Isabelle
The hospital chapel was dim and plain, two tall oil paintings done to look like stained glass hanging on the wall behind the lectern.
The door opened and closed behind me, and I lifted myself off my knees, scooting backward onto the wooden bench. “This seat saved?”
I looked up, surprised to see Brant standing at the end of the pew. I opened my mouth to tell him it was all his, that I was leaving anyway but paused when I saw his expression. He looked . . . uncertain, off balance, sort of like a kid asking a new friend if he could sit at her lunch table. “No. Be my guest.” I scooted down, even though the pew was long enough to fit five people and I was in the middle. He slid in beside me and for a moment we both stared straight ahead, the air weighty and full of that something that seemed to follow us wherever we went.
Even church. Apparently.
Or maybe it was only me. Most likely it was only me. I doubted he felt the way the molecules in the air shifted when we were together. But if he did . . . did it bother him the way it bothered me?
My hands fidgeted in my lap. I wasn’t sure why I’d come here—the doctors had told us Mr. Talbot was going to be fine. Too much fluid had built up in his tumor-ridden lungs and the medical staff had drained them, fixing the problem temporarily, though it was bound to happen again. At least he was comfortable now, safely tucked in upstairs for a night of observation before he was sent home tomorrow.
“You a religious person?”
I glanced at Brant who was staring at the large crucifix hung on the wall to the left of the podium. Was I religious? The question felt like a sort of reaching out, an attempt at small talk, perhaps even a new start. But the question he’d chosen was more complicated than he knew. “I was raised to be.”
He tilted his head, his lips tipping in the first sincere smile I thought I’d seen on his far-too handsome face. He ran a hand over his jaw. “Preacher’s daughter?”
“Deacon’s daughter actually. My family is Amish.”
He looked genuinely surprised as he gazed at me, running a finger under his bottom lip. “You don’t say. Are you still . . . Amish? I mean . . . can you be Amish outside an Amish community?”
My lips tipped into a smile that felt sort of sad. “It’d be very difficult. I no longer consider myself Amish, but in any case, I was excommunicated.” I looked at the cross on the wall, my gaze moving over the solid lines of the symbol.
“You? Excommunicated? Why?”
He sounded so shocked that it made me smile. I had to say I was enjoying this moment of truce—whether temporary or not—with Harrison Talbot’s son. In fact, in so many ways he reminded me of his father. Wouldn’t he hate to know that? “I’d like to say it was an exciting story, but alas, all I can offer is the old cliché of a girl who fell for a boy she shouldn’t have.”
Brant’s expression was enigmatic, that finger still moving under his lip. “Ah. That story. What happened to the boy?” His tone was casual, but there was something underlying it that I didn’t know how to read.
“I married him,” I sai
d softly, rallying a smile. Why was I talking about this? I never talked about this. My heart picked up speed, mouth growing dry, mind searching for an escape.
“But . . . you’re no longer married.”
I shook my head swiftly. “No. And what about you? No Mrs. Talbots on the horizon?”
He winced slightly. “God, no. Marriage is not for me.”
I released a breath. I could relate . . . though I wouldn’t rule love out forever. Maybe it was just the fighter in me who refused to believe that no matter how bleak or unlikely something seemed, there was always a smidgen of hope. I wondered if Brant’s aversion to marriage had anything to do with his own parents’ relationship, or if he just preferred to live the life of a consummate bachelor. The page of Google images with his countless women came to mind and brought a strange prickly feeling under my skin.
“Is that why you don’t drink? The whole . . . Amish thing?”
Amish thing. I knew what he meant and took no offense. “I suppose. I don’t have anything against those who do.” I fiddled with the ring on my right hand. “But I guess in some ways you can take the Amish girl out of Amish country but . . .” I waved my hand in the air, to indicate the rest of that particular expression.
He smiled and we were both silent for a moment.
“Isabelle . . .” At the sound of the hesitation in his voice, I looked at him, taking in the seriousness of his expression. “You were right. I was an arrogant asshole.” He laughed sort of self-consciously and helplessly, and I felt a twinge of sympathy in my chest. This obviously wasn’t easy for him. And yet, this was a true apology, and I appreciated it.
“I shouldn’t have called you a name. I was angry,” I admitted.
“You had a right to be,” he murmured. “I made assumptions. Acted like an idiot.”
“True on both counts.”
He laughed, shooting me a look. I gave him a quirk of my lip. “It’s a difficult situation . . . with your father. Emotions are understandably high.”