Amish Redemption (Erotic Romance) (Amish Heart Trilogy) (3 page)

             
He picked her up and carried her, laying her face up on the bed.  For a moment there was nothing, and then his knees spread her legs wide open.  He gingerly removed the tape and gag from her mouth and kissed her tenderly, then urgently, the combination of their individual needs forming sheer demand.

             
Penetration was sweet and slow.  Over and over again his cock claimed her with surging dives to her center and withdrawals. As he dove, she was conscious of something down there that was not him.  He had removed the spiky glove, but with each thrust, she could feel a small knob rubbing against her clit.  In and out and in and out. 
Oooh!  Ooooooh! 
Again and again.  The entirety of the night’s events descended upon her, culminating in a massive detonation, splintering her into a million tiny pieces. 

             
As her vaginal muscles contracted in her orgasm, his cock became rock-like and he contorted, holding her tight and shaking as he came.

             
Afterwards, he cuddled her closely as their limbs tangled up in each other.

             
“Are you satisfied?”  His voice was husky.

             
In answer she reached up to stroke his face, and was alarmed to find his cheeks were wet. 

             
“What’s wrong?”

             
“No, it’s nothing.”

             
“Bullshit, it’s nothing!”

             
He was silent for a long moment before he spoke.  She realized he was grappling with his emotions. 

             
“That was hard for me.  Hitting you . . . hurting you.  I don’t think I could do that again.”

             
“Hey, I’m fine.” 
I liked it.

             
“No.”

             
“No, what?”

             
“It’s nothing.”

             
“Tell me.”  She was distressed.  She had never seen him so upset.

             
Another long silence.  She wanted more than anything to badger the truth out of him, but knew that would only cause him to pull away from her.  So, she held her tongue and waited.

             
“I was . . . abused . . . as a child.” 

Those six small words struck sharp pain to her heart.

“Why didn’t you tell me before?  I wouldn’t have asked—”

“No!”  It came out roughly and then he continued, much more softly.  “You’ve been handling your own issues.  I didn’t do anything I didn’t want to do.”

Somehow, she doubted that. 
If you wanted to do this, why are you crying now?

             
“So, why did you do it, if it hurts you so much?”

             
“You needed it.”

             
Her feeling of love for him was overwhelming. 

“Who was it?”

              “It doesn’t matter now.” 

Somehow she doubted this, too. 

“Just leave it alone, Becca.”  His voice was gruff with emotion.

She was mystified by his need to hold everything in.  Then she realized that this was the most that a man had ever confided in her. 
He must trust me a great deal. 

She kissed his tears.  “What can I do to help?”

“Just love me.”

She hugged him tightly. 
“I will always love you.”

Soon she heard his breathing change, indicating him to be asleep.  She kept turning the night’s events over in her mind.  Despite her weariness, it took a long time for sleep to find her. 
Questions of who had hurt Nick and how he had been harmed haunted her.  It bothered her that she had been so wrapped up with her own pain that she failed to see his.  Yet despite this she felt purged, relieved of her inner turmoil concerning Jakob.  She felt almost clean.  One by one her thoughts shifted into that nebulous state between sleep and consciousness.  For the first time in two years, she had no anxiety about what dreams would come.

             
“I want a divorce.”  Rebekah took a sip of her coffee and eyed Nick.

             
“Me, too.  You should have gotten one a year ago.”  Nick was agreeable.  They both knew that the only reason she hadn’t was because of the trial and after that, well . . . she had a lot of trauma to sift through.  This was the first time she felt like tackling another challenge.  She was grateful that Nick was patient.  She sipped more of her coffee and noted he looked quite pleased at her announcement.  Her divorce meant that they could finally get married.  They had been living together for the past two years and she knew he had been itching to “make it legal,” as he had said to her a few times.  She knew he hadn’t pressed the issue because he hadn’t wanted to put more strain on her than she was already dealing with at the time.

             
Rebekah wondered if Ezekiel would let her go. 
Would he sign the papers?
 
Surely he wouldn’t still want to hold onto me.  He knows that I am not coming back to him.
  Yet the thought persisted, small though it was that for some reason he may not be amenable to a divorce.  She told herself not to be concerned about things that haven’t happened and may not happen. 

             
Nonetheless, Rebekah did not want to try to face Ezekiel and directly ask him for a divorce.  She was now shunned as she had left the Amish Community and he would not talk to her.  Nick made some calls to local attorneys and a consultation was set up.  Rebekah insisted that Nick be present. 

“Relax,” said Nick.  “He’s here to represent you.”  It made no difference.  After Jakob’s trial, she felt wary of English law in general and attorneys in particular.  She knew that they would twist the truth to serve their own purposes and it was something which she wanted no part in.  She felt almost as nervous meeting with this lawyer as she did being cross examined by Jakob’s attorney during the trial.

The man they met with was thin, with close cut sandy hair, weak blue eyes and a thinning mustache.  He introduced himself as Tom Proctor.  Rebekah judged him to be approximately Ezekiel’s age.  He took her hand cordially to greet her.  It was dry and cool to the touch.

Fifteen minutes later, she was on the verge of walking out.

“You are entitled to one half of everything he gained during your two and one half years of marriage and to child support.”

“Rachel is not his child,” she admitted, flushing deeply.

“Oh.  Does he know that?” 

Not quite able to keep the annoyance out of her voice she said, “I don’t want anything from him except not to be married to him anymore.”

“But you are entitled—from what you’ve said, it would be a fairly substantial sum of money—”

“I don’t want it.”

Mr. Proctor looked a bit exasperated himself.  “Why not?”

“I don’t want anything of his.” 
I’ve hurt him badly enough. 
She wasn’t certain what led to her sudden sympathy for Ezekiel, a man she had grown to detest even before being married to him.  Maybe it was because she realized that in their marriage, he could have had her shunned by the Amish Community for loving Nick.  He hadn’t, the reason being that he had loved her.  He had loved her and she had never known it.  He had never done anything to show it.  However, she was not a vengeful person at heart and because he had not put her through the pain and public humiliation of shunning, she did not want to create for him any more pain than necessary.

             
Mr. Proctor then told them it would be four hundred dollars for an uncontested divorce and Nick wrote him a check.  They spent twenty more minutes filling out paperwork.  Divorce papers would be filed and served on Ezekiel within a couple of weeks.  A hearing would occur about a month after that, with the divorce being final the following month. 

Upon leaving, Rebekah felt she
needed to wash her hands and face.  They weren’t dirty, but the atmosphere in her attorney’s office made her feel grimy.  She tried to focus on her upcoming wedding and meeting Nick’s sister, Staci, in person.  She had only gotten to know her by email and telephone.  Staci was an effervescent, bubbly, take-charge kind of girl who would be delighted to hear of their wedding plans.
And take over planning it
, thought Rebekah.  She actually didn’t mind very much the idea of Staci making most of the decisions.  She had very little idea of what English weddings were like, other than what they saw on TV and movies.  Nick had explained to her that things on TV and movies weren’t real life; most of the time they were made up stories. 

She knew that in English weddings, everyone wore special clothes, especially the bride.
  Beyond that, she was lost.

“What sort of wedding should we have?”

Nick seemed surprised by the question. 
Do all English women just know these things instinctively?
“What do you want it to be like?” 

She pondered this.  Amish weddings were an all-day affair where everyone who remotely knew the bride or groom’s family came to socialize and eat.  People got together and met friends and family they had not seen in years.  Children got to play and romp with an abundance of other children. It was a primary way for single people to meet, should they have the good fortune of choosing their own mates.  But none of her people would be coming to her wedding with Nick.  They came to her wedding with Ezekiel and said pleasant things while she inwardly cringed.  None of t
hem would be there to share her happiness at marrying the man she was truly in love with.

She had made a few friends in their neighborhood and among the parents of Rachel’s friends. 
Nick had many friends among people he worked with at the pig farm.  She knew they would come.  Nick’s father, Jack Collins, would come.  The man was an enigma to Rebekah.  He had been disabled for several years, reliant on the government and Nick to support him.  He seemed a warm enough person on the surface, but Rebekah could detect bitterness inside him.  She wondered if this could be from having lost his wife years ago or his inability to work.  She didn’t know.  Either one could cause virulence in a man.  She asked Nick once about it and he was unexpectedly close-mouthed.

“I guess he has a lot to think about,” he replied, his eyes clouded. 

They went over occasionally to see Jack and while he seemed fairly happy to see Rebekah and Rachel, there appeared to be a hidden terseness between father and son that remained unexplained.  They would joke a bit and Nick would ask after his father’s wellbeing, but the chill remained unspoken but perceptible.  The visits were always short.  Nick never let Rachel out of his sight when they were there.  And Rebekah noticed something else.  Nick was always affectionate with their family, and even greeted friends with a warm handshake or half hug (“a man-hug” Nick called it) but he had no such demonstrativeness toward Jack.  Likewise Jack, who wanted hugs from Rebekah and kisses from his little granddaughter, never so much as shook his son’s hand.

After quite a bit of thought, she felt that she knew the answer.  After Rachel had gone to bed one evening, she brought it up to Nick.

“It was him, wasn’t it?”

“Him who?”

“Your father.  He hurt you.  He did something to you.”

“
Becca, leave it alone.”  His voice was steady but cool.

She persisted, “What did he do?”

“Damn it, I said leave it alone!”  He had never raised his voice to her before and it shook her somewhat.  Still she could not give up.  Something was haunting him.  She needed to be able to help.

“Why?”

“Because it doesn’t matter anymore.”  He had dropped his voice but she could still see the hurt in his eyes, the tension in his shoulders.

She spoke matter-of-factly.  “Well, obviously, it does.”

He was mute for a long time.  She wanted to ask him again, but decided not to.  She realized he was formulating what to say in his mind and knew that if she spoke, she would interrupt him.  When she thought that he would not answer at all he sat her down in the living room. 

She looked around their
new house.  They had only just recently moved in.  It was modest and slightly older but comfortable and, to Rebekah’s eyes, perfect.  It was their home together.  She looked at the matted and framed pictures of their family hanging on the walls.  It was another thing that was novel to her.  The Amish did not believe in taking photographs of people, feeling it was making a graven image of them and was forbidden by the Bible.  Nick had recently repaired the holes he had made in the walls during their “rape” night and they had painted the walls a sunny light yellow and the molding white.  She reveled in painting the room, since it was another new thing to her.  Amish houses often have no interior paint and if the walls are painted, the color was always white.  Once Rebekah got used to the idea that anything was allowed, she indulged in using color and texture to make their home uniquely and wonderfully theirs.

Just when she thought he would not answer at all, he spoke very softly.  “After my mom died, Dad went through a bad time.  He started drinking
. . . and got abusive with me and Staci.”

“Abusive, how?”

His mouth twisted.  What is he not saying? 
Whatever it is, it is poisoning him.

“He started beating me when he came home from driving his truck.  And he would . . .” his voice got almost inaudible, “mess with Staci.” 
His voice got rough with unshed tears and she was aware that he had never told anybody about this.  “She was only ten years old.  I tried to protect her, but he was too big.  Too mean.” 
He had only been eight.
  Rebekah remained frozen, waiting for this terrible thing to come out of Nick.  Suddenly it all made sense.  Why Nick was so reserved with Jack and why Staci had moved so far from her family.  Why he wouldn’t leave Rachel alone with Jack. 

After he fell silent again, she asked, “What do you mean, ‘messed with?’”

He sighed.  “Oh, you are going to be mad at me for even having Rachel around him.”

She started to say she wouldn’t but didn’t.  She waited.

“He molested her, Becca.  She was only ten and now she won’t have anything to do with him.”  She had guessed that Staci was estranged from her father.  It was nothing that had been discussed, really.  Rather, it was that Staci had avoided the subject of Jack nearly altogether. 

Rebekah scrutinized
her memory now of every time Jack had held Rachel, how he had kissed her.  She had never seen anything inappropriate, definitely nothing that would have said he was a child molester.  She considered Nick and felt a flash of anger for him putting their daughter in harm’s way, only to realize she had never been in harm’s way at all.  Nick had watched her like a hawk the entire time, every time they were there.

She took a deep breath.  “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“Why make you hate him?  He isn’t the same anymore.”  Nick was much calmer than he had been at the beginning of their conversation.

“Does he still drink?”  She hadn’t intended for it to come out as an accusation. 

“Sometimes, probably.”  He caught her hand and said, “I’ve told him he can’t drink around you two.  If he does—it’s over.”

She nodded, trying to absorb it all.

It left one question unanswered.  “Why have you supported him all this time?”

He shook his head as if to say,
I don’t know,
but said, “He’s still my dad.  Nothing changes that.”

She could understand his loyalty to his family.  She wished her mother had been more forgiving and had spoken to her in the courtroom.  That she wasn’t so was an Amish custom.  Was Nick being forgiving an English custom?  She chewed on this thought for a while, finally deciding that it wasn’t an English characteristic at all.  Rather, it
was a deep-seated trait of Nick.  She gathered her arms around this man she loved, realizing once again how good his heart was and how very blessed she was.