As men in tactical gear streamed in around him from every corner of the building, Adam recognized many faces as those of his own team, as well as several more men sent as reinforcements.
Vic’s weapon had already been dropped, but Little Joe and the other thugs behind him quickly lowered their guns, letting them clatter to the cement floor. Their smirks turned to grimaces as they raised their hands in defeat.
Adam slowly unclenched his fists as his heart rate began to slow to a more normal pace.
“Troyer, we got them on the outside, too. Good work, son.” Sheriff Moore followed the others in as another ICE agent took up a position to protect the door.
It was over. There wasn’t success with every case, but this one was ending well. Adam closed his eyes as tension flowed from his body.
“Can we get some help over here, please?” Timothy rushed to Katie’s side and dropped to his knees.
His call drew Adam’s attention. It had barely been a couple of seconds since the team had arrived, but his heart raced anew with the sight of Katie on the ground. Her chest still rose and fell with breath as two paramedics arrived with a stretcher. He breathed easier to see that sign of life. But as he stepped toward her, eager to see to her care and well-being, the sheriff caught his arm.
“Your team needs you.” He nodded toward the folding table, where a couple of special agents were looking through Vic’s documents.
Adam looked at his fellow agents and then back at Katie as she was lifted onto the gurney. Timothy held her hand as the paramedics began their assessment. Adam’s abdomen twisted within him. Shouldn’t he be the one holding her hand?
“Need to do your job first, son. Leave the woman to her brother.” The sheriff’s voice was low but firm with his admonishment.
His brow pulled down in concentration, Adam watched a paramedic elevate Katie’s feet with a pillow and cover her with an emergency blanket. The sheriff was right. Adam needed to do his duty and complete his mission. Katie was being cared for, and Adam’s first obligation was to ICE and his team.
But all he wanted in that moment was to be by her side. He wanted to forget about the job and just be with her, secure her health and safety, comfort her as she returned to consciousness.
He forced himself to turn away from her and trudge toward his team as they began to process evidence. But one thought remained in the back of his mind.
What job could he do in which he wouldn’t have to leave her again?
* * *
Katie’s eyelashes fluttered against her cheeks like butterfly wings on her skin. A dull throb began to pulse in her head with the effort it seemed to take to open her eyelids. She forced them open a fraction of an inch, but bright light made her drop them closed again. With a wiggle of her hands, she tested the strength of her wrists. She tried to lift a hand to brush some hair off her forehead, but she quickly dropped it to the bed again for lack of strength. As she began a physical inventory of aches and pains, the wiggle of her feet brought a sudden jolt of pain to her leg.
Her gunshot wound. It all came back in a rush. She wiggled her wrists again to find that the handcuffs were gone. The mattress was soft beneath her, so she wasn’t on the hard floor of the sawmill any longer. A soft blanket comforted her. Her heart leapt within her as she remembered everything that had happened and realized she was safe.
Katie steeled her nerves for the harsh white light. Slowly she forced her eyes open once more. A white ceiling overhead came into view, although it was fuzzy. She cut her eyes to the side, and a face appeared in her vision.
“Timothy.” Her throat scratched as she wobbled out the name.
Her brother grasped her hand. “Do not move. I think you will hurt less if you stay still.”
“Ambulance?” She looked around to see small cabinets of supplies and a kind-looking woman on her other side.
“Jah, you are in the ambulance. And you will be fine...eventually.”
“Mrs. Schwartz? Or may I call you Katie?” The paramedic smiled at her with a comforting warmth and held a cup with a bendable straw toward her.
Katie sipped the cool water and let it soothe her throat before she answered. “Jah, call me Katie.”
The paramedic set the cup on a small counter. “How do you feel?”
“Like I have been through the wringer.”
The woman removed her protective glasses. “A bullet grazed your leg and reopened your wound, so you probably feel some aching. I’ve given you something for your pain.” She gestured toward an intravenous bag hanging from the ceiling of the vehicle. “You had passed out from shock before we arrived, but I believe you’ll have a full recovery.”
“Danki for taking care of me.” Katie also appreciated that the paramedic spoke in language she could understand, not her medical jargon.
“Thank your brother. He’s stayed by your side the entire time.”
She rolled her head to look back at Timothy. “Is it all over, then?”
He smiled at her. “Jah, the bad men are all in custody. There are so many law enforcement officers in there, it makes my head spin. Ach, it is an evil world we live in.”
“There has always been evil, mein bruder, even back to the Garden of Eden. Please. We are together again. Let us dwell on that right now.” She squeezed his hand, savoring his presence.
“But this is all my fault. I am why you became involved in this mess. I am why you are in this ambulance right now.” He cast his gaze down at the floor.
“Nein, it is not your fault. It was out of your control. Besides, it is done now, for sure and for certain.” Tears trickled from the corners of her eyes and dropped to the sheet that covered the cot.
It thrilled her that Timothy was safe and out of danger now, and there with her. But what about Adam? Her heart thumped and bumped as she looked about for him from her limited view on the gurney. Did he survive? Where was he? Was he alive and well or in a body bag?
Tightening her abdominal muscles, she strained to sit up, the line from the IV bag pulling on her arm.
The paramedic quickly and gently pushed her back down. “You need to lie still a bit longer. And soon we’ll transport you to the hospital. You’re going this time. No arguments.”
The hospital? She couldn’t, not without finding out about Adam. “But what about...? I mean, where is...” She slumped back into the cot and picked at the blanket that covered her. Was she betraying her bruder, and even her Amish faith, with her concern for Adam? Adam was an Englischer. Jah, over the past few days he had seemed to soften toward the Amish. Had even kissed her, a wunderbar kiss that had ferhoodled her, for sure and for certain. But now that the danger was done, would he change his mind? Were his words of care and concern only uttered because of the danger of the moment?
The paramedic tapped her arm, and Katie looked up into her warm and understanding gaze. The woman inclined her head toward the open back door. Adam stood there, gazing at her, his look intense and concentrated.
And suddenly, with his presence, all was right with her world.
Timothy cleared his throat next to Katie and rose from his stool. “I will go see what more I can do for the sheriff.”
After he squeezed through the door, Timothy shook Adam’s hand. “Danki. We would never have survived this without your help and protection. Danki especially for taking care of Katie.” Her brother’s voice broke as he said her name.
As Timothy walked back toward the sawmill, Adam hopped into the ambulance with her.
Tears pooled in her eyes, but she did not care. This man had seen her at her worst and had still taken care of her. “You are hurt?”
“Not really. Just a scratch. I was treated in a second ambulance, and it’ll be fine.” His gaze relaxed, and little lines crinkled at the edges of his soft brown eyes. “I wanted to check on you.”
Katie glanced back at the paramedic to see if she would ans
wer, but the woman had turned her back on them and seemed to be busy organizing a small cabinet. “I am told that I will be fine, but I have to go to the hospital this time.”
“Yes, and I’ll go with you.” With no apparent thought for the presence of the paramedic, Adam drew her into his arms, being mindful of the IV. “I know we’ve only spent a few days together, and the circumstances have been extreme.”
“Jah.” The interior of the ambulance swirled around her, but it was not a medical condition this time. Any lingering sense of cold she had had disappeared with his arms around her.
“But I think you should know that I’m falling in love with you.”
* * *
Even with a small bandage on her forehead, her dark blond hair mussed and her prayer kapp askew, she was beautiful. Adam could look at her face for the rest of his life.
Whoa, really?
He scrubbed a hand through his hair, not caring that that nervous gesture would dishevel him even more. This lovely creature had been with him in the most dire of circumstances in the past few days, and she had seen him through thick and thin.
Yes, really.
It only took a moment of remembrance of the strength that she had exhibited, her loving interactions with her twins and her care for him even when she had been in danger. He knew.
How could he voice those emotions? He wasn’t sure he had the strength or the presence of mind just then. A lot had happened over the past days that he would need to analyze and process. But there was something he could say.
Should he ask the paramedic to leave? But did it matter if she had heard? It was no secret, certainly not now, that he cared for this lovely Amish woman. And after that night’s pulse-racing danger and the scare of losing Katie, he was certain. “Katie, this might seem sudden to you. But God has been at work in me, and I want to join the Amish church. To slow down. To worship and praise God within the community of believers.” He wanted to wake up every morning with her. To raise a family of a dozen children. To get his hands dirty growing crops or raising chickens or whatever it was he would do to support a family. He could whittle. Maybe he could develop those woodworking skills into an occupation.
Katie looked down at the blanket, sending his heart into a tailspin. What if she didn’t return his affection, his love? What if he had to leave that ambulance alone and without hope? Would he be able to return to the life he had considered normal just a few short days ago?
“I’m sorry it isn’t romantic.” His voice was husky, but he couldn’t help the emotion swelling within him. A thousand times it had been on his lips to tell her that he was falling in love with her. Why hadn’t he? And now, would it be too late?
She looked up at him, her dark blue eyes luminous and—could he dare to hope?—expectant.
In her silence, the clink and clatter of bins and supplies sounded around them. He didn’t care. He wasn’t a man of many words, but those particular words said everything he was trying to communicate, so he repeated them. “I love God, and I love you.”
Slowly, like the sun sending out its first rays in the morning to warm the earth, a smile radiated across her face. “Wherever we are together, that is where I want to be. I love you, too, Adam. But please, no more ambulances.”
EPILOGUE
Crisp, colorful leaves had crunched under Katie’s feet that morning as she and the twins left the house for the service on Preaching Sunday. The autumn was becoming so chilly that she would soon have to pull their black winter capes out of the attic.
Now warmth and wonderful fall aromas surrounded her as she stood in the serving line at Jed and Sarah’s house, dishing out pieces of pie as the men passed by. Adam stepped through, accepting a piece of raspberry pie and looking handsome in his blue shirt and homespun pants. He smiled at her with a mischievous look twinkling in his eyes.
His baptism into the Amish church had been a beautiful event, and Katie had had to dab at her eyes several times. It was a wunderbar thing when a person turned from a focus on the world and sought a focus on the Lord, accepting a life of simplicity in communion with other like-minded believers.
After the men were seated at long tables outside, an arrangement that wouldn’t last too much longer as the days turned chillier, the women filled their plates. Katie was halfway through her piece of pineapple upside-down cake and almost ready to jump up to refill coffee cups when Adam snuck up behind her.
“May I steal you away for a few minutes?” His voice was low in her ear and tickled the back of her neck.
She nodded and stood. The other women at the table smiled at Adam and then at her and then back at Adam. These past few months, Adam had taken baptismal classes, become better acquainted with the men in the community, met with the bishop and spent plenty of time with her. He had also been putting his whittling skills to good use by working closely with Timothy to learn woodworking. Soon he would make and sell Amish furniture. The district had accepted him without hesitation and had not failed to notice the growing romance between them.
Adam led her past the tables of church members eating. Girls were jumping rope in the lane, and some bare-footed boys were throwing a ball back and forth. Timothy waved in greeting from where he stood, talking to the bishop in what looked to be an easy and casual conversation. Vibrant mums of orange and yellow and purple graced the flower beds, the color so vivid that it seemed like the mums were competing with the oranges and reds and golds of the surrounding trees. Leaves crunched under their boots as they meandered toward the barn.
They left the crowd behind, and Adam held the branches of a weeping willow to the side to allow Katie to pass ahead of him into the enclosed space inside the drooping leaves. As the sun shone through the leaves, a golden glow surrounded them.
She leaned against the tree’s trunk. “It was a beautiful service, jah?”
“Jah.” He smiled at his own use of the Pennsylvania German. “It is wunderbar to sing from the Ausbund and use it as it is intended. Not for decoding a secret message.”
“Definitely.” She returned the smile. “And you are pleased with your decision to join the Amish church?”
“I always thought the only way I could change the world was to catch the bad guys and put evil behind bars. But you helped me to see that I can have an impact on the world from inside the Amish church, by raising a good family and keeping the simple ways.”
“Jah, family is important.” Through the branches, she glimpsed the green shirt of her brother. “That is why I had to get mein bruder back.”
“He seems quite content to be back in the fold, and his business is going well. I also saw him making eyes at the young lady serving the casseroles this afternoon.”
Katie had noticed that, as well. Her brother would probably be courting soon, now that life was getting back to normal. “What about the trial coming up?”
“Well, Vic and Little Joe and the others are still behind bars, and they’ll stay there until they are tried. So all is safe and well. Considering the amount of evidence against them, I don’t doubt they will be convicted. The only real question is how long they’ll serve.”
“Will you attend the trial? What did the bishop say?” Katie hugged her arms around her middle at the idea of Adam in the courtroom. The Amish did not, as a rule, become involved in legal proceedings, but perhaps there wasn’t any other option in this situation.
“I’ll have to testify since I’m an eyewitness. The bishop has given me permission to don my ICE uniform one more time for the trial. If I’m there testifying in my capacity as an ICE agent during those events, then the lawyer and jury will expect me to dress the part. I don’t want to cast doubt on my testimony or endanger the chances of a proper sentence by appearing in my Amish clothes.”
“Jah, I understand that.”
“That’s over. Let’s not talk about those events anymore.” The twinkle reappeared in his light brown
eyes, the gold specks nearly shining. He smiled wide and ran his hands down her arms, grasping both hands in his.
Katie’s heart beat harder as she let him hold her hands. It seemed there was only one other thing he might want to talk about, considering the nervousness mixed with anticipation that spread across his smile, but she did not want to assume what he was feeling and thinking.
He leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead. “I don’t have a lot to offer. I’m still learning the business of making furniture. But I’m a hard worker, and I trust in Gott to provide and answer prayer. What I can give you is my love, my affection, my devotion, for as long as we both shall live.”
Her throat tightened at those words, and tears of joy stung her eyes. As long as we both shall live?
Adam squeezed her hands. “Katie, will you marry me?”
A tear trickled down her cheek unbidden. “Jah, I will. For sure and for certain.”
He leaned in again, but this time he touched his lips to hers, a sealing of their commitment to each other. His lips were soft and warm, and she wanted him to linger there forever.
With a shout, the twins parted the branches and ran in to grab Katie’s legs. Adam pulled back but not before he whispered in her ear, “We’ll continue this later.”
Her heart thrilled at the promise. The twins each reached their arms around her waist, and Adam pulled them all into his embrace. Another tear of joy escaped, and her heart felt as if it would burst. Gott was blessing her with family again.
* * *
If you enjoyed this story, look for Amish Country Amnesia by Meghan Carver from Love Inspired Suspense.
Keep reading for an excerpt from Risky Return by Virginia Vaughan.
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