© 2012 by Olivia Newport
Print ISBN 978-1-61626-712-4
eBook Editions:
Adobe Digital Edition (.epub) 978-1-62029-018-7
Kindle and MobiPocket Edition (.prc) 978-1-62029-019-4
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted for commercial purposes, except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without written permission of the publisher.
All scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.
Cover design: Müllerhaus Publishing Arts, Inc., www.Mullerhaus.net
Published by Barbour Publishing, Inc., P.O. Box 719, Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683, www.barbourbooks.com
Our mission is to publish and distribute inspirational products offering exceptional value and biblical encouragement to the masses.
Printed in the United States of America.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Author’s Note
About the Author
Dedication
For Caleb and Cana, luminous in my life
Acknowledgments
So many bits and pieces come together to make a novel. Thanks go to Rachelle Gardener, my literary agent, who first pointed out a newspaper article about the Amish settlement near Westcliffe, Colorado.
One of my uncles has spent years on a quest for information about our family history. He was the one who first turned up information about Jakob Beyeler, which made me curious enough to weave a historical thread into the contemporary fabric.
I found Diane Klopp by clicking an Internet link of indeterminate reliability. At the other end of the link, Diane had a copy of a hard-to-find book and gladly supplied missing research details about land grants and property descriptions in Berks County, Pennsylvania. As it turned out, she knew the land well, having grown up on a farm that adjoined the Byler property of my ancestors.
Thanks go to Lorene and Julianna Hochstetler, representing descendants of the Hochstetlers whose family history quite likely intersected the Bylers’ in some way. Their comments on an early draft mattered.
And of course thanks go to the Barbour team for seeing what this might be and making it possible for so many to read.
One
His kiss was firm and lingering as he cradled her head in one broad palm.
“Annie,” he murmured as he took in a breath. His hand moved to brush her cheek. He kissed her again.
Annie’s stomach churned while her lips went on automatic pilot. Kissing Rick Stebbins was nothing new and, frankly, less exciting every time. But in the moment, it seemed the safest choice among miserable alternatives.
She pictured where her blue Prius was stashed in the parking lot behind the modest glazed-brick office building. A small red duffel lay on the passenger seat and a compact suitcase on the floor. The denim bag she had carried since high school, on the desk she was leaning against, held her laptop in its padded case. Car keys hung from a belt loop on her jeans. Her cell phone was in a back pocket.
Annie Friesen was ready.
Rick would never admit to what she suspected. More than suspected. She was no lawyer, but she knew it would take more evidence to make an accusation stick.
And Rick was a lawyer. Her lawyer. Her intellectual property lawyer. If only he had not slipped that extraneous document between the pages of the last contract awaiting her signature in triplicate. Whatever she thought she felt for him dissolved with that test of her attention to detail. He was the one who failed. She would sign nothing more from Rick Stebbins.
Rick took another breath. The air he exhaled on her neck was hot, and his fingers moved down to the front of her neck, toying with the gold chain resting on her collarbone.
I am so out of here, she thought, and ducked her head to avoid further lip contact. She stroked his tie before putting her fingers lightly on his chest and pressing him away gently.
“I have work to do,” she said, “a meeting tonight. I told you about it.”
“You can be late.” Rick put his hands on her elbows.
She had seen him when he did not get his way—the weight of his hand slamming the desk in frustration, the set of his jaw, the frenzy of work that ensued. This time Annie did not plan to be anywhere in sight. He would calm down once he accepted that his plan would never happen. And then they would be over.
Annie shook her head and squirmed out of his grip. “You’re the one who said I have to protect my copyright at all costs.”
“Isn’t that what you pay me to do?” Rick asked. “Are you sure I shouldn’t be with you tonight?”
To Annie’s relief, he did not move toward her again. “I want to try the civilized approach,” she said. “Barrett and I have worked together a long time. Surely we can still talk to each other.”
“He’s adamant the new program was his idea. He even retained his own counsel.” Rick laughed. “I guess he doesn’t trust me any more than he trusts you.”
“Our relationship has been no secret to anyone working here.” Annie picked up the denim bag and slung it casually over one shoulder. But it’s over now. That was your last kiss, buddy.
“Don’t sign anything I wouldn’t want you to sign.” Rick raised his dark eyebrows at her.
What he wanted her to sign was precisely the problem.
Annie opened her office door, stepped through, and waited for Rick to follow. She locked it behind him and concentrated on breathing evenly. No one would think twice about seeing them together at the end of the day leaving the building that housed Annie and Barrett’s small company.
They were more than successful. The first financial security software program Annie wrote, which Barrett marketed, sold rapidly. First, small credit unions bought it, then large ones, then conventional banks. Before long, a firm specializing in serving the financial industry recognized their program for the gem it was and bought them out. Annie was twenty-seven and had more money in her bank account than her parents had seen in all their working lives—or would ever see. She and Barrett decided to open another company and see if they could do it again, this time with a program that used store discount cards to track grocery inventory movement according to customer shopping habits and product placement. They also served a number of local companies
with website design and custom software. These clients provided a working lab. Sometimes the problems she solved on a smaller level became just what Annie needed to get past a glitch in the bigger project.
Annie just wanted to write software. She was happy to see Barrett get rich right along with her. He was brilliant with the marketing and sales side and had earned his share of the fortune.
But Barrett wanted it all. He couldn’t write software to find his way out of his gym socks, in Annie’s opinion, but now that she was on the verge of a breakthrough, he wanted to squeeze her out of the latest deal.
And Rick was helping him. Annie was sure of it. She couldn’t prove it, but that didn’t mean she was going to lie down and let it happen. She merely needed a few days where she could think clearly and make a plan to fix this mess.
Outside the building, she pushed the button on her clicker, and the lights on her car flashed.
“Call me later?” Rick’s brown eyes glimmered in familiarity and suggestion.
“It might be late.” More like never!
“It’s never too late if it’s you.”
Aw. He can say the sweetest things. Not.
Annie let him peck her cheek and then walked briskly to her car while he seemed to saunter toward his on the other side of the lot. She navigated out of the maze of look-alike buildings in the complex and pulled out onto Powers Boulevard, a north-south arterial. Early on a mid-July evening, the Colorado Springs sky was still a stunning blue. The rush-hour traffic that glutted Powers in late afternoons had thinned—as much as it ever thinned on Powers—to midweek moviegoers, diners, and chain-store shoppers. Annie whizzed past one shopping center after another, a progression that also thinned and gave way to industrial complexes.
She glanced in her rearview mirror and glimpsed Rick’s bronze Jeep two lanes over and six cars back.
Maybe she should hire a private eye. Or another intellectual property attorney. Someone who had a clue what to do. But she could do nothing with Rick Stebbins hovering over her every move, waltzing into the office at his whim, and making plans for them every night. A room in a bed-and-breakfast in Steamboat Springs awaited her, but she had to slip off Rick’s radar.
Barrett was waiting—supposedly—and Rick was following. He was not even going to wait for a report from Barrett, apparently. Annie may have been trusting and naive up to this point, but she was not going to walk into a trap now.
Would he hurt her? Annie did not intend to risk finding out.
Heart racing, she turned right just where Rick would expect her to turn and headed west around the south edge of the city. A few seconds later, his Jeep slowly made the same turn. If she deviated from the predicted route too soon, Rick’s suspicions would go into high gear. And if she made the wrong turn, she would hit a dead end. Neighborhoods of Colorado Springs were not tidy little squares on a grid. They were full of curves and angles and cutoffs and one-way streets and dead ends. Annie had grown up in this town and had been driving her own car for almost ten years. At the moment, she wanted to slap herself for not being sure where these side streets would take her.
Annie jerked the wheel to the right and swung into a sedate neighborhood of lawns and front porches, as if decades ago builders were determined to recreate the Midwest in the high desert climate. She couldn’t squeal her tires without raising attention, but she pushed over the speed limit as much as she dared.
A moment later, Rick’s Jeep appeared. Was it her imagination, or was he following more closely?
Annie tapped on the GPS and glanced at the map showing her location. Rick had a system, too. It would take some doing to outsmart him.
She had to try.
Moving generally in the direction Rick would expect, Annie varied her turns, making several maneuvers in quick sequence as if she were knowingly zigzagging across town. The area was coming back to her now. In high school she had a track teammate who lived down this way. Annie used to come down here on weekends after she got her first car, her first real independence.
Think! Where is that place you used to go?
The Jeep narrowed the distance behind her. Annie pounded the steering wheel. Her phone sang Rick’s tune, and she ignored it. A moment later, it announced a text message. She refused to look, instead making another sharp turn into a hotel parking lot.
This was it. The hotel had been new when she was in high school. Now it had a ready-for-remodel quality, but it still anchored her geographical bearings.
Another message zoomed in. Again she ignored it. She cruised around the back of the hotel, staying as close to the building as she could. This was not the place where Barrett was waiting, and it was not where Annie had intended to go, but it would have to do. So far the Jeep had not followed her into the lot.
Annie pulled into an empty parking spot in the first row outside a back door of the building. She dropped the keys into her denim bag then pulled its wide strap over her head before picking up the small red duffel that held a change of clothes and a few personal items. This was not exactly going according to plan. The rental car was waiting for her in Castle Rock, where she would have brought the trail of her own car to an end by stashing it in a friend’s garage. Now she would have to leave the suitcase and find another way to get there.
A glance over her shoulder reassured her that Rick had not made the same turn into the hotel lot.
Not yet.
She opened the car door, got out, closed the door behind her, and listened to it lock. Behind the hotel, a grove of aspen trees shuddered in the wind, their leaves twinkling in waning sunlight. And beyond that, if it was still there, was a lumber distribution center the local contractors used. Specialty woods. Trims, cabinets, that sort of thing. Annie used to go to the parking lot for purposes she would never have admitted to her parents.
The Jeep’s headlights glared just as Annie reached the edge of the grove. She pressed up against a tree, knowing that a slender aspen would never fully hide her form. Golden aspens that were a spectacular sight on a sunny autumn mountain drive were not much use for hiding behind in the summer. Perhaps the growing shadows would disguise her, though, if she kept still.
Rick parked the Jeep. He got out. His dress shoes clicked against the pavement.
Annie wished for someone—anyone—to pull into the lot right then, or come out the back door of the hotel.
He stood at the edge of the grove now. Annie’s denim bag bulged on one side of her, and her red duffel on the other.
Way to be inconspicuous.
“Annie, I know you’re here.” His bass voice resonated confident, calm. “It would seem we understand each other fully now.”
Annie held her breath.
Rick advanced into the grove.
Annie suddenly itched at the base of her neck. And her hands. And her twitching nose. She refused to scratch.
“I don’t know why you’re running, Annie. Nobody wants to hurt you.” Rick’s silky timbre slithered between the trees. “We just want you to sign some papers and this can all be over. It’s sound business.”
More sound for him than for her. She had to disappear for the next few days so there could be no question of her signature on any documents.
He was three feet away from her. With one turn of his head, she would be done for.
Annie heaved the red duffel bag and hit her target, thankful for the weight of a hairdryer. Rick stumbled off balance for a split second, tripping over the bag and swearing. Annie ran through the grove. She heard his footsteps behind her, but the voice of her high school track coach rang in her ears, warning her not to turn her head to monitor a competitor’s progress. The grove was not deep, and she was soon out of it and in the parking lot of the lumber center. Several trucks of various ages and sizes created a maze in the small lot. The first truck she spied, a red pickup with a long bed, had a tarp folded away from one corner with the back gate down. Annie hurtled herself onto the gate without breaking stride and pulled the tarp over her. Knees pulled again
st her chest, she wedged in between two neat stacks of lumber at the edge of the bed.
And held her breath again. Her lungs burned in fury.
Rick thudded past. “Annie!”
His volume startled her, but she did not move. Not one millimeter. His steps retraced their route.
Annie heard the shuffle of other footsteps. Barrett!
“Can we help you, sir?”
No. Not Barrett.
Rick stopped. “Looks like I need to come back when the place is open,” he said amiably.
Annie could picture the grin that surely accompanied the comment. No doubt he had his hands in his pants pockets, looking friendly and harmless.
“They open at seven in the morning,” the mystery voice answered. A pause. “Are you a contractor?”
Sure. In the dark-suit attorney’s uniform Rick wore.
“I don’t want to hold you up,” Rick said. “I’ll come back another time.”
His footsteps tapped away. Annie took a real breath.
“Odd fellow, don’t you think?” the voice said. “Dressed funny for this place.”
Another man chortled. “You’re standing beside a man in homemade clothes, and you want me to agree that a fellow in a suit is odd?”
Both men laughed. One of them yanked on the tarp and secured a corner onto a hook.
“I’m so used to you, Rufus,” the first man said. “I don’t think of you as odd.”
“Well, you’re a good friend, Tom. Let’s go home.”
“Let me just fasten everything down and we’ll get on our way.”
Go home? Where is home?
Annie winced as the truck’s gate slammed shut so close the hair on her arms fluttered. She clutched her denim bag. The man tugged on the far corner of the tarp and hooked it in place. She did not dare reveal herself now. She couldn’t be sure where Rick was. How would she explain herself to the truck’s driver?
Two doors slammed, the engine turned over, and the truck backed up.
A third text message buzzed in Annie’s back pocket. She didn’t have room to reach for the phone.
Two
Pinholes in the tarp where the canvas threads were stretched thin suggested the sun soon would be fully set.
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