An Unexpected Match Read online

  By the time class was over, Rachel’s hands might have been tired from all the typing, but her heart was soaring. Professor Dyson was going to be very demanding, and she loved it.

  As she began collecting her things, Amy peered at her. “Rachel, you want to go for coffee?”

  Rachel’s hand stalled in the middle of sliding her AlphaSmart into her backpack. Talk about unexpected. She took a breath as she turned to say no thanks. The air leaked out of her slowly when she looked at Amy’s face, a mix of longing and uncertainty, all perk gone.

  Amy glanced away quickly when Rachel didn’t immediately answer and spotted Rob gathering his things. “You too, if you want, Rob.”

  He looked up in surprise. “Me too what?”

  “Go get a coffee. Rachel and I are going. Come with us.”

  He paused for a moment, shot a quick look at Rachel, and then shrugged. “Why not? Charlie will keep for a few more minutes.”

  If Amy’s delighted smile was an indication, Rachel thought the girl was as surprised as she was by his acceptance.

  “Great!” Amy did a little dance step in place. “Who’s Charlie? Does he want to come too?”

  “Probably, but I don’t think it’d be a good idea. He’s my dog. A big brown thing I rescued a couple of weeks ago.”

  “Yeah?” Amy’s smile settled into normal. “I have a dog back home. A beagle named Bagel. I miss her. A lot.” She looked at Rachel. “You got a dog?”

  “We’ve got two at the farm, a mom and her son. Pepper and Corny.” Named after crops by her little brothers.

  “Cool. What kind?”

  “Collies.” Rachel threw her book bag over her shoulder. “Look, I’d love to go, but I’ve got someone picking me up.”

  “Call her and tell her not to come,” Amy said without hesitation. “I’ll take you home. Where do you live?”

  “Honey Brook.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “About a half hour that way.” Rachel pointed.

  “Not a problem. I’m going that way.”

  There was something about Amy’s obvious longing for friends that tugged at Rachel. She pulled out the phone Max had insisted she buy and tapped the one number she had in it.

  Max answered on the first ring. “You okay?”

  “Fine. In fact, better than fine. Class was great! I’ve got a ride home. Is that okay? We’re going to go out for coffee.”

  Max laughed in her ear. “And here I’ve spent the night worrying! Go. Have fun. Is he handsome?”

  “Max!” Rachel tried not to look at Rob who was indeed handsome with his brown hair and very blue eyes. “Her name’s Amy.”

  “Rats.” Max sounded disappointed, making Rachel smile.

  They walked into the fading light of a now rainless dusk. The campus coffee house was one building over, and it was uncomfortably crowded.

  “And they’re all too young anyway,” Amy said. “Way too young.”

  Both Rachel and Rob looked at her, startled.

  She held up a hand. “I know, I know. I look sixteen.” She shrugged. “What can I say? I’m really twenty-five.”

  “Huh,” Rob sounded unconvinced.

  “Really. I can prove it. Didn’t you say you’re local? Do you know a coffee place around here?”

  “Sure. Well, not a coffee house as such but a place that has great coffee as well as other stuff. The Star Diner is a couple of miles down the road. Want to follow me? I’m the SUV with the caved-in side.”

  “Ouch.” Amy said when they stopped to examine the side of Rob’s car. “How’d it happen?”

  “Forced off the road this afternoon. Saved by a guardrail.”

  No wonder he’d looked upset when he came to class. Ouch was right.

  “Could have been a lot ouchier.” He flicked his key fob and one brake light flashed. He sighed. “At least that’s what I’m trying to convince myself.”

  “You need this coffee,” Amy declared. “We’ll follow you.”

  Rachel shoehorned herself into the passenger seat of Amy’s little red Smart car. Amy swung behind Rob, a bright red David following a hulking black Goliath.

  “Don’t you love this little thing?” she gushed. “I do. It’s such fun to drive. And I can zip all over the place. I drove this old junker when I left home and barely managed to keep going until I got here. Thought it would die several times on the trip. What a relief to have a car I don’t have to pray over, you know?”

  Rachel had never thought about praying over a car, but she’d known some horses she’d talked to the Lord about, and not very kindly.

  Without taking a breath, Amy switched topics. “Isn’t he gorgeous? Don’t you just melt when he smiles?” She gestured with animation as she drove. At times Rachel wasn’t certain either hand was on the wheel. “I saw the way he checked you out before he said he’d come. He likes you. I can tell. I can always tell about stuff like that. Not that I’ve had lots of experience calling romances, but when I have, I’m always right. I’d give anything to have a guy look at me like that. Well, not anything, but you know what I mean. I mean, he’s gorgeous! Those blue eyes! Just like Bradley Cooper.”

  Rachel had no idea who Bradley Cooper was, and her head was spinning by the time she climbed out of the car. Certainly Amy was imagining things about Rob checking her out. No big, handsome Englisch man would look on her with interest. Plain old Rachel Beiler? Forget it.

  Amy’s comments made Rachel even more self-conscious than she’d been and that was saying something. As a result she couldn’t make herself look at Rob as she and Amy followed him across the parking lot. It didn’t help that he was the first man besides her brothers she’d been around socially except in large gatherings like district dinners since Aaron’s death.

  A couple of men in her district had made it known they would be happy to call on her, but she’d always said no. At gatherings she made sure she was busy in the kitchen with the women. Marriage had been fine, but she wasn’t anxious to be married again, at least not yet. Maybe someday. After all, she’d like to have children.

  “It’s been three years,” her mother would say. “Time to move on. Milton Fisher is nice. Or Benjie Zook. Or Davy Yoder.”

  “Mom! No! They’re your age. They just want wives to raise their children. I want to love my husband, not merely respect him.”

  “You need a man, Rachel,” her father told her. “You need a family. Find another man your age. Find another Aaron.”

  But deep in her secret heart she didn’t want another Aaron, and that made her feel guilty. He had been such a fine man, and she had been happy with him. She would have been satisfied married to him for fifty years. But when he died, she found she liked living alone. She could be herself in her own home. She could read and think and stare into space, and no one thought she was wasting her time. No one lectured her about idle hands or useless thinking. And she could slip over to Max’s unseen.

  Rob cleared his throat, making her jump and look up. He smiled and held the door for her and Amy. Amy practically danced through while Rachel lowered her head and studied the scuffed floor. She didn’t try to stifle her shy smile.

  “Wow! A gentleman,” Amy hissed to Rachel. “Looks and manners! It doesn’t get any better.”

  Rachel couldn’t help glancing at Rob to see if he’d heard and caught him shaking his head in bemusement. She smiled and he smiled back, flustering her completely.

  A hostess wearing a weary face turned to them, menus in hand. She saw Rob and her face lit up. “Well, Rob Lanier. I heard you were back in town.”

  “Patsy Turner,” he said, giving her a hug. “How are you?”

  She held up her left hand, wiggling her ring finger. “Patsy Witmer these days, and I’m fine.”

  “Pete Witmer the lucky guy?”

  Patsy grinned. “His brother Phil.”

  “Whoa. You nabbed an older man.”

  Patsy smiled as she led them to a booth. “The better man in my opinion. You?” She glanced at A
my and Rachel.

  He shook his head. “Still single. These are my friends Amy and Rachel.”

  With a smile, Patsy left to greet two couples who’d just come in.

  Rachel and Amy sat on one side of their booth and Rob across from them. Rachel studied her menu without seeing it. What was she doing, having coffee with two Englischers? She wasn’t worried about someone seeing her. It was too late in the day and they were too far from home. Except for running-around kids, everyone would be home getting ready for bed.

  Their waitress appeared. “Hey, Rob.” She grinned. “Patsy said it was you.”

  “Betts.” He stood and repeated the easygoing hug. “Good to see you. How are Bill and the kids?”

  “We’re all in one piece, which I consider the sign of a successful day. What can I get you all? We’ve got great peach crumb and shoofly pies.”

  When she left with an order for two peach crumbs and a shoofly, all à la mode, along with three coffees, Amy studied Rob.

  “You know everybody in town?”

  “Not really.”

  “Sure seems like it.”

  “The Star’s been owned by Patsy’s family for years, and a lot of the guys who went to high school with Pats and me worked and still work here, like Betts. We used to hang out here all the time.”

  “I couldn’t imagine staying in my home town.” Amy shuddered. “It took me a while, but I got out and I’m never going back.” She spoke the last words slowly and with emphasis.

  Rachel studied her new friend as Betts served their coffee. This was the second time Amy had mentioned leaving home; both times her voice had been edged with sharp anger and deep pain. Maybe when they knew each other better, Amy would tell her story. If they knew each other better. If. Not when. She had to be careful not to mix too much with Englisch people. She’d be polite, kind, but not overly intimate. Not BFFs.

  “I felt I’d never come back either,” Rob stirred two creams into his coffee. “Yet here I am.”

  Betts brought their pies and Rob surprised Rachel by asking if the girls minded if he thanked God for the food.

  “It’s something I’ve gotten in the habit of doing.” And he prayed a prayer made up on the spot. Rachel knew because it thanked God for peaches and molasses. She’d never in her life heard such a prayer.

  When her people had a meal, they bowed for silent prayer before and after they ate. She had no idea what the others prayed, but she usually repeated the Lord’s Prayer in her mind. How could you do better than Jesus’s prayer?

  “Do you always make up your own prayers?” she asked before she thought.

  “Sure,” he said with an easy grin. “I do it all the time.”

  “Me too,” Amy said. “I figure if David could make up his prayers, so can I.”

  Rachel had never considered the Psalms in that light before. The great Amish/Englisch divide yawned wide in the strangest places.

  Amy pointed her fork at Rob. “How long were you gone?”

  “Twelve years, give or take. I left right after I graduated from high school.”

  “Long time. I repeat: I’m never going back.”

  Rob saluted her with his coffee cup. “I’ll check on you in twelve years.”

  “Why’d you come back?” Rachel asked, her curiosity overcoming her shyness.

  He frowned at his pie. “I’m not sure. When I figure it out, I’ll tell you.” He looked right at her and smiled that warm smile that quirked one corner of his mouth higher than the other.

  Rachel couldn’t not smile back. “A pair of wanderers.” She included Amy in her smile. “What does it say about me that I live down the street from my family, see them almost every day, and like it that way?”

  “That you have a nice family?” Amy said immediately.

  Rachel laughed. “Good guess and very true.”

  Amy sipped her coffee after adding two creams and a packet of Splenda. “How about you, handsome? Now that you’re back in your hometown, do you live at home? Or down the street?”

  “Not a chance.” Rob cut off a piece of his peach crumb and stabbed a bit of his ice cream. “Charlie and I have our own place on the other side of town. It’s not very large, but it’s working for us for the time being.”

  “What do you have? A house? An apartment? A condo?”

  “We’re renting an apartment, but I’ve got to get something bigger for poor Charlie sooner rather than later. He needs a yard.”

  Rachel thought of Pepper and Corny who had the cows to herd and the farm to enjoy. Charlie would love their lives.

  “What are you doing for money?” Amy asked him. “Where are you working?”

  “I’m interning at Ingram and Harper for now.”

  Rachel looked at him blankly as did Amy.

  “Financial planners. I love economics. I love watching the markets and analyzing what’s happening. This comp class—which I’ve put off until the last possible moment—is one of three classes that stand between me and my degree. Then graduate school. Then financial planning for my own clients.”

  Rachel watched him as he talked. How fascinating that he found money as interesting as she found teaching. To her, money was for buying what you needed; nothing more, nothing less. To make a career of it seemed boring. People were what made life interesting, not numbers.

  But he was far from boring.

  He forked up the last piece of his pie. “I’ve managed to put off this comp class for years, but it’s to the point that I won’t graduate unless I take it.”

  “You’re at the end and I’m at the beginning,” Amy said.

  “The end.” He smiled. “Sounds great. What are you two doing for work?”

  “I’m waitressing,” Amy said. “I sort of like it, and it lets me pay my rent. What about you, Rachel?”

  “I’m a teacher. Children. I love it.”

  “That’s what I want to be some day!” Amy bounced in her chair.

  Rachel felt all her dreams rise as she caught Amy’s enthusiasm and found herself saying, “I want to be Dr. Dyson.” She blinked in surprise and dismay but knew she’d just articulated her heart’s desire. A college professor. She’d never been that specific before, and she’d certainly never told anyone, not even Aaron. Especially not Aaron. And she knew it could never be.

  “Good for you,” Rob said. “You’ll have to get glasses for that professorial look.”

  “Red ones like hers.” Amy grinned. “You’ll look good in red.”

  Rachel, who’d never worn red in her life, suddenly wanted red glasses even though her vision was 20/20.

  She smiled at the surge of pleasure their encouragement brought. She was so used to either being silent about her dreams and yearnings or being misunderstood.

  “And if your eyes don’t need them,” Amy said, “you can get cool frames with plain glass.”

  For a moment she almost considered it.

  She scraped the last of the peach crumb and ice cream from her plate and to her surprise regretted that it was time to go home. Maybe she needed to be more social after all, but it was hard when everything in her culture was built around either family or couples. She was not a couple anymore, and was not interested in finding a husband. She had too many secrets.

  Just another sign of how different she was.

  Rachel swallowed a self-pitying sigh as she and Amy told Rob goodbye, and he and his damaged SUV turned one way out of the parking lot as she and Amy turned another.

  Amy talked the entire trip to Max’s, asking question after question and sometimes waiting long enough for Rachel to answer. Rachel kept her answers as truthful as she could without mentioning her Amishness. That part of her life was private.

  They turned off Route 322 onto the winding roads of Chester County at the very edge of Lancaster County. It always amazed Rachel how quickly a major highway was replaced by rolling farmland and a way of life at odds with the speed and frenetic pace of the Englisch.

  Blinking red lights flashed on the road a
head.

  “Slow down, Amy.” Rachel’s voice was urgent. “That’s a buggy.”

  Amy slowed. “Cool. I wish I could see inside, but it’s too dark.”

  They came up behind the buggy quickly and slowed to a crawl.

  “What do I do now?” Amy asked. “There’s a double yellow line and a hill I can’t see over. I can’t pass. Someone might be coming.”

  “Just wait till the top of the hill, and then pass. Forget the yellow line. Everyone does.”

  Rachel could feel Amy’s impatience as all the horses under her hood were reduced to the one horsepower of the slow-moving buggy. What felt like a good clip in a buggy was agonizingly slow in a car. They finally crested the hill and with a burst of power, Amy passed the buggy.

  “They are so dangerous! But so cool!” Amy grinned, her face illuminated by the dashboard’s lights. “I’ve only ever seen pictures before. I need to come back in the daylight so I can really see.”

  Rachel looked over the dark countryside. “All the farms have their fields full of corn this time of year. And cows, since many of them are dairy farmers. Or sheep. Or goats. Or chickens. Or all the above.”

  “You are so lucky to live here.”

  “I am. And I love it. Turn left here. The brick rancher with the light post lit is where I’m going.”

  “You live right in the middle of Amish farms?”

  “I do.” If Amy only knew.

  “Lucky you. Let’s plan to get something to eat next class, okay?”

  “Thanks, Amy. For everything.”

  “Thank you. I was scared to death I wouldn’t have a friend.”

  “Me too.”

  “I’ll wait till you get inside.”

  Max threw the door open as Rachel crossed the porch. They both waved as the little red car sped off.

  “So tell me all,” Max demanded as she shut the door.

  Rachel laughed. “Let me change first.”

  In the bedroom she struggled with the unwieldy buttons on her blouse and relaxed when she slid the pins into her dress. Now she felt like herself. She pulled her hair back and secured it at her nape. She covered the bun with her kapp. Rachel Beiler was back.

  “Max,” she called. “What shall I do with the clothes?”

  “Hang them in the closet.”