Nee, don’t go there, don’t go there.
Adah held her breath, waiting to see which statement Mr. Hart would attack first.
“If you’re so grownup, then fine, stay here.” Mr. Hart waved a hand toward the house. “But this is my house. I own it. I’ll expect you to pay rent and your share of the utilities. First month up front. Buy your own groceries. And stay out of the liquor cabinet.”
She let her breath out. She’d been right. His parents wouldn’t pay his bills if he didn’t live under their roof and follow their rules. It was the way of all parents, it seemed, Plain or Englisch. It made sense. No one should expect a free ride.
“That’s fine.” Jackson sounded so sure of himself. He could pay his
bills with his grandpa’s money, but not hers. She’d pay her own way. Maybe they had a bakery in Branson that needed someone handy with bread dough and pie crust. Jackson straightened and shrugged. “Will you take a check? You know it’s good.”
Mr. Hart laughed, a hard, brittle sound. “Your steer money is your money. I talked to the lawyers about your trust fund. Nothing I can do about that, either. It became yours when you turned twenty-one.” A strange sadness wafted across the older man’s face. “Your granddaddy wanted you to get an education with that money. I hope you’ll at least try not to waste it on this craziness.”
“It’s not craziness. Gramps was the one who gave me my first guitar. He knew about music. He knew I had something special. If you ever listened to my music, you’d know.” Jackson’s voice roughened with emotion. Sadness. They were both sad about something more than Jackson’s refusal to go back to school. “You’d know I’m good. Good enough to make it.”
Mr. Hart snorted. “You were always so full of yourself. I can’t believe Dad encouraged you.”
“At least he believed in me. You sure don’t.”
“All your mom and I want is for you to be realistic. Get an education. Be able to support yourself.”
“I can support myself. I’m a grown man.”
“I can tell by the way you snuck off to stay at my house and take advantage of the hospitality of my sister who takes care of it.”
“It just made sense. I’m looking for work as a musician in Branson. We have a family home in Branson. Aunt Charlene doesn’t mind, do you?”
Charlene pushed through the screen door and sashayed onto the porch. Her feet were bare, her toenails painted a bright red. “This is between you and your daddy. I suggest y’all work it out like two grown men.” She smiled at Adah. “You must be Jackson’s friend. Why don’t you come into the house? I’ll get you some iced tea while these two duke it out. It’s too hot for this.”
Duke it out? Adah tightened her grip on her bag. Would they really come to blows?
“I was speaking figuratively.” Charlene’s smile widened. “They’re big boys. They’ll figure it out.”
“She doesn’t go in the house. Not until Jackson and I reach an agreement.” Mr. Hart gave his sister a hard look. “I may still decide to make them find their own place.”
“That’s crazy. This is a family home. I’m part of the family,” Jackson blustered. “You’d turn me out of a house where we’ve spent our vacations almost every year since I was six?”
“It’s exactly that sense of entitlement I can’t understand.” Mr. Hart’s expression dissolved into weariness. “I tried to give you and your sister and your brother a good life. Now you don’t appreciate it.”
“I do appreciate it. I’m grateful.” Jackson’s tone softened. “I just want a chance to find out if I can make it. Is that too much to ask?”
Shaking his head, Mr. Hart sat suddenly on the top porch step as if his legs wouldn’t hold him anymore. “I’ll make you a deal, son. I’ll give you six months. You don’t have a paying gig as a musician in six months, you come home. You go back to college and this time, you actually go to class. You get your degree. Then you can do whatever you want with it. What do you think?”
It seemed a fair deal. Adah’s parents would never make such an offer. The Englisch were so different. Breaking the rules, it seemed, could be rewarded. Or at least tolerated.
Jackson kicked at the gravel with his boot. Dust rose and settled on it, dimming the shine. He raised his head and nodded, his expression somber. “It’s a deal.”
“Deal.”
His dad rose and held out his hand. Jackson straightened and took it. The shake lasted a mere split second. They didn’t look at each other. The air seemed to shimmer with all the words they hadn’t said. So many words spoken, but none of them the right ones. Adah had experience with those kinds of conversations. She had them with her own daed all the time.
Mr. Hart’s gaze swung to Adah over his son’s shoulder. She worked to hold herself tall under his glare. It quickly shifted back to Jackson. “So you’ll support your girlfriend too?”
“She’s not my girlfriend, I mean…” For the first time, Jackson stammered. He swiveled and met Adah’s gaze. His face turned radish red. “Adah’s my partner. She’s a singer and a songwriter.”
“I’ll bet she is. Your mother told me about the conversation she had with your partner about doing her work and minding her own business.” Mr. Hart sidestepped Jackson and planted himself near the bumper of the truck. His gaze raked over Adah, head to toe. “Do your parents know where you are?”
An unbearable shiver ran through her. She ignored it. She’d entered the Englisch world, a world where she would have to talk to Englisch men and stand up for herself. No more hiding behind Plain dress and shrinking from notice. “I left them a note saying I was leaving to be a singer. I didn’t tell them where I was going or who was taking me.”
“Tell me you’re of age, at least.”
“Eighteen.”
“If you were my daughter, I’d bend you over my knee and give you a whopping with a switch.” Adah’s daed had been known to do that too, but it had been a long while. “They’ll be worried sick about you. At least call them.”
“They don’t have a phone.” His tone made her chin come up and her back straighten. “I’ll write them as soon as I get settled.”
“They got that phone shack.”
True, but she could only imagine leaving that message and having Luke listen to it tomorrow or the next day when he finally got around to checking the answering machine. “They do, but we mostly write letters. It’s our way.”
“Give them a break; let them know you’re all right. That you have a decent place to stay with decent folks.” His gaze swiveled back to Jackson. “I raised my son right. At least, I thought I did.”
“I am decent.” Jackson’s hands fisted. “I’m a gentleman. Tell him, Adah.”
“I’ll write them a letter.” Adah tried to summon a smile to soften the firmness of her response. “Your son is giving me a chance at something I want real bad. I’m beholden to him for that.”
“Don’t let him talk you into doing something you don’t want to do just because he gave you a ride and a place to stay.”
“Monroe, that’s enough.” Charlene slapped a hand on her brother’s arm. “Give them a break. They’re just kids.”
“What do you know?” Mr. Hart shook off her touch, his face a grimace. “How many kids did you raise?”
A sudden intake of air from Jackson told Adah a blow had been struck. From Charlene’s expression, an ugly blow. She plopped onto the porch step.
Mr. Hart glanced back at his sister. “Sorry, Char, I didn’t mean that.”
“Sure you did.”
“I’m just mad, that’s all. In my generation, a man turned twenty-one, he was a man and he was expected to start acting like one.”
“Give Jackson a chance to prove it, then.”
“Like you said, Mr. Hart, you raised your son right.” Adah took a step forward so she stood next to Jackson. “We’ll be fine, both of us.”
“Then I wash my hands of the whole thing.”
Mr. Hart jerked open his truck door, slid in, and slammed it shut. He leaned out the window as he started the engine. “Remember, we have a deal. Six months. And help your aunt with the groceries. Don’t be mooching off her.”
He drove off, gravel spitting at them in his wake.
“Woo-hoo!”
Jackson tossed his hat in the air, grabbed Adah around the waist, and twirled her around until her stomach rocked.
Charlene laughed and got to her feet. “You’re one crazy man, nephew of mine. You tangled with big Monroe and lived to tell about it. You should celebrate. Y’all come in and get cleaned up. I’ll fix you something to eat as soon as I show Adah her room. Which, Jack, will be on the second floor far, far from your room on the first floor. I won’t put up with any hanky panky under my roof. Do you hear me?”
“Hanky panky? How old are you? A hundred?” His face reddening, Jackson dropped Adah onto her feet. “And what is it with you people, always thinking the worst of me?”
“Not you, sweet cakes. Guys your age in general. We were young once too.”
“I don’t believe that.” Jackson took off when Charlene came after him, hand out to give him a swat. “You still move pretty fast for an old lady.”
“Who’re you calling old?”
Charlene chased him up the steps and into the house. Still dizzy with relief, Adah followed more slowly.
Jackson held the screen door open. “Come on, sweet cakes. We just got a get-out-of-jail-free pass from my own dad. Time to celebrate.”
She squeezed past him into a foyer that opened into a mammoth living room filled with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and complete with an enormous stone fireplace that had the head of a deer hanging over it. The deer seemed to stare at her, its eyes stony. She sighed.
“Don’t look at me like that, Amish girl.” Jackson let the door slam behind her. “My dad just gave me six months to figure this thing out. We’re home free, girl.”
Except for the job part and the music part and the part where she gave up her family and her entire life to be here.
Except for that part.
M
atthew craned his neck from side to side, trying to work out a kink that had his shoulders aching. The August sun beat down on him, the air so hot it scorched his lungs every time he inhaled. He couldn’t complain. As long as the sun shone, they could get the last of the corn harvested. He swiped at his forehead with his sleeve and went back to work tightening the wheel. Gott willing, they’d finish this field of corn and then he could go home, eat, and wait for dark so he could go talk to Adah. He forced himself to focus on the task at hand. The weariness that resulted from not sleeping a wink the previous night didn’t help. Every time he closed his eyes he saw that monstrous silver pile of engine and tires driving away, Adah looking like a little doll propped up in the cabin.
She looked scared. Why, he couldn’t imagine. Apparently it wasn’t the first time she’d gone for a ride in Jackson Hart’s truck. It didn’t seem likely that the kiss had happened around the house. Nee, they’d gone somewhere together. For another kiss.
Why he kept torturing himself with that image, he couldn’t imagine. He’d thought she really would try to do better. She would try to follow the Ordnung. She’d finish the classes. He’d been sure of that.
Until yesterday.
The clip-clop of hooves in the distance sounded loud in the afternoon quiet. He tipped his hat back for a better view.
“Looks like Daniel is paying us a visit,” Rueben called from his vantage point in front of the wagon. “Wonder what he wants.”
“What makes you think he wants something?” Matthew regretted his curt tone. He sounded like Daed. None of this was Rueben’s fault. “Maybe he has good news.”
Good news would be much appreciated. Rueben cackled and hopped from his seat. “Maybe he’s coming to invite you to supper and Adah will be there. How would that be for good news?”
“You just hush and untangle the reins.”
Rueben began to sing some silly song he’d picked up from the other boys when they went fishing. The singing reminded Matthew of Adah, which only made him grumpier.
“Hey.” Daniel pulled his buggy alongside the wagon. “There you are.”
“Here I am.” Matthew stalked around to the buggy. “How come you’re not working your fields? Knocked off early today?”
“Nee.” Daniel climbed down from the buggy and stood next to Matthew. His features were so like Adah’s. They could be twins, were he a few years younger. He took off his hat, fanned his sweaty, tanned face with it, and slapped it back on his head. “I thought…well, I just thought.”
“Spit it out.” Matthew had known Daniel since they were knee-high to daed’s britches, but he’d never been close to him. Daniel was a little older and a lot more prone to talking out of turn. “Why are you here in the middle of the day?”
Daniel studied the ground as if looking for a lost dollar. “Didn’t know if you’d heard?”
“Heard what?”
“Adah’s done run off.”
Matthew’s stomach did a strange double dip. His lungs flattened and didn’t bother to refill. His vision darkened around the edges. Purple spots danced in the middle.
“Matthew? Did you hear me? Adah didn’t come home last night.”
“She didn’t come home?” He cleared his throat and forced himself
to take a long breath.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
“How do you know she ran off? Maybe something happened to her.”
Maybe Jackson Hart happened to her.