“You two aren’t little children anymore—you’re old enough to realize that I’m not just your dad. I’m also a forty-five-year-old man. I don’t want to be alone anymore.”
He said it softly, yet with conviction. I finally found my voice.
“But you’re not alone—you have us.” I sniffed, staring at the flat rock I stood on.
With a soft laugh, Dad crossed the distance and forced my chin up with his hand. His eyes were troubled when he said, “You might not understand this fully now, honey, but as much as I love you and your brothers, and that love is stronger than I feel for anyone else in the world, I need to have someone with me again that will belong to me—someone that I can spend my life with while you kids go out and discover your own dreams.”
We were silent.
“I am so sorry that you had to learn about it this way. I had every intention of sitting down with you all this week to discuss it as a family,” he begged for our understanding softly.
“So, is this Tina woman the one you want to spend your life with?” Sam asked with a mixture of mockery and venom, causing me to look up through my teary, hot eyes expectantly for Dad’s answer.
“It’s not that serious yet, Sam. But I am very fond of her and want to spend more time with her. I think you kids will like her, too, if you give her a chance.” He said it as if he believed it.
It was all too much for my brain to handle. The creepy feeling I got in my gut when I looked at Dad’s face, knowing that he was having sex with a woman, made my skin go cold. And that we might even have a new stepmom sooner than later was pushing me way over the cliff of mental stability. Before I totally flipped out, I brushed past him into the house in a huff of tears and eye wiping.
“Where are you going? Rose, come back here. We need to talk more about this,” Dad shouted, following me up the stairs.
I turned on him in a soul-rupturing rage. “Don’t you dare tell me what I have to do! How could you betray Mom?” He was speechless and I rampaged on. “I don’t have to do anything at all to make you feel better about your disgusting affair. You can deal with that on your own. I’m going to lie down now, and you had better just leave me alone!” I screamed at the top of my lungs, crossing the floor to my room and slamming the door shut in my dad’s distraught face. Jumping onto my mattress, I sobbed uncontrollably for an hour, maybe it was longer, until I finally did cry myself to sleep.
* * *
When my eyes flicked open, they were sore from all the tears and I rubbed them vigorously before stretching and glancing at the clock. It was five and the significance of the time didn’t immediately sink into my poor, disturbed brain, just a tickling of the suggestion that it was important to me. After a few fuzzy-headed seconds, the memory flooded back to me with the force of a tidal wave. I was supposed to meet Noah in the field. I bolted up, and feeling the chilly air blowing into my room from the window, I grabbed my pink hoodie and ran out of the room.
Sam and Justin were watching TV, and I passed by them without much of a glance. Sam was on his feet and overtook me in the kitchen. He grabbed my shoulder, spinning me around.
“Where are you going?” Sam was upset.
“Out for a ride—why do you care?”
“Meeting your boyfriend in some secluded woods someplace?” He smirked in a nasty way and before I could stop my hand, I slapped him, hard, across the face. Probably residual anger toward Dad caused me to do it, but I quickly stepped back, fearful that he’d toss my body into the table for retaliation. But instead he breathed carefully, rubbing the red place on his cheek. He stared at me with an unfathomable expression.
“Okay, maybe I deserved that.” He looked suddenly uncomfortable about whatever he was getting ready to say. I held my breath waiting.
Without making eye contact, he said, “I know that with Mom gone, you don’t have anyone to talk to about…girl stuff. Now that you have a boyfriend, I’m just a little concerned for you—that’s all.”
The direction this conversation was going was starting to freak me out. I wanted to leave but my feet were rooted to the kitchen floor, being held there by some sick curiosity within me. Sam’s blue eyes stared at me and with a little pink rising in his cheeks he whispered, “You know—I don’t get the feeling that these Amish guys are too worried about birth control…and I hope you’re going to protect yourself. You know what I mean.”
I wanted to die right then, be buried alongside my mom and be just a distant memory on the planet. That my big brother was talking about sex and birth control to me was my worst nightmare.
“I know that you’ve probably been doing it since you were fifteen, but it’s not like that with me and Noah. So you don’t have to worry your shaggy head about it,” I said, completely embarrassed, looking at his chest, avoiding his eyes.
His overly loud sigh raised my eyes. Sam rolled his own eyes, and with an air of condescending superiority and a heated voice said, “Well, it won’t be like that for long—so if you need a condom, let me know. And you probably should talk to Amanda or Erin about birth-control pills. That’s really the better way to go.”
That definitely was the last straw! I darted by him and out the back door toward the barn. But again the future running back for the Bengals caught me. Only, luckily, this time he didn’t say anything else about sex.
“Leave me alone, Sam,” I insisted, punching his big arm as hard as I could. Crap. That hurt.
“Hey, calm down, would you. I wanted to tell you that Justin doesn’t know anything about the woman from this morning. So don’t mention it to him,” he told me in his bossy way.
“Don’t you think he should know about it? Why should he go on idolizing Dad the way we did, when the truth is that he’s just a…a…womanizer?” There were so many words to pick from to describe what Dad was, and that was the best I could come up with. How sad.
Sam was thoughtful for a minute before he said gently, a strange tone coming from him, “I know I’d rather not have seen it, and I’m sure deep down you feel the same. Why cause Justin that pain?”
I understood what he meant, and I nodded reluctantly.
“Where is Dad?” Just mentioning his name bugged me. It probably showed in the harsh voice I used.
“Went to the hospital. I’m going to get some pizza for Justin and myself. I’ll save a few pieces for you.” As an afterthought he asked, “You have your cell phone, right? If you need anything, call me. Okay?”
Again I nodded, not meeting his eyes, still too disturbed about the earlier advice from him. He must have sensed that because he did his funny little laugh as he strolled back in the house.
With the fastest saddling job I ever did, I was cantering up the road and through the gap in about ten minutes. It was after five-thirty and I anxiously looked around for Noah, hoping that he hadn’t given up on me and gone home. I didn’t need to worry. He rode out from the trees along the road, and without saying a word his face told me he would have waited there for me all night.
He trotted over to me, his face bright and cheerful. That was until he got close enough to see mine was puffy and tear streaked.
He blinked, and concern clouded his features. “What’s the matter, Rose?”
When he was close enough, he immediately took my hand. It felt so good, so right, that all my walls came down. I began to cry. Damn it. I didn’t want to do this in front of him.
His eyes were alarmed, and he guided Rumor in even closer to Lady and put his arm around my waist. His voice rang with worry when he impatiently asked, “What happened? Why are you crying, Rose? Please tell me,” he begged.
“Let’s just ride right now. I can’t talk.” Pulling away from him, I squeezed Lady into a slow canter. In a flash, he was beside me, watching me with a frown as we crossed the distance of the first field. Not racing this time, just comfortably cantering along the path. The cool air was waking me up, clearing my mind from the fog that had descended on me since I’d seen Dad’s hand on that woman’s back.<
br />
When we reached the curve, I slowed to a trot and continued through the small stand of trees. I finally reined to a walk when we entered the cornfields on the other side.
We walked in silence for a minute longer before I pivoted in my saddle. I was immediately met with Noah’s intense dark eyes.
“I’m sorry about that. I’ve had a really bad day, and I needed some time to get myself together,” I said, reaching out for his hand again.
He took it without hesitation. With an all-too-troubled expression, he inquired again, “What’s going on, Rose? Will you tell me now?”
“Sam and I caught Dad with a woman today. They had spent the night together.” Okay, I said it out loud. It sounded even worse than when I thought it.
Noah’s eyes went wide with shock. Then his gaze wandered out over the corn and back to me again. “That’s hard to believe. Are you sure there wasn’t some kind of misunderstanding?” he suggested softly, clearly not wanting to believe that the nice doctor would do such a thing.
“He admitted it, Noah. He had the nerve to tell Sam and me that he needed a woman to belong to him—or something like that. I almost threw up when he said it.”
“I’m so sorry, Rose.” He paused, his face serious with thought. “What’s going to happen to your family now?” he asked with more than just a passing curiosity, almost as if he had something else on his mind.
Scrunching up my face in concentration, I responded, “I don’t know. He’ll probably date the woman for a while and then marry her. I’ll have to deal with an evil stepmother.”
Squeezing my hand, he said softly, “It can’t be that much a surprise to you. I mean, your dad is still fairly young and the English are known to be promiscuous. That’s one of the big problems with their society.”
He said it as if he were talking about some foreign regime or something. But what startled me even more was the way he said their, as if he was not counting me among the “English.”
“Excuse me?” Anger flared in me.
Catching his mistake, he grinned lightly, giving the impression he was talking to a child. “Did you know that Amish couples almost never get divorced?” he said proudly, starting the swirling thing with his thumb on my hand, causing the butterflies to flutter in my belly. But I ignored the sensations, focusing on his words.
I breathed, “No, I didn’t know that.”
“It’s because we take it very seriously when we pick a wife. We know when we say our vows, it’s for life.” He stared deeply into my eyes, and his handsome face made the breath catch in my throat, and a little dizziness touched my head. I was tempted to drop the reins and touch his smooth face with my finger, but I didn’t, the soft swell of agitation still coating my insides. Then something Amanda had asked popped into my head and right out my mouth.
“Why don’t you have a beard?”
His brow furrowed slightly, followed by the explosion of a wide grin on his mouth. “I’ll let my beard grow when I get married.”
“Do you have to grow a beard?” I studied his face, trying to imagine it with a long, fuzzy beard, like his dad’s.
“Yes—it’s a rite of passage, and more important for the wife, the beard signifies that a man is married—and taken.” He looked sideways at me with a twinkle in his eyes, and the small smile quickly turned into an intimate smirk.
The sunlight was hidden behind the thickening clouds, and the fitful air was charged with a raw energy that seeped into my skin, making me feel amazingly alive at that instant. The feeling prompted me to temporarily forget my dad, and the even crueler reality that Noah was Amish and I wasn’t.
“Don’t you like beards, Rose?” he teased.
“I hadn’t really thought about it. It might be a little prickly when…kissing, to be honest.” I smiled shyly, risking a glance at him.
He laughed at that and smiled radiantly back at me. In a fluid motion his hand let go of mine. Nearly freaking me out, his firm, callused fingers were suddenly at my face, gently touching it. I stifled a gasp as his fingers ever so softly traced my cheekbone and then down to my chin and finally over my mouth, which parted slightly on its own, to my chagrin. Sometime during his exploration of my face, the horses had stopped and I didn’t even notice. A surge of pleasure traveled through my body, starting from where his fingers touched and spreading outward.
He lowered his hand, and I knew he was as affected as I was. He breathed out a rush of air and said, “Mmm-hmm, yeah, I could see how a beard might scratch an amazingly velvety face like yours.”
He took my hand again and the horses began to walk freely, our knees rubbing wonderfully, as Lady’s and Rumor’s sides bumped along.
“Did you know that our women never cut their hair?” he asked cautiously.
“Is that a rule that has to be followed, too?”
“Yes, another rule, but a good one, I believe. You’ve let your hair grow really long, so that wouldn’t be a difficult one for you to follow.” His eyes journeyed over my hair, and he nodded as if he was agreeing with himself.
“But I’ve had my hair trimmed many times before,” I contradicted.
“But you would never cut your hair short, would you?” His face was serious again and his voice sounded frustrated for some strange reason.
“I like to be able to wear it in a ponytail, so I suppose I wouldn’t cut it short. But it’s the idea of being able to make my own choices. I mean, whose business is it anyway if I wanted to chop all my hair off?” I said reproachfully, pursing my lips.
He let go of my hand and tentatively lifted his finger to a strand of hair resting near my elbow. Holding it between his fingers, he softly caressed it. Before I knew what he was going to do, he brought it to his face, touching his mouth to it, breathing it in. The gesture was incredibly sensual, and I could feel my blood rushing through my veins, almost achingly so, when he did it.
I had totally forgotten my little rant when he said, “Your husband’s business.” I sighed with disappointment when he let go of the hair, taking my hand again. Is he ever going to kiss me? I silently screamed.
“I think English women are too willing to make battles out of things they don’t need to.” He was hard-faced again.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, look at yourself, Rose. You have the most beautiful long, wavy hair that any girl could dream of, and you like it that way. And I love your hair and want to touch it and feel it, but…” He paused and with troubled eyes boring into me said, “But you’d go out and have it cut short to some hideous modern style just to prove the point that you could…and…” He obviously wanted to say more, but he had worked himself up into such a state that he just trailed off, shaking his head.
I really tried to hold it in, but seeing him so torn up about my hair, I made a loud snort, followed by a giggle. When his eyes shot back at me angrily, I bit my lower lip and promised him in a soft, inviting voice, “Don’t worry, Noah, I’m not going to cut my hair. Well, I’ll trim the ends to keep it healthy and all, but if it’s that important to you, I’d leave it long.” I had the dark feeling pushing against me that I had just promised more than keeping my hair long. What I said was more significant to him than it would be to a normal guy.
The tightness disappeared from his features. It was replaced with a warm smile and placidness in his eyes. I liked to see him happy, and would probably say about anything to see that smile on his face.
“Noah, why do your women wear caps all the time? Do they ever take them off?”
He sighed, sounding tired with my questions—or maybe he was worried that I wouldn’t like his answers.
With a faint smile he said, “The women do remove their caps at night…for their husbands.”
Seeing I was about to interrupt, he lifted his rein hand and motioned with a loose finger to his lips for me to shush. Then he went on to say, “A woman’s hair is a very seductive thing, Rose. It invites unwanted attention from men—other than the woman’s husband, especially hair l
ike yours.” He sighed heavily, staring at me.
“Can’t you men control yourselves?” I asked sarcastically.
“It’s not a matter of control, Rose. It’s that a husband doesn’t want other men looking at his wife, coveting her. A wife should reserve her beauty for her husband, and no one else.” He instructed me as if I were mentally challenged, too ignorant to understand the fundamentals of life—his way of life anyway.
“It’s so much more comfortable having my hair down. Women shouldn’t have to be tortured just so their husbands can have their wife’s hair all to themselves. That’s just…dumb,” I argued. I was disappointed with myself for not coming up with a better word, but at the moment my annoyance with Noah was growing, distracting me.