pungent smells of livestock, hay and manure were a far cry from the exhaust fumes of the city, but they pinged nostalgia, reminding her she was home once again, and it felt good. The cows bawled as she approached, indicating their need for milking. She’d have to hurry with breakfast and get back out here to tend to them so her mother wouldn’t have to.
The clucking sound of the hens in the chicken coop drew her back to the task at hand. She rubbed her hands together and blew warmth into them. Maybe she should have worn her coat. She opened her apron, holding it with her left hand, and reached inside the coop with her right. Soon she’d gathered enough eggs for both breakfast and a pudding recipe she had learned from one of her friends. Her mother would be surprised to discover that life among the Englisch hadn’t been all bad. She’d learned to cook some wonderful recipes. She nudged the door to the coop closed.
It wasn’t a sound that caught her attention. It was a feeling, an innate sense that she was no longer alone. She swallowed and tried to calm the wave of fear threatening to drown her.
It’s nothing, Elizabeth. You’ve been on edge. Seeing bad men in shadows like children see animals in clouds.
But the internal scolding did little to calm her sense of unease.
The squawking and clucking of the hens in the coop gave her pause. The chickens knew it, too. She wasn’t alone. Someone was standing close behind her...too close.
Taking another gulp, she clutched the apron filled with eggs to her chest and turned around.
A man, his face obscured in the darkness, loomed in the entrance to the barn.
Elizabeth gasped. “Who are you?” she asked. “What do you want?”
The stranger moved into the light and Elizabeth’s heart stuttered.
It was him. The man she’d seen standing over Hannah’s body.
“I want what your friend gave you. It belongs to me.” The coldness in his tone froze her in place.
Elizabeth’s eyes shot around the barn. Where could she run and hide? What could she use as a weapon if she was forced to protect herself?
“You know who I am, don’t you?” he demanded.
Elizabeth took a step back. “No, sir, I don’t. Please...leave. I don’t know who you are. I don’t have anything that belongs to you.” She straightened her spine and tried to exude strength she didn’t feel. “If you don’t leave this property, I am going to send for the sheriff.”
Then her deepest fear became a reality. He moved toward her with such speed she barely had time to react.
Elizabeth’s throat muscles froze and she couldn’t scream. She backed up as fast as she could until her body slammed against a solid surface. Trapped against the chicken coop with nowhere to run, sheer panic raced through her veins.
No. No.
Elizabeth raised her hands to cover her face, dropping the edges of her apron. The eggs smashed on the ground and a few rolled across the floor.
Within seconds he was on her, his hands clasping her shoulders, his face inches from her own.
“You want me to leave? Then give me what’s mine and I will.” He shook her shoulders and banged her against the wooden piling behind her. “I’m not playing. Unless you want the same fate as your friend you will give it to me.”
Spittle sprayed across her face as he screamed at her.
She kicked at his shins and tried to scramble from his grasp. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Hannah didn’t give me anything. Go away. Please. Leave me alone.”
An almost evil sneer came over his face. “Hannah? So you do remember me.” He dug his fingertips painfully into the soft flesh of her upper arms. “Don’t make the same mistake she did. Just give me what’s mine and we’ll call it even. I’ll go away and leave you to live your life in this forsaken place.”
“Please, mister, I don’t know what you want. I don’t know who you are. Hannah didn’t give me anything of yours.”
He squeezed her arms harder and tears sprang to her eyes.
“She told me she did. She told me with her dying breath. I don’t believe an Amish woman would pick that time to lie.”
Trapped against the piling behind her, Elizabeth twisted in his grip. “Leave me alone!” She reached up and clawed at his eye.
He yelped in pain and for a split second he grabbed his face and released his grip on her arms.
It was all she needed. She threw herself sideways. The sudden shift in weight threw her off balance. She stumbled over his boot and fell hard against the wooden floor of the barn, the breath temporarily knocked out of her.
He stood over her, just like she’d seen him standing over Hannah. His hands moved to her throat. “She told me you had the information I need. Do you really think I’m going to let you ruin my life? Unless you give it to me, I’ll have no choice but to make sure you suffer the same fate she did. Is that what you want?”
His hands squeezed her throat.
“Please...” she whispered. “I don’t have anything. I don’t know what you want.”
“Hey! You! Get away.” Another man, an Amish man by the sound of his dialect, entered the barn and ran out of the shadows straight toward them. “Leave her alone.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Elizabeth saw the man grab a pitchfork and continue toward them.
The stranger gave one long, hard squeeze to her throat and whispered close to her face. “This isn’t over. I’ll be back. And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll keep your mouth shut or I will permanently shut it for you.”
He turned and ran toward the barn’s open back door. Just as quickly as he’d come he was gone.
Elizabeth rolled to her side, coughing, trying desperately to draw oxygen into her lungs.
The Amish man, whoever he was, had just saved her life.
* * *
Thomas King kneeled beside the woman who was crumpled in a heap on the dirt floor.
“Mrs. Lapp?”
What had happened? Who was that man and why had he attacked Mrs. Lapp?
Thomas offered a silent prayer of thanksgiving that he had arrived when he did. He came to the farm at the same time every morning since her husband had died. He wished he could devote more time to help out on her farm, but it was all he could spare from his own farm and family. Mrs. Lapp had always been grateful and appreciative of his help. His body shuddered at the thought of what might have happened if he had arrived a few minutes later.
“Mrs. Lapp?” His hands trembled as he reached for the woman. Placing his hand on her shoulder, he gently turned her toward him. “Are you all right?”
The lantern light dappled across her face.
This wasn’t Mrs. Lapp.
He stared into the woman’s face and a shaft of pain shot through his chest. He knew this face all too well. It was a face he’d thought he’d put out of his mind and his life forever, a face he’d once loved.
Elizabeth.
His eyes quickly scanned her from head to toe for any obvious injuries and found none. “Elizabeth?”
The shock registering in her pale blue eyes must have mirrored his.
“Thomas?”
“Are you hurt?”
She shook her head.
“What are you doing here? Who was that man?”
“What am I doing here? What are you doing here?” She sat up and then allowed