Free Courting Cate by Leslie Gould Page B

kids. I would be their Aenti Cate. I had Dat and Betsy—and her future family. That was it. No matter how much she irritated me, I loved her. It wasn’t that I loved her more than I loved Dat, but I did love her differently. I was used to putting her needs first.
    I swallowed hard. “My throat’s feeling better,” I said.
    The pillow moved again. “You’ll go?”
    “Jah. But only for you.” With Dat and Nan along, Iassumed Martin and Mervin—and Pete—would be on their best behavior.
    The pillow fell away, and Betsy’s head appeared. She turned toward me, her brown eyes rimmed with red. “You won’t change your mind in the morning?”
    “I promise not to.”
    Her arms flew around my neck, the way she used to hold on to me as a child.
    I patted her back, willing her to let go of me. I loved her, yes, but not to the point of being strangled. Finally she released me, dabbing at her eyes after she did.
    I turned off the lamp and climbed straight into bed, retrieving my flashlight from my bedside table. I was dying to get started on my new stack of books, including a biography of Mary Todd Lincoln. I desperately wanted to distract myself from thinking about the next day. I desperately wanted to keep from hoping that Pete Treger might want to—genuinely—court me.

CHAPTER 6
    I focused on appearing as calm and collected as I could, drawing as little attention to myself as possible as we rode in the van to the trailhead. After a few tense minutes of trying to act normal, I decided to pretend I was dozing instead.
    Betsy and Levi sat on the first bench seat, Mervin, Martin, and Pete on the second, and then Nan and I. Dat sat up front with the driver, who turned out to be a Mennonite man from Nan’s district.
    The colloquial term for what he was doing was “hauling Amish.” Some people made a career out of it in Lancaster County, and the saying got a chuckle out of tourists. For us, it was just part of how we got around when we needed to travel farther or faster than our buggies could take us. In this case we were headed west, nearly two hours away.
    I could make out bits and pieces of the others’ conversations, my interest piqued the most by Pete’s voice, but it was all small talk, mostly comments about the lush vegetation, the light traffic, and the long hike ahead of us—ten miles round trip—and what the guys had packed for lunch.
    I didn’t open my eyes until the van slowed when we pulled off the main highway. A minute later the driver parked in a lot half filled with cars.
    The men, including Dat, all had small packs they positioned on their backs. After I stepped out of the van, I pulled my dress tight around my legs, kneeled down, and retied my walking shoes. Betsy and Levi were already at the trailhead, ready to go. I caught a glimpse of the driver, reclining his seat, a book in his hand.
    Dat asked him again if he was sure he didn’t want to come with us. He just smiled and waved.
    I wished I could curl up with a book too.
    We planned to hike to the Chimney Rock vista, eat our lunch, and then hike back. The morning had started out bright and sunny, although cool, but now clouds were forming to the south, so I slipped my arms into my sweatshirt.
    An Englisch couple, dressed in pants and fancy jackets made out of synthetic material and carrying sleek packs, stood beside their car and gawked at us. I squinted to read their license plate. New Mexico. There weren’t Plain people out that way, I was sure. I smiled at them, and they turned their heads abruptly. The woman wore a baseball cap that looked rather masculine. I couldn’t help but speculate that my feminine prayer Kapp looked like something from two centuries ago to her.
    “Come on,” Nan said to me.
    I gave the Englisch couple one more glance and then fell in step with Nan. I knew we were quite a sight to strangers. Most Englisch women hardly wore dresses and stockings at all, let alone to go hiking.
    Levi and Betsy took off quickly, with