“I’m all for that,” Average Guy said.
“Okay.” Massive Guy stepped to the side.
Abigail started down the hallway, and Chris went with her. Squalor was everywhere. Not one clean corner. Rotted food. Trash. Beer cans. Who would leave a baby here?
Abigail looked into a portable crib. The smell hit her first. “She needs to be changed.”
“Nee,” Chris whispered. “Take nothing. Grab her and get as close to the front door as you can without looking obvious.”
Abigail picked her up and cradled her. “Sh, little one. Sh.” Abigail crooked her pinkie finger and put it in the baby’s mouth. Heidi began sucking furiously and silence reigned.
“Now”—Average Guy stood at the door—“the money?”
“Yeah, about that.” Chris pulled out his phone. “I’ve got a banking app.” He motioned for the guy to enter the room, and he did.
Abigail left the room, but halfway down the hallway she heard a loud pop, as if flesh had hit flesh, and it was followed by a thud. She cringed, terrified, but she kept going.
Chris was behind her as they came to the end of the hall and into the open area. “The door,” he whispered. Then he spoke louder to the others in the room. “Hey, whew. I can hear you now, so tell me about the money we owe you, ’cause I feel confused.”
Abigail rocked the baby and walked nonchalantly while making her way to the door.
“There’s nothing to be confused about,” Massive Guy said. “The baby’s mom said—”
“Uh, according to the birth certificate, the mom is Tiffany Porter,” Chris said. “Is that right?”
“Yes, Tiffany Porter,” Massive Guy mocked. “She said to keep the baby here and we’d get ten thousand dollars in exchange for her. She said the dad refused to pay but that she had someone else who would. So where’s the money?”
“Good question. How were we supposed to exchange that?”
Abigail was a few feet from escaping, when the woman got between her and the door. Abigail smiled. “Look at this.” She moved in closer to the woman and showed her the baby sucking on her finger.
“Nobody’s leaving until we’ve got the money.” Massive Guy’s tone grew sharp, but Abigail stayed focused on the woman in front of her. Her pupils were tiny. Hadn’t Roy’s pupils been small when he was on high-powered pain meds after the accident?
“She’s not so bad, is she?” There was a hint of compassion in the woman’s voice. “I rocked her most of the night, not that it seemed to help much.”
“Look at how red my finger is from this girl gnawing on it.” Abigail showed her.
A grin crossed the woman’s face, and Abigail noticed she was missing teeth.
“Do you have a bottle or pacifier?” Abigail asked.
“Yeah. Hang on.” The woman walked over to the kitchen table.
Abigail opened the front door, but she turned to check on Chris. He was embroiled with both men.
Massive Guy broke free and headed for Abigail.
Move, Abigail! But her body didn’t listen.
“On record!” Chris pounced between Massive Guy and Abigail. “You, confessing to the plan to sell the baby.” Chris held up his phone.
Both men lumbered toward him, and one now had a baseball bat.
Chris ducked as Massive Guy swung a fist at him. When Chris came up, he hit the man hard. But Average Guy raised the bat, about to hit Chris in the back. Chris turned and managed to deflect a full blow. “Go.”
His word jolted her. Although Chris hadn’t looked away from the men, she knew he was talking to her. Couldn’t she do something to help him? Maybe put the baby on the floor and hit one of the men with a chair? She shuddered at the thought, and the desire faded as she remembered Chris asking if she trusted him.
She scurried out the door and down the steps.
“Wait.” The wiry woman ran after her, holding out a pacifier.
Something made Abigail stop.
The woman touched the baby’s head. “I tried, but she’s not a happy one. Not that one. You take good care of her.”
This infant had touched something inside this lost woman, and Abigail took the pacifier from her filthy hands. “Denki.”
The woman stared into Abigail’s eyes, and it seemed for a moment that they connected.
A pop seemed to shake the stairs, and a moan followed. Had Chris been hit with the bat?
“Go,” the woman whispered as she touched the baby’s head.
Abigail hurried down the steps, desperate to put the baby down inside the car. Should she go back up the stairs and try to help? She shuddered, unable to imagine striking anyone.
Why did it seem so effortless for Chris?
She pulled on the car door, but it was locked. She rapped on the window and heard the locks click. She opened the door, climbed inside, and shut it. “Don’t go.” She stared at the door of the apartment, constantly clenching her hands. Should she call the police? Or would Chris get in trouble too? “Just wait. Our fifteen minutes aren’t up yet.”
Every second felt like ten minutes, and she prayed, unsure whether to call the police.
“I thought this was on the up and up,” the driver said.
“It is. She’s my niece, and the mom abandoned her. But they wanted money in exchange for her.”
The man’s timer went off.
“Wait. Please, just stay here. If someone other than Chris comes out that door, you can take off.”
“Deal.”
As she was praying, someone came barreling out the door. Chris!
Massive Guy followed him out the door, swinging the baseball bat. Chris used the handrails while seeming to skip four or five steps at a time, putting distance between him and Massive Guy. She opened the car door and slid out of the way.
Chris seemed to float into the car like a bubble, but he landed hard. “Go!”
The car took off and Chris slammed the door. He leaned back against the seat, panting. “You okay?”
“Me?” Abigail stared at him.
His knuckles were bloody, as was his mouth and the top of one ear. But he laughed, holding his ribs. “Scrappers. I was doing okay until the bat entered the picture.” He chuckled. “That was a good fight. Wow.”
He’d enjoyed it? What was wrong with him?
“The baby?” He leaned forward.
Heidi was still sucking on the knuckle of Abigail’s pinkie. “She’s fine, thanks to you. But what happens if Tiffany comes back for her?”
“I recorded the man saying Tiffany intended to give her to a rich couple who couldn’t have kids of their own, and a lot of money would be given to Tiffany in exchange for the gift.”
“What?”
“Ya, you heard me right.”
Abigail couldn’t imagine. “Are you hurt?”
He looked at his hands. “Maybe.”
He was so nonchalant, as if pain was a routine thing. He seemed to know a lot about fighting, and she should be thankful that he’d been able to protect them, but her insides felt as though someone was scrubbing them with steel wool. The Amish didn’t believe in violence, not ever. But she didn’t want clarification. Not now. He got them out of there, and she was grateful. That’s all that mattered for now.
She needed to buckle in, but since there wasn’t a car seat for the baby, she didn’t bother. “Denki, Chris.”
He lifted a trembling hand and stroked her cheek with his thumb. As his eyes moved over her face, he smiled, and then he leaned in and kissed her forehead. “You are something else, Abi.”
“Me?”
He nodded.
“I feel so confused, so lost and angry. How could Roy do this to Jemima?”
“A piece of advice?” He clutched his trembling hands and leaned back, closing his eyes.
She
guessed he was trying to stop the flow of adrenaline. “Please.”
“Don’t go there. Put it in God’s hands. Acknowledge and then dismiss all the emotions and questions that come your way. Do it a hundred times an hour if need be, but it’s your brother’s battle. And Jemima’s. Emotional turmoil over what’s happening in someone else’s marriage is like us taking on the feeding and care of every horse farm in Pennsylvania.”
She could clearly see his meaning. They would be exhausted by the impossibility of it.
She slid her hand over his. “That was the perfect thing to say. Denki.”
“Ya, even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while.”
As unlikely as it seemed, he had her smiling and feeling safe and hopeful. Who was this rugged man, and how did he have such wisdom?
She tapped the driver’s shoulder. “Once we’re in a decent area, we need to stop somewhere to buy baby items.” They needed several things. Abigail’s finger wasn’t going to hold the little one much longer.
How was Jemima going to emotionally cope with this infant coming into her home? And how long would it be before the community learned the truth, adding even more humiliation to Jemima’s already full load?
Fourteen
Chris walked toward the poultry-barn-turned-stable. Pain shot through his right hand, a lingering reminder of yesterday’s fight to get Heidi. But his hand wasn’t all that bothered him. His entire body ached. He had bruised ribs, a headache, and a bloody cough, and his right eye was a little blurry. Had he really hurt himself? That fight was something different, especially when both men came at him, one with a baseball bat. He was relieved he had escaped when he did.
He opened the door to the makeshift stable. The horses were especially quiet this morning, which could be a bad sign. He walked to the first stall, shaking his aching hand.
“Good morning.” Abigail’s voice caught his attention, and he turned in that direction.
Did she have any idea how amazing she was? His pounding heart was fully aware, yet he hardly knew her. He’d like to rectify that—if that was possible.
She was at the far end of the barn, coming out of Houdini’s stall, and Chris headed that direction. The night they’d moved the horses, they’d decided to bring Houdini here even though he was sick, as this barn provided the most distance between the horses. With twelve feet on each side of his usual stall between him and the next horse, Houdini shouldn’t pass the virus to other horses. But since they could put him in a stall several hundred feet away from the others, why not take the time and effort to be extremely careful?
“Morning, Abi.” He stopped outside Houdini’s stall, studying him. The horse’s head was hanging, and his eyes were nearly closed. “He’s not looking so great, is he?”
Chris turned his attention to Abigail, wondering how she was doing after seeing him fight yesterday and catching a glimpse of who he was. How did she feel about that?
She pulled off the latex gloves. “Nee. He seems to feel worse, but his temperature and steadiness are the same as yesterday.” She tossed the gloves into a nearby receptacle. “Speaking of which, you aren’t looking exactly chipper yourself. You okay?”
“Rough night.” He hoped she wouldn’t press him, although it would be nice to talk openly about the fight and his injuries. He wanted to pour out his heart to her and tell her the full truth of what he did and why. He’d started out with good intentions to help his brother with his debt but now was at a loss over how to gain control of the mess.
His brother Dan had texted him a dozen times saying that Chris had to agree to another fight or the men Dan owed would lose their patience and come after him. His brother also texted that the powers that be were setting up the next fight and that he’d let Chris know the specifics as soon as he heard anything.
Was there a way out of this that wouldn’t cause problems for his brother? Dan owed serious money from gambling, and Chris had agreed to help him. But since then, Chris had hurt his parents and been kicked out of his home, while Dan kept his job, stayed with his wife and children, and acted as if he were innocent and upright.
Abigail put an extra set of gloves in her jacket pocket. Her brows furrowed, and she studied his face. “Do you need to be seen?”
He certainly didn’t regret that those events had led him to the Graber farm and Abigail. Should he tell her he fought, even had a trainer, and had to fulfill his commitment or else violent men would come after his brother? Apparently the world of gambling went dark really fast.
“Chris?”
He shook his head. “Nee, I’ll be fine.”
Between family matters and the horses, she had more than enough to contend with right now without feeling guilty for his injuries or being made aware of the mess he’d gotten himself in. He and Abigail were better off not opening that can of worms.
“You’re sure? I can handle the workload while you go.”
Her kindness warmed him, but he knew his body, and he just needed time to heal. A good bit of time probably.
“I’m gut, Abi. Change of subject, please.”
She pursed her lips, looking at him for a few more moments. “Ya, okay.” She grabbed a lead line off a nearby nail. “We should get the EHV-1 test results back tomorrow, and if they’re negative, life gets easier. Until then the horses need exercising while we keep them apart, so they’ll have to be led. That includes Houdini.”
He agreed. They didn’t want to exhaust Houdini, but he needed to stretch his legs. It wasn’t good for a horse to stay stationary, even when sick.
He gestured at the stalls. “I hauled water last night, and it looks as if you’ve fed them already.”
“Ya.” Abigail went to another horse’s stall. Chris connected the lead line to Houdini’s halter and led him out of the stall and into the open air. Abigail came to the edge of the stall with her horse.
“How’s Lady Belle?”
“No fever, and her cold symptoms are gone.”
Chris nodded his head. “Gut.”
Every step he took sent pain through him, and he imagined that Houdini felt the same: achy and stiff. He patted the horse. “We have some solidarity in the discomfort department, don’t we, boy?”
Abigail went ahead of him, moving at a much faster pace than Houdini was up for.
Chris’s mind reeled back to the fight with the Englisch guy the night before he came here. He hadn’t known if he was winning or losing that night, just as he didn’t know in any fight.
He had begun fighting years ago. He and his brother Sol had been in town to get supplies, and a man was being a jerk to Chris, knowing he was Amish and wouldn’t do anything about it. His brother challenged him to pop the guy—or at least try. The man had been about the same age as Chris but was bigger. He raised his fists, daring Chris to fight him. Sol told Chris to go for it, and he did. The moment his fist connected with the man’s face, an immediate rush of relief went through him. He’d never experienced any feeling that good. So when his brother Dan got in over his head with gambling debt and came up with the idea of Chris, an Amish man, boxing a ranked Englisch man, Chris didn’t hesitate to give it a try. Maybe he’d started training to fight for the solid reason of helping his brother, or maybe he’d agreed because he had a hidden passion for it and, dare he think, also a talent for it. But now was he right to go against the Amish ways in order to help Dan? Regardless of the answer, he couldn’t abandon his brother to violent men.
His phone buzzed, and he looked at the screen. It was a text from Dan: NEXT FIGHT SET UP! You will need training. Date of fight is March 15.
March fifteenth? That was in less than a month! The fight should set everything straight with the bookies, but after taking two hits to the gut yesterday with a baseball bat—especially given the way the strikes landed—he shouldn’t fight for at least six weeks. He felt sure his spleen needed tim
e to heal. But this fight would end his brother’s troubles. Still, could he fight that soon? He certainly couldn’t without proper training, and his trainer, Mike, wasn’t close by. How could he train and do his job here? He needed to arrange a session with Mike. He would know pretty quickly if Chris would be ready for another fight by mid-March.
“Girlfriend trouble?” Abigail passed him, leading Lady Belle back to the barn.
He looked up from his phone. “Definitely not. Too single for that.” He shoved it into his pocket. “Didn’t we cover that topic?”
She turned, grinning. “Just making sure it hadn’t changed.”
He laughed and his insides clenched, sending aches and pains throughout his body. She was clearly flirting with him. What was he thinking? If he fought again, it could ruin all chances with Abigail. Or would she be open minded?
Meeting someone had been off his radar for so long that he’d become comfortable doing things as he saw fit without regard to how a significant other might feel. Today was only day five of knowing her, but they’d navigated a lot, and he was drawn to her. Besides, regardless of all else, Roy needed him.
He texted his brother: Too soon. I need to mend from a recent incident and I’m needed here. Maybe in a few months.
Dan: What? No! What could I possibly tell these people that they’d accept and reschedule?
He needed time to think, so he slid the phone into his pocket. He had given Dan his word—a promise to fight in order to take care of the gambling debt. That was crystal clear. But he felt uneasy for reasons he couldn’t put his finger on. Was the disquiet simply a matter of guilt for stepping outside the Amish faith in order to help his brother? Or was it fear that his fighting could come between Abigail and him? And why hadn’t Dan paused for a moment when Chris mentioned being hurt?
He led Houdini to a post twelve feet away from where Abi was grooming Lady Belle. He grabbed a brush and began running it over the horse. Abigail would be the perfect person to talk to about his confusion over the text, but yesterday she’d been clear that she didn’t want to know his secrets or his past—not right now with so much happening with her brother and Jemima.
The Englisch Daughter Page 11