Facing the past can be deadly…

Twenty years ago, Lainey Colton spent one perfect summer in Deer Run with her beloved great-aunt Rebecca. Since then, the beautiful graphic designer has been a gypsy, calling no place home. Now Rebecca is gravely ill, so Lainey has returned to Deer Run to care for her…and to escape her mistakes.

Lawyer Jake Evans gave up a high-powered job to build a quieter life in the small Pennsylvania town. So when a beautiful stranger appears after twenty years gone, he naturally questions her motives. Still, he is drawn to Lainey. But no amount of attraction will matter if he can’t keep her safe from a mysterious threat….

Praise for Marta Perry

“With her crisp storytelling, strong suspense and unique, complex characters—both Amish and Englisch—Perry is sure to hook readers in. Add to that combination an intricately woven plot, with several twists, and fans won’t be able to put Search the Dark down.”

—RT Book Reviews

“Perry’s story hooks you immediately. Her uncanny ability to seamlessly blend the mystery element with contemporary themes makes this one intriguing read.”

—RT Book Reviews on Home by Dark

“Perry skillfully continues her chilling, deceptively charming romantic suspense series with a dark, puzzling mystery that features a sweet romance and a nice sprinkling of Amish culture.”

—Library Journal on Vanish in Plain Sight

“Marta Perry illuminates the differences between the Amish community and the larger society with an obvious care and respect for ways and beliefs….She weaves these differences into the story with a deft hand, drawing the reader into a suspenseful, continually moving plot.”

—Fresh Fiction on Murder in Plain Sight

“Leah’s Choice, by Marta Perry, is a knowing and careful look into Amish culture and faith. A truly enjoyable reading experience.”

—Angela Hunt, New York Times bestselling author of Let Darkness Come

“Leah’s Choice is a story of grace and servitude as well as a story of difficult choices and heartbreaking realities. It touched my heart. I think the world of Amish fiction has found a new champion.”

—Lenora Worth, author of Code of Honor

Abandon the Dark

Marta Perry

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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Dear Reader,

I hope you’ll enjoy the third book in my latest Amish suspense series. If you happen to come to my area of north-central Pennsylvania, you’ll find many small towns that look very much like Deer Run, nestled in the valleys with the wooded ridges rising above them. In fact, our farmhouse is at the narrowest point of a creek valley, which makes life interesting when the creek rises!

I enjoyed revisiting Deer Run for this conclusion to my story. The characters became very real to me, and I wanted to show them finding their happy endings after all the trials they went through. If you guessed who the killer was all along, congratulations!

Please let me know how you felt about my story. I’d be happy to send you a signed bookmark and my brochure of Pennsylvania Dutch recipes. You can email me at marta@martaperry.com, visit me on Facebook or at www.martaperry.com, or write to me at MILLS & BOON HQN, 233 Broadway, Suite 1001, New York, NY 10279.

Blessings,

Marta Perry

This story is dedicated to my granddaughter, Ameline Grace.

And, as always, to Brian, with much love.

No winter lasts forever. No spring skips its turn.

—Amish proverb

Contents

Dear Reader

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

LAINEY COLTON JOLTED AWAKE, her heart pounding in her ears. She stared into darkness so intense she couldn’t make out anything beyond the outlines of the strange bed. She sat upright, turning. A pale rectangle marked the window, and her panic waned.

How stupid. She was in Great-aunt Rebecca’s house, in tiny Deer Run, Pennsylvania. She’d fallen asleep, exhausted after the flight and drive and the stress of the past few weeks, in the bed that had been hers the summer she was ten.

That had been twenty years ago, but the room felt intimately familiar now that she was awake. She rubbed the gooseflesh on her bare arms. The dream that woke her must have been something out of a horror movie. Odd, that she couldn’t remember anything about it.

But maybe just as well, since she had no desire to slip back into nightmares. Lainey plumped the pillows, straightened the hand-stitched quilt, and settled herself to sleep.

Sleep seemed to have fled. As her eyes grew accustomed to the dark, she made out the shapes of the chest of drawers, the rocking chair, and the bookshelf that still held the complete set of Laura Ingalls Wilder books she’d devoured as a ten-year-old. Her Amish great-aunt probably wouldn’t have approved of most of Lainey’s reading choices, but she’d been happy to see her Englisch great-niece reading the Little House books.

Twenty years. Lainey moved restlessly on the pillow. She hadn’t been back in all that time, at first because of her mother’s habit of jumping from husband to husband, and later because of her own gypsy tendencies.

Guilt flickered. Aunt Rebecca had been kind to her during one of the most difficult parts of a troubled childhood. Lainey should have managed to come back, instead of being content with the weekly letters they exchanged. Being Amish, Aunt Rebecca didn’t have a phone. Or electricity, a fact brought home to Lainey earlier when she’d fumbled for nonexistent light switches in the dark kitchen.

But now she was here, summoned by an abrupt phone call from her great-aunt’s lawyer. Rebecca had had a fall and suffered a stroke. She’d asked for Lainey. The attorney, one Jacob Evans, hadn’t sounded particularly approving. Well, Lainey would deal with him in the morning.

She’d planned to get a motel near the airport in Pittsburgh and drive up tomorrow morning, but once she’d picked up a rental car, worry and tension had impelled her onto the road to Deer Run. What difference did it make if she arrived after midnight? She knew where the house key was kept, though if she’d thought about the absence of electricity, she might have opted for a motel.

Aunt Rebecca would laugh at Lainey, coming to visit an Amish home equipped with her smartphone, her computer, her hair dryer, and all the other devices she thought she couldn’t do without.

But the laughter would be gentle. Aunt Rebecca never judged, never made a person feel stupid or guilty or unwanted. Her love had been a balm to a lost child whose familiar world had slipped from her grasp one too many times. Even when the details of that summer visit had slipped away, Lainey had still been aware of that solid sense of being loved without condition.

Now it was Lainey’s chance to repay that kindness. In the morning she’d touch base with the attorney and then head for the hospital to find out how bad Aunt Rebecca’s condition was and what needed to be done. Lainey’s mind ran up against a blank wall of ignorance when it came to helping someone who’d had a stroke, but she’d figure it out. She owed Aunt Rebecca far more than that.

If this trip had happened to coincide with an excellent time for her to leave St. Louis—well, no one here need ever know that, although if the task of helping her great-aunt was as difficult as the attorney’s tone had suggested, she might have jumped from the proverbial frying pan into the fire.

In any event, she was clearly not going to drift back to sleep. Lainey swung her legs out from under the covers. She’d go downstairs and brew a cup of Aunt Rebecca’s herbal tea. But first she’d pull on some sweats. The house had grown cold, and she hadn’t the faintest idea how the furnace worked.

Thanks to her aunt’s habit of leaving a flashlight on the nightstand, Lainey was able to light her way to the stairs. She started down, her heavy socks making no sound on the treads. The beam of the flashlight picked up the hooked rug in the living room, the rocker that had always been her aunt’s favorite chair, the—

She stopped, gripping the banister. A noise, faint and indefinable, came from the kitchen. Maybe the gas refrigerator made noises.

Another step, and Lainey froze again. This time there had been a soft but definite thud. Someone...or something...was in the kitchen.

She held her breath, afraid the intruder would hear the slightest sound. The whole town probably knew that the homeowner was hospitalized, making the house an easy target for a break-in. Could she get back to the bedroom and her cell phone without being heard?

She eased back a step. And heard a loud meow. Lainey’s tension dissolved into a shaky laugh. Not someone. A cat. She hadn’t known Aunt Rebecca had a cat.

Sweeping the flashlight beam ahead of her, Lainey went quickly to the kitchen, pushing open the swinging door. The flashlight beam reflected shining green eyes, eerily suspended in the air, it seemed. The large black cat sat on the counter next to the stove, looking at her accusingly.

“Well, so who are you?” She reached out a hand tentatively, having a respect for pointed teeth and sharp claws.

The cat sniffed at her hand, apparently found it acceptable, and rubbed its head against her fingers.

“You are a handsome creature.” She stroked the shining length of his back, and it arched under her hand. “What’s your name?”

He didn’t answer, of course, but he butted her hand again and then jumped lightly to the floor, where he pawed at the cabinet door.

“Is that where the cat food is kept?” Silly, to be talking to a cat, but the house was so deadly silent that it was a relief to make some noise. She opened the door and had a look.

No cat food, but there were several cans of tuna. Her visitor seemed to know what that was, because he hooked a paw over one can.

“All right, all right, I get the message. But I can’t believe that one of the neighbors isn’t feeding you while Aunt Rebecca is in the hospital.”

The hand can opener was in the top drawer, and in a few minutes she’d dumped the contents of the can into a bowl and set it down in front of the animal. The cat took one sniff and then began eating.

“I’m not sure what to do with you,” she muttered. “Are you supposed to stay inside or go out at night?” She searched the neat, sparsely furnished downstairs to the living room, finding no sign of a litter box. “Out, I guess.”

The front windows of the living room looked out on the main road that ran through the village, becoming Main Street on its way. Nothing moved outside. Even when she craned her neck to look down toward the center of town, the streets and sidewalks were empty. Apparently at 3:00 a.m. the citizens of Deer Run were safe in their beds.

A small town would undoubtedly seem even smaller and deader when seen through the eyes of a thirty-year-old, rather than the ten-year-old she’d been when last in Deer Run. But she was here to see to Aunt Rebecca’s care, not to socialize.

And afterward? Afterward would have to take care of itself for the moment.

A loud meow interrupted her reverie. She returned to the kitchen to find that the cat had polished the bowl and now stood at the back door, looking fixedly at the knob as if he could turn it with the force of his gaze.

“Okay, I get the message. You want out.” She opened the door. The cat spurted through it, disappearing into the shadows as if part of an illusionist’s trick.

Lainey stood for a moment in the doorway, looking out. Beyond a large shed, a stretch of weeds and brush led to the woods. There was a stream back that way someplace, as she recalled, and on the other side some Amish farms. That probably wouldn’t have changed since...

She lost her train of thought as she caught movement from the corner of her eye. Near the shed, was it? She stared, trying to make out what it was, but nothing stirred.

Her imagination? Lainey frowned. She had plenty of that, certainly. But this had been real enough, she felt sure. If it had been an animal, it was a large one.

A shiver went down her spine. It’s nothing, she told herself. An overactive imagination and an overtired body made a bad combination. But she locked the door carefully, just the same.

* * *

PUNCTUALITY HAD NEVER been Lainey’s strong suit, but she arrived at the attorney’s office a few minutes before nine the next morning, eager to get this meeting over with and go to the hospital. Why was it necessary, anyway? Jake Evans surely had fulfilled his duty by letting her know about her great-aunt’s condition, but he had insisted she stop by.

She wouldn’t find out without asking, she supposed. The lawyer’s office was in the ground floor of a square, solid brick building right on Main Street. Evans and Son, Attorneys-at-Law, the sign read.

Lainey pulled open the door and found herself in a wide entryway, bare except for a mounted moose head that stared down at her rather sourly. She hustled through a second door into a conventional receptionist’s space. Four or five padded chairs sat empty against the wall. Two identical doors apparently led to the offices of Evans Senior and Evans Junior.

The receptionist, a gray-haired female with an unrelentingly stern face, turned from watering the philodendron that overflowed from the corner of her desk.

“Ms. Colton?” Her gaze swept Lainey from top to toe, and a faintly pained expression formed as she took in jeans, boots and tucked turquoise shirt topped with a fringed suede jacket.

“That’s right.” Lainey forced herself not to fidget. Deer Run must really be behind the times if the woman found this outfit inappropriate. It was probably the most businesslike thing Lainey owned. “I’m supposed to meet Jacob Evans at nine.” She brushed her hair back, setting the dangling silver-and-turquoise earrings she’d made jingle.

“I’ll let Mr. Evans know you’re here.” The woman leaned across the desk to press a button on the phone.

In an instant, the right-hand door swung open. The man who emerged was so unlike the image she’d formed from their brief conversation on the phone that Lainey had to stare.

She had expected old, stuffy, businesslike and disapproving. The reality was tall, lanky and probably early thirties, with thick, reddish-brown hair, a long jaw, straight nose and a mobile mouth that looked as if it smiled readily.

It wasn’t smiling now. The disapproval, at least, was as she’d imagined.

“Ms. Colton, please come in. I’m Jake Evans, your great-aunt’s attorney.”

She gave him a cool nod and walked past him into the inner office. There were plenty of reasons why a solid citizen like Jacob Evans would disapprove of her, but she couldn’t imagine how he’d know any of them. Maybe he just disapproved of outsiders on general principle. With the quick toss that sent her unruly mane behind her shoulders for a few moments, at least, she took what was obviously the visitor’s chair.

“You must have made an early start to get here by nine,” Evans said, sliding into the leather executive chair behind the desk. He leaned back, looking for a moment as if he’d prop his foot up on a conveniently open drawer, and then seemed to think the better of it.

“My flight reached Pittsburgh at nine last night. I rented a car and drove straight through, so I got in around midnight.”

He blinked. “I didn’t expect... Well, that’s fine. You stayed at a motel out on the highway, then?”

“I stayed at my great-aunt’s house, of course. Why not?”

“No reason.” He straightened his tie, drawing her attention to his tie clip. The engraved lion gave him away as a Penn State graduate. “I just thought the lack of electricity might be a problem for you.” His lips quirked, making him suddenly more likable.

“I did keep reaching for a switch, I admit.” She returned the smile, liking the way his face warmed when he forgot to be stiff and legal. “But the cat and I got along all right.”

“Cat?” He looked at her blankly.

“Aunt Rebecca’s cat. Big, black, furry, with green eyes?” Like yours, she thought.

He frowned slightly. “Your aunt doesn’t have a cat.”

“She doesn’t?” It was odd that Aunt Rebecca hadn’t mentioned a cat in her letters, since she talked about everything in her life. “Well, I guess I gave the neighbor’s cat a middle-of-the-night tuna treat, then.”

Although in that case, how had the cat gotten into the house? It couldn’t have come in with her. She’d been tired, yes, but not so tired she wouldn’t notice a large cat.

Lainey gave herself a mental shake. Not important now. She’d shelve that question until later. Unfortunately that thought reminded her of Phillip, telling her that she must be related to Scarlett O’Hara, with her tendency to worry about things tomorrow.

He’d been more right than she knew. If she’d spent a little more time thinking about where their relationship was headed—

“I don’t suppose the neighbors will mind,” Jake said, his thoughts obviously still on the cat.

“I’d like to see my great-aunt,” she said abruptly. “Can you give me directions to the hospital?”

“Before you head over there, I thought we ought to clarify your position.” His tone had shifted back to being formal.

“My position?” she echoed, not sure what he was driving at.

His green eyes narrowed, much like the cat’s had. “Didn’t your great-aunt speak to you about her arrangements?”

“Arrangements?” She sounded like a demented parrot, echoing everything he said, but she honestly had no idea what the man was talking about.

Evans rotated a pen slowly in his hand for a moment, and then tried to balance it on its tip. It fell over. “I was afraid of that. You see, your great-aunt has given you power of attorney. Do you know what that means?”

“I know what power of attorney means.” He didn’t need to sound as if she were a dimwit. “But I’m not sure what effect it has in this situation.”

“She should have talked to you,” he murmured, half to himself, she suspected. “Basically, it gives you the authority to make any decisions that are necessary in regard to her medical care or finances in the event that she can’t make them herself.”

“But...she can, can’t she? I mean, you said she asked for me, so that must mean she’s able to talk and make decisions.”

Evans shook his head, his face somber. “She did ask for you, yes. But after that she lapsed into what I suppose is a coma. She’s a little responsive, but she hasn’t been able to communicate.”

Lainey stared down at her clasped hands, absorbing his words. She’d known it was serious, of course—even a mild stroke and a fall would be in a woman her great-aunt’s age. But she hadn’t imagined it was this serious.

Evans sat quietly, apparently realizing that she needed time to absorb this news.

Lainey rubbed her forehead, trying to think what she ought to do first. “How exactly did it happen?”

He looked startled, as if he’d expected a different question. “No one knows, exactly. Her niece Katie stopped by the house to check on her and found her at the bottom of the stairs. The doctor says there’s no way of knowing whether she had the stroke and it caused her to fall or whether she fell and the shock brought on the stroke.” He gave her a rueful smile. “At least, that’s what he said with the medical lingo stripped away.”

The stairs she’d been up and down last night, never knowing...

“But do they think she’ll recover?” Lainey discovered she was holding her breath.

He spread his hands, palms up. “Nobody’s willing to commit, either way.”

“I see.” A headache was starting to build, and she pressed her fingertips to her temples.

“That’s why this power of attorney has suddenly become so important, and why I insisted that you come immediately.” Evans leaned toward her across the desk, eyes intent. “Someone will have to make decisions about her care. There are other relatives who live close at hand, but they can’t do anything if you accept the responsibility.”

She studied his face, trying to read behind the words. “You mean I could decline?”

He nodded. “Since she didn’t consult you, I’m sure everyone involved would understand if you felt you couldn’t handle it.”

“So what exactly would happen if I declined to accept the power of attorney?” It was beginning to sound more like the power to make a big mistake with her great-aunt’s life at stake.

“The court would have to appoint someone. Probably one of the other relatives, I imagine. I’m sure either Rebecca’s brother or her late husband’s brother would be glad to take the burden off your shoulders.”

Evans wanted her to refuse. She could hear it in his voice and read it in his eyes. Why? Because she wasn’t from around here? Because he didn’t like the way she looked?

Jake Evans’s attitude might be annoying, but it wasn’t nearly as important as the debt she owed Aunt Rebecca for being an anchor in her life when she had desperately needed one.

She stood up, obviously surprising him. “I’m going to the hospital,” she said. “I can’t decide anything until after I’ve seen Aunt Rebecca.”

* * *

JAKE CHECKED HIS rearview mirror to be sure he hadn’t lost Lainey, following in her rental car, when he turned up the street that led to the hospital. He hadn’t.

His encounter with Lainey Colton had confirmed all his concerns about the wisdom of Rebecca’s choice. His elderly client, like most Amish in the valley, had more relatives close at hand than an Englischer like him would find comfortable. Rebecca could have named any one of them.

But she hadn’t, obviously. Maybe that plethora of local relatives was exactly the reason she’d chosen to leave her affairs in the hands of an obscure great-niece she hadn’t seen in twenty years.

When he’d voiced his concerns to Rebecca, she’d been adamant. According to her way of thinking, you could know everything there was to know about a person’s character at ten. He’d thought Rebecca, from the shelter of her quiet Amish life, was underestimating the influences the outside world could bring to bear on a person.

At the time, Rebecca had been in fine health for a woman in her seventies, and he’d thought he would have plenty of time to convince her to reconsider. In retrospect, he’d been wrong. Now he was going to have to deal with the fallout.

He flipped on his turn signal and swung into the visitors’ lot. Lainey pulled her car into a slot a short distance down the row from his, so that he had an opportunity to study her as she walked toward him.

Lainey would draw a second glance no matter where she was, he suspected. In conservative little Deer Run, it would no doubt be more like four or five glances.

The October breeze lifted her long mane of curls, blue-black as a crow’s wing in the sunshine, revealing beaded earrings that reached almost to her shoulders. Even from several yards away the deep blue of her eyes was startling against her pale skin. She looked...what? Exotic? Artsy? She’d fit in fine at the huge arts festival held over in State College every summer, but not in staid Deer Run.

Whatever. He could only hope Lainey would be able to cope with the tangle she was walking into. Either that, or that she’d have sense enough to get out.

“It’s a small hospital, isn’t it?” she said, nodding toward the redbrick building that sat at the top of the hill overlooking the town.

“Deer Run is a small community.” He fell into step with her as they walked toward the entrance.

“Is my great-aunt getting the care she needs here? I assume there’s a larger facility somewhere nearby.”

“The doctors would recommend a transfer to a larger care center if they thought it necessary.” He couldn’t help sounding a little stiff. If she intended to take this adversarial attitude into every encounter, it was going to be a long day.

They reached the portico at the front entrance, and Lainey turned to him with a cool smile. “Thank you for showing me the way. You don’t need to come in with me.”

Accept dismissal? He didn’t think so.

“That’s okay. I want to check on my favorite client.” He gave her the laid-back smile that usually disarmed people and stepped forward so that the automatic door swished open. He gestured. “After you.”

She hesitated, as if she’d like to argue, and then she swept inside, her momentum carrying her right past the pink ladies stationed at their welcome desk.

“Good morning, Jake.” Helen Blackwood patted her iron-gray curls in an automatic gesture, her cheeks as pink as her smock. “This must be little Lainey, come to see her great-aunt. You won’t remember me, my dear, but I knew you when you were a child. I’m Helen Blackwood.”

Lainey looked a bit nonplussed at this welcome, but she shook the hand Helen held out. “It’s nice to see you, Ms. Blackwood.”

“Helen, please, dear. After all, we’re old friends. Now, be sure you give your dear aunt a kiss for us. We’re all praying for her.”

“I...I will. Thank you,” Lainey added. She tried to pull her hand away, but Helen had her in a firm grip.

“My goodness, I remember how you children loved my gingersnaps—”

“We certainly did,” Jake interrupted, taking Lainey’s arm and turning her to the elevator. “I’m sure Lainey will look forward to catching up later. And you might let me know the next time you’re baking gingersnaps.” He propelled Lainey onto the elevator while Helen was still fluttering over his comment.

The door swept shut, and he punched the button for the second floor, grinning at Lainey. “See? I do come in handy.”

Her face relaxed in response. “Obviously the little old ladies adore you.”

He managed a look of mock hurt. “I’ll have you know that the Evans charm extends to females of all ages.”

The door opened before she could answer.

“Rebecca’s room is just down the hall. The next door on the right.”

Lainey stepped into the room ahead of him and stopped so abruptly he nearly walked into her. A look over her shoulder told him the reason. The room seemed full of people in Amish garb.

Easing her into the room, he nodded to those he knew. “Family,” he murmured in Lainey’s ear. “How is she today?” He focused on Katie Gaus, one of Rebecca’s many nieces, whose round face was made even rounder by her generous smile. The mother of a large family, Katie was comfortably middle-aged, her dress the dark purple color that seemed favored by Amish women her age. Katie had been the one to find Rebecca the day she fell.

“Not much change,” Katie said softly. She came to take Lainey’s hand. “Little Lainey, all grown up. It is gut to see you. Wilcom.”

“Thank you.” Lainey seemed to struggle to place her. “You’re Cousin Katie, right?”

“Ja, that’s so.” Katie smiled again, her gentle face warm. “I am a bit older and wider than you remember, ja?”

“You had a son about my age, didn’t you?” Lainey was showing more composure than Jake had expected at this horde of relatives. Maybe this was going to be all right.

“Ja, that would be Daniel. But komm. You are here for Aunt Rebecca, not for all of us.” Holding Lainey’s hand as if she were still a child, Katie led her toward the bed.

Jake stood back, watching. Now that he had a chance to look around, the room wasn’t as full as it had first appeared. In addition to Katie, three other women he recognized as relatives of Rebecca had apparently been sitting with her.

On the opposite side of the room was a small knot of men, their black coats and pants creating a dense spot in the bright room. Zebulon Stoltzfus, the oldest brother of Rebecca’s late husband, stood in front of three of his sons.

There was no doubt about who was in charge in that family—Zeb had always ruled his numerous progeny with an iron fist, and rumor had it that the bishop and ministers who shepherded the local Amish congregation had made more than one call on him. That usually meant the person visited had behaved in a manner that went counter to the Ordnung, the mutually agreed-upon rules by which the congregation lived. At the moment, Zeb looked like a man with a grievance, and Jake suspected he knew what that grievance was.

Lainey was bending over the hospital bed, drawing his attention. Her hair swung forward, hiding her face at the moment, but his thoughts were arrested by the tenderness in her movement as she took her great-aunt’s hand. She bent to kiss Rebecca’s cheek, murmuring something he couldn’t hear, and as she straightened he saw the tears that streaked her face. Jake had the uncomfortable feeling that all his preconceptions had just been upended.

He shook off the wave of empathy. Even if Lainey had genuine feeling for her aunt, that still didn’t mean that she was capable of making life-or-death decisions for her.

Zeb stalked over to him, his face set in a frown that would likely have even his grown sons quaking in their shoes. “Well? What are you going to do?”

Jake managed to keep from glaring back. It was no part of his duty to Rebecca to alienate her relatives if he could help it. “Lainey Colton is Rebecca’s choice to take change of her affairs.” He kept his voice even.

Zeb flung out a hand toward the women. “The Englisch woman is unsuitable. There is too much at stake.”

“She is Rebecca’s great-niece.” Jake’s jaw tightened. “And it’s Rebecca’s business, not yours.”

Obviously Lainey had heard him. She straightened with a toss of her head that sent her black hair flowing back over her shoulders.

“What is he talking about? What is at stake, and why am I unsuitable?”

Jake had hoped he’d be able to avoid an outright confrontation. Once again in this situation, he’d been wrong.

CHAPTER TWO

LAINEY FROWNED AT JAKE, waiting for an answer. When it didn’t come fast enough to suit her, she shifted her glare to the other man.

His narrow face was tight with an emotion she couldn’t immediately identify—disdain, maybe. Vague memory stirred. An Amish man talking to Aunt Rebecca, looking at the ten-year-old she’d been with just that expression.

“Well?” She wasn’t going to start off by letting herself be intimidated. “What did you mean?”

“I’m sure Zeb didn’t...” Jake began, but the older man’s voice cut across his.

“Chust what I say. You are not suitable to have charge of my brother’s wife. You are not Amish. Englischer.” He clamped his thin lips together on the word.

Katie intervened, coming quickly to join them. “Onkel Zeb, you must remember that this was Rebecca’s decision. It’s not Lainey’s fault.”

Not her fault, Lainey felt the words echo in her mind. Freely translated, that must be that Katie agreed with him but objected to his methods.

They couldn’t be any more convinced than she was that this entire situation was beyond her. Still, she wouldn’t give Zeb Stoltzfus the satisfaction of seeing her doubts. She remembered him faintly now—Uncle Isaac’s brother, and as sour as Isaac had been sweet, from what she remembered.

“Aunt Rebecca apparently thought I was capable enough.” She stated the obvious. “That’s why I’m here.”

Zeb seemed to be gritting his teeth. He turned to Jake, glowering. “You are responsible for this mess. I told Rebecca she didn’t need a lawyer to handle things for her, but she wouldn’t listen. And now see what has happened.”

“You can’t...” Lainey began, but Jake held up his hands to both of them. There was enough command in the gesture to enforce an uneasy silence in the room, broken only by the rhythmic hum of a machine by Aunt Rebecca’s bed.

“Enough.” Jake looked equally annoyed with both of them. “Rebecca’s hospital room is no place to have this discussion.”

“That’s right.” Katie tugged Lainey’s arm. “What would your aunt Rebecca think of this fratching? Komm. Sit.”

She wasn’t going to retire from the battle that easily, but Lainey let herself be maneuvered a couple of steps back. Jake, seeming satisfied that she wouldn’t interfere, turned to Zeb.

“Why don’t you and your boys go on home now?” he said. “I’ll stop by the farm this evening and answer any questions you have then. No point in hanging around here, is there?”

Zeb didn’t speak. He glared for another moment, then glanced at his sons and jerked his head toward the door. They filed out without a word.

Katie expelled a sigh of relief when the door swung slowly closed, and her round face creased in a smile. “There now.” She patted Lainey’s arm as if she needed soothing. “You mustn’t mind Zeb. He’s always been cross-grained, and I believe he’s getting worse the older he gets.”

“Aunt Rebecca said once that he was sour where Uncle Isaac was sweet.” Lainey smiled, remembering.

Katie chuckled. “Ja, that’s certain sure. Your gross-onkel was a kind man.”

“Yes, he was.” Like Aunt Rebecca, he had made her welcome in his home, although surely he must have had doubts about taking in a waif who’d been no relative of his at all.

“Komm.” Katie gestured to the chair next to the bed. “Sit and talk to Rebecca. Maybe she’ll hear your voice, even if she doesn’t speak.”

“I’ll be on my way....” Jake turned toward the door.

Lainey grabbed his arm before he could get away. “I’ll be right back,” she assured Katie, and led him out into the hall for a private word.

He came to a halt a few feet from the door, forcing her to stop as well. He was a bit too large for her to tug very far.

“You mind telling me what you’re doing?” His right eyebrow lifted.

“Stopping you. You’re not getting away before I understand what going on with Zeb Stoltzfus.”

“Later,” he said. “After you’ve had a chance to think about what Rebecca is asking.”

“Now.” Her fingers tightened on his sleeve. “I can’t make a decision without knowing all the facts. Surely an attorney can understand that.”

Jake detached her fingers from his sleeve. “Are you always this stubborn?” He sounded more interested than condemning.

“Yes.” Stubborn. And impulsive. Those two qualities had landed her in trouble more often than she cared to remember. Pain flickered at the thought of the events of the past couple of weeks.

“All right.” His rapid capitulation surprised her. He glanced around. “Come on. We can’t talk in the hallway where anyone might hear.”

Now it was his turn to grasp her arm and propel her down the hallway. His big hand enclosed her elbow, and she felt his warmth even through two layers of fabric.

Jake stopped at a door and peered through the narrow vertical window. “Good, it’s empty.” He shoved the door open and led the way inside. “We shouldn’t be disturbed in here for a few minutes.”

It was a chapel, she realized, carefully non-denominational as chapels usually were in places like hospitals. Light streamed through the abstract pattern of the stained glass window on the outer wall, laying a path of color across beige carpeting. Two short rows of pale wooden benches faced a table under the window, which held a vase of bronze-and-yellow mums.

“Have a seat.” He waited until she’d slid into a pew and sat down next to her.

“Now tell me.” Almost without thought she lowered her voice. “What does Zeb have against me?”

Jake frowned absently at the vase of flowers, apparently arranging his thoughts. She waited, trying to be patient. She could stand to do some thought-arranging herself, since at the moment her brain felt like a juggler, tossing a handful of colored balls into the air.

“Didn’t you wonder why an Amish woman would have an attorney?”

Lainey blinked at the question. “Well, I guess I didn’t consider it.” Why would she? She hadn’t known until he’d called her with the news, and she’d been too shocked to think of anything except getting here.

“It’s unusual, to put it mildly.” The lines of his face relaxed a little. “Unlike most of the Amish in this area, your great-uncle was actually fairly wealthy, at least in terms of the property he owned. I think it started almost by accident, but Isaac seemed to have a gift for knowing when to buy. As a result, when he became sick, he consulted me, wanting to be sure Rebecca had someone to advise her.”

“He didn’t trust the family to do so?” Picturing Zeb’s narrow, avaricious face, she didn’t think she’d trust him either.

“Let’s just say that Isaac didn’t want Rebecca to have to handle any family disagreements. He felt that having an outsider assisting her would prevent that.”

“Okay. But I still don’t see what there is in that to make his brother so upset. If, as you say, my aunt’s money is invested in land, there surely isn’t anything I have to do about it while she’s ill. When she gets better...” She stopped, not wanting to think about the alternative.

“Yes.” Jake seemed to be answering what she didn’t say, and his already deep voice deepened still more in sympathy. “We don’t know yet what will happen to Rebecca, and whether she’ll ever be able to take over managing the property again. In the meantime I can certainly collect rents and pay taxes, but there’s more to it than that.”

Lainey’s head was beginning to ache as Jake seemed intent on adding even more to the number of balls she was juggling. “You’d better tell me the worst of it. How else am I going to know what to do?”

His firm lips curved slightly. “There’s no ‘worst,’ as you say. It’s just that Rebecca owns several farms among other things—farms that Zeb and three of his sons operate.”

“They’re doing it for her?”

“No, they’re doing it for themselves. They pay her a rent that is...nominal, to say the least.”

She still didn’t quite see what all the fuss was about. “Surely Zeb doesn’t think I’m going to raise the rent or evict them or something. Things can just go on the way they are.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.” Jake’s frown told her that despite his words, there was something worse to come. “A week or so before Rebecca’s stroke, Zeb had asked her to sign one of the farms over to him so that he could use it for collateral on a loan. She hadn’t made a decision yet, so that’s in limbo, and I don’t know how badly he needed or wanted the money.”

No wonder Zeb was upset. “But he could hardly expect to go anywhere with that project while Rebecca is incapacitated, no matter who had the power of attorney.”

Jake shrugged. “As I said, I don’t know how badly he needs the money. And it is possible for the person with the power of attorney to sell property. In fact, it might become necessary for other reasons.”

Lainey glared at him, not liking the way this conversation was going. “Stop trying to break it to me gently. Just tell me.”

“I wasn’t.” His grin startled her. “But you’d be surprised how few people can keep up when a lawyer starts explaining things.”

“They teach you that in law school, do they?” That smile of his seemed to touch something inside her.

“Actually, I picked that up from my dad.”

The only thing she’d picked up from a long line of stepdads was that she was superfluous. And the assurance that they wouldn’t be around for long.

“So why might it be necessary to sell property?” She could feel the weight of responsibility getting heavier.

“I don’t know how much you remember about Amish beliefs, but they don’t have insurance. Decisions may have to be made about how to pay for Rebecca’s care. As long as her assets are tied up in land, it’s not going to be easy to come up with funds.”

She stared at him blankly for a few seconds. “But surely, Medicare...”

He was already shaking his head. “The Amish don’t pay into Medicare and Social Security, and they don’t accept the benefits. In the case of someone needing hospital care, the family pays out of pocket, and when necessary, the church district takes up an offering to make up the difference.”

She tried to wrap her mind around it. So in addition to fending off angry relatives and making decisions about Aunt Rebecca’s care that she felt very ill-equipped to make, she was also probably going to be landed with a cartload of bills she couldn’t pay. She pressed her fingers to her temples.

“Is that all of it? You don’t have any more surprises for me?”

“That’s it.” She thought she read sympathy in his clear green eyes. “Sorry about hitting you with all of this, but you wanted to know.”

“I did.” Lainey took a deep breath. It didn’t help. “Well, thanks for being honest with me.”

“It’s not an easy situation. To continue being honest, I advised her against choosing you for this responsibility.”

“Prejudiced without seeing me?” she asked sweetly.

“It’s not that.” His tanned face flushed. “I just thought it made more sense to name someone here, someone who’d have a better understanding of Rebecca’s situation.”

“Like my great-uncle Zeb?” The momentary connection she’d felt at his sympathy vanished.

“No, certainly not Zeb.” His voice was crisp. “Not anyone who has something to gain or lose by the decisions that might be made. But that list still includes other people who...” He let that trail off.

But she could finish it for him. “...who are more qualified than I am? Annoying as that is, you may be right.”

Jake’s jaw set, and he seemed to censor the words that sprang to his lips. “As I mentioned, you don’t have to accept. We could make a recommendation that another person be chosen because you’re unable to perform the duties. After all, you have a home and a life elsewhere. No one could blame you for saying no.”

Home was something she’d never had, unless she counted one long-ago summer. And her life was such a mess that she wasn’t especially eager to return to it.

But neither of those was a good reason for turning down the responsibility Aunt Rebecca had thrust upon her.

“I’ll think about it,” she said, rising. “I’ll let you know what I decide.”

Jake stood, too, looking down at her for a long moment, his face giving nothing away. “I’ll look forward to hearing from you.” He glanced at his watch. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to the office.” Without waiting for a response, he walked quickly out of the chapel.

Lainey followed more slowly. Heading down the hall toward her aunt’s room, she tried to marshal her thoughts, but they refused to be collected.

She was aware of one overwhelming urge. Escape. That was what she always did, wasn’t it? When things got difficult, when relationships grew sticky, she escaped. At least, unlike her mother, she didn’t marry her mistakes.

At the moment, her stomach churned with anxiety, with the urge to keep going right past that hospital room where Aunt Rebecca lay, to get on the elevator, to get in her rental car, and get out of town.

She didn’t. She turned and walked back into her aunt’s room. If she was going to back out of this situation, at least she wouldn’t run.

* * *

LAINEY GLANCED AT the clock over the refrigerator. Jake had told Zeb he’d stop by to see him this evening. He might be there now. What was he telling the man?

Odd, wasn’t it? She’d never heard of an attorney who made house calls, and on someone who wasn’t a client, no less. Maybe Jake was just a really nice guy. Or maybe there was more involved in this situation than she realized. In any event, she’d better curb her well-known gift for acting impulsively and consider all the options before making such a big decision.

She dried the plate she’d used for her supper, looking out the window over the sink. The sun was sliding over the ridge, its slanting rays turning the trees in the woods to gold. Beyond the patch of woods, where the land sloped gently upward, she could see cows moving toward a barn, prompted by a small Amish boy whose straw hat didn’t even reach the cows’ backs.

She’d forgotten how peaceful the valley was. And how beautiful. Of course, it was possible that as a child she hadn’t noticed it. She’d been too busy running around all day with those two girls...she blanked out, unable to remember their names for a moment. Then it came back to her, swimming up from the depths of memory. Rachel and Meredith.

Rachel had been the Amish girl from the farm on the other side of the creek, and Meredith the one who lived in the house next door. Apparently she still did, from what Lainey remembered of her great-aunt’s letters. It was hard to imagine someone as bright and energetic as Meredith had been settling down in a place like Deer Run.

People did, she supposed. Her thoughts went back to Jake. He had, obviously. Maybe he liked being the big fish in the small pond.

What was he saying to Zeb Stoltzfus? She couldn’t help feeling a sliver of uneasiness, despite Jake’s assurances. Jake had claimed he didn’t support the idea of Zeb controlling Rebecca’s assets or her care, but what if he liked the idea of Lainey doing it even less? Despite those few moments when they’d seemed to click, he’d clearly thought Rebecca had made a mistake in naming her.

Lainey’s cell phone rang, and her nerves seemed to jangle in tune with it. She’d given the hospital her cell number. Dropping the dish towel, she snatched up the phone.

“Hello?”

For a moment there was nothing. Then a voice, a muffled, hoarse whisper that might have been a man or a woman, muttered a string of the abuse and obscenities that had grown all too familiar in recent weeks.

She yanked the phone away from her ear and punched the off key. Her stomach churned, and her ear tingled as if something ugly had crawled inside.

She wrapped her arms around herself, trying not to shake. She ought to be getting used to it. The calls had come in a steady stream since Joanna Marcus had so publicly attempted suicide. She’d tried reporting them to the police in St. Louis. The officer she spoke with had looked as if he thought she deserved what she got.

But those calls had come on her landline at the apartment in St. Louis. How had someone gotten the number of her cell phone? Of course, anyone who’d worked in the ad agency could easily have access to her cell number. Her stomach churned at the thought that the caller might be someone she knew.

Lainey reached out to turn off the phone and realized she couldn’t. That number was the only way the hospital could reach her.

At least she could be smart enough to check the caller before she answered. After a string of remarkably stupid decisions, surely she could manage that.

Lainey ran her hand through tangled curls. She was not going to go through it all again. But the memories, once started, unrolled in her mind like a disaster movie, where one wrong choice led inexorably to another.

Dating your boss was stupid. She knew that, but she’d let Phillip Marcus charm her anyway. She’d let it get serious, more so than she ever did, believing him when he said he and his wife had been legally separated for a year, that his divorce would be final in a matter of months, that he was free of a marriage both of them agreed was a mistake.

Lainey had bought it all, and now she looked at her actions with disgust. Anyone would think she’d been a starry-eyed eighteen-year-old instead of a cynical thirty.

If it had ended quietly, she’d still have been ashamed, but at least it would have been a private shame. But Joanna, the wife Phillip had insisted wanted to be rid of him, had called in to a radio talk show, announcing she had taken a massive dose of sleeping pills and naming Lainey as the worthless tramp who had stolen her husband.

The paramedics had been in time to save her, thank God. If she’d been anyone else, the whole affair might have passed from the media’s attention in twenty-four hours. But Joanna’s family was a prominent one—her father a judge, her brother a state senator. Lainey had been completely unprepared for the level of vitriol launched at her.

Maybe she’d deserved it, but she hadn’t expected it to follow her here. She’d been wrong, it seemed.

A loud meow, followed by a scratching at the back door, jerked her out of that profitless line of thought. She hurried to open the back door.

“All right, all right. You don’t have to make scratch marks on the door.”

The black cat walked inside, tail high, with an air of owning the place. He sat down on the exact spot where she had fed him the previous night and looked at her.

“Doesn’t your owner feed you?” She opened the cabinet and retrieved a can of tuna. “If this keeps up, I’ll have to lay in a supply of cat food. I don’t imagine that Aunt Rebecca can afford to keep you in tuna.”

The cat followed her every move with unblinking green eyes. When she set the bowl down in front of him he stared at her for another moment and then tucked in.

She couldn’t help smiling. “You have a fine sense of your own importance, I’ll say that for you.” At least he’d announced himself at the door this time, instead of appearing out of nowhere.

A knock at the front door pulled her away from contemplation of the cat. She went quickly to the front of the house and swung the door open. Maybe Jake...

But two women stood on the front porch, looking at her with an expectation that reminded her of the cat.

“Don’t you know us, Lainey?” The taller woman brushed a wing of silky brown hair behind her ear. “I think I’d know you anywhere.”

The pieces fell into place. “Meredith, of course. And Rachel. I was just thinking about you. Please, come in.”

Strange, to see them now when the only images in her mind were of a tomboy in braids and blue jeans and a sweet-faced Amish girl, blond hair drawn back under a kapp, dress reaching below her knees. Memories began to filter through the intervening years—of giggling slumber parties and secrets shared in the tree house Meredith’s father had built in her backyard. It was as if Lainey had a whole life she’d forgotten, just waiting for her to remember.

“You’ve changed. Still, I guess we’ve all grown up, haven’t we?” She followed them into the living room. They seemed to know their way around the house as well as she did, which wasn’t really surprising.

Rachel chuckled. “You’re thinking that I’ve really changed, right? It’s a shock when you’re expecting an Amish woman in kapp and apron.” She gestured toward her jeans and cotton sweater.

“I think Aunt Rebecca wrote to me about it when you came back to Deer Run.” Lainey’s brain finally caught up. She probably should have reread Aunt Rebecca’s letters on her way here. “You have a little girl, don’t you?”

Rachel’s face lit with maternal pride. “Mandy. We’re next door, actually.” She gestured toward what was the last house in the village. “I’ve turned my mother-in-law’s old home into a bed-and-breakfast.”

“And I’m still on the opposite side of your aunt’s house, so we have you surrounded,” Meredith said.

“Just like old times.” It was oddly familiar to be here with them, even though she’d thought of them so seldom in recent years.

Meredith sat down in a rocker. “I run my accounting business out of my home.”

“Accounting?” Lainey shook her head. “It seemed to me you were going to be an astronaut. Or run a dude ranch out West.”

“That summer must have been the end of my cowgirl phase,” Meredith said, brown eyes smiling at the memory. “It finally occurred to me that I was afraid of horses, something that limited my cowgirl ambitions. As I recall, you were going to live in Paris and be an artist. What happened?”

“I discovered I wasn’t that talented.” Funny, how easy it was to admit that to them. Maybe the bond they’d formed then was more durable than she would have expected. “I ended up working for an advertising agency.” At least, that’s what she had been doing. Technically, at the moment she was unemployed.

“Life seldom turns out the way we dream it will when we’re ten,” Rachel said. “But you were a wonderful artist. We still have the scrapbook from that summer with your drawings.”

Meredith glanced at her, frowning almost in warning, it seemed, making Lainey wonder why that would be a touchy subject.

“I’d like to see it sometime.” That seemed the polite thing to say, although Lainey would have to admit that her memories of that summer were rather hazy. “It was about some story we made up, wasn’t it?”

“Something like that,” Meredith agreed. “Have you been to the hospital yet? I was there yesterday, but the nurses weren’t very forthcoming about Rebecca’s condition.”

“That was nice of you.” Lainey was reminded that Rebecca had an entire life here, with relatives and friends who were all probably wondering about her. “I don’t think they can predict very much about how much she’ll recover. She was still...”

She lost the thread when the cat, apparently finished with his dinner, appeared in the kitchen doorway. He stood for a moment, assessing them, and then crossed the room to jump lightly onto Lainey’s lap and settle there.

“You have a cat.” Rachel reached out to run her fingers lightly along the glossy back. “My daughter, Mandy, will fall in love. She’s been asking if she can get a kitten, but since she already has a puppy, I think that’s enough.”

“She’s welcome to come and visit, but I can’t guarantee the cat will be here. It’s not mine. I supposed it was Aunt Rebecca’s, but Jake Evans said she didn’t have a cat, so I guess it belongs to a neighbor.”

“That’s odd.” Meredith’s forehead furrowed. “I can’t think of anyone on the block with a black cat.”

“Probably a stray,” Rachel said. “Rebecca has such a tender heart that she wouldn’t turn it away. He’s a handsome creature, isn’t he?”

Lainey’s cell phone rang, and her hands clutched in the cat’s fur. With an annoyed glance, he leaped to the floor and began washing himself.

“If you want to get that, please go ahead,” Meredith said, obviously surprised that she wasn’t answering.

Lainey pulled the phone from her pocket. A quick glance told her that it was an unfamiliar number. She clicked it off. “It’s nothing important. I’ll deal with it later.”

There must have been something odd in her tone, because both Meredith and Rachel were looking at her with varying degrees of puzzlement.

Well, it didn’t matter what they thought, did it? Much as she enjoyed seeing them again after twenty years, that was all—just satisfying a passing curiosity. She wasn’t going to be here long enough to make friends.

CHAPTER THREE

JAKE HELPED HIMSELF to coffee and lifted his mug in a mock toast to his father. “Here’s to a better day today than yesterday.”

Dad raised his eyebrows, and the result was like looking in a mirror. Mom always said that he’d look exactly like his father when he grew older. If so, that wasn’t such a bad reflection, he figured. Dad was still lean, still fit, with just a bit of gray at the temples to add distinction.

“I take it things didn’t go as well with Rebecca Stoltzfus’s relatives as you’d hoped?” As always, Dad was careful not to tread on his cases, but their ritual morning coffee on reaching the office had become a time when Jake could air anything that bothered him.

“Not exactly.” He pondered for a moment. How much to say? Dad was safe, of course, and as senior partner, had a right to know. “Rebecca’s relatives might have reason to be worried about her decision to leave the great-niece in control.”

Dad set his mug down, frowning. “Are you saying the great-niece might make decisions that aren’t in Rebecca’s best interest?”

An image of the tenderness with which Lainey had bent over Rebecca’s hospital bed slid into Jake’s mind. “I wouldn’t say that, exactly.” He realized he was falling into the careful phrasing his father always used, and he couldn’t suppress an interior grin. “Lainey—the great-niece—seems to care about Rebecca. But she hasn’t been back to Deer Run in twenty years. How can she know what Rebecca would want in this situation?”

“What did Rebecca say when you raised that point with her?” Dad didn’t seem to doubt that Jake would have covered all the bases with his client.

“She insisted that Lainey’s good heart would help her make the right decisions. And when I pointed out that she’d only known her as a ten-year-old, she just smiled and said character was as plain at ten as it was at twenty or thirty.” He shrugged. “So what could I do?”

His father mused, the fine lines around his eyes deepening. “You had to do as your client wished, of course, but it’s an unsatisfactory situation all around. I’m sure we all hope Rebecca’s condition improves, but if it doesn’t...”

“Exactly.” Jake gestured with his mug, realized the coffee was in danger of sloshing out, and set it down. “That’s what has me losing sleep over it. As far as I can tell, Lainey Colton knows little or nothing about the lifestyle Rebecca led. What if she should decide to slap Rebecca into a nursing home, away from the rest of her family and friends? Or what if she decided to bail out...go back to her normal life and ignore what’s happening here?”

That was the thing that bugged him most. Lainey was such a fish out of water here. She must be longing to go back where she belonged.

“Well, if this young woman is going to walk away from her responsibilities, it’s incumbent upon you to gain her cooperation in straightening out the question of the power of attorney. A family fight over it wouldn’t be in anyone’s best interests.”

Dad, at his most professional, was looking at him as if he expected action. Right.

Jake straightened his tie and checked to be sure his keys were in his pocket.

“I’d better talk to Lainey Colton before I do anything else. It’s time she made a decision.”

Aware of his father’s gaze on him, Jake headed for the door. With any luck, he’d catch Lainey before she left for the hospital.

Rebecca’s house was just three blocks away, so he decided to walk. Jake headed down Main Street, relieved to be out and moving. The worst thing about being an attorney was the amount of time he had to spend sitting at a desk.

Deer Run looked its best on a sunny October morning. Chrysanthemums bloomed in pots or window boxes in front of most of the businesses, and the maples that were planted at frequent intervals along the street were already turning color.

Several kids from the high school were clearly enjoying a morning out, painting Halloween scenes on the storefront windows for the annual art contest. He paused to watch three girls painting a witch sailing across a stormy night sky. When they noticed him watching, they nudged each other and giggled.

He moved on. Only buckets or planters of mums decorated the fronts of the Amish businesses like Miller’s Shop. The Amish didn’t observe Halloween, considering it a pagan idea. Still, the town wore a celebratory air as it prepared for the annual Apple Festival.

Small pleasures, he supposed, but he appreciated them. Unlike a lot of his classmates at Dickinson Law, he’d already known the life he wanted. No high-powered law firms in New York or Los Angeles for him. Everything he wanted was right here, where nobody cared if he drove a battered old pickup or spent his fall Saturdays playing touch football or relaxed with a beer at the local sports bar. And it made him proud, though he wouldn’t openly admit it, to be in partnership with someone as respected as his dad.

He’d only made one unscheduled detour on his life plan, and it still left a bitter taste in his mouth when he thought of it. That had been the only time he’d acted impulsively in his adult life, and he’d definitely lived to regret it.

No more mistakes of that sort for him. When he decided it was time to marry and start a family, he’d find someone who wanted what he did out of life.

He passed Meredith King’s place and started up the walk to Rebecca Stoltzfus’s house. What would Lainey Colton think of that peaceful Main Street scene he’d just been appreciating? She’d probably find it boring, he supposed. She’d be used to a bit more excitement in her life.

He tapped on the front door, but no sound came from inside. He knocked again, louder. Her rental car was still in the driveway. He hadn’t missed her, then. Why wasn’t she answering?

Finally he heard footsteps on the stairs. The door swung open. He blinked.

He’d clearly caught Lainey before she was ready to face the day. Her black hair hung in wild ringlets past her shoulders, and he had to reject the impulse to touch it to see if it would curl around his fingers. Don’t go there, he ordered himself. She wore an over-size tie-dyed T-shirt and a pair of yoga pants so fitted they showed every curve. He forced his gaze back to her face.

“Sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have come by so early. I wanted to catch you before you left for the hospital.”

“What time is it?” Her voice sounded blurred with sleep, but there were dark circles under her eyes.

He glanced at his watch. “Just after nine.”

She groaned, turning away but leaving the door open. He took that as an invitation and stepped inside, closing it behind him.

“Coffee,” she muttered, heading for the kitchen.

He followed, finding her staring at the old-fashioned percolator on the gas range with what he thought was loathing.

“I’ll fix the coffee.” He pulled out a kitchen chair for her. “It’s the least I can do after getting you up.”

She didn’t argue, but her expression said that letting him make the coffee was the lesser of two evils. “I suppose you think it’s a crime to sleep late.”

“Nope. Do it myself on Saturdays.” He measured out the coffee. Luckily he’d spent enough time at the family hunting cabin to know his way around a gas range. “You must still be tired from your trip.”

She nodded, and then rubbed the back of her neck as if it ached. “That, and the fact that I got very little sleep last night.”

“Not used to the quiet?” He adjusted the flame under the coffeepot and then sat down across from her.

“Actually, I find the lack of traffic noises very soothing. I just had a bad dream or two, that’s all.”

“About your aunt?” He wouldn’t have thought she was the kind of person who’d let a nightmare keep her awake.

“No.” She clipped off the word, closing the door on that conversation. “I’m sure you had a reason other than making coffee for stopping by at this hour. Did you talk to my aunt’s brother-in-law?”

He nodded. At least telling her about his visit to Zeb would let him lead up to what he wanted to say.

“I went by the farm after supper last night. I figured there was no point in going any earlier if I wanted a quiet conversation.”

“And was it? Quiet, I mean. Zeb impressed me as the kind of person likely to shout.” The drowsy look was gone from Lainey’s face, and she seemed ready to do battle. Zeb must have really annoyed her yesterday.

“Yes, well, he can be a bit...dictatorial. His point is that his brother was the one who bought the land, and that he, Zeb, certainly is in a better position to understand about the property than...than someone from outside.”

“Putting it in polite terms, are you?” Her eyebrows lifted.

He grinned. “Something like that. And I can understand his feelings, but as I explained to him, it wouldn’t be proper for him to have the power of attorney, given that he has financial interests of his own.”

Zeb hadn’t responded to that line of reasoning very well.

“Did he accept that?” The aroma of coffee brewing seemed to distract Lainey, and she glanced toward the stove.

“Not entirely,” he hedged. “I’ll talk to him again.” When Zeb had had time to cool off. “He’ll come around.”

Lainey’s gaze fixed on his face again, her eyes so deep a blue that they looked almost black. It seemed to him there was a question in them.

“You’re going to a lot of trouble over my great-aunt’s situation,” she said.

It was the last comment he expected. “No more than I would for any of my clients.” He hesitated a moment, not sure what she was driving at. “I suppose, in an urban area, a law firm tends to be more impersonal. It’s tough for me to stand on ceremony with people who’ve known me since I was delivering their newspapers. Besides, Rebecca is a special person.”

Apparently he’d hit the right note, because she smiled. It was tinged with a little sorrow, maybe, but a smile none the less. “Yes, she is.”

He smiled back at her, and their gazes seemed to catch and tangle. He was suddenly aware of how pale and delicate her skin was, startlingly framed by that blue-black hair. Aware of how close she was, with only the small table separating them. Of the soft curve of her lips—

He leaned back, breaking off the gaze. Whoa. Back off. That was definitely not the way he should be thinking of Lainey.

Jake cleared his throat, hoping his momentary lapse hadn’t been too visible.

Lainey rose abruptly, turning toward the stove and reaching for the coffeepot, as if she didn’t want him to see her expression.

“I...I actually came over to ask you something.” Since she didn’t turn, he plunged ahead. “Have you come to a decision about whether or not to take on this responsibility?”

Lainey turned to face him, her expression guarded. “Can I have a bit more time? I’d like to see how Aunt Rebecca is this afternoon and talk with her doctors before I come to a conclusion. I didn’t have an opportunity to meet with them yesterday.”

“Yes, of course. That’s fine. Only...” He wasn’t sure how to say it, but he knew it had to be said.

“Only what?” Her tone had an edge to it.

“If you do decide not to accept the power of attorney, there are some formalities to go through,” he said carefully. “It would be helpful to come to an agreement with the other relatives as to who would take on the job.”

“I understand that.” She all but tapped her foot with impatience.

“You realize it’s important that you not just...take off.”

Her lips pinched together; her eyes narrowed. “No, I won’t just take off, as you put it. What do you take me for?” She made an abrupt, slicing motion with her hand. “No, don’t bother to answer that question. It’s pretty obvious what you think of me.” She spun away from him, bracing her hands on the countertop. “Thanks for making the coffee. You can find your own way out, I’m sure.”

Jake opened his mouth to offer an explanation, an apology, but the set of her shoulders and the rigidity of her back dissuaded him. That hadn’t turned out well, had it? Still, he’d had to say it. It was Rebecca’s welfare he was concerned about, no one else’s. If Lainey couldn’t understand that, it was just too bad.

* * *

LAINEY GLANCED IN the small mirror that hung over the dresser in the bedroom she already thought of as hers. She looked halfway decent, despite the dark shadows under her eyes. She patted a little concealer on and surveyed the result. Too bad she hadn’t been ready for that early-morning visit from Jake Evans.

It was his own fault for coming without calling first, and she wasn’t remotely embarrassed at his seeing her that way. Was she?

When she’d finally gotten to sleep it must have been nearly dawn. Odd that she couldn’t even remember the dreams from which she’d awakened shaking. She’d just had a sense of running, stumbling, sensing something chasing her, something terrible that was growing closer with every step.

Lainey turned away from the dresser and smoothed the handmade quilt over the bed, comforted at the touch. It was the same quilt that had been on her bed when she was ten. Sunshine and Shadows, the pattern was called, and Aunt Rebecca had said it was hers—that she’d made it for her.

Mom had insisted she leave it behind when she’d picked up Lainey to cart her off to another fresh start. They didn’t have room for it, she’d said.

But Aunt Rebecca had kept it where it belonged. Lainey remembered kneeling beside it, the hooked rug knobby under her skinny knees, saying prayers with Aunt Rebecca, and her great-aunt’s hands tucking her into bed.

She’d declared from the superior height of ten years that she was too old to be read to when Aunt Rebecca made the offer.

“You can read to me, then, ain’t so?” Rebecca had replied. She’d sat next to her, a book between them, listening while Lainey read aloud, showing every sign of pleasure in hearing the story. They’d read their way through three of the Little House books that summer. She glanced at the row of books on the bookshelf under the window.

Lainey’s hand lingered on the quilt. She’d felt so safe, going to sleep in this room to the soft sound of Aunt Rebecca’s and Uncle Isaac’s voices drifting up the stairs from the living room. No quarrels, no crying or shouting, just soft-voiced conversation in the Pennsylvania Dutch dialect Lainey hadn’t understood. Maybe you didn’t need to understand a language to hear love in it.

Pulling herself out of the memories, Lainey headed down the stairs. Then, moved by an impulse she couldn’t explain, she went back and took out the first of the Little House books. Silly, maybe, but if she read to Aunt Rebecca, perhaps at some level she would hear and be comforted.

What would Jake think of her, carting a children’s book to Rebecca’s bedside? He’d never know, and she didn’t care what he thought, anyway.

She went downstairs. Her tapestry bag hung from a hook in the back hallway, and she tucked the book inside. She probably should make a list and stop by the grocery store on her way back from the hospital. And maybe pick up some flowers on her way there...

List-making fled from her mind when movement in the driveway along the side of the house caught her eye. An Amish buggy rolled to a halt at the hitching rail by the back porch. Her stomach clenched when she saw the man who held the reins. Zeb Stoltzfus looked as stern and unbending as he had yesterday at the hospital.

She smoothed her palms down the flaring print skirt, glad he hadn’t been the one to come to the door before she was dressed. If he was here to renew his argument, he might as well just leave. Nobody was going to force her into a decision she wasn’t ready to make.

Zeb approached the door, followed by two other dark-garbed figures. Pushing away the thought that they were ganging up on her, Lainey went to greet them.

“Good morning.” She stood holding the door, not at all sure she wanted to welcome him inside if he’d come to argue.

Zeb gave a curt nod, his graying beard looking a bit unkempt in the breeze. “I have brought two of my grandchildren to meet you. Ella has a basket for you.”

The young woman behind him stepped toward the door, smiling shyly, and held out a covered basket. “Just some beef stew for your supper. And a shoofly pie. My mamm thought you wouldn’t have time to cook, running back and forth to the hospital so much, ain’t so?”

The smile and the gesture disarmed Lainey. “How kind of her, and of you.” She swung the door wide. “Please, come in.”

The girl...Ella, he’d said, went straight to the kitchen and set the basket on the counter as if this were familiar territory. Zeb followed her, and the third member of the little party trailed in his wake. The boy must be about fourteen or fifteen, lanky as boys that age often were. He darted what seemed a wary glance at her and then lowered his gaze to his shoes.

Lainey hesitated, not sure whether to hold out her hand to him or not. She settled for a friendly smile. “I’m Lainey. What’s your name?”

The boy’s blue eyes held a hint of panic, and he glanced toward his grandfather.

“Answer your cousin,” Zeb said sharply.

“Thomas,” he muttered, a flush mounting to his straw-colored hair. Even the tips of his ears turned red. “I’m Thomas.”

She shouldn’t have singled him out, obviously, so she just nodded and turned to the counter, lifting the tea towel from it to reveal the crumbly top of the shoofly pie perched on a covered casserole dish.

“It looks wonderful. Thank you.”

Ella had removed her black bonnet and sweater, revealing a pert round face and a pair of sparkling blue eyes. She, at least, didn’t seem intimidated by her grandfather.

“Ach, we know what it’s like when someone’s in the hospital. You don’t want to be eating that cafeteria food, ain’t so?” Ella seemed to be taking it for granted that she’d spend the day at the hospital. “Mamm and I stopped by to see Aunt Rebecca yesterday, but it was after you’d left.”

“Sorry I wasn’t there to speak to you.” She felt obscurely guilty. “I was so tired after the flight and then driving from Pittsburgh that I went to bed early.”

“Ach, it’s a long trip. I went to a wedding last year out in Indiana, and I thought we’d never get there.” Her cheerful face lit with the reminder. “I met lots of new cousins out there.”

Ella was probably a couple of years older than her brother, so she wouldn’t have been born yet the summer Lainey spent here. The fact made her feel old.

Aunt Rebecca had never let anyone come in her house without offering food and drink, but Lainey had finished the coffee Jake made earlier.

“Would you like to have a piece of the shoofly pie? I could make a pot of coffee.” At least she hoped she could.

Ella looked about to agree, but Zeb got in first. “No. Denke,” he added. “You will need to leave for the hospital. I chust wanted to stop.” He paused, and she imagined that there was a struggle going on behind the thin, leathery face. “I spoke too hasty yesterday. Rebecca picked you. She must have had a reason.” He sounded as if he couldn’t imagine what that reason might be.

She tried to think of something to say that wouldn’t sound antagonistic. “It might have been a good idea for Aunt Rebecca to talk it over with me first.”

“Ja.” He seized on that idea. “Then you could have explained that it would be too hard with you living in St. Louis and all.”

He was jumping to the conclusion that she’d have turned down the power of attorney if she’d known, and that wasn’t really what she’d meant. Still, at least he wasn’t glaring at her today, and she had to admit that was a step in the right direction.

“In any event, she did choose me, so I’ll have to go from there.” She kept her tone pleasant but, she hoped, firm.

Zeb stiffened. “You mean you are going ahead with this? Even knowing nothing at all about Rebecca’s way of living and her property?”

“She must have thought I knew enough.” If people would stop pushing her, she might be able to think instead of react. Unfortunately, reacting won the day, and she blurted out what she hadn’t intended to say. “I trust Rebecca’s judgment. I’m accepting the power of attorney.”

Zeb’s face reddened, and Ella touched her grandfather’s arm with an air of cautioning him. “That’s so. Aunt Rebecca would have a reason. And if you have any problems deciding things, especially about the property, Grossdaadi would be the one to help you. He knows all about it.”

Zeb seemed to be counting to ten. “Ja,” he said, his tone short. “I know more than anyone about my brother’s property and what he wanted done.”

In other words, he expected her to let him vet any decisions she had to make. Apparently Jake’s conversation with Zeb hadn’t borne much fruit.

“I’m sure my aunt’s lawyer is capable of advising me.” There, put the responsibility back on Jake. He was getting paid for it, after all.

“That Englischer.” Zeb shook off Ella’s restraining hand, his color darkening alarmingly. “No Amish woman needs to have a lawyer to take care of property for her. Her family does that—the kin who have worked long hours in the sun to be sure the land is paying. Not some fancy lawyer who sits in an office all day.”

From what she’d seen of Jake, he didn’t do much sitting, but that was neither here nor there.

“There’s also the matter of making decisions about Aunt Rebecca’s care,” she said. “Or had you forgotten about that?” She didn’t bother trying to hide the annoyance in her voice.

“I have not forgotten.” He muttered something in Pennsylvania Dutch that she couldn’t understand. “Her family can do that better than you. We see her every week. You haven’t come near her in twenty years.”

The fact that it was true didn’t make it any more palatable coming from him. “But Aunt Rebecca still picked me. I wonder why she trusts me? By the way, she owns the farm you work, doesn’t she?”

Zeb’s big hands, strong despite his age, clenched into fists. For a moment she feared she’d gone too far.

Ella clutched his arm, murmuring to him urgently in Pennsylvania Dutch. She tugged at him, trying to pull him toward the door.

Zeb glared at Lainey for a moment longer. Then, not speaking, he turned and stamped out the back door. Thomas, blue eyes wide in a white face, scurried after him.

Ella shook her head, pulling her bonnet back on with hands that shook a little. “I’m sorry. He has a temper. He forgets himself. He’ll regret he spoke so after a bit.”

“I’m sorry, too.” She should have handled the situation better. When would she learn not to let her emotions get the better of her? “I do appreciate your trying to help. And the food.”

“Ach, it’s nothing.” Ella clasped her hand. “I must go. Maybe I will see you again soon.”

Lainey nodded, but somehow she doubted it. She was suddenly tired and dispirited. How had she let herself get into this situation in the first place? She didn’t belong here.

But she didn’t belong back in St. Louis, either. There seemed no place where she did belong.

CHAPTER FOUR

IT WAS ONE thing to declare she was the person in charge, Lainey decided, and quite another to sit for hours at her great-aunt’s bedside, wishing Rebecca would wake up and tell Lainey what to do.

Fortunately her cousin Katie arrived early in the afternoon, bustling into the hospital room carrying a basket on one arm and what looked like a sewing bag on the other.

“Ach, all alone here?” Katie bent to kiss Aunt Rebecca’s cheek and then glanced at Lainey. “Any change?”

“Not that I can see,” she admitted. “I’m hoping to have a chance to talk with one of the doctors this afternoon.”

“Some things chust take time,” Katie said, her tone confident as she took the second chair and opened her basket. “Now, I knew you would be hungry, so I brought a little lunch for you.”

“That looks like more than a little.” Lainey accepted the paper plate Katie handed her. “I’m fine, really.”

Katie eyed her. “You have circles under your eyes and a worried frown on your face. Komm, now. A nice sandwich and some potato salad will keep you going. And a walnut brownie to finish off. I brought lemonade, but if you want me to get you a coffee, I will.” She looked as if she’d jump out of the chair to do so, and Lainey waved her back.

“Lemonade is lovely.” Obviously it would be easier to eat than to argue. “Didn’t you bring any for yourself?”

“I ate with the family before I left the house. The men are getting a last cutting of hay today, so they had lunch early.” Katie leaned back, watching until Lainey bit into the sandwich.

She’d have said she wasn’t hungry, but the combination of fresh chicken salad on what had to be home-baked wheat bread would tempt any appetite. “Delicious,” she said around a generous mouthful. “How did you know this was my favorite?”

Katie chuckled. “Homemade food is always comforting when you’re having trouble, ain’t so? And I remembered you liked chicken. And chocolate.” She put a huge slab of brownie on the plate.

“Guilty,” Lainey said. She glanced toward Aunt Rebecca’s still figure. “It seems wrong to sit here enjoying my food when Aunt Rebecca is so ill, though.”

“That is nonsense, and she would be the first one to tell you so.” Katie’s round face grew serious. “You must take care of yourself so you can take care of her, ain’t so?”

“You sound like Aunt Rebecca,” she said softly, remembering how her great-aunt always seemed to have a store of solid common sense to share.

“Ja.” Katie’s smile was reminiscent. “I always thought Aunt Rebecca was exactly what an Amish woman should be, so maybe that’s not surprising.”

Seeming satisfied that Lainey was going to do as she was told in regard to her lunch, Katie set the basket on the floor and took up the bag. In a moment, scraps of brightly-colored fabric were spread on her dark green skirt.

“What are you making?” Lainey forked up potato salad, enjoying the crisp contrast of pickles and celery combined with the potato and egg.

“Chust piecing the patches for a quilt.” Katie’s fingers moved dexterously, rearranging the pieces into a square. “Sometimes I use the treadle machine to do the piecing, but I always like to have a project I can work on when I’m sitting.”

“It’s a log cabin design, isn’t it?” Lainey had always been fascinated by quilts, loving the complex patterns and use of color.

“Ja. For my oldest granddaughter’s birthday. She’s going to be eight already, and such a little schnicklefritz. Always into mischief.” Katie’s smile suggested she didn’t mind that in the least.

“Aunt Rebecca tried to teach me to quilt when I was here.” The memory slipped into her mind, making her smile. “I’m afraid I wasn’t very good at sitting still, but I did love arranging the blocks.”

“A nine-patch, was it?” Katie asked. “She taught me, and that’s the first one I made.”

Lainey nodded. They’d gone in the buggy to a shop outside town where a pair of Amish sisters ran a quilting business. If you needed anything for quilting, Aunt Rebecca had said, that’s where you went.

“Lorena and Lovina,” she said abruptly as the names came back to her.

“Ach, imagine you remembering them,” Katie said. “Aunt Rebecca got all her fabric from them. She still does, though I think she must have enough for a dozen quilts in the chest in the back bedroom.”

“I was fascinated by the rows of fabric. The colors...it was like being in the middle of a rainbow.” She’d run from one to another, unable to make up her mind.

Katie nodded as if she understood. Then, without a word, she put the row of fabric pieces she’d been pinning into Lainey’s lap and handed her a needle.

Lainey blinked. “You want me to work on your granddaughter’s quilt? But I’m not good enough.”

“If Rebecca taught you, you know enough,” Katie said. “And it’s gut to keep your hands busy when you’re worried. At least then you have something to show for your worrying,” she added, her tone practical.

Lainey actually found herself laughing. “If that’s the case, I should have a half-dozen quilts done by now.” She picked up the pieces and held the needle poised. “Well, we can always rip it out if my stitches are too terrible.”

But her sewing wasn’t half bad once she started. Thanks to Aunt Rebecca’s early tutelage, she’d always been able to do the hemming and mending most of her peers seemed unable to tackle. Tiny, even stitches, she reminded herself.

The routine, repetitive movements were oddly soothing, reminding her of how much she’d always enjoyed the creativity involved in hand arts. Most of her colleagues would dismiss sewing, knitting, crocheting as crafts, insisting they had no place beside the work of a real artist.

But who was to say which was important? Katie’s creations might never hang in a gallery, but they clothed her family in garments made by her own loving hands.

They worked in silence for some time, but there was nothing either boring or uncomfortable about it. Lainey glanced at her great-aunt. It seemed to her that Aunt Rebecca had relaxed somewhat, her face turned slightly toward them instead of squarely on the pillow. The room was oddly peaceful.

“Zeb came to see me this morning,” she said abruptly. Would Katie have known about his intent?

“Ja?” Katie looked up, her expression guarded. “What did he want?”

Lainey shrugged. “The same as yesterday, I suppose. He just tried a different approach this time. Ella and Thomas came with him, and she brought me food.” She cast a rueful glance at the remains of her lunch. If she kept eating everything her Amish relatives pushed on her, she’d gain twenty pounds while she was here.

“Ella’s a sweet girl,” Katie said. “But young Thomas is so shy it wonders me that he’d come to meet you.”

“I don’t suppose his grandfather gave him much choice.”

“No.” Katie was frowning. “He brought up this business about the power of attorney, did he? I wish he’d leave well enough alone.”

“He thinks Aunt Rebecca should have appointed him.” She turned in her chair so she couldn’t miss Katie’s expression. “Is that what you think, too?”

“No.” Katie’s response was so prompt and firm that Lainey couldn’t doubt her sincerity. “Not Zeb. He’s too set on his own way.” She looked at Lainey, her expression troubled. “But there are other relatives.”

Lainey’s heart sank a little. Despite Katie’s friendliness, she must agree that Lainey wasn’t the person for the job.

“I told Zeb I’m going to do what Aunt Rebecca wanted.” If that came out sounding a little belligerent, she couldn’t seem to help it. “All I can do is my best.”

Katie studied her for a long moment. Then she nodded. “Ja. All right.” She smiled and patted Lainey’s hand, but Lainey thought the smile held a tinge of doubt. “Then I will help you as best I can.”

“Thank you.” Her throat tightened. Maybe that wasn’t a wholehearted endorsement, but at this point, she’d take any support she could find.

* * *

THE REALITY OF the situation had begun to sink in by the time Lainey was headed back to the house late that afternoon, and she was already having second thoughts despite Katie’s promise of help.

As usual, she’d acted on impulse, letting Zeb’s antagonism push her into making a decision. Was she ever going to learn?

Lainey pulled the car to the curb in front of Miller’s and got out, pausing for a moment as memories crowded in. She had been allowed to walk to the store on her own the summer she’d stayed with her great-aunt, but usually she’d come with Meredith and Rachel, intent on the purchase of candy—real, old-fashioned penny candy, scooped into a small brown paper bag from the glass case.

The store looked larger than she’d remembered, but it still had pots of flowers on either side of the front door and a hitching rail at the side where Amish buggies could be parked. She touched a deep burgundy mum with her fingers, releasing its spicy scent, and went on into the store.

Lainey paused for a moment inside the door, orienting herself. Groceries were on the right, as always, but the left side of the store had been expanded. It was filled with handcrafted items to delight the heart of a tourist. Faceless Amish dolls, quilted place mats and table runners, even a few hooked rugs crowded the counters. The upper shelves held wooden items like napkin holders and even a small train.

The deep, saturated colors of a quilted table runner drew her, but she resisted the impulse and turned into the grocery aisle. Before she could pick up a box of cereal, a voice called her name.

“Lainey? It is you. I heard you were coming back to look after your great-aunt. It’s wonderful gut to see you.”

Anna Miller looked much as she had twenty years ago, with a white apron over a dark blue Amish dress and a wide smile on her round face. The face might be a little rounder, the hair a bit more gray, the curves more generous, but Anna Miller hadn’t changed much.

“Mrs. Miller.” Lainey walked quickly to the back counter. “I’d have known you anywhere. How are you?”

“Anna, please. You’re a grown-up now, ain’t so? But you still have a look of that little girl we knew.” Her cheerful face sobered. “I’m afraid it’s a sad business that brought you back to us.”

Lainey nodded. Obviously all of Deer Run knew who she was and why she was here. They probably knew what she’d had for supper last night. “I wish I’d come sooner.”

She blinked, a little surprised at herself. With everyone else she’d felt defensive on that subject, but with Anna, one had the sense that, like Aunt Rebecca, she wouldn’t judge.

“You’re here now, that’s what counts. How is your dear aunt today?” Anna leaned on the counter, seeming ready for a long chat.

“I don’t think there was much change from yesterday.” Her throat tightened. Aunt Rebecca’s hands had always been so busy—stitching or stirring or comforting a child. It had seemed wrong to see them lying lax on the white hospital sheet.

“It’s hard to see someone we love chust lying there.” Seeming to read her mind, Anna reached across the counter to pat Lainey’s hand. “But with a stroke, sometimes it takes time for the brain and body to heal. Don’t give up hope.”

“I won’t.” That was another thing that was easy to say but perhaps not so easy to do. What if this went on day after day, week after week? What would she do then?

“We are all praying for her,” Anna said softly. “She is in God’s hands.”

Lainey’s throat was too tight for her to do anything but nod.

“Ach, I’m talking away and not helping you with your shopping. You aren’t here for penny candy this time, ain’t so?” Anna’s eyes twinkled, and she gestured toward the glass-enclosed case at the end of the counter. The top part contained a variety of obviously homemade baked goods, while below there was the familiar array of bubble gum, Swedish fish, and lollipops.

“No, I think I’ll pass on that this time. We used to be awful pests at picking out what we wanted, it seems to me.”

“You and Meredith and Rachel,” Anna said. “You’ve talked to them since you came back?”

“Just briefly. They came over for a little while last night. It was nice to see them after such a long time.”

Nice, but odd. Maybe even a bit awkward. What did you say to people you hadn’t seen in twenty years?

“You were always together that summer, ain’t so? It’s quite a reunion, with first Rachel coming back to Deer Run and now you. Meredith never did leave, what with taking care of her mother and all.” Anna shook her head, a mournful look sitting oddly on her cheerful face. “I won’t say Margo King was a pleasant woman, but it was terrible, her being killed and Meredith coming that close to losing her own life as well.”

The words jolted, and Lainey could only stare at her. “I didn’t know. What happened to Meredith’s mother? An accident?” She envisioned a car smash-up, with Meredith barely surviving. But Meredith had seemed well enough last night.

Anna shook her head. “They didn’t tell you? Well, it would be a lot to take in, and you having plenty of worries on your plate as it is. No, Margo was murdered, and Meredith nearly so, and all because of poor Aaron Mast’s death that summer you were here. If Rachel hadn’t come back, maybe we’d never—”

Her words cut off abruptly as the bell on the door jangled. Two women came into the store—one tall, angular and businesslike, the other so fair and frail that she looked as if a breath would blow her away.

Lainey’s gaze crossed that of the taller woman and met a look so malevolent that she was reminded of Zeb Stoltzfus for an instant. Apparently this was yet another person who didn’t think she should be here. Lainey gripped the edge of the counter and managed a pleasant smile. She wouldn’t let herself be unnerved by a stranger’s hostility.

Anna, after standing motionless for a moment, came from around the counter and went quickly to take the blonde woman’s hand. “Laura, it is sehr gut to see you. I didn’t know that you were home from...home already.”

Lainey watched them, surprised by what seemed embarrassment underneath Anna’s hearty welcome. Laura, she repeated the name, memories coming back from the distant recesses of her mind. Laura had been a teenager that summer Lainey had spent here. Pretty, popular...what had happened to her? Her face was still beautiful, but thin and somehow empty-looking. She stood motionless next to the other woman like a doll.

“Yes, Laura is home.” The other woman’s tone was brisk. “She’s doing very well, aren’t you, Laura?”

Laura nodded, and the resemblance to a mechanical doll increased.

“We’re glad to hear it.” Anna’s hearty tone didn’t ring quite true, Lainey thought. “And look who else has come home to Deer Run?” She waved an ample arm at Lainey. “Here’s little Lainey Colton, all grown up. Lainey, you maybe wouldn’t remember Laura Hammond. And Jeannette Walker. She runs the bed-and-breakfast across the street from your aunt’s house.”

Lainey nodded. “The Willows, of course. It’s lovely.” The front yard and flower beds were manicured to within an inch of their lives, and the large Victorian house was immaculately kept up.

Just the same, she wouldn’t say she’d look forward to staying there. It was a bit on the formal side for her.

It was time for Jeannette to say that she was glad to see Lainey, or to ask about her aunt. She did neither. Instead she handed a list to Anna.

“Those are the things Laura would like. We won’t wait. You can have them delivered to Laura’s house.”

“She’s not staying with you, then?” Anna seemed to be trying to untangle something in her mind.

“No.” Jeannette snapped off the word. She gave Lainey a cool nod. “We’ll be going. Come along, Laura.” She touched the woman’s arm.

Laura turned obediently and moved toward the door. But before she left she glanced back. She gave Lainey a long look, her forehead creasing as if with an effort to remember.

When the door closed behind them, Anna let out her breath in a whoosh. “Ach, I am so clumsy. But there seems nothing to say around the woman that won’t bring up things that are better left unsaid. At least she didn’t recognize you.”

“Who? Laura?” Jeannette had certainly known who Lainey was, regardless of her actual words.

And Laura? Well, Lainey didn’t know what to make of Laura, but one thing struck her. Her fingers itched to draw that lovely, empty face, and she had a sense that she had drawn it before.

“You don’t remember?” Anna looked at her questioningly. “I shouldn’t say—” She let that trail off.

“I think you’d better,” Lainey said briskly. “I can’t go around Deer Run walking on eggshells, not knowing who I’m going to offend next.”

Anna shook her head. “I can’t tell you all of it. Not about the part that happened when you were here. You’ll have to hear that from Meredith and Rachel. But Laura...the reason I was surprised to see her is that she’s been in a mental hospital for more than a month. And she was there because it was her husband who killed Meredith’s mother.”

Lainey’s mind spun. Laura’s husband a killer? Meredith’s mother his victim? That didn’t make sense.

And the thing that made the least sense of all was Anna’s implication that the crime had its roots in something that had happened that long-ago summer.

Well, one thing was certain. She’d have to talk to Rachel and Meredith again, and soon.

* * *

JAKE SUSPECTED LAINEY wasn’t going to appreciate an unannounced visit from him this evening. On the other hand, if he’d called her first, she could so easily have made an excuse.

He’d made up his mind to drive over after supper. He didn’t want this decision put off any longer. Having a client’s affairs in disarray pounded on his nerves like a jackhammer. He might be relaxed and informal in the rest of his life, but when it came to his profession, he dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s. The school buddies who saw him as a typical good old boy would be surprised.

Only six o’clock, and it was growing dark already, with lights appearing in the houses and shops along Main Street. Fall was drawing in, no matter how nice the weather had been.

A string of orange pumpkin lights decorated the house he was passing, and in the next yard the sheet of a makeshift ghost fluttered from the branch of an oak tree. Halloween wasn’t until next week, but each year the decorations started earlier and grew more elaborate. The adults, it seemed, had taken over a holiday that used to be for kids.

There were no Halloween decorations at Rebecca’s house, of course. But every kid in town knew there’d still be whoopee pies waiting if you knocked on Rebecca’s door. Not this year. The thought depressed him.

He parked at the curb and got out. The glow of a gas lamp came from the front windows, so Lainey must be there.

He toyed with the thought of what she’d do for Halloween if she were back in St. Louis. A party, no doubt. She’d go as a gypsy. Or a witch. Either of those suited the somewhat wild quality of her beauty.

He reached the porch, raised his hand to knock, and nearly hit Lainey in the face as she swung the door open and charged through. For a moment both of them froze, probably equally startled.

“Sorry.” He lowered his arm, trying to look harmless. “I didn’t come to attack, honest.”

“My fault. I was just going out.” The way she said it invited him to leave.

“I’ll just take a few minutes of your time.” And then he could cross this job off his list and move on to a consideration of who would best care for both Rebecca and her property.

Lainey stared at him, maybe deciding whether or not to make an issue out of his unscheduled visit. Finally she shrugged and turned away from the door. “You may as well come in, I guess.”

Not a very gracious invitation, but he’d take it. He stepped inside quickly, before she could change her mind.

Lainey headed into the living room, and he followed. She slipped the handbag strap from her shoulder and tossed the bag onto the table next to Rebecca’s favorite chair. “You might have called.”

“Sorry.” He raised his eyebrows, feeling an urge to annoy her. “Have a hot date?”

For an instant he thought she’d snap at him, and then a reluctant grin tugged at her lips. “So far the only males I know in Deer Run are Uncle Zeb and young Thomas. Not exactly eligible, either of them.”

“You know me,” he pointed out. “I’m generally considered eligible.”

“And that’s according to the local newspaper, from what Aunt Rebecca said in one of her letters. Most eligible bachelor in the county, or something like that.” Lainey looked as if she felt she’d scored.

“Ouch. I hoped Rebecca didn’t know anything about it.” He grimaced. “How I let myself be talked into that idiotic contest I can’t see.”

“Someone caught you in a weak moment, no doubt,” she said.

“Something like that. Well, much as I enjoy having my follies paraded to the immediate world, maybe we’d best get down to business, so you can meet your date.”

“I planned to drop in on Rachel. Or Meredith.” She shook her head slightly, as if to clear it. “I’m not sure. There’s something I need to find out from them.”

Lainey’s eyebrows drew together, and she raised one hand to press her fingertips between them, as if to clear her thoughts. The urge to annoy her left him abruptly.

“What’s wrong?” He took a step closer, surprised by the strength of his concern.

Lainey blinked, seeming to make an effort to focus. “I was going to ask Meredith or Rachel, but actually I guess you would know it, too. What does the death of Meredith’s mother have to do with the summer I spent here when I was ten?”

He hadn’t expected that, and maybe he should have. Once she was back in Deer Run, Lainey was bound to hear about the events that had been a nine-days-wonder just a month ago. Not enough happened in Deer Run to eclipse something as dramatic as murder, attempted murder and suicide.

“I can, yes,” he said slowly, trying to think how to frame the story. “What did you hear about it? And how?” Obviously not from Rachel or Meredith, or she wouldn’t have been ready to seek them out tonight.

“Sit down, for goodness’ sake.” Lainey waved a hand toward the rocker that was drawn up close to Rebecca’s seat.

He obeyed. They were practically knee to knee, sitting in the two rockers. Rebecca always liked to have her visitors close to her, especially as her hearing worsened in recent years.

“Well?” he asked, a little too aware of how near she was—enough that her elusive, exotic scent touched him.

Lainey shrugged. “I don’t see why it matters, but I was in Miller’s Store today when two women came in—Jeannette Walker and Laura Hammond.”

Jake sent a startled glance out the front windows to the Willows, which sat diagonally across the street. “Laura? Laura’s back in town?”

She nodded. “I thought she looked unwell, and after they left, Anna told me why. She said Laura had been in a psychiatric facility. That her husband had killed Meredith’s mother.” Her eyes grew shadowed. “She said it had something to do with that summer I was here.”

How much to tell her? Maybe he’d have been better off not to interrupt her visit to Meredith and Rachel. They’d do a better job of this than he would.

“Well?” She interrupted his thoughts. “Is it true?”

“More or less. How much do you remember about the summer you were here?”

She considered. “I remember a lot about some things, not much about others. I’ve started to remember more about Meredith and Rachel since I talked to them last night. But there are holes.”

“Natural enough. You left here, went back to your normal life. I stayed here, but I still don’t remember much about the summer I was ten.” He grinned. “Except that I probably spent most of it playing basketball.”

“The years do run together. But...” She frowned. “I should remember more about that summer, I’d think, because it was the only one I lived here.”

He didn’t know whether that theory was true or not. “What makes one thing stay in your memory and another fade? I can remember every single detail of a Saturday afternoon I worked on a science project with my dad and nothing at all about the class I was in.”

She gave him a look. “That must gratify your teacher. Anyway, just tell me. Don’t assume I know anything.”

“That makes it harder. The important thing about that summer was a romance between Laura Mitchell, as she was then, and an Amish boy, Aaron Mast. Ruffled the feathers of both sets of parents, I suppose.”

Lainey nodded, looking a little surprised. “I remember him. Blond, blue eyes.” She smiled suddenly at whatever it was she saw in her memory. “He was our knight.”

“You recall the game you girls played, then.”

“Bits and pieces. We made up a kind of fantasy world, and the three of us played it all that summer. Aaron was the noble knight, and Laura...of course. Laura was the beautiful princess.” Her eyes lit with the memory, and for an instant her face was the face of the little girl she’d been. “Everyone wanted to marry the princess, but she had eyes only for Aaron.”

“That’s it, from what I heard from Meredith and Rebecca.” He hesitated. “Do you remember how it ended?”

“Ended? I went away. My mother came, out of the blue, and took me with her. I didn’t even have time to say goodbye to people.” Lainey’s words were underlined with resentment and something else...resignation, was it?

“Surely you must have heard that Aaron died—drowned in the pond back by the dam.” He nodded toward the rear of the house, seeing in his mind’s eye the stretch of lawn, the narrow belt of brambles and tall grass, and then the strip of woods that bordered the stream where it tumbled over Parson’s Dam—only three feet high, but deadly when a day or two of rain turned it into something like a riptide.

Lainey put her hand to her head. “I...I don’t think so.” Her face paled. “How could I have forgotten something that terrible?”

She looked so white and distressed that he reached out and clasped her hand. Her fingers curled around his.

“Apparently the day after his death your mother took you away. You weren’t here to have any reminders.”

“Even so.” She seemed to realize she was clinging to his hand, and she let go, drawing back in her chair. “But I still don’t understand. How could that have anything to do with Meredith’s mother’s death?”

This was the complicated bit, trying to piece the story together. “I guess it began when Rachel came back to Deer Run in the spring. She and Meredith got together, and they started remembering things from that summer. And they started asking questions.”

She nodded, and it surprised him that she seemed to find that normal. “They would, wouldn’t they? It seems impossible to me, coming into it cold, that Aaron could have drowned that way. He was sensible, and a lot more responsible than most teenagers. He even warned me about the dam one day when he found me down by the creek. How could he have an accident there?”

“You have a lot in common with those two, you know that? You’re reacting just the way Rachel and Meredith did. So, as I say, they started asking questions.”

She looked pleased at being told she was like the two girls who’d been her friends. She brushed a strand of thick, curling hair back from her face, and again he wanted to touch it, to feel it twist around his fingers.

“What did they find out?” She seemed to take it for granted that they would have uncovered something.

“At first it seemed they’d found a reason for Aaron to have killed himself. As you can imagine, that opened up his family’s grief all over again. But they dug deeper and learned that someone had been with him at the dam that night. That it wasn’t an accident or suicide. That knowledge nearly cost Meredith her life.”

Lainey considered his words, staring down at her hands, clasped in her lap. Then she looked up. “Laura’s husband, I understand. Victor Hammond. I remember him now. Kind of pudgy, anxious, eager to please. One of Laura’s followers. Are you seriously saying he killed Aaron? And why Meredith’s mother?”

“Margo King had seen or heard something at the dam that night, and she made the mistake of letting Victor know she had. She was drowned, same as Aaron. And when Meredith got too close, he tried the same to her.”

Lainey shuddered. “Thank heaven he failed.”

Jake nodded. He’d been there, that day, arriving with the police and Zach, Meredith’s fiancé, in time to save her. He didn’t like remembering how close it had been.

“No wonder Laura looked as if she’s...” Lainey hesitated, apparently considering the word. “Empty. That’s how she looks. Empty.”

“That describes it pretty well. If she knew, and I think she must have at some point, she wasn’t strong enough to cope with the knowledge.”

“Poor woman. And poor Meredith, losing her mother that way. I’m surprised they didn’t say something about it last night.”

He considered. “It’s a pretty complicated story to hit you with the first time they see you after twenty years. But I’d guess they’re eager to talk to you about it. They even have the scrapbook you kept that summer. You were quite an artist for a ten-year-old.”

Her gaze slid away from his, as if she were embarrassed. “Kid stuff. Not enough talent for the real world.”

He wasn’t sure what to say to that comment. It was revealing, and he suspected she’d regret it if he got too close.

Maybe she thought so, too, because her expression changed and her chin came up. “You didn’t come here to tell me this story, Jake. So why did you come?”

Jake had to do some rapid reordering of his thoughts. “Right, that. I was hoping you’d come to a decision about Rebecca’s wishes, so we can move ahead.”

Her eyebrows lifted. “You mean you hope I’ve decided to give up the power of attorney.”

“No.” It had sounded that way, hadn’t it? Why was he so inept in dealing with this particular woman? “Not at all. I just need a decision, one way or the other.”

“Fine, you’ve got it.” Her face firmed. “I told Zeb Stoltzfus today, so I’ll tell you. Aunt Rebecca wanted me to do this, so I’m doing it.”

“Right.” She wouldn’t be leaving, then. He had a certain sneaking pleasure in the thought. “That’s all I needed to know.” He stood. “We’ll go from there, then.”

“Really? No arguments? No pointing out that I don’t know anything about Rebecca’s way of life?” She stood, which put her very close to him. “Aren’t you going to tell me that I’m...” She looked up into his face, and their gazes caught. She seemed to lose track of what she was saying.

And he didn’t think he could utter a coherent sentence to save him. His eyes traced the line of her cheek, the curve of her lips. It was all he could do to prevent his hand from following along. She leaned toward him, as if some force of gravity pulled them together.

With an effort of will and muscle, he drew back away from her.

“Right,” he said, not pleased to discover that he was breathless or that he was repeating himself. Couldn’t he think of something else to say? “I...I’ll have to talk to you about business in a day or two if Rebecca doesn’t improve. In the meantime, you can refer to me anyone who has a question about finances.”

“Yes, all right.” She turned and walked a few steps away. Maybe she felt the need to put some distance between them as well. “Thank you, Jake. And thank you for telling me.”

She’d thanked him twice in one meeting. That had to be a record. Now he’d better get out of here before he did something foolish, like checking for himself how those lips tasted.

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