Still Waters

by Tami Hoag

  “I'm divorced,” Elizabeth explained, tapping ash into a microwave tray that still bore traces of the overcooked lasagna that had been packaged in it.

  Aaron grunted his disapproval as he set his cup aside and muttered “English” half under his breath. Marriage was meant by God for life. A man and woman joined in partnership to work and to bring forth children, to remain as companions until death. He had no sympathy for people who took the Lord's word so lightly and disposed of marriage partners as easily and as often as they traded in their automobiles.

  “How about you?” Elizabeth asked, naturally curious about this odd man who had invaded her kitchen. She hadn't lived in Still Creek long enough to encounter any of its Amish residents up close and personal—until last night, and then small talk had seemed inappropriate to say the very least.

  He stood across from her, his hands tucked into the deep pockets of his homemade black trousers. Like every Amishman she'd seen, he wore a cotton shirt that was a warm shade of blue, buttoned to the throat and trimmed with a set of black suspenders. For the first time she realized he was attractive in an unkempt sort of way. He kind of favored Nick Nolte in Cape Fear—taut, unsmiling, but not without appeal. His face was long with prominent cheekbones, a straight blade of a nose, a tightly compressed mouth. The expression he wore had the same kind of brooding quality that was all the rage in GQ these days. With a shave and a haircut he would have looked like any respectable yuppie male. He could have even kept his retro-look glasses as trappings of the upwardly mobile. Elizabeth almost laughed at the irony, but she doubted Aaron would find it amusing. A sense of humor probably wasn't high on his list of attributes.

  He made her think of an English professor she'd had at UTEP. Philip Barton. Indomitable, uncompromising, with straw-colored hair and eyes that burned with the intensity of lasers. She'd had a huge crush on him. The allure of the aloof. He'd taken her to bed and given her a C minus on her D. H. Lawrence paper. A man of high principles.

  “My wife is dead,” Aaron Hauer said succinctly, and turned away from her.

  The words hit Elizabeth with the force of a lead pipe, knocking the breath from her. “I'm sorry,” she mumbled.

  If he heard her, he ignored her automatic statement of sympathy. He went to work inspecting the cupboards, his shoulders rigid, jaw set, gaze so intent on the cabinetry, Elizabeth wondered if he saw it at all or if he was looking right through it to some distant memory. She thought she could feel his pain radiating from him like an aura, and she envied him a little. He must have loved the woman he'd lost. That was more than she could say about her ex-husband. Brock had never loved her. He had loved possessing her, but he hadn't loved her, and she knew for a fact he didn't mourn her passing from his life.

  “Ya, I can fix these for you,” Aaron said absently. His long-fingered hands stroked the frame of an open cupboard as a man might stroke a woman's hair, gently, fondly. “Better to build new. There is no craftsmanship here.”

  “I can't even afford to have them fixed, let alone replace them,” Elizabeth said. She sank down on a chrome-legged chair that was undoubtedly as old as she was. The red vinyl seat was cracked and torn, and mice had long ago made off with the stuffing, but it took the weight off her blistered, aching feet and stopped the room from tilting like the deck of a listing ship. “I'm not just trying to horse-trade with you here, Aaron. The fact of the matter is, I'm pretty much broke.”

  “So are your cupboards.”

  “The place was vandalized a couple of times before I bought it,” she said, not wanting him to think all this wreckage was due to her lack of domestic skills.

  “The young people from town used it as a place to have their drinking parties,” Aaron said, looking over his meticulously arranged toolbox for the proper size screwdriver. “A good spot for that.” His mouth tightened against the bitterness. “Hidden. Out of town. No one to bother them but Amish.”

  It angered him beyond words, though he spoke of it as if he thought teenagers should be expected to ruin property as a part of their coming of age. The way the English raised their children was nothing short of barbaric in his mind. They had no principles, no scruples, no respect for anyone or anything, no fear of God or of punishment. They disrupted other people's lives and paid no consequences. But as he took his screwdriver to the hinge of one cupboard door, he calmed his temper and tried to see the good. If no one had ruined Elizabeth Stuart's cupboards, then he wouldn't have the job of fixing them.

  “There are other ways of paying besides money, Elizabeth Stuart,” he said, turning his thoughts back to the matter at hand.

  A jolt of shock went through Elizabeth and she sat up ramrod-straight on her chair. Christ in a miniskirt! Not only could Amishmen be opportunistic, they could be lewd and lascivious too. Trading work for sexual favors. This certainly brought new meaning to the idea of having a handyman.

  She stared at him, agog, wondering just what it was about her that brought out this side of a man. It wasn't as if she had set out to entice him—unless Amishmen simply went on the assumption that all “English” women were easy. In fact, all she'd tried to do since he had arrived was send him home. But here he was, calm as you please, suggesting—

  “You have a windmill you are not making use of,” he said, putting his weight into the task of wrenching a screw free from the wood and half a dozen coats of paint.

  Elizabeth blinked. “I do?”

  “Ya.” He pulled the screw free, examined it briefly, tucked it into the deep pocket of his trousers, and went to work on another. “Silas Hostetler is by way of needing a new windmill. And Silas has a young black gelding I might could use to replace my old sorrel.”

  “Ah . . .” So it wasn't her body he was after. She wasn't sure if she should be offended or relieved.

  “We have a deal, then?” Aaron pulled another screw free and pocketed it before casting her a look over his shoulder.

  She sat with one leg tucked up on her chair, hands around her ankle, arms framing her breasts, plumping them up beneath the man's thin undershirt she wore. She looked wild and wicked to him with her black hair tumbling around her shoulders, unbound and uncovered. Sinful, he told himself. A woman's hair was her glory and only for her husband to see.

  But Elizabeth Stuart had no husband.

  And he had no wife. As much as he still thought of himself as married, his Siri was with God and he was alone on this earth.

  He tore his gaze away from her, turning back to the cupboard. He had no intention of involving himself with an English woman. No matter that she obviously needed a man to look after her, or that her eyes were the color of the sky just before dawn. He had come here for other reasons, practical reasons.

  “I guess we do have us a deal.” Elizabeth pushed herself up out of the chair, a little bewildered that something good could happen this easily. Her life was Murphy's Law in practice. That she could get her kitchen fixed up for the price of a worthless old windmill seemed too good to be true. But then, the windmill wasn't worthless to an Amishman.

  Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, sugar, even if he's hitched to an Amish buggy.

  “Where I come from we shake on deals, Aaron Hauer,” she said, offering her hand.

  He looked at it as if he suspected her of having a joy buzzer tucked into her palm. Reluctantly he set his screwdriver down and accepted her offer, sighing as if it pained him to touch her. Elizabeth's mouth twitched into a wry smile. She didn't doubt that he'd never shaken hands with a woman before, certainly not an “English” woman. It gave her a little feeling of triumph to be the first.

  His hand was warm and dry, callused, tough. Tremendous strength was there, but the potential for gentleness too, and artistry. She thought of the way he'd rubbed his fingers over the cabinet and figured some lucky Amish maid was going to get herself a good husband one of these days, when he was finished mourning the wife who had died.

  “Thank you, Aaron Hauer,” she said softly. His gaze caught on hers for an in
stant and something subtle charged the air between them. It wasn't attraction, precisely, or need, or even understanding. Elizabeth couldn't give it a name other than awareness, and even that seemed too strong. Odd was what it was. Then he pulled his hand back and glanced away from her, and whatever it had been was gone.

  “I've got to go change for work,” she said, backing toward the dining room door. “Town's liable to be damn near on fire with news of the murder.” He frowned at her language and turned back to his work without comment. Elizabeth watched him, bewildered. “You don't seem overly concerned that a man was killed within shouting distance of your house.”

  He grimaced as he twisted at another stubborn screw. “What goes on in the world of the English is of no concern to me.” He muttered something in German as he fought to loosen the screw. The wood gave up its stubborn hold and he had the hardware free with a few expert flicks of the wrist.

  Elizabeth went on watching him, amazed at his calm. He spoke as if their two worlds existed on parallel planes that couldn't touch, couldn't become entwined with each other even as they themselves were disproving that theory. That a killer might not discriminate between Amish and English the way he did apparently hadn't occurred to Aaron Hauer. Elizabeth doubted Amish throats would be any more resistant to a blade than Jarrold Jarvis's had been, but she envied Aaron his insulation of faith. It would have been nice to cite a Bible verse and absolve herself of any involvement in what had happened. But she couldn't do that. Even if she hadn't found the body, she was still a reporter.

  “You'll have to introduce yourself to Trace,” she said, mentally shifting gears as she moved sideways toward the phone that hung on the kitchen wall. She would call Jo for a ride, then call the guy Deputy Kaufman had said would pull her car out of the ditch—what was his name? Jurgen something. “Trace is my son,” she clarified. “It's against his religion to get up before noon.

  “Help yourself to any food you find that doesn't look like a science experiment. Chee-tos is probably the best you're gonna do. I hope you don't have anything against artificial colors and preservatives, 'cause that's about all we live on. I'd burn you some toast, but I've got to make a couple of calls, then I'm off to look for truth and justice.”

  “And what will you do with it when you find it?” a low, soft male voice said in a tone laced with sardonic amusement.

  Elizabeth swung around toward the back door, her heart jamming up in her throat. Dane Jantzen stood leaning against her refrigerator, as if he had much more important things to save his energy for besides good posture. He was in uniform—or as near to it as he probably ever came—pleated black trousers and a tailored khaki shirt and tie, badge and name tag pinned to his wide chest.

  “I'll tell the world,” she said, annoyed with herself for taking the time to stare at him.

  “And make a buck off it,” he commented mildly.

  Elizabeth reined in her temper as she lifted her chin and crossed her arms defensively. “That's right, Sheriff. It's called free enterprise.”

  He gave a little snort and straightened away from the refrigerator to wander the kitchen, his narrow gaze scanning the cluttered countertop. “That's what you call it.”

  She sucked in a breath to tell him off, but bit her tongue before the words could come spewing out. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction of rising to the bait. He enjoyed it too much, the arrogant jerk. She watched him for a minute as he browsed the contents of a doorless cupboard as if the brand of canned vegetables she bought might give him a vital clue.

  “Alphabet soup,” he said, flashing a nasty smile as he fingered the Campbell's can. “Boning up on your spelling skills?”

  “Do you have a warrant?” she snapped, leaning toward him.

  “Do I have reason to need one?” he asked quietly.

  Elizabeth ground her teeth. “What you need is a personality transplant.”

  Dane chuckled. “Have a donor in mind?”

  “Attila the Hun would be an improvement, but I'm not fussy.”

  “So I've been told.”

  The words cut. Dane cursed himself for caring, but he couldn't help it. He enjoyed sparring with Elizabeth Stuart. She had a sassy tongue and a sharp wit. But he didn't enjoy seeing the sudden flash of hurt in her eyes, and he wasn't proud of himself for being the cause. Dammit, he had expected her to sling another barb back at him; he hadn't expected her to retreat. He would have thought her skin was thicker than that for all the papers had said about her during the divorce.

  Don't believe everything you read, sugar. Her words echoed back to him, though he didn't care to hear them, didn't care to hear the truth in them. She backed away from him, her expression carefully closed, precisely arranged to reveal none of the emotions that had flashed automatically across her face seconds before. The need to apologize rose up inside him, but the words all jammed at the back of his throat and he couldn't seem to force them past his tongue. Apologizing wasn't something he did well or often.

  “Wie gehts, Dane Jantzen.”

  Dane's attention went for the first time to Aaron Hauer. He had been aware of the Amishman's presence, had seen the horse and buggy in the yard, had seen Aaron himself working on a cupboard door, but his focus had homed in on Elizabeth, his senses tuned into her, intensely aware and wary.

  “Good morning, Aaron.” He nodded at the cupboards, sliding his hands into his pockets and leaning a hip against the counter. “I'd say you've got your work cut out for you here.”

  Aaron lifted a door down, carefully scrutinizing the edge. It was too warped to plane. He would have to replace it. “Ya,” he said after a few moments. “Plenty of good needs doing here.”

  The censure in his voice was so subtle, Dane almost dismissed it as a figment of his guilty conscience. Aaron watched him a second longer, his gaze somber and steady, before turning back to his work. Dane rolled his shoulders, shrugging off the feeling of being accused, and stepped back into the role he was comfortable with, the one that went along with the badge he was wearing.

  “Plenty of bad going on around here last night,” he said. “You didn't happen to see anything, did you?”

  The Amishman selected a pair of pliers from his carpenter's box as carefully as a dentist selecting the proper tool for extracting a tooth. He turned back to the cupboard and set to work removing the broken latch. “No.”

  Dane drew in a long, slow breath, willing patience. The Amish adhered to a strict hear-no-evil see-no-evil speak-no-evil policy that could be infuriating to an officer of the law. They bore no witness to anyone but God Himself. Even when violence was directed at them they simply turned the other cheek and went on with their lives as if nothing had happened. Aaron was a perfect example.

  “A man was killed. Murdered,” Dane said, trying to impart the gravity of the situation and knowing it probably wouldn't make any difference. Aaron went on working as if he hadn't understood a word. “This is serious stuff, Aaron. Jarrold Jarvis got his throat cut last night. If you saw anything—a man, a car, anything—I need to know.”

  Aaron winced a little, though whether it was the image of a man being murdered that pained him or the fact that the cupboard latch had cracked between the teeth of the pliers, Dane couldn't tell.

  “I cannot help you, Dane Jantzen,” he said, frowning at the broken latch before he tossed it away into the plastic dish Elizabeth had been using for an ashtray.

  “Can't or won't?”

  He heaved a weary sigh and pushed his glasses up on his nose. “There was no car,” he said, looking down at the cupboard door. “There was no man.”

  Dane's gaze sharpened. “How about a woman?”

  Elizabeth's patience snapped. “Oh, for pity's sake, all right, I confess,” she said. “I snuck up on a two-hundred-sixty-pound man, got him in a choke hold, and, for no earthly reason, did him in with my fingernail file. You see,” she went on, digging out a second cigarette and tossing the pack back onto the table, “what y'all don't know is that I've been trying to tr
eat my PMS with steroids and it's just made me plumb crazy. I'm fixing to plead insanity due to hormones as my defense.”

  “Careful, Miss Stuart,” Dane warned with a smile. “Anything you say can and will be used against you.”

  She tipped her head back and fired a stream of smoke into his face. “Tell me something I don't already know.”

  “All right.” He nodded. “You're coming with me.”

  Elizabeth took a step back, her bravado vaporizing as her imagination ran rampant. She was a stranger here, a woman with a reputation, a woman without an alibi. She had been at the scene of the crime, had the victim's blood on her shoes, and Dane Jantzen was a county sheriff in a county where two bums pissing in the street was a crime wave. Visions of women-in-prison movies flashed through her head. Mother Mary on a motorcycle, talk about life going from bad to worse.

  Dane wagged his head in disgust. Every time he thought he had this woman pegged as tough, her armor cracked. She was looking up at him as if he'd just told her he sacrificed children on a daily basis. He plucked the microwave tray off the counter and stuck it under her smoldering cigarette before the inch of ash dropped off.

  “You need a ride to town,” he reminded her with no small amount of exasperation. “As I recall, you managed to drive that battleship you call a car off a perfectly straight road and, unless those steroids you're taking have given you Herculean strength and you've pulled it out of the ditch with your lovely bare hands, it's still sitting there.”

  “Here I thought you stopped by just to satisfy your daily requirement for harassing people. I wouldn't have suspected you had a big capacity for common courtesy.”

  “It's damage control,” Dane corrected her. “The press conference starts at nine. I want to know where your mouth is.”

  Elizabeth narrowed her eyes. “Well, it won't be kissing your ass. I can get my own ride, thank you very much.”

  She turned with a toss of her aching head, bent on making a grand exit if it killed her, but a hand closed on her elbow and swung her back around. She was a hairbreadth from his chest, her gaze almost level with the polished brass nameplate that read SHERIFF JANTZEN in bold black letters. Slowly, defiantly, she raised her head and stared up at him, and the world tilted a little on its axis.