Plain Refuge Page 4

  Matthew was initially suspicious, but he tried the strange peanut butter and grinned his approval, exposing the gaps where he’d lost baby teeth. Before she knew it, lunch was over and they were upstairs, ushered into a typically bare room with two twin beds. Sarah helped Rebecca out of her clothes, drew the curtains and left them to lay their aching bodies down to rest.

  Safe, Rebecca thought, and then sleep claimed her.

  * * *

  DANIEL THOUGHT OF the strange woman on Sunday, and even drove by Reuben Gingerich’s house where church was being held. The every-other-Sunday Amish services were held in homes or barns, the privilege of hosting it rotating among the families in each church district. A dozen or more buggies lined the fence at the top of the lane. The horses stood hipshot and lazy in the shade from a grove of old black walnut trees that Daniel suspected were quite profitable for Reuben.

  Daniel usually attended a service at the Congregational Church in Hadburg, which he had joined on his return to Henness County. The occasional Sundays he missed were understood as part of his job. Sometimes that was even true. Sometimes, he parked out of sight and walked across a field to where he could hear the Amish singing hymns, so much a part of his childhood. He never went near enough to a barn or house to chance being seen or to hear the sermons, but the singing quieted something in him even as it reawakened his sense of loss.

  It was very different from hymns sung in the Congregational and Baptist churches in town. All Amish hymns came from the Ausbund, a thick book passed down through many generations. It contained only the words, no musical scores. The singing was slow, often mournful, the voices blending together into one. An Amish would say, “One with God.”

  The familiar hymns sharpened Daniel’s emotions. Sorrow seemed strongest—or perhaps regret was a better word to describe the jagged feeling in his chest. And yet...he wouldn’t go back if he could. He still believed he had made the right decision. He was where he belonged, protecting his people but separate from them. Daniel only wished his choice hadn’t left him alone, however many friends he made, belonging neither here nor there.

  Annoyed with his self-pity, he shook his head and turned his back on the large red barn, where the multitude of voices had fallen silent. He walked back to his squad car and drove away. He always tried to be present when the fellowship meal broke up. Most locals were good about keeping watch for the slow buggies and Amish on foot, but despite all warnings tourists still drove too fast. They didn’t understand how quickly a car could close in on a buggy pulled by a trotting horse. Car-and-buggy accidents were too often tragic. He and his deputies dreaded being called to the site of one.

  Unfortunately, he couldn’t be everywhere. Three separate church districts fell completely within this county, which meant services being held at three separate homes on any given Sunday. He had assigned two deputies to patrol today while he did the same, the best he could manage given limited resources. With fewer than ten thousand people in the county, Daniel’s entire department consisted of himself, a sergeant and five deputies, as well as two administrative assistants who were also dispatchers.

  The two largest cities in Henness County, including Byrum, the county seat, had their own police departments.

  Amish businesses might be in town, but the people rarely lived within city limits, so they were, with few exceptions, in his care. A wry smile accompanied the thought. They believed they were in God’s care, not his. He was careful not to mention his alternate opinion on the matter in the hearing of anyone Amish.

  The cars he saw as he patrolled were likely driven by tourists. Amish businesses and roadside stands were closed on Sundays, but the idea was incomprehensible to the typical American who came to sightsee.

  Daniel found himself thinking about the Grabers’ guests, as he had more often than he should in the three days since their arrival. They would have been in the barn, the boy still young enough to sit beside his mother on a bench on the women’s side. He wondered if Rebecca had been able to surrender herself wholeheartedly to God today, or whether she held some anger or fear in reserve. However good their intentions, Amish struggled with negative emotions like everyone else. Nonetheless, her feelings toward whoever had hurt her would be far more charitable than his, he could pretty well guarantee.

  Tomorrow, he decided, wasn’t too soon to stop by the Graber farm and ask after their visiting family.

  He refused to question why he was so eager to do so.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “THEY’RE AWFULLY BIG,” Matthew said, standing behind the board fence and well back from the row of Percheron horses.

  Rebecca stroked the cheek of the nearest gelding, which whuffled a response that startled a giggle out of her, one that made her wince as her swollen cheek protested. “They’re friendly,” she said. “From birth, Onkel Samuel and cousin Mose groom them and feed them and pick up their feet, so they like being around people. Didn’t you see these four pulling a plow yesterday? That was part of their training, to work as a team. I think they will be ready for a new home soon.” The horse she was petting nudged her for more attention, and she added, “They can smell better than we can, so they know we have carrots.”

  “They really like carrots?” her son said dubiously. He didn’t mind carrot sticks, but detested cooked carrots. His pickiness where food was concerned had already brought surprise from her family here, where children weren’t indulged in the same way they were in the outside world.

  “A carrot is like a cookie to a horse,” Rebecca said firmly. “Watch.”

  She broke off a chunk and held it on the palm of her hand. The horse she’d been petting promptly lipped it up and crunched with such enthusiasm that saliva and flecks of carrot flew.

  Matthew laughed.

  She had just persuaded him to feed a piece of carrot to another of the horses when she heard a car engine followed by the sound of tires crunching on gravel. There were innocent reasons for a car to be driving down this quiet road, even if the homes on it were all Amish owned, but she couldn’t control her spike of anxiety. She turned and saw the green-and-white SUV with a rack of lights on the roof slow and turn into the lane leading to her aunt and uncle’s home. It would pass right by her and Matthew. Rebecca had no doubt who the driver was.

  Turning her back on the police car, she cupped Matthew’s hand and helped him hold it out. He squeaked in alarm when lips brushed his palm, then laughed in delight when the carrot vanished.

  “It tickled!”

  The police vehicle rolled to a stop right behind them. A door slammed, and she and Matthew both turned to face Daniel Byler, who strolled around the front bumper and joined them.

  “These are beauties,” he said in a voice that was just a little gravelly. “Your uncle raises the handsomest draft horses I’ve ever seen.”

  She smiled despite her tension. “Say that to him, and he would then tell you about three other Amish men he knows who raise horses just as fine. And he would also admonish you for admiring them for their looks, when it is strength and willingness and heart that truly matter.”

  His chuckle was a little rough, too. “You’re right, he would. Although I have no doubt he is willing to discuss desirable conformation with buyers.”

  “An entirely different thing from calling them beautiful,” she said, trying to repress another smile.

  “Why shouldn’t they be beautiful?” Matt burst out. “Aren’t horses s’posed to be—”

  “Sheriff Byler is teasing,” she said hastily, seeing his raised eyebrow. “And you know Onkel Samuel is right. These will be working horses. A horse pulling a plow could be mud brown and have a bump in the middle of his forehead and mismatched eyes, one blue and one brown—”

  “Like that dog we saw!” he said excitedly.

  “Yep.” Uh-oh. “Ja,” she said hastily. “Remember how funny-looking he was?
But if the horse was strong and did the job, no one would mind how he looks.”

  “Oh.” Matthew frowned, then nodded. “Can I have another carrot?”

  The sheriff stayed at their side as they proffered, piece by piece, all the carrots they’d brought. Rebecca was very careful to guide their minimal conversation so that Matthew wouldn’t have a chance to say anything else so un-Amish.

  Sheriff Byler offered them a ride up to the house, which she would have refused except for Matthew’s excitement. She held him on her lap in the front seat. The sheriff showed him how to turn on the siren and flashing lights.

  Matthew reached out. “Can we...?”

  “No,” she said quickly. “Think how it would frighten the horses.”

  “Oh.” He subsided. “I guess it would.”

  He was happy when a voice came over the radio. A deputy reported, using code that the sheriff translated, that he’d pulled over a motorist for speeding.

  Byler’s mouth was tight, and she knew why. Speeding was always dangerous, and particularly on narrow country roads shared by horse-and-buggy travelers.

  At the house, she opened the door and let Matthew out first. Already used to the dogs, he giggled to find them waiting. “Go tell Aenti Emma or Grossmammi that Sheriff Byler is here. I’m sure he would like coffee or one of those sticky buns I saw going in the oven.”

  Accompanied by Onkel Samuel’s dogs, Matthew raced for the house while the sheriff laughed. “You know your aunt’s sticky buns are famous in these parts. She bakes enough so the café in Hadburg can sell them.”

  “Ja,” Rebecca said, striving for the faint accent she heard in the speech of local Amish. “For sure, I know my cousin Sarah drove to town this morning to deliver some.”

  Matthew had wanted to go, but Rebecca wasn’t ready to let him out of her sight. The plain clothing wasn’t enough of a disguise. His hair was too short to resemble a typical Amish boy’s bowl cut. His new, wide-brimmed straw hat didn’t hide his face the way a bonnet did hers, and that was when he managed to keep it on his head. And if he saw his father...

  Who couldn’t possibly have found them yet, she kept reminding herself, for what good that did.

  “You seem to move carefully,” the sheriff said, before she could leave him. “Are you healing?” Turning toward her, he laid his forearm casually on the steering wheel.

  “Yes, I am mostly sore.”

  “Mostly?”

  Being this close to him unnerved her. She was too conscious of him in a short-sleeved uniform. His forearms were strong and tan, dusted with bronze hair tipped with gold. She could see the hint of darker stubble on an angular jaw and noticed the thick, short lashes and the wave in his hair. His eyes were a penetrating dark blue. To evade them, she lowered her gaze, which meant she was looking at powerful thighs. Damn it.

  “I have bruises,” she admitted after a moment. “And two cracked ribs. They hurt the most.”

  He frowned. “You shouldn’t lift your son.”

  “My middle—” she laid a hand over her stomach “—is wrapped for protection. Of course I must pick him up.”

  He made a grumbly sound she took for disagreement, but said, “What happened?”

  Careful. “I stepped out in the street—” She cut herself off before she finished the sentence. The last thing she could admit was that she’d been about to get in her car. “I thought I had looked for traffic, but afterward I was confused, so I’m not sure. A car came fast and hit me. I think I was jumping out of the way, but it still lifted me in the air. I went over the hood and banged into a car coming the other way. That driver stopped to help me, but not the one who hit me.”

  “A hit-and-run.”

  “Ja, that’s what the police called it. No one saw the license plate, so there was not much they could do.”

  As she had lain there waiting for an ambulance, she’d berated herself. She should have fled after the shooting. Instead, because Tim had sounded shocked about what had happened when she called him, she had given him a couple days to talk to “other people”—his vague reference. Make sure there was no repetition. Instead, he had called her back the next day to say tensely, “You’ve got to give those things back, Rebecca. You’ll be okay if you do. I swear.”

  Not believing that for a second, she had packed and been ready to run as soon as she picked Matthew up at day care. That was where she’d been heading when she was hit.

  This time, she hadn’t been surprised when her phone rang. The message conveyed was even shorter: “Ignoring my last call, not so smart. Lucky for us, you have a weakness.”

  Matthew. Dear God. All she could think to do was take him and hide.

  Now Sheriff Byler watched her in a way that made her suspect he knew there was more to her story, but he only said, “I’m surprised you chose to travel when you were hurt.”

  “I wanted to go away,” she said simply—and truthfully. “Here it is quiet. Not so busy.”

  “Where are you from?” he asked, as if making conversation. She knew better and had been prepared.

  “Pennsylvania. There, we have so many tourists.” She shook her head. “I was scared every time I crossed a street or heard a car coming up behind my buggy.”

  A twitch of his expressive eyebrows made her realize her mistake.

  “You think I am not trusting in God.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “I do in my head,” she explained, “but my heart still races and my hands shake.”

  “Post-traumatic stress,” he said quietly.

  She pretended to look puzzled.

  “Your body reacts without waiting for permission from you. It takes time for that kind of response to go away.”

  She shivered. “Ja.”

  He laid a big hand over hers. “You’re cold.”

  Her fingers curled into her palms and she quickly withdrew from him. “My hands and feet are always cold.”

  A smile crinkled the skin beside his eyes. “Even in August here in Missouri? Teach me your trick.”

  She wanted to laugh. Instead, she said shyly, “There is no trick. It’s fine in summer, not so good in winter.”

  “No.” His gaze rested on her face a moment longer. Then he reached for his door handle. “We should go in. I see your uncle coming from the barn.”

  Oh, heavens—everyone in the house was probably peeking out the window by now.

  “Ja, you are right.” She leaped out faster than she ought to have and slammed the door. “I should have been helping to cook, not sitting here like a lump.”

  Walking beside her, the sheriff said, “I suspect your family wants you to rest until you don’t hurt anymore before you dive into chores.”

  “That doesn’t mean I have to listen to them. It is so kind of them to take us in.”

  Another mistake—he must know that visiting was a favorite pastime for the Amish, who loved having family even for extended stays.

  But Sheriff Byler only glanced sidelong at her before remarking, as if at random, “It occurs to me your last name isn’t Graber.”

  Her mind stuttered in panic. She couldn’t admit to being divorced. The Amish didn’t divorce. Widowed. She would be widowed, except then she would have retained her husband’s last name. And she’d never heard of anyone among the Amish with a last name of Gregory.

  Lie? But Matthew might give her away. Oh, no—if he ever told anyone his last name was Gregory, they were in trouble.

  “I... No,” she said.

  The front door opened just as Onkel Samuel reached them, his long strides eating up the ground. Amid the greetings, Rebecca was able to slip into the house and take Matthew to the bathroom to wash his hands. Heart still thudding, she realized how important it was that she avoid giving Sheriff Daniel Byler any more chances to corner her.
She’d made too many slips already. He wasn’t Amish, of course, but she suspected he knew the citizens of his county well enough to notice anomalies in her speech or behavior. And he was too interested in her.

  Once back in the kitchen, she took a seat at the far end of the farmhouse table, staying silent as her uncle talked with the sheriff about local happenings, including an upcoming street fair and auction in Hadburg to raise money for the volunteer fire department. She tensed, knowing everyone would go. People would comment if she and Matthew didn’t.

  When Sheriff Byler finally rose to leave, her uncle politely standing to show him out, Rebecca only joined the others in murmuring “Goodbye.”

  She nudged her son, who said, “I liked looking at your police car,” which was only polite. That was the moment when Rebecca realized in horror that they had been speaking in English the entire time. Of course they had been. But an Amish boy Matthew’s age shouldn’t be fluent in English.

  Frantically trying to think of an excuse if the sheriff ever asked, Rebecca didn’t let herself meet those dark blue eyes, and she stayed seated until he was gone. Once she heard the engine, she let Matthew run outside.

  Onkel Samuel came back to sit across the table from her. “Curious about you, he is.”

  She nodded. “I think that’s why he came by this morning.”

  “Ja, that is so.” Lines in his forehead deepened. “I didn’t tell you, but after you got off the bus, he asked about your face.”

  Her aenti Emma and Grossmammi bustled in the background and didn’t contribute to the conversation.

  “I knew he’d seen my bruises,” Rebecca said. “When we were sitting in his car, he asked how it happened. I made it sound like an accident, but told him the driver didn’t stop and the police hadn’t been able to find him.”

  His face relaxed. “That is good. There was no need to lie.”