Winter’s Awakening by Shelley Shepard Gray

say anything more, Lilly felt awkward. She didn’t like being reminded about how she was the reason for Charlie’s college break and she really didn’t want her brother mentioning her pregnancy.
    “Next fall Charlie will be off at college again,” she said quickly.
    “And you?”
    Now that was the hundred-dollar question! She sure didn’t know what she wanted to do. “I’m not sure what I’ll be doing in the fall.”
    “Ah.”
    Thankfully, for once Charlie didn’t add his feelings about the whole subject. Instead he said nothing, just continued driving.
    After a moment, Joshua looked at her again. “What else would you do besides go to college? You want to work? Do you have a sweetheart?”
    Charlie scoffed under his breath.
    Lilly attempted not to smile at Josh’s quaint phrase. “A sweetheart? Um, no I don’t. Well, I don’t anymore.”
    Looking increasingly interested, Josh continued to gaze at her. “But you did?”
    “Yeah. I guess I did. He’s back in Cleveland, though. And we’re over.”
    “Why?”
    She wanted to chide him for being so nosey, but she didn’t feel as if she could. After all, she was the one who’d pushed for conversation. She was the one who’d brought up Alec, too.
    And, as she looked into his eyes, Lilly realized Josh wasn’t being all that prying at all. More like…direct. Actually, it just seemed like asking those kinds of questions were commonplace for him.
    Lilly recalled how her mom said she’d learned that most Amish didn’t speak in meaningless half-truths. They asked meaningful questions and expected direct answers.
    Well, she could go with that. “Things happened. We, um, decided to have different futures.”
    “You don’t think you could have worked things out?”
    “No.”
    “Did neither of you want to?”
    Now she felt tongue-tied. Josh was forcing her to say out loud all of the confusing feelings she’d been experiencing for the last four months.
    She didn’t know if she could.
    “We’re here,” Charlie said abruptly. “I think it wouldbe best if you got right out so we could get home, too.”
    “Oh. Yes. Thank you for the ride,” he murmured as he climbed out of the cab. “It would have been a long walk home.”
    Because Charlie didn’t say a word, Lilly smiled enough for both of them. “You’re welcome, Josh.”
    As soon as Josh turned away Charlie pulled the truck into gear and made his way down the Grabers’ driveway. Rocks crunched under the wheels as he exited.
    “That guy’s such a piece of work. Here I was, trying to do the right thing and give him a ride home and he repaid us by asking a dozen questions.”
    “I don’t think he was being rude. We asked him questions, too.”
    “His were a lot more personal,” Charlie said as he turned left out of the Grabers’ driveway then almost immediately turned into their own yard.
    “They weren’t that bad.”
    After placing the truck in park, Charlie turned to her. “Bad enough. Lilly, he’s probably got his eye on you.”
    “I doubt that. I bet he already has a girlfriend, anyway.”
    As Charlie opened his door and hopped out of the cab onto a cushion of packed snow, he said, “I sure hope he does. I hope he’s got a great girlfriend who he’s in love with. Because the last thing you need, Lilly, is to be involved with another guy.”
    Curving her arms protectively around her stomach, Lilly said, “Don’t worry. I won’t be. Not any time soon.”
    But she sure wouldn’t mind a friend. That, she could use. Of course Lilly had an idea that a guy like Joshua Graber would never be friends with a girl who got pregnant out of wedlock. No, if he knew the truth about her, why, he probably would never have said a word to her.
    Picking up the grocery sack that Charlie had forgotten, she slowly made her way into the house, being careful not to slip on a patch of ice. How much her life had changed. Sometimes she couldn’t help but long for the days when she was just plain old Lilly