Free Hide in Plain Sight by Marta Perry

pace.
    “Sorry. Have you been waiting?”
    “Only for a couple of minutes.” He got up leisurely. “I saw Levi come running out.”
    “I suppose you think I frightened him.”
    He held both hands up in a gesture of surrender. “Peace. That wasn’t aimed at you. I know how shy he is. It’s taken months to get him to the point of nodding at me.”
    A faint flush touched her cheeks. “I guess that did sound pretty defensive, didn’t it? I was startled that Levi didn’t seem to remember me.”
    He fell into step beside her as they walked toward the stone garage that had started life as a stable. “I take it you knew him when you were children.”
    What had she been like as a child? Flax hair in braids, he supposed, probably bossing the others around because she was the oldest.
    She nodded, those green eyes seeming fixed on something far away. “They were our neighbors. Emma’s daughter Sarah was my closest friend.” She shook her head. “It seems odd now, when I think of it. As if it happened in a different world.”
    That, he thought, was the most unguarded thing she’d said to him yet. “I suppose it was, in a way. Childhood, I mean.”
    “The differences didn’t seem so great to a child. We drove my grandfather crazy by talking in the low German dialect the Zook children used at home.”
    “He didn’t like that?” He gestured her toward the truck. When she hesitated, he opened the passenger door for her. “We may as well take this. Rachel’s compact doesn’t have much trunk room.”
    She nodded, climbing in. When he slid behind the wheel, she went on as if the interruption hadn’t happened.
    “I’m not really sure why he objected. His family was what the Amish call ‘fancy’ German, just as they call themselves the ‘plain folk.’” She shrugged. “He didn’t insist—maybe he knew that would just make us more determined. Or maybe he saw that Emma’s family was good for us.” Some faint shadow crossed her face at that.
    “Sounds as if you and your sisters had a good childhood here,” he said lightly. “I was an urban kid, myself. Never saw a real cow until I was twelve.”
    “Good?” Again that shadow. “Yes, I guess. Until it ended.”
    He glanced toward her. “Ended sounds rather final.”
    She blinked, and he could almost see her realizing that she’d said more to him than she’d intended. She shrugged, seeming to try for a casual movement.
    “Everyone outgrows being a kid. Can we get what we need at Clymer’s Hardware, or do we have to go farther?”
    Obviously the subject was closed. Maybe only the encounter with Levi had opened her that much. Something had happened to put a period to that innocent time, maybe the same thing that had kept her away from here for so long. Whatever it was, she wasn’t going to tell him.
    So be it. He wouldn’t pry, any more than he wanted someone prying into his life. “Clymer’s. I know your grandmother likes to use local businesses if she can.”
    “Fine.”
    He pulled into the lot next to the frame building with old-fashioned gilt lettering on the glass windows. He loved going into the village hardware store. It was nice to be in a place where people knew your name, as the song said.
    Clymer’s was as much a center for male gossip as the grocery store was for female gossip, in the way of small towns. Here they’d be talking about who needed new fencing and how the alfalfa was coming along.
    Andrea slid out quickly, and he followed her to the door. She stepped inside, pausing as if getting her bearings.
    “Lighting fixtures are in the back.” He nodded toward the aisle.
    Detouring around kegs of nails and the coil of rope that hung handy to be measured off, they headed back to where sample fixtures hung, gleaming palely in thedaylight. Ted Clymer looked up from the counter where he was working a crossword puzzle and raised a hand in greeting. Ted seemed to figure if his customers needed any help, they’d ask for it. Otherwise, he