Courting Her Secret Heart

He now drove back along the paved road. Floyd plodded along. The rhythm of his clip-clopping hoofbeats lulled Amos’s thoughts—thoughts that drifted to his cousin. Jacob was gut to help Amos. Amos wouldn’t know what to do on the outside. Having his cousin’s guidance made him feel less anxious about the whole endeavor. Jacob knew all about Amos’s hurts back in Pennsylvania. How Esther had let him court her and led him to believe she cared for him, only to turn down his offer of marriage. Then when he’d arrived in Indiana, the situation was nearly repeated with Bethany.

Then his thoughts turned to the Millers’ farm. The work there was gut. Gave him purpose. And being around all those women would give him insight into the female mind. Maybe then he could figure out what he’d done wrong in the past.

Up ahead, an Amish woman meandered in the middle of the two-lane country road.

What was she doing?

A car came down the road, honked and swerved around her.

She sidestepped but didn’t move to the side of the road.

He snapped the reins to hurry the horse. When he pulled up beside her, he said, “Ma’am?”

She faced him but didn’t really look at him.

“Teresa? Teresa Miller?” He hauled back on the reins.

“Ja.” She raised her hand to shade her eyes from the morning winter sun.

“What are you doing out here?”

“I was going somewhere.” She chuckled. “But I seem to have forgotten where.”

That didn’t explain why she was in the middle of the road. He jumped down. “Come. I’ll drive you home.”

“That would be nice. Danki.” She climbed into the buggy and waited.

How odd. But other than her being in the middle of the road, he couldn’t put his finger on what exactly was off about this encounter. He got in and took her home.

When he drove into the yard and up to the house, the twins rushed outside without coats on. Hannah opened the buggy door and took Teresa’s hand. “Mutter, where have you been? We’ve been looking for you.” A forced cheeriness laced her words.

“I went for a nice little walk.” She patted Amos’s arm. “But I was safe.”

Hannah helped her mutter out and exchanged glances with Lydia. Hannah’s gaze flickered to him. “Danki.”

“Bitte.” Amos held out the paper sack with the prescription. “Here’s your vater’s medication.”

Lydia took it. “Danki.” The women rushed into the house, leaving Amos to wonder.

Women. They behaved strangely. How was a man to figure them out? Maybe it was impossible, and he should give up on them altogether.

A while after Miriam had completed the late-afternoon milking, Amos headed to the house for supper. Though he’d been mulling over this morning’s incident with Teresa all day and wanted to ask about it, he decided not to embarrass her by mentioning anything.

He stepped through the kitchen door into barely ordered chaos. One girl went this way while another went that way and two others looked to be on a collision course, but both swerved in the appropriate directions and barely missed running into each other. The women seemed to almost read each others’ minds with each one going in a different direction. How did they ever get anything accomplished? But somehow they managed to pull supper together.

Maybe there was some order to their mayhem he couldn’t detect. That men in general couldn’t. He would like to figure it out but sensed he could spend a lifetime and never understand women. He should give up even trying anymore.

Teresa Miller smiled and came over to him. “My brother stopped by and brought some of your things. They are in a suitcase by the front door.”

“Your brother?”

“Ja. David. He wore that blue shirt I made him for his birthday.”

Hannah gave a nervous-sounding giggle, and the crease between her eyebrows deepened. “She meant your brother.”

He didn’t have a brother named David. Maybe she meant Daniel.

“Ne. I didn’t—”

Lydia put her arm around Teresa, effectively distracting her. “Mutter, did you get the cake frosted?” The two walked to the far side of the kitchen.

Why did the twins seem nervous? Calling someone by the wrong name was common enough. Most everyone had done it. How many times had he been called by one of his brothers’ names? If he had a cookie for every time, he’d be fat.

Hannah spoke to Amos. “Why don’t you take your suitcase out to the barn? It’s going to take a few minutes to get everything on the table.”

Was she trying to distract him?

“All right.” He snagged the case and headed out to the barn. That had been strange. But then this had been a bit of a strange day. And he was surrounded by women who didn’t behave or think like men. They were mysterious creatures whose sole purpose was to confuse and distract men.

He set the case on his bed and saw, out of the corner of his eye, the tabby dart in. When he turned to look, the cat dashed back out. What had scared it? He leaned to look on the other side of the potbellied stove, where the cat had run from.

A tiny kitten with its eyes still closed was lying on the ground. It raised its wobbly head and let out a small mew.

Amos picked it up. “Where has your mutter gone?” It seemed females of all species acted strange. He stepped out of the room and scanned the dim interior of the barn.

From the hayloft, the tabby trotted down the slanted ladder with another kitten hanging from her mouth. She ignored Amos and darted into his room. She quickly came back out and meowed at him. Then she put her paws on his leg and meowed again.

“I have your little one.” He crouched down and she took the kitten from him.

He followed her into the tack room. “How many little ones do you have?”

She obviously liked the warmth of the stove for her babies. She looked from him to beside the stove and back again.

He waved his hand. “Go on. Get the others. I’m not going to make you sleep in the cold.”

She darted out.

Amos snagged an unused crate, put in a layer of straw and then an old towel. By the time the mutter cat returned with number three, Amos had the crate with the two kittens in it next to the heat.

The tabby peered over the edge of the box, jumped in with the third kitten and lay down.

“I’ll figure out how to keep the door open and stay warm later.”

When he headed back to the house, all the girls sat silently at the table, hands folded in their laps. No one fluttered about. He could have waited until later to take out his suitcase. It didn’t matter now. He sat next to Sarah as before.

As well as Bartholomew, Teresa and one of the twins weren’t at the table. Which twin was here? She had the crease between her eyebrows, so she must be Hannah.

After the blessings, Hannah jumped right into conversation. “Now, tell me about the barn. Are you comfortable out there? If you would rather return home, I’m sure we can manage. You must miss your family.”

He actually didn’t miss his family as much as he’d imagined he might, and he preferred the barn to home. Maybe leaving the community wouldn’t be as hard as he anticipated. “I’m quite comfortable. Danki.”

Hannah continued, “We wouldn’t want to keep you or put your parents in a bad position by insisting you stay.”

He glanced around the table. Except for Deborah and Miriam, the younger girls paid no attention to Hannah’s words. “My parents and brothers can manage quite well without me.” His brothers would be running the farm soon enough without him; they’d might as well start now.

Deborah glanced from Hannah to Miriam, seemingly trying to figure out things, as well. She shook her head and went back to eating.

Miriam stared hard at him and then stabbed a cooked carrot. “If you change your mind, we’ll understand.”

A distraction attempt? Now more than one sister appeared to be trying to get rid of him. Eligible women were always trying to get rid of him. Women were strange indeed. “I won’t. I promised Bishop Bontrager that I would work here while your vater is recovering.” If he wasn’t planning to leave altogether, he might be tempted to ask Bartholomew if he wanted to hire him on afterward to help ease his burden.

Neither Hannah nor Miriam seemed pleased with his answer. Didn’t they want their vater to have help?

Typical strange behavior for women.

* * *

The following Monday, Deborah studied Amos as he watched Miriam. Her sister stood at the clothesline hanging the laundry. She didn’t know he was observing her. And he didn’t know that Deborah was studying him.

How fortunate for Miriam to have someone look at her the way Amos did. Maybe someday someone would regard her in such a manner. But probably not. At least not in her Amish community. The only time she’d ever been noticed was in the Englisher world.

Tugging her coat closed, she slipped out past the garden that had been harvested and canned last summer and fall. Spring planting was still a couple of months off.

She hurried out to the cluster of bare sycamore trees near the pond at the edge of their property. After retrieving her backpack from the tangled base of the largest tree, she headed for the meeting spot. No one would miss her. They never did. Vater’s trip to the hospital had been proof of that.

Deborah tramped through the still-fallow field. This year would be the year this field was planted again. She came out the other side and dashed down the road. At the intersection, an idling car waited. She opened the passenger door and climbed in. Then she switched to English. “Sorry for making you wait.”

The older woman pointed toward Deborah’s seat belt. “I don’t go anywhere until your seat belt is on.”

Deborah grabbed the belt, pulled it and snapped it into place. One of the many differences between automobile travel and riding in a buggy.

The woman put her car into gear and pulled out onto the road. “I thought you might not be coming, and I was about to leave.”

Deborah was glad the woman hadn’t. “Thank you for waiting.”

“This is certainly a strange place to be picked up. I’ve driven a lot of you Amish and always go to a house, not the side of the road.”

“I didn’t want to bother anyone.” Deborah hoped the woman didn’t suspect she was sneaking out. Deborah usually had another woman drive her, one who didn’t ask so many questions or insinuate things.

She was relieved when the woman dropped her off at her destination. “Thank you for the ride.” She paid the woman for her gas and time.

“Do you need me to come back and return you to where I picked you up?”

“No, thank you. I have a ride.” Fortunately, her regular person could take her back.

She hustled away from the car before she could be further delayed and nearly ran into an Englisher woman with multicolored hair. “Entschuldigen Sie—I mean, excuse me.”

The young woman stared a moment as though trying to figure out who Deborah was before she scurried away.

Deborah shrugged and ducked into the restroom of the combination gas station/convenience store to change from her plain Amish dress into a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, and let down her hair. Where it had been twisted into place in the front, it kinked, and where it had been coiled in the back, it waved. When she wore these clothes with her hair freed, she felt like a different person. What would Amos think of her appearance? Disapprove, for sure.

She hurried to the photography studio and entered silently.

Hudson stood behind his camera, giving instructions to the model sitting on a fake rock wall in front of a backdrop featuring an old building. He had dozens of such roll-down backdrops. From urban to countryside, woodlands to deserts to mountains, all four seasons and various weather, and fantasy backdrops with mythical creatures, medieval castles, Gothic arches, waterfalls and stone stairways in the forest.

Hudson, in his late twenties, had ambitions to move to New York City and become a famous photographer. His wavy, shoulder-length blond hair and dashing good looks meant he could likely succeed on the other side of the camera, as well. When she’d first started modeling for him a year ago, she’d developed a crush on him because of all his praise and attention—two things she rarely received at home.

His assistant, Summer, was the first to see her approaching. She leaned in and spoke to Hudson in a hushed voice.

He pulled back from his camera and swung in Deborah’s direction. “Debo! There you are.”

When she hadn’t wanted to use her real name, Hudson had dubbed her Debo. She didn’t much care for it, but it was better than using Deborah and risk being discovered. Because of all the makeup and fussy hair, no Amish would guess that was her even if they ever found out. The likelihood that any of them would see her in one of these Englisher catalogs was slim to none. If they did, they wouldn’t recognize her.

He walked over to her and gripped her shoulders. “You’re my best model. Go see Lindsey and Tina for wardrobe, hair and makeup.” He stared at her a little longer and was probably assessing the condition of her features today.

“What is it? Is something wrong?”

“It just amazes me how different you look from when you go into the dressing room and when you come out again. Lindsey and Tina are miracle workers. If I didn’t know both women were you, I would never guess you were the same person.”

Deborah counted on that. If her Amish community knew about this, she would be shunned. If the media found out she was an Amish girl modeling, they would exploit that. But Hudson and his team kept her secret, and as long as they did, she could continue to model. She wasn’t hurting anyone and wasn’t doing anything illegal. The money she earned would help her and her future husband buy a house and farm. She would quit as soon as someone special took interest and asked to court her.

Today’s shoot was for a high-end clothing catalog. She would be transformed with makeup, and her hair would be curled and fluffed. It was fun to be pampered like this. It still gave her a chuckle at the variety of clothes Englishers owned and wore—different clothes for every season, every occasion and various times of day.

For her, spring and summer meant she could put away her sweater and coat and didn’t have to wear shoes or stockings most of the time, going barefoot. Same dress, just fewer layers. Her biggest decision was whether to wear her green, blue or yellow dress. She wore far more outfits on a single photo shoot than she owned. Where did Englishers put them all? She would hate to have to wash the lot.

Once she had been rendered unrecognizable and dressed in a long, flowing summer dress she could never imagine owning, she returned to the main area of the studio.

Hudson smiled at her. “There’s my favorite model.” He positioned her in the shot and took a lot of pictures. Same instructions he usually gave her.

Strange to be wearing a summer dress in the middle of winter. Strange to be wearing an Englisher summer dress, period. She moved automatically and let her mind wander. Back to her family’s farm. Was Amos still gazing at Miriam? Had her sister taken notice of his attention? Part of her hoped not.

Deborah focused on the hand snapping in front of her face.

Hudson stood less than a foot away. “You’re distracted, Debo. I don’t know where you were, but I need you here.”

Was she distracted? Ja. She supposed she was. “I’m sorry.” Her mind kept flittering back to Amos. Why? He wasn’t her beau. Until a little over a week ago, she’d barely known he existed. Now she couldn’t shake him from her thoughts. He was like a mouse in the wall, always scratching. Always capturing her attention. Always crawling into her daydreams.

She tried to push Amos from her thoughts and focused on Hudson’s instructions.

After four hours of changing clothes and hairstyles and having hundreds of photos taken of her, relief washed over Deborah when the shoot was over. After changing into her own Englisher clothes and scrubbing off the makeup, she left the dressing room.

Hudson gathered the five models around him. “A mostly great shoot today.” He gave Deborah a pointed look.

Her performance was in the part not included in the “mostly great.”

“I need all of you back here tomorrow and for the rest of the week. The client wants the photos this weekend to present to his marketing department Monday.”

The other models grabbed their coats and purses and headed out.

Deborah hung back. “I don’t know if I can come every day.”

He gave her a hard look. “Debo, I need you. You have to come.”

“I’ll try.”

* * *

Surprisingly, she did manage to escape the farm each day, although some days were more of a challenge than others.

On Friday, Hudson praised them all for their hard work.

Deborah headed for the exit with aching feet and a tired body. Her body from constantly moving, and her feet from being shoved into impractical shoes. Her brain hurt as well from repeatedly forcing Amos out of her thoughts.

“Debo, hold up.” Hudson trotted over to her. “You want to grab a cup of coffee?”

How many times in the past had she hoped for just such an invitation? She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Hudson. I need to get home.”

“But we ended early. Certainly you don’t have to rush off so soon.”

“I have been gone too much from home this week.” Not that her family noticed her absence. “And you have photos to edit for your client.”

“Next Wednesday, then? I have a shoot. I’ll see you then.”

She shook her head again. “I need to stick around home for a while.”

“If you had a phone, I could call you with opportunities.”

She couldn’t risk him calling their phone. That would be disastrous for her. She finally escaped, all the while her mind wandering back to Amos.

* * *

Amos looked out over the Millers’ fields, which were to be plowed in the spring. He couldn’t help but think of them as partly his. Since he’d already planned out the plowing and planting, they sort of felt a little like his fields. Of course, they weren’t his fields, and he might not even be here to do the work. But if he was, he would take pride in that work.

Bartholomew appreciated everything he did around the farm, so Amos worked harder and enjoyed it so much more here than he ever had at home.

Here, even the little things he did mattered. He mattered. Bartholomew had never had a son to help him with all the work around the farm. How had he run this place without sons?

But on the flip side, Amos’s mutter had been alone doing the house chores, cooking, cleaning and laundry for six men and boys through the years. How did she do it without help?

On the far side of one of the fields, a woman emerged from a bare stand of sycamore trees nestled next to a pond. She walked across the field he would plow in the not-too-distant future. If he was still here. Bartholomew should have his cast off by then, but he wouldn’t likely be up for all the physical work yet. Maybe Amos should stay long enough to help with that.

The woman came closer and closer.

Deborah.

Where did she go all the time? She had disappeared every day this week and would be gone for hours. He was about to find out.

With her head down, she didn’t see him approaching. He stepped directly into her path a few yards in front of her. She seemed to be talking to herself, but he couldn’t make out all the words. Something about nothing wrong and not hurting anyone.

She kept walking with her head down. The words became clearer. “Everything will be fine. No harm done.”

When it looked as though she might literally run into him, he cleared his throat.

She halted a foot away and jerked up her head. She was so startled to see him there, she took a step back and appeared to lose her balance on the uneven ground. Her arms swung out to keep herself upright.

He reached out and took hold of her upper arms to stop her from tumbling to the ground. “Whoa there.”

She gasped. “I’m sorry. I didn’t see you.”

“Where have you been all day?”

“What? Nowhere.” She tried to pull free of his grip, but he held fast.

He shook his head. “You’ve been somewhere. You’ve left every day this week and been gone for most of the day.”

“I—I went for a walk.”

“Where? Ohio?”

She twisted her face for a moment before his joke made sense. “We have a pond just over there by those trees. I like to sit there and watch the ducks. It’s a nice place to think and be alone. You should go sometime.”

“I did. Today. You weren’t there.”

Her self-satisfied expression fell. “I was for a while, then I walked farther.”

He sensed there was more to her absence than a walk. “Where?”

“Why do you care?”

“With your vater laid up, I’m kind of responsible for everyone on this farm.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m fine. I can take care of myself.”

How could she not understand the role of a man?

“May I go now?”

He realized he still held on to her upper arms. He didn’t want to let her go but did. “I don’t want you to leave the farm without telling me where you’re going.”

“Are you serious?”

He gave her his serious look.

She huffed and strode away.

Would she heed his request?

Where did she go every day? He had wanted to follow her, was tempted to. He almost did once, but he realized it was none of his business and turned around. But curiosity pushed hard on him. He still might follow her if she didn’t obey. Just to see. Just to watch her from a distance. Just to know her secret.

Something inside him feared for her. Feared she would walk out across this field and never return. Feared her secret would consume them both. She was a mystery.

A mystery he was drawn to solve.

* * *

Deborah heaved a sigh of relief. She marched the rest of the way through the field, resisting the urge to run. After two weeks, Amos Burkholder already paid more attention to her comings and goings than her own family had her whole life—they never expected much from her and thought her an airhead. Fanciful. Her head full of dreams and nonsense.

Well, she did have dreams. And to prove to everyone that she was someone to be noticed, not an airhead, she’d become a church member younger than any of her older sisters at age sixteen, the same year as Miriam, who was a year and a half older than her. She’d basically skipped her Rumspringa. But Naomi had run away in a fit of selfishness and sent the family into a tizzy. Miriam hadn’t seemed to mind having her special day of joining church ruined, but Deborah had.

No one had congratulated her or told her how wonderful it was that she’d joined so young, that she must be the most dedicated Amish woman ever. Anything to be noticed, just once.

Instead, the whole community had gone on a search for Naomi and found her, hours later, sulking under their porch. She’d walked home by herself, having somehow slipped out of the service, probably under the guise of needing to use the bathroom. She’d stayed hidden even when she’d known people were searching for her. She’d hated that so much attention was being paid to others.

It had been the last straw for Deborah. She’d tried to get her parents’ attention and had given up several times, but she’d thought joining church so young would get their attention for sure. If only for a moment. She had just about succeeded until Naomi had pulled her disappearing act. Even after their parents had scolded her younger sister, Deborah gave her a round of her own. After that, Naomi made sure to steal any attention that might be portioned out to Deborah.