Free Courting Emily (A Wells Landing Book 2) by Amy Lillard Page B

enough.
    “I am only trying to help.”
    Joy picked up the papers and started flipping through the sheets.
    “Well, you are failing.” He loomed over her.
    Emily stood, like that did any good against his superior height. Or his anger.
    “Elam.” Joy’s voice was unreadable, and Emily wasn’t about to look at her. She was locked in a stare-down with Elam. Why was he being so stubborn?
    “Just read what’s there.” That was not too much to ask, to keep an open mind and seek answers.
    He stalked around the table and scooped up the papers. He fisted them in his big hand, reducing them to a wad of crumpled words.
    “Elam,” Joy’s voice admonished.
    “What if it helps him?” Emily asked.
    A moment hung suspended between them.
    He stilled. “What if it doesn’t?”
    Emily kept her eyes on him, her gaze steady and reassuring. “If he were my vatter, it would be a chance I’d be willing to take.”
    He wilted a bit, his eyes filled with pain and something else. Regret? Remorse? Then he tossed the papers back onto the table and stalked out the door.
    Joy and Becky watched him leave, their expressions a mirror image of confusion and apology.
    “I don’t know—” Joy started, but only finished with a shake of her head.
    Emily pointed toward the wad of papers. “Will you read it?” she asked.
    “ Jah .”
    “That’s all I can ask.” She turned on her heel and followed Elam out into the bright sun.
    She found him standing under the large tree to the side of the house, the very same one where she and James had watched the men paint a few days before.
    “What is wrong with you?” She hadn’t intended her words to come out sharp and accusing, but she’d had about all of his contention she could stand. She was only trying to help, after all.
    He braced his hands on the tree and tucked his head between his arms. He said something, but she couldn’t quite make out the words.
    “What?” she asked, doing her best to keep her temper under control.
    He raised his head. “I don’t know.”
    She stopped. A little of the starch that had sustained her this far escaped. “I think you do.” She crossed her arms and eyed him. “Why are you so against reading that information?”
    He shook his head.
    “You’re afraid.” Big strong Elam Riehl was scared. “But of what?”
    “You don’t understand,” he whispered.
    “Then tell me.”
    He braced his back against the tree and slid downward until he was sitting between the roots.
    Emily lowered herself to sit in front of him, so close their knees almost touched.
    “He was so strong before.” Elam’s voice was quiet, almost hesitant.
    “I remember.”
    He leaned his head against the tree, its trunk smashing the back of his hat. “He was my everything and to see him like that . . .”
    “Now you have to be everything to everybody instead. And everything to him.”
    “ Jah .” The words were spoken so quietly she almost thought she had imagined them.
    “You don’t have to always be strong, you know.”
    “I’m not.” His eyes were closed, but she didn’t need to see the green depths to know his pain.
    “You try to be.”
    He didn’t say anything for a long time. He just sat under the tree, his eyes closed, his breathing slow. Emily wondered if perhaps he had fallen asleep.
    “ Danki, ” he finally said. His eyes flickered open. He seemed to have recovered in those few moments. His gaze was clear, his shoulders relaxed. He looked like they had just come out for a stroll.
    “You’re not alone in this,” she told him.
    He nodded. “That’s what Mamm keeps telling me. I try to trust her. After all, she’s been my mamm since I was eight years old.”
    Emily had forgotten that his mother had died when he was so young. Not that she remembered firsthand about Linda Riehl’s illness and death, but she had heard the story many times in the years following. But when James married Joy Detweiller, talk of the past died down and only murmurs about the