A Time To Heal (18 page)

He watched a blush creep up her cheeks. It was like watching a rose bloom, he thought. She had the most amazing skin.Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, he dropped his hand and began walking toward the house. “Why are you here anyway? Were you invited for supper?”

“
Nee.
I promised to come over and help Jenny with something.I'm early.”

Joshua was quiet at the table, but he tended to be sometimes.Jenny asked him something quietly and touched his forehead with the back of her hand, and he shook his head. Illness was a mother's universal answer for why a boy was being quiet or not eating much, he thought.

Chris felt guilty as he watched Joshua pushing the food around on his plate with his fork. He decided he should apologize when he got a chance and when he wouldn't be overheard.He hadn't expected that even asking him if he'd seen the book would upset him—but he should have remembered how sensitive he was.

Then, too, he hadn't thought about how different a child here might be from the ones he knew in the
Englisch
world. He doubted any of them would have reacted in the same way.

After supper, the children asked to be excused to play a game upstairs and Jenny nodded. The four adults were enjoying a second cup of coffee when there was a knock on the front door.

Matthew answered it, and when he returned, he looked at Hannah. “Bishop Miller's here to see you.”

“Me?” Surprised, she got to her feet and followed him into the other room.

Jenny looked at Chris and shrugged. “Another slice of pie?” she asked him.

Chris shook his head. The piece he'd eaten was lying in his stomach like a cold stone.

“I don't believe this!” Hannah cried.

Jenny and Chris exchanged a look.

“Since when do you pay attention to anonymous notes? It's probably that old busybody Josiah and you know it! I did nothing wrong!”

There was a murmur of voices, Matthew soothing her and Bishop Miller saying something Chris couldn't distinguish.

Then Hannah stomped into the kitchen, her arms folded across her chest. Her eyes were flashing and two bright spots of color bloomed on her cheeks.

“I'm sorry, Jenny, but I can't stay. Can I help you with that proofreading tomorrow?”

“Sure, but what's the matter?”

Hannah glanced at the doorway. “Matthew can tell you later.”

He came back into the room. “He's gone.”

“Good!”

“Hannah! He wasn't trying to upset you.”

“Well, imagine the job he'd do if he were trying,” she said with a sniff.

“He just wanted you to be aware that your actions could be misconstrued, that's all.”

“That's all? You wouldn't have appreciated that sort of thing and you know it.”

Their eyes locked and Chris wondered who'd back down first. Hannah was one strong-willed woman.

“He's just trying to protect your reputation.”

“I can protect my own reputation.”

Matthew glanced at Chris, then back at his sister. He sighed.“Well, I'm sure we won't be hearing any more about this.”

Chris put down his coffee. “Matthew, does this have something to do with me?”

When the other man reddened, Chris figured he'd correctly interpreted his look.

“Someone wrote the bishop a note saying Hannah had behaved inappropriately with you the other night.”

Hannah threw herself into a chair. “It's absurd paying attention to an anonymous note. It's just cowardly. A person should have the courage to confront me or be quiet.”

Chris realized that Matthew and Jenny were watching him.

“I'm sorry for causing you any embarrassment,” he said, getting up. “I truly didn't think when I came over to check on Daisy.”

“It's
allrecht,”
Hannah muttered. “You were just trying to be helpful. I'm the one who should have insisted that you go.” She looked up at him. “But I enjoyed the company.”

He sat again. “I don't understand why it's okay for a woman to sit by herself at night in a barn. What about her safety? I don't care what anyone says about some place being safe, you just never know what could happen.”

He stopped. No one knew better than he what bad things could happen to a woman … he reminded himself that this wasn't that situation. And Hannah was staring at him strangely.

“The thing is, if a man's sitting there talking to her and nothing inappropriate is going on—well, suddenly it's someone else's business?” He blew out a frustrated breath.

Chris couldn't help but notice that Matthew and Jenny exchanged a look.

“It's just so insulting,” Hannah said, still upset. “If I haven't proven that I'm a woman who knows how to behave by now, what is the point?”

“She's right,” Jenny said. “I know I'm new to the community, but it seems to me that the reputation of being a woman of virtue should protect you from spurious letters from anonymous senders.”

“Spurious?” Matthew questioned.

When she opened her mouth to explain, he laughed and held up his hands.

“I'm sorry, I couldn't help teasing. You have an amazing vocabulary.”

She swatted him with the dish towel. “Well, I should, considering my occupation.”

Hannah stood and hugged Jenny, then her brother. “I'm going home. I'll see you tomorrow to help you with the proofreading, Jenny.”

“Of course.”

“I'll walk you home,” Chris said.

“There's no need—” Hannah began.

Chris gave her “the look” and she subsided.

After all, women weren't the only ones who could use it.

“Does this sort of thing happen often?”

Hannah glanced at Chris as they walked to her house, the flashlight she carried beaming a path for them. “The visit from the bishop?”

She shrugged. “Not often. After all, we know the
Ordnung,
the rules of conduct. We've been taught it since we were children.Mostly, our church leaders are there for us when we seek spiritual advice.”

“It's awfully dark out tonight.”

“I believe that's why they call it night,” she told him.

“Very funny.”

“Don't worry, I'll protect you if anything jumps out of the woods,” Hannah teased.

“Maybe it's easier not to fear if you don't know of all the bad things in the world.”

“We are a community that wishes to be apart, but it doesn't mean that we're not aware of the 'bad things' as you call them.We're not immune to accidents or—what is the expression? Things that go bump in the night.”

He chuckled. “Yes, that's the expression.”

They reached the steps leading up to her house.

“Wait,” he said when she started to ascend the steps.

She turned and looked at him.

“I'm sorry if my actions caused a problem for you,” he told her quietly.

“Don't worry about it. It's probably just cranky Josiah who sent it. He had a fuss when Jenny came here.”

“He did?”

She nodded. “He eventually changed his mind. Well, that's actually going a little too far. He's … come to accept that she's not here to draw media attention to the community just because she is a journalist.”

“Then why make a fuss about you?” Chris said suddenly.“I'm the outsider. Why didn't the letter-writer complain about me?”

“I'm sorry, I'm not following you.”

He repeated what he'd said and she shook her head. “I don't know. But it's not worth spending any more time or emotion on it. Don't
you
worry about it, either.”

“Here,” she said, handing him the flashlight “You can borrow this so you can walk back.”

She stood on the porch watching the shining beam light his way and wished that she could take them back to the evening when they sat up talking all night.

S
everal days after the fire, Chris looked up from his work to see Jenny waving at Matthew to come in from the field.

Out of curiosity, he watched them talking in the distance, and it seemed to be about something serious. Then the two of them went into the house.

The next time Chris looked up, Matthew was approaching him. He looked even more serious than usual and he glanced briefly at Chris, then away as he called to one of the men nearby.

“He'll take over for you. I need to talk to you for a minute.”

Chris turned over the reins of the horses to Sam. He could tell something big was bothering Matthew.

“I didn't give him the book.”

Matthew stopped and turned to look at him. “Book?”

Chris realized that he didn't know. Now what could he say?

“Joshua,” he said finally. “He wanted to read a book I'm reading, and I said I'd have to ask you because it's about soldiers.When the book disappeared I thought he'd borrowed it.”

Matthew frowned. “Joshua wouldn't take something without permission.”

“I don't think so either,” Chris said quickly. “When it went missing, I asked him if he borrowed it because I was concerned that you and Jenny might get mad at me if he read it without permission. I know that such things are against your beliefs.”

“Jenny and I don't try to hide things that are
Englisch
from our
kinner.
But no, I'd rather he didn't get exposed to adult books about such subjects until he was older.”

He began walking again. “But that's not why I came to get you in the middle of our workday.”

They rounded the house and Chris saw a car parked in the drive, one with the official county insignia. A man sat on the porch, one who looked familiar. Jenny was serving him coffee and a plate of cookies. She left a carafe of coffee and cups for Matthew and Chris.

It took a little while but Chris remembered when he'd seen the man—he was the fire investigator. Who could forget anything or anyone from the day the barn had burst into flames and a man had been hurt. Eli was still recovering from his burns and not back to work.

They acknowledged each other and the three men sat down in chairs on the porch.

“I'll get right to the point,” the investigator said. “Preliminary reports show that the fire in Mr. Bontrager's barn was deliberately set.”

Chris stared at him, then Matthew. “You're kidding!”

“I wish I was kidding,” said the man whose ID badge identified him as Jim Killinger. “The engine you worked on that day had an accelerant in it.”

“It would have had some gas to make it run—” Chris began.

“This was an unusual type of accelerant, not gas.”

“Unusual how?”

Killinger looked at Matthew, then at Chris. “It's used by the military.”

“I see,” Chris said slowly. His heart started beating faster, and he felt sweat trickle down his back despite the coolness of the day. “So that's why you wanted to talk to me … because I'm former military?”

The fire marshal just looked at him.

Chris raised his hands. “I don't know where you think I'd get something like that. I've been in a veteran's hospital for the past year. You can verify that.”

“Already done.”

“I wouldn't do this to you,” Chris told Matthew. “Why would I do this to you?”

“He told me that,” Killinger said. “And after I did some of my own research on you, I'm inclined to believe he's right.”

“Research? What kind of research?”

“I just looked up your military record.”

Killinger stood. “I'll take another look around the barn. You haven't let anyone poke around in there, have you?”

Matthew shook his head. “We've just done some boarding up until we're finished harvesting. We're using Phoebe's barn to board the horses.”

“I'll be in touch.” With a nod, the other man left them.

Jenny opened the door and stuck her head out. “Finished out here? Why not break for dinner before you go back out there?”

Matthew hesitated, and then he nodded. “Sounds good. It'll give me a chance to settle down.”

Chris stood. “I think I'll skip it if you don't mind.”

“I knew you'd be upset,” she told him. “But Matthew and I told him there's no way you'd do something like that.”

“Thanks. I appreciate that. But I'm not hungry. I'll see you after dinner, Matthew.”

As he walked down the stairs, he heard Jenny sigh. “I knew he'd be upset.”

But she was wrong, Chris thought.

He went straight to the
dawdi haus
and pulled out his backpack, throwing in his Bible and the neatly folded stack of laundry Mary had brought him last night. Fishing in his pocket, he took out the key to the front door and left it on the table near it. Then, after an inner debate, he wrote a quick note thanking them for their friendship and telling them that he needed to get back home. He wasn't sure that was where he was going, but they didn't really need to know any more than that.

Opening the back door, he gave a surreptitious glance to the right, then the left, before slipping outside. When he didn't spy anyone around, he quickly crossed the fields to Hannah and Phoebe's house, hoping that Jenny and Matthew wouldn't look out their window and see him.

Phoebe came to the door and looked surprised to see him.

“Is Hannah home?”

She shook her head. “It's her day to teach quilting classes in town. She borrowed Matthew's buggy.”

Holding the door open, she invited him inside.

“I can't stay.”

Phoebe eyed the backpack. “Going somewhere?”

He shook his head, looking away from the kindness in her eyes.

“That backpack looks like it's holding everything you've got,” she said. “And those shoulders look like they're carrying the weight of the world. Come into the
kich
for just a few minutes and let me make a sandwich for you to take on the road. And you can sit down and write Hannah a note to tell her what you came to say to her.”

How she knew he was leaving he didn't know. But he went inside and sat at the kitchen table and let her make him a sandwich. And while she made it, he took a piece of paper and a pencil out of the backpack and wrote a note to Hannah.

He couldn't tell her the real reason he was leaving, so he just told her that he had to leave and he was sorry he hadn't been able to say goodbye. Pausing, he tried to find the words to tell her how much he'd come to care for her.

Then he decided that it wouldn't do any good. He had a pretty good idea that she was as attracted to him as he was to her, that she'd come to care for him, but it wouldn't have worked anyway, he told himself.

Phoebe walked over to hand him the sandwich and a plastic baggie of cookies, and he tucked them into his backpack.Before he could rise, she laid her hand on his shoulder.

“I saw the fire marshal's car over at the house a little while ago.”

He stiffened. “Yeah. I didn't start the fire.”

“Of course you didn't. Any more than you poisoned Daisy's food.”

Surprised, he turned to face her. “What?”

She nodded. “The vet called a little while ago. I was out returning his call in the phone shanty, and that's when I saw the fire marshal's car.”

“I didn't—”

“Of course you didn't poison Daisy. I saw how much you love my horse. How much you love these friends you've made here—and Hannah.”

“I—”

“My old eyes work just fine, young man. Don't tell me you don't have feelings for Hannah.”

She sat heavily in the chair beside him, seeming to have run out of breath.

He looked at her swollen ankles, then into her eyes. “When are you going to tell them that your heart is giving you trouble?”

Startled, she stared at him. “How do you know? Hannah didn't tell you because she doesn't know.”

“My grandmother had congestive heart failure. She'd get swollen ankles and she got breathless when she did too much.”

Sighing, Phoebe sat back. “No one needs to know. They'd just worry and make an invalid of me, fuss over me, do so much for me I wouldn't feel I had a life.”

She took a deep breath and let it out, then shook her head.“And don't try to distract me. You shouldn't be leaving. Not the way you're doing it—so quickly, without seeing Hannah and Matthew and Jenny.”

He didn't know how she knew he had left a note for Matthew and Jenny. “I have to.” Phoebe reached over and took his hand.“Tell me what's wrong. Please? I want to understand what's making you leave when you love it here.”

“All the bad things will stop when I leave.”

“But you're not doing them.” She squeezed his hand. “I know you're not doing them. So don't even try to tell me you did.”

“No,” he said at last. “A man who wants to hurt me is. He was put in prison because I testified against him, and he said he'd get me when he got out. I don't know how, but he's gotten out of prison and he's doing these things. I just know it. The barn fire. Daisy. The note to the bishop. The only way to keep everyone safe is to leave.”

“Why do you think you'll keep everyone safe if you leave?”

Chris sighed. “If I leave he'll follow me.”

“But Chris, he could hurt you. We'll call the police. Matthew and Jenny and Hannah wouldn't want you to go if they knew.They'd want to stand with you.”

He looked up at her. “I can't risk anyone else getting hurt.”

Her eyes were sad. “So you'll draw him away and take him on yourself? You remind me of David taking on Goliath.”

“The man who hates me isn't a giant, but he's had a powerful effect on my life.”

Phoebe considered that. “Well, the giants of Gath were felled by David and his fellow kinsmen and servants. Why not this devil too?”

She tried to argue with him but he was resolute. He was nearly undone when she stood and hugged him. He'd come here and fallen in love not just with Hannah but with so many people.

There was no changing his mind, though.

When he stepped outside, he didn't see anything out of the ordinary.

But it was almost as if the air was charged as he stepped off the porch.

He walked toward town, knowing that he was putting himself right out in the open. There were other ways to get there without exposing himself, but this way it would be very clear that he was leaving and he'd keep the people he'd come to care for safe.

Several buggies passed on the opposite side of the road and some of their occupants who'd met him waved.

And then he saw the oncoming buggy driven by Hannah.He bent his head, hoping that she wouldn't recognize him.

“Chris!” She pulled the buggy over to the side of the road.“Where are you going?”

“Just into town for a while.”

He hated the lie but didn't know how else to get rid of her.His eyes swept the area to see if he was being followed.

“No you're not.”

“Yeah, I'm just on my way to town.”

She climbed out of the buggy. “You're leaving and you weren't going to tell me.”

He lifted his hands. “Okay, you caught me. Yeah, I'm leaving.It's time to move on, babe.”

“
Babe?”

“Yeah. Hey, it's not like we were an item or something. We didn't even have sex, so it's not like I'm gonna have to worry about you showing up in nine months with some brat.”

She looked like she'd bit hit by a two-by-four. His stomach turned over at the way he had to hurt her, but he needed to move her along just in case they were being watched.

“So, I'll be hitting the road now, if you don't mind,” he said.“It's looking like it's going to rain. Gotta make some time so I don't get wet, you know?”

“You're being deliberately cruel,” she said, her lips trembling.“Why? Something's wrong. You wouldn't do that unless something was wrong.”

“Nothing's wrong,” he said. “It's just time for me to go.”

He started walking, and from the corner of his eye he saw her climb back into the buggy. After a moment it began moving down the road. He breathed a sigh of relief.

But the relief was short-lived.

Several minutes later, a car slowed and then stopped. A man with a ball cap pulled low over his sunglasses leaned out the open window.

“Hey, Pretty Boy.”

Only one man had ever called him that, the nickname a sarcastic comment on what he thought was Chris's boy-nextdoor looks.

Chris's blood froze.

It was Malcolm Kraft.

Babe!

How dare he talk to her like that! Hannah fumed. Like she was some—some—well, she didn't know what word to use.

And talking about how he felt relieved that they hadn't had sex so he didn't have to worry about her showing up to make him claim a “brat”! That was just plain crude—even more unlike Chris. She realized that she hadn't known him long, but she couldn't be that wrong about a person. Could she?

Was he really like that and he'd just covered it up all this time? No, she didn't believe that. She'd always been a good judge of character, even if she didn't spend a lot of time out in the
Englisch
world.

It took another half mile of thinking hard, trying to puzzle out his behavior. Why would he drive her away? Why? He seemed to be trying to put distance between them. Like he wanted to get her to leave for some reason. She didn't know the reason, but she remembered that he'd been looking around so carefully, as if he expected someone.