Jo Brown - An Amish Proposal

But look where curiosity had gotten her. A part of her wanted to pray, but she silenced that longing as she had for four months. Reaching out to God seemed like admitting she couldn’t survive on her own among Englischers.

And why would God want to hear from her after she’d turned her back on Him and the life He’d given her? Another bridge she’d burned and wondered if it could ever be rebuilt.

A familiar sound came from behind her. Metal wheels on asphalt accompanied by iron horseshoes clip-clopping in a steady rhythm.

Katie Kay knew the source of those sounds. They’d been a part of her life since her earliest memories. Stepping off the edge of the road, she considered going down the slope toward a shadowed hedgerow until after the buggy had passed. An Amish person wouldn’t go by her without stopping as the cars had, but she needed to avoid plain people until she figured out where she was.

Her feet refused to move. Her own body rebelled against standing a moment longer than necessary in the cold rain. Maybe she should try to hitch a ride with the buggy, so she could find shelter before the rain turned to sleet. Who would recognize her as the wayward daughter of Reuben Lapp, a beloved bishop?

The clatter of the wheels began to slow, and she knew she’d been seen in the lights connected to the buggy. Again, she was torn between running away and running toward it. How could she have gotten herself to this point? A few months ago, she’d been the pampered daughter of a respected Amish bishop. Now she was cowering by the side of a country road, left behind like a discarded kitten dropped by a heartless owner.

Which wasn’t far off from the truth. Austin hadn’t tossed her out of the car, but he’d raised his hand when she hesitated to follow his orders. Though he’d never struck her, she’d seen him flatten a man a head taller than him with a single blow. Again she told herself she shouldn’t have been honest with him about her suspicion she might be pregnant until she was absolutely sure. Austin Moore prided himself on being a man without a single obligation to anyone or anything, and she should have known he’d refuse to take responsibility if she’d conceived. She wasn’t sure, though signs pointed in that direction. By now, he’d be at the apartment in Lancaster they’d shared with two other Englischers, and he’d be watching sports and drinking whatever was in the fridge. He wouldn’t spare her another thought. It wasn’t as if he loved her.

And that realization was the most painful of all.

A voice called from the buggy that had pulled alongside her while the rain fell relentlessly on her bare head. “Katie Kay? Katie Kay Lapp, is it you?” Surprise lifted the deep voice several notches, but she recognized it.

Micah Stoltzfus!

Out of everyone in Lancaster County, why did he have to be in the buggy?

Micah had taken her home—several times—from social events, and she’d even let him kiss her. She’d decided she liked him well enough, and she’d enjoyed his kisses, but she wasn’t interested in someone who kept talking about the future. She’d been happy focusing on the present, when there were a lot of gut-looking guys eager to take her home.

Why not enjoy what was going on and let tomorrow worry about itself?

That had been her motto, but now she was being forced to see where such a shortsighted plan had left her.

Alone.

Possibly pregnant.

And about to have to beg help from a man she’d told to get lost a year ago.

* * *

The petite woman standing beside his buggy bore little resemblance to the vivacious beauty he’d admired for years, but Micah Stoltzfus knew he wasn’t mistaken. Though she didn’t answer him and confirm her identity, he recognized Katie Kay Lapp’s oval face and very large blue eyes. Her blond hair was no longer pulled back beneath a white organdy kapp. It’d been cropped short with bangs above her tawny brows and hung around her shoulders, weighed down by the rain. He guessed the strands which had been silken when they escaped her bun and brushed his face would, when dry, bounce with each step she took. Instead of a simple dress, she wore blue jeans and a black T-shirt that looked as if it’d been ruined before she’d stood outside in the storm.

He wanted to ask her where she’d been and what she’d been doing since she had left her daed’s house after a big argument. Reuben had been troubled about her vanishing, fearing what might happen to his naïve daughter. Katie Kay had left behind a message stating she was going to live with an Englisch friend. She hadn’t said which one or where or when she might come home. The burden of not knowing had bent Reuben’s shoulders, and Micah believed only his plans to marry Wanda Stoltzfus, Micah’s mamm, and his strong faith had kept the bishop from being ground down completely. Reuben was a shadow of the vibrant man he’d once been.

Instead of asking the questions taunting him, Micah called through the open door on the driver’s side of his buggy, “Don’t you want to get out of the rain?”

She nodded, biting her lower lip.

For a moment, he wondered if he was wrong about her being Katie Kay Lapp. The Katie Kay he knew never had been abashed or quiet. Instead she’d had a quick retort and an easy laugh. This pale wraith might look like the woman he’d known, but where had her bright sparkle gone?

He was being silly. The woman was Katie Kay Lapp. She was walking in the direction of Paradise Springs, where both her family and his lived.

“Komm in,” he said as he reached across the buggy to open the passenger side door. He shut the one on his side while she hurried around the buggy. The rain was falling harder, and he didn’t want to get soaked before he reached home. He would have been there by now if he and his business partner, Sean Donnelly, hadn’t needed to meet with a new client tonight.

He hoped he and Sean would get the job installing solar panels for a new client. Otherwise, it would have been a waste of an evening and a slow, cold ride home. Sean’s wife, Gemma, had asked Micah to stay at their house overnight, but he hadn’t wanted his family to worry when he didn’t return to the farm.

And Katie Kay would have been left to walk along the road connecting Paradise Springs and Ronks in the heart of Lancaster County. He hadn’t seen another vehicle, other than a couple of cars driving at an unsafe speed along the twisting road. Certainly no buggies, because any person with sense would be inside on an inclement night.

When Katie Kay climbed in and slid the door closed, she sat as far from him as possible in the small buggy. Which wasn’t very far. If they both put their hands on the seat between them, their fingers would overlap.

As they used to when he took her home after a singing.

That’s over and done with, he reminded himself. She’d made it clear the last time he took her home in his courting buggy that if he disappeared from the face of the earth, she’d be fine. Instead, she had gone away, jumping the fence to live with Englischers.

She didn’t look at him or speak, but in the glow from the buggy’s lights, he saw she was shivering.

“Here.” He stretched his arm behind the seat and pulled out a towel he kept among his tools. He used it when he washed up after a hot day of working on a roof while installing solar panels.

“Thanks.” She hesitated as if he’d be upset her first word to him wasn’t in Deitsch, the language of the plain people, and he’d order her out of the buggy. Before he could ask why she acted like a beaten pup, she added in not much more than a whisper, “Danki.”

“Sounds like you’ve gotten used to talking to your Englisch friends.”

“They aren’t my friends,” she snapped and then turned away to dry her dripping hair.