“That’s...sweet. Innocent.”
“They are all of them sweet and innocent,” she agreed. “But they won’t be easy on you.”
“That’s why it’s a good thing I’m not really courting you,” he said. “They can’t offend me, Delia. Don’t worry about it.”
Well, maybe they could offend him just a little. Teenagers had a bull’s-eye ability to find a man’s weaknesses, and they didn’t have the maturity to show any restraint. But he’d brush it off. He was the adult, after all.
“And what about Violet?” Delia asked.
“She thought that me getting to know you was entirely unromantic,” he said. “My parents suggested that you were a woman of character and might be good for me.”
“No!” She shot him a joking grin. “And that wasn’t romantic for her?”
“No, she wanted hearts being cast about, and...I don’t know what all. She doesn’t like the pragmatic approach to a relationship—two people looking for certain qualities first, and then looking for a connection after that. She thinks people should fall madly in love with each other and think about other things later, I suppose.”
Delia chuckled. “There’s nothing wrong with some pragmatism. It’s part of Amish life.”
It was part of Amish life, and he couldn’t imagine that intelligent Englishers behaved so very differently. What was the use in letting yourself fall in love with a woman when it just wouldn’t work?
“But Violet figures she’ll find her wild romance with an Englisher man.”
Delia’s smile faded. “Oh, Elias... She said that?”
“Yah. In so many words.” He paused. “You were thirteen once. If you’d said something like that, would you have meant it?”
She nodded. “I don’t think a girl that age says too much she doesn’t mean in the moment. But she can still gain some wisdom, change her mind.”
“That’s my hope,” he said, and his heart gave a little twist. “She’s my only child, Delia. And a daughter, to boot. To think of her leaving us, and throwing herself away on some man outside our faith...”
“She’ll want a good man,” Delia said softly. “And she’s not old enough to look for one anyway. There’s time before her Rumspringa. Gott has his ways of getting through to us—people she’ll meet, examples she’ll see of other girls making the wrong choice or just some advice that finally lands on fruitful soil.”
“I don’t want her to be the example to others about what to avoid,” he said gruffly.
“I agree. And she really thought that you getting to know me wasn’t romantic in the least?”
He smiled ruefully, then. “I thought it was, at least. Come on, two people who’ve lost as much as we have getting to know each other better, thinking about a future—that’s romance all over it.”
Delia rolled her eyes. “And since when is it unromantic to look at things reasonably before offering your heart?” she asked. “Hearts are much more vulnerable than young people ever dream. They get broken, shattered, damaged... A heart is not to be toyed with, and an unworthy man can completely break a woman!”
“You said it better than I did,” he replied.
“But she’s thirteen and she longs for romance...” Delia frowned slightly. “Sometimes we work so hard to keep privacy between a man and wife that I think we do our kinner a disservice. They need to see adults happy and in love.”
But their culture didn’t lend itself to public displays of affection, and Elias was glad of that. He was a more reticent kind of man—the kind who might feel deeply but didn’t want others to see it.
“I should probably warn you that my mother is quite thrilled at the thought of you and I exploring a future,” he added.
Some color touched her cheeks. “I do feel a bit bad about disappointing Judith. She’s such a treasure.”
“She feels the same way about you.” He shrugged. “But she’ll be okay. I think the ends justify the means this once.”
“So do I, actually,” Delia said. “At the end of this, our kinner will be ready to take a step forward. And we’ll have helped them get there.”
Delia went out onto the cooking porch again. She came back a moment later with the hot coffeepot, and Elias headed over to the cupboards.
“Where are the mugs?” he asked.
“That upper cupboard—you’re right in front of it.”
Elias grabbed two white coffee mugs and brought them back to the table. He stopped by the kitchen window and looked outside. He could see his daughter dragging a hose toward a flower garden, and the tallest of Delia’s boys was giving some instructions, waving one hand about as he gestured toward the rows. She was nodding cooperatively—a rather pleasant side to his daughter he hadn’t been seeing a lot in her lately. Maybe this job would be good for her, after all.
“So, I figured that it might be nice for us to do something traditional—something that will look like obvious courting to our kinner,” Elias said.
“Oh?”
“I wanted to take you on a buggy ride tonight,” he said.
“A buggy ride!” She smiled at that. “That does sound very official. People will talk.”
“Do you mind?” he asked.
Because up until this point, they’d been considering how their kinner would react. But their going out in a buggy together would interest the whole community. There would be gossip—no doubt about that.
Delia filled both their mugs and then put down the coffeepot wordlessly.
“If it’s too much—” he started.
“I don’t think I do mind,” she said at last. “There has been a lot of pity, and I told you before that I don’t want to be ‘Poor Delia’ anymore. Let them think of me as Delia-who’s-looking-for-a-husband. I think I’d rather that, anyway.”
