LITMIR.BIZ

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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

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