by Beverly Bird
She began trembling. “If you insist upon driving that conveyance by yourself, then yes, sir, I am.”
“Don’t call me sir!”
“Don’t shout at me!”
Somehow he had ended up on his feet, glaring down at her. She had taken a step toward him. She had to crane her neck back to look into his face. She barely came to his collarbone.
The room was quiet. All eyes were on them.
Jake snapped his head around to find his brother. “We need to rent a car, bro. That would be easiest.”
“It’s not possible.”
“What do you mean it’s not possible?” Jake demanded.
“Just what I said. I mean, get it in your own name if you want, but it’s not something I can comfortably do right now. I don’t want to bring any more censure down upon Mariah’s head than our civil marriage already has.”
“There hasn’t been censure,” Sugar Joe said. “We’re just waiting for you to come around, is all.”
Jake understood and he didn’t like it one bit. “So what the hell am I supposed to do?”
“Actually, this is about the place where the FBI hit a roadblock,” Simon volunteered. “Our customs. The way things are around here. Their agents couldn’t accommodate the ordnung, our religious guidelines. Jacob, I’d like to suggest that if you start driving up to doors the way they did, you’re not going to get anything out of our women. You’ll scare them off. You’ll frighten them.”
“I got information out of them before, the last time I was here,” Jake argued, getting irritated.
“You talked to the men before,” Sugar Joe corrected him. “Myself included. But it’s the women who know the most about this situation. It’s the women who go into the farmers’ market in Divinity for this or that, who take care of the children, who would know if a stranger had been hanging about.”
Silence fell again.
“You should stop acting like a foolish, pigheaded man and let me drive you.” Katya’s soft voice broke into the quiet. “I have nothing to do with my days anyway.” She looked pleadingly at Adam. “Let me help with this.”
Adam remembered something Mariah had told him, that Katya was uncomfortable and distressed because she couldn’t contribute anything to their household. Here was something she could do. Except, he thought, he felt like he was throwing a lamb to the slaughter, a sacrificial virgin into the mouth of a volcano. He didn’t particularly want to send her off in the wagon with his notorious, three-date-limit brother.
“It could work,” Jake said reluctantly, aloud.
Adam glanced at him and saw, too late, the look in his brother’s eyes. Jake was thinking about Frank Essler again.
“It’s probably not safe for her to hang around in that house all day by herself anyway,” Jake went on.
Katya looked away. “Frank won’t come for me. He blusters, but... I think he’s probably just as glad to be rid of me, except he has to wash his own socks.” Her skin flamed with the admission.
Sugar Joe made a sound in his throat. Simon Stoltzfus uttered a word that was as close to swearing as any Amishman ever came. The word did not speak highly of Frank Essler.
Adam felt himself sinking into a situation he had created when he had brought his brother here, a situation that seemed to be spiraling rapidly out of his control.
“You know,” Sugar Joe said finally, “it’s an arrangement that really does cover a lot of bases. Not that I think Frank would really do anything, either, but you never know.”
“It’s not up for democratic vote,” Jake said. “We’ll do it.”
Katya beamed. She felt her pulse scurry. For the first time in days, weeks, years, she had something to look forward to tomorrow. She would be doing something useful.
And that, of course, was the only reason her heart was acting so frantically, the only reason at all.
Chapter 8
Katya was awake before the sun rose the next day. She watched it lighten the sky on the other side of the window, feeling shivery and expectant and wonderful. But she held herself very still.
In truth, a little part of her was afraid that if she rushed downstairs, when she rushed downstairs, she would find out that she had dreamed it all. That Jacob wasn’t going to take her with him. That he didn’t need her. Need her—what a delightful phrase that was. She was afraid she would go downstairs and find out that none of this had happened at all, that she wasn’t going to ride along with him today and do something, however small, toward finding those babies.
She waited until the sky turned yellow-gray, then gradually blue, then she couldn’t stand it anymore. She sat up and dropped her legs over the side of the bed. As always, the room was frigid. There was no stove in here, and the fire in the hearth had died many hours ago. Goose bumps trekked immediately over her skin when she slid free of the blankets. She stepped over her daughters and around the crib before creeping into the hall.
Jacob was just coming out of the bathroom.
“Oh,” she said, startled, stepping back a little. He looked at her, then away, in that funny way she had started noticing.
Her skin flamed. She knew why he did it. She was unpleasant to look at. Tiny, plain, pale. He was just too polite to stare. At least he hadn’t told her that he had changed his mind about today. She waited, bracing herself, but he only slung a towel around his neck and stood there.
“I...uh, thought I’d beat the crowd this morning,” he said awkwardly.
“Me, too,” she managed, drawing his attention back to her face.
“Well, it’s all yours.” He stepped away from the bathroom door and waved a gallant hand in its direction.
“Thank you.”
But she didn’t move. She watched him head off toward the stairs. He did not wear a shirt. She had just scrubbed the goose bumps from the cold off her arms and now they came back.
His naked shoulders moved with an almost lazy grace as he went down the steps. He didn’t even seem to feel the cold. He was amazing. She saw him hesitate and she darted into the bathroom, afraid he would look up and find her staring at him.
She was just finishing in the shower when her girls burst in. Delilah had had her bath last night and she just washed up in the sink. Rachel scrambled into the shower as Katya stepped out. Then there was a knock on the door and Adam’s voice drifted in.
“How much longer in there?” he asked.
Katya flinched. “Uh...flve minutes.” She turned quickly back to the shower to hurry her daughter along.
“Where’s Sam?” she asked Rachel. If the baby woke and started crying before she could easily get to him, if someone else had to pick him up and soothe him, she would die a little more at the way she always seemed to put these people out.
“He’s still sleeping, Mama,” Rachel assured her.
Oh, they needed their own place, Katya thought desperately. A little of her earlier euphoria slid away. It was so unfair to put Adam and Mariah out like this.
She found herself glancing down the stairs again as she hustled the girls back to their room, even standing on tiptoe a little to be able to see more. But Jacob was no longer in the living room. She found him in the kitchen when she finally made it downstairs, a sleepy Sam in her arms. Jake was drinking a cup of coffee, leaning back against the counter, dressed in more of Adam’s clothing. She could tell because both the sleeves and the jeans seemed just a little too short, and she didn’t think he had brought a suitcase with him.
“Ready?” he asked. “I told Simon I’d be back over there by eight.”
“Yes, I remember. I’ll be just a minute.” He hadn’t changed his mind.
Mariah came into the kitchen. “No, Katya, go. I’ll gather the children up and take them to school with me. Jake says they mustn’t walk alone anyway.”
“If you’re sure,” she said uncertainly.
“Of course I’m sure. We’re all going to the same place, aren’t we?”
Katya kissed each one of her children in turn as they spi
lled into the kitchen. She gave Rachel a squeeze. “Don’t spend your day worrying,” she chided. “Keep your mind on your studies. As for you...” She looked at Delilah worriedly, smoothing her dark hair off her forehead. “You’re so pretty today. If that boy teases you, just punch him in the nose. Promise me you won’t cry about it.”
“Thank you,” Mariah said dryly, but she was smiling. “Violence and mayhem in the classroom. Not to mention what resisting in such a fashion does to the ordnung.”
Katya looked abashed. “Oh, I hadn’t thought of that.”
Mariah’s smile held. She shrugged. “Our little one here isn’t yet bound by the ordnung, and it seems an effective solution to me.”
“Levi, no hockey today unless a grown-up goes with you,” Katya went on.
“That means you, too, Bo,” Adam contributed.
“Miz Essler says I can’t play yet with my arm anyway,” Bo grumbled.
“Geese,” Sam said, looking crestfallen. “Geese, Mama.”
She gave him a little squeeze. “We’ll go later, after we finish with Mr. Wallace.” She looked at Jake apologetically. “I promised to take Sam to the pond today, to see if some geese have returned there. They usually flock there in the afternoons. I’m sorry. I’ll have to take him with me today, and if you wouldn’t mind just stopping a moment on your way home...” She trailed off. “It won’t take very long, I promise.”
“Uh...sure.”
They went outside. Adam went to the door to watch after them, then he looked back at his wife. “You practically shooed them out of here! You couldn’t get them on the road fast enough,” he said darkly.
Mariah blinked. “What’s wrong with that?”
“I just don’t think she should spend any more time with my brother other than what’s necessary with them under the same roof this week.”
She stared at him, then laughed and tucked her arm into his. “You’re too young to be her father,” she chided.
“Yeah, well, her own father turned his back on her.”
Mariah flinched. Hers had, too, when she’d been shunned, and the comment brought painful reminders. Then her expression calmed again. “Jacob has been with us for two days now,” she remarked. “I don’t think he’s as bad as you said, Adam.”
“There’s not much trouble for him to get into here.”
“Well, there you have it.”
Adam opened his mouth, then closed it again. “Damn it,” he muttered. “I hate it when you win an argument.”
She put her finger to his lips, then followed the finger with her own mouth. “Watch your language, Adam. And don’t worry so. Katya is much tougher and smarter than she looks.” And one of these days, Mariah thought, Katya herself was even going to realize it.
For the life of him, Jake couldn’t get those images of Katya—and her kids—out of his mind. She’d had something to say to each one of them, he thought, something special. He didn’t want to dwell on it He thought about it anyway.
“You’re a good mother,” he said finally, swinging up into the wagon beside her and Sam. The baby was bundled into a blanket so that only his face peered out.
Katya experienced a feeling of surprise, then a rush of pleasure. She gave a quick little shake of her head, and just like that her neatly bound hair was loose again. She gathered up the reins. It was the first compliment she’d received in so very long. She shook its echo deliberately out of her head because it was too tempting to wallow in it.
She remembered what he had said about his own mother yesterday morning when they had been arguing the topic of divorce. “It’s probably not that I’m so good,” she observed, “as it is that you’ve known only bad.”
It had been the wrong thing to say. She felt the anger come off him suddenly, in almost physical waves. “There was nothing wrong with my mother,” he snapped. “She just wasn’t there.”
“Oh.”
“I mean, physically she was, just not...emotionally. She was kind enough, when she was sober.” But he couldn’t recollect one single time when she had paid him specific attention, he realized. Emma had needed all her emotion for herself. She’d sure as hell never promised to take him to a pond to see if some geese had returned.
“Do you...?” she began, then left her question unfinished as she guided Goliath and the buggy out onto the street.
“Do I what?”
“Do you not have children? I wondered what their mother might be like.”
His face hardened even more. “No. I don’t like kids.” Though, in all honestly, it wasn’t really a matter of liking, he reflected. It was more a matter of not trusting his own Wallace genes—his father’s genes, possibly determining his own behavior. Adam was a good father, but it was entirely possibly that the little buggers had skipped a sibling and were lying in wait inside him. He would never find out. He didn’t dare.
Katya thought he was lying. She’d watched him with Bo last night, with her own children. He was so gentle with Delilah. He’d seemed so attuned to little Sam. He had a marvelous way with children, she thought, a way of getting down to their level. He didn’t worry too much about rules and authority. She didn’t think he cared much about rules of any kind.
Jake decided he wanted to get off this subject fast. “How did you do that?” he demanded, glancing over at her.
“What?”
“Whatever you just did with the reins to make this beast go.”
“Oh. I jiggled them.”
“That’s what I did yesterday.” He’d watched her yesterday. He’d seen her do it and he had done it himself. At which point he’d landed in the snow. “So how come he doesn’t kick and bolt for you?”
Katya thought about it. “You must have let the reins touch his back.”
He decided it was entirely possible. The damned things had been all over the place, hard to control. “Well, now that I know that, you really don’t have to tag along. You could go back. I don’t need you.”
The look she sent him hurt. Her eyes were suddenly wide, stricken. He could feel her plea almost as though she had spoken aloud.
Well, he reasoned uncomfortably, there was still the little matter of her husband. It really was best to keep her close and protected. In which case Frank Essler only had to wait out the week until he was gone and he couldn’t protect her any longer. Jake shook that possibility right out of his head. Adam would be here. Adam had already taken Katya under his wing. He was a little lax about precautions to Jake’s way of thinking, but that could be remedied. Jake figured he would just give his brother a good talking-to on the subject before he left.
“Never mind,” he said finally. He shook his head. “Come on, make this pony pick up the pace a little. We’re going to be late.”
She smiled at him beatifically. Jake had to look away.
When they reached the Stoltzfus farmhouse, the children were just spilling outside, then piling into a waiting buggy. Simon was giving them a ride to school. Jake was gratified to see that people were taking his warnings to heart.
A heavyset woman stood just outside the door, watching him warily. She looked older than Jake might have expected. It was probably just the care and the heartache that were etched into her face.
He leaned over in the seat, across Sam, closer to Katya. “Could you introduce me, smooth the way here?” he asked her.
“Yes, of course. I’d planned to.” She scrambled down from the seat.
He watched as she collected the baby and went up the walk. He followed at a distance.
“Deborah, this is Jacob Wallace, Adam’s brother. He’s come to find the babies.”
He should have known she’d put it that way. “I’ve come to try,” he corrected.
The woman clasped his hand in a surprisingly hard, desperate grip. “Please come in. I have coffee and sweet rolls.”
“That’s not—” he began, then broke off as Katya kicked him smartly in the calf.
He looked down at her, frowning. She gave a shake of her head as th
e woman went ahead of them into the house.
“What?” he asked in an undertone.
“If you don’t let her serve you something, you’ll take her dignity, Jacob.”
“Her dignity? I’m just trying to find her kid.”
“There’s no ‘just’ about it. Let her do something for you, as well. We’re a proud people, accustomed to paying our way.”
Jake stared at her a moment longer. “Good thinking,” he said finally, then he moved to catch up with Deborah Stoltzfus.
He didn’t see the look of wonder that came over Katya’s face.
Good thinking. Her chest swelled until it almost hurt. Of course, he didn’t mean it. It was just...just something to say. But she hugged the memory of his words just as she hugged Sam as she followed him.
Deborah had laid out plates and coffee mugs. She bustled around the table, bringing the rolls, pouring coffee. Katya slid into a chair, bouncing Sam on her lap. He immediately stuck his chubby fingers into a roll. Jake reached over and tore it apart for him seemingly without thinking, then took a bite himself.
“This is great,” he said, swallowing, biting again.
Deborah gave her first strained smile. “Thank you. It’s my grandma’s recipe.”
“Don’t lose it.”
“No! Oh, no. It’s in my head. I could never lose it. I even taught Carola and Birgitte, so it will be passed on.” Her smile faded.
“Her daughters,” Katya supplied softly. “Lizzie’s big sisters.”
Deborah nodded vaguely. Jake washed down the roll with some coffee, and that was great, too—strong and black, just the way he liked it. “Can you tell me what happened that day, Mrs. Stoltzfus? Everything you remember, even if it doesn’t seem important.”
She sat in the chair at the end of the table. Her eyes glistened. “It was my fault,” she said, so quietly they almost didn’t hear her.
“No,” Jake said sharply. “It was the fault of whoever has taken her.”
“But—”
“No buts about it, Mrs. Stoltzfus. You’ve got to get that guilt out of your mind right now if you’re going to help me. Come on. Get hold of yourself. Think Castigating yourself isn’t going to bring your daughter back.”