Joseph’s eyes sparkled as they walked away from the gray sea. “Like brother, like sister. Both of you show your English side when you’re tired and impatient.”
Rebekah’s mouth fell open. “Joseph, how dare—”
“You could have done better, you know.”
Rebekah ignored the fact that Joseph interrupted her as they picked their way down the cloddy street to the tune of clanking horse hooves. “Better? At what?”
“At the apple pie at the diner.” Mischief played at the corners of his mouth. “Come on, I know you were thinking it. I saw you wrinkle your nose when you took your first bite.”
“Oh no.” Rebekah covered her lips with her fingers. “I hope I didn’t appear rude, I didn’t even realize.”
“Natural reaction.” Joseph shrugged. “Nobody noticed but me, I’m sure.”
“Did the crust taste funny to you?” Rebekah remembered the terrible bite that she’d all but choked down then passed off to Noah, who accepted it wholeheartedly. “And something in the apples themselves?”
“You mean the undercooked chunks of bruised apple that tasted like they were taken off the tree, sat in a barrel until they were almost bad, then cut with uncaring hands and thrown into a crust where the cook misread the directions?”
Rebekah’s lower lip trembled until she couldn’t help but laugh. “Joseph, if traveling into the English world makes me cranky and impatient, it makes you sound like some sort of English poet with a better accent.”
As they shared a laugh, Joseph reached to tuck a wayward lock of hair into her bonnet. “You’re still beautiful. Even if you are cranky and impatient.”
His words quieted her laughter and replaced the happy feeling with one of longing. Longing for their wedding day. His touch against her cheek left a burning trail that took its time to fizzle out.
“I am excited to become your wife, Joseph Graber,” she whispered. “I’m sorry I have a distrustful and doubtful nature lately. It’s just Katie...”
Joseph tucked his hands into his pockets and listened. “I understand. She is a pretty girl too, but she knows it.”
“You think she’s pretty then?”
“By looks alone, yes.” Joseph stared at the ground. “Don’t you?”
Rebekah shrugged. “I suppose. She’s different than me. Everything I’m not.”
“She’s also missing everything I want.”
“And what is it you want?”
“You.”
Rebekah stopped walking. “What do you mean?”
Joseph stopped with her. “I mean, it’s like God made us to be one. I found what I was looking for in you, Rebekah, before I was even old enough to look for it.”
Her heart quickened to a gallop in her chest.
“It’s like this. We see life the same. You with one eye and me with the other.”
Rebekah, a moment ago feeling so romantic and close to Joseph, burst out laughing. “That’s a sight, Joseph Graber.”
Joseph pointed beside one of his eyes. “My eye says, ‘Wow, look at that building. How many Amish men would it take to raise that in a day?’” He put another finger at his other eye, pointing the other direction. “Joseph look at that horse,” he said in his best, terrible impression of Rebekah’s voice. “Who did they task with cleaning up after their horses? If the English are going to have horses, they should have an Amish person teach them how to take care of them properly.”
Tears streamed down Rebekah’s face, as they usually did when Joseph got on a giddy streak. “I—I don’t sound like that,” she managed, eyes squinted shut. She dropped her voice low. “Do I sound like that now?”
He laughed with her.
This is it. This is what love feels like.
In that instant, Rebekah vowed to let go of thoughts of Katie and Joseph. Joseph was an ocean, deep and mysterious, and somehow, always finding the humor in situations, even less than stellar ones. Even dire ones. He always found the funny bone. She was a deep ocean too. She’d always thought that. Or at least a moderately-sized lake. Rebekah chewed her lip and fought the smile that grew there.
Katie was a shallow stream, frothy and bubbling and moving. Discontent, passionate, hardheaded. She was a lot like Peter. The two of them reminded Rebekah of two streams, bubbling and tumbling along, until they collide with each other. Then, after many rapids and maybe even waterfalls, they join together and make a mightier river.
Her mother’s voice was quiet in her ears. Silly to worry.
“We’re going to find her,” Rebekah said, never more sure of anything in her life. “And she’s going to come home with us.”
“How do you know?”
“I just do.”
Peter’s charged voice interrupted them. “There you two are,” he huffed. His face fairly glowed red, making his lightning like scar shine all the more. It appeared as though he’d been crying. “We’re apt to lose her. I just know it. We have to hurry!”
“No.” Rebekah, calm in knowing they were going to find Katie and everything was going to be okay, crossed her arms. “Hurrying is the work of the devil and you know that.”
Peter stood in front of her, his chest heaving. One suspender had fallen off his shoulder and he looked on the outside how he looked to feel on the inside. Disheveled. Unkept. Terrified and unsure.
“Now, we need to talk to God, Peter.”
“What in the world are you talking about Rebekah?” His charged voice erupted with a boom. “We can’t stop now...”
