by Gayle Roper
“You’re wonderful, Jake.” I sat up and looked at him. “I can’t thank you enough for being my tower of strength these last few days. I don’t know how I would have survived without you.”
He looked acutely embarrassed but pleased. I leaned over to give him a gentle thank-you peck on the cheek, but he turned his head and suddenly we were kissing and my heart was pounding. I clutched at him, holding tight as my head spun like a mad top and my insides melted as under a summer’s desert sun.
Jake pulled back to gasp for air. “There’s this woman,” he mumbled against my lips.
“I know.” I ran my finger down his jaw. “You won’t love her.”
“I won’t.” And he kissed me again.
But she’ll love you, I thought. Always and forever.
And I knew that no matter what Jake said or did, I wasn’t being merely poetic or romantic. I would love him always and forever.
The headlights from my car spotlighted us as Sam turned into the drive. We pulled apart reluctantly. Jake held me in the chair as Sam walked over to us. The first light of dawn showed a face full of fatigue and grief beyond words.
“Thanks, you guys.” He smiled wanly at us. “You were so great.”
“Is Becky at home?” I asked.
Sam nodded. “She made me leave her there. She wouldn’t let me go in. She said she needed to talk to people about me before I came to the house.”
I took his hand. “She’s right, Sam. Hard as it is for both of you, she’s right.”
He put his other hand on top of mine and patted it. “I know. But that doesn’t make it any easier. I want to be there with her, holding her, comforting her.” He sighed. “But we did things out of order, and we have to pay the price.”
We watched him walk disconsolately to the house.
“I guess we’d better go in, too,” I said.
Jake nodded. “Are you mad at God about Trevor? Do you think He took him to punish Becky and Sam?”
I shook my head. “Becky said she gave Trevor to God. She promised God she’d love Trevor as long as she had him, but how long was up to God.”
I pictured her sitting there, her dead child in her arms as she talked about how gracious God was. “She said that if it weren’t for Trevor, she and Sam wouldn’t have come to Christ.” I shook my head. “She has the most wonderful faith.”
“Yours isn’t too shabby either, sweetheart.” And he shifted to let me know it was time for me to stand up.
As I stood, one side of Jake’s jacket fell open and hit the side of his chair with a heavy clunk.
“What have you got in your pocket?” I asked absently.
He looked at me and smiled but said nothing.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. “Jake!” I reached for the pocket.
He caught my wrist and said, “Don’t touch.”
“It’s a gun,” I whispered, appalled.
“It’s a gun.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the weapon. It sat heavily in his hand.
I shivered. “I hate guns. I absolutely hate them. One night we picked up a little boy suffering from a gunshot wound his nine-year-old brother had given him. The father had the gun in his night table in case of intruders. The boys found it. The seven-year-old died.”
I stared at the gun and thought about causing death. “I know how the nine-year-old feels.”
“And the father,” Jake said.
I shook my head. “Somehow I don’t seem to have much pity for him. He was old enough to know better.”
Jake released the clip from the gun and put both pieces back in his pocket. He took my hand. “It’s okay, Rose.”
I didn’t ask what he meant by it and he didn’t say. We approached the front steps, then paused.
“See you for a late breakfast,” Jake said, taking my hand. “About noon.”
“Sounds wonderful.” I placed my other hand on his shoulder.
He reached up and pulled my head down so that our lips met. The sweet, gentle kiss moved me deeply.
“Good night, Tiger.” He smiled with his heart and wheeled away.
I stood for a minute, bemused. Then I floated up the stairs and inside.
“Esther!” I was startled to see her in her robe and gown, her hair in a braid hanging down her back. “What are you doing up so early?”
“I heard you leave.” She looked at her hands. “I was having trouble sleeping, and so I heard you. I stayed in bed as long as I could stand it. I finally got up to have some tea ready for you when you got home.”
“Oh, my dear,” I said, moved by her kindness. “How long have you been waiting?”
She shrugged as if it didn’t matter. To her it probably didn’t. She wouldn’t have slept anyway.
I sank into a chair at the table. “Join me. It might be our last chance to drink together.”
“I saw you and Jake come back.”
I was suddenly glad he had kissed me on the far side of the van. Then I thought of the kiss by the front porch and blushed.
“Things are better between you,” she said.
I nodded. “I think.”
“You love each other.”
“He’ll never agree,” I said, sighing.
She looked at me and gave me a shadow of her former smile. “But you will.”
“I will.”
“Men,” she said with more than a touch of anger.
I nodded. “Men.”
She put a pot of tea on the table and a plate of freshly baked cinnamon rolls. I looked at them and thought ruefully of my breakfast at the diner. But a gift is a gift, no matter how full the stomach. I slipped a roll onto my plate and began working my way through it. After the first bite, it was no great effort.
“These are wonderful,” I said. “You are definitely a gifted cook. If you ever want to go into business, either with a restaurant or a bakery, let me know. I want to invest.”
She smiled wanly. “All I want to do is cook for my husband and children.” Her slumped shoulders said she had no hope of that in the near future or maybe ever.
Elam! The guy was throwing away the greatest potential blessing of his life, not to mention a marvelous cook. And over what? A misbegotten and unrequited love.
Esther took a fortifying sip of tea. “All right,” she said as she set the mug on the table. She squared her shoulders. “Tell me.”
I sighed. I recognized that we had been stalling, and I cast about for some other topic to hold the real subject of our early morning tea at bay. I could think of nothing.
Esther was more forthright than I. “Was it Trevor?”
I nodded. “Becky called. I went down right away.”
“Were you in time? Is he okay?” Her eyes pleaded for affirmative answers.
I shook my head. “No.”
She shot to her feet and walked to the sink. She grabbed the edge as if to hold herself up. Tears streamed down her face.
“I knew it,” she whispered. “I didn’t want to admit it, but I knew. As soon as I heard you leave, I knew.” She grabbed a paper towel and wiped futilely at her tears. She turned to me. “What happened?”
“I don’t know.” I stared past her out the window at the soft new day being born while we spoke of death. “The doctor’s going to do an autopsy. My bet is that his little heart just stopped.”
She wrapped her arms around her body as if to hold herself together through the pain. “Do you think he suffered?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know that either.”
“Did he look—” she faltered.
I knew what she wanted and was thankful I could give it to her. “He looked fine. No marks, no signs of struggle, no evidence of pain.”
“Denki, Herr Gott,” she whispered. Then she lowered her face into her hands and was overwhelmed by deep, gut-wrenching sobs.
“Oh, Esther!” I got up from my chair and started toward her, but Elam got there first. I hadn’t even heard him come downstairs, clad as he was in his stockinged feet.
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“Esther!” He pulled her into his arms and began making small soothing noises.
I started toward the stairs, glad he was there to comfort her. I didn’t think I had the emotional resources left to do a decent job. I wasn’t even sure I had the strength to get myself to my bed.
“Trevor’s dead,” Esther told him when she got her breath back, her voice quivering. “That beautiful little boy. Oh, but it breaks my heart!”
As I put my foot on the first step, I glanced back to make certain she was all right. Bemused by what I saw, I continued to stare. Neither Elam nor Esther was even aware that I was still around.
“Shh, iss all right,” Elam said as he stroked her hair. “Iss all right.”
“No, it’s not!” she shouted and punched him.
His eyes opened wide in surprise. Docile, sweet Esther had become a Mariah, weeping in anger for her children.
“Don’t you ever say it’s all right!” She punched him again and again, sobbing the whole time. “Never, never, never!”
He held her and let her strike him. I looked at his sorrow-filled face and understood that the sorrow was for her and her pain. The fear beneath the sadness was for himself.
When she once again let her hands be still, he said softly, “Esther, look at me.”
She kept her head down and shook it. “I can’t,” she whispered.
“Why not?”
“I’m too embarrassed.”
“Because you cried?”
“Because I hit you.”
He grinned at her bowed head. “It’s all right. I understand.”
“It’s not all right! It’s terrible.”
“Esther, I said it’s all right. Now look at me.”
She kept her head down, but she didn’t shake it, nor did she say anything.
“Esther.” There was a command in his voice.
She sighed deeply. Slowly, reluctantly, she raised her face to his. I could see such self-exposure there that my heart clutched. No wonder she hadn’t been willing to look at him all this time. She knew he’d see her heart and her hurt written there clearly. She may consider pride a terrible sin, but it had been all she had left. Now she hadn’t even that.
Apparently my heart wasn’t the only one moved by her beauty and vulnerability.
“Esther,” he breathed. “Oh, Esther.” He bent and kissed her cheek, then her eyebrow, her forehead, her cheek again.
“Don’t,” she pleaded, her eyes closed. “Please don’t. I can’t bear it.”
In answer he pulled her against him, burying his face in her hair. He made a deep-in-the-throat noise much like Jake did, only Elam’s was one of agony, not warning.
“Don’t go, Esther. Don’t leave me. Please.”
“Elam?” She leaned back and studied his face. Whatever she saw shocked her. Their eyes locked for a long moment. Then she whispered in a voice full of joy, “Elam?” She wrapped her arms about his waist and buried her face in his neck. “Oh, Elam.”
“Ich lieb dich, Esther,” he breathed. “How I could have been so foolish, I’ll never understand. But ich lieb dich. Ich lieb dich.”
I made myself turn away from the deeply private moment and continue up the stairs to my room. At least the night had ended well, I thought as I fell into bed without brushing my teeth or washing my face. Now Esther wouldn’t have to leave.
And all Jake had to do was get his act together as his brother had finally done. Surely he could do that.
Couldn’t he?
Chapter 12
I had barely fallen asleep when the phone rang. And rang and rang. Muttering under my breath about sleep deprivation and its effect on the human psyche, I fumbled through the pile of clothes I’d dropped on the floor when I fell into bed. Then I remembered that the cell phone was in my jacket pocket. By the time I located it, my mood was foul.
“Hello,” I muttered with all the graciousness of a bouncer in a third-rate bar.
“And good morning to you too, Merry Sunshine,” said Lem Huber. I could hear laughter in his voice, and it made me grind my teeth.
I groaned as I flopped back onto the bed. I pulled the calico quilt up under my chin and slid one hand behind my head. “I knew you’d call, but I thought you’d have the decency to wait until the afternoon.”
“Why?”
“Because I was up all night!”
“Ah, yes. Giving TV interviews, I presume.” There was now an edge to his voice that even I couldn’t miss.
“Give me a break.” I hoped I didn’t sound as defensive or guilty as I felt. “I’m not that dumb.”
He made a noncommittal noise.
“I had to make a hospital run,” I explained. “Carlson was there looking for a story, and that was that.”
“You aren’t supposed to be riding with the ambulance crew now,” Lem said carefully and clearly. “You’re supposed to be dead.”
“I wasn’t riding with the ambulance. It was the girl down the street. Her baby died.”
“Oh.” Lem took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. That must have been rough.”
Tears pooled in my eyes and I blinked. I brushed at the side of my face, trying to get the wetness that overflowed. “Yeah. It was.” My voice broke.
After giving me a minute to get control, he asked, “Does anyone know you’re living at the Zooks?”
“Just the ambulance crew.”
Lem made an unhappy noise. “Too many. That makes me uncomfortable.”
“That makes you uncomfortable? Think about me!”
“Look, Rose, I wish I could put a guard on you, someone to be with you all day every day, but we just don’t have the manpower.”
“I don’t think I want a bodyguard anyway.” I watched dust motes dance by in a sunbeam. “And Jake’s here, don’t forget.”
I listened to Lem’s silence.
Finally he said, “Well, don’t open any packages in the near future, okay?”
“Is that what blew up my apartment? A package?”
“We found a couple of pieces of brown wrapping paper on the grass under the living room window. Apparently when the bomb exploded, the scraps were blown out the shattered windows and fell to the ground with the glass. The fire didn’t touch them, though the water damage was considerable. One scrap had nothing written on it, but the other had M S period R O. It’s a good thing it was written in ink, not a felt pen, or we wouldn’t have even this much.”
“The beginnings of Ms. Rose Martin?”
“We think so.”
I shivered. Suddenly being the abstract target of a bomber had become much more personal. “And Mr. Metz, being really mad at me and a nasty man besides, was going to open the package just for spite?”
“That’s the best we can come up with.”
I sighed. “How sad.”
“You’d rather you’d opened it?” Lem asked.
“I’d rather no one opened it. Or no one sent it.”
“But there’s a great lesson for you here, Rose. No packages. And can you park your car somewhere safe? I don’t want him getting to your vehicle like he did the Hostetters’.”
“I’ll keep it out of sight and try not to drive it until this thing’s over.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Don’t drive it. That’s the best.”
“What about Peter Hostetter?” I asked. “I’ve thought about him so much. Are you taking good care of him?”
“That we are,” Lem said. “That we are.”
“And Ernie? Have you got enough evidence against him yet? No,” I said, answering my own question. “You wouldn’t still be worried about me if you had.”
“If we had the evidence we needed, you’d be home free,” Lem agreed.
“By the way, I was wondering who inherits all that Hostetter money and who gets Pockets. Is it Ernie? That wealth has got to be a great motive for murder.”
“Right now Peter gets it all, but if something happens to him—well, he’s got to make a will stipulating his desires.”
“Don’t let him name Uncle Ernie as his heir!”
“Rose, he can name whoever he wants.” Lem sounded tired. “Look. I’ve got to go. Just stay safe!”
When Lem and I hung up, I buried my head in my pillow and fell asleep again.
A shrill whistle woke me at one o’clock.
“Hey, Tiger, get down here. Lunch is ready.”
I ran a hand over my bleary eyes. “In a minute,” I yelled.
It was closer to a half hour before I made it downstairs, freshly showered and brushed, both hair and teeth. Jake was nowhere in sight, but a ham and Swiss sandwich garnished with several of Mary’s bread and butter pickles and homemade potato chips sat in the middle of the table.
The house was very quiet.
“Jake?” I called. “Where are you? Have you already eaten? How come you didn’t wait for me?” I wandered over to the door of his apartment with my sandwich in my hand. “Jake?”
My answer was a groan.
Goose bumps covered my arms. “Jake?” I pushed open the door of his place. “Jake?”
Another groan, this one coming from his bedroom where the door was partly ajar.
“Jake?”
There was no answer for a full minute. I had just decided I had misheard and that nothing was wrong when he spoke. “Go away.” His voice was hoarse and full of pain.
The nurse in me jumped to attention. “What’s wrong? Tell me.”
“Rose, just go away.”
I stood paralyzed, undecided. The health professional wanted to run in and help him. The woman who loved him knew of his fierce pride and wanted to respect him.
“Rose,” Jake choked out, “just leave me alone. If you come in here, I’ll never forgive you.”
“If I don’t come in, I’ll never forgive myself.”
“No!” If ever I’d heard an anguished cry, that was it.
I reached for the doorknob, my hand shaking. “I’m coming in.”
I threw open the door and rushed in. Pride was a highly questionable virtue anyway.
Jake sat in his chair with a wastebasket in his lap. He sat still, his forehead resting on one palm. He didn’t lift his head.
