An Amish Wedding Read Online Free PDF

stood shivering, gasping for breath as the rain increased in tenor.
    “Go inside,” he ordered, moving away.
    She couldn’t obey, couldn’t think, as she raised a shaking hand to her lips.
    “Don’t leave,” she gasped.
    She heard him inhale. “I must.”
    And then he was gone, running, the rain making an uneven and fading tattoo on the foil as she listened to some part of her dreams move far and away.

Chapter Eight
    L UKE STARED OUT AT THE GRAY MORNING THROUGH THE kitchen window and wondered if the sun would break through. Rose had promised to come and help with the cider making. He took a deep swallow of the bitter coffee his brother had brewed and tried to suppress his mixed feelings about kissing Rose the night before. To be sure, he could still imagine his mouth stinging with the contact, but he’d been furious too. He’d risked a second encounter with her partially because he’d wondered how far her interest extended to some strange Englischer . He also wanted to see her again as he had the night of the storm, so striking in her beauty and so much as one with the wild darkness. He wondered idly whether she’d understand if he tried to explain . . .
    Joshua entered through the back kitchen door. “Saw Abram Bender out this morning.”
    Luke blinked as he sipped his coffee and turned to his bruder . “Mending fence?”
    Joshua laughed. “Ya.”
    It was a gentle joke among the Lantz and Bender families how much time Abram spent mending fence. It was almost as if the man could sense a weakening in the stone or wire even before the cows could.
    Luke moved from the sink basin to give his brother room to wash.
    “Nervous about becoming a married man, Luke?” There was enough curiosity in Josh’s voice for Luke to know he wasn’t just joking.
    “Maybe,” he admitted, thinking of Rose kissing a supposed stranger.
    “Wish Mamm could be here to see it?”
    Luke tightened his grip on his cup. “Surely.”
    Joshua toweled his arms, whistling through his teeth for a moment. “Well, you still going to that Englisch homeless shelter to help out like Mamm did?”
    “ Nee . . . I haven’t had the time of late.”
    Joshua nodded. “Just as well. You’ve enough of your own to care for without chasing after the Englisch , no matter how fitting the cause.”
    “Wouldn’t Mamm say that helping another is always worth the doing?” Luke’s voice was level.
    Joshua clapped him on the shoulder. “ Ya , she would. But not everybody’s like she was.”
    “And that’s the truth to be heard,” Luke muttered.
    “What?”
    “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

    T HE DAY WAS ONE TO STIR THE SENSES; BLUE SKIES AND cotton fluffed clouds. Geese flying in south V-patterns, and the mingled scents of nature in its hurried pursuit and preparation for sleep, all joined in a rapturous serenade.
    But Rose was uneasy. For once she couldn’t discern Luke’s mood, and it made her nervous. Of course there was the guilty worry that, from his perspective, she’d been kissing a stranger in the rain. That had to make him angry, and she thought once more of telling him what she knew. But the moment passed and she focused on tossing the quartered apples into the Lantzes’ cider press as Luke turned the crank handle.
    The smell of ripe apples and the crispness of the fall day seemed to burgeon with life and abundance, and part of her wanted to dance with the red and yellow leaves that swirled in graceful arcs to land on the ground. But Luke was uncommonly silent, moving mechanically, almost as if she wasn’t there.
    “Are you all right?” she asked at last.
    He glanced at her—calm blue eyes and a solemn expression. “ Ya . And you?”
    She frowned. She didn’t want to talk about how she felt. “Fine,” she mumbled.
    He straightened and came toward where she sat on a low stool. His work boots brushed the rounded fall of her dress as it spread upon the ground, and she squinted up at him in the sunshine.
    “ Ya , you are fine,