She stood so hastily she nearly knocked over the chair. Staggering a little in the unfamiliar heels, she held on to his arm all the way out to the curb. Quaint Victorian buildings lined the street. Knowing the name of the town—Wabash—made her feel still connected to her roots in the Wabash Valley three hours west of here. Dodging the cars coming down the one way street, he helped her across to the other side. She stepped onto the curb beside the stone elephants.
He led her to the left to a set of glass doors.
He stopped to dig in his pocket. “I’ve already got the key.”
She went past him through a large glass door at the end of a store called Modoc’s. Inside, the entry was spacious, and a wide staircase ascended to the next floor. The Victorian woodwork looked freshly refinished. “I like this,” she said.
“Finally, something meets the approval of the princess.” He was smiling, but there was an edge to his tone.
She tried to push away the hurt as she hurried up the majestic stairway. It would take time for them to adjust to one another. They were practically strangers, even taking into account their snatched moments together. It was the pressure of the past few days that had changed things. Once they settled in, he would be the sweet Reece with whom she’d fallen in love.
Reece caught up with her at the top of the steps and pointed to a doorway on the right. He unlocked it and swung it open for her to enter. She glanced around and smiled. “The sitting room is small, but it’s cozy.”
“Living room,” he corrected. “You need to start getting the terminology right.”
“Living room.” She walked through the furnished space to the tiny kitchen. No window at all, but she kept a smile on her face. “It’s all new.”
“So’s the bathroom.” He showed her the miniscule bathroom just past the kitchen.
She spied another small room off the hall. “A nursery!”
He frowned. “A computer room. Let’s get one thing straight right now. I don’t want any kids, hon.”
Her smile faltered. “Oh, Reece, you don’t mean it. I want lots of babies.”
“I’m serious. If you get pregnant, you can have an abortion.”
Her limbs turned to ice. “It would be a mortal sin. That’s taking a life.”
“That’s a matter of opinion. Enough about sin, Hannah. I’m sick of hearing the word. We don’t need children. All we need is you and me, happy together.”
“Why don’t you want babies, Reece?” She edged closer. “They bring so much joy to a house.”
His expression turned stony. “I was a foster kid with nothing that was sacred, nothing that belonged to me. I was always the last person anyone cared about. I knew someday I’d find a woman who would love me only. Aren’t I enough for you, Hannah?” His gaze searched hers.
“Of course you are, Reece!” She cupped his cheek in her palm. “I love you. We won’t talk about it now.”
“I won’t change my mind, hon.” He turned his head and kissed her palm. “But we’ll have a good life without kids.” His smile turned tender. “Let me show you the bedroom.”
A DREARY GRAY day held Rockville in its grip. It was a shock after the sunshine in Hawaii. Matt glanced around the room of assembled deputies. “What do you mean Reece is gone?”
“He ran off with the Amish chick,” one of the men said. “After the funeral.”
Matt sank onto a chair. That’s what he got for taking off two weeks for his honeymoon. “What about the investigation?”
“The poison was in the cookies. Long was seen making the cookies, and he’s dead.”
It seemed too easy to Matt. “Motive? And if he knew the cookies were tainted, why would he eat one?”
“According to the coroner, he likely either inhaled the strychnine or absorbed it through his skin during the baking of the cookies. It was accidental.” Captain Sturgis cleared his throat. “The motive is unclear, but that’s the way it is sometimes. People do crazy things and we never figure out why.”
Matt had seen plenty of that over the years. “You find the quilts?”
“We dredged the lake, but nothing turned up.”
“Then he had an accomplice.”
“Probably, but we have no leads. No one saw a thing. It’s been a frustrating case. It’s your baby now, with Reece gone. If you can find anything, you’ll be a hero. How was the honeymoon?” A sly grin crept out.
“Great.” He left the other deputies and went to his office. Maybe Reece had left him a note. It was unlike his partner—his foster brother, in fact—to take off without a word. Matt rummaged through his desk but found nothing but a new report on a burglary of a local convenience store. Maybe Reece had left something with Trudy, their grandmother. Matt dialed her number.
“Matthew, I never even got a postcard,” she said when she picked up the phone.
Stupid caller ID didn’t even give him a minute to get an explanation in. “Analise was sick a lot. Migraines. I took care of her and didn’t get outside much.”
“She should have that checked.”
“That’s what I told her, but she’s had them for years. Hey, did you know Reece ran off with an Amish girl? Hannah Schwartz.” Silence on the other end. “Trudy?”
“When did this happen?”
“I guess after the funeral. I just heard about it. I take it he didn’t come to tell you good-bye? Or leave my gun with you?”
“What gun?”
“He borrowed my revolver.” And Matt planned to get it back when he found Reece. It wasn’t the gun that upset Matt, though. It was the way Reece had just disappeared without a word.
“After all I did for that boy,” his grandmother muttered.
At nearly thirty, Reece was hardly a boy, but Matt said nothing. She needed to vent. “He’ll probably call you once he gets settled.”
Matt used to be jealous of the relationship Reece had with Trudy, but he’d accepted it long ago. There was no use crying over something he couldn’t change. If she wanted to love a foster kid more than her own grandson, he’d let her.
THE SOFTLY GLOWING candles on the table scented the room with cinnamon. Hannah paced the living room, pausing occasionally to listen for Reece’s footsteps on the staircase. She willed herself not to cry. The special dinner was ruined. The pasta sat in a milky, soggy mess in the bottom of the pan, and the spaghetti sauce had burned in spite of the low heat. She should have shut it off and warmed it up when he got home.
She’d wanted tonight, their first anniversary, to be perfect. Reece should have been home nearly three hours ago. He’d called from Scotty’s Bar two hours ago and said he’d be there in fifteen minutes. She should have known better. When he got to swapping stories with his friends, he lost all sense of time. The outfit she wore should please him, but she was tempted to change out of the short, tight skirt into something more modest and comfortable. He didn’t care anyway. She tugged on the plunging neckline. Her feet ached from the spiky high heels. These revealing clothes embarrassed her, but he always reminded her she was supposed to please him, not herself. At least he hadn’t made her go to the bar with him tonight to show her off like he did sometimes.
She dragged herself to the tiny kitchen to begin cleaning up the mess. Her eyes burned, and she wished her aunt Nora had a phone. Here in Wabash, she felt so isolated. Reece refused to take her to church or let her meet anyone other than the leering men in the bars. Was this normal for an Englisch family? She had no way of knowing. One Sunday she’d slipped away while he was working to attend the Presbyterian church up the hill on Miami Street, but when he found out, he’d been so angry he’d frightened her and she never tried it again.
She heard the front door open and wiped her hands on her apron. Taking it off, she drew a deep breath, then walked down the hall to the living room to meet him.
He wore a smile and held a bouquet of drooping flowers. “There’s my girl,” he said, his voice slurred. His eyes were bright as he stared at her. “Come give me a kiss, honey. You look
good enough to eat.”
The thought of his drunken kisses made her shudder, and she stopped where she was. “Did you eat?”
“Of course not. I wanted to eat with my beautiful wife.” His smile widened. “Come here, Hannah.”
She turned and headed back toward the kitchen. He wasn’t going to come home three hours late and then expect her to be happy to see him. “I’ll fix you a hamburger or something. Dinner is ruined.”
“Ruined?” He trailed after her into the miniscule kitchen. “If you loved me the way you should, you’d have held it for me.”
She whirled. “You were supposed to be home three hours ago. Even if you’d come home two hours ago like you promised, it would have been okay. But there’s nothing left now. It’s all ruined.” Tears ran down her cheeks, and she swiped them with the back of her hand.
His gaze rambled around the kitchen and took in the soggy pasta, the crusted-over sauce, the mushy vegetables. “I had things to do,” he said. “You have no right to question me. Don’t I give you everything you want? I buy you pretty clothes and makeup. Perfume and jewelry.”
“And I hate it!” Unable to stop her voice from rising, she tugged the earrings from her ears. “I feel like a harlot most of the time. Like all you care about is my looks. If you loved me, you wouldn’t keep me cooped up in this apartment with no friends and nothing to do.”
From the way his color rose, she knew she’d gone too far, but she couldn’t bite back the hot words that continued to spew. “You won’t even let me have a baby!” She picked up the pot of pasta and dumped it in the sink. She wished she had the nerve to throw the sauce on the floor, but then she’d just have to clean it up herself.
He grabbed her by the shoulders. “Get hold of yourself, Hannah. How dare you talk to me like that? I’m your husband. You promised to love and obey me.”
Her rage evaporated as quickly as it had boiled. Yes, her duty was to love this man no matter what, but why did it have to be so hard? He shook her when she didn’t answer, and his face turned a more mottled red.
He shoved her away from him. “After all I’ve done for you, this is the thanks I get?”
Her back hit the counter, and she reached behind herself to grab it so she didn’t fall. Her face flamed. “You shoved me.” Her voice shook. He’d never lifted a finger to her.
“I’ll do more than shove you if you don’t obey me.” The color drained from his face, and he advanced toward her.
She cringed and lifted her hands in a protective move, but before she got them high enough, his hand lashed out and his palm smacked her cheek. Pain flared on her face, but shock stole her whimper. His gaze bored through her, and a muscle jumped in his cheek. She stared into the face she’d kissed and caressed, into the warm brown eyes that held no trace of a smile or love. Did she even know him? Had she ever? The Reece she thought she knew never would have lifted a hand to her. His face crumpled then, and she caught a glimpse of her real husband.
He reached toward her. “I’m sorry. I can’t believe I did that.” He folded her into his arms and whispered in her hair. “Forgive me, Hannah. It won’t ever happen again.”
Even as she mouthed the words, “I forgive you,” she wondered if life would ever be the same.
FIVE
“The world will tell you to serve yourself first. But don’t listen, Hannah. Serve others and you’ll find true happiness.”
PATRICIA SCHWARTZ
How’d he ever let her talk him into coming up here? Reece eyed the Amish women strolling through the flea market with a gaggle of children following them. Seeing all the Amish here in Shipshewana was likely to make her discontented, and he’d had enough of that to deal with over the past four years.
“Isn’t this fun?” Hannah said, smiling up at him.
When she smiled like that, all was right in his world, and he let his irritation drop. “Want some caramel corn?” When she nodded, he stopped at another vendor.
The flea market at Ship held every Tuesday and Wednesday through the summer was famous all over Indiana and Michigan. The large space was packed with vendors hawking everything from purses to yard ornaments. He was bored already with the items. He’d rather look at guns or something.
When he turned to hand Hannah her popcorn, he found her deep in conversation with an Amish woman. He’d die if she ever left him to go back to her people. His gut tightened until she turned back around with a huge smile.
“There’s a big quilt display the next row over.” She grabbed her popcorn and lit out down the aisle without even waiting for him to say it was okay.
He would never understand her obsession with quilts. Why did she never look at him with the same concentration she gave them? His thoughts were always of her first, and he’d hoped for the same from her. He darted after her, intending to grab her arm and insist they go back to the car, but a man with a wagon got in his way, then three children darted in front of him. By the time he disentangled himself, she was nowhere in sight. He bit back a curse and stalked down the aisles. Nearly half an hour passed before he found her.
She sat at a picnic table with her shoulders slumped and tears on her cheeks. When she saw him, she rose and brushed at her wet face. “They weren’t there.”
“Would you just stop looking? The quilts will never show up.”
She would never find her mother’s stolen quilts, but that wasn’t what concerned him. He hated catching that faraway expression on her face. Maybe she wished she’d never left her people, wished she’d married the yodeling farm boy Noah. He couldn’t abide the thought.
“What? They have to be somewhere, Reece.”
“I forbid you to go looking anymore, Hannah.” He said it as sternly as he could with other people close by. She bit her lip, and her face took on the mulish expression he hated, but she just bowed her head and nodded. “Let’s go,” he told her. “We’re done here. I want to get back to Wabash.”
It had been a mistake to bring her here. She needed to forget the old life. Concentrate on him and being a good wife. After four years of training, he should have managed to eradicate the last traces of her defiance. She knew how her obsession bothered him, but she continued to search anyway. When the quilts were on her mind, he took second place.
She followed him out to the truck. “Can we stop at Blue Gate Restaurant for lunch?” she asked when they got into the hot cab.
He glanced at her bowed head. All he wanted was to get out of town before she stopped and talked to every Amish woman around. “Sure, honey. Just give me a smile first.” He waited until her head came up and her smile broke out, then drove to the restaurant. They joined the throng of people flooding into the place. It had been expanded to seat more than six hundred people, and the crowd annoyed him.
He ate a whole jar of the peanut butter spread and asked for more while Hannah just picked at a piece of homemade bread. “I thought you wanted to eat here, but you’re hardly touching anything.”
“My stomach is a little upset.”
He caught the longing on her face when she engaged their Amish waitress, a young girl, in conversation. So much for learning something from the scolding. He shouldn’t have brought her in here. She needed to be as far from these people as possible. She’d nagged him for years about finding an Amish community. Of all things, she wanted him to convert. He’d nixed that idea quickly enough, but she wouldn’t let it rest.
After the girl brought their meals, he bolted his down. “Let’s go.”
She left her spoon in the half-eaten bowl of homemade chicken-noodle soup and followed him out to the truck. For the whole ride home, she drooped against the door and stared out the window. When the truck zoomed around a buggy, she tensed and stared at the occupants.
“Riding in a buggy is different from riding in a vehicle,” she said.
“Yeah, the truck’s faster.” The last thing he wanted was to talk about the Amish. He didn’t want her longing for her old life. He’d given up everything for her.
r /> “You’re not insulated in a buggy. You’re part of the community. We would call to friends out the open windows, smell the flowers, feel the breeze.”
“Do you always have to disagree with me, Hannah?” His hands gripped the steering wheel. There wasn’t an ounce of gratitude in her. After all he’d done for her, she still longed for her family. It wasn’t right.
They drove in silence until the truck got out of Shipshewana. She fiddled with her seat belt, adjusting it across her stomach in a weird way he’d never seen. He was about to tell her to quit it when she folded her hands in her lap and tipped her head to look at him.
“Reece, I have something to tell you.”
“What is it?”
“I’m pregnant.”
His foot came up and jammed on the brakes. He steered the truck to the side of the road, and a car zipped around him, blaring its horn. The male occupant thrust out his middle finger and shouted something as he flew past. On another day, Reece might have gunned the truck after him and tailgated him, but he was too shaken to react.
He turned to stare her in the face. “What did you say?” Maybe he’d misheard. His pulse was thumping in his ears, and he could hardly draw in a lungful of air.
She shrank away from him with her hand up for protection. “We’re going to have a baby, Reece.” Her smile was too bright. “Don’t you think it’s time? We’ve been married over four years.”
“No, it’s not time. I’ll take you to a clinic for an abortion.” He clenched his fists but had the self-restraint not to hit her. Maybe it was an accident. If it wasn’t, she’d have to be taught a lesson for her own good.
“I’m not having an abortion.” Her chin jutted out. “I’m not, Reece. You can’t make me. I—I’ll leave you first.” Her voice trembled just a little.
He couldn’t believe he was hearing those words from her mouth. “You think your family would take you back in? After leaving your husband? You know they won’t.”
She grabbed his arm with both hands. “Don’t make me choose between you and the baby. You think I’ll ignore you for the baby, but I won’t, I promise. I love you.”