Temptation (A Temptation Novel) (25 page)

She nodded and picked up her reins. Together we took off, cantering over the squishy, water-drenched earth side by side. The rain gave us no mercy and continued to pelt down on us, stinging my face and hands. I glanced anxiously at Rose, who had somehow managed to get her hood up and tight around her head. A few wisps of her hair had escaped and were plastered against her jacket, but otherwise she seemed to be surviving the weather conditions. Her resiliency amazed me. She looked all dainty and small on the outside, but inside she was tough as nails.

The water was soaking into the farm soil around us, sending an earthy smell of mud and worms into the air. It was a familiar scent and it calmed my nerves, giving me the chance to breathe and think. What would Levi do? Was he going to put the information through the rumor mill? That would give me a little more time, and the chance to talk to Father and Mother about Rose before they heard about her from someone else. That would be the best scenario, and I silently prayed for Levi to follow that course.

But when Father came into view, riding his tall black buggy horse, cantering up the lane toward us, my heart sunk. Levi had gone straight to Father and told him. That would be the only reason in the world that he’d be riding out in the field in the middle of a rainstorm at such a fast clip.

I reached out and took Rose’s hand. I decided I wouldn’t let go until I absolutely had to. Meeting her eyes, I felt strong and right about my love for her. She saw him, too, and although her eyes looked fearful, she smiled encouragingly at me. I slowed Rumor to a walk when we were almost to Father. Rose followed my lead with Lady. She tried to wiggle her hand free, but I clenched hard, not letting her go.

The fury on Father’s face was plain for all the world to see. He didn’t bother to hide it from Rose as he narrowed his eyes, staring at our locked hands. He looked at Rose’s face briefly; then he settled his gaze on me. We were stopped now and Father’s horse, Simeon, was close enough to sniff noses with Rumor.

“Let go of her hand, Noah.” I had never heard his voice that fierce before, filled with a deep rage, so contained it splintered the wet air, sending a trickling of fear coursing through me. I wouldn’t release Rose, though, fearing deep within me that if I did, I’d never be able to touch her again.

I met his fiery gaze, defiant and unblinking. “Father, I love Rose and we want to be together. That’s why I wouldn’t pick one of the other girls, because I had already lost my heart to this girl.”

The rain was coming down harder, blurring my vision and changing the world into a hazy picture of brilliant, glistening greens. In the back of my mind I worried about Rose being out in it, but I couldn’t hold that thought for too long as I watched what I’d said sink into my father’s mind. I thought I saw a flicker of emotion play on his features. Almost a sad understanding as his eyes passed between Rose and me again. The look was there only for a second, and then it disappeared, to be replaced with indignation, but more subdued, as Father spoke again. “Son, release her hand so that she can go home and get out of the rain.”

He was a sly one, my father. He knew instinctively I didn’t want the girl I loved out here in the cold, driving rain and wind.

I gazed at Rose reassuringly and released her hand. I couldn’t tell if she was crying or if the wetness on her face was only the rainwater flooding her features, but she sat straight in her saddle and smiled sadly at me before squeezing her horse, trotting past my father.

I was glad to see her riding away from this emotionally charged scene to the dry house waiting for her. I didn’t take my eyes from her until she slipped through the gap in the fence, disappearing from sight. When that happened, a cold, hard loneliness swept through me.

Father and I sat in our saddles for several minutes in the pouring rain, the dead quiet of the field surrounding us. The cold dampness was seeping into my skin and bones, but I welcomed the discomfort. At least it made me feel alive.

Finally Father spoke, his voice rigid. “Go to the house, Noah.”

All too happy to escape his wrathful gaze, I squeezed Rumor into a canter, pulling the reins up to keep his hooves collected over the dangerously sloppy ground. When I rode up the driveway, I had to admit that the fear that had gripped my insides when I saw Father appear on the path was nothing compared to the trepidation I felt now, seeing Mother standing on the front porch, her arms crossed in front of her.

After unsaddling and putting Rumor in a stall, I passed Father in the driveway. All he said was “get dry clothes on” as he stalked by me, not slowing down.

Before I reached the house, Jacob came through the door with Peter, Daniel and Isaac. They all passed me quietly, with the little boys staring at the puddles. Jacob shot me a look of genuine concern, but he didn’t say a word as he swept by. Sarah and Rachel were the next to appear, with little Naomi in Sarah’s arms. Rachel hurried by without a sideways glance, giving me the silent treatment, but Sarah peeked up with a wary smile and whispered, “Good luck.”

I knew that I’d need more than luck to get through what was to come—I needed a miracle.

13

Rose

Dealing with the Inevitable

I COULDN’T KEEP
the tears from pouring out of my eyes as I dodged the sheets of pounding rain, my feet splashing with each stride I took. Gathering speed, I made a mad dash, reaching the back screen door. I flung it open and bounded into the dry kitchen.

I must have been a scary sight the way Sam and Justin popped their heads up from their usual nightly bowls of cereal when I burst into the room. They stared at me with their faces scrunched up in distaste, watching the water drip off my clothes and pool beneath my feet.

“Hey, I told you it was going to rain.” Sam snickered.

I guess it wouldn’t have mattered what nonsense spilled from his stupid mouth. It was inevitable that I was going to run from the room, bawling my eyes out. And that’s what I did. Taking the stairs two steps at a time, I reached my bedroom seconds before the athlete caught up to me. Slamming the door and locking it, I started stripping my wet clothes off, throwing them on the floor.

“What’s going on, Rose? Did he hurt you or something?” Sam yelled, clearly upset, while he banged on the door with major force.

“Go away!” I screamed back, not wanting to deal with his I-told-you-so’s.

He didn’t let up, though. His banging intensified, forcing me to slip on the first jeans and T-shirt that I could get my hands on. Grabbing the door handle, I quickly unlocked it, turning the knob. King Kong came stumbling into the room when the door swung open. Justin walked in with more dignity, heading straight for my mattress and making himself comfortable.

“What happened?” Sam blurted out, resting his hands stiffly on his hips.

“We were caught, Sam!” I said, flinging myself onto the mattress, almost taking Justin out when I landed with a thud next to him.

Sam’s voice came out in a choked whisper. “What were you doing?”

I could only shake my head with amazement at how stupid he was. The only good thing to come from his lack of brain cells was that it almost caused me to laugh, and with the horrible drilling pain my heart was experiencing, that would have been a nice release.

“You dope! We were just kissing. A couple of Amish boys saw me and Noah together in a field, and they immediately galloped off to report it to Mr. Miller,” I cried out, falling back onto the pillows for dramatic effect.

Sitting on the bottom of the mattress facing me, Sam breathed deep and said, “That was pretty shitty of them.”

“Oh, you have no idea. The one kid looks like a member of the Children of the Corn. He’s seriously messed up. I saw him at the schoolhouse on Saturday. He gave me the creeps when he stared at me. I think he has some kind of personal vendetta against Noah. Or at least that’s what it seemed like,” I rambled on, glad to have someone to vent to, even if it was just my two imbecile brothers.

“You should have pointed the jerk out to me. I would have taken care of him for you,” Sam said confidently.

“Oh, yeah, that’s just what I needed, my brother beating up an Amish kid in front of everyone.” I sighed irritably.

Sam shrugged. “What did Mr. Miller do when he heard that his perfect son was sneaking around with a dreaded
English
girl?”

I narrowed my eyes at him, feeling the anger swelling inside me. “It isn’t a joke, Sam. Mr. Miller was really pissed off. You should have seen the way he looked at me. Like…like…I was evil.” Feeling the moistness at the corners of my eyes, I sniffed it back in, burying my face in the nearest pillow.

Silence filled the room for a few minutes, except for the random sniff or groan coming from me. Even Sam, who always had something to say, was speechless. Justin tried to comfort me by awkwardly patting my back as if I was a dog, which made me suddenly think about the puppy.

“Where’s Hope?” I said, panicked.

“She’s asleep on the couch,” Justin mumbled.

“You guys are spoiling her rotten,” I accused, leaning back again.

“So, I guess the little romance is over now—
right?
” Sam asked carefully, searching my eyes for a runaway plan.

“Sam, I know this will be hard for you to believe since all you do is go around picking up girls and using them for their bodies, then throwing them aside when you’re bored with them, but what’s between Noah and me is real. We love each other, and his family isn’t going to keep us apart.” I said it with utter confidence that I wasn’t entirely feeling deep down.

“Oh, come on, Rose, you’re only sixteen. What would you know about love? Noah has to do what his parents want. He doesn’t have a choice in the matter. Even if he really did love you the way you think he does, there’s nothing either one of you can do about it for a few years. By then, you’ll both have moved on to other people, and that’ll be that.”

The know-it-all way he said it made me want to vomit, and I bolted into a sitting position, shrieking, “You don’t know anything, Sam. There are states where I’m perfectly legal to get married. Maybe Noah and I will head down to one of ’em and do just that.”

His eyes widened in surprise at my threat, and he shot back at me, “I’ll tell Dad before I let you do that, Rose.”

“You wouldn’t!” I growled, so angry I could barely see him.

Rising up, he shook his head lightly. In a softer voice, he said, “Rose, this is your first breakup, and I know it’s a lot weirder than most experiences, but you’ll get over it.” With that he headed for the exit, hesitating a second in the doorway. He turned around, saying, “When you need to talk—and I’m sure you will—I’m available.”

Justin, on the other hand, hung out with me for the rest of the night, playing his DS while we listened to music together. I could deal with his video-game stupor much easier than Sam’s alertness and penchant for butting into everyone’s business.

Hiding my face in the fattest pillow I could find, I silently cried myself to sleep, not really wanting to think about the complexity of the situation. A dull headache had already developed on the left side of my head, and all I wanted to do was escape it. I was so glad when the darkness finally filled my mind.

14

Noah

The Right Path

I DID AS
Father instructed and went immediately to my room, pulling the soaking-wet clothes from my body and flinging them into a heap on the floor. Putting on the first dry clothes I reached, I paused to look out the window. I watched Jacob’s buggy moving quickly through the pelting rain down the driveway with all the children packed inside. They had been sent away to a neighbor’s house on my account. Father and Mother didn’t want the others to hear all the sordid details about my love affair with an English girl.

Running my hand through my wet hair, I left the room, eager to get the fight over with. As bad as it was going to be, it was a relief to finally have it all out in the open. When I entered the kitchen, I was greeted by the hostile eyes of both Mother and Father. Trying my best to ignore their looks, I walked across the room, sitting on the first chair I reached.

“How long have you been secretly seeing the English girl, Noah?” In the stillness of the kitchen, with the faint scents of dinner still lingering in the room, Father’s voice was an unwanted guest. It was loud and menacing, and finding the bravery to look at him, I saw his hands were gripped tightly in a knot, his face skewered in anger.

With my stomach in its own knot, I replied, “Her name is Rose, Father, and I’ve been in love with her since the first time I met her.”

Mother shook her head vigorously, exhaling loudly, her face pained. But she didn’t speak, leaving that for Father.

“I think you might be confusing lust with love, son.” He said it in a calmer voice, but his features were belying his growing agitation. “The girl is beautiful. I won’t argue with that. I can understand the temptation she offers you, but the feelings you think you have only for her you can easily find with another girl.”

Shaking my head, I didn’t want to listen to his nonsense. “Could you so easily transfer the love you feel for Mother to someone else?” When he only squinted at me soundlessly, I forged on, “Nothing you or Mother say is going to stop me from loving her.” In a quieter voice I added, “Someday she’ll be my wife.”

Mother sucked in a gulp of air loudly, placing her fingers to her neck.

Father barked out a laugh and aimed all his fury at me. “Do you actually believe that is possible? Where will you live? How will you provide for a wife and children without your family and your church?” He caught his breath and threatened, “Because you will lose everything if you go down that road, son.”

“I’ll still have Rose, and that’s all that matters to me.”

With an exasperated sigh, Father leaned back in his chair, shaking his head vigorously. After a second, his movements stopped, and with troubled eyes searching my face, he asked, “Have you lain with this girl?”

Mother was holding her breath waiting for my answer. When I said no she visibly relaxed, blowing out a long breath.

“By the grace of God, that’s a relief anyway,” he said roughly, rubbing the side of his face.

My heart pounded and my stomach tightened as I found my voice of conviction. “I am not planning on leaving the church, Father.” Their eyes peered at me, the anger temporarily replaced by cautious curiosity. “I believe Rose will become Amish and join our church.”

Father’s eyes shot to the sky and he spat, “You are dreaming if you think that girl is going to give up all her material things and her spoiled life to follow our ways. Don’t you see what she’s done to you? She has corrupted your mind, filling your head with visions of lust and pleasure, blinding you, crippling you from thinking straight.”

His voice losing a small amount of its fire, he continued, “Noah, even if she did agree to become one of us, and she joined the church and the two of you were married, after a time, maybe a few months or even a few years, she would become bored and frustrated with our lifestyle. She would leave you. And by that time, you might have children that would suffer for it.”

“But, Father, what if she did agree to become Amish, would you consent to our marriage?” I asked desperately, hoping that my voice sounded mature enough that he might actually listen to me.

Father looked toward Mother and with some kind of silent communication that they shared, asked her to leave us alone. She stood swiftly and left the room with only a quick glance at me. Seeing her solemn face and her head nod slightly, I narrowed my eyes, wondering what torment Father had in store for me.

He stared at me for some seconds, his eyes narrowed. When he finally spoke, his voice sounded resigned, and a little glimmer of hope sprang to life in my gut.

“There is something that I’d like to tell you, son, that I haven’t even shared with Jacob.” He stopped and breathed, seemingly gathering courage before he spoke again. “There was a short time before I met your mother that I courted another girl.”

The news startled me, pushing aside my own problems for the moment. I blurted out, “Who was she?”

Father spread his lips in a playful smile that I rarely saw on his face. “Her name doesn’t matter now. She left our community many years ago.”

“Why didn’t you stay with her?” My head was swimming with images of my father with a woman who was not my mother. Even though he would never lie to me about such a thing, I had a difficult time grasping it in my mind.

Sighing, Father leaned back in the chair and searched out the window toward the pastures with the expression of a man who was far, far away.

“She was very beautiful, Noah. Don’t ever tell your mother this, but she was the prettiest girl in the community at the time of my youth. I was fascinated by her even as a young child.” He still looked away from me, but even from the side, I could see a smile touch his face. “She was different than the other girls—more rambunctious. She acted like a boy in many ways—able to hit the baseball farther than anyone in the school when we played during recess, running as fast as my brother William in the races and riding the wildest ponies with ease.

“All the boys had crushes on her, but I was the only one that she would favor with a grin or a friendly word now and then. She was mean to the boys and ignored the girls. The teacher was concerned. Her parents and the bishop were constantly meeting to discuss her behavior. And, as she aged, she didn’t grow out of her rowdy ways. In truth, the girl was a complete mess, not fitted to the lifestyle of a woman of our Plain ways.

“Still, I couldn’t get her out of my mind. She plagued me morning, noon and night with her sparkling eyes and mischievous mind. And, when one afternoon the two of us were unknowingly left alone in her father’s mill, I discovered that her curiosity was not limited to the small, dead animals in the roadway that she poked at with sticks.”

I was suddenly embarrassed, feeling the heat creep up my neck. I was also becoming annoyed, wondering if Mother knew about this wild girl’s relationship with Father.

“Secretly, the two of us carried on, always mindful of being caught, while my feelings for her deepened. But a nagging doubt began to grow within me.” Father finally looked me in the eye after a pause. “Why was I being so secretive about my involvement with the girl? We were both of an age that courting would be acceptable in our community and our families got on well—so why was I hesitating?”

I remained silent, unsure of what to say to him. After all, Father was the one who solved all the problems that arose in the family. He knew the answers to most of the questions that came up in day-to-day life, and the thought that he was at one time bewildered and unsure of himself was difficult to grasp.

“And then one day I understood my hesitancy to commit to the girl. It was after a cousin’s wedding supper, and the sky had darkened enough to hide the young people from the adults’ eyes, when I spotted her. She was behind a shed with several of the other young’uns drinking whiskey from a bottle. The fact that I wasn’t surprised to find her doing such a thing made up my mind about her.

“You see, Noah, that particular girl was beautiful and spunky and made my heart skip a beat when she flashed a smile my way, but I knew deep within me that she wouldn’t make a good wife for me or mother for my children. She was like a deer—I could capture her and pen her up, but she’d never settle for her confinement. She would leap the fence, possibly hurting herself in the process, to be free. I knew that I would find only heartache with her.”

I paused, feeling that the air had become thick with the sadness of Father’s memories before I spoke up. “What became of her, Father?”

“She married a man from a neighboring community a year later and gave birth to a daughter nine months following. After a couple of years of being a wife and a mother, she up and left in the middle of a stormy spring night. No one has seen her since.”

My mouth almost hit the floor. Things like that just didn’t happen within my community. And my own father having been close to the scandal was even more incredible.

“She abandoned her own child?”

Father nodded his head but remained silent.

Speaking out loud, but more to myself than to him, I said, “I guess it was smart that you broke it off with such a girl after all.”

Father’s eyes closed for a second, almost as if he wanted to stick up for the girl he would not even say the name of, before his face relaxed again. “Yes, you have the right of it. I came near to making the biggest mistake of my life, son. And, even though my heart felt like it was ripped in two, I did find love again with your mother—a more pure, true kind of love. I can’t imagine a life without my dear Rebecca now.”

“Does Mother know of all this?” I asked, spreading my arms wide for emphasis.

“I spoke to her of it before we wed. There have never been lies or deceit between us.” He turned back to me and his face went stern again, when he added, “But she doesn’t need to hear speak of the subject again. It would only upset her.”

The rain and late hour had diminished the air to a dark gray beyond the window. Father rose and lighted the gas lamps above the table and then seated himself in the same chair. We sat silently, him staring out into the darkness and me looking at the floor but not really seeing it.

My mind was trying to figure how Father’s story affected my own situation with Rose. Was he trying to persuade me to leave Rose behind because there was a more wonderful girl around the corner? Rose was nothing like the girl from Father’s younger days—and he had no right to make such a comparison. I knew with sureness in my soul that she would never leave her child…or husband. Before I had the opportunity to begin the argument again, Father spoke, and what he said shocked me.

“If Rose were willing to become Amish and follow all our rules and traditions—then I would support a union between the two of you.” His words rippled through my mind, sending shivers of excitement through me, but my happiness only lasted a few seconds.

He went on to say, “But, son, I don’t know how it would be possible. Her father would have to give her up to be raised by an Amish family, which I doubt he would even consider.”

He went on to say in a lighter, almost sympathetic voice, “As difficult as it may be for you to believe, I know and understand all the feelings your body is experiencing around this girl. Because of those feelings, you aren’t thinking straight. What you are hoping will happen with this girl is impossible.” His voice picked up in volume and intensity, and it gave no indication that he would waver when he added, “And I’m not going to allow you to ruin your life, because you don’t have the same sense to know what’s in your best interest as I did.”

I stared ahead, not seeing him anymore or caring what came from his mouth. I knew my heart, and he wasn’t going to change it with his ranting.

Seeing that I was ignoring him, he fumed again and in a steely voice, he said, “There will be no more discussion on this matter. You will go to live with your grandparents in Pennsylvania in a week’s time. You will start over there, and I’m sure that sooner than later your randy thoughts will be directed at a pretty Amish girl, the way they should be. Over the next week you will meet with the bishop and confess your sins before the church. You will ask forgiveness for your disobedience, not only from the church, but also from our heavenly Father. You will not leave this house during that time for any reason. You will stay in your room and take all meals there also. I will not have your siblings learning any details of your relationship with the English girl.”