Darling? Not exactly Annie's goal. "I wonder if we should give up on some of these books. They don't seem to be selling."

"It takes time. We'll get a lot more weekenders once summer is in full swing." Mrs. Weichert rearranged figurines. "Everybody wonders if you're really going to become Amish."

Annie's reply caught in her throat. She dislodged it and let it slide down.

"It's wonderful to see a young person willing to make a sacrifice," Mrs. Weichert said.

Annie reached back with both hands and tightened her ponytail. "Maybe I should bring those dishes out of the storeroom. It's a complete set, and only a couple of tiny nicks. You almost can't see them."

The ceramic dishes had been one of the best finds in the truckload of boxes Annie had sorted through the previous week. They dated back to the 1970s, but the earth tones looked surprisingly contemporary. In the storeroom now, Annie turned over one of the bowls to find the manufacturer. A name etched in a brown circle was not quite readable. A signature served as a logo, but she could not decide if the vowel in the center was an A or an E.

The old impulse surged to reach for her iPhone and get on the Internet. She could not do that any longer, but she could use Mrs. Weichert's computer. The laptop was anachronistic in this shop of vintage and antique items, but it served a needful business purpose. Annie moved to the small desk, opened the laptop, and tapped a thumb on the track pad. At least once a week she used a computer to help in her work. Annie's deft navigation of the Internet had yielded price-setting information beyond Mrs. Weichert's knowledge on several occasions. Even some of the Amish used computers to run their businesses. But for Annie, the automatic movements her hands made, the sleek keys under her fingers, and the familiar sensation of her eyes on the screen-it all taunted, whispering from shadows.

Annie woke the computer, and a search box appeared. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard. Finally, instead of the craftsman's name, she typed two words. Randy Sawyer. A list filled the screen. She narrowed the search with the name of the company her old flame was working for now, and in an instant his smiling professional photo and bio burned through her gray eyes.

She closed the search box and took a deep breath. What was she doing?

Could she really make this sacrifice, as Mrs. Weichert called it?

It should not feel like a sacrifice. Should it? She should not be wondering about Randy Sawyer. Should she?

Her walk with Rufus on Friday was three days old now. Annie had seen him briefly at his home on Saturday, where he insisted that she stay with his mother and quilt while he dug her garden. On Saturday evening, she sat on her back porch and inhaled the fragrance of turned earth, the fruit of Rufus's labor with Jacob. On Sunday, she looked up twice from the shared meal after the service to catch Rufus watching her. The violet focus of his eyes stirred a creeping warmth in her before he diverted his gaze.

No, sacrifice was the wrong word. Whatever choice lay before her would not feature what she left behind, but rather what she took hold of. And Rufus Beiler was the person who made her want to take hold.

Exhaling, Annie opened the search engine again and soon found the dishes on the Internet. Early seventies, a midwestern manufacturer, designed by an artist who found local fame in other mediums. A limited edition. Only five hundred sets had been cast in the particular color combination stacked a few feet away from the desk. A complete set of eight was definitely of value. Mrs. Weichert should hold out for a good price. Annie carried the dishes out to the shop and began wiping them clean and arranging shelf space.

The bell on the shop door jangled. Glancing up, Annie recognized Colton, the young man who worked in the hardware store Tom Reynolds owned.

"You got any of that Amish jam?" Colton asked. "My wife wants some."

Mrs. Weichert pointed to the shelf that supported glass jars both Franey Beiler and Edna Stutzman had canned. The man slid jars around with two fingers. Annie supposed he was looking for a particular fruit his wife had requested. Peach and blackberry were all he would find, though.

"It's all over town that Karl Kramer is on a tear." Colton picked up one jar of peach and one of blackberry and moved toward the counter.

"What is he knotted up about this time?" Mrs. Weichert tapped the electronic cash register.

"Apparently he keeps close count of his fertilizer bags." Colton extracted a wallet from his back pocket. "Three bags are missing from a place where he's been stockpiling supplies. Rumor is it's some sort of commercial grade with higher ammonium nitrate."

Annie's hands stilled.

The cash register beeped. "I don't know why Rufus wants to work with that man," Mrs. Weichert said. "You never can tell what little thing is going to set him off. He probably miscounted."

"Who wants to steal fertilizer, anyway?" Colton asked. "This is ranch country. Everybody has some."

Not everybody, Annie thought. Not teenage boys who did not want to raise suspicions by inquiring about ammonium nitrate levels in the fertilizer at the hardware store one of their fathers owned.

That morning, before he left his workshop for the home where he was installing cabinets, Rufus checked every hook on the wall the third time. The set of small chisels was not there. Now, in the wide yard beside the new home, he emptied his toolbox in the back of the buggy, though he had done this before as well. If the leather case did not turn up soon, he would have to bear the expense of a new set. For now, he chose a larger chisel and replaced the rest of The tools according to the careful arrangement that characterized his toolbox.

Rufus turned at the sound of a car spewing gravel. He put a calming hand on Dolly's rump. The car screeched to an abrupt halt, bouncing forward with unspent momentum before settling. Karl Kramer leaned out of the driver's side window.

"If we're going to work together, you have to give me a phone number." Karl shook a finger at Rufus.

"What's wrong, Karl?"

"I can't meet this afternoon. Somebody is stealing fertilizer from me, and I intend to find out who it is."

"Who would steal fertilizer?"

"If I knew that, would I be chewing the fat with you now?"

"Tomorrow, then," Rufus said. "I hope you sort things out soon."

"I intend to. Whoever did this is going to be sorry."

Karl pulled his arm inside the car and accelerated. With his hand on Dolly's neck, Rufus watched Karl's car hurl down the road much faster than it should have. He hoped Karl would calm down before they met again. If the project derailed because Karl could not let go of a couple of bags of fertilizer, Rufus would have little success convincing anyone to give Karl another chance.

"Annie, Rufus is here for you."

Annie stuck her head around the corner from the desk in the storeroom where she had been making notes about the newest inventory. Her ponytail sagged and she was fairly sure a smudge covered one cheekbone, but she smiled anyway.

"I thought you had a meeting." Annie entered the main shop and tucked a perpetually rebellious strand of hair behind her left ear.

"Canceled."

Rufus's lips did not turn up, but Annie caught the hint of dance in his eyes. She looked at Mrs. Weichert.

The shop owner waved a hand. "Yes, you're through for the day. Go on, you two."

"I'll drive you home," Rufus said when they stepped out on the sidewalk.

"It's only four blocks."

"We'll take the long way."

Annie took the hand Rufus offered to help her up to the buggy seat. Outside the bakery across the street, two women watched. Annie felt their stares, and she turned her head to smile at them. Curiosity on the faces of onlookers no longer made her self-conscious.

"I'm not sure Westcliffe has a 'long way,' " Annie said.

"We'll invent one."

Rufus guided Dolly past the turn onto Annie's street, going several blocks and then turning the opposite direction. They zigzagged up and down the streets, past the historic Lutheran church and the old schoolhouse, past the small railroad museum and the newspaper office. Each time he had an opportunity to turn in the direction of Annie's house, Rufus went the other way.

"I suppose in your English world this is not much of a date," Rufus said, his eyes forward.

Is that was this was? "This is better than an English date," Annie said. "I'm glad to see you."

"Karl is making a fuss about some missing fertilizer."

Annie let three houses pass before she spoke. "Rufus, suppose someone in the Amish community was involved."

"Why would any of our people be involved? We don't steal and our sources of fertilizer generally are more...natural, shall we say?"

She smiled. "Well, then, not directly involved. Just theoretically."

"If theoretically someone knew about this?" He leaned toward her.

"Yes. Theoretically."

"Then theoretically someone ought to speak to the elders. But not theoretical elders. Real ones."

Annie nodded. Thinking of Joel, though, complicated her thoughts. She did Not for a minute believe Joel would be involved with theft.

"Do you know something?" Rufus asked.

She squirmed. "Not exactly." A false accusation would do needless harm. She chuckled as they went past the same corner for the fourth time. "People are going to think you've lost your mind if you keep driving in circles."

"Theoretically I would hate for that rumor to get back to my parents."

"Then theoretically, I suppose you should turn left at the next corner and take me home."

In front of her house, Rufus helped Annie down. She stood for a moment to stroke Dolly's neck.

"Thanks for the ride home." Annie drank a deep breath and let it out in contentment. "I could make coffee. We could sit on the step."

And then she saw her.

Beth Stutzman clomping down off Main Street toward them. Annie pressed her lips together.

"There you are!" Beth called to them from half a block away. "I've been trying to catch you all over town. Why were you driving as if you didn't know where you were going?"

"Hello, Beth," Annie said.

"Hello, Annalise." Beth's gaze barely moved in Annie's direction, instead focusing on Rufus. "I was hoping you could give me a ride home."

Rufus caught Annie's eyes.

"You are going home now, aren't you?" Beth asked, looking from Rufus to Annie and back again.

Beth's tone grated even as Annie erased her vision of coffee on the front steps with Rufus. "I'll see you later," Annie said.

She saw the sink in his shoulders as he nodded at Beth. "Ya, I'm heading home."

He politely aided Beth's ascent to the buggy seat, climbed up beside her, and picked up the reins.

Theoretically, Rufus did not look very happy with Beth's request. Theoretically, Annie was pleased to know he would rather have sat with her on her front step for a few more minutes.

Annie turned back to the house. The missing fertilizer was not theoretical, and neither was Annie's memory of the Internet history on Carter Reynolds's phone.

If only Joel were not being so evasive. The consequences could be far from theoretical.

Twenty-Four.

September 1777 Magdalena chose to walk. One of the Stutzman sisters, who had married a Yoder distantly related to Magdalena, had a new babe. Magdalena had offered to do some mending so the new mother could rest and enjoy the child. She knew her own talent with a needle. The couple's mending had stacked up during the heaviness of pregnancy with an older child to care for. Magdalena's repairs would hold for a good long while.

The couple's farm was four miles away. Calculating both the walking time and the visiting time, Magdalena reckoned she had the better part of three hours away from the house, perhaps even four. Magdalena much preferred setting her body in motion and raising her face in the warmth in the sky to wiping noses and shooing children out of the kitchen. The brutality of summer heat had eased, but the days still brimmed with sun. She would cut through the paths that joined the back property boundaries and stay off the main road, and she would have hours for uninterrupted thoughts while she carried the mended garments to the Yoders.

Babsi's baby had come as well. A boy. They named him Jacob, for his grandfather. The name had been in the Byler family for several generations already, and of course it made Magdalena think of her onkel in Berks County, and his son Jacob Franklin. The miles between Lancaster County and Berks County were far from insurmountable, but the two branches of the Byler family had less and less in common. Magdalena supposed that in another generation they would hardly know each other.

If only one of these little Jacoblis could be hers-hers and Nathanael's. He did not come right out and say he did not plan to marry, but anyone could see he had lost interest. He was content. Too content.

It stabbed her sometimes, that he could lose his love for her.

Magdalena pushed out air and moved the old flour sack filled with mended garments to the other shoulder.

She did not see them until she crested the small hill, hardly more than a mound. And if she had not turned her head at that angle at that precise moment, she might have missed them altogether. Against the slope, four men sat on the ground, huddled around a patch of something. Leather? Paper? She could not be sure.

Magdalena did not realize her feet had stopped moving until she caught his glance. Eyes large and brown stared at her. No hat restrained his shaggy brown hair. They locked eyes while he jumped to his feet. His motion caused the others to look up as well. She heard the slap as rifles moved to their hands, and she froze. Never before had she seen a gun aimed at her.

"I'm sorry," Magdalena muttered. "I won't disturb you." She took a few steps.

"Halt!"

When she turned again, the first man was moving toward her. "What do you have in the bag?"

Magdalena licked her lips and swallowed. "Mended clothing. For a friend."

"Show me."

Magdalena dropped the bag off her shoulder and spread the top edges. He riffled through a few layers with one hand, his musket at the ready in the other.

Who did they think she was? Magdalena wondered. And who were they? She watched their movements, curious.

"Do you come through here often?" he asked.

"No, not often." Magdalena twisted the top of her bag closed.

"Why are you here today?"

"I felt like walking. Usually I take a cart on the road." She realized now that two of the men wore jackets in shades of red. Not British uniforms, but nevertheless a suggestion of their sympathies. She took a step back and saw fire in his eyes.