Temptation (A Temptation Novel) (10 page)

Timothy, who was the oldest, broke from the group and strode over to stand with me. Surveying the stockyard in the near distance, I could see several other Amish families I didn’t recognize, and realized that Amish from communities all over this part of Ohio would be in attendance—making it virtually impossible for me to talk to Rose. We’d be seen for sure, I thought, chancing another glance at her.

What?
To my surprise she was walking away from us, by herself, toward the sale barns. My mind raced. She shouldn’t be alone in a public place like this. It wasn’t safe or appropriate with all the men around here.

I urgently rounded on Sam, who was leaning against his truck doing something with his cell phone. Forgetting my code of silence about Rose in front of the others, I snapped, “Sam?” He didn’t hear me and I spoke a little louder, “Sam—your sister is walking away,
alone
.”

“Huh?” He looked up at me, confused, and then toward Rose, who was almost out of sight. “So—what about it?”

With an exasperated sigh, I informed him, “There are a lot of people here, and some of them look unsavory.” I nodded toward two cowboys with tattoos running down their arms, ambling a little ways from us.

Sam’s gaze followed them for an instant, and then he looked back at me with the same look of bewilderment. “Those guys? Rose can take care of herself. Besides, she has her phone on her. She’ll call me if there’s a problem. Noah, don’t worry about it.” And then he went back to whatever he was doing, dismissing me entirely.

I was too maddened with him to say any more. If I did, my emotions would show, and someone would notice. My behavior would raise questions, so I silently fumed, waiting for Jacob to return.

After what seemed like forever, he finally showed up with the numbers, and I quickly put them on the horses and followed Jacob to the sale barns with Timmy still in tow, chattering about something unimportant. I scanned the crowd looking for Rose, but she was nowhere to be seen. Unease spread through me like a wildfire as we entered the barn and my eyes quickly adjusted to the shade. Dismayed, I saw that the building was immense on the inside, with several other barns interconnecting to accommodate the hundreds of pens filling the place. There were so many people milling around, and horses of every breed and color choked the aisleways, making it difficult to even move toward the pen that our horses were assigned to, let alone locate an English girl in the crowd.

The fact that Rose had just left me and gone off by herself really exasperated me. Not only was it dangerous, it wasn’t the way a girl should behave. Rose thought she could take care of herself, but I knew that kind of thinking could get a girl into a bad situation. And fast.

Amish girls, on the other hand, were raised from a young age to be obedient and dependent on the men in their lives. The men cherished their women and the women loved them for it.

But I was already in over my head with Rose, and now I had to deal with her wild behavior. Somehow I’d have to curb her impulses and make her listen to me. But it was for her good—I’d heard all kinds of stories about what happened to women out there among the English.

I grunted to myself, pondering the difficulty of getting Rose to change her ways. And I didn’t think she’d be receptive to being told what to do directly. I’d have to be subtle about it and make her think she was doing what she wanted. What a challenge that would be. But I was up for it. If we were destined to be together, then Rose would come around.

As we squeezed through the crowd, I impatiently greeted several people from our own community and nodded to several more I didn’t know. When running into other Amish people at an event like this, even if you didn’t recognize them, there was a good chance you had some connection—either being related to them directly or through the community. I had to keep up the pleasantries.

After we got the horses in the pen and I had latched the gate, Jacob said, “I’m going to have a look around. Are you coming?”

I was uncertain whether it was a question, indicating I had a choice in the matter, when I glanced at Timmy and took a chance. “I thought I’d walk with Timmy… Is that okay, big brother?” I was friendly, hoping he’d give me some space. Jacob nodded, pivoting away and slipping into the crowd. Okay, one less obstacle to worry about.

I turned the opposite direction my brother had gone and strode forward, looking left and right for Rose without paying attention to Timmy, who was struggling to keep up with me in the press of people.

“Was that pretty English girl you were talking about at the truck your new neighbor?” Timmy whispered loudly, trying to match my stride.

So Timmy had noticed she was pretty and wasn’t too shy to say it. I glanced at him, perturbed, but figured he’d probably not report me to the elders. He sneaked around enough that I had a few incidents I could hold against him, and decided that it was safe to give him a small amount of information.

I stopped and focused on Timmy’s dark complexion and eyes and said, “Look, I’m a little worried about the English girl. Her mom died last year, and she just doesn’t seem stable enough to be wandering around a place like this alone.” Again the partial lie came too easy. Pausing, I saw curiosity on his face and continued, “So I’m going to try to find her and talk her into staying with her brother. I can do that quicker without you.” I started to back away from him and said, “I’ll catch up with you in a little while. Just don’t say anything to anyone.”

I was about to leave, when he grabbed my shoulder and asked in astonishment, “You talked to her?”

“Yes, and if you say anything about this to anyone, I’ll make sure the elders know about your driver buying you that beer last month,” I threatened.

His eyes became enormous, and racing the words together, he said, “Don’t worry, Noah. I wasn’t going to tell anyone.” He stopped and scanned the crowd with a quick motion before going on. “But you better be careful. You’ll be in more trouble running around with an English girl than I will for drinking some beer.” What he said hung in the air for a few seconds before he left me to check out the horses in the nearest pen.

The entire conversation worried me, but then, I had more pressing things on my mind—like finding Rose. Spotting a stairway to the catwalks above the pens, I sprinted up them sideways, avoiding the people I passed. Once on the walkway, I leaned over the railing searching the building.

Amazingly, as if the two of us were linked together invisibly, it only took a few seconds for me to spot her from the vantage point I had. She was standing alone, looking into a pen with a few ponies in it. I made a mental note of her location and quickly went back down the dust-covered stairs to her. By the time I reached her, an English man I guessed to be in his twenties was talking to her. He had a square jaw, roughened with short stubble. He was wearing a black cowboy hat on his head and a big silver belt buckle above his groin. His physical closeness to her riled me and I sped up. As I neared, I could instantly tell by Rose’s body posture that she was uncomfortable in the presence of the man. She was leaning away from him and looking straight into the pen.

Rose seemed to sense my approach. Turning her head suddenly toward me, her eyes caught mine and immediately she relaxed, a bright smile spreading across her face.

The man bent near her and asked, “Are you here alone?”

Before she could say a thing, I was by her side, answering for her. “She’s with me.” I shot a hostile look at him, bringing a snort and a crooked smile from his lips at the same time. He tipped his hat in an exaggerated way to Rose and walked away.

Before I risked talking, I surveyed the people around us. Finding none of my kind nearby, I leaned in close to her, only inches from her face, to whisper darkly, the tumult I was feeling clearly in my voice, “What do you think you’re doing, Rose?”

She looked up at me, puzzled. “What are you talking about?”

Sighing, I stated the obvious. “You shouldn’t be wandering around here by yourself. Imagine what could have happened with that cowboy if I hadn’t found you when I did. You should have stayed with your brother,” I said forcefully, realizing that I didn’t have any authority over her. That really troubled me more than I cared to admit.

“I was just trying to do what you said and stay away from you in front of your people,” she said sulkily, pouting out her lower lip in defiance.

The expression brought a smile to my lips, even though I tried to stop it. And in a milder tone, I said, “I know, you’re doing a good job at ignoring me—almost too good, in fact.” I took another quick look around. “But I didn’t mean for you to go off by yourself. It’s not safe.”

She lifted her eyebrows and smiled tightly. “You’re kidding…right?” Seeing my smile disappear, she said in a quiet voice that held a hint of threat in it, “Really, I can take care of myself.”

“That’s what your brother said,” I answered coolly.

I watched the expression change on her face from annoyed, squinting eyes, to softer, flirting ones. I wondered at the change until she said, “What do you want me to do, Noah?” For a second I was at a loss for words. Was she sincere? That this beautiful girl was willing to ask what I wanted, and hopefully listen to me, sent a tingle through my body, and I chose to take her at her word, realizing how important she was to me now. Maybe she would be more receptive to our ways than I originally thought. Quickly, I came up with a plan.

“I’m going to follow behind you, close enough to keep an eye on you, but far enough that we won’t look like we’re together. Then when we find Sam, you should stay with him for the rest of the day,” I told her. I was shocked when after several seconds of staring at me, she lowered her eyes and nodded her head in agreement.

That was almost too easy, I thought, watching her stroll away very leisurely. It soon became apparent to me that she may not have objected, but she wasn’t in a hurry to find her brother either. She was very clever. The worst part was that she obviously had a lot of practice getting her way. That she was able to make my brain fizzle with a sultry look was not going to help me take charge of her either.

After she stopped for several minutes, staring into the same pen, I impatiently ventured up behind her to whisper, “You really need to go faster, Rose, so I can get back to Jacob and my uncle.”

“Isn’t he pretty?” She ignored what I said, squeezing her hand through the gate. She began petting a nicely built black-and-white paint colt, murmuring soft words to him as she did so.

“Yes, he is,” I agreed, still slightly upset with her but more so with our circumstances. What I really wished for at the moment was that the two of us could walk around the sale together, looking at all the horses, and actually have fun. We could if we were officially courting. And she was Amish. Then I wouldn’t have to boss her around and risk making her angry with me.

“I wish I could buy him,” she said, gazing up at me with the look I imagined she used on her father when she wanted something. Then she said worriedly, “What if someone bad gets him?”

I sighed. “Would your father let you keep him?”

“I doubt it,” she admitted.

While I was considering the colt, and checking to see if there were any of my people around, I spotted Sam a few pens down. To my amusement, he was leaning up against the wall talking to two cowgirls. Each had bleach-blond hair, and they were almost identical to each other, from the tight jeans they wore, to their tan straw hats.

“Found your brother.” I pointed at him for Rose to see. When she did, she rolled her eyes at his companions with extreme flourish.

“Oh, great, now I’m stuck hanging around for the rest of the day with the bimbos Sam picks up. Thanks a lot, Noah.” She met my eyes with a seething look and began to stalk away toward her brother.

The worry of someone catching us momentarily forgotten, I reached out and snatched her arm, pulling her back to me. “I’m sorry, Rose. This is just the way it has to be for now,” I said in a whisper, but firmly, hoping she’d get over her anger with me quickly.

Holding my gaze, she muttered, “It’s okay, I’ll probably survive.” Then she lowered her eyes to my hand still clutching her arm. I let go. She pressed her lips together, giving me a half smile before leaving.

I made sure she met up with her brother and his
friends,
silently wishing that Sam had chosen nicer girls to hang out with. But at least I wouldn’t have to worry about her safety now.