Free Arms of Love by Kelly Long

“Here. I thought you might be hungry.”
    Adam sat up and wolfed down the rolls, not caring for a moment what would happen if their sire heard the doorway conversation. When he was done, he eyed his elder brother speculatively. “I thank you, Isaac.
    ’Twas good. But you’ve seen me go hungry before and seen my light burn in the wee hours. Why bother now?”
    Isaac shrugged. “I fed the coon; I could do no less for you.”
    “Ah.”
    “And I thought that perhaps something besides Fater troubled you. Do you want to talk about it?”
    There was just enough diffidence in his brother’s tone to make Adam want to pour his heart out. If Isaac had been sympathetic, curious, or simply nosy, he would not have talked. But he longed to share the truth of his loss of Lena with someone.
    “I gave up my relationship with Lena.”
    “What?” Isaac’s question was a low roar, and Adam looked at him irritably.
    “Come in here and shut the door before Fater is up.”
    Isaac shut the door and turned to lean against it, stroking the raccoon in his arms. For once, Adam noted, his brother’s dark eyes were anything but sleepy; there was an interested speculation there that was enough to give him pause.
    “Why would you give her up?” Isaac asked. “I will admit that she is stubborn and willful, but she is by far the most beauteous lass about.”
    “How do you know she is stubborn? And I thought future Amish bishops should not care about such earthly things as physical beauty.”
    “I tried to offer her spiritual counsel, but she refused it. She said that you were her spiritual bedrock.”
    Adam ducked his head as if he’d been struck a physical blow.
    “Go on.”
    “As for her beauty—’tis a gift from Gott , is it not? I would have to be blind not to admit that I have thought upon her on occasion with some—chaste—interest.”
    Adam looked him in the eye and had the unnatural feeling of wanting to strangle someone. Was Isaac suggesting that he would want to court Lena? And how would that play into his promise to Mary, who could not have possibly foreseen a potentially meddlesome older brother.
    “ Ya , well—keep that interest chaste, bruder .”
    “But you said you have given her up. Surely I will not be the only man who might seek to have a role in her life. She needs a man badly at this time.”
    Adam gritted his teeth. What could he say? He couldn’t have it both ways—be apart from her and then still want her as far as the rest of the world was concerned. It was an impossible dilemma. He flung himself backward on his bed and drew a bare arm across his face.
    “ Danki for the bread,” he said in a tone of dismissal.
    “Adam, I—”
    “Good night.”
    He heard the door close gently but stayed awake ’til dawn, wrestling with the haunting thought of Lena’s heart falling prey to another.

    Lena rolled over in the bed and remembered the previous night. She felt bruised from the inside out . . . raw and hurting. She sat up with caution, and from long habit made sure not to elbow Abigail in the process. She gazed down with bittersweet pleasure at her schwester’s sweet, freckled face in the play of morning’s light and knew that she had overslept. She should have been up as Mamm would have been, long before daybreak. She swallowed hard at the thought of the terrible previous day of death, new life, and Adam’s horrible visit, but she was determined to move onward. She slid upward with care, her plain white linen gown caught round her legs beneath the wool coverlet. She felt her ruffled nightcap askew, so that her long blond hair brushed the tops of her hands as she pressed against the strawfilled mattress.
    An image of what it might feel like to have Adam kissing her came to her in a sudden rush, and she clenched the mattress. It was as if her mouth stung with sensation from the very idea of his kiss. But she was being foolish. She knew Adam well enough to understand that he meant what he said, and he had