Free Between Two Promises by Shelter Somerset Page A

“I’m wearing fancy clothes.”
    “She can tell by your beard.”
    Daniel shrugged. “I seen Englishmen with beards like mine.”
    “Well, she’s still rude.”
    Daniel rolled his eyes, his cheeks puffed with food. “Can’t we eat breakfast in peace? Things are going to be hectic enough today, what with preparing for the wedding tomorrow. I’d like to have a little peace while I eat.”
    “I’m sorry.” Aiden wanted to ameliorate things between them. “I’m a little extra sensitive lately. You keep pushing me further and further away here, and you promised you wouldn’t.”
    “Aiden, I won’t argue with you about this, not in a diner, especially when it’s barely seven o’clock in the morning. Now eat your eggs before they get cold.”
    While Aiden had inwardly laughed at the woman back at the bed and breakfast for making a spectacle of herself over a measly mouse, a rush of empathy for her made him reflect. He, too, felt like he was being chased out of his comfortable world, overwhelmed by intrusive pests.
    Or, he considered as he took a small bite of his omelet, perhaps he should empathize more with the field mouse.
     
     
    A FTER breakfast, Aiden dropped Daniel off at the farm and said he needed to go back to the inn and do some writing. He wanted to avoid facing the Schrocks—and their houseguests. At least for a while. His head still ached, and he wanted to be alone. Daniel’s curt warning, “Be careful,” failed to alleviate the dull worry weighing on his mind.
    Heading back to the bed and breakfast, he reckoned he’d drive around for a bit, clear his head, take in some of the landscape. He’d never seen Frederick County fully in winter. With snow blanketing the tawny fields, the farmland exuded a certain coziness, an idyllic charm. Different from the sublime, rugged beauty of western Montana, but attractive in its own subtle way. He only wished circumstances were different.
    Away from the commotion of the Schrock farm, those feelings of alienation lessened. He didn’t mind being different. He relished it, like Daniel had said of him. He liked his individuality. But he feared his differences in the Amish community might destroy everything that he and Daniel had built together the past six months.
    He disliked the mendacious games, the awkward glances. The questions, both spoken and implicit, of why he was there. He never understood why people would rather live in a world of pretense, yet Daniel—and the community—gave him little choice. And the more he had to lie, the more he faded away, a mere wispy cloud in their midst.
    And Daniel did not seem to care.
    He had hoped by coming back to Illinois their relationship might strengthen. But he feared the forces of family and community wielded too great an influence for Daniel. Instead of bringing them closer, Henry was forcing their relationship through a grinder, ripping apart all that joined them.
    He turned down the street where he’d once lived. Slowing, he peered at the small white bungalow with the robin’s-egg blue shutters he’d rented for four hundred fifty dollars a month, back what seemed ages ago. Difficult to imagine only a little over a year had passed since he’d packed his old Aveo and headed back home to his parents’ in Maryland. Even if Daniel’s father hadn’t candidly suggested he leave town, he probably would’ve left on his own before the spring, anyway.
    By Thanksgiving, Aiden had already learned of Daniel’s proposing to Tara Hostetler. If he had thought he and Daniel might have a future together, news of their engagement had doused any hopes for that. Samuel had told him he did not belong in Henry, and that he and Daniel came from two different worlds. Maybe Samuel had been the only one dealing honestly with things, and everyone else was living under pretenses.
    Everything turned around when he ran into Daniel in Glacier National Park, right before Daniel’s wedding to Tara. When they found each other, face to