Plain Fame Read Free Page B

the Englischers and answering their questions, even though most of their inquiries were rather silly. Unlike many of her friends who avoided the Englischers, Amanda hadn’t minded being the center of their curiosity. And that had made her quite popular with the tourists and local people who shopped at the market.
    Those days had been few and far between since her daed needed her help on the farm. Unlike other families, her parents had not been blessed with numerous children. So Amanda did her fair share of the work in the fields. She loved the smell of freshly tilled soil, lived for the days when they planted seed, and felt the true glory of God during the harvesttime. Her father used to brag that she did the work of two sons. But that had been a long time ago, she thought.
    Her eyes fell upon the flowers. Roses, she thought. Her mother had several rosebushes at the farm. They were tall and bushy with clusters of vibrant red roses. The buds were small and delicate, unlike these roses that stood tall, with perfectly formed dainty cups, the petals peeling back just slightly to hint at the beauty inside them. Who on earth would have sent her flowers? And roses at that!
    “Hey, you,” a deep male voice exclaimed from the doorway.
    Amanda turned her head around, startled by the familiarity of the voice. A man stood in the doorway, his broad shoulders accentuated by the fact that he wore a crisp, clean black suit. He wasn’t particularly tall, but he seemed to fill the room with his presence. His white shirt was perfectly tailored, and he had on a thin black tie. Despite being indoors, he wore dark sunglasses that hid his eyes. His thick, curly brown hair hung over his forehead, giving him a tousled look that was charmingly handsome and playful. And his voice: it sounded like a song, the words flowing with an odd accent that she had never heard before.
    “The nurse told me you were awake. That’s good,” he said. When he said the word good , it almost sounded like gut . But he had a singsong way of speaking that sounded very different. The man who stood there, his hand on the door handle, smiled at her as if she should know him. But she didn’t.
    “Who are you?” she whispered, pulling at the blankets until they were almost under her chin. With her hair undone and not being dressed properly, she was more than uncomfortable having a strange man approach her.
    Usually, she didn’t mind meeting strangers. On this trip to Ohio, she had met plenty of them. But for the most part, they had merely stared at her and her sister, Anna. That was quite the usual. Having grown up at the heart of the Amish tourist mecca in Pennsylvania, she was used to being stared at by strangers. Even going to the market involved dealing with the Englischers and their staring eyes, so full of questions that only the bravest managed to ask. While she normally didn’t mind, Amanda hoped that this fellow wouldn’t start with any of those intrusive questions. Her head was still feeling thick.
    “May I?” he asked, gesturing toward the room.
    Amanda hesitated a little, but after realizing that he was asking permission to enter the room, she nodded. This man seemed to know her, and he seemed to be concerned about her. She wondered if he was the doctor. He was dressed well enough, she thought. She watched as he walked into the room and softly shut the door behind himself. Then he approached her bed, and with another gesture toward the chair, he waited for her to give him permission to pull it closer and sit down beside her.
    “Do I know you?” she asked, confused by his comfortable mannerism around her.
    “Indirectly, yes,” he said. “My name is Alejandro Diaz.” He paused before adding, “It was my limousine driver who hit you yesterday.”
    A limousine? Amanda frowned, trying to remember. But she couldn’t. Her head hurt, and everything seemed a bit fuzzy. She couldn’t seem to make sense of what was happening around her. Clearly, he wasn’t