In two seconds, she was at the door, pulling it open.

"Hello, Rufus."

"Hello, Annalise." He seemed not to know what to do with his hands and finally settled on clasping them together in front of him. "I thought we should talk."

Annie squelched the instinct to ask if he would like to come in. He would decline, as he always did when they were alone. Instead, she closed the door behind her, smoothed her skirt, and sat on the top step. When Rufus lowered his lanky form to sit beside her, her heart lurched into overdrive and she had to force herself to breathe. At least sitting side by side, he could not see the color seeping out of her face.

"I've been thinking about what you told me the other day." Rufus leaned forward, elbows on his knees.

Annie waited. Even if she had wanted to speak, she could not have.

"That took courage," he said. "I've always admired that trait in you."

He had? All this time Annie had thought Rufus regarded her as impetuous and out of control.

"You did not have to say anything. I don't think I ever would have asked."

Annie held her breath.

"There was a young woman," he began, nerves rattling in his timbre, "in Pennsylvania. I was about Joel's age. Everyone thought we would be the perfect couple. We became adept at finding ways to be alone." He shifted his weight to one foot and then the other. "I am not as pure as you think me to be, either."

"Rufus-"

He held up a hand. "I need to say more."

She nodded, stunned.

"After we had...well, we realized we had let our curiosity get the better of us, and that's all it was. My parents were devastated when we told them. Her parents insisted we had to marry. I felt guilty enough that I would have done it, but she refused."

In the silence that engulfed them, Annie found her voice. "Did you care for her at all?"

Slowly he shook his head. "I learned the hard way to be circumspect in all things. To avoid temptation and gossip, I even stopped going to singings."

Annie did the mental math. "But that must have been more than twelve years ago."

He nodded.

"And since then? No one?"

"No one. Ike Stutzman is not the first man with daughters to get ideas, but I did not want to make that mistake again."

"You wouldn't, Rufus," Annie said. "You understand second chances-you give other people a second chance all the time."

"I had a letter from her a few months ago," Rufus said quietly, looking away. "She never married, either."

The white card. The feminine writing. The way Sophie tactfully took the card from Annie and reminded her she should not read it.

The question blurted out before Annie could stop it. "Does she want to marry you now? After all this time?"

Rufus shook his head. "She just wanted me to know she is happy, just the way she is. She heard that I never married and hoped it was not because of her."

"And was it?"

He shook his head. "I've been waiting to feel about someone the way I feel about you. When I finally felt something..."

Annie giggled. "I turned out to be English." She tilted her head, and her prayer kapp slid off.

Rufus snatched the kapp before it hit the sidewalk. "If you had any idea how often I've wanted to kiss you..."

Annie chuckled. "Not nearly as many times as I've wanted you to kiss me."

"I don't think of you as English anymore." Rufus shuffled his feet. He turned to look at her. "You are just Annalise, with the sharp mind God gave you and the earnest heart God has been shaping in you this last year."

"You have been the one to show me that heart, Rufus."

"You are beautiful, Annalise Friesen, inside and out. If you'll still have me, I hope and pray we can have many years together."

Annie's face split into a grin. "I still have to be baptized."

He nodded.

"I promise not to run out on my baptism. I am going to do this."

"I have no doubt. And then we'll marry. I will do my best to make your parents know this is the best thing for you."

Annie glanced around the quiet street. Dolly nickered and shook a fetlock. Otherwise the neighborhood was clear of observers.

"Do you want to kiss me now?" Annie asked. "Because I really want you to."

"Without regret?"

"Without regret."

She put a hand on his chest and leaned in to him. His arms went around her as his mouth found her lips.

Annie moaned. Now this was the kind of kiss she had been waiting for.

Author's Note.

When I started the Valley of Choice series, I began the journey of imagining the lives of my own ancestors. I have bits and pieces of information about where they lived, what property they owned, when or how they died. On these hooks I hang my story. Jacob Byler, son of pioneer Jakob Beyeler, is my ancestor. When I learned that he died in 1804 in a gunpowder mill explosion, it made all the sense in the world to me that he should be absorbed in making gunpowder for the Revolutionary War. His son Abraham was my grandfather's grandfather.

I find myself taking liberties with the real town of Westcliffe, Colorado, and for that I ask the indulgence of the people of Custer County. The setting of the series has taken on a personality of its own, but that does not mean that the true town is populated by people who are any less fine.

I find the mysterious blend of an imagined past, a possible present, and a place of so many prospects to be the perfect wrapping to hold my story of people who stand on a line that can change their futures and dare to step over it.

Olivia Newport's novels twist through time to find where faith and passions meet. Her husband and two twenty-something children provide welcome distraction from the people stomping through her head on their way into her books. She chases joy in stunning Colorado at the foot of the Rockies, where daylilies grow as tall as she is.

Also available from.

Olivia Newport.

Accidentally Amish.

A woman is torn between living in high-tech society and staying with the Amish man she loves. Which will she choose?

Coming soon...

Taken for English.

the final story in the Valley of Choice series.

end.