Read PRIDE: A Bad Boy and Amish Girl Romance (The Brody Bunch#1) for Free Online

the boys had played games in their youth. But what was so “extreme” about the sports Reid played?
    “Yeah. Stuff like BASE jumping. Mountain climbing. Racing cars or bikes. That kind of thing.” He looked so proud of himself, chest puffed out, eyes gleaming. He ordered another beer. “It’s dangerous, but the rush is worth it. Pay’s not bad, either.”
    “You… get paid to participate in sports?” I blinked at him. “I thought they were just for fun.”
    “Well, fun’s a big part of it,” Reid admitted as he took a pull from his bottle. “But you know what they say. If you’re good at somethin’, never do it for free.” He winked at me. “Gotta pay the bills.”
    Bills. Now there was another, semi-foreign concept for me to digest. Certainly we purchased things that we needed, and of course we paid taxes on our income and our land, but beyond that, there wasn’t much for us to spend money on. We didn’t use electricity, save for our buggy’s headlights. We had indoor plumbing, but you don’t need electricity for that. And as an unmarried woman, I wasn’t privy to our family’s finances enough to know where, or how, our money came and went in any great detail. But I’d gleaned from Reid’s tone, as well as some of the short primer Hannah had given us on English life before we’d walked into the bar, that bills here were plentiful. And sometimes, they were the sea in which people drowned in.
    I stared at Reid, wholly mystified. The differences between us ran deep, all the way through the foundation of who we were and how we’d been raised. We were complete and total opposites. He had big dreams, threw himself into dangerous situations by choice and for fun, cursed and drank and very obviously didn’t give any consideration at all to what other people might think. Whatever the rules for English men were, he subverted them. Meanwhile, I’d never been permitted to dream, indulge in my vices, or toe the line between right and wrong. And until now, I’d never wanted to.
    Talking with Reid had made me realize that simplicity might not be as freeing as I’d thought it was. In fact, it was beginning to sound a little like a cage. And I was growing envious of what he had that I did not.
    Thou shalt not covet, I reminded myself, but it was no use. I was jealous of all the opportunities Reid had, both as a man and as part of the English world. But since I was neither of those things, I supposed I’d have to live vicariously through his stories. Maybe that would sate my desire to experience them; doing so directly might prove too dangerous.
    After all, look what it had done to Hannah.
    I turned a little more in his direction and asked, “What makes these sports so ‘extreme,’ anyway? Mountain climbing I can understand, but… what’s ‘BASE jumping’?”
    Reid grinned roguishly. “It’s when you parachute or use a wingsuit to jump off a cliff and sail down to the bottom. I like the wingsuit, myself. It’s this jumpsuit made out of a lightweight material that kinda makes you look like a flying squirrel. Makes me feel like I’m flying.”
    My jaw sagged. “And you just… put that on, and jump off a cliff?!” The thought was mind-numbing. Beyond imagining. When he nodded, my hand leapt to my chest. “Lord…”
    He laughed, and the corners of his eyes crinkled. He had dimples when he smiled that broadly, visible even under that gruff beard. About a year ago, a few boys in the village had snuck in some wine and gotten drunk, and I’d seen them stumbling around and laughing before my father, scowling and stern as always, herded them back to their homes by their ears. Reid was reminding me of one of those boys now: laughing just a little too loud, his muscles a little too relaxed. But strangely, it was a good look on him. One that slowly coaxed a smile to my own lips.
    “You’re so easily impressed,” Reid said at last, taking another, lazier swig from his beer bottle. “I feel like I could