2 Timothy 1:
7.
For God
gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and
self-control.
Kate was anxious and nervous that her colleague, Glen Tryston, was stalking her, and had to force herself to go about her normal chores. That was her best chance of staying safe. Today, she was tending the garden. She had gotten quite handy with such tasks since she had been sent to live among the Amish. Before she wouldn’t have known how to keep anything alive, but now she found the dirty work somewhat peaceful. It gave her a chance to think.
The sun had come up early and bright, and now, just past noon it was as high in the sky as it was going to get, and the heat was almost oppressive. Kate thought it was a perfect place to stop for a moment, to go inside and make herself a small lunch, and to scrounge up a cool drink.
Kate went after the drink first, pulling a tall glass from the hand carved cupboard which hung over her sink. She filled the glass and drank deeply, realizing she was hotter than she even thought. She carefully pulled the straw hat perched on top of the kapp from her head and set aside as she filled the glass once more and downed the cool water. She took a nearby hand towel, and dabbed it at her forehead before pulling the cap back on.
Lunch was a simple thing, just a sandwich made with thick slices of bread that Kate carved from a fat loaf, and a few pieces of leftover ham from a recent dinner. She ate slowly, standing over the sink, gazing out of the window and into the back yard. It really was a beautiful place, and Kate knew her time here was growing short. When she had first arrived, it had taken her some time to grow accustomed to everything. It was quite the culture shock. But now, she would miss the people, and even the lifestyle.
After the sandwich was gone, and the few dishes she had dirtied were in the sink waiting to be washed, Kate went back outside to the garden. She picked up the trowel she had set aside when she had gone in for lunch, and knelt carefully among the plants once more.
Kate was lost in her work, and she didn’t hear the engine of a car pulling into the gravel drive of the house, but she did hear the door close after someone climbed out. She turned and couldn’t help but smile when she saw Ryan coming around the side of the house, toward her.
“Ryan,” she said simply as she stood
It was obvious he was hot as well; his brow was sweaty, his hair damp, but like any look Kate had seen, it suited him.
“You don’t mind if I keep working, do you?” she asked, motioning to the flowers.
“No, not at all,” the police officer said. “I could help if you’d like, Kate.”
“I wouldn’t have pegged you as having much of a green thumb,” the pretend Amish woman said.
“My grandmother taught me,” Ryan said. “Whenever I went over to her house, we worked in her garden, until it got too hard for her to do it. Then I took care of it for her myself as a teenager.”
“I bet the other teenaged boys found that to be a strange hobby,” Kate said as she knelt again. Ryan knelt beside her and accepted a trowel from her. She was planting a few new plants, so they got to work digging holes.
“I never cared much about what people thought of me,” Ryan said. “Still don’t.”
“That’s an admirable trait to have,” Kate said.
“I guess so,” Ryan said with a laugh. “It makes life easier, I suppose.”
Kate found herself liking Ryan’s company, and she forgot that he had probably come for a reason.
“I wanted to tell you something,” he said. “About Jeremiah.”
“Oh,” Kate said, stopping working for a moment, and turning her head to look at Ryan. “Is he okay?”
“Yes,” Ryan said. “Actually, we released him.”
“Oh, that’s good news!” Kate was overjoyed.
“His prints were nowhere to be found on the bottle of poison.”
“I should think not,” Kate said. “I knew he didn’t have anything to do with this whole mess.”
“Well, you were right,” the cop said with a smile. “As always.”
“I am right a lot, aren’t I?” Kate said, teasing him.
“You are. I admit it,” Ryan said. “You’d make a good cop.”
Kate laughed. If only Ryan knew the truth about her. She wasn’t exactly a cop, but she had more in common with that world than she did with the Amish one.
“A witness came forward as well, someone who saw someone at the cafe, a different man. He didn’t fit Jeremiah’s description at all. Anyway, we’ve put out an APB out on him. Oh, that’s an all points bulletin; it just means that law enforcement needs to be looking for him.”
Kate nodded, as if this was news to her. Of course, she knew what an APB was, but she couldn’t let Ryan know that. “So that guy, whoever he is, he’s here? In town?”
Ryan shrugged a bit as he reached over for one of the potted plants. He held the new plant by its stem near the soil, and gently tugged it free of the dark green, plastic pot. He quickly transferred it to the soil, sliding it into one of the holes they had dug together. He began patting the loose soil around the stem down, and Kate reached over to help him. Her hand brushed his. Both of them suddenly stopped.
They both had felt it, Kate knew, that electric shock of attraction, when their fingers had brushed against one another's. They looked at one another, and Kate felt like a young girl in high school again. She blushed and turned her head away, getting back to digging a hole. Her attention lapsed, and she brought the somewhat sharp edge of her trowel down onto the side of her index finger.
“Ow!” she said, dropping her trowel and bringing the wound to her lips.
“Are you all right?” Ryan asked.
“I just cut my hand. I was careless, really,” Kate said.
“Let me see it,” Ryan said, reaching out for her hand. He took it and pulled it away from her mouth. “That’s a pretty bad cut. You might be right all of the time, but you sure are clumsy.”
Kate laughed. “There are some bandages inside,” she said, as she stood.
Ryan stood as well, bending to knock the dirt away from the knees of his uniform. “I’ll help, and then I should be going,” the cop said softly. They went into Beth’s house together.
Kate went to a small cabinet near the corner of the living room. She opened the door to reveal three small shelves. She pulled out a clear, plastic bottle of alcohol and a white box of bandages. “I can handle it myself, though,” she said with a smile.
“I know, but I’m a police officer. Protect and serve and all that. I didn’t protect you, so now I’ll serve.”
“What would you have protected me from?”
“Your own clumsiness,” Ryan joked.
Kate put on an angry face, but she was only kidding, and it only served to make Ryan laugh. “You don’t look very tough; I’m sorry to say,” he said.
If only he knew, Kate thought. Aloud she said, “I’m pretty tough. Looks can be deceiving; isn’t that what they say?”
“I suppose so,” Ryan said. “You’re a lot of things, but tough isn’t one of them. Well, you may be tough; I should say intimidating isn’t one of them.”
“I can be plenty intimidating,” Kate said, inwardly smiling at the irony, as she moved to the back of the cabin and into the kitchen.
“Oh yeah?” Ryan asked, following her.
“Are you going to help me with this or not?” Kate asked.
“Of course,” the sheriff said, coming forward and taking the bottle of alcohol. He opened the lid and made a face. “Oh, that smells.”
Kate smiled. “Don’t tell me you can’t handle a little first aid work.”
“Run your cut under the water, get it cleaned off, will you?” Ryan said with a wide grin. Kate did as he asked, and then held her hand over the sink while Ryan poured some of the alcohol onto the wound in order to sterilize it. Kate grimaced as the liquid bit into her cut.
“Pretty impressive,” Ryan said. “Barely even noticed a change in your face.”
He was joking of course; the grimace would have been impossible to miss. “Oh hush,” Kate said. The cop then opened the box of bandages and pulled one out. It was thin, wrapped in paper and had adhesive at the sides so it could stick to the skin around the cut. He held the bandage over the cut and then pressed down, making sure the cut was completely covered. When he was done, he stepped back.
“Better?” he asked. He hadn’t let go of Kate’s hand yet.
“Yes,” she said.
“Have you thought about what I asked? Leaving the Amish community?”
“Yes,” Kate said.
“Would you?”
“Yes,” she said, again. Of course, the choice wasn’t a hard one for her, she wasn’t Amish at all. Ryan smiled, and he stepped forward, closing the slight gap that had existed between their bodies. Kate looked up to the man, her pulse quickening, her heart beginning to pound within her chest. He bent a bit, brought his head down, his lips going for hers.
And Kate wanted to kiss him; of course she did, but then she thought that she was not acting like an Amish woman. She also thought about her real life. She didn’t live anywhere near here, not even in this state. She wasn’t Amish. She had a life, and a job, and it was across the country. And her time was running out. She would be going back to her real life soon; she knew that. It wasn’t fair to Ryan to pretend otherwise, and it wasn’t fair to herself.
“No,” she said, moving her head back just before their lips came together. She pulled her hand from his.
“No?” he asked. “No what?”
“No. Not right now.”
Ryan looked confused. He just smiled and nodded. “Keep that cut clean, all right?” he said, and then he turned and left in a hurry. Kate stood by her sink, her eyes on the door long after he had gone out. She didn’t know if she had made a mistake or not, but it sure felt like it.