Read Online The Amish Bride by Emma Miller - Free Book Online

a man grown, to lose a mother than Neziah’s two boys. They need a mother’s hand, and if you pick one of us, I hope you’ll give them what they’re lacking.”
    “I’d do my best,” she promised.
    “And that’s all anyone can do, I suppose. Do your best.” He eased his horse to a halt at the end of the driveway. A car approached, and Micah held the lines firmly. “Easy. Good boy.” When the car passed, he said, “Walk on.” He flicked the leathers over the gelding’s back, and the horse started forward, first at a walk and then at a pace.
    “You’ve done well with him,” she said as the buggy rolled swiftly along the blacktop. She had to admit to herself that she liked fast horses almost as much as Micah did. And it was plain to her that he’d taken a roughly broken saddle horse and worked with him until the animal showed amazing promise as a driving horse. When Micah had come home from the auction with the three-year-old last fall, his father and her own had expressed doubt that the gelding would ever make a reliable driver.
    “He was bred to be a racehorse,” Ellen’s father had explained more than once. “Lots of standardbreds turn out to make good driving horses, but that animal was left a stallion too long. I wouldn’t trust him.”
    As usual, her mother had echoed her father’s warning, but Ellen had kept her opinion to herself. Micah was known for having patience and a soft hand with horses. She’d secretly hoped that the dire predictions would turn out to be groundless. Flashy the black might be, but the horse Micah called Samson had intelligent eyes, and she’d seen no evidence of meanness around other animals. This was the first time she’d ridden in a buggy behind Samson, and it was too soon to pass judgment, but she thought the gelding seemed well suited to his owner.
    “He has a sweet mouth,” Micah said. “Still a little nervous around motorcycles, but he’s young yet. I think he’ll be fine.”
    “Worth a lot more than you paid for him,” she agreed. “If you wanted to sell him.”
    “Which I don’t. I’m not fickle. When I commit to something or someone, I stick with it.”
    Ellen didn’t answer. She felt safer when the conversation was confined to the horse or to other ordinary subjects, but she felt that Micah was straying from the shore into deeper water. She slid over on the seat a little, widening the distance between them so that she could brace her hand on the buggy frame. “Thanks for thinking of driving me in this morning,” she said. “It was kind of you.”
    He raised his shoulders and let them fall. “I’m giving my good neighbor a ride to town. It isn’t as if we’re crying the banns for our wedding.”
    He was right, and she felt a little foolish for making so much of his showing up in her lane this morning. Slowly, she nodded. “It’s just that it takes some getting used to, thinking of you as a...”
    “A suitor?” He smiled and clicked to the horse. Samson quickened his pace. “I thought we’d settled that last night.”
    “Did we, Micah?”
    “I thought so.”
    She tightened her grip on the edge of the seat. “But it doesn’t bother you that this was all your father’s idea?”
    “
Dat
said that he thought that it came as an answer to his prayers. And maybe it did. We can’t say for sure how God tells us what He wants us to do, can we?”
    She shook her head. “I guess not.”
    “Maybe it was me who needed the nudge to see what was right in front of my eyes for years. I like you, Ellen. If it’s meant to be and we give it a chance, maybe...”
    “Jah.”
She sighed. “Maybe.” A bubble of happiness tickled her insides. Maybe Micah was right. Maybe he’d been right in front of her and she’d never really looked at him. The possibilities were intriguing.
    “It
is
just a ride to town,” he reminded her. “No strings attached...unless you decide you want them.”
    They exchanged a smile, and she closed her eyes and savored the