Threads of Grace (6 page)

“But that’s not all,” Violet said.

Grace had only to look into her sister’s eyes to grasp her meaning.

“God help us,” she breathed. “Not Tobias.”

Tobias Beiler had been a wavering shadow in the background of Grace’s married life to his brother, Silas. Younger, stronger, with brown hair rather than gray, Tobias nevertheless was cut from the same cloth as his older brother. All too vividly she remembered the look in his eyes, the leering, threatening expression.

“Do you really think he might come here?”

Violet bit her lip. “If I found you, he can find you too. He was in Middle Hollow asking a lot of questions right before I left.” She narrowed her eyes. “What does he want with you?”

Grace knew but kept quiet. She should have realized he wouldn’t give up so easily.

Then, as if her thoughts had summoned him, she heard a heavy step on the porch, an insistent pounding on the front door.

Violet went to the window and peered out. “He’s here!”

“Take Abel and go,” Grace said. “Out the back door. Go to Seth’s. Now!”

“I won’t leave you,” Violet protested.

“He won’t hurt me.” Grace’s voice betrayed her uncertainty. But still she pushed Violet in the direction of Abel’s room. “Get my son, please. Take him to Seth’s, and don’t let him come back. Go now!”

Violet darted into Abel’s room, picked up the sleepy boy, and dashed out the back door. Only when she saw them fleeing across the field toward the Wyse farm did Grace turn back.

The front door hung open. Tobias stood in the kitchen doorway with a satchel slung over his shoulder, looking as gray and gaunt as Silas himself. “So, sweet sister-in-law, I’ve been waiting quite awhile for this.” Tobias advanced on her. “It took me some time to track you down. You really didn’t think you could run from me forever, did you?”

When she didn’t respond, he inched nearer. “
Jah
, here we are, Grace, and just in time, right? Six months since my brother died. I see no man around . . .”

He pulled a sheaf of papers from his bag and slapped them down onto the kitchen table. “Recognize this, Grace? My brother’s
will? Isn’t that what he wrote—that you must always be yoked under the burden of a man to keep you in line? Six months he gave you, and if you are not married, I get it all. Silas’s house, the farm, the money—
ach
, and the brat too.”

“Take the money,” she breathed. “Take the farm. I’ll sign it all over to you. I don’t want it. Just take it and go. But leave Abel out of it.”

Tobias clutched her arm. “
Nee
, sweet Grace. Because if I have the boy, you will do anything I want to get him back. Anything. Won’t you?”

L
et her go.” Seth kept his voice level, though he longed to grab the intruder by the throat.

The man turned. “Ah, the hero.” He kept his hold on Grace and pulled her around in front of him. One crutch clattered to the floor.

It was not the
Amisch
way to lay hands on another. Seth tried to hold on to that thought while he considered how satisfying it would be to break the man’s arms.

“So, hero, are you her husband?”

“Nee,”
Seth said.

“Then you can leave.” He looked down at Grace. “Tell him to go. This doesn’t concern him.”

Seth saw her eyes dart toward a sheaf of papers on the small kitchen table. He walked with deliberate slowness to the table and flipped idly through the documents.

“Why does it matter whether or not I’m her husband?” He forced himself to keep his voice calm.

The other man snickered. “My brother, Grace’s poor deceased husband, was nothing if not thoughtful, wasn’t he, Grace? And his
fraa
here was compliant. She signed away her rights to Abel and to all the inheritance money if my brother should have an untimely death and she had not remarried in six months. My
gut bruder
thought that a married state would be best for her, to keep her from sin.
Jah
, Grace? The six months is up tomorrow at noon.”

She twisted in his grasp and Seth gritted his teeth. He spoke softly to Grace. “Is this true?”

She nodded.

It was all he needed.

The words broke from his lips. “Well then, you have a problem—because Grace and I are due to be married. Tomorrow. At eleven o’clock.”

T
obias was gone.

When her shaking subsided, Grace did what she had always trained herself to do: she focused not on the emotion of the moment but on the issue that needed to be resolved. “Where is Abel?” she asked Seth.

“At the farm. He’s fine. Jacob and Violet are with him. Did he . . . hurt you?”

Grace shook her head. Her eyes darted around the small house, scanning the few belongings she possessed, wondering what she should take with her when she fled. She glanced briefly at Seth. “
Sei
so
gut
. Bring Abel back. If I hurry in gathering our
things, we can be gone within the hour. I want to make
gut
time before it gets dark. Violet doesn’t have to come.”

“What? Where are you going?
Kumme
sit down, your hands are trembling.”

He pulled out a chair at the table and she ignored him, brushing past his arm on her crutches to reach for a basket on the floor. “
Danki
for the marriage ploy. I will pack now and take Abel with me. We can be far into the mountains before tomorrow.”

He said nothing. She continued hobbling around the kitchen, gathering pots and pans and silverware until it was obvious he was waiting for her undivided attention.

At last she turned to find him staring at her, his eyes dark blue and impassioned. “It was no ploy, Grace. I will marry you.”

She allowed herself a brief, sad smile. “You don’t understand. You are young. You see me on the surface, but you really know nothing about me.”

He frowned at her, one side of his handsome mouth lifted. She dropped her gaze and began to mentally sort through Abel’s clothes.

“Hey,” he said, “exactly how long have you been running from this man?”

She stiffened her spine. “My husband died last winter in an ice fishing accident.”

“And then you came here, right? For a new start? Or was it to get away from the
bruder
-in-law?”

“You speak of it all so glibly. How can you possibly understand?”

“I can’t. So tell me.”

Tell him? Where would she possibly start? How could she
explain any of it in a way that anyone else could understand? Especially another man.

“Grace?”

She snapped back to awareness. “I thank you for your kindness to me, and to Abel. But I cannot say more. I must leave. Immediately.”

“Marry me, Grace.”

She took in a stuttering breath. “Why?”

He moved very close to her, so close that she caught the fresh scent of hay and paint and pine. “I may be younger than you in years. I may think you’re beautiful,
jah
, and may have grown attached to your
sohn
. But the real answer to your ‘why’ is that I understand horses.”

She stared into his eyes and felt something like static electricity arc between them, touching him, touching her. Then she came to herself and realized what he’d said.

“Horses?”

“Yep. Horses are creatures that must be discerned, felt through the heart and the mind. If not, you’ll never respect them for the mystery, the majesty of their souls.”

“And you think I’m like a horse?” She didn’t know whether to be flattered or insulted, but one thing she did know: they were wasting time. “All this talk is nonsense, Seth Wyse. We cannot possibly marry.”

He smiled in pleasure at her use of his name. “Yes, exactly like a horse. I think I have to read you like a horse, by instinct. And my instincts say that you know you cannot outrun someone as evil as this man. Not when he’s got the law on his side. So let me ask you properly.”

He caught her hand. “Grace, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife? My flaws aside, my age not thought of, and with the understanding that we shall be man and wife in name only for as long as you choose.”

She swallowed hard, feeling as if she were poised on the edge of a high cliff, toes pointed outward, arms open, ready to fly. She thought of Abel and his future and then heard her own voice like an echo on the wind.

“Jah.”

CHAPTER 7

I
thought I told you not to do anything crazy.” Jacob stood with his hands on his hips, looking much like their
daed
for a moment.

Seth led Grace’s horse, Amy, into a stall and gave her some feed. He’d driven Grace’s buggy over with his horse, Star Bright, trailing behind on a lead. Grace had been anxious to find Abel and Violet and talk to them. Seth could see them now, some distance outside the barn, Grace’s slight form bent over her crutches as she spoke with an earnest expression to her son. Violet stood away from them, examining a blooming red rosebush.

“You? Talking to me about crazy?” Seth grinned. “You married Lilly on a whim and it all worked out. Why shouldn’t it for me too?”

“That was different.”

“How?”

“I don’t know, but it was different. It was God at work. This . . . this is
you
at work.”

“I think I resent that.”

“Well, don’t. That woman hasn’t wanted anything to do with you, and now some crisis has her back against a wall and suddenly, for some reason, she’s marrying you.”

“I know.” Seth shrugged with a quick smile. “I’ll pray about it.”

“Why is she agreeing?”

Seth explained as much as he knew, and Jacob finally nodded. “It sounds like you did the right thing, protecting her and Abel, but there might be another way, a legal way.”

“An
Englischer’s
law to aid an Amish woman? I don’t think so.”

“Maybe the bishop could do something,” Jacob persisted. “Let him at least look at those papers you’ve got.”

“Why, Jacob? Why are you, above all people, against this? You know it’s what I’ve wanted—I can’t sleep half the time for thinking of her.”

“Seth, you’re my best friend and my only brother. I love you. But you’re like the
kinner
, grabbing for sweets. You think you’ve got what you’ve wanted, but there’s more to a woman than how she looks. And I have a feeling that the one standing outside is deep water.”

“Then I’ll have fun drowning.”

“You don’t get it.”

Seth stepped closer to his brother, his face now serious. “Look, Jacob, I know it sounds
narrisch
, but I’ve never wanted anything as much as I want Grace Beiler. Something about her calls to my heart.” He turned away and felt Jacob’s hand on his shoulder.

“Seth, I’ll support whatever you do. You helped me with Lilly and I can try to do the same for you. So what’s next?”

Seth turned back to look him in the eye. “We go to the bishop.”

“That should be . . . interesting.”

Seth cuffed his
bruder
lightly on the shoulder. “
Painful
is more the word.”

They both laughed, then Seth spoke. “
Danki,
Jacob. I know I’m going to need your help.” He turned to look out at Grace and Abel.

“Well, you’ve got it, little
bruder
. Anytime.”

“
Gut
. Will you send Violet in to talk to
Mamm
or something?”

“No problem.”

Seth nodded thanks, but his mind was on the woman in black outside and the small boy by her side.

T
obias Beiler drove his horse blindly and entered Lockport with his whip drawn and his mind in turmoil. He jumped out and looped the reins over the post in front of Eshler’s Bed and Breakfast. He stroked down his graying beard, took a deep breath, and approached the carved wooden reception counter.

“Morning,” he said in a soft voice.

He felt the
Amisch
woman’s eyes study him for a moment before she replied, and he met her gaze squarely.

“Hello. I’m Lillian Eshler. May I help you?”

He cleared his throat. “Here for a wedding. I need a room.”

For a moment she hesitated. Tobias tried to rearrange his face into a more pleasing expression. Over the years he had been told that he was growing to look more and more like his brother, Silas, whose features had hardened with age into something fierce, angry, and immovable.

“Booked up, are you?” He reached for his pocketbook, which bulged with cash, and casually flashed the money. “Anything you’ve got will do.”

“
Nee
, sorry,” she said. “We’re full.”

He scowled at her and she retreated a step, as if he might do her violence. Then he turned and slammed out of the place. It was probably better to stay at an
Englischer’s
in any case. He planned to be around for a while, wedding or no wedding. He had no intention of letting Grace—or his brother’s estate—slip from his grasp so easily.