by Marta Perry
Even as they fell she plunged back, frantic to get out from under them. But it was too late. A bale caught her on the shoulder, spinning her out of control. She fell heavily, putting her arms up to shield her head as she hit the barn floor and the bales thundered down on her.
Amanda didn’t know how long it was until she started to think again. Had she been unconscious? She wasn’t sure. She moved cautiously, trying to see if she was still in one piece. Her arms moved, but her legs...why couldn’t she move her legs?
Panicked, she tried to sit up, but she was hit by a wave of dizziness and slumped down again. Giving herself a minute to regroup, she moved her arms so she could get her elbows under her. Trying again, she was able to get up far enough to see. Hay bales, four or five of them, covered her legs. No wonder she couldn’t move them.
Hooves stamped against the wooden floor. Amanda looked up to see the mare, her head stretched over the top bar, looking down at her. Yes. The mare. She’d come into the barn to check on her and the colt, but...then what happened?
A step...boots, not hooves. In an instant Amos had rushed to her, closely followed by Isaac and Thomas, his oldest boys. “What has happened? Are you hurt?”
“Can’t move,” she managed to say, and leaned back against her pillow of hay.
“Boys, schnell, help me get the hay bales off her. No, wait, you, Thomas, run get your mamm. Hurry!”
She ought to tell him she was okay, but it seemed too much trouble. They moved the bales off her carefully, with Amos keeping up a steady stream of recrimination aimed at his son in a mix of English and Pennsylvania Dutch. The gist of it seemed to be that the bales never should have been stacked so close to the edge of the loft.
“We didn’t,” Isaac said finally. “You ask Thomas. Those bales were a good two feet away from the edge.”
“If they were that far back, how did they...” Amos stopped as they lifted the last bale free. He knelt beside Amanda just as Sarah came running in.
In an instant she’d joined him, bending to put her arms around Amanda and help her sit up. “Don’t try to move too fast. Where does it hurt?”
She might have been speaking to one of her children, Amanda thought, and the idea made her smile. “I’m all right, I think.” At least her mind was working again. “I can move everything, so no bones broken. It’ll be fine.”
“Ach, you could have been hurt bad. Thank the gut Lord it’s not worse. Now don’t you try to stand. Let the boys lift you.”
Amanda wanted to say she could manage herself, but she had a feeling nobody would believe that, including herself. The two boys were quick to help her, one on either side. She stood still for a moment, grasping the top stall board. The mare put her head over and nuzzled her, blowing a warm breath at her face.
“Yes, I’m fine.” Amanda stroked the mare’s neck.
“Boys, you help Amanda into the house.” Amos consulted his wife with a look. “Should we call for the paramedics?”
“No,” Amanda said quickly. “I don’t need them.”
Amos didn’t seem satisfied until Sarah nodded agreement. “We’ll take you into the house so you can rest a bit. Then we’ll see.”
Amos still didn’t look entirely happy, but he gestured to Isaac and Thomas. With one on either side of her, they started toward the door.
She’d protest that she could walk by herself, but her legs showed a distressing tendency to behave like rubber. Still, with their strong arms around her, she made it to the farmhouse, and by then, her legs had steadied.
Sarah hurried to put a kettle on and then wet a cloth at the sink to bathe Amanda’s face. When Sarah touched her hair to push it back, Amanda winced. She put up exploratory fingers and found a small graze on her forehead.
“It’s nothing,” she said.
“Nothing,” Sarah agreed. “But we’ll wash it off and cover it, just to keep it clean.”
Knowing an argument would do no good, she sat still and let Sarah minister to her, aware of Amos and the boys standing there watching.
Sarah seemed to become aware of them, too. “What are you doing, standing there gawking? Don’t you have something to do?”
The crossness, Amanda thought, was an indication of just how worried she’d been. Again, Amanda had the sense that Sarah was offering her a familial affection that she wasn’t ready for.
Amos, apparently in answer, jerked a nod toward the back door. At the same time, Amanda heard a spray of gravel as a car pulled up. A moment later, Trey rushed in, coming to a stop when he saw Amanda sitting there.
She eyed him, not sure she trusted the wave of happiness that swept through her at the sight of him. “What are you doing here?”
“Amos called me. I hear you were trying to catch a falling hay bale...with your head, apparently.” He nodded toward the bandage Sarah was fixing in place.
“You must have broken the speed limit getting here so fast,” Isaac said, grinning in what seemed to be approval.
“Maybe,” he admitted. He pulled out a chair and moved it close to Amanda. “So, tell us what happened.”
She shook her head and immediately regretted it. “I’m not sure of all of it. I walked down to the barn to check on the foal, like I usually do. But both the mare and the baby were huddled in the back of the stall, and she wouldn’t let him come near me. I figured something had scared them, and I moved back a couple of steps, looking for whatever it was. I heard something move over my head, and next thing I knew, the whole stack of hay bales rushed toward me.”
He listened in frowning silence until she paused. Then he touched her hand gently. “Are you sure you’re not hurt?”
“Just some bruises and scrapes to add to what I already had.” She frowned a little. “If I hadn’t moved back, looking for what frightened the mare, I’d have been hit more directly. I was lucky.”
“You don’t look very lucky at the moment.” His tone was wry. “Why wasn’t Barney with you? He’d have alerted you fast enough if something was wrong.”
“When I go to the horse barn in the morning, I don’t take him. The colt seems skittish when he’s around.”
Trey’s frown deepened. “So this accident happened the only place you’re likely to go without him.”
“What are you thinking?” Amos demanded. “That it was deliberate?”
“I could believe that faster than I’d believe you and your boys don’t know how to stack hay bales so they don’t fall out of the loft.”
Amos was still for a moment, assessing that. Then he nodded. “Komm. Let’s go look at the loft and see what we can find.”
Amanda moved, thinking she’d like a look herself, but Sarah pushed her back into the chair with gentle hands.
“You’re not going climbing around in the loft. You’re going to sit right here and drink a cup of tea and eat something sweet. That’ll make you feel better.”
Trey paused in the doorway. “Sarah’s right. We’ll tell you if we find anything.”
They went out, and the kitchen seemed empty without them. Amanda watched as Sarah brewed a pot of tea and cut a wedge of shoofly pie. She set them down in front of Amanda and added the sugar bowl and a spoon. Then she sat down across from her.
“Now, eat. I’m staying right here until you do.”
To please her, Amanda took a bite of the shoofly pie, tasting the molasses sweetness of it, and then a gulp of hot tea. Sarah was right, the warmth moving down her throat did make her feel better.
“Thank you. That’s just what I needed.” She hesitated, but it had to be said. “I’m sorry about bringing all this trouble to your family. If I were staying somewhere else...”
“Don’t you think that way.” Sarah reached across to squeeze her hand. “Where else would you be? You’re family. If there’s trouble, we face it together.”
Amanda tried to inject a bit of reality into the conversation. “But we don’t know yet that I’m Melanie and Jacob’s child. I can’t be sure until the results of the DNA tests come back.”
“I don’t need any tests to know that you’re Jacob’s child. I feel it.” Sarah’s face changed a little, as if aware that Amanda wasn’t ready for her belief. “But you wait until the test comes back. You’ll see that I’m right.”
“It shouldn’t be long until we know,” Amanda said. “Trey apparently knows someone who manages the laboratory they’re using, and he agreed to make it a priority.” She smiled, shaking her head a little. “Trey always seems to know someone.”
Sarah patted her hand again. “He does, doesn’t he? It comes from living here always. And his daad’s connections, too. Everyone knows the Alter family.”
Amanda applied herself to eating and drinking, but it was no good. She had to talk to Sarah about Jacob.
“I know you feel sure about who I am,” she said slowly. “And I understand that it means a lot to you to find out what happened to Jacob’s baby. But all of this is so new to me that I...well, sometimes I think it’s all a dream.”
“Or a nightmare?” Sarah smiled, taking any sting from the words.
“My mother’s death was a nightmare, and that’s what started it all. I just wish I understood how she and Melanie got together. What led to her taking charge of me? There are so many questions I’ll never have answers to.”
“Ach, I’m sorry. I never thought about it that way, and I should have. It was the questions that couldn’t be answered that haunted Jacob all these years.”
Amanda hadn’t thought of his probable reactions, and it made her feel small to think she was so obsessed with her own feelings that she hadn’t even considered his.
“About Jacob,” she said. “I think it’s important that he come here.”
A huge smile spread across Sarah’s face, and Amanda hurried on, anxious to get it all out before Sarah celebrated too much.
“I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to feel about Jacob as a daughter to a father. Maybe he should know that before he comes. I just...” She let the words trail away, unable to find the words to explain her feelings, especially to Sarah, who seemed to want so much.
But Sarah was nodding. “I understand. And Jacob will, too. He’ll be satisfied just to see you and to know that you’re all right. He won’t ask for more than you can give, that I can promise you.”
With that, Amanda had to be content.
* * *
WHEN THEY REACHED the barn, Isaac started to pick up the scattered hay bales.
“Wait just a minute on that, will you?” Trey said. “I’d like to take a look at the loft before anything is moved.”
Isaac nodded, his eyes wide. “Are you thinking someone set out to harm Cousin Amanda?”
So the family was already claiming Amanda as kin. In a way, he understood why she was having difficulty accepting that, but at the same time, he didn’t want to see Sarah and her family hurt.
“Whether or not, we ought to see what made the bales fall,” Amos said. He nodded to Trey and motioned for him to go up the ladder first.
Trey climbed, wishing he were wearing something other than dress pants and a shirt and tie. But if they were snagged, it was in a good cause. He stepped into the loft and stopped there, not moving while he surveyed the floor.
Amos emerged behind him. “What are you thinking?”
“I hoped we might be able to find marks made by someone coming up who didn’t belong here, but I suppose you’re all up and down too often to tell.”
“Yah, every day someone is up to throw the hay down to the stalls.” Amos pointed. “There’s where the bales fell.”
They advanced cautiously, but there weren’t any identifiable footprints in the loose sprinkling of hay and straw on the wide boards. “The boys say the bales were stacked two feet away from the edge, like they should be.”
“It looks to me like they were here.” Trey squatted next to the imprint of the bales. As Isaac and Thomas had claimed, it was at least two feet away, maybe closer to three.
“That’s where we put them.” Isaac stood on the ladder, his head and shoulders above the floor. He didn’t make an attempt to come farther, probably having heard what Trey said. “If they were at the edge, someone else did it.”
Trey nodded. “I believe you. Look, you can see where the bales were dragged over to the edge. Looks like they were set far enough to protrude over it. All it would take from that position was a shove to send the whole stack down.”
“Who would do such a thing?” Amos demanded. “It’s wicked.”
“Yes, it is,” he said soberly. “Somebody wanted to harm Amanda. If it’s the same person who was throwing rocks against the cottage the other night, they’ve escalated their game.”
He could see Amos struggling to believe it, but finally he nodded. “I can see no other answer.”
“Whoever he was, he must have been watching Amanda so he knew that she went to the horse barn every morning to check on the foal. And that she didn’t take Barney with her, so he didn’t run any risk from the dog.”
“He didn’t count on the mare’s sensing him,” Isaac put in. “She knew something was wrong.”
“And Amanda was quick enough to read her behavior and back away,” Trey finished the thought. “If not, she could have been hurt much worse.”
“But who?” Amos demanded. “Are you thinking it was one of the Winthrop family?”
“Maybe. Or maybe someone connected with one of them.” He thought again of that boyfriend of Carlie’s. Maybe it was time to have the police ask him some questions. He continued his train of thought. “So he pushed the bales, and then what? Climbed down the ladder and risked Amanda identifying him?”
Amos shook his head. “He didn’t come out the front. We’d come back from working on the fence, going to put the tools away. We heard something fall in the horse barn and Amanda cry out. We’d have seen him if he came out that way, that’s certain sure.”
“Look,” Isaac said, pointing toward the back of the barn. “The door at the back is standing open. We never left it like that. He must have gotten down that way.”
The three of them worked their way back to the small door at the rear of the barn. The larger one in front provided access when they were putting hay in, and the back one allowed more ventilation when needed. Isaac was right, it swung wide at a touch.
“Have you had it open lately?”
They both shook their heads. “No need to in this weather,” Amos said. “Everything’s nice and dry, anyway. That’s been shut up tight for a couple of months.”
Trey leaned out, holding the edges of the frame. The ground sloped up toward the barn at the back, and the drop wasn’t all that far. The landing would be cushioned by the soft grass beneath.
“He must have sneaked in after we’d finished morning chores,” Isaac said. “For sure no one was in here when we turned the other horses out in the pasture.”
“All he had to do was sneak in when no one was around. He probably opened this door then, to have it all ready for him.”
Trey didn’t like the image that was forming in his mind. An image of someone who’d go to any extreme to keep Amanda from...from what? From coming in for a share of the Winthrop estate? That seemed most likely, though he hadn’t entirely dismissed the possible machinations of Juliet’s brother, to say nothing of the agent who might have something to gain.
“Are you going to the police?” Amos asked. He didn’t look unduly anxious, although Trey knew he’d hate being involved with the authorities.
“Not without talking it over with Amanda and seeing what she thinks. We’re going to have to keep her safe, one way or another.”
“I wish I’d gotten my
hands on him,” Isaac said. With his hands clenched into fists and the muscles standing out on his arms, he looked formidable.
“You would not strike the man,” Amos said firmly. “No matter what he did.”
“No,” Isaac admitted. “But I could hold him until the police came, ain’t so?”
Amos considered. “Yah, I think that would be acceptable.”
Trey found his own fists tightening. If he encountered anyone who threatened Amanda, he’d know what to do. And he wasn’t hampered by the Amish belief in nonviolence.
CHAPTER TWELVE
AMANDA STUDIED TREY’S face when the men came back into the kitchen. “Well, did you find anything?”
“Nothing that would tell us who was there, but enough to convince us someone did it deliberately. Right, Amos?”
Amos gave a reluctant nod. “Yah, that’s so. Someone moved the bales and then most likely pushed them over.”
Sarah was drying her hands over and over again on a tea towel. “It’s hard to believe people can be so evil. Why would someone do such a wicked thing?”
Obviously this was very far outside Sarah’s normal world, and Amanda couldn’t help feeling guilty that she’d brought this trouble to their home.
“For gain, most likely,” Amos said. “Some folks will do almost anything for money. We can’t pretend there’s not evil in the world.”
“It seems to me that the best thing would be for me to find another place to stay.” It was the least Amanda felt she could offer. “I’ll...”
“No.” Amos and Sarah spoke simultaneously and then looked at one another and smiled.
“You belong here,” Sarah said firmly. “We are agreed. If there is trouble, we’ll face it together. In fact, I think you should move into the farmhouse. The girls can move in together. They don’t mind a bit.”
“No.” Now it was her turn to dismiss the idea. “Thank you. I appreciate the offer, but I love staying in the cottage. All my things are there, and I’m settled. Besides, I have Barney. He won’t let anyone near me.”