He looked out at the lake, at two ducks paddling around. “Maybe . . . you’re interested in someone else. And I’ll admit the thought made me feel like a jellyfish without a backbone.”
The face she turned to him wore a polite expression. “You invited me to a picnic and I’m here. And I’m having a lovely time.” Not really.
He brightened up at once. “A picnic made by my own two hands.” He winked at her and threw the sandwich into the lake so the ducks dove for it. “It’s just a feeling I’ve had lately . . .” He took her hands in his. “I wouldn’t want to ever lose you, Bethany. In fact, lately I’ve come to realize how very much you mean to me.”
Gone was the lighthearted banter, now he was being serious and caring. For a moment, Bethany swayed. This was the moment she’d been waiting for with him, the moment she had hoped for.
“I value you . . . Bethany . . . and I really do appreciate all you did to get Lodestar back and get Tobe set up to work with the chickens.”
There was a beat of silence and she looked at him expectantly, not helping him out.
“I think I’m ready to get engaged.”
I value you? I think I’m ready to get engaged? As if he was doing her a big favor? As if she was a broodmare he was thinking about buying? Shootfire! Her heart was pounding, a torrent of words was stuck in her throat, but she forced herself not to reply, not to reveal any hint of emotion. She wanted to throw the picnic basket at him, jump on the buggy, and gallop home, leaving the dense oaf to walk home. But she remained composed, cucumber calm.
He squeezed her hands. “Well, say something,” he said, anxious to know.
“I don’t have any words,” she said truthfully. None that were ladylike. None that would be found in A Young Woman’s Guide to Virtue, Mammi Vera’s beloved book.
“Yes would do.”
She gave him the sweetest smile she could muster, under the circumstances. “I’ll need some time to think it over.”
Jimmy blinked. “Why is it so hard to answer now?”
“I’m quite happy with things the way they are,” she said, and to her surprise—her complete surprise—she truly was. “Marriage is such an important step—I want to make sure it’s the right decision.” Maybe Geena was right. Men were simple. And she would need to be equally simple in return. She shrugged. “Besides, what’s the rush? We have plenty of time.”
Gently, she slipped out of his grasp, rose, and walked toward the lake, tossing the peanut butter and sardine sandwich in bits to the hungry ducks, hoping it wouldn’t make them sick and die. She felt lighthearted, almost dreamy. Jimmy, she noticed, when she turned to face him, was sitting where she had left him, his thick, dark brows drawn together in a confused frown.
In a little under two weeks, Naomi King would become Mrs. Tobe Schrock. Her sisters were coming soon to help with wedding preparations, and then the quiet life she and Galen had shared would be over.
Tomorrow, Naomi’s sisters, both married with families of their own, would slide into the farmhouse and assume control: suggesting, helping, organizing, giving orders and instructions. Naomi felt a sense of overpowering relief that someone was taking charge. After all the waiting she and Tobe had done over the last eight months, their official wedding day was drawing near. Her heart tripped over itself and her skin flushed with excitement. Did every woman who got married go through this must-pinch-myself-to-believe-it stage? She felt so filled with joy and happiness, she could have burst with it.
And yet she felt a tinge of sadness too, knowing this was the last day she would have with her brother Galen. She worried about him, being alone, being lonely. She wasn’t sure exactly what had happened to separate Galen and Rose, but she hoped the frost might thaw between them. She wished Galen would talk to her about Rose, but he was a man who kept his business to himself, especially business of the heart.
Naomi was sewing the seams of her blue wedding dress and put it aside when she heard Tobe’s special rap on the door. In his arms was Sarah, sound asleep. He bent down to graze Naomi lightly on the lips, one kiss, two kisses, a smile, and then he passed the baby into her arms. He looked into her eyes with a combination of serious intensity and warmth. “Today’s the last day.”
How sweet! He had realized she was feeling sentimental about her last day she would be living with her brother.
“Today’s the last day before the bank is going to drill open the inactive safety deposit boxes.”
“Oh . . .” Surprise and deflation colored the single word. “But not really, right?”
“No, but Jake Hertzler doesn’t know that.” Tobe sat at the table and leaned on his elbows, hands grasped tightly together. “What if he doesn’t see the advertisement? He should have shown up by now.”
“Maybe he was having trouble locating Paisley and the safety deposit key. She sure did disappear.”
“What if he doesn’t show up today?”
Naomi sat next to him at the table, shifted Sarah into the crook of her arm, and covered his hands with her free one. “Then we do exactly what we’ve been doing. We leave Jake Hertzler in God’s hands.”
When Bethany arrived at the Sisters’ House for work on Friday morning, she found the sisters sitting around the dining room table, like they often were, having tea.
“Come in,” Sylvia said. “We’re all kerfuffled.”
“I never liked him,” Ella said.
“Who?” Bethany asked, but no one was listening.
“Now, we don’t know what the problem was,” Lena said.
“Maybe there wasn’t a problem,” Ada said. “Maybe he finished his work and had to leave.”
“Without a goodbye? Without a word to us?” Fannie said, clearly annoyed. “Without a single thank-you for all those weeks of room and board?”
“I never liked him,” Ella repeated.
Bethany picked up a pile of newspapers. “Who are you talking about?”
Fannie sighed. “Our fourteenth cousin twice removed. He left this morning.”
“Doesn’t he go out to do research each day?”
“Not that kind of left. Left, left. He’s gone.” Ada snapped her fingers. “Just like that.”
Bethany stopped and turned. “Why?”
“We don’t know. He didn’t say a word. Ella heard him packing up before dawn. She went to see what the racket was all about and he just brushed past her, without a word.”
Ella nodded. “I never did like him.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Bethany said. “Are you sure he’s really left? Maybe he just had someone he had to see.”
“Go see for yourself.”
Bethany went up to the second floor. The door to the guest room was wide open. She walked inside and caught a whiff of a familiar scent: Old Spice shaving cream. Unlike the one other time she had been in it, when it was a pigsty, the room was now empty. No garbage in the wastebasket, no clothes on the floor. No sign that anyone had been there. Only the bed was unmade and disheveled. She looked in the closet. Empty. She pulled open the dresser drawers. Empty. She noticed a silver wrapper on the floor and bent down to get it, sniffed it to see how fresh it was: it was unmistakably peppermint gum. Her mind started to race. She could feel her heart start to thump. She spotted something under the bedcovers. She shook out the sheets and a newspaper fell to the ground. She reached down, unfolded the newspaper—the Stoney Ridge Times—and felt a shiver run down her spine.
On the front page was the story about the York Savings & Loan, drilling into unclaimed safety deposit boxes and allowing the state to seize the contents. Her hands started to shake as awareness dawned on her. Fighting to control the tremors that shuddered through her, she made her way out of the room on shaky legs, then dropped on the top of the stairs and sat down, holding her head in her hands. Thinking of that man in the same house with those five dear, defenseless sisters, for weeks now, made her feel as if she might throw up.
Jake Hertzler was the fourteenth cousin twice removed.
; 20
Mim took the broom from her mother and began pushing the dirt toward the corner of the porch.
“Are you feeling all right, Mim?”
Mim leaned on the broom with her cheek. Tears were in her eyes. “Mom, I’ve done something wrong.” The terrible sadness she felt nearly choked off her words.
Her mother took the broom from her and propped it against the wall. “Let’s sit down.”
They sat on the porch swing and, very simply, Mim began to tell the story about Mrs. Miracle. At no stage did her mother’s face look anything except sympathetic. It registered no shock, no disbelief. She seemed to take it all in and to realize the enormity without resorting to panic.
Cold shot through Mim’s insides. She put her fingertips against her mouth. “You knew, didn’t you?”
Her mother nodded. “Well, I’ve suspected for a while.”
“But . . . how?” She had been so careful, so surreptitious.
“It wasn’t hard to figure it out.”
“Why didn’t you say something?”
“I thought it would fizzle out, just like the letters to the inn fizzled after the bishop had you take down the ‘Miracula fieri hic’ phrase on the Inn at Eagle Hill sign. I didn’t realize the column was having such an impact until just recently. I’ve been hearing a lot of murmuring about the advice Mrs. Miracle gave out. Good advice.” She smiled at Mim. “To be perfectly honest, I could see that you were gaining confidence in yourself and so I let it be. I put that above the rightness or wrongness of the column. I made a mistake, I think.”
Mim had never known an occasion when her mother had been wrong or at a loss for a word. Her father, now, he was different, he had always been scratching his head and saying he hadn’t a clue about such things. But Mim felt her mother was born knowing all the answers. “Do I have to tell the bishop?”
Her mother gave that some thought. “Is the column truly out of your hands?”
“I don’t have any idea what Brooke Snyder plans to do.” She bit her lip. “Should I talk to her?”
Her mother gazed down at the guest flat. “She packed up and left this morning. She said she had gotten what she came for and it was time to leave.”
“What?” Mim asked, shocked. She had avoided Brooke Snyder all week, unsure of how to handle the betrayal, and now it was too late. Mrs. Miracle was truly gone. For her, anyway.
“Mim, if you are asked about the column by the bishop or the deacon, then you must tell the truth.”
“I never actually lied about it. Not to you or anyone else.”
Her mother’s smile faded. “Mim, there are lies you tell with your lips and lies you don’t need your lips for. Once people start telling lies, then they become like spiders who weave their web about themselves. They become stuck—caught by the lies all about them. And then they can’t get out of the web, no matter how hard they try.” Her mother shook her head in regret over these mendacious unfortunates, and then, as an afterthought, added, “That is a fact, Mim. A well-known fact.”
Brooke Snyder hated dogs. She would leap in terror when any dog gave a perfectly normal greeting. She was sorry to leave Eagle Hill today but wouldn’t miss that big yellow dog that jumped up on her whenever he saw her. Sorry, but ready to go. This time at the inn had been just what she needed. She felt refreshed, reinvigorated, a teensy bit guilty about making off with the Mrs. Miracle brand, but she assured herself she had done Mim Schrock a favor. A syndicated newspaper column would get too big for a naive Amish girl. It was all for the best.
Brooke had come to Eagle Hill to nurse her wounds and find a new life direction. And she was leaving with a new career as a syndicated newspaper columnist—amazing!—and a boyfriend! Jon Hoeffner might not actually be her boyfriend yet, but things between them were moving in that direction. She had never been happier.
Brooke did have a few misgivings about helping Jon with this safety deposit box signature, but each time she voiced them, he reassured her and she felt better. He was very reassuring, very persuasive. This afternoon, she was to meet him at the York County Savings & Loan so he could get the title. “The fellow who wants to buy my car lives in York County. This way, I’ll be able to get the car right to him.”
“But how will you get back to Stoney Ridge? Do you need me to drive you back?”
“No. I’m actually leaving Stoney Ridge. I’ve finished the work I came to do. My cousin said she could drive me. It’s all set.”
She looked at him blankly. “But where will you be? I mean . . . will I see you again?”
Jon slipped his arms around her waist. “Of course. Absolutely. Just try and keep me away.” He kissed her then, a kiss that left her breathless. He made her feel so special.
That was the moment when she decided to leave Eagle Hill. There was no reason to be in Stoney Ridge if Jon wasn’t there. And she had taken pains to avoid Mim Schrock this week, though she sensed that Mim was avoiding her too. That cranky grandmother was bringing down the breakfast tray each morning.
When she pulled into the bank’s parking lot, she waited in her car for Jon to arrive, feeling another spike of concern. Where was he? It dawned on her that she didn’t know what kind of car he drove. Not for the first time, she realized how little she knew about him. He fascinated her—she was determined to discover more. She glanced at her cell phone to check the time, then looked up to see Jon getting out of a car that had pulled up in front of the bank. A woman—his cousin?—would be dropping him off.
Brooke grabbed her purse, and as she got out of her car and walked toward him, she heard the woman shrieking, “You said half. HALF! Don’t think I don’t know what kind of trick you’re capable of pulling.”
Jon leaned down to say something through the passenger window. The car peeled away and squealed to a stop in a space across the parking lot. Brooke slowed, hesitating, confused. But Jon didn’t seem at all upset. As soon as he saw her, his face broke into that smile that made her knees turn into Jell-O.
“Brooke! There you are.” He reached his hands out to her, smiling that charming smile. “You look gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous.”
Brooke relaxed. The woman in the car was forgotten.
He took her elbow and steered her into the bank. “Thanks again for helping me with this little problem. Shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.” He sounded as pleased and grateful as if she had offered to walk his dog while he was at work.
That tiny hitch in Brooke’s conscience silenced again. This would only take a moment, he had said. Jon went over to the teller and explained that they needed to open a safety deposit box. He gave the teller his driver’s license and signed in the book.
While the teller was distracted with another customer, he slipped a Social Security card into Brooke’s hand. “Here you are. Just sign on that line under my name and you’re good to go.”
Brooke glanced at the Social Security card to study the signature while the teller was away. Rose Schrock. Rose Schrock? She glanced up at Jon. “The innkeeper at Eagle Hill? She’s your sister?”
“Yes.”
“But she doesn’t seem like the kind of person who wouldn’t help you get the title for your car.”
Jon glanced at the teller, who was now occupied on the phone. “Trust me.”
Something wasn’t adding up to Brooke. She looked into his eyes. “Jon, what’s going on here? What’s really going on? Who was that out in the car—that woman who said she wanted half? Half of what?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” His relaxed façade stripped away as he stabbed the sign-in book with his finger. “Just sign.”
She looked at the signature book and saw Jon had signed his name as Jake Hertzler. Who in the world was Jake Hertzler? She felt a bead of perspiration drip down her spine. “And if I don’t?” Her words trailed off.
Jon leaned forward to whisper in her ear as his hand latched onto her forearm. “Then I will have to make a discreet call to the FBI to let them know that Brooke Snyd
er reproduced a Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot to be sold as an original on the market.” His fingers bit into her arm. “That she admitted as much and I have her confession recorded on my iPhone.” He gave her his most charming smile. “There’s an app for everything.”
She was so stunned, she didn’t move a muscle.
He had lied to her! There was no title for a car. There was no Amish sister. This man was doing something deceitful—something to hurt Eagle Hill innkeeper Rose Schrock. A veil dropped suddenly and she saw the true Jon Hoeffner. She could sense the vindictiveness in those cold, pale eyes, something worse than heartlessness. It was a malevolence with which she simply did not know how to deal.
Jon motioned to her that the teller was approaching and he put a pen in her hands. “Sign.”
She could sense his vengefulness growing, and her hand shook as she picked up the pen to write out Rose Schrock’s name. The teller glanced at their IDs, compared their signatures, and buzzed them into the vault.
Jon smiled benignly at the teller and turned to Brooke. “Rose, there’s no need for you to go in with me. You can leave.” He flicked his fingers at her. “Go.” He walked into the vault, whistling.
What had she done? What had she just done!? Brooke stared after Jon, realizing only now how weak-kneed she was. She sank onto a bench in the bank, hugging her shaky stomach. Well, he backed you into a corner, so what are you going to do? Sit quaking like a pup with palsy or get out of here? She walked, practically ran, to the door and exited the bank, gasping in the fresh air. It was over. Thank God!
Brooke searched the parking lot for the car where the woman who had shrieked at Jon was waiting. It was gone.
Then she felt a hand on her elbow and looked into the face of a very serious man in a dark suit. “Ma’am, you’ll need to come with me.” He took her purse and led her around the side of the bank to a waiting police car. Her eyes were wide in horror and her panic skyrocketed.
“He tricked me! He’s still in there. Go after him! Jon. Jake. Whatever his name is. He’s the one you want. Not me! I’m innocent. I don’t even know what he’s up to. I thought I was just doing him a small favor.”
Revealing, The (The Inn at Eagle Hill Book #3): A Novel Page 23
