Finding Mercy by Karen Harper

with just one crutch, though she hoped Grossmamm didn’t see him balancing like that. In a couple of days, he wouldn’t even need it. Ella’s eyes kept drifting to his tight bottom as he leaned over.
    She forced herself back to spooning last year’s dried lavender heads into small quilted bags and tying them shut with lavender ribbons. These were her most popular and least expensive sachets. To each ribbon was attached a little tag with the hand lettering, Lavender Plain Products. But, she thought, if she did begin to work with that fancy new spa run by the Lee family, would that mean making things that weren’t so plain and simple? Body candles to produce warm, fragrant wax for a massage? Obviously, the person would have to be partly or completely naked…and then to have a stranger rub warm, sweet-scented wax…
    She shook her head to clear the image of Andrew stretching and bending over. He had his sleeves rolled to bare his upper arms and his shirttail had come out to expose a strip of tanned back, so unlike the white skin of Amish men....
    “So what would he think of a massage?” she said aloud to the empty room.
    “You talking to yourself lately, Ella?” came a masculine voice behind her. It wasn’t Andrew’s—or an Amish voice. She gasped and turned.
    FBI Special Agent Linc Armstrong blocked the light as he opened the screen door and came in. She hadn’t seen him for almost seven months. He looked as thin and edgy as ever, and he’d grown out his hair from its usual finger-width cut. Holding a white envelope in one hand, he wore a red knitted short-sleeved shirt with something sewn over its pocket. Oh, a little alligator. That was a good emblem for him.
    “Agent Armstrong. You startled me.”
    “So I did. Just Linc Armstrong now. How’s your guest doing?”
    She decided not to answer that, even though she’d learned this man had a part in placing Andrew here.
    Instead, she told him, “The bishop and my father think you more or less recommended us to host him.”
    He shrugged. “I thought of Bishop Esh’s family first, since I knew Hannah was out of there, living with Ray-Lynn Logan. But the bishop needed privacy since so many of your people come to him for counseling.”
    “And the Eshes needed time to help prepare for Hannah and Seth’s wedding. It’s this Friday.”
    “That’s why I’m here. I mean, not for the wedding, but to ask you to give Hannah this.” He extended the white, square envelope toward her, but she didn’t move around the table to take it. Instead, she gripped the back of a chair and didn’t budge, though her mind was racing. Daad, Andrew too, would be upset that an outsider could corner her alone like this with them nearby. It was obvious he had not driven a car down the lane. He must have walked in across the front yard so no one at the back saw him coming. Besides the fact she didn’t like the man, it unnerved her that he’d seemed to just appear out of nowhere.
    Standing her ground, she told him, “With all that’s happened between you and Hannah, I wouldn’t feel right about giving her a personal note.”
    “It’s a wedding card and a gift certificate for the Brand Amish furniture store near Homestead, so she can pick out something she and Seth want for their house when it’s finished. That’s all and that’s it.”
    “Oh.”
    He sailed it onto the kitchen table, just missing her big wooden bowl of dried lavender. “You always were too protective of her, Ella.” He frowned, and his voice hardened. “I can see why you pushed Seth at her, but—”
    “I didn’t. It was their decision all the way.”
    “Yeah, well, maybe.” She could tell he was angry but trying to hide it. “Decisions, decisions, right? I guess you didn’t hear I’ve retired early from the FBI.”
    “No. I thought you loved it.”
    “Maybe I learned there were other things to love. Yeah, I took early retirement. I’ve gone into a private security firm with a couple of friends.