Courting Emily (A Wells Landing Book 2) (15 page)

December came and brought with it an early snow. With over six inches covering everything from the streets to the barns, the
Englisch
kids rejoiced in their “snow day” while the Amish kids went on to school.

It had been nearly a week since Luke had snuck into her barn, a week since he had confused her to the point of not knowing her name. How was a girl supposed to go on if the past kept coming back? If the past kept making her want things that were never going to be?

She pulled the buggy to a stop in front of Elam’s house. Someone, most probably him, had cleared a spot for others to pull in without having to park on top of the snow.

“Em, are you okay?” Mary asked from beside her.

“
Jah,
why?”

“Because you’re sitting there, staring off into space.”

Emily shook her head. “Just thinking.”

Mary frowned. “You’ve been doing a lot of that since Luke’s visit.”

She whipped around to face her sister. “You haven’t told anyone, have you?”

“
Nay
. I promised I wouldn’t.” Her tone clearly conveyed her hurt. She had made a promise, and she would keep it.

“I’m sorry,” Emily said. “It’s just that—”

“The deceit is making you
naerfich
.”

Crazy. It was as good a description as any.

“‘A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches, loving favor rather than silver and gold.’” Mary quoted, her hands folded primly in her lap.

“‘The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?’” Emily shot back, then she pushed the buggy door open and retrieved the basket from behind the seat.

The last thing she wanted to do was deceive Elam, but how could she explain something she didn’t quite understand herself? It wasn’t like she and Elam had pledged their love and devotion. They weren’t in line to get married. They were just . . . dating, seeing where things might go from there.

Emily trained her gaze to the ground beneath her feet, carefully stepping in the pressed-down snow. The path was comprised mostly of tire tracks and made Emily remember that James had gone to the doctor the day before.

She hoped they’d received good news. “Come on,” she urged Mary. “Let’s see how James made out yesterday.”

Their previous disagreement forgotten, Mary linked arms with Emily and together they picked their way toward the house.

Mary knocked on the door. It was promptly answered by a smiling James.

“Emily!
Mamm,
come look. Emily and Mary are here.”

Emily blinked and resisted the urge to check the numbers on the mailbox. They were at the right
haus
. But things inside seemed so much different than before.

James wore a dark purple shirt almost the same color as Emily’s dress that he favored so much. A big pot of something bubbled on the stove. Emily wasn’t sure, but it smelled a lot like chicken pot pie.

Johanna skipped around, her lilac dress twirling around her ankles. It was a completely different household than when she and Mary had first visited.

Something must have happened at the doctor’s appointment, and it was
gut
if the atmosphere in the Riehl house was any indication.

“Emily Emily Emily!” Johanna grabbed her hand and pulled her all the way inside. “Did you see the snow? Did you?”

Emily laughed. “Of course I did,
liebschdi
. I drove all the way here in it.”

Johanna’s face fell. Then quick as a wink, she bounced back. “Can we go play in it? Please, please, please!”

“That is something you will have to discuss with your mother.”

“
Mamm, Mamm, Mamm
.” In a flash, Johanna was gone, racing into the kitchen to ask her mother about playing outside.

Emily handed her basket to James. “Will you take this for me? I need to go see to the horses.”

He accepted it with a quick smile. “Are there any more of those grape jelly jelly beans in here?”

“Maybe, but you wait until I get back before you open it, you hear?”

James feigned a pout, his sparkling eyes giving away his true emotion. “I guess, but hurry,
jah?
”

“I will.”

She pulled her coat a little tighter around herself and started outside. But her horse was no longer hitched to the buggy. She changed her course and headed for the barn.

“Elam?” she called as she slid the door open.

“Back here.”

She followed the sound of his voice and the soothing scrape of the brush against horsehide.

He was in the third stall down, brushing Clover, the gentle mare that Emily preferred.

“I didn’t want her to get too cold,” he explained.

“I was coming back out for her.”

He stopped and smiled, one of the first genuine smiles she had ever received from him. That was when she noticed he seemed different somehow. Like the scene in the house, he was more relaxed. His shoulders weren’t quite as stiff, his jaw not quite so rigid. When he looked like that, so at ease and happy, he was as handsome a man as she had ever seen. “I know.”

“Your father,” she started.

“It’s a miracle,
jah?
” Elam gave Clover one last pat on the rump and left her alone with her oats. “And we have you to thank.”

Emily shook her head. “
Nay,
not me. I didn’t do anything but run the printer at the library. And even that was the librarian’s doing.”

“But you thought about it. You brought it to our attention. It was you who pointed out that the medications might be having a negative effect on
Dat
.”

“And were they?”

“
Jah
. You saw him. He’s like a whole new person.”

“God is
gut,
” Emily whispered, so thankful that she had played even a small part in James’s healing.

“
Jah
.” Elam reached for his coat, then slipped his arms into the sleeves. “Let’s go see if
Mamm
has any
kaffi
made.”

Emily smiled and allowed him to follow her outside.

The sun sparkled in blue lights over the snow-covered ground. The temperature dipped down to below freezing, but if Oklahoma’s previous snows held any indication, the ground would be nearly cleared by tomorrow afternoon.

As beautiful as the snow could be, Emily was glad. It was so hard to get around in. Her rubber boots were cumbersome at best, stiff from the cold and a little too big. They slowed her down, but at least her feet were dry.

As if he sensed her struggle, Elam took her hand and pulled her along behind him. “It might be easier if you step where I step,” he said over one shoulder.

“
Jah,
it might if your legs were half their size.”

He stopped and looked back at their deep footprints in the snow. Her steps were two to his one. His grin flashed, almost as dazzling as the sunlight on the snow. “Sorry.”

Funny, but he didn’t seem sorry as he took another giant step forward. The snow was deeper here, having been blown toward the carriage house in the night. The small building sat between the house and the barn and served as the only break between the road and the pasture.

“Elam Riehl, you are doing this on purpose.”

He shot her an innocent look. “Can you not make it?”

There had to be four feet between his steps. Maybe five. “
Nay,
” she said. Was he being playful or deliberately thickheaded?

“Well, then. I guess I should carry you.”

She barely had time to register his words before she found herself scooped into his arms. “What are you doing?” Instinctively she kicked her feet against the air, her arms flailing in surprise.

Elam grunted as one hand connected to his throat.

She felt as if she was falling. She
was
falling! She threw her arms around his neck in desperation, but the motion was a bit too much. Together they both toppled into the snow.

Emily landed with a soft thud as Elam managed to catch himself before tumbling headlong on top of her. He rolled to the side and ended up on his back right next to her.

She sucked in a breath, the air knocked from her lungs as she hit the ground.

“Are you
allrecht?
” Elam raised up on one elbow to look at her. His hat had been lost in the fall and snow dusted his dark hair. In the bright light, hints of red shone in the strands like the roan horse her
dat
kept for the
kinner
to ride.

“
Jah,
” she said, turning her thoughts away from his hair and onto the fact that the snow was trickling down into the collar of her coat. She shivered and shifted, hoping to avoid any more unwanted cold running down her back while she tried to catch her breath. “Why couldn’t we have walked down the regular path?”

Elam’s expression turned suddenly serious, though the playful light in his eyes took all the starch from his words. “You were the one who started walking over here. I was following you.”

“You were leading.”

“Okay, I was.”

The air seemed suddenly warm between them, or was it thick? Something hitched, and Emily realized it was her breath in her throat.

One small move and she could press her lips to his. She could see if the attraction between them at Caroline’s party was real or a trick of the night.

He seemed to sense it, too, this intimate position they had landed in. His eyes darkened from bottle green to the color of the fields in late June, rich, fertile green filled with promise and hope and so much more.

Was she imagining things or was he closer? So very close . . .

He seemed to find himself. “I guess I’m not much good at this courtin’ thing.”

Or maybe she had imagined it all. “I think you’re doing just fine.”

“We want to play.” Johanna slammed out of the house, bundled from head to toe. James stood next to her, his eyes twinkling with excitement.

Elam pushed himself to his feet, then reached out a hand to help her up. “Where’s
Mamm
and Mary?”

“Inside by the fire.” James made a face as if to ask why anyone would want to be inside and warm when there was snow on the ground.

Emily chuckled at his expression.

“Go get them, Jo. Tell them I said they must come play, too.”

With a quick nod of her head, she disappeared back into the house, returning in a flash. “They rolled their eyes at me. Like this,” she said, demonstrating the action.

“Then what happened?” Elam asked.

Johanna smiled. “I called them chickens, and they went to fetch their coats.”

 

 

All six of them were still out in the snow when the schoolkids came home a couple of hours later.

The teacher had let them out early, knowing their concentration wouldn’t be on learning with so much snow covering the ground. Oklahoma weather was unpredictable at best. It could snow next week or not again until next December. Emily considered it a smart move on the teacher’s part to release the kids for some extra playtime.

But after sloughing to school and back in the stuff, Miriam, Ruthie, and Norma were more than happy to huddle around the fire inside and drink hot cocoa.

After building two forts, a snowman, a snow pig, and creating countless snow angels all over the yard, Emily was more than ready to go inside as well.

“Awh . . .” Johanna’s lips protruded in a sweet pout.

James scooped her into his arms and rubbed his nose into the crook of her neck.

She squealed.

“We have to go in and warm up,
liebschdi,
” he said. “We don’t want to get sick.”

Johanna nodded. “
Jah, Dat
.”

“Besides,” James continued, “I sneaked a peek into the basket Emily brought. There are pictures in there for us to color.”

“Can we color them purple?” Johanna asked.

“You can color them any color you want,” he answered.

“I want to color them purple, the same as you like to do.”

James nodded. “Purple, it is.”

Emily smiled to herself. Not one of the coloring pages were pictures of things that were traditionally purple. And that was just fine with all of them.

 

 

The snow melted away by the weekend, leaving muddy fields and wet streets on the afternoon of the school Christmas pageant.

Nothing gave Emily a sweeter thrill than seeing James at the pageant. He was sitting in the back in the chairs reserved for the infirm. Johanna was perched on his lap. They were both wearing purple.

She smiled at the pair, then went in search of Joy and Elam.

His eyes lit up when he saw her, and she couldn’t help but compare the Elam of a couple of months ago to the man who stood before her today. To an outsider, he might not even look like the same man. He had changed that much.

“Hi.” He bent close and said the one word for only her ears.

Joy smiled her greeting, then discreetly turned her attention to the front of the schoolroom. In the crush of milling parents and older siblings, his hand found hers and squeezed.

“I brought my buggy,” he said. His gentle breath stirred the strands of hair tucked so neatly under her prayer
kapp
.

“
Jah?
”

“I thought I might drive you home. We never seem to have any time together anymore.”

Her heart jumped at the thought. They had been chaperoning Becky’s youth group and watching them during the singings, but keeping an eye on fifty teenagers was not an intimate way to spend an evening.

“
Jah?
” She tried to make her voice sound normal. Not as excited as a schoolgirl with her first crush on a
bu
.