Sarah's Sin

It seemed like the wisest course of action was to distance herself from Matt as much as she could. Sarah had come to this conclusion during the course of another long, sleepless night. He wouldn't be staying forever. If she could just manage to keep her heart out of reach until he had gone back to the city, maybe it wouldn't hurt so much when he left.

Her taste for adventure had been seriously depleted by her fear of pain. Adventure probably wasn't all it was cracked up to be anyway, she told herself as she readied a tray of warm muffins and fresh fruit for Matt s breakfast. So far this one had mostly just upset her.

Her thoughts strayed to the memory of being held in Matt's arms and swaying against him as an unseen person in the background sang out all the yearning that had ever been in her heart.

Yes, that had been a sweet moment. And the kiss. That had been precious to her as well. But the risk here was so great and the chance of happiness so small. She had to be realistic about it. Matt was a good man, but there was no future in letting herself fall in love with him. She just had to accept that fact. If she still wanted an adventure, she could try something safer, like figuring out how to make brownies in the microwave oven. Plenty of challenge there, and the only risk was exploding brownie mix all over the kitchen. Or she could have another go at running the VCR. Now there was a real adventure. Every time she tried to put in one of the cartridges Ingrid had told her contained movies, the thing spat it right back out at her. She'd tried touching various buttons, but it only blinked and beeped at her and now the clock would do nothing but flash 12:00—12:00—12:00, and she was terrified she'd ruined it.

Yes, mastering electronic appliances was an adventure that was more her speed. Adventures of the heart were out of her league. Now if she could just get Matt to take the hint.

She wrote him a note telling him she was going into town and stuck it among the muffins. She was hoping he would still be asleep so she could just leave the tray inside his door and slip away from the house before he had a chance to interfere with her plan. There were errands that had to be run in preparation for the guests that would be arriving later in the day. She figured it would take her all morning at the very least to take care of them. That seemed like a good start on escaping the magnetic charm of Dr. Thorne.

She crept up the stairs, taking great care not to rattle the china or slosh the juice. The aroma of coffee wafted up into her face from the thermal carafe, and her stomach rumbled loudly, reminding her that she hadn't taken any time to feed herself yet today. She shushed it and tiptoed down the hall, creeping along the wall to avoid the squeaky spot in the floor. Blossom shuffled along behind her making snuffling noises, trailing the scent of blueberry muffins.

Cradling the tray against her, Sarah managed to work one hand free to grasp the knob on the door to Matt s room. With excruciating patience she turned it a fraction of an inch at a time so as not to make any noise. She pushed the door open a bare inch, then two. Then Blossom butted it wide open with her nose and went bounding in, howling, long ears waving like flags. The basset hound hurled herself at the feet of Matt Thorne, who stood dead center in the room, naked as the day he was born.

“Oh, mein Gott!” Sarah exclaimed on a shocked gasp. Her fingers went instantly numb and the breakfast tray made a noisy trip to the floor. Orange juice spewed across the hardwood. Muffins went bouncing in all direc tions with Blossom chasing after them, trying to catch them in her mouth like balls.

Matt stayed where he was, too enchanted by the sight of a grown woman turning purple with embarrassment to worry about his unclothed state. Sarah dropped to her knees and glued her gaze to the floor as she fumbled with the scattered contents of the tray. Silver rattled against china. The tightly capped coffee thermos slipped out of her grasp and rolled across the floor like a bowling pin.

“I'm so sorry,” she mumbled. “I should have knocked. I thought you would still be asleep. I had no idea you'd be … be—”

“Naked,” Matt supplied, amusement twitching his lips.

“Oh, mein Gott?”

It didn't matter that she was no longer looking at him. She'd already gotten an eyeful and all of it was burned into her brain. She'd seen him with his shirt off and she'd seen him in his running shorts, but what she'd just seen certainly made a big impression on her overall view of the man. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to banish the image from her mind and only succeeded in calling up every detail in startling clarity. Trim hips, muscular thighs. Flat belly with a line of dark hair leading down the center from the edge of his bandages to spread into a thicket of curls around that which made him male—extremely male. “Oh, mein Gott” she mumbled in despair.

“Gee, Sarah, I think that's enough praise. Ill get a big head … or something,” Matt said, barely able to contain his chuckles. He grabbed his bath towel off the end of the bed and slung it around his hips out of deference for her delicate sensibilities and to disguise the fact that he was enjoying having her see him just a little too much. 'Its okay, honey, really. I'm decent now.”

She chanced a peek up at him and went crimson all over again. Decent? Decadent was more like it. The man had no sense of propriety. He certainly had other fine attributes, she thought with a flash of heat in her face, but modesty was not among them.

Matt dropped another towel on the floor to sop up juice and knelt on a dry spot, bending over to look into Sarah's face.

“Sweetheart, its okay. Its no big deal. I don't mind you seeing my body. We've all got one under our clothes.”

She looked at him, utterly shocked, and sputtered, “I don't got one and you had ought to keep yours covered! It looks like a very big deal to me!”

She shoved her soggy note at him and fled, leaving the tray behind. Matt fell over on the floor, laughing and groaning, holding his aching ribs, finally howling in a combination of hysteria and pain. Blossom dropped the muffin she was devouring and howled along.

Sarah grabbed her cloak and bonnet and rushed out the back door of the house. Gravel scuffed her shoes as she ran across the driveway and down to the small barn where the Woods allowed her to keep her horse. Her breath fogged in the crisp fall air like steam. It probably was steam, she thought. Everything inside her felt hot and churning.

Why had she had to see Matt that way after making her big decision to end the adventure of getting to know him? Now everything female in her just wanted to get to know him better. Lust. Pure, sinful lust, that was what it was. And to her discredit, she didn't feel the least bit ashamed of it. What she felt was angry and frustrated.

She grabbed a section of harness and tossed it on Otis without taking the time to brush him first. She had kept the brown gelding for herself when she had sold the rest of the farm and equipment after Samuel's death. The horse looked at her now with his limpid brown eyes, blinking as if she had just awakened him from a deep, restful sleep.

“We're going to town,” she told him, buckling the bellyband with more force than usual, winning herself a fierce offended look from the old horse. She ignored him, too wrapped up in the whirlwind of her own emotions.

She would go to town and do her errands as slowly as she could, lingering over each task. And when they were all accomplished, she would think up some more. She would invent reasons to stay in town until she absolutely had to return to the inn in order to greet the weekend guests. She would be safe then, surrounded by nosy, demanding tourists. She would cocoon herself with their presence and shut out Matt Thorne as much as she could. Maybe by doing all that she would be able to forget about how wonderfully male he looked and how her body had never experienced any kind of sexual satisfaction.

She slipped the horses s bridle on and led him out into the yard where her buggy was parked. Otis demonstrated his lack of enthusiasm for his work by moving as slowly as he could, stretching out his long neck as he was pulled along, backing up between the shafts of the buggy one plodding step at a time. Sarah tried to rush him, but in a contest between a hundred-and-twenty-pound woman and a thousand-pound horse there was likely to be only one outcome. She hurried where she could, fastening the tugs and buckling the back bands with the speed acquired through hundreds of harnessings. The closer she came to finishing and the nearer she felt to freedom, the faster she moved. Just another two minutes and she would be on the road, alone with her confounded lust, leaving Matt Thorne behind to think what he would.

He probably thought she was a fool. A foolish, prudish, backward yokel. He was probably amused by her lack of sophistication. Heaven knew, he no doubt had a flock of slick, polished city women waiting for him back in Minneapolis, none of whom would run away from seeing him naked.

“I wouldn't have either,” she muttered. “Except that …”

Except what? She had a duty to her family and her faith? No, that wasn't what had made her run.

“Mind if I tag along?”

Sarah's hands stilled on the harness. She barely resisted the urge to close her eyes and fall against Otis in a swoon of despair. Another two minutes and she would have been gone. Just two more minutes.

“Does groaning between your teeth that way mean yes in Amish?”

She turned and scowled at Matt, half-expecting to see him standing there with a blush-pink towel swathing his hips. He was dressed. Actually, he looked more respectable than she'd ever seen him. He wore baggy tweed trousers, a blue shirt, and a black leather jacket to cut the chill of the October morning. His hair was combed and still damp from a washing. The gleam in his dark eyes was pure mischief.

“You ought to be in bed.”

Matt grinned and moved a step closer. “You certainly have a burning desire to see me between the sheets, Blue Eyes. I would have been more than willing to discuss the issue with you a while ago, but since I've gone to all the trouble of putting on clothes …”

“You're shameless,” Sarah grumbled, snapping a rein to her gelding's bit.

“I hate to be immodest,” Matt said, “but I don't think I have anything to be ashamed of. Do you?”

The pink crept back into her cheeks as the picture of him flashed again in her mind. He was a beautifully made man. He certainly didn't have anything to be ashamed of.

“Come on, sweetheart,” he said cajolingly, stepping a little closer and gently taking hold of her arm. He turned her toward him, but she refused to look at him. “You were a married lady. You've seen a naked man before.”

“That was different.” Lord, please don't let him ask how different, she thought. As different as day and night. She had scarcely seen Samuel completely undressed and when she had, she hadn't been inspired to feel the wild emotions that had careened around inside her when she'd seen Matt. Guilt pressed down on her, but she shooed it away. It wasn't her fault Samuel had been slight of build and Matt Thorne was … not.

“I&m sorry I laughed,' Matt whispered, his breath fanning her ear, his voice an almosttangible caress to her senses. His fingers were gentle on her arm, stroking lightly through the fabric of her black cape. “You were just so cute all flabbergasted.”

Sarah wasn't sure how to respond, if she was expected to respond at all. Flattery was a foreign concept to her. She stepped back from the horse and out of Matt's grasp, deciding that to dismiss the topic was probably the smartest thing she could do. “Are you sure you are up to riding? It's three miles to town.”

Matt eyed the boxy black buggy and the old horse hitched to it. It wouldn't have been his transportation of choice, but if it meant getting to sit beside Sarah, looking at her and smelling the clean soap-scent of her, and possibly brushing up against her every now and again, he was willing to settle.

“I can handle it. Too bad Ingrid didn't arrange to have my car brought down,” he said, helping Sarah up into the buggy. “It's a Jag,” he added proudly.

“What's a Jag?”

He eased him self onto the thinly padded bench seat, staring at her incredulously. “What's a Jag? A Jaguar XJ6. Only one of the finest automobiles known to man. Leather interior, digital CD player, all-aluminum fuel-injected four-liter twenty-four valve inline-six. Two hundred and twenty-three horses under the hood,'

There. Let her scoff at that, Matt thought. Women never failed to be impressed by his car, even if they didn't know what he was talking about. They always had sense enough to know all that jargon meant great things.

Sarah gave him a crooked little smile that clearly said she thought he was one brick short of a full load. She slapped the reins against the geldings back and said, “Two hundred and twenty-three horses? One has always done just fine for me.”

“Very funny.” He reached into his hip pocket and pulled his wallet out. “I have a picture of it. Want to see?”

She arched a brow in disbelief. “You carry a photograph of your car?”

“Well … sure,” he said defensively, pouting a little.

Sarah gave him a long, amused look and burst into laughter.

The ride into Jesse was surprisingly pleasant for them both. Sarahs embarrassment subsided and she relaxed enough to enjoy Matts company. He was nothing short of gentlemanly, chatting with her about her family, ask ing questions about the horse and buggy and listening with genuine interest as she told him about the quiet simplicity of Amish life. She pointed out the farms of family Mends—Jon Schrock the carpenter, Jake Yoder and his wife, Katie, who made beautiful baskets and sold them in Jesse at the folk-art center. She told him the names of the big Belgian horses Martin Lapp was working through his cornfield.

For Matt the ride was one of his first forays into fresh air and sunshine since his hospital-ization. He felt much better than he had the day before. He especially felt better since he was near Sarah, and he decided she was a much greater tonic than any medication he had been prescribed.

He listened to her describe her people and her way of life, so very different from the life he was used to, slower and so peaceful. He watched the way she handled the reins, her small, unadorned hands sure and steady. She was dressed in what he had come to think of as her “uniform”—heavy dark hose, black shoes, blue dress with a black “cape” or bodice covering, and apron pinned in place. Over this she had put a heavy black woolen cloak that tied at the throat. Instead of the small white cap he had grown used to seeing on her, she wore a larger, more concealing black bonnet, the brim of which hid most of her profile like the blinkers on Otis s bridle. It was garb he might have found quaint on some anonymous Amish woman. On Sarah he found it annoying. He wanted to see more of her. She was a lovely young woman. It was frustrating to only catch glimpses of that loveliness.

He tried to picture her in his minds eye in jeans and a sweatshirt, but he couldn't do it. He could see her in a flowing flowered skirt and a dainty blouse with a lace collar. Something feminine and pretty with her hair tumbling in a thick, magnificent wave down her back. Yes, he thought with a smile, he could picture that quite easily, almost as easily as he could picture her wearing nothing at all.

He sat back and enjoyed the ride, enjoyed the scenery, enjoyed the quiet of the countryside. It had bothered him his first couple of days here. He was used to the noise of a busy city. But now, as he sat relaxed beside Sarah, he absorbed the peace of it. A cornfield stood on one side of the road, tall beige stalks dry and ready for picking. On the other side cattle grazed in a tree-dotted pasture, the trees in full fall color. It was beautiful rolling countryside. So peaceful, so far removed from the gritty reality of the inner city. There were no gang wars here, no endless parade of junkies and bums and drunks. There was still order and sanity in a place like Jesse.

In all fairness, there was still order and san ity in most of the TWin Cities area too. The level of urban squalor wasn't nearly so depressing as it was in most cities, but the decline in the poorer areas was steady and disheartening and spreading slowly into the near suburbs like creeping rot. In most respects the metropolitan area was a great place to live—clean, pretty, culturally active, artistically aware—and most of its inhabitants probably didn't give much thought to the prospects of decay and rising crime rates and crumbling morality, but these were things Matt saw on a daily basis. Knowing all those problems were not just a couple hundred miles away from Jesse, but a whole state of mind away, was a relief for him.

The town of Jesse looked like something out of Norman Rockwell's imagination, tree-lined streets and prominent church steeples, brick shop-fronts and tubs of chrysanthemums on the street corners. A tour bus was unloading in front of the chamber of commerce building, and tourists turned with cameras in hand to snap photos of Sarah s horse and buggy.

“You're a celebrity,” Matt said with a grin.

“I'm an oddity.” There was a bitterness in her voice she didn't usually feel, and she realized that while she didn't much care what the tourists thought of her, she suddenly cared very much that Matt Thome not think of her as a curiosity. He didn't say anything, poor man. What could he say? Of course she was an oddity to him. He was a hotshot doctor from the big city. It was a sure bet his life was not crowded with Amish.

“I have to go to the drugstore and the fabric shop and to the grocer's and the dime store,” she said, pulling off onto a side street and up to an honest-to-goodness hitching rail.

Matt was amazed. A town with hitching rails! He hadn't imagined anything like it existed except on reruns of Gunsmoke, Sarah, of course, didn't think it strange at all. She wasn't the oddity here, he thought, he was. He was the alien invading her territory and so were the tourists.

“Is there anyplace in particular you'd like to go?” she asked.

“Ah, well, I thought I'd pay a call on the local doctor, get my dressing changed, have him pull the stitches out of my chin, talk shop.”

“The ride didn't injure you, did it?” Sarah asked, turning her face up to him. Her eyes looked even bigger, widened by concern and framed by the stiff brim of her bonnet.

Matt felt a little bubble of warmth in his chest. He smiled at her and reached a finger out to skim down her nose. He was pretty sure the buggy ride had jarred his teeth loose, but Otis wasn't going to be able to drag that information out of him, not when Sarah was looking up at him that way. “No. I'm fine. Thanks for asking.”

“Sure,” she said, giving him her teasing smile. “That's just my way of seeing if you're fit to help carry the grocery bags.”

They both chuckled at that, then time just caught and held, frozen in the air like a snow-flake as their gazes met.

I wish he would kiss me again, Sarah thought, knowing she shouldn't want it, but wanting it just the same.

I want to lean down and kiss her, Matt thought, the magnetic force of desire tugging at him, pulling him a fraction of an inch closer as his gaze focused on the vulnerable curve of her mouth. He wanted to taste her again, her sweetness, her innocence. Then a gaggle of tourists rounded the corner, cackling and waddling along the sidewalk like a band of roaming geese, and the moment was gone.

They agreed on a time to meet back at the buggy. Sarah pointed Matt toward Dr. Cos-well's office, then went her own way.

At the fabric shop she purchased sturdy blue cloth to make two new shirts for Jacob because it seemed he was growing faster than her mother could sew for him and because she simply enjoyed doing it. Doing things for Jacob helped to ease the ache of not having children of her own.

As usual, her gaze wandered longingly over the array of patterned fabrics that crowded the displays of the small shop and she thought of how she might look in an English-style skirt cut from the bolt of cream with large mauve roses and dark green leaves on it She ran her fingers over the nubby texture of a fine white eyelet and pictured it as a flowing nightgown adorned with pale blue ribbons. But she bought only her length of durable broadcloth and moved on to the next of her errands.

As she went about her business she did her best to ignore the curious looks and the outright stares directed at her by other patrons of the businesses, mainly people from out of town, for the townsfolk of Jesse had long ago become accustomed to seeing Plain people. Still, it made her uncomfortable. More so today than most days. Today she didn't want to feel so different from everyone else. Today she didn't want to have it pointed out to her that she wasn't just an ordinary woman doing her shopping. Today everything about her Amish-ness irritated her like burlap chafing against her skin. She wanted to fling her bonnet off and wear sneakers and not worry about her long skirts snagging on store shelves. And the reason was Matt Thorne.

At the drugstore she finally gave in. Along with the supplies for the inn she purchased a tiny blue vial of perfume called Evening in Paris and a copy of Glamour magazine that featured articles on fall fashions and dating in the nineties. The clerk gave her a curious look, but evidendy decided all the items were for someone else at Thornewood and made no comment. Sarah paid the bill at the pharmacy counter and quietly thanked the woman. On her way to the front of the store she paused when she was out of view of the clerk and dug her two prizes out of the bag. The perfume she tucked into a small pocket she'd sewn inside the waistband of her apron. The magazine was tucked between the folds of the latest edition of the Jesse Herald-Dispatch.

She pressed her packages against her with one arm and arranged the newspaper-magazine combination in her hands, the magazine opened to an ad for ladies' razors. She bumped the drugstore door open with her hip and stepped out onto the sidewalk—directly into the path of her father. His gaze was focused on the hardware store farther down the street and he plowed into her unchecked, sending packages, paper, and magazine all flying.

“Sarah!” he said, startled, grabbing her by the shoulders to catch her from falling.

“Pop!” She sounded—and looked, she supposed—more guilty than surprised, and she could have bit her tongue. She was twenty-five, a grown woman, but with Isaac she would ever feel the wayward adolescent.

She pulled out of his grasp and they both bent to gather up the packages. He got hold of the magazine before she could reach it and he scowled at the picture on the front cover—a doe-eyed young woman with short, wild hair, exaggerated makeup, and a thick collar of gaudy necklaces. Isaac scowled so hard, it seemed to elongate his lean, lined face and lengthen his scruffy gray beard. Thick, woolly eyebrows drew together in a severe V of disapproval that reached from the rim of his black felt hat to the bridge of his nose. With forced calm, Sarah gathered her other articles and then took the magazine from her father's hands as she straightened.

“I&m just in town to do some shopping for the inn,” she said. It was probably as much a sin as an out-and-out lie, but she couldn't help not wanting him to think the worldly book was hers. They'd had the argument too many times for her to go looking for it.

Isaac sniffed, his scowl not lessening. He was no more than an inch or two taller than Sarah, but carried himself so straight and so stiffly, she always had the impression of him towering over her. He straightened his heavy work coat, his broad hands brushing off some of the road dust in a gesture that seemed insultingly symbolic to Sarah.

“Where is the woman who runs the place?” he asked in German. “Is she too good to do the shopping?”

“Ingrid is away at her other place of busi ness,” Sarah answered primly in the tongue that was her first language. She had always thought it rude to speak a language in public that others couldn't understand—which was, of course, her father's reason for doing it—but she gave in on the point this time. She was having enough trouble grappling for control of her temper. Ingrid was her friend as well as her employer and she took great exception to her father's dim view of the woman.

“A woman running businesses all over the place,” Isaac grumbled. “Where is her husband then? Staying in the same house as you without his wife?”

“John Wood is gone to California.” She tried not to flinch even inwardly at the information she was not giving her father. God knew the eruption that would cause. Isaac Maust's rebel daughter staying in a house with a handsome young doctor from the Cities and no one to chaperon. It made her dizzy just thinking about it. Then she remembered with a sudden terrible jolt that Jacob knew all about Matt's presence. Jacob, whom Isaac himself had sent to the inn. Her heart thudded in her chest like a hammer. Before she had a chance to think about it, she pressed on. “Ingrid left me in charge of the guests. Five for the weekend.”

“Guests.” Isaac spat the word, as if using it for tourists were some defilement of the term. “And one of them teaching your brother filthy foul language.”

“What?”

“Jacob came home the other day saying such words. He got his mouth washed out, I can tell you.”

Sarah was as appalled as if Jacob had been her own son and Isaac some stranger bent on disciplining the boy for imagined sins. She couldn't hold back her gasp of outrage or her defense. “Gross? Is that the word?” Isaac turned purple. “That's not bad language! It's just a word the English children say—”

“Reason enough to stop him using it. I have one child among the English already. I have no desire to see another go astray.”

Sarah drew back, her lips pressed together in a tight line against the pain. How dare he accuse her of going astray when she had tried so hard to stay among them, when every day she fought her own spirit to stay Amish.

She lifted her chin to a stubborn angle her father had seen too many times. “Yes, I've traded my horse for a fancy car, you know. A … a … Dagmar,” she said, not quite sure if that was the right name or not. It sounded impressive nevertheless.

Her sarcasm brought only another disapproving snort. She could feel her father's steel-blue eyes boring into her. “What is this I hear?”

“Hear?” She swallowed hard. “From who?”

“Micah Hochstetler asked you to go to the Beachys' auction with him and you wouldn't go. He says you're acting high and worldly more and more.”

“He goes around saying such things and you wonder why I wouldn't go with him?” She rolled her eyes.

“He is a fine young man, a member of the church with his own farm.”

“And you think that's reason enough for me to go around with him?”

“I'm thinking if you married and had children as you were meant to, we'd not live in fear of being visited by the deacon.”

“I've done nothing to warrant a visit from the deacon!” Sarah protested, her temper flaring as it always did when she exchanged more than five lines with her father.

He stared meaningfully at the magazine in her arms.

“I have committed no sin,” Sarah said stubbornly.

“Excuse me,” a third voice intruded with a sharp, sarcastic edge. “Is there a problem here?”

Isaac turned and looked at Matt, the old man's face set like a mask of granite. “None that concerns you,” he said stiffly in English and he walked away with his head up and his eyes on the hardware store.

Sarah watched him go, a sour mixture of love and hate rolling inside her.

“Friend of yours?” Matt asked sofdy.

“No,” she said, tears burning the backs of her eyes. “He's my father.”

As Sarah shopped for her groceries Matt sat in the buggy tied to the hitching rail at the end of the parking lot. Despite the fact that he felt a thousand percent better than he had the day before, he was still a ways from being back to fall strength, and the mornings activities had taken a toll on him. He leaned back against the seat as he watched toddlers play in the park across thfe street, his thoughts going over his visit with Jesse's resident physician.

The man was an insult to doctors in general and probably a menace to his patients. Phillip Coswell was fiftyish, best described as squat with oily, thinning dark hair, and a fine example of a chainsmoker. He'd asked Matt no less than five times what medication he was on, indicating that he either wasn't paying attention or he had a serious problem with concentration. His main topic of conversation had been the scandalous cost of malpractice insurance and how to milk the most out of the Medicare system. During his time in the waiting room, Matt had heard him insult one female patient and deride another for wasting his time. The poor woman had burst into tears. Matt still couldn't get over the fact that the waiting room had been full. People actually depended on that man for their medical care. It was a terrifying thought.

Sarah came out of the store then and Matt's attention shifted abruptly. She looked pale and tense. He wondered what she and her father had been arguing about, but he didn't feel right asking and she hadn't offered to tell him. He reached out to help her into the buggy and they drove up to the door to have the groceries loaded in. Then they were on their way out of Jesse, past the tourists congregating in front of the Viking Cafe, past the towering corrugated metal structures that comprised the Jesse Grain Elevator, and out once more into the country

Sarah made no pretense at small task. She kept her attention riveted to her driving and to her effort to keep from bursting into tears. For once she was glad for the concealing aspect of her bonnet. It effectively hid her face from Matt's scrutiny. She knew he was dying to ask her what the problem was, but she had no desire to tell him. She wasn't even sure she could have told him if she wanted to. Her feelings were all tangled up so that she didn't know if she would ever be able to sort them out. It had to do with love and need and duty and obligation and wanting and being afraid.

Complicating it all was Matt himself with his gentle hands and his come-hither grin. She didn't want to talk to him of all people about the issue of her Amishness, not when he made her want so much, not when she so desperately wanted him not to think of her as Amish, even though she knew that was wrong and stupid. Oh, heaven, what a mess!

Suddenly two big, masculine hands settled over hers on the reins and Otis was being guided off the road, onto the path to a field of soybeans. They were about halfway to Thorne-wood, precisely in the middle of nowhere, with no one else in sight. The buggy rolled to a stop. Otis hung his head and cocked one hind leg. For a moment the only sounds were the wind in the dried grass and the distant screech of a hunting hawk.

Matt plucked at the strings that tied Sarah's bonnet in place and carefully-lifted the hat away, setting it on the seat on the other side of her. “Come here, now,” he murmured gathering her against him. “Cry it out, whatever it is.”

That was all the encouragement Sarah needed. The last of her strength snapped like a twig and she clung to Matt Thorne and cried her heart out. She cried for what she was and what she could never be. She cried because she wanted her father to love her and she hated herself for it. She cried because her heart was set on Matt Thorne and she had to know she was nothing more than an amusement for him. She cried in sobs that wrenched her soul and twisted her heart.

Matt held her tight against him, ignoring the pain in his ribs. It was nothing compared to what the sound of Sarah crying did to his heart. He found himself wanting to track down her father and punch him in the nose. What could he, what could anyone want to say to sweet, innocent Sarah that would make her cry? Whatever it was, he wanted to somehow take it away. He wanted to soothe her hurt. He wanted to protect her.

He ran a hand over her hair and murmured words of comfort, letting his lips brush the top of her head. Pins fell loose and her hair tumbled freely down her back in glorious waves. Matt tangled his hands in it, lifting it, smoothing it, all the while whispering to her as her sobs faded to soft weeping, then sniffles and ragged breathing. Without letting go of her, he reached in his hip pocket for a handkerchief, he tipped her head back and dabbed at her tears and red nose.

“Better?” he asked.

Sarah nodded, feeling embarrassed and foolish and so very grateful to him. She dodged his steady gaze, staring instead at the big damp patches where her tears had stained his shirt. “Thank you,' she murmured, her voice sounding rusty and low. Tm very sorry—”

“No.” Matt pressed an index finger to her lips to silence her apology and tilted her head back again so she had no choice but to look at him. Her long lashes were damp and spiky. Her eyes seemed magnified by the sheen of moisture in them, and so blue they made the autumn sky pale in comparison. “Don't be sorry. You needed to cry. I'm a big advocate of people crying when they need to. I'm thinking about writing a paper on it for the New England Journal of Medicine.”

“Really?” she said, trying to give him a dry smile that trembled a little too much to work.

“Really. You know what else?”

She shook her head.

“I&m going to kiss you.”

Having made the announcement, he went ahead and fulfilled the promise, pressing his palms to her cheeks and bending his head down to hers. Their lips met slowly, softly, with the gentlest pressure. Matt sipped at her as if she were a rare fine wine, tasting and savoring. Her mouth was pliant beneath his, warm and salty with the taste of her tears. He deepened the kiss a degree, changing the angle slightly, pulling her a little closer. She slid her arms up around his neck and her breasts flat tened against the solid wall of his chest, sending desire shooting through his veins like adrenaline. Heat seared him just beneath the surface of his skin and he deepened the kiss a litde more.

Sarah gasped at the first intrusion of his tongue, unconsciously taking him deeper into her mouth, then moaned softly in her throat at the thrill of the intimacy. Her fingers clutched his shoulders, slipping against the smooth black leather of his jacket. She wriggled closer to him, loving the feel of his body against hers, loving the scent of him and the taste of him. She let him explore her mouth, hesitantly meeting his tongue with her own.

Everything else receded but this. Her inner turmoil, her family, the temporary aspect of Matt's presence. The world itself spun away, leaving just the two of them and this moment and this kiss.

And then it was over.

Matt drew back slowly, staring at her with a slightly puzzled expression, as if he'd gotten something he hadn't expected and wasn't sure why. His hands sifted through her long hair, drawing it over her shoulders. The ends fell in thick curls to brush at her thighs.

“Sweet heaven, you're pretty,” he murmured.

Sweet heaven. That was where he had taken her—to the edge of heaven on earth. And as Sarah took up the reins and guided the horse back onto the road, she wondered if she would ever know what it was to go beyond that edge.