approval or understanding or even compassion from him. Her father was a hard man, unyielding, severe. He loved his family, but he tolerated nothing save absolute obedience. Pity she had been born as stubborn as he was and with a spirit that defied authority at most turns.
“Go and pack your things,” he said, his voice thick with disgust and disapproval.
Sarah's first instinct was to defy him, but she thought of her mother and her family, especially Jacob, and curbed her rebellion. In that moment she didn't care how Isaac might suffer from her disobedience, but she couldn't cause the rest of her family undue anxiety just for the sake of spite. Besides, if it were possible for the trouble to be cleared up by a simple visit to her home for a few days and perhaps an earnest talk with some of the church elders, then she knew she had best take the opportunity and save them all a lot of pain.
She moved toward the steps, but Matt reached out and stopped her with a hand on her arm.
“Wait a second,” he said, glaring at Isaac. “This isn't Sarah's fault. I didn't know it was against her religion to have fun. I was just teasing her. It was harmless.”
“Was it?” Isaac said, his gaze going meaningfully to the hand Matt had unconsciously settled on Sarah's arm. “Let me tell you something, Mister English,” he said, wagging a finger in Matt s face. “You may not know our ways, but Sarah knows them well. It is for her to resist the temptations of the world and when she don't, it is for her to atone for her sins.
“She hasn't committed any sins!”
Isaac gave a snort and took hold of his daughters other arm. “That is sure not for you to decide.”
“And it is for you?” Matt questioned angrily. His grip tightened on Sarahs arm. “Who do you think you are? God?”
Isaac's weathered face colored deeply. “I am not God,' he hissed. “I am God's servant. I obey his laws.” He tried to jerk Sarah toward him, but Matt held fast.
“You obey your own laws,” Matt sneered. “Sarah isn't guilty of anything but being in love. That might be a sin in your eyes, but I doubt it is in God's.”
“Love.” Isaac spat out the woitl as if it made a foul taste in his mouth. “I know of your kind of love, Englishman. Love of the flesh. Have you defiled my daughter so?”
A red mist washed before Matte eyes. It was all he could do to not let got of Sarah and take a swing at her father. His muscles tensed to the hardness of granite, his left hand clenched into a fist, but something told him his most important priority was holding on to Sarah, so he clung to the leash of his temper as he clung to the woman beside him.
“I've never
Isaac looked away from him, pinning Sarah with his gaze instead. “He speaks of your love, daughter,” he said, reverting to German once again. “Are your sins even more terrible than I thought? More terrible than anyone knows?”
Once again Sarah refused to answer. She wouldn't soil what she had shared with Matt in love by calling it a sin. It wasn't a sin in her heart. Her soul was twined with Matt's more closely than it had been with her own husbands. She was married to him in her own eyes and, she prayed, in the eyes of God. She lifted her chin, winning her another black mark in her father's eyes.
“You have lain with this English?” he said, his voice shaking with anger. His fierce grip tightened on her arm, and she had to grit her teeth to keep from wincing. “You are a forni-cator? A whore?”
She bit her lip to keep from saying anything at all. She knew she should have bowed her head. Expressing shame and humility might have won her some mercy, but she wasn't ashamed and she wouldn't pretend it. She looked at her father squarely and let him see her defiance, let him see the rebellion she had held inside for so long. She raised her chin another notch in pride, which was itself a sin.
Isaac cursed her, an expression of pure rage twisting his features. His right hand lashed out like a bolt of lightning and caught Sarah across the mouth, splitting her Up. The force of the blow turned her head and burned her cheek, but still she refused to cry
Matt jerked her back out of Isaacs grasp, swearing viciously under his breath. He turned her to survey the damage her father had done, cradling her face gently in his trembling hands. He wiped a bead of blood from her lip with his thumb, fighting the urge to kiss it away.
“I'll be all right,” she whispered, her eyes huge with pleading. “Please, Matt, don't make it worse.”
“How the hell could I make it any worse than this?” he asked, his voice shaking. He looked up at Isaac with loathing. “You pack quite a punch for a pacifist. Get out of here. Nobody abuses women in front of me, no matter how righteous and pious they think they are. Leave. Now.”
“Come, Sarah,” Isaac commanded as if she were a dog to be ordered about. He showed no open remorse for what he'd done, but his expression had been wiped clean of anger and rage and was now blank.
Sarah started toward him, and again Matt held her back.
“Matt,” she said softly, glancing up at him. “It's all right.”
His eyes widened incredulously. “It s not all right! You're a grown woman. He can't come here and knock you around and drag you off by the hair! He doesn't have any say in your life.”
“He is my father.”
“That doesn't give him the right—”
“Matt.” Ingrid's voice drew his attention to the porch, where his sister had come to stand in the open doorway with her basset hound on her feet, and her arms crossed against the chill of the early evening. Her expression was both strained and guarded as she looked at him. “Let it go. Sarah knows what she's doing.”
He worked his jaw, fighting the urge to argue with her. Deep inside he couldn't escape the feeling that he was Sarah's protector, her knight in shining armor ready to slay any dragon for her. Some protector, he thought derisively. It was because of him her father had been driven to strike her. It was because of him she may be in serious trouble with her people. Once again he had managed to hurt her when his greatest desire was to love her and keep her from harm. Maybe she was right in saying he should go back to his world. It was becoming painfully clear that their separate worlds couldn't mix.
“Please, Matt,” she whispered tremulously, tears spilling past her lashes and down her cheeks. “Please.”
She was asking him to let her go. She'd told him she'd known all along their time together would be brief. He had fought the idea just as he had wanted to fight any threat to Sarah herself. He wanted to fight it still, but she was asking him to let go. If he followed his heart and fought for her, he would only end up destroying her. The selfish man inside him argued that they would still have each other and the love that had blossomed so quickly and so brilliantly between them. But he knew deep down that the cost would be too great. He couldn't force her to change, couldn't ask her to give up her family and her faith and her way of life. She wasn't willing to make that sacrifice for him and if he forced her to, how could their love possibly survive?
It took a terrible effort, but he pulledhis hand away from Sarah's arm and stepped back, conceding the battle to Isaac Maust. Sarah looked up at him with an expression that tore his heart in two.
“I'm sorry,” she said, the words barely audible. I'm so sony I hurt you.”
Matt felt the pressure of tears behind his own eyes as he looked at hen committing to memory her every feature. He reached out and brushed a drop of moisture from the crest of her cheek, “just don't be sorry you loved me,” he said, then turned and walked away, limping heavily and feeling old and beaten.
She was gone in a matter of minutes. Matt sat on a decorative iron bench beneath a maple tree on the far side of the yard and watched the black buggy pull out, white reflective tape glowing eerily in the dark as it made its way down the road. The last rays of the sunset had faded to black, a color appropriate for mourning, Matt thought. He looked out at the millions of stars that dotted the sky like fairy dust, his gaze fastening on the brightest.
He shook his head in amazement at the nursery rhyme that had popped into his head. He hadn't experienced a sense of wonder in a long, long time. For months now he'd felt as aged and cynical as the world itself—until Sarah had come into his life. In her quiet way she had awakened in him an appreciation for the simple beauty of the world around him. Now she was gone and all the joy of that beauty had gone with her.
Blossom came trotting across the yard, nose to the ground. She made a beeline to him, sniffed his shoes, and plopped down in front of him. Her somber, woebegone expression was clear to him thanks to the faint silver glow of
