A Plain Love Song (32 page)

“She left a note.”

“A note.”

“She said she was leaving because of the music. She wants to make music. Don’t that beat all?”

Matthew straightened and dropped the wrench into the back of the wagon. “Figures.”

“Figures?” Daniel drew the word into two long syllables. “I thought you…I mean…it seemed…well, weren’t you…”

“We were.” Not since this very moment. “Not anymore.”

A snort from the front of the wagon reminded Matthew his little brother had big ears.

“Since when?”

“Since she started…” At the last second he reminded himself that he spoke to Adah’s brother, a man who cared for his sister and who deserved respect despite what she had done to Matthew’s heart. “We’ve had some differences lately.”

“Did she have another special friend?”

Matthew looked at Daniel square-on. “It’s not my place—”

“My mudder is beside herself. Both my parents are. They already lost one daughter. They want this one back, but we don’t know where to start looking.”

“I’d start with the Harts.”

“She stopped working there weeks ago.”

“Did your mudder tell you why?”

“Nee. She just said it would be best if she worked with our kind.”

“Ask her what made her say that.”

“You know. You tell me.”

“Not my place.”

Daniel drew a long breath. “I’m asking you to do me the favor of helping me find my
schweschder
.”

“I know.” Matthew dug the heel of his boot—he felt like a heel
himself—into the dirt and dragged it back, making a line. He stepped over it, then cocked his head toward the road. Daniel followed him as they walked away from the wagon, out of Rueben’s earshot. “I don’t know where Adah is, but I did see her yesterday.”

“Where?”

“In Jackson Hart’s truck. Headed south out of town.”

Daniel plowed to a stop. His face blanched under a deep tan. “Nee. Jackson Hart?”

“Jah.”

“And you didn’t try to stop her?”

“She looked content.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“What did you want me to do, chase after his truck in my buggy?”

“Maybe if you had, we wouldn’t have to go after her now.”

“You want to go after her, go after her. I can’t do it.” And risk being rejected by her again. She’d made her choice. “I have work here.”

“My sister is somewhere out there.” Daniel jabbed toward the south, his face red with heat and anger. “Whether you care about her as a future fraa or not, you’re supposed to care about her eternal salvation.”

Daniel was right. Matthew swallowed. His heart wanted to go. His head insisted he would only get hurt again. Why keep doing that?

Daniel whirled and strode toward his buggy. “I’m going to see the Harts.”

“Wait.” He couldn’t help himself. Matthew double-timed after Adah’s brother. “I’ll go with you.”

Not much later they pulled up in front of the Hart house, an oversized home with a wraparound porch that featured ceiling fans. Daniel hopped from the buggy and tied the reins to a porch post.

“Wait.” Matthew climbed down with more decorum. “Let me do the talking.”

“Why?”

“You know Luke won’t want us to rile up our Englisch neighbors. We need to be calm. You’re angry and you’re jumping to conclusions.”

“You saw them riding out of town together.”

“Maybe they went for a ride, nothing more.” He knew better than that. He had the memory of that voice on the cell phone burned into his brain.
I’m sorry I kissed you
. “Maybe she left after that, by herself. You don’t know until you hear their side of the story.”

“She’s your girl and you’re not even a little peeved?” Daniel stalked up the steps. “I guess she wasn’t the one for you.”

“She was—she is.” Matthew slipped past Daniel and knocked. “There seemed to be a question in her mind as to whether I’m the one.”

“Sorry.” Daniel had the good grace to look embarrassed. “I didn’t know. I guess I should have figured if she was in a truck with Jackson Hart.”

“Jah.” Matthew couldn’t keep the tartness from his voice. “She made her choice.”

The door opened and Liz Hart peered out at them. She stood nearly as tall as Daniel, a few inches shorter than Matthew. Her red eyes matched her tousled hair. “What is it?”

Daniel introduced himself and Matthew, his tone more civil than it had been in the buggy. “My sister Adah worked for you.”

“Not anymore.” Mrs. Hart opened the door a little wider and craned her head as if looking to see if Adah stood there. “She up and quit for no reason a few weeks ago. Left me stranded with no one to clean the house. She won’t get a reference from me, even less now.”

Anger mingled with something else—sadness—stained her words.

“She’s left town.” Daniel shifted from foot to foot. He cleared his throat. “Matthew says he saw her with your son Jackson last night.”

“And?”

“Is Jackson here?” Matthew didn’t ask the question he wanted to ask. What did Jackson want with a Plain girl like Adah? He must’ve gotten her all mixed up. She would never do this on her own. Or maybe that was what Matthew wanted to believe. “We thought maybe he knows where she went.”

“He knows.” Mrs. Hart pulled the door wider, but instead of inviting them in, squeezed between them, forcing them to step back and let her through. Fancy gold earrings jingling, she sauntered over to the
porch railing and leaned against it, her arms looking like scrawny sticks in her sleeveless shiny blue blouse. “My husband saw them together too.”

“Where?”

She sniffed, disdain written all over her face. “She’s in Branson with my son. The fools think they’re going to be music stars. She’s got him convinced he can do anything. She’s a schemer, that one.”

Branson.

Daniel scoffed and shook his head. Matthew couldn’t move. She’d chosen music. Not only music, but Jackson. She’d chosen music and an Englisch man over her faith and her family.

Over him.

“My sister is no schemer.” Daniel stalked across the porch and stood next to Mrs. Hart, arms crossed over his dirty, sweat-stained shirt. “She’s a good girl.”

“She spent some time in this house. She knows what’s in it. She knows everything about us. The farm, the house in town, the lake house in Branson. She worked some magic on my son, knowing how much she had to gain.”

“Adah doesn’t care about houses or money.” Matthew waved a hand at the house. “She doesn’t care about things. It’s the music.”

“The music and my son.”

Maybe.

Jackson’s voice reverberated in his ears again. Apologizing for that kiss. She’d rebuffed him at least once. Jackson had pursued her. “She loves music. So does your son. That’s what they have in common.”

Nothing else.
Please, Gott, nothing else.

“She seems pretty set on staying with my son, music or not.”

He didn’t believe that. He tried not to believe it. “Your husband saw them in Branson. Did he try to make them come home?”

“He did.”

“But they wouldn’t.”

Mrs. Hart took her time lighting a cigarette with a silver lighter that glinted in the sun. The smoke curled around her head and drifted away like fog. “They wouldn’t. They’re set on their silly dream.” She
glanced back at Matthew. “No point in running after her. She’s made her choice.”

Indeed, she had.

“Are they getting married?” Daniel’s voice skated over the last word as if it were dangerous, thin ice. “Where is she living?”

“Jackson swore to my husband that it wasn’t like that, but Monroe knows the look Jackson gets. He’s a lady’s man, my son. She might not be his girlfriend yet, but she will be.”

She sucked on the cigarette and blew out smoke with an exaggerated sigh. “Don’t worry. My sister-in-law lives at the house. She’s our caretaker. She’ll make sure your sister’s virtue is safe.”

Daniel’s face deepened to an almost purple shade of red. “I’ll go fetch her home where she belongs.”

“Good luck with that.”

Mrs. Hart was right about that. If Adah didn’t want to return home, there was no point in making the trip. Matthew knew Adah well enough to know she had not made the decision to leave her community lightly. It would’ve been a heartbreaking, difficult decision. Only for something she wanted terribly. That might include Jackson, but it didn’t end there.

It all revolved around the music.

Matthew couldn’t compete with the music. Moreover, he didn’t want to compete.

“Let’s go.”

“What? No!” Daniel shook Matthew’s hand from his shoulder. “I’d like directions. What’s the address?”

“There’s no point in it.” Mrs. Hart’s voice cracked. “She’s made her move. And dragged my son into it. They’ll come home eventually, when his trust fund runs out and they find out they’re just two more would-be second-rate singers in a town full of second-rate singers.”

The sound of Adah’s high, sweet soprano floating on the air as she sang a simple lullaby to baby John echoed in Matthew’s head. He didn’t know a thing about Branson or country music, but Adah would never be a second-rate singer. Not only did she sing like a songbird, but she wrote songs. A special combination of talents. Even he knew that. If
only she were second-rate. She would be forced to come home sooner. Was that a selfish thought? He tried to examine it, turn it over in his mind. No. He wanted her home, first because she needed her faith and her family, second because he needed her.

A little selfish. If he went after her, it would be for himself. And it might have repercussions for his own walk in faith. As a single man, not her husband, he had no right to go gallivanting across the country searching for her. It wouldn’t be right. “Let’s go.” Matthew started down the steps. “We need to talk to your daed and to Luke.”

“We have to go get her before…we have to bring her home while we still can.”

“That may be your place. Yours and your daed’s. But first you need to talk to Luke, Thomas, and Silas. Let them decide if anyone should go for her. She’s not been baptized. This is more rumspringa. They may think she needs to come home on her own.”

The bluster went out of Daniel. His shoulders sagged. “It’ll break Mudder’s heart.”

“Your mudder is strong.”

“She’s already lost one daughter.”

Matthew glanced at Mrs. Hart. Tears brightened her blue eyes. She dabbed at them with the back of her bony hand. The Harts must also feel they were losing a son, but Jackson wasn’t leaving his faith or his way of life. He’d taken up residence in his family’s home in Branson with his aunt to keep house for him. He lost nothing in this move. His had been simply a choice of occupation and geography. “Let’s go talk to them. Maybe we can convince them to let us go get her.”

If not, Daniel and her family would have to live with God’s plan.

So would Matthew. Somehow.

Chapter 29

H
er eyes red, face puffy, Irene ushered Matthew and the other men into the Knepp house with barely a greeting. Matthew tried to catch her gaze, but it remained fixed on the wooden floor as she led them to the sitting area by the fireplace mantel where Ben stood, stony faced, staring at the dark empty space where flames would leap and catch on wood during the cold winter months. They both looked as if they hadn’t slept in weeks. They looked like Matthew felt. Overcome by despair. Resigned. Confused.

He slowed and held back, letting the older men take the straight-back chairs Irene had arranged around a pine rocking chair. Luke sat first and Thomas and Silas followed. Finally, Ben sank into the rocking chair. It groaned under his weight. Daniel hovered in the space between the living room and the kitchen as if he expected to be sent away. The soft, high-pitched murmurs wafting from the kitchen told Matthew his friend’s wife and sisters still washed dishes and cleaned after the day’s final meal, which, from the aroma lingering in the air, had included tuna casserole.

Luke began. “We’ve come to talk about Adah.” A bit of emotion colored the words spoken in a gentle tone—rare from a man such as Luke. Sadness maybe. Regret. What did Luke regret? Having this conversation with Adah’s parents or not doing more to make sure Adah didn’t stray? They’d all done what they could. “Have you heard from her?”

“Only the note.” Ben cleared his voice. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, his big hands gripped tightly in front of him. “Nothing since. No point in jawing about it. What’s done is done. She’s made her choice.”

From the post she’d taken behind Ben, her hands resting on the back of his chair, Irene made a small noise, a tiny cry of pain as if she’d bitten her tongue. Ben didn’t look back at her, but his knuckles whitened.

“Daniel and Matthew came to us.” Luke motioned to Silas and Thomas, who nodded in tandem. “They thought it worth considering that a few of us go to Branson and talk with her. Try to persuade her to return before she becomes too tied up in the ways of the world.”

“She made her choice.”