“I thought of leaving, once.”

Emma gave him a startled look. “Leaving … Paradise Ridge? Or your faith?”

“Both.”

Caleb stopped, stunned that he had said it, that he had told this stranger, this woman, this English, what he had told no one else. Ever.

“I’ve found,” Emma said, “that it’s never a good or successful idea to run away from something.”

“What did you mean, when you said I didn’t have to worry?”

“I’ve turned up a couple of possible leads. They stopped an older man driving a van with a couple of young girls in it.”

Caleb drew back sharply. “Hannah?”

“No, sorry,” Emma said quickly. “Neither girl is a match to any of ours.”

Any of ours.

She’d said it as if she truly felt it. As if the missing girls were a part of her own community.

Lovely, empathetic and smart—she was all of that.

And to him, apparently, dangerous.

Dear Reader,

One of the most popular stories in fiction is the “fish out of water.” It’s basically a tale of someone cast into a world strange to them, where they don’t have the skills to survive, or don’t have the knowledge of the culture to keep from drawing unwanted and sometimes painful attention to themselves, a world where they quite simply Don’t Belong.

This would be me and, say, computer programming. Call me clueless, but I have no idea. I’m just glad others do. Some days I wonder what life would be like without technology, what it would be like to simply unplug.

The Amish have chosen to live that life free of those electronic ties. Their world is above all peaceful, and also separate, yet it seems inevitable that now and then our world will intrude into theirs. Such is the case in this story, where the clash of worlds is cold and harsh, yet out of the collision grows an unexpected connection between two people with the odds stacked against them. Can the “fish out of water” make the changes necessary to get to her happy ending?

I hope you enjoy it.

Justine Davis

Don’t miss the next three books in

THE COLTONS OF EDEN FALLS:

Colton’s Ranch Refuge by Beth Cornelison

Colton’s Deep Cover by Elle Kennedy

Colton Showdown by Marie Ferrarella

About the Author

JUSTINE DAVIS lives on Puget Sound in Washington State, watching big ships and the occasional submarine go by, and sharing the neighborhood with assorted wildlife, including a pair of bald eagles, deer, a bear or two and a tailless raccoon. In the few hours when she’s not planning, plotting or writing her next book, her favorite things are photography, knitting her way through a huge yarn stash and driving her restored 1967 Corvette roadster—top down, of course.

Connect with Justine at her website, justinedavis.com, at Twitter.com/Justine_D_Davis, or on Facebook at Facebook.com/JustineDareDavis.

Colton Destiny
Justine Davis

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Chapter 1

“Hey, tomato-head.”

For an instant Emma Colton thought she’d somehow slipped back in time, that she was back on the ranch being rudely awakened by her annoying brother Tate, who was three years older and had teased her incessantly about her rather bright red hair.

Clutching her phone, she blinked the sleep out of her eyes, the sight of the familiar bedroom of her Cleveland apartment orienting her back into the present. Still, as she shoved her tangled hair away from her face, she felt a tiny frisson of relief that it was still the darker, richer auburn of adulthood. That made her smile, until she realized what time it was.

She yawned. “You don’t even have the excuse of a different time zone, bro. This better be good.”

“I take back tomato-head. Sleepyhead fits better,” Tate Colton said.

“It’s five in the morning. I thought I was the workaholic in the family.”

“Please. It comes with the Colton name. You’re just worst than most. Except maybe Uncle Joe.”

She laughed, humor restored. The man they’d grown up calling Uncle Joe, although he was in fact their late father’s cousin, was indeed dedicated to his work. That hadn’t prevented him from standing in for their deceased parents on occasion. Like every Colton, he took family responsibilities very seriously.

Almost as seriously as he took his job as president of the United States.

“So what is it that has you waking me up at this hour?”

“I need your help, little sister.”

Something had changed in her brother’s deep voice. The teasing note had vanished, replaced by a grim seriousness. Instantly she responded, sitting up straight, shoving aside the warmth of the covers.

“What?”

“I’ve got three missing girls.”

As a Philadelphia police detective, Tate having a case of even three missing girls sadly wasn’t shocking. Nor would that alone necessitate this early-morning call to her; if he needed FBI help on a case, he had his own contacts. Not that the name Colton wasn’t enough to get him in about any door he wanted at the Hoover Building.

“Why me?” she asked. “Not that I don’t mind giving you wise advice, even though you never take it, but—”

“They’re Amish.”

Emma went very still. “Three?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Two weeks. The usual reluctance to involve outsiders.”

She knew it too well. “How old?”

“Sixteen to nineteen.”

“Rumspringa?” Emma asked. Growing up on the family ranch in Eden Falls, Pennsylvania, the Amish and their ways had always been part of the fabric of her life. Rum springa, that time when young people are allowed to explore the outside world, then make their own decision on whether to return to the religion and simple lifestyle of the Amish, had always fascinated her as a teenager. She simply couldn’t picture why anyone would voluntarily leave behind the world of convenience and technology for such … deprivation. Yet eighty percent of them did.

Now she wasn’t quite so arrogant about her assumptions. She’d seen enough in her years as an FBI agent to understand the appeal of pulling back from the hectic, crazy—and sometimes perverted—world of today.

She realized she was tracing the intricate pattern of the quilt on her bed. An exquisitely designed and handmade Amish quilt, a traditional diamond-on-point pattern in soothing blues, that she’d brought with her from home. Her mother had purchased it from one of their neighbors, had loved it and cared for it so well it seemed almost new. It had come to her as the eldest daughter, after that horrible, shocking day in September 2001, the day that had stolen the loving, generous couple who had taken them all in, adopted them and given them a life beyond anything they ever could have hoped for—

“Emma?”

She snapped out of her reverie. “Sorry. What?”

“I said yes, Rumspringa. They’re all from Paradise Ridge.”

That brought it even closer to home for her; Paradise Ridge literally bordered the Colton ranch. She might even know the families, she thought with a sudden qualm. They had often bought fresh produce and milk from the local farmers.

She had a sudden vivid flash of memory. A young Amish girl near her own age of ten, from when she and her father, Donovan Colton, had stopped to offer assistance to a driver of one of the iconic Amish carriages that added tourist-drawing quaintness to the Pennsylvania countryside. One of those tourists had passed too close in their rental car, clipping the corner of the carriage and sending the right rear wheel onto rain-softened ground, and then proceeded merrily on their way, either uncaring or oblivious to damage done.

She remembered her father pulling the ranch truck up behind the carriage, angling it so that no oncoming car could repeat the incident.

The first concern of her father, a horseman of many years, was the welfare of the animal pulling the carriage. Emma herself had been fascinated by the child who remained in the carriage while her father had gotten out to inspect the damage. She remembered the girl’s simple dress, in contrast to her own jeans and T-shirt. She remembered the vivid blue of her eyes as she peeked out to stare in apparent equal fascination at Emma. The only thing she remembered from the conversation between the adults was the Amish man’s quiet acceptance; he expected no better from the English, as they called anyone not Amish.

She shook her head, ordering herself to stop meandering and pay attention.

“You think your case is connected to mine.” It wasn’t a question. Didn’t really have to be. But Tate echoed her own thoughts on the matter anyway.

“I think the likelihood of two independent serial kidnappers—and maybe killers—targeting the exact same class of victims, even three hundred miles apart, is slim.”

“But possible.”

“Anything’s possible. But likely?”

“No.”

Sometimes both their jobs relied on simply going with the odds, Emma thought. Still she hesitated. She was reluctant to abandon, even temporarily, her own case. She had not just three, but a string of missing girls going back nearly three months. But because of that reluctance to involve outsiders, and even more to involve federal outsiders, she’d been called in so late there had been little to find, and the suspect’s trail and the case had quickly gone cold.

Because they’d relocated to Pennsylvania?

“I need you, Emma. You’ve been working your case long enough, you’ll catch anything that might prove or disprove that mine are connected. And you always did relate better to them than any of us.”

Not that any of the Colton brood didn’t get along, Emma thought. They’d been taught to respect their quiet, peaceful neighbors and appreciate their industrious ways. But Tate was a Philadelphia cop and had come a long way from those youthful, halcyon days on the ranch.

“All right,” she said decisively. “I’ll be on my way.”

“Text me your flight number. I’ll pick you up, bring you up to speed on the way to the ranch.”

Emma hung up and scrambled out of bed. She called her supervisory agent and left a long voice mail explaining, emphasizing the likely connection to their case to head off any dissent about her being called in by her brother. It was legit, she told herself. If the cases were related, then it crossed state borders and they were involved anyway.

Then she made a reservation for the next flight from Cleveland to Philadelphia. She could probably drive it in about the same amount of time, but wanted to arrive fresh and have a chance to study the pictures and basic details Tate was sending.

Her timeline now set, she showered, quickly dried her hair and pulled it into her usual ponytail. Then she went about the business of packing, although since she and her family had enough clothing left permanently at the ranch to handle everything but the longest visit, it was mainly toiletries and the rather severe pantsuits she generally wore. They were expensive, yes, but subtly so and made to last.

She’d long ago decided she wasn’t going to stress out over what to wear to present the proper image; she’d found a style that worked, plain, simple, yet exquisitely cut to flatter, and bought several in the colors she considered acceptable for work—black, dark blue or gray. Not only was it easier, but if she was always wearing the same thing, her attire—and the severe hairstyle—never distracted from her professional demeanor. Sometimes she even resorted to dark-framed glasses to somewhat mask the vivid green of her eyes.

Overall, she strove for a neutral, businesslike look. It was helpful not only with civilians, but with her male colleagues, as well. She had enough trouble with assumptions people made about her, from riding on the Colton name to being a “poor little rich girl,” and she didn’t want to add to them with any blatantly upscale clothing, fancy jewelry or anything else that might remind people of her background. Especially her connection to Joseph Colton, who was, in essence, the boss of all her bosses.

She shook off the old concerns, went to the nightstand and took out her weapon. With no children in the apartment, she kept the Glock 23 ready for use, and she slipped it into the holster at her waist. It had become a part of her now, and she was, sometimes to her brother’s dismay, a better shot than he was. Their phone calls to compare proficiency scores had become a tradition.

Emma smiled. She was so lucky. Tate was the best of big brothers, even if he was a bit overprotective. And as for her big brother Derek … Well, Derek was their rock, his steadfast, solid goodness something they had all clung to at one time or another. And when their parents had left the ranch to him in their will, a will executed far too early, after the vicious sneak attack on September 11, 2001, every shaken Colton child had felt a tiny bit safer knowing Derek would see to it that the ranch remained the refuge it had always been for all of them.

Gunnar, on the other hand …

She couldn’t worry about her troubled, antisocial oldest brother just now. She’d see him soon enough, although she didn’t expect much change.

Despite the grimness of the reason for the trip, she was looking forward to it. She hadn’t been home in a while and hadn’t expected to make it before the holidays.

She smiled at the thought of seeing the kids, as she always thought of her sister, Piper, and little brother, Sawyer. She wondered if they were still squabbling, eleven-year-old Sawyer, with his knack for sarcasm, constantly teasing his big sister, and Piper responding with typical sixteen-year-old drama. The girl was tall, five foot nine and still growing, and Emma suspected Sawyer’s fear that she might end up taller than he, even when he was grown up, was behind a lot of his jabs at the sister he called an Amazon.

As she headed to the airport, she felt the usual pang that accompanied thoughts of her youngest sibling. Sawyer had been an infant when he’d come to them, practically a newborn. He’d never had the chance to know the kind, generous, dynamic couple that had adopted him. For a long time they were afraid they were going to lose him back into the system because of the death of Donovan and Charlotte Colton. Derek, ever the rock even at twenty-two, had spearheaded the Colton resistance to the very idea of losing the baby who was the last piece of their parents’ grand plan. A contingent had flown in from the Texas Coltons to stand with them, impressive enough, but a brief yet powerful video statement made by then-senator Joseph Colton had put the cap on the affair. As a result, baby Sawyer had gone home with his adoptive family.

She realized suddenly why her mind had veered onto this track. The possible loss of their baby brother had been yet another horrific blow to a family that had already lost so much. The Amish community was like one huge family, and they’d been struck again and again. And no family court hearing could restore their children to them.

It was up to her, and now her brother, to find them and bring them home.

“Thanks, sis,” Tate said again. “Any hassle?”

Emma glanced at her brother. He drove as he did anything physical, with an understated ease. He was six foot one, which meant she had to look up at him, even sitting in the passenger seat of his unmarked city car. He glanced at her when she didn’t immediately answer. His eyes were as gorgeous as ever, that almost turquoise-blue that had sent her female schoolmates into raptures, embarrassingly, when he’d stumble across them giggling in the kitchen of the big ranch house at the Double C.

“No,” she answered. “Not a bit.” She paused. Her brother, knowing her well, waited. “Of course, I left the message on his office voice mail. He would have gotten it while I was in the air.”

“So he couldn’t call and yell until he’d had time to calm down?” Tate grinned at her, then turned his eyes back to the busy street leaving the airport. “You always did know how to get your way.”

“You’re just saying that because you never figured out how to be subtle.”

“You mean devious?” Emma grinned back at him, not offended in the least, before he added, “But at least I learned it’s easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission.”

They laughed with the ease of siblings who had grown into a comfortable, loving adult relationship, who looked back on their childhood with fondness. Their lives had been blessed, and even the horrible loss they’d suffered on September 11 couldn’t change that.

“Do you still think about them a lot?” Emma knew she didn’t have to explain.

“Every day,” Tate said quietly. “They saved us all, gave us a life we never, ever would have had.”

“And they gave us each other,” Emma said. “Brothers and sisters we never would have had.”

“Yes.” Tate glanced at her. “They saw to it we would never be alone again.”

Emma sighed. It had taken them a very long time to reach this point. Charlotte—for whom the ranch had been named—and Donovan Colton had been forces of nature, and Emma didn’t think any of them ever got past thinking of them as larger-than-life.

“At least they saw Butterfly Wings come to life.”

“That’s right,” Tate agreed. “They got to see that dream come true.”

The nonprofit organization dedicated to helping inner-city kids was flourishing, and each adult Colton put in their time to make sure it stayed that way. Each one of them knew too well they could have ended up in worse shape than some of these kids if not for the generous, loving couple who had adopted them all.

The thought of kids at risk jolted her back to the reason she was here in the first place. It was time to quit dwelling on her own happy childhood and concentrate on trying to get these innocent girls back to finish theirs.

Chapter 2

Emma had noticed the folders wedged next to the driver’s seat and reached for them.

“These are the full files?”

Tate nodded as he negotiated the transition to Interstate 95 leaving the airport. Emma began to read. Tate had emailed her the basics, but to her dismay there wasn’t much more here. The details on each case were sketchy; either no one had seen much or they weren’t talking.

Or the kidnappers were very, very thorough.

She felt the old chill start to creep up her spine. She fought it down. She knew the old memories colored her reactions, but she refused to let them affect her professional conduct. She’d passed her psych, been declared fit for duty, and she was going to see it stayed that way.

“You okay?”

Damn, did the man never miss a thing? Of course, he was probably haunted by his own memories of past cases, which perhaps made him a bit more sensitive than a non-cop would be. For a guy, Tate was pretty sensitive to begin with. For a brother, he had moments that stunned her.

“I’m fine. Perverted men who target women just make me angry.”

“I know. That’s why I wanted you here. You’ve got the fire for it like no one else. And you’ve got an understanding of the people no one else I know has.”

Emma gave her brother a sideways look. They rarely spoke of her nightmare ordeal anymore within the family—not directly anyway. And she preferred it that way. Those nine horrific days were history, and that’s where they were going to stay. She’d be damned if she’d let that piece of scum she refused to identify by name even in her mind have any effect on her at all.

She’d worked hard for two years to get past what had happened to her. And had almost lost it all when some crazy judge who cared more for the rights of the criminal than the rights of the victims had found a piece of evidence logged in on the wrong place on a form and used it as justification to grant an appeal. So now she was looking at going through it all again, all the testifying, the nightmare of remembering.

But she would do it. She wasn’t a Colton for nothing, and she would put that monster away again. And again and again if she had to.

“Not to mention,” Tate added drily, “you know the countryside like the back of your hand.”

“Hey, hey,” she responded with an automatic protest born out of all the times Tate had been the one sent out to retrieve her from wherever she’d wandered. “It’s not my fault you were always hungry so you were the one in the house pestering Mom before dinner was ready.”

“I just never understood the fascination,” Tate said.

That much was true, she knew. She’d always had a fascination with the land itself that her siblings didn’t have. They did, however, appreciate the ranch and the life it gave them. As a child she’d spent hours studying plants and trees, wondering how they grew, how it was they reached for the sun, how, without a brain, they even knew where the sun was. She’d planned on continuing that study in her schooling, thinking a plant biologist might just be the coolest job ever.

And then, in her first year of college, everything changed. Those crazed men had destroyed so much more than buildings that day. And once she realized they didn’t care, and that there were countless others lined up, hoping for a chance to do more of the same, willing to die simply to murder those who didn’t follow their God, her path had become clear. She’d changed her major, determined then and there she would become part of the line that would stop such horror from ever occurring again on American soil.

She wasn’t sure she was accomplishing that from the field office in Cleveland, although it had on occasion whimsically occurred to her that with their feelings about music, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum could be a target, but her work was involving and satisfying.

And dangerous.

She realized her fingers had crept up to her throat, as if the knife were still there, drawing blood, and for an instant the old memories threatened to swamp her. She fought it down, forced herself to focus on the files in her lap, ordering herself to remember that her job now was to make sure these innocent girls didn’t go through anything like what she’d endured.

She would bring them home. Somehow she would bring them home.

Emma parked the ranch truck that had been the only vehicle available to use at the moment, on the main street of Paradise Ridge. Such as it was, she thought; the tiny village made Eden Falls, population nine hundred, seem like a booming metropolis. If all the tourists left, Emma thought, it would feel like the proverbial wide spot in the road. But the tourists were here, lots of them. Not as many as during the summer, but the holiday shopping season had begun, and many people came here to pick up handcrafted gifts. Most of them were nice and genuinely interested, some just curious, some bordering on being derisive of a culture so foreign to their own and a few just downright rude.

Nice cross section of humanity in general, Emma thought as she got out of the truck and locked it. To protect it from said tourists, since she knew the Amish citizens would never even think of stealing. She supposed there had to be a few bad apples, but they were truly far between.

At least the locals were easy to spot, with their distinctive dress. And while she could hardly ignore the visitors—it was, after all, entirely possible their perpetrator had come here in that guise—for now she would focus on the locals and what they knew or had seen.

The Amish trait of ignoring or spending little time thinking about the foibles of their English neighbors was going to make this difficult. Most of the time the behavior of outsiders truly was ignored as having no import. But what she needed was exactly that, information about anyone who had acted oddly, differently. That this description fit most English to this community wasn’t going to help matters.

Emma started to walk, observing, wanting to get the feel of things. This small commercial section of the village had grown a little since she’d last been here, nearly ten years ago. The bakery was still in the same place and still putting out those tempting aromas. A cheese shop had been set up between the bakery and the quilt shop. And beyond that, a flower shop that was full of beautiful, healthy-looking plants.

Everything looked normal. Prosperous.

And yet she felt the tension, barely under the surface. The tourists and shoppers were, naturally, oblivious, but the locals all seemed distracted, as if their thoughts were elsewhere. As she had expected, the abduction of three young girls had traumatized this small community.

She kept walking, looking around. She crossed a narrow alleyway, which, if she recalled correctly, had once marked the end of the small shop area. The next building was a large brick edifice that had, she thought, searching her memory, once been a mill of some kind. But now it appeared only one corner was occupied, remodeled to add a large corner window.

She slowed to a halt before that window. In the top part was, oddly, a birdhouse, she supposed for the martins farmers so prized. But what drew her was the sideboard displayed there. The piece fairly glowed in the late-fall sun, burnished to a smooth, flawless finish, no doubt by hand. Every corner, every angle was perfectly crafted. The wood was rich with grain and clearly selected with care. Each piece mirrored the one before, so that it was clear you were seeing the progression of the tree itself. The overall effect was an incredible melding of nature’s symmetry and man’s skill.

If there wasn’t a good, solid mid-four figures on that price tag, there should be, Emma thought. If not for a closed sign on the door, she’d go in for a closer look. This was the most gorgeous piece of furniture she’d ever seen, and she was already mentally rearranging her apartment to make room for it.

Her gaze shifted, and she realized there was someone in the shop despite the closed sign. A man, in the back, standing near what had to be another window. Probably, she guessed, looking out at the stand of trees to the rear. The sun was at a sharper angle this time of year and poured through that window like a floodlight. It illuminated him as if he were on a stage.

And he could well have been on a stage, for he was a strikingly handsome man. Tall, at least a couple of inches over six feet. Lean, yet well muscled. And the sunlight lit up his features, strong jaw and brow, perfectly cut nose, and a mouth that looked as if it would be softly sensual were it not drawn into a compressed line at that moment. His hair was dark and gleamed in the light streaming over him.

She didn’t know how long she just stood there, staring. She wished she had a camera in hand, or that she could draw or paint, for this was a scene worth preserving. Standing there, awash in the soft light of dusk, with that stern, almost pained expression, he stirred feelings in her that she didn’t understand yet couldn’t deny.

He was as beautiful as the piece in the window, and she knew instinctively he was the maker.

And she had turned into a ridiculous gaping female at the sight of him.

This was not a good way to start her investigation.

“May I help you?”

The polite, child-pitched voice had yanked her out of her silly reverie. She had looked down at the child standing beside her, sheepishly aware she hadn’t even noticed the girl’s approach. Bright blue eyes looked back at her, and she saw dark hair pulled under the traditional head covering.

“This is my father’s shop,” the girl had explained. “He makes the best furniture in the world.”

“Does he?” She couldn’t help smiling.

Color stained the girl’s cheeks, adding color to the pale porcelain of her skin. “He would never say such a thing—it’s vain—but I think I can say it for him.”

The simple words had reminded her better than anything else could that she was back among the people who had so fascinated her when she was this child’s age.

“And who is your father?”

“Caleb Troyer. He’s right in there.”

Emma’s breath caught. This man, who had so captivated her, who had her standing here in public staring as if she’d never seen a man before, was Caleb Troyer? The brother of the kidnapped Hannah Troyer?

“And you’re …?”

“Katie Troyer,” the girl said.

The oldest, Emma thought, remembering the file that had said Hannah Troyer had three young nieces through her brother Caleb. And that the girl’s mother, Annie Troyer, had died three years ago, leaving Hannah as the main maternal figure in their lives.

“Are you here about my aunt?”

Good guess, or had something given her away?

“What makes you think that?”

“You seem different than the others.”

“Different?”

“You dress plainer. More like us than them. Even if you do wear boy’s clothes.”

Ah, the honesty of children, Emma thought wryly.

“I am from the FBI,” she said. At the girl’s furrowed brow she added, “We’re like the police, only for the whole country.”

“Oh. You need my father, then.”

That simple statement, Emma thought, opened up a whole new set of crazy thoughts.

This, she thought ruefully, could get complicated.

Chapter 3

“Father?”

Caleb Troyer found it odd that here, where they were alone, Katie would use English. Perhaps it had been to get his attention; he could tell from his daughter’s voice that this wasn’t the first time she’d called him. With a smothered sigh he slapped his hat against his leg a couple of times, as if the slight blows could shake him out of this mood. He was losing patience with himself, slipping into useless, unproductive states of daydreaming, staring out the windows of his workshop, wasting precious hours that should be spent working.

But how could he work thinking of Hannah, lively, irrepressible Hannah, out there in the other world, not just in danger of losing her way but having already been grabbed up by the evil that resided there?

Caleb was a strong, competent man, and he’d felt truly helpless only once before in his life. And he couldn’t help thinking of that time as helplessness filled him again. He hadn’t been able to help Annie as she slipped away after laboring so hard and painfully to bring little Grace into the world three years ago. And there was nothing he could do now.

His instincts were to go himself, to search for his impulsive little sister, but he was wise enough to know he would be useless out there, in that vast expanse that was the world of the outsiders, the English. It was full of technology and other things he knew existed but knew little about. He knew nothing of their huge cities or how to deal with the wickedness that flourished there.

He knew nothing of the kind of person who would do such a thing, take a young, innocent girl off the street for purposes so nefarious Caleb couldn’t bear thinking about them. How any man, even an English, could do such things was beyond him.

“Father, please?”

Shaking off the thoughts that had occupied his mind every waking hour since Hannah had been taken, he turned around to face his oldest daughter. As usual, her sweet face both soothed and unsettled him. It was a little easier than it used to be, looking at this beloved child who was such a painful reminder. With her dark hair and blue eyes, she was the living, breathing image of the woman who had been the center of his life since they had been children. The girl he had known he would marry since they had been eleven, the age Katie was now.

Annie had known it, too. When she’d approached him and said “You’re the one,” he’d known exactly what she’d meant. That someday when they were old enough, they would be together.

“What is it, Katie?” he asked, trying to mask the sudden tightness in his throat. And again impatience rose in him. He should be worried about his missing little sister, Hannah, not mooning over a woman who’d died three years ago.

“Someone’s here.”

His mouth quirked at her expression; his already shy daughter looked beyond uneasy. And again his mind shot back to her mother. Annie, too, had been quiet, shy, and only later did he realize what a tremendous certainty she must have had to have approached him that day.

“Deacon Stoltzfus here to chastise me about my beard again?”

The church elder had made it his mission in life to remind Caleb he was going against a basic tenet of Amish life for adult males. As if he didn’t know.

He’d grown his beard, as custom dictated, when he’d married Annie. And when she’d died, in a fit of rage and grief, he’d shaved it off, nearly slitting his own throat in the process. His wife had died because of him, trying to deliver his child. And he hadn’t been able to save her. He didn’t qualify on either front to wear the badge of adult maleness.

So every day he shaved his jaw, those minutes his silent, aching tribute to the woman he missed so much. Without her, he was not a man, and thus he would be without a beard, to the dismay of the entire community.

He waited for Katie to express her usual concern, suggesting he just grow the beard and make the elders happy. Katie was all about making everyone happy, as her mother had been.

“No,” the girl said, her voice oddly strained. “It’s an English.”

Caleb frowned. “Here?”

“A woman.” Katie frowned in turn. “She says she’s from the … the … some initials.”

Initials. That usually meant government. The English had such a need for long, fancy names for their agencies that interfered in the lives of their people.

And then it struck him. Was this about Hannah? Was it some woman from the police? Did she have news? Why else would she come looking for him, specifically, as Katie had said?

He walked quickly toward the doorway of the shop. He laid a hand gently on Katie’s shoulder as he went past her.

“Stay here,” he commanded and stepped outside into the slanting November sun. Whatever the woman might say, he doubted he wanted Katie to hear it. He believed in honesty in what he said to his children, but that didn’t mean they needed to hear every detail. Selective omission, Annie had called it, and he’d known there had been a touch of disapproval in the words. Annie had been completely, albeit compassionately, honest. In her way, she had been tougher than he. She had always found a gentle way to say no or deliver bad news, whereas he would cringe inwardly from the task of being harsh with their girls.

And now it all fell to him.

The sight of the woman waiting outside shook him out of his pained memories, thankfully rattled him out of his self-pity.

She stood in a shaft of sunlight. And the first thing that struck him was the way that golden light struck her hair, firing it to a luscious blend of colors that matched the fiery fall turning of the leaves. Those leaves were gone now, this first week of November, but her hair brought him the same feeling of wonder at nature’s rightness. And the thick richness of it nearly took his breath away. He stopped dead in his tracks.

This was peculiar. Why would her hair affect him like this? It was so unlike Annie’s. Her hair had gleamed like a raven’s feathers. Of course, he never saw it out in the sunlight like this. She had, as a proper Amish woman, always worn her covering in public. A woman’s uncovered hair was for her husband’s eyes only, behind closed doors, where such lust-invoking sights belonged.

But for an instant, as he stared at the red, gold and russet, he wanted to touch it, run his fingers through it, see if it felt as warm as it looked.

He yanked his gaze away, angry at himself yet again.

This is why the covering is a good thing, he lectured himself. And slapped his own hat belatedly on his head.

He realized it was the worry about Hannah that had him off balance. Normally such improper thoughts would have never entered his mind. It had to be that subconsciously he was thinking of his sister’s pure red hair, comparing it to this mixture of brown and red and gold that seemed somehow warmer to him. More earthy, as if she were connected to the land, unlike Hannah, whose temperament had always made him fear they would lose her to the outside world.

And now, they had. But not by her choice. The grim reality bit deeply, and he forced himself to focus.

He must have been acting very strangely, for the woman was staring at him. His stomach flipped oddly at the thought that she might have realized his thoughts at the sight of her hair in the sun were not those of a properly raised and trained Amish man. And he could not blame her, not really. For an Englishwoman she was actually very conservatively dressed. Even that hair was, if not under a prayer covering, at least pulled back into a severe style that was less blatant than most. Not that it seemed to lessen the effect, since his second thought after the striking color had been what it would look like down around her shoulders.

But he noticed also that she wore no jewelry, no necklace, no earrings, no rings. He wondered suddenly if she had dressed so, fixed herself so, out of some idea of respecting their traditions or if she was always this unadorned.

And if the absence of a wedding ring, in the English manner, meant she was unattached. Not that it was any of his business. Telling himself firmly the manners and dress of an outsider mattered less than nothing, he walked toward the woman.

“Mr. Troyer?”

Her voice was low, almost husky, and for a moment that quashed reaction threatened anew. For she was closer now, and her eyes were a vivid meadow-green unlike any eyes he’d seen before. That green, plus the reds, golds and browns of her hair … She seemed like some woodland creature, a creature of the earth, the land, who—

He jammed his left hand into his pocket, curling his fingers into a fist, letting his fingernails dig into his flesh. He welcomed the pain; he was obviously out of control with worry, and he needed to focus.

“I am Caleb Troyer,” he said formally.

“I’m Emma Colton, with the FBI.”

Her voice was brisk as she held up a leather folder with identification. From what he could see from the photograph, she dressed like this regularly. Her hair was even more severely styled, pulled into a knot on her head, tidy except for a few rebellious strands. So she did not use that amazing hair to draw attention to herself. If anything, she seemed to be trying to avoid any acknowledgment that she was female.

Wondering why his usual stern control of his thoughts had deserted him, Caleb tried again.

“You are here about Hannah.”

“Yes, sir. I’m from a field office in Ohio, where, unfortunately, there have been similar cases of Amish girls gone missing.”

He nodded. “I was told by the detective from Philadelphia.” His dark brows furrowed. “His name is also Colton.”

“Tate is my brother.”

Caleb’s brows rose. “He did not mention that. But you are with the FBI, not the police.”

She answered the implicit question with a shrug. “He asked me to come.”

“And so you did?”

“Of course.”

He liked her answer. Then, his head tilted slightly, he asked, “Then you are Dr. Colton’s sister?”

Dr. Derek Colton, whose office was just down the street from the store that sold much of Caleb’s handcrafted furniture, was well-known in the Amish community. He was more than generous with his time and care, and seemed to take a special interest in seeing his Amish neighbors stay healthy. He was a good, solid man, and of all the English Caleb dealt with, he thought Derek Colton the most reliable and trustworthy.

“Yes, Derek’s my brother,” she said. “And before you ask, yes, I’m adopted, too. We all are. All six of us.”

She declared it proudly, her love for her family clear in her voice. He liked that.

“I was not going to ask,” he said. “Dr. Colton has told me about his family.”

He hadn’t named them all, however. He’d spoken mostly about their parents and how they all still grieved their loss. He’d found Dr. Colton an honorable and admirable man, but he hadn’t made any assumptions about his siblings. He himself was too different from his sister, Hannah, to fall prey to that faulty thinking.

“I didn’t come here to talk about my family,” she said rather briskly. Indeed, almost sharply, in a sharp, businesslike tone he’d rarely heard from an Amish woman.

“But it is your family, in particular your brother, who has paved your road with his goodwill. If you get cooperation from this community, much of it will be because of him.”

“If?” The woman gaped at him. “I’m here to try to find your sister.”

“I know this. But don’t assume this will automatically ensure trust from all of us.”

He was antagonizing her. Purposely.

Caleb realized it with a little jolt. While it was difficult for anyone in the community to turn to outsiders for help, they had all reluctantly agreed this was beyond their scope. Implicit in that was that they would cooperate; they had all agreed with that once the decision had been made.

Including, in fact especially, he himself.

“Then I will find these girls without your help,” she said, sounding fierce.

Caleb appreciated her determination. He wanted that kind of determination in the search for Hannah. He attempted a fresh start.

“It is difficult for us—”

“What’s difficult for me is to understand why anyone wouldn’t pull out all the stops to save a child whose life could be in danger.”

Caleb wasn’t used to being interrupted. Annie would never have dreamed of it. But this woman was clearly nothing like his sweet, retiring Annie. Nothing at all. She was sharp, forceful and very intense.

“I grew up just a couple of miles from here,” she said. “And I always had the idea the Amish loved their kids just as we did.”

“Of course we do.”

“And yet you’ll throw roadblocks in the way of the people best equipped to find your missing children?”

Caleb studied her for a long, silent moment. She was indeed fierce, her temper as fiery as her hair in the sunlight. Was it always thus, or was there something specific here that sparked her ire?

“You are very angry,” he said.

“Of course I am.”

“Anger is an … unproductive emotion.”

She stared at him in turn then. “Oh, it can be very productive. Perhaps you could use a little.”

“It is not our way.”

“Is it your way to stand here and argue with me when your sister is among the missing?”

Caleb gave himself an internal shake. Despite her abrasiveness—well, when compared to Annie anyway—he could not argue with her last point. And he wasn’t at all sure why he’d found himself sparring with this woman. She was an Englishwoman, and what they said or did mattered nothing to him.

Except it had to matter now. For Hannah’s sake.

Chapter 4

Way to get this started, Emma chided herself.

She had no idea what had gotten into her. She had known perfectly well what she would be facing here, had known that these people wouldn’t easily get past the traditions of a lifetime, to hold themselves separate from the outsiders they avoided. Her way, the world’s way, wasn’t their way, and she’d grown up knowing that. She’d grown up being taught to respect, even when she didn’t understand.

And she didn’t understand now. Didn’t understand how any tradition could be allowed to stand in the way of saving the lives of innocent children.

But that didn’t mean she had to take the guy’s head off, she thought. She didn’t know why she had, why she’d come on so strong and confrontational. She’d learned much better tactics in her career with the FBI, yet it seemed she’d forgotten them all.

Just like she’d forgotten her own name when, caught by the sight of a beautiful sideboard in a display window, she had looked farther into the shop and seen the equally beautiful man standing in the back.

She seized on that. “This is your shop?”

He nodded, looking the slightest bit wary. His eyes were gray, a light, clear color rimmed with a darker edge that made her wonder how they would look at times of high emotion. She cut off her thoughts before she slipped into contemplation of what kind of emotions.

“You built that?” she asked, gesturing at the sideboard in the window.

Again a nod.

“You’re … an artist.”

One dark brow rose. “I am a carpenter. If there is artistry here, it is God’s. He grew the tree.”

She blinked. She looked at the piece again, looked at how each board had a mirror image of the grain pattern of the board below it, large at the bottom to smaller at the top, so that it almost looked as if it had been liquid swirled with an unseen brush.

“Point taken,” she said.

And for the first time, she saw one corner of his mouth lift in a partial smile.

“But you had the skill, the vision to see the potential,” she couldn’t resist pointing out.

“And where does my vision come from, if not from God?”

She gave up. The man obviously would not take a simple compliment. But at least they were speaking civilly now, so she could get back to work. And she would begin by yanking her gaze away from that mouth that was indeed as full and sensual as she’d suspected it would be.

He had, she noticed, apparently nicked himself shaving. The small spot of blood on the right line of his jaw was obvious. Somehow that small cut steadied her, kicked her brain back into investigative mode.

It wasn’t the only sign of shaving mayhem. There were a couple more nicks, in various stages of healing.

So the man who could use saws and nails and planes and sanders to create this thing of beauty in the window couldn’t shave himself without slicing into his own skin? It made no sense to her.

Belatedly, she realized him shaving at all made no sense, not against what she understood of the community he lived in.

“You have no beard,” she said.

Any softening she’d seen in him vanished with that simple observation.

“I don’t deserve that symbol,” he said. His voice was harsh, as if even saying the words were part of some punishment he was bound to endure.

Emma knew Amish men grew their beards—but not mustaches—when they married. In this sect it was a symbol, as he’d said, of that passage to adulthood. She also knew from the file that his wife had died in childbirth three years ago. Did becoming a widower mean the beard had to go? It wasn’t as if they could wear black as a sign of mourning—they always wore black. The women were allowed some color, if mostly darker shades of blues, greens, browns, but the men seemed to dress mostly in black, sometimes blues.

It was very strange, she thought. She’d grown up seeing the “plain people” all the time; she’d thought nothing of it, didn’t find them strange, just different. Her mother had given her a simple explanation of their ways when she’d been a child, and she’d accepted it in the way of a child, been secretly glad she didn’t have to wear a dress all the time and thought little more about it than that.

But now, looking at this man, in his simple black trousers, clean, white shirt and suspenders, she found herself picturing what he would look like in the clothing of her world. Put him in a pair of jeans and even that same white shirt, lose the suspenders and the hat, and women would be beating a path to his door.

And she had a sinking feeling she might be first in line.

With an effort larger than she’d had to make in a long while, she forced herself to concentrate on the matter at hand.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude on your personal decisions.” She tried for a lighter touch. “But you might want to take it a bit easier with that razor.”

His hand moved, as if he were going to instinctively touch the fresh cut. But he stopped short, curling his fingers away at the last moment. His hand, she noticed, was strong, well used and marked with a couple of small scars. Yet his fingers were long, graceful, and she glanced at the piece in the window once more. Artist definitely applied, she thought.

“That I shave seems everyone’s business. How I shave is mine.”

There was an edge in his voice. So Mr. Troyer had a touch of temper, she thought. Or she was seriously rubbing him the wrong way. An awful thought struck her. Was he somehow aware, had he sensed her reaction to him? Had she let it show? Had it been so long since a man, any man, had stirred such interest in her that she wasn’t able to hide it even in this most inappropriate of situations?

Or was it simply that he was worried about his sister? That certainly would be enough to put anyone on edge. Although she wondered about that “everyone’s business” comment. Wasn’t that part of his culture, to play down the individual to maintain the cohesiveness of the community? Yet something was obviously eating at him.

“Why do you shave?” she asked, her curiosity genuine and stemming from a source she didn’t care to examine just now. “Is it because your wife died?”

His jaw went rigid. “I do not speak of her to strangers. Especially English.”

Then his initial look of shock faded, she guessed as he realized she likely knew more than any stranger would. And she had her answer now; his eyes did indeed darken in moments of emotion. In particular anger.

“I’m sorry,” Emma said, knowing she’d crossed a line and uncomfortably aware she’d done it with little justification. She was usually in much better control of herself than this, and she’d better get back to that in a hurry.

“It is enough I have the elders threatening me with sanction, my friends telling me it is time to move on,” he muttered.

Then he stopped himself, looking a bit like she felt, as if he were unused to speaking when he didn’t mean to. Threat of sanction? For shaving? Was that what he was upset about?

She remembered her father once explaining to her that the Amish, as every human, got angry. But they, unlike too many in the outside world, controlled their anger. They had faith in God’s will, and to become angry over something that happened was, to them, to question that will. At the time Emma had been fascinated, but years later a fateful day had made the idea of God’s will hard for her to even think about rationally.

But that had no business intruding on what she was here for. Yet something about the way he’d sounded made her say one more thing.

“My parents were killed over a decade ago. I miss them every day of my life. It will never be time to ‘move on’ if that means forgetting them,” she said quietly.

Something flashed in his eyes then, something that seemed almost like gratitude. And when he spoke, there was a note of conciliation in his voice.

“You have questions you wish to ask?”

“You built that birdhouse, too?”

He blinked. “I … Yes.” His brows furrowed. “That cannot be what you wanted to ask.”

She’d succeeded in throwing him off his guard, at least.

“It’s not one of the questions I must ask,” she said. “Please understand these are questions that must be asked of everyone, because of the nature of these cases. Many of them you may have already answered to local authorities, but I must ask them again.”

“I will tell you everything I can, if it will help you find my sister and her friends.”

Those gray eyes watched her steadily, and for a moment she lost track of what she’d intended to say. Which made no sense to her. She was no stranger to powerful men. She was a Colton after all, and it ran in the family. Not to mention the men she worked with. And then there was that little fact of the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue being her “Uncle Joe.”

Yet none of them had ever made her so addle-headed or disconcerted as this man did.

She cleared her throat and began to ask the questions. For now they were, as she’d said, routine. She and Tate had agreed, before he’d headed back to Philly to pursue that end of the investigation, that it was unlikely that the suspects would come out of the tight-knit Amish community. Not impossible—they were humans like anyone else—but they were held together by their faith and that sense of responsibility for each other that was often lacking outside their society.

As she went through the questions—confirming what she’d read in the file about the date and circumstances of Hannah’s disappearance, Hannah’s friends and the last to have seen her or them, and adding a few more—Emma’s mind was stubbornly gnawing away on other unsettling thoughts. And as she reached the end of the string of standard questions, she reached a rather unsettling, if not downright embarrassing, conclusion.

She had always thought of Amish men differently. It probably stemmed from growing up familiar with them, and the differences between them and the strong, powerful Colton men. She’d spent years watching women fall for brothers, cousins, all of them. She knew what sent them into raptures—although privately she’d been laughing, thinking if they’d grown up with those Colton men they might be singing a very different tune.

By comparison, the Amish men she’d seen so often as a child had seemed almost another species. Like priests or nuns or monks or anyone else focused on religion. Not less than human, just a different persuasion of human.

Whatever the cause, she’d never had reason to modify that childhood perception, that Amish men were so religious and staid and proper they had little interest in other things. Now that seemed silly. She knew perfectly well the Amish were given to large families, but as an innocent child she hadn’t realized the correlation between big families and those … other things. Somehow in her young mind, before she even fully realized what it meant, she’d stuck them with a label of “asexual” and had never revisited the issue.

Until now.

Until as an adult, breathing female, she had to admit what couldn’t be denied.

There was nothing, absolutely nothing asexual about Caleb Troyer.

Chapter 5

“Your name is the same as the president’s.”

There in the middle of the simply furnished room of Caleb Troyer’s equally simple but solidly build house, Emma crouched down to look young Ruthie Troyer, Caleb’s middle daughter, in the eye. The seven-year-old had a rebellious mane of blond hair that kept escaping what was supposed to be a tidy, plain bun. Her blue-green eyes were fastened on Emma boldly and without fear. Emma guessed from her demeanor, the way she stood and the way she seemed to have only two speeds, stop or full run, that she would be Caleb’s biggest handful. In fact, Emma sensed a kindred spirit in the girl and had a strong suspicion that had she been born into the outside world, she would be an irrepressible tomboy.

She felt a pang of sympathy for the girl. How would she herself have survived if not for the indulgence of her family, allowing her to run a bit wild on the ranch, keeping up with the boys and showing little to no interest in learning domestic skills? Eventually she’d learned to cook passably well, but only accepted the lessons because her brothers were forced to learn, as well; there would be no helpless men or women coming out of her house, Charlotte Colton had sternly announced at the start of the summer spent in the big ranch kitchen.

“Yes, my name is the same,” Emma said solemnly. “My father was the president’s cousin.”

The girl didn’t look surprised. Perhaps because in her smaller world, the same name often meant a familial connection. Instead, the bright-eyed and obviously smart child fastened on the critical word in what she’d said.

“Was?”

Funny how it could still sting after all these years, Emma thought.

“Yes,” she said quietly, sensing that this child, like the girl she herself had been, would see through any dissembling, and then quickly put her in the category of adults who thought you were too young or dumb to understand. “He was killed eleven years ago. Along with my mother.”

She wasn’t sure if that date that was so infamous in her world registered much in theirs, so she left it at that.

“Both?” Ruthie asked, her eyes widening as she flicked a glance at her own father.

“Yes.”

Ruthie absorbed that. And Emma thought she saw the realization dawning in her eyes that bad as losing her mother had been, it could have been worse.

“Eleven years? That’s older than me.”

“Yes.”

“What did they look like?”

She asked it so fiercely Emma was a little taken aback. And then the probable reason for the urgent question struck her, and she answered carefully and in detail.

“My father was like a force of nature. He was tall, about your father’s height. He was very strong and handsome. His voice was deep, strong, and when he hugged me and spoke I could feel it booming up out of his chest. He looked a lot younger than he was, with lots of sandy hair and green eyes.”

That had always been a comfort to her, that Donovan Colton’s eyes had been so like her own that no one would suspect he hadn’t been her biological father.

Ruthie was still looking at her, that touch of desperation in her eyes, so she went on.

“My mother was beautiful. Her hair was a bit lighter than yours, and her eyes were just as blue. She was always smiling. Serene, like a warm, sunny day. She could calm a room just by coming into it. They were always there for me, and I still remember and miss them every single day.”

Some of the intensity in the girl’s posture ebbed, and Emma saw a touch of relief in her eyes.

“Just as you will always remember your mother, even when you are old and gray,” she added softly, knowing she’d read the girl who reminded her of herself correctly.

“Ruthie.” Caleb’s own deep voice seemed tense as he interrupted. “Go gather your little sister from Mrs. Stoltzfus.”

The child hesitated, her gaze flicking to Emma as if she were reluctant. But only for a moment, then she quickly went to obey her father, so quickly Emma wondered if that undertone in his voice was more than simply sternness, if Caleb was so strict with his children that they dare not even protest an unwanted command.

For a command it had been, there was no doubt about that, she thought as she straightened up. She knew Amish men were the undisputed heads of their house, but she’d always thought their women were a quiet power behind closed doors. But perhaps they were not; perhaps they were completely submissive, dutiful. And she—

Emma interrupted her own thoughts as the idea struck that perhaps it was not his daughter Caleb Troyer was tense about. Perhaps it was her.

She swiftly reviewed what she’d said to the child and found nothing that could provoke such a response. She hadn’t even really asked the girl any pertinent questions other than if she’d spoken to her aunt the day she’d vanished, if Hannah had said anything unusual to her. She would want to talk to the girl in more detail later, but right now her focus had been on getting the child to trust her a little. And she thought she’d done that, by sharing her own painful memories, and—

“I never realized,” Caleb said.

She turned to look at him then. He was rubbing his jaw, and one glance at his face told her the person he was upset at was himself.

“Realized what?” she asked, a little startled at the relief she felt that he wasn’t angry at her.

“That she was afraid of forgetting what her mother looked like.”

“It’s only natural. And,” she added honestly, “perhaps more difficult in your culture, because there are few photographs.”

“We do not believe in images.”

“I know. I’m not criticizing, just saying it makes it harder at times like this. Then again, perhaps always seeing a picture on the wall as a reminder of your loss—or taking it down and finding it makes no difference, because you simply always notice it’s gone and remember why—is even harder.”

Caleb stared at her for a long, silent moment. “You are … not what I expected a person from the FBI to be.”

“Human, you mean?” She smiled when she said it, determined not to return to that confrontational demeanor.

“Caring,” he said. “I would think, with the work you do, you would avoid that.”

“They do their best to train it out of you,” she admitted. “They know it drains you, sends you on the way to burnout faster.”

She didn’t mention that this training hadn’t taken very well with her. She always struggled to maintain that detachment, her natural empathy becoming both a strength and a weakness. This was something she barely even admitted to herself, because then she’d have to admit they were right. After seven years she was already closer to burnout than some of her colleagues who had been around twice as long.

“And yet you care about the feelings of a child who has lost her mother.”

“That doesn’t have anything to do with this case.”

“And you have felt this pain yourself.”

She was uncomfortable with his steady regard and with the personal turn this had taken. She had opened that door herself, however, with Ruthie, so she could hardly complain about it now.

“I have. I do.”

“Eleven years?”

“I’ll still feel it after fifty,” she said, almost defiantly, wondering if he was one of those who would tell her it was time to get over it.

“You will,” he agreed quietly, startling her. And then she silently chided herself. Ruthie had lost her mother, but this man had lost his wife. “That was not what I meant. Eleven years ago was 2001.”

“Yes.”

“And you lost them both, together.”

“Yes.”

He seemed to hesitate for a moment, then, his deep voice soft, he said rather than asked it, as if he already knew the answer. “September 11.”

“Yes.” She studied him for a moment. “I wasn’t sure how much impact that had in the Amish community.”

His mouth tightened slightly. “It had tremendous impact. It tested our beliefs like few things ever have. And our relationship with you English.”

She’d never really thought about it, not from their point of view. “You mean because you don’t believe in fighting back.”

“And we were often held in contempt for it. We love our country, but because our beliefs forbid flying its flag it was assumed we did not.”

“You don’t fly the flag because of your beliefs,” she said slowly, almost wonderingly, “but how do you decide to remain a pacifist in the face of people who kill us in the name of theirs?”

“It is not a decision, Agent Colton. It is who we are.”

They had proven that, time and again, so she didn’t see any use in arguing the point.

“Sometimes,” she said, her gaze unfocused as she remembered the horrors of that day, “I envy you the simplicity and peace of your lives.”

“Many do,” he said. “But few are truly willing to do what it takes to attain it.”

She refocused abruptly. He was looking at her with a mild sort of amusement. She supposed he had heard that often from visitors or tourists who enthused about their way of life until the realization came that they really would have to give up so much of what they took for granted.

“You are truly related to the English president?”

“He’s your president, too. But yes. I grew up calling him Uncle Joe.”

“He seems a good man.”

“He is. He’s already done some good things.”

“I know little of that,” Caleb said. “But unlike others, he’s done nothing of harm to us.”

Again Emma felt a pang; what must it be like to only have to judge a small portion of what craziness went on in the world, the small portion that directly affected you and yours? The idea of not having to thrash her way through all the complications and political gamesmanship that made her life an occasional morass was beyond tempting. It was like Shangri-la, something she longed for but wasn’t sure really existed.

“Ruthie’s mother,” she began, then stopped, unable to think how to phrase a question that had nothing to do with why she was here.

Caleb went very still. His mouth tightened, and his voice became rough. “I do not speak of her to my family. I certainly will not speak of her to a stranger. She has nothing to

do with this.”

The words and his tone were harsh, but Emma had had enough training and practice in reading people to realize they both were outward evidence of a powerful inward emotion.

The man had loved his wife. Enough, apparently, to risk sanction from his church, she thought as she looked again at the nick that marred his strong, smooth-shaven jaw. She wondered how long the elders’ patience would last, how much slack they would give a grieving widower before they took action. Would they really do something like shun him for shaving that Amish symbol of manhood, the beard, when it was done out of grief?

I don’t deserve that symbol.

His words echoed in her head. The harsh tone echoed what she had just heard from him. It had sounded like more than simple grief. And with a sudden flash of insight she thought she knew why. She knew because it was a trait every Colton man had in spades.

You protected your own.

And if you failed at that, you weren’t a Colton. You weren’t even really a man.

She was familiar with the mind-set.

She admired the mind-set, for the most part.

She’d just never expected to find it here. She’d thought it bred out of these men, long ago, through submission to what they saw as the will of God.

In a way, it relieved her. It took her a while to realize why.

It meant Caleb Troyer wasn’t quite perfect after all.

Chapter 6

Sometimes, Caleb thought, he would like nothing more than to walk away. As he sat in his chair next to the gas lamp, a book open in his lap but so far unread, he imagined a life without the constant reminders, a life not lived in the house he and Annie had shared. A life where everyday things didn’t jab at him, seeming to taunt him with the loss of the sweet, shy woman who had loved him with all her heart. And whom he had loved since the moment he’d first seen her.

Something the Englishwoman had said went through his mind, about taking down pictures of a loved one who had passed.

… and finding it makes no difference, because you simply always notice it’s gone and remember why …

Would it truly be that way somewhere else, away from all the reminders? Was it not the reminders at all, but something missing inside himself? Had Annie truly taken his heart with her, was that why he felt so hollow?

He felt a flash of anger that he immediately quashed with the ease of long practice. He had no right to feel anger at what had clearly been God’s will. Annie had died in the most natural of acts, bringing a child into the world. If anyone deserved anger it was he himself. He should have called for Dr. Colton sooner, the moment things had started to go wrong. Even though he’d come immediately, arriving much more quickly than Caleb would have thought possible, by the time he did get there Annie was lying still and lifeless.

Dr. Colton. A fine man, a good man, and a good doctor. And he was the FBI woman’s brother. This woman who had obviously gained wisdom from her own tragedy. Because deep inside he knew she was right. Leaving his home would not cure the pain he felt. The hollowness was not in a place or a building. It was in him.

He chided himself sharply; he had no time for self-pity or worse, dwelling on the words, however wise, of a woman not of his world. And yet he found himself staring at the rack on the wall by the door where Annie’s cape had always hung, empty now, and the simple truth in what she had said struck home.

“Father?”

Katie’s voice was hesitant, so much like her mother’s it felt like a punch to his stomach every time she spoke. But especially when he was lost in this kind of self-indulgent musing.

“Katie,” he acknowledged.

“I’m through with my schoolwork. May I read my book before bedtime?”

“Yes.”

The girl was deep into a series of novels about quilting that she had begun reading with her mother. She’d only recently begun to read them again. For over a year after Annie’s death, Katie had wanted nothing to do with them. She had stuffed them into the corner of the dresser Caleb had built for her before she was born, covering them with folded aprons and caps, as if putting them out of sight would make—

And as quickly as that he was back to the words of the FBI woman.

“Father,” Ruthie began.

“Schoolwork,” he answered, knowing her well enough that she wouldn’t be finished yet. Ruthie was bright, clever and quick, but was also easily distracted. A simple school essay could take hours because she would veer down a side path she found irresistibly fascinating.

Grace, thankfully, was sound asleep tucked in her small bed in the girls’ room. Next year, when she turned twelve, Katie would move to her own room. She could have had it much earlier, but after her mother’s death, she had clung to Ruthie and new baby Grace, and he hadn’t had the heart to part them. But the room they all shared was crowded, and it was silly to continue the practice when there were four empty bedrooms in the house. Hannah had told him it was past time Katie had her own room and she would soon need privacy.

A shiver went through him. Hannah loved her nieces and was always ready to lend a hand. In fact, she got more cooperation out of them than he sometimes could; her irrepressible spirit and her sense of humor usually had them laughingly complying with even the most onerous of tasks.

He didn’t know what he’d do without her.

He shifted his gaze to the two heads bent over the table, Katie reading intently, Ruthie scribbling words with a speed that had him thinking he’d be needing to check that paper before she handed it in.

His girls. He loved them dearly, not just for their own sakes, but because they were all he had left of Annie. And he realized with thudding finality that he would never leave Paradise Ridge. He would never start over somewhere else, because it would mean ripping his children away from their only remaining solace, the loving support of the community. Every female in the village pitched in to help him with the girls. And if some of them, as Mrs. Yoder had warned, had eyes on filling Annie’s shoes, well, that just wasn’t going to happen.

No, he would not be going anywhere. Even if he could tolerate the change himself, it would be too cruel to uproot the girls, whose lives had already been turned upside down, just because he wished he could escape.

There would be no escape.

Emma stopped on the path to Caleb Troyer’s house. Even in the fading light of dusk, the details were clear: the stone foundation, the covered porch that ran the width of the house, the evenly spaced windows. Smoke curled out of the chimney, a homey touch she hadn’t realized she’d missed until she saw it now. It was a simple house, as were all Amish homes, but it looked solid and well built. But she supposed a carpenter as skillful as Caleb would settle for nothing less.

One of those windows by the front door glowed with light, and as she walked up the steps to the porch, she could see into the front room of the house. She paused on the top step. She could see the woodstove on one wall, obviously in use in this brisk almost-winter weather. But what caught her eye was the table before it, where two young girls sat in the surprisingly bright light of what appeared to be a gas lamp. Their heads were bent, one over a book she was reading intently, the other over papers spread on the table, one of which she was writing on with a tightly clutched pencil.

Something about the simple tableau tightened her throat. She felt a yearning that startled her with its power, especially since she couldn’t even put a name to what she was yearning for.

She was happy enough in Cleveland. Her work was rewarding, if a bit routine, something that would surprise most whose idea of the FBI came from film or television.

Caleb wouldn’t have those ideas, she thought suddenly. Because he wouldn’t have been influenced by either of those things. Most times when she thought of life without the technology everyone relied on, it was with a wondering shake of her head. When people learned she had grown up in Amish country, they were often full of questions, mostly about how some people could stand to live like that. Her standard answer had always been that you don’t miss what you’ve never had.

But now she wasn’t so sure they weren’t better off without the pervasive hammering of popular culture and the twenty-four-hour news cycle. The idea of simply unplugging held a lot more appeal than it once had.

She gave herself a mental shake. She’d expected to feel at home here in this countryside she’d grown up in, but she hadn’t expected this wave of … what was it, homesickness? How could you feel homesick when you were, essentially, at home?

“Because you know you’re not staying,” she muttered as she took that last step onto the porch. It was as solidly built as the rest of the house, the boards beneath her feet feeling even and level. In size and layout, it appeared to match most of the houses here in Paradise Ridge, yet it was different, because instead of the traditional and ubiquitous white paint, it was finished with a clear coat of some kind—

The front door swung open. Caleb Troyer stood there, limned from behind in golden light. She was struck again by how tall he was. Struck by how lean he was. Struck by the strength of his jaw, the structure of his face.

Struck dumb, apparently, she thought when she realized he’d been looking at her in polite inquiry for several seconds.

“Miss Colton?” he finally said.

She said the first thing that popped into her head. “Your house isn’t white.”

His brows rose. “You came here to tell me this?”

She felt beyond foolish. She’d interviewed terrorists, serial killers, kidnappers, yet she couldn’t seem to get her mind and her mouth in sync around this man.

“I was just wondering why.”

“My father built this house. It’s what he did, build houses. Not just here, but for outsiders, as well. He kept this house this way, with no paint to disguise any flaws, as an advertisement.”

“That’s allowed?”

His mouth quirked, and she wondered if she were going to get some kind of lecture about asking impertinent or intrusive questions that had nothing to do with why she was here. She told herself that was part of the job, too, to build a rapport of sorts, but she wasn’t convincing herself.

“Many things are allowed,” he said, in a tone she guessed he probably used to explain things to his children, “if they can be shown to have a good purpose and not to be harmful to the community.”

“It’s … beautiful,” she said, somehow stung by that tone, although she thought she hid it well enough.

“I believe what sold the bishop was my father’s argument that showing the natural state of the wood, which is God’s design, could hardly be a bad thing.”

Emma blinked. His tone had changed completely, was now warmer, as if sharing a confidence. As, perhaps, he was. It seemed to her a very clever argument.

“Your father was a smart man.”

“He was.” She thought he smothered a sigh. “Smarter than I, certainly.”

“Are you going to invite her inside out of the cold, Father?”

It was Katie who’d spoken. The girl had moved so quietly even her father seemed startled when she spoke practically from beside his elbow. Emma, facing the room, had seen the movement but said nothing. Watching the natural interaction of a family involved in a crisis like this one was often very illuminating.

To her amazement, Caleb flushed slightly. “Of course,” he said, his voice gruff but not angry. Embarrassed, perhaps, at being reminded of his manners by his eleven-year-old daughter? “Come in,” he said, backing up and holding the door open.

She stepped inside. The room was as warm and cozy as it had looked through the window. As with all Amish homes, it was simply furnished. Yet each wood chair, the storage pieces along the walls and the table the girls had been sitting at bore the signs of that fine craftsmanship she’d seen in his shopwindow earlier. The lines were simple, unadorned in the Amish way, but the quality shone through. She guessed those chairs would be as solid in twenty years as they were now.

Ruthie abandoned any pretense at concentrating on what appeared to be schoolwork on the table before her, got up and approached them.

“Aren’t you supposed to be looking for Aunt Hannah?”

“Ruth,” Caleb said sternly, “don’t be rude.”

Emma couldn’t help smiling. “I don’t blame her for asking. But let me ask you something, Ruthie. If I told you I’d lost something outside and asked you to help me find it, what would you do?”

“I would help you. That’s what people do.”

Emma felt a small jab. If that were always true, life would be so much simpler. But then, that’s what the Amish were all about, wasn’t it—a simpler life?

“So, we go outside, and then what?”

“We would look,” the girl said, brows furrowing. Emma had the distinct impression she was thinking something about how silly this grown-up was.

“Where?”

“Where you were when you lost it,” the girl said with an air of strained patience.

“And how would you know where that was?”

Ruthie sighed, as if her patience had run out. “I’d ask you.”

Emma sensed she was a very bright girl, and so she simply waited, saying nothing more. For an instant her gaze flicked to Caleb, who had subsided into silence and was watching intently.

It didn’t take the girl long. Her furrowed brow was cleared by dawning realization.

“You mean that’s what you’re doing? Finding out where to look?”

“Exactly.”

“Oh.”

The child appeared satisfied, and Katie smiled at her. Caleb said nothing to her, but directed Ruthie to finish her schoolwork and spoke to Katie about putting away clothing.

“Mrs. Stoltzfus’s daughter was kind enough to wash them. You should honor that by taking proper care.”

Something flashed in the girl’s blue eyes, but she only said “Yes, Father” and disappeared through a doorway at the back of the room.

The girl knew, Emma realized.

If there was one thing Emma had learned today in her preliminary interviews with a few of the residents of the village and the surrounding farms, it was that Caleb Troyer was on the figurative radar of every unmarried woman around.

It might well be that it was that sense of intense community that Amish life fostered brought on much of the generous help he was given, help with the girls and with the chores commonly relegated to the female domain, but it hadn’t taken Emma long to figure out that many of those women also had an eye on stepping into his late wife’s shoes.

Not that she didn’t understand perfectly. She was, after all, the one who had gone all wobbly the moment she’d spotted him standing in the back of his shop.

But Caleb seemed oblivious to their interest, much to their sorrow.

And to her own relief.

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