Janice Kay - Plain Refuge

“They really like carrots?” her son said dubiously. He didn’t mind carrot sticks, but detested cooked carrots. His pickiness where food was concerned had already brought surprise from her family here, where children weren’t indulged in the same way they were in the outside world.

“A carrot is like a cookie to a horse,” Rebecca said firmly. “Watch.”

She broke off a chunk and held it on the palm of her hand. The horse she’d been petting promptly lipped it up and crunched with such enthusiasm that saliva and flecks of carrot flew.

Matthew laughed.

She had just persuaded him to feed a piece of carrot to another of the horses when she heard a car engine followed by the sound of tires crunching on gravel. There were innocent reasons for a car to be driving down this quiet road, even if the homes on it were all Amish owned, but she couldn’t control her spike of anxiety. She turned and saw the green-and-white SUV with a rack of lights on the roof slow and turn into the lane leading to her aunt and uncle’s home. It would pass right by her and Matthew. Rebecca had no doubt who the driver was.

Turning her back on the police car, she cupped Matthew’s hand and helped him hold it out. He squeaked in alarm when lips brushed his palm, then laughed in delight when the carrot vanished.

“It tickled!”

The police vehicle rolled to a stop right behind them. A door slammed, and she and Matthew both turned to face Daniel Byler, who strolled around the front bumper and joined them.

“These are beauties,” he said in a voice that was just a little gravelly. “Your uncle raises the handsomest draft horses I’ve ever seen.”

She smiled despite her tension. “Say that to him, and he would then tell you about three other Amish men he knows who raise horses just as fine. And he would also admonish you for admiring them for their looks, when it is strength and willingness and heart that truly matter.”

His chuckle was a little rough, too. “You’re right, he would. Although I have no doubt he is willing to discuss desirable conformation with buyers.”

“An entirely different thing from calling them beautiful,” she said, trying to repress another smile.

“Why shouldn’t they be beautiful?” Matt burst out. “Aren’t horses s’posed to be—”

“Sheriff Byler is teasing,” she said hastily, seeing his raised eyebrow. “And you know Onkel Samuel is right. These will be working horses. A horse pulling a plow could be mud brown and have a bump in the middle of his forehead and mismatched eyes, one blue and one brown—”

“Like that dog we saw!” he said excitedly.

“Yep.” Uh-oh. “Ja,” she said hastily. “Remember how funny-looking he was? But if the horse was strong and did the job, no one would mind how he looks.”

“Oh.” Matthew frowned, then nodded. “Can I have another carrot?”

The sheriff stayed at their side as they proffered, piece by piece, all the carrots they’d brought. Rebecca was very careful to guide their minimal conversation so that Matthew wouldn’t have a chance to say anything else so un-Amish.

Sheriff Byler offered them a ride up to the house, which she would have refused except for Matthew’s excitement. She held him on her lap in the front seat. The sheriff showed him how to turn on the siren and flashing lights.

Matthew reached out. “Can we...?”

“No,” she said quickly. “Think how it would frighten the horses.”

“Oh.” He subsided. “I guess it would.”

He was happy when a voice came over the radio. A deputy reported, using code that the sheriff translated, that he’d pulled over a motorist for speeding.

Byler’s mouth was tight, and she knew why. Speeding was always dangerous, and particularly on narrow country roads shared by horse-and-buggy travelers.

At the house, she opened the door and let Matthew out first. Already used to the dogs, he giggled to find them waiting. “Go tell Aenti Emma or Grossmammi that Sheriff Byler is here. I’m sure he would like coffee or one of those sticky buns I saw going in the oven.”

Accompanied by Onkel Samuel’s dogs, Matthew raced for the house while the sheriff laughed. “You know your aunt’s sticky buns are famous in these parts. She bakes enough so the café in Hadburg can sell them.”

“Ja,” Rebecca said, striving for the faint accent she heard in the speech of local Amish. “For sure, I know my cousin Sarah drove to town this morning to deliver some.”

Matthew had wanted to go, but Rebecca wasn’t ready to let him out of her sight. The plain clothing wasn’t enough of a disguise. His hair was too short to resemble a typical Amish boy’s bowl cut. His new, wide-brimmed straw hat didn’t hide his face the way a bonnet did hers, and that was when he managed to keep it on his head. And if he saw his father...

Who couldn’t possibly have found them yet, she kept reminding herself, for what good that did.

“You seem to move carefully,” the sheriff said, before she could leave him. “Are you healing?” Turning toward her, he laid his forearm casually on the steering wheel.

“Yes, I am mostly sore.”

“Mostly?”

Being this close to him unnerved her. She was too conscious of him in a short-sleeved uniform. His forearms were strong and tan, dusted with bronze hair tipped with gold. She could see the hint of darker stubble on an angular jaw and noticed the thick, short lashes and the wave in his hair. His eyes were a penetrating dark blue. To evade them, she lowered her gaze, which meant she was looking at powerful thighs. Damn it.

“I have bruises,” she admitted after a moment. “And two cracked ribs. They hurt the most.”

He frowned. “You shouldn’t lift your son.”

“My middle—” she laid a hand over her stomach “—is wrapped for protection. Of course I must pick him up.”

He made a grumbly sound she took for disagreement, but said, “What happened?”

Careful. “I stepped out in the street—” She cut herself off before she finished the sentence. The last thing she could admit was that she’d been about to get in her car. “I thought I had looked for traffic, but afterward I was confused, so I’m not sure. A car came fast and hit me. I think I was jumping out of the way, but it still lifted me in the air. I went over the hood and banged into a car coming the other way. That driver stopped to help me, but not the one who hit me.”

“A hit-and-run.”

“Ja, that’s what the police called it. No one saw the license plate, so there was not much they could do.”

As she had lain there waiting for an ambulance, she’d berated herself. She should have fled after the shooting. Instead, because Tim had sounded shocked about what had happened when she called him, she had given him a couple days to talk to “other people”—his vague reference. Make sure there was no repetition. Instead, he had called her back the next day to say tensely, “You’ve got to give those things back, Rebecca. You’ll be okay if you do. I swear.”

Not believing that for a second, she had packed and been ready to run as soon as she picked Matthew up at day care. That was where she’d been heading when she was hit.

This time, she hadn’t been surprised when her phone rang. The message conveyed was even shorter: “Ignoring my last call, not so smart. Lucky for us, you have a weakness.”

Matthew. Dear God. All she could think to do was take him and hide.

Now Sheriff Byler watched her in a way that made her suspect he knew there was more to her story, but he only said, “I’m surprised you chose to travel when you were hurt.”

“I wanted to go away,” she said simply—and truthfully. “Here it is quiet. Not so busy.”

“Where are you from?” he asked, as if making conversation. She knew better and had been prepared.