Fallen in Plain Sight by Marta Perry

Author:Marta Perry [Perry, Marta]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781460395523
Publisher: MIRA Books
Published: 2012-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

MAMM HAD BEEN URGING HER to go to bed since the police chief left, but Sarah managed to evade her.

“I’m all right, Mamm.” She bent to press her cheek against her mother’s. Mamm was sitting with her mending in her lap, but hadn’t yet taken a stitch. “Really. I’d rather do something.”

“Play Chinese checkers with us?” Emma asked, her tone hopeful. She was poised by the stack of games on the bookshelf, ready to pull the game out.

“Ja, that’s a gut idea.” Sarah smiled at her little sister. “That will get my mind on beating you.” She knew she’d said the right thing when the lines in Mamm’s face relaxed.

“Set it up,” Sarah instructed. “I’ll be back in a minute, soon as I tell Jacob something.”

She hurried toward the kitchen, listening to her sisters squabbling good-naturedly about who would go first. The door was closing behind Jacob, but he must have heard what she’d said, because he was waiting on the porch when she got there.

The evening had turned chilly, and she drew her shawl around her. Jacob leaned against the porch railing, his face a pale oval in the dim light. She didn’t need to see him to know that he was waiting for her to speak.

Now that she was here, she didn’t know what to say. That moment after the accident, when she’d clung to him, pressing her body against his… Her face flooded with heat at the thought of it. She had to say something to put that in its proper perspective and return things to normal between them. She just didn’t know what.

“Mamm is determined to send me to bed,” she said finally. “You’d think I had a cold instead of a few bumps and bruises.”

“She loves you.” His voice sounded deep, coming at her out of the dark. “She was scared, that’s all.”

“Daad’s got a bee in his bonnet about Englische teenagers,” she said, not wanting to think about being scared. “He’s sure that’s who is responsible.”

“He hasn’t forgotten about the kids who splashed the red paint on the barn last year, ain’t so?”

She could hear the smile in his voice, and she found it soothing. Daad had forgiven those kids, of course, and his solution had been to paint the whole barn red.

“Well, I guess he could be right in this case,” she stated. “Taking a car, going for a joyride—that’s the sort of thing teenagers would do.”

“Do you think that, Sarah, or are you trying to convince yourself?”

She shook her head, moving to the railing to stand next to him. “If it was deliberate, I’d think the driver would have done worse than sideswipe us.”

“Not if he just wanted to convince you to stay at home instead of going to the Strickland house.”

She tilted her head to look up at him, remembering the summer he’d suddenly shot up to become taller than she was. “Is that what you want me to do?”

He didn’t answer for a moment, and then he shrugged.

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