The Imposter (3 page)

“The brothers are making the rounds to speak to each family.”

“About . . . ?”

Birdy lowered her eyes and said in a hushed voice, “Finances. They plan to review each family's finances.”

David's fists clenched. It was a fairly common practice for a church to nominate trustees to make an assessment of each family's finances, every five years or so, to support the teacher's salary and maintain the schoolhouse. But the trustees were chosen, not self-appointed, and the church leaders were never nominated as trustees. Elmo would've never done such a thing.

“I'd better go.” She took a few steps, then turned around to face him, a face that was kind and open and sincere. “Don't let my brothers wear you down. The church, Stoney Ridge . . . ,” Birdy dropped her eyes, “we need . . .” She kept her eyes locked on her shoes.

They were rather substantial shoes, David noted. As large as her brothers'. But unlike her brothers, she had the nature of a gentle, artless young woman, surprisingly diffident and shy. Well, it was a good thing she had such stature—she would need everything she could muster to manage the boys in that schoolhouse.

The next came out as if she were talking to herself, “David, just don't give up.”

Katrina sliced through the long grass of the meadow, getting the hem of her dress soaking wet. She still felt an aching sadness over the news her brother brought from Ohio. John was engaged to be married. He had moved on.

What was this craziness with John, anyway? It was as if her heart were a teacup that fell to the floor and shattered. Why was she hanging on? It didn't make any sense. It was making her miserable. She had to find a way to get over it.

But how do you stop loving someone? Obviously, John found a way. It wasn't easy for Katrina to turn off her emotions. She'd been so sure he would come to his senses and seek her out, begging her to take him back. And she would!

The first time she'd seen him, well over a year ago, he was waiting outside her father's store in Ohio. He had just moved to town and was looking for work. She was recovering from the accident and her mother's death, and was trying to work a few hours a day at the store.

John sat on a bench, carving a piece of wood as he waited for someone to arrive. He worked cleanly, quickly, and he was
whistling to himself, unaware that she was watching him. His hands were works of art, long and powerful and impeccably clean, the fingernails perfect ovals. The skin was tanned, and his wrists were covered with golden hair.

Finally, he looked up at her and gave her a quizzical expression. “Where do I know you from?”

It was as if she'd known him forever, as if she only had to remember his name. Her heartbeat actually sped up, filled with a sensation like a warm ray of sunlight. She felt a spark of happiness rise up within her. It was the first glimmer of happiness she had felt since the terrible accident. He explained that he was waiting for the store to open because he wanted to post an advertisement for border collie pups on the bulletin board. He was a breeder, he said, new to the area, and was trying to get established.

He gazed at her for a long time, looking at her eyes and mouth, and a giddiness danced through her. She fell in love just that fast, at first sight.

Which it was. It was fast and real and true, their beginning.

John loved her with an ardor, as passionate, as consuming as it was possible for a man to love a woman. That was one of the things she treasured most about him—his fervor, his intensity, his undeniable, romantic, jealous love. “I saw the way all the boys fluttered around you like moths,” John told her once after church, “and I made up my mind to beat them all to the flame.”

He hated when other boys flirted with her, always feared one would catch her eye. He worried that he was too old for her, twenty-six to her seventeen when they met. When her father decided to move the family to Stoney Ridge, he worried obsessively that she would drift away.

As often as she could save up the money for the fare, she took a long bus ride to Ohio to see him. Her last visit was eight weeks ago. They'd had a wonderful, romantic weekend together—a picnic at the lake on Saturday, a rainy, lazy off-Sunday morning at her aunt Nancy's house.

Then, as John put her on the bus that last Sunday afternoon, he took both of her hands in his and solemnly announced that he wanted to break up. She stared at him, mystified, absolutely shell-shocked. She had given him everything, absolutely everything she had to give, confident of their future together. It made no sense. She'd had no clue whatsoever.

She'd been completely blindsided.

The only explanation he gave was that he had stopped loving her. She knew, just
knew
, that wasn't true. But it was also true that he didn't love her enough.

For the last eight weeks, she had kept checking for phone messages, hoping in some bizarre way that there would be something from John to explain all this, something that would say, “Hey Kat, I don't know what I was thinking. I'm coming for you.”

Would he ever come for her? Or had he completely disappeared from her life forever? She simply had to believe that somehow, some way . . .

What? That he'd send a message to her? What would it even say?
Sorry, sweetheart, there's been a big misunderstanding.
And she would forgive him and everything would go back to the way it was.

But, so far, there was no phone message from him.

What would she do without him? It frightened her to even think of a future without John. It was more than love she felt
for him. She needed him, needed him in her life, and it was a need so consuming, it was like needing air to breathe. What would she do without him? The question was so enormous that she shoved it away.

A crow cawed overhead and another answered back, snapping Katrina back to the present. She stopped in front of a new big wooden sign with M
OSS
H
ILL
painted in purple and green. Beneath the name were the words N
O
S
UNDAY
S
ALES
. Near the top of the hill sat Thelma Beiler's modest little house. Chickens wandered around the grass yard, clucking in a busybody sort of way.

Before Katrina reached the steps that led up to the house, the front door opened and a man stepped onto the porch. She knew exactly who he was—Thelma Beiler's new farmhand. She shielded her eyes from the early morning sun and realized that Birdy had described him perfectly: reserved, aloof, and much too good-looking.

He stepped farther out onto the porch, until he was standing almost on top of her. His hair was thick, dark brown and curly, too long, and yet it fell perfectly around an extravagant face—shaped into angles by high cheekbones and a hard jaw. He had a dramatic cleft in his chin and piercing blue eyes over which his brows slanted upward like the slopes of a hill. A lock of hair, dark as coal, tossed on his forehead. His body was shaped by years of hard physical labor. Not her type at all, but definitely beautiful.

“Hey,” he said in a low voice, his eyes locked on her.

Oh no.
She could tell, from the approving look in his eyes, that he found her attractive. No, no, no, no. Not what she wanted or needed right now. She met his gaze with challenge. “So you must be the new farmhand.”

“Andy Miller is the name.” A slight grin creased his face. “And you must be the one they sent to keep an eye on Thelma. To make sure I'm not a crazy serial murderer.”

Katrina cocked her head. “Are you?”

A hint of amusement lit his eyes. “Maybe a little crazy, but definitely not a serial murderer.”

He was older than she was, somewhere in his twenties, and had a certain world weariness about him. “I'm Katrina Stoltzfus. I'm going to stay with Thelma and learn all about her moss business.”
Or until
Thelma's shoulder mends.

“She's resting right now. We just got back from the doctor.”

This stranger seemed territorial of Thelma. Why was that? She would have thought he'd be glad to have someone else tend to the needs of an elderly woman. Most men would be delighted to pass off the tasks. “Don't let me stop you from what you were going to do.”

“I'm heading out to gather moss.”

“I've never seen all this moss that Thelma's talked about.”

He tipped his hat to leave, then hesitated. “Well, come on then, it's a sight to behold.” Abruptly, he took her small suitcase and set it on the porch. “Follow me.”

“Um . . . okay.”

He took long strides toward a well-beaten path that led up a steep hill, then stopped, as if it occurred to him he should wait for her to catch up to him. “What do you know about moss?”

“Well, I know it's green.”

He gave her a single glance, not quite rolling his eyes. His mouth twitched. Amusement? Annoyance? “And you're going to learn all about her business?”

She gave him a rueful smile. “I'm a quick study.”

“So, I guess there's no chance that I'd be boring you.”

Boring her? Not likely, Katrina thought, then caught herself before she said it out loud. Don't encourage him, she told herself. Keep things strictly businesslike.

They passed a large vegetable garden in its last burst of summer growth, a small barn, a battered-looking greenhouse with cracked windows, then climbed to the top of a small rocky hill. They passed some trees with branches and trunks covered with moss.

“Is this it?” she asked.

“Hardly. You'll know when you see it.”

At the crest of the hill, he stepped sideways, out of the way, and gestured with his hand, casting a large half-circle. “Here it is.”

“Oh!” she gasped. “Oh, my.” In front of her was the moss, spread out like giant green pincushions over the rocks that hugged the hillside. A breeze swept over them and made the green hillside shimmer slightly like waves, like water. Moving her gaze downhill, she studied the landscape, enveloped by the grassy smell of the moss wafting over them, the bees buzzing, the sunlight tumbling down over the moss-covered rocks. Reflexively, Katrina put her hands to her face. “Oh, wow.”

“Told you it was a sight to see,” he said, hands on his hips.

“It's . . . stunning.” And it was. She was in awe. But then she realized that Andy was watching her. “Is it always like this?”

“Like what?”

“The aroma . . . why, it's intoxicating! Like . . . fresh-cut grass. But . . . better.”

Amused, Andy gazed over the rocky hillside. “Probably more aromatic because it's such a warm, sunny day today.”

“I know this reveals my ignorance, but why would anybody buy . . . moss?” It was such an odd product to her, almost laughable.

“Gardeners. Florists. Decorators. Landscapers. It's an alternative to growing grass. Parks use it for walkways.”

She bent down to rub her hand along the top of the smooth surface. “I'm enchanted.” She looked up at him and he smiled. The grin started slowly, but when it reached his eyes, it became dazzling. She felt a little disoriented, snared by those China-blue eyes.

“Take your time,” he said at last. “I'll tell Thelma you're here. I've got some work to do. I'm trying to get a lead on a reputable breeder of border collies.”

Katrina did not move. She barely breathed. “I know someone who breeds border collies. Trains them too.”

His dark eyebrows lifted in interest.

“People come from all over to get one of his dogs.”

“Come to my office in the barn when you're done and leave his info on my desk. I'll look into it.”

“Oh, perhaps I should contact him for you,” she said quickly. “He's got a waiting list . . . but I might be able to help expedite your name to the top of the list.”

“Okay, sure. Ideally, I'd like a male pup. Neutered. If it's trained, all the better. But not older than a year.” He gave her a satisfied nod and turned to leave.

She watched Andy Miller stride back down the hill toward the barn. And she was suddenly, overwhelmingly, filled with happiness. A little spark of hope, fizzy as a bee, suggested that this might be the way back to John.

As Birdy walked toward the schoolhouse, she sorted out the twist her brother Freeman had thrown her this week and tried to focus her thoughts. Teach school? She didn't know the first thing about teaching school to a roomful of children. And Freeman must have thought so too, because his own four children as well as Levi's three children would remain in the old schoolhouse under Danny Riehl's tutelage, though where they lived, the Big House, was much closer to the new school.

Birdy never had any desire to teach school but that mattered not to Freeman. And if it didn't matter to Freeman, it wouldn't matter to Levi. Freeman was the sort to leap headfirst into a raging river without a care for whether it was deep enough. And where Freeman leaped, Levi followed.

Birdy loved her brothers, but she also feared them and knew not to cross them, especially now. Since Freeman had become a bishop, he had started to make sweeping changes in the little church of Stoney Ridge, and she knew he had many more plans in the works. David Stoltzfus was the fly in his ointment. He didn't go along with Freeman's ideas the way Deacon Abraham, a peacemaker at heart, did. David questioned her brother, pushed back, tried to slow down his pace of change. He was a constant aggravation to Freeman.