The Amish Bride of Ice Mountain by Kelly Long

Author:Kelly Long [Long, Kelly]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2014-09-17T16:00:00+00:00

I can’t think about her . . . not now, maybe not ever. What did I expect? What did I really expect—that she was going to stop being Amisch or keep on with no community but me? Maybe it’s better this way. She’ll marry someone on the mountain . . . He ignored the sick feeling the thought produced and turned as the door was opened.

Jude was surprised at the dead calm he felt when his father strode into their library. He’d been drinking; Jude could smell the alcohol from where he stood near the window. He faced his father—this strange, hurtful, alien man who was his own flesh and blood.

“Somebody should shoot that dog if it’s going to carry on because your little Amish skirt finally wised up . . . I suppose you’re howling too, though, aren’t you, son? Your mother said your wife’s left you.”

“I find that we all howl, now and then . . . when we don’t get what we want, what we expect . . . no matter how much we give.” Jude shrugged. “Like you, Dad, not getting me.”

His father stalked closer to him and missed a step, catching himself on the back of an ornate chair. “Not getting you, huh? I paid a king’s ransom for you, and if I can’t get what I want, then neither can you. At least I’ll have the satisfaction of that.”

“Why do you need satisfaction?” Jude asked, feeling disturbed to realize he was genuinely interested in the answer. Why do I even care?

“Why do I need satisfaction?” His father laughed aloud, a hollow, eerie sound, as he spread his arms wide and staggered toward the desk. “I need satisfaction, you miserable wretch, because you took the only hope I had . . . took it all . . . and choked the life out of him.”

Jude tilted his head at the slurred words. “What? Choked who?”

His father continued to laugh, then drew a harsh breath. He grabbed something from the desktop and whirled, throwing it with sudden violence at Jude, who moved out of the way.

Jude saw the Ice Mine snow globe shatter against the wall and its water run down the ornate wallpaper . Mary must have left it here . . .

He felt a sob rise in his own throat as he bent to stare down at the cracked glass, and then his father’s breath was close against his ear, the older man’s hands tight around his neck.

“Who? You dare to ask who?” His father shook him and Jude twisted from his grip to back away. “Your brother, you fool. Your twin. Born first. My firstborn son . . . Ted Lyons Junior . . . but your cord was wrapped around his neck and he was dead before he ever breathed air.”

Jude froze in horror, his grandfather’s strange conversation in the garden about the “other one”—his dad only wanting the other one of him—making sudden terrible sense.

His father sneered at him. “You should see your face, Professor Lyons.

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