The quiet had him frowning. Abby usually napped right after lunch, not close to the end of the day. When he came in sight of the office, he found Julia on the computer. She had assumed responsibility not only for bookkeeping but for taking photographs of furniture and uploading them to their website. Business had taken a distinct uptick since, now that the site was truly current.
He must have made a sound, because her head turned. Smiling, she lifted her finger to her lips. Luke stepped close enough to see Abby sound asleep, curled on a nest of quilts beneath the counter. He went to her and crouched, studying in astonishment every line of her face, the perfection of her tiny fingers, the delicate knobs of vertebrae on the back of her neck.
God was truly wonderful, he couldn’t help thinking.
He swiveled on his heels to see that Julia, too, watched Abby, her expression betraying everything he felt and more. It was the more that worried him. He didn’t like the sadness and even grief mixed with her pleasure and, yes, astonishment like his.
Standing, he gestured toward the showroom. Although clearly startled, Julia rose to her feet and followed him. In one corner, several rocking chairs were arranged around a coffee table crafted of cherry with inlaid walnut. As she sat, she stroked the wide arms of the rocker she’d chosen, then gave a wriggle.
“It’s shaped perfectly,” she said quietly.
He had worked very hard to ensure it was as comfortable as he could make it. Walnut was a hard wood that didn’t readily yield to planes and sandpaper.
“For you,” he agreed. “Not for everyone.”
She looked thoughtful. “I guess you’re right. We do come in all sizes and shapes.”
Luke smiled. “We do.”
The seat of the chair he’d chosen fit him well. He rocked a few times before saying, “She didn’t nap earlier?”
“No, she was antsy. I wouldn’t have let her nap twice, knowing you’d never get her to sleep tonight if I did.”
“I wasn’t criticizing,” he said mildly.
Julia’s gaze slid from his and she nodded. After a minute, she asked, “Is she getting used to your mother and sister?”
“Yeah, some. Miriam more than Mamm, who still alarms her, I think.”
“I wonder . . .” Julia hesitated. “Does Abby look like her mother? If so, Miriam may remind her of her mother.”
Which flew in the face of the truth that Abby had chosen instantly to trust a thin woman with brown eyes and a mass of deep auburn hair, Luke couldn’t help thinking.
“Beth—Elizabeth—was blond and blue-eyed,” he agreed. “Petite, too, but you may have noticed that most Amishwomen aren’t tall.”
“The men, either, although you’re the exception. Well, Elam, too.”
“My grandfather on Mamm’s side was a big man. We took after him.”
It felt odd to be talking to her like this, but he understood her curiosity. Because of the quilt frolic and the help his family gave her to move, she wasn’t entirely on the outskirts of their lives the way their Englisch clients were.
“Will you tell me a little about Abby’s mother?” she asked, sounding timid.
How could it hurt? Thanks to her presence when the social worker showed up, Julia already knew more even than his parents did about Abby’s sad upbringing. With them, he had skimmed over Beth’s drug use.
Luke started talking, telling Julia about the equally sad young woman he’d met, the one so desperate for love, to belong, she’d let herself be abused.
“I wondered if she was using drugs,” he said finally, “but I didn’t know for sure.”
“You think she was raised Amish, too?”
Like him. He nodded. “I know so. She still had an accent.”
“Did you . . . love her?” Then Julia’s cheeks flushed. “I’m sorry. That’s none of my business. It’s just . . .”
“Just?”
“You accepted Abby with such joy.”
“Shock and fear are closer to the truth,” he said ruefully. “And no, I pitied Beth more than anything. I wanted to help her, but she wouldn’t accept anything but an occasional meal or a few dollars.”
Julia’s forehead, usually smooth, crinkled, and he realized how intently she was watching him. The shyness she felt around him was in abeyance, perhaps because of her need to help Abby. He had no trouble guessing what Julia was thinking.
If you didn’t love her, if she wouldn’t accept anything meaningful from you, how is it that you shared her bed? And, How could you never have suspected she was carrying your child?
Or worse, she shared Melissa Tanner’s suspicion that he’d chosen to walk away from his child.
In that moment, he felt the weight of the lie, something that had seemed an easy decision but would be with him for a lifetime. Telling somebody, anybody at all, might ease that weight.
He trusted this woman.
Compelled by other forces he couldn’t acknowledge, he said, “She’s not my daughter.”
Julia stared, her eyes shimmering with gold. “What?” she said faintly.
“I didn’t have that kind of relationship with Beth. Even if I’d been tempted, she was so vulnerable, I would never have taken advantage of her.”
“But then—”
“I haven’t told my family,” he said with sudden urgency. “Please keep this to yourself. I want them all to accept her as my child.”
“But . . .”
“I was afraid the bishop would insist we search for Beth’s family. She had to be desperate to put my name on the birth certificate. I think she was terrified of them.”
“Because she was abused.”
“That’s what I believe. She wouldn’t talk about them. Even in the letter she left for me, she didn’t say anything about her family. But how else was it that she considered a life on the streets as better than what she’d run from? And she was so hungry to be loved. There was one man after another.”
“If she was abused, that might explain why,” she said, almost inaudibly.
He shook his head. “I don’t understand that.”
Her hands had left the smooth arms of the rocker to writhe together on her lap. He’d seen that darkness in her eyes before, too.
“I’ve . . . read about it. For rape victims, it’s different. I mean, ones who survived a single attack.”
He nodded, battling his need to stand and pull her to her feet, too. To grasp her arms and demand to know what happened to her. He’d lose this oddly intimate, painful moment if he did that, though. She was still wary of him, and she knew as well as he did that touching her was forbidden to him. Nor was she likely to welcome his hands on her, not given the fear he’d seen in her eyes.
“But from what I’ve heard, people who have been sexually abused as children often react the way you described,” she continued. “As if they think their bodies are the only thing of value they have to give.”
He let his head fall back. To think of Beth suffering like that . . . Why hadn’t he done more for her?
When he first knew Beth, he’d had very little to offer, he reminded himself. That wasn’t an excuse, but truth. Leaving the Amish, going into the world with only an eighth-grade education, wasn’t easy. He’d been scraping his way toward a college degree by then, living in a small rented room, eating some meals at the mission. He’d given what he could. And yet . . .
And yet.
“Are you ever going to tell Abby?” Julia asked after a minute.
He hadn’t thought that far ahead. His throat felt tight. “I don’t know.”
Riveted by the compassion on her face, it took him a moment to notice that her hand lay on his forearm. That she’d given a gentle squeeze to comfort him.
This, from a woman who was always sure to keep ample space between them. A woman who had certainly been afraid of him, and probably still was.
Her gaze followed his to where her slim, long-fingered hand rested on his muscular, much darker arm. Shock transformed her expression.
Chapter Eleven
JULIA SNATCHED BACK her hand. What had she been thinking? To touch any man so carelessly, and this one in particular?
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled.
With small creases between his eyebrows, he looked perturbed, but he also shook his head. “There is never a reason to apologize for kindness.”
“Your father spoke to me—”
“Did he?” Luke sounded annoyed.
“Just . . . just making sure I knew that, being unmarried, you had to be . . . circumspect around me. He didn’t mean any harm by it.” She did understand, as much as an outsider could, but the warning still stung.
“Daad still acts as if he thinks I’m a teenager,” he growled.
Wrinkling her nose, she said, “Do parents ever see their children as adults? Anyway, you were away for a lot of years.”
Luke gusted out a sigh. “I was. I hurt them. Now—” He broke off.
“Now?” This was probably something else that wasn’t her business, but maybe he had no one else to talk to who might understand without being hurt anew.
“I think they fear I’ll stumble and fall. They want the part of me that lived in the world to be obliterated. It’s as if I came home covered with tattoos. They see them every time they look at me.”
Living under the glare of suspicion, however loving the welcome had been, that would be hard. Frowning, she said, “Those years had to have been part of the path God led you to walk, don’t you think?”
Luke’s vivid blue eyes held hers. He didn’t move, not to so much as breathe, as he stared at her. At last he shook his head, as if trying to rattle his brains. “I . . . never thought of it that way.”
Her hand lifted from her lap, as if she needed to touch him again. She subdued it with her left hand.
“If you hadn’t left the faith for a while,” she pointed out, “you’d never have met Beth. Then what would have happened to Abby?”
“You’re saying that her coming to me was God’s will.”
The lump in her throat almost kept Julia from answering. “Yes.”
“I want to believe that.” He stared for another unnerving minute before nodding and saying huskily, “Thank you. I needed to be reminded.”
“You’re welcome.” She jumped to her feet. “I should get back to work.”
“Me, too.” He rose more slowly.
They were still looking at each other when Julia heard the door from the workroom open behind her. In an instant, Luke wiped all expression from his face.
“Daad,” he said evenly.
Somehow she summoned a smile for his father. “Come and see Abby. She thinks she’s a kitten when she naps.”
Eli did follow her once she scuttled behind the counter, leaving the rocker swaying gently back and forth on the display floor. He gazed down at his granddaughter and then smiled. “Or a squirrel.”
Julia covered her mouth to quiet her laugh, but sadness came in its wake, as it too often did. “I’d like to hear her voice.”
“Ja,” Eli agreed. “We all would.”
“And we will,” Luke said softly. “Sooner if we’re patient than if we demand too much.”
This time when their eyes met, she understood him to be offering silent thanks for her earlier advice.
Her heart ached as she remembered she’d be lucky to have one more day with Abby. After that . . . she’d revert to being an employee again. An Englischer. There’d be no more reason for her and Luke to talk, and she might never hear Abby’s voice or laugh.
Swallowing, she said to both men, “I’ve been thinking. If you have completed furniture stored elsewhere, maybe I should come and take pictures so I can put those up on the website, too. You might sell pieces without ever having to find room here.”
Eli blinked a couple of times. “That’s smart thinking. We did well hiring Julia, ain’t so, Luke?”
His son chuckled, shaking his head. “You mean, you did well hiring Julia. Bragging is not in keeping with our faith, or so you’ve always taught me.”
His father’s laugh was deep and hearty . . . and woke up Abby, who stared at her grandfather with an expression of wonder.
Pain squeezed Julia’s chest even as she thought how lucky this little girl was to have been claimed by such a wonderful family.
* * *
* * *
JULIA GRABBED HER phone that evening to see her parents’ number. Knowing she owed them a call, she answered hastily. “Mom?”
A quiet man, her father wouldn’t be the one to make the call unless something terrible were wrong.
“Sweetie, how are you?” her mother asked. “We worry when we don’t hear from you. I wish you weren’t so far away.”
“I know,” she said, feeling a pang. “But just think, Nick and I are in the same place if you want to come for a visit.”
“We were thinking this might be a good time.”
“I . . . actually don’t recommend it.” A part of Julia reveled in being too far away for her mother to stop by her apartment frequently, always with an upbeat smile and an excuse but her deeper worry and guilt visible. “It’s awfully hot. And humid. Why don’t you wait until early fall?”
“It was eighty-four degrees here today, and humid.”
“According to the bank clock, it was ninety-four here,” Julia retorted. August was bound to be hotter yet, and from what she’d heard, September would be no better. “And the forecast calls for it to get up to a hundred by Sunday. You know Dad doesn’t do well in hot weather.”
“That does sound daunting,” her mother admitted. “How are you surviving?”
“Air-conditioning, what else?” She was a little ashamed that she hadn’t spent much time outside these past weeks. This week, Abby was the reason, of course, but she hadn’t told her parents that she had been caring for a little girl. “You got the pictures of my apartment.”
Her mother had already exclaimed over them via email.
“Yes, but you work for some Amish. Do they use modern improvements like air-conditioning?”
“Not usually.” She thought. “Maybe if they can power it by propane. They get a sort of dispensation if the heat might put someone’s health at risk. But the shop is cooled, because fine woods have to be kept from drastic temperature changes.”
“I didn’t know that.”
She’d already shared the Bowman & Son’s Handcrafted Furniture website so her parents could see some of what she did, and read what made this furniture distinct from what could be bought in any department store.
She heard muffled voices, and then her father came on. “Aren’t tornadoes a risk in your area at this time of year?”
“Yes, the farmers especially worry, but the building where I work is really solid, and so is the apartment building.” Both were built of brick, not so good in an earthquake, but resistant to high winds, even ones spinning with lethal force. “Have you asked Nick about it?”
“He blows me off,” Dad said, clearly disgruntled.
“That’s because he’s too big and tough to be afraid of anything.”
Her father grunted, making her laugh.
After the call ended, though, she remembered the expression on her brother’s face when he assured her he hadn’t married because there were too many fish in the sea. Julia had no doubt Nick had been hurt, although how and by whom she had no idea. And she hated knowing he’d likely never confide in her, fragile and damaged as she was.
She had a very bad feeling Luke recognized those same qualities in her, and yet . . . today, he had confided in her.
Only, she reminded herself, because she was there, available, and not Amish.
Sometimes she though
t she should consider looking for another job. Maybe not now—she wouldn’t want to let down Eli and Luke—but once tourist season was past and traffic at the store slowed down. Before she suffered another wound, this one stupidly self-inflicted.
Or maybe she should take this unexpected attachment to Abby and use it to motivate herself to pursue another path.
Maybe . . . God had brought Abby into her life for a reason.
It wouldn’t hurt to do some research online to find out what it would take for her to earn a teaching certificate, would it?
* * *
* * *
CARRYING THE LUNCH his mother had packed with enough for him, his father, Julia, and Abby, Luke had just reached the showroom when the bell over the front door tinkled as Miriam hurried in.
“Oh, good!” She beamed. “I’m in time to eat with you.”
“Ja. Daad will be right out.” He smiled and lifted the bags. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Julia rise from her chair, Abby on her hip as if that were her natural resting place.
Julia bent her head. “Abby, look who’s here. Your aenti Miriam. And what do you think she might have with her?”
Abby’s face lit. Luke prayed she might cry, Cookies! but of course she didn’t. She did wriggle to get down and came around the corner on her own.
“Hmm.” Miriam pretended to look worried. “Did I remember the cookies?”
Julia laughed.
Something twisted in Luke’s chest, as happened too often around this Englisch woman. He hadn’t yet told her that he intended to start leaving Abby daytimes with his mamm next week, but felt sure she’d guessed. Her smiles were still there, but too many of them looked forced.
Julia had fallen in love with his little girl, as much as he had. She’d be a good mother, but he wondered if she’d ever marry. Of course, Englisch women had babies in other ways, but raising one alone would be a struggle. Her current salary wasn’t high enough to add childcare to other bills, although Daad and he had agreed that, on the first of August, they would give her a raise. She had more than earned it—but it still wouldn’t be that much money. This was small-town Missouri. Even salaries for teachers, police officers, and medical professionals lagged behind most of the rest of the country. He had speculated more than once about why her brother had moved from a big northern city to Tompkin’s Mill.
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