LITMIR.BIZ

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whispered, “Have a gut time. And remember, this is temporary. Don’t break Lucy’s delicate little heart.” Then he puckered his mouth and smacked his lips in an exaggerated kissing gesture.

      “Don’t start anything on fire,” Nick retorted as he set his hat on his head and exited through the back door.

      When he turned down the lane to Lucy’s house, he spotted her standing on the porch, clutching a cloak around her chest. It wasn’t that cold outside, but she was behaving as if it were ten degrees below zero. He hoped she wasn’t going to complain about riding in an open-seat buggy in this weather.

      He hopped down from the carriage while she crossed the yard in the light streaming from the house windows. “Hi, Lucy,” he said, and reached to support her as she climbed into the buggy, but she kept her arms snug around her chest. She acts as if we’re still kinner in school and I have the cooties, he thought.

      “Hello, Nick,” she said in a hushed tone. “Don’t look toward the window because I think we have an audience. I’m hiding my embroidery materials beneath my cloak. I don’t want Betty and my stepsisters to see, because they might realize we’re not actually walking out together.”

      Nick chuckled. So she wasn’t as standoffish as he’d thought. “It’s already too dark for them to see this far. They’ll never know. But here, let me help.”

      He cupped Lucy’s elbow to propel her upward, but she was so light he nearly tossed her into the buggy and she flung her arms out for balance, upending her tote bag.

      “My linen!” she wailed as she retrieved a rectangle of fabric white enough to see in the twilight. “I hope it didn’t get dirty.”

      “Sorry about that,” he apologized, feeling like a bull in a china shop. Usually his confidence wasn’t so easily rattled.

      They didn’t say another word until they were nearly at the library and Nick asked, “What are you going to say if someone sees you in the library?”

      “I’ll probably say hello.”

      Nick looked at her sideways, but he couldn’t discern from her profile if she was joking or if she was just too obtuse to know what he meant. “Neh, I mean what excuse are you going to give them for being there alone?”

      “Why do I need an excuse to be at the library alone? It’s not as if anyone other than our families know we’re supposedly going out together tonight, right? Your family will be busy at the store and mine wouldn’t dream of coming to the library. So if I meet anyone else from our district, I’ll simply greet them as usual.”

      Nick was dubious. He knew how quickly rumors spread in Willow Creek, especially when meed like Katura and Mildred were involved. If they told their peers Nick and Lucy were walking out that night and then someone saw Lucy alone, it wouldn’t take long before their farce would be discovered.

      “Do you suppose you could keep a low profile anyway?” he requested.

      “Unfortunately, a low profile is all I can keep.” Lucy giggled. “Let’s just say being five feet tall is something of a shortcoming.”

      Amused, Nick smiled. Most meed he courted were too self-conscious to laugh at what they considered physical imperfections. Not that Lucy’s height was an imperfection—it was how the Lord had created her—but she was unusually short compared to most of the Amish in their district.

      In the library parking lot he offered to help her down from the carriage, but she insisted she could manage on her own. Covertly glancing around, he noticed a group of Englisch preteen girls hanging out on the library steps—probably waiting for their parents—but he didn’t see any Amish people or buggies. “I’ll be back at eight thirty to pick you up,” he said.

      “The library doesn’t close until nine so it’s fine if you’re running a few minutes late.” When Lucy smiled Nick noticed that her straight, white teeth gleamed in the light cast by the streetlamp. He watched as she trod past the Englischers who gave her a once-over and then giggled behind their hands. Not even as tall as the shortest of the girls, Lucy held her head high and swung her canvas bag as she passed them. Whether she was oblivious to their presence or deliberately ignoring their ridicule, Nick couldn’t guess. Lucy was more complicated than she seemed on the surface, a characteristic he found both intriguing and frustrating.

      Nick directed his horse toward an Englisch lumberyard in Highland Springs. Ordinarily, he would have purchased his supplies from the local lumberyard, but the Englisch one was open late and he was relatively certain he wouldn’t see anyone he knew there at this time of evening.

      Since he’d already made Kevin purchase most of the supplies he’d need from their father’s hardware store, Nick only needed to buy paneling. It was a challenge to secure the long pieces of wood in his courting buggy, and he frequently had to stop along the way to the cabin to reposition them.

      As he journeyed, Nick thought about Kevin grumbling over how much the supplies cost. That should have been the least of his brother’s concerns. It was as if the boy didn’t fully appreciate how much trouble he would have been in if Jenny Nelson hadn’t extended such grace. Nick asked the Lord to touch Kevin’s conscience and to open his eyes to his careless behavior. Please, Gott, help me to be a better example to him, too.

      When he arrived at the cabin, he flicked on the lights and began unloading the supplies. Preoccupied with trying to figure out where to begin deconstructing the wall, Nick didn’t realize how late it was until a clock chimed eight times—or was it nine? He glanced at the mantel place clock. It was nine. The library was closed and Lucy would be waiting. Experience told him the only thing worse than breaking up with a woman was being late for one. She was going to be madder than a hornet.

      He flung the last of the materials into a messy stack in the corner of the room, locked the cabin door and bounded across the lawn to his buggy. This was one of the many occasions when it was clear that buying Penny hadn’t been an impractical choice; the animal trotted as quickly as Nick allowed and he arrived at the library within fifteen minutes.

      As he approached the building he couldn’t see Lucy and he worried she may have left without him. But how? From what he could tell, it wasn’t likely she’d undertake a walk that far in daytime, much less in the dark. His heart shuddered. Had something befallen her? But when he scanned the entrance area again, he spotted her partially obscured by shrubbery on the side of the library steps. Her bag was at her side and she was sitting with her arms wrapped around her knees. She’s so thin she’s probably chilled to the bone, he thought.

      Her head was tilted toward the sky and Nick wondered if she was praying. Maybe she was asking God to hasten Nick’s arrival. He brought his buggy to a halt and jumped down. His movement seemed to startle her, and she rose and absentmindedly brushed off her skirt.

      “I’m sorry, Lucy,” he said. “I got so involved with my tasks I entirely lost track of time.”

      Still looking upward, she replied, “I understand how that can happen. I was so absorbed in my embroidery I almost got locked inside the library just now. The librarian found me in a corner chair in the basement and chased me out. Look, is that Mars?”

      Astounded that Lucy wasn’t angry, Nick’s eyes followed the skyward direction of her pointed finger. “Jah, I think you’re right.”

      “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” she asked. “I’m usually not outside at this time of night so I hardly ever get to see the planets and the stars.”

      Nick saw them all the time, but he never stopped to appreciate them the way she apparently did. They stood side by side in silence observing the sky until a shiver passed over Lucy and she said, “We’d better get going. It’s late.”

      Reluctantly, Nick nodded and reached for her bag. He repeated his apology. “I really am sorry I wasn’t here when I said I’d be here. It won’t happen again.”

      This time he assisted her

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