Emma looked up at the handsome Wil. If she were ready for another mann she would have been delighted to be asked to go somewhere with him. But as it was the timing was totally off. “Why?”
“It’s not gut for you to stay in the haus all the time by yourself.”
“I visited yesterday; I had dinner last night at Elsa-May and Ettie’s haus. I have been out of the haus.”
Wil laughed. “You had dinner with Elsa-May and Ettie?”
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing at all. They are a funny pair and make me laugh, that’s all. I’m not being disrespectful.”
Emma knew what he meant. They were a couple of funny old dears.
He touched her shoulder lightly. “Come on Emma, come on a picnic with me?”
Emma hoped that Wil was not starting to like her as more than a friend. It was far too soon for her to entertain thoughts of another mann. Surely he can’t be interested in me; nee, surely not, but he has been over here an awful lot. Maybe it’s just because he was such a gut friend of Levis he thinks he has to keep an eye on me, Emma thought. “I can’t, I’ve got to...”
“Got to what?” Wil smiled widely and laid his hands casually at his hips.
“Clean the haus. It’s in a dreadful state.”
“A day will make no difference at all. Do it tomorrow. Let’s go on a picnic.”
Emma shook her head. “It would not look gut if someone saw us out together. I mean if someone saw me enjoying myself.” Whoops, I’ve just admitted that I would enjoy myself with him. I hope he didn’t notice what I said.
“Just because Levi died doesn’t mean you have to lock yourself up forever. Levi wouldn’t have wanted that. He would want you to be happy. How about a compromise?”
Emma raised her eyebrows. She was beginning to like the sound of leaving the cleaning until the next day, but she had to be at Elsa-May’s at three o’clock; that’s what the plan was and she was not about to go against the plan that Elsa-May had written down.
“How about we go somewhere, where we won’t be seen? That way we won’t be gossiped about,” Wil said, in a half mocking tone.
Emma was wavering; maybe she would enjoy a picnic. “I’d have to be back, well before three.”
“We can do that – easily.”
Emma thought of the floorboards. They didn’t look that poorly; maybe another day wouldn’t matter. “Don’t you have to go into town, Wil?”
“I can do that later, or do it tomorrow. You stay right here and I’ll pick you up in ten minutes. I’ll go home and pack us a hamper.”
“Okay, I’ll bring some cheesecake.”
Ten minutes would be enough time for Emma to sweep the floor to stave off her guilt for not giving it and the rest of the haus a thorough cleaning.
Emma wondered whether she was doing the right thing. Maybe she should’ve put the picnic off until tomorrow and that way she would have had more information about the whole vulture situation. Now, she’d have to hold her tongue from telling him that she saw him speaking to the McAllister vulture.
Half an hour later they sat on a grassy hill overlooking a meadow. Emma considered that if she had been there with Levi it would have been very romantic. She had met Wil briefly before she had meet Levi and they had gotten on very well together, but then Levi burst onto the scene and he swept her off her feet. The bishop’s wife, Mary, had once told her in confidence that she was the only girl that Wil had ever been interested in; by then she was betrothed to Levi and happily so.
“So what is it that you do for a living anyway, Wil? I’ve never really known.”
Wil took a mouthful of cider and as he placed the glass back on the blanket, he said, “Quite a few things. It’s too hard to explain.”
“Because I’m a woman?”
Wil smiled and looked at Emma. “Nee, I didn’t mean that.”
Emma loved the way that Wil smiled. She had to fight her attraction to him. She could not let herself think loving thoughts toward him. It was far too soon. “I don’t see why it would be hard to explain what you do.” Normally Emma would not push a point so far, but she had to find out what was going on. Why was he trying to hide what he did for his money?
“I lease the farm to Henry Pluver, as you know, and apart from that I have a few investments. Nothing to speak of really and then I have my inventions I work on.”
Emma did not know what more she could ask without him getting suspicious.
After talking and eating a lot of food, Emma was no closer to finding out why Wil had been speaking with Mr. McAllister. Maybe she should just ask him straight out. Is he behind all this fuss of someone trying to force me off my land? Anyway, what was the purpose of the picnic? Maybe he’s keen on me. That must be the answer. If what the bishop’s wife said was true, maybe with Levi gone, he wants to court me. Surely he would wait a respectable time and not rush things, she thought.
“We’d better get you home.” Wil stood up and held out his hand. Emma looked at his strong, powerful outstretched arm. Of course, she wanted to be held in those strong arms of his. Was it loneliness that led her to want to be held in a mann’s arms once more, to feel strong arms around her waist? She had always felt safe when Levi put his arms around her. Maybe she just longed for that feeling of safety once more.
She put her hand in his and he helped her to her feet. She stumbled a little as the leg she had been sitting on had gone to sleep. He reached an arm behind her back and caught her. She could have easily pulled away, but instead she looked up into his deep, brown eyes and saw his gaze slowly move to her mouth before he pulled himself away.
“I’m sorry, Emma. I… are you all right?”
“My leg’s gone to sleep.”
“Sit for a while with your leg outstretched while I pack the buggy.” He helped her sit back down on the blanket.
Emma sat looking out over the fields. She was upset with herself that she was not the one to pull away first. What would Levi have thought of her? He had only just gone and she was craving another man’s touch.
Even though she was mad with herself, she could not stop wondering what would have happened if she pressed her body into him and touched her lips to his. She remembered that Levi once joked that Wil never married because he was in love with her. Surely he was just joking, but that, coupled with what the bishop’s fraa had told her years ago, gave Emma something to think about.
Maybe he had a little crush on her a long time ago. Even if Wil was in love with her, he was not the kind of man to move in so quickly after his best friend’s departure. That led her to another thought - if he had her best interests at heart surely he would not be deceiving her regarding her property. For all the time she had spent with Wil today, she was none the wiser of his motives regarding his possible interest in her or his talking to McAllister.
Once Wil had finished packing the buggy he returned to crouch beside her. “Better now?”
Emma moved her leg. “Jah, better.”
“Well, bring the blanket and let’s go.”
Ah, Emma thought, he’s not going to risk giving me his hand again. He does not want to be close to me again. Emma bundled up the blanket and placed it in the back of Wil’s buggy. All the way back to her place she contemplated asking him about the vulture, but thought she was best to discuss it with the widows’ society before she did or said anything.
As they drew closer to Emma’s home, she saw three buggies pulling away from her drive. Emma was immediately worried, but tried not to act like it in front of Wil. “Looks like I’ve had visitors.”
There was one buggy in her driveway when she pulled up. As soon as Emma saw the distinctive brown and white markings of the bishop’s horse, she knew she could relax. She looked harder and saw the bishop’s wife, Mary, standing on her porch.
Wil stopped the buggy and Emma walked toward Mary. “Mary, it’s nice of you to visit.”
“I was just going; a few of the ladies have given your haus a gut cleaning and we’
ve got a weeks’ worth of food for you.” She grabbed Emma’s hand. “You won’t have to do anything for a whole week.” She pulled Emma forward and gave her a kiss which she always gave people, calling it, ‘a holy kiss.’
Emma turned to look at Wil who was still in his buggy. “You knew about this?”
“Of course, I was instructed to get you away from here for a few hours.”
She turned back to Mary. “Denke, so much and thank the other ladies. This is just wunderbaar.”
“I’ll be on my way, then.” Mary bustled her way to her buggy.
“I’ll go too, Emma.” Wil tipped his hat and drove back up the driveway.
Emma felt a little foolish thinking that Wil liked her and that was the reason he had invited her on a picnic. Wil was simply getting her out of the haus so the ladies could surprise her. What a fool she would have been if she had leaned into his hard body thinking that he was keen on her. She would have to be more careful in the future. Missing Levi’s strong arms around her had left her vulnerable to another man’s touch. She would not let that happen again.
Emma pushed her front door open, realizing she must have left the door unlocked. She could never do that again, not with the vulture hanging around. It was certainly nice to come home to a clean haus. Emma put her hand to her mouth and giggled as she wondered if any of the ladies had seen the hammer under her bed.
Emma looked around at her spotless haus, thankful that she had run the broom over the floor before she left, otherwise what would the women have thought of her housekeeping skills?
Chapter 6.
While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.
Genesis 8:22
On the dot of three Emma pulled up to Elsa-May and Ettie’s haus as arranged. Maureen was already there and they all had to wait fifteen minutes for Silvie to arrive.
“Sorry I’m late,” Silvie said.
“Come in.” Elsa-May pulled on Silvie’s arm and hurried her to the chairs where the other ladies waited eagerly.
Silvie looked very pretty with the subtle makeup. Her face did not look painted; her skin looked smooth and her lips looked a little darker than normal and were very glossy. Her normally pale lashes were dark and very, very long which accentuated her beautiful, clear blue eyes.
“Well, I asked Mr. McAllister if he had a farm for sale. He showed me brochures of farm land and I said that I wanted land close – in a ten minute radius – by buggy.”
“Go on,” Ettie said as she sat on the edge of the old timber chair.
“He said he could have a very large piece of land coming up, but he already had a buyer for it.”
Ettie gasped and covered her mouth. “Emma, he already has a buyer for your land.”
“It could be Wil,” Maureen said.
Emma lowered her head and rested it in her hands.
Elsa-May lifted up her hands to quiet everybody. “We can’t be sure though. This is all hearsay.”
Ettie nodded. “Quite right. What else, Silvie?”
“He stepped out of the office to take a phone call in private. So I dashed to the front of his desk and looked in his top drawer and found this.” Silvie opened her palm to reveal a key. On the key was a tag, which said, ‘Spare Office Key.’
Elsa-May clapped her hands. “Well done, Silvie, well done.”
Emma stared at the key in disbelief. “What can we do with that?”
Elsa-May pointed at her. “You, Emma, will go there tonight, no not tonight. Friday night you will go into his office and look through his files, his messages – anything you can find until you know what’s going on.”
Maureen interrupted, “Tomorrow night is Friday night.”
“So it is, well, you must go tomorrow night.” Elsa-May was insistent.
Emma clutched at her throat. “Isn’t that against the law or something? I don’t want to go to jail.”
Ettie leaned forward. “It’s breaking and entering. No wait, it may not be breaking if you have a key. But, if you have stolen the key, I’d say it’s still breaking and most certainly entering.”
Emma jumped to her feet. “This is absurd; I can’t do it, I can’t.”
“Jah, you can and I’ll come with you,” Maureen said. “There’s something going on Emma, and you have to find out what it is. Don’t you want to know if you can trust Wil, or not?”
Emma thought back to the romantic picnic she had just had with Wil. What if she had kissed him or something awful, only to find out he was not to be trusted? “Jah, but Gott reveals all things in time.”
“How much time do you have though, Emma? With Pluver not renewing his lease? Maybe this is an answer to prayer – Gott gave you a brain to use and two feet. He did not say that He’ll work everything out and for us to sit on our bottom, did He?” Elsa-May said, in her usual booming voice.
Emma considered how hard Levi’s familye had worked on the farm for the past few hundred years. Now, what was to become of it if she sat on her hands and did nothing? She did not want to be the one to lose Levi’s farm to strangers or land developers. Emma exhaled a large breath. “Okay, I’ll do it.” She nibbled on a fingernail hoping that she would not regret the decision she had just made.
Ettie said nothing, but all eyes were on her as she feebly walked across the room to a cupboard. She slowly opened the cupboard door and pulled out a plastic bag tipping the contents on the floor. Out fell three pairs of thin rubber gloves, a flashlight and three black ski masks and a pocketknife. Crouching over the contents, Ettie looked up at both Maureen and Emma. “You both going?” When they both nodded, Ettie passed the equipment to the two of them.
They only had a day to organize the break-in. Emma met Maureen the next day at her place to go over the finer details.
“How should we get there? We can’t really clip-clop down the street with all the buggy lights flashing in the dark and park the buggy outside his office. If anything should happen, people would surely remember a buggy parked outside,” Emma said.
“Quite right. We’ll leave from my haus by taxi and have the taxi take us to the other end of town and we can walk the rest of the way.
Emma nodded; it seemed a reasonable plan.
When the time came for Emma to leave her haus to go to Maureen’s place to get a taxi to the vulture’s office, she just wanted the whole thing over with. She’d spent all night in nervous anxiety about the whole thing. Would she really find something in his office that would make sense of it all? Was Wil her friend, or was he her foe? Why did Mr. Pluver suddenly pull out of the lease after years farming the land? Had Pluver pulled out, or tried to pull out of Wil’s lease as well? Emma made a mental note to find that out. Was it all a coincidence or was there some larger conspiracy happening, and if it was – would they be able to find it out from snooping in the vulture’s office?
As planned, they had the taxi drop them at the top of town. They walked down the street dressed in their black coats, black stockings and their black boots. Thankfully it was cold so they did not draw too much attention from having their coats wrapped around themselves. Instead of their white prayer kapps, they had their black over-bonnets on.
“Don’t look so worried,” Maureen whispered. “You need to look as if you don’t have a care in the world and you’re just taking a stroll in the cool night air.”
Emma nodded and forced a carefree expression on her face.
“That’s better. Now stay like that until we get there, just a couple of blocks to go.”
The streets weren’t crowded; there were a few restaurants open with a handful of people wondering to and fro. No one paid them much attention. As they got to the block the office was on, Maureen looked around about her. The entrance to the upstairs offices was set into the building. They came to a locked door that protected the stairwell.
Maureen looked down at the key. “Oh no, we don’t have a key for this door. Silvie said it was the key to the offi
ce, not the key to the downstairs door.”
“Just try it, Maureen.”
“Wait,” Emma said, “We must put the gloves on and wipe the key too.” Emma drew two sets of gloves out from inside the front of her dress and when they had both pulled them on Maureen put the key in the lock and turned it.
To their amazement it unlocked the door. “Well, I hope it unlocks the one upstairs as well,” Maureen said.
Emma gave Maureen a little shove. “Quick, let’s just get in before someone sees us.”
They both slipped through the locked door and were faced with a well-lit staircase.
“Silvie said it was just one flight up.” Maureen made her way up the stairs and Emma followed close behind, grateful that she had Maureen to lead the way. When they reached the top of the stairs, they saw three office doors. The closest one to them belonged to an accountant, the other was a financial advisor and the one farthest away had ‘McAllister’ written on the door.
“Come on,” Maureen whispered over her shoulder.
“I’m right behind you.”
Maureen put the key in the lock and the slight pressure on the door pushed it wide open. She swung around to, Emma. “It was unlocked.”
“He must have forgotten to lock it,” Emma whispered back.
When they were both inside the office, Maureen closed the door behind them and turned on the flashlight.
“Careful to keep it away from the window. Keep it down low.” Emma knew nothing of breaking into a place, but it made sense to keep the light away from the window, they did not need any witnesses.
Maureen gave the flashlight a couple of sharp hits. “We should’ve put some new batteries in this thing.”
“Here give it to me.” Emma wanted to read the papers that were sprawled across his desk. She picked up the first group of papers stapled together and Maureen peered over her shoulder. She read names on the paper out loud and then said, “I don’t know these people, do you?”
“Nee.”
Emma leaned over the desk and searched the papers some more. The name Levi Kurtzler caught her eye. She snatched up the paper. “Look, Maureen, Levi’s name.”
The Amish Widow (Amish Romance Mystery) (Amish Secret Widows' Society Book 1) Page 5
