Loving Lovina, page 8
“Daniel,” she said.
“Yah, Daniel.” He smiled. “He’s a nice kid. I can see my sister in him, but also his daet. He’s got his father’s mannerisms.”
“Do you think Linda will get married again?” Lovina asked.
“Apparently, there is a man who’s interested,” he replied. “I’m not sure how good a man he is, though. He seems to be hard on Daniel, and I don’t like that. She needs a good man, not just any man who will provide for her. I know that women have the pressure to find another husband once they have kinner to feed, but ... I don’t know.”
“You worry about her,” Lovina said.
“Yah. I do.”
“I daresay you are a very noble man, Johannes,” she said quietly.
He didn’t answer.
“I wish I could tell you about my family in return. That seems like the right thing to do,” she said.
“You still could,” he said.
“You know them better than I do,” she replied with a short laugh.
“That’s okay,” he said. “I still want to hear it.”
Was he really playing along with this? She looked up at him and then readjusted her position.
“Okay . . . well, I have one sister, who seems quite nice . . .” she began.
And for the rest of the drive home, she did her best to describe Elizabeth, Isaiah, and Bethany the best she could. She asked about her father, who she hadn’t seen much of since being picked up at the hospital, and Johannes told her that she’d had a bit of a strained relationship with him, but he wouldn’t say more. She pointed out the odd way Elizabeth and Isaiah had of looking at each other when she asked questions, and how they all warmed up to her like sunshine when she entered a room. She talked about Baby Mo, who was adored by everyone, even when he was cranky, and about the sweet life of taking care of that home and entertaining the baby that she’d settled into rather comfortably.
She talked about the quilt she inexplicably knew how to sew—how it was progressing, and how it was planning for Elizabeth’s marriage to a man who had been to prison. But Elizabeth was the one who could see deeper, somehow—that was all anyone said. And no one in the family really questioned that upcoming wedding. Not in front of Lovina, at least. Even with her lost memory, that felt strange.
All the same, Elizabeth seemed to be completely headlong in love with him . . . Lovina had seen them together. And Sol Lantz was just as in love with Elizabeth. Their eyes sought each other out in a room, even when they were on opposite sides of it. And Elizabeth blushed when Sol murmured things that only she could hear. What they felt for each other was palpable in the room. And in a matter of weeks, Sol and Elizabeth would be married. They’d have a home of their own—Sol had already rented a little house, and he was working hard to fill it with furniture.
Johannes turned the horses into the drive, and he pulled them to a stop several yards from the house. There were no windows in direct sight of them, and when she looked over at him, she found his dark gaze locked on her.
“It’s nice to get to know you,” she said quietly.
He laughed softly. “I have to admit, it’s rather nice to get to know you like this, too, with just you—you and your observations.”
They were still seated quite close together, and his arm was pressed against hers. The leather buggy seat squeaked as he turned toward her and slid his arm along the back of the seat. They were inches apart, and his knee touched hers, but nothing else. His gaze dropped down to her lips, and she felt her heart skip a beat.
“Is this how you used to drop me off?” she whispered.
“Yah,” he said. “Just like this.”
His gaze moved up to her eyes, then he reached out and brushed her bottom lip with the pad of his thumb. He dropped his hand.
“And we’d talk about things?” she asked hesitantly.
A smile touched his lips at that. “A little bit. We didn’t always talk . . .”
And somehow she knew exactly what he was thinking. He wanted to kiss her. She could remember something faintly—the touch of lips against hers, breath against her cheek, the smell of musk and man . . . Would he kiss her now?
She leaned forward ever so slightly, but Johannes didn’t close the gap between them. For a moment that hung between them like an eternity, his gaze lingered on her lips, but he didn’t make a move. Lovina pulled back, embarrassment flooding through her. If he used to kiss her ... why not now? Her cheeks flamed with heat, and just as Johannes was about to say something, the side door to the house opened and Isaiah came outside. He was holding Mo in one arm, and when he saw the buggy he waved.
“You’re back!” Isaiah called. “I came home early to fix a leak in the stable roof! Do you have the time to help, Johannes?”
Johannes looked over at Lovina, and he sucked in a breath as if he was about to speak again, but then he stopped.
“It’s fine,” she said, blinking back tears that threatened to rise. “Go help him.”
“I could come by the house afterward for pie,” he said, and he caught her eye with a pleading look.
“Yah, that would be nice,” she replied, but her voice was tight.
Johannes hopped down from the buggy, and Lovina did the same. She flicked her skirt straight again after reaching the ground, an automatic gesture, and she caught her brother’s easy smile in her direction.
“I won’t keep him too long,” Isaiah said. “Do you want to take Mo? Bethany and Elizabeth are changing linens upstairs, so he was getting in the way.”
“Yah, of course.” She held her arms out for the chubby baby.
“I’ll help you unhitch,” Isaiah said to Johannes.
As Lovina made her way back toward the little house, she looked back over her shoulder toward Johannes. He glanced up at her once, and his gaze caught hers for one intense moment. Then he turned away.
What had happened there in the buggy? If she was his fiancée, why hadn’t he kissed her when he had the chance? He’d told her before about the passion in their relationship. Why hold back now?
And then a possibility that explained it all came rushing in like cold water. Everyone kept talking about the relationship they used to have ... but maybe his feelings had changed, and he hadn’t kissed her because he hadn’t wanted to. Simple as that.
Chapter Six
It took a couple of hours to patch the weak spot in the stable roof, and the entire time he worked on it, his mind kept slipping back to Lovina. He’d almost kissed her—he’d only barely stopped himself from falling right back into old habits with her. But how would he be able to explain himself after that?
She’s wasn’t his fiancée. Not anymore. And he needed to put his own life together. Did he really expect that Lovina’s memory would come back and she’d just choose the life she’d left? It might be what her family was hoping she’d do, but it wasn’t a reasonable expectation. So what was he doing to himself? This was just punishment.
Isaiah asked him a few questions about how his sister was doing, and Johannes answered as honestly as he could. But what could he really say? She’d remembered some food, and he’d been falling in love with her again. But he wasn’t about to admit to his feelings.
When they finished nailing down some new shingles on the roof of the stable, Johannes went toward the ladder to go down, and he paused when he spotted Lovina standing on the porch. She was watching them work, a peculiar look on her face. Johannes raised one hand in a wave, and her fingers fluttered in response, then she descended the steps and headed toward the stable.
Johannes came down the ladder, and when Isaiah emerged outside, his gaze flickered between the two of them.
“Maybe I’ll just head in and see how Bethany is doing,” Isaiah said. He was giving them some privacy.
Isaiah strode toward the house, and Johannes cleared his throat. He wasn’t thinking straight right now, and he knew it. And he needed to behave well so that when he told his father how things had gone, he wouldn’t feel guilty or have to hide anything.
“I should probably head home,” Johannes said. “This took longer than I thought, and my daet needs help with the milking.”
What he really needed was some time alone to sort out his own feelings—get them back under control—and milking was a good enough activity to allow him to do that.
Lovina looked at him uncertainly. “Okay.”
Johannes fetched his horses from the corral.
“I could help,” Lovina said.
He didn’t really want the help—he wanted space. Or rather, he needed space, because being this close to her wasn’t helping him to keep perspective here. She looked at him, her blue eyes filled with misgiving.
“Do you remember how to do this?” he asked her.
“Yah, I think I do.” She reached for the straps to secure the horse in place. Johannes watched her fingers moving deftly.
They worked together in silence until the horses were both hitched, and then Johannes led the horses around and up the drive a little ways. He could make excuses, say he was getting the horses into shade, for example, but it wasn’t that. It was to give him and Lovina just a little more privacy. The buggy would shield them from view.
Lovina licked her lips and dropped her gaze.
“Is something wrong?” Johannes asked.
“I could ask you the same thing.” She tucked a stray tendril of hair back under her kapp.
“Everything is fine,” he said, and he moved closer, looking down at her face—the faint freckles over her nose, the pale lashes that looked so much longer when he was this close to her. Why did looking down into those blue eyes always unhinge him like this?
“You—” She took a step back. “Earlier, when we arrived, you had the chance to kiss me, Johannes. And you didn’t.”
He smiled uncertainly. “Your brother came out, and—”
“It wasn’t my brother who stopped you. You had the chance, and you didn’t.” She raised her gaze to meet his, and he saw something close to anger flashing there. “You aren’t acting like a fiancé. Apparently, we’ve been planning a wedding, and I don’t have a wedding quilt, and you don’t even kiss me!”
So he’d offended her by not kissing her ... If only she knew the self-control it had taken to keep himself in check.
“I’m trying to be respectful of what you’ve been through,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “You don’t remember me, or us, or . . .”
“I might not remember the past, but I know what I see in front of me,” she said, and her voice shook. “And you don’t love me—”
Those words slipped past whatever fences he’d been putting up around his heart, and he stared at her in disbelief.
“What?” He caught her hand and pulled her closer. “You honestly think I don’t love you?”
That had been the problem all along—he did! He loved her when he shouldn’t—when it was wiser to fix his sights on other, more viable women. He was the idiot who couldn’t stop loving her!
“If you loved me, you wouldn’t be holding yourself back,” she said. “I think you’re being nice. I think you feel bad about my accident, and—”
“You have no idea what I’m feeling!” he shot back.
“You think I don’t love you, Lovina? I’ve been thinking about nothing but you since you left! I’ve been worrying about you, praying for your safety, and wondering why you didn’t come back!”
His voice shook and he pressed his lips together, trying to regain control. He was saying too much.
“Then why haven’t you kissed me yet?” she whispered.
Because it was the one thing still holding his heart together ...
“It seemed wrong to kiss you like I wanted to when”—he swallowed—“when for you we’ve hardly met.”
“I know we haven’t just met,” she said. “It just seems like you might be holding back for a reason, and—”
“What reason?” he asked gruffly, and he slid one hand behind her neck, pinning her to the spot.
“Maybe your feelings changed . . .” Her breath was shallow, her chest rising and falling with every intake, and he could see the tremble of her pulse at the base of her neck. She thought he didn’t love her ... She actually thought that he’d rather not pull her back into his arms where she used to belong?
“Are you saying you want me to kiss you?” he asked, his voice coming out in a growl. Because he hardly had a thread of restraint left inside of him.
“Yah . . .” she breathed. “I do.”
It was the only encouragement he needed, and he pulled her against him more roughly than he’d intended, and traced her lips with the pad of his thumb. He wanted this more than she could imagine, he was sure, and when she sucked in a little breath, he lowered his mouth over hers, claiming her. For a moment she seemed stunned, frozen, and then her eyes fluttered shut and she leaned into him. He kissed her with all the pent-up passion he’d been holding back all this time, sliding one hand down her back to her waist, where he held her firmly against his body. He wanted more than this, more than even a fiancé could ask for, because nothing was going to be close enough in order to touch the loneliness at his core. He deepened the kiss until he was afraid he’d cross a line too many and have something serious to apologize for. She pressed closer against him, and he broke off the kiss with ragged breath.
He’d take this too far if he didn’t stop now.
Lovina leaned her cheek against his shirt, and he could feel the patter of her heartbeat against his body. Her breath was coming fast, and when she pulled back and looked up at him, her cheeks were flushed.
“Like that?” he murmured.
She didn’t answer, and he didn’t really expect her to. She’d asked to be kissed, and if he were a different man, or if they had a different past, he might have been able to give her a chaste little peck on her lips, but there was no way he could hold himself to that.
Lovina took a step away from him, and he felt a wave of regret.
“I hope I didn’t scare you,” he said.
“No, it’s okay . . .” She took another step back, and behind her the side door opened and Bethany appeared at the open screen, the baby on her hip.
“Did you want to come in for pie, Johannes?” Bethany called.
She wasn’t really asking him in for pie; she was reminding him of the boundaries, and he’d plowed right over them just now.
“No, I’ll head home!” he called back. “But thank you.”
He shot Lovina a weak smile. Would she forgive him for that kiss when her memory came back?
“You’d best get inside,” he said. “Your family is waiting, and I have to help my daet with the milking, so . . .” He licked his lips, and she stared at him mutely for a moment. “That was why I was holding back ... for the record,” he added.
Had he upset her? Guilt wriggled up inside of him, but then she said, “Will you come back to see me again?”
She was asking, and he was powerless to refuse her.
“I can come tomorrow,” he said. He’d be back in time for milking. “Maybe a picnic by the creek. We used to like that.”
“That would be nice,” she said, and a smile tickled her lips.
He shouldn’t be doing this. He was galloping past all of the boundaries he’d set up . . .
“I’ll see you then,” he said.
Without another word, Lovina turned back toward the house. He watched her go with a lump in his throat. He shouldn’t have kissed her like that—it had been wrong. But if he had to do it all over again, he couldn’t say that he’d choose anything different.
She asked to be kissed . . . Gott help him if she asked for it again.
* * *
Lovina hadn’t expected a kiss like that, and as she walked back to the house, her lips were still moist from his. That was her first kiss ... the first she could remember, at least, and it had made her heart nearly beat out of her chest, and her knees felt wobbly even now ... Perhaps asking for that kiss had been naive on her part. She’d thought that Johannes had been making nice, hiding some lapse in their relationship, perhaps, but a kiss like that one?
The way he’d pulled her in, the urgency of his hands sliding up her back, his lips covering hers ... His body had been hot against her, and she had felt the trembling limits of his self-control as he’d broken off that kiss.
She wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but not that ...
The buggy rattled on down the drive, and she turned and watched it go. There had been more between them than she’d guessed, and she sucked in a shaky breath.
“Has Johannes gone, then?” Bethany asked as Lovina came back in through the side door.
“Yah, he . . . had to help with milking, I think,” Lovina said.
That was what he had said, wasn’t it? It all felt a little blurry now.
“Did you have a nice lunch?” Elizabeth asked, coming down the stairs. She was carrying a bucket and a mop, and she put them down next to the kitchen sink.
“Yah, it was very nice,” Lovina said, and she forced a smile that she hoped looked natural. “They had my favorite dish there.”
“Yah?” Elizabeth dried her hands on her apron, her eyes brightening. “You remembered it?”
“I knew what the foods were,” Lovina said. “I recognized the menu ... and I know that probably sounds silly—”
“It doesn’t sound silly!” Elizabeth burst out. “It sounds wonderful! It’s coming back!”
For the next few minutes Elizabeth and Bethany chattered away, seemingly overjoyed at some memories returning. They talked about Amish foods and about restaurants they enjoyed in town, not seeming to require much input from Lovina, and she was left to her own thoughts, which kept circling around that heart-pounding kiss. He’d been holding himself back because that was how he felt ... and he hadn’t wanted to scare her.
She wasn’t scared of him, exactly, but she was a little unnerved by her own very physical response to him. Was that her memory coming back that drew her to him, or was it something else . . . something more carnal, and more dangerous? How wicked did it make her that she was hoping to see the edge of his self-control again?
