“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.
“Pennsylvania. There, we have so many tourists.” She shook her head. “I was scared every time I crossed a street or heard a car coming up behind my buggy.”
A twitch of his expressive eyebrows made her realize her mistake.
“You think I am not trusting in God.”
He didn’t say anything.
“I do in my head,” she explained, “but my heart still races and my hands shake.”
“Post-traumatic stress,” he said quietly.
She pretended to look puzzled.
“Your body reacts without waiting for permission from you. It takes time for that kind of response to go away.”
She shivered. “Ja.”
He laid a big hand over hers. “You’re cold.”
Her fingers curled into her palms and she quickly withdrew from him. “My hands and feet are always cold.”
A smile crinkled the skin beside his eyes. “Even in August here in Missouri? Teach me your trick.”
She wanted to laugh. Instead, she said shyly, “There is no trick. It’s fine in summer, not so good in winter.”
“No.” His gaze rested on her face a moment longer. Then he reached for his door handle. “We should go in. I see your uncle coming from the barn.”
Oh, heavens—everyone in the house was probably peeking out the window by now.
“Ja, you are right.” She leaped out faster than she ought to have and slammed the door. “I should have been helping to cook, not sitting here like a lump.”
Walking beside her, the sheriff said, “I suspect your family wants you to rest until you don’t hurt anymore before you dive into chores.”
“That doesn’t mean I have to listen to them. It is so kind of them to take us in.”
Another mistake—he must know that visiting was a favorite pastime for the Amish, who loved having family even for extended stays.
But Sheriff Byler only glanced sidelong at her before remarking, as if at random, “It occurs to me your last name isn’t Graber.”
Her mind stuttered in panic. She couldn’t admit to being divorced. The Amish didn’t divorce. Widowed. She would be widowed, except then she would have retained her husband’s last name. And she’d never heard of anyone among the Amish with a last name of Gregory.
Lie?