Return to Grace

by Karen Harper

  She giddyupped Nettie faster, taking the curve of road and slight downhill quickly toward Troyer land. The stretch of their acreage lay before her, woodlots, fields, houses, the old wooden grist mill on Killibuck Creek—which was really a river—attached to the mill by a chute and a walkway, their three-story grain elevator straddling the railroad tracks. Two boxcars, without the rest of their train, sat under the storage chute, waiting to be loaded.

  To her left, just beyond a copse of bare trees, she could see one of the two, old, barnlike covered bridges in the area, the one they’d called “the kissing bridge” in her rumspringa years. Held up by stone tresses, it spanned Killibuck Creek. Even as she flushed with the memory of how she and Seth went there more than once to smooch, she saw a familiar buggy coming toward her as if her thoughts had called him. Seth! She’d thought he’d be at Arrowroot’s place on the other side of town. On opposite sides of the road, they reined in.

  “What are you doing way out here?” he asked, much too sharply, she thought.

  “It’s not ‘way out here,’ and I might ask you the same. I thought you’d be up on Arrowroot’s roof.”

  “I was, but needed to meet with Levi Troyer about plans for the mill and Naomi and Josh’s house. I’m almost done with the roof.”

  “I was just taking a box of her extra clothes to Naomi. Seth, are you sure Mr. Troyer can pay you?”

  “He’s evidently got outside backing from investors, though he didn’t want to give their names. There’s a big meeting at the mill tomorrow, but he said I shouldn’t be there. I’d like to be, though. Why don’t you let me take the box to Naomi and you head home?”

  “You’re worse than my parents! I want to see my sister. Thank you for your concern, but I’ll be fine,” she said, getting even more annoyed when Nettie insisted on nuzzling his horse, Blaze.

  “You always were stubborn.”

  “And you weren’t? Bullheaded, more like.”

  “Shall we argue? How about we get off this road for a few minutes and just talk?” he suggested, his voice maddeningly calm when she felt so riled up near him.

  “Have you learned something else at Arrowroot’s?” she demanded.

  “Ya, I have.”

  “I’ve learned something about him, too—from Harlan Kenton, of all people.” She could see a tour bus—those were few and far between lately—cresting the hill beyond the mill, coming this way where their buggies were blocking the road. “All right,” she said, “for a couple of minutes. We don’t need to be sitting here.”

  Seth buggied down the lane toward the bridge to give her room to turn around and follow. To her dismay, he drove clear up onto the bridge, but then he was always worried about her being out in the open. It was possible someone could come this way, but the road beyond the bridge was seldom used anymore. She reined Nettie in just behind his buggy, and he helped her down.

  “You go first,” she said, stepping back against her buggy, though he didn’t budge, and they stood so close she had to look up at him.

  “Both of the Meyers brothers came storming onto his property when I was in the garage getting more nails this morning. They pounded on his door, and he was crazy enough to let them in. I could hear yelling inside, so I went to his front door—I’ve been in his place only to use the john by the back door—and called in, ‘I’m going back up on the roof, Mr. Arrowroot!’ just to let Clint and George know someone had seen them go in the house. They left shortly after, looking upset, but Arrowroot seems to revel in that kind of confrontation, and he’s pretty good at talking angry people down.”

  “If they were there to rough him up—I’m sure they’re as shook up as everyone else about Arrowroot saying their land shouldn’t be theirs—you shouldn’t have let them know you’d be up on the roof. Easy pickings with a gun!”

  “Now who’s worried about who? And who’s telling me where I should and shouldn’t go? But I’m starting to believe it’s not Arrowroot’s style to be shooting at anyone, not when he’s got such a high boiling point and seems to enjoy verbal combat so much. But then again, sometimes—maybe like between us lately—that leads to something else, something more.”

  He tilted his head in a beseeching way and put his hands lightly on her shoulders. From where his palms touched her, even through her cape and gown, sparks shot clear down to the pit of her stomach. She tried to keep her mind on her words. “I just talked to Harlan Kenton, who says he’d argued with Arrowroot recently, too, and is sporting a black eye.”

  “Really? Then the lawyer might be rougher than I th—”

  “Which Harlan says Arrowroot did not give him, that he ran into his freezer locker door. Harlan also claims his motto is ‘Peace and Plenty,’ whatever that means. Amanda says he’s doing really well financially, though, so maybe that’s the plenty.”

  “One of the few around here on a roll right now.”

  “What about Mr. Troyer’s financial ties to outsiders—Linc thinks outsiders planted the bodies here.”

  “You know,” Seth said with a shake of his head, “I think Levi Troyer has a couple of his sons going everywhere with him now, almost as if they’re bodyguards. I saw one of them put a rifle inside his buggy. I’m going to ask him a few more questions before I agree to work for him. But tell me about Sarah’s wedding. I knew asking about that at church yesterday was verboten. So, did you give her a kiss for me?”

  “I did,” she admitted, refusing to say Sarah had told her to kiss Seth back. But he stepped even closer. He was staring not into her eyes, which was enough to curl her toes, but at her lips. It was getting harder to talk, to stay on track.

  “Well,” she told him, “it was a lovely wedding and reception.... She was really thrilled about the gifts from here, Ella’s and her mother’s—even the nothings I took her from Naomi’s wedding. She said she was deeply touched.”

  “That’s good—that’s really good,” he said in a raspy whisper.

  Deeply touched… Seth’s hands slid from her shoulders, down her arms, then parted her cape to rest on her waist. Oh, no. She shouldn’t have agreed to come here with him, not here. His thumbs were stroking her flat belly while his fingers at her waist tugged her closer. Ya, ya, she was falling back in time, falling for him, falling into his arms....

  He lifted her up against him as his mouth descended to take hers. Like a madwoman, she parted her lips for him, savoring his taste and touch. He smelled of sharp pine and the outdoors. His arms around her back and waist were like steel bands, binding her to him. The kiss turned breathless, wilder, deeper, and went on and on as they breathed in unison, her breasts flattened against his hard chest, her thighs tight to his hips, so she knew his need for her.

  Danger. Insanity. And yet she wanted more as her arms grappled him to her. When he put her down, she stood on his booted feet so she whirled with him when he turned them and he leaned back against her buggy. They rocked the frame of it. They rocked the frame of the entire earth.

  He lifted her and laid her back on the floor of her buggy in front of the seat, then climbed up to wedge in beside her. His hands went wild along the length of her, kneading her back, cupping her bottom as they lay pressed together. At last, they came up for air, gasping, stunned.

  “You’re so beautiful and so strong, my love,” he whispered.

  “Don’t say that—call me that.”

  “I need you. I need another chance, Hannah!” His breath was hot against her throat where he ran his lips and the tip of his tongue up and down as if he would devour her.

  “I—I can’t, might not stay here—Home Valley after, after it’s over.”

  “Yes, you will! Say you will!” he insisted, and kissed her hard again.

  She was suddenly terrified she would promise him anything, do anything he wanted. Ya, she knew how it happened, the blinding passion between him and Lena, the moments that made Marlena and ruined her own life. But, oh, how she wanted him to hold her, to master her, to take and keep her forever.

  “Se
th, Seth!” she murmured when she could catch a breath again. Her heart was pounding so hard it alone could shake the buggy. “You— We have to stop!”

  “For now. But I can’t help what I’ve been thinking and wanting.”

  “We have— I have other problems.”

  “Then they are mine, too, have been from the first, more than what your friend Agent Armstrong could ever know.”

  He sat up, got out of the buggy and lifted her down. She locked her knees to steady her legs. While she shook her skirts and cape out and straightened her bonnet they had smashed, he retrieved his hat from under Nettie’s feet. He brushed it off before helping her back up into the buggy.

  “You—you can’t just turn your feelings off and on, then?” she asked, remembering what Linc had told her about his own emotions.

  “Not about you or Marlena, anyone I love. Especially not at night. You’re costing me a lot of sleep.”

  Love. He should not keep using that word. But how different Seth was from Linc. Thanks to Seth’s caresses and kisses, she almost didn’t need the buggy to drive away from their old haunt, the kissing bridge, because she could have flown.

  Hannah was happy to see Naomi. Her younger sister had a certain glow to her, even four days after the wedding, though perhaps it had something to do with the slight beard burn on her throat and cheeks. Josh was growing his married man beard, so Hannah didn’t say a word about that. In a house without mirrors, maybe Naomi didn’t even know her skin was glowing from her new husband’s loving. As they carried the box of clothes into the house, Hannah also noted that the Troyer men, Levi and all five sons, were huddled in conversation out by the barn.

  When the men didn’t come in, Naomi’s mother-in-law, Rachel, fixed chicken salads for the three of them, and they reminisced about the wedding.

  When Naomi walked Hannah to her buggy and fussed over Nettie, who was also glad to see her, Hannah said, “The men seem to be preoccupied today.”

  “I guess you know about the financial situation. Josh says everyone’s worried, but his mother and I aren’t to worry, that everything will be just fine. They’re having a big meeting with his investors from Detroit at two o’clock tomorrow at the mill, so that’s supposed to solve everything, I guess. You know, in getting married, you kind of marry the whole family, their joys and problems, too. Oh, and danki for bringing me the extra clothes.”

  But Hannah wasn’t to be deterred. “From Detroit? Couldn’t he get anyone from Cleveland or Columbus? Why Detroit?”

  “Detroit is not a foreign country! And I’m not even supposed to know that much, so don’t worry about it.”

  “I just don’t want my sister’s new family to have money problems, that’s all,” Hannah insisted, knowing full well she was lying again.

  They hugged and Hannah drove the buggy out the long paved driveway to the road. And there were the Troyer men, all six of them, Levi using the phone in the shanty on the road, which was permitted as long as no wires went into the house. The five younger Troyers, Josh included, were standing close around him. Josh waved.

  She waved back, but her thoughts were spinning. She was looking beyond him, past the big barn and fields to the old grist mill even as she turned away from it and headed home.

  18

  THE NEXT AFTERNOON, Hannah left immediately after work at the B and B. For the first time, she only had an ache instead of pain in her wounded arm, even off the pain pills. Maybe, she thought, it was because she was not only practicing her physical therapy exercises at home but starting to use her hurt hand at work. It was a good sign for a good day—at least, she hoped so, because she was going to do something really risky.

  Keeping an eye on the clock, she grabbed a quick salad at the Dutch Farm Table Restaurant, where Ray-Lynn told her that she’d decided to trust Jack. Hannah didn’t tell her friend what Amanda had said today about Lily coming in late at night. Ray-Lynn seemed determined, and Hannah didn’t want to upset her with more suspicious news about Sheriff Freeman.

  Hannah headed the long way around—not going past the Yoder houses—toward a spot on Killibuck Creek about two miles from the kissing bridge and a half mile from the old grist mill. In a sheltering patch of pines, she tied Nettie to a tree with a good amount of rope where she could graze and be protected from the wind. Shaking, her stomach upset, Hannah was so nervous that she fell back into her old habit of talking to her horse. Her family, Linc and Seth would have her head if they knew what she planned. She was going to sneak into the mill the back way, just as she, Seth and other young folk had years ago when it was derelict. And she was going to eavesdrop on the meeting there.

  “See, Nettie,” she said as she patted the horse’s flank, “I think for Mr. Troyer, this is the perfect storm. I saw a movie called that when I was in the world, a tragedy where everything just came together the wrong way, and some people died.”

  Nettie snuffled into her hand, then, disappointed not to find a carrot or apple, started to graze. “I’m sorry Naomi’s in that family now, but at least Josh is the youngest and may not be involved. Here’s what I think,” Hannah went on. “Levi Troyer is in debt to evil worldly men, so he’s forced to do what they say or he’ll have no heritage to leave his sons and their families. So he agrees to let those men hide people they killed—maybe they’re the mob, like Linc mentioned. Or else, he doesn’t know what they’re doing and they thought of the burials themselves. But either way, what better place than a rural Amish graveyard near Troyer land, because no one will ever know, and it won’t really disturb the dead—that’s probably what Mr. Troyer told himself if he knows. All I need is some kind of proof, then I’ll let Linc take over.”

  Hannah took it as another good sign when Nettie whinnied and bounced her head up and down. With a pat on the horse’s haunches, Hannah, cape flapping, bonnet brim pulled low, headed into the sweep of wind toward the mill.

  A blast of frigid air burst from the walk-in locker door behind Harlan Kenton’s stainless-steel worktable as Ray-Lynn entered the Kenton Meat Shop and Storage midafternoon. Caught between that blast and the cold air from the door behind her, she shivered.

  “Yo, Ray-Lynn.”

  “Hi, Harlan.” She watched as he emerged from the freezer, carrying what looked like a big haunch of venison on his shoulder. It must be heavy, but he put it easily on his worktable. “I’m a bit early, but is the extra ground beef I ordered ready?” she asked. “Can’t turn down those sale prices.”

  “I told you I’d deliver it. Yeah, it’s ready. You wait here, just a sec and I’ll get it for you, help you carry it to your van.”

  As he went back into the meat locker, a puff of white air swallowed him. That might feel good in summer’s heat, but she pitied him right now. Still, not much seemed to bother the man. She’d made an appointment with his wife to get her hair cut and colored, and she hoped the conversation could be focused on Lily Freeman, not Harlan. Ray-Lynn figured Jack would never know about some girl chat in a salon.

  She walked slowly along the array of fresh meat Harlan had displayed in his glass case. She was almost never in here, because he did deliver, but—

  The store door opened, and the person she wanted to know more about but never wanted to see again strolled in.

  “Well,” Lily said, “we simply must stop meeting like this.”

  If that was supposed to be funny or cute, Ray-Lynn didn’t laugh. She nodded and said, “Are you buying your own meat? Amanda’s such a good cook.”

  “Oh, no, but Amanda’s gone out of her way to cater to my fussy eating ways, so I’m going to treat her with some salmon Harlan said he got in—he stops in almost every day to see her, you know. But I wanted to give it to her, not have him bring it over.”

  The woman was generous, at least. And she seemed to have discretionary funds. “When did you give up red meat?” Ray-Lynn asked.

  “When I first moved to Vegas and decided to get rid of my change-of-life—literally—love handles,” she said with a pointed glance
at Ray-Lynn’s midriff. “I was the hostess at a really glam, chichi restaurant and had to look good. Fabulous Asian fusion food. Now don’t you think I’m casting aspersions on your and Jack’s restaurant—he told me he owns half now—a mutually satisfying partnership, I’m sure.”

  Why did this woman have to be so subtly insulting and yet seem so chipper? And what was taking Harlan so long? The freezer door was ajar, but barely, so it wasn’t noticeable except for a thin slit of white air.

  As if Lily had read her mind, which annoyed Ray-Lynn even more, Lily said, “Harlan’s here, isn’t he? He said he would be.”

  “In the frozen north,” she said with a nod at the freezer. “I’m about ready to go in and get my order myself, or see if he’s turned to a block of ice.”

  “Oh, he’ll be right back, I’m sure. I’ll bet that’s his inner sanctum—no one else allowed.”

  Their back-and-forth suddenly ran dry. Ray-Lynn had a hundred questions, but Jack might think she was horning in on dealing with Lily when she’d vowed she would not. She bit her lip to keep from blurting out a hint for this woman to leave town like, Don’t you miss Las Vegas? or What do you plan to do here for a career after hostessing in a glam, chichi restaurant? But what came out was, “So you evidently like to gamble.”

  Lily gave a little laugh. “So many people stereotype Vegas that way, but there are plenty of other places—closer places—to gamble these days. No, I just wanted to see all the shows, the nightspots and get away from the wretched winters here. And in the summers, no humidity, when you’re all sweating bullets. Besides, life’s a gamble, isn’t it?”