Plain Truth Read online

  I could barely grasp the fact that Stephen was here. "It's a cash crop," I said finally.

  All the while, Katie was darting glances at me, wisely remaining silent. I could not look at Stephen without imagining Coop standing beside him. Stephen didn't have Coop's pale green eyes. Stephen looked too polished. Stephen's smile seemed practiced, instead of a flag unfurled.

  "You know, I'm actually quite busy," I hedged.

  "The only case I see you actively working on involves ten-packs of Marlboro Lights. Which is why you ought to thank me. I'm guessing that access to law libraries in Amish country is limited at best, so I took the liberty of pulling some verdicts for you to look over." He reached into a portfolio and extracted a thick sheaf of papers. "Three neonaticides that walked under Pennsylvania law. One of which, believe it or not, was an insanity defense."

  "How did you know I noticed up insanity?"

  Stephen shrugged. "This case is generating a lot of buzz, Ellie. Word gets around."

  I was about to respond when Katie suddenly pushed between us, running from the shed without a backward glance.

  Sarah invited Stephen to dinner, but he didn't want to accept the invitation. "Let me take you out," he suggested. "We can go to one of those homey Amish places in town, if you want."

  As if, leaving this household, the first thing I'd want to do is eat the same thing all over again. "They're not Amish," I said, just to be fractious. "Anyone who's truly Plain wouldn't advertise their religion on the sign."

  "Well, then, there's always McDonald's."

  I glanced into the kitchen, where Sarah and Katie were hard at work preparing dinner--a chore that I'd be helping with, had Stephen not arrived. Sarah peered over her shoulder at us, caught my eye, and turned away quickly in embarrassment.

  Folding my arms across my chest, I said, "How come you can't eat here?"

  "I just thought that you'd--"

  "Well, you thought wrong, Stephen. I'd actually prefer to have dinner with the Fishers." I could not say why, but it was important to me that Sarah and Katie know I'd rather be with them than Stephen. That they understand I wasn't pining to get away as quickly as possible.

  Somehow, over the past few months, these people had become my friends.

  Stephen held up his hands, crying peace. "Whatever you want, Ellie. Dinner with Ma and Pa Kettle will be just fine."

  "Oh, for God's sake, Stephen. Maybe they dress differently and pray more often than you do, but that doesn't mean that they can't hear you being an idiot."

  Stephen sobered quickly. "I didn't mean to offend anyone. I only figured after--what, four months here? You might be anxious for a little intellectual banter." He took my hand, tugging me out of the range of the doorway, so that Sarah and Katie couldn't see us. "I've missed you," he said. "Truth is, I wanted you all to myself."

  I saw him coming closer to kiss me and froze--a deer in the headlights, unable to stop what was about to happen. Stephen's mouth was warm on mine, his hands crossing the map of my back, but my mind was running. After eight years, how could being in Stephen's arms feel less comfortable than being in Coop's?

  With a small, tight smile, I flattened my hands against Stephen's chest. "Not now," I whispered. "Why don't you walk around the farm while I help with supper?"

  An hour later, when the family gathered at the table, all my doubts about Stephen were laid to rest. He bowed his head solemnly at the silent prayer; he used his charm on Sarah until she couldn't pass him a serving dish without blushing the color of a plum; he talked about silage as if the subject interested him even more than the law. I should have known that this would be fine: the Fishers were generous and friendly; Stephen was a consummate actor. By the time Sarah served the main course--a pot roast, chicken pie, and turkey stroganoff--I had relaxed enough to take my first bite of food.

  Katie was telling a hilarious story about the time the cows got out of the barn in the middle of a snowstorm when there was a knock at the door. Elam went to open it, but before the older man could get there, the visitor let himself in. "Hey," Coop said, shrugging out of his coat. "Am I too late for dessert?"

  Like me, he'd become an adopted member of the Fisher family. After the first month, even Aaron stopped objecting with mutinous silence when Sarah graciously offered him dinner on the days he met with Katie or visited me. His eyes lit on mine and warmed--that was all the contact we allowed each other, in front of others. Then he saw Stephen sitting next to me.

  Stephen was already getting to his feet, one hand on my shoulder and the other extended. "Stephen Chatham," he said, smiling quizzically. "Have we met?"

  "John Cooper. And yes, I think we have," Coop said, so smoothly I could have kissed him right then and there. "At the opera."

  "Symphony," I murmured.

  Both men looked at me.

  "Coop's taken Katie on as a patient," I explained.

  "Coop," Stephen repeated slowly, and I saw him making the synaptic connections: the abbreviated nickname, the snapshots jammed into the back of my college yearbook, the conversations we'd had under a blanket of darkness about our past lovers, when we were still safe and secure in each other's arms. "That's right. You knew Ellie from Penn."

  Coop looked at me reluctantly, as if he didn't trust himself to control whatever emotions might play across his face. "Yeah. It's been a while."

  I had never been more thankful for the Amish belief that intimate relationships were matters only for the interest of the two people involved. Katie was meticulously cutting the meat on her plate; Sarah found something to attend to in the kitchen; the other men began to discuss when they were planning to fill the silos. Drawing a deep breath, I sat down. "Well," I said, my voice high and bright. "Who's hungry?"

  Outside, a light wind whistled through the trees, playing them like pipes. Stephen and I walked beneath the overturned bowl of the sky, close enough to feel each other's body heat without actually touching. "The whole case is riding on the forensic psychiatrist," I told him. "If the jury doesn't buy her, Katie's screwed."

  "Then let's hope the jury buys her," Stephen said gallantly, when I knew he was thinking that we didn't have a prayer. "Maybe it won't come to that. Maybe I'll get a mistrial." Stephen pulled the lapels of his coat up. "How's that?"

  "I motioned for one on the grounds that Katie won't be tried by a jury of her peers."

  He smiled slyly. "Meaning there won't be a single Amish body among the twelve?"

  "Yup."

  "I thought participation in the legal system was against their religion?"

  "It might as well be. Like I said: she won't be tried by a jury of her peers."

  Stephen burst out laughing. "God, El. You're never gonna win it, but it's one hell of an appealable issue. This backwater judge isn't going to know what hit her." He stepped in front of me in one smooth maneuver, so that I walked into his open arms. "You are something else," he murmured against my ear.

  Maybe it was the way I lighted in his embrace, or the millisecond it took my body to relax against his--something made Stephen draw back. He spread his hand against my cheek, curving his thumb along my jaw. "So," he said softly. "It's like that?"

  For a moment, I hesitated, spinning a web in my mind that I could use to catch him as he fell, the same way I'd lied to Coop when I broke up with him years ago. I had always believed that some lies could do more good than harm, and therein lay the justification: I'm not good enough for you; I'm too busy to concentrate on a relationship right now; I just need some time to myself.

  Then I thought of Katie, kneeling in front of her congregation and telling them what they wanted to hear.

  I covered his hand with my own. "Yeah. It's like that."

  He pulled our linked fingers down between us, swinging like a pendulum. Stephen, who had always looked so sure of himself, suddenly seemed hollow and fragile, like the husks of maple seeds that helicoptered down from the trees.

  He lifted my hand so that my fingers opened like a rose. "Does he love you?"