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Her Fear
Her Fear Read online
Dedication
To Erika, with my heartfelt thanks and gratitude.
Erika, you embraced my idea for a suspenseful
Amish series set in Kentucky and encouraged me to
run with it. All authors should be so blessed.
Epigraph
We can say with confidence, “The Lord is my helper, so I will
have no fear. What can mere people do to me?”
HEBREWS 13:6
Do what you can with what you have where you are.
AMISH PROVERB
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Epilogue
Note to the Reader
P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . .*
About the Author
About the Book
Read On
Also by Shelley Shepard Gray
Copyright
About the Publisher
Prologue
June 8
Until that moment, Sadie Detweiler hadn’t thought mere words could hurt so badly. But as Harlan continued to speak, each word cutting her as deeply as if it were a shard of glass, Sadie felt her heart was bleeding. For a moment, she even wished she was feeling her father’s cane on the backs of her thighs instead. That pain, at least, was familiar and fleeting.
Harlan Mast’s words would haunt her for the rest of her life.
“Are you positive you are pregnant?” Harlan asked for at least the third time. He scanned her body slowly, obviously searching for changes in her shape. “Maybe you are mistaken.”
If Sadie was bolder, she would have told him about her missed periods, about the early-morning nausea, even about her English friend Ana buying her a pregnancy test at a pharmacy two towns over. But Sadie could no more have told Harlan such personal information than she could have pulled off her kapp and started dancing in the middle of Sunday’s church service.
All she could give Harlan was her honesty. “Jah. I am sure. I am going to have a boppli. I’m gonna have our baby, Harlan.”
His eyes narrowed. “How do you know for sure that I’m the father?”
The pain in her heart got worse. “How could you ask me such a thing?”
“What? It’s a fair question.” He was looking like a stranger now. Nothing like the man who’d been courting her for months, who had whispered sweet things while they’d kissed. Who’d murmured fierce promises just before he’d led her into his barn late one night.
Unable to look him in the eye, Sadie stared down at her feet. “You—you know that you were my first.”
He made an impatient sound, as if the moment that had changed her life meant nothing to him. “That was ages ago.”
“Nee, that was nine weeks ago.”
“How am I supposed to know for sure that you haven’t been with someone else since then?”
Stunned, she lifted her head again. Stared at him.
Harlan was looking at her like she was a stranger. Nee, as if she were a pest. Vermin. Something akin to her being a fuzzy green caterpillar on an ear of corn he was about to eat.
The blue eyes she’d once thought looked so perfect were now distant and cold. His hands, those hands that once couldn’t stop touching her, were now clenched by his sides.
And she’d at last come to terms with the truth. He wasn’t going to hold her, beam with pride that their babe was growing inside her, or even ask her to marry him. But he had to be confused or in shock. Too dazed by her news to know what to say or to make plans.
She was going to have to be the strong one.
Clearing her throat, Sadie attempted to keep her voice calm and steady. “When should we tell our parents? I was thinking maybe it would be best to do it today. That way it’s out in the open and we won’t have to worry about their reaction.”
He shook his head. “I’m not going to tell my parents anything.”
“Nee? Well, they’re going to be mighty surprised when we get married and have a baby right away.”
“I ain’t marrying you, Sadie.”
“But I’m pregnant.”
He waved a hand. “Maybe. And maybe with my baby.”
“But—but we’ve been courting. Everyone would expect it . . .” She expected it.
“I can’t have you now.”
“But—”
“Sadie, I know you’ve heard the rumors. Our church district has grown so much that the bishop said we need another preacher. Men are going to draw for the lot soon. More than one of the elders has asked me to consider putting my name in. That won’t happen if I’m associated with this.”
She knew he was speaking about the tradition of a few chosen men entering their names in order to be selected for a lead position in their church community. The men chosen for the lot would each pull a hymnal. The man who found a scripture verse nestled inside would be selected for the position.
“But my father is one of the men who wants you to join the lot.” Didn’t Harlan see how misguided his words were? Why, he was acting as if only one of them had a good reputation and was from a good family.
“Your father is well respected and he respects me, too. He won’t, though, if he finds out that we were making babies in my barn when you were supposed to be at home and in bed.”
Sadie felt a bolt of triumph. Finally, he was admitting what they’d done. But then his words registered.
None of what he was saying had much to do with her, or their future. He was talking about things that didn’t really matter. And as if they had a choice about their future.
Once again, she attempted to bring his focus back to reality. “This baby ain’t going to disappear. It’s coming in about seven months. We need to make plans.”
He drew in a sharp breath. “You could get rid of it. Then no one would ever know.”
She stepped back, reeling from what he was saying. “I would know, and so would you! Besides, I could never do that.”
“If that’s the case, then you’re on your own.”
She was on her own?
When he turned away, she rushed forward and gripped the sleeve of his shirt. “Harlan, I know you’re upset, but I have to tell my parents. And you know what will happen then. My father will pay a visit to you. Think what will happen!”
He smiled. “You tell them what you want, but I know what I’m going to say.”
“What?”
“That I don’t know who you behaved wantonly with, but it surely wasn’t me.”
Ignoring the pain that each word caused, she whispered, “If you do that, I’ll tell them you’re lying.”
“Will you?” He smiled softly. “Sadie, jah, you do that. Go ahead and tell them what you want. Say whatever you want about me, but I think we both know who is going to be believed.”
When he turned and walked away, she finally allo
wed the tears to fall down her cheeks. She was very afraid that he would be right.
THE NEXT MORNING, sitting gingerly in the buggy with a cloth tote bag on her lap, Sadie swallowed past the hard lump that had formed in her throat and seemed content to dwell there for the upcoming journey. Harlan had not been wrong.
She’d gone home, told the news to her parents, and been subjected to both her father’s vicious words and two strikes from his cane. Then they locked her in her room while they went to go speak to Harlan.
She’d waited anxiously, sure that Harlan’s lies would be discovered and that they’d return home with a wedding date. But even as she heard the front door open and her parents’ footsteps on the stairs, neither came to her door.
Instead, at five o’clock that morning, her mother rushed into her room and told her to hurriedly dress and to pack all of her belongings.
She was being sent away.
“Willis and Verba are the worst sort of Amish,” her father said almost laconically about his in-laws as he drove her in their buggy to the bus stop. “They have loose morals and live in the middle of Kentucky. But they are family, so they’ll likely take you in.”
Likely? He wasn’t even sure? “I don’t want to go,” she blurted. Honestly, she would rather get beaten with a cane again than be alone and afraid in the middle of a strange place.
Without a second’s pause, her father pulled over the buggy to the side of the road. “Then get out.”
“What?”
“You’ve embarrassed and shamed me enough,” he said, his expression thunderous. “As far as I’m concerned, you ain’t no kin of mine. Not any longer. I can only blame it on the devil that is lurking inside of you, since you are continuing to lie to me about who the father of the baby you’re carrying really is.”
“I didn’t lie about Harlan. He really is the father.”
“He’s got no reason to lie, girl.”
“But—”
“Don’t argue with me. Now, either get out here or get on the bus to Willis and Verba. Make your decision.”
She had no choice. No matter what life was like in Kentucky, it couldn’t be worse than attempting to survive by herself. “I’ll get on the bus, Father.”
His body stiffened as he guided the horse back onto the road. “Don’t call me that ever again. I’m not your father. You are nothing to me.”
Sadie didn’t say another word during the rest of the journey. Or when he bought her a bus ticket and grudgingly gave her five dollars in case she needed something to eat or drink.
All she could think about when she sat on the warm bus, surrounded by strangers, the majority of whom were English, was that she finally understood what fear really was.
Fear was being alone. Fear was feeling abandoned.
Fear was realizing that anyone could lie, hurt, and betray her. Anyone at all.
Sadie made a vow right then and there that she would never forget that again.
Chapter 1
June 29
What are you doing to her?” Willis Stauffer demanded. “Don’t touch her like that.” This time he punctuated his words by gripping the sleeve of Noah’s EMT uniform. His fingers dug in like claws, tight enough to rend the fabric.
Alarmed, Noah eyed the man’s gnarled hand before allowing his gaze to drift to Mr. Stauffer’s face. Dark eyes, half hidden by prominent wrinkles, peered back suspiciously.
The animosity that flowed through the older man’s expression caught Noah off guard. After all, he and his two partners were there to try to save the woman lying on the living room floor of the run-down farmhouse. Why would this man, this woman’s husband, be acting as if they were there to harm instead of help?
“English, is she going to be all right?”
That slur was intentional, and both Noah and Willis knew it. Noah might be wearing an EMT uniform, but he was as Amish as the family living in this house.
Though his first reaction was to correct the man, Noah’s training enabled him to hold his tongue. It wasn’t his job to change people’s perceptions of him—or to try to explain why he had chosen such a job when the rest of his family farmed.
No, he was there to help those in need and, in this case, to assist Chad and Mitch in saving Verba Stauffer’s life.
After ascertaining that the other men had things in hand, Noah turned his head slightly so that he could meet Mr. Stauffer’s cloudy eyes. “I don’t know if she’s going to be all right or not,” he said honestly. “I hope and pray she will.”
The vulnerability that had slipped into the man’s expression abruptly vanished. “That tells me nothing.”
“I know,” Noah said as he rose and gently pried his arm from Willis Stauffer’s grasp. “I realize this ain’t easy to watch, but rest assured that my partners here are gut men.”
“You sure?”
“I am certain of it.” Turning to watch as Chad was taking the woman’s pulse and entering the information into his iPad, Noah continued. “They are doing their best, jah?”
But as he feared, Noah’s attempt to soothe was rebuffed. Mr. Stauffer sent him a look of scorn before turning back to his son, Stephen.
Stephen, Verba and Willis’s only child, was a widower and the parent of Esther and Monroe, who stood nearby, lurking in the doorway.
“Noah,” Chad said, motioning downward with his chin.
Immediately, Noah knelt down again next to his partner. “Jah?”
“Mitch is outside calling the hospital. We’re going to bring her in. Keep an eye on her vitals while I secure the IV.”
“Sure thing.” Because Noah had only recently finished training, he was only regulated to support the other EMTs, which suited him fine. The more he learned, the more he realized he didn’t know.
Mitch and Chad always made sure to include him, though, which made him feel worthwhile.
They also made sure to let him know that his presence in the Amish homes helped tremendously, and this call was no exception. When they first arrived, Verba was near hysterical, complaining of severe cramping, dizziness, and nausea. Noah had knelt on the floor and spoke to her quietly in Pennsylvania Dutch. As she calmed, he stepped out of the way to respond to her husband and so Mitch and Chad could take her vitals and get the woman’s health history.
Mrs. Stauffer’s eyes were closed now. Her pulse was slow but steady. That said, she really didn’t look good. As Chad finished taping an IV line, Noah glanced back at the family. Each stood silent and wary.
All looked uneasy, almost as if they resented the medics being there.
Well, all but one of them.
A woman standing apart from everyone else, watching Chad work intently from the doorway of one of the bedrooms. To Noah she looked as if she yearned to help but didn’t dare budge from her spot.
He recalled Willis telling Mitch that her name was Sadie Detweiler when they’d first arrived. Mitch had been asking questions about family health history, and Willis stated that the girl wasn’t part of his family, at least not this immediate one.
Glancing at her again, Noah couldn’t help but think that she didn’t look like she fit in. Why was she even there?
While the other members had an exhausted and run-down look about them, Sadie, with her light-brown hair and hopeful expression, seemed out of place.
Chad got to his feet and turned to Mr. Stauffer. “We’re going to take her to the hospital and let the doctors run some tests.”
Stephen stepped forward. “Is she still awake?”
Noah answered as he helped Chad lift Verba onto a stretcher. “Jah. But she’s weak. You were right to call for help.”
“I’m real glad the first vehicle I flagged down stopped and called 911 for me.”
“Me, too,” Noah said, though he was surprised to realize that the family didn’t have access to a phone shanty. They really were on their own here in the outskirts of Munfordville.
“Whether she lives or dies, it’s in the Lord’s hands now,” Willis murmured, obv
iously resigned.
Normally, Noah would agree. They might be trained in saving lives, but they were not miracle workers. They could only do their best and hope the Lord would do the rest. Still, there was something alarming in the man’s sudden stoic behavior.
When they first arrived, Willis was desperate and demanding. Now? He stood off to the side. It could have been Noah’s imagination—that the man seemed to have an abrupt change of heart—but what had changed for him?
“The Lord is our savior; that is true. But we canna give up hope. Ain’t so?” Noah murmured gently.
“Let’s go,” Mitch called out.
Chad gripped the front of the stretcher and started walking. Lifting the back, Noah scanned the room. “We’re taking her to Caverna Hospital. It’s on South Dixie Street, over in Horse Cave,” he said in Deutsch. “You can meet us there.”
Looking anxious, Stephen rushed to their side. “Can’t one of us go with you?”
“There’s no room. Sorry,” Chad said as he began to lead the way, stretcher in hand, out of the front door.
“But that don’t seem fair,” Stephen protested. “Someone needs to be with my mother.”
“I will be in the ambulance,” Noah said. “I’ll also ask for a patrol car to come out to pick you up.”
Willis frowned. Before he could fuss, Noah added, “One should be here before too long. I promise.” Mentally, he kicked himself. He knew better to promise anything.
Five faces stared back at him in various expressions of dismay and anger. But Noah couldn’t let that sway him. If Mitch or Chad didn’t want any family member to ride along, there was a good reason for that.
He was glad. Every once in a while, when they did allow another person in the ambulance, sometimes the concerned family member was harder to deal with than the patient.
Just before Noah looked away, he watched Stephen exchange a glance with his father. Then Noah caught sight of Sadie staring at him with such a look of fear that he felt chilled to the skin. Was she simply concerned . . . or was she in trouble?
Or was his imagination simply getting carried away?
And for that matter, what was going on in that house? He’d been on over a hundred house calls since he’d started eight months ago, and rarely did the people act as wary as this family. Were they hiding something?