Colton Destiny Page 9

  Caleb drew back sharply. “Hannah?”

  “No, sorry,” Emma said quickly. “They sent me photos, and neither girl is a match to any of ours. It may well be nothing, just coincidence, but I don’t want to miss anything that could possibly be related.”

  Any of ours.

  She’d said it as if she truly felt it. As if the missing girls were a part of her own community. He liked that despite the touch of bitterness he’d seen before, she could still feel that way.

  There were depths to Agent Emma Colton that were intriguing.

  He recoiled. That way of thinking led to nothing but trouble. Lovely, empathetic and smart, she was all of that. And yes, intriguing.

  And to him, apparently, dangerous.

  Chapter 12

  There was no doubt about it, Emma thought as she drove back from Harrisburg in the rapidly fading light after chasing the lead that had indeed been unrelated. The older man had simply been transporting his niece and her best friend back home after a weekend at his farm. An afternoon wasted, yet necessarily.

  No, no doubt at all—every woman she’d met in Paradise Ridge had her sights on Caleb, either for herself or her daughter or niece or a friend.

  She could understand why, of course. All the practical

  reasons: he made a good living, had a solidly built home, a nice buggy and, from the brief glance she’d gotten when the girls had pointed him out, a strong, steady sorrel gelding to pull it.

  As for the impractical reasons, he had those in spades, too. That tall, strong body, the light color of his eyes against dark hair, the strong, even features. And his hands. Those talented, dexterous, strong yet gentle hands that created such beauty. She could go into raptures over those hands.

  Lord, she was going into raptures over them.

  As a distraction, she tried to picture him with the mustache-less beard Amish tradition demanded of married men, a look so foreign to her world. But no matter what she did, she couldn’t make him anything less than the most handsome man she’d seen in a very long time.

  Her fingers drummed against the steering wheel, not idly like someone stuck in traffic, but with purpose. What purpose she wasn’t sure, unless it was to dissipate some of the excess energy and emotion that seemed to pile up in her every time her mind turned to Caleb Troyer.

  When she realized, as she approached Paradise Ridge, that her subconscious mind had assumed she was headed for Caleb’s house, she took her foot off the accelerator and nearly hit the brakes. Reflexively she looked in the rearview mirror, as if she had to know what kind of chaos she would have caused had she done so.

  None, it seemed. There wasn’t a car to be seen behind her. The tourist season was winding down, she supposed. The last of the autumn leaves had vanished, and the weather was turning from brisk to downright cold. No snow yet, but the inevitability of it hovered. And this time of year the days ended early, with sunset before five o’clock.

  A tiny sigh escaped her as she thought of the Double C in winter, blanketed in pristine white, one of her favorite times of year. Building snow creatures—she’d always had a knack for particularly lifelike dogs—snow forts and the usual snowball fights with her brothers. It had usually ended up Derek and Tate against her and Gunnar, who, with oldest-brother instincts and that Colton sense of responsibility, had always sided with her in those epic battles.

  And now Gunnar was fighting an epic battle of his own, with his own mind and memories.

  She fought down her chronic worry; they all knew there was nothing they could do to help their big brother until he admitted he needed it.

  She’d managed to distract herself, finally, but the end

  result was that she’d ended up at Caleb’s house as if the car had been on autopilot. It wasn’t that she didn’t have reason to be here. If he was a man of her world, she could simply have called him with the information that the lead in Harrisburg had gone nowhere. But he was not, and the only way she had to tell him was face-to-face.

  Part of her cringed inwardly at the idea of living without even a telephone except the one used for emergencies. It sat in an outside booth—to discourage any long, cozy winter chats, she supposed—beside Deacon Stoltzfus’s home. A second was in the small commercial district, outside the bakery. And that was the extent of the wired connection with the outside world.

  She knew the reasons, knew that it was all part of the protection of the community. When you didn’t have a phone, you had to maintain in-person connections with the people in your life, which in turn fostered the sense of community the Amish world rested upon. Cell phones, she knew, were still a topic of much debate in the varied Amish communities, their unwired nature making them acceptable for some, while others felt the same principles applied.

  And yet, while the modern, connected part of her cringed, another part of her yearned for the peace that would come if she simply dumped her smartphone. She’d shut it off for a long period after her personal visit to hell two years ago, and it had been...restorative, if unsettling to her friends and family.

  The house was more prepared for cars than many Amish homes, probably because of what Caleb had told her about his father using the beautifully built place as an advertisement for his skills. Pride, she knew, was a particular sin for these people, but satisfaction in work well done was something else.

  For a moment after she turned off the engine, she just sat there, looking at the house. At the glow of the lamps through the windows, seeming somehow warmer and more golden than electric lighting. She guessed there was likely a fire going in the woodstove, the girls were probably finishing their homework at the solid, simple table built by their father, and it suddenly seemed so appealing she wished she could simply step inside and belong.

  Shaken by the fierceness of that wish, she nearly started the car and drove away. She was, in fact, reaching for the key in the ignition when the front door of the house opened. Caleb stood there, no doubt having heard the unaccustomed sound of the engine.

  “Well, now you’re stuck,” she muttered and instead pulled the keys out and put them in her jacket pocket. She slipped reluctantly out of the car.

  “Agent Em—Colton?”

  There was no excuse for the silly leap her heart took as she heard him make the abrupt shift from the name the girls called her to the more formal Agent Colton. But the leap was followed by a tumble, as she wondered why he’d begun to use the girls’ term. Had she been a topic of conversation? Had he perhaps warned them not to get too close to the outsider? Or fond of her? It would be typical, she thought as she closed the distance between them.

  And it would hurt, she admitted. Because she had already become fond of those girls. Katie, with her shy sensitivity, Ruthie, all live wire and bristling intelligence, and sweet little Grace. They had an innocence she couldn’t help but respond to, and that innocence fired even further her determination that this ugliness not mar their lives forever.

  Not to mention that the thought of what their beloved Hannah and her friends could be going through sent dual knives of horror and fury through her.

  “Are you all right?”

  His voice had changed, warmed, taken on a note of concern. She could only imagine what her face must have looked like.

  “I’m...fine.” It took her a moment to get out the lie. Great time for that endless loop of unforgettable images to start running in her mind, she thought, with the strongest sense of bitterness she’d felt in months. She marshaled her energy, knowing what it would take to beat the images back and maintain control.

  “You do not look fine,” he said bluntly. “Come inside and sit down.”

  He was an amazing combination of strength and gentleness, a combination too often lacking in the men of her world. Outside her brothers, that is. It was undeniably compelling, and she followed him inside.

  The girls were indeed at the table, books and papers spread before them. They greeted her happily, but at a single word from Caleb went back to their schoolwork.r />
  Little Grace was in a tiny wood rocking chair—no doubt built by her father’s loving hands—in front of the woodstove, looking at her with wide-eyed curiosity. She’d not seen that much of the toddler, only enough to see what a beautiful child she was, chubby-cheeked, with the nearly white-blond curls of childhood.

  And he was a man in the difficult position of single father, yet while stern, he never seemed to lose his gentleness with his girls. And they clearly adored him, which told her much; she’d seen too many kids who feared or downright hated their parents not to see the difference.

  And even though he had the help of his community, a strong, united sort of help you would also rarely find in her world, he was raising them himself. And in his way, helping the community as much as anyone. The deacon, a rule-enforcing sort of man, had unbent long enough to reiterate what Mrs. Yoder had told her, that when someone in the community needed financial help, or there was a barn to be built, or repairs to be done, Caleb was the first in line.

  Yes, he was a man who would be considered admirable in either world....

  After my wife died, all I wished was to leave, get away, escape....

  She remembered now his stunned look in the moment after he’d spoken those words. She realized now he hadn’t meant to let that out, about having wanted to leave.

  He led her to the same chair she’d sat in before. She took it gratefully, although she shouldn’t feel so weak when she’d done more driving today than anything else. But she knew the real reason, knew how much fighting that tide of memories took out of her, and this was the strongest fight she’d had to put up in some time.

  Moments later he was back, holding out a cup of coffee to her. “There is sugar and milk, if you wish.”

  “No, thank you, this is perfect,” she said as she took the cup and cradled it in hands that welcomed the warmth. The deep, rich liquid gave her a jolt that was as welcome as the warmth, and she felt a bit more in control.

  “There is bad news,” he said, and it wasn’t a question. All movement from the table stopped, and Ruthie and Katie both turned their heads.

  It took her mind, still divided by the effort to shove vicious memories back in their cage, a moment to process that he had, quiet naturally, assumed that her tension was due to bearing bad news.

  “No, no,” she said hastily. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to give you that impression. There’s no news.”

  She explained what she’d found in Harrisburg. She saw him let out a long breath.

  “Sometimes no news is good news,” she said.

  “For how long?” he asked.

  She realized what he was asking, how long before not knowing became worse than knowing the truth, even if the truth was the worst.

  “We’ll find them,” she said, her jaw tightening.

  The images rose again, battling against all her efforts, trying to find a way around all the techniques she’d ever been taught about how to keep them at bay. She had no way of knowing if what they were going through was anything like what she’d endured two years ago, but she couldn’t seem to stop imagining Hannah and her friends in a similar dark, evil place.

  “Girls? Mind your schoolwork. We will be in the kitchen.”

  We will? Emma thought, puzzled and, thankfully, distracted.

  But she followed, thinking perhaps there was something he wished to ask her out of earshot of the girls. The kitchen was barely that, being just around a corner but not really a separate room.

  He pulled out a chair at a table that was a twin to the one out front, except for being made of a different kind of wood, with a redder tone and the most amazing pattern of grain she’d seen since...since she’d seen the sideboard in his shopwindow.

  She sat down, unable to stop herself from reaching out to trace the pattern with a fingertip.

  “You are truly an artist, Caleb.” She realized instantly she’d used his first name, hardly proper protocol. “I’m sorry. Mr. Troyer.”

  He looked at her for a long moment, then took the chair to her right. “Caleb will do.”

  She let out a breath of relief that he hadn’t taken offense.

  “Emma, then. Please.”

  After a moment’s hesitation, he nodded. She took a long sip of the coffee, needing the restorative jolt.

  “What is it,” he asked, “that you’re not saying?”

  She knew then that the horror of that parade of memories had shown in her face.

  Or Caleb Troyer was more perceptive than she’d given him credit for.

  “It’s nothing to do with Hannah.”

  “What is it, then, that made you look terrified and furious at the same time?”

  Okay, more perceptive wins, she thought. With an effort, she said merely, “I loathe predators who target women and children.”

  “They are among the most loathsome of creations,” Caleb said evenly, not as if he didn’t believe it, but as if he believed it so profoundly it didn’t require any emphasis. And after a moment of studying her, he said quietly, “You have seen much of such things.”

  The memories assailed her, and she couldn’t stop the bitter sounding “Too much” from escaping. “It is why I must always fight the urge to be judge, jury and executioner when it comes to that particular sort of predator.”

  “That you are able to is a testament to your strength,” he said quietly.

  She was startled at how deeply the quiet compliment touched her. Uncertain how to respond—was she ever not uncertain around this man?—she murmured, “Sometimes I don’t feel very strong.”

  “And yet you continue. Strength doesn’t mean you smash all opposition. It means you simply keep going in the face of it.”

  She stared at him, at this man who lived a life so different from her own, plain, simple, free of the technology and chaos that her own world seemed to rain down upon them all.

  Such words from such a quarter reminded her that wisdom didn’t always descend from more hallowed halls than a simple Amish house.

  Chapter 13

  “Believe me, I’d help if I could. But out there, I’m too busy just trying to find my way around to notice much. They need more street signs out there.”

  “I suppose they all know where they’re going,” Emma said to the young delivery driver who, while more than cooperative, apparently hadn’t seen—or hadn’t noticed—anything helpful.

  “If we come up with anything specific to ask you about, I may be back.”

  The young man looked her up and down unabashedly. “Anytime,” he said with a grin.

  The compliment was obvious, and Emma appreciated it. But Caleb’s quiet comment on her strength last night had meant much more to her. Because it wasn’t a reaction to her looks? Or because it had come from him?

  She wasn’t sure. And she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

  The driver worked a later shift, so the sun was fading as she headed back to Paradise Ridge. She had to pass the spot where the missing girls had last been seen. Although she’d already spent several hours there over the past few days, she stopped again.

  For a moment she just stood there, looking at the big, red barn. She had seen an Amish barn raising as a child; her father had taken her to watch. And she’d noticed, even then, that he’d been as intrigued as she had been.

  “Teamwork,” he’d murmured. “The living, breathing example of perfect teamwork.”

  She walked around, her eyes always searching. It was unlikely but always possible some clue had been missed. She focused on the ground around the barn first, including the three stepped-back stone retaining walls. These, too, had obviously been built by a superior craftsman; the intricate placing of stones without mortar was as much of an art form as the barn itself.

  This was a larger barn than the one she’d seen built that day long ago. And it had taken longer than the single day that one had. It looked as new as it was, as yet unweathered, its fresh red paint clean and almost shiny. No one would ever guess that shortly after its comple
tion, this quiet community would be thrown into chaos.

  It was as she was rounding the large feed silo attached to the side of the barn that she heard a noise from inside. She frowned slightly; the local deputies had asked the family who owned the barn to keep it clear until the lab had finished processing the huge inventory of evidence that had been gathered. Witnesses had reported each of the three girls being seen in various locations at the party just before they went missing, and each of those locations had had to be searched, any possible evidence gathered, cataloged and processed.

  That the delay in calling the authorities might have made all that work a moot point was something she tried not to dwell upon.

  She walked around to the far end of the barn where there was a small door next to the larger, sliding doors. It was open.

  She wasn’t really concerned, but she did check her sidearm, clearing her jacket out of the way and resting her right hand on the grip. She closed her eyes for a moment, both to enhance her listening and to start the adjustment of her vision to what would be a darker interior. Then she stepped inside, taking care to make no sound.

  She spotted him immediately, the man who stood near the center of the big space. Her breath caught, her pulse sped up. His back was to her, and his clothes were indistinguishable from any other man’s in the community. But she knew. Somehow, she knew.

  As if he’d sensed her presence, he went very still. And slowly, he turned around.

  For a moment, she couldn’t move. And he didn’t move. Yet she felt a pull, unlike anything she’d ever felt before, as if some invisible, unbreakable wire connected them. And it was being reeled in, creating that pull.

  In almost the same instant they both moved. Slowly at first, as if he was resisting as much as she. As if he were as reluctant as she. As if he felt the same sense of fighting the inevitable that she was feeling.

  She tried to laugh at herself and her unaccustomed sense of drama. This wasn’t some big, dramatic moment, filled with atmosphere and tension.