by Beverly Bird
“So,” he prompted. “You’re staying?”
“Yeah, if you’ll stop sticking your nose out the door when it’s least appreciated. And I don’t want any nicknames.”
Joe laughed. “I think you’re safe from that. You must be the only Wallace within a hundred-mile radius, so there’s no need for one. What exactly are you going to do?”
“Do?”
“Sarah says she can’t see you pushing a plow.”
“Oh. That. Hel-ck if I know.” He glanced down at the bear. “You were right, though. I’ll do whatever I have to to be with her, to keep her happy.” He rubbed his forehead, and finally said the words, something he’d started to realize a long time ago. “I’ve got ChildSearch, but it doesn’t need me. It was designed to find my boy. I don’t have an investigative bone in my body. Lately it’s been as much my brother’s baby as my own.”
“You’ll fold it?”
“No.” That was easy. “Too many people need it. I’ll let Jake run it, if I can talk him into it. He might even get it to turn a profit—he’s not a bleeding heart. In the meantime. I’ve got some money left. We won’t starve. Not in the immediate future. We’ve got time.”
Joe nodded, watching the women.
“What’s going to happen?” Adam asked suddenly. “With what went on today, I mean?”
“The truth?” Joe shrugged, but his eyes were shadowed. “Abner Fisher won’t change. He’ll go to his grave preaching the Ordnung in its strictest, most restrictive and suffocating sense. And Ethan Miller won’t, either.”
Adam swore, and the bear be damned. “That long-haired guy was her father, then.”
“Yes. The bishop. The holiest of the holies, so to speak.”
“The bastard,” Adam growled.
“Truth to tell, I’ve never liked him much myself,” Joe admitted. “You hit the nail right on the head. He does love his rules more than he loves any human being, himself included. He won’t relax them. He’s a fanatic.” He grinned sheepishly. “They pop up among the best of us.”
“So...”
“So Paut—Sarah’s father—and maybe one or two of the others will probably show up at my door next Sunday. They’ve never seemed especially comfortable with the decision not to look for the children. I think I’ve been appointed ringleader for the time being, so they’ll hold the first new Gemeesunndaag here. We’ll draw lots for the other deacons, appoint one of the existing ones to bishop. We’ll vote to search for the missing kids. We’ll vote to allow Katya special circumstances to separate from Frank, although divorce would never pass anywhere, not even with the New Order folks. And we’ll vote for Mariah to keep her school. Though we’ll probably have to build her a new one. We’ll have to build a lot of new ones, actually.”
Adam smiled again. That was something he could do to keep busy for the time being, something he could handle. And they would need a house of their own, as well. Mariah’s was so small it would barely get the three of them through the night, much less accommodate Katya and her brood, as well.
“That wasn’t the whole settlement there today,” Joe went on. “There are probably fifteen or twenty other families who wouldn’t join us. Needless to say, they haven’t lost any kids themselves. And they sure as the dickens won’t cough up any of the old school buildings for pagans the likes of us.” He paused. “This shakes the Gemeide right down to its foundations, Adam. We won’t migrate as my folks did—there are just too many of us. But we’ll start over. And we’ll go on.”
“Yeah,” Adam said. And he found a certain peace in that, in the continuity. It was new to him and needed exploration.
“Will you look for the other kids?” Joe asked. “Or was it you who sent the FBI?”
“The FBI? No. I called NCMEC.” They both looked at Mariah at the same time, and Adam’s heart swelled. But then, he really had known all along that she would call someone.
“We won’t need either one of them,” he murmured.
“We won’t? What do you know that I don’t?”
“Not what. Who.”
Jake would find them, he thought, if they could be found. Then again, the Gemeide wouldn’t know what shaken up was until his brother started hanging around.
In the meantime, he would many Mariah. He would get to know his son all over again, in a place where there was nothing to scare him. Katya would live with them for a while, until she could restructure her life. They would have dinner with the Lapps and the Lapps would have dinner with them, and maybe the new deacons would finally let Mariah back into the fold. Maybe, he thought, he would even join them himself.
Then Mariah looked across the room at him and smiled. It was a radiant look, one that could have brightened heaven. And he knew again that Sugar Joe Lapp had been right.
None of the maybes mattered, at all. He could deal with them, as long as he had her in his life.
Epilogue
If Adam hadn’t been watching it with his own eyes, he would never have believed it.
The house was two stories, with a gray shingled roof. Its fresh plywood sides seemed to glow golden-brown in the sun, probably because another foot of snow had fallen the previous day and the contrast was enough to hurt the eyes. There were two dark brick chimneys already in place. Mariah’s few pieces of furniture were inside. All that remained to be done was the siding—white, of course—and the digging of a well and a septic tank.
They had only started constructing the place that morning. He and Bo had been back in the settlement less than a week.
Adam left the workers—every able-bodied man of Sugar Joe’s new Gemeide—and headed for the refreshment table for a quick breather. It was well below freezing, and even the sun felt cold. He thought he’d probably get used to that, too, sooner or later. In the meantime, he needed a very hot cup of coffee.
He pulled off his gloves and poured himself a cup. Mariah appeared magically by his side.
“Is everything all right?” she asked worriedly.
He looked at her. There was a small furrow between her eyes, and that made him frown. “Sure. Why wouldn’t it be?”
She flushed a little. Because she couldn’t quite take all this sudden good fortune for granted, she realized. She wondered if she would ever be able to.
“I keep expecting the bottom to fall out again,” she admitted a little sheepishly.
His face softened. He tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear again. The wind had pulled it free. “It won’t,” he said quietly. “I promise.”
She met his eyes, and she believed it. She let out a shaky breath. “You might have to remind me from time to time. For a while.”
“My pleasure.” Then he grinned. “Hey, I’m the one with all the distrustful Wallace genes.”
She smiled faintly. “Oh, Adam, there’s nothing wrong with your genes. But speaking of them, where is Bo?”
“Hopefully anywhere else but up in that elm.” He looked at it again to be certain. No branches rustled. No childish faces peered out.
He closed his hands around the mug and held on, the warmth radiating through him. Or maybe it was her smile. It was growing as she looked around.
“This is so wonderful,” she breathed.
“Damn if that Sugar Joe didn’t turn out to be a hell of a guy.” he murmured.
“Adam!”
He winced. “Sorry.” Watching his language was another thing he was gradually getting used to. He’d had it pretty much down pat until he’d returned to Texas for two weeks, then he had fallen out of the habit. “I just meant it was good of him to give us these five acres.”
Mariah shook her head quickly. “He gave us fair market price and he wasn’t using them.”
Adam remained quiet for a moment, unwilling to disabuse her of the notion. It was his opinion that Sugar Joe had given the land over for a song. Then, again, he was from Texas. He had a lot to learn about this place yet. Still, he knew that Joe was worried about how he would earn a living here, seeing as how farming was so obvio
usly not his forte.
That too, would work out, Adam thought. In time. Someday, he would wake up, and the answer would just be there, the way Mariah had once promised with Bo.
“We’ll be in by tonight,” he murmured, looking at the house, still amazed by that.
Her lips quirked into a smile. “It helps that we don’t have to worry about a heating system or electricity.”
“Yeah, it simplifies things. A phone would be handy right about now, though.”
“Oh, Adam, you’re still worried about Jacob.”
He hesitated. “Not yet.” Jake had vanished for brief periods before. “But I’m frustrated.” He’d left innumerable messages for him in Virginia, trekking in to the village to use the pay phone each time. The problem was compounded by the fact that his brother couldn’t simply return his call. Adam’s messages had all been urgent pleas to get on a plane and come to the settlement. Jake didn’t even know about the missing children yet. The messages said only that Adam needed him.
Worse, the FBI was royally botching the investigation. The values and ways of the Amish settlement stymied them, and they seemed incapable of working around them. Adam remembered grimly that Jake had always said that if something wasn’t in the bureau’s rule book, their agents were lost.
Adam’s gaze found Simon Stoltzfus in the crowd, as well as Michael Miller’s father. I’m trying, guys. Then he spotted Katya Essler, who was scurrying—or trying to scurry—here and there, being helpful. She was still on crutches. “How long do you think she’ll be with us?”
Mariah frowned again. “Oh, Adam, I just don’t know. Her situation is so...unprecedented.”
He caught her hand. “Hey, I’m not complaining.”
“She is.”
“She is?”
“She feels useless. Like she’s taking advantage of us.”
“That’s ridiculous! I thought you folks were so big on helping each other out.”
“We are. But God helps those who help themselves, and Katya can’t. Even if she could, even if her ankle were healed, she doesn’t know what to do to make herself useful. She has no family, no husband. We have no farm. It chafes, I think.”
“Well, we’ll just have to find something for her to do.”
Mariah smiled at him beatifically and tucked her hand into his. “Thank you, Adam.”
“I’ve got to get back to work,” he said reluctantly. “I can’t stand here ogling you while three hundred other guys build our house in a single day.”
She nodded. “No, that wouldn’t be good.”
“But I’d rather send everyone home and inaugurate that new master bedroom.”
She flushed again. Her smile held. She was beautiful. “I’d like that, too.”
“Later,” he promised.
“Yes,” she agreed breathlessly. “Later.”
He kissed her lightly. “See you then, Mrs. Wallace.”
Her color heightened and she beamed.
It was all working out, he thought again, going back to the house. It would all fix itself slowly, almost without conscious thought, in this land where time seemed to have stalled. The loose ends already seemed to be reaching for each other and tying together of their own volition.
Sugar Joe’s new Gemeide had come together more or less as he had predicted it would. Sarah’s father had joined them, and he would be their bishop. And Joe himself had drawn the lot pronouncing him to be one of the new deacons.
Adam hammered up siding, and thought about that little process, still with a good deal of bemusement. He hadn’t been able to go to the church service to see it done, but Mariah had explained it to him. Being a deacon was an immense responsibility. Only the most power-hungry men would voluntarily embrace such a thing, and the concept of power didn’t exist here. Aspiring for office was considered arrogant and haughty. So the people allowed God to make the choice.
The congregation of the Gemeide had nominated twelve married men for the positions. They needed three deacons, so three pieces of paper were then hidden in three hymnbooks. As the twelve men entered the service, they each chose one book at random from the table bearing them. At a time chosen by the officiating bishop, the books were opened and the fateful slips of paper appeared. The lot fell on the men as the Lord decreed.
Mariah had told him that the service would swell with emotion, then. Like a bolt of lightning, the stunning realization hit the three men that they would serve the congregation for the rest of their lives.
Sugar Joe already wore the burden well, Adam thought. He’d immediately initiated a vote to remove from their new Ordnung the ban against education. Learning in itself was not a sin—only using that knowledge to better oneself in society, to accumulate monetary things, to branch out into the anner Satt Leit world, would be an offense worth shunning. The new rule had freed Mariah from her Meidung.
For that alone, Adam figured he owed Sugar Joe Lapp his life. Mariah could—and probably would—continue teaching until they had too many children of their own to allow it.
His heart swelled at that possibility. He was not, after all, like his father.
As for Katya, Joe and the other new deacons had voted to throw the Meidung on Frank for crimes against his family, though it was a lost gesture because Frank chose to stay with the old Gemeide. And why not? Adam thought angrily. There he could bluster self-righteously every time Abner Fisher and Ethan Miller lamented the blasphemous behavior of his heathen wife.
The only thing Joe hadn’t been able to fix was a recognized Amish marriage between him and Mariah. Their new Gemeide was nestled comfortably somewhere between Old Order and New, but in no settlement was a marriage recognized when the husband had not been baptized. As far as the congregation was concerned, though they had married legally several days ago in front of a justice of the peace, Mariah was living in sin. But just as when the teenagers enjoyed their Rumspringa, the people were, for the most part, ignoring that little detail.
For now. And the old Gemeide, headed by Mariah’s father, certainly didn’t agree. They were fairly apoplectic over what she was doing now.
Adam knew that eventually their situation would begin to raise eyebrows and bring censure upon them here, as well. But he needed more time. He had to be sure. He needed to be exactly sure what he was getting into, and at the moment, he didn’t particularly want to ever find any of those little slips of paper in his hymnbook. He searched Mariah’s eyes daily for any anger, for any resentment, but he never found it. She gave him time gladly. As she had calmly pointed out, children were given at least twenty years to determine whether or not they wanted to embrace the church. He, too, should have all the leisure he needed. In the meantime, they would “run around.”
It would work out, he thought again. Slowly, surely, it would all come together. As Sugar Joe had said, the details weren’t important, so long as he had her in his life.
If Jake would just turn up, he thought, then he would, all in all, be a very happy man.
He was thinking that, nailing away blindly, when there was a cracking sound and a scream from behind him. Adam swung around, his heart leaping, and watched Bo land at the foot of the elm.
He ran for him, bellowing. This time, Mariah got there first. This time, over three hundred other people converged on them as they knelt over his son.
“Oh, man, oh, man, I can’t believe you did this again!” Then Adam choked his own voice off, acutely aware of the others.
He knew immediately that Bo’s other arm was broken, the opposite one from that he had fractured four years earlier. Bo bawled and Adam gave in to rampant emotion—the guilt for not watching him, the disbelief that he would make the same mistake twice, the anger at him for disobeying, the sweet, sweet relief that it was only his arm, not his neck.
Then his eyes met Mariah’s.
“You can yell at him,” she whispered. “Adam, your face is purple. If you don’t, you’ll explode.”
He said nothing. He felt a million eyes on him.
“Just, for heaven’s sake, don’t swear,” she warned in an undertone.
He wanted to. Needed to. He smoothed Bo’s hair back off his forehead with a trembling hand, as panicked as he had ever been in his life. Worse.
He wanted to run to the nearest hospital. But he’d given up his rental car. He looked around bleakly and all he saw were buggies and slow-plodding horses.
“Okay, sport. Okay. Let me think,” he said hoarsely. Then the crowd around them parted.
Katya Essler limped through. “I...I can help,” she said tentatively. “Please. My grandmother was a healer. She taught me a lot.” She looked down at Bo’s arm. “At least I can set bones. I did my own Sam’s just last year.”
Adam let out a quavering breath. It was just another answer landing in his lap, he realized, another thread tying itself up. He felt Mariah’s hand in his. He finally nodded.
“Please, Katya,” he said quietly. “Help.”
She almost beamed as she bent over Bo.
This time, Adam realized, he wasn’t alone.
Watch for MARRYING JAKE, the next installment of the
WEDDING RING TRILOGY, coming August 1997, only from
Silhouette Intimate Moments
ISBN : 978-1-4592-7231-6
LOVING MARIAH
Copyright © 1997 by Beverly Bird
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All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.