“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.