Love Redeemed (10 page)

Phoebe shambled to the tent, her arms wrapped around her middle, head down. She didn't want to see the men seated around the picnic tables, their conversation a low rumble across the campsite. She felt their gazes, sharp, accusing, judging. Except for Elam. He looked confused, his face white in the light of the kerosene lamp. They would all be seated around campfires, burning marshmallows and making s'mores and mountain pies if it weren't for Michael and her. Hot tears streaked her face, mixing with sweat. No tears. Tears did no good. She wiped at them with her sleeve, inhaled the cool night air, and forced herself to pick up her feet. If Lydia could be brave out there in the dark, she could be brave here, surrounded by family.

“We're staying with you tonight.”

She dragged her gaze from the rocky ground. Molly and Rachel huddled together at the entrance to the tent Phoebe had been sharing
with Hannah…and Lydia. Molly took her arm. “Hannah is staying in your parents' tent tonight. They thought it best for her. My mudder took Sarah. She was already asleep—she won't know the difference.”

Phoebe allowed herself to be drawn into the tent she'd shared the previous evening with her giggling sisters. Hannah and Lydia couldn't seem to settle down. Sleeping in a tent under the stars, water lapping the shores in the distance, was such an adventure for the little girls. For her too, but she tried to be more grown-up about it. A little more. “You don't need to stay. I'm fine.” To her chagrin, her voice cracked. “Really, I'm fine. I'm not going to sleep anyway.”

“You need to sleep. You look frayed at the edges.” Rachel put her hands on Phoebe's shoulders. She looked so calm, with her pale white skin, her serene green eyes, and her strawberry blonde hair still perfectly smooth around her kapp. She'd walked with Daniel today and nothing had happened to her family. Why Lydia? Why Phoebe's family? “Sit and I'll do your hair.”

Unable to answer the questions smacking into each other inside her head, Phoebe sank onto her sleeping bag, the nylon material soft and silky under her outspread hands. She closed her eyes and let her best friends remove the pins that held her prayer kapp in place. Rachel undid the bun and began to brush her hair in long, rhythmic strokes. “It'll be fine, you'll see,” she murmured in a low, reassuring voice. “They'll find her in the morning and she'll be here safe and sound with you when you go to sleep tomorrow night.”

Molly's voice mingled with Rachel's. She was praying softly but steadily, never ceasing. “Gott, we ask your guidance and protection for our lost little sister and friend. She's alone out there in a place she doesn't know. Please put your arms around her and keep her safe until morning and then bring her home. If it is Your will. Thy will be done.”

Nee. Nee. Not Thy will.
Phoebe jerked away from Rachel. “What if His will is that she not come home?”

“What?” Molly pushed her glasses up her nose and regarded Phoebe. “I don't know. That's what Luke always says. That we should pray that God's will be done, not ours. It's selfish to pray for our own wants and needs.”

“I thought God provided for our every need.”

Confusion settled on Molly's plain round face. “I don't know much. All I know is God is in control.” She removed her glasses and rubbed her eyes, already red with fatigue. “We don't control anything so there's no use worrying about it.”

“Right.”

As if by mutual, silent agreement, they laid down, still fully clothed, on top of the sleeping bags that filled most of the tent. The murmur of voices outside the tent told Phoebe the men still sat around the picnic tables planning for tomorrow's search. Night sounds filled the air. Crickets, frogs, the lapping of the water. These would be the same sounds Lydia could hear, wherever she was. Maybe they would comfort her as they did Phoebe. God sounds. Maybe she wouldn't be so afraid.

The sound of deep breathing filled the tent. Molly. Phoebe could tell by the half snore, half snort. Molly could sleep through anything. Trying to ignore the sound, Phoebe rolled onto her side, her hands under her cheek. She didn't dare close her eyes. If she did, she was certain she would see Lydia out there, wandering around, lost and confused and scared. Stumbling in the dark. Crying out for Mudder and Daed. Crying out for Phoebe. All because Phoebe had been selfish and stupid.

She sniffed and willed herself to squash the emotions that welled up in her. She wouldn't be a whiny baby about it on top of everything.
I'm so sorry, Gott. Please forgive me. Please don't use this to teach me a lesson.

What harm could there have been in one kiss? She could hear her daed's voice in her ears. “It's a slippery slope. Start down it and you'll end up on your behind at the bottom. It won't be pretty.”

I promise it won't happen again. Never. Just bring her home, please Lord, bring her home.

Her eyes burned. She tried closing them, but the blackness unnerved her. She wiggled, trying to get comfortable. “Rachel, are you awake?” she whispered.

“Jah.”

“You went for a walk today with Daniel?”

Her friend stirred and rolled closer. “Why?”

“I know courting…you don't talk about it…but I need to know.”

Rachel sat up. Phoebe did the same. “Jah, we walked,” her friend whispered.

Phoebe couldn't see Rachel's face in the dark. She crossed her legs and leaned her elbows on her skirt. “What did you do…besides walk?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, did you stop anywhere? Did you bird watch? What did you do?”

“We picked up pretty rocks and leaves.” Rachel's voice sounded like a smile. “I want to take them home as souvenirs—you know, to remember this time by.” She stopped. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean this time—”

“I know what you mean. Has Daniel…has he ever…do you ever…”

“Do we what?”

“Have you ever kissed?”

Rachel's sharp intake of air answered the question. “Nee. Daniel's not like that.”

“Not like what?” Michael and Daniel were as different as a horse and a steer. It always struck Phoebe as funny they could be such good friends. Daniel, so lighthearted, such a big talker, so easygoing. Michael was wound tight like a roll of barbed wire, all prickly and ready to stand guard against unwanted intruders. Daniel seemed much more likely to kiss a girl. Michael could barely find a way to talk to one.

“Daniel is like his daed. Plain as plain can be.” Rachel's voice got closer as if she'd leaned forward. “He talks a big talk, but when it comes down to it, he would never do anything to taint what we have. He wants to marry me. Why do you ask?”

“I always thought Michael was like that. Always doing the right thing. He seems so serious in his quietness.”

“I don't know. He never talks. Who knows what he thinks about anything?” Rachel paused, the silence filled with crickets chirping in the distance. “I always thought he was a little…a little big for his
galluses
.”

“What?” The word came out a screech. Molly mumbled in her sleep, the words indistinguishable. Phoebe struggled to bring her voice back
to a whisper. “Michael's suspenders fit him fine. He doesn't think he's a big deal, either. He's just not much of a talker. He's more of a thinker. What did he do that was so bad?”

“You asked me if Daniel and I had ever kissed. I reckon you want to know because you and Michael did. You've been wanting him to shine his flashlight in your window for a very long time and first time he takes you for a walk, he kisses you. It's not done that way.”

Rachel was smart and wise. Phoebe nodded in the dark, as if the other girl could see her. “I don't know what happened. I think…I think we've wanted to be together for so long that when it finally happened, we just burst with the joy of it.”

“Burst with the joy of it?” Skepticism soaked Rachel's words. “That's what Thomas would call a flight of fancy. It's just silly.”

She was right. Phoebe couldn't explain it. Still, she had to try. A fierce need to defend Michael roared through her. “Nee. It was like we were pulled together by an invisible thread that kept getting shorter and shorter until we touched.”

“Flights of fancy.”

“It's true. I don't know how else to explain it.”

Rachel didn't speak for a long moment. Her breathing sounded loud and uneven. “But that's all, just a kiss.”

“Only a kiss.” A beautiful, sweet kiss, gone now, lost in the ugly aftermath of a day Phoebe wanted to forget but knew she never would.

Rachel's sigh filled the tent. “Is it…would it be unseemly for me to ask…did you like it?”

“It was wonderful. So wonderful.” Phoebe let her head drop into her hands. They were warm and sticky in spite of the cool night air that wafted through the flaps of the tent. “And now it's gone. We'll never have it again.”

“You will. If not you and Michael, then the man God has in His plan for you.”

“I wanted it to be Michael. I thought it was Michael.”

“I gathered that, or you wouldn't have let him kiss you.” Rachel's voice had gone dry and prickly. “At least, that's what I figure.”

“I didn't let him kiss me. I kissed him back.”

“I'm glad we got that straightened out.”

Sweet Rachel could be sarcastic when she put her mind to it. Phoebe ignored it so she could ask the question that weighed her down like a fifty-pound sack of feed. “What if God punishes us for it?”

“I don't think God's like that.”

“How do you know?”

“Mudder and Daed love God and they wouldn't worship a God who punished a boy and a girl for one kiss. He wouldn't take the girl's little sister to punish her. If Lydia dies, it's because it is her time to go. God has always known when He would call her home. What you do doesn't matter.”

“I hope you're right. It would be unjust for Him to take Lydia because of what I did.” Molly rolled over to her other side and squirmed. Phoebe fought to keep her voice down. “And I couldn't be baptized and join a church that worships that God.”

Rachel scooted closer and put her arm around Phoebe's shoulder. “It'll be fine. They'll find Lydia tomorrow and everything will be fine.”

“What if they don't?”

“You have to have faith.”

“Pray for me. I don't have the words.”

“All right.”

Rachel prayed and prayed. The words poured over Phoebe like clean, fresh water. She laid down again and Rachel did the same. “I'll always be your friend, no matter what,” she whispered. “Go to sleep. God is watching over us.”

Phoebe would rather He watched over Lydia.

Chapter 8

T
he park ranger—Katie couldn't remember his name, she couldn't remember any of these men's names, she could barely remember her own—used his thick body to block the trail. He stood with his back to Silas and her, talking to one of the men from the Army Corps of Engineers. Their voices were soft but the whispered, unintelligible words picked at her like barbed wire.

The park ranger looked back. She would never forget the expression on his young face, made haggard by two days and nights without sleep or rest, days of tramping through the wooded parkland looking for a tiny slip of a girl. Like he wished he were far, far away. His gaze fled from Katie to Silas and back as if he didn't know where to look.

He couldn't be more than twenty-six or twenty-seven, the age of their oldest son, Jesse. He probably hadn't done this before. Told parents news that would rip their hearts out as surely as if he'd taken a knife and cut open their chests. He probably didn't know what words to use. He took off his hat, revealing tousled yellow curls damp with sweat. They made him look even younger. Less official. Like a little boy playing at a grown-up game. His voice cracked, filled with so much sympathy. She wanted to push him away, push away his sympathy. She didn't need it. It wasn't her Lydia down there on the shores of this lake she'd once thought so beautiful. It couldn't be.

“You folks should wait back at the van. You don't want to be down
here.” He started forward as if to lead the way. “I don't know why they didn't tell you that up at base.”

Because Silas hadn't waited for their instructions. When he'd seen the volunteer rush into the search and rescue base set up near their camping site, he'd nodded to Mr. Chester, and they'd hurried, Luke and Thomas close behind, to the van to follow the white truck to this secluded, tree-covered spot less than two miles from their campsite.

Less than two miles.

The young man was right. Katie didn't want to go down to the edge of the water. It must be mid-afternoon now, but it seemed dark to her. It seemed dark, like mud and decaying leaves and rotting fish. Forty-eight hours. Forty-eight hours. Two days now since her Lydia had skipped out of the campsite in search of her big schweschder. Katie had this image in her head. She knew for certain Lydia had skipped. Because she always did. She skipped and hopped and ran. She never walked.

Katie shivered. The sun should feel warm on her face. It might even be burning her skin now, but she shivered with cold.

A flash of color. A tiny swatch of purple shone in that same sun. Light purple. Lilac.

Silas's hand gripped hers so hard she feared the bones in her fingers might be crushed. She bit her tongue to keep from crying out.

“Nee.”

He uttered the one syllable in a low, guttural sound barely distinguishable as language. It came from same deep place she held inside herself. A place where pieces of her heart ripped apart and were swallowed up in a sickening swirl of fear, disbelief, and horror.

“Is it…” She managed those two syllables. Stopped. Her mouth couldn't form the words.

“We have to wait for the medical examiner.” A muscle in the park ranger's cheek twitched. His breathing hiccupped on the word
examiner
. “He's on his way.”