LITMIR.BIZ

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HOW?” NATE ASKED. HE SPUN AROUND to see Sarah with a large package in her arms.

      “This just came for you at the house—FedEx,” she called to him. “Now that you’ve announced it was arson and you’re going to find the arsonist and send him to jail, what if he tries to hurt you?”

      Nate swam toward her side of the pond, his muscular arms lifting from the surface at each stroke. When he was close enough to talk easily he stopped and treaded water. “You startled me, though I was expecting that package. It’s my fire protection hood. It wasn’t packed in VERA when I left. And thanks for worrying about my safety, but arsonists are usually cowards about confrontation. The arsonist wants my attention, not to get rid of me, but I’ll be on my guard.”

      You won’t if you’re splashing around like a kid and not paying attention to who’s approaching, she thought, but she just nodded. As he remained fairly motionless about twenty feet away, she could see a lot of skin through the water. What if he was in there buck naked, because why would he have brought an ausländer swimsuit?

      “So you fight fires, too?” she asked, hugging the package to her breasts. She’d come out here barefoot, a common practice among her people in the warm weather, especially on their own property. She fought the desire to sit down and dangle her feet in the pond. Though she’d done that a hundred times and her family shared ownership of this woodlot with the Eshes and the Lantzes, it suddenly felt like forbidden, foreign territory.

      “I don’t fight fires if I can help it, but I don’t hesitate to go into a partially burned building or even one on fire if it will help me trap an arsonist. If you wouldn’t mind turning around for a minute, I’m not exactly clothed in here, and I’ll get out.”

      “Oh, sure. Right,” she said, and sat down facing away with her back to the pond. Beneath the shade of her bonnet, her cheeks flamed. She stretched out her legs. Her toes barely peeked from under her moss-green skirt. “I’ll bet it feels good in there,” she said, hoping he didn’t think she was fishing for an invitation to join him. His voice had faded a bit, and she heard the water rippling as he evidently swam away.

      “Sure does. I’ve got a washbasin and head—sorry, toilet—in VERA but no shower.”

      “I’ll bet Daad will let you use ours if you want. I was going to send Gabe out with this package, but he took his buggy over to see his friend, Barbara Lantz, two farms over.”

      “I take it your family’s close to them, but no quilt square on their barn yet?”

      “It was decided first the bishop, then two elders, then the Millers wanted one. I’ve done those, but since then, no one else has come forward to ask for another. But your mentioning the Lantzes reminds me there’s a second reason to be careful in this pond. There’s a strange, cold current in it sometimes,” she said, still talking toward the trees. “I think there’s an underground spring that flows through it, especially after a rain. When we were teenagers and swimming here, Ella did a little jackknife dive and just kind of stayed under. Hannah and I about went off our beans—panicked, you know. We dived and found her and pulled her up but we could feel the colder current pulling us deep down, very scary. We had to almost pump the water out of her. She—well, she changed after that, got very rigid and strict with herself and others, always followed every rule.”

      “So Ella Lantz owes you two her life,” he said, his voice coming closer until he stood in front of her. He’d pulled his jeans on over his wet legs and his black T-shirt stuck to the muscles of his chest and his flat belly. His short black hair looked even darker all wet. For a second she couldn’t recall what he’d just asked.

      “Oh, we don’t think of it that way,” she told him. “It was the Lord who saved her, and we were just His way of doing it. No thanks needed, and we didn’t even let outsiders know, though someone blabbed, and it got into the Home Valley News.”

      Nate reached down to her, and she gave him his package before she realized that he had meant to give her a hand up. His skin was cool from the water, or else hers was hot. Both barefoot, they walked back around the pond where he had VERA parked beside two big oaks. The vehicle had a tall, thin tower projecting upward from the back, and from that sprouted a five-branched antenna.

      “Peter Clawson’s really got his ear to the ground around here, doesn’t he?” Nate asked. “I need to interview him about any leads he may have.”

      “He keeps a lot of Amish employed in businesses he at least owns part of—the Dutch Farm Table, the Buggy Wheel Shop, a bunch of others. But his paper is his pride and joy.”

      “Can I show you around VERA?” he offered with a sweep of his hand toward his big, worldly buggy.

      “I’d like that, but better not right now. I have to get back. Gabe wants to see it, too, so can we come out later? And, oh, Mamm says come to supper—evening meal, not half the amount we eat midday, in about two hours.”

      “Tell her thanks. I’d love to.”

      She wanted to throw caution to the sweet breeze that had begun to dry and ruffle his hair and go into the back of VERA with him—it was cozy there, he’d said—but she knew she shouldn’t. She was already too attracted to him, like he had some kind of magnetic field and she was a compass needle.

      “Before you go, then,” he said as he walked her back a ways toward the farm, “will you explain the alms fund one of the elders mentioned? It sounds like private Amish insurance, but I thought that was forbidden.” Forbidden, verboten, danced through her mind as she darted another glance up into his intense, blue-sky gaze. Again, she had to unscramble her thoughts to grab for the right thing to say.

      “Not forbidden if we keep it within the Amish community,” she explained. “We do not pay into worldly insurance companies or the American government’s Social Security or ever use such funds, because health is a gift from God and that would be gambling against that in a way. But we do collect a percentage of everyone’s wages on a regular basis and use that to support those in the group who have big medical bills—or something like a house or barn burned. The church deacon collects and puts the money in a savings account until we need it. No big corporations profit. The family in need does pay a small part of their bills first, before our fund is used.”

      “Like a deductible,” he said, nodding. “It’s really a private, small group insurance. Very smart—amazing…” He looked at her closely and he drew out the last word so it almost sounded like Ray-Lynn’s drawl. His gaze caressed her as he peered within the dim shelter of her black bonnet.

      “I’ve got to get back,” she said, quickening her steps. “See you for supper and then Gabe and I can take a look at VERA later, if it’s okay.”

      She didn’t want to seem like she was running away, but in a way she was. Standing so close to him, both of them in their bare feet, had made her think of Adam and Eve in the Garden, and look at all the trouble they’d got into!

      If the bountiful Amish evening meal was what Sarah described as less food, Nate was as astonished by that as he was by his crazy attraction to her. It was probably just the fact she was so different from any woman he’d ever known, he tried to tell himself—bright but naive, stubborn yet humble, plain yet stunning, modest yet sexy without even trying. Man, he had to keep his mind on the food and the conversation, because her father, Ben Kauffman, had been drilling him about some things and here came another calmly couched but key question. At least he’d waited for this one until they were on the coffee and fabulous strawberry shortcake with home-churned vanilla ice cream. How Nate could put this dessert away after chowing down on sauerbraten, homemade bread, German potato salad and noodles with gravy, he wasn’t sure, but maybe he was about to pay the price for this great meal.

      “So far, Mr. MacKenzie,” Ben Kauffman said, “have you found any proof, even hints, that the barn burning might be someone upset by Sarah’s painted quilt square?”

      “No, sir, I haven’t. But it’s something I’ve considered and will stay aware of. I realize that such a work of art is to be useful—not just

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