by Marta Perry
“They’re not interested in what really happened.” He spoke from the depths of his bitterness. “All that detective wants is enough evidence to take to trial. He doesn’t care about truth.”
“Ach, Michael, that can’t be true. He’s the police—he’s supposed to find out what really happened.”
“You don’t know—how could you?” Cathy was way out of her depth. No one here could understand—and certainly not his father. He sent a fleeting regret after the possibility of a reconciliation with the old man. “You’ve been sheltered from that side of life. You don’t know what trouble is.”
Cathy’s gentle face tightened in a rebuke. “Trouble comes to everyone, Michael. You know that. The Amish aren’t immune. We just have to trust.”
“Trust?” Anger swept over him. “Who am I going to trust? Diana, who betrayed me? All the friends who turned their backs on me? My father? Him least of all.”
“You might trust God.”
He made a short angry gesture. “I don’t want to hear about it. I’m not that naive any longer.”
Cathy paled, and he knew he’d hurt her. “You say that everyone has let you down. You’re forgetting the ones who didn’t—the people who tried to help. The ones who welcomed you back.”
Shame battled with anger. It wasn’t fair to take out his feelings on Cathy. And she was right. “All right. I’m sorry. Not everybody. Not you, or Verna, or Sarah and Lige. But my own father—he’s so stubborn he can’t let go of anything. You don’t know what it’s like.”
Answering anger sparked in Cathy’s eyes. “You blame your father for being stubborn, but you’re just as bad. You don’t give anyone a chance to help you. You push people away because you’re so sure you know what’s best.”
The words struck at his heart. Had he really been doing that? He hadn’t wanted to put his burdens onto other people. He wanted to protest that it was necessary, but he wasn’t sure that was true.
“You don’t understand.” He put his hand over hers, wanting her to see it from his perspective. But something happened when his fingers closed over her wrist. He felt her pulse fluttering against his hands, her warmth against his skin.
That warmth spread from his palm, radiating up his body until it enveloped his heart. He warned himself to look away, but he couldn’t. His eyes met hers, and he sank in the clear blue depths.
Cathy’s breath caught. Awareness of him filled her face. The surroundings faded until he couldn’t see anything else.
Without thought, he bent toward her. Their lips met, and the longing to be closer overwhelmed him. He slid his arms around her, and she came willingly, clinging to his shoulders. Trusting him.
Trusting. The word acted like a bucket of cold water in his face. He pulled away, leaving her dazed, her eyes wide and her lips parted.
He couldn’t. Cathy trusted him. He couldn’t give in to the longing to accept all the warmth and caring of her generous heart. Not when he knew there was no possible future for them.
He shot off the bench, grappling for control. “I’m sorry. That was a mistake.”
“Michael.” Her voice was gentle. Soft. As soft as her lips under his.
“It didn’t feel like a mistake.” He thought there was a smile in her voice.
“It was.” He was at the end of his tether. He might long for a different answer, but there wasn’t one. “Go home, will you?” His voice broke on the words. He wanted to hang on to her, to share everything with her, good and bad. But he couldn’t put that onto her. Maybe, someday, but not when Diana’s murder loomed over him.
He couldn’t look at her, but he felt her movement as she stood. She took a few steps away and then stopped, maybe waiting for him to speak.
Clamping his jaw, he walked away. When he reached the corner of the house, he looked back. She was gone.
* * *
CATHY HAD NEARLY covered the distance home before her numbed senses began to register the world around her. She couldn’t let her mother see her, not until she’d recovered a little. Her skin, her lips were burning. Her mother would see something was very wrong in an instant.
Emerging from the band of trees, Cathy crossed the open space to the barn, standing still for a moment to let her eyes adjust to the dim interior. Blackie, one of the buggy horses, whickered a soft greeting.
She patted him automatically. She must still look and smell the same to him, even though she felt like an entirely different person than she’d been this morning.
Not that she hadn’t been kissed before. But none of those hurried, fumbling kisses had made her yearn to repeat the procedure. Even the boy she’d had a teenage crush on had left her feeling unmoved when he’d finally kissed her—especially when he’d attempted to put his hands on her breasts. She’d smacked his face and never felt a moment’s regret.
Michael’s embrace had been so different in its effect on her that it seemed laughable to call it “just a kiss.” It had been more, far more. The touch of his lips had brought an overmastering surge of longing and tenderness, a fierce need to be closer to him.
When Cathy thought of the way she’d responded to him, her cheeks began to burn again. She should be ashamed—but she wasn’t, not in the least. Not until he’d pushed her away so abruptly.
She leaned her head against the rough wood of a stall upright, and Blackie craned his head around the corner to butt at her gently.
“Ach, you’re a greedy one. I don’t have anything for you, not now.”
Greedy—was that what Michael thought she was? A woman greedy for male attention and willing to sacrifice her self-control to get it?
Instinct denied it. He was trying to protect her from involvement in his ugly situation. Didn’t he see that she was already involved? Even if he’d repelled her, she couldn’t have stayed aloof, not when a child’s health and happiness were at stake.
He’d made his wishes plain by pushing her away. He didn’t want anything between them. Nothing but her help with Allie, that is. So all she could do was accept it. She’d have to put these unfamiliar emotions aside and do what she could for the child.
Cathy patted Blackie again and headed toward the house. Mammi undoubtedly had plenty of work waiting for her. Work was surely the best cure for her bruised heart.
She walked into the kitchen to find the room hot and steamy. The water bath canner could be counted on to produce plenty of heat and humidity. Mammi, turning to greet her, was red and perspiring.
Cathy hurried to wash her hands. “Looks like you need a rest. You sit down and I’ll take over.”
“I have a better idea.” Clutching the pot holders, Mammi slid the canner off the burner. “We’ll both work on the last batch, and then we’ll both take a rest. You can start ladling that rhubarb sauce into jars.”
Cathy suffered a pang of guilt. She should have been home earlier to help her mother, but how could she? Allie’s confidences had required immediate action. If she’d felt able to explain, Mammi would have sympathized, she felt sure.
Working together, the chore went quickly. Mamm already had rows of rhubarb sauce finished, the glass jars glowing a deep pink where the afternoon sun touched them. Cathy ladled, capped and put jars into the canner rack before lifting it into the still-hot canner. A pressure canner would do the job more quickly, but Mamm clung to the way her mother had taught her.
She smiled slightly, thinking of her oldest sister. Mary took pride in doing things the way their mother had taught them, but she’d noticed a brand-new pressure canner the last time she’d been in Mary’s kitchen.
“What’s funny?” Mamm asked, glancing at the clock to time the load.
“Nothing. Just thinking of Mary and wondering how she’s doing with her new pressure canner.”
“Ach, she was just raving about it to me this morning. Insists I should get one, but I’ll stick to the way I know. I wouldn’
t trust that thing not to explode all over the kitchen.”
“I don’t think it’ll do that, as long as Mary is careful.”
Her mother sniffed. Apparently Mary had been urging the virtues of her new canner a little too fervently. She never had figured out when it was best to stop giving advice.
“We’ll let those jars sit awhile before we move them to the shelves.” Mammi put the pot holders she’d been using handily on the counter. “Let’s take some lemonade out on the porch and relax.”
“You go ahead. I’ll bring it. I haven’t done my share yet.”
Mammi gave in, departing for the shade of the porch swing. Cathy poured glasses of cold lemonade, congratulating herself on giving nothing away. No one needed to know how she’d let herself be carried away.
Taking the glasses, she headed for the porch. She had no more than sat down when her mother spoke.
“Now, then, tell me what is wrong.”
She’d congratulated herself too soon. “Nothing. Why do you think that?”
“Komm, now.” Mammi put her hand over Cathy’s. “Do you think I don’t know when one of my kinder has trouble? Something has happened to disturb you today. Tell me.”
Cathy’s throat tightened, but she managed to smile. “And you’ll fix it? I don’t think you can make this better.”
“When your kinder are small, they have small troubles. When they get big, the problems get big as well. You’ll still feel better when you talk about it.”
She pressed her fingers against her forehead, trying again to collect herself. She’d have to tell her mother something, if not all of it.
“Is it Allie?” Mamm asked. “I know you worry about the poor child.”
“Partly,” she admitted.
“Ah.” Mammi studied her face. “Allie and someone else, too. Michael Forster, yah?”
“In a way.” What could she say? Not everything Allie had told them, certainly. “Allie has been opening up to me when we walk home from school together. It’s gut for her, I think. She holds too much inside.”
“Yah. And she doesn’t have a mammi to know.”
Somehow Cathy didn’t think that Diana had been a mother to confide in, but that was only a guess. “She said something that led me to believe that her mother might have been seeing some man.”
Mammi nodded, not even seeming surprised.
“I thought...well, that Michael had to be told. It could be important in clearing himself.”
“Yah, I see that. You did the right thing, so that would not be troubling you. There’s more.” She held Cathy’s hand tightly. “You care for him, ain’t so?”
Cathy couldn’t look at her, knowing it would hurt her. Staring down at their clasped hands, she nodded.
Her mother was silent, so Cathy rushed into speech. “Don’t be worried. He doesn’t feel anything. And even if he cared, he wouldn’t want to involve me in his troubles, and I’ll have to accept that fact.”
“Are you sure about his feelings?”
That wasn’t a question she’d anticipated her mother asking, and for an instant she was speechless. “I... Sometimes I’ve thought that he cares.” She heard the yearning in her voice. “But I must be wrong. He just appreciates my help with his daughter, that’s all.”
But that kiss—didn’t it mean anything?
“Ach, Cathy, is it so strange that a man should care for you?” Mammi’s tone was gently scolding, and Cathy met her eyes with a sense of surprise.
“It’s not what I would choose for you,” her mother went on. “It would come with troubles, that’s certain sure. But I don’t like to hear you thinking you’re not worthy of a man’s love.”
“I don’t. I mean... I don’t think I feel that. It’s just best not to wish for something I can’t have.” She’d been sure her mother was the last person on earth to encourage such a course.
“So you are giving up. You didn’t give up on your teaching just because of obstacles, ain’t so? You should have more trust in your own judgment.”
“I do,” she protested.
Her mother shook her head. “It is my fault. You were my baby, and I knew there would be no more after you. And your big sisters didn’t help—they thought they were taking care of you, but they were quick to do things for you that you should have done for yourself.”
It wasn’t at all funny, but she couldn’t help smiling. “You mean I grew up lazy?”
“Ach, no.” Mamm gave her a quick hug. “I mean you don’t have enough confidence in your own self. You have grown up to be a fine woman. Just don’t let other people tell you what you should feel—not even the ones who love you. Listen to your own heart. Promise me.”
“I’ll try.” It was hard to speak around the lump in her throat. “Denke, Mammi.”
Her mother had given her a very different view of who she was. At least part of what she’d said was true, that was certain sure. Except when it came to anything affecting her pupils, she slipped away from disagreements, finding it easier to go along.
Standing up for yourself was not something integral to Amish beliefs—sacrificing yourself was. And even if Mamm was right, she didn’t quite see what she could do about it. Michael was out of her reach, and most likely he always would be.
* * *
MICHAEL CAME DOWNSTAIRS dressed in his English clothes that afternoon and saw the flash of fear in Aunt Verna’s face. He should have realized—she’d taken his acceptance of dressing Plain as a sign he was staying.
“It’s okay.” He touched her arm lightly. “I want to see Diana’s brother.” He grimaced. “I figure I’ll get further this way.”
The fear abated, but he could see she didn’t like it. “Isn’t it best to leave well enough alone? We don’t want him to start bothering us.”
“If he hired that private investigator, he’s already doing it.”
“Ach, Michael, let him be. Nothing good comes of going up against that family.”
He’d forgotten the way most people in River Haven regarded the Wilcox family. The people who lived in the big house, the ones who controlled the biggest payroll in town...even their friends had always trodden softly. But he’d been too long in the wider world to fall in line with that attitude.
“If he hired the man who was prowling around the school, I’m not taking that quietly. He has to be told to stay away from Allie.”
She nodded, but with a little doubt still in her eyes. “Yah, that was wrong. But what can you gain by antagonizing the man?”
“Don’t worry, I’m not intending to start a fight.” He gave her a reassuring pat and headed for the door.
“Promise you won’t lose your temper.” She made a last effort to affect what she seemed to see coming.
“I’ll try.” He made his escape before she could demand something more definitive than that.
Funny, how strange it seemed to be behind the wheel of a car again. Even after such a short time, it felt strange.
He took the road toward town, careful to stay within the speed limit. Guy would like nothing better than to give him a ticket.
Keeping his mind focused on what he was going to say to Bernard Wilcox was an antidote to thinking about Cathy and what had happened between them. The trouble was that once he let her in, he couldn’t keep from reliving those moments.
Not that reliving them helped him make any sense of his actions. As soon as he pictured Cathy in his mind he felt her kiss, saw the dazed look in her eyes.
He swore softly to himself. The best thing he could do for Cathy and for himself was to stay away from her. Since that was impossible, he’d have to make sure nothing of the sort ever happened again. There was no room in his heart for another woman.
He forced himself to itemize the changes in Main Street since he’d left town. There weren’t many. River Haven, like a lot of long-established s
mall towns, resisted change. The only grocery store in town was the small, locally owned one. If people wanted a supermarket or a big-box store, they drove several miles to the strip development on the highway.
The river made its way through town, defining the limits of development. The town was here because of the river—the early settlers came by boat, picking the wide, shallow curve of the Susquehanna River as a good place to settle, accessible by river and later by canals before the railroad was even thought of.
He had to turn off Main Street to reach the mill, assuming that Bernard would be in the company offices there. Despite the changes in manufacturing and trade, the mill managed to keep going, switching from one product to another as demand changed.
Bernard could easily afford to retire, but from what Michael had known of the man, it wouldn’t suit him to see someone else in his position.
Funny, in a way. Bernard had nearly twenty years or so to get used to his position as the heir apparent when Diana came along—the baby no one had anticipated. Her grandparents had doted on her, and Michael had just begun to realize how much her leaving must have devastated them. It took maturity and having a child of his own to make him empathize.
The mill spread out over several acres at the lower end of town, where the river curved. It looked much as it always had, but the section that housed the offices was new and modern in comparison to the rest.
Cars filled the fenced-in lot devoted to employee parking, but a little farther on was a strip of eight spaces designated for visitors. He pulled in and parked, sitting for a moment to assemble his thoughts.
Hold on to his temper, that was the main thing. Express his concern about an outsider spying on the Amish school. He didn’t see how anyone could take offense at that, not that he really cared whether Bernard was offended or not. But for Verna’s sake, he’d try to keep it low-key.
He headed toward the entrance, trying to look like any ordinary visitor. Apparently Bernard wasn’t worried about security, since there was no obvious precaution at the main door. A reception desk stood in the middle of the hall, ahead of the staircase. A quick glance at the list of offices showed him that the one he wanted was upstairs. The woman at the desk wore a harassed expression as she responded to the phone.