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The other child crossed her legs. “I need to go potty.”
He sat back on his heels in consternation. Where was his mother when he needed her?
Chapter Three (#ue25a4891-f3bc-51e0-9566-b3db562dc4b2)
Willa heard voices she didn’t recognize. Were they real, or was she hallucinating? The psychosis wouldn’t start before her baby was born, would it? Her hands went to her stomach. Reassured by the feel of her unborn child nestled there, she opened her eyes. She was in a room she’d never seen before. Where were her girls? She tried to sit up. Pain lanced through her head, sending a burst of nausea to her empty stomach. She closed her eyes, hoping it would recede. She needed to find her children.
“Take it easy,” a man’s voice said close beside her.
She turned her head to see someone looming above her. She blinked hard, and he swam into focus. He was a mountain of a man with broad shoulders and a black beard that covered his jawline and chin. He knelt beside her and slipped an arm under her shoulders to ease her upright. His dark brown hair was cut in a bowl style she remembered from her youth. He was Amish or perhaps Old Order Mennonite. The beard meant he was a married man. His eyes were a rich coffee brown with crow’s feet at the corners. She thought she read sympathy in their depths. The longer she looked at him, the more convinced she was that they had met before, but her mind was so fuzzy she couldn’t remember where.
She clutched his arm as she struggled to get up. “Where are my daughters?”
His muscles were rock hard beneath her fingers. The feel of his steely arms was reassuring. It triggered her memory. She did know him. This was the man who had kindly given her a ride to her grandfather’s farm.
“Relax. Your children are with my mudder. She is getting them something to eat.” He patted her hand, and she let go of him. He sat back on a chair at the end of the sofa.
Willa had to see them for herself. “Lucy, Megan, come here!” A deep, harsh cough sent burning pain through her chest. Her cold was getting worse.
The pair hurried through the open doorway. “Mama, you awake?” Megan asked.
Her little worrier. Older than her sister by five minutes and a hundred years. Willa pulled both girls to her in a fierce hug. “Yes, I’m awake.”
Megan scowled and took Willa’s face between her hands. “Don’t fall down!”
“I’m sorry I frightened you.” She kissed Megan’s hair and noticed her Amish kapp was missing. Willa had had trouble keeping the unfamiliar head covering on the girls. They didn’t like them.
“I got peanut butter and jelly.” Lucy offered her half-eaten sandwich to her mother. “Want some?”
Willa shook her head, ignoring the pain the movement caused. “I’m fine. You finish it.”
“Okeydokey.” Lucy didn’t need further urging. She bit into her food with relish and was soon licking her fingers. The girls hadn’t eaten since yesterday morning when they’d finished the last of the bread her grandfather had grudgingly given them. Willa hadn’t had anything for two days, not since leaving her grandfather’s farm. Her stomach growled loudly.
An elderly woman in Amish garb came to the doorway. “Kinder, kumma to the dish and let your mamm rest.”
Megan leaned in to whisper in Willa’s ear. “She talks funny.”
The man seated beside Willa cleared his throat. She had almost forgotten that he was there. “My mudder doesn’t speak Englisch often, so it is goot for her to practice.”
Lucy hurried after the woman. “I want another sandwich, please.”
Megan followed her. “Me, too.”
Lucy frowned at her sister. “My sandwich, not yours!”
“I want one!” Megan fisted her hands on her hips.
“Lucy, Megan, you can each have your own sandwich,” Willa said to end the mutiny she saw brewing. Their normal bickering relieved her mind. They didn’t seem traumatized by what had happened.
Now that she knew her girls were safe, she turned her attention to the man at the end of the sofa. “How did we get here, and where is here?”
He scowled at her. “I have many questions for you, too. I happened to notice your buggy going past my lane with no one driving. I assumed it was a runaway and ran to catch it. Your girls were in the back seat and you were unconscious on the floorboard up front. What happened to you?”
She raised a hand to her aching head. She found a bandage above her temple. “I must have fainted and hit my head. I haven’t been feeling well.” She didn’t tell him she hadn’t eaten. Another deep cough followed her words and left her head spinning.
“You don’t remember what happened?”
They’d slept in the buggy again last night. Rather, the girls had slept. Willa’s nagging cough had kept her awake. She had a vague memory of hitching up the horse at dawn. After that, only bits and pieces of traveling along the winding roadways came to mind. Nothing about how she had hurt her head.
“I don’t remember much after starting out on the road this morning.”
He eyed her intently. “You are not Amish and yet you and your children are dressed in our way and traveling by buggy. Why? What are you doing here? How did you find me?”
She scowled at his rapid-fire questions. “I wasn’t looking for you.”
“You told me you were visiting your grandfather, Ezekiel Lapp.”
“I did see Grandfather. He gave me the horse and buggy so that I could visit other family members.” Even with this kind man, she couldn’t bring herself to share information about her destination. She’d spent too many years hiding where she was from and where she was going.
She knew the Amish bonnets would fool the casual observers, but not the real deal. Willa Chase and her children had to disappear. Someone looking for them wouldn’t look twice at an Amish woman traveling with two children in a buggy. This man already knew she wasn’t Amish, so she decided to tell him the truth, just not the whole truth.
“My parents left the church when I was young. I have decided to return to the faith and raise my children to be Amish, but I wanted to get reacquainted with my other relatives and spend Christmas with them before I decide where to settle.”
“You are not shunned?”
She looked at him in surprise. “No. I wasn’t baptized when my parents made the decision to leave. They were shunned by our congregation, but my parents are both gone now.”
He studied her for a long moment, then nodded. “Our ways are goot ways to raise kinder. This is also the wish of your husband?”
Willa stared at her hands clenched together in her lap. “He died last May.”
Her life had been a constant struggle since the horrible moment she received the news that Glen had been killed. Now that her grandfather had turned her away, she had one slim hope left—that her Amish great-aunt Ada or perhaps her cousin Mark or her cousin Miriam would take them in.
“I am sorry you lost your husband. I know it must have been difficult for you,” the man said softly.
The compassion in his voice touched her deeply. “Danki.”
She put aside her grief and focused on the present. “And thank you for stopping my runaway carriage. You have come to my rescue twice now and I don’t even know your name.”
“John Miller. My mother is Vera Miller.”
“I’m Willa Lapp.” She gave her maiden name, unable to look John Miller in the eyes as she did so. “You have already met my daughters, Megan and Lucy. Where are we?”
His mother came in and handed Willa a steaming bowl of chicken soup and a spoon. “Eat. Your babe needs nourishment.”
Willa took a sip and the hot, delicious broth drove away her nausea. “This is good. Danki.”
“Eat it all.” The woman went back to the kitchen.
“You are at my home near Bowmans Crossing,” John said.
The soup was warming Willa from the inside out. The chunks of chicken were tender and the noodles were the thick homemade kind her mother used to make. The name of the town he mentioned didn’t ring a bell. “Is that close to Hope Springs?”
He shook his head. “You are a long way from there and traveling in the wrong direction if that is where you’re headed.”
She digested this unwelcome news. She had hoped to find her great-aunt before dark. She didn’t want to spend another night on the open road. “Thank you for your help, but I must get going.”
“Your horse needs rest and your buggy needs repairs. I can fix it, but it will take some time.”
Disappointment weighed her down. She was so tired. Why couldn’t one thing go right? “I’m afraid I can’t pay you for any repairs.”
“I have not asked for payment.”
He rose and took the empty bowl from her hands. “You need rest, Willa Lapp. Don’t worry about your kinder. Mamm will look after them. She also is not a killer of serials.”
Willa had to smile at his mistaken turn of the phrase. “The term is serial killer.”
She remembered how difficult it could be to translate the Pennsylvania Deitsh language of her youth into English. An Amish fellow might say he would go the road up and turn the gate in.
John frowned slightly as he repeated her words, “Serial killer. Danki. She is also not one of those. She has fixed a bed for you.”
Willa wanted to protest, but she could barely keep her eyes open. She did need rest. Just a short nap while he fixed her buggy, then she would be on her way. She prayed her great-aunt would be as kind to her as this man and his mother had been.
Her eyes drifted closed. She barely noticed when John’s mother came back into the room. “Bring her, John, she’s too worn-out to walk.”
John lifted Willa in his arms. She wanted to protest, but she didn’t have the strength. Her head lolled against his shoulder. For the first time in months, she felt truly safe, but it was only an illusion. Someone wanted to steal her daughters away. She was their only protection. She couldn’t let down her guard.
* * *
John waited until his mother pulled back the covers, then he laid Willa gently on the bed in the guest room and took a step back. He hooked his thumbs through his suspenders, feeling ill at ease and restless. This woman brought out his protective instincts and he didn’t want to feel responsible for her or for her children. He needed to get back to work. The forge would be cooling by now. He’d have to fire it up again. More time and fuel wasted.
His mother began removing Willa’s shoes. “What did she say about pretending to be Amish?”
“She said she was raised Amish but her parents left the church. She wants to return and raise her children in our faith.”
“Then we must do what we can for her. Does she have people nearby?”
“Near Hope Springs, I think. That’s where she was heading.”
“That is a long trip from here with such little ones. Joshua Bowman’s wife, Mary, is from there. Perhaps they know each other. Did you tell her she was welcome to spend the night with us?”
“Nee. I did not, and why should I? She wants to leave.” He didn’t want them here another hour, let alone overnight.
His mother made shooing motions with her hands. “Your work will keep, but go if you must. I will see to her. You can keep the kinder occupied for me. Outside is best, for I want this young mother to get plenty of rest. I am worried about her babe.”
He took a quick step back from the bed. “You think she might give birth here?”
“If the bobli wants to come, nothing we do or say will stop it, but there is no sense hurrying his or her arrival for lack of a little rest. Go along. You won’t be any help if she does go into labor.”
She was right about that. He was a volunteer firefighter along with many of his neighbors, but running into a burning house was not as scary as a woman giving birth. “Call me if you need me.”
“I can handle this. Get out from underfoot.”
Mamm was a tiny thing and crippled with arthritis that twisted her hands, but she was still a force to be reckoned with when she set her mind to something.
He found the twins sitting at the table in the kitchen. They watched him warily. He could see subtle differences in their features, but he wasn’t sure which was which. Both of them were without their kapps. “Come outside and help me with my chores. Your mother is taking a nap.”
“Will we see a cow?” The girl closest to him asked.
“Which one are you?”
“Told you. I’m Lucy.”
“That’s right, you did.”
Her sister licked a smear of jam from the back of her hand. “Cows yucky. I’m this many.” She held up three fingers.
Lucy nodded and folded her fingers into the correct number. “I’m this many.”
Megan pointed to him. “How old are you?”
“Older than all your fingers and toes together.”
“I can count. One, two, four, five, three.” Lucy ticked off each finger.
“That’s very good. Put on your coats. Would you like to feed the goats?”
“Same as at the zoo?” Lucy nodded vigorously.
John had no idea how they fed goats at a zoo, but he figured it couldn’t be much different than what he did. He helped Lucy into her coat.
Megan pulled away from him when he tried to help her. “I can do it.”
She got her coat on but couldn’t manage the buttons. It was getting cold outside, so he buttoned her coat in spite of her protests and held open the door for them when he was done. Megan hung back until Lucy went out, then she hurried after her sister.
“Where’s my horsey? Give him back.” Megan narrowed her eyes as she looked up at him. She pointed to her mother’s buggy sitting beside the barn. He’d fetched it after his mother arrived home and stabled the tired horse.
“I didn’t steal her. She is resting in the barn just as your mother is resting in the house.”
“What’s a barn?” Lucy waited for his answer.
“That big red building.”
He figured that was enough information. He was wrong. He wasn’t prepared for the barrage of questions a pair of three-year-olds could ask, but he soon learned their curiosity was endless. Most of the time he understood only half of what they were chattering about and he couldn’t keep the two of them straight when they darted every which way so quickly.
“Why are cows brown?”
“God made them that color.”
