Free Seasons of Tomorrow by Cindy Woodsmall Page B

words did nothing to endear her to him.
    He’d already answered that. “I’m really sorry this hurts your feelings,but I told you the first night I asked you out after the singing that I was leaving in April and wouldn’t be back.”
    “When you said it, I was hoping you’d take me with you.”
    “What?” His voice boomed, and he regretted his response, but how could anyone seriously consider marriage before a first date?
    She covered her face, bright red skin showing around her hands and down her neck. They rode in silence, and she finally got her emotions under control, wiped her tears, and drew a ragged breath.
    A colonial style home came into view with a much smaller house next to it, probably the accompanying Daadi Haus . A clothesline stood between the two places, and a couple of teenage girls were nearby, wet clothes in hand, one flailing what appeared to be a diaper toward the other. Jacob narrowed his eyes. Most Amish women did laundry on Monday or Tuesday, not Saturday. A moment later one of the girls landed on the ground. Had she simply fallen or been pushed?
    The front door of the larger house flew open, and Esther hobbled out of it, the baby on her hip. The little one had grown quite a bit since Jacob first saw him four months ago. He appeared to be ten or eleven months old. Despite all the female turmoil in his life today, he smiled at the scene.
    Jacob slowed the rig, his curiosity piqued as he chuckled. “More sisters?”
    “What?” Dora jerked a breath in and looked up from the floorboard.
    He pointed behind them. “Esther seems to be breaking up a fight between two girls younger than you.”
    Dora looked offended. “They are not my sisters, not related at all.”
    His interest inched a little higher. “Then who are they?”
    Her body tensed into a shrug she didn’t release.
    He laughed. “Dora … who are they?”
    She plucked balls of wool from her coat. “You know Esther?”
    He hadn’t meant to let that slip. “Ya, actually, I do. We sort of bumped into each other in town the other night.”
    Suspicion hardened Dora’s face. “Did she say something that changed your mind about me?”
    “No. Of course not.” Esther’s only influence had been to help Jacob understand that, since he intended to end things with Dora anyway, sooner was better than later, for Dora’s sake. “So who are the girls?”
    “Esther houses young women from across the states who need a temporary place to live. She’s done it for almost six years now.”
    Was Esther providing a halfway house for those who didn’t wish to remain Amish? That didn’t make sense. Those still living Amish didn’t help others leave. And when children weren’t in a good Amish home, the Amish often had someone go into the home to help set things right. “So the girls are pregnant.”
    Dora nodded.
    That situation didn’t happen often among the Amish, but it wasn’t exactly rare either. If the girls hadn’t had on those bulky coats, he might have seen they were expecting. But when a girl found herself in that predicament, she usually married right away. Even if that didn’t happen, parents rarely kicked them out. Did they?
    “I love my sister, but how she lives is embarrassing.”
    If this was what Esther did regularly, some sort of mission outreach to pregnant girls, her suspicion of Jacob’s phone conversation and her disbelief about his explanation made perfect sense. But Dora’s attitude seemed immature. “I’m sure she’s taken plenty of heat over the years for doing this. Maybe you should try being proud of her.”
    Disbelief filled her eyes. “You have her for a sister and walk in my shoes, and then we’ll talk about this. She’s relentless in frank discussions about men. It drives me and my sisters crazy.”
    “How many sisters do you have?”
    “Three—Esther, who’s older, and two younger. Four brothers. Two older and two younger. In Esther’s defense she’s no easier on my brothers than she is on us