LITMIR.BIZ

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invitation to do something fun or a job they liked doing together.

      But those days, he reminded himself sternly, were gone. And if he had half an ounce of sense, he’d make sure they never came back.

      * * *

      “I’m sorry to disturb your supper,” Leah said, keeping her arm around Mandy as she stepped inside the warm kitchen where the Stoltzfus family gathered around the long trestle table. The room was almost identical to the one at her parents’ house, except the walls behind the large woodstove that claimed one wall along with the newer propane stove were pale blue instead of green. Aware of the Stoltzfus eyes focused on them, she hurried to say, “Shep is missing, and we thought he might have come over here.”

      “Shep?” asked Esther. “Who is Shep?”

      Leah smiled at Esther, who had been starting fourth grade when she and Johnny went away. Now she was a lovely young woman who must be turning the heads of teenage boys. When Esther returned her smile tentatively, Leah described the little black Cairn Terrier, which was unlike the large dogs found on farms in the area. Those dogs were working dogs, watching the animals and keeping predators away. Shep had had his own tasks, and Leah wondered what the poor pup thought now that he didn’t need to perform them. Did he feel as lost as she did?

      “Let me get a flashlight, and I’ll help you search.” Ezra pushed back his chair and got up.

      His brothers volunteered to help, too, but everyone froze when Mandy said, “I didn’t know Amish could use flashlights. I thought you didn’t use electricity.”

      Heat rose up Leah’s cheeks, and she guessed they were crimson. “Mandy...”

      “Let the kind ask questions, Leah,” Wanda, Ezra’s mamm, said with a gentle smile. “How else do we learn if we don’t ask questions? I remember you had plenty of questions of your own when you were her age.” She patted the bench beside her. “Why don’t you sit here with Deborah and me? You can have the last piece of snitz pie while we talk.”

      “Snitz?” asked Mandy with an uneasy glance at Leah. “What’s a snitz?”

      “Dried apple pie.” Leah smiled. “Wanda makes a delicious snitz pie.”

      “Better than Grandma’s?”

      Wanda patted Mandy’s hand and brought the kind to sit beside her. “Your grossmammi is a wunderbaar cook. There is no reason to choose which pie is better when God has given you the chance to enjoy both.” Behind the girl’s back, she motioned for Leah and her sons to begin their search for the missing dog.

      While Ezra’s brothers headed into the storm, Leah went out on the back porch and grimaced. It was raining. She should have paused to grab a coat before leaving the house, but Mandy was desolate at the idea of losing Shep. When Mandy asked if the dog had gone “home to Philly,” Leah’s heart had threatened to break again. The little girl didn’t say much about her daed’s death, but Leah knew it was on her mind all the time.

      As it was on her own.

      “Here.”

      She smiled as Ezra held out an open umbrella to her. “Thank you.”

      He snapped another open at the same time he switched on a flashlight. “Where should we look?”

      “Shep likes other animals. Let’s look in your barn first, and then we can search the fields if we don’t find him.”

      “I hope he hasn’t taken it into his head to chase my cows.”

      She shook her head. “From the way he’s reacted to cows and horses, I don’t think he knows quite what they are. He is curious. Nothing more.”

      “Let’s hope he’s in the barn. There have been reports of coydogs in the area. Some of our neighbors have lost chickens.”

      Leah shuddered. The feral dogs that were half coyote were the bane of a farmer’s life. They were skilled hunters and not as afraid of humans as other wild animals were. Little Shep wouldn’t stand a chance against the larger predator.

      As they left the lights from the house behind, she added, “Thanks for helping. I didn’t mean to make you leave in the middle of supper.”

      “Your niece looked pretty upset, and Esther offered to keep our suppers warm in the oven. The cows are this way.”

      “I remember.”

      He didn’t answer as they walked to the milking parlor. Spraying the light into the lower floor, he remained silent as she called Shep’s name.

      “I missed this,” she murmured.

      “Walking around in the rain?”

      She shook her head and tilted her umbrella to look up at him. “Barn scents. The city smelled of heat off the concrete and asphalt, as well as car exhaust and the reek of trash before it was picked up. I missed the simple odors of this life.”

      “You could have come home.”

      “Not without Johnny.” Her voice broke as she added, “Even though when I finally came back, he didn’t come with me.”

      “I’m sorry he is dead, Leah. I should have said so before.” He paused as they closed their umbrellas and walked together between the gutters in the milking parlor. “My only excuse is that I was shocked to see you.”

      “I understand.” She shouted the dog’s name. The conversation was wandering into personal areas, and she wanted to avoid going in that direction.

      She wouldn’t have come over to the Stoltzfus family home tonight if Mamm hadn’t mentioned possibly seeing Shep racing through the field between their farms. Even then, she would have suggested waiting until daylight to search for the pup except that Mandy was in tears.

      “I don’t think Shep is here,” she said after a few minutes of spraying the corners with light.

      “Let’s walk along the fence. Maybe he’s close enough to hear you and will come back.” His grim face suggested he was unsure they would find Shep tonight.

      She put up her umbrella so she didn’t have to look at his pessimistic frown. If she did, she might not be able to halt herself from asking where the enthusiastic, happy young man she’d known had vanished to.

      How foolish she had been to think nothing would change!

      If she could turn back the clock, she might never have gone with Johnny that night when he promised her ice cream and then took her far from everything she’d ever known. She sighed silently. Johnny had asked her to come with him because he needed her. Not that he had any idea then how much he would come to depend on her, but she had always rescued him from other predicaments. Maybe he had hoped she would save him that time, too, but he was too deeply involved with Carleen, his pregnant Englisch girlfriend, by then.

      Leah wondered what Ezra was thinking as they walked along the fence enclosing the pasture. She guessed she’d be smarter not to ask. He remained silent, so the only sound was the plop of raindrops on the umbrellas except when she shouted for the dog.

      Because of that, she was able to hear a faint bark. It was coming from the direction of the creek that divided the Stoltzfus farm from her parents’. She ran through the wet grass, not paying attention to how her umbrella flopped behind her and rain pelted her face.

      Ezra matched her steps, his flashlight aimed out in front of them. He put out an arm, and she slid to a stop before striking it.

      “Careful,” he said. “You don’t want to fall in the creek tonight.”

      “The bank—”

      “Collapsed two years ago, and the water is closer than you remember.”

      “Danki.”

      He nodded at her thanks but said nothing more.

      How had the talkative boy become this curt man? What had happened to him in the years

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