Summer of Secrets (7 page)

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Authors: Charlotte Hubbard

Tags: #Restaurants, #Christian Fiction, #Amish, #Betrothal, #Love Stories, #Religious, #General, #Triplets, #Fiction, #Amish & Mennonite, #Christian, #Romance

BOOK: Summer of Secrets
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His eyes took on a faraway look. “She said right off she
liked
the name Tiffany, when we told her about our other little girl. We—we would never have forced her to go by something different, had she insisted on her real name.”
Miriam laughed softly. “She couldn’t say her
R
’s. Rachel and Rhoda were ahead of her learnin’ to talk, too, and she didn’t like that one little bit.”
“So by moving to a new town, you met new friends who believed Tiffany was—had always been—yours?” Sheila inquired gently.
“You’ll never know how that little girl restored our spirits—our will to get on with new lives, because God had blessed us with her in such ... miraculous circumstances.” Bob hesitated and then gently grasped Miriam’s hand. “Please accept my apologies for not trying to find you and your family. What we did was wrong, but it felt so ... providential. I don’t suppose you could possibly understand or forgive—”
“We thought she was dead, ya know. Thought her little body musta rushed miles and miles downriver, and got hung up underwater, where no one’d find it.” Miriam sniffled loudly and patted the hand wrapped around her wrist. “I couldn’t share this with anybody at the time—not even my sister Leah—but I believed it was God’s way of tellin’ me I wasn’t fit to raise that little girl—”
“No, that’s not true! I don’t even know you, Miriam, but I can see—”
“—so I accepted the consequences as His will.” She let out a long sigh, heavy with the burden she’d borne for eighteen years. Sheila put an arm around her shoulders, crying quietly. And in Bob Oliveri’s eyes, Miriam saw the same relief and release she felt, now that he had admitted his own deep secret. “And how could I see things any different, standin’ here with you? God delivered my Rebecca to a family who needed her, and who took
gut
care of her. And now she’s come back to find me—”
“And how did that happen?” he asked with an incredulous shake of his head. “Even if she’d given me a chance to explain, I had no way to tell Tiffany about her birth parents. The only clue we had was the style of that little pink dress.”
Miriam blinked. The whole story defied explanation. But who was she to demand more answers or make accusations when things had turned out so much better than she’d hoped, so long ago? “Gotta be God workin’ out His purpose again, ain’t so?” she murmured. “Even if we can’t know what that purpose might be now, any more than we knew back then.”
Bob exhaled loudly. He looked like a man exhausted by grief, yet his eyes had a sparkle in them now. “Please accept my apologies for anything Tiff might’ve said or done that offended you—”
“She
surprised
us. That much is for sure and for certain!”
“—and I can’t promise you she’ll come back to hear your side of the story,” he continued with a resigned shrug. “She hasn’t been home since she stormed out of here with that little dress. Thank goodness her best friend’s mom called to say she’s staying there for a while. Tiffany’s very upset about her mother’s death, and she’s always had a mind of her own.”
“
Jah
, since the day the girls were born, she was the one testin’ my patience and runnin’ off when I called her,” Miriam confirmed with a rueful laugh. For a few moments a comforting silence settled in around them. She gazed again at the photographs on the living room wall, sensing she’d gotten enough answers for now and that, if she needed to, she could talk to Bob Oliveri another day. “You’ve been ever so gracious. I’ll pray ya get some rest and find peace about your wife, after an illness that’s left
you
tired and sad, too.”
His final attempt at composure gave way to a brief bout of tears, and as Sheila walked with Miriam to the door, Bob followed them. “I’ll do my best to convince Tiff—Rebecca—to visit you when she’s let go of her negative feelings. And thanks so much for the food. It smells wonderful, Miriam. Lots of stuff in the house, but I’m not in the mood to cook.”
“Least I could do for ya. God bless ya, Bob,” she whispered. “Take care of yourself, now.”
After they stepped outside with a final wave, he closed the door. Sheila went around to open the passenger door of the van, and Miriam blinked back fresh tears as she stepped up into it. “Well, now. Don’t that beat all? I’ve got lots to think about.”
Sheila smiled and swiped at her eyes. “But it’s all good. An amazing story, Miriam, and I’m so honored that you included me in it.” She twisted the key in the ignition, still shaking her head. “Never heard anything like it. And to think your other girl has lived just up the road a few miles all these years.”
Chapter 8
 
Micah watched from behind a massive old oak tree as Sheila Dougherty’s familiar van pulled away from the house in Morning Star. Tiffany’s Mustang wasn’t parked in the garage, so while the two ladies had been inside, he’d driven around Morning Star looking for it. He’d parked his buggy among the others at the Mennonite church, so now he walked toward the pool hall where he’d seen a convertible like hers. During his
rumspringa
—his “running around” time—he’d ridden in his English friends’ cars out on the highway ... he recalled the way his pulse had raced as they roared down the road. Such reckless excitement, all through his body—the sense of
freedom
he’d felt—had warned him that if he learned to drive a car, he might never go back to the Old Ways or to Willow Ridge.
Rachel would never understand that. And she would never understand or approve of him snooping around in Morning Star, looking for the sister who so closely resembled her yet was different in some very basic ways.
What
was
he doing here, really?
Walkin’ across the Devil’s backyard
, the elders would say.
Micah strode past some other storefronts, telling himself he needed to find Rebecca—to quiz Tiffany—as much for Rachel’s sake as to satisfy his own ... curiosity. This was the sort of prying their preachers, Tom Hostetler and Gabe Glick, and Bishop Knepp warned them about in Sunday sermons; poking around that would get him in trouble for sure if anyone back home found out about it. But if his investigation would resolve the doubts Rachel had about this whole alarming situation, wasn’t it worth the risk of punishment?
Playin’ with fire
, his thoughts warned as he walked alongside the shiny red car. The top was folded down and the black leather interior gleamed richly in the afternoon sun. The silver emblem on the trunk didn’t resemble any horse he’d ever ridden or worked with: far too fancy and fast for Plain folks. Quickly Micah entered the pool hall, before his nerve left him.
His eyes took a moment to adjust to the dimness. As he studied the men of various ages leaning intently over the green pool tables, bathed in light from swag lamps advertising liquor, the smoke stung his eyes. In the shadowy corners of the room, other fellows slouched over small tables, glass mugs and cigarettes in their hands. The dank musk of beer made him sneeze loudly—and then
he
was the one everyone eyed.
“Hey, farmer boy! You lost or somethin’?”
“Where’d ya get that
fine
hat, Mr. Hayseed?”
“Yeah, I’ve been wantin’ me a sun hat like—”
Micah gasped, swiping at the air above his head: somebody behind him had poked his straw hat off, and now it dangled on the end of a pool cue, just beyond his reach. The man who tormented him appeared to be around thirty—old enough to have better manners. But then, the grimy bandanna around his long hair, and faded jeans with split-out knees, suggested he didn’t much care how he looked. “Whaddaya think your hat’s worth, blondie?” he jeered.
“Oh, it’s these suspenders
I
want!” A fellow behind him grabbed the back crosspiece of his suspenders as though he intended to lift Micah from the floor. “Get the feelin’ your kind don’t belong here?” he asked with a harsh laugh. “Or did ya come in to find out how real men pass a Sunday afternoon?”
“Came lookin’ for Tiffany!” Micah blurted out. He knew better than to grab for his hat or struggle against his captor, because then they’d only torment him more.
“Tiff Oliveri? Now what would a rube like you want with a hard-core babe like her?” The guy dangling his hat glanced toward a smoky corner of the room and then smirked at him again. “Like she’d waste her time on such a wuss-boy!”
A movement at one of the tables caught his eye, and through the haze Micah saw a girl with spiked hair wearing a black T-shirt. She gawked at him before downing the rest of her beer and sticking her cigarette in her mouth. Then she slumped against the wall, choosing to ignore him.
His heart thudded hard. He’d come this far, after finding her mother’s obituary at the county library. He wouldn’t likely get another chance to speak with Tiffany about her sisters—or anything else. A more aggressive man would have marched between the tables and start a conversation, even though the long-lost Lantz sister appeared peeved that he’d spoken her name. But what would he accomplish by embarrassing her in front of her friends?
Micah jerked free from the guy who still gripped his suspenders. “If you’ll gimme my hat, I won’t bother ya further. Just wanted to express my sympathy about Tiffany’s mom and answer any questions she might have about her sisters, that’s all.”
“Looks like you’re runnin’ somewhere between
fat
chance and
no
chance, plowboy.” The guy in the bandanna laughed at his own turn of phrase. He dropped the straw hat onto a table, where a couple other guys yanked it from their plate of nachos and tossed it toward the door.
Micah didn’t have to be told twice. He stepped quickly between the tables, grabbed his hat from the dirty floor, and headed out into the muggy afternoon. With his handkerchief, he wiped the smeared cheese from the woven straw, striding up the road toward the parking lot of the Mennonite church. Why had he believed he’d accomplish anything in a pool hall?
And why was Tiffany there? Are those the people she called friends?
He could certainly never relate any of this to Miriam or the girls: they’d seen and heard enough in their café from that—what was the term?—hard-core babe? While it was true enough that something about Tiffany’s brash attitude attracted him, Micah had no further desire to find out what she was like beneath her dyed hair and that tattoo of a skull on her shoulder. Sometimes the cover
did
show what the book inside was like.
“Hey. How’d you know about me? And where to find me?”
Micah’s breath caught. He stopped next to the red Mustang that had purred up alongside him while he’d been lost in his troubled thoughts. Tiffany sat stiffly behind the wheel. Her eyes were hidden behind large, dark sunglasses, but he felt the gaze she fixed on him. Challenging him. How should he answer, considering the way she’d spurned him just moments ago?
“Saw ya last week at the café in Willow Ridge. Miriam Lantz and her girls are ... family friends.” Why couldn’t he bring himself to say he intended to marry Rachel? Was it because he couldn’t back up his feelings with words? Or was his curiosity about this defiant, demanding young woman overruling his common sense? She was nothing but trouble, judging from her tattoo and her black attitude, but hadn’t God said His people weren’t to judge each other? Jesus and His Father would do the saving or condemning, and meanwhile humans were created to love and forgive ... unconditionally.
This has nothin’ to do with the Good Book and you know it! But don’t write her off just yet.
“So why didn’t you tell Becker where to get off?” she demanded. “Should’ve punched him out for grabbing your ... suspenders, for starters.”
Micah put on his hat, despite the greasy spots on its rim. He badly wanted to retuck his shirttail, but that seemed inappropriate with Tiffany studying him so intently. “It’s not our way. And what would I have accomplished with violence?” he pointed out. “One punch, and I’d’ve been knocked to the floor, outnumbered about twenty to one. Totally at their mercy. Not my kind of odds, thanks.”
Tiffany removed her sunglasses to gawk more intently at him. Her shimmering blue eyes looked so much like Rachel’s yet so ... icy hard. “So you
are
a wuss, like they said?”
“Is that why you came after me?” Micah crossed his arms, scrutinizing her in return. Why had he even entered into this sparring match? Tiffany’s expression told him all he needed to know: she found him odd and out of place in her world. Somebody to make fun of, now that he was standing close enough that she could see all the reasons not to take him seriously.
Isn’t that why you came today, without tellin’ anyone? To get a closer look at this girl who appears so alien? An outsider in more ways than one?
One corner of her mouth lifted. “Get in. Unless that’s not your way, either.”
His pulse pounded. Tiffany was inviting him for a ride in this car that glowed like hellfire, which would put him at
her
mercy ... odds he liked better than those he’d had in the pool hall. Yet he hesitated with his hand on the door. The
Ordnung
expressly forbade riding in cars on Sunday—let alone with a brash Englisher like this one. He’d known that law all his life and had sworn to abide by it when he’d been baptized into the church.
Micah’s throat went dry. Still those blue eyes taunted him. Tempted him.
“Suit yourself,” she said with a shrug. “I thought we could compare notes about what my old man told me and what you know about that lady at the café. She was gawking at my clothes, but ya know ...
she
was wearing all black, too.”
“Lost her husband—your
dat
—a couple years back. She still misses him.” Before she could change her mind and roar off, Micah climbed into the seat beside her. “Are ya sayin’ you don’t remember anythin’ about bein’ washed downriver? Let alone recall your own mother and sisters?”
“Hey! I was only a little kid!”
“And I intend to see that ya don’t hurt those folks any more than ya already have,” Micah went on. He turned in the seat to look at her, unflinching. “Our people no doubt appear odd and out of step to ya, but your
mamm
suffered horrible-much when she lost ya that day—and again when Jesse died and left her and his other two girls to make their way without him. I won’t allow ya to tromp all over their feelin’s,
Rebecca
.”
She winced at the name. “When I asked the shrink last week, she said I probably repressed the whole episode. Was too freaking scared to let my mind recall what happened—or remember anything about that day,” she muttered. “Don’t expect me to come crawling back, acting all grateful or apologetic, or—”
“If ya can’t be grateful for a mother who loves ya, don’t come back at all.”
Where was this stern, Old Testament side of him coming from? Micah settled into the low-slung seat, reminding himself that this
hard-core babe
might just order him out and never speak to him again ... which wouldn’t accomplish a thing, would it? Micah glanced at her delicate hand as she shifted into DRIVE again. Except for the black fingernails and the chains running between the metal ring on her finger and the leather band around her wrist, it could be Rachel’s hand. Could he convince this black sheep of the Lantz family to open her heart to the mother who’d missed her for so many years? Could she at least come to see Rachel and Rhoda as young women who were
like
her in so many ways?
“Answer me this, then, Micah: When I went to the library to check out the newspapers from back then, there were no accounts of a little girl getting washed downstream.” Tiffany focused on the road then, as though she could turn her attention on and off with a switch.
Micah suspected that beneath her big, dark sunglasses some tears were gathering. And why wouldn’t she cry? It had to be frustrating, figuring out whom to believe when she’d learned the Oliveris weren’t her natural parents—and this after the woman she’d called her mother had passed on. “I don’t have an answer for that,” he replied beneath the rush of the wind. “My family moved to Willow Ridge from Lancaster County a couple years after the flood. My
mamm
is Miriam’s best friend, and she was completely
ferhoodled
when you showed up last week. Had no idea the Lantz girls had been born as triplets.”
“And you don’t find
that
hard to believe?” Tiffany shot back. “Why is it, when I ask these questions or go looking for evidence, it’s like my ride down the river never happened? Like I—I never existed, until I got rescued by Bob Oliveri? Or so he says!”
Micah resisted the urge to hold the hand that rested on the shift lever between them. Her voice had risen into a register that threatened to crack, and he couldn’t imagine what she must be feeling. “Maybe you need to ask him more about—”
“How can I trust what he tells me? These are the people who faked my identity—called me the same name as a little girl they’d lost, and used the same birth certificate, even! What’s wrong with this picture?”
He let out the breath he’d been holding. As she got more upset, Tiffany’s ringed fingers gripped the wheel tighter and they flew down the road even faster. What had he done, putting himself in her hands? Was he risking his reputation—his standing in Willow Ridge as Rachel’s beau—by allowing himself this secret taste of forbidden fruit? Was he risking his life, riding with Tiffany? He saw now why Amish men believed it was a bad idea to allow a woman to take the lead, or in this case, take the wheel.
Yet she was asking important questions. He prayed things wouldn’t go terribly wrong while Tiffany was this upset. He said nothing more, so as not to distract her.

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