An Amish Proposal. Jo Ann Brown

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СКАЧАТЬ wall and a fireplace on another, Micah glanced at Katie Kay, this time with an expectant expression. What did he want? Ach, he wanted her to thank his friends, and he believed she’d left her manners behind in Lancaster. As she started to express her gratitude to Gemma, feeling the familiar ripples of rebellion rising at his silent chiding, her hostess waved aside her words.

      “We’re more than happy to help any friend of Micah’s,” the woman said but glanced at him with an unsteady smile.

      No doubt, Gemma wondered what Micah, so Amish with his broadfall pants and straw hat, was doing with a woman who wasn’t wearing plain clothes and who had no luggage other than a drenched purse.

      “We appreciate that,” Micah said, saving her from having to explain. “When I come in the morning, we’ll figure out what she’ll do next. Okay, Katie Kay?”

      Regarding her without a speck of emotion, he held her gaze. She might as well have been a plank of wood or a shingle. A shiver ran along her as she wondered if he despised her as much as he acted. Tears clogged her throat. She was more alone than she’d ever been.

      She looked away first. She didn’t want him to see her eyes fill. She wasn’t going to cry as she had out on the road. Somehow she had to be strong. If not for herself, then for the boppli she might be carrying.

      Though Katie Kay hadn’t replied to Micah’s question, everyone acted as if she had. Micah took his leave, and Gemma showed her to her daughter’s room. Her hostess explained that Micah and her husband owned a company together, so Micah came over every morning to catch a ride with Sean to work.

      Trying to act as if she’d been in a house like this many times before, she knew the Englisch habits she’d tried to adopt still looked unnatural on her because Gemma asked if she was familiar with how to switch on electric lights in the nearby bathroom. Austin had teased her about being too “dumb-dumb Dutch”—his derogatory term for plain people—each time she made a mistake. She had tried to appear sophisticated and Englisch in the hope he’d notice her.

      He had one night, the one she didn’t recall much about. The result of it was the reason he’d thrown her out of his car and his life.

      Why didn’t she remember more of what had happened a couple of months ago? She’d been drinking, as she often did with the roommates, but she usually was careful, never having more than one drink because even that could make her head swim. The others would have can after can of beer until they passed out. She hadn’t. Having finally gained a little control over her life, she didn’t want to chance losing it again.

      But one night she hadn’t been cautious because she wanted to forget the bad day she’d had at work waiting tables at a diner. Nothing she’d done had been right, and when she got back to the apartment, she’d given into Austin’s urging to keep drinking. Now she was paying the price for believing he wanted to comfort her. She couldn’t blame him for her stupidity, but she did for his callous expulsion of her from his life.

      Taking the nightgown Gemma loaned her as well as a toothbrush, she skipped the hot shower she wanted desperately. The Donnellys were ready to call it a day, and she didn’t want to keep them up. She thanked Gemma, slipped into the little girl’s room and got ready for bed.

      It was far softer than any bed she’d slept on since leaving her own comfortable bed at home. Instead of a handmade quilt, the blanket and freshly laundered sheets were covered by an afghan. Its extra warmth would be welcome.

      From the other bed, Olivia mumbled something. Katie Kay moved to check the kind and bumped into the table between the beds. Something fell off it and bounced on the floor. She realized it was an inhaler. She looked from it to the kind. Olivia must have asthma.

      She put the device on the table and moved to Olivia’s bed. In the faint light from a night-light shaped like a princess, the little girl’s curly hair looked dark, but Katie Kay guessed it was as red as her daed’s. Her cheeks were as full as a well-fed squirrel’s, and she clutched a well-worn, well-loved stuffed kitten to her pajamas that were decorated with more princesses.

      Another flurry of tears threatened to fall as Katie Kay smoothed the covers over the sleeping kind. Olivia didn’t resemble Sarann, but Katie Kay remembered tucking in her youngest sister before getting into her own bed. Sarann hadn’t lived to be any older than this little girl; yet that had been far longer than any kind with her birth defects should have lived. Every day of her life, she’d had a smile in spite of the pain she must have suffered.

      If Katie Kay had been half as courageous, maybe she wouldn’t have taken the easy way out and left Paradise Springs. Daed had been patient and loving with Sarann, seeing her as a special gift from God. No different from any of his kinder, as he’d said on many occasions.

      Why was she remembering that now? She’d let her anger at him banish the memory. Well, it was too late to change anything, and she couldn’t return home. Not when she was unsure if she was pregnant. Not when she hadn’t made up her mind about being baptized and becoming a member of the Amish community. Not when she was confused about so many things.

      Including Micah Stoltzfus. She’d changed a lot in the past four months, but she hadn’t expected him to be different, as well. How many times had she joked that nothing ever changed among the plain people?

      Something else to add to the long list of things she’d been wrong about.

      Going to the other bed, Katie Kay slipped under the covers. Her hair was damp and fell against her face as she turned her head on the pillow to stare out the window at the rain.

      In the morning, Micah would be back. She needed to make a plan for what she was going to do.

      She wished she knew what that might be.

      * * *

      Guarding every word he spoke the next morning was almost more than Micah could handle. He sat at the breakfast table with his married brother, Ezra, and Ezra’s wife, Leah, and her young niece, as well as Mamm and his other unmarried brothers. His twin, Daniel, and their older brother Isaiah both were getting married later in the fall. Daniel had built a house beyond the barn where his fiancée already lived, and Isaiah spent most of his time down the road with his late friend’s family that had become his own.

      Nobody had spoken of anything connected to Katie Kay. Even so, he couldn’t think of anything other than the blonde who’d returned to Paradise Springs after living somewhere with the Englisch for almost four months.

      Only four months? From the lines dug into Reuben’s face by his unrelenting worry, the bishop looked, when Micah had last seen him on Sunday, as if Katie Kay had left years ago. But it’d been June when she left, and now it was October.

      He shouldn’t have told Katie Kay he’d say nothing to anyone about her return. That was wrong, and he intended to tell her so as soon as he saw her at the Donnellys’ house this morning. But what if she reneged on her side of the bargain, too, and left without ever seeing Reuben? How could Micah face his bishop knowing he could have taken Katie Kay—willing or not—to her daed last night?

      He’d get to the Donnellys’ house early. Sean wasn’t a morning person, something Micah had learned since the two of them had become partners about three months ago. Daniel, Micah’s twin, had invited him to join Stoltzfus Brothers Construction, the company Daniel had started earlier in the year. However, for a couple of years, Micah and Sean had been talking about working together every time they were at the same construction site. They’d pooled their savings and started Plain and Simple Solutions, an alternative energy company.

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