“Jah, our dat took the phone and hid it,” Adeline reminded them earnestly. She perched on the edge of the chair beside Dexter, wincing slightly when he hooked his arm around her neck and gave her a sloppy kiss.
“Hey, you’re nineteen. Your old man can’t run your lives anymore,” Phil shot back. “If you think I’m gonna keep paying the bill on that cell, you’re wrong, girls. Dead wrong.”
“Dead as those cows,” Dexter remarked. He laughed raucously, as though he’d made a joke.
Alice felt the blood draining from her face as she stole a glance at her sister. Fibbing about their age had been a bad idea . . . just one of the questionable choices they’d made when these two English guys in their late twenties had first flirted with them.
“All right, fine. We’ll go home and get your phone,” Adeline asserted in a shaky voice. “Dat’ll hand it right over when we tell him we don’t want to see you guys anymore—not after the way you shot down our cattle!”
“Jah, he knows your names,” Alice blurted out. “And Leah can identify your gray truck. She saw you drive off after you killed her helpless—”
“Shut up!” Phil slammed the table with his hand. His eyes were bloodshot as he glared first at Alice and then at Adeline. “You’re ticking me off, girls. If you’re planning to leave home like you said, why do you even care about those stupid cows?”
“And how many dozen gray trucks do you suppose there are around Morning Star?” Dexter jeered. He tugged at the front of Adeline’s quilted jacket to see what she was wearing underneath it. “Me, I’m thinking it’s time for a lot less of this talk and a whole lot more action. Get my drift, baby doll?”
“Yeah, it’s time to hop in the truck and take a little ride,” Phil chimed in with a nasty laugh. “There’s a no-tell motel a couple miles down the road. I guarantee you that by the time we finish our business, you girls won’t feel the least bit Amish anymore. Let’s go.”
Adeline’s heart leapt into her throat as the big man across the table suddenly scooted his chair back. “I—I need to use the restroom!” she rasped.
“And I need a beer!” Alice said just as desperately. “You should let us catch up, because you’re probably a couple of pitchers ahead of us.”
Phil scowled and stood up. “That’s the lamest excuse I’ve ever—you girls’ve been giving us nothing but excuses since—”
“So do you want me to pee on your truck seat?” Adeline challenged as she ducked out from under Dexter’s arm.
“I’ll go get us another pitcher and four frosted mugs while we wait for Addie,” Alice said, smiling playfully at Phil. “You know we’ll be a lot more fun if you pour a couple of beers down us.”
“Jah, I’m peeing to make room for beer,” Adeline assured them flirtatiously. She wiggled her fingers in a wave as she started for the back hallway beyond the bar.
“You know, this salty bacon’s made me thirsty again,” Dexter admitted, glancing into the empty pitcher at his elbow. “But don’t think you can hide in the bathroom,” he called after Adeline. “Three minutes, and I’m comin’ in after you.”
“And don’t even think about leaving, because I’m watching the doors,” Phil added ominously. “There’s no way you can outrun my truck, anyway.”
Alice didn’t wait to hear any more. She started toward the bar, so scared she was barely able to breathe the thick, smoky air. God, if You let Adeline make it to the pay phone to call home for help, I promise I’ll never again stray from the path to Plain salvation. And please, please help me distract the guys with this beer.
“Hey there, sugar, long time no see.” Rick, the paunchy, middle-aged man who owned the pool hall, gave her a gap-toothed grin as he ran beer from a spigot into a plastic pitcher. “Glad to see you girls show up to keep those boys from tearing the place apart,” he said around the cigarette in his mouth. “They were pretty riled up when they got here.”
As another loud country song from the jukebox filled the pool hall, Alice didn’t know what to say. Rick was somewhat older than Dat, with stringy gray hair, and it creeped her out whenever he looked at her. He set the pitcher on a tray and then took four glass mugs out of the freezer behind the bar.
Alice took hold of the tray with both shaky hands, for fear she’d drop it. She planned to walk just to the end of the bar, to see if her sister was using the pay phone—except Phil suddenly planted himself in front of her, leaning heavily against the bar.
“Thought you might need some help carrying that,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “Want you to save your energy for what comes next, once we get to that motel.”
Alice swallowed hard. Phil had seemed so cute and appealing when he’d first pulled up alongside her and Adeline in the truck as they’d been walking down the road last summer, but the hard gleam in his eye today made her wish she’d never met him. She and her sister had enjoyed defying Dat’s wishes with older, more worldly guys who made them feel so special with their gifts and promises for the future . . . and feel so beautiful with their deep, soul-stirring kisses. Too late, she realized that Leah had been right about these guys all along.
“Are we gonna go back and sit down while that beer’s still cold?” Phil asked sarcastically. He grabbed the tray and made a point of walking beside Alice so she couldn’t see what her sister was doing.
About the time Alice realized that Dexter was no longer at their table, she heard Adeline’s shriek in the back hallway, followed
