Temptation (A Temptation Novel) (29 page)

18

Noah

Expectations

I WATCHED THE
bat flutter in the moonlight on light wings until it escaped out the window near the stairway. I was alone again, left with my embittered thoughts in the darkness of the hayloft. It hadn’t been gloomy yesterday when Rose was here with me. The entire loft seemed to suddenly glow when she appeared. Even though I was planning to be reserved during the encounter, I couldn’t help going to her and wrapping her in my arms.

And as usual, her warm, sweet body was all too receptive. Surely we were meant to be together. How could we both feel such intense emotions toward each other if we weren’t destined to be man and wife?

But now my entire life rested on her shoulders, and the feeling of helplessness overwhelmed me. What would she decide? Would Father and Mother be right after all? Maybe Rose wouldn’t be willing to leave her cushy existence to be with me. A part of me could hardly blame her for it, if that’s what she decided. Amish women worked much harder than ordinary English women. She would also go from the freedom of being able to do just about anything she wanted, to a strict set of rules to follow and live by. Hell, I didn’t even know if Rose could follow rules, even if she was willing to become Amish.

She was so irritatingly stubborn and outspoken. Last night was the first time I’d felt real anger toward her. I wanted to grip her shoulders and shake some sense into her, make her understand that the best thing for both of us would be if she became Amish. But as much as I wanted to do it, I couldn’t physically force her to submit to me. And if she wasn’t willing to become Amish to be with me, then what good would it do for me to run off and be English with her? In the English world, there would be so many forces at work to make our relationship more difficult. Like her going off places whenever she wanted to or dressing in her tight clothing. I couldn’t deal with all that. I didn’t want to. I knew, deep down, that leaving my community would be a disaster for the two of us.

Another idea had briefly penetrated my brain—getting her with child. My folks and her dad would be forced to allow us to marry. But Rose probably wasn’t ready for a baby yet, and besides, it would have to be a decision that we made together.

Thoughts raced through my mind while I sat on the hay bale waiting for her to show up and tell me what my future was going to be. And damn, it was hard just sitting there waiting. I arrived an hour early, too strung up to lie in bed a minute longer. I was extremely paranoid as I made my way out of the house and through the damp field earlier.

I noticed Sam’s truck was in the driveway, but Dr. Cameron’s car was missing. What if she couldn’t get past Sam to come to the barn? I sighed. I’d just have to go in after her. There was no way I was leaving tonight without an answer. Whether it was good or bad, I needed to know.

The shuffling on the stairway warned me she was coming up, and my heart started to race uncontrollably. I held my breath waiting for her to step into the moonlight. When she did, I was struck with how young and fragile she looked, standing there timid and alone, like a deer who’d picked up the scent of the hunter. She was frozen in fear.

Again, unable to resist her, I leaped from the hay and closed the distance swiftly. Within a second, she was in my arms, where she belonged. I held her like that in a tight embrace for some time before her sniffling told me she was crying again.

She did an awful lot of crying, I reckoned. I wondered if that would change once we were married. The direction my mind had immediately gone made me breathe out suddenly. I smiled at my confidence in her decision now that I had a hold of her. Hearing the noise, she leaned back to look up at me.

Her little face was wet with tears and her hair was a mess. Still, she was the most beautiful girl in the world. Without any thought, I dropped my head and kissed her swollen lips. Her mouth parted and a gasp jumped from my throat as she slid her tongue into my mouth forcefully. We had really caught on to the whole kissing thing quickly. I was always stunned at how her mouth moving on mine made me feel.

I was almost lost to the pleasurable sensations once again, until that little voice in my head started pestering me about her decision. Breaking my mouth from hers, I quickly led her back to the hay, and into the darkness, guiding her up to the place we had sat the night before.

“Did you have any problem getting out of your house tonight?” That wasn’t the question I needed to ask, but I was warming up to it slowly.

“It was tricky—Sam is asleep on the couch with the TV on. I had to tiptoe by him, but I don’t think he’ll wake up.” Her voice sounded strange, guarded in a way. “What about you?” she asked in the same polite voice.

“Went like clockwork.”

I could feel her head bob up and down next to me. She hadn’t made any attempt to get in my lap, the way she usually did. I was feeling greater apprehension when I asked gently, “Rose…what have you decided?”

In a surprising huff she blurted out, “It’s not fair that I have to make this kind of choice before I’ve even entered my junior year of high school.”

With an angry sigh, I leaned back against the hay. She sounded as if she was throwing a temper tantrum about something she didn’t want to do. How was I going to convince her to do what I wanted when she was behaving like a child?

Struggling to stay patient with her, I said firmly, “You’re not a little kid. In a lot of cultures, you’d already be married with a baby in your arms by now.”

“Maybe in some primitive tribe in the middle of Africa—but not here in twenty-first-century America!” she contradicted icily.

“You forget, I don’t exactly live in the twenty-first century.” I laughed cynically into the darkness.

“Oh…yeah,” she breathed quietly.

She was really getting to me. I asked harshly, “What’s your decision?”

“Um—I’m not really sure yet…” Her voice trailed off.

“That’s not an answer,” I accused. In desperation, I decided to use all the tricks I had to tempt her into saying what I wanted to hear.

Leaning down, I softly caressed her jaw with my lips, wandering my mouth to the beating pulse of her neck and lingering there for a few seconds before working my way back up to her mouth. My actions were affecting me, too. I let the tingling sensations roll over me at the same time I tried to convince Rose that she belonged with me.

She was all too willing, and before I knew it, I had pushed her down on the hay and was pressing my body into her. I wanted to get closer, much closer. The crazy thought I had earlier flashed into my mind. When she groaned into my mouth, I became suddenly aware that if I didn’t stop right then, there’d be no turning back. In an abrupt motion, I pulled away from her and sat up. I smiled when I heard her disappointed murmur, and reaching down, I lifted her up and onto my lap, where she belonged.

“That was nice.” She sighed peacefully.

I couldn’t stay angry with her for long. She always said the cutest things.

“You know, Rose, that’s the way it would be for us every night—if we were married.” She was my entire life, and I showed no mercy trying to get her to agree.

“I know. And that would be amazing for sure.”

“Then what’s the problem? Please tell me,” I begged.

“Noah, I don’t think my dad will go for it. He expects me to go to college. If I told him that I was converting to Amish-hood and getting married at sixteen, he’d probably kill me.”

She had a point, but I still plowed on. “We would wait until you were seventeen to get married, giving us a reasonably long courtship. You said yourself that he’s preoccupied with his own girlfriend.”

“Not that preoccupied!” she chirped.

As a last-ditch effort I went down the road I had vowed not to. In a coarse voice I suggested, “Maybe if your father thought you were pregnant he’d agree.”

“My dad’s a doctor, Noah. I couldn’t fool him about something like that.” She stopped speaking abruptly, and comprehension must have dawned on her, because she shrieked, “Are you kidding?”

“No—I mean, they’ll have to agree to a wedding, and what’s the difference if the baby is born after we’re married anyway?” It seemed logical enough when I said it like that, but I could tell she wasn’t buying it when she jerked off my lap and sat close—not touching me.

I could feel the tension coming from her. I was confused that she was so upset about my suggestion. Her voice darted out of the darkness, “Noah, I am in no way, shape or form ready to have a baby. So don’t even go there.”

“But you’re the one who’s been so eager to go all the way,” I accused, my own anger building steadily.

“No, I haven’t. I just like kissing. There’s a big difference between making out and trying to get pregnant to force our parents to let us be together!” she thundered. Briefly, I worried someone might hear her, but I was too caught up in my own emotions to care much.

“I don’t see any other way for us to be together. So if you don’t want to try that option, and you don’t want to become Amish…then I guess it’s over between us.” I didn’t want to say it, definitely not with the venom that I’d used. But damn it, I wanted to wake her up and scare her.

After an unbearably long moment, she felt for my hand and finding it, pulled it up to her lips. She kissed my palm so softly. My skin hardly felt it at all, but the tiny nerves below did, and they went crazy.

“I love you, Noah… I do, really, but…I can’t marry you…not right now. I’m too young and…stupid for that kind of commitment. I’m so sorry.” She stuttered the words out, sniffing and wiping tears away the entire time.

Shocked, I watched her scramble away over the hay, across the loft and down the stairs without looking back. My heart was tight and I had a difficult time drawing in a breath of air as the realization dawned on me that I’d lost Rose forever.

19

Rose

Not Alone

I RAN THROUGH
the house not caring about any noise I was making. When I reached the bed, I couldn’t remember the trip across the yard or up the stairs to my room. The only thing in my mind was Noah—and the look he gave me when I told him that I wouldn’t join his world. The memory of the devastation on his face was crushing what was left of my heart. As I cried into my pillow, I kept wishing over and over that Noah was not Amish.

I heard the rap on the door but ignored it. It didn’t matter now who knew about me sneaking off in the night—nothing mattered at all.

When Sam’s voice spoke close to my head, I wasn’t surprised. “Damn it, Rose, what the hell’s going on now?”

I turned my face on the wet pillow and breathed out in exhaustion. I felt as if I’d run a mile-long race, and I had to blink several times before Sam’s face and bushy hair came into view clearly.

“It’s really over.” I sniffed, trying desperately to control my voice from cracking. “I told Noah I wouldn’t become Amish.”

Sam’s face was tight with concentration, as if he was angry that I had even considered doing such a thing. But then his face relaxed, and he came off his knees and sat on the bed beside me. When his arms extended toward me, the tears came freely from my eyes again and I rose up, letting him pull me into a hug. Sam patted my back awkwardly and maybe a little too hard, but I didn’t care. I was just happy that I wasn’t alone.

“I wish Mom were here to handle this. But, I guess, since she’s not, I’ll have to fill in for her,” Sam mumbled near my ear, and I pulled back and looked up at him to see his own eyes glistening in the moonlight from the window.

Somehow, seeing Sam all torn up about Mom pulled me together, and I was able to speak again. “If Mom hadn’t died, I’d never even have met Noah. She’d never have allowed Daddy to move us out here.”

“Oh, I don’t know ’bout that. Mom had an adventurous spirit. And she always wanted to see Dad happy. She might have gone for it. But then again, if she hadn’t died, Dad probably would have been content to stay where we were.”

The fact that Sam hadn’t cracked a joke or said something rude yet made me even more thoughtful. I leaned back against the pillow, finally able to breathe normally again. The threat of tears was still present, but a strange calm came over me.

Sam and I sat in silence for several more minutes, both lost in our own thoughts, when I looked back at him and asked, “Are you happy here, Sam?”

“Oh, it’s all right, I guess. I mean, I miss our friends back in Cincinnati, but it’s also exciting to meet new people. I’m looking forward to my senior year and playing ball here. I’ll be able to help the little school’s country team win a few games.”

Sam’s arrogance made me feel lighter—as if things were the way they should be.

“Do you miss her?” I said, knowing that I didn’t need to say her name to him.

He sighed heavily. “Yeah, of course. But I think she’d want us to stick together as a family, Rose. She’s probably smiling down right now.”

Yes, I believed she was. Even though my heart was broken and I felt as if all the life was leaking out of me, I also could feel the peacefulness creeping in that Mom always created when she was beside me.

I reached over and squeezed Sam’s hand. He was right—as long as we stuck together, everything would be all right.