by Katy Lee
She opened the door to lead the horse out. “He’s not in there. We’ve already looked.”
“Now I’m looking for any signs of a kidnapper.”
“Well, while you do that, I’m getting the sheriff.”
Jack stepped in her way. “I’m sorry, Grace, but I can’t let you leave. It’s too dangerous. I’ll get my phone and call Sheriff Maddox for you.”
“You’re not supposed to have a phone, remember? You’re pretending to be Amish. He’ll know you aren’t.”
She was right, but if he had to break his cover with anyone, he was fine with it being the local law enforcement. “If your daed was taken, then I consider it to be worth it.”
“But what if he wasn’t? What if he just walked off? He’s so confused lately, I’m sure that’s it.”
“Either way, he could be in danger, and we don’t have time to ride out for the sheriff.”
She chewed on her lower lip for a moment. “Can we just check one place before you call?”
Every second ticking by was one second too much. But Jack sighed and asked, “Why do you think Benjamin wandered off? Has he done this before?” Jack took her elbow to lead her out of the barn.
Grace squeezed her eyes shut and her lips trembled. “Once. A couple months ago I found him where Mamm died.”
Jack felt the kick of pain he witnessed on Grace’s face. He fisted his hands to keep from reaching for her. “You’re trying to keep so much going. I’m surprised you’re still standing.” He placed an arm over her shoulders and fought the urge to pull her close. The desire was strong, but he pushed it away. “Come on, we’ll start there. Can you think of any other place he might go? Maybe somewhere he went with your mamm, as well?”
Grace stopped and glanced up, a look of realization washing over her face. “The ridge.” She pointed to the cliff that abutted the property. “There’s a dirt road up to it. They used to walk there to watch the sunset together.”
“Sounds pleasant. Can we drive it?”
She hesitated. “It’s pretty steep. I wouldn’t want to put the horses through that.”
“I was talking about my truck.”
Grace pressed her lips tight but made the right choice. She headed toward the trees. “Ya, but if he’s not there, we have to get Sheriff Maddox.”
“That’s fine, but if he’s not there, we have to consider criminal behavior. You have something the thieves want.”
Stark fear settled on her face, blanching it. “Would they take an old man with dementia?”
“Without blinking.”
“Oh, Jack.” Grace reached up to pull on the strings of her kapp. Her chin trembled.
It was the first time she had used his first name. Up until now, she’d kept the formality of his title, automatically determining their relationship. It had set a boundary that now had been breached, and Jack wasn’t sure how he felt about that.
And yet he wanted to hear it again.
Part of him liked the sound of his name on her lips, but another part reminded him that he’d never make a gut Amish man—and also that he’d come here to arrest her.
“What about the thoroughbred?” she asked. “What if they took Daed so we would leave the horse behind while we searched? Can we take him with us so he’s safe?”
“The idea did cross my mind.” Jack studied her eyes, more green in the afternoon sunlight. And clearly concerned. “You really don’t want them taking the thoroughbred, do you?”
She jerked at his question and looked at him in confusion. “Of course not. Why—why would you think so?” Then her eyes darkened and her lips pursed. “I see. You still think I’m involved in this. What can I possibly say to make you believe me?”
Jack frowned. “I may regret this, but I think you just said it.”
“I did? What did I say?”
Jack’s frown faded as he reached for her wrist. “Come on. We’ll get the truck and load up the horse. Our first priority is finding Benjamin.”
With no argument there, the two of them moved his truck from its hiding place and settled the thoroughbred in the trailer. As they pulled out of the driveway, Jack checked his phone messages to see if Nic had called him back. The sooner the horse was picked up, the sooner Jack could start investigating deeper.
He glanced to the passenger seat at Grace. True concern tensed every one of her muscles. Her hands fisted in her lap showed her anxiety. And yet she faced the danger with courage.
Jack faced forward, knowing that even if he unloaded the horse, he would still have to keep Grace with him. In fact, he needed her to lure these criminals out. She was the unsuspecting target, the perfect person to use for their gains.
But what were those gains, exactly? And who was benefiting?
“Daed’s not here this time. This is where she died,” Grace said quietly, cutting into his unanswered questions. She pointed toward the side of the road, and he slowed to a stop.
“Your mamm?”
She nodded, a deep, aching sadness on her face.
The sight would cripple him if he didn’t focus on his reason for being here. He looked away, fixing his attention on the surrounding area. “You were right. You didn’t get far from home.” Jack took notice of the marshy lands at the side of the road, where water collected, filling the ditch after rains. “That was a steep fall.”
Grace nodded. “If we were just a few feet farther up the road, we would have been fine, but the wheels sank immediately and tipped us over.”
Jack looked up and down the road. “It’s so isolated out here. Do many cars drive by here?”
“Not a lot, but they do come out from town from time to time.”
Jack wanted to get out and walk around, but now was not the time. They needed to find Benjamin. He put his truck back into gear and drove toward the dirt road coming up on the left. “I assume this is the way up to the ridge?”
Grace nodded and pointed. Words escaped them both as the moment of clarity neared. In just a few minutes they would know if Benjamin had wandered off.
Or if he had been taken.
As the truck ascended up the hill, it scraped past hanging branches, and the two of them sat in a heavy silence. Grace leaned forward, her attention jumping in all directions as they entered the clearing. Her lips moved in what appeared to be a silent prayer.
“I don’t see him,” she said in a worried voice when they reached the top, her hand already on the door latch.
“Hold on. Let me drive closer to the edge.” The last word slipped out before he realized how it would affect her.
“The edge?” She covered her mouth to stifle a wail. “I didn’t even think about him going over—”
“And don’t,” Jack said, cutting her off abruptly. “I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry.” He pulled the truck up as far as he could and parked it. For a moment, neither of them moved. “Would you like me to search the area?”
It was the easiest way he could ask the question. The idea of her seeing her father at the bottom of the ridge had him wishing she would say yes.
“No. I will look.” Grace opened the door with sudden determination and jumped from the truck.
Jack quickly opened his own side. He should have known she wouldn’t back down from this. She’d proved time and time again that she was a fighter—whether she wanted to accept that about herself or not.
She stood at the edge with her back to him, looking down but not saying a thing.
“Grace?” Jack stepped up behind her and carefully put a hand on her small shoulder. He expected her to flinch, but instead she leaned against him with a heart-wrenching wail.
Jack took a breath and dared to look.
* * *
Grace buried her face in the crook of Jack’s neck. The collar of his crisp white shirt absorbed her tears of fear as the inconceivable took root. Sh
e trembled at the idea of her daed facing such an act of terror. Even before his mind deteriorated from the dementia, he had been a soft-spoken, gentle man.
Grace lifted her hands to Jack’s chest and grabbed hold of his black suspenders as if they could hold her up like a lifeline. But even with his strong frame beside her and his arms moving to envelop her, Grace couldn’t keep her legs from weakening.
“They’ve got him, Jack. He’s not here. They’ve taken him, haven’t they?” She spoke into his neck and felt him swallow hard against her cheek. “Daed has been kidnapped by these thieves. We have to find him. Oh, please, Gött, please help us find him.”
Jack rubbed her back gently. “Now, we don’t know that for sure. We’ll call the sheriff and start a search party. We could still find him out here.”
Grace lifted her face in time to see Jack’s doubtful expression. He quickly glanced away, taking his thoughts with him. But his jaw tightened and his eyes, when he looked back at her again, were dark, the ebony shade she recognized from the night she’d first met him in the barn.
The night he’d tracked her down and held a gun on her.
“Can you find him?” she asked. “Can you track my father?”
Jack locked his gaze on hers. With their faces so close, Grace could feel his breath brushing against her cheek. She’d never been this close to any man other than her father. She knew she should back away and step out of his arms, but his presence was the only thing keeping her on her feet.
Except now her knees trembled for other reasons than fear.
Grace recognized the strange feeling filling her belly with inappropriate reactions. She couldn’t look to this man for anything but assistance. Yet there was a power about him that confused the order of her life and what she thought she desired.
Grace flattened her palms against him and used her declining strength to push back and out of such an immoral proximity with Jack Kaufman.
An English man.
An English man who would bring chaos to her life.
His arm hovered between them with his hand outstretched to her. Slowly, his long fingers curled into a fist, and he dropped it to his side.
“I will do whatever I have to to find him. I promise, Grace. You can count on me.”
“Can I?” She lifted her chin and faced him eye to eye. “Because when I look at you, all I see is a man who is gut at pretending. I also see someone who doesn’t trust in his own strength—or Gött’s, for protection and guidance. How do you know you can find Daed when you left Gött behind?”
Jack’s jaw tightened at her words. He lowered his eyes and turned to face the drop-off over the ridge. “I never said I left Gött behind. I said my family left me.”
“They must have had a gut reason,” Grace said, but Jack seemed to not be listening to her suddenly. She stopped talking and watched him study the land below.
Her house could be partially seen through the trees, a tiny miniature at this distance. The back of the barn, as well, but everything else was blocked by the woods.
“What do you see?” she asked.
He squinted, then moved away from her without responding and walked closer to the edge. The rim dipped a bit there, and he bent and crouched down. When he stood, he had a beer can in his hand, wrapped in a handkerchief.
“Do people usually come up here to party?” he asked.
Grace gave his question a thought, then shook her head. “Not that I know of. I’ve never seen such a thing. It’s private land.”
“I’m assuming this isn’t your father’s can.”
“Absolutely not.” Grace bit her lip. She hoped not, anyway. “He wouldn’t have before—”
“And he wouldn’t still,” Jack interrupted. “I wasn’t being serious.” He held up the can and studied it. “This was dropped here recently. Judging by the view of your home, this has been a lookout for our thieves.”
Grace shuddered. “You mean they’ve been watching us?”
Jack nodded. “Let’s get back and call the local law enforcement. I’d like to have them comb the area for any other clues these guys left behind. I’ll have the prints run on this can.”
“But first, they need to find my daed.” Grace allowed him to usher her back to the truck. She wrapped an arm around her stomach, scrunching her apron in her hand.
“Our first priority.” He opened the door for her and held it while she climbed into the cab. Before he shut it, he said, “If he was taken, we’ll find out soon enough.”
“How do you know?”
Jack nodded to the horse trailer behind the truck. “We have what they want. They’ll need to arrange for the ransom.”
“I hope it’s soon.” Grace frowned. “He must be so scared.”
Jack’s eyelids closed for a brief moment. When he opened them, he slammed the door and stomped around the front of the pickup. Once in, neither of them said another word as they returned to the house.
Jack drove to the back of the property and pulled into his truck’s hiding place. He killed the engine, leaving them both in silence.
“I need to make the phone call,” he told her.
“How will you explain having a phone?” Grace asked.
“I’ll just say I bought it for the trip here, for safety. I can say my bishop gave me his consent.”
Grace knew it was the fastest way to find her father, but she couldn’t give her approval to a lie. She opened the truck door. Without looking back, she said, “Do what you think is best.”
She left Jack there and made her way out of the woods and to the barn. As she passed the building, the sound of crunching gravel drew her attention to the road.
A green sheriff’s cruiser pulled down her driveway and stopped in front of her house. Grace froze on the spot, unsure what she should do.
She looked back and saw Jack by his truck, making the call. Without a thought, she ran back to him.
“Stop!” she yelled. “Sheriff Maddox is here.”
“Now?” Jack asked, with the phone to his ear.
She nodded, and he pushed a button on the device. In the next second, it was gone from view, hidden like his gun. Jack was around the truck in a flash and by her side.
Together, they rushed to the house, having no more time to waste to find her father. But when they came within sight of the sheriff’s car, Jack stopped in his tracks, pulling Grace to a halt with his hand in hers.
“On the porch,” he said, directing her attention there.
The next second, Grace let go of Jack’s hand and took off in a run. “Daed!” she yelled. “Du bischt haim!” Her father was home. She ran at breakneck speed toward Benjamin, who stood beside Sheriff Maddox on the porch. When she reached him, she threw her arms around him and cried out in relief. He was really home. And safe.
Grace cupped her father’s cheek as Jack approached the bottom of the steps. She smiled down at him, but her smile slipped away when she saw his serious expression directed at Sheriff Maddox.
Jack’s arms folded over his chest. He looked at Hank and said, “Why do you have Benjamin? Do you have any idea the pain you have caused Grace by taking him from his home?”
Sheriff Maddox looked to Grace and back at Jack before replying. He tilted his head with a smirk and said, “I’ll explain right after you come clean with the Millers on why you left your Colorado community in the first place. Because it sure wasn’t to come help them, like you said. More like to help yourself to what isn’t yours. Isn’t that correct, Mr. Kaufman?”
NINE
“You leave my brudder alone,” Benjamin said to Sheriff Maddox. “We don’t take kindly to law enforcers butting into our business. Amos hasn’t done anything wrong. You tell him, Amos. Tell him you haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Amos?” Sheriff Maddox squinted. “I assure you Benjamin that this is not your brother. He’s a
con artist and your thief.”
Jack locked his gaze on Hank Maddox’s and made sure the sheriff knew he wasn’t playing his game. “Yes, Benjamin is confusing me for his brother, but whatever you think you know about me is also wrong.”
“So, you aren’t Jack Kaufman of the San Luis Valley? The one who had a run-in with the law?” Hank’s eyebrows raised, and he dared Jack to deny the accusation.
Grace inhaled sharply and quickly turned to push her father into the house. “Komm, Daed. I need you to finish the corn, so I can ready it for canning.”
“We have so much work to do before winter,” Benjamin said, and let her usher him in. “Amos, don’t pay any mind to the officer. He doesn’t understand our ways.”
Grace moved her father inside before he could say anything else. Then she shut the door and faced the two lawmen.
“Sheriff, you know not to take my father’s words as always clear and accurate. He gets confused.”
“Hank,” the sheriff reminded her again.
Grace sighed with a slight frown. “You have done so much for us, especially with keeping Mamm’s death out of the news. He wouldn’t have been able to handle the attention. I am grateful to you for that, but I must ask you never to take my father out of here without my knowing it. I feared the worst when we came home and found him gone.”
Hank shook his head. “I’m sorry you were scared, but I didn’t take him. I found him wandering around in town by the library. You really shouldn’t be leaving him here alone. It’s not safe, Grace.”
She looked to Jack.
Before Sheriff Maddox made her feel any worse than she already did, Jack spoke up for her. “Grace knows her father better than anyone. She knows what he can handle. How about you let her decide what’s best for him?”
“Fine by me,” Hank responded. “I think that’s a great idea. Would you like to tell her the truth of where you come from, or shall I? I think I know their needs better than a man with a record.”
