Star, it would be Aaron. Now all she had to do was convince Aaron of that.

  * * *

  Those moments with Sally Stoltzfus had distracted Aaron from his apprehension, but it had flooded back the instant she turned away. If he’d thought the road filled with memories, it was nothing compared to the flood that threatened to overwhelm him as he walked down the lane to the farm. Every fence post, every tree, every blade of grass even, seemed to be shouting his name.

  Welcoming him home? Or reminding him that he no longer had a place here? He wasn’t sure. Just as he wasn’t sure he even wanted to be here. Or to belong again.

  He’d have to make up his mind soon. He could only hope no one would force an answer about his plans. Or be too curious about what had caused him to return now. His mind winced away from that thought.

  The field to the left of the lane was planted in corn now. Sere and yellow, it wouldn’t be long until they cut the stalks. Behind it, the pasture was filled with the dairy herd that supported the farm. The herd was larger than it had been when he’d left, it seemed to him. The barn and the milking shed looked in good shape, tidy and freshly painted. If the place had been neglected while Caleb recovered from the injury he’d suffered a year ago, it didn’t show.

  The carpentry shop his brother Daniel ran was a new addition. He only knew about it because Daniel, once he’d learned where Aaron was, had written to him faithfully, as had Onkel Zeb. His oldest brother, Caleb, was never much of a letter writer, but that wasn’t the reason for his silence. Caleb, with his high standards and even higher expectations of his younger brothers, would be the least accepting of his return, he expected.

  Still, Onkel Zeb had said that Caleb and his wife, Jessie, would like to see him, and Onkel Zeb wasn’t one to say things he didn’t mean.

  As if his thought had brought him, Zeb picked that moment to emerge from the back door of the house. He stared for a long moment, probably not sure who it was he saw walking down the lane. Then, with a loud shout, he ran toward Aaron, beard ruffling in the movement, arms spread wide in welcome.