With quiet steps Rufus crossed the room and moved enough of the quilt off one end of the sofa to allow him to sit beside her. Her smile melted something at his core every time.
“The quilt is beautiful,” he said.
“Well, it’s not perfect, but for my first attempt, I think it’s pretty good!” She laughed. “That sounds like pride. Forgive me.”
“I admire what you have done and the qualities that have allowed you to do it.” What he wanted to say was that he was proud of her. “It’s a nice afternoon.”
“Yes, it is.” Annalise pulled the thread taut in preparation for another stitch.
“How would you like to take a driving lesson?”
Her fingers immediately released the quilt. “Really?”
“I’ll get Dolly ready.”
“I’ll put this away and find my sweater.”
By the time Rufus pulled the buggy to the front of the house ten minutes later, Annalise was standing on the front porch in the blue sweater his mother had knit for her last winter. While he scooted over on the bench, she clamored down the steps and around the back of the buggy, appearing on the driver’s side.
When she grinned, he could not help but grin back. Most Amish women Annalise’s age had been driving buggies half their lives.
Annalise straightened herself on the bench and picked up the reins. “Giddyup.”
Dolly responded with gentle forward motion. Annalise tugged the reins to the left, and the horse circled the Beiler front yard. Once they traversed the long driveway and approached the main highway, Rufus felt his own foot pressing against the floor as if to slow the buggy. On her side, Annalise pulled on the reins and pushed the brake slightly too hard, and they lurched forward. Rufus only allowed himself to watch her in his peripheral vision lest the turn of his head imply any lack of confidence. Annalise managed to stop Dolly right at the edge of the road and took her time looking in both directions.
“Is it all right if we go toward town?” Annalise asked.
“Wherever you wish. You’re the driver.”
She giggled. “You don’t know how long it’s been since anyone said that to me.”
“It’s probably a good idea to stay on a familiar stretch of road.”
“I’m a little nervous about being on the main highway.”
“You can do it. You ride with me all the time.”
“I won’t go fast.”
“Dolly will appreciate that. Sometimes I think she likes to have a Sabbath, too.”
Annalise pulled the reins to the right and entered the shoulder of the highway. They traveled in silence for a few minutes.
“You’re doing very well,” Rufus said. And she was.
“You probably remember what happened the last time you took me out. I practically ran over Leah Deitwaller.”
“But you didn’t. She is the one who ran in front of you without looking. You are the one who stopped without anybody getting hurt.”
“You certainly have a knack for seeing the upside of things.”
“Mmm.” He was not so sure. Seeing the upside of his financial bind was not what made him take a job he was beginning to think was a mistake. Hours of prayer did not give him the peace his soul sought, and being with English men all day made him lonely. But he had only been gone six days. Perhaps the next stretch would be better or go faster.
“I suppose you heard all about the fires.” Annalise’s eyes remained fixed straight ahead.
“Cars can come up faster than you think. Don’t forget to check the mirrors,” Rufus said. “Yes, Tom filled me in when he picked me up last night.”
“Do you really think it’s possible Leah set that first fire?”
He glimpsed the lovely slope of her neck as she turned her head to glance in the mirror and then over her shoulder. “Are you concerned she might have started the fire that burned the shed?”
“I don’t want to think that.” Annalise adjusted her grip on the reins. “But now there’s more talk than ever about arson, and no one knows where Leah is most of the time.”
A car whizzed by them. Annalise startled. “I see what you mean.”
“Maybe we should talk about the fires another time,” Rufus said.
She glanced at him. “You’re probably right. Tell me about the job.”
He let a few yards go by in silence.
“Rufus?”
“I may have made a mistake.”
“Why?” She turned her head toward him.
“Eyes on the road.”
She complied immediately but said, “Talk to me, Rufus.”
“I don’t want to make too much of it,” he said. “It’s a difficult adjustment, that’s all.”
“You can quit, can’t you?” she said. “I mean, if you do decide it’s not the right thing.”
He reached up to scratch the left side of his face. “One step at a time. Tom will drive me back tonight. The next job is in the hospital in Cañon City. They are renovating a wing of offices.”
“My lifetime of habit wants to tell you to do what’s right for you. But I know you will always think of your family first.”
He wanted to think of her first. He wanted her to be his family. But he could not speak those words while he reserved the possibility that he would choose to save his family’s farm with the money meant for beginning his married life.
Ruth grinned when she looked up and saw Annalise leading Dolly into the barn. “How was the drive?”
Annalise paused next to the tack rack and moved to remove Dolly’s harness.
“Let me help you with that,” Ruth said.
Annalise shook her head. “No. I want to do it. I’ve watched you all a thousand times.”
Sophie stepped out from behind Ruth. “It’s easy to tangle yourself up. It’s okay to accept help.”
“I know,” Annalise said, “but I’ll learn better if I figure it out by doing.”
Lydia nudged Ruth aside. “Don’t you know our Annalise well enough by now to know how stubborn she is?”
“I prefer to call it determined,” Annalise said. She looked up at the three sisters. “What are you all doing out in the barn, anyway?”
“Milking and mucking don’t wait for the Sabbath,” Ruth said.
“We’re waiting for you!” Sophie said. “We want to hear all about it the minute Rufus proposes.”
Annalise hefted the harness up onto its hook. “Not today, I’m afraid.”
Sophie groaned. “What is wrong with that man?”
Ruth shot her sister a look. “This is between Rufus and Annalise. It’s not our business.”
“It’s all right,” Annalise said. “I know that we’re going to be together. It’s just a matter of time.”
Sophie picked up an empty milk bucket. “We all know that. But I don’t see any reason for the two of you to miss this year’s wedding season.”
“Gottes wille.” Annalise straightened the dangling reins.
“Have you started making your dress yet?” Sophie swung the bucket back and forth. “I’m sure Mamm will help you.”
“And I’m sure I’m going to need her help!” Annalise picked up a brush and began pulling it through Dolly’s tangled mane.
“She wants to give you a beautiful wedding day.”
Ruth took the bucket from Sophie’s hands. “I’ll milk. Your mind is not on it.”
Sophie offered no objection, and she and Lydia closed in on Annalise while Ruth moved down to the stall where the family’s only cow waited. Her jealousy shamed her. She had walked away from the Amish church and a man who loved her—and the beautiful wedding her mother would have planned for her. She had no right to envy Annalise’s imminent happiness.
Twenty-Three
Ten days had passed since Annie mailed her letter to Matthew Beiler, plenty of time for him to receive Annie’s letter and sit down to answer it. On Monday morning when she stopped at the Westcliffe post office to check her mail, she could not keep from imagining Matthew open
ing the letter, reading, and picking up a pen to respond—immediately. Annie opened her box, reached in, and extracted the pile of ads. She had not purchased with a credit card over the Internet for more than a year, and she had written to a number of vendors to have her name removed from their lists. Still, the onslaught of ads persisted. Annie fished through them for the letter she knew would be there, her mother’s weekly newsy roundup, and slid it into a small outer pocket of her modest handbag. She would wait until she returned to her house to read it, and then she would take a card from the same stack she had used to write to Matthew and promptly answer her mother. Before dropping the stack in the recycling box, she shuffled through the ads one more time to make sure there was nothing from Matthew.
Out on the sidewalk, Annie could smell the yeasty fragrance of the bakery across the street and wondered if giving in to the urge to go buy a scone constituted falling into temptation. After all, she had left the house without breakfast that morning.
When she saw Elijah Capp’s horse and buggy, she forgot about both her hunger and the scone. Elijah worked for a business that catered to providing and repairing Amish appliances. He had converted Annie’s house, taking it off the English electrical grid and instead making sure the lights, furnace, stove, refrigerator, and washing machine ran on energy sources approved by the Amish district.
“Hello, Elijah.” Annie stroked the neck of his horse, a habit that had grown on her since she moved to Westcliffe the previous year. “What brings you to town?”
He lifted the bakery’s plain Styrofoam cup. “I have not yet gotten very good at making coffee in my new place.”
“I suppose it all takes some adjusting.” Annie tried to imagine what it must be like for Elijah to be living in a rented English room. “Where did you disappear to yesterday? I turned my head and you were gone.”
“Everybody was trying to leave at once. I wanted to get my rig out of the way.”
Annie nodded. That made sense. “Did you hear anything about the surprise fire?”
“I did not go over there to investigate. My landlady says it is probably a teenage pyromaniac, but I do not think that fits the pattern.”
“Pattern? There’s a pattern?”
“Two fires in empty structures only a few weeks apart.” Elijah set his coffee on the floor of the buggy. “There might be something there.”
“Do you really think so?”
“I’m sure your friend Bryan Nichols is more knowledgeable of these things.”
“I only just met him that day, Elijah. He’s no more my friend than he is yours.”
“That’s right.” He hefted himself up into the buggy. “He’s Ruth’s friend.”
Annie ran her tongue over her top lip. Whatever she knew about Ruth and Bryan—which was next to nothing—she was not going to tell Elijah.
“Where are you headed?” she asked.
“I have to drive out to the Stutzmans’. Edna claims the washing machine is not working properly.”
Annie laughed. “Claims?”
Elijah tilted his head. “They have three daughters, you know.”
“Can I come with you?”
“Why would you want to go to the Stutzmans’?”
Annie was not so much interested in the destination as the route Elijah might take. “I thought the ride might be nice.”
“And?”
Annie kicked a rock. “And it might give me a chance to look for signs of Leah Deitwaller. She was staying in that house they burned down. Now I don’t know where she went.”
Elijah chortled. “I do talk to Joel, you know. I heard what happened when the two of you tracked down Leah. You could hardly walk for two days.”
“We probably won’t find her,” Annie said. “Besides, if I’m with you, Edna won’t encourage one of the girls to cook for you.”
“True enough. Get in.”
They were almost to the edge of the Stutzman farm and had nearly exhausted their supply of small talk. Annie was not sure how much longer they could avoid talking about Ruth, but she knew she was not going to be the one to introduce Ruth into the conversation. Her eyes soaked up the vista, the gorgeous mountains, the rolling meadows, the brilliant sunshine.
Where would a homeless, confused, Amish teenager go on a perfect fall day?
A ball of black and white flashed across the road. If Annie had not turned her head at just that moment, she would have missed it.
“Stop!”
Elijah pulled on the reins. “What’s the matter?”
“The cat. I saw the cat.”
“So what?”
Annie was already out of the buggy. “Did you see where it went?”
“Annalise, I am not about to chase a stray cat through open countryside.”
“It’s not a stray cat.” Annie marched a few steps in the direction the cat had gone. “It’s Leah’s kitten. If the kitten is here, Leah is nearby.”
“Maybe the cat got away.”
“That kitten is the only living thing in Colorado that matters to her.” Annie lengthened her stride. “Are you coming? We’ll find her twice as fast with two sets of eyes.”
“The Stutzmans are expecting me.”
“You know good and well Edna probably loosened a bolt so she would have a reason to ask you to come.”
“What am I supposed to do with my rig?”
“Bring it. We might need it.”
Annie ignored the sigh that Elijah made no effort to disguise.
“The cat could be anywhere by now, you know,” he said.
“It’s a kitten. Leah dotes on it. Cats know to go where the food is.”
“Amish cats are barn cats. They feed themselves or we don’t keep them.”
Annie glared. “Elijah Capp, stop arguing with me and turn that buggy around.”
Even a fleet-footed kitten left a trace of tracks in the dust. Annie fixed on a spot where she was sure she had seen the kitten pause to circumvent a large rock and discerned the small prints.
“This way. Follow me.”
Behind her, Annie heard the scuffling of the horse turning and the creak of the buggy wheels. She did not dare take her eyes off the tracks, though. They were too faint to discover again.
The kitten reappeared, poised on the first of a series of boulders. As the feline leaped from one to the other, Annie followed the probable path.
Leah Deitwaller sat atop a load of gravel in the bed of an unattended dump truck.
Annie stopped and glanced over her shoulder at Elijah, who reined in his horse.
“Whoa. What is she doing up there?” he asked.
Annie rolled her eyes. “I don’t read her mind. But we have to get her to come down. It’s not safe.”
The kitten leaped onto a massive rear tire and splayed as if he might lose his grip. Annie sprang forward to close the yards and nabbed the kitten. The animal wriggled, but Annie held firm.
“Leah?” Annie inched along the side of the vehicle, uncertain that she had ever been this close to a dump truck.
Leah flailed her arms. “It’s you again. Wherever I go, you find me.”
“I care what happens to you.” Annie wrapped her apron around the cat the way she had seen Leah do.
Elijah stood beside her now, speaking softly. “That has to be twelve, maybe fifteen tons of gravel. Must be a transfer truck for a major landscaping project.”
“How do you know this stuff?” Annie made sure the kitten could breathe but kept it contained. “We have to get her down.”
Leah shifted her position, and a spray of gravel shot off the side of the truck. “I figure that eventually this truck will go someplace where they have buses or trains.”
“It will probably dump its load and go back to the quarry it came from.” Elijah spoke into Annie’s ear.
“It doesn’t matter where it’s going, because she’s not going to be on it.” Annie lifted her head and raised her voice. “Leah, I have your kitten. Wouldn’t you like to come down and see him?”
Annie blew her breath out, clueless what to say next. She only knew she must remain calm.
“I’ll go around the other side and climb up.” Elijah was already moving. “Just keep her talking.”
“I’ve never had a cat,” Annie said. “It might be fun to have a kitten, but this one is yours. I know he wants to be with you. He was trying to get back to you when I found him.”
“He’s the best kitten anyone could hope to have.” Leah leaned a few inches in the direction of Annie and the cat.
“I know,” Annie quickly agreed. “You deserve to have him.”
“You know that I’m going to find a way to leave this wilderness.”
“I just want you to be safe.” Annie could not see Elijah. “I don’t think you ever told me your kitten’s name.”
“I just call him Kitten.”
“That’s cute.”
“You can give him another name after I’m gone.”
Behind Leah, Elijah’s head slowly rose above the level of the gravel. He began to crawl toward the girl.
“That doesn’t look very comfortable up there,” Annie said. “And I wonder if you’re hungry.”
Leah flinched and turned toward Elijah. “You’ve been trying to trick me!” She swung a foot at him and caught him in the chest.
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