Plain Protector. Alison Stone

of the five. Two are townies.”

      “Are they being held?”

      “Yes, at the station. If you want to put the fear of God in them, you should come in quick. I don’t imagine they’ll be there long.”

      “Okay.” Nick clicked End and looked at Sarah.

      “They caught some kids breaking glass bottles behind the general store. No one claims to have thrown a rock through the church window, but it’s possible.”

      An overwhelming need to protect Sarah filled him. What was it about her? Her petite stature? Her vulnerability? Or was he drawn to Sarah’s fiery attitude that emerged every time he suggested something she didn’t like.

      His mind flashed to his sister Christina. She seemed to have her life together now—she lived and breathed the health-care clinic—but there was a time when she, too, had been vulnerable and he hadn’t been there to help her. His stomach twisted at the thought of what might have happened if she hadn’t gotten away the night she was attacked on campus. His head told him he couldn’t be everywhere, but the pain in his heart told him he needed to try. It made him want to be a better officer.

      They stood in silence for a minute before Sarah turned and inserted the key into the lock. Most people in Apple Creek didn’t lock their doors, but he supposed a single woman living out here all alone wasn’t like most people.

      And enough bad things had happened, even here in Apple Creek, that eventually everyone would realize they’re not immune to evil.

      Sarah pushed open the door and propped the screen door open with her hip. She turned to face him. “Since they picked up the kids breaking bottles, I’m fine out here.” There was a hint of a question in her tone.

      “Hold on, you’re not slipping away from me that easily.”

      Sarah narrowed her eyes. He couldn’t seem to reach her, and he wasn’t sure why he was striking out.

      “I’m going to call Sheriff Maxwell and get their names, and you can tell me if you know any of them from your meetings.”

      Sarah leaned on the doorframe and held the screen door open a fraction with the palm of her hand, apparently still hesitant to allow him into her home.

      Once Nick gave the names, Sarah frowned. “Ruben and Ephram Zook live next door.” She stretched out her arm and pointed to the well-tended home across the field. “I’m surprised they’d get caught up in such foolishness. I’m renting the house from their parents. Their father is rather strict. However, I suppose saying an Amish father is strict is redundant.” The tight set of her mouth relaxed into an all-too-fleeting smile. “But neither boy has been to one of my meetings. I’ve never heard of them having issues with alcohol or drugs. Or being otherwise wild during rumspringa.”

      “What about the other names?”

      Sarah shook her head. “Not familiar to me.”

      “I’ll have to talk to each of them. See if they’d been near the church first.”

      “Please don’t tell anyone you asked if the young Amish men had been to one of my meetings. My work is based on trust. They’ll be afraid to come if they think I’ll rat them out.”

      Trust.

      Nick nodded. Strange word for a woman who seemed afraid to trust him. She was obviously harboring secrets.

      “You going to be okay out here?”

      “Yes, I’m fine.”

      Nick hesitated a fraction before pivoting on his heel and stomping down the porch steps.

      Sarah Lynn had secrets. Unless her secrets drew the attention of the Apple Creek sheriff’s department, Nick decided he’d let her be.

      The last thing he needed was to get caught up with someone like Sarah. It would be easy to do. But Nick had already been burned by a woman with her share of secrets.

      Once in a man’s lifetime was enough.

      * * *

      Sarah walked through the small cottage she rented—cash only—from the Amish family next door without turning on any lights. The downstairs windows lacked curtains, and she hadn’t remedied the situation because she had to be conservative with her money. Make it last. But she hated the lack of privacy. A woman who had a stalker didn’t relish the notion of being in a lit-up fish tank. So most nights, she retired to her upstairs bedroom to read in privacy.

      How long can I keep hiding? Delaying my life because I’m afraid of one man?

      Sarah reached the kitchen. The white moonlight slanted across the neat and functional cabinets and stove. Englischers, as the Amish called people like her, had lived here and when they moved away, Amos Zook had purchased the house adjacent to his land for future use by one of his children. Therefore, the house had modern amenities, such as they were, that would have to be torn out once one of the sons and his new bride moved into the house. Perhaps when Ruben, their second-eldest son, married Mary Ruth. If the rumor mill was to be believed. When Sarah first heard the plans for the house, she found it amusing. Updating a home by removing modern conveniences.

      Sarah opened a cabinet closest to the sink and got a glass for water. As the cool liquid slid down her throat, her mind drifted to her mother. Alone in the only home Sarah had ever known.

      She and her mother had been exchanging letters through their pastors. Her mother’s were always filled with cheery accounts of what she had been up to depending on the day and the weather.

      “Weeded the garden today. You should see your father’s rosebushes.” Her father had been dead twenty years, but his rosebushes kept thriving.

      “Wow, had to shovel the walkway three times today. I don’t think spring is ever going to get here.”

      Or...

      “It’s been so hot that I’ve had to turn on the fan at night. You know how I hate to sleep with that fan.”

      Despite her mother’s lung cancer diagnosis almost a year ago, Sarah rarely ever heard her mother complain about her health. And when it came time to flee Buffalo because of Jimmy, her mother encouraged her to go and live her life, happy and healthy and away from that domineering man.

      Her mother made it sound like her last wish: that her daughter live a happy life. Perhaps the kind of life that had eluded her mother after she lost her husband in a drunk-driving accident.

      Pinpricks of tears bit at the back of her eyes. Losing a dad as a little kid did that to a person. Her poor dad had gone out for ice cream when some drunk teenager T-boned him at an intersection. Sarah inhaled through her nose and exhaled through her mouth, a trick she had learned to calm her anxiety. It worked maybe half the time.

      Sarah glanced around the dark kitchen, and her cheeks flushed. Her mother had been widowed when Sarah was only ten. She raised Sarah to be a confident, independent woman. It shamed Sarah that she had fallen for a man who was able to control her.

      Instead of following her mother’s lead, Sarah had grown up fearful, cautious, contained.

      Now she’d have to spend the rest of her days hiding. And pray she’d get to visit her mother again in person before the horrible disease took its toll.

      A rush of nostalgia overwhelmed her, and the sudden urge to call her mother nearly brought her to tears. Sarah moved to the kitchen hutch in the darkness and opened the middle drawer. It opened with a creak, sending shivers up and down her spine. Sarah hated that she had grown fearful of her own shadow. Yet, she had turned Nick away when he volunteered to check her house. Such was the conundrum of being stalked by a cop.

      Afraid, but too afraid to call the police.

      Glancing around the darkened space of her current home, she convinced herself she was alone. Safe, but alone. She laughed, an awkward sound in the silence.

      Boy, am I ever alone.

      Leaning