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 the only sign of shaving mayhem. There were a couple more nicks, in various stages of healing.
So the man who could use saws and nails and planes and sanders to create this thing of beauty in the window couldn’t shave himself without slicing into his own skin? It made no sense to her.
Belatedly, she realized him shaving at all made no sense, not against what she understood of the community he lived in.
“You have no beard,” she said.
Any softening she’d seen in him vanished with that simple observation.
“I don’t deserve that symbol,” he said. His voice was harsh, as if even saying the words were part of some punishment he was bound to endure.
Emma knew Amish men grew their beards—but not mustaches—when they married. In this sect it was a symbol, as he’d said, of that passage to adulthood. She also knew from the file that his wife had died in childbirth three years ago. Did becoming a widower mean the beard had to go? It wasn’t as if they could wear black as a sign of mourning—they always wore black. The women were allowed some color, if mostly darker shades of blues, greens, browns, but the men seemed to dress mostly in black, sometimes blues.
It was very strange, she thought. She’d grown up seeing the “plain people” all the time; she’d thought nothing of it, didn’t find them strange, just different. Her mother had given her a simple explanation of their ways when she’d been a child, and she’d accepted it in the way of a child, been secretly glad she didn’t have to wear a dress all the time and thought little more about it than that.
But now, looking at this man, in his simple black trousers, clean, white shirt and suspenders, she found herself picturing what he would look like in the clothing of her world. Put him in a pair of jeans and even that same white shirt, lose the suspenders and the hat, and women would be beating a path to his door.
And she had a sinking feeling she might be first in line.
With an effort larger than she’d had to make in a long while, she forced herself to concentrate on the matter at hand.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude on your personal decisions.” She tried for a lighter touch. “But you might want to take it a bit easier with that razor.”
His hand moved, as if he were going to instinctively touch the fresh cut. But he stopped short, curling his fingers away at the last moment. His hand, she noticed, was strong, well used and marked with a couple of small scars. Yet his fingers were
