Finding Mercy

by Karen Harper

  He looked at Ella, back at Alex again, then went on. “I’ll no doubt be part of the death investigation, and chime in on all the gossip around town. A lover’s pact? Or Caldwell couldn’t hack it here, but he didn’t want someone else to have her. So he drowned her, then himself,” he taunted. “Hell, I don’t have all day. Law and order calls—which is also why no one will suspect me, not Sheriff Freeman’s golden boy. If this goes to a homicide investigation, I’ll be sure they’re looking for another anonymous hit man like the one you two dispatched along the way.”

  Ella’s legs were almost free if she could just carefully kick the ties off without his seeing her. But he was going to drown her before Alex. She watched as Win shoved a handkerchief in Alex’s mouth. He tried to kick Win, trip him, but Win easily sidestepped, then turned to her.

  “Sorry, Ella. I’m not kidding I regret doing this to you. Let’s get it over fast. Pointless to give you two time to say goodbye. You Amish are good at forgiving—so I hope you can forgive me.”

  But as he half lifted, half dragged her toward the pond, she managed to kick off her ankle ties. In those few yards to the water, frenzy flashed at her, that old panic she’d held in check since Alex had talked her through it. Fear of drowning, of the dark water…

  “I kept you gagged, because a woman’s scream might carry through these bare woods,” Win was saying. The man was crazy, but at least he was guilt-ridden, so if she could only talk to him…

  He stood her up at the edge of the pond. “Don’t struggle. I know there will be ligature marks on your skin, but I’ve padded his ties so it will look like you’re the only one bound. They’ll assume he tied you. Couldn’t bear to leave you for someone else to have, could he, when he changed his mind to go back to the world? Forgive and forget and just let go, Ella.”

  He put one hand on the small of her back to give her a shove. But she hooked her loosed feet around his, tried to throw her weight into him. To his shock—hers too—they both went off balance and hit the water hard.

  It was cold! It shocked and immobilized her at first. She tried to recall how she’d kicked to keep her head up in the waves in Florida, but then Alex’s hands had been steadying her, buoying her. The nightmare came roaring back, drowning her in the pond of her terror, pulled down, under.

  Win was close, so she kicked at him underwater, felt her feet hit his groin. He sucked in a breath, water with it. He choked. No panic attack! she screamed at herself. But why not, because she was going to drown with Alex watching. He was rolling toward the edge of the pond, but he was bound hand and foot.

  Fighting to get a breath, she lay on her back, wishing she could breathe through her mouth gag. She blinked and shook her head to clear water from her eyes. Her bonnet had come off. Its ties clasped her throat, but she bent her knees and kicked hard at Win again. She hit his chest. He thrashed, roiling the water. She felt it then, the swirling vortex under the pond, the stream-fed current from below that had almost pulled her under the day her friends had saved her. No friends now. Enemy. Do not fight back, do no violence. But she wanted Alex and children and lavender and life!

  She kicked at him one more time. She missed but the sharp movement propelled her away from him. Despite tied hands, she kicked toward the bank. Alex reached bound hands toward her; she thrust a foot at him and he held it, then rolled over to pull her out, bit by bit, on her back. Her sopping skirts rode up, her head scraped, but she felt warmer—wonderful.

  Her first thought was to roll away. That’s what she’d done when her abductor—it must have been Win—tied her up on the hill. But no time. Win was still thrashing the water white. Surely he was going to get out and throw them in again. Then, as she and Alex struggled to pull and roll her out, she realized the pond had gone quiet.

  Both of them still bound but for her feet, she turned to look back. Win was farther out in the middle where the cold current had pulled her under that day. He was facedown, turning in a circle, rotating but not moving on his own.

  She screamed through her gag. Again, again, she tried to release her wrist bonds and finally got free enough that she could loosen Alex’s. He pulled the gag from her mouth, then his own. She knelt over him, her loose, sopping hair like a golden curtain, dripping water. She shook with shock. Somehow, she managed to untie his wrist bonds the rest of the way.

  She collapsed against him before she could untie his feet. He rolled them over, farther from the water. He kept an eye on the pond as he untied his ankles then bent to hers. “It’s finally over,” he choked out, holding her hard to him. “We’re free.”

  “We have to fish him out, get him help, arrested.”

  “I think he’s beyond that. Too bad, because I’d sure like him to testify against my former mentor and friend, whose long arm did all this. Since I’m striving to be Amish now, I won’t testify against him again, but I’ll make sure Sheriff Freeman takes care of this. I think he’ll be hopping mad he’s been played for a sucker too—just as I was with Marv.”

  “Ray-Lynn said it’s a shame we can’t trust people when we need them.”

  “I do know one thing. I’m going to protect you for the rest of my life—though you’re the one who saved the day just now, as usual, saved my life and my future with you.”

  He was wobbly on his feet as he stood and found a branch to pull Win Hayes over to the edge of the pond.

  “I don’t want to get my prints in his car, so can you go out on the road and flag someone down and have them get the sheriff?” Alex asked.

  “Sure, but I don’t want to leave you with him.”

  “Ella—he’s dead. And I think with this attempt on our lives thwarted, we can bury the past with him. We’re only going to look ahead now,” he said. “Here, put my dry shirt around you and ask for a cape or blanket when you flag someone down. I’ll be waiting for you, Ella, always!”

  She kissed him and saw a huge bump forming on the top of his head. Hers still hurt too. She was so cold, shaking all over, but she felt warm inside. As she walked away from the pond that had saved her today as it had once nearly taken her life, she went with a steady stride and her head up. All this, a terrible tragedy, lives lost, but Alex was right. Together, they could face their future now.

  28

  One year later

  “I JUST HOPE they like the clowns,” Alex said, as he reined in their buggy at the crowded field next to the Home Valley Amish schoolhouse. The field had become a parking lot today.

  Hard to believe, Ella thought, two months wed already! The bishop had decided ten months was long enough for a public betrothal when Amish ones were so much shorter than that. Alex’s converting to the church was the best wedding gift, but Grossmamm’s present of the deed to the Pinecraft property was second-best. And they’d been so busy with Alex building up her Lavender Plain Products and his own Better Marketing business, which served both the Amish and the English. But they’d had time to make a baby!

  Ella was newly pregnant and felt a bit like she was riding the waves in the Gulf of Mexico, not just a buggy. But queasy stomach or not, no way was she going to miss this benefit for a church family that had lost their home in a fire. It had not been arson, according to Nate McKenzie, who was the regional arson investigator, but had been started by an untended kerosene lantern. You just never knew what life was going to throw at you, Ella thought, as she clutched the sack of sachets she’d made for the auction.

  “Who could not like our favorite clowns?” she asked. “Now if it was Trixie wearing her skimpy outfit for her high-wire act, or Janus had signs attached to his rear, that would be a different story, but they’ve promised to behave—as best clowns can.”

  For once, Ella waited on the buggy seat for Alex to help her down. You might know, the first person Ella saw was her shunned friend Sarah. But now Ella understood and accepted what Sarah had gone through to be bold enough to wed Nate. The two women clasped hands, then Ella leaned close to hug Monet, whom she’d learned was named for an artist Sarah love
d. Hannah and Seth appeared and all three friends, with their men behind them and little Monet and Marlena between them, stood in a small circle.

  “We once vowed we’d stick together through thick and thin,” Hannah said. “And—Ella, are you pregnant?”

  Ella gasped and, behind her, Alex laughed. “Why, I don’t even show yet!” she protested. “I barely figured it out!”

  “It’s just that I know the look, don’t I, Seth?” she said, and turned to smile at her beaming husband.

  The three women hugged, then stood in an even closer huddle, arm in arm as Ella and Sarah compared due dates. Hannah sure had a head start on her there.

  “Not tears all around already on such a great day!” Nate protested, as Seth and Alex chuckled. “Come on, let’s all go see the clowns! I’ll bet that’s a first for Amish benefits. Okay, okay, you three need more time,” he admitted when the women didn’t budge, “so we’ll see you over there.” Alex squeezed Ella’s shoulder and also walked toward the noise beyond the sea of buggies interspersed with cars. Seth bounced his daughter in his arms and said, “Come on, Marlena-Marlena. Your mamm, Aunt Ella and Sarah need some time to decide what trouble they’ll get into next.”

  “They should talk,” Ella said when the three of them were alone. “Here we are, no longer maidals, and we’ve each had our extended running-around time, one way or the other, thanks to our husbands. Me, especially. I feel like I saw half the country when Alex and I were on the run. Sarah, I know you’re still under the bann, but I just want you to know, I’m sorry I was so stubborn about it all before. I want us to always stay friends.”

  “Me too,” Sarah said, and held out her curved little finger, just as she’d done years ago. Ella linked her pinkie finger to it, then Hannah.

  “Well,” Hannah said with a tearful smile, “we didn’t save you for nothing that day at the pond when you went for a swim. With the Lord’s help, we pulled you out and lately, you pulled yourself out.”

  “You two never knew, but I—I suffered for years from panic attacks. Alex helped me get over that.”

  Realizing they still held their hands up in the air, they let go. “I’d never be the same without Nate,” Sarah insisted.

  “And Seth saved me as much as I turned my own life around,” Hannah put in.

  “By the way, I want to talk to Alex to get a broader base for selling my paintings,” Sarah said. “My father says he’s helping a lot of our people—and yes, they are still my people too.”

  “Seth’s already using his ideas to get more jobs building barns and churches,” Hannah told them. “Something about demographic assessments.” They all started to talk at once, just the way they had years ago. They didn’t stop until Ray-Lynn came along carrying three boxes of baked goods to sell.

  “Ray-Lynn,” Ella told her, “I think you’re the only one I know who can outtalk all three of us.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment, you all. Ding-dang, I’m just gonna let you help carry these half-moon pies for me. As usual, the sheriff’s off doing his thing. Let’s just say we’re sisters under the skin, because you all have sure adopted me. I guess we’ve all been through enough to find ourselves and find our men, and— What’s that noise?”

  “A roar of laughter,” Ella said. “Alex and I have good friends who are clowns, present company excluded from that. They’re touring in Cleveland and came to visit for a few days. Come on, let’s set up the Dutch Farm Table booth, then go watch them. All that we’ve been through, laughter’s got to be the best medicine.”

  “And prayer,” Hannah said.

  Sarah added, “And love.”

  * * *

  Alex was getting better at letting Ella out of his sight without worrying. Marv Boynton’s attempts to kill him and then her had hit the national media through Sheriff Freeman’s report. Now his former boss had been sentenced not only for economic espionage but for murder-for-hire charges. He was fortunate not to get hit with treason too, because that could mean the death penalty. Marv’s sentencing, Alex figured, and all the publicity that went with it, were the best life insurance an Amish man and wife could have, especially since buying insurance was strictly verboten. Anyone dared to harm him or Ella now, and the feds—maybe Congress too—would be all over it.

  Oh, sure, he’d given up a lot of worldly trappings and devices to become Amish, but Ella and her people were worth it all. It still amazed him how right it felt to him. He, who had worked so hard at being special, had fallen in love with a woman and a people who valued being plain and ordinary—and yet they were all unique. Here, he’d hidden out in a very foreign place and found acceptance, mercy and his way home at last.

  * * *

  “Okay, Ray-Lynn, I’ve got something to tell you that bet you can’t guess,” Ella told her after they laid out her bakery goods at the booth.

  “Someone’s pregnant? Well, it’s for sure not me,” Ray-Lynn insisted with a grin. “Hannah?”

  “Guilty as charged.”

  “There, see!” Ray-Lynn told Ella. “Got it on first guess.”

  “You’re only half-right,” Hannah said, raising her voice to be heard over the hoopla.

  Ray-Lynn grinned at Ella. “You and Alex never did waste time getting in one fix after the other. Let’s toast the good news with a half-moon pie apiece, maybe two. And you all take some to the lucky men who—”

  “Blessed,” Ella put in. “Blessed men.”

  “Right, the blessed men who are lucky enough to have each of us!”

  Ella took two berry half-moon pies, then carefully hugged each of the women. With a quick wave, she headed toward the crowd.

  She spotted Alex at once, though he blended in pretty well now. He was shaking his head and grinning up at Janus, who balanced on a swaying ladder and juggled three balls at the same time. And, that, she thought, as she worked her way through the crowd, was the way she’d felt ever since she’d laid eyes on Alexander Caldwell, alias Andrew Lantz—tipsy, crazy, but hanging on to balance his world and hers.

  She stood still for a moment, savoring the moment among her people with a new life inside her. Then Alex’s eyes met hers, and he hurried to meet her.

  * * * * *

  Author’s Note

  I HAVE GREATLY enjoyed writing this Home Valley Amish Trilogy of Fall From Pride, Return To Grace and Finding Mercy with the three Amish friends at the center of the action. Each time I visit Ohio Amish country, I see new possibilities for stories. Even now, I am writing Upon A Winter’s Night, a Home Valley Christmas romantic suspense which I hope you will watch for in the autumn of 2013.

  Finding Mercy is actually the eighth romantic-suspense novel I’ve set among the Plain People. These also include Dark Road Home, Dark Harvest and Dark Angel, a trilogy; and two stand-alone stories: the novel Down to the Bone and an Amish novella “The Covered Bridge” in an anthology entitled Dark Crossings.

  Special thanks for help with this novel goes to my friend, Mary Ann Manning, for finding a great lavender farm for us to visit in Ohio, and for her friendship and the loan of her beautiful book, Lavender by Tessa Evelegh (Lorenz Books, Anness Publishing, Ltd., London, 2002). Also, our appreciation to Roy Manning for driving us all over a part of Ohio Amish country we were not familiar with.

  The farm we visited is Springbrook Meadows Lavender Farm, owned by Debbie Cook, who answered questions and gave us a lovely tour. Her website is www.SpringbrookMeadowsLavender.com. She has unique lavender products for sale such as Lavender Linen Water and Lavender Hydrosal, a relaxing spray. Debbie has also written a cookbook called A Taste of Lavender, the source for Ella’s recipes for Cherry Lavender Nut Bread and Lavender Surprise Muffins. I have Debbie’s gracious permission to post these on my website at www.KarenHarperAuthor.com.

  I also appreciate advice from Michael Slyker, co-founder and proprietor of Daybreak Lavender Farm in Streetsboro, Ohio, about growing lavender in North American climates. His website is www.ohiolavenderfestival.com.

  Thanks to Bill H
arper for sharing information on St. Augustine, which we love to visit, and for his and Sunny’s hospitality there.

  As is brought out in this novel, it is possible to become Amish, though not common, because moderns must give up so much to join the church and culture of the Plain People. But their ways certainly look attractive, especially when someone is stressed-out and too tied to technology. Still, we need to remember that the Amish themselves have a saying, “It’s not all cakes and pies.” (I’ve also heard, “It’s not all quilts and pies.”) In other words, there are challenges and problems in their seemingly simple and charming way of life.

  I’m blessed to live just a two-hour drive from the heart of Ohio Amish country (Holmes County), which has the largest population of the Plain People in the U.S., including Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, which we often think of first when we hear “Amish country.” I based the Home Valley and town of Homestead on the area of Charm, Ohio, which is, indeed, charming. However, I changed names and locations so that I could put buildings where I need them to be without receiving an email that begins, “Don’t you know there’s not really a store on that corner…” (But I do enjoy receiving reader mail at www.KarenHarperAuthor.com.)

  I keep with me at my writing desk an Amish bonnet and a faceless Amish doll to remind myself of the core beliefs of these fascinating people. Once you’ve looked at the world from inside a black bonnet with a deep brim and neck flaps or observed the featureless doll, it is easier to grasp their humility and faith in cooperation rather than competition. Their sturdy furniture and stunning quilts, not to mention their down-home cooking, all speak to Amish talent and generosity. The Amish of the Holmes County area, who prefer not to be individually named or thanked, have been very helpful and kind to me.