A tug pulled her skirt. She looked down into Samuel’s green eyes. “Wose,” he said using his abbreviated version of her name. “The boys.” He pointed to where his brothers walked across the playground toward home.
“You want to go with them?”
He nodded.
“Jah, then,” she said. “Geh.” She resisted the urge to pat him on the head or kiss his cheek like she wanted to. He would always be like a baby to her, sweet and innocent, but more than anything he wanted to grow up confident and capable like his bruders.
She watched him until he caught up with the others, love filling her heart. What a blessing he was despite the tragedy of his birth. Another of God’s lessons she had yet to understand.
John Paul tugged on the Englischer’s arm. “Come on, then.”
She thought she saw fear flash in Zane Carson’s eyes before he turned his full attention back to her.
He turned his gaze on her, his brown eyes were warm and inviting. “How are you getting home, Katie Rose?”
She hated the heat in his stare, so she turned away and instead watched after the kinder as they ambled down the road. “I usually walk with the children,” she muttered, hating the lack of conviction in her tone. Why did this stranger affect her so?
“Oh, yeah?”
“I . . . I should be goin’.” She pulled the schoolhouse door shut, realizing that she had left her lunch box on her desk. Nothing inside couldn’t wait until tomorrow, and she had to get away from Zane Carson as soon as she could. Immediately. Sooner.
“How far is it? Home, I mean. To Gabriel’s house.”
“Not far.” She hoped the I’ll be fine. I do this everyday. Please don’t invite yourself along was evident in her tone. It would have been downright ill-mannered to say the words. Especially since this man had come to help and at the invitation of her elders. But she needed to breathe air which he didn’t share. She tripped down the stairs and headed toward home.
“I’ll walk with you.”
“That is not necessary.” She trained her eyes on the road ahead, not trusting herself to look at him. With his shingled haircut and too-short barn-door pants she should have found him anything but intriguing. And yet she did. “My bruder will be expectin’ you to ride with him.”
“Are you serious? Your bruder has got to be the worst driver I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet. I’m more than happy to have the excuse not to get in the car with him behind the wheel.”
“Ach!” John Paul protested. “I’m a fine driver.”
“Right,” Zane Carson replied, stretching out the word until it was as long as a country lane. “If it’s all the same to you . . .”
John Paul shrugged. “Beat yourself out.”
Her bruder had taken his rumspringa a bit too seriously. He had started watching Englisch movies and trying to talk like those actors he saw there.
“Knock yourself out,” Zane Carson corrected.
“Right.” John Paul jingled his keys and slid into his crazy Englisch automobile.
Katie Rose resisted the urge to shake her head and instead reminded herself to say an extra prayer for him tonight. If his driving was indeed as bad as Zane Carson reported, then he would need the Lord watching over him for sure and for certain.