A Marriage of the Heart (3 page)

R
OSE SQUELCHED A SUDDEN CRY AS THE BLUEBERRY JUICE
from the bubbling pie dripped over onto her hand. She hastily deposited the pie onto a rack and ran to soak the burn in the bowl of cool milk and vinegar she’d used in making the crusts. She glanced at the kitchen clock as she blew a loose tendril of hair away from her damp forehead and was glad to see that it was only just past seven. Her family was relaxing in the adjoining room after supper, and she’d volunteered to clean up alone so that she could finish her pies in peace. Now, if she could just keep Ben and James from wanting a taste . . .

She lifted her hand from the milk and gazed ruefully at the half-inch-long red mark on the back of her hand. But it gave her an idea. Taking a scrap of dough, she opened the woodstove and threw the pastry piece inside. Within seconds, the smell of burning piecrust filled the air. She smiled and scooped up the pies, this time carefully holding a dish towel around each pan as she bumped open the back screen door with her hip.

She ignored the groans of her brothers as the burning smell hung in the early evening air, then set the pies on the porch rail. Now, if only no animal would take a nibble before she caught her real prey . . .

“Rose!” Her
mamm
’s voice echoed, and Rose flew back inside, closing the door carefully behind her. The unpleasant smell had wafted throughout the house.

“Mercy, child! What are you doing? Where are your pies?”

Rose sighed. “Outside.”

“Burned that badly?” her mother asked as she fooled with
the damper on the stove and waved a damp dish towel through the air.

Rose said a quick prayer for forgiveness as she delayed her response. She wasn’t used to withholding the truth.

“Well, open the window then, so we can get some more fresh air in,”
Mamm
urged.

“
Ya
,
Mamm
—open the window!” Ben bawled from the other room.

“And teach Rosie to bake before she kills poor Luke and the whole Lantz clan!” James’s voice joined in the banter.

But Rose simply smiled as she wrestled with the heavy window; she had put her plan into action.

Chapter Three

I
N THE CROWDED CONFINES OF THE WELL-CONCEALED
tent, oil lamps held the encroaching night at a cheerful distance. A hodgepodge of gathered furniture, dishes, quilts, and other small items filled the contours of the vinyl walls, while a thick, hand-braided rug covered the bulk of the pine-needled floor.

“It’s too much, really. You have to stop.” The
Englisch
woman’s tone was torn between gratitude and remorse as she balanced a blueberry pie in her outstretched hand and a fussy toddler on her lean hip.

Her benefactor shrugged as another child, slightly older, clung to his leg in a familiar game.

“Mommy! His shirt’s all dirty. Wash it!”

He laughed and brushed at the blueberry juice stain on the front of his sweatshirt.

“Never mind, Ally.” He glanced around the tent, then back to the woman. “There’s a storm coming tonight. Supposed to be bad. I don’t like the idea of leaving you here.”

She smiled. “The Lord will protect us. You staked the tent so well, and I doubt anything can shake this stand of pines.”

“Have you had any word—I mean—do you know when?” He stared with intent into her eyes.

“No—nothing.”

He nodded. “All right. I’d better go.” He set the other pie down on the washstand near the quilt-covered cot and noted that he’d need to bring more blankets soon. He disengaged the little girl from his leg, then bent to receive her sweet kiss. “Good-bye,” he whispered.

She clung to his neck. “Thank you for the pies. Tell the lady thank you too.”

“The lady?”

“Who made the pies.”

He smiled. “Maybe I will.”

R
OSE WAITED UNTIL THE HOUSE HAD BEEN ASLEEP FOR
more than half an hour before she crept from her room, avoiding the third step from the bottom of the back staircase and its telltale squeak. She almost giggled to herself as she maneuvered, remembering a time she’d sneaked out to see Luke when they were young. They thought they could catch the biggest bullfrog from the local pond, the one with the baritone that soothed the locals to sleep on summer nights, if they could only get there late at night. They’d ended up with no frog, muddy clothes, and stiff reprimands from frustrated mothers the next morning. It had been fun, but that was a long time ago.

Rose told herself that she wasn’t a child anymore, looking for grandfather frogs on moonlit nights. No—she was a woman who wanted to hunt for something, someone—whose very nature seemed to call to her. Rob in the Hood, as some of her people called him from the old German rendition of the tale. She tiptoed across the kitchen floor and then gained the back porch. She switched on a flashlight and caught her breath, then smiled; both pies were gone without a trace. Of course, she told herself, as she stole into the wind-whipped air, a possum could have gotten them, but an animal would have left an overturned plate, a trail, a mess. A thief more likely would not . . .

She glanced without concern to the moon and dark gathering clouds overhead; the incoming storm suited her mood. She passed the kitchen garden, still sprawled with the bulging shadows of pumpkins yet to be harvested, then broke into a light run toward the forest that encircled the back of the farmhouse. She knew nearly every inch of the woods between her family’s home and the Lantzes’—though she had to admit she hadn’t been walking there in the months since her engagement. It seemed that courting, as well as the usual influx of work of the farm during harvest, had kept her too busy. But now she trod the pine-needled ground with secret delight. She could tell from the air that the rain would hold off for a while, and she pressed more deeply into the trees, certain that the best place for a would-be thief to hide would be the woods.

After an hour of actually navigating the rocks and root systems of the dark forest, she began to question if she truly had her wits about her. What had she expected? That the thief would just pop out and introduce himself? Suppose he really was dangerous
and much more than a thief? She thought of the comfort and safety of her narrow bed and shivered, deciding she’d go hunting for the mystery man some other time. Then she stifled a scream as the beam of her light gave out, and a voice spoke to her from the dark path ahead.

“You’re an Amish girl, aren’t you? Why are you out in these woods so late and in this kind of weather?”

The voice was a strained whisper. Rose peered into the darkness, trying to see the speaker, when a helpful flash of lightning gave her a brief glimpse.

He was taller than she, clothed in blue jeans and a gray sweatshirt, its hood shrouding his face. Another white streak of light, and the breadth of his shoulders and a dark stain on the front of his shirt were emblazoned in her mind.

“You’re the thief,” she stated.

“What?”

“The thief who’s been taking from hereabouts the past weeks. I put those two blueberry pies out on the back porch. I see the blueberry stain on your front.”

He laughed, and she almost gasped in disbelief as the realization hit her with full force.
It was Luke!
Even as a confusion of thoughts rushed past her like the waters of a swollen creek, one instinctual idea took control of her brain—she would not let him know that she recognized him.

“Very smart,” he said. “My compliments. But you’d better get home to your husband. These woods are no place for a lady.”

Chapter Four

“I’
VE RUN ABOUT THIS LAND SINCE
I
WAS A CHILD,” SHE
announced, trying for normalcy in her tone. “And why do you assume I’m married?”

Was in der welt
was he doing—dressed as an Englischer and stealing pies from her porch? He didn’t seem to recognize her in the dark . . . but then why was he out talking about marriage with a strange girl in the woods?

“Aren’t most Amish girls married young?” he asked in the same husky whisper that seemed to tickle at her shoulder bones in a way that his normal voice didn’t do.

“
Ya
. . . Yes, I mean—some are. I’m just engaged.” She almost clapped her hand over her mouth at the word
just
.

“Just?”

She wet her lips in the dark and tried to infuse her voice with warmth. “I’m going to marry my best friend in a few months.”

“And does your . . . er . . . best friend realize how enthused you are about the whole affair?”

He does now
, she thought, trying to keep a rein on her emotions. “I
am
happy,” she asserted finally, then swallowed, finding herself voicing to the supposed stranger the concern that had haunted her for weeks. “It’s just that—he—my betrothed—doesn’t notice anything—not about me anyway. He’s very—practical and smart.”

She felt a palpable silence between them, then sensed him step toward her. She lifted her chin, wondering what he would do next.

“Smart or not, he’s a fool—not to notice you,” he muttered.

“How can you say that? You can’t even see me properly,” she said.

“You saw me, at least enough to know my—secret. And I saw you, like meeting destiny in a strike of lightning. White sparks and moonlight—they suit your beauty, Amish girl.”

In the cascading roll of thunder that followed, she heard the deafening sound of her own heartbeat as his words penetrated. They were so unlike him. And proof that he did see her in the waxing light. Beguiled and bewildered, Rose held her breath, waiting.

Then he reached out one hand to stroke her cheek in a slow caress. She wanted to lean into the mysterious yet familiar hand, its strong warmth coupled with a heavy tenderness that transmitted to every delicate nerve ending the flush that she felt burning her skin.

“You don’t even know me,” she said, trying to keep her voice level. “Maybe I’m too wild, or a petty shrew, or just plain . . . boring.” She found herself citing all of the things she thought she might seem to him at times.

He laughed again, then backed away. “Go home,” he said roughly.

She knew she should do as he said to keep up the charade, but there was a mystery here . . . a mystery man whom she had thought she knew so well. And for the first time in weeks she’d unburdened herself to someone, and it exhilarated her.