As soon as the trailer door was opened, Kevin and Rose Anne led Michael and Carolyn inside. Michael longed to close his eyes and lean back against the cushions and shut out the world until it stopped spinning like a maddened top. His head ached, and he couldn’t see past the swelling around his left eye. Breathing made him sound like a beached trout, because he had to gasp for air through his mouth. His nose might not be broken, but it sure felt that way.
He was grateful they hadn’t had to maneuver back across the weakened boards of the covered bridge. Her neighbors had assisted the kinder, Carolyn and him to where someone had built a wooden footbridge across the brook. He wondered how he’d missed that way across the brook earlier.
Everyone else stayed outside the cramped trailer. He heard someone offer to go for a doktor and someone else suggested opening the kitchen at the community center because it might be a long night while they waited to hear if Leland had been apprehended.
He sat on the narrow sofa while Rose Anne ran to the bathroom. Her brother followed her, standing outside the closed door in a clear message that he didn’t intend to let anyone threaten his sister again.
“Are you okay, Michael?” Carolyn whispered.
“I will be once Leland is caught.”
“They’ll catch him.” She looked toward where Kevin now sat on her bed where he could keep an eye on the bathroom door.
He wished he shared her optimism. The authorities were on Leland’s trail, and if he was nabbed, he’d be arrested. But only if they caught him.
“I’m sorry you got drawn into this.” Her slow, careful motions warned she was hurting worse than she’d admit to.
Glen walked into the trailer without knocking. He gave them a grim nod, but motioned for them to stay where they were.
Michael realized the project director had taken on the same job Kevin had, guarding a door. People kept coming to the trailer, asking questions and trying to sort truth from the rumors raging through the village. Some of the tales were dumm, like the one that suggested the kinder had encountered a bear and were either dead or maimed.
Ja, they’d confronted a beast, but a human one.
He was relieved Glen was handling the door. Every time Michael spoke, his lip started bleeding again. He watched when Carolyn went to comfort Kevin, who was shaking so hard he feared the boy’s slight body would come apart.
A rush of anger swelled as fast as his lip. What they’d witnessed tonight no kind should have to see and hear. If Leland had been thinking of anyone but himself, he would have realized he risked scarring his kinder for the rest of their lives. The thought of Kevin and Rose Anne being in their daed’s control sent a shudder of disgust through him.
“Michael?” asked Carolyn as she walked back to him.
Knowing she’d sensed his increased tension, he reached for her hand. He winced when he moved his thumb.
“I’m okay,” he said past his split lip. “Confused my hand with a nail earlier today.”
“Remind me not to let you teach Kevin how to use a hammer.”
His smile became more sincere. She was doing what she always did. She was trying to make those around her feel better, though her own heart must have been hurting.
As soon as the bathroom door opened, Kevin jumped from the bed and threw his arms around his sister, startling her. Rose Anne began to cry. The poor kind had feared a man who was a stranger to her would take her away from the only mamm she knew.
Carolyn reached into the raised bed where Kevin slept. She pulled down the well-loved stuffed toys the kinder kept close each night.
“Here are some friends who want to see you,” she murmured, her voice distorted by her bruised cheek, as she handed the dog and rabbit to the kinder.
Both Kevin and Rose Anne tossed the toys aside and threw their arms around her, clinging to her. Michael heard a sob slip through her lips, a sound she hadn’t made even when she was knocked off her feet.
But he realized as he watched her put her arms around the kinder, her reaction was one of joy.
“I’m sorry,” Kevin moaned.
“For what, dearest?” she asked.
“I was wrong,” he said. “I like my name. I don’t want the name that bad man gave me.”
She knelt by the kinder. Though he knew how painful it must have been, she smiled. “He didn’t give you those names. Your mamm did.” She brushed the tearstains from their cheeks. “Devon, the name she gave you, Kevin, means divine because you are a gift from God. She chose Rosina as your name, Rose Anne, because it was the name of her favorite flower—a rose—and Ina, our mother’s name, two things she cherished almost as much as she did you.”
“Really?” asked Rose Anne.
“Really. You can choose if you want to be Kevin or Devon, Rose Anne or Rosina.”
The two kinder looked at each other, overwhelmed. Carolyn must have seen that, too, because she stood, kissed them both on the head and said that no decision had to be made until they were ready.
The trailer door opened, and Glen stepped aside as Beth Ann walked up the steps. The midwife’s eyes grew big as she stared at him and Carolyn, but she quickly recovered.
She had the kinder sit at the table and served them some orange juice she found in the refrigerator. From the tiny freezer, she pulled a tray of ice cubes. She put them in a bowl and frowned.
“Glen, have someone go over to the store and get some ice out of the box there.” She didn’t wait to see if he followed her order while she wrapped a handful of cubes in a dish towel. Handing it to Michael, Beth Ann said, “You will be using this for twenty minutes. I’ll set the timer on the stove. When it beeps, take the ice off and let your skin rest for twenty minutes. Then keep repeating at least until the bleeding stops. Better yet, until the swelling starts to go down.”
“All right.” He was more than happy to spend the next twenty minutes sitting beside Carolyn, who was given a similar bundle of ice.
“Don’t let the ice press directly against your skin,” the midwife cautioned. “You don’t want to cause more damage. Look at me, Michael.”
He did, and she aimed a flashlight at each of his eyes before doing the same to Carolyn.
“Any double vision?” Beth Ann asked.
“No,” they answered as one.
He smiled at Carolyn, who smiled back...and they both winced at the same time. But for the first time in a long time, he felt something he’d almost forgotten.
Happy.
When the children didn’t protest going to sleep in her bed, Carolyn was astonished. Beth Ann had given Michael and her a cursory examination after they’d used the ice for tweny minutes and had said there were no signs of physical trauma, other than the skinned knee Kevin got when Leland shoved him away. Last Christmas Eve, the two had been too excited to sleep as they waited to unwrap the presents she’d bought for them as well as the ones she’d made.
This year, their gifts had been washed away in the October flood. The void in her heart that opened each time she’d thought of what they’d lost usually sent an ache deep within her. Tonight, she was celebrating she hadn’t lost what was most precious to her.
“You need to use this again,” Michael said, handing her an ice pack.
“It’s been twenty minutes already?” She hadn’t realized how long she’d been standing by the door, watching the children drift into their dreams and praying the nightmare they’d endured wouldn’t follow them into their sleep.
“Ja.” He took her hand and drew her back to sit beside him on the sofa.
She longed to lean her head on his broad shoulder, but brushing her aching cheek against his shirt sent a bolt of pain through her. She contented herself with sitting close enough to him that she could feel each shallow breath he took. Wondering how long it would be before he was able to breathe normally again, she hoped the doctor would arrive soon.
A soft knock came at the door. Was that the doctor at last? No, because Benjamin came in with Pastor Hershey on his heels. Without speaking, they motioned for Carolyn and Michael to remain where they were.
Only after the two men had joined Glen at the tiny table did Pastor Hershey ask, “Where are the children?”
“Asleep in the bedroom.” She pointed toward the door that was slightly ajar.
“Can you make sure they’re asleep?” Glen asked.
She started to nod, but halted as pain streaked through her head like a bolt of lightning. She pushed herself to her feet. When Michael stood, cupping her elbow, she whispered her thanks. Assuring herself the children were sound asleep, she walked back to the sofa.
Pastor Hershey spoke into the silence. “I’ve been informed Leland Reber is in custody.”
“They caught him!” She breathed a sigh of relief.
“Not exactly.”
“I don’t understand.”
Benjamin said quietly, “Leland either drove his car off the road or lost control of it. Whatever happened—and the police will determine that—he was discovered in the car, injured. He’s on his way to the hospital now.”
She started to put her hand to her lips. She caught herself before she could touch her aching face.
“He’s going to be charged with assault and battery as well as abduction of a child. The last is the big felony. If convicted, he’ll go to jail for a long time.” The minister wore a grim smile. “Long enough for the children to grow up.”
“Will they have to testify at the trial?” she asked.
“Let’s deal with each problem as it comes,” Pastor Hershey said, “and trust God to watch over His children, both big and small.” He invited them to join him in prayer, and new tears fell down her cheeks when he included Leland in his supplications.
“Thank you,” she said when he was finished.
“Of course.” He stood.
Glen did, as well. “Let’s get a good night’s sleep tonight and tomorrow night before we head back to work the day after tomorrow. Installing drywall is nobody’s favorite job. We’ll start bright and early on Thursday on your walls, Carolyn.”
“You’re going to finish my house?”
Glen exchanged a bewildered frown with Benjamin before he looked at Michael as if hoping he’d explain what she meant. “Why wouldn’t we finish your house, Carolyn?”
“I wasn’t honest about who I am. I’m not a single mother, and I’m not Carolyn Wiebe. I’m Cora Hilty.”
Glen put a calming hand on her shoulder. “You never told me or anyone here a lie. You are responsible for these two children, and you are in need of a home for them. What you call yourself isn’t important. Nothing else matters to me or the organization I represent.” He turned to Michael. “I assume the same could be said for Amish Helping Hands.”
“I don’t speak for the organization,” he replied, “but I can’t imagine any of us walking away before the house is finished. Especially me because I haven’t had a chance to do that finishing work I’ve been looking forward to tackling.”
Shortly after, with wishes for a Merry Christmas, the three men left, and for the first time that evening, it was quiet in the trailer.
Michael took her hand. When she looked at him, suddenly shy when she thought of everything they’d left in limbo, he said, “It’s over, Carolyn.”
“Cora,” she replied. What would her real name sound like on his lips?
She almost laughed at how his split lip distorted every word he spoke, but the laughter would have been laced with tears. After four years of fearing Leland Reber was ready to ambush her and the kinder, tonight she didn’t have to pray another day would come and go without his finding them.
“You’re going to need to decide what you want to do now, Carolyn.” He grinned. “I mean, Cora. It’s going to take me some time to get used to your new-old name.”
“Me, too.”
“What do you plan to do?”
“First I have to forgive Leland.”
“Can you?”
“I must.” She closed her eyes, but opened them again when anguish swelled through her head. “Something is wrong in his heart. I saw it just after he struck me. He was terrified you would hurt him. I don’t know when or how or who, but someone, sometime, somewhere hurt him, and it did something to his heart. I will pray he finds healing in God’s love.”
Michael regarded her without speaking, then leaned forward and pressed his lips to her forehead. “Will you be able to forgive yourself, too, when you did the only thing you could to safeguard the kinder?”
“I’m going to try. I’m going to write my friends in Indiana and let them know where we are.”
“I’m sure they’ll want you to come there.”
“Most likely.”
“I see.”
She hesitated when she heard all the emotion vanish from his voice like water down a drain. Tossing aside all caution, she asked, “What do you see?”
“What do you mean?”
“Are you going to sit there and tell me you don’t care if Kevin, Rose Anne and I go back to Indiana while you return to your life in New York?”
His eyes snapped as they had on the bridge. “Of course I care. But I won’t let my yearnings get in the way of what you think is best for the kinder.”
“What’s best for them is to be with someone who loves them as much as I do.” She put her hand on his uninjured cheek. “And that’s you. Kevin has adored you since you met, and Rose Anne, like always, wasn’t far behind him. However, this time, I wasn’t, either. I want you in our lives, Michael.”
“Are you asking me to marry you, Cora Hilty? Proposing to a man isn’t something a plain woman would do.”
“You need to know that I intend to live an Amish life...starting tomorrow.”
“So you can propose to me tonight?” His eyes twinkled with merriment. “Well, you’re too late.”
“What?” She sat straighter, then wished she hadn’t when pain arced across her head. “What do you mean I’m too late? Have you made up your mind about baptism?”
“Ja, I’ve decided. But Kevin already asked me to marry you and become his daed-onkel.”
“He did?”
“When he mentioned you were his mamm-aenti.” Leaning his forehead against hers, he said, “I never gave him an answer, and then I was a complete fool when you told me about Leland.” He told her what he’d decided on the bridge when he faced Leland and made his choice of the life he wanted. “God opened my heart to Him and showed me that my life should be lived as an Amish man.”
“I’m so happy for you, Michael.”
“And be happy for yourself, because my answer to Kevin’s proposal and yours is ja. I want to marry you, even if I can’t remember what to call you right now. Why don’t I call you my future wife?”
“Ich liebe dich, Michael Miller.” She kissed him on his cheek.
He traced a feathery line along her lips. “As soon as I can, I want a real kiss.”
“As many as you want, especially if it takes the rest of my life to give them all to you.”