She stilled her teeth mid-chatter.
Breathe, Claire, breathe . . .
“I know,” Jakob said after a moment. “Look, I’ve got a pretty limited window on account of work right now, but I can be there with you in less than ten minutes? Awesome . . . perfect! I’ll see you then, Callie.”
Callie?
Callie Granger?
Stifling the gasp she could barely contain, Claire covered her mouth and the plume of breath exiting it and stared, unseeing, at her Jakob, as Diane was so fond of saying.
Was it possible?
Had the friendship between the grieving single mother and the man her late father had loved like a son blossomed into something romantic?
No. There was no way Jakob—
Like a TV screen that had sprung to life, her mind’s eye lit on one moment and then another, glimpses of Jakob and Callie together: sitting on a park bench by the gazebo looking at papers, walking down the sidewalk, riding off together in her car . . .
She’d never thought anything of it. Just assumed Jakob was looking after the daughter of a deceased yet still treasured friend, helping Callie heal in much the same way he’d helped Claire . . .
Jerking back, her thoughts skipped ahead to the previous night and the moment his screen had lit up. Before his hand had come down over the phone, she’d seen the first letter in the caller’s name.
Had C been for Callie?
Was that why he’d silenced the call? Turned the phone over on the console between them? Because he and Callie had grown into something more?
No.
No.
No.
Jakob Fisher wasn’t that guy. He was honest, kind, sweet, and loving. And he loved her. She knew this. Aunt Diane knew this. Bill knew this. Everyone knew this.
She wasn’t sure what she did. Maybe she released all of her baseless tension through an audible breath, maybe the sway of relief she’d thought she’d imagined had, in fact, been real, or maybe the strangled sob she’d managed to ward off with a quiet yet determined laugh had carried farther than she realized, but whatever it was, it had Jakob glancing in her direction, muttering something she couldn’t hear into the phone, and shoving it inside his pocket all in the span of about five seconds.
The same amount of time it took for Claire to realize the smile that had lit Jakob’s face during his call—the smile he always greeted her with no matter what was going on—was now nowhere to be seen.
“Hey. How long have you been standing there?” he called, his voice devoid of its usual warmth.
Long enough, she wanted to say. Please tell me I’m wrong, she wanted to plead.
But she didn’t. The pain in her heart at that moment was simply too great to do anything, let alone speak. Instead, she lifted the gallon of milk into the air and then tucked it back inside her arm.
“Ahhh. An evening run to the store?”
“Aunt Diane is making cookies. Chocolate chip.” She waited for a knowing smile or a dimple-accompanied request to save him some, but it never came.
Instead, he pulled his hands from his pockets, fisted them to his lips, and blew. “Well, I probably should let you go then. Before the cookies get cold.”
“No, really . . . It’s okay. I’m sure Aunt Diane won’t be putting them in the oven until I get home.” She heard the tremble in her voice and did her best to disguise it behind a shiver that had nothing whatsoever to do with the outside temperature. “You talked to Annie, right?”
“I did. Thank you for that. That was huge.”
“Do you think Abe did it?”
He shrugged. “I just don’t know.”
“Have you talked to him?”
“The second Annie left.”
“And?”
“He said Mary and Daniel asked him to come to the house.”
“But he’s been banned.”
“Exactly.”
She considered his words, found that they led her back to Annie. “So then why did he run when Annie and Henry and the other kids came caroling?”
“He says he didn’t want to get his parents in trouble for speaking to him.”
“So he’s saying he’d just gotten there? As Annie and Henry were pulling up?”
Jakob’s nod was slow and protracted. “That’s what he says . . .”
“Wow.”
“And it gets better. Abe had a bid in for the same project out in Breeze Point.”
She stared up at him. “The assisted-living place that Samuel was going after?”
“And Daniel got? Yeah, same one.”
It was a lot to take in, a lot to digest. Before Mary’s letter to Ruth, she’d have been over the moon at Jakob’s news. “I—”
“Claire? I hate to cut this short, but I still have a lot of work to do inside before I can even think of calling it a night.” Turning, he paused his hand on the station’s doorknob and glanced back at her. “Since it will probably be late, let’s just skip tonight’s call, okay? I’m sure you could use the sleep with all the stuff I know you’ve been juggling for One Heavenly Night, and . . . I . . . I don’t want to risk waking you if this”—he pointed inside—“goes real late.”
Oh, how she wanted to argue, to remind him it was never too late for their good night call ritual. But she couldn’t.
He wasn’t going back inside to work.
He was going back inside to wait until she drove away.
And then he was going out to Callie Granger’s house.
She could drive out there and wait, verify what she already knew thanks to the call he’d cut short because of Claire, but what was the point? No, what she needed more than anything at that moment was to be alone. To think. To feel. To cry.
Mustering a smile past the tears he was too far away to see anyway, Claire nodded. “Yeah, sure. That’s fine. We can catch up tomorrow.”
* * *
* * *
She’d just turned into the driveway of the inn when she knew she couldn’t go home. Not yet, anyway. Her thoughts were far too jumbled, and her tears way too close to the surface to be able to hide what had just happened from anyone. And while the thought of crying into Aunt Diane’s shoulder held true appeal, she wasn’t ready to admit the unthinkable aloud just yet.
Still, she suspected the strain in her voice, coupled with the dance of the headlights across the front hallway from her U-turn, hadn’t gone unnoticed during the rapid-fire oh-I-just-realized-I-forgot-the-milk-so-I’ll-head-into-Breeze-Point-to-get-it phone call she’d made to Diane to give herself a little more time. If she was right, her eventual return would be met at the door with a steaming cup of hot cocoa and a ready-and-willing pair of ears. If she was wrong, she’d simply offer to put the cookies in the oven and use the time in the kitchen to get herself together.
Turning left, she headed back toward Lighted Way, her gloved fingers gripped around the steering wheel so tightly, she wasn’t sure where one stopped and the other began. For a moment, maybe two, she considered driving out to Esther’s and trying to lose herself in Baby Sarah’s sweet coos and infectious smiles, but a glance at the dashboard clock killed that thought. Annie, too, was likely settled in for the night, going over the day with her dat while they played some sort of game at their kitchen table.
She felt the asphalt change over to cobblestones beneath the tires and immediately turned to look at the police station. Sure enough, a glimpse at the department’s rear parking lot between breaks in the buildings yielded an empty spot to go with Jakob’s darkened office window. Swallowing against the unwelcome tightness in her throat, she continued on, passing Glorious Books, Heavenly Toy Factory, and Taste of Heaven(ly). When she reached the front of Gussmann’s, she slowed just enough to afford a peek at the second-floor windows behind which Jakob lived. They, like the one denoting his office, were bathed in a darkness she both exp
ected and dreaded to see all at the same time.
Somehow she made herself continue down the road despite the very real pull to park behind Al’s and wait for Jakob to return. But she was a stronger person now than she’d ever been, thanks, in part, to Jakob himself. She wanted to be that person, with or without him. One way or the other.
Sitting in a car, lying in wait for him to return, wasn’t strength; it was desperation. Strength was what she needed. Strength would help determine her next course of action.
And just like that, she knew where she needed to go—a place where time seemed to stand still yet hope never seemed out of reach.
Soon, the ping of gravel against the bottom of the car welcomed her into the Amish countryside, and with it, some of the tension in her shoulders and her chest began to ebb. Out here, with the hustle and bustle of the English world behind her, she could feel her worries slowing and her thoughts clearing.
Even at night, when the only real light came from her own headlights, she could still make out the farmhouses and fences of the people she’d come to call friends, whether they were simply the type who returned her wave when she was out walking, or invited her into their home for a piece of pie and a glass of fresh cow’s milk.
She didn’t need to read the names on the mailboxes she passed. She knew them by heart and in order: King, Lapp, Stoltzfus, Lehman, Beiler, Miller.
Just beyond the first of the Millers’ properties, she turned left, the limited gravel of the main road disappearing in favor of dirt. Ruts, caused by a few early snowfalls and unsettled temperatures, mandated she slow her pace, and she obliged. When the road came to a fork, she meandered to the right until, a few curves and one covered bridge later, she reached the top of the hill and pulled off the road, her high beams bouncing across the leafless trees before coming to rest on the only place she wanted to be at that moment.
With a twist of her wrist, she cut the engine and stared out at the familiar landscape still illuminated by the headlights. There was something about this spot that allowed her to breathe and to think, two things she desperately needed in that moment. The only thing missing from the equation, though, was—
Movement just beyond the scope of her lights had her reaching for, and then discarding, her keys once again. Surprised, she looked to her right and to her left, but there was no sign of the horse and buggy that went with the face now turned in her direction. Nor was there any sign of a second person sitting on the rock.
Reaching into the glove compartment, Claire grabbed hold of the flashlight Diane kept behind the owner’s manual and stepped from the car, her gaze riveted on the tall form rising to his feet in response. “It’s just me—Claire,” she called as she shifted the path of the light away from Benjamin Miller’s eyes. “I didn’t see your buggy, so I thought I was alone.”
“I did not bring my buggy.”
She cast the flashlight down at the ground, but when it came time to actually pick her way around the upended trees and smaller-size rocks between them, his hand, calloused and steady, was there to help. Slowly they made their way back to the rock on which he’d been sitting when she’d pulled up, the peace she’d been in dire need of mere moments earlier suddenly lapping at the edges of her being.
When she was settled on the same rock on which they’d stargazed together nearly eighteen months earlier, he took the flashlight from her hands, switched it off, and pointed up at the sky. “I think the night’s stars are enough light.”
Scooting over, she waited for him to sit beside her and then cocked her chin up until all she could see were the stars twinkling above like steadfast beacons in a storm. “Oh, Ben, they’re so beautiful.”
“Yah.”
She took a moment to find the few constellations she could pick out and then lowered her focus back to the blue-eyed man in the broad-brimmed straw hat. Even in the limited light, she could make out the dark brown hair visible beneath the inside edges of the hat.
“I’m sorry if I’m interrupting something. I can find another spot closer to town, if I am.”
“You are never an interruption,” he said, his voice hushed yet firm. “I am just surprised to see you here at night.”
Digging her hands into her pockets, she lifted her shoulders in line with her cheeks and kept them there as a buffer against the slight breeze that was always present in this spot, no matter the time of year. “I wasn’t ready to go home, and I didn’t want to just keep driving.”
“Have you not been home yet?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“Did you have dinner with Jakob in town?”
Aware of the dread slowly climbing its way back up her throat, she returned her gaze to the sky. “No.”
“By yourself? In your office at Heavenly Treasures?”
Again, she shook her head, her voice, when it finally emerged, seeming far away even to her own ears. “I was there later than normal, but no, I didn’t eat there or anywhere else yet. I . . . I’m not hungry.”
She could feel him studying her, maybe even weighing a question or two, but in the end, a comforting silence fell between them as he, too, looked up at the sky, his gentle breath calming her own. “So you walked here? In the dark?” she finally asked.
“I walked. But”—he tilted his own head back even more—“it was not dark.”
“Is everything okay? With you and Rebeccah?”
His gaze lowered to meet hers, a slow smile spreading across his mouth. “Yah. It is good.”
Nodding, she glanced ahead, to the valley below, the starlight above helping to pick out the outline of Ben’s house, not far from that of his parents’. “Just wanting some quiet time, then?”
“Yah.”
She scooted to the edge of the rock and stood, the calm his presence had managed to find inside her slipping behind sadness. “Then I should go. So you can think or stargaze or—”
“No. Please stay.” He stopped her forward motion with a quick hand and then waved her back. “It has been too long.”
He was right.
It had been too long.
Too long since they’d exchanged more than a wave or a few friendly words in passing . . .
Too long since they’d connected the way they did when they were here, talking about life and dreams and hopes . . .
Pulling her knees up and under her chin, Claire wrapped her arms around her shins and gave in to the smile his friendship demanded. “Have you figured out what to give Rebeccah yet?”
“I have thought of many things I can make, like you suggested—a chest like the one Jakob had me build for you, a table for her sewing machine, even a rocking chair. But Emma’s home is not Rebeccah’s home. Her home is in upstate New York, where she will return soon.”
Claire drew back. “Rebeccah is leaving Heavenly?”
“It has been six months since Wayne died. Henry needs less help on the farm every day, and Emma is finding her way with the rest of the children. Rebeccah does not think it will be long before Emma will be okay with her leaving.”
“Will you be okay with her leaving?” she asked.
It was clear he tried to maintain his smile, but it was every bit as clear it was a losing battle. “If she leaves, it will be God’s will.”
“No. If she leaves, it will be because you didn’t follow your heart.”
His eyebrows arched toward his hat. “I do not understand.”
“Yes, you do. In here.” She pointed to her chest. “Rebeccah makes you happy, Ben. We can all see it—me, Esther, Eli, Annie, Mr. Glick, Al, everyone. It’s why that gorgeous smile showed up on your face the second I mentioned her name, and why it disappeared when I asked if you’d be okay with her leaving. You love her, Ben. You know this.”
She didn’t need a flashlight, her car’s headlights, or even the starlight she did have to know Ben’s cheeks were flushed. She cou
ld tell by his shorter breaths, the fidgeting of his fingers, and the way he returned his gaze to the sky while he tried to recover. Eventually, though, he spoke, his words husky. “Yah, I love her.”
“So make her that chest, or that sewing machine, or that rocker, and give her a home to put it in—a home she can share with you as her husband.”
“I did that once. Many years ago. With Elizabeth. It lasted only weeks.”
She found his hand in the dark and covered it with a squeeze. “And that was awful, I’m sure. But Elizabeth’s death was a long time ago, Ben. It’s okay to love someone again after all these years. Rebeccah being here, and you two meeting and growing close the way you are, that is God’s will.”
Seconds turned to minutes as they sat there together, side by side, two friends who’d once hovered at the edge of something else yet settled on something deeper. In their silence, she could almost hear him thinking, processing.
“Perhaps you are right,” he finally said.
“I am.” She retrieved her hand and, instead, linked it through his arm. “In fact, I suspect the thought of getting married and spending the rest of her life with you will be the best Christmas gift you could ever give her.”
The smile was back, claiming his eyes as well as his entire face. “Thank you, Claire. You are a good friend.”
“So are you.” With her cheek pressed against his sleeve, she looked into the valley again. “The two of you would stay here, right? In Heavenly?”
“Yah. If she will have me.”
“Oh, she’ll have you, I’m sure.” It felt good to laugh, to savor the cool air against her exposed cheek, to shed her own worries and fears in favor of someone else’s happiness. “Maybe One Heavenly Night will be just the place and time to ask her.”
“That is not the Amish way.”
“It could be.”
He cleared his throat and then turned so he was facing her rather than his home. “So why did you come here tonight?”
And just like that, the lightness that came with the moment, and the distraction his presence had provided, disappeared, taking with it her laugh and her smile in rapid succession. “Nothing . . . special. I . . . I guess I just wanted a little fresh air after being cooped up all day.”
A Killer Carol Page 16
