Out of Heaven's Grasp (6 page)

Abby

Susannah watched Jesse walk away, and then she turned back to me. “What was
that
about?”

I shook my head. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

Her jaw dropped. “Abigail London, you’re sneaking around with Jesse Wallace, aren’t you?”

“
No
.”

“Oh, come on.” She lowered her voice, even though no one was close enough to hear us speak. “I see the way you look at him when he comes to deliver the fuel. You’re practically drooling over him.”

“I am
not
.” I twisted my hands together. “I don’t know why he did that. We agreed we were going to stay away from each other.”

“Agreed!” She covered her mouth with one hand. “You two were together, then. You were
alone
together.”

“Susannah.” I looked around, making sure that no one was listening in. The parking area was mostly empty at this point, but there were a few clusters of people talking. I was getting a ride home with Thomas and Carla, and they were chatting with another young couple on the other side of the area.

“I can’t believe you,” she said.

“Not so loud.”

“I’m
whispering
.”

She was
not
whispering, but she wasn’t yelling anymore. I glared at her.

Susannah lowered her voice even more. “I can’t believe you didn’t even tell me.”

“There’s nothing to tell.”

“What do you mean, there’s nothing to tell? When did you agree not to see each other?”

“When I ran into him in Lebenet.”

Her eyes widened. “No way.”

I sighed. “Susannah, I don’t go around broadcasting that I’m a weak-willed sinner, okay? I’ve repented to God about it, and that’s the end of it.”

“Sinner?” She looked delighted. “What did you do? Did you kiss him?”

“No,” I said.

“Did you hold hands?”

“No.”

She looked disappointed. “Well, what kind of sin could you even have done?”

“I don’t want to talk about it, okay?”

“You have to tell me,” she said. “I’m your best friend, and I don’t have any really attractive boys trying to entice
me
to sin.”

“Good,” I said. “You’re lucky.”

“Maybe from your perspective.”

“Drop it, Susannah.” I started towards Thomas’s car.

She caught me by the arm. “Seriously, Abby, you’re being careful, right? Because if you’re sneaking around with him, and you get caught…”

“I’m not sneaking around with him.”

“So, you’re not going to meet him tonight?”

“Of course not,” I insisted.

When I said it, I meant it. But as the hours wore on, and I thought more and more about Jesse, I remembered all of our discussions in Lebenet. And the truth was, it had been really hard to keep from seeing him all this time. I’d thought about him nonstop.

I’d tried not to think about him, but it had almost seemed as if the harder I tried, the more I thought about him. He kept popping into my brain, and I kept thinking about how he’d said that he wanted to spend time with me, and that he thought about me a lot.

I was weak. I could have fought it harder if I’d tried, but I didn’t.

I surrendered to my sinful nature.

By ten o’clock, everyone in the house was in bed, and I snuck through the darkness, down the stairs and through the kitchen. I eased open the back door, and I went running into the night, out to meet Jesse.

Just the two of us. Alone. In the dark.

It was wrong, and I knew that. But it was so delicious too.

I cursed God for making sin feel so good.

* * *

He was leaning against a scraggly tree, and his hair was down. Usually, the men wore it back in a ponytail, but it was free and falling around his face, and he looked even more alluring than usual. In the distance, the mountains cut sharp angles into the starry sky. Behind me, the fields of my family’s farm stretched back to my house, just over a hill and barely out of sight.

When he saw me, his face lit up.

I ran to him.

“I was starting to think you wouldn’t come,” he said.

“I shouldn’t have,” I said.

He reached out and grabbed both of my hands.

I shut my eyes. His hands were warm. Larger than mine. I liked the sensation of our skin touching. I liked how it felt to have my small hands encased in his. When I opened my eyes, he was looking at me, and there was awe and wonder in his expression, and it tugged at me, like a strong current yanking me downstream.

I told myself to pull away from him, but my body didn’t listen. “We shouldn’t be doing this.”

“I know.” His voice was soft.

We gazed into each other’s eyes. It felt so good to be close to him. My heart was beating fast, and there was a raw feeling of excitement, but there was also an undercurrent of belonging and rightness. I didn’t understand it. I knew this was wrong. I’d been taught my whole life that God would choose the man I fell in love with. So why did I feel like I was falling for Jesse? And why was it happening on its own, without the elders?

Jesse rested his forehead against mine.

I sighed. We were so close now. Close enough that I could feel his breath on my cheek. I was giddy and keyed up, but there was something sweet and calm about being so near.

“I really tried, Abby,” he whispered. “I wanted to stay away from you, but I couldn’t get you out of my head.”

“I know,” I said. “Me too. I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

We stayed like that for a few more minutes, our hands joined, our foreheads touching. I basked in our connectedness. It was lovely to be linked to him. I never wanted to let go of him.

He moved his head back to look at me. “So, what are we going to do?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

He let go of one of my hands, and, tentatively, he brushed the back of his knuckles against my cheek.

I closed my eyes, shivers traveling through my body.

He drew in an audible breath.

My eyes fluttered open. I never wanted to let go of him. I wanted him always touching me. I wanted us to touch more, touch… everywhere.

Feeling bold, I reached up to caress his face, too. My fingers slid over his jaw, over the fine hairs of his beard, which I’d wanted to touch for so long. To my surprise, they were coarser than I’d imagined.

He shut his eyes. He put his hand on top of mine, holding it there, against his skin. His voice was hoarse. “I want to marry you.”

“Yes,” I breathed.

He opened his eyes again, and we lost ourselves in each other’s gaze for several long, long minutes.

“It’s impossible, isn’t it?” I murmured.

He let go of me, sinking both his hands into his hair. “It can’t be. If I can go to the elders and tell them how I feel, maybe…”

“But maybe they won’t,” I said.

He dragged his hands the rest of the way through his hair and craned his neck up to look at the sky. “The problem is getting to the elders. I can’t go on my own. Only married men can request an audience, so I’d need my father to take me, and he won’t understand.”

I stepped closer to him. “Maybe we should just wait. If it’s God’s will—”

“I don’t care about God’s will.” He seized my hand again, interlacing our fingers. “I want you. You want me. That’s all that matters.”

I cringed. I didn’t think I liked him saying things like that. Maybe we’d both confessed heretical thoughts to each other in Lebenet, maybe we’d even done sinful things together. But that didn’t mean we threw all our beliefs away. It meant that we repented and got right with God.

At the same time, it felt so nice to hold his hand, and I had an urge to… to kiss him.

I’d never kissed anyone, and I knew it was the height of sinfulness. Women weren’t supposed to kiss anyone except their husbands. It was permitted in formal courtship, once the elders had decreed that a man and woman would be married, so it could be done before marriage, but only with your intended spouse.

I looked up at his lips, nestled under the hair of his beard.

My own lips parted.

Jesse’s Adam’s apple bobbed. He pulled me closer to him.

He wound an arm around my waist.

And then, suddenly, we were pressed against each other’s bodies. I could feel all of him—his chest, his legs—firm and warm through my clothes. A surge of heat shot through me, and I started to tremble.

“Jesse…” I managed.

He stroked my cheek again. He looked deeply into my eyes.

His face was dipping down.

His lips were coming for my lips.

It was going to happen. He was going to kiss me. My pulse raced. My breathing grew shallow. I thought about pushing him away, telling him to stop, but I didn’t. Some part of me wanted this kiss more than anything I’d ever wanted.

The sound of a gunshot shattered the air.

“What’s going on out here?” yelled a voice.

My father!

I pushed away from Jesse, and he dropped me like I burned him.

The bright light of a flashlight washed over our bodies.

“Abigail, is that you?”

My veins turned to ice.

We’d been caught.

CHAPTER FOUR

Abby

My mother stood inside the door to my bedroom, shaking her head. “I never would have thought it of you, Abby.”

Her disappointment was palpable, and I hated it.

It was the next morning. After finding us, my father had run Jesse off, taken me back inside, and locked me in my room, promising to deal with me when we woke up. I hadn’t slept at all. I’d tossed and turned, worrying about what was going to happen to both of us.

When I woke up, my mother brought me breakfast and let me take a shower, but she wouldn’t let me out of my room. She was guarding me, as if she was afraid I was going to try to bolt or something.

My sisters knew something was going on, but my mother wouldn’t let me talk to them. She’d sent them off to start their morning chores, and now she and I were alone.

I was sitting on the bed. “Mother, nothing’s really happened. We held hands. We talked. Nothing else. I think… I think I love him.”

She folded her arms over her chest. “Sweetheart, this isn’t love, it’s the devil’s trap.”

“But what if it’s not?” I sat up straight. “Remember Calvin and Eliza Davis? They were caught sneaking around, and the elders let them get married. That’s all Jesse and I want.”

Her expression softened. “I know, I know.”

“So?” I said. “Do you think you can talk to Father? Tell him that. Maybe he can ask the elders…?”

She sighed. “You’ve been breaking the law of God, Abby. You can’t expect that doing something like that is going to lead to your heart’s desire.”

I looked down at my hands. “I know.”

“Your father went off to talk to Jesse’s father this morning. He was pretty angry. He doesn’t like having boys like that wandering around and preying on his little girls.”

“He wasn’t preying on me, and I’m not a little girl.”

“Oh, I told him that it wasn’t any use blaming the whole thing on Jesse. I told him I thought you were both equally led astray by the devil in this. If you’re meant to be married to Jesse, the elders will allow you to be together, but if that isn’t what God wants, then it won’t happen.”

I wanted to believe that. But the thought that I wouldn’t end up with Jesse seemed too much to bear now. I’d almost kissed him, and I couldn’t get the memory of his fingers on my skin out of my head. Certainly, I was meant to be with him. It had to be true. It just had to be.

I gave my mother a pleading look. “Can you just talk to Father, please?”

“You need to trust in God,” she said. “Casting all your care upon him for he careth for you, Abby. God knows what’s best.”

“But what if the elders get it wrong?” I said.

“Abigail Teresa.” Her eyes widened in horror.

“Sorry,” I muttered.

“They are the men of God,” my mother said. “Don’t let me hear you say another word against them. The more you protest, the more I worry that it’s more than this boy that’s turned your head. You must bury your doubts in the deepest ocean.”

I hung my head.

From the depths of the house, I heard the voice of my father. “Judy, where are you?”

My mother turned away. “I guess I better see what he wants.” She opened the door. “You stay right here.”

“I will,” I said, feeling defeated.

She stopped and looked over her shoulder. “Look, I’m not going to make any promises, but I’ll talk to him. I don’t see anything wrong with you and that Wallace boy getting married, especially considering everything.”

I got up from the bed, hope filling me. “You will? Oh, thank you so much, Mother. Thank you.”