Plain and Fancy Read online

  Mary Ellen dropped into the chair beside her husband with a groan. “I’m talking about Laura Meade. She was looking for Eli.”

  “What’d you tell her?”

  “Said he was out in the barn, in his shop.” She pursed her lips. “Couldn’t hardly lie now, could I?”

  Johnny shook his head. “No, but you could have sent her packing.”

  “I’d like to think Eli will tell her to leave, but I’m not holding my breath on that one, either.”

  Johnny set his cup down and reached for her hand. “We need to keep on praying and trusting that God will open our son’s eyes.”

  She nodded. “Jah, but that’s easier said than done.”

  ***

  When Eli pulled his sleigh into the open area near the lake, Laura was surprised to see that it was covered with a thick layer of shimmering ice. She thought it was even more appealing than it had been in the fall, and she drank in the beauty of the surrounding trees, dressed in frosty white gowns and shimmering in the morning sun like thousands of tiny diamonds.

  They took a seat on a fallen log, and Eli helped Laura into his sister’s skates, which were only a tad too big.

  “If I ever get the chance to meet your sister, I’ll have to be sure and thank her for the use of these skates.”

  “I’ll thank her for you.” Eli grinned. “You’d like Martha Rose. She’s the best sister any fellow could possibly want, and we’ve been good friends since we were kinner.” He stood and held out his hand. “Should we give those skates a try?”

  “Jah, let’s do.”

  Hand in hand, they made their way slowly around the lake. After a time, Eli set off on his own, doing fancy spins and figure eights.

  Laura shielded her eyes against the glare of the sun as she watched in rapt fascination, realizing with each passing moment how much she really had come to love Eli. She tried skating by herself, but it was hard to concentrate on anything except the striking figure he made on the ice.

  Her heart hammered in her chest when Eli waved and offered her a flirtatious wink. He wore a pair of black pants, a light blue shirt, and a dark gray woolen jacket. He had removed his black felt hat, and his sandy brown hair whipped against his face as he appeared to become one with the wind.

  Laura decided to try and catch up to Eli, hoping she could convince him to take a break so they could talk. She needed to tell him what was in her heart.

  Pushing off quickly with her right foot, she lost her balance and fell hard on the ice. Eli was at her side immediately, his blue eyes looking ever so serious. “Are you okay? You didn’t break anything, I hope.”

  “My knee hurts, but I don’t think my leg’s broken.”

  Laura shivered as Eli pulled up her pant leg and gently probed her knee. “It looks like a bad sprain. You probably should put some ice on it.”

  She giggled. “I think I just did.”

  Eli helped Laura to her feet and put his arm around her waist as she hobbled over to the sleigh. “I’d better get you back to my place so you can rest that knee and get out of the cold.”

  Impulsively, Laura gripped Eli’s shoulders with both hands and kissed him on the cheek.

  His face flushed, and he smiled at first, but then he jerked back like he’d been stung by a bee. “Wh–why’d you do that?”

  “Just my way of saying thanks for being such a good friend.”

  His gaze dropped to the ground, and an awkward silence followed as Eli helped her into the sleigh. She wondered if she had said or done something wrong.

  “I—I think it would be best if we didn’t see each other anymore,” he mumbled as he picked up the reins.

  “Why? Haven’t you enjoyed yourself today?”

  He nodded soberly. “That’s the problem: I had too good of a time.”

  Her hand trembled as she touched his arm. “I don’t see how enjoying yourself can be a problem.”

  “I told you once that I wanted to be your friend, but now things have changed.”

  “How?” Her voice rose, and her heart started to pound. “Why?”

  “I can’t be your friend because I’ve fallen in love with you, Laura.” He didn’t look at her, just stared straight ahead.

  “Oh, Eli, I love you, too!” She buried her face in his jacket, relishing the warmth and his masculine smell.

  “What we feel for each other isn’t right,” he mumbled. “It feels right to me.”

  “It won’t work for us. I think we need to end this before we both get hurt.”

  “Nothing could hurt worse than never seeing you again,” Laura said with a catch in her voice. “We can be together if we want it badly enough.”

  He eased her gently away. “I don’t see how.”

  “You could leave the Amish faith. You’re not a member yet, so you won’t be shunned, and when we both feel ready for marriage—”

  Eli’s eyebrows arched. “Marriage? Are you saying you want to marry me?”

  Laura swallowed hard. Was that what she was saying? Did she really love Eli, or was he simply a prize she wanted and thought was out of her reach?

  “After we’ve dated awhile, we might be ready for marriage,” she amended.

  Eli sat there several seconds, staring at the reins in his hands. “The only reason I haven’t joined the church yet is because I was waiting until I felt ready for marriage.”

  “Wh–what are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that despite my feelings for you, I don’t believe I could be happy living and working as an Englisher.”

  “Why not?”

  “To my way of thinking, a newborn calf, freshly plowed soil, and the ripening of grain are all manifestations of God’s power. Farming to many Amish men in this area isn’t just a job, it’s a way of life blessed by God and handed down from one generation to another. If I left the Amish faith or moved away from God, I wouldn’t feel like a whole person anymore.”

  She grasped the collar of his jacket and gazed at his handsome face. “I’m not asking you to leave God. You can worship Him in any church. I’m only asking you to give up your Plain lifestyle so we can be together.”

  “Could you give up your modern way of life to become Plain?”

  She shook her head. “I—I don’t think so. It would be too hard for me to adjust.”

  “Exactly. While it is possible for outsiders to join the Amish community, it seldom happens because it would be too big of a change.” Eli leaned away from her. Snapping the reins, he shouted, “Giddap there, boy. It’s time to go!”

  Laura’s eyes stung with unshed tears. As the horse moved forward and the sleigh began to glide across the snow, she felt as though her whole world had fallen apart.

  Why wouldn’t Eli listen to reason? What had gone wrong with her plan?

  ***

  Eli gripped the reins so hard his fingers ached. I wish I’d never met Laura. I should have never invited her to take that first ride in my courting buggy. I was stupid for asking her to go skating with me this morning, too. It only made both of us hope for the impossible.

  As much as Eli hated to admit it, he had come to care for Laura, but he didn’t think he could give up his way of life in order to marry her. At the same time, he knew it would be impossible for her to give up the only way of life she had ever known to be with him.

  They rode in silence all the way back to his house, and when Eli guided the sleigh into the yard, Laura leaned close to him, sending shivers up the back of his neck. “Won’t you at least think about what I said earlier? Maybe there’s a reason you haven’t joined the church yet. Maybe we’re supposed to be together.”

  Eli shook his head as he swallowed around the lump in his throat. “We’ve let this go on too long, Laura. You and I both know that neither of us could be happy living in the other person’s world. So the best thing is for us to say goodbye now, before one or both of us get hurt.”

  Tears filled Laura’s eyes, and Eli was tempted to pull her into his arms and kiss them away. Instead, he
stepped out of the sleigh and skirted around to the other side to help her down. Laura leaned down and picked up Martha Rose’s skates. “Tell your sister I said thanks for giving me the opportunity to spend a few more hours with you before we had to say good-bye.”

  “Jah, I will.”

  “And you were right, Eli. It wouldn’t have worked for us.” Before Eli could respond, she hopped down without his assistance and limped toward her car. Every fiber of Eli’s being screamed at him to go after her, but reason won out. He turned his attention toward the horse, vowing that no matter what it took, he would forget he had ever met a fancy English woman named Laura Meade.

  CHAPTER 13

  January and February were cold ... so cold and dreary Laura thought she would die. It wasn’t just the weather making her feel that way, either. Her heart was broken because Eli had rejected her. If he really cared, he should have agreed to leave his world and join hers.

  Two months had passed since their final good-bye, but Laura still longed for something she couldn’t have. Visions of the happy times they had spent together danced through her mind. Losing Eli hurt so much, and she couldn’t seem to do anything to ease the pain. Shopping for new clothes didn’t help. Throwing herself into her studies made no difference. Even an occasional binge on hot-fudge sundaes and chocolate milkshakes did nothing to make her feel better. The barrage of e-mails and phone calls from Dean Carlson didn’t soothe Laura’s troubled spirit, either. She cared nothing for Dean, and she told him so.

  As winter moved into spring, Laura finally began to move on with her life. At least she thought she was moving on until one of her teachers gave the class an assignment, asking each student to decorate a bedroom using something handmade by the Amish as a focal point.

  Laura had her Amish quilt ... the one she’d purchased at the farmers’ market the first day she’d met Eli. However, when she and Eli broke off their relationship, she had boxed up the quilt and sent it home, unable to look at it any longer. She supposed she could call Mom and ask her to mail it back, but the assignment was due early next week, and there wasn’t enough time for that. There was only one logical thing to do—go to the farmers’ market and buy another quilt.

  ***

  “If you can spare a few minutes, I’d like to talk to you about Laura.”

  Wesley halted in front of his office door and turned to face Dean. “What about her?”

  Dean nodded toward the office. “Can we talk in there?”

  “I guess so.” Wesley stepped into the room and motioned to one of the leather chairs near his desk. “Have a seat.”

  Dean sat down, and Wesley took a seat in the larger chair behind the desk. “Now what did you want to say about my daughter?”

  “I was wondering if you’d heard anything from her lately.” “Laura calls at least once a week, and we get e-mails nearly every day. Why do you ask?”

  Dean rubbed his fingers along the edge of his chin and grimaced. “She won’t answer my phone calls or any of my e-mails.”

  “Any idea why?”

  “She turned off to me the night of the New Year’s Eve party and wouldn’t even let me take her home when she said she wasn’t feeling well.”

  Wesley leaned forward with his elbows on the desk. “So you’ve had no contact with her since she went back to Pennsylvania?”

  “Just one phone call, and she told me she didn’t want to see me again.”

  “Then I guess you’d better take Laura at her word. She’s a lot like her mother in many respects.”

  “How so?”

  “Once my daughter makes up her mind about something, there’s no changing it.”

  “Has she found someone else? Is that the problem?”

  Wesley shrugged. “You’ll have to ask her that question.” He motioned to the door. “Now if you don’t mind, I have work to do, and I’m sure you do, as well.”

  Dean stood. “The next time you talk to Laura, would you give her a message for me?”

  “That all depends on what the message is.”

  “Tell her I’m not giving up on us, and when she finally comes to her senses, I’ll be here waiting.”

  Before Wesley could respond, Dean sauntered out of the room.

  “I’ll give Laura a message all right,” Wesley mumbled. “I’ll tell her the best thing she ever did was drop you flat on your ear.” He tapped the end of his pen against the desk a couple of times. “If you weren’t such a crackerjack lawyer, I’d drop you flat, too.”

  ***

  As Eli headed to the farmers’ market in his horse and open buggy, he kept thinking about Laura and how interested she’d seemed in his birdhouses that first day when he’d met her at the market. It had been two whole months since they’d said good-bye after their ice-skating date, and a day hadn’t gone by that he hadn’t thought about her.

  He glanced over at his date sitting in the seat beside him. Here I am with Pauline again. Is it fair to lead her on? Is it possible for me to learn to love her? It wasn’t a case of Pauline not being pretty. She just wasn’t as pretty as Laura. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy Pauline’s company. She simply wasn’t as much fun to be around as Laura. But Eli had decided to give Pauline a chance, thinking it might help him forget Laura, and knowing it would please his folks if he settled down, got baptized, joined the church, and took a wife. He just wasn’t sure that wife could be Pauline.

  “Spring’s just around the corner, jah?” Pauline said, cutting into Eli’s private thoughts.

  He nodded. “Many of the trees have blossoms already, and some flowers are poking their heads through the soil.”

  She sighed. “Won’t be long and it’ll be warm enough for picnics.”

  “Jah.”

  “If this warm weather holds out, maybe we could go to the lake next Saturday.”

  “We’ll have to see how it goes.”

  She reached over and touched his arm. “Guess I’ll have to pray for sunshine.”

  He gave no reply as he guided his horse and buggy into the market parking lot.

  ***

  Laura was glad Darla had agreed to go with her to the farmers’ market. She didn’t relish the idea of going there alone. Too many painful memories lived inside that building. Too many reminders of the day she’d met Eli.

  They had taken Darla’s car this morning, and as soon as it was parked, Laura hopped out and headed for the building. She knew from what Eli had told her that Saturdays were always busy at the market, and she didn’t want to miss out on the best deals.

  “Hey, wait for me,” Darla shouted.

  Laura halted. “Sorry. Guess I’m in too big a hurry to look at those beautiful quilts.”

  “I might just buy one myself this time.”

  They stepped into the building, and Laura led the way.

  “I’m beginning to see why the country look fascinates you so much,” Darla commented, as they browsed through a stack of colorful quilts. “The vibrant hues and various shapes in these are actually quite pretty.”

  Laura nodded as she fingered a monochromatic blue quilt with a Double Wedding Ring pattern. The middle-aged Amish woman selling the quilts mentioned that it was an old patchwork design, and that as the name implied, two rings interlocked with each other.