Authors: Sienna Valentine
I
couldn’t believe
I’d actually agreed to this. This was such a stupid idea. A stupid bet. Not only was it straight out of some late-90s romcom, but I’d given Ash ground for the sake of my pride. Let him pick the easiest of our three marks, just so I could save face. The closer I got to the girl with the reddish-gold hair, the more I realized just what a challenge this was going to be for me and Wyatt. We were being regarded with wide, frantic eyes, and I could practically smell the fear like a perfume wafting across the bar.
Easy,
I told myself, flashing one of my dashing smiles.
Don’t scare her away.
That, however, was easier said than done; she even seemed to regard my smile as menacing. Shit, it probably was. I was used to dealing with women who liked that kind of thing, but I was getting the feeling that my bad boy charms weren’t going to work with this girl as easily as they have with others, so I was going to have to tone it down a bit to start.
I was in no way about to lose this bet right off the bat, especially not in front of my brothers and a whole room full of people to bear witness. Giving her some space, I mounted the stool beside my mystery woman and set my beer bottle down, ordering another.
“What can I get you, darlin’?” I asked my prize. But she just stared at me, those pretty lips trembling. I blew air from my nose in a little laugh and offered her a much softer version of the smile I’d given her before. “Sorry, where are my manners? I’m Reid Brody. That’s my brother, Wyatt…” He was lagging a little behind the rest of us. He walked up just in time to hear his name and ran a hand through the mop of his hair, his smile shy. I rolled my eyes. Put that boy in the middle of a fight and he was all teeth and claws. But next to a pretty girl? He was like a puppy who’d just been neutered. “And that’s my other brother, Ash. They call us the Brody Bunch around here…”
She stared up at me, her expression blank. Of course she wouldn’t get the joke. She had no frame of reference, no idea what the punchline meant. Over her shoulder, Ash leaned over the table and grinned at the eldest of the girls. “I think we’ve met before,” he told her, offering his hand.
“I think you’re right,” she said, gripping his palm. “You bounce here sometimes, right?”
“That’s right. And you tend bar. You’re Hannah.” Ash lifted her hand to his lips and kissed the back of it. “I never forget a name when it’s attached to a pretty face.”
“Charming,” Hannah said, but she rolled her eyes. “These are my sisters, Beth and Sarah.” She indicated the short, blue-eyed girl and the one in front of me, respectively.
Sarah. So that was her name. It was beautiful and simple, just like her. She blushed when Hannah said it and looked away from me, but it wasn’t long before her gaze swung back to mine, however tentatively.
“Sisters?” Wyatt said, raising his brows. “All three of you?”
“It’s the clothes,” she replied, waving her hand. “When we’re dressed alike, we look alike. But right now, these two stand out like a sore thumb.”
“Are you all Amish?” Wyatt asked. I gave him a withering look, but Hannah replied before I could.
“I used to be,” she said. “These two still are. They’re on Rumpsringa—it’s like Spring Break… kind of.” She nudged Sarah. “I bet she could tell you all about it, if you’re interested.”
“I am,” I said, turning my attention back to Sarah’s wide eyes. “Very interested.”
“I’m interested, too,” Beth said. I glanced at her and saw she was talking to Wyatt. “In all of you, I mean. You’re so… different from the people we know back home. The way you dress, the way you look…” She laughed, light and airy, like a twinkling of bells. “Sarah thought you were married,” she said to me.
“Huh?” I looked at Sarah. “Why would you think that?”
Sarah had pulled a strand of hair loose from her stark white bonnet and was plaiting it into a small, thin braid. Her eyes dropped. “Um… it’s your beard,” she mumbled. I could just barely hear her over the din of the bar. “Where we come from, men don’t grow those until they’re married…”
“That so?” I frowned. “Well, damn. Maybe I should shave it. Don’t wanna give off the wrong impression…”
“No!” Sarah said suddenly. A few patrons glanced at her and she lowered her voice, looking up at me through the thick fetters of her lashes. “Don’t do that. I think it looks very…” She trailed off then, as if she’d had a word or two in mind but had lost the courage to say either of them. Finally, she found her voice again. “I think it suits you.”
I felt my lips curling into a smirk. “Guess I’ll have to keep it, then. Only since you like it, though.”
Any other woman would have giggled. They would have turned away, feigning shyness, and then sucked their drink straw into their mouth the way all flirty women did. Their eyes would’ve shone like a cat’s, flashing from the shadows, knowing they were being pursued but harboring no desire to run. Sure, we’d go back and forth a bit. She’d pull away and I’d slip nearer, until neither of us could hang on to our sense of self-control anymore. But it was hardly ever a chase. More like a dance—one I knew the steps to quite well.
Sarah didn’t do any of that. She wasn’t playing coy with me. When she dropped her gaze, it was earnest. Real. So was the color on her cheeks and the way she shifted on that wobbly stool. This was not familiar territory for me—and obviously not for her. I chewed the inside of my cheek. Shit, Ash was right. This was going to be a challenge.
A challenge he’d wimped out on, picking the goddamn bartender. But when I glanced at them, it was clear he was having some trouble in his own way. Hannah kept a certain amount of distance between them, rolled her eyes a lot, and gave as good as she got. None of Ash’s usual “charms” seemed to apply here. I could tell by the way he was sitting that he hadn’t expected this level of resistance—if that’s what it was. Maybe she just enjoyed toying with him as much as he did with her. Either way, he ordered another whiskey. He was going home alone tonight. Then again, we probably all were.
If I had any chance at all of winning this bet, then I needed to make sure we were all playing the long game. Ash had the advantage—that Hannah wasn’t really Amish anymore. That she didn’t have the same hang-ups about men and sex that her sisters clearly did. But now, knowing they were sisters, the scales had tipped in my favor. Hannah was the oldest, and that meant she’d want to protect Beth and Sarah. That meant she’d be looking out for them, which would make her less interested in Ash than he’d wagered. If I could keep them all together like this, at least for a little while, Wyatt and I had a real shot. Well, maybe not Wyatt. But I sure as hell did.
I would need to get Sarah alone, eventually. But for now, having them all together would negate the head-start Ash had. Hannah would be constantly looking over her shoulder to make sure her sisters were safe, and I’d have the time I needed to coax Sarah into trusting me. Into wanting me. Maybe this wasn’t going to be a cakewalk, but my job had suddenly got a hell of a lot easier.
“What’s it like, where you come from?” I asked Sarah, picking up my new beer. “I take it this is all pretty damn new to you.” I scanned the room, all the bodies in it, more than a few of them scandalously close to one another. I had no real frame of reference for Sarah’s life; this was something of an interrogation. I needed to know her boundaries and which ones I could cross. I needed to know how to push her buttons and which ones would get me what I wanted. I also needed to relate to her in some way. I was gonna go nowhere fast if I couldn’t at least make her feel comfortable around me.
Sarah fidgeted. I ordered her a drink—nothing alcoholic, though. Just a Coke.
She wrinkled her nose at me. “It’s fine,” I assured her. “Just a soda.” But she looked at Hannah anyway, who side-eyed Jake, who nodded. Hannah nodded her consent as well, and Sarah finally lifted the glass to her lips and drank.
She set it down almost immediately, covering her mouth and her nose. She laughed. “I’m sorry… it’s the bubbles. They tickled. Are they supposed to do that?”
I grinned. There was an almost childlike delight in Sarah’s eyes when she said it.
Shit. She’s never even had a damn soda before?
Something about that warmed my heart on contact. For a second, she wasn’t a means to an end. She was a woman who had never lived. A woman who had never had the chance to. And suddenly, I wanted to be her chance. I wanted to show her… shit, I wanted to show her
everything.
As long as it meant I’d get to hear that laugh again, see her blue eyes light up like the Fourth of July, I was down.
“Yeah,” I told her. “They’re supposed to do that. That’s half the damn fun.”
“And the other half?” she asked, taking another wary sip.
“The sugar,” I answered. “And the caffeine. It’s a rush. You know what caffeine is, right? You at least have coffee where you come from?”
It was an honest question, but Sarah looked at me like I was making fun of her. When I held up my hands disarmingly, she smiled again, poking at the ice in her drink with a small, red straw. “Yes, we have coffee. Tea, too. Sometimes fruit juices, usually in the summer. Father brought us soda once, but it wasn’t like this, and it was bottled, so… no tickling. I bet you have soda all the time, though, don’t you?”
I shrugged. “Well, I drink beer, mostly. But yeah, it’s around. It’s damn near everywhere, in fact. We even got these machines you put a dollar into, spits out a can or a bottle. Just like that.” Sarah looked impressed, so I continued. “There’s a bunch of flavors, too. Not just that one and whatever your dad brought you. You close to him? Your dad, I mean?”
It was kind of a weird question—not sexy at all—but it was the best segue I could come up with. Sarah frowned at me like I’d grown a second head. “He’s my father. Why wouldn’t I be?” When I indicated Hannah, she added, “It’s not like that. Hannah ran away and never came back. This is just Rumspringa for me.”
“So you’ll go back?” I asked her, trying to hammer out some kind of timeline. How long did I have until she slipped away? “Whenever Rumspringa is up, you’ll go home and I’ll never see you again, huh?”
That gave Sarah pause. Looking only at the condensation on her glass, she said, “That’s probably true. Your world… isn’t my world. You English are…” She laughed. “Completely insane.”
I smiled and leaned on the table top with both arms. It put me close to her, our elbows nearly touching. Lowering my voice to a conspiratorial pitch, I told her, “Tell me about your world then, Sarah. Tell me about where all the sane people live. You do that, and I’ll show you just how insane this world can be.” I couldn’t help but grin, showing teeth. “But only the best parts.”
Sarah bit her lip. It seemed like something she did often—this close to her, I could see the indents of her teeth, marks left behind by repeated nibbling. I hoped to fit my own teeth into those divots soon, but for now, I leaned my cheek against my fist and held her eyes, urging her not to look away—to confide in me.
“You really want to know?” she asked incredulously. “You won’t think we’re odd? Too simple?”
“If there’s anything I’ve learned about women, darlin’, it’s that there’s not a one alive who can be called simple. But odd? I think there’s a little of that in all of us.” I ventured even closer. Sarah didn’t pull away. Like a deer caught in a pair of headlights, she stared at me with some kind of mixture of fear and awe. “Now, c’mon. We’ll make a game of it. You tell me something, and I’ll tell you. That’s a fair trade, isn’t it?”
She looked to her sisters again, but both were entangled in their own conversations. Beth was talking animatedly, a big smile on her face, her hands waving. Wyatt jerked his head toward the other end of the bar and she nodded, then followed him as he led her away from the group. Hannah and Ash wouldn’t be moving anytime soon—Hannah was on the clock, and she’d served a couple of patrons while talking to him, whenever Jake was too busy. I smirked.
So much for this being a stroll down Easy Street, bro.
Realizing she was the only one hesitating, Sarah finally nodded. I watched her steel herself, straightening her posture, hands clasped firmly in her lap. “All right,” she said. “What do you want to know?”
I took a slow pull from my beer.
How to make you want me,
I thought.
That’s what I want to know.
But what I said was, “Hopes and dreams. Let’s start there. Those are the most interesting parts of us all.”
H
opes and dreams
. Reid couldn’t have chosen a more difficult topic for an Amish girl if he’d tried.
We weren’t supposed to
have
hopes and dreams. Not the way the English do. Our whole existence was about simplicity. There was no room for ambition. Imagination. No way to advance past one’s station. The lines between us were all very clear, and we were all tucked into a nice, neat box by the time any notion of independence came about.
Hopes and dreams.
What was I to tell him? Hannah or Beth were the ones to ask about that. Not me. I’d never entertained the idea of a life outside the options I’d been given.
“To be an obedient wife and serve our Lord God,” I said at last. Hannah had told me that not everyone in the English world was so fervent about their beliefs, but I didn’t want to lie to Reid. He said he was interested in me. Why paint a false portrait of who I was?
Reid snorted derisively and muttered, “Wow, you really are religious.” I frowned.
“Is there something wrong with that?”
He shrugged. “Only when it gets in the way of you livin’.”
I raised a brow. “And wanting a husband isn’t living?”
“Not if it’s the only thing you want.”
I sighed. Hannah was right. He didn’t understand. I took another drink of my Coke and asked him, “What about you, then? What are your hopes and dreams?”
Reid smirked. I liked that about him, that was for sure. There was something a little devilish about the incline of his lips, like he knew something I didn’t and it gave him power over me. It was cocky, but not in a bad way. I couldn’t help staring at those lips as he said, “Oh, I’ve got a few. Most of ‘em revolve around extreme sports.”
“Extreme… sports?” I asked. I knew what sports were, obviously. Many of the boys had played games in their youth. But what was so “extreme” about the sports Reid played?
“Yeah. Stuff like BASE jumping. Mountain climbing. Racing cars or bikes. That kind of thing.” He looked so proud of himself, chest puffed out, eyes gleaming. He ordered another beer. “It’s dangerous, but the rush is worth it. Pay’s not bad, either.”
“You… get paid to participate in sports?” I blinked at him. “I thought they were just for fun.”
“Well, fun’s a big part of it,” Reid admitted as he took a pull from his bottle. “But you know what they say. If you’re good at somethin’, never do it for free.” He winked at me. “Gotta pay the bills.”
Bills.
Now there was another, semi-foreign concept for me to digest. Certainly we purchased things that we needed, and of course we paid taxes on our income and our land, but beyond that, there wasn’t much for us to spend money on. We didn’t use electricity, save for our buggy’s headlights. We had indoor plumbing, but you don’t need electricity for that. And as an unmarried woman, I wasn’t privy to our family’s finances enough to know where, or how, our money came and went in any great detail. But I’d gleaned from Reid’s tone, as well as some of the short primer Hannah had given us on English life before we’d walked into the bar, that bills here were plentiful. And sometimes, they were the sea in which people drowned in.
I stared at Reid, wholly mystified. The differences between us ran deep, all the way through the foundation of who we were and how we’d been raised. We were complete and total opposites. He had big dreams, threw himself into dangerous situations by choice and for fun, cursed and drank and very obviously didn’t give any consideration at all to what other people might think. Whatever the rules for English men were, he subverted them. Meanwhile, I’d never been permitted to dream, indulge in my vices, or toe the line between right and wrong. And until now, I’d never wanted to.
Talking with Reid had made me realize that simplicity might not be as freeing as I’d thought it was. In fact, it was beginning to sound a little like a cage. And I was growing envious of what he had that I did not.
Thou shalt not covet,
I reminded myself, but it was no use. I was jealous of all the opportunities Reid had, both as a man and as part of the English world. But since I was neither of those things, I supposed I’d have to live vicariously through his stories. Maybe that would sate my desire to experience them; doing so directly might prove too dangerous.
After all, look what it had done to Hannah.
I turned a little more in his direction and asked, “What makes these sports so ‘extreme,’ anyway? Mountain climbing I can understand, but… what’s ‘BASE jumping’?”
Reid grinned roguishly. “It’s when you parachute or use a wingsuit to jump off a cliff and sail down to the bottom. I like the wingsuit, myself. It’s this jumpsuit made out of a lightweight material that kinda makes you look like a flying squirrel. Makes me feel like I’m flying.”
My jaw sagged. “And you just… put that on, and jump off a cliff?!” The thought was mind-numbing. Beyond imagining. When he nodded, my hand leapt to my chest. “Lord…”
He laughed, and the corners of his eyes crinkled. He had dimples when he smiled that broadly, visible even under that gruff beard. About a year ago, a few boys in the village had snuck in some wine and gotten drunk, and I’d seen them stumbling around and laughing before my father, scowling and stern as always, herded them back to their homes by their ears. Reid was reminding me of one of those boys now: laughing just a little too loud, his muscles a little too relaxed. But strangely, it was a good look on him. One that slowly coaxed a smile to my own lips.
“You’re so easily impressed,” Reid said at last, taking another, lazier swig from his beer bottle. “I feel like I could take you anywhere—shit, Walmart, even—and your mind would be blown.”
“I’ve been to Walmart,” I said defensively. “Where do you think we get our toilet paper from?”
“I didn’t know you had toilet paper,” he said in a way that sounded like he was teasing. Then he shook his head. “Damn. Guess everybody’s been to Walmart. Well, that just means I’ll have to take you someplace else. Someplace a little nicer.”
Hannah walked by us with another drink for Ash and scoffed. “Don’t set the bar too high there, Reid.” When I looked at her, confused, she added, “
Anywhere’s
nicer than Walmart.”
“You… actually want to take me somewhere?” I asked him, narrowing my eyes. “Like… just the two of us?” I looked at Hannah again. “I don’t think…”
But Hannah was gesturing to me that it was okay. That I should just accept this strange man’s invitation and let him spirit me away to parts unknown. All within just a few minutes of meeting him! Was she so far removed from our culture and our practices that she couldn’t see what an incredibly stupid idea it was?
And reckless… but then, that was part of the appeal, wasn’t it? Getting to do stupid, reckless things for once in our lives. The draw was definitely there, and I felt it pull me ever forward with each of Reid’s successive smiles. I could hear his voice in my head, clearly as if he were actually speaking to me:
C’mon, darlin’, what’s the harm in having a little fun?
If my parents and my elders were to be believed, there was a lot of harm. But there was a chance they weren’t right about everything.
Hannah was a shining example of that. I still had a lot of questions for her about her life and how she lived it, but she seemed happy. And free. Free in a way I had never felt. Free in a way I knew Beth craved.
I hadn’t been out in the English world long enough for me to know if that was a good thing, but how would I figure it out unless I gave it a shot? Until I truly stepped out of my comfort zone and walked a mile in an English woman’s shoes, who was I to judge these people?
Besides… wasn’t that what Rumspringa was all about?
Wringing my hands, I said, “I don’t think I’d be comfortable in a place like this. Someplace so…
city.
So, if you
were
going to take me somewhere, I’d like it to be less… urban.”
Reid sat up a little straighter. His eyes widened slightly, like he was surprised I was actually going to agree to this. I was surprised, too. Everything I’d been taught, every rule I’d had ingrained in me, was screaming that this was a bad idea.
Yet there was something else whispering to me that this was the best decision I’d ever made. That getting closer to Reid was the right move. The
interesting
move. The start of an adventure.
His lips parted. His teeth showed. I held my breath as he began to speak.
“I think I know just the place, actually. There’s a county fair being set up out in the country—shit, probably not far from where your community sits. It’s got a lot of stuff I bet you’re familiar with. Hay rides, a petting zoo, shit like that. How’s that for comfortable?”
He seemed so proud of himself. Before I could answer, Hannah said, “Hey, that’s a great idea! You’ll love it, Sarah. Those petting zoos are all full of baby animals. You get to feed them and cuddle them and stuff.”
“I used to do that back on the farm,” I muttered, my anxiety getting the best of me again. “Besides, that sounds like something Beth would prefer, anyway.”
“Then we’ll make it a triple-date,” Ash chimed in, wresting away from Hannah’s lukewarm attentions. “All your sisters will be there, and I’m sure we’ll all find something we want to do.”
“Yeah,” Reid said huskily, his eyes still so intensely trained on me. “I’m sure we will.”
“Then it’s settled,” Hannah said, and Ash sauntered off to tell Wyatt and Beth at the other end of the bar. “We’ll go tomorrow. Seriously, Sarah, this is going to be great. You’ll love it. I promise.”
I looked at my younger sister then. She seemed so thrilled, so completely embroiled in whatever discussion she and Wyatt were having. Her face had lit up like a firefly and when Ash came by to tell her the news, she grinned so wide it almost touched her ears. A glance at Hannah confirmed that she was looking forward to it, too, although she only smirked and let her gaze linger on Ash’s rear a little too long—that was about as much enthusiasm as I could expect from her. Which meant that I was the only one out of the six of us who had any reservations whatsoever.
I chewed my lip. Had I spent too long cleaning up Hannah’s messes at home? Trying to take her place so that Mother and Father wouldn’t miss her so bad? To fill the void in our family her absence had so cruelly left behind? Perhaps I had. And perhaps that had altered my perspective, made me a little too cautious. I was only twenty-two, and this would likely be my last and only opportunity to experience things like this before I returned home to commit myself to the church. There was still time to live a little.
And with Reid leading the way, I had no doubt that it was going to be a crazy ride.
I looked at him and put on my best smile. I hoped it looked more courageous than I felt inside. “Okay then,” I told him. “It’s a date.”