Anna's Return (30 page)

She took a breath. She had time. Pete operated on brute force, not brainpower.

Still, sooner or later it would occur to him to start asking around. People, even English people, knew the Beilers.

She couldn’t go out on the street. He’d see her for sure if she did that. Wheeling, she hurried to the back of the store.

“Is there a rear door I can use? Please, it’s important.”

Maybe it was the quaver in her voice that convinced him. The pharmacist gave her an odd look, but he led her back through the pharmacy shelves to a door that opened onto the alley.

With a quick look in both directions she slipped out, murmuring her thanks. The alley was empty, and she scurried along toward the hardware store, thoughts tumbling even faster than her rushing feet.

Samuel would help her. She just had to get to Samuel. Did Pete know he was looking for an Amish family? Maybe, maybe not, but she couldn’t take a risk that he might. Jannie had known.

Only another block to the hardware store, but now her luck ran out. The alley ended abruptly at a fenced-in lot. She had no choice but to go back to Main Street.

She stopped at the corner, taking advantage of the cover provided by some passing shoppers to peer down the street. Pete was still sitting on the bench, a block down.

She had to get to Samuel. She’d have to pray Pete didn’t know he was looking for someone in Amish dress. She waited for the next passersby and then slipped onto the sidewalk just ahead of them, hoping they screened her from view. Her stomach twisted, and she held her breath, waiting for the sound of running feet, of Pete shouting her name.

Nothing. And there was the hardware store, with its hitching rail along the side for Amish buggies. Samuel stood next to his buggy, lifting a box in.

She couldn’t contain herself any longer. She rushed to him, grabbed his arm. “We have to go. Now!”

The surprise on his face gave way to a startled comprehension. Without a word, he grasped her arm and helped her up to the buggy seat. He released the line and swung himself up, clucking to the horse to back him away from the rail.

“Not by way of the square,” she said, urgency filling her voice. “We can’t go that way.”

He nodded, turning in the opposite direction, and in a moment they were heading down the side street, away from danger.

 

 

Samuel
kept his tension in check as they wound through several back streets to get clear of town. Obviously something had happened in the few minutes they’d been apart—something that had frightened Anna badly. The baby’s birth father. What else could it be?

He turned onto the road that led home. Anna kept swiveling, staring behind them, her hand up to shield her face.

If she wouldn’t break the silence, he would.

“Is anyone following us?”

She turned around, hands grasping the seat as if to force the buggy to go faster. “It doesn’t look like it. I can’t see anyone.”

He waited, but she didn’t go on. Apparently he’d have to pry the words out of her.

“What is wrong? Was it him . . . Pete?”

She nodded, fingers tightening on the seat until her knuckles were white. “I was about to come out of the pharmacy when I saw him crossing the street to the square.” Her voice quavered. “If I’d walked out a minute sooner, I’d have walked right into him.”

“But you didn’t.” Samuel put his hand over hers where it gripped the seat. Her tension was so strong that her skin seemed to spark. “God was watching out for you.”

She bit her lip. “I hope so.”

“I know it,” he said, hoping that gave her strength.

“I couldn’t go out the front of the store. He’d have seen me. He sat down on a bench in the square where he could watch the whole area. The pharmacist let me go out the back way.”

Samuel considered. “So he doesn’t know exactly where you are.”

“If he knew that . . .” She sucked in a breath. “If he knew that, it would already be too late.”

He tried to think it through, tried to put himself in the mind of the man. He couldn’t do it. It was too great a stretch.

“All right, then. If all he knows is that you’re from this area, then he’s just guessing that you’re here. He can’t be sure you’d come home, because you didn’t tell anyone. You can lie low until he gets tired and goes away again.”

She was already shaking her head. “I can’t. He’s bound to ask around. Sooner or later, he’ll find someone who knows me.”

“Amish are ser gut at playing dumb in the face of nosy questions. No one will give you away.”

Her mouth twisted. “I wish I could believe that. But even if no Amish would tell, there are plenty of English who know where the Beiler family lives.”

“Anna . . .”

“It’s over, Samuel.” Her voice was filled with anguish. “I don’t have a choice. Gracie and I have to leave. We can lose ourselves in some big city where he’ll never find us.”

Never. Now, when he was about to lose her, he knew how much he loved her.

“Don’t, Anna. You can’t just leave.”
I love you
. “We’ll take care of you and Gracie.”

“I can’t stay.” Her fear was so strong it was like a third person sitting on the buggy seat between them. “I have to keep my daughter safe.”

Samuel fought to keep his feelings in check. It wouldn’t do, when she was terrified for her child, to put the burden of his love on her.

“Anna, I understand that you must protect Gracie. But this man—surely he will listen to reason. He has no right to the baby, and he’s not able to take care of her. Why would he want to take her away from people who love her?”

Anna stared at him, her face bleak. “Did you never run into someone like him when you were out in the world? Someone with such a skewed view of reality that they were lost to good reason and common sense?”

“If that’s the case, I wonder that the baby means anything at all to him.”

“He’s not thinking straight.” Her lips pressed together as if to hold back the pain. “Liz had it right. She says Pete always wants most what he can’t have. Right now, that’s Gracie.”

“But if we all talk to him . . .”

“Don’t, Samuel.” All her pent-up grief seemed to fill the word. “This does no good at all. If Pete finds me, he’s going to try to take Gracie. If he does . . . if he does, it’s not just that I’ll never see her again. I’m afraid that if he takes her, she won’t survive.”

Her voice shook on the final word, and Samuel’s heart seemed to tremble in his chest.

“Anna, listen to me. You must tell your daad and Bishop Mose.”

“No, they—”

“When they understand what is at stake, they’ll help. They’ll even go to the police, little though they’ll like it. I’m certain-sure of that.”

She threw up her hands in a gesture of helplessness. “Maybe you’re right. I hope so. But don’t you see? It might be too late. Pete isn’t counting on the law to get Gracie back. He’s going to grab her and run.”

“We won’t let that happen.” He had to make her believe that, and she was already shaking her head.

“Pete is the kind of man who settles conflict with his fists. He’s dangerous, and I’ve put all of you in danger by hiding here. All I can do is get out of his way. Once he sees I’m gone and no one knows where I went, he’ll leave the rest of you alone.”

It stabbed him to the heart that she thought she had to protect them.

“Anna, you must trust in the people who love you. Trust in God to deliver us from this evil.”

But he saw in her eyes that she had gone far away from him already. She shook her head again.

His heart was breaking for her. Knowing what it would cost, still he had to say what he would do. “You must tell them. If you don’t, I will.”

She turned on him then. “You have no right to interfere.”

“I love you, Anna. I believe that gives me the right to take care of you and Gracie.”

Pain drew her skin tight against the bone. “If you do that, I will never forgive you. Never.”

The
instant Samuel stopped at the house, Anna jumped down from the buggy. She couldn’t say anything—there was nothing to say.

Samuel had said he loved her. That was a separate pain that she couldn’t begin to deal with now, so she closed it away. Now all she could do was get Gracie someplace safe.

She hurried into the house, registering that Samuel had driven off toward his barn. She had until he’d dealt with his horse and buggy and come back to the shop before he’d tell Daadi. By then, she had to be gone.

No time to pack their clothes—she could only stuff as much as possible into Gracie’s diaper bag.

She barreled into the kitchen. Myra, coming in from the living room, gave her a startled look.

“Anna, I didn’t realize you were back. Is something wrong?”

“No, nothing.”
Everything
. But she couldn’t tell Myra. She couldn’t burden Myra with her troubles, and she certainly couldn’t say she was leaving. “Is Gracie napping?”

“Ja, they both are.” Myra smiled. “She was a little lamb while you were gone.”

Myra always thought that. She was as gentle and loving with Gracie as she was with her own Sarah.

“I’ll go take a peek at her.” Anna hurried up the stairs, not letting herself think about all that Gracie would lose by leaving here. There were too many things she couldn’t think about now.

She slipped into the children’s bedroom. Sarah slept as intently as she did everything, her arm around her rag doll.

In the crib, Gracie lay on her stomach, thumb in her mouth, eyelashes forming perfect crescents on her rosy cheeks. She stirred a little as Anna pulled out the diaper bag and began to fill it.

She would take the essentials. There was no time for more. Pete could be on his way here right now. Her vivid imagination gave her too clear a picture of him rushing down the country road in a fast car, sweeping into the house, snatching Gracie. Disappearing with her.

Law-abiding people were always at a disadvantage when it came to defending themselves against the people who didn’t go by the community’s rules. The Amish were among the most law-abiding people anywhere, and so maybe the most vulnerable.

Anna swept the room with a quick glance to be sure she hadn’t missed anything crucial, and then touched Gracie’s cheek lightly.

“Komm, Gracie. We have to go now.”

The child’s eyelids fluttered. She looked at Anna and gave a sleepy smile. “Mammi,” she murmured.

Anna’s heart clenched. She lifted Gracie into her arms and took the blanket that lay over the end of the crib. She might need that tonight. Who knew where she’d be by then?

God knew. Samuel’s voice echoed in her mind.
Trust God, Anna. Trust the people who love you.

She couldn’t. Not because she doubted their love, but because they had no idea what they were up against. Confronted with Pete, Daadi would make allowances for him, thinking him a father who surely had some right to his daughter, no matter what papers he’d signed.

Samuel, a little wiser in the ways of the world, would still try to reason with Pete. He wouldn’t fight back—that would violate his most deeply held beliefs.

Hoisting the diaper bag to her shoulder, Anna took a last look around the bedroom. They had been happy here. They’d been safe and loved. But the safety had disappeared now, and she couldn’t believe that love alone would keep them safe.

Myra stood at the bottom of the stairs. She watched as Anna came down, frowning a little. “Anna, what is this? Where are you going?”

She forced herself to smile, hoping she could look and sound natural. It hurt to deceive Myra, who was as dear to her as a sister.

“I need to run over to Rosemary’s for a bit.” That part of it was true enough. “I thought I’d take Gracie along. May I use your horse and buggy?”

“Ja, of course.” Myra didn’t lose her puzzled look, but she agreed without hesitation. “We’ll talk later then, ain’t so?”

Anna nodded. Later. Later, maybe, she could write to Myra, try to explain. Try to tell her how much she regretted this step.

She hurried away before she could say more. The image of Pete rushing down the road filled her mind.

She sped toward the barn. Thank heaven no one was in sight. No one stopped to ask her what she was doing or where she was going.

By the time she reached the barn, panic had a grip on her throat.
Run, run
. The words pounded in her mind. Run, just as she’d run when she left Chicago. Just as she’d run when she left here the first time.

Myra’s mare poked her head over her stall door and whickered a welcome. Anna set Gracie down in the pen that was sometimes used for young animals, clean and empty now. The baby would be safe there while Anna harnessed the horse.

Go to Rosemary’s. That was the first step. Rosemary would lend her English clothes, surely, and drive her to Mifflinburg. Once there, she could get a bus to Harrisburg, maybe change there and go on to Baltimore. Baltimore was a big enough city for one woman and a small child to get lost in.