Plain Confession

by Emma Miller

  “How bad is he?” Chuck asked, slicing through the baling twine at her wrists with his hunting knife.

  “He’s shot,” Rachel said.

  Gently, the big man rolled Evan onto his back.

  Rachel gasped. A neat round hole in Evan’s right shoulder was oozing a trail of deep crimson down the front of his tuxedo jacket. “Is he alive?”

  Chuck pressed the base of his palm against the bullet wound. With his free hand, he sought for a pulse at Evan’s throat. “He’s alive,” he said. “What about you? That wound on your head looks pretty bad.”

  “I’m all right,” she said. “It’s Evan who needs help.”

  “Good. Then hustle yourself back to that police car and call for an ambulance. Tell them we’ve got a trooper down and two suspects in custody.”

  “You’re sure?” she asked, tears running down her cheeks. Behind her she could hear Chuck’s dogs barking and growling. “You’re sure he’s alive?”

  Evan’s eyelids flickered. “I’m alive.” He clenched his teeth and inhaled raggedly. “You’re late, Rachel. Do you . . . know what today is?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “Oh, Evan, don’t die. I love you so much. I—”

  “For pity’s sake,” Chuck exclaimed and rolled his eyes. “Will you two lovebirds quit your cooing and get an ambulance here before he does bleed to death?”

  Epilogue

  The nurse pushed Rachel’s wheelchair into Evan’s room. One of the four state police officers who were just leaving held the door for her. They greeted her, asked how she was doing, and offered condolences for her injuries. She murmured something she hoped was appropriate to each of them and thanked them for coming to support Evan.

  “He’s a good guy,” Lucy Mars said. In spite of the fact that she was in full uniform, she bent to hug her. “Don’t let him get away,” she murmured in Rachel’s ear.

  “I won’t,” Rachel promised. She still felt light-headed and her head hurt due to a serious concussion as well as the seventeen stitches it had taken to sew up the wound. But none of that mattered. The only thing on her mind was seeing Evan for herself and making certain he really was all right. She’d come so close to losing him the previous day that it was hard to accept they’d both come through the ordeal alive.

  “You can only stay for a few moments,” the nurse warned. “Officer Parks has been out of recovery less than twenty-four hours.”

  Rachel nodded and rolled herself forward in the wheelchair. “Evan?”

  “Rachel.” Evan’s pale face creased into a wide grin. “I’ve been worried about you, darling,” he croaked. His voice was hoarse from the effects of the anesthesia, but nothing could hide his pleasure at seeing her. He tried to rise, despite the IVs and heart and blood pressure monitors, but the nurse waved him back.

  “You just lay back, Officer,” the nurse said, pushing Rachel’s wheelchair to the side of the bed. “You lost a lot of blood and you need to remain quiet and regain your strength. You don’t know how fortunate you are.” She smiled. “Ten minutes. That’s all I can give you. And then visiting is over for you until this afternoon.” She made a slight adjustment to the IV machine and padded out of the room on soft-soled orange Crocs.

  The room smelled like all hospital rooms, of alcohol and cleaning products. One of the machines was beeping rhythmically, and the lights were too bright. It didn’t matter. All Rachel could see was the man who’d become the center of her life. He was here. He was alive, and she wasn’t riding behind his body in a limousine, in a long line of police cars.

  Reaching his bedside, she took Evan’s hand in hers and gripped it tightly. “I’m so sorry I messed up our wedding,” she blurted. “That was never my intention. I was trying to wrap things up and put the whole mess behind us before we got married.”

  He offered a wry grin. “I’m sorry I messed up by letting an Amish woman get the drop on me.”

  She swallowed, trying not to cry. “It isn’t funny. You could have died out there. Another few inches and that bullet—”

  “Right,” Evan agreed, cutting her off. “But it didn’t happen. And your weird friend Chuck did a good job of keeping me from bleeding out before the ambulance arrived. He’d make a top-notch paramedic.”

  “Chuck’s outside in the waiting room,” she said. “He’s been here all night, waiting to see how your surgery went. I asked a nurse to tell him he could go home, then I asked him myself, but so far he hasn’t budged.”

  There was no need to explain to Evan how much of a sacrifice that must have been for Chuck to spend so many hours in a hospital away from the quiet of his mountain. She’d have plenty of time to tell him later. The thought that they would have that time made her chest tighten and she held on to Evan’s hand with all her strength. “Nice gown,” she teased. It was faded, too small, and covered in purple abstract designs.

  “Are you all right, honey?” He gestured to the bandage on her head where her hair had been shaved so the stitches could be put in.

  “I’ll be fine. All of the Masts have hard heads.”

  “I was worried about you,” Evan admitted. He lifted her hand and pressed his lips to her knuckles.

  She raised an eyebrow. “You mean when I didn’t show up at the church to marry you?”

  He nodded, one side of his mouth turning up in a gentle smile. His brown eyes were bloodshot and cloudy from his ordeal, but she could read the love shining there. “I knew you were in trouble when you didn’t come.”

  “You didn’t think I skipped out on you? Like everyone said I would.”

  “Nope. Not for a second.”

  She smiled, fighting tears. “But how did you know where to look for me?”

  “Guess.”

  Rachel’s eyes glistened with tears. “Mary Aaron.”

  Evan nodded. “She knew right away that you had something on your mind yesterday morning. Something about the police report. She was certain you’d gone back to talk to Lemuel.”

  “I’m surprised that when she realized I wasn’t home getting dressed, she didn’t come looking for me.”

  “She was really upset about that, so you need to talk to her when you can. She said she knew where you’d gone and had been certain you’d be back in time for the wedding.”

  “And then I wasn’t and nearly got you killed because of it,” she said. “Evan, I’m so, so sorry. I should never have tried—”

  “Rachel,” he said, cutting her off. “This is as much my fault as yours. I should have believed you . . . trusted in your intuition. Moses is innocent.”

  “Ya.” She stood up, leaned across the bed, and kissed him. “I still should have listened to you. I’ve made such a mess of things.”

  “No, you’ve forced the system to give justice to that young man being held for something he didn’t do. You should be proud of yourself.”

  She shook her head. “Pride is hochmut. We’re taught not to be prideful.”

  “Okay.” The goofy grin spread across his face again. “Then I can be proud of you for both of us.”

  “But it’s not a happy ending,” she said. “Not for Moses or Mary Rose. Certainly not for Lemuel.”

  “You’re certain the widow had nothing to do with it? She didn’t know that her mother shot Daniel?”

  Rachel shook her head again. “No, Mary Rose didn’t know anything. And she and the baby were at the neighbor’s when Lemuel hit me with the shovel and her mother tried to kill me.”

  “You’re positive?”

  “Absolutely. I told the officers I’d testify that she wasn’t on the farm and had nothing to do with it.” She thought of Lemuel’s face when he’d looked down into the open well and she was filled with sorrow for him. “Will Lemuel go to prison?” She knew that Alma would, for as long as she had left to live, which, if she was as ill as she claimed, might not be long. “He’s only fourteen.”

  “I doubt it. I’m sure Ms. Glidden can convince a judge that he was only trying to protect his mother. That, and she w
as telling him what to do, making him do it. The court will want him to have treatment, certainly, but I don’t believe he’ll go to juvenile jail, not if his sister and brother will be willing to be his guardians.”

  “I’m sure they will. And Moses can move home now to help Mary Rose.” She sighed. “Lemuel’s been through enough. Without his mother, he’ll need his faith and patience.”

  “That’s one thing your people have plenty of,” Evan assured her. He looked up at her. “You know, it’s funny what comes to your mind when you wake up in recovery. I was thinking about our hotel reservations and that ocean beach. Do you think you could call to tell them that we’re not coming? Maybe reschedule for next month?”

  “I already have,” she said. “And I called someone else as well. Our minister.”

  “But . . . he was here when I got out of surgery,” Evan said. “He’s aware of—”

  There was the sound of footsteps and a knock at the door.

  “I think this is him now,” Rachel said.

  “Excellent. Two of you finally in one place.” The young minister laughed as he came into the room, followed by Rachel’s parents, two of her little brothers, Evan’s mother, Hulda, Mary Aaron, and Chuck Baker.

  “What’s going on?” Evan asked.

  Rachel studied the crowded room. Her mother and father, Mary Aaron, and the boys were in their best black go-to-church clothes. Evan’s mom wore a peach jacket, cream-colored white dress slacks, and beige heels. Hulda and Chuck, in contrast, looked as though they’d been cutting wood: goose down vests, jeans, and hiking boots. Perfect, Rachel thought as she glanced down at the oversized blue scrubs she’d borrowed from one of the techs because her clothes were too bloody to wear and she refused to be seen in a drafty hospital gown.

  Evan’s eyes widened as Mary Aaron, the minister, and the prepper approached his bed. “Is someone going to tell me what’s going on?” Evan asked.

  Rachel squeezed his hand. “I love you,” she whispered.

  “And you know I love you,” Evan replied, “but I don’t . . .”

  “Rachel tells me that you two would like to be married here and now,” the minister said. “Since it would be a shame to let that marriage license go to waste, this gentleman and this young woman”—he indicated a smiling Mary Aaron in her black bonnet, and a stern, bareheaded Chuck Baker—“have agreed to be your witnesses. Do you think you’re up to it, Evan?”

  Evan looked at Rachel. “Do you have any intention of changing your ways?” he asked. “Or can I expect you to keep getting into trouble that I have to get you out of?”

  She hesitated, unsure for a moment how to respond. Then she realized there was only one response. “Probably the latter.”

  “Good.” He grinned. “That’s my girl.” He looked back at the minister. “Here and now,” he agreed, holding Rachel’s hand tightly. “Marry us now, before she can get away again.”

  “Rachel?” the minister asked. “Are you certain you’re ready to be married?”

  She met her cousin’s mischievous gaze, and Mary Aaron whispered in Deitsch, “Do it.”

  “We sure are,” Rachel said. “In the sight of God and those we love best.”

  Evan’s mother plucked one of his get-well floral bouquets from a vase and shoved it into Rachel’s hands. And in the crowded hospital room, amid approving Amish and Englishers, the traditional bonnets and beeping technology, Evan and Rachel finally took their vows for better or worse.