Rebecca's Rose Read Online Free Page B

every morning for two weeks before she agreed to let him stay. Ach, it is irritating.”
    She hadn’t said anything about her dad. Was he dead? Levi didn’t ask. But he knew that there was no such thing as divorce in the Amish community. Levi envied the stability of the Amish family—the dad didn’t wake up one day and decide to abandon his wife and rip out his son’s heart because he “couldn’t stand to live like this anymore.”
    “Hey, Levi.”
    Levi looked up. Megan Donelly and Cassie Can’t-Remember-Her-Last-Name gave him the eye from across the room. Megan, in her characteristic short skirt, winked and smiled at him, while Cassie played with her hair and tried to look demure and available at the same time. He should have been happy to see them. They’d be sure to inform Tara that they’d seen him with a beautiful blond at the Cowtown Grill. But he wasn’t as pleased as he thought he’d be.
    He glanced at Rebecca then waved back casually, hoping she didn’t make anything of if. He didn’t want to hurt her feelings.
    Rebecca eyed the girls with apparent indifference before folding her arms and staring out the window.
    Levi guzzled the rest of his Coke then thumped his glass on the table. “Okay, kid. I’ve got more excitement planned for the evening. Have you ever seen a movie?”
    “Lots of Amish kids go to movies before baptism.”
    “But have you ever seen a movie? In a theater?”
    Rebecca played with her straw. “Nae. I’ve lived a very dull life.”
    “No money?”
    “I work one day a week cleaning for an Englisch woman so I can pay for prescriptions and my cell phone. There is not much left over for anything else.”
    “You have a cell phone?”
    “Mamm is not happy about it. She thinks it will pull me to the world. But I have not been baptized.”
    “So anything goes until you’re baptized?”
    “No. All good parents want to keep their children from doing destructive things. Rumschpringe or not, we try to live lives of duty to God and our families—though some experiment more than others. I do not think God smiles on immoral behavior simply because someone has not been baptized yet. The consequences are certainly worse after one has committed to God, but sin is sin whether before or after baptism.”
    Her earnest expression made him smile to himself. “So is that a yes or a no to seeing a movie?” he said.
    “What movie?” Rebecca said.
    “Well, if you’re brave enough to ski, you should be brave enough for The Fleshies . Can you handle zombies?”
    “What are zombies?”
    “You’ll find out. But I warn you, it’s supposed to be terrifying,” Levi said.
    “I am not afraid of anything.”
    He didn’t know why, but Levi had the sudden, almost irresistible urge to lean over and kiss her. She was so cute with her unfailingly proper manners and her ready-for-anything facade. A girl couldn’t fake such endearing behavior. Up against Rebecca, Tara seemed kind of hardened.
    He shook his head back and forth a couple of times to clear his thoughts and plopped some cash on the table. “Then let’s get out of here.”
* * * * *
    Zombie movie. Best idea ever.
    As the blood and guts exploded on the screen, Rebecca seized the armrests on either side of her and gripped them until her knuckles turned white. Levi inched his warm hand on top of her ice-cold one. She pulled away as if she had been burned.
    Okay, she didn’t want him to touch her during the movie, but she would definitely melt into his arms as soon as the danger was over. A scary movie did that to a girl.
    She pressed her head against the back of her seat but never closed her eyes or looked away from the screen. She might be terrified, but she seemed determined to take the horror with both eyes wide-open.
    Her lips, pursed in distress, were achingly tempting. Maybe he would give her a post-movie kiss. Just to make Tara jealous.
    After the military blew the last zombie’s head off and the credits rolled, Levi moved in to