Bethy's Heart's Hideout (Amish Circle Series Book 4) Read Online Free PDF Page A

uprooted him and brought him here.
    The light dimmed even more. The stars came out and Elizabeth lay down on her back so that she could get a better look at the sky. She loved the way the stars seemed to spin and turn above her as she watched them. Before long, she heard the sounds of Mark lying down beside her. They stopped speaking and simply stared up at the sky, happy to just be together. Then, suddenly, Elizabeth felt Mark shifting position again and she felt his hand touching hers. After a moment of hesitation, she reached out and took it.
    The horses lowered their heads and snacked on the grass around them. They moved around a bit in the deepening summer night and waited for their humans to come back. A short distance away, Elizabeth and Mark slowly, gradually, drifted off to sleep.

Chapter 7
    For a moment, Elizabeth felt disoriented as she opened her eyes. She felt stiff and cold and damp. She expected that she would look around and see her bedroom around her but all she could see was corn, and a strange young man that she had only met yesterday. With a sinking feeling she began to remember what had happened. She felt a wave of panic rising in her stomach and stood up. Her movement woke Mark who looked around and seemed as disoriented as she was when she first woke up.
    Mark looked at her and was shocked by how upset she seemed. It was true, her hair was messy and her dress was soiled but he didn’t understand why Elizabeth seemed so upset. He stood up and brushed the dirt from his pants and jacket and then tried to move closer to Elizabeth but she stepped back away from him.
    “What’s your problem?” Mark thought that his question came out a little more harshly than he had planned it to and from the look on Elizabeth’s face he could tell she was getting more and more upset. “Look, all we did was fall asleep in a field. Chill out. What’s the worst that could happen? You act like you’ve never stayed out past curfew or done anything like this before!” Mark tried to move closer to Elizabeth and was shocked by how angry she seemed. Her face was red and she was pacing rapidly around the clearing. Her fingers tore at her hair as she frantically tried to put it in a bun and tie it back up under her hairnet and kapp .
    “Chill out? What does that even mean? Of course I’m acting like I have never stayed out past curfew. I never have! I have more respect for my parents than to let them worry about me. I have more respect for myself than to be seen hanging around with some Englischer who thinks he’s Amish!”
    “I’m Mennonite,” yelled Mark. “It’s the same Gott- forsaken thing! Jeez!” Suddenly, he realized he may have gone too far. Elizabeth went from being furious to being totally calm and cold.
    “It’s not the same thing, and for you not to realize that means that you are so far away from the path that I want to be on.” She screwed her face up and spat on the ground near his feet. “You keep away from me. You’re dangerous. You’re not even Amish. You don’t know how far you’ve strayed from the path! You’re- you’re WORSE than if you were Englisch . I don’t ever want to see you come near me again.” She stalked off out of the clearing, her entire form a picture of outrage.
    Mark felt his mouth opening and closing. He was shocked by the way she had spoken to him. No girl had ever been so rude to him. At first he was angry. How dare she invite him somewhere and act like she enjoyed being with him, only to act so two-faced in the morning. He was working up to a fine fury as he walked out of the corn field and set off to find his parents’ horses and the buggy that they had been hitched to.

Chapter 8
    The sun was coming up and burning the mist off the fields. Elizabeth emerged from the tunnel she had crawled down the night before and passed the spot where the horses were still tethered up. She felt bad for them not only because they had spent the night out in the open but also