STUNNED, JOANNA GROPED her way toward understanding. She heard the car screech off in the distance, but she couldn’t see it. Moving her arms cautiously, she found that they were still working. She reached out with her hands and felt soft, damp grass underneath her, while above her the darkness formed itself into the buggy.
That explained it. The buggy had tipped. She’d slid off the seat and the soft earth of the roadside ditch had cushioned her fall. Squirming a little, she found that she’d probably be able to get out with a bit of help, but Princess—
Her heart clutched, and for an instant she couldn’t breathe. “Princess.”
As if in answer, she heard the horse move. Working her way up on her elbows, she could see the mare’s paler color against the darker surroundings. No way of telling if she was injured, but she’d certainly be trapped between the harness and the shafts.
Hearing her scrabble with her legs, Joanna reached out to pat what proved to be the mare’s haunch. “It’s all right, girl. Just be easy. I’ll get you out. Hush now.”
The tone of voice, if not the words, seemed to get through to the mare. Princess stopped thrashing, and in another moment, Joanna heard her champing at the damp grass.
Now to get herself out. Before she could make the attempt, she heard a car approaching, heading for town. Thanking God that the battery lights were still working, she crunched herself as far from the road as she could get.
But she’d obviously been seen. The car slowed, drawing carefully to the side of the road, and warning lights started flashing. Relief flooded through her. She wasn’t alone.
Car doors slammed, and footsteps rushed toward her. “Hello? Is anyone there?”
“I’m here,” she called. “Under the buggy.”
She heard exclamations, and then someone moving toward her. A flashlight shone briefly in her face and then moved away.
“Are you all right?” It was a man’s voice, and she could see the shape of him now.
“I don’t think I’m hurt.” Until she could move entirely, she wouldn’t be sure.
Beyond him, illuminated by the battery lamp, a woman leaned in. “We’ll get you out.” She spoke in much the same comforting tone that Joanna had used to Princess.
“Looks like it’s just your foot that’s caught under this piece of metal.” The man gave an experimental tug. “If I lift it up, can you pull it out?”
“Yah, I’m sure I can. Denke. Thank you,” she added, not sure they would understand the word.
“Okay, on the count of three.” He didn’t waste any time. “One, two, three.” He lifted, and she scrambled out, feeling the woman’s hands helping her.
Sensing Joanna’s movement, the mare made a convulsive attempt to free herself. Joanna spoke quickly in Pennsylvania Dutch, soothing her.
The woman touched her arm. “Are you sure you’re not hurt? Maybe we should call 911.”
“No, please don’t.” She probably sounded upset and hoped they couldn’t tell how shaken she was. Thinking of all the fuss if the police came made her feel worse. “I’ll be a little bruised, but I’m all right.” She took a breath, trying to get her mind to work. She had to see if Princess was hurt. Her stomach tightened at the thought. “Can you shine the light over here? I must see if the horse is injured and get her out before she hurts herself.”
“I don’t know much about horses, but...”
Before he could go on, a voice called out from the farm lane, and Joanna realized that it belonged to an Amish neighbor. Relief flowed through her. Aaron would help her with the horse.
“Aaron?” she called out in Pennsylvania Dutch. “Is that Aaron Esch?”
A figure materialized out of the dark. “Yah, it’s me. Joanna, what happened?”
“A car just clipped the buggy and sent us into your ditch.” Realizing the Englishers wouldn’t understand, she switched to Englisch. “These kind folks helped me get out.”
With the added light from the lantern Aaron was carrying, she could make them out more clearly. Fortyish, a married couple, she’d guess, the woman looking anxious and the man clearly relieved that someone else had come to help.
“I’m Joanna Kohler,” she said. “I have the quilt shop in town, if you know it.”
“Of course,” the woman exclaimed. “I should have recognized you. I’m Patty Moore, and this is my husband, Tim.”
Now that the courtesies had been observed, Joanna turned her attention to Princess. Aaron knelt beside the mare as two of his boys hurried up to them with large flashlights.
“Mamm says to say come in the house if you want.” The older one, Thomas, smiled shyly at Joanna.
“Denke, Thomas. And tell your Mamm I said thanks, please.”
She turned back to the mare, kneeling beside her head. “Is she all right? I haven’t had a good look at her yet.”
Aaron moved around the mare, studying her by the lantern’s light. “No scrapes or cuts. We’ll have to get her out to see anything more.”
“Thank the gut Lord. We’d best try to get the harness off first, and then I think I can lead her out.”
Both the men started talking at once, suggesting the best way of doing that, and Joanna’s head started to spin. She couldn’t very well shout at them, but she’d like to.
Before she lost control of herself, a buggy was heard coming quickly down the road. The relief she felt when she saw Noah told her too much about her feelings for him, and she struggled to control the tears that rushed to her eyes.
She stood as he ran to her. “I’m not hurt,” she said quickly, glad of his stolid calm. “We need to get the mare out.”
With a searching glance as if to be sure she was telling the truth about herself, Noah nodded. In a moment he had begun unbuckling the harness. He and Aaron, working together, had it off in minutes and checked to be sure nothing else was entangled in Princess’s legs.
“I think she can...” But before Noah could finish the thought, Princess gave a convulsive heave and scrambled to her feet. Shaking a little, she turned to nuzzle Joanna.
“You’re all right, girl.” She stroked the mare, relieved.
“She can stay in my barn tonight,” Aaron offered, running a hand along the mare’s legs.
Noah glanced at her. “If she’s moving all right, maybe it’s best to keep her moving so she doesn’t stiffen up, ain’t so? I can tie her to the back of my buggy and take both her and Joanna home.”
“I think that would be best,” Joanna said. “Denke, Aaron.”
Her smile included the boys. Thomas, without a word, handed her a lead rope he must have pulled from the buggy.
“That’s just what we need. Denke.”
She and Thomas led the mare a short distance along the road, to be sure she was walking all right. It also gave Joanna a chance to assess her own body. There’d be bruises, for sure, but she seemed to have come out of it whole.
Thomas looked at her for approval, and she nodded, smiling inwardly at his shyness. With an air of pleasure at helping, he led the mare to Noah’s buggy and tied her to the back.
When Joanna returned to the others, they were already getting into position to lift the buggy onto its wheels. She moved as if to help, and Noah gave her such a frown that she backed off.
“Ready?” he said. “One, two, three.” On the count, the buggy lifted, rocked a little and then settled on its wheels.
Aaron played the light around it. “Doesn’t look too bad,” he said. Relief swept through Joanna. New buggies came expensive.
“That’s gut.”
“We’ll pull it into my lane,” he said. “It will be fine there until tomorrow. I’ll stop at the farm and let your daad know first thing.”
He obviously assumed her father would take charge of repairs, and she didn’t feel up to pointing out that it was her buggy. Besides, she had no doubt that Daad would insist on taking over anyway.
“Denke, Aaron.” She hesitated. “Try not to let my mamm hear, yah? She worries.”
He grinned. “She’s your mamm. For sure she worries. I’ll catch your daad when he’s milking, yah?”
Nodding, she thanked the two boys, and turned to the Englisch couple. The man looked a little uncomfortable but the woman clasped her hand for a moment.
“You get a good rest tonight. I’ll stop by the store tomorrow to see how you are.”
They left almost before she could finish thanking them. She was free to go home at last. She raised a hand toward Aaron and his boys, already moving the buggy into their lane. Then she took the few steps to Noah’s buggy, feeling as if she were carrying an enormous load on her shoulders. With a quick movement, Noah lifted her up to the buggy seat. He was moving around the buggy to his side before she could react, and she sank back with a sense of relief.
Noah reached behind him, pulled out a buggy blanket and wrapped it around her. She hadn’t even realized, until she felt the soft folds settling against her, how chilled she’d been.
“Denke.” She hugged it close against her as Noah clicked to the gelding and started the buggy moving down the road, Princess trotting along behind. Joanna leaned back again, feeling safe for the first time since she’d heard that car roaring down at her.
NOAH TOOK A lingering look at Joanna next to him on the buggy seat. The fears that had driven him out here had been realized, but she was all right, no thanks to the driver of the car. The anger that roiled inside him at the thought had to be dealt with, but he wasn’t sure he knew how.
She moved a little on the seat, and he reached over to tuck the blanket more closely around her.
“You must be cold, landing in the wet grass that way. You need to get home.”
She snuggled into the blanket, moving a little closer as he did so. Well, if his warmth could help her, he’d gladly provide it. And control himself.
“I didn’t realize it until I sat down, and then I started shivering.”
Her voice was faint, making him long to have her home more quickly. But it wasn’t safe to try to speed up on this narrow road.
So instead he patted her arm. “Probably shock, as well as being wet and cold. We’ll soon be home, and Aunt Jessie will take care of you.” He found he was gritting his teeth. “She should have been with you, and maybe this wouldn’t have happened.”
She roused. “I don’t know why you think that. The car might still have clipped the buggy.”
“Maybe. But maybe the driver would have thought the better of it if he saw you weren’t alone.”
He could almost feel the intensity of her stare. “You think running into me was deliberate?” Her voice rose.
“Don’t you?” It had been his first thought when he saw her, as well as being the fear that had driven him along the road to find her.
“You think this has something to do with Meredith. But it might have been a coincidence. Accidents do happen, especially at night.”
He shot a glance at her, wondering if she really believed that. “I don’t think I believe in coincidences any longer. Not after everything that has happened. At any rate, Jamison will have to do something about it now.”
She stiffened. “I’m sure he is already doing something. He had a guard on Meredith’s door, and he’s trying to find out who would want to harm her.”
“Yah, fine.” He fought to control his anger at circumstances that had put her in danger. “He should be putting a guard on you, it seems to me. It’s not just Meredith, it’s you. You’re the one whose home was broken into and searched. The man at the hospital attacked both of you. And now this.”
She was silent for a moment. “I suppose so.” She sounded reluctant. “If only Meredith could remember more about her life. Even if she didn’t remember the accident or the attack against her, she could tell us who would want to harm her.”
Her voice shook a little when she spoke of someone harming Meredith. Her kin, in one way or another. Joanna would feel responsible even if it weren’t for the relationship. He knew that, because he knew his Joanna.
“It has to have something to do with your relationship. You know that, don’t you?” He spoke harshly out of his frustrated need to keep her safe. “That was probably what brought her here. Why else would she come to River Haven?”
“I don’t know.” He could hear the fatigue in her voice, and he felt instantly guilty. He shouldn’t push her when she was shaken and upset. But if not now, when? They had so little chance to talk... Things were happening too fast.
“There’s bound to be some way of finding out.” He tried to keep his tone gentle. “Whatever reason someone thinks he has for hurting her, it has to go back to her life in Philadelphia. She was only in River Haven long enough to have an accident. If that’s what it was.”
Joanna moved slightly, and then she reached across the seat to grasp his hand. Hers was cold, and when he wrapped his fingers around it, it felt fragile in his grasp.
“Jamison doesn’t seem convinced that she fell, and with the other things that have happened...” She let that trail off, but still she clung to his hand. “Maybe she was attacked because she came here.”
“You mean somebody didn’t want her to talk to you? You know what that means. He can either get rid of her or get rid of you.”
His fingers tightened on her hand, and he had the crazy notion that he could take her away and hide her someplace until all the danger was past.
“If he was trying to get rid of me, he didn’t pick a very good way.” He could sense her rallying, summoning her courage. “The buggy tipped over, but it slid me into a nice soft ditch.”
“He may not have realized what the effect would be of hitting the side of the buggy. Just because he’s not very good at it doesn’t mean he won’t try again.”
She shivered, withdrawing her hand and wrapping the blanket more securely around her. “Stop it. You’re scaring me.”
“You should be scared.” Did she really not see that? “And you shouldn’t be running around in the dark by yourself. If your family wants to see you, let them come to you.”
“I couldn’t tell them that—”
“Yah, you could. And when we get to the shop, you can call Jamison and tell him what happened tonight.”
“Not tonight,” she said quickly. “Please, Noah, I can’t. All I want to do is lie down.”
He might have known he’d melt the instant she said his name. How could he insist? She must be exhausted, and the last thing she needed was to be questioned by the police.
“Sorry. I wasn’t thinking. But first thing in the morning, then, for sure.” He couldn’t possibly go off home and leave her and Jessie alone and unprotected. “And in the meantime, I’m putting a cot up against the wall on my side of the building.” Not that he intended to sleep. “If I hear a sound, I’ll be coming if I have to break in.”
“Not just any sound, please. Aunt Jessie snores like a freight train sometimes, although she might not sleep much after she hears about this.”
If she was able to make what almost amounted to a joke, that was an encouraging thing, but he needed to be sure she was taking her safety seriously.
“Don’t, Joanna. Can you imagine what it was like when it kept getting darker and you didn’t come? I could hear Jessie pacing the floor, and I knew just how she felt. When I told her I was coming to look for you, she didn’t even argue.”
“I’m sorry.” She turned toward him impulsively. “I promise I won’t go anywhere alone.” She fumbled with something. “Here, take this.”
“What is it?” He felt cold metal against his hand.
“It’s the extra key to the dead bolt. I think even Aunt Jessie would agree that it’s a good idea for you to be able to get in if there’s an emergency.”
“Denke.” Thank you for trusting me. He couldn’t see her face, but when he reached out, she clasped his hand. This time he wasn’t letting go, not until he had her safe at home, if anywhere was safe.
Palm against palm, he felt a connection he couldn’t deny. He didn’t want to. He loved her. He wanted to marry her. But what if...
He couldn’t get away from that what-if. Even if Joanna returned his feelings, how could he risk hurting her? He’d like to tell himself that he wasn’t capable of violence, but he remembered how he’d felt when he’d seen the man attacking Joanna. What might he have done if he’d had a weapon in his hand?
He’d been protecting her, but how could he be sure that violence wouldn’t turn against someone else. He knew, only too well, how his father had destroyed the feelings of everyone who cared about him, especially Mamm. He couldn’t bear to think of his brave, smart Joanna wearing the helpless, defeated look his mother had worn, and knowing he was responsible.
But even believing what he did, he couldn’t help holding her hand all the way home.
ENTERTAINING THE POLICE chief first thing in the morning wasn’t Joanna’s idea of an appropriate start to the day, but there’d been nothing even slightly normal in what had happened in the past week. At least she’d had wits enough to suggest he come the back way to their apartment, rather than driving up to the front door and attracting the attention of everyone on Main Street.
Aunt Jessie didn’t even bat an eye when Jamison came up the back stairs, followed by Noah. She set mugs on the table. “Coffee’s ready. I’ll see to the shop until you’re finished.”
Jamison barely waited until she’d disappeared downstairs before he started. He pulled out a kitchen chair, sat down solidly and planted his hands on the table.
“All right. Now, tell me all the things you left out when you called me.”
Joanna lifted the coffeepot and poured into three mugs, trying to organize her thoughts and feeling as if she needed a few more hours of sleep. Wordlessly, Noah distributed the mugs, adding the cream and sugar she had ready on the counter.
“I think I told you everything on the phone,” she said, taking the chair opposite Jamison. “I was driving home from the farm when I heard the car coming behind me. He seemed to slow down, so I was sure he saw the buggy. Then all of a sudden he sped up, coming right at me. I pulled the mare over to the right, hoping to get out of his way, but he clipped the side of the buggy and sent us into the ditch.”
She stopped for breath, knowing she’d blurted it all out in a rush, wishing to get rid of it. Reliving it made her shake inside. She sensed Noah moving closer to her.
Jamison frowned. “You should have called me as soon as it happened.”
Keeping silent seemed the only possible answer. If he didn’t understand why she hadn’t, explaining it wouldn’t help.
“Never mind,” he muttered. “What was the vehicle like?”
She looked at him helplessly. “I don’t know. I didn’t see it.”
“Joanna, you knew it was behind you. It hit you. You had to have seen something.” He sounded as if he was trying not to snap, but she knew it was frustration speaking.
“I heard it behind me. I saw the lights. Then I was toppling into the ditch with the buggy on top of me.”
Noah moved even closer to her, so that he was standing behind her chair.
“Right. Sorry if I snapped. But I want you to think it over calmly. You might have had a sense of the size and shape, right? Was it a truck? A pickup? A sedan?”
“A car, not a truck.” She wasn’t sure why she was sure of it. Maybe she’d seen more than she thought.
“Color?”
She shook her head. “I have the impression it was dark, but I can’t be sure.”
“You know how dark it is along that road,” Noah put in. “And there’s not much traffic at that time of night.”
“No. But what about the other car that came along? These people who stopped to help you. I’ll talk to them, but do you think they could have seen the car?”
“I...I don’t really know. It seemed like forever that I was lying there wondering if Princess was hurt and how I was going to get out, but it might not have been more than a few minutes.”
The memory flooded back too vividly, and her voice trembled. Noah’s hand grasped her shoulder, and she felt warmth and strength flow into her.
She couldn’t turn to look up at him, but she put her hand up to touch his, drawing comfort. Jamison looked from one to the other of them, but suddenly she didn’t care what he was thinking.
“Okay, just a few more questions,” he said as if answering an unspoken complaint. “Where is the buggy now?”
She shook her head. “I’m not sure. It’s either still at Aaron’s place or Daad may have picked it up.”
Jamison gritted his teeth. “How about calling to find out?”
“Yah, of course I will. But he may not be near the phone shanty.”
Was he holding back a complaint about people who didn’t have a phone in their house? She wouldn’t be surprised.
“Never mind. I’ll find it. I’m going out there as soon as we finish. I need to see that buggy before anyone starts working on it.”
“Is it that important?” She didn’t see why, but he was obviously determined.
“Very,” he said shortly, and then seemed to feel he needed to explain. “We may be able to find out what color the car was that way. We can analyze any scrapes of paint from the vehicle.” He frowned down at the table. “Joanna, I want you to think back to when you left the farm. Did you see any car pulled over, maybe sitting in one of the farm lanes around there?”
She tried to send her thoughts back to those moments, but she knew it was no good. She’d been so preoccupied with her thoughts about the family that she probably wouldn’t have noticed anything that wasn’t right in front of her.
“I’m sorry. There was nothing that I could see. But I wasn’t looking, except at the road.”
“I didn’t really expect you had, but just in case.” He took a gulp of the coffee before he went on. “What about anything that might have passed you between home and the place where you were hit?”
She brightened at finally having something positive to contribute. “There was another car. It passed me, going away from town, not long before I was hit.”
“What did it look like?” He leaned forward, intent.
Joanna shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know. I didn’t really notice. Dark-colored,” she added before he could jump on her with that question.
Jamison seemed resigned to her lack of knowledge about cars this time. He sat quite still, staring down at the tabletop, apparently deep in thought.
“If that’s all...” Noah began.
Ignoring him, Jamison shook his head. Finally, he looked up. “I wasn’t sure about telling you this, but I’ve been back and forth with police in Philadelphia.” He studied Joanna’s face. “You’re sure you and your folks don’t know anything about Meredith’s family?”
She’d feared, all along, that he’d come back to her family. She had to protect them, but how?
“No. How could we?”
Noah’s hand tightened warningly on her shoulder.
“Come on, Joanna. You came from somewhere. Your blood says you’re related to Meredith. I don’t want to question your parents—”
“Then don’t.” She rushed into speech. “They can’t help you, and if you upset my mother, I don’t know what might happen to her.”
Jamison’s expression softened. “Then you tell me what you know. I’m not looking to cause needless grief. Or to make my neighbors the center of a big newspaper story. But I have to know.”
“He’s right,” Noah said softly. “You’ll have to tell him.”
“But they don’t know anything that will help you. My birth mother left me with them, asking them to take care of me. That’s all they know about her.”
“Where did this happen? Here?”
“No. They were on their way to visit my aunt. Somewhere in Ohio. That’s all I know. I’m not even sure they remember. They were stuck there by a snowstorm, and I was left at the door of their motel room with a note.”
“Why theirs? Had they talked to the woman?”
She shook her head. “No, they hadn’t, but she must have seen them. Maybe she thought that an Amish family would be a good place for her baby.” She hesitated, but the rest should be said. “My mother was just recovering after losing a baby. When she saw me and read the note, she felt as if it was an answer to prayer. That’s all they know, so there’s no use in asking them.”
IF JAMISON WAS DISAPPOINTED, it didn’t show. “I won’t say anything to them unless I have to, but there has to be some connection between that woman and the Bristow family. If we knew what, it might explain at least some of what’s going on.”
Relieved that he didn’t pursue the question of her parents, she ventured a question. “You said you talked to the police about Meredith...”
“Yeah, right. Maybe it’s best if you know. Seems like the Bristow family is well-off.”
Without thinking, Joanna nodded, making him zero in on her. “You’re not surprised. How did you know?”
“I might not know fashion, but I do understand fabric. Everything she had on was high quality. It had to have been expensive.”
Was he looking at her with suspicion? Uneasiness crawled along her nerves.
“Any woman would have noticed it,” she added, wondering if she was making it worse.
Jamison gave a short nod before going on. “Apparently, when she turns twenty-one, Meredith comes into a sizable trust fund. That’s in another six months.”
“You think that has something to do with what’s been happening?” Noah asked the question, and Joanna thought the pressure of his hand was telling her to stay silent.
“I don’t know, but most of the time crimes are motivated by greed. If she could remember what happened, she could tell us, assuming it wasn’t just an accident.”
That brought her to attention in a hurry. “The man in her hospital room wasn’t an accident, whether her fall was or not.”
Without responding, he shrugged. “Are you going to see her today?”
“I hadn’t even thought of it yet. Not right now, that’s for sure. Maybe later.”
“Those other relatives we located checked in at the motel out on the highway this morning. Maybe she’ll remember something when she sees them. When the other cousin was here, she was still so unresponsive that it didn’t help. If you can get up there by early afternoon, you can get a sense of how she reacts to them.”
“Any of the nurses could do that,” Noah put in before she could respond. “Why does Joanna have to be involved?” He was so close behind her that Joanna felt the warmth of his body. She had to stop noticing things like that, but she couldn’t.
For a moment she thought Jamison would ignore him, but then he answered. “Joanna is involved,” he said mildly. “The Bristow woman will say more to her than to anyone... It’s almost like she feels a bond, isn’t it?”
Joanna’s hands clenched in her lap, but the chief got up as if he was finished.
“I’ll talk to you later—” he began, but Noah interrupted him.
“What about Joanna? She needs protection, too.”
Jamison reddened. “You think I wouldn’t like to have an officer watching her every minute? But she wouldn’t want it and, anyway, who would it be? As it is, I’ve got auxiliary and fire police pulling extra duty, as little good as they are in this situation. Directing traffic, that’s what they should be doing.”
“It’s all right,” she broke in. “I don’t want anyone. I’ll be careful.”
“No more jaunts out to the farm by yourself, mind you,” Jamison said. “If you have to go somewhere, tell me, and I’ll find someone to drive you. Otherwise, stay home. Until we know what’s behind all of this, we can’t take chances.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t.” She shivered, remembering.
“Good girl. I’ll send someone to drive you to the hospital at about one. You take care, and, Noah, it wouldn’t do any harm if you kept an eye on her, too.”
“I intend to.” Noah’s hands tightened on her shoulders. It felt...and sounded...like a promise.