Freshly carved, the pole’s scent reminded Rebekah of fresh honey.
Our tree?
Her heart pounded in her ears as she ran her hand down the smooth wood. “Danke, Joseph.”
“Oh, be careful.” He reached quickly to dislodge a dainty wooden hook she hadn’t noticed before. It was concealed in a special notch in the wood. In his haste, his skin brushed hers.
Rebekah froze. A rash of fire and ice trailed from Joseph’s hand on her skin like a shooting star.
Surely our hands have touched over the years? It certainly never felt like that.
Ever mindful of his work, he released the tiny hook from his fingertips. It was attached to the tip of the pole with a single strand of horsehair and dropped like a spider on a strand of web.
“A fishing pole!” Rebekah laughed. “I thought it was only a good-smelling stick!”
“Your own fishing pole. Now, all you have to do is find a worm and you can catch our lunch.” A mischievous grin dimpled his cheeks.
Her shyness spent at the mention of worms, Rebekah eyed him warily. “I don’t know how to fish. Or how to catch a worm.”
Joseph’s face brightened. “Well then, today’s your lucky day, because I am just the man to teach you.” He pointed to a patch of damp dirt in the shade of the tulip tree, not too far from the water. “We’ll dig here.”
He shed his jacket and placed it face down on the grass near the mud patch. “So you don’t get your dress dirty,” he mumbled.
Careful to avoid his eyes, Rebekah knelt on Joseph’s jacket and pushed up her wrist-length sleeves. “Thank you.”
“First thing to remember when you’re hunting for worms,” Joseph instructed, “is to—”
Without waiting for him to finish, Rebekah plunged her hands into the inviting dampness of the earth. The cool mud squished between her fingers and the heavy aroma of the natural world made her heart light.
“That’s a good way to start.” He chuckled. “Now, simply feel around for worms. They’ll try to get away from you, so you got to be quick.”
Rebekah moved her hands around in the soggy dirt. “What does a worm feel like?”
“Slimy.”
After a few moments, something wriggled against her hand. “Oh, Joseph! Oh! I think I have one.”
Rebekah grasped wildly in the spongy ground. As she removed her hands from the muck, the sucking, slurping sound made her crinkle her nose.
“You got a fat one!” Joseph held out her sweet-scented pole. “You want to bait, or me?”
“If you’ll hold the hook still, I’ll try first.”
Their hands touched as she tried again and again to spear the unlucky worm on the carefully crafted hook. The frequent brushings of their skin sent welcome charges from Rebekah’s hands, up her arms, and straight into her soul.
The worm, though, wasn’t cooperating. The harder she tried to make bait out of him, the harder he tried to escape. Finally, she held him still. With the hook clutched in her fingers, she noticed an intricate little R engraved on one side.
“Joseph, what a beautiful R.” Her soft voice was even more subdued as she admired the tiny print. “That makes this gift even more special.”
Her focus lost on the slippery creature, the worm dropped to the safety of the dirt and disappeared.
Joseph’s hand, warm and caked with dirt, covered hers. Bits of grass poked off his fingertips as he turned her fingers gently. There, on the other side of the smudged hook, was a perfect little J.
Joseph and Rebekah.
“Do you ever think about Rumspringa?” She felt his blue eyes burning into her like hot sapphires. He still hadn’t taken his hand off hers, and her knees were as watery as the lake they had yet to draw a fish from.
“Yes. I do.” She tilted her chin to look at him. “Thank you for waiting so we could Rumspringa together.”
“It was easy to wait those two years.” His let his hand fall. An unwelcome, empty coolness replaced what had been warm and soft. “I couldn’t let you go off into the English world alone. Or with Elijah.”
Rebekah sucked in her cheeks. Elijah had shown no qualms about displaying his feelings for her and had made it well known that he had intended to marry her when their time came to Rumspringa. “I still can’t believe he stayed with the English.”
She shivered as splinters of fear shot through her body at the mention of the English.
Joseph’s normally tender voice turned flat with talk of Elijah. “I can.”
Rebekah squinted at him. His body had gone from lanky to rigid. Desperate, her mind wandered to something—anything—to regain the lost moment of gentle comfort they’d shared. “Do you still think of Rumspringa?”
His mouth softened from the hard line it has become. “I think of it often. Fondly.”
Thoughts of their time spent with the English during the Amish tradition of Rumspringa flooded her mind. Meant to let the Amish teens get a taste of the English life before deciding to become full-fledged Amish citizens or not, Rumspringa had proven to be more of a terrifying experience for her. Well, terrifying except for the fact she’d shared her Rumspringa experience with Joseph and they’d grown so much closer on a more grown-up level.
He stepped back and squatted at the water’s edge. Without a word, he plunged his hands into the lake before he continued. “Do you have any regrets?”
Rebekah replaced her hook on the pole and propped it against the fan of tulip tree branches. “Regrets?”
“About coming back and getting baptized in the Church. Instead of staying with the English.”
