Accidentally Amish (11 page)

“What about your crew?” Annie asked.

“My crew? A couple of Amish boys. I can’t see what they would have to gain from breaking my tools.”

“You never know,” Annie said. “Sometimes the people closest to you are the ones you have to worry about.”

Rufus turned his head toward Annie. “Be careful, Annalise. You might be giving me a clue about why you’re here.”

At that moment, Annie’s phone rang in her pocket. She sprang off the swing—then winced in pain. Looking at the incoming number, she said, “I have to take this.” With one hand holding the phone to her ear and the other supporting a sore spot in her back, she went down the steps and toward the barn for some privacy.

No matter how far she wandered, Annie felt Rufus’s eyes on her while she spoke to attorney number two. Franey got up and went into the house, but Rufus sprawled statue-like on the porch steps, his elbows propped two steps behind him. In one hand, the metal of the broken saw glinted in the sun. The slump in his shoulders distracted her enough that she had to turn away from him to explain her legal challenge to the attorney. A few minutes later, she breathed a sigh of relief and started back toward the porch. Rufus had not moved.

“Would you be able to give me a ride into town tomorrow?” she asked. “I just arranged a meeting.”

“I leave pretty early,” Rufus reminded her.

“I’ll be ready.” Annie sat next to Rufus on the step.

“Are you sure you’re well enough for this?”

“I have no choice.”

“You always have a choice,” he said.

Annie raised her eyes to the view. “It doesn’t seem that way in this situation. It’s complicated.”

“So you’ve said.”

“Can I ride with you or not?” Annie tightened her grip on the phone in her hand.

“Of course.”

“Perhaps it’s better if I move back to the motel anyway.”

“You’re welcome here.”

“Thank you. Your family has been lovely and accommodating, but I think I should go.”

“To the land of electricity.”

“Well, yes. Electricity connects me to my life, after all.”

“Or cuts you off from it, depending on how you look at it.”

Annie did not respond. She fixed her eyes on the Sangre de Cristos. As remote as the Beiler house felt from her real life, the mountains beckoned into deeper mystery.

“The tea your mother brought me had ice cubes,” Annie said, “and the lettuce on the sandwich was crisp and cool. How …”

“Propane gas refrigerator,” Rufus said. “We heat water with propane, too.”

“And the lamps are all propane?” Annie mentally pictured the lamps in Ruth’s bedroom.

Rufus nodded. “The wringer washing machine runs off a gas engine. In Pennsylvania, my mother had a blender that ran off of compressed air. We use generators. And you’d be amazed what we can do with a few car batteries if we really want to.”

“But no electricity.” Annie’s fingers itched to type “Amish electricity” into a search window.

“We don’t connect to the electrical grid,” Rufus said. “Too much of modern life comes too fast when you do that.”

“I can only imagine what you must think of my life.”

“I know very little about your life,” Rufus said, “but it got you here. You have to wonder about that.”

“Believe me, I do,” Annie said. “I’m meeting with a lawyer tomorrow. I hope to sort things out soon.”

“I hope you get what you want.”

“Maybe he could help you, too,” Annie said. “Surely what you’re experiencing constitutes harassment.”

“Talking to a lawyer will not get me what I want.”

“If this Karl Kramer would leave you alone, you could get on with your life,” Annie said.

“I’ll get on with my life either way.”

He turned his head to look at her. His wide violet-blue eyes sparkled in the sunlight. Annie’s breath caught.

“What is it?” Rufus asked. “Pain?”

She shook her head. “Your eyes. I suppose you know how striking they are.”

He tilted his head. “I’m told they are my grandmother’s eyes, and her grandmother before that.”

She felt his eyes on her then, considering her.

“It’s good you’re staying another night,” he said. “How about if I take you to town tomorrow, you have your meeting and your electricity, and then you come back here for one more night? Just to be sure.”

Annie nodded, transfixed. As much as she needed a dose of electricity, she wanted to return to this peacefulness.

He leaned forward and prepared to stand. “I’d better round up Jacob and check on the animals.”

“Can I come?”

D
olly crunched the apple while Rufus stroked the spot between her eyes the next morning. He had hitched the larger buggy. It would be more comfortable for Annalise. Rufus still wished he could talk her into resting one more day. What was so important that it could not wait for her to be stronger tomorrow?

The sound of giggling made him lift his hand from Dolly’s face and turn toward the barn. Jacob shot out of the structure with a grin on his ruddy face.

“Annalise doesn’t know how to milk a cow.” Jacob raised a hand to smother his laughter.

Annalise emerged from the barn, flanked by Sophie and Lydia. “I’m afraid it’s true. I haven’t been near a cow for twenty years—until now.”

“I’m going to teach her,” Sophie said. “You’ll be back in time for the evening milking, won’t you?”

Rufus raised his eyebrows. “I believe so.”

“Let’s start with just
touching
a cow, all right?” Annalise smiled. “I’m not making any promises.”

She was at ease with his siblings, which brought unexpected relief to Rufus. Her ponytail bounced in the morning light, and Rufus could hardly tear his gaze away. “We should be going.”

Annalise took the hand Rufus offered, and he helped her up and onto the buggy bench. Having her there, beside him, as he took Dolly onto the road, made him grasp for conversation. He hoped for something they might find in common, but nothing took solid shape. Instead, he remembered her form in his arms as he carried her to the buggy outside the motel, and later up the stairs to Ruth’s bedroom, her face close to his.

Rufus glanced at Annalise, and she smiled awkwardly, as if she were reading his mind. Both of them looked away.

He had to speak. “This meeting will solve your troubles, ya?”

She tilted her head. “I hope at least to have an ally by the time it’s over.”

“Then there is to be a battle?”

“Perhaps
confrontation
is a better word. It’s complicated.”

“Yes, I remember.” She did not believe he could understand her business troubles. Perhaps she was right. “At least the cow will be waiting for you when this day is behind you.”

She laughed. “That’s bound to be a confrontation of a different sort.”

“The
English
have farms,” he said. “Surely you have some experience.”

“I went to a dairy farm on a school field trip once. Six hundred cows. Machines everywhere.”

“Perhaps your visit here gives you a different perspective of the quiet life.” Rufus turned her head to see her face.

Annalise met his gaze with a smile. “It’s quite tempting to consider that—on many levels. I will know more after this meeting.”

The front left buggy wheel hit a hole in the pavement, and Annalise winced at the sudden dip.

“You are still sore,” Rufus said.

“Yes, but clear of mind.”

Annie chose a table in the coffee shop away from the commotion at the counter and sat in a chair facing the door. The power cord ran from her laptop into the outlet beneath the table. She eyed with satisfaction the icon on her screen that assured her juice was flowing. Her meeting with the attorney was not for two hours, but she had plenty of work to catch up on. She had not said much to Lee Solano on the phone the day before and was leery that someone immediately available and willing to meet her in a small-town coffee shop rather than his own office was desperate for work. What did that say about his practice? But the others had not returned her inquiry calls, making him her only option.

Housed in a beige brick building, the imitation Starbucks coffee and tea shop could have been anywhere in the country with roots from two centuries earlier. With a tall caramel latte within reach, Annie attacked her e-mail backlog. Scanning, she could tell which ones would be simple to answer. A good number she could easily redirect to her software writers. A few were starting to sound snippy about her lack of a timely response. One by one she placated the clients who depended on her technical services.

The company’s ongoing bread-and-butter work was writing custom programs with focused objectives that clients identified for themselves. The solutions she found, however, eventually became joints and tendons of the consumer patterns software she now had stashed on a secure server.

On a typical day in the office, Annie would dispense with administrative tasks fairly quickly, motivated by the anticipation of working on the new project as many hours of the day as possible. Barrett would be in his office next door. He did less and less programming and more and more marketing and seemed happy with the arrangement.

Until a few weeks ago. The morning banter ceased. When Barrett refilled his coffee mug, he passed by her open door without a greeting. At the end of the day, he was out the door without stopping in to say good night. It was true he had a wife and baby at home, but that had never gnawed into his extroverted socializing before.

Annie missed the old Barrett.

The string of e-mail messages from Jamie, her assistant, kept Annie informed of routine matters. Jamie was a solid anchor whenever Annie traveled. This absence was no different. Some messages, however, carried an undertone that said,
Please call me.

Annie wrapped her fingers around her cell phone, which had been turned off most of the time for days. As little as she knew about the Amish, she knew a phone ringing as constantly as hers did would be unwelcome. Now she turned it on. To no surprise, the voice-mail box was full and text messages nearly cascaded off the screen to the floor. Annie ignored them all and dialed Jamie’s number.

“Friesen-Paige Solutions,” Jamie said.

“Don’t let on, but it’s me,” Annie said.

“How may I help you?” Jamie said evenly.

“Go next door to the doughnut shop. Call me from there.”

Annie put the phone down on the table and stared at it, mentally picturing Jamie casually stepping out from behind her desk and leaving the suite then the redbrick building. It was nothing unusual for Jamie to make a doughnut run.

The phone rang, and Annie snatched it up. “Jamie?”

“Annie, what’s going on? I opened an envelope from the lawyers today, expecting something routine. But you’re named as a defendant in a suit, and Barrett is the plaintiff. Is this some kind of joke?”

Annie’s shoulders slumped. “I wish.”

“Did you and Barrett have a fight?”

“Not exactly,” Annie said.

“Rick drew up these papers,” Jamie said. “I thought you and Rick—”

“Not anymore. That’s over.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“Don’t be. Listen, Jamie, I don’t know when I’ll be back to the office. I’m going to work from where I am for a while.”

“And where are you?” Jamie asked.

“That doesn’t matter.” It was better if Jamie did not know. “I promise to stay in touch. Do me a favor and watch for any funny business on my credit cards or debit card.”

“This all sounds very cloak and dagger,” Jamie said.

“I’m just being careful.”

“What should I do about the papers Rick sent over?”

“Scan them and e-mail them to me. Can you do that in the next few minutes?”

“Yes, of course.”

“I’ve been through my e-mail. Any other fires I should know about?”

They talked for a few more minutes about routine matters. Barrett was staying away from the office, Annie was glad to hear.

“Thanks, Jamie,” Annie said. “Don’t forget to take doughnuts back to the office with you.”

Annie ended the call. A lawsuit. So that is what it had come to. Barrett stopped talking to her, and Rick—who supposedly loved her—chose sides and cast her away.

Why would Barrett do this? He knew they had a good thing going. They were both making great money. He never once hinted that anything was wrong.

Perhaps Rick had been planning this for months. Their first date, the sweetness of their first kiss, the hunger in the ones that followed—maybe it was all about the company. And when Rick saw that she was too savvy to do anything careless—such as sign a document she had not read carefully—he turned to Barrett. With his affable, trusting nature, Barrett was an easy target. Any number of arguments coming from the mouth of the firm’s legal representation could persuade Barrett to hack into Annie’s work.

Annie steamed. To think that she had ever trusted Rick Stebbins, and even let herself care about him. Poor Barrett. No matter how Rick had lured him in, Barrett’s pride would not let him back out now.

The main door to the coffee shop opened and a man in a gray suit entered. Annie stood and fixed her eyes on him. It wasn’t a very good suit and did not fit well. The man pushed sunglasses off his face to the top of his balding head. In a few seconds, he figured out who his client was. They introduced themselves with a handshake, and Lee Solano went to the counter to buy the socially obligatory coffee that would entitle him to conduct business on the premises.