An Amish Wedding Read Online Free PDF Page A

tinfoil on two apple pies on the rail.
    She was a fool to long after another meeting with Luke in disguise.
    She thought back again to the image of him laughing with the woman in the office that afternoon and tried to sort out her feelings. She’d watched Luke at singings and youth outings all through the years, and never had she thought to be jealous of his interactions with other girls. Not that he wasn’t attractive and well-spoken; he was simply too faithful a friend and follower to ever be doubted. But now . . . now, he was something else, something more. She was too curious by nature to resist another taste of his disguise. And she had to admit that as the thief he had stirred her senses in a new way. She sighed and wondered what kind of person she was to be attracted to the unknown in someone.
    She distracted herself by thinking about the apple pies she’d made. She was becoming adept at the task and yielding a deft hand to the formation of the latticework top crusts. She’d kept her brothers from asking for their fair share by baking while they were in the fields and had apparently satisfied her mamm ’s curiosity with her explanation that she was trying to be a better cook. She didn’t like the deception, but she rationalized that her doings were certainly harmless enough. She was going to marry Luke, after all, so she might as well give him another opportunity to tell her the truth.
    She was half asleep, somewhere between dreaming and wakefulness, when she heard the sound of foil rattling. She popped open her eyes and clicked on her flashlight. The pies were gone, and someone was moving across the yard.
    “Hey!” she hissed, arcing the light into the yard. The beam caught against a pair of blue-jean clad legs, and she dropped the quilt and stood. “Wait!” she called. “Please.”
    “Put down the light and I’ll wait.”
    She heard the hoarse yet familiar voice, and her hands grew damp with perspiration as she snapped off the light and put it where she had been sitting. She crept to the porch rail and then down into the yard.
    “They’re apple—the pies, I mean.” She toyed with her fingers.
    “They’ll be appreciated.”
    “ Ach . . . do you . . . take for your family? Because we have plenty to give . . . I mean . . .”
    “What do you want?” His question was harsh but penetrating.
    “I don’t—know what you mean.” Rose’s heart began to pound, wondering if he’d figured out that she recognized him.
    “Yes, you do. A good Amish girl chasing after an Englisch thief. Why? What do you want?”
    The rain seemed to be melting her sensibilities, her defenses, the very excuses she’d sustained herself on the past months when she thought of a lifetime with Luke. Suddenly he’d become the center of something she desired with all her heart.
    “I want you,” she said baldly.
    There was a long moment of silence, broken only by the falling of the rain.
    “Me?” He laughed. “What do you know about me?”
    “I want your way of being, your freedom. . . .” Who you are right now . . .
    “If it’s your engagement that you want out of, why not tell your—best friend?”
    “I don’t want out of it,” she cried, amazed at his perception. But then, he’d known her forever . . .
    “Tell him. Tell him you’re so hungry to be free that you’d stand in the dark and the rain and long for a stranger’s touch—his kiss.”
    She almost spun away from the deep voice, the mockery, and the powerful allure. His kiss .
    She heard the shift of the foil, the damp footsteps, and then he swooped so close that she could feel his breath against her cheek, the press of the pie pans against her stomach. He smelled of the forest and something else that was tantalizingly familiar. But then his mouth was on hers, once, twice, two angry kisses, and then a yielding, a softening, and she was kissing him back with all of the withheld passion in her young soul. He broke away with a rasp in his breath, and Rose