There had been that big underground cocaine bust in Amish country a few years back. Maybe he was a part of the Amish mob. A kingpin on a mission to do a drug deal. “What does your farm grow?”
“Everything needed to sustain our way of life. Our agriculture is basic. And we have livestock.”
“Dairy?”
“Yes, but we aren’t a dairy farm. We do not harvest for profit. Only for sustenance.”
She twisted her lips. No mention of cocaine or crime. “So, you live completely off the land?”
“You’re suspicious of my background.”
“I just don’t know many Amish people.” And if they didn’t farm for money how could he afford a hundred-dollar tip?
“It’s a much simpler way of life where I’m from.” He stepped to the counter and ordered two cups of coffee. When he reached in his satchel to pay, her eyes widened at the flash of money tucked within an envelope.
She followed him to a table. “What do you do on the farm?”
“Work from dusk to dawn. Sometimes longer, depending on the season.”
She slid into a chair and studied him. “Are there women on the farm?”
“Of course, though they work in the home.”
How archaic. “What do you guys do for fun?”
“We play games. I like checkers and Scrabble. If the weather’s nice, we play yard games or fish or explore.”
“Oh.” His words were thick and accented, his voice smooth as heated honey. When he spoke, he lulled her into a calm state. He could read the phone book and make it sound sexy.
“What do you do for fun, Annalise?”
She chuckled. “Sleep. Between school and work, I don’t have much of a social life.”
She cupped her hands around the paper cup holding her coffee. The air conditioning was working overtime and the heat of her beverage felt nice. The quiet of the café calmed her and she could finally think.
“Why did you play that song?”
“You have lovely hands,” he said at the same time she asked about the song.
Her attention jumped to his face. He stared as if he were trying to tell her something. His expression appeared gentle, but there was something hard about his focus, a sort of resolute, unbreakable concentration.
She frowned. “What?”
“I was just noticing your hands. They’re lovely. Delicate.”
She glanced at her fingers. Was that an actual compliment? Or was it like, Hello, you have nice hands. I’d like to keep them in a jar of formaldehyde next to my pickled pig's feet and ball of human hair...?
“Um ... thanks?”
“Do men not often compliment you?”
She got them all the time, but normal ones. “You’re sort of weird,” she told him in the kindest way possible.
His smile disappeared. “This place is weird for me.”
She instantly regretted teasing him. “You’re the first man to ever compliment my hands. Thank you.”
Golden lashes lifted, revealing eyes as blue as the glaciers. They reminded her of ice, yet his stare filled her with warmth as he smiled at her. “I played that song because I knew it was your favorite.”
“But how did you know that?”
He straightened his shoulders. He hadn’t sipped his coffee yet. She was halfway through hers.
“Do you believe in God, Annalise?”
“I believe in science.”
“Science?”
“Yeah, the study of the physical and natural world through experiments and proof. If a religion can accompany science without interfering, I don’t have a problem with it.”
“I didn’t ask if you believed in religion. I asked if you believed in God, a higher power.”
“You mean, do I think there is something connecting us to the universe, greater purpose, like destiny?”
“Yes.”
The hair on her arms lifted. She’d been playing with those ideas lately, searching for some sort of explanation for her sorrow. She wished she could explain away the hurt of losing her mom and find some sort of vindication in life’s cruelty, but nothing stuck. She wished finding faith was as simple as reading about it, but it wasn’t. Not for her.
Mary was just a woman in need of a place to have a baby, and Buddha was just a little round philosopher. No matter the deity, creation always came back to the foolproof but complicated explanation of expanding matter under high-density temperature. Her brain only worked in terms of science, because other explanations left her wondering why she deserved to have her only family ripped away from her before she even had a full grasp on adulthood.
She didn’t want there to be a God because she didn’t want to think she might have done something deserving of the losses she’d suffered. And if she believed in one part of destiny, she had to believe in all of it.
What sort of screwed up God permits the cruelty of this world to carry on, but involved Himself in matchmaking of mere mortals? No way was some Supreme Being up there assisting this guy with his game. She smelled bullshit.