Karen Harper - Finding Mercy

“I was just thinking,” he said, “the lavender’s mistress doesn’t like to get her feet wet either. You wouldn’t come near that pond last night. So no wonder lavender grows so beautifully for a beautiful gardener and in Eden County, no less.”

Her stomach did a funny flip-flop. A worldly compliment. And he’d called her mistress. Should she explain that her people only valued inner beauty? Her family had one mirror in the whole house and that was turned to the wall and mostly unused. But she said, “Sadly, there was a serpent in the Garden of Eden. Besides, I think of myself more as a farmer, of an important crop too. Lavender does lots of things, all good.”

“It smells great, that’s for sure. I didn’t mean to imply you haven’t done a good job with all this.” They started up the hill to where she’d left off with her weeding yesterday. The two tin plates she’d left hanging up the hill were knocking together in the breeze. For sure, one of those must be what had made the reflection she saw last night after the sheriff left.

“Lavender does more than smell good,” she told him, suddenly anxious to keep their conversation on her work and not herself. He kept stealing glimpses at her. “It can be used in recipes too, all kinds of yummy things like muffins, jellies and jams, chocolate, breads, teas and honeys. I plan to hire some friends to make those products to sell when I get the store going.”

He was frowning now at some inward thought. What had she said to set him off? She wished she could read his moods.

“You won’t believe this,” Andrew said, “but I had a lavender-infused drink not long ago.”

“Of course, I believe it. Lemonade?”

“Actually, a martini.”

“Oh. Liquor. I couldn’t go worldly with my sales. You have a lot to learn about us and our ways.”

“I want to, so I’ll get busy here. The bees won’t sting me, will they?”

“Not if you let them be themselves and don’t try to take over what they do best.”

“I hear you loud and clear, Ella Lantz. Okay, boss, I’ll get to work.”

She watched him lean on his crutch, put his weight on his good leg and start to pull weeds. Though she just tried to accept the way things were, she was aching to know what he was hiding from. Had he left loved ones behind? A woman? A family? Even children? How she would hate being forced away from her life here. That thought chilled her and she shivered.

* * *

Ray-Lynn had carted her bouquet of lavender into the restaurant because it cheered her up. She put it right on the table where folks came in, near Ella’s products she sold, under the front door sign that spoke of both her love of her Southern roots and of her adopted neighbors, the Ohio Amish: Y’all Come Back Now. Danki!

Jack was sitting in the back booth, facing the front door as he always did when he was here so he could keep an eye on things. Keep an eye on her too, she knew. Both he and Hannah had told her that Jack and she had been dating for a while and had been getting very involved before her accident and coma, whatever very involved really meant. She was embarrassed to ask Jack and wondered how much he really knew of her—had seen of her, in the flesh.

She was finally getting up the courage to ask him how intimate they had been and what he really wanted from her. They were business partners—she had the legal document that explained that—but had they been bed partners, too? Evidently taking the high road, good guy that he was, Jack had not pressured her on resuming where they left off—and just exactly where was that?

Today he looked not only bleary-eyed from getting little sleep after that car wreck last night, but she could tell he was upset by something the stranger who had joined him was saying. Jack, tall and imposing in his uniform, even sitting down, seemed to dwarf the outsider, a compact, balding man, maybe in his late fifties, with graying, reddish hair and a creeping hairline. He reminded Ray-Lynn of a rumpled professor and kept gesturing as he talked. Ding-dang, they looked at odds, but they were keeping their voices down, leaning forward over their empty plates, as if they’d like to leap over the table at each other. When she’d refilled their coffee cups, she had overheard only that the guy’s name was Branin, nothing else.

She went over with their check herself. Although Jack owned half of the restaurant, he always insisted on paying. She should, she thought, carry the big bouquet of lavender right over to them and plunk it on their table, since its smell was supposed to calm people down.

“…still say I should’ve been told up front, not after the fact…” she heard Jack mutter.

“We had to get him placed,” Branin said. “Since the Amish were willing and we had a go-between, it happened real fast…”

They stopped talking and looked up at her. “You two gentlemen need anything else?” Ray-Lynn asked, and put the check on the table.

“We’re doing fine,” Jack said. “Thanks, Ray-Lynn.”

She and Jack exchanged one of their “see you later” looks and she walked to the next booth and chatted with those patrons while keeping an ear cocked. Branin was saying, “Sorry I tracked you down here. Your office dispatcher told me where you’d gone. I appreciate your inviting me to join you for breakfast, Sheriff.”

“So, you staying in the area for a while? Don’t you have to get back to D.C.?” was the last thing she heard as she saw new patrons come in and went to seat them.

D.C.? Washington, D.C.? Having to put up with that FBI Agent Linc Armstrong from Cleveland a while ago was one thing, but D.C.? At least her car accident and coma had not hurt her curiosity, even though it was said that was what killed the cat.

* * *

When Ella saw that one high patch of her hardy Hidcote lavender had their flower heads about one-third open—which was ideal picking for sachets—she decided to take a break from weeding, get her hand sickle and cut some. The morning breeze and sunshine had dried out the foliage and flowers well enough for cutting.

“You are allowed to take a rest, you know,” she told Andrew as she started past him down the hill. “I’ll be right back. Oh—look,” she told him as he stood and stretched his big frame, “a car just turned in the lane.”

She could tell he tensed right away. “It looks like the same make of sports car that was in the wreck,” he said. “A white one, though. Do you know who it is?”

“No, but sometimes customers see my sign down the road and just stop by. It’s all right. You can stay here.”

Since no one was at the farmhouse, she walked down to the driveway. It was a stranger, a woman dressed fancy in a pale blue linen suit, white silky blouse and gold jewelry that glinted in the sun. Her hair was sleek and black, collar-length, with flat, straight-cut bangs. The ebony sheen of it in the sun looked so unusual in this area full of fair-haired folks. Just like the young man in the car wreck last night, she looked Asian.

“Hello,” the woman said, nodding. “This is the Lantz farm? Sheriff Freeman told me on the phone where to find it. I’m Connie Lee, Sam Lee’s mother—the man whose car went out of control last night.”

“Oh, ya, how is he doing?”

“Back injuries, two broken legs, but at least they don’t think he’ll be paralyzed. His father’s with him, and we’re having him flown to the Cleveland Clinic, but his long-term prognosis is good. I understand that you and your cousin were the first to reach him and risked your lives to be sure he was out of his burning car. I can’t thank you enough. I wanted to give you this token of our gratitude,” she said, and reached in her purse for a white envelope.

Ella’s eyes widened, not in the surprise at a gift, but because she glimpsed a gun in that purse. A small one, gleaming silver. She tried to keep calm. Amish women might not deal with firearms, but lady Auslanders evidently did.