by Beverly Bird
“Lizzie Stoltzfus was the last. Before that, it was Michael Miller. Back in the fall, it was Lukas Eitner and Amalie Byler. They were—are—all not quite two years old. They all have brothers and sisters enough to fill Noah’s ark, but for some reason they were each caught on their own just that one time, and then they just...disappeared.”
Jake shook his head, but it wasn’t a gesture of denial this time. It looked more like an effort to clear it. “I’m tired, bro,” he said finally. “Bone tired. I’ve been up since 6:00 a.m. yesterday. And I didn’t sleep much the night before that, either.” Two hours, to be exact. That was the night he had found Clyde and Bob’s Bull’s-Eye Bar.
A lifetime ago.
“I can’t make sense of this right now,” he went on.
“The house will be quiet all day. Take a bed. Crash. We’ll talk more when you wake up.” Just don’t leave, Adam added silently. As long as he could keep his brother from leaving the settlement, Jake would come around. He knew him that well.
“Yeah,” Jake said finally. “Damn it,” he said again, but without bite this time.
“Our room is the last one at the end of the hall,” Adam said. “The big one. That would be best. There are just bunks in the boys’ room.” And he sure as the devil wasn’t going to point Jake in Katya’s direction.
Adam had become fiercely protective of the woman since he had come back, since he had learned that his new wife would come to him encumbered by her friend and her children. Maybe it was because Katya reminded him a little bit of his mother. Except Katya had done something about her situation, at least as much as she was able. She had protected her children.
Adam pushed that thought away uncomfortably.
Jake moved almost numbly up the stairs. His headache was crashing around in his skull now, all the little shoots of hurt emanating from that spot at the back of his skull where Katya had clobbered him.
He encountered her on the stairs. For a moment, his feet went still, and he stared at her.
Everything had changed. The angel was...well, not gone, he allowed. Just hidden now. Her hair was parted in the middle and pulled straight back. There was a small white hat-like thing perched on the back of her head. The nightgown had been oddly alluring, virginal though it had been. Now she wore azure blue, a dress that came almost down to her knees. It had long, straight sleeves. A plain neckline barely revealed the hollow of her throat. A black apron was cinched tightly around her impossibly tiny waist And for all that, he felt something odd happen in the center of his chest. Something that felt like an animal scurrying.
She avoided his eyes.
The sound of a door cracking shut came to him from the Janding above, and Mariah appeared there, dressed just the same as Katya. He knew the Amish all dressed the same so that no one of them would stand out. Vanity and pride were sins. But this time, somehow this time, it really hit him. The kids were all dressed alike, too, and it felt as though he were seeing triple, even quadruple.
God, he was tired.
“Excuse me,” he said to Katya with excruciating politeness. He started to step by her.
“Do you feel well?” she asked quickly.
“I’ve got a headache. I’m tired.”
He was acutely aware of her watching after him as he finally reached the upstairs landing and went in search of the bedroom. He closed the door carefully behind him and began peeling his clothing off almost in the same moment. The room was chilly, cold even, despite another wood-burning stove in the corner. He didn’t care. He dropped facedown on the bed and was asleep almost before he closed his eyes.
Chapter 4
By four o’clock, Katya was truly frightened.
I’ve got a headache. I’m tired. Jake’s words kept bouncing around in her head. At first they had just pestered her because she couldn’t banish them. Now they seemed to echo as they grew more and more insistent.
Headache. Tired Both, she knew, were signs of serious head injury. She had learned that from her grandma, who had been one of the settlement’s most sought-after healers back in the days when the Old Order had been even stricter than it was now. Back then, folks had rarely gone to doctors. Even now, they tended to be reluctant to do so. God was the ultimate healer after all.
Jake Wallace probably needed a doctor, but she did not think he would go to one. It was just a feeling she had.
She hovered at Mariah and Adam’s closed bedroom door, as she had done several times now, and listened. She heard nothing from the other side of the door. Not a stir, no rustle of bedclothes as he rolled over. Her heart rate picked up a little more, edging into panic now. She twisted her hands together.
He had been sleeping for nine solid hours. He had come up here just before seven. At first she hadn’t been concerned. But as time ticked by, she became more and more convinced that something was wrong.
What if he had died?
Katya pressed a trembling hand to her mouth. If Jacob Wallace died, she would almost certainly go to jail, she realized. The deacons, the church elders, would not be able to protect her from the law. Jake was anner Satt Leit, an outsider. And the outside government would become involved. If she went to jail, her children would be sent back to Frank. And Frank would destroy them.
And God? What of God? She began trembling harder as she thought of Him. What would God do if she showed up at heaven’s door with a rolling pin in her hand? Resistance was a sin. And she had certainly been resisting the horrors of the man she’d thought was Frank when she had cracked him.
She had to check on him. Maybe it wasn’t too late. Maybe if he was just on the verge of dying, she could still help him in time. There had to be any number of things she might be able to do. Her grandma had taught her well; the old woman had passed on everything she knew. But she couldn’t do anything from this side of the door.
Katya turned the knob soundlessly. She eased the door open. She would just peek in, she decided, would just make sure his chest rose and fell normally, and if it didn’t...well, then, she would deal with that if and when it happened. One step at a time, she told herself.
She leaned forward. She looked, then she gasped and jerked the door closed again. She backed up, both hands held to her burning face.
He was naked in there.
Jake opened one eye when the door shut again with a sharp crack. He angled his gaze that way without moving his head, watching it, scowling. It didn’t open again.
He was reasonably sure that it had been Katya, although he had looked too late to be sure. She’d moved without a sound, and then there had been that gasp—her voice.
His curiosity got the better of him, overriding his common sense. He decided to make this easier for her. He wanted to know what she was up to. He rolled over, pulling the blanket with him so that it covered his hips.
He waited, wondering just what she would do next.
Katya groaned aloud. Now what was she to do? She couldn’t just...just waltz in with him in that condition. But the brief peek she had taken had told her nothing. She had not even looked at his chest to see if it moved.
She had seen many other things, but not his chest.
She hugged herself, close to tears now. He was sleeping. He would never know if she went in there or not. Although, she admitted, modesty didn’t seem to be high on his list of concerns anyway. Not with the way he was lying in there, sprawled on his back. Actually, she didn’t even have to go in, she realized. She could just peer around the door again and look in the right place this time.
She couldn’t bring herself to do it.
She got angry with herself. She was a married woman, for heaven’s sake! Well, she had been. For ten years. It wasn’t as though she had never seen a naked man before.
She’d seen one naked man, she realized, her skin burning even hotter. Precisely one. And Frank Essler had not looked at all like Jacob Wallace.
Why in heaven’s name had he felt compelled to take all his clothing off in the middle of the day? He certainly se
emed crazy, she thought. She remembered what he had said to Mariah. Did he tell you I was a lunatic? That I’m as likely to brawl with the dudes I arrest as throw handcuffs on them? And what, for heaven’s sake, was a dude?
It didn’t matter. None of that mattered. She had to do something. While she was standing out here waffling, he could very well be dying in there.
She put her hand back to the knob, bracing herself. In contrast to her face, her fingers were fumbling and ice-cold now. She eased the door open again very gently, holding her breath, peering in...and let out a shaky, relieved sigh.
He’d rolled over, dragging the quilt over his hips as he went.
She eased a little farther into the room, her eyes trained directly on his chest this time. But she couldn’t see anything. He lay on his side—his left side. His left arm was stretched forward, his hand extending past the edge of the mattress. His right hand was curled up, tucked under his jaw. That arm hid any and all evidence as to whether or not he was breathing. But he had to be breathing. He’d moved. But people could move reflexively in a coma.
She took another silent step and stopped again. His chest, his shoulders looked so big, so...so solid. She thought his body would probably feel hard and unyielding to the touch. And his skin was surprisingly smooth, she realized, mesmerized. Frank had been covered with so much hair. She inched a little bit closer and saw a spattering of freckles there, trailing downward onto his back.
But she couldn’t tell whether or not he was breathing normally. He was so still.
But he had just moved, hadn’t he? The first time she’d looked, he’d been flat on his back. She sorted through her mind to think if there were any after-death reflexes that could make a body turn all the way over. There were twitches, yes, certainly. Spasms. But no, a body couldn’t turn all the way over. She was very nearly sure of it.
He was fine, then. But his breath must be awfully shallow because she still couldn’t hear it. He didn’t snore as Frank had done.
Her gaze slid down his torso, to the blanket curled over his hip like the arm of a lover. Where had that come from? She would have run then and there, she was that shocked by her own embarrassing thoughts. But she was... fascinated by him.
She remembered a time when she had been very little, probably no more than six. She and her mother and all her brothers and sisters had gone into the city, into Lancaster, for some reason. In fact, it was the only time in twenty-eight years she had ever gone there. Nearly everything the people needed was to be found on their own farms or in the village. But something odd had happened, she remembered, and her mother had said that that trip had been necessary. So they’d called an anner Satt Leit taxi to take them there.
It had been December. And there, on the street corner, ringing a bell over a metal kettle hanging from a post, was Santa Claus.
Now, more than twenty years later, Katya was aware of who Santa Claus was, but he had no place in Amish Christmas celebrations. Her people exchanged cards and gifts and they decorated their homes with greens on their mantels and in the windows, but Christmas Day itself was a somber religious observation, and the day after, called Second Christmas, was a time of quiet family activities. The Amish did not have decorated trees and special lights and mistletoe. They most certainly did not have Santa Claus.
She had never seen that jolly red-garbed man before that day. Katya remembered being in the back seat, scrambling around quickly onto her knees, staring out the rear window at the spectacle, amazed. And she had felt just as she did now, enthralled, captivated, enchanted. The sight of that Santa Claus had made her heart trip and her mouth open wide.
Sort of like her heart was doing now. She clapped a hand to her mouth. This, she thought, was much better than Santa Claus.
Jake’s legs were so long. And bare. One knee was cocked up. Unlike his shoulder, his legs wore a faint, dark hue of hair that looked soft. She inched even closer and reached a hand out as though to touch it, the way she had longed to touch that Santa’s red velvet tunic. She realized what she was doing and jerked it quickly back to her side.
She had to do what she had come in here for and get it over with. If anyone came home and caught her at this, if there wasn’t anything wrong with him, she thought she would probably die of embarrassment.
She crossed the remaining distance to the bed. At least she had thought to take her shoes off earlier so her footsteps downstairs wouldn’t disturb him. Now she moved silently and finally held a trembling hand just in front of his face. She caught her breath, waiting to see if she would feel his exhalation.
His own hand moved so quickly she was stunned. The one dangling over the edge of the mattress shot up and his hard fingers lashed around her wrist with an iron grip. She was so startled she wasn’t even able to cry out.
He rolled onto his back again, pulling her along effortlessly. The blanket slipped away. Katya was appalled. She gave a little cry as she lost her footing and tumbled on top of him. “Oh my!”
Then her heart exploded into a rhythm so hard, so fierce, it hurt. She stared into his eyes for that one terrible second—they were a deep, dark blue. Then he moved again. This time he rolled so that she spilled onto the mattress beside him, and—oh, God help her—his thigh came up over hers and pinned her there.
“Never, ever, sneak up on a sleeping cop.”
His voice was a sleepy, unperturbed rasp. Oh God, was he laughing at her or chastising her? Finally, too late, it occurred to her that if he wasn’t laughing, he would probably hurt her. No matter that he hadn’t earlier, when she’d knocked the rolling pin against his head. This time she could have bothered him once too often. And he was big—much bigger than Frank—so he could hurt her badly.
Katya screamed.
She struggled against him helplessly and realized that not only were her legs pinned under his thigh, but he had her arms over her head, holding both her wrists in one hand. But at the sound of her voice, he reeled back and let her go. For one wild, incredible moment, she thought he looked frightened.
Katya scrambled off the bed and pressed her back against the wall, trembling. The blanket. Oh God, the blanket had fallen away again!
“What in the hell is wrong with you?” he demanded, almost shouting.
Her throat worked, but Katya couldn’t find her voice to answer.
Jake watched her face as a million transformations took place there. Her skin was pale enough to be nearly translucent, but twin spots of bright color had appeared high on her cheeks. Whatever trouble she’d had that had brought her to Adam’s home had left subtle shadows beneath her eyes. That silly Amish cap had come off in their struggle. Her hair was still pulled back, but those shorter wisps had come free to curl around her jaw.
It struck him anew how really beautiful she was. And how genuinely terrified. He’d thought... but no. Jake shook his head at his own stupidity. He’d started to think that the existence of a husband bothered her a. whole lot less than it bothered him and that she had shown up to make more personal amends for clobbering him.
“I’ve done a lot of things that will probably damn my soul to hell for eternity,” he said finally, roughly, “but I’ve never hurt a woman in my life. You can relax.”
“The blanket,” she squeaked.
“What?” His eyes narrowed. Then they followed her gaze. “Oh hell.”
He grabbed it and hastily dragged it up over his hips. He got to his feet, taking it with him. He tripped on the edges and felt like a fool, so he swore again.
Her breasts rose and fell with every agitated breath. They were small, but her nipples were hard against the thin fabric of her dress. She squirmed a little, and her gaze whipped to a place to his left, staring there determinedly.
Well, hell, he thought uncomfortably. “Okay. Okay. I’m dressed. Sort of. Calm down. What the hell were you doing?” he burst out.
His skin had been so warm, she thought, shuddering a little. She recalled the sensation of it through her dress where he had been pressed aga
inst her side. His nipples were flat and his chest was so broad, and suddenly her mouth went dry as ash though she refused to allow herself to look a second time. God help her, all sensation, all her blood even, still seemed to be sluicing toward those places where they had had contact. The side of her breast, where his chest had pressed against her. The tops of her thighs, where his own had lain across them.
Even with the blanket wadded around him, all lumpy and twisted, he was the most beautiful man she had ever seen in her whole life.
“If you didn’t come in here to roll around with me, then what the hell were you doing?” he repeated harshly, dragging her attention back.
Roll around with him? “Oh. Oh.” Katya crossed her arms carefully across her waist to still her trembling, her face flaming. “No. No, I didn’t want...I mean, I wanted to see if you were all right,” she whispered.
“You couldn’t knock?” he demanded. What the hell was happening here?
“I didn’t want to wake you.”
“Why not? That would have given you your answer in a hurry.”
“You weren’t...uh, clothed,” she managed, mortified.
“So you just wanted to creep in and take a look without me knowing about it?” He stared at her incredulously. “What’s your story, woman?”
“Yes—I mean, no! Not—I didn’t want to look! Not exactly. I mean, I wanted to see if you were breathing!”
“Breathing.”
“Alive!”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Because I almost killed you!” she wailed.
She was serious, he realized. He stared at her, stunned all over again. “Honey, I take worse blows than that in barroom brawls, and I always walk out upright.”
Katya knew in that moment that she was out of her depth here. She had no way of even conversing with this man. Dangerous, she thought again. Her eyes fell to his big hands, and she imagined them fisted, raining blows. They would be even more horrible than Frank’s fists...but Jacob had said he had never used his on a woman. Still, she did not think they’d know how to be gentle.