The Choice
AFTER THREE DAYS of practically taking the barn apart inch by inch, Sarah was feeling frustrated. And stiff and sore. And more than a little confused. Sometime between deciding that she was going to need to let John stay in order to locate the hidden money and this very moment, her feelings for the mysterious man had begun to change.
And, she realized, she’d begun to change, too.
After living in a state of numbness for the last couple of years, she had slowly begun to feel hopeful. Instead of resigning herself to basically living in solitude for years and years, she’d begun to look forward to spending time with John.
The fact that he was English, pretending to be her husband, and would eventually leave was—for the moment, at least—inconsequential. Instead, she was finding it hard to resist the one person who seemed to genuinely care about her.
And with whom she was starting to feel a sense of peace.
As she scanned the debris littering the ground around their feet with an ill-concealed grimace, she gave in to weakness. “John, may we take a break today? All I can think about is how much time this is going to take to put it all back together.”
With an exhale, he put down the crowbar he’d been using to lift some of the floorboards and turned to her. “I suppose we could. We have been working hard.”
“We’ve been working terribly hard.”
His eyes lit with amusement, telling her without words that he’d worked far harder for far longer many a time. “What would you like to do?”
“Could we . . . could we simply go for a walk?”
“Of course we could. I’d like that.”
Pleased, and slightly embarrassed to be so pleased with so little, Sarah climbed to her feet. “I could pack us a picnic, even.”
He rubbed his jaw. “A picnic, hmm?”
“Or not.”
“Nee, truly going on a picnic sounds wonderful.” He rubbed his jaw again. It was clean-shaven. He’d tried to grow the beard that all married Amish men had but the scars on his face had prevented it from coming in evenly. “I simply don’t believe I’ve ever gone on one before.”
“Not even when you were a child?”
“Especially not when I was a child.” Obviously seeing that she was preparing to ask more about that, he pulled off his work gloves. “How about you pack us a lunch while I clean up?”
“I’ll be happy to do that. I promise, it won’t take long.”
“Take as long as you need. I am suddenly finding myself eager to get out of this barn.”
She practically scampered to the house like a child, she was so excited. And, to her amusement, she found herself humming as she put together a stack of bread and butter sandwiches, spicy pickle spears, and the remainder of the fried rabbit she’d cooked the night before. After wrapping it all in a pair of bandannas, she gathered a quilt, two mason jars full of lemonade, and a good-sized metal pail. She was just arranging the food-filled bandannas and the mason jars in the pail when John came to the door.
“Do you need any help?”
“I might need your help carrying everything.”
He chuckled. “Besides that, Sarah. Of course I wasn’t going to make you carry anything.”
She ducked her head, not wanting him to see her expression. John did that a lot, she was realizing. He teased her gently, encouraged her in his quiet way to relax a little bit more each day. Relaxing around him was still a struggle. Old habits of Daniel finding fault with her were deeply embedded.
To her surprise, however, she was slowly forgetting to guard her words. It gave her both a newfound freedom and a curious sense of exhilaration.
“Are you ready now?”
“I think so.”
“Well, come on then. Our day of playing hooky is upon us.”
She followed him out the door, choosing to carry the quilt while he held the tin pail. “I fear I don’t know what that phrase means.”
“It means that we’re taking some time off, but we’re being sneaky about it.” He gave her a little bow, looking gallant and much like the officer he had been. “After you, my dear.”
She ached to say something spunky in return but words failed her. So instead, she pointed to a clear path in the thicket of trees. “There’s a path there that leads to a creek. Have you seen it yet?”
“No. But I would like to. Lead the way and I’ll follow.”
She felt herself blush because of the way his words sounded, though she was sure he’d meant nothing romantic by them.
But her reaction made her even more determined to put their relationship—or lack of it—into perspective. What she was imagining happening was probably nothing more than a reaction to simple kindness.
For years now she’d witnessed her friends’ marriages. When she’d dared to dwell on them, she’d realized that the husbands treated their wives far differently than Daniel had treated her. Though they were still most definitely the head of the household, they did not eye their women with disdain or seek to embarrass them in front of others in the community.
Instead, a quiet fondness rested between them, illustrated in small words and tender gestures.
It seemed that was what John was doing. The experience was new and strange, and she felt awkward as she attempted to match his movements and comments.
And hopelessly out of her element.
“I, ah, don’t usually walk too fast,” she warned.
“I don’t want to walk fast. If we’re going to enjoy our day, then I want to take our time.”
She couldn’t think of any other warnings or responses to that, so off they started, at first with her walking in the lead, then eventually walking side by side as the winding, narrow path allowed. Their pace was anything but brisk. In fact, it bordered on meandering. Strolling.
Every few feet one of them would spy something worth pointing out, even if it wasn’t anything very much at all. John spied a snake curled up under a bush. Sleeping. She liked looking for cardinals and orioles.
Soon, her words eased, matching her even steps. She stopped stumbling over words and slid into his easy conversation. Soon, she was responding to all his comments, about anything and everything. She was discovering that not only was her pretend husband a wealth of information, he was also curious by nature. He asked question after question about being Amish and her feelings regarding it.
That in itself was a wondrous thing. Until John, she’d had little to no contact with the English. Ever. The men in their community dealt with outsiders. She’d gotten used to thinking of the Englischers as coarse and arrogant men. Dangerous, too.
But John was showing her that she’d made a grievous error in clumping all men who weren’t Amish into one group.
At last they arrived on the banks of the creek.
“What’s the name of this body of water?”
“It’s Sugar Creek.” She smiled slightly, thinking he was the first person she’d met who hadn’t known the name of one of their county’s biggest landmarks.
Kneeling down, he reached into the bubbling creek and let his fingers flutter in the water. The look that crossed over his features was one of pure bliss. She wondered if the cool water soothed his scarred skin.
“Do you come here often?” he asked, interrupting her thoughts. “I mean, when you can?”
After a moment’s hesitation, Sarah knelt next to him on the creek bed. “Not so much. I mean, not so much anymore. I used to when I was a young girl.”
“When you were a young girl, hmm?” One side of his lips turned up. “I’m trying to imagine you as anything other than prim and proper. Was that what you were like?”
“Maybe. I’ve always been rather quiet.” For a moment, she ached to tell him more, to add something, but she decided against it. No man wanted to hear a woman continually chatter about herself.
After pulling his hand out of the cool creek, he shook it a few times, then stretched his legs out in front of him so that his whole scarred side faced the creek, and leaned back on his hands. “Surely you can do better than that, Sarah. What is there to be afraid of? Before you know it, I’ll be gone and never have a chance to tell your secrets.”
His quip hit her hard. It hurt to even imagine what her life was going to be like after he was gone. But this was a time for them to relax, not dwell on their problems. “I’m definitely not sharing my secrets with you,” she teased, tilting her chin up for good measure.
“Is it because you don’t have any? Or you don’t trust me enough?”
“I guess it’s a bit of both.” She reached into the pail, pulled out the jars of lemonade, and handed him one. After taking a fortifying sip, she said, “If I share something with you, will you share with me, too?”
“Yes.” But she noticed that he didn’t look all that eager to divulge something too personal, either.
“All right. I, um, used to catch frogs here.”
“That’s your big secret?”
Feeling a little embarrassed, she looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “Jah. Why? What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing . . . except that it’s not personal.”
“I suppose it is not.” She leaned back on her elbows, only noticing after she was settled that she mirrored his position.
He sighed. “I suppose I’m going to have to help you out. Where did you receive your first kiss?”
“That is nothing we should discuss, Jonathan Scott.”
To her dismay—and yet, to her amusement, too—he let out a bark of laughter. “You sound like a mother, using my first and last name like that. I have now been firmly chastised.”
“Das gut. Because I will not talk about kisses.” Especially since she didn’t have too many to share. Daniel had been the one and only man she had ever kissed. And his kisses had been neither frequent nor particularly pleasant.
“Fine. Tell me a regret.”
The plea hit her hard, almost taking the breath out of her. “I doubt you want to hear any of those,” she hedged.
“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t want to hear. Come on, Sarah, isn’t there one that you can share?”
She didn’t like this game of his. She didn’t like being forced to think about things that she’d pushed aside for years, pretending they didn’t matter so that she wouldn’t feel any pain. “I regret that I never had any kinner. Any children.”
His teasing expression sobered. “Ah. I imagine so. I think you would be a wonderful mother.”
She inclined her head. Her tongue felt too thick to respond. “Is it your turn now?”
“Yes. If you want it to be.”
“Do your scars hurt all the time?”
This time he was the one who looked terribly uncomfortable. “No.”
“That is your answer?”
He looked away from her, as if he couldn’t bear to be exposed in so many ways. “Do you mind me asking why you care?”
She cared because she hated to think of him in constant pain. And she was beginning to care about him very much. “I noticed the look on your face when you dipped your fingers in the creek.”
“The cold water feels good. He held out his right arm in front of him, looking at it like it belonged to another person, as if he wasn’t quite sure how it had come to be on his body. “The scars, they make my skin feel tight. Like there’s not enough skin to cover. It’s not as much painful as uncomfortable. The doctors said that will ease in time.”
“I hope that is the case.”
“Me too.” He paused, then added, “I don’t like talking about how I look.”
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“I’m not ashamed, but I’m not all that used to it. Not to sound too prideful, but I used to be a handsome man. When I was younger, I’d catch the girls sneaking glances at me. I was used to that. I’m ashamed to admit that at times I have difficultly realizing I’m now a person women turn away from. I hate to see myself in the mirror.”
She could only imagine what that must be like. Just as quickly, she amended her thoughts. She had no earthly idea what his trials had been like. Feeling somewhat at a loss, she said the first thing on her mind. “Luckily, we Amish don’t believe in looking glasses.”
He turned his head and stared at her strangely, then he grinned. “There is that.”
“Are you ready to eat?”
“I am. I’m anxious to snack on our picnic lunch then lie about and be lazy. What about you?”
“I feel the same way.” She was anxious to run her hands in the cool water, too. Anxious to feel even a little bit of his bliss.