The Amish Bride of Ice Mountain (20 page)

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Mary glanced at the long wooden sled with some trepidation. “I thought when you asked
Dat
about sledding, we’d be going in a sled . . . with a horse.”

Jude laughed out loud in the clear moonlit air “
Nee
, my delicious
frau
, the thought of you in a cutter sled with me, together under quilts . . .” He broke off and shook his head. “I can’t. Besides, this will be fun.”

Mary glanced down the snowy hill behind the cemetery. It seemed a long way down and she hadn’t sledded, really sledded, since she was a girl.

“
Dat
said you had a surprise for me,” she improvised, trying to stall for time. But Jude was already looping the sled rope around his arm and gloved hand.

He dropped his big frame down onto the sled and scrunched back to make room for her. “
Kumme
here. Bundle up your skirts and sit between my legs.”

She obeyed with reluctance.

When she was ensconced between his bent knees, he leaned forward to whisper in her ear. “Say hello to the new school teacher on Ice Mountain—
Herr Dokator
—your husband.”

She half turned in surprise and he pushed the sled off. She looked forward again quickly and started to scream and laugh at the same time.

The whole descent was terrifying and exhilarating and she was amazed when he guided the sled to a staggering stop at the bottom of the hill. She rolled off and lay back in the soft snow, staring up at the stars and breathing hard.

She felt the weight of his body as he half leaned over her, his eyes very blue in the moonglow of the snow. His hat had blown off somewhere and he looked young and carefree. She reached a hand up to stroke his scruffy cheek with tenderness.

He turned his mouth into her palm, then shook his head. “Oh, no, Mrs. Lyons . . . no temptation tonight. Only good old exercise and exhaustion.” He got up and hauled her to her feet. “
Kumme
on.”

“Where?”

“Back up the hill.”

“Up? There?”

“You’re younger than I am. You can do it.”

He pulled her hand and caught up the sled rope, then led her trudging back up the steep slope. Mary collapsed on her damp mound of skirts at the top.

“You—go ahead,” she gasped.

He sat down beside her. “I’ll wait until you catch your breath. You want to know the last time I was sledding—I mean, like this?”

“When?”

“When I was ten. My grandfather took me and held me in front of him. We took a family trip to Vermont and I remember how fast and free and safe it felt to be in his arms and racing down that hill.”

“It’s like the snow globe of Ice Mountain I left behind when I . . .” She trailed off.

“Yeah. I never told you, but my father smashed it—threw it against the wall.”

“What? I’m so sorry. I know how much that connected you to your grandfather. You miss him a great deal, don’t you?”

Jude sighed aloud. “Yeah . . . I do. He tried to teach me what it meant to have a father—a real one. And he was kind . . . a rare person.”

Mary thought about Jude’s dad, his anger and bitterness, and listened to the wind whisper softly through the surrounding pines.

“You know,” she ventured softly, “you might not want to know it, but the Bible says that God puts us in families.”

She sensed him stiffen beside her. “No, I guess I don’t want to know that . . . except that he put me with you.”

“That’s true and I am so happy about that, but your dad . . .”

He reached out and gave her his hand. “Let’s forget about my father for a while. I’d rather kiss your hand again at the bottom of the hill.”

She had to smile and agree.

 

 

“I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning to go to the school—with a sled and horse. It’s a short ride,” Jude promised as he gave her a quick kiss on the cheek at her door
. So I should be able to keep my hands off you . . .

He turned onto the moonlit snow path, dragging the sled behind him. He’d promised to return it to Ben Kauffman’s the next day. As he walked, he thought about his time with Mary and what she’d tentatively said back on the hill:
God puts us in families.
It was almost too much to swallow. He’d written to his mother since she’d told him about the divorce, of course, but he’d had no word from his father—nor did he expect to.

He became aware of a rustling in the bushes along the path and looked up alertly, the idea of a rogue bear denning late foremost in his mind. But to his surprise, another
Amisch
man, in dark coat and hat, stepped from the underbrush.

“Mahlon Mast?” Jude asked, feeling relieved.

“Lyons,” the older man grunted.

“How are you?”

“It’s none of your business.”

“Fine.” Jude started to walk on.

“Hey,” Mast called.

Jude paused. “What?”

“You tell Joseph King he’s making a racket pretty late at your place. I got kids who can hear the hammering and can’t sleep.”

Jude stared at him, trying to piece together what the man had said.

“Joseph . . . my place? You mean my old cabin?”

“Yeah, real
schmart
in the head you are. I heard the deacons voted you in to teacher—a woman’s job.”

Jude shrugged. “Whatever, Mast. But I have three of your
kinner
on my roster, so I expect to see them when school starts.”

“Remember what I say about your
bruder
-in-law. Working that late means there’s more chances than not for an accident to happen to a man.”

“Is that some kind of a threat?”

Mast grunted at him and slipped back into the underbrush, leaving Jude with the distinct feeling that it was growing colder and darker. He set off for the Umbles’ with a faster step.

 

 

Jude’s dreams that night were vivid and erotic. He jerked awake on his narrow bed in the bishop’s spare room to find himself wet with sweat and pulsing with desire for his wife. He pushed the covers away and went to stand barefoot in his black
Amisch
pants near the window he opened. He stared out moodily at the crust of snow on the ground and gave serious consideration to sneaking out and going to see Mary in her bedroom
. But that wouldn’t be very
Amisch
of me, or very honorable . . .

He sighed and grabbed his white shirt from a peg on the wall, deciding to go downstairs and have something to drink.

“Can’t sleep,
sohn
?” the bishop asked when Jude paused on the darkened bottom step to the kitchen.

Jude jumped in spite of himself. “What—do you sit around waiting to startle me when I least expect it?”

The old man laughed and turned up a lantern at the kitchen table. “What troubles you this night?”

“Aha!” The bishop smiled in the mellow light. “It’s counting the days, is it?”

Jude would not give a reply and went to the icebox to find the pitcher of milk. He’d grown used to the taste of raw milk over the summer and poured himself a glass, halfway wishing it was something stronger.

He sat down at the table with reluctance. He wasn’t in the mood to talk, but the bishop seemed a determined man.

“How was the sledding?”

“Fine.”

“And Mary this evening?”

“Equally fine.”
I sound like an errant schoolkid giving up zero information to a parent’s request about my day . . .

“Uh-huh,” the bishop mused. “And you’re so jumpy—why? Not only the counting of the days, I’d imagine?”

“I saw Mahlon Mast tonight coming home,” Jude admitted.

“I hear he’s taken to roaming the woods since Isaac passed. Says he cannot sleep.”

“Well, he gave me a scare and he seemed to be threatening Joseph—Mary’s brother. Something about hammering going on late at my old cabin?”

Jude caught the look in the bishop’s eyes as he ducked his head.

“What?” Jude asked. “Tell me,
sei se gut
.”

The bishop spread his aged hands. “It’s to be a surprise for you. Mary’s planning, you know? She’s got Joseph and Edward and a few others over there expanding the place, getting it ready to be a proper home for the two of you.”

“What? I never thought . . .” Jude groaned in dismay. “That should be my job.”

“Your job is becoming
Amisch
. It doesn’t hurt that Mary wanted a surprise for you. And you’re not to go over there or speak of it . . . agreed?”

Jude took a swig of milk. “Yeah or
jah
. . . all right.”

The bishop laughed. “Something that you should learn about wives,
sohn
—a
gut
one will always be full of surprises!”

Chapter Thirty-Eight

“Well, you’re looking fair this morning, Mary,” Abner King said with a sigh. “Much like yer
mamm
.”

Mary came and looped an arm around her
dat
. “She must have been especially beautiful, then, when she was waiting to see you.”

She was pleased to see his face redden. “
Ach
. . . Mary.
Jah,
I forgot you’re waiting for Jude. It’s the look of love you wear.”

Now it was she who blushed. She gave her
fater
another quick squeeze, then went to put on her bonnet and cloak. She’d loaded a work bucket with pine oil, a brush, and some rags, in case the schoolhouse needed a
gut
scrubbing.

Bear began to bark and she went to the window to see Jude pulling one of the bishop’s horses and a cutter sled up to the front of the cabin.
Together . . . under the quilts . . .
She shivered in anticipation and bid farewell to her father as she went out the door. She left behind a disappointed Bear but didn’t want to risk the dog running about quite yet.

“I would have come in for you.” Jude smiled, hopping down to help her in.

“I’m full of energy this morning,” she confided, handing him the scrub bucket. He fit it in the back of the sled, then climbed in beside her. She delighted in the press of his hard, lean body as he settled the quilts about her.

“I have a plan for today,” he whispered and her heart began to beat faster. “I’m practicing self-discipline.”

“Ach . . .”
she murmured, disappointed.

“Nee
. . . I mean . . . if you’ll agree, I’m allowing myself, er, us, three kisses today. Only three. Is that all right?”

She considered the possibilities. “Anytime?” she breathed. “Anywhere?”

He swallowed and nodded. “Yep.”

“Then I agree.” She settled back in the comfort of the sled with a smile playing about her lips.

 

 

Jude stood inside the doorway of the schoolhouse and surveyed the large, long room. He stepped aside to make room for Mary, who swung her work bucket with a vengeance.

“Cobwebs . . . There hasn’t been a term since spring ended. I think squirrels have been nesting in the corner,” she sniffed.

But to Jude, it was beautiful. “Still smells like a classroom, though,” he said cheerfully, taking in the old-fashioned blackboards and the wooden student desks.

He bent and placed a hard, purposeful kiss on her surprised mouth. “That’s one, sweetheart, because I am so happy to have found something to do for a living on this mountain.”

He watched her take a moment to recover from the surprise of the kiss; then she nudged him with a small elbow. “We could have farmed.”

He laughed out loud and walked over to the large teacher’s desk, then ran a finger over the lectern. “I’d make a bad farmer, Mary. I don’t think I have the patience.”

She gestured to the empty desks. “Yet you’ll grow a crop of
kinner
here and have the patience to help them learn.”

“I never thought of it like that . . . you’d make an excellent teacher yourself.”

He watched her put down the bucket and walk to sit in one of the student desks. “
Ach, nee
. . . I’d rather be your willing pupil, Professor Lyons.”

He felt his body’s response as her voice lowered.
How I love to play with her . . . and what I’d love to teach her . . .

Mingled intimate thoughts drifted across his mind as he adjusted his glasses and leaned an elbow on the lectern.

“Is that so,
Frau
Lyons?”

She nodded, letting her sooty lashes fall against the cream of her cheeks.

He cleared his throat and assumed his most professional manner
. Remember . . . self-discipline. Two kisses left . . . only two.

“Perhaps you might benefit from some private instruction,” he murmured, considering. “But recite for me first what it is that you already know about . . . a kiss.”

She lifted her head and her beautiful hazel eyes took on a luminous faraway look. “A kiss can be as warm as the summer sun, reaching through your dress to heat your skin and leaving you breathless and in need—of cooling.”

Wow . . . I didn’t expect that.
Her words made his mouth sting with sensation and he shifted his weight.
Hold it together, Lyons . . .

“Anything else?” He managed to keep his voice level.

“I’m afraid I need more experience in the matter,” she said with a demure look.

“Yes, well . . . you will step forward, please.”

She came on light feet to stand before the lectern and he saw the soft glow in her eyes, a sleepy sensuality that made him wonder with sudden jealousy if she’d ever kissed anyone but him before.

“And the experience you have had . . . was it . . . with more than one man?” he asked gruffly.

She eyed him with open innocence and he had his answer and felt satisfied and moved at the same time.

“Never mind . . . close your eyes. And keep them closed.”

She squeezed her eyes shut tight like a little girl and he came around the lectern to inch her backward a few steps.

“Relax,” he bent forward to whisper and she stopped squeezing her eyelids and biting her lip. “Now,” he said as if conveying a weighty lecture, “a touch can be a prelude to a kiss. For example . . .” He moved to stand behind her and put a finger on the nape of her neck. “If I trail my hand down the curve of your back and . . . perhaps a bit lower . . . it could mean that I want to touch you with my mouth as well.”

“And do you?” Her voice came out high and breathless as he matched the movement of his hand with his words.

“Ah, patience, Mary . . . you must learn that keeping still and waiting can add to the experience of a kiss. But to answer your question . . .” He dipped his head to breathe in her ear. “
Jah
, I do.”

He smiled when she leaned into his body, clearly expecting that he would close his mouth on the tempting tiny lobe of her ear. But he drew himself up sharply and walked in front of her instead.

“You’re too eager,” he scolded, brushing the back of his hand across the midline of her breasts. “Are you wanting, Mary?”

He watched the pretty flush his touch produced and let his hand slide downward a bit to touch the slight curve of her belly. “Do you feel funny in here? Maybe half pleasure—half pain?”

“J-jah,”
she whispered and put her hands out to come in contact with his chest.

“Ahhh . . . no touching, please. Hands behind your back. Good girl.”

He ran his hand back up her body and put one fingertip to her parted pink lips. “You’re very responsive, and that bodes well for future education, but for now . . .” He tapped her lips. “Open, please, and . . . suck . . . hard.”

I am going to die
, he thought when she obeyed instantly. Her small tongue and mouth drew earnestly on his finger until he had to pull away.

“Good,” he choked. “Very good. I think you’ve earned . . . something to bolster your practice. You may open your eyes and you may kiss me . . . but,” he used his damp finger to lift her chin, “if you cannot make me respond to your mouth, we may have to devise a suitable punishment. So, kiss well . . . but only once.”

 

 

Mary drew a deep breath and stood on her tiptoes, balancing with her hands still behind her back. He looked so stern, so professor-like, but she saw the sleepy warmth of his blue eyes before he lowered his thick lashes.

One kiss . . . one kiss to make him respond.
It was a bold challenge, and she focused with determination on his mouth. She realized that he didn’t give instruction on how long the kiss could be and decided to use that omission to her advantage. Then she stared up at him and considered . . .
He expects me to be soft and gentle, but what if I kiss him like he’s kissed me—deep and hard?
The thought was heady and made that funny ache he’d described in her belly burn more fiercely. She slammed her mouth into his, causing him to start backward, but she followed, not breaking contact with the firm line of his lips. She slanted her head and increased the pressure, running the tip of her tongue against his closed mouth back and forth, again and again, until, with a hoarse sound from the back of his throat, he opened his lips to her, as if against his will. She kissed him with triumph, a long, sultry play that melted his composure and had him gasping as if he’d run a mile in a snow-filled field. When she had to stop to breathe, she stepped back, her heart pounding, and she knew she had succeeded. Whatever he’d experienced in the past, whether with Carol or whoever, she doubted he’d been as undone by a kiss as he was now.

“How was that, Professor Lyons?” she purred in low tones.

He glared at her fiercely, then straightened his glasses and gasped for breath, his pupils large and dilated. Then he gave her a wicked smile and bowed his head in acknowledgment. “A-plus,
Frau
Lyons. An A-plus in oral deportment.”

Mary pulled her hands from behind her back and resisted the urge to clap. Instead, she turned, then flung him a saucy look over her shoulder as she picked up her wash bucket. “We’d better hurry, Jude. We can’t spend all day kissing when you’ve got a school to prepare.”

She laughed out loud and ducked when he threw an eraser her way, then started busily on wiping down the desks, a song in her heart.

 

 

Jude could barely think straight. He felt as though he was moving outside of himself, watching his body sweep and mend and clean the schoolroom—and the feeling had nothing to do with his sugar levels. He wished it did, though, so that he could get over the strange sensation that he was powerless when his wife chose to kiss him the way she had.

“I think we need a coat of paint on this back wall,” he said aloud, abruptly breaking into his own thoughts and startling Mary as she was washing the blackboards. “Yes, paint,” he went on. “Yellow.”

“All right.”

She was looking at him as if he’d gone off the deep end.
But if I don’t get out of this torture chamber with her, our first time is going to be on a dusty wood plank floor, and I’ll never be able to teach here without thinking of her and . . .

“Let’s go.” He dropped the broom he held with a clatter and scooped up her bonnet, handing it to her. “We’ll go to Ben Kauffman’s; he’s sure to have paint. And yellow is cheerful, right?”

He hustled her out to the sled, untied the bishop’s horse, and set the cutter into quick motion.

“Are you all right?” he heard her venture when he’d started to whistle to distract himself from her delicate scent.

He stopped whistling. “I’m fine, really.”
Liar . . .

He couldn’t think of anything sensible to say, so he was silent with his thoughts until they arrived at Ben’s store. The front of the building was crowded, as usual, and he found a length of post to tie up the horse and then reached to swing Mary out of the sled.

Do it now
, his mind whispered
. Right . . . one kiss . . . in public . . . no problem.
He let her slight form slide against his as he eased her to the ground, then bent his head to kiss her. He was unprepared for the gentle arms that twined about his neck in response and the soft sound she made when his lips touched hers. He groaned against her mouth and forgot that they were standing in front of a busy store. His hands found the curve of her back of their own accord and he rocked his weight against her so that they were pressed against the side of the sled. He felt her push her hips against him and everything was lost.

“Don’t,” he moaned softly. “Dear
Gott
, don’t move, Mary.”

“But I can’t help it,” she breathed.

He caught the ridge of the sled with his bare hands, gripping it painfully hard. “Oh, Mary . . . I want . . . do you think . . .”

“Hey, not in front of my store, you two!”

Jude felt as if he’d been doused in a bucket of ice water as the sound of Ben Kauffman’s cheerful voice broke the moments of intimacy with his wife. Jude lifted his head slowly to see Ben grinning at him from the porch of the store. Then he realized that interested faces were pressed against the front glass windows and he shielded Mary with his body and rolled his eyes.

“What do the
Englischers
say?” Ben laughed. “Get a room?
Ach
, but you two are still courting . . . I must say I’ve never seen it done that way before.”

Jude threw him a sour look and found his voice. “We’ve come for yellow paint.”

“Uh-huh,” Ben called. “You’ve come for something.”

Jude straightened Mary’s bonnet and decorously offered her his arm. She took it and he was happy to see that she looked flushed but amused by the whole scene.

Then he led her up the steps and past the jovial storekeeper and myriad smiles and whispers of customers as he found his way, mercifully, to the paint section.

 

 

“Professor Lyons, wait!” One of Ben Kauffman’s sons, Daniel, who made the run to the bottom of the mountain for the mail every few days, caught up with them breathlessly as they finally left the crowded store.

“A letter for you.”

“
Danki
, Dan.” Jude took the envelope, recognizing his mother’s handwriting.

He smiled at the boy and turned to tuck Mary into the cutter. Then he decided on impulse to open the letter instead of waiting until later. He read the brief missive with increasing surprise, then turned to Mary.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.