Sarah's Sin (5 page)

“The perfect reason,” Matt said with a grin.

With the enthusiasm of a lumberjack, he ate the breakfast Sarah had fixed him. It had been
ages since he'd had a big, calorie-laden, homemade breakfast. He usually took no time for breakfast, grabbing a peanut butter sandwich or a bagel on his way to the hospital. With his strength at low tide, however, he had no trouble convincing himself that he needed something more substantial. The eggs and fried potatoes and toast went down nicely.

He reached for a cookie and shook it at his new little
compadre.
“You'll have to be a little more careful next time, pal. Climbing trees is a lot of fun, but it's a long way down and there isn't always a pile of leaves handy to land on.”

Jacob nodded as he drank, some milk sloshing out to dribble down his chin. He wiped it off with his good arm and chomped another bite out of his cookie.

Sarah settled herself in her chair and set herself to the task of mending the tear in her brother's jacket sleeve.

“How far up were you?” she asked, feeling like a weasel for trying to wheedle information out of him. She was no better than her father was for sending him here. Poor Jacob.

“Not far.”

“This is not the place for you to be climbing trees,” she scolded, more cross with herself than with her brother. “The Woods often have guests here who would not appreciate looking out their windows to see little Amish boys staring in at them.”

So that was what the interrogation was all about, Matt mused, chewing thoughtfully on his cookie. Sarah was afraid her brother might have caught them kissing. Strange. She was a grown woman. She'd been married for heav-ens sake. What difference would it make if someone saw them kissing?

He watched her as she worked the needle and thread through the fabric of the coat with vicious stabs and jerks that betrayed her inner agitation. Several strands of silky brown hair had escaped the stranglehold of the bun at the back of her head and drifted down along her cheek into her line of sight. She tucked them back up under her
kapp
without looking up. She looked like a living work of art—“Study of a Nineteenth-century Woman.” A nineteenth-century woman with nineteenth-century sensibilities.

That was it. She was shy, reserved. The idea appealed to Matt in a way he wouldn't have expected. He was used to women who knew the score, women who moved at a nineteen-nineties pace, women who often as not took the lead in a physical relationship. Compared to them, Sarah was untouched, untried, innocent. Once again he felt a strong surge of pro-tectiveness swell inside him, and tenderness … and desire.

He wasn't going to be able to act on any of those impulses at the moment, however, he re
alized with no small amount of regret. Ordinarily, he was relentless in his pursuit of something he wanted—especially when that something was a lady. But his exertions that morning had drained him. Fatigue weighed down on him like an anvil, pressing on his throbbing head, causing the muscles in his shoulders to tense. His ribs were aching, and the wound in his thigh was burning. He needed to lie down before he simply fell out of his chair and sprawled unconscious on the kitchen floor.

“Well, folks,' he announced, carefully standing up. “I think I'd better get back to bed. All this excitement has worn me out,” he said, sending Sarah a warm, meaningful look that caused her to frown and blush.

“You English sure keep strange habits,” Jacob said, reaching for his third cookie.

Sarah batted his hand away from the plate, scowling at him. “Have they set you out to live with the pigs at home? You have such manners.”

Jacob blushed.

“I don't usually spend the day in bed,” Matt explained, unperturbed. “I'm just not feeling so good right now.”

“Maybe you need some castor oil,” Jacob suggested. “That's what Mom always gives me.”

Matt grimaced. “I think I'll pass on that for now.”

“When you are better, Matt Thorne, I will show you how I ride my pony,' the boy said earnestly. “You can come to the farm. To the calves I will show you. It's my job to feed them and help clean their pens.”

“Gross,” Matt said with a wink.

Jacob giggled.

Sarah heaved a sigh and stuck herself accidentally with her needle.

The rest of the day did not go according to the Laws of Dr. Thorne, and Matt didn't care for it a bit. He was too used to being the boss, to being in control. Being an invalid did not sit well. Everything seemed to irritate him. The room was too light, too dark, he missed the noises of the city, he missed the energy, he missed being busy, he missed being able to do whatever he wanted to with his body.

He had gone upstairs after breakfast with the mistaken idea that a little nap would restore the strength he had spent that morning. He'd slept for six hours, awakened only long enough to take his medication and complain a little, then he'd gone under again.

This was no way to win a lady.

It was especially no way to win a lady who wouldn't stick around long enough for him to charm her. Sarah had made herself scarce,
leaving only a little bell on the nightstand in her stead.

Matt plumped up the pillows behind him and settled back. He could smell supper cooking. The scent of meat and potatoes drifted seductively up the stairs. Sarah was down in the kitchen cooking for him. What a good wife she would make. Not that he was looking for a wife or knew anything about wives specifically. He'd never been in the market for one himself. It just seemed to him that Sarah would be good at all the traditional wife things. Well, she had been a wife, hadn't she?

He had always been too busy working to think about marriage. He'd spent far more time at the hospital in the last six years than he had at his apartment.

And for what? a cynical voice questioned deep inside him. The words seemed to echo in a hollow cavern in his chest. Once he'd been full of smart answers to that question. Now he just sat there feeling burned out and anxious all at once. He loved being a doctor. He loved having people look to him for help and being able to help them. It was just that something vital was missing now and he didn't know what to do about it. He missed the bustle of the hospital and yet a part of him didn't want to go back. For the first time in his life he didn't really know what he wanted.

Supper, he thought, pushing the fears and
uncertainties from his mind with an ill-tempered shove. He wanted supper and he wanted company. He rang the littie bell on the stand, then winced as Blossom rushed into the room and howled at him, apparently taking exception to the high-pitched sound.

“Why couldn't Ingrid have a cat?” he asked crossly, as Sarah appeared in the doorway with a dinner tray.

Sarah frowned at him. Blossom frowned at him. Matt rolled his eyes and pouted.

“I hate being sick,” he complained as Sarah placed the tray across his lap. “I hate the idea that someone else is running my ER, seeing my patients—”

“Flirting with your nurses?”

He glanced up at her as she shook out the proper dose of his various medications into her hand. Her mouth quirked at the corners with that knowing little smile, but the expression in her eyes was soft and a little uncertain. What a bundle of contradictions she was— innocence and sass; a woman in most respects, but with such an air of naivete about her. She fascinated him and that fascination took the edge off his foul mood. Something about just having her in the room made him feel more relaxed.

His gaze drifted from her hands with their trimmed, unpolished nails to her breasts, to the bottom Up she pulled between her teeth as
she fought with the safety cap on one of the pill bottles. Desire stirred lazily in his groin. Maybe relaxed wasn't exactly the word.

“I&ll have you know, flirting is a very serious business where I come from,” he said.

“Hmmm. Well, you've been getting plenty of practice here then, haven't you?”

He swallowed the pills she gave him and washed them down with water. The delectable meal on the tray drew his attention, and he let his gaze wander over it as he spoke. “There's no such thing as too much practice. Perfection is strived for but never achieved.”

Sarah gave him a look that told him she wasn't swallowing any of his malarkey. It was a practiced look, one she had perfected as a defense to keep people from thinking they could get the better of her.

“Enjoy your supper,” she said, forcing herself to take a step toward the door. “Just ring when you want me to come take the tray away.”

Matt felt a pang in his midsection that had nothing to do with his cracked ribs. “You're not leaving already, are you? Why don't you stay awhile and let me work on my bedside manner?”

“You're on the wrong side of the bed,” Sarah pointed out.

He gave her his most winning, devilish smile, the one that always made the nurses—
even the starchiest ones—giggle. “That all depends on your point of view, Amish.”

Sarah looked down at him, impossibly handsome and rumpled, his dark eyes twinkling. She thought of his reputation and her reckless streak and the stricken looks her family would give her. She thought of the sheltered world in which she lived and the violent, sophisticated one Matt Thorne dealt with every day with a wink and a grin. And she saw very clearly that there was a point where her little adventure would become something she wouldn't be able to handle.

She came to the conclusion that while Matt Thorne was worldly enough to play word games and tease and kiss her without meaning anything by it, she was not worldly at all. And the needs she kept so carefully leashed inside her had been too long denied to resist much temptation. Matt was a ladies' man; Ingrid had told her as much. But she was not a lady. She was just a plain young woman who wanted too many things she couldn't have. Matt would stay here until he was healed and then he would leave, and she would be the one left hurting.

“I have other duties to see to,” she said softly. It was almost a fib, but she didn't think almost should count for much. There were pots to wash and dusting to do. Mainly there
was her virtue to safeguard and her heart to protect.

“There can't be that much,” Matt protested. “How many other guests are staying here right now?”

“None. But four are coming for the weekend and there are things that must be done.”

“They can't wait five minutes? Come on, Sarah, just stay for a little while and tell me about your family. I like your little brother. Do you have any big ones I should worry about?”

Sarah sighed and dutifully recited the list of Mausts. “There are Peter and Daniel, older than me. They are sons of my father's first wife who died in childbirth. Lucas, Ruth, and Jacob are the younger ones still at home. There now, you know all about us. I will come back later for the tray.”

With that she turned on the heel of one sensible black shoe and left the room, leaving Matt sputtering.

“But—but—what about me?” he demanded.

Sarah was already gone. Blossom remained in the doorway, giving him the evil eye and a soft woof that set her droopy jowls jiggling. Then the dog abandoned him too.

Matt sat back against the pillows, thunderstruck. Women just didn't resist him like that. Lord, had the beating he'd received somehow knocked the magnetism out of him? There was a frightening idea. He speared a chunk of roast
beef and popped it in his mouth, chewing thoughtfully.

No, no, he reflected, that wasn't the case at all. Sarah was attracted. He'd seen it in her eyes, tasted it in her kiss. Lord, that sweet kiss! She was scared. She needed a little wooing, that was all. Well, hell, there weren't many better at that than he was, he reflected with typical doctors' arrogance.

He'd start fresh after dinner. He'd go downstairs and just woo the sensible shoes right off her. There was something special about the sparks he felt inside when Sarah was near. They were brighter than any he'd felt recently. They made him feel enthusiastic about life. He wanted to explore that feeling. He wanted to see it reflected in Sarah's eyes. Something deep inside him ached with hunger for it. And he was going to start right after dinner, he thought as the pills kicked in and his eyelids began to pull down like weighted drapes. His fork had dropped over the edge of the bed, and Blossom scampered in from the hall to snatch the meat off the lines.

Right after dinner he'd start his campaign to win Sarah Troyer. Or maybe after he'd had a little nap

Sarah had been working at Thornewood Inn for about two months. She had her own small room on the second floor—adjacent to Matt's, in fact, just on the other side of the bathroom—and she lived at the inn full-time with the exception of every other weekend when Amish church services were held. Then she spent Saturday night and Sunday with her family, who lived just a mile down the road.

John and Ingrid Wood had purchased the big farmhouse outside Jesse nearly a year before and had been slowly, lovingly renovating it, sanding and polishing the old hardwood floors, stripping paint from cupboards, tearing out dropped ceilings and restoring the plaster-work hidden beneath. The end result was a house Sarah thought of as luxurious if perhaps a little overdone for her plain tastes.

Billowing lace curtains hung like froth at the windows. Armchairs and sofas were plump and plentiful, covered in patterned fabrics in shades of rose and ruby and rich hunter green. Framed works of art Ingrid lovingly referred to
as “primitives” adorned the fancy papered walls. Thornewood now boasted four guest rooms and three baths with fancy claw-footed tubs.

In Sarah s opinion the best room by far was the library, outfitted with comfortable stuffed chairs and shelves and shelves of books. The painted white shelves were built into the walls and stretched from floor to ceiling on two sides of the room. There were all kinds of books—the travel books John Wood had written, encyclopedias, novels, history books, current magazines on world events, cooking, and fashion. Easily her favorite part of her job was spending her spare moments in the library soaking up the printed words like a human sponge.

For as long as she could remember she had loved books. Even before she could read them she had carried them around and looked at the pictures and stared at the words, loving the look of them. Learning to read had seemed the most wonderful, magical thing in the world to her, and she had never understood other children who found it a tedious chore. Reading had opened up the world to her. It was the one thing that could transport her away from the dullness of farm life. There weren't so many books to be had at the little Amish country school she had attended, and they were scarce around the Maust house
hold, but at the age of eight Sarah had wandered away from her mother, who had been shopping for canning supplies, and into the Jesse public library. The librarian had granted her permission to check out books, and her life had not been the same since.

Her father had disapproved of her excessive reading, and she had spent much of her youth sneaking away when she could to read in her grandmothers attic. Isaac said it was books that had put so many foolish ideas in her head. He blamed books for Sarahs overactive imagination and for her yearnings. Sarah knew that the yearnings had always been there inside her. Books had made it possible for her to satisfy some of those longings vicariously. Books had probably saved her from committing more rash, reckless acts than she actually had done, but there was no use telling her father that.

At any rate, it was books not people she turned to when she was feeling lonely or restless or troubled. And so it was to the library she went when the last of her work was done on the fourth day of Matt Thome's stay at Thornewood Inn. She took off her shoes and her
kapp
and curled up in her favorite chair, surrounded by books, seeking some solace for the disquiet in her soul.

None came. And it wasn't the fault of the books or her job. Again and again her
thoughts turned to the man sleeping upstairs. She had done her best to avoid him during the past two days, rushing into his room when he rang his bell and rushing back out as soon as she'd seen to whatever his need had been, but it hadn't put an end to the desires stirring inside her—the desire to be near him, to touch him, to listen to him speak, even if it was just to complain about the boredom of being confined to bed.

She closed her eyes and bit her lip, a low, helpless sound forming in her throat. She clutched the big encyclopedia to her chest and wished with all her heart that some answer would seep out of it and soak into her, but that didn't happen. The only thing that filled her head was the image of Matt Thorne, looking at her, studying her as if she were an intricate puzzle to solve, smiling at her with his crooked boyish grin, kissing her.

Oh, Lord, it had been so long since she'd been kissed, not since Samuel had died. Guilt nipped at her as she admitted her husband had never generated the kind of sparks Matt had. Samuel had been a good man, a good friend, but what had passed between them as husband and wife had never been passionate.

For a long time Sarah had blamed herself for wanting passion. She had been raised to believe in a woman's duty to her husband and to God, that the act of joining with a man was
for but one purpose—to create life. And still her heart had ached for something more.

Maybe her father had been right in that respect. If not for her reading she would never have known that people outside her sect expected something grander of love than duty. In her community marriage was most often based on friendship and compatibility and the desire, the need, for children. But in her heart she ached for something more.

Now she found herself caught in the no-man's-land between two cultures. An Amish woman doing an English job. The English thought of her as purely plainly Amish. Her own people saw her as a rebel and shook their heads and muttered prayers under their breath. She was an Amish woman in dress and speech and manner. But in her heart she ached for something more.

And what she ached for most just now was the touch of Matt Thorne. Sin that it was, she couldn't stop wanting it.

Heaven above, what had she started by giving in to her need to have a little adventure?

Matt stopped outside the door to the library and stood quietly in the darkened hall for a long moment. He'd awakened from his latest “little nap” at eleven-thirty, disgusted with himself for losing yet another chance to charm Sarah. He had figured she would certainly be sound asleep by now, while he, with a com
pletely goofed-up internal clock, was wide awake and starving for food and companionship. Thinking he could at least find the former downstairs in the kitchen, he had pulled on a pair of sweatpants and made his way down the stairs as quietly as a man with a cane could. The puddle of light spilling out of the library had drawn his attention and he'd gone down the hall without managing to alert either Sarah or Blossom the Wonder Hound.

He stood now watching her, studying her like he might study a work of art, watching the play of light on her features, looking for the secret meaning to her expression and pose. She sat curled on the dark green sofa, embracing a book as a child might embrace a teddy bear, her eyes squeezed tight in concentration on a thought that would doubtless remain a mystery to him.

Lord, she was lovely. So simple, so pretty. He'd been watching her now for four days and he couldn't get over her mixture of innocence and hidden fire, the sweetness of her smile and the bright curiosity in her eyes. He didn't feel worthy of touching her, but at the same time it was what he most wanted to do. He wanted to hold her as she was holding her book and have some of that simple purity wash away the dark edges of his soul. Hell, he just plain wanted her. He was at one of life's great crossroads, and at the moment the only
path he wanted to follow was the one that led across his sister's library to Sarah Tftyer. He didn't question the urge; he merely gave in to it, being a man used to having his own way.

“Doing a little light reading, I see”' he said diyly.

Sarah jolted out of her meditation, her eyes widening, her heart racing from something more than just the start he'd given her. He stood before her looking rumpled and irresistible in soft-looking baggy gray trousers and wool socks that fell around his ankles. He was eyeing the stacks of books she'd placed around her with amusement. There had to be thirty of them, all sizes and types, piled in groups of four and five on the arm and seat of the sofa and on the floor in front of her. If she'd sat in that chair for a week, she wouldn't have been able to read them all.

“You shouldn't be out of bed.” It was the first thing that came to her mind and she cringed inwardly, wondering if she was thinking of his welfare or her own.

Matt decided it was a rhetorical comment and made no reply as he eased himself down on the middle cushion of the sofa. He plucked the encyclopedia out of Sarah's hands and glanced over the page she'd had it opened to.

“I guess a person can never know too much about the manufacture of ball bearings. I
haven't kept up with it myself. My ideas are probably horribly out of date.”

Sarah pulled the book out of his hands and closed it, her mouth twisting into a wry little smile.

“Ah, a smile. Does that mean you're not still mad at me?”

“I wasn't angry with you. Why would you think I was?”

Matt lifted his arms in an exaggerated shrug. “Oh, I don't know. I guess the last time a woman shot daggers at me with her eyes, largely refused to speak with me for two days, and ran out of my room at the first opportunity, she was angry with me. Something about my lack of charm.”

“I can't imagine that,” Sarah muttered dryly.

“Really?” He grinned engagingly. “You find me charming? Even in my current state of dishabille?”

Sarah fidgeted, picking at the wrinkles she'd pressed into her dress with books, uncomfortable with his line of questioning. “I don't find you … anything. You're Ingrid's brother. A guest here.”

“Mmmm … I see,” he murmured, nodding doctor-style. “I take it you enjoy reading,” he said, fingering through the pile nearest him. A collection of Mark Twain, a book on restoring Victorian homes, a hefty tome on the Civil War.

Sarah stroked her hand over the big book in her lap the way she might stroke a cat, absently, lovingly. “I love to read and to learn,' she admitted quietly. “I read all I can about everything,”

She loved to learn even though she had been given only a minimal education. Matt thought of the inner-city kids he had dealt with, the opportunities for education that were handed them courtesy of the taxpayers, and which they casually, disdainfully tossed aside in favor of making money selling dope and stealing cars. He imagined what Sarah could have done, given their opportunities.

“Did you ever think of going to college?” he asked.

Think of it? She had dreamed of it constantly as a teenager, but the dream had been well beyond her reach. “I couldn't,” was all she said.

“Your people don't believe in encouraging bright young minds?”

The remark hurt, regardless of her own private opinions. She shot Matt an angry look. “My place was on the farm. We are farmers and carpenters and wives of farmers and carpenters. What sense would there be in spending money on fancy schools?”

“None, I guess,” Matt replied softly. Her answer sounded like a line she had memorized out of a book of Amish philosophy. He had the
distinct feeling it was not her own. No one with such a desire to learn could have subscribed to such an idea. But he didn't push the issue.

He picked up her
kapp
and examined its sheer fine mesh, the carehil workmanship, the delicate ties. She stared at it, too, with a look that was akin to horror, as if she'd just realized she'd been sitting there half-naked. Her hand went self-consciously to her hair. Impulsively, Matt reached up and covered her nervous hand with his own, overlapping it so that his fingertips stroked the crown of her head. He got the impression that she would have sunk down into the netherworld of the sofa with the lint and cracker crumbs and loose change if she could have.

“You have very pretty hair,” he said soffly. It had the texture and sheen of sable, and there were masses of it wound and pinned and knotted at the back of her head. It nearly took his breath away to imagine what it must look like down. “Why do you hide it?”

“It is the way of my people. A woman's hair is her glory and only for her husband to see, else it would be
Hochmut
, pride. Pride is a sin.”

“I think the sin is in hiding away something so lovely.”

Sarah herself had long wanted to go with her hair loose and flowing for the wind to
tease and tangle. She associated the sensation with freedom of spirit. But it irked her that she wanted to agree with this outsider who was already so dangerous to her, so she answered with one of her father's most famous infuriating lines. “It's the way of our people, not for you to agree or disagree. Its just our way.”

“Well, it's not mine,” Matt said pleasantly, smiling when she scowled and batted his hand away from the pins that were holding her bun in place. He slouched against the cushions, letting his arm fall along the curve of the back of the couch. “And I have a feeling it wouldn't be the way of an expert tree climber either.”

Sarah shuddered at the thought of him reading her mind so easily. “I was a little girl then. Now I'm a woman.”

“I noticed, believe me,” Matt said dryly. “In spite of the lengths you go to, to hide the fact, I noticed.”

“Again you make fun,” Sarah snapped, deliberately taking offense. It seemed safer to keep him at an arm's length with bad temper, so she dredged up all she had. She vaulted out of her seat to pace the floor, knocking over a stack of books in the process. “Always with your teasing and cracking wise, making fun.”