An Unexpected Match Read online

  Rachel slid open the louvered door and found hangers, even one with clips to hold the skirt. She studied the blouse and skirt, which would be waiting for her when she needed them for her next class.

  She thought of people she’d read about in the paper and in books who led multiple lives. Some were spies living a secret life not even their wives knew about. She stopped for a moment as she considered the ethics of spying but put it off for another time. Too complex by far. Besides she wasn’t a spy.

  Other people with double lives had two families, each secret from the other. When she read their stories, she was fascinated at how they kept their lives separate—until something gave them away and everything blew up.

  Well, she was living two lives. Amish widow/school teacher and Englisch college student. As she slid the closet door shut, she wondered how long she would be able to keep her two lives as neatly separated as her clothes. Or would it all blow up?

  She shivered.

  Chapter 6

  Rachel walked into Max’s living room. “I hope my going out with Amy didn’t make problems for you.”

  “Not at all. It just saved me a trip back to the college. I’ve been sitting here dying to know everything that happened. Now tell me.”

  Rachel gave a quick recap, talking about Professor Dyson, Amy, and even Rob.

  “It was better than I hoped, Max, though I think that’s because of Dr. Dyson.” Rachel could feel her cheeks stretched in a broad smile. “It’s going to be wonderful. Challenging. I’m not quite certain how I’m going to write a piece about why I’m there without giving away that I’m Amish, but that’ll be part of the fun.”

  Rachel rose and Max walked her to the front door. “I’m just so pleased your evening went well. I worried about you.”

  “Why?”

  “I was afraid you’d be disappointed.”

  “Just the opposite! Thanks for all your encouragement and help.”

  Max held out a set of car keys.

  “What’s this?”

  “Buddy’s car. I want you to have it.”

  Rachel felt the blood drain from her face. “Max, I can’t—”

  Max waved her comment away before she finished. “I’ll sell it to you for one dollar, cash.” She wagged her finger. “I expect you to pay promptly.”

  She smiled and Rachel knew an excitement almost equaling going to class.

  Max patted her hand. “We’ll take care of the transfer when you pass your driver’s test.”

  Rachel felt her eyes fill with tears as Max pressed the keys into her hand. “Don’t your kids want their father’s car?”

  Max shook her head. “They each already have their own just as nice or nicer. I told them my plans, and they know what I’m doing. They approve.”

  Rachel’s throat tightened with emotion. She hugged Max, who returned the embrace.

  “I insist on paying you a fair price, Max. I got all that money from the insurance settlement when Aaron died, and I want to pay you. After all, you’re a widow too, and I know you’ve still got terrible medical bills from Buddy’s illness. I won’t miss a few thousand and you can use it.”

  It still surprised Rachel every time she remembered she was financially well off. She’d never have pursued any kind of compensation or reparations. Things happened and Gott knew. She had been willing to accept that. It was Aaron’s boss who had sought the money on her behalf.

  “Aaron shouldn’t have fallen from that roof,” Mr. Nathan told her. “It was a faulty safety harness. Someone should be held accountable.”

  “If it had been willful, I’d agree,” she told him. “But no one planned what happened.”

  “Please let me do this for you, Rachel. I feel so bad that a wonderful guy like your husband died on my watch.”

  “Don’t feel responsible, Mr. Nathan. Gott knew. I must accept His will.”

  Mr. Nathan just looked at her, and she recognized what she’d just said as Amish-think. Didn’t Englisch people acknowledge God’s will?

  “Okay, if you say it’s God’s will, maybe it is, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be compensated for Aaron’s lost wages. Perhaps you can see that as God’s will too. Under better circumstances, Aaron would be supporting you for years to come. And I’ve been paying on this insurance for years. I want you to benefit from it. I need you to be cared for.”

  She could see that he did need this. Somehow he felt guilty, and helping her would help him. Mr. Nathan pursued a suit on her behalf and won her a hefty sum that she didn’t know what to do with. It sat in the hands of a financial advisor he’d recommended, and every time she got a report, she had more.

  Rachel slipped her backpack over her shoulder. “I’ll look up the car’s value and write you a check.”

  Max blinked against tears. “You’re a good girl, Rachel.”

  Rachel swallowed. Maybe once upon a time, but not now.

  Her conflicted feelings must have shown because Max looked concerned. “I hope things don’t explode in your face.”

  “Mmmm.” She handed the car keys back to Max. “I’ll have to leave these here. I can’t risk anyone finding them in my house or my purse.”

  Max nodded. “I’ll leave them in the bowl by the garage door with my keys, just like Buddy kept them. There’s a garage door opener clipped to the visor. I’ll get a house key made so you can come and go as you need.”

  The women hugged good night, and Rachel walked slowly down the short stretch of road to her house. Pepper appeared and walked beside her, the soft click of her paws on the pavement somehow comforting. She thought about her two lives. If she could just keep them both, she’d be happy. Satisfied. No, more than satisfied. Fulfilled somehow. She’d have her people and she’d be learning. She knew she could never be Dr. Dyson, not really, but if she could gather knowledge…

  She spread her arms wide to the warm night air, listening to the crickets and watching the stars shining overhead, pulsing balls of heat and energy throwing their light over millions of miles. The pictures taken in space fascinated her with the beauty and complexity they revealed. Surely Gott was amazing to create such variety and wonder, and it had all existed for century upon century without human eyes being aware until recently.

  The words of one of her favorite hymns flowed through her mind. “O Gott Vater, wir loben dich.” O God the Father, we praise you.

  With her heart happy, she crossed the street to her house. She climbed her front steps to the wide porch, Pepper padding beside her. She pulled a key from her pocket and unlocked the door. She hated having to lock her house away, but times had changed. She was a woman living alone.

  “Thanks for the escort, Pep.”

  The dog turned, went down the steps, and disappeared into the night.

  She walked into the large room that ran the width of the house, struck by the silence after her people-filled night. She shrugged the lonely feeling away. That’s how it was when you lived by yourself. Quiet. Silent.

  Her home was a wonderful two-story house, part stone, part clapboard though it was really vinyl, not boards. Aaron, his father, and his four brothers had built it as a wedding present for Rachel. Their three acres were a gift from Rachel’s father, located at the far edge of the Miller farm.

  A wood fireplace made of stones filled one side wall. Building it had taken the brothers hours, gathering the stones and fitting them together. It was Rachel’s favorite feature of the house and she had placed comfortable furniture around it. She loved sitting in front of the fire on cold winter nights, thinking, wondering, and watching the flames leap and fall.

  “Don’t you sew or quilt on the long dark nights? Knit?” her sister Sally asked. Sally was a person who never sat still. Contemplating ideas and concepts with one’s hands at rest was outside her experience or imagination.

  “I don’t sew and knit like you,” Rachel always answered though she could do both. Mom would never have allowed her daughters to reach adulthood without those and other homemaking abilit
ies. “You will have to keep me in scarves so my neck doesn’t freeze.”

  And with a shake of her head at such incompetence, Sally did.

  The stove in the kitchen was efficient and provided heat on those cold winter nights. The first floor bathroom was convenient. The basement had room for Aaron’s workshop and shelves for her to store the vegetables and fruit she put up. These days the workshop was quiet and the shelves empty. Datt fixed anything that needed fixing and Mom kept her in preserves.

  The second floor held two baths and five bedrooms, rooms she and Aaron had meant to fill with kinder.

  “You and Aaron have your own bathroom?” Mom had been amazed when she first saw it beside their bedroom. “I heard the Englisch did this, but my daughter?”

  “Aaron’s two brothers work for a construction company, Mom. They’re using the plans from a house they built at work.”

  Mom shook her head. “At least you don’t have to de-electrify a house like if you bought a regular one.”

  “And we have a big open room in the front instead of a separate living room and dining room and an entry hall. We can take our turn hosting worship.”

  They had done so once near the end of the first year they were married. They’d been so excited when the closed wagon holding the meeting benches and hymnals was driven into the yard. Her brother Jonah, who was Aaron’s best friend, had come to help them move their regular furniture to the storage shed out back and bring in the benches.

  Rachel had cleaned and re-cleaned the kitchen, and all three of the bathrooms sparkled. No one used the one by Rachel and Aaron’s bedroom, but the other upstairs and the one downstairs were very popular.

  After the meeting and after the tables were erected for the meal, Aaron took great delight in showing the men his pride and joy, the latest thing in generators powered by a combination of solar power and battery. Rachel was glad the sun shone that day or maybe the power to make the wonderful bathrooms do their job might have run out. She thought briefly about having an outhouse dug behind the shed just in case they hosted on a cloudy day.

  Then Aaron died and it no longer mattered.

  Chapter 7

  Rob walked around the common area behind the apartments with Charlie as the dog rushed from shrub to shrub as if he was afraid he’d miss some interesting scent. He tore off after a rabbit that disappeared under someone’s shed and came rushing back with a great grin, happy for the exercise and for Rob’s company.

  “Just don’t take off after a skunk like that, my man. Believe me when I tell you that you won’t like it.”

  Charlie woofed his understanding and took off again, big feet covering an amazing amount of territory very quickly.

  When Rob went to the shelter and looked at dogs, he hadn’t expected to fall in love. But there was something about Charlie with his too big feet and expressive face that was just what he needed. Charlie was a companion who didn’t intrude, company who was happy to let him alone for a good nap, and a warm body who demanded little in exchange for giving his whole heart.

  For the past twelve years Rob hadn’t been alone. In the Army he was surrounded by men and women, many of them great people he’d have given his life for. But now that he was home, he realized how much he was enjoying his solitude. Charlie kept him from being lonely in that solitude.

  Not that Rob wanted to be alone forever. He imagined he’d get married someday, but he hoped he’d choose better than his parents had. He was going to pick someone uncomplicated, undemanding, and utterly honorable. A committed Christian.

  Rachel flashed through his mind, her guileless face open and lovely. And that wonderful curly hair. He spent half of class studying it, thinking how he wanted to run his fingers through its silkiness to see if it felt as wonderful as it looked. She was the reason he said yes to Amy’s invitation to get some coffee.

  Before the world blew up with his father’s arrest, the kid he’d been back then always assumed that someday in the far distant future he’d marry some nice rich girl. Of course he’d get his education first, get a job that paid lots of money like Dad’s, and have some serious fun. Then, when he was old, like thirty, marriage.

  These days he wondered where he’d ever find a woman, rich or poor, who’d willingly accept the wonky people he was related to. An unrepentant jailbird father. A narcissistic, demanding mother. A mommy-dependent, charming but useless brother. The Laniers were quite the brood. What he himself would be like if he hadn’t met Chaplain Roussey and through him met Jesus he shuddered to think.

  Pre-Dad’s fall, life at the Lanier home had been unremarkable for moneyed families. Dad made money hand over fist in his investment business, and Mom happily spent it. Rob had a new car for his sixteenth birthday and money for whatever he wanted to do, wherever he wanted to go. His brother, Win, four years younger, smiled his way through life, charming everyone and letting life spin golden about him.

  While Win drifted in happy times like their mother, Rob excelled like their father, and he did so academically and athletically. He was not only the football captain but the class valedictorian. He had been accepted at Williams College in Massachusetts, a feat he was justly proud of as it was one of the top small colleges in the country. Life was good and could only get better.

  Then came the lightning bolt of the arrest. Thunderous accusations were followed by the stormy trial and the end of the world as he knew it. Their money disappeared overnight and with it their house and his car. Williams became an unrealized dream, way beyond the reach of a boy with no financial backing and a father whose crimes made the mainstream news and a Talking Point by Bill O’Reilly.

  The worst part was the shame. He hadn’t committed any crime. He hadn’t built an elaborate Ponzi scheme that cost hundreds of clients their life savings. He hadn’t siphoned off exorbitant fees and hidden them offshore. He hadn’t stared down everyone without a word of apology or remorse.

  But he’d been ashamed even if his father wasn’t. He developed severe stomach pains and ended up on medication for ulcers. Guys he thought were his friends didn’t know what to do with him now that he couldn’t provide a weekend at the family shore house or pay for tickets to the latest rock star’s concert. He didn’t know what to do with himself any more than they did. The main reason he joined the Army was to get away, to go where no one knew or cared that he was Eugene Lanier’s son.

  And now he was back. It made no sense. All he knew was that he felt God wanted him here, and he was trying to be obedient even though the up close and personal with his family often cost him his equanimity.

  “They’re so much easier to deal with from a distance,” he told the Lord. Here at home frustration was his daily companion.

  His whole body twitched whenever he thought of his mother’s positive reaction when he told her he planned to become a financial planner. “Like your father? Oh, good. Then we’ll be able to get the house back. Or maybe a bigger one.”

  “Not like my father!” he wanted to shout at her but forced himself to speak respectfully. “I want to be honorable.”

  “Just so you’re rich.” And she laughed.

  No wonder it had taken him more than ten years to admit he had his father’s feel for money. During that time he’d day-traded his Army salary into a considerable nest egg and done the same for a few close buddies.

  “You have the golden touch,” one said.

  “No!” He’d practically yelled it. He didn’t want that ability. He didn’t want to be his father.

  His friend shrugged. “You can deny it all you want, but you’re amazing with money and the markets and economics—all that stuff. God has gifted you.”

  It felt like a curse.

  One day Chaplain Roussey sat him down. “Say there was a professional athlete who made a lot of money throwing games. Eventually he was caught and disgraced. He’s got a son who has inherited his father’s athletic gifts. You’re saying the son should never play?”

  Rob wanted to say, “No, never,” but t
hat was obviously the wrong answer. It wasn’t the gifted kid’s fault the gifted father threw games.

  “I get what you’re saying,” he told the chaplain.

  “So you’re not going to tell God He made a mistake when you inherited your father’s Midas touch?”

  “Midas was given the gift that everything he touched turned to gold including his food and water and even his daughter whom he loved very much. The Midas touch is a gift that brings no good.” Rob rolled his shoulders to relieve the tension. “I know whereof I speak.”

  “The love of money is the root of evil,” the chaplain agreed. “But what if you don’t love it? What if it doesn’t control you, but you control it?”

  “Is that even possible?”

  “Are all money managers in jail?”

  Bazinga! Even now, years later, Rob had to smile. He whistled to Charlie, who came running with great loping strides.

  “You’re a good man, Charlie Brown.” Rob stroked the dog’s ears. “Let’s go in.”

  Tongue lolling happily, Charlie led the way into the apartment.

  The red light on the answering machine was blinking. What did Mom want this time? He made himself push the button.

  “Hey, Rob.” The deep voice was a surprise. Win instead of Mom. “Guess what? I lost my job today. Can you believe it?”

  Actually, Rob could.

  “Just because I was late. So not fair. Anyway, can I borrow a couple hundred? I’ll pay you back as soon as I get another job. Promise.”

  If Mom had trouble accepting that she was responsible for taking care of herself, Win was worse. Somehow he felt entitled. The world—and any employers unfortunate enough to hire him—owed him. He shouldn’t be expected to be on time, and when he wasn’t, he should be forgiven. After all, he was Win Lanier.

  Trouble was, no one cared.

  Rob collapsed in his lounge chair. Charlie lumbered over and sat at his feet, his great head resting on Rob’s knee. Rob absently rubbed the dog’s ears and thought over the day. The remembered screech of his car against the guardrail made his teeth ache. His mother’s narcissistic griping and his brother’s assumption that Rob was there to support him both annoyed and appalled him.