An Amish Man of Ice Mountain (The Amish of Ice Mountain Series Book 2)

Joseph leaned hard against the cold door, pressing his bare back into the wood and clasping and unclasping the towels he’d taken from the woman. He couldn’t stop the waves of shame that ran over him at the fact that he’d stood exposed.
No woman has seen me that way since Amanda . . .
The name filled his mind with a strange mixture of both dread and excitement, and he let his head fall back against the wood, his throat working.
I’m still not over it—seven years—
ach
, Gott, seven years, and still I’m haunted. Will it never stop? Can it?
He drew a deep breath and remembered the scripture promise that
“All things are possible with Derr Herr.”
And then, for some reason, his breathing leveled off as he recalled the cool purity of the girl’s blue eyes. He was able to relax his stance and move to the business of drying, his thoughts resonating with a strange peace.

 

 

 

An Amish Man
OF ICE MOUNTAIN

ZEBRA BOOKS
KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com

All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

Table of Contents

Prologue

 

She watched him move in the hot sun, her eyes narrowed like a hungry hawk’s, but she was careful never to let him see what she truly wanted. Oh, he was so delightfully young. So incredibly perfect. She’d spent most of the summer grooming him to fit her needs; an initial light touch on his strong, tanned forearm, standing near enough so that she knew he caught her scent, and then persuading him to work without his shirt when his tall body was soaked with sweat. She would have had him by now if his almost puritanical Amish upbringing hadn’t stood in her way. Yes, she would have had him . . . any way she desired. She continued to gaze at him, biting the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood and savored the sensation.

“Joseph?” She kept her voice as melodic and sweet as her hidden vice of chain-smoking and her age would allow.

He plunged a shovel into the garden’s earth and looked up at her. She couldn’t help but smile. His long, dark hair fell in damp, natural waves around his beautiful, naïve face. His deep-set, green-gold eyes were clear and always attentive to her call. Her gaze traveled to his bare chest glistening in the sunlight. She loved his innocence, his maleness in its strong beginnings.
Sixteen . . . today.
Desire snaked through her abdomen.

She snapped back to the moment as he approached on long, black-wool-clad legs, his suspenders hanging loose about his lean waist.

“Ma’am?” he asked in his husky voice.

“It’s your birthday today, right?” She smiled at him and he returned the gesture, his perfect white teeth revealed for a moment.

“Jah.”
He nodded. “My sister’s going to make me a cake.”

“Oh, how charming, but . . .”

He frowned in confusion. “Ma’am?”

She waved a hand. “It’s nothing, really. I’d made one for you too . . .” She looked away but flashed her gaze at him to judge his expression. As she expected, he appeared surprised—and pleased.

“That’s nice of you, ma’am.”

She cast him a demure but calculated smile. “It’s your special day. Maybe you could . . . have a bite?”

He laughed.
“Ach
, surely.
Danki.”

She touched his bare arm, her fingers tingling against his warm, slick skin. “Good. I hope you like whipped cream.”

“I love it.”

“Then by all means,” she purred. “Come in.”

Chapter One

 

He worked from dark to dark; four weeks on, two weeks off. The job was exhausting—mentally, physically, and spiritually—but twenty-three-year-old
Amisch
Joseph King was used to hard living. And he told himself that he was driven by the need to keep his younger
bruder
, Edward, safe from the world’s influence. If that meant being a roughneck on a gas rig in the middle of nowhere, then so be it.

“I don’t see that you clocked out yet, Aim-ish! You still belong to me for the next three minutes unless you’d like to go back to mucking manure!” The resonating scream of the shift’s “push,” Edmunds, the man who was paid to keep the fellas moving, startled Joseph even though he was inured to the continual yelling. He tried to catch himself on the icy support bar of the metal walkway in the unseasonable sleet. But he lost his footing and his big body went down hard, slamming his right cheekbone into the muddy slush at his superior’s booted feet.

Edmunds and some of the crew nearby roared with echoing laughter as Joseph got up.

“You can add another minute onto my time, Mr. Edmunds,” Joseph said evenly, wiping at his face with the long sleeve of his coveralls and pushing his dark hair back beneath his hard hat. He resisted the urge to glance in Edward’s direction. His
bruder
would probably be looking as shamed as Joseph should feel, but he’d learned, since coming to the rigs, to let a lot roll off his back.
This time it happens to be sleet . . .
He edged past Edmunds and the few other men gathered and made his way down the catwalk, looking at gauges, until he reached his younger
bruder
, who was leaning near a steam heater with a dangerous look of apathy on his twenty-one-year-old face.

“What are you doing?” Joseph snapped. “Straighten up. You know how easy it is to get too comfortable around this equipment. Do you want to get burned?”

“At least I’m not falling on my face,” Edward drawled, half joking, the overhead lights playing on his blue eyes and strands of fair hair.
We are complete opposites
, Joseph thought with sudden insight. Edward as fair as he was dark, and his brother’s disposition one of carefree living while he . . .

The shift whistle blew, and Joseph frowned, staring out into the dark fields beyond the artificially lit rig. His brother’s insolence didn’t hurt half as much as the discord and loneliness he felt whenever their two weeks off came up. It was too long a drive to go home to Ice Mountain—not that he would ever drive, of course. But he also knew that getting a ride somehow would put him at odds with wanting to come back to the rigs. It was enough, he supposed, that Bishop Umble hadn’t suggested they be shunned for doing such work—yet.

He sighed aloud and couldn’t wait for the luxury of the hot bath and dry clothes that he knew he would get at the Bear Claw Inn, four miles from the work site. Joseph much preferred to spend his time off at the inn rather than the so-called “man camps” that were on the drilling site itself. Even though the man camps had catered food and a laundry, there was too much alcohol about for Joseph and his
Amisch
upbringing, though it didn’t seem to bother Edward—which was exactly why it bothered Joseph. His younger
bruder
fell too easily into drinking and playing cards during off time.

Now, they climbed down from the rig and Joseph clambered wearily into the cab of the company truck, pushing aside beer cans and potato chip bags from beneath his feet to make room for Edward beside him. Big Moe, a Texan roughneck, was driving.

“Whoo-ee! You boys stink to high heaven—sweat and wet dog got nuthin’ on you two.”

“Thanks, Moe,” Joseph muttered dryly. He was trying to control the shivering that was part and parcel of twelve hours of standing in the sleet.

“So, y’all been here for two months thereabouts—you ready to go home yet?”

Edward grunted. “I don’t quit.”

Joseph elbowed him, knowing Big Moe was trying to make conversation.

“Ahh, I used to feel like that myself some ’til my girls came along.” Moe smiled. “Now I’d do anything to be home with my wife and daughters, but there don’t seem a better way to make money. Those young’uns go through clothes faster than a weevil through wheat, and it’s my job to take care of them.”

“‘So Gott made a roughneck . . .’” Joseph murmured.

“What’s that, Joe?” the Texan asked, pausing to let another company truck ease out in front of him.

“
Ach
, nothing. Well, something I read actually—about how God made a roughneck.”

Edward sighed. “You read too much.”

“How’s it go?” Moe asked, interested.

“I can’t remember the whole thing, but it was something like . . . ‘God said, “I need somebody who understands work—work that isn’t pleasant or easy, but is rewarding, who takes pride in what they do, for they know that the work they do will . . . help others”—so God made a roughneck.’”

The truck bumped along and Joseph listened to the sudden silence in the cab until Moe cleared his throat. “That’s right pretty-like. Makes a man feel like he can hang on awhile if he knows God’s behind him. Thanks, Joe.”

Joseph nodded, glancing sideways at his
bruder
, who appeared to have fallen asleep.
Maybe I do read too much
. . . He sighed to himself and concentrated on the welcoming bright lights of the inn up ahead.

 

 

Mary “Mama” Malizza ran the Bear Claw Inn with a soft heart and an iron hand. She knew how to handle rough men and understood that most of the time, roughness was a necessary guard against homesickness, weariness, and loneliness.

But the beautiful red-haired slip of a girl who stood before her desk now proved as tenacious as the most moody of her male customers, and Mary was uncertain of exactly how to proceed.

“You say you’re twenty-four,” Mary asked again, buying time.
The kid looks about seventeen . . . maybe I’m getting old.

“Yes.” The girl’s voice was melodic and soft, maybe too soft for her to be any kind of a waitress at the inn, but there was something about her blue eyes that made Mary think of a proud, starving cat. And besides, she liked gumption when she saw it.

“You got a man?”

There, that made Miss Redhead flinch
. . . But Mary had the distinctly uncomfortable feeling that she’d touched a painful nerve from the way the girl straightened her shoulders even more.

“No, no—man.”

There was something wry about the way the girl said it that made Mary decide to leave the subject alone.

“Well, I run a clean place, as far as can be, and I won’t harbor no runaways. I ran away when I was about your age and nearly killed my ma, and I won’t—”

“My mother’s already dead.”

“Oh,” Mary said, deflated. “Well . . . we’ll give it a week’s trial and no hard feelings if it don’t work. You can start tonight because I’m shorthanded. But those trays are heavy and the men are hungry, and some might be hungry for a pretty little thing like you. Most ain’t seen so much as a hair of a woman for a long month’s time.”

“I understand,” the girl said, visibly relieved now that the brief interview was over.

Mary thought of something as she looked down at the sketchily filled-out application in front of her. “Hey, you don’t list an address. I don’t have any rooms open for board.”

The girl flushed a bit but lifted her chin. “I wasn’t certain of the last digit of the zip code. I have an apartment down the road, but I moved only this week. I’ll get the information for you tomorrow. Do you mind if I run out to my car for a minute?”

“Sure, but I don’t hold with smoking—from the workers or the men on premises. I got asthma.”

The girl shook her head. “I’m sorry. I don’t smoke.”

Mary nodded, half-satisfied, then peered again at the application. “I can’t make it out. How’d you spell your name? I need it for your waitress tag.”

“Oh, it’s Priscilla.” The girl gave the appropriate spelling, then slipped out of the office.

Mary shook her head.
The kid won’t last a week . . .