Chapter Two
Priscilla Allen unlocked the door of the brown station wagon with shaking hands as she tried to hurry in the downpour of sleet.
She worked the finicky lock and gained the front seat, turning around anxiously to search the mounded blankets on the folded-down backseat.
A head popped up suddenly, followed by a gurgle of laughter; Priscilla couldn’t help catching her breath.
“Mommy, did we get it? Did we?”
“Yes, you silly. You scared me half to death.” Priscilla clambered over the seat to check that the blankets were still properly positioned over the back windows of the old car. Then she squirmed closer to the mound and caught her four-year-old daughter, Hollie, in a close hug.
“Are you warm enough?”
Hollie nodded. “Uh-huh. I’ve got three gloves on one hand and three other ones on the other and three pants and four shirts and two coats and two hats. I’m hot!”
“Well, you keep it all on. I’ve got this job and I have to start tonight. So, you settle down out of sight like usual. I’ll be out to check on you as soon as I can.”
“Can you bring me a hamburger? I smelled them and I’m awful hungry.”
Priscilla wet her lips and swallowed. “Yes, I’ll wake you up when it’s ready. I’m so sorry you’re hungry, Hollie.”
The child snuggled closer. “I’m not that hungry, Mommy. Not like that time when we ate frozen peas all by themselves.”
Priscilla tried to smile. “All right. Remember, only Mommy has the key and don’t—”
“Unlock the door! I know,” Hollie declared, the tassel on her topmost hat bouncing.
Priscilla clambered off the seat and carefully got out, looking around with sharp eyes before relocking the door and running back to the inn.
Joseph leaned his head back in the tub with a deep sigh of contentment. Then he frowned as his
bruder
barged into the bathroom and snatched the last dry towel from the rack.
“Gotta hurry, Joe. I’m going downstairs to play cards with some of the fellas.” Edward splashed water on his face, then dried himself with the towel, tossing it onto the floor.
“Hey!” Joseph yelled as Edward made to head out the door.
“Whaaat?”
“You get paid and then you go and gamble it all away. How exactly are you saving money for you and Sarah?”
Edward flashed him a faintly wicked grin. “I win, Joe.”
Joseph sighed and splashed the warm water against his chest. “
Jah
, well . . . bring me up some fresh towels. You know we don’t use the phone.”
“
Ach
, all right.”
“And Edward?”
“What now?”
“Remember your intended.” Joseph kept his voice level.
“Ice Mountain’s a world away, Joe. A world away.”
Joseph listened as the suite door closed with a slam, then started to wash his hair. His bruder’s words tore at his heart because he knew they held a ring of truth . . .
Priscilla hastily changed into the yellow dress Mary provided for her and decided that the garment was plain and suitable. She’d been a bit afraid that it might be something skimpy, but Mary must have meant it when she said that she ran a clean place. She looked in a mirror in the small staff bathroom and pinned on her name tag, then tried to ignore the grumbling of her stomach, which made her think with some weariness of Hollie’s hunger.
A tall man, obviously staff in his yellow shirt and black pants, approached her when she entered the hall. He had an armload of white towels.
“I’m Dan. You the new girl?”
Priscilla nodded, nervous, but knew she had to speak. She needed this job so badly.
“Yes, I am.”
“Look, run these towels up to room seven, will you? I’m supposed to be training you, but I can’t start until I’ve worked out a mess in the kitchen—one of the cooks wants to try some sort of pastry flan for dessert. Flan! For roughnecks!”
Priscilla smiled in spite of herself and took the towels he thrust at her, then she hurried off in the direction he pointed, looking for room seven.
She found the room at the end of a clean, carpeted hallway. A decorative pair of antlers hung on the door beneath the room number. She gave a tentative knock, and was wondering how quickly she might get something from the kitchen to take to Hollie when the door was thrust wide open.
“Edward! Where
en der weldt
have you . . .”
The tall, dark-haired man stopped abruptly, licking surreptitiously at a drop of water that ran down his chiseled cheek and past his mouth.
Priscilla took in the fact that he was nearly naked, clutching only a hand towel below his lean waist. A snapshot mental image of him seemed to burn behind her eyes. Then he muttered something in a hoarse voice and took a step toward her, snatching the towels from her arm and slamming the door in her face. She stood, stunned, for what felt like a full minute before she came back to the moment and turned to hurry off down the hall.
Still, even as she gained the kitchen floor, she had to blink to get the overwhelming vision of his dripping body out of her mind.
Heath never looked like that . . .
She shuddered in spite of herself.
Like what?
the practical part of her snapped back. And some reserved, hidden piece of her that she’d thought long defeated relaxed into the remembrance of the man: his eyes hazel green and deep set, his shoulders broad and strong, his abdomen well-defined, while dark hair ran in an arrow to where he held the towel. She felt herself color hotly
. I have a job to do, a hungry child, and here I am—daydreaming.
She swallowed and squared her shoulders, banishing the image of the man from her mind as she entered the dining room and scrambled to make herself useful.
Joseph leaned hard against the cold door, pressing his bare back into the wood and clasping and unclasping the towels he’d taken from the woman. He couldn’t stop the waves of shame that ran over him at the fact that he’d stood exposed.
No woman has seen me that way since Amanda . . .
The name filled his mind with a strange mixture of dread and excitement, and he let his head fall back against the wood, his throat working.
I’m still not over it—seven years.
Ach
, Gott, seven years, and still I’m haunted. Will it never stop? Can it?
He drew a deep breath and remembered the scripture promise that
“All things are possible with Derr Herr.”
And then, for some reason, his breathing leveled off as he recalled the cool purity of the girl’s blue eyes. He was able to relax his stance and move to the business of drying, his thoughts resonating with a strange peace.
“You hire a new waitress here, Dan?” Joseph asked his
Englisch
friend as his eyes searched the dining room. Joseph had decided that he owed the girl an apology for his abruptness, but he couldn’t seem to locate her.
“Sure did, Joe. But she stepped out to take her break a few seconds ago.”
“Great. Thanks.” Joseph ignored Dan’s quizzical look and made for a side door leading outside.
The sleet had slowed to a lazy, misting fog and Joseph had to search the parking lot carefully before he caught sight of her red hair as she moved through the packed cars under the arc lights.
“Miss?” he called.
She stopped so fast that he realized he’d scared her, which was the last thing he wanted to do.
“Miss, I’m sorry. I mean no harm. I wanted to apologize.”
Was it his imagination or did she seem to nearly wilt with relief? She turned to face him as he came closer, one of her small hands on the hood of a blue Pontiac, the other clutching a small brown bag.
He caught up with her, the car between them. “Miss? I’m Joseph King. You—uh—brought me towels earlier.” He felt his face color but he plunged on. “I wanted to apologize for being rude. I was expecting my
bruder
and then it was you and . . .” He trailed off when he sensed her anxiousness to be gone.
Maybe I should have let well enough alone . . .
“It’s all right.” She spoke quickly, her voice high. “Please forget it.”
“Right,” he agreed. “Okay.” He turned to go because it was so obviously what she wanted him to do. Waves of anger, distaste, or something, practically radiated from her small frame.
He felt a wash of shame again, then forgot it when he couldn’t resist a glance over his shoulder and saw the red-haired girl scurrying to a brown station wagon parked toward the back of the full lot. There were blankets covering the back windows of the car, he noticed, and she seemed to look around before unlocking the door. He turned back toward the inn with a shrug when the unmistakable high-pitched shriek of a happy child echoed across the damp lot and left him thinking seriously about what the girl with the towels had to hide in her own life.
Priscilla’s heart beat fast when she climbed into the relative safety of the car. She handed Hollie the bag with the hamburger and fries, thankful for the food, even while she couldn’t get the big man’s words out of her head.
He apologized even though it was my mistake. Heath never said sorry, not once, not for anything, but why should he? The world thinks he’s perfect . . .
She shuddered—if only everyone knew the truth. She pushed aside her train of thought and took a single fry from Hollie’s mittened hand. It tasted so good, she knew the faintness of hunger before she rallied.
“I’ve got to go back now, love. Try and go to sleep.”
Hollie chewed with visible contentment. “All right, Mommy, but who was that man you were talking to?”
Priscilla froze. “What man?”
“I peeked out the back window, over the top of the blanket. The big man with the funny black hat and coat.”
“Nobody. And no more peeking.”
“Nobody must be somebody,” Hollie singsonged matter-of-factly.
“Well, he’s not. Now be good.”
Priscilla got out of the car and made her way back to the inn, but first she stopped at the garbage cans outside and lifted one of the lids. She knew the bag she had carried out was still on top because she’d crimped the tie far to the left. Hurriedly, she opened the bag and caught up the piece of toast and scrap of bacon and ate as fast as she could, forcing herself past the nausea that always accompanied such maneuvers. But tomorrow would be better.
Three meals
. . . She forgot all about the man and went back to her shift.
Chapter Three
“You’ve got a fine black eye.” Edward’s voice sounded laconic from where he slouched in the bathroom doorway.
“Danki,”
Joseph answered, peering closer into the steamy mirror. He did have some
gut
bruising around his cheek and eye from his fall on the slippery catwalk the day before, but it was nothing to worry about. “Want to come fishing with me today?”
Edward snorted. “And sit still in this cold?
Nee, danki.
Me and some of the fellas are going to take the four-wheelers out for a ride up in the mountains.”
Joseph caught his bruder’s eye in the mirror. “Don’t drink and ride those things. And you shouldn’t be riding them anyway.”
“There’s no bishop here.”
“But Gott is here,” Joseph retorted, feeling his temper rise.
“There’s
nee
distinct mention of four-wheelers in the Bible, Joe. Get with it.”
Joseph turned. “You know as well as I do why we keep to the Ordnung. Why it matters that we be
Amisch
even when there’s no one to see. Too many of our people were persecuted—tortured, so that we could live.”
Edward gave him a sour smile and adjusted the ball cap he’d taken to wearing. “And that’s what I’m doing,
bruder
. Living.”
“What about Sarah?” Joseph’s voice was quiet and he knew he’d struck home when Edward flushed.
“Not fair, Joseph. She’s not here. And besides, every day I work is to make money for her and me.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I’m leaving.” Edward spun on his heel and Joseph sighed when the door of the suite slammed.
I’m tired of being the big
bruder
. . . the rule-keeper . . . the guard. But that’s why I’m here.
He viciously pushed away the truth that echoed inside—that there was more to his being away from the community and the mountain than he was willing to admit. He closed his eyes for a moment, then spoke aloud into the silence of the room. “I’m here for Edward and I’m not doing a very
gut
job of it—and that is why I’m going fishing.”
“I don’t like fishin’.” Hollie’s voice was plaintive.
Priscilla sighed and adjusted the lines. She’d noticed the big, relatively secluded pond near the inn when she’d driven past for the interview and was glad for it today. Mama Malizza had told her not to come in until three, and even with the tips from the previous evening, she had nearly no money. The station wagon’s tank had to be filled. Hollie needed vitamins and milk and so . . . out came the fishing poles. Thankfully, the day was clear and not too cold.
“I don’t like it either,” Priscilla admitted. “But we’re good at it.” She held up the line of six trout and Hollie rolled her eyes.
Priscilla stilled when she heard a rustling in the woods near the pond. She glanced at the station wagon and wondered how fast she could get Hollie there. She was about to abandon the fish and pick up her daughter when a big man broke out from the treeline. He carried a fishing pole and wore a black hat and black coat along with black wool pants. Priscilla released a quick breath. It was the
Amisch
man from the inn.
He stopped when he saw them, looking somehow awkward and surprised at the same time.
“Hiya,” he said finally.
“Hello, we were getting ready to go. We won’t disturb you.” Priscilla started to drag in her line when she got a bite. She threw him an exasperated look and reeled in the big fish.
“Never leave when the fish are biting.” He laughed suddenly as she added the fish to her catch. “And it looks like they’re really biting.”
“I saw you last night,” Hollie announced.
The man had stepped closer and Priscilla resisted the urge to hush her child. She didn’t want to raise any suspicion on this stranger’s part.
“Did you now?” His voice was kind.
“Yep. From our car. Why do you dress funny?”
Priscilla suppressed a silent groan, but the man seemed to take no offense as he answered easily.
“I’m
Amisch
. I come from Pennsylvania.”
“Oh,” Hollie said. “What’s Amish?”
The man eased himself onto a large rock nearby and opened a bait box. “
Ach, Amisch
is a way of believing, a way of living.”
“Oh,” Hollie repeated. “So Amish believe in dressing funny?”
“Hollie,” Priscilla snapped, embarrassed by the sidelong smile the man threw their way.
He really is impossibly handsome . . . and here I go again . . .
“She’s all right,” the man said, loading his hook.
“What’s your name?” Hollie persisted despite Priscilla’s glare.
“I’m sorry. I should have said.” He removed his hat, revealing overly long, wavy dark hair, and nodded at them. “I’m Joseph King. Pleased to meet you.”
“I’m Hollie and this is my mommy, Priscilla. Aren’t they nice names?”
“Sure are.” He clapped his hat back on and cast in his line.
“Why do you have a black eye?”
“Hmm?
Ach
, I fell on the rig in the ice.”
Priscilla felt a sick premonition inside, almost as if she could see where the conversation was headed. And sure enough, Hollie spoke up again.
“Mommy used to have black eyes too. She had to learn things from Daddy. So he gave her those eyes to remember. What do you remember from your fall?”
Priscilla swallowed a lump in her throat and stared down at the water. She was mortified, but she had not been able to come up with any way to wipe certain memories from Hollie’s mind. She didn’t want to look up and see the pity on the
Amisch
man’s face. She’d seen it enough times in the eyes of certain friends . . .
But why do I care what he thinks anyway?
She lifted her chin and turned to face him directly, but to her great surprise, she was met with a look of respect.
He spoke slowly, his voice low, as his green-gold eyes seemed to gleam with an emotion she couldn’t understand. “I learned, Hollie, that falling means getting up. Standing up again and again. Until the falling doesn’t matter as much as the standing.”
“That’s smart,” Hollie said, then went back to jostling her pole.
Priscilla’s eyes welled against her will and she gave a brief nod to the
Amisch
man. He smiled in calm return.
Joseph had to look away from her finally. He knew about wife beating, had read about it and heard of its effects at rare times on the mountain
. But to beat a young girl . . . Dear Gott . . . How
auld
could she be actually? And with a child?
He swallowed hard, determined not to let her see anything but the true respect he felt for her, bravely fishing—probably to feed her and the
kind. What had the little
maedel
said? “I saw you last night—from our car.”
The realization hit him hard enough to make his heart slam in his chest . . .
They are living in the car . . . in the car!
His eyes searched the water frantically, as if he’d find an answer there. He knew instinctively that asking the girl about her living situation would make her bolt like a hunted deer.
Nee
. He had to think. He cleared his throat and ran his line through his fingers, wanting something real to hold on to, because the living closeness of a woman struggling so badly, alone with a child, was a reality he did not fully understand. At home, on Ice Mountain, or in any
Amisch
community, a widowed woman was cared for, lifted up by the community.
A widowed woman . . . the child had said “her daddy.” Perhaps Priscilla is still married—then who am I to interfere? But . . . still. She must be running from this man, who would teach her things through violence. Surely she deserves as much help as I’d give a kitten in the snow . . .
“We should have a fish fry for lunch,” he said suddenly, the words coming from nowhere into his head. He turned to look at her. “I get homesick on the days off, and my brother likes to run around. I’d truly enjoy the company.”
Hollie began to bounce in response, but he almost held his breath as he waited for Priscilla’s reply.
She’s cautious and probably rightly so . . .
But then she lifted those clear blue eyes to him and shrugged. “Where would we have it?”
“Well, here,” he improvised quickly. He gestured with his chin toward an outside grill and picnic table. “If you two don’t mind the chill in the air.”
“Please, Mommy! Please. We were going to cook the fish here anyway.”
She nodded slowly. “Well, all right. I—I could drive down the road and get some batter mix if you don’t like them grilled.”
He thought about her probable lack of money. “Sure. I can stay here and get the fire started.” He reached into a pocket and grabbed a handful of money, then decided against it, not wanting to offend her, and offered two bills instead. “Maybe you can pick up some ice cream too—for Hollie.”
“Yay!”
He watched Priscilla wet her lips, eyeing the bills. “I don’t usually let her eat sweets.”
“Only for today then.” He smiled. “But it’s up to you. I mean no disrespect.”
“No—no, I know you don’t.” She set her pole on the bank and rose. Joseph couldn’t help himself; he ran his eyes down her trim, jeans-clad figure, and thought her red hair looked like a triumphant pennant, lifted by the breeze.
She’s beautiful
. . . Another realization that made his heart pound.
She took the money from his hand; careful, he thought, not to let their fingers touch, though his palm seemed to tingle for want of the contact.
I’m losing my mind . . .
He caught a firm hold on his emotions; he knew what stupid thinking could bring and he wanted none of it ever again.
“I’ll clean and fillet the fish,” he muttered. He sensed that she seemed confused by his sudden withdrawal, but he’d go to hell and back before he let himself be caught by his waywardness with another woman.
I am so screwed up . . .
“Thank you,” she said softly.
He gave a stiff nod and waited, conscious of her loading Hollie in the car and then driving off before he got to his feet.
I’m having a fish fry with her, and that’s all. This will be the end of it . . .
He tramped to the outside grill, telling himself that he was comforted by the thought.
His hair is more brown than black. I couldn’t tell so much when it was wet . . .
Priscilla blinked at herself in her rearview mirror in disgust while Hollie chattered happily about the picnic to come
. Maybe we should keep driving away from here; he’s dangerous to my peace of mind. But I have his money . . .
She knew she was rationalizing over twenty dollars, but—
“Mommy!”
“What?” she exclaimed, startled out of her thoughts.
“I said for the fifteenth thousandth time—he’s nice, isn’t he?”
“I suppose. We don’t really know him, Hollie. He’s a stranger and we have to be careful.”
“He’s not a stranger and I’m tired of always being careful. His name’s Joseph. That’s a nice name. Why don’t you like him?”
“I didn’t say I didn’t like him.”
Hollie huffed. “You don’t have to. I can tell.”
“How?”
“Never mind. Can we get rainbow sherbet? Is sherbet ice cream?”
“Sort of . . .” Her mind drifted back to the fluted sorbet glasses Heath’s relative had bought them for a wedding gift. How Aunt Miriam would have cringed to know that he’d used a shard of one of the elegant gifts to carefully make a slit in each of Priscilla’s cuticles when she’d broken a glass by accident . . . only small cuts that would never show, never need bandaging. The black eyes had been harder to explain, but she had—both out of duty and necessity.
A car blared its horn and she hastily realigned the station wagon, then pulled into the small market, trying to focus on ice cream and fish batter.