This tale of an Amish woman who marries an outsider “delivers a sense of escape from today’s hustle and bustle into a gentler and simpler world” (Publishers Weekly).
Like most Mountain Amish girls, Mary King has always dreamed of her wedding day. But she never imagined that a sudden, irresistible kiss would result in marriage to the handsome Englischer professor studying her unique community. Or that doing the truly honorable thing means keeping their relationship chaste so both she and Dr. Jude Lyons can someday go their separate ways.
But when Mary accompanies her husband-in-name-only to Atlanta to meet his wealthy, overbearing family, she’s tempted more than ever by Jude’s kindness, humor—and vulnerability. And when a wrenching misunderstanding causes her to return heartbroken to her remote Appalachian home, she’s certain she’s lost the real love they have found . . . and the shared future she's come to want so much. But a crisis of more than faith will work surprising miracles—and show Mary that love is strong enough to make the impossible come true.
“Long creates storylines that captivate her readers.” —RT Book Reviews
“An authenticity that showcases her own spirituality.” —Beth Wiseman
Release date:
November 1, 2014
Publisher:
Zebra Books
Print pages:
352
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Associate Professor of Amish Studies Jude Lyons squeezed his eyes shut in the bright light of the summer sun and pretended he hadn’t heard what the girl said.
But the word rang indelibly through his mind . . . dishonored. He opened his eyes and stared down off the wooden porch step into the serious young face of the Amish girl, Mary King. Her dark hair was neatly coiled beneath her kapp, displaying only a straight, white part. Her hazel eyes were soulful, mournful, and the pale skin of her throat was even whiter than he remembered.
Say something, you idiot, his brain chided him. But he couldn’t seem to get past the heated imagery that flashed through his memory—the day had been hot, the blueberry patch more than cool. And maybe he’d known somehow that their relationship would build to that sudden torrential burn of intense moments, but he stupidly hadn’t considered the consequences. And he certainly hadn’t imagined that Mary’s older brother, Joseph, might have been observing from the forest.
Jude never usually let himself go physically, not even with his fiancée. The blood thrummed in his ears—Carol . . . what would he say to Carol about this? But of course he was overreacting. He needn’t mention making out with Mary at all . . .
“My daed and bruders will be along shortly—to make sure you do the right thing.”
Her melodic voice was calm, rich with decades of dialectal purity, but he blinked at her words.
“What?”
“I expect they’ll take a while to rouse the bishop. He likes to sleep, you know.”
He likes to sleep . . . Jude took a shaky step down to the flagstone nearest her and her small bare feet.
“Mary, I’m sorry. It was all a mistake . . . I’m due to be married in the fall. Are you sure Joseph saw . . .” He let his eyes drop with irreverence to her shoulders, as if she’d bear the imprints of his fingertips somehow, but there was nothing visible between the covering of her apron and dress.
“You know you were the first man who ever kissed me like that or touched—”
“I know. I know,” he broke in hastily, not wanting her to verify what he remembered all too well. Her innocence had been as palpable as his own heartbeat, her novice mouth returning his kisses with a tentative response that had made his throat burn.
“Dat wasn’t happy, what with you being an outsider and all, but he’s willing to settle seeing that you’re schmart in the head.”
Jude thought of the endless hours of study, sleepless nights upon nights, now his doctorate work, and his almost-completed book about the Amish of Ice Mountain, Pennsylvania. He had plans of returning home and breaking away from his father’s successful business and wealthy lifestyle and becoming a professor of Amish studies. He told himself that there was no way he was going to be coerced into “doing the right thing” for kissing a willing girl in the broad light of day. But he should have known better. If there was anything that he’d learned from his study of this people, it was their inherent sense of old-fashioned honor. The Mountain Amish were also about a hundred years farther behind the times than other Amisch, both in values and circumstances, and he was in the middle of nowhere with not a single soul to speak in his defense.
He scrambled in desperation for an answer, an angle . . . “Mary, your dad isn’t going to want you to leave the mountain, and you’d have to if I . . . if we did anything hasty. You know I’m supposed to go back to Atlanta in two weeks.”
“Metro Atlanta.” She emphasized what he knew she had heard him say from time to time.
“Never mind,” he muttered, but then another thought came to him. He peered into her eyes. “Mary, how old are you?” And why in heaven’s name have I not asked that before—
“Eighteen—nineteen in October.”
“Well, that’s something . . .” She wasn’t underage by his world’s standards at least. At least—what the devil was he thinking? He owed her nothing. “I’m twenty-six,” he offered in spite of himself.
“Way past marrying age,” she observed.
“Yeah.” From your world’s view.
She glanced behind her as instinctively, he knew, as a doe. “Here they come.”
Jude was suddenly more than nervous. He wanted to sink into the ground, dissolve, or at least run as the four men broke from the line of trees, their faces set like stone. And then he felt everything go black . . .
Mary watched him fall to the ground with dismay. She hurried to kneel by his side, feeling his head; she’d heard a thud when he fell. Sure enough, as her careful fingers combed through his short, neat dark blond hair, she came upon a fast-swelling goose egg at the back of his skull.
She frowned, wishing Grossmuder May was there with her poultices. Then she carefully picked up his spectacles from the ground, glad that they hadn’t broken.
“Weak as water.”
Mary looked up as her fater’s voice boomed out, filled with scorn.
“I gave him the news, Fater, but you know he has an illness of the blood that can cause him to become light in the head.”
“Ach, the buwe wilted like a rose when you told him; some husband he’s bound to make. Haul him up . . . Edward, Joseph.”
Mary leaned aside as her two older bruders caught Professor Lyons’s arms. “Be careful,” she urged as they half dragged him to his feet, supporting him on either side.
Mary got up and hurried to move so she could look up into his handsome face. His head lolled from side to side, his blue eyes closed behind thick lashes.
“Let’s git on with it,” her dat said, glancing at Bishop Umble.
“But he’s not awake yet,” Mary protested, looking into the wise old bishop’s wizened face.
“Ah, but he was awake enough a day ago, eh, Mary?” her father barked. “It makes nee difference if he’s out of his head or not. He’ll do what needs doing.”
Mary flushed at her father’s brash words, true though they were.
Bishop Umble cleared his throat. “Your fater is right in this matter, Mary. We cannot allow such things on this mountain . . . a man dallying with an innocent maid. This must be set right.”
The professor groaned and Mary pressed her hand to his warm cheek. She felt like she was touching some wild, beautiful thing that had come to rest in her world for a moment and would soon be gone. She knew she didn’t match him, couldn’t understand him, but she wanted him, wanted to keep him and care for him . . . like a wounded eagle.
And then the bishop began to speak in High German, saying with quiet, sacred reverence the words that would bind her to the Englischer for all time.
Jude heard the old language as if through a long funnel and recognized its import. He tried to open his eyes. He wanted to throw up and his head felt as if it had been hewn in two. He knew his sugar must be very low, but he still managed to speak. “No.”
He felt rough hands shake him a bit from side to side and he thought of the clamor of iron bells in an old church tower. He tried again. “I said no. I do not con—consent.”
“I—I would ... Thrash him, buwes !” The thunderous voice could only be Abner King’s—Mary King’s father. He wanted to wince away from the blows that he knew were coming but couldn’t seem to lift his eyelids.
Then he heard Mary’s voice and felt the soft press of her back against his chest. “Nee, Fater. You will not hurt him . . . I—I don’t want him like this, not with force. He-he didn’t force me, I-I wanted . . . I mean . . . I’ve told you we were only kissing.”
Jude got his eyes open with grim thankfulness for the tight grips on his arms. He caught the scent of Mary’s hair beneath his chin and spoke with gaining strength.
“Look, Herr King . . . Bishop. We kissed some, true, and I . . .”
Mary was thrust aside to be replaced with the blunt, reddened face of her father. “Don’t say it, scoundrel. Joseph here filled the picture in real clear. Do you think I’ll allow you to shame her like that?”
Jude swallowed at the pounding violence in the words and shook his head. “I never meant to do any harm.”
“I’ll tell you what you’ll do, you—you . . . You’ll marry her or give up them notes you’ve been takin’ these past months. Always working on your book—well, there’ll be no book if there’s no marriage. Consider it a fair dowry.”
Jude heard the pain lacing the outcry and the threat, and his head swam. He didn’t want this . . . he’d come to know and respect these people. But losing what he considered to be his life’s work so far—the notes for the book on Ice Mountain—was not an option.
Jude felt the grip on his right arm ratchet up.
“I say we beat him into agreeing,” Joseph King growled.
“Nee,” Bishop Umble said. “There’ll be none of that. You know that violence is not an option for us. Abner, buwes—I’m surprised at you.”
“But it’s my girl!” Mary’s father cried.
Jude nodded though the effort cost him. “It’s still another two weeks until I leave. Let me and Mary have time to—decide.”
Jude lifted his chin, and the older man apparently took it as a challenge.
“Burn his cabin and all that writing, buwes. Now.”
Jude staggered when he was released and Bishop Umble caught his shoulder. “Joseph . . . Edward. Stop this instant!”
Jude saw one of Mary’s brothers strike a match against a booted heel and his world spun into crystalline clarity.
“I’ll marry her.”
Mary bit her bottom lip as the bishop finished the old words that bound the professor to her for the rest of this earthly life. She didn’t like the trapping her fater did during the winter, and somehow, this wedding seemed equally bad in a way. She noticed that the professor didn’t look at her but was focused on snatching back the pile of yellow notebook paper that Joseph had held out as extra reinforcement. He’d also pulled some hard candy from his jeans pocket and was sucking it. She knew it had something to do with his blood.
“Bring the broom,” her father bawled out and Mary jumped. She’d forgotten the broom and its meaning.
Edward brought a broomstick forward, and he and Joseph bent to hold it level about a foot off the ground.
“What’s this?” the professor asked, his voice laced with sudden interest. Mary understood his shift of mood. She’d helped him with his work all summer, and whenever he came across something “unique,” as he called it, about her people, he furiously wrote it down in one of the yellow tablets. Now he pulled a pencil nub from the pocket of his blue jeans and started to write on the back of one of the pages he’d secured from Joseph. Mary handed him his spectacles and he slipped them on with an absent word of thanks, then went back to his words.
“Stop yer foolishness and writing,” her father ordered in a voice that made Mary cringe. She couldn’t understand her daed’s contempt for the professor even though he acknowledged that the younger man was schmart. It was something to think about. But now her heart beat with growing excitement. Somehow, the broom made everything seem more real.
“Hold hands with my girl and jump the broom together,” her dat instructed. “And don’t fall—or it’ll be worse luck than what you’re startin’ off with.”
The professor neatly folded his papers and put them in his back pocket, then reached for Mary’s hand.
“Why are we doing this?” he asked.
Her daed snorted.
“You jump over the broom together to symbolize moving from life alone to a life together,” the bishop explained.
“So there’s no religious significance?”
Mary knew the professor might ask about religious doings but that he didn’t believe in Gott. He’d told her that one day. And she knew it was wrong, though she couldn’t help being drawn to him all the same.
“Nee, no religion,” her fater snapped. “Now jump.”
Jude gazed down at Mary’s hand in his. One part of him kept murmuring annulment . . . annulment, while the other, that part his grandfather had nurtured and taught, wondered if he could really do it to her. He knew she had intense curiosity about the outside world and understood how keenly her mind worked. It might be an interesting last few chapters in the book to see how a Mountain Amish girl would fare in the world of the wealthy of Atlanta, and then he could always bring her home and leave. She might hate him for a while, but then she’d forget and marry someone else from her own people . . . He ignored the strange prick of disquiet that accompanied this idea.
He felt her tighten her grip in his, her hand small and trusting, and realized that she’d caught hold of her skirts. She bent her knees and he did the same, hoping that Joseph and Edward wouldn’t raise the broom. And then they were jumping over the long stick in fluid unison to land in the moss on the other side. He let her warm hand go.
“An excellent jump.” The bishop clapped. “There—see, Abner, things are bound to be right now.”
Jude’s new father-in-law grunted while Joseph and Edward rose from holding the broom.
“We’ll leave.” Bishop Umble spoke with authority and Jude ducked his head away from the solemnity in the man’s wise eyes. It was almost as if the Amisch leader could see his less-than-honorable plans, and Jude had the passing thought that he might have felt better if Joseph had taken a swing at him.
“I’ll stay on a bit and take care of his head,” Mary said.
“That, and nothing else, Mary. You’ll be home in time to fix supper,” Abner warned.
The bishop laughed and clapped Abner on his broad shoulder. “I’m afraid that you can’t have it both ways, Abner. The girl’s his wife now. She takes care of him and gets his supper now. And ‘anything else’ is up to them.”
His new father-in-law blustered, then seemed to realize that he’d forced himself out of a cook, and Jude had to suppress a smile. He knew how hard Mary worked and he’d be glad to give her a break from it all for awhile. He slung his arm around her shoulders and grinned at his new brothers-in-law.
“Well, boys, it looks like you two will be taking up Mary’s place and chores.”
“Ach, but maybe I should . . .” Mary began and Jude tightened his hold on her with deliberation.
“You should care for our cabin, sweetheart. At least for the next two weeks—until we leave the mountain.”
Then everyone looked sober and he regretted his loose tongue, though he’d spoken the truth.
“Be well, daughter,” Abner mumbled and started off. Her two brothers followed and Bishop Umble paused to gaze up at Jude.
“You’ll be good to the girl?”
“Yes, sir. I give my word.” Jude felt the other man weighing his words. Then he nodded and also turned to go, and the men disappeared into the tree line once more.
Jude would have moved his arm but Mary turned in to the line of his body, pressing against his hip and burying her face in his white shirt.
“Mary . . . Mary,” he whispered, thinking she might be sad, but then she lifted her head to smile at him with her beautiful mouth.
“What would you like for supper, Professor?”
You . . . Jude’s mind recoiled from the unbidden thought as if he’d held his hand to white-hot coals. He cleared his throat. “Anything will be fine.”
“All right, Professor.”
He stepped away from her. “Call me Jude.”
Her smile grew and he blinked.
“All right. Jude.”
She had been inside his cabin before, but now she felt an intimacy about the ordered stacks of books and papers that lined his makeshift desk of plywood on two sawhorses. She stared at his neat handwriting until the letters and words made a blend of twining thread, swirling out into a lifetime of possibility. She jumped when he touched her arm.
“Well, little friend, we seem to have gotten ourselves into quite a situation.” His deep voice sounded tired.
“Is your head still hurting?” Her eyes swept the simple single bunk made up with white sheets and a green sleeping bag he must have somehow gotten past the bishop. She knew that his coming to Ice Mountain was conditional upon his living with strict adherence to all the ways of the people. He’d told her how warm the strange fabric of the sleeping bag was at night, and more than once during a summer storm, she had longed for the covering as she shivered in her own bed under threadbare quilts.
He must have seen her staring at the bed because he cleared his throat and stepped away from her.
“I need more sugar.”
She watched him unwrap some candies and pop them into his mouth. He turned to hold one out to her but she shook her head. He sighed. “I have the type of hypoglycemia that is not diabetes—it’s rare.” He must have known she didn’t understand, and he shook his head. “Yesterday, Mary . . . Look, I want to talk about it.”
She fingered a knot on the bedpost and thought of the warmth of the tanned skin of his throat beneath her fingertips. He’d smelled like summer and pine and something strange and wonderful in its unfamiliarity and she’d . . . “What is there to talk about?”
He dropped down onto the stool in front of his makeshift desk and sighed. “I shouldn’t have touched you—kissed you like that.”
She swallowed. “So why did you, then?”
His eyes swept her body from head to toe and he half smiled. “You’re beautiful—inside and out. You deserve a lot more than a selfish writer who doesn’t share your ways.”
“You want to take it back, then—the kissing?”
“I’m not going to lie to you, Mary. I’ve tried to be honest with you all summer. You’ve been my friend, taught me so much about your people—you deserve the truth now. I know how curious you are about the outside world. I could give you a chance to see it, experience it. And then that wedding we had . . .”
Something was wrong, she could tell from the way his blue eyes dropped to the rough hardwood floor. “All right.” She felt she should speak with caution, having the same instinct that she did when a bear was along the path ahead when she went herb picking.
“Well, you could come to Atlanta—Metro Atlanta—with me, as my wife, of course—but we wouldn’t . . . we couldn’t . . .” He paused, struggling, and awareness dawned in her mind.
“We wouldn’t lie together?”
“Right,” he exhaled with a quick smile. “Then we could get an annulment in a few months, an end to the marriage, and you could come back here afterward and . . .”
“Wait . . . sei se gut.” Her voice shook a bit and she paused to steady herself. “We . . . we jumped the broom.”
He stood up and came to bend close to her face. She could see the heavy fall of his lashes and smell the butterscotch-candy sweetness of his breath. She wanted to sob aloud.
“Mary, come on. We can’t . . . you can’t leave this mountain, these people, forever. What about Isaac Mast? Hmm?”
She felt her face flame in embarrassment at the thought of the pimply faced youth who dogged her footsteps. “Isaac is a boy.”
He smiled and brushed a finger down her hot cheek. “All right. But, Mary, think about it. Freedom . . . excitement, a taste of what you want and then home again.”
“Why?” she managed to say. “Why not leave me here in the first place? This is not right, a lie before Gott.” She bit her lip, knowing she’d said the wrong thing when he stiffened and pulled away.
“I forget your Amish roots, don’t I?” he asked with a wry twist of his handsome lips.
“And I can never forget,” she whispered. She clutched her hands in her apron, then jumped at a scratching sound on the door.
She met her husband’s eyes and he shrugged. She hoped her dat hadn’t decided to come back, then moved to open the door.
Jude rubbed at the lump on the back of his head and wanted to crawl under the desk when Mary opened the door to reveal Grossmuder May. The Amisch woman was older than time, had a toothless grin, and knew far too much gossip about the mountain community she helped take care of with her herbs and remedies. Mary’s questions tore at him. Why couldn’t he simply leave her here? Gather his notes and be gone during the night? But some sense of twisted honor held him, and now here was one of the eldest in the small mountain community—come to watch the debacle of his entrapment.
No doubt news of the impromptu wedding had spread, and May wanted to chat. He rose in deference to the old woman, who was revered as a healer, and waited for her to speak.
“Married, are ye?” she rasped, hobbling farther into the small space.
“Jah, Grossmuder,” Mary said shyly.
Jude felt the weight of the raisin-dark eyes in the wrinkled face and stood his ground. May brushed past him to pull a small pouch from her apron pocket. “I’ve come to bless the marriage bed.”
“What?” Jude was nonplussed and felt his cheeks grow hot in spite of himself when he glanced at Mary. His new wife looked distinctly uncomfortable. My wife . . .
“It’s a custom . . . you can write it down,” Mary said.
But for once, Jude had no desire to write as he watched Grossmuder May open her pouch. T. . .
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