Operation Zulu Redemption--Complete Season 1 Read Online Free Page B

around his ears, despite the typical bowl cut.
    For Pete’s sake!
She wasn’t a simpering schoolgirl. And she wasn’t a young, single Amish girl attending Sunday evening singings in the hopes a boy would offer to take her home.
    Though, were she honest with herself, she envied those girls with their simple lives. Nothing about hers was simple. Even moving here had complicated everything in ways unimaginable.
    “Ah, David. How are you?”
Grossmammi
asked as they reached the final step and she made her way to him, an arthritic, gnarled hand reaching for him.
    David bent to her and gave her a hug. “
Gut. Denki
, Mrs. Gerig.” He lifted the food from her arms. “Let me help you.”
    “Such a good boy,” her grandmother said as he opened the door.
    His gaze once more hit Katie.
    She breathed in, startled at the way his gaze warmed her.
    “Katie,” he said with a nod, allowing them to enter while he held the door.
    She gave a nod, unwilling to trust herself to speak. She’d negotiated exchanges for high-value targets, but around David Augsburger, where everything was simple yet profoundly complicated, she couldn’t speak. And yet she had a lot to tell him.
    The spartan furnishings provided a calm balance to the throng of people filling the halls and rooms. Katie smiled at the Millers and Schrocks, who engaged her grandmother in conversation, allowing her to deliver the food to the kitchen.
    “Tell me that’s blueberry,” David said as she set the pie on the table.
    “I had some canned and thought I should use them up.”
    Several other women bustled around the kitchen. While her
grossmamm
i had taught her the art of pie baking, Katie wasn’t a master of the kitchen. Something anyone wanting a wife should know. Mrs. Hochstetler squeezed past, her ample size pushing Katie back.
    Right into David.
    “Want some air?”
    “Ya,”
Katie said.
    “
Kumm
.” David tugged her sleeve and led her out the side door. He went to the fence rail and leaned against it, looking out over the fields.
    Immediately a breeze wafted across her face, fluttering her prayer
kapp
strings as she joined him. “I… I talked with the bishop.” She’d never been very good with subtlety.
    David stilled, his gaze dropping to the dirt path that led from the steps.
    Was he happy? Upset? She couldn’t gauge by his expression. Which was like a stone. A wall of granite. “He…” The community of Bleak Pond knew about her mother and Katie’s past. They just didn’t know all of it. And they never could. Which is why doing this…setting foot on this path…
    Katie sighed.
    “Are you going to do it?” David squinted against the sun but didn’t move. Didn’t look at her.
    David was the epitome of a dichotomy. Dressed in dark pants, a white shirt, and suspenders, he was every bit Amish. Until you knew that he owned a car and had a license. The elders had made an exception, quietly looked the other way, since David’s family had a daughter with a congenital heart defect and needed medical care often.
    “He said I could start instructions next month.”
    David slid his hands into his pockets. Handsome. Very intelligent. Sought after. “That’s not what I asked.”
    Katie wrung her hands. Her pulse pounded, like a cadence. A military cadence trying to remind her of who she really was.
    But she’s gone. Died five years ago
.
    “Yes,” she finally said with conviction.
    David met her gaze. Surprise and relief—or was it something else—surged through his handsome face. “You sure about that?” Now he faced her full-on. “You realize what this means?”
    Did he not want her to do it? They couldn’t ever court or think of being anything other than an
Englischer
and her Amish friend if she let things stay as they were. And she’d done that for many years now.
    “I think I’ve lived here long enough to understand,” she answered softly. “I want this.”
    “So you believe in God? You’re willing to keep to the
Ordnung
?”
    “I