by Beverly Bird
Jake almost reeled with the truth of what she had done. It was naive, certainly. It had been foolish in a lot of ways. And no one had ever believed in him so much.
It didn’t matter that he hadn’t really let her down. That he had done exactly what he’d said he would do. He’d found Sam. He’d sent him home. Safely. But that didn’t matter, because she’d believed just a little bit too much. Now she was out there somewhere on her own. Without money.
Jake got to his feet, moving blindly around the bedroom, dragging the phone cord behind him.
“It’s not your fault, Jake,” Adam said into his ear. “Don’t take this on your head, too.”
Jake ignored him. “Go back to the settlement,” he snapped, throwing clean clothes into yet another duffel bag. “Sam’s there. Mariah’s not going to know what the hell is going on. I can’t be in two places at once, so you watch over the kid.”
“You’re coming back?”
“Yeah. I’ll go to Jersey. I’m going to find her.”
“Do you need money? Want me to wire some?”
“No. This is...mine.” He zipped the duffel with a furious tug and hurled it into the living room, in the general direction of the front door. “My mess, my problem.”
“I won’t argue that But this country requires United States currency, Jake.”
“I said I’ll take care of it!” Jake shouted, then closed his eyes and took a breath. She’d trusted him. He’d run. “I’ve got a CD I can cash in. I bought it in one of my rare responsible moods.” He tried to laugh. Couldn’t.
Adam was quiet for a long time. “Do you want my opinion on this?”
“Save it. I had enough of your opinions yesterday.”
Adam told him anyway. “You’ve got to come to terms with what happened in the past so you can make it in one piece into tomorrow, Jake.”
“I didn’t ask for this,” Jake growled. “Dammit, I didn’t ask for any of this.”
“No. But it’s chasing you down all the same. She believes in you more than you believe in yourself. I don’t know why, but she does, and that’s what’s scaring you, isn’t it? Because somehow you’ve got to live up to it.”
Adam hung up. Jake stared at the phone in his hand, his heart thundering. “I found her kid,” he said to no one. His voice cracked. “I sent Sam home to Pennsylvania.”
And then you ran back to Texas.
It hadn’t been enough. He hadn’t done enough. She’d always demanded everything of him without ever asking, without ever saying a word.
Chapter 19
Jake found a pay phone in the airport and called Ernie, tracking him down at home. “Have you seen her?” he asked as soon as his friend answered. “Has she come back to the police station?”
Ernie hesitated a moment with the bad news. “No. She’d have no reason to, Jake. She knows her little boy’s been sent home. But if she does, we’ll detain her.” He paused. “Is this your personal stake, by any chance?” he asked.
“Yeah.” And the ease with which he heard himself admit it made his heart kick. Then his mind raced on. Think, damn it. He had to think. “Can you bring the media in on this? Get a description of her on the air?”
“They’ll probably comply. Sounds like good human interest.”
“She’s got three little kids with her,” he went on, although Ernie already knew that. “That should make her easier to spot.” And she’s as innocent as the dawn. “And the kids, at least, are all in Amish dress.” He wasn’t sure if she still had the jeans with her or not. “Tell them she’s got this incredible, long, white blond hair—I can’t imagine she’d have it tucked up. She doesn’t like it that way. And when it’s down, she’s beautiful. Hell, she’s beautiful even when it’s not.”
“I’m sure that’s just the kind of thing they’ll want to put on the air,” Ernie said dryly.
Get a grip. Jake warned himself. “Okay. Tell them she’s about five feet tall and weighs a hundred pounds soaking wet.”
“Got it,” Ernie said.
“I’ll call you again when I land in Philly. I owe you one, pal.”
“You owe me several,” Ernie corrected.
Jake hung up reluctantly, feeling as though he was severing some flimsy contact with her. He went to catch his flight.
Katya’s feet hurt so badly it brought tears to her eyes. She couldn’t ask the children to walk anymore. If she was in pain, she could only imagine what their small feet felt like. She’d offered to tote Levi on her back while she carried Delilah, and he’d looked at her as though she was crazy.
What had she done? She was in New Jersey, Sam was back in the settlement, and she had no money with which to get back to him. And the way things were looking, she wasn’t even going to be able to find a place for the rest of them to sleep tonight. She straightened her shoulders painfully. It was harder now than it had been at dusk.
“There’s one, Mama.” Delilah hung on to her neck with one arm and pointed at a motel with the other. Katya looked that way.
The Lucky Clover. The name was emblazoned in brilliant red light on the front of the building. Please be lucky for us, she prayed. She wasn’t sure what she would do if they were turned away here, too.
Her idea had seemed so brilliant at first, and it would certainly have worked in the settlement. She’d thought she could work in exchange for a room. It had seemed a reasonable arrangement. But here, in the anner Satt Leit world, people looked at her as though she was crazy when she made such a suggestion.
She staggered into the office of The Lucky Clover and decided to take a different tack this time. She was desperate. She set Delilah carefully on her feet.
A woman was standing behind the counter. That was good. It had always been her experience that women were kinder and more generous than men. This one had more hair than Katya had ever seen, even since she had been traipsing around anner Satt Leit cities. It was so black it looked blue, and it was a wild, huge swirl about her head. It looked stiff, as well. Her lips were as red as the sign outside. She looked up when Katya and her brood struggled inside and she cracked her gum at them.
“Help you?” she asked laconically.
“I’m looking for work,” Katya pleaded. “Do you have work I could do?” She would ask about a room this time after she had ascertained that.
The woman blinked. “At nine o’clock at night?”
Was it that late already? “It’s...very important.”
The woman studied her. “Then yeah, sure. Come back first thing in the morning. About nine. Fill out an application. Have the guy on duty set it aside for me. Tell him Mona said to come in.”
“An application,” Katya repeated hollowly. “Mona.”
“That’s me.” The woman’s eyes narrowed. “I’m the manager. You’re not from around here, are you?”
Katya shook her head. Her eyes burned. She would not cry. “No,” she managed before she turned away.
“Hey,” the woman said. “How come you’re job hunting this late with all them kids?”
Katya looked at her. Her eyes filled even more in spite of all her determination. “We need a place to stay.”
The woman scowled. “You got nowhere?”
Katya shook her head helplessly.
“Well, getting a job tonight ain’t gonna fix that.”
“I thought...” Katya began weakly, then she took a deep breath and brought her chin up. “I thought maybe I could work for a room.”
The woman stared at her a moment longer. “Look, I got a vacancy,” she said finally. “It’s thirty-five bucks a night for a single person. I could pretend I don’t see those kids.”
“I don’t have thirty-five dollars!” Katya wailed, then she steadied herself yet again. “But please, I could do thirty-five dollars worth of work for you. I can do many things. I can cook, clean, sew. I can even heal a little.”
The woman stared at her, then she finally grinned. “Heal, huh? Well, this ain’t no hospital, but some guy got shot up down the blo
ck not more’n two weeks ago. Look, I can give you some rooms to tidy up in the morning. You ain’t gonna run out on me, are you?”
“No! Oh, no, certainly not.”
“Didn’t think so. Okay, here.” She took a key from a pegboard behind her counter. “Number one twelve. And you want my advice, go in there and stay there. I can’t believe you ain’t been jumped yet. This is a lousy part of the city, you know.”
“No, I didn’t know that.” Delilah had finally stopped crying. Katya took the extended key. “Thank you so very much,” she said fervently. Her relief was so great she could hardly breathe. Her whole body felt weak.
She hurried out a little unsteadily before Mona could change her mind. The woman watched her go, then looked up at the ceiling. “That earn me a place in heaven, Mister? I sure hope so.”
It was close to midnight when Jake’s plane landed in Philadelphia. It seemed like a lifetime had passed since the last time he had flown in here. And he had been exhausted then, too. From the time he had laid eyes on this woman, shut-eye had been at a premium.
He found another pay phone and called Ernie back. “Well?” he asked without preamble.
“I think we got something.”
Jake’s. heart soared. “What?” he demanded. “Tell me. What’s she done?”
Ernie chuckled. “What any sensible woman would do with a bunch of kids, no money and no roof over her head. She went to a motel and offered to work for a room. Actually, she went to a lot of them. All but one turned her away.”
Jake’s head spun. It was so simple. So logical. So Katya.
“We put her all over the eleven o’clock news,” Ernie explained, “and within minutes, the calls started coming in. She’s at a place called The Lucky Clover.”
“The address,” Jake rasped. “Give me the address.”
A moment later, he hung up and jogged off to find a rental car.
Katya dropped across the foot of the bed, just after one-thirty in the morning. The children took up most of the space. She curled into what little room they had left her and closed her eyes with a groan.
She was as tired as she had ever been in her life. No wonder that woman had agreed to help her, she thought. This room had been filthy. She’d cleaned it right away with water and the bar of soap she’d found in the bathroom and a couple of the towels, as much in a show of good faith as because she couldn’t stand it. It had taken forever, but she felt better for doing it.
She closed her eyes and fell into a dreamless sleep. Almost immediately, someone began pounding at the door. She came awake groggily, then was instantly frightened. The woman had changed her mind! But surely she could change it back once she showed her just how clean this room was. She got to her feet, weaving a little on her way to the door. She was exhausted.
She quickly realized that she should have looked out the window first to see who was out there. What she found on the other side stunned her.
“Mrs. Essler, are you okay?” someone shouted.
“Why did you come to New Jersey rather than wait in your hometown?” someone else demanded.
They knew her name! How did they know her name? And there seemed like thousands of them out there. People holding glaring, impossibly white lights, and others thrusting strange black tubelike things at her. And everyone was shouting, yelling, jostling each other as they tried to get closer to her.
Katya reared back, terrified. And then she saw him.
Jacob! She would have run to him, but he came pushing through from the back of the crowd. His face was red, his eyes wild.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he shouted when he reached her. “Of all the stupid, idiotic stunts to pull!”
She was so startled she couldn’t answer. He grabbed her by the shoulders and pushed her back inside the room. He turned to the people. He waved a hand over their heads.
“Thanks again, Ernie. I can take it from here.”
He slammed the door. Katya stared at him. She was shaking now. “What have you done?” she whispered. “What are you doing?”
“Rescuing you. Somebody had to,” he said roughly.
It hurt. It hurt so deeply, speared so completely through to her soul, that she almost lost her breath. Rescuing you. As though she was as helpless as Frank had always said, as though this man himself hadn’t told her she was smart. Somebody had to. He had come for her only because no one else was available.
She backed away from him. “Go away,” she said thinly.
“What?”
“I’m fine. Everything’s fine. Go away.”
“If everything’s so fine, then where’s Sam?” he demanded. Katya blanched. He cursed himself for the words as soon as they were out. “I sent him back to the settlement,” he said more quietly.
“I know.” She pulled away from him, but she was trembling. “I’ll get there somehow.” No matter that she didn’t know how. No matter that she wanted Sam now, right now, and it would take her days—oh, God, maybe even weeks—to earn her keep here and save up enough money to get home besides.
She did not want his help. Rescuing you. Somebody had to. She could not bear it.
“How?” Jake shouted. “Damn it, you’re over your head here, Katie!”
Her chin came up, though she could feel it tremble. She wasn’t helpless. And if he was going to try to tell her she was, then he could just, well... “Go to hell!” she burst out. She felt the blood rush to her face as soon as she said it.
“Huh?” Jacob’s jaw dropped.
“I’ve gotten a job,” she said, drawing herself up.
Jake felt wonder, amazement and something like pure terror wash through him. Not that she had found work. Ernie had told him that, after a fashion. She didn’t need him. It drowned all the staggering relief he had felt only a moment ago. “A job,” he repeated.
She clasped her hands together in front of her. On the bed, Levi stirred. “Yes. And I’ll thank you to keep your voice down, or you’ll wake the children.”
“Wake the children,” he echoed dazedly.
“Yes.”
“Woman, what the hell are you up to?” he roared.
It was too much, he realized. It was simply too much. The stress of finding Sam, of needing to find Sam more than he’d ever needed anything before in his life. Then the emotional hell of escaping her only to find out that she was running loose in New Jersey without a dime to her name. It was the nagging certainty he’d had since flying back here that she might survive all this better than he would.
And she had. Apparently, she had.
“Sam’s back in the settlement!” he went on irrationally. “You’ve got to go back there!”
“Yes,” she answered stiffly, coldly. “They told me that when I went to see the police.” Then something inside her cracked. “Oh, Jacob, why couldn’t you have just kept him here with you! Everything would have worked fine if you’d just kept him with you!”
It went clear through to his heart. “I found him!” he shouted. “What more do you want from me? Beyond that, he’s not my job!” And he heard Adam’s voice. Or maybe it was just the voice of his conscience. Of course not, Jake. That would require a little effort.
“He’s not a job, Jacob,” she gasped. “He’s a child.”
“Damn it, you are not going to make me feel guilty about this!” He began pacing. “Where did you get off dumping him on me in the first place?”
“Dumping him?” she cried.
“Mama?” Delilah whispered from the bed.
“Shut up, Jacob,” Katya hissed. “Shut up.” Then her voice softened, but not to speak to him. “Go back to sleep, baby,” she said more kindly to her daughter. Then she grabbed his hand and dragged him to the bathroom.
He flinched when she shut the door behind them, a fivefoot-tall hellion with fire in her eyes. Making him feel small.
He raked a hand through his hair. “Look, we need to get you out of here,” he said more reasonably.
“No.”
/> “What?”
“I’ve got to clean rooms in the morning. To pay for this one tonight.”
“I’ll pay for the room!”
“No...you...won’t, Jacob. I don’t want charity. No more!” She was going to cry. But they were tears of fury. He realized it with a feeling of bemusement. “Katie...” he began.
“You don’t understand!” she burst out.
Yeah, he thought. Yeah, he did. “Katie, feeding you and the kids isn’t going to prevent Adam from keeping ChildSearch. And I can at least afford this lousy room.”
“That doesn’t matter!”
“Then what’s the point here?” He was getting exasperated. He was getting a headache. He wanted to hold her. He shoved his hands into his jeans pockets instead. “What’s the point?” he asked again. “What don’t I understand?”
“I believed you!” she wailed.
His jaw tightened. “No. You didn’t. Because I told you I wasn’t a hero. So what did you do? You ran off into the sunset, trusting me to do the right thing for your kid!” And he should have, damn it, he should have. He had fallen a step or two short. Again.
Her chin came up. “It wasn’t your fault or your responsibility that I decided to leave,” she went on more strongly.
He stared at her.
“The important thing is that I can’t go back to the settlement,” she went on. “Not to stay. The important thing is that I don’t want to stay there anymore. I’ll get Sam, but then I’ll leave again. You told me I was smart. That’s what I believed! And...” She drew herself up. “I did it. I got my children. I came here. I got a job. I took this room on good faith and I will pay for it. And I won’t let you take that away from me. I won’t let anyone take it away from me. Nobody had to rush out and find me.”
He kept staring at her. Ah, he thought, now he understood.
“I only wanted to get my children and start over,” she admitted unsteadily. “Someplace where I could depend on me. Someplace where I could have a future. Someplace where the children can, too. I won’t have them trapped by the ordnung, Jacob. It’s not doing us—my particular family—any good. I’ve known that for so long, but oh, I was so terrified to admit it. But you made me strong.”