He felt the heat hit his neck and face and he shrugged. “I’m not different.”
“You are! You’re not Amish anymore, Solomon.”
He felt her words like a punch to the chest. “Hey, the only difference between me now and me five years ago is that I know how to take care of myself now. That’s it. I wasn’t going to let him hurt you.”
“Where did you learn to fight like that?” she asked.
“You probably don’t want to know,” he said quietly.
“And if they’d ganged up on you?” she asked, her voice shaking.
“If they’d ganged up on me?” He laughed softly. “Nah. They had their leader—that big animal who had your wrist. The other two were just followers. That’s how it works—you get the big one and the other ones fall into line.”
“You learned that in jail?” she asked.
“Yah. I did. And I know that scares you, but that was in defense of you, and I hope you’ll never have to see it again. Ever. Okay? But I wasn’t standing passively by and waiting to see what he had in mind—” He didn’t want to even think about it, but Gott hadn’t left Elizabeth unprotected either. Solomon might not be the proper Amish man anymore, but he was capable of stopping those creeps.
Elizabeth eyed him with a strange look on her face, and Solomon sighed, then looked up and down the road. Nothing. They were alone and the truck was gone. For the time being at least, they were safe.
“Okay, let’s get you back to the house,” he said.
“The money,” she said.
“Right. Hold on.” He grabbed the money box and the change bag from inside the stand and then caught her hand in his as they headed down the drive together. He held her hand firmly, and she closed her fingers around his just as tightly in return.
“It’s okay,” he said, half to her and half to himself. “They’re just some town guys who had too much to drink. They’ll sober up.”
“You know how people like that work?”
No, he didn’t. Not really. He knew from stories he’d heard—some in prison, some from his less savory friends. He’d never hung out with men like that. He’d spent his time with the types of people who used their brains more than their brawn . . . even if their brains led them in less legal directions.
“Sure,” he lied. “It’ll be fine.”
Because he wanted her to feel safe, even if it lowered her opinion of him. Besides, he wasn’t leaving her on her own at that stand again. He was lucky this time—but the Amish didn’t believe in luck. They believed in divine intervention.
Did Gott help an Amish man beat an Englisher into submission? It hardly seemed likely, and yet if Solomon had learned one thing in his time away, it was that Gott worked outside of their boundaries just as powerfully as he worked within them.
Gott wasn’t caged.
Chapter Six
Elizabeth sat at the kitchen table, a cold cloth on her wrist, watching as Bridget bathed Solomon’s hands. She was only now seeing his bloodied knuckle, and she winced in sympathy when he flinched. Solomon’s gaze moved up toward Elizabeth, and a smile flickered at one corner of his lips. His muscles were relaxed, but they still appeared to be filled with latent strength. He closed his fingers into a fist and the blood started seeping again.
“Stop that,” Bridget said, swatting his arm.
“Just checking,” he said.
“Checking for what? If you’re actually mortal?” the old woman muttered.
Elizabeth smiled at that, adjusting the cold cloth on her wrist, and Solomon glanced her way with a twinkle in his eye. The fear all felt so far away now that they were in the kitchen with Bridget fussing over them. The door to the basement hung open and a laundry basket filled with wet, clean clothes sat next to it, ready for the line.
“You did this to another human being, Sol,” Bridget said, shaking her head. “I know he was a bad man and I know he’d have done worse given the chance, but we are Amish, and our way of life is not because other people deserve it! We don’t fight, Sol. We don’t kill. We don’t pick up arms in times of war and we certainly don’t beat the life out of men at our gates!”
“He’s fine,” Solomon said.
“No, Sol, he isn’t.” Bridget pressed the cloth against his knuckles. “You punched him in the face until your knuckles bled. That man is not okay! And whether or not he deserved that treatment is not for us to judge.”
“Mammi, it’s better than what he had in mind—”
“Gott does not ask us to punish, and I won’t debate that with you,” Bridget replied. “There are other ways, Sol, and if you don’t find them, you’ll end up in prison all over again.”
Bridget exchanged a serious look with Solomon and Elizabeth dropped her gaze. It wasn’t comfortable to watch a grown man lectured by his grandmother, but Bridget was right, of course. Their ideals didn’t change because of evil men. The Amish believed in the sanctity of all life, created by Gott.
“I can start hanging laundry,” Elizabeth said, starting to rise.
“Sit!” Bridget said, waggling a finger in her direction. “You need more cold on that wrist before you try to use it. Just be still.”
Elizabeth sank back down. It was hard to refuse an order like that—the maternal authority ringing in the old woman’s voice.
“Should we call the police?” Elizabeth asked.
“We don’t dare call the police,” Bridget replied. “Sol’s on parole and fighting for any reason will get him locked back up. We’ll shut down the stand. That’s all we can do.”
“No,” Solomon said. “What about the money you’ll make? You need it!”
“Gott will provide,” Bridget replied.
“Mammi, I know I’m already disappointing you, but I asked for a job this morning with Seth, and—” He swallowed. “He turned me down. It might take a little while for me to find someone who will hire me.”
“I’m not leaning on you, Sol,” Bridget replied. “And while I am disappointed right now, I haven’t given up on you either. I meant it when I said that Gott will provide. He hasn’t let us down yet.”
Outside, Elizabeth heard the sound of horses’ hooves, and Solomon pulled his hand away from Bridget’s ministrations and headed to the window.
“It’s Johannes,” he said.
Elizabeth exchanged a look with Bridget and Solomon got up from his seat at the table, pulled open the door, and headed outside.
“He must be here to see you, dear,” Bridget said to Elizabeth.
Elizabeth had stayed friends with her sister’s ex-fiancé, but he didn’t tend to come visit per se. Her heart sped up. Was there news from Lovina?
Elizabeth headed to the door. Outside, Solomon was filling some buckets with water for the horses to drink, and Johannes looked up when he saw Elizabeth. He was a tall man with sandy-blond hair and a solemn expression.
“I won’t take too long, so I won’t unhitch,” Johannes said. He went over and picked up a bucket from Solomon and carried it to the first horse. They worked easily together—and side by side, Elizabeth could see the family resemblance between the two.
“Go on in,” Solomon said. “I’ll take care of this.”
Elizabeth noticed Johannes’s gaze linger on Solomon’s hands for a moment, then he turned his steps toward the house.
Elizabeth stepped back to let Johannes come inside. He gave her a nod, but his expression remained sober.
“Hello, Auntie,” he said when he saw the old woman at the kitchen table. There were bloodied cloths in a pile there, and Johannes looked at them, then shot Elizabeth a questioning look.
“What happened?” Johannes demanded. “Did Sol hit you?”
“What?” Elizabeth shook her head. “Do I look like it? No! It’s a long story—well, maybe not so long. Some Englishers came by the produce stand and started hassling me. Solomon . . . um . . . he took care of it.”
Johannes didn’t look appeased by that story, and he looked over his shoulder in Solomon’s direction b
efore shutting the door.
“He was fighting?” Johannes said. “That’s what you mean, right?”
“We’ll sort it out,” Bridget said firmly. “Leave it to me.”
Johannes pressed his lips together, and Bridget swiped the cloths off the table. She went to the cupboard and pulled out some disinfectant and wiped down the table. Then she gestured for Johannes to sit and headed to the sink to wash her hands.
“Have you heard from Lovina?” Elizabeth asked, leaning forward and lowering her voice.
He shook his head. “No, I haven’t.”
“Oh . . .” The hope that had started to well up inside her seeped away.
“I came by to talk to both you and Aunt Bridget, though. It’s about Lovina . . . a little bit at least,” Johannes said. “I got a visit from the bishop this morning and . . . and, well, he has an idea.”
“He wants you to marry,” Elizabeth said dully.
“You heard?” he asked with a frown.
“Yah,” she admitted. “Sovilla Miller, the woman who was widowed recently, right?”
“That’s the one,” he said, and he heaved a sad sigh.
“What did the bishop say?” Elizabeth asked hesitantly.
“He said that with Lovina gone, I couldn’t throw away the rest of my life on a woman who left me,” Johannes replied. “He said that she’s living her life and I owe it to myself to live mine.”
“With Sovilla,” Elizabeth said bitterly.
Bridget came back to the table with a blackberry pie and three plates. She put it down and then pulled out a chair.
“Please have pie,” she said gently, putting a hand on Johannes’s arm.
Johannes smiled wanly, then nodded. Bridget served him a piece of pie and he sank a fork into the crust but didn’t lift the bite to his lips. He stared at his plate for a moment or two, then looked up at Elizabeth.
“Sovilla needs a husband,” he said.
“There are other men, aren’t there?” Elizabeth asked.
“Yah, I suppose,” he replied.
Elizabeth felt her stomach tighten. “Are you considering it, then?”
Johannes sighed. “I don’t know. The thing is, if I thought Lovina would come back, I’d never do it. But I’m not convinced she will come back.”
Elizabeth sucked in a wavering breath. “I think she will. I know my sister—and when she left it was because of my father’s crime, not because she no longer believed in our way of life. She might need to sort it out in her head, but I can’t imagine that everything we were raised to do would go out the window.”
“Everything your father raised her to do,” Johannes said, and he met her gaze.
“I can’t believe that she’s just . . . gone,” Elizabeth said, shaking her head. “You knew her, too, Johannes. Do you really think she’d stop loving all of us? Do you think she could change that much, permanently?”
“Other young people jumped the fence, too,” Johannes said. “All for the same reason—they’d trusted your father. And when he was proven to be—” He swallowed.
“A crook,” Elizabeth supplied. “I know. My father was supposed to strengthen people’s faith, and instead he caused a great many to lose it. But I still don’t think Lovina will stay away forever.”
“How long would you have me wait?” Johannes asked, his voice low. “There are days when I’d be relieved to get a letter that told me that she’s marrying some Englisher! I would, because it would set me free.”
They were silent for a moment. Johannes had a different relationship to Lovina than the rest of them. He’d belonged to her by choice, not by blood. No matter what happened, Lovina would be Elizabeth’s younger sister, but it wasn’t the same for Johannes. People who’d been in love had a more delicate balance, and perhaps a more exquisite pain.
“Could you love this . . . Sovilla?” Elizabeth asked.
He shook his head. “I don’t know. But I know I could be useful to her. I could support her and take care of her kinner like my own. At least I wouldn’t be alone.”
“You should pray about it,” Bridget said quietly.
They both turned their attention to the old woman, and Bridget shrugged weakly. “There is no saying how Gott is working right now. Look at Ruth in the Bible. Her husband died and she left everyone she knew to go to her mother-in-law’s home country, where she met Boaz. Look at Isaac—his father sent a servant to bring a girl for him and he fell in love with her as soon as he saw her—”
“Yah, I know,” Johannes said. “Gott works in strange ways sometimes. And trust me, I’ve been praying, but I don’t have an answer from Him yet.”
Bridget nodded. “Best get one. It might be time to let go of how we thought things would turn out and accept how they are.”
Except that sounded like giving up, and Elizabeth wasn’t ready to do that yet. Was Johannes?
The side door opened and Solomon came inside. Johannes stood up.
“I have some thinking to do,” Johannes said.
Johannes gave Solomon a nod and then headed out the door. Solomon stood there for a moment.
“I’m going to bring the produce back from the road,” Solomon said.
“Thank you, Sol,” Bridget said.
What would they do without the men who protected them and cared for them? But one by one, the men Elizabeth had come to count on were drifting away. Her daet had started it all when he proved that he wasn’t the reliable man they all believed him to be. Her uncle, who had always been gruff, proved himself to be cold and unwelcoming when she’d needed a home most. And now Johannes, who rightfully deserved to move on, was considering doing just that. Elizabeth knew it would change things between them all. A new wife wouldn’t welcome this close relationship with his old fiancée’s family.
Bridget had mentioned Ruth of the Bible, and how she’d traveled far to find her noble husband, Boaz. Maybe it could be the same for Elizabeth, and she could find a man she could trust in with all her heart, whose integrity and goodness would be her support, and she could put her uncertainty behind her for good.
Solomon had said she’d never find it, but she disagreed. She wasn’t looking for perfection anymore, she was looking for character. Her daet had told her that she deserved that much. He used to sit in the kitchen with Elizabeth and Lovina and tell them of the kind of men they deserved to marry—kind, considerate, faithful men.
“You are not only my daughters, you are Gott’s,” her father had said earnestly. “And you cannot accept less than what you deserve. Too many girls make that mistake, and they live to regret it. Do you understand?”
Elizabeth had always insisted that she did. She was older than Lovina, after all, and that meant that she should be wiser. She’d always been the more serious sister, too. But she’d only really understood what her father meant once her friends started getting engaged and married, and she’d seen a few girls make very big mistakes in their choices.
“Choose better than she did,” was all her father would say.
And while her father had let her down in every other way in these last couple of years, she had to believe that he’d spoken some truth . . . didn’t she?
Because if she couldn’t believe in something, she’d end up like Lovina and she’d have nothing left at all.
* * *
That evening, after his grandmother had nodded off in her chair in the sitting room, Solomon headed outside. His excuse was that he needed to fix a fence on the far side of the pasture, but while it had gotten rickety, it wasn’t a dire emergency either. He just wanted space.
That fight had upset him more than he wanted the women to know. He was shaken, and every time he closed his hand, his knuckles stung. That feeling of pounding on another man—it was like he’d materialized back in the prison again. That spot in the middle of his back began to prickle as if he was being watched, and he pulled off his straw hat and scrubbed a hand through his short-cropped hair. He could almost feel the chill of cement walls closing in around
him.
Solomon shivered, even though the air was warm and it hummed with the sound of night insects. The sun had set, and as he trudged back toward the house through the long grass, he slapped at a mosquito on his arm.
Gott, will I react like an inmate for the rest of my life?
The adrenaline had long since worn off, as had his certainty that he’d handled that situation correctly. Had there been a way to get Lizzie away from them without resorting to violence? He wasn’t even sure. What he did know was that the man who had surged up inside him was no better than a convict, fighting for dominance, or for respect, or just to make some massive thug leave him alone.
And that brute with his hand on Elizabeth had reminded him of a particular inmate in the prison . . . except this hadn’t been prison, and there weren’t any guards turning a blind eye.
The sky still glowed crimson at the horizon and a couple of stars pierced through the dusk. He headed back toward the house, a bag of tools from the shed slung over one shoulder. The house was dark upstairs, but the kitchen and sitting room windows shone with the light of two kerosene lamps.
Funny how years ago, trudging back toward this old house, he’d felt so cooped up and hemmed in that it had filled him with a simmering anger. Now, that old house with the creaking hinges on the door and the white paint flaking off the siding represented a comfort he wasn’t even sure he deserved anymore.
When he was a boy, Solomon’s mother used to tell him the story from Genesis about the Garden of Eden, and how Adam and Eve had everything they could possibly want. But they’d wanted to know more—dangerously more—and that was the start of an eternity of misery.
You’re being like Adam and Eve, his mother used to tell him. You want to know what’s out there in the world, but you have no appreciation for your life right here. I pray that you’ll come to your senses before it’s too late, Son.
Solomon had missed his mamm something fierce when he was in prison, and he’d told himself that when he got out, he’d make it up to her. He’d prove that he could make her proud. But sitting in a cell, he hadn’t been very realistic about his options after he came back. Getting a job wasn’t going to be easy and gaining trust might not be possible anymore. So making it up to her? He might not be able to.
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