A Plain Love Song (17 page)
“It’s time. At least I think it is.”
“Gott’s time.”
“I know. I know.”
“That girl Elizabeth, she likes you.”
Matthew avoided his grandfather’s steely gaze. “How can you tell?”
“Ain’t you learned nothing about girls? She follows you around with a plate of cookies from the time you come in from the fields to the time you turn in.”
“She offers cookies to everyone.”
“You aren’t the sharpest tool in the shed, boy.”
“Groossdaadi.”
He cackled. “She ain’t the one, then.”
“The one what?”
“The one you been mooning over night and day.”
“I’m not mooning—”
“Ain’t nobody can figure this out but you. Some folks will try, but you can’t listen to them.”
“I know.”
Groossdaadi thumped his chest with both hands. “You figure it out in here.” He smacked his forehead. “Not up here.”
“Jah.”
“See that you don’t forget it.”
“How did you know Groossmammi was the one?”
“I just told you.” Using Matthew’s shoulder as a leaning post, he hauled himself to his feet, his knees popping and cracking. “My heart told me. I could no more choose another than I could cut off my feet and walk around on stumps. Your mudder was the only one for me. I got a hankering for some ice cream.”
Matthew stared up at him. “You mean my groossmammi, she was the only one for you.”
“Get a move on then, before all the ice cream is eaten or melted.” He rubbed his back with one hand. “I’m getting too old to sit on the ground. Let’s go. The way you love ice cream, Aaron, I figured you’d be first in line.”
Groossdaadi was gone again. Still, his advice remained good. Matthew knew what his heart was telling him. What was Adah’s heart telling her?
A
dah clucked the reins, urging Dusty to a steady trot. He snorted and whinnied his disapproval. The horse wanted to head home, she was sure of it, not in the opposite direction toward the pond on the Harts’ property. She had equally mixed feelings about her destination. Jackson had been out with his father on Monday and today he had been nowhere in sight when she cleaned his family’s house from top to bottom, moving quickly from room to room, dusting, sweeping, mopping, emptying trash cans, cleaning windows and mirrors. She’d been careful not to shirk any of the tasks. She didn’t want her work to suffer because of what she was about to do.
Or not do.
She’d told herself as she cleaned that she would declare to Jackson how sorry she was, but it had been a mistake to accept the iPod and play his guitar. True, she’d listened to the playlist over and over. She lay in bed long into the night, letting the voices captivate her. Patsy Cline’s “Blue,” Loretta Lynn’s “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” Dolly Parton’s “Coat of Many Colors,” and June Carter Cash’s “Ring of Fire.” Beautiful songs that resonated with her musically and in the lyrics. She found herself humming the tunes as she worked in the garden, mouthing the lyrics as she took laundry from the lines and whispering the words as she kneaded bread dough. More than once she’d caught Mudder staring
at her, an alarmed look on her face. She said nothing, but her expression didn’t bode well.
Jackson had given her songs by male singers too. Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, Garth Brooks, Toby Keith, Alan Jackson, and her favorite, George Strait. Listening to Johnny Cash and George Strait made her think of Matthew and his little jokes the last time he’d shone a flashlight in her window. It seemed ages ago. So much had happened since then. The Gringriches. His grandparents. Jackson.
Jackson.
He’d also included a duet. Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash singing “Jackson.”
He had a sense of humor, Jackson did.
She couldn’t help but like his brazen full-tilt way of going after the things he wanted. She’d been taught not to do that. Every day for as long as she could remember. Daed had resorted to the woodshed when necessary to tame her stubborn streak. That’s what he called it. Jackson would call it
pluck
or
standing up for herself
or some such thing.
She shouldn’t let Jackson come between her and life as a Plain woman. Or between her and Matthew. She would end it now. She only came because it would be impolite not to show up if Jackson was waiting for her.
Maybe he hadn’t come. Maybe he realized this was all a silly flight of fancy. Maybe his daed had put him to work now that his ankle was almost healed. Maybe, maybe.
The buggy crested the hill and a huge silver monster of a pickup truck with shiny chrome and big tires came into view. It was parked next to the pond under the shade of a tall, sprawling sycamore, all the doors open. Music wafted on the air toward Adah, showering her in sweet notes. She pulled up on the reins and gathered her courage to her, like a shield she hoped would protect her from herself.
“Whoa, Dusty. Whoa.” She hopped from the buggy, tied the reins around a tree, and strode to the truck, whispering to herself the instructions she’d given the horse. “Whoa, Adah, whoa. Stop. Just stop.”
“You talking to yourself?” Jackson popped up from the bed of the
truck, a cigarette dangling between his fingers. “Or did you bring company?”
She jumped and slapped her hand on her heart, pulse racing like a cat chasing a mouse. Or maybe she was the mouse being chased. “Don’t you know cigarettes are bad for you?” She said the first words that came to her mind. “They’ll kill you.”
He took a drag from the cigarette and sent it sailing toward the lake with a snap of his thumb and forefinger. “What are you, my doctor?”
“I just don’t understand why people do things that are bad for them.”
“You came here, didn’t you?”
She had no response for that. With a loud hoot, Jackson slapped his hat on his head and eased over the side of the truck. He landed on his good leg, only a trace of a grimace as he put his weight on the other one with his ankle now encased in a short black canvas brace. His now familiar scent of aftershave mixed with tobacco enveloped her. She breathed it in deep in spite of herself. Captain woofed, jumped from the truck, and proceeded to hobble in a circle around her, tail wagging all the while.
“Settle down, Cap, settle down before you scare her off.”
Captain halted his spin and squatted next to Adah, but his tail continued to beat a pattern on the ground. Jackson looked as eager as his companion. If he’d had a tail to wag, it would have been a blur. “Did you like the music on the iPod?”
“I did.”
“I knew you would.”
“Especially the duet.”
“I figured.”
“You’re funny.”
“I like to make you smile, Amish girl. You have a beautiful smile.”
Feeling as if she were all arms and legs and big feet and hands, Adah stood still, barely breathing. She wanted to break the gaze that held between them, but found she couldn’t, so mesmerized was she by the man before her. He grinned, his smile like frosting on the cake. The silence reverberated between them. Jackson ducked his head first, his
gaze shifting to the pond. “It’s a beautiful day, Amish girl. Especially now that you’re here. I wasn’t sure you’d come.”
“I didn’t intend to come.” She found the courage to look up. He wore a blue Western-style shirt with snap buttons and a collar. She’d never seen him in a real shirt before. Jeans as usual, even in this heat. His feet, however, were bare. Back to his face. It was safer. “But I couldn’t stand the thought of you here waiting for me and me not showing up. It would be rude.”
“And you’re too nice to be rude?”
“I try to be nice.”
“You are nice.” He swiveled and pulled a guitar from the truck bed. It was different from the one she’d touched the previous week. The finish was blonder and the half circle near the center a darker brown. “That’s why—one of the reasons why—I brought you this.”
He offered it with a flourish. She backed up, her hand creeping up to her neck. “For me? Are you trying to give it to me?”
“So you can practice. It’s my old guitar, the first one I ever owned. Grandpa Hart gave it to me when I was six years old. God rest his soul. He knew before my parents ever figured it out that I had the musical gene.”
“Gene?”
“My Grandma Hart did some singing. She even sang backup for some bands at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville way back when.”
She’d read about Nashville. The birthplace of country music. “I can’t take your guitar.”
“Just borrow it.” He held it out again. “So you can practice.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not? As a loan, if a gift is too much.”
“I can’t because I can’t take it home.” She hated to say the words aloud. He wouldn’t understand. The sound of the iPod being crushed under Daed’s boot reverberated in her ears. What would he do with a guitar? Dismantle it? Bury it? “My parents won’t let me have it in the house. If they see it, they’ll have to throw it away.”
“That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.” He propped the guitar
against the truck, its sheen glinting in the sun. “I don’t get it. I don’t get them and I don’t get you for going along with it.”
“I know you don’t get it.” Adah looked out at the water, shimmering in the brilliant afternoon sun. A dragonfly buzzed her ear. Crickets creaked and a bullfrog sounded his horn. A concert of a different kind. The kind that wouldn’t get her in trouble. “I don’t expect you to understand, but I came here to tell you I can’t do this.”
Jackson slapped his hat back on his head, his jaw set. “Why did you let me give you a lesson in the first place?”
“Because I love music and you won’t understand this either, but we have something called…rumspringa, which means when we turn sixteen we have a time when we try things out and we decide if we want to be baptized. I’m still in my rumspringa. I haven’t been baptized. Yet. That’s the only reason I’m here today. The only reason I tried the guitar the other day. I’m allowed to do that.”
“You’re allowed to try things out?”
“Yes, so that I know for sure I want to join our faith and reject worldly ways for the rest of my life.”
“And if you don’t want it?”
“Then I leave my community and make my way in the Englisch world.”
“Leave your family?”
“Yes. For good.”
Jackson tugged a pack of gum from his shirt pocket and proceeded to unwrap a stick, his gaze fixed on the paper. “That’s a no-win situation. It’s not fair.”
“It’s not about fair. It’s about living a godly life apart from the world.”
He didn’t look convinced, which didn’t surprise Adah. She found it hard to understand too and she’d lived it her whole life. Jackson stuck the gum in his mouth and chewed hard. “So you have to choose between music and your family?”
“Not all music. We have music. In church and we sing songs while we work.” She nodded toward the guitar. “Just not that kind of music, and not with instruments.”
“My kind of music, you mean. You have to choose between me and your life.”
“Yes.”
“So choose me.” He shifted so he stood tall, looming over her, his face close, a look on his face that Adah recognized. She’d seen it on Matthew’s face. “Choose me.”
She took another step back, yet the distance between them seemed to shrink. The air hummed with anticipation. “I hardly know you.”
“It doesn’t feel that way.” He brushed past her—to her relief—and limped toward the pond, turned, and limped back. The hum grew. “We have a connection. You can’t tell me you don’t feel it.”
“I don’t feel it.” Teetering on the brink of an abyss filled with uncertainty and the unknown, she did feel it. “I can’t. I mustn’t.”
“There’s a difference between can’t and won’t.” His tone rasped with disappointment he made no attempt to hide. “Give yourself a chance. Give the music a chance. Give us a chance.”
“There is no us.”
“There could be.” He grabbed the guitar and held it out, within her reach. “Even if you don’t want something more with me, I know you want the music. It’s written all over your face every time you get near me. At least take the chance with the music. You don’t have to take the guitar home.”
She stared at the guitar and then at Jackson. He nodded, his face full of something she couldn’t decipher. “Please, take it.”
“Am I a challenge to you?”
“What?”
“Your sister said you liked a challenge.”
“RaeAnne was just mad about Dani Jo. She’s a good friend.”
“She’s also your sister.”
“Yeah, but we don’t always get along. She shouldn’t have stuck her nose in my business.” He held out the guitar a second time. “I promise, you’re not some girl I’m chasing because I can’t have you.”
Despite her best intentions, Adah accepted his offering. The songs crowded her, begging her to play them. The songs forced her hand, not him.
Leaving her no chance to change her mind, Jackson grabbed her arm and propelled her around the end of the truck. Without so much as a by-your-leave, he hoisted her onto the bed and scrambled up next to her. Captain turned in a circle twice and flopped down in the grass, his tongue lolling from the side of his mouth. Adah was certain the dog was grinning at her.
