“No,” she said. “They got married in January.”
“It is January.”
Sadie chuckled. “So it is.”
“So we're going bowling with two sets of newlyweds?”
It sounded terrible when he said it like that. “Three. My sister Melanie and her new husband, Noah, will be here too.”
“And you're not bringing your boyfriend?”
Heat rose into her cheeks, and she knew she had turned a bright shade of pink. “I don't have a boyfriend.”
“So who do you normally bowl with?” Ezra pulled the truck onto the highway that would take them back into town.
“Chris is usually my partner. Chris Flaud.”
“Is he the guy that was waiting for you at the restaurant Saturday night?”
Sadie turned to study him. The sun had long gone down, and darkness had settled around them. She couldn't read his expression. How had he seen Chris on Saturday night? “
Jah,
that's Chris.”
“What does he say about you asking me bowling?”
“He doesn't care. We're just friends.” For some reason she wanted to tell him about Chris's plans to go to Europe that summer, but she kept them to herself. She wouldn't want anything to accidentally get back to Chris's parents before he had a chance to talk to them. She had made a promise, after all.
Ezra nodded, but didn't say anything further on the matter as they continued into town.
As usual, the bowling alley was full. There wasn't a whole lot to do in tiny Wells Landing on a Thursday night in January. Once the summertime hit, hardly anybody would be indoors. There would be nighttime softball games, fishing after dark, and a ton of other activities that involved a bunch of kids being together.
Ezra found a space and parked the truck.
Sadie got out, shutting the door behind her before reaching into the truck bed and retrieving her bag.
“Is that what I think it is?” Ezra pointed to the bag she held in her hand.
“It is if you think it's a bowling ball.”
Ezra nodded. “I've never known anyone Plain to have their own ball.”
“Amish and Mennonite?” Sadie asked as they walked around the side of the building toward the front doors. She could already hear the music blaring from their nighttime bowl. She couldn't say she liked the music. It was loud, rock 'n' roll, they called it. But it somehow made her more anxious than she wanted to be. There were times when she found that she left the bowling alley and her heart was pounding in her chest way faster than its normal rate. Or at least it felt that way.
“Uh, neither, I guess.” He held the door for her and waited for her to enter, then shook his head. “You know what? Forget I said that. That's got to be the dumbest thing I've ever said.” He chuckled at himself, and Sadie found herself joining in.
“Well,” she said in the small foyer. The bowling alley had two sets of double doors with a small room in between. It was the last chance to talk without screaming before they went into the actual bowling alley. “Me either.”
“You either what?” Ezra's brow wrinkled with a frown.
“I don't know anyone Plain either that owns a bowling ball. Except for me.”
Ezra shook his head. “Then where did you get it?”
“It belonged to my father.”
The air between them got a little thicker. A little sadder. And somehow despite the rock 'n' roll blaring on the other side of that thin sheet of glass, a little quieter.
Ezra reached for the silver handle, his eyes unreadable. “Okay then, Sadie the owner of bowling balls. Show me what you got.”
Chapter Seven
“What were you thinking, bringing him here?” Sadie glanced up from the scorecard as her sister Melanie flopped down in the seat beside her.
“What do you mean?” She knew what Melanie meant, and she would have to answer that question eventually, but for now she was playing dumb.
“If
Mamm
found out that you brought a Mennonite boy bowling . . .”
Sadie briefly closed her eyes and let out a heavy sigh. When she opened them again, Melanie was still staring at her intently. Her sister was not going anywhere.
“Who invited you, anyway?”
The comment was meant to be a joke, and Melanie knew it, but still she crunched up her forehead into a scowl. “He's a Mennonite.”
“I wish everyone would stop saying that like it's catching. So what if he's a Mennonite. I'm not planning on marrying him.”
Melanie's stare was hard and steady. “You know what
Dat
always said.”
“Never date a boy you won't marry.”
Now that Sadie knew that her father had truly been
Englisch
pretending to be Amish instead of Amish like everyone in the community thought, that comment had a whole new meaning. No wonder he said such things;
Englisch
boys were so different than Amish boys. But Ezra was a Mennonite. It wasn't like he had completely different values than Amish. Were they so different after all?
“That's right,” Melanie said. “And you know that you could never marry a Mennonite boy.”
“So because I won't marry a Mennonite boy, I can't bowl with one.”
“Sadie, a date is a date.”
“This is not a date.”
Melanie leaned back in the molded plastic chair and gave her another one of those looks. With that expression on her face, her sister looked so much like
Mamm
that Sadie almost grabbed her shoes and headed for the door. “Did he pick you up tonight?”
“
Jah
.”
“And is he going to take you home tonight?”
“
Jah
.”
“That, my sister, is a date.”
“Melanie, I need you.” Hannah waved to her from the other side of the ball return.
“Think about it.” Her sister's voice was so soft she almost didn't hear it, then Melanie gave Sadie one last look and went to see what Hannah wanted.
It wasn't a date, Sadie argued in her head. No matter what Melanie said, no matter what anyone said. She and Ezra had agreed this wasn't a date. It was two friends who were going bowling together with other friends. Never mind that all the other “friends” were newly married and very much in love. That didn't mean she and Ezra had to be. Look at her and Chris. They had been bowling with this group for years. And he hadn't exactly promised his undying love to her, now had he?
“How's it going?” Ezra eased down into the seat next to her, the one that Melanie had recently vacated.
Sadie pasted on a bright smile and turned to face her new friend. “Everything's great.”
“Then why do you look like you could bite nails in half?”
Sadie sighed. “It's nothing. Really.”
He studied her with those so-brown eyes, but after a moment, he gave a small nod. “Okay, but don't think I believe you. You can tell me when you're ready.” With that, he rapped his knuckles on the Formica-topped desk, then sauntered away.
Sadie watched him go, her emotions a jumble of twisted turns and knots.
Why was everybody making such a big deal out of this? Even if everyone insisted on calling this a date, who was to say anything more would come of it than this one night? As much as she liked Ezra, and she was finally admitting that she really truly liked him, who was to say that he wanted anything more from her than merely friendship? He himself had never given her any indication that he held feelings for her outside of friendship. But everyone assumed that their one bowling date would lead to something more.
She tapped the eraser end of the pencil against the paper-thin scorecard. And even if their one date led to more, why was everyone so upset?
She knew the Mennonites and the Amish were on different sides of the fence. All over shunning eons ago. But did their views on shunning make them all that different? Most folks outside the Anabaptist had no idea the difference between Amish and Mennonites. And as much as she knew their differences, she could not wrap her mind around them. Was it such a big deal that they had electricity and the Amish didn't? The Kauffmans had electricity at the restaurant. They used a phone on a regular basis.
Mamm
used a computer to take care of all the bills. The big difference in the Amish like her family and an Amish family like the Riehls was that the technology that the Kauffmans used was solely in place to keep them on the same level with other businessesâ
Englisch
businessesâof the times. Unfortunately, old-fashioned methods did not make for good twenty-first-century business practices. The Mennonites had electricity, but they didn't use it to power televisions, radios, computers, or other things that might lead to the temptations of the outside world. So were they really that different after all?
Sadie looked up as Ezra approached the ball return. He looked so different standing there in his blue jeans and patterned shirt, but that stuff was on the outside. Did it really make a difference?
No, she decided. It didn't. Ezra was a nice person, generous and handsome. He took care of his disabled mother. He raised animals on his ranch. He even cared enough to drive from Taylor Creek all the way into Wells Landing to pick up her and Daniel and take them to his ranch. And he had asked nothing of her in return.
She watched as he executed a perfect throw, but the ball had a bad spin and hit too far down the side, leaving him with a seven/ten split. She couldn't help but smile as the boys all groaned. Ezra threw his head back and sighed with the impossibility of the pickup. No, she decided, they weren't so different after all.
* * *
Of all the luck, Ezra couldn't believe his. He managed to pick up the seven pin, but missed the angle enough that it didn't ricochet and collide with the ten. He took his seat on the bench and watched as Mark took his turn.
“Tough break.” Mark sat down next to him. A few inches away but still close. But Ezra had to scoot a little closer as Noah sat down on the other side. The two of them effectively pinned him in, and he knew what was coming next.
Sadie didn't have any brothers save Daniel. And he was too young by far to make sure that a guy treated his sister right. Ezra felt these two had appointed themselves as honorary brothers to Sadie Kauffman.
“So,” Noah started. “You like Sadie.”
That was a question that had no right answer. “She's a nice girl.” There. That was good enough.
Apparently not for Noah. Perhaps he thought as Sadie's younger sister's husband, the duty of both brother and father fell to him. “She is. How did you two meet?”
Ezra had the feeling that Noah knew how he and Sadie had met, but wanted to see how Ezra himself felt about it. “She came to the market with her friend.” He'd almost said boyfriend, but was that what Chris was to her, a boyfriend? And if he was, what right did Ezra have coming bowling with her tonight? She had said they were only friends. Now he was wondering if perhaps she had talked him into coming bowling in order to make Chris jealous. The thought made acid churn in his stomach. He didn't want to be used for anybody's revenge.
“And then you invited yourself bowling?”
“I think you guys have this all wrong.” Ezra stood, unwilling to put up with too much of an interrogation. “Sadie wanted to bring Daniel out to my ranch and allow him to look at the animals I keep. So she did. Then she asked me to come bowling with her. As a friend. That's all.”
Before he could walk away, Will finished his turn and came up next to him. “What the guys mean to say is, we all like Sadie. She's a good girl, good friend, and deserves to be treated right.”
“And then there's Chris,” Mark added.
If Chris and Sadie were truly just friends, then his friends evidently hadn't gotten the memo.
“Listen, guys,” Ezra started, not really sure how he was going to finish. “I think Sadie is a nice girl, but I'm not looking for a girlfriend right now. She invited me to come bowling, so I did. Really. That's all there is to it.”
Noah stood to stand beside him. Ezra was fairly tall, and Noah hardly reached his shoulder. But there was something fierce in his gaze, and Ezra thought he had heard Sadie mention that he was a bishop's son. That explained a lot.
“Know this,” Noah said. “We're a peace-loving people, but hurt Sadie and I can't guarantee what happens from there.”
Ezra gave a small nod. “Understood, and can I say that Sadie couldn't ask for a more protective bunch of guys to look out after her. She's a very lucky girl.”
* * *
“I'm sorry about that.” Sadie took off the rented bowling shoes and handed them to the guy behind the counter. He grabbed them and handed back her black walking shoes as Ezra stood beside her, waiting for his own lace-up boots.
“About what?”
“The interrogation.” She grabbed her shoes off the counter and headed back to the bench, Ezra right behind her.
He sat down next to her as they started putting on their shoes.
“I know they mean well, but those guys . . .” She shook her head. “Well, they're good friends to have.”
Ezra nodded. “I can see that. You're a very lucky girl to have friends like them. That they care about you enough to, well, care.”
“I suppose it's because I don't have any brothers except Daniel. I know they mean well, but sometimes. . .” She shoved her feet into her shoes, tying them before she continued. “I thought they would understand.”
“That we're friends?”
At the laughter in his voice, she whirled around to face him.
“What?” he asked innocently.
“Did you tell them that? That we're just friends?” Sadie had mixed feelings about that. It was okay for her to go around saying it, but that tiny little piece of her that wanted to get married more than she knew she deserved, hated it. Wanted more, if only once in her life.
“I believe it was tell them that or end up bleeding on the floor of the men's room.”
“They threatened you?” Sadie gasped. “They really are okay guys. I don't think any of them would actually hurt you. But they like to go around acting tough.”
“Why would they want to do that?”
Sadie shot him a small smile. “We've all been friends for so long. We've all looked out for each other all these years. I'm kind of the last one out.”
“What about Chris?”
She shook her head, unsure of what she should say about Chris and the things he wanted from life. “I can't speak for Chris.” At least it was the truth.
She wasn't sure why she was so reluctant to tell Ezra that Chris had big plans that didn't include her. It wasn't like Ezra knew that all these years she had hoped that she and Chris would one day get married. Or maybe she didn't want him to think she was pathetic, to hang on to a guy for so long only to have him reject her for a continent.
Mentally she took that thought away. She wasn't being quite fair, but it was hard to be fair when her heart was half-broken. She had big dreams. And they hadn't been crazy dreams. So why couldn't she have them? Why did the one guy she thought could make those dreams come true want to go travel, see the world, and leave her behind?
No, she couldn't tell Ezra that. She couldn't stand to see the pity in his face.
Thankfully, he didn't press, just took her elbow and led her back to the area where her friends waited.
She said her good-byes, completely aware that while she did, Ezra hung behind her, not really part of their group, not interacting the way she did. Was that too much to ask? Maybe it was. But if nothing else, she wanted Ezra to come and have a good time. She had a feeling he worked way too hard on that ranch of his. She saw no other signs of hands to help, just him and his motherâwho was on crutches at best, in a wheelchair at worstâand then his cousin, Logan. But how much could Logan truly help if he had work of his own to do?
Ezra walked her through the parking lot back to his truck. He opened the door for her, and she murmured her thanks as she climbed into the cab. As he walked around to take his own seat, she watched her friends pair up, get on their respective tractors, and head out of the parking lot. Were tractors so different than the truck?
It didn't bear thinking about. She wasn't going to change the thoughts and views of others. And she might as well not try. She should have learned that lesson long ago, watching all the
Englischers
come in and whisper behind their hands in the restaurant. You would think that if people wanted to come to a restaurant and eat they wouldn't talk about the staff where they could hear them, but some people did. Some people would never understand, be they Amish or
Englisch
, or maybe that was Amish or Mennonite?
* * *
“Does this mean you're not coming out on Saturday?” Ezra kept his eyes on the road as he asked the question. He could pretend all he wanted that it was because it was dark, that his driving demanded all of his attention, but he also felt he needed to allow Sadie a bit of private time to form her answer. Frankly he wasn't sure he wanted to see the look on her face when she told him no, she was not coming back out to his ranch on Saturday with Cora Ann.