“I didn’t think of it that way.” Annie blanched. “Everybody can use a computer. I didn’t mean anything … predatory.”
“Now that I see it’s you, I believe that. But parents make decisions for their own kids.”
“Of course.” She glanced at Carter, who stood with his hands jammed into plaid shorts pockets, his shoulders folded forward.
“Not that it’s any of your business,” Tom said, “but we have our reasons for restricting Carter’s computer access.”
“I overstepped. I’m sorry.” Annie met Tom’s stare.
“Carter can’t keep it.” Tom nudged the box an inch toward Annie. “You may have innocent intentions, but we are trying to accomplish something else with our son. It does not include giving him an electronic appendage.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to say.”
Tom’s shoulders loosened. “I hope you can return it.”
“It’s no problem.”
Tom turned toward his slumping son. “Come on, Carter. I’ll take you home. Then I have work to do.”
“I’m sorry for the inconvenience,” Annie said.
Tom and Carter strode out of the shop, and Annie resisted the eyes of any spectators. Suddenly working outside on the motel’s porch appealed.
Rufus saw Annalise coming with her arms full and stepped across the lobby to open the door.
“Thank you,” she said.
She huffed through the door and unloaded her arms onto the reception desk next to the sample cabinet. Her eyes barely lifted from the box. Her fingers rested on one edge of it. “The cupboard is beautiful.”
“You didn’t even look at it,” Rufus pointed out.
“I’m sure everything you do is gorgeous.” She glanced at his workmanship. “Mo must love it.”
“She seemed happy.” He nodded at the box. “Is that something special?”
“It’s a mistake, that’s all.”
Rufus had never seen that particular slant in Annalise’s shoulders, a slope of surrender. “Annalise, what happened?”
He listened to her cryptic explanation of meeting Carter and impulsively giving him a computer. Rufus picked up a rag and needlessly brushed at absent dust on the sample cabinet.
“I’m sorry for how you must feel, but surely you understand Tom’s point.” He hoped his tone found the right balance of sympathy and realism.
“Yes, I understand Tom’s point.” Annalise spun to face him.
“You’re bringing your ways into new territory,” Rufus said. “Answering my phone. Pressing questions about my sister. Giving Carter a computer just because you can.”
“You’ve made your point once again.” Annalise rested both elbows on the desk behind her and glared. “I’m an idiot city girl bumbling around a small town—with Amish to boot.”
Her phone rang before Rufus could respond.
Annie rolled her eyes as she answered the phone. How much worse could this day get?
“I hit pay dirt,” Lee Solano said.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re going to want to write this down.”
“Just a minute. I’ll put you on speaker and find a pen.”
Glancing at Rufus, who discreetly stepped away when her phone rang, Annie pushed a button that brought Lee’s voice into the lobby. She rummaged around the reception desk for a pen and flipped a registration card to its blank back.
“Take this number,” Lee said.
Annie jotted down the digits then repeated them back to Lee.
“If you have any questions about what I’m going to tell you, call that number and ask for Jeannette. She’ll tell you.”
“Tell me what?” Annie asked. “Where did Barrett go to college?”
“University of Northern Colorado, in Greeley.” Annie wondered how that was relevant to the current crisis.
“That’s what you think. That’s what everyone thinks. The truth is he only attended two semesters.”
“But—”
“It gets better.” Lee’s pitch rose. “He was expelled for plagiarism.”
“What?”
“This should be enough to stop the suit.” Lee spoke with pure triumph. “We just let Barrett know we have this, and he’ll pull out of the suit.”
“Wait. That would ruin him. It would throw doubt on everything he’s accomplished.”
“Isn’t that the point?” Lee said. “He’s the one who started playing hardball. Now you’ve got a fast pitch of your own.”
“What if I don’t want to throw it?” Annie thought of Barrett’s wife and infant daughter. More futures were at stake than just Barrett’s.
“You hired me to make this mess go away,” Lee said. “This will do it.”
“Yes, I suppose it would. But it seems … extreme.” She was expecting legal proceedings, not extortion.
Lee laughed. “Don’t you consider what he’s done so far to be extreme? Quid pro quo.”
“Can I think about it?” Annie tucked the phone number into her bag. “The court date is not for a month. What difference will a couple days make now?”
“There doesn’t have to be a court date,” Lee emphasized. “Not only do we make the suit go away, but we get Barrett to sign over his interest in the company. Whatever you want.”
“I need some time.” Annie’s head spun with the implications of what Lee suggested. “I’ll call you in a few days.”
“I’m ready to jump as soon as you give the signal.”
The call ended, and Annie looked up at Rufus leaning against the door frame. “I suppose you heard all that.”
He nodded.
“It sounds pretty terrible, doesn’t it?”
He folded a sheet of paper with deliberation. “Complicated, as you said.”
“I didn’t agree to anything.” Annie adjusted the bag hanging from her shoulder.
“You’re thinking about it. Is that not enough?”
“This is not the same as you and Karl Kramer.” The trembling almost got the best of Annie as she returned her phone to a pocket. “You have no idea what’s at stake.”
“Don’t I?” He let the silence dangle between them.
Annie picked up the box. “I should go to my room. I have work to do.”
“Annalise.” Rufus put a hand on the box to stop her. “I’m sure I sounded harsh earlier. I am not trying to be rude or to hurt you. But I think it is time for you to go home.”
“I’m happy here. For now, at least.”
“You’re hiding here.” He took his hand from the box and let it glide over the sample cabinet. “You’re pretending at the small-town life and flirting with the Amish ways because of some possible connection three hundred years ago. You look things up on the Internet instead of living them. You can’t be accidentally Amish. It’s time to go home and figure out what you want from your life.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“This gentleman is pushing you into an uncomfortable corner.
Is this really what you want?”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
“Tom is taking me to Colorado Springs in the morning.” Rufus picked up his toolbox. “I’m sure there’s room for you in the truck.”
Sixteen
Annie sat squished between Tom and Rufus on Colorado State Route 96, heading east. The urge to defy Rufus and insist she would go home on her own terms—and was perfectly capable of finding her own transportation, thank you very much—lasted about as long as an untied balloon let loose. The air went out of her, and she knew he was right. Jamie was right. Her mother was right. It was time.
Lee’s voice ringing in her ears was the last push. She should try to talk to Barrett one last time. What Lee proposed was beyond anything Annie imagined when she hired an attorney. Annie wanted to stop Barrett—and Rick—but not shame him for the rest of his career.
Conversation on the drive was sparse. Annie wondered if it was always this way or if her presence between the two men muted them. She would
have preferred to sit in the rear seat, but Tom had boxes stacked there, along with the battered suitcase Mo had given Annie to hold her thrift-store wardrobe. The denim bag also was in the back, along with the second computer, which Tom was gracious enough not to mention. Annie’s phone was in her pocket. It was all she could do not to get it out and pull up a map of where they were going to track their progress. They rode for miles between signs of any businesses, following fence lines and warning signs about curves in the road. Clearly they were in ranching territory, though what the ranches produced was not immediately evident to Annie. Horses? Cattle? All she saw was hardscrabble for miles on end, pocked with random bundles of brush and patches of scrub oak.
A tree bent by lightning. A religious billboard. Crumbling log cabins. A boxcar parked miles from any track. No doubt Tom and Rufus knew these landmarks well. Then the road cut through the rock of the gently sloped Wet Mountains in the San Isabel National Forest. Her ears responded to the shifts in elevation with increasing pressure, but she was determined not to widen her mouth to make them pop. Ponderosas grew out of crags in a straight line toward the sun.
“It’s a little different than your view of the trip in,” Tom said.
Annie refused to blush. If she were not so beholden to Tom, she would have let him know she could hold her own in taunting banter. And Rufus had practically ordered her to go home. She said nothing.
“Well, enjoy the view,” Tom finally said. “It certainly helps give a person perspective on what’s important in life.”
“My perspective on life is just fine.” She couldn’t help herself. “It may be a different life than yours, but it’s a good life.”
Rufus leaned ever so slightly into her shoulder. “Don’t take everything personally. He only means to admire God’s handiwork.”
Another thirty miles passed in silence.
Signs for Colorado Springs popped up on the route, heartening Annie.
“Where did you say your car was?” Tom asked.
She gave him directions over the next half hour. When they pulled into the tow company’s lot and Annie saw her Prius, relief she had not expected wrung through her. As much as she might try to convince herself she did not miss driving, the sight of her car, unharmed, made her adrenaline surge. A life she knew was within sight.
Except without Rick Stebbins. Definitely.
And without Barrett Paige. Probably. That part hurt.
Rufus got out of the truck to let Annie out then opened the rear door and removed her belongings.
“Are you sure you want us to leave you here?” He glanced around the lot. “You are not naerfich? Nervous?”
“I’m fine.” She put her head through the strap of her denim bag and took the suitcase. “The office is right over there”—she pointed—”and I can see my car from here.”
Rufus nodded. “Well, all right, then. It was a pleasure to know you.”
The past tense stabbed. But he was right, as usual. She was not sure he would shake her hand, but she extended it anyway. “Likewise. I’m sorry I didn’t get to say good-bye to Jacob.”
“I’ll tell him. He’ll understand.” He covered her hand with his, infusing sensation up her arm and straight to her heart.
She shrugged and took her hand back. “Yeah. It’s not like I was going to move to Westcliffe or anything. Thank your mother for me. She was very kind. Your whole family, actually.” She fingered the gold chain at her neck.
“Go see your own mother,” Rufus said. “She must miss you after all this time.”
“I will.”
“I pray things become less complicated for you.”
Annie moistened her lips. “I don’t pray as much as you do, but I will try.”
He got back in the truck. Tom waved and put the vehicle into gear. A moment later, Annie stood alone in the garage’s lot.
She missed Rufus already.
Which was about the silliest thing ever to happen to her. Please, God, give me my senses back.
Annie drove straight to her office.
Jamie gasped when she saw her. “You didn’t say you were coming!”
“It was a last-minute decision,” Annie said. “Get everybody in here. I’ll talk to all of you at the same time.”
Annie took her usual spot at the head of the conference table in her office and waited for the others. Jamie returned with the three software writers, the marketing assistant, and the bookkeeper.
“So you all want to know what’s going on.” Annie folded her hands in front of her on the table. It was the only way they would stay still. “We’re facing some changes. I doubt Barrett will be back, so I’ll need to hire someone to fill his spot on the marketing side.”
“What happened to Barrett?” Ryan, the marketing assistant, asked the question on all their minds.
“I wish Barrett well.” Annie chose words carefully and with sincerity. “But he has different ideas about the business than I do, and it’s almost certainly an irreconcilable situation. I intend to continue to grow the products and services we offer, and your creative contributions mean a lot to me.”
“What about Rick Stebbins?” Paul asked.
Paul was the best software writer Annie had ever hired. “Mr. Stebbins and I no longer have an association of any sort,” she said. “I have engaged other counsel from out of town for the time being, though I imagine I will look for a local firm when the dust settles.”
As Annie talked, the sensation was as if she were telling one of those peculiar stories of people who claim a near-death experience on the operating table. She was talking. The voice was hers. The words were hers. She calmly answered questions with as much transparency as she deemed appropriate. But this was someone else’s story.
Jamie, the last to leave Annie’s office, closed the door behind her. The entire afternoon stretched ahead. She would be back in a few minutes with a turkey avocado sandwich and coffee, and Annie would dig in.
This was Annie’s real life.
She knew right where Rufus was, at the lumberyard where this out-of-body experience began. He was selecting the wood that would become the front desk and cabinetry of a little motel outside of Westcliffe. She could see his hand brush along the grain of the wood as if to test it. He would get out his little notebook and short pencil and make calculations, and he would have his order ready to load when Tom returned from his own errands.
And somewhere in town was Rufus’s sister Ruth. Based on the address Annie had seen, brother and sister were probably not more than five miles apart. The only difference was Rufus knew where Ruth was. Ruth had no idea her brother was so near.
Ruth Beiler hefted her backpack and was among the last to leave the lecture hall at the university. She could hear her mother’s voice telling her to stop dawdling. Her small dorm room was a ten-minute walk, and already she dreaded the heat that would slam her as soon as she left the air-conditioned brick building. She missed the cooler mountain air of home, two thousand feet higher than Colorado Springs.
Home.
Where she could never belong.
If only Rufus would read her letter—and answer it. If only she had some news of her sisters and Joel and little Jacob. Sophie was the spunkiest of the bunch, but even she would not dare to send a letter behind their mother’s back.
Ruth had not expected to be this lonely, certainly not after eighteen months. It was not as if she had time to sit around feeling sorry for herself. She carried a full course load even in the summer months and rode the bus to a nursing home, where she spent another twenty or more hours a week as a certified nursing assistant. She could talk to as many people as she wanted to during the day. And while many people looked at her oddly because of her conservative dress and the way she kept her hair fastened closely to her head, in some settings she found fragments of friendship. In a laboratory session, all that mattered was helping each other see what they were supposed to see on a microscope slide. At the nursing home, she worked regular shifts and saw the same pe
ople routinely. Occasionally in the break room, conversation that started over patient care shifted to personal plans. On Sundays she went up the road to the modern Mennonite church, and sometimes she managed to attend a young adult Bible study. Ruth forced herself to be more outgoing than her natural inclination and usually succeeded.
But it was not family. It was not home.
She was not baptized. She had not broken any promises. Ordnung did not demand that her family shun her. It was the way she left. She knew she hurt them, especially her mother. But did not Ordnung require them to forgive?
Out of long habit, Annie tossed her keys in the tray by the door and flipped on the lights.
Her condo was just as she had left it nearly two weeks ago. Well, not exactly. The cleaning service had been in for their regularly scheduled visit, so everything looked plumped up and squeaky clean. The rooms were cool. Annie had not changed the timer on the thermostat before she left. She winced at the wasted electricity but was glad for the relief from the heat now. She went straight into the bedroom to release her load onto the bed. She opened the small suitcase and gripped the paltry stack of clothes in both hands. They had come from a thrift store and were likely headed to another one. For now they would go on a shelf in her walk-in closet. She turned the light on in the closet and found a niche for them. For two weeks, she got by with a handful of clothing items. Now she stood amid racks of clothes she had not worn in a year or more. She had everything, from silk suits to little black dresses to workout clothes and jeans and sweaters.
Exhaustion closed in on her. Annie went into the bathroom, easily four times the size of the one at the motel, and turned on the shower with the custom showerhead she spent three days selecting. She peeled off her clothes and dropped them in the hamper then stepped into the steam.
She was out only a few minutes later. A luxurious hot shower failed to deliver the satisfaction she expected. Wrapped in a towel, she went back to the bedroom and found her oldest, softest pair of pajamas. She stared at the flat screen television mounted on the wall but had no urge to turn it on. An even bigger screen hung in the living room, but Annie didn’t want to go there, either. She just wanted to get in bed.
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