by Katy Lee
Grace stepped from the house with a black satchel over her wrist. She still hobbled a bit in her boots. It would be a few days before her feet would be on the mend.
She stopped at the steps to the buggy and looked up at him. “Are you sure we should be bringing the horse back to Autumn Woods? Will it be safe for him there?”
“Only if you don’t steal him again.”
Grace sputtered. “But I didn’t—”
Jack smiled at her shocked expression. “Don’t forget I saw you with my own eyes,” he said.
Her eyes narrowed up at him. “Are you fooling with me? Please tell me you are.”
“Get in,” he said. “It’s going to take us a while to get there without my truck.” Jack flicked the reins once Grace had situated herself in her seat beside him. The horses stepped out at a leisurely pace, and Jack thought it might take longer than he expected at this rate. “I think I owe the stallion an apology.”
“Apology? To a horse?”
“Ya, I lied to him. I told him it wouldn’t be long until we get there, but it’s looking like we might not arrive until evening.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. It won’t take much more than an hour. We’ll be there by dinner.”
“An hour? I thought these horses were good picks.”
She shrugged, keeping her gaze straight ahead. “They were. The Amish don’t need the fast life. In fact, we slow our clocks down compared with the English.”
“I remember,” he admitted, but didn’t hide his annoyance with the way of life he’d left behind. “I also remember how the Amish had their own set of rules to determine a person’s innocence.”
She glanced his way quickly. “If you mean the ordnung, yes, we have an established way of life to curb chaos among the community. It’s needed if we are to continue in this fast-paced world of uncertainties.”
Grace’s eyes held some of that uncertainty in them. He could tell she was suddenly questioning being alone with him on the road. He thought it best to hold his tongue about his past and why he’d left his family. Or more like why his family had left him.
He cleared his throat and looked back at the road ahead. “So, you take the horses that fail the race test,” he said, changing the subject back to their previous topic. He didn’t need to hear how his family had been right in turning him away.
She let out a deep breath and faced forward again, too. “Ya. The owners at the track don’t want them. They’re happy to sell them to us and cut their losses.”
Jack chewed on that bit of information as he drove the buggy over the hills. The road wound through the tall blue grasses of Kentucky horse country, but being early fall, the vibrant colors were changing into earthy golds. Snow would cover it all once winter set in.
Before them, the two horses paced in unison, their gaits perfectly matched. “They work well together,” he said. “Did you purchase them, or did your daed?”
“I did.” Grace fiddled with the strap of her black satchel. When he glanced her way, he saw she wore a frown as she stared straight ahead. “He’s been getting worse lately, but it’s been a long time coming. It’s only recently that I’ve been going to the track alone. I took him as long as I could, so people still thought he was the one doing the actual buying.”
“But it’s been you. For how long?” Jack asked, without looking her way. The methodic rotation of the wheels and the clip-clop of the horses encouraged a relaxed dialogue. Jack took the opportunity to dig a little deeper into Grace Miller’s life. After all, she was still a suspect.
The profile of her small upturned nose lifted a bit. She frowned and said, “Before my mamm died.”
“When was that?” he asked.
Grace sighed. “Nearly six months ago. Up until then she covered a lot for Daed, and I suppose I’ve tried to follow her lead, but...” Jack could feel tension and weariness exude from the woman beside him. She was in a hard place.
“I could tell by your visitors this morning that there are people waiting in the wings to take the reins from you. Why not let them, if all these responsibilities are taking their toll on you?”
Grace turned his way, her blue-green eyes watering up before him. “It’s all I know.”
“Horses, you mean?” Jack pulled the reins a bit to slow the buggy down. He gestured to the horse tied up behind them. “But you took a thoroughbred home and didn’t know it.”
“Don’t remind me. You don’t understand how tired I am. Keeping watch over Daed is constant. I’ve had to leave him often this last month, and while I am at the track, all I can do is worry for his safety home alone. I wasn’t paying attention. I didn’t check the tattoo IDs. I trusted that the ticket matched the horse, and I left for home as fast as I could.”
Jack nodded. “Ya, watching you at the track, I did think you were in a hurry, but I figured that proved you were stealing, not rushing back to your ailing father at home. I’m sorry you have so much to deal with, and now you have an angered suitor, too.”
Grace made a funny sound with her lips before rolling those pretty eyes upward. “He is not my suitor anymore. He hasn’t been for a while.”
“He didn’t seem happy about those days ending. That concerns me. Especially since he seemed worried about me staying in the barn with the horses. Did you tell him that you had some horses taken from your barn?”
Grace shook her head. “Only Sheriff Maddox. I asked him to keep it a secret. I didn’t want the community finding out. I feared...well, you know what I feared.”
“A hostile takeover,” Jack mumbled.
She huffed a laugh. “Something like that. But don’t worry about Leroy. He really is harmless. If he wasn’t, I would have learned that six months ago when I ended our courtship. I am certain sure he knows nothing about the horse thefts. At first, I had thought it was Leroy stealing them from the barn to make it look like I needed to hand over the job to a man, but now I know that wasn’t the case.”
Jack would withhold his opinion on Leroy’s innocence until he learned more about the man. He also hoped Grace was innocent in all this, because he found the more time he spent with her, the more he liked her as a person. “You’re different than any Amish woman I’ve ever met. It would have been nice if I had someone like you in my corner back home.”
Grace waved his remark off. “All Amish women are hardworking.”
“I wasn’t talking about your work ethic.”
“Then what?” Now Grace studied his profile as Jack realized he had said too much.
“Let’s just say I had my own trouble in my community. It would have been nice to have someone fight beside me. Someone to believe in my innocence.”
Grace’s mouth fell open with shock. “You think I fight? You must know that is not a becoming trait for an Amish person, never mind a woman. It’s unacceptable.”
Jack shrugged. “That depends on who is benefiting from the fight.” He looked her way and said, “And where your heart is when you decide to step in. Is it really bad to speak up for someone who might be innocent?”
Grace chewed on her lower lip for a moment, then asked, “Were you? Innocent, I mean?”
Jack couldn’t answer her directly. He knew he’d played a part, even if he was innocent of the crime. “I was innocent where the law was concerned, but not in the eyes of my community. I let them down and no one would listen to why I felt I had to. They just assumed the worst.”
“I’m sorry,” Grace said. “I didn’t mean to pry.” She fiddled with her satchel strap again and faced forward.
Before Jack could drum up the gumption to come clean, a giggle erupted from beside him. He glanced her way to see her gawking at him with wide, laughing eyes.
“What?” he asked, and self-consciously rubbed his cheek. “Am I wearing my breakfast?”
“No, you’re wearing my horse’s hair.” Her smile turned brilliant
and the green of her eyes brightened. “I wondered how you made your hair grow to look Amish.” Grace pointed to the horse on her side of the buggy. “You cut Peanut’s tail!”
Jack stifled a laugh of his own at her wonderment. His response was simple. “Peanut and I were a perfect match.”
Her pretty face blossomed pink in an endearing amusement that stirred something within Jack. Maybe it was the slow pace of the buggy or the rhythm of the horses’ clip-clops that brought the past to him, but he doubted that was all. The reaction left him in an awkward silence, gazing straight ahead, as he tried to place the reason for the nostalgic feeling.
Was it a memory from his past?
Jack shook his head once, knowing the answer.
No. It was a longing. A desire for a place in his community, where sitting beside a pretty Amish woman who could be his companion in life was a perfectly good goal. But that was never to be. He was too different. He had a need to right wrongs. He didn’t turn the other cheek, as was called for, but instead was a fighter. And as Grace said, that was not acceptable.
“Pull to the right,” she told him nervously. “There’s a car coming up behind us driving too fast. Let them go around us.”
Jack did as she asked, and also chastised himself for not noticing the situation first. He needed to keep his head out of the past and trained on the situation at hand.
The small white pickup truck zipped by in a roaring flash. As it raced by, Jack heard the rattle of its broken muffler and smelled the bad odor it emitted.
“He needs to get that fixed before the fumes kill him,” Jack mumbled. “Do cars always get so close?” He looked Grace’s way. Immediately, the driver’s car problems and driving skills were the least of Jack’s worries. Grace’s complexion had faded to a pasty gray. He reached for her white-knuckled hands grasping the strap of her satchel. “What is it?”
She took a deep breath with her eyes closed before saying, “It was so loud. I feared it would spook the horses.”
Jack assessed the animals in the front and back, and thought they’d handled the situation well. “Do they normally spook easily?”
She shook her head. “Not these horses, but we had one that did. Unfortunately, it was my mother driving the buggy the day a car scared the horse into a ditch and...” Grace swallowed and pressed her lips together. Her change in demeanor spoke for her.
Jack tightened his hand over hers. “Wait. Was your mother killed in a buggy accident?”
“The horse ran into a ditch and tipped the buggy onto her. She died in my arms when...I could finally get her out. I was thrown out the door before it rolled right over me. Nothing but a few scratches. But not her.”
“The driver left you?”
Grace nodded, with tears in her eyes.
Anger flashed in Jack. He couldn’t imagine such an injustice, but Grace’s tears reminded him she didn’t need his anger. How hard that must have been for her. “I didn’t know. I thought she had been ill.”
“No, she was stronger than any of us. She could have lived a lot longer. And I needed her to.” Grace closed her eyes and nodded firmly. “Now I make sure the horses I buy at the track can withstand loud noises.”
Jack didn’t know why, but he felt there was much more to what really happened. A wrong had definitely been committed against Grace and her mother, and he couldn’t let it go. After all, righting wrongs was what he did.
“It’s been nearly six months.” Grace frowned. “But it still doesn’t feel real.”
Jack wondered why he didn’t know this information about Grace’s mamm. “Did you report it?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I didn’t want the media descending on us. Buggy accidents always bring them in, and with my daed... He wouldn’t have been able to handle it, and I didn’t want his illness to be known by everyone. Sheriff Maddox helped us keep her cause of death quiet—even with most of the community.”
“The sheriff knew and didn’t launch an investigation?” The idea irked Jack. Law enforcement officers weren’t supposed to be passive. They were supposed to fight for justice.
“My daed had just bought the horse. I was thankful another Amish family hadn’t acquired her yet. It was a bad purchase, and I vowed it wouldn’t happen again.”
Jack’s red fury cleared and the truth came into focus. “You kept it a secret to protect your father.”
Grace nodded. “It was a bad purchase,” she repeated.
“Because if people learned your father wasn’t able to do this job anymore, he would lose it. And so would you.”
“Worse. Daed would have been ostracized.” Grace’s green eyes implored him to understand. Little did she know he knew the feeling on a personal level. “The sheriff helped me keep it a secret and said it was my mother’s illness that caused her to go off the road. She was under the weather and couldn’t focus. It wasn’t a lie. She really wasn’t feeling well that day.”
“But Grace, that means you let someone go free who killed your mother.”
She shrugged. “Cars and trucks are loud. It’s not their fault if a horse gets spooked. The driver probably didn’t even know what happened as he went past.”
Jack struggled to understand Grace’s reasoning. “You don’t think your mother deserves justice?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said, and turned to look at the passing scenery.
Silence ensued as Jack drove on, and eventually, the Autumn Woods Ranch and Racetrack came into view. He respected her request for ending the conversation, but said, “I’m trying to understand, but I need your honesty to do this. And to solve this case.”
She swung her head to face him. “My mamm’s death has nothing to do with the horses, other than my daed’s poor purchase of one.”
“Maybe, maybe not. I still need to know all the details if justice will be served.”
Grace lifted her head haughtily. “That’s not a trait the Amish strive for, either. I forgave the person in the car that day, but I also vowed to do better here at the track, so that it never happens again.”
Jack scoffed as he pulled the reins, turning the horses into the long drive. “That’s another reason why I never made a good Amish man. For me, justice is all that matters.”
“If that’s what you think, then I will have to agree with you. You do not make a gut Amish man.”
SEVEN
The Autumn Woods stables were located at the back of a sprawling property beyond an oval racetrack and various small outbuildings. High up on a hill overlooking the property stood the two-story private home of the owner. The creamy-white house with high peaks and gleaming glass lent a prestigious glamour to the horse ranch. Jack whistled at the extravagant dwelling, then scanned the vast property. The track offered well-trained horses that were accustomed to pulling race carts and hearing loud noises. The owner had no reason to keep the slower horses, but the Amish welcomed such an animal, and so this was one instance the English and Amish worlds were allowed to intersect.
Grace instructed him to drive the buggy past the fenced-in track surrounded by tall spectator stands. They would go sit in them soon, when the practices began. For now, she pointed to the rear lot, where hitching posts stood along the side of the stable. No horses were tethered there, except for one still hitched to a racing cart. Grace looked around for a worker but found no one. Not a single person anywhere.
She tempered her annoyance, and said, “That’s strange of them to leave the horse connected to its cart like that.”
Jack pulled up alongside the animal and put the brakes on the buggy. Shaking his head, he said, “She’s panting like she just raced and needs cooling down.” He scanned the area. “Where is everybody? Is it always this quiet?”
“No, but I don’t usually come on Sundays.” Grace jumped from the buggy to assess the situation. Petting the animal’s slick coat proved that Jack w
as right. She grew infuriated at such treatment. “Are they ferhoodled?” Grace quickly unhitched her. “She needs to be walked.”
“You’re going to do it?” Jack said, standing up in his seat.
“Do you see anyone else around? Of course I will walk her.”
As she started to lead the horse toward the pasture, Jack called out, “Wait.” He stepped down from the buggy.
She looked over her shoulder to see him reaching under his shirt for something. “What is that?” she asked in confusion, even as her mind registered what it was that he held in his hand. “You can’t carry a gun,” she whispered harshly. “The Amish don’t carry guns.”
“I’m not Amish anymore.” He tucked the weapon in his palm and held it close as he stepped up beside her, still looking around warily.
“But you’re pretending to be. People will know in an instant you’re not.”
“It gives me extra strength and protection.”
She scoffed, her lips pursed. “You’ll never know how strong you are as long as you rely on a weapon.”
“I’m not about to find out. Now walk,” he told her. “Something doesn’t feel right. I know it’s not a race day, but it’s too quiet. I feel like someone was expecting us and took flight. Or went to a hiding place.” He shook his head. “I don’t like being caught off guard.”
The horse nickered as Grace led her around, patting her gently. “I don’t feel good about this,” she said nervously.
“Me neither. There are too many trees and buildings someone could be hiding behind.”
“I was talking about the gun.”
He scoffed. “You’ll change your mind if someone starts shooting at us.” He pointed toward the back of the stables. “Stay to the right. We can use the building as cover if need be.”
“I disagree,” she said stubbornly. “There must be a better way.”
