Colton Destiny

by Justine Davis

  “No wonder you looked familiar,” she said with a rueful smile at her own slowness. “There’s a poster of you hanging in my kid sister’s room.”

  And wait until I tell Piper I ran into her idol, here of all places.

  Something must have shown in her face, or else the actress was exceptionally perceptive, because she quickly explained.

  “I’m researching a role,” she said. “I want it to be as accurate as possible, and immersing myself in Amish life seemed the best way to achieve that.” She turned to look at Mrs. Yoder with a wide smile. “And my hosts have been beyond helpful and hospitable.”

  “You have worked much harder than I would have expected,” Mrs. Yoder said with obvious approval.

  Violet turned back to Emma. “Is there any progress? Those girls—it makes my skin crawl to think what they and their families must be going through. If anything ever happened to my boys...”

  Emma didn’t think the shudder was put-on. In fact, for one of the hottest and most talented young stars out there, Violet Chastain seemed quite genuine.

  “Were you here when the girls went missing?”

  “I was, but I was in Eden Falls, where my boys are, so I didn’t find out until I got back. Speaking of which, I’m off to see them now. It’s been too long.”

  Mrs. Yoder laughed. “It was yesterday.”

  “Too long,” Violet said with a smile that made Emma like her and her open love for her children.

  The room seemed much quieter when the woman had gone, and Emma pondered a moment that larger-than-life quality, wondering if stars had it before or gained it after they became famous. But then she turned her attention back to the matter at hand and the cup of coffee Mrs. Yoder handed her. It was hot, strong and welcome.

  She’d been here, on the large farm that was just down the road from Caleb’s home, the first day she’d arrived. But no one had been home.

  “We were attending a wedding,” the woman said now when she asked. “My husband’s brother. He lives near Wilkes-Barre, so we were gone three days.”

  Curious, she asked, “Ms. Chastain, what did she do?”

  Mrs. Yoder waved a hand, much as Violet had, and Emma had the brief thought how universal some things were.

  “She had meetings with movie people and stayed with her children. She is a good mother, I think.”

  Too bad about their father, Emma thought, but didn’t say it. She doubted anyone here even knew who the tragic man who had fathered Violet Chastain’s twins was.

  “How well did you know the missing girls?”

  “Hannah fairly well, the other two only as much as anyone else in the community.”

  “Was there anything that made you think Hannah might leave on her own?”

  Mrs. Yoder hesitated.

  “Please, Mrs. Yoder. Anything might be the one piece we need to find the girls.”

  “Hannah is...restless. She always has been.”

  “Enough to leave the faith?”

  “Perhaps.” The woman sighed, looking troubled. “Of all the children of age, Hannah leaving would surprise me the least.”

  Emma appreciated the woman’s honesty. Or perhaps it was simply that living, in essence, next door, she was more aware. Although it seemed that the striking redhead had a temperament to match her hair, and Emma wondered how someone like that would fit into this quiet community.

  Or someone like herself.

  Emma gave herself an inward shake, annoyed at the way her thoughts kept slipping away from her. She must be truly going sour on the world if all she could do was contrast the cruelty man could visit upon his fellow man that she dealt with on a regular basis, with the way these people all looked out for each other.

  Not that there wasn’t much to be admired, of course. And at that word, something else popped into her head.

  “Did Hannah get along with her brother?”

  “With Caleb? Of course. Caleb’s a very amiable man.”

  Emma barely kept her brows from arching upward. She’d found him gruff, at best. Was he really that different to his own people? Was it only outsiders who got treated to that aspect of him? And all outsiders? Or just her?

  She found herself hoping it was all. She didn’t want to think it was she alone who set him on edge.

  Then again... Even as she thought it, a rush of warmth started somewhere in her middle and shot upward. It had been a long time since she’d felt such a response. That she was feeling it now, to a man who was...impossible, seemed just another irony in her life.

  She didn’t think anything showed in her face, but Mrs. Yoder said, “Caleb will have to remarry soon. He has his girls to think of. They need a mother.”

  “They had a mother,” Emma said, telling herself that the tiny bit of sharpness that had crept into her voice stemmed from empathy for the girls who had lost their mother, not embarrassment that this woman might have read her feelings.

  Or worse, that she herself didn’t like the idea of Caleb

  remarrying.

  “Yes, and Annie was a fine, fine woman. Kind, loving, generous, properly humble, she led a good life, and I’m certain her reward was great.”

  There was unshakable faith in her voice, and Emma couldn’t help contrasting the quiet acceptance of death with the way the outside world handled it. Or didn’t handle it, in too many cases.

  “Caleb loved her very much. They picked each other out when they were just Katie’s age, and they never wavered. We all knew they were destined to be together.”

  “They married young, then?”

  “They were nineteen, I believe.”

  Emma couldn’t help doing the math. Caleb was thirty-one, the file had said. So he had been with his Annie for seventeen years, married for nine. That kind of longevity for someone who was only thirty-one was rare in her world, and again she had that thought that these people were onto something.

  “That’s...remarkable,” Emma said.

  “Annie was a quiet sort, almost shy. But she had a way about her. All those girls who are thinking they’ll step into her shoes will find them harder to fill than they might think.”

  Don’t, Emma told herself. Don’t pursue this. It has nothing to do with your investigation.

  “I’m sure they’re lined up for miles,” she said, a little surprised at how fierce her voice sounded. But quiet and shy was not something she did well, and if that was Caleb’s ideal...

  If Mrs. Yoder noticed the sudden sharpness, she didn’t let on. “Of course. Caleb is a handsome man, and he makes a good living. And in his way he is as quietly generous as Annie was. He’s always the first one there when someone needs help.”

  “Admirable,” she said, although the meaning now was entirely different than when she’d thought it before.

  “Yes. But he’s clearly in no hurry. So the hopefuls continue to swoon and giggle.”

  The description nearly made Emma laugh, and that gave her the edge she’d needed to get control and steer the conversation back to the matter at hand. It also put her back in control of her emotions. “Swoon and giggle” was hardly in her repertoire. No matter how much Caleb Troyer might make her weak at the knees with his misty-gray eyes and his strong hands.

  She’d be better off falling for a suspect, she told herself sternly. It would be less impossible.

  And then she was back at sea again, not liking the acknowledgment she’d just made that she could be falling for Caleb Troyer.

  Chapter 11

  He could not, Caleb thought, say the FBI agent wasn’t doing her job. The woman had been everywhere, talked to everyone. And if she’d learned anything useful, she wasn’t saying.

  Or at least, she wasn’t saying it to him.

  He should be glad of that, he told himself. Her brisk, no-nonsense manner grated on him. He preferred quiet, gentle women like his wife had been.

  And why he was even comparing the two was beyond him.

  He paced the length of the shop, glancing at the clock, then frowning a
s he remembered he’d forgotten to wind it yesterday and it must have stopped sometime this afternoon. Just another sign of his lack of focus.

  For all the work he was getting done, he might as well just close up and go get Katie and Ruthie from school, then go retrieve Grace from Mrs. Stoltzfus. He’d put down the heavy wood plane once he’d realized he was so distracted he’d likely lose a finger if he continued. Distracted by an overwhelming worry about Hannah. By wondering how he would ever tell the girls if the worst were to happen.

  By the woman who was here to find that out.

  His jaw tightened as he clamped down on unwelcome thoughts. Again. He was just impatient, hard though he tried to rein in the desperate urge to do...something. Anything. That was all it was.

  He remembered something his father had always hammered into him as a boy: whenever you felt you had the least control was when you needed control the most. Caleb had never been able to picture his stern, stoic father out of control, so he guessed he was quoting someone else. Perhaps his own father, Caleb’s grandfather, who had been a bit of a wild one by all accounts, chafing at the restrictions of his life until one day he’d fallen just as wildly in love and everything had changed for him.

  Odd, Caleb thought. He hadn’t realized until now that his grandmother, the woman who had brought that wild heart to heel, bore a certain resemblance to Emma Colton.

  He turned and paced back toward the front of the shop. The piece he was working on was a commissioned job, a large cabinet for a wealthy client in nearby York. It wouldn’t do to give it any less than his full attention. He simply must get control of his rampaging thoughts. He’d never had trouble focusing on his work before. In fact, after Annie’s death it had been his salvation, and he’d poured his grief into long hours of work.

  That it didn’t seem to be working now frustrated him. He didn’t understand why it was failing him, what was

  different—

  He stopped midstride, his breath catching in his throat. The vision before him tightened his chest so that he could barely breathe. For there were his two oldest girls, walking to the shop as they often did when school let out. Only they weren’t alone. Emma Colton was with them. She was more than with them.

  She was between them, a girl clinging to each hand with a trust he found a little stunning considering she was not just a stranger but an outsider, as well. Katie was walking with her head slightly down, as she often did, but Ruthie was looking up into Emma’s face, clearly involved in a conversation that had her fascinated.

  And Emma showed no sign of unease, awkwardness or desire to escape. In fact, as he stood there staring, she leaned down and said something to Katie that made the girl smile and apparently join in the conversation.

  And all the while Emma held those two trusting little hands securely, almost protectively.

  Caleb swallowed tightly. He turned his head, unable to look at the pleasant, unexpected tableau any longer. And unable to deal with the unwelcome feelings it stirred in him.

  Be honest at least, he told himself. God knows your thoughts.

  It wasn’t the idyllic picture of his daughters strolling hand in hand with a lovely woman that had made his gut clench. It was Emma herself, the late-fall sunlight turning her hair into that rich fire he wanted to warm himself in.

  “You are done with that,” he said aloud, as if only vocalizing the words could make it so. “Annie is gone, and with her your heart. That part of your life is over.”

  He could hear, echoing in his head, all the protestations of the community, telling him thirty-one was far too young for him to give up and that his girls needed a mother.

  He’d thought about that long and hard. He was fortunate in that his work brought him enough income to pay to have done the things he could not do, things that Annie had always done. And out of need, he’d learned to be an adequate cook, although Katie, even at eleven, was going to outstrip him in that realm soon. She’d already taken over breakfast and preparing her own and her sisters’ lunches for school, leaving only dinner to him.

  “Ah, Annie,” he said quietly into the air, thinking of all the years he’d come home from work to find a hot, hearty meal waiting, “I didn’t appreciate you enough.”

  And then he heard the girls’ chatter as they opened the door to the shop. Lighthearted, eager, happy. It was like a saw blade slicing through him to realize how long it had been since he’d heard his girls sound like that.

  Perhaps they did need a mother.

  But certainly an Englishwoman, and an FBI agent of all things, was not an acceptable choice.

  “Hello,” Emma said with a hesitant smile as she closed the shop door behind her. “I hope you don’t mind. I saw the girls walking this way and joined them.”

  Caleb shook his head. With a last, stern command to himself to betray nothing of his undesirable thoughts, he made himself speak evenly.

  “I do not mind. The...protection is welcome.”

  Emma studied him for a moment. “I don’t think you need to worry,” she finally said.

  Not worry? Caleb couldn’t believe she’d said that. How could he not worry?

  “Agent Emma said—”

  “What did you call her?” Caleb asked, cutting Ruthie’s burst of excitement short. Katie colored fiercely and backed up a step.

  “We compromised,” Emma said, so quickly Caleb wondered if she was explaining so the girls wouldn’t have to. “I wanted them to call me Emma, but Mrs. Stoltzfus pointed out that was improper for girls their age.”

  “I’m sure she did,” Caleb said before he could stop himself. Esther Stoltzfus had long ago appointed herself arbiter of decorum and social niceties, and he himself had more than once run afoul of her dictates.

  He sent the girls off to the office in the back of the shop to begin their homework. And before he said something he didn’t want them to hear. He seemed to have far too much trouble controlling his words when “Agent Emma” was around.

  “Does she always correct visitors?” Emma asked.

  “She corrects everyone,” Caleb said. He could hear Annie’s gentle voice chiding him and added hastily, “But she means well.”

  “Sometimes,” Emma said, “good intentions don’t matter. Results do. Katie was very embarrassed.”

  Something had come into the woman’s voice, something fierce, and it took Caleb a moment to realize she was feeling defensive. Of Katie. That knowledge rattled him even more than the lovely picture of her walking toward him holding hands with his girls had.

  “Katie must toughen up,” he said, his unease with his continuingly inappropriate reaction to this woman making his voice more gruff than he had intended.

  “She will,” Emma said flatly. “Life will do that to her soon enough. No need to rush it.”

  Caleb let out a breath he hadn’t even been aware of holding. How often had he said just that to others who had commented on Katie’s sensitivity? She was so like her mother in that respect that when others said what he’d reactively said about her toughening up, he took it as a criticism of Annie, and that he would not accept gracefully.

  Yet here was this woman who had dropped into their lives just three days ago understanding and defending Katie in the same way he often had.

  “Do you...have children?” he asked, wondering why the idea unsettled him, yet thinking it must be the answer to her easy empathy and connection with the girls.

  “No,” she said. “But I’ve been around them a lot. My parents ran a foundation for at-risk kids, and all of us were deeply involved.”

  Caleb shook his head slowly. “‘At-risk kids.’ What kind of world is it where such a term can even exist?”

  “A cruel one,” Emma said with a grimace. “No wonder you set yourselves apart. Your lives are much...cleaner.”

  Caleb heard the tinge of bitterness in her voice. He knew enough of the English world to deal with it as he had to, and he rarely dwelt upon it more than that. But he knew of the Coltons from knowing Dr. Colton,
knew they were wealthy and exceedingly generous, with their hearts as well as their wealth. If their world could bring such a feeling even to someone like Emma Colton...

  “I thought of leaving, once.”

  Emma gave him a startled look. “Leaving...Paradise Ridge? Or your faith?”

  “Both. After my wife died, all I wished was to leave, get away, escape.”

  He stopped, stunned that he had said it, that he had told this stranger, this woman, this English, what he had told no one else. Ever.

  “I’ve found,” Emma said, her voice now quiet, gentle and full of empathy, burning out the bitter note, “that it’s never a good or successful idea to run away from something. To run to something, yes. But away? It will only follow you.”

  He wondered what had taught her that hard lesson. Something awful; he could see the haunted shadow of it in her eyes.

  “Or you will carry it with you,” he said, “and end where you began.”

  “Exactly that,” she said. “Wise of you. Most people have to do it to learn it.”

  He gave a half shrug. “I could not do it. After losing their mother, I could not take my daughters away from the only life they’d ever known, the community they are part of, the other people who care for them.”

  “Including your sister?”

  “Especially my sister,” Caleb said. He shook his head, feeling a stab of guilt. “I should not be dwelling on my small difficulties when she is in jeopardy.”

  “You can’t worry every minute,” Emma said, reminding Caleb of what she’d said earlier.

  “What did you mean when you said I didn’t have to worry?”

  “I meant that this predator seems to have a type, and your girls don’t match that type.”

  “But my sister did?”

  Hannah nodded. Then, hastily, as if to forestall any further questions about that particular question, she went on.

  “I wanted to let you know I’ve turned up a couple of possible leads. Someone mentioned seeing a UPS truck in the area that day, so we’re tracking down the driver to see if he saw anything unusual. And I’ll be on my way to check with the police department in Harrisburg. They stopped an older man driving a van with a couple of young girls in it.”