Dark Crossings (4 page)

CHAPTER FIVE

B
EN
ROLLED
OVER
.
His back hurt, his
hip hurt. As he snuggled deeper into his sleeping bag, it took him a minute to
recall where he was. He’d slept under a tree just off Abby’s property, and he
ached all over. This was the second night he’d spent here, without her knowing
it. Let’s see, this was Monday morning. He’d hurried away yesterday before she’d
driven off to church in her buggy.

That stubborn woman thought she didn’t need him, but he’d
decided to camp out here to keep an eye on her place. He stretched stiff
muscles. He’d slept only the last few hours. He had his own inner demons to
worry about.

Dawn was breaking, coloring the eastern sky. He figured he’d
better get up and cross the bridge before she saw him here.

He unzipped the bag, then realized it wasn’t a tree root but
his cell phone pressing against his shoulder. If he rejoined the Amish, it was
one of the many things he would have to give up, but returning to his Amish
roots would give him more important things back. His people’s trust and support.
So much to live for, and hope for in future. A family of his own. But to get all
that, he’d have to not only atone for his past here, but level with the bishop
and the elders about being under suspicion for a massive jewelry heist.

As Ben slid out of the bag and stretched, he heard a voice
coming from behind a large stack of wood that sprouted layers of mushrooms.

“I see you didn’t listen to me,” Abby said as she hurried
toward him, carrying a tray of food. She looked as if she hadn’t slept well,
either, but she was still beautiful in that natural, windswept way of hers. She
wore an unbuttoned navy blue coat over her dark green dress and work apron.
Though she wore her prayer
kapp,
she had not pinned
her big braid up under it, and loose tendrils peeking from the starched linen
blew against her rosy cheeks. Gawky Abby, he thought, the little pain in the
neck he recalled from years ago, had turned into a stunning, seductive vision.
He half wondered if he was still dreaming. He could almost imagine how she would
look with her honey-hued hair loose against her bare shoulders….

He blinked and shook his head to clear it. The tray was crowded
with a glass of orange juice, a fat muffin, two pitchers, a mug and covered
plate. His nose told him the larger of the two pitchers held steaming
coffee.

“I’m sorry I can’t ask you in, and should not have the other
night, but this is the least I can do,” she said, putting the tray down on his
sleeping bag. “You…you’ve been out here two nights, haven’t you? I hope you
didn’t work yesterday on the day of rest. I’m going to have a lot to do around
here today.”

She chattered on, no doubt nervous to be feeding someone under
the
bann
. It was a strange game they played, he
thought, giving each other things but not touching. And he wanted to touch her.
The time he had merely taken her elbow had shaken him, which showed how much he
needed a woman.

“I hope you like mushroom fritters,” Abby was saying. “There’s
maple syrup in the little pitcher. I’m assuming you still drink your coffee
black,
ja?
Well, I have many chores, so I’ll let you
eat. I’ll be right in the garden when you’re done so I can get your tray. You
shouldn’t have stayed out all night—either night—but
danki
again. You look ravenous.”

He was ravenous, all right, and not only for food. He realized
he was staring at her, so he said, “This is a great surprise.
Ja, danki, mein freund
Abigail.” He sat cross-legged
on his sleeping bag and tucked into the delicious food, the best picnic he’d
ever had. Under the covered plate he found not only fritters, but stewed apples
with cinnamon and three thick strips of country bacon. Abby Baughman knew how to
feed a man. And mushrooms had never tasted so good.

* * *

A
BBY
WAS
CUTTING
giant garden mushrooms off a patch of bark mulch when Ben
came into the garden carrying his tray. “You’re a great cook,” he said, putting
it on a wooden bench by the back door. “Man, those things are big,” he observed.
“A couple of those tops are about a foot across.”

“You can grill or sauté the caps in butter. These were in your
fritters. They taste good with corn, too.”

“I have a lot to learn.”

“
Ja,
I guess we all do about a lot
of things—and each other. So, you said it didn’t fret you to make ornate boxes
for fancy jewels even though you were raised Amish?”

He looked a little confused at the sudden change of
subject.

“I consider it honest work.”

“So did you leave your life there just to come back for the
good hardwood in the area, like you said, or the simple life? And did you bring
any jewels back with you?”

He narrowed his eyes and tilted his head as if he wasn’t sure
what to say at her barrage of questions. His hair looked mussed, his usually
clear blue eyes a bit bleary. His beard stubble gleamed in the sun again. She
ached to stroke it, to flick her fingernails through the gold sheen. She forced
herself to look away, to put another mushroom in the basket at her feet.

“You’re curious about my jewel boxes,” he said, as if she
hadn’t brought up the jewels themselves. “Since I can’t invite you over to view
my inventory, I’ll leave a brochure on your porch from the Jeweled Treasures
Store where I worked in Cincinnati. The company has a lot of my work displayed
online, too—the internet. But not for the Amish, right? I know the internet’s
forbidden, unless the computer’s owned by a boss at work, and I don’t think your
mushrooms have a website.”

She smiled tautly at his attempted joke, then swept a cobweb
away from the next big mushroom she cut. “A website—sounds like a spider at work
to me,” she said, trying to keep her voice light. But she knew there were two
laptops in the library bookmobile, and she could take a look at his carved boxes
there. She shouldn’t, of course, but…

He wasn’t leaving. He kept staring at her.

“So,” he said, pointing at the mushroom in her hand, “is there
such a thing as a ‘dummies’ guide to mushrooms’ for someone like me?”

“I’ll tell you my main observations—just to show you how much
you can learn about people from them.”

“About people?”

“About life,” she said. Elam Garber had hated her work with the
mushrooms, while Ben seemed sincerely interested. “Can you guess what I
mean?”

“Okay, here’s my first thought. This garden of mushrooms—” he
swept his arm around her backyard “—makes me feel like I’m in a special place,
maybe like walking on another planet, because they all look so exotic.”

“Exotic? Not to me. I’m so used to them. Actually, native types
do better than exotic ones—same as life around here, right? Real outsiders,
auslanders,
stand out, but once you’re born and
bred here, it’s hard to leave,
ja?
”

“Ja,”
he whispered, staring into
her eyes. He was so close she could see her reflection in them.

“But,” she rushed on, “like people, mushrooms have so much
hidden beneath the surface.”

He frowned. “Big roots?”

“Masses of rhizomes. The real core is hidden, but the fruits
show. Like the Bible says, people are truly known by their fruits, their
actions.”

“I hear you loud and clear. I’m going to see about returning to
our people’s life and ways. I’m planning to see the bishop soon, to learn what
needs to be done. But you and I have been put together, here—almost together
with Killibuck Creek and the bridge between us—so let’s lean on each other from
a distance.”

He stepped even closer.
Lean on each
other.
His words echoed in her head. And he was hardly keeping his
distance. She did not give ground, but held the mushroom in one hand and her
knife in the other, crossing her arms over her chest as if she could ward off
his power over her. Yet she almost swayed toward him.

She didn’t really know him now, however much she wanted to.
Could she trust him? They were not allowed to be together, not this close. Her
toes curled, her lips tingled and she felt as if little butterflies fluttered in
her belly.

“I’d better go,” he said, taking a step back. “But here’s the
thing. Each day we’re losing more leaves off the trees, so I can see your side
windows from my place, and you can see mine. If anything goes wrong and you need
me, just open one of the dark green curtains in your main room and hang a white
towel or sheet there with a lantern behind, and I’ll rush over.”

“And you’ll do the same so I can rush over?”

She was teasing, almost flirting, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“I don’t want you out at night,” he said. “No working these mushroom beds after
dark, either.”

“But autumn is the time to harvest a lot of these. Daylight
hours are getting shorter, so I sometimes get a lantern and—”

“No! No, or I’m going to get the sheriff involved or camp out
on your doorstep again!”

“All right. I’ll work in the light of day. But there’s one
thing I need to tell you, too.”

He came closer again. She’d agonized last night whether to tell
him about her slipper showing up and the diamond going missing. But since he’d
worked for a jewelry store—Jeweled Treasures of Cincinnati, he’d said—he might
have some good advice for her.

“As I was heading back from your house after I brought you the
bread,” she said, trying to choose her words carefully, “I found a diamond
between two floorboards on the bridge. A round one, really pretty, set in a gold
circle with a little spike, like one that would go through a rich lady’s
earlobe.”

His eyes widened and he frowned through a long silence. Then he
said, “Can I see it?”

“That’s what my intruder must have taken—only that, as far as I
can tell. But it was like a ghost stole it, because nothing was disturbed. The
things around it in my drawer were just as I’d left them, a handkerchief I
folded around it was the same—and don’t say I just dropped the jewel, because I
looked all through the drawer, on the floor….”

“Could someone have seen you picking it up on the bridge?”

“I don’t know. Why wouldn’t they just ask me about it if it was
theirs? The previous night, I shone a light at those people in the dark, so they
probably put two and two together and know who disturbed them—after they’d
disturbed me. Maybe it’s just the Lord telling me I should never have kept the
diamond, but I thought if I put up a lost-and-found sign, anyone could say it
was theirs, so I was waiting for someone to come asking.”

Ben looked really upset. Did he think she was a thief for
keeping the jewel? Should she have gone to the bishop or the elders with it, or
even asked him earlier? A frown furrowed his brow, and he sucked in his lips as
if to keep from talking. Finally he said, “Keep looking for it. I’d think a
thief would have messed something up, but if your drawer is that neat, maybe you
just—”

“I know where it was, Ben!”

“Okay, okay. Listen, thanks again for the great breakfast and
for confiding in me. Keep your doors locked even in the day, and you can signal
me anytime. If you need me during the day, just hang a sheet over that lattice
there, because I can see it from my place. Gotta go, but be careful.”

He was holding something in and something back. Funny how she
could read his moods, but then, she’d studied him like crazy when he was
younger. But he obviously didn’t want to talk about it—or the diamond. Or maybe
he wanted nothing to do with her now, for some reason she couldn’t figure out.
She’d forgotten to tell him about her slipper appearing, but she didn’t want to
upset him more. The mention of the stolen diamond had obviously riled him a lot
for some reason.

He lifted a hand and backed away, bent to roll up his sleeping
bag—he didn’t seem to have his rifle—and strode toward the bridge. She saw him
punching numbers into his cell phone, then pressing it to his ear, but he didn’t
seem to be talking to anyone.

Abby took his tray into the house and washed the dishes. Her
stomach rumbled. She hadn’t eaten breakfast but had taken her meal out to him
without fixing more. Looking outside through the yellow and orange leaves on the
trees bordering the creek, she saw him emerge from the bridge, no longer on the
phone, and hurrying toward his house. She was drying his coffee mug when she
noticed he had a visitor, a thin man in a ball cap, jeans and a sweatshirt who
drove into Ben’s driveway in a beat-up truck. Maybe Ben had an appointment with
someone, and that’s why he’d left in a hurry. She wondered if she’d recognize
the man walking to meet him. He was gesturing wildly, as if Ben was late.

She gasped. The stranger shoved him, then took a swing at him,
catching him on the jaw. Ben started to fall, but righted himself and backed
away. He stopped the man’s next blow with his rolled sleeping bag, using it as a
shield. But the man—she could hear him shouting, but couldn’t catch his
words—kicked and swung at Ben again and again.

She took a second to lock her back door. She knew Ben was
trying hard not to use violence again, so he could be forgiven and taken back
among the Amish, and she wanted that with her whole heart. But she wasn’t going
to stand by and do nothing, no matter what he’d ordered.

Grabbing her spade and cutting knife, Abby tore toward the
bridge.

* * *

A
BBY
RAN
BREATHLESSLY
onto Ben’s property. She could hear the stranger
shouting.

“You bastard! I heard you was back. You sent my brother to
prison, just ’cause he was making it with your sister! She wanted it, the Amish
slut! You shoulda gone to prison for beating him up!”