THE MACHINES BEEPED in the hospital room. Reece sat in the chair beside Hannah’s bed. His gaze went to the monitors, and he put his head in his hands. She couldn’t die. He’d be lost if she died.
She stirred, and he looked but her eyes didn’t open. Her hand swept across her stomach, then settled there. A grimace twisted her lips, and he was sorry for the pain she would experience. It might be hard for a while, but she’d come to realize it was better this had happened. His gaze touched her face. Hannah’s long lashes lay on her cheeks. Even pale from the trauma, she was so beautiful. Her tawny hair spread out over the pillow. He loved to plunge his face into her long locks. They were so like his real mother’s, the only happy memory of his childhood. He laid his hand on her forehead and smoothed her hair. It was time for her to wake up. “Hannah,” he said in a firm voice. “Wake up.”
Her lashes fluttered, and pain contorted her features. “Sleep,” she muttered.
“You can sleep later. Open your eyes.” A commanding tone usually worked with her.
She sighed, and her eyes finally opened but remained bleary and unfocused.
“Look at me, Hannah.”
She blinked, her gaze sharpening when she took in his face. “Reece. Where am I?”
“You’re in the hospital, hon.”
“Hospital? The baby came?” Her hand moved over her stomach again. “Was it a girl?”
“Hon, the baby died.”
She rolled her head from side to side. “I want my baby. Give her to me!”
“She’s dead, love. I’m sorry.”
“A girl?” Her gaze sharpened again.
“Yes, but she didn’t make it.” An expression he couldn’t read passed over her face, but she didn’t argue with him again. “Are you in pain? Do you need anything?”
She struggled to sit up. “Can I have some water?”
He knew she’d turn to him for comfort. He started to pour some water, but the pitcher was nearly empty. He’d been drinking it through the night while she slept. “Let me get the nurse. I’ll be right back.”
No one was at the nurses’ station, so he wandered down the hall looking for ice. All he found were patients’ rooms. He finally found an aide in the last room, and she ordered him to cool his heels in the hall while she finished checking her patient’s vitals. She led him back the other way, and he waited while she went to a small room he’d missed.
He’d been gone nearly twenty minutes by the time he made it back to Hannah’s room. When he pushed open the door, the bed was empty. He thought she was in the bathroom, but the door was open and the light off. “Hannah?” He whirled to look in every corner of the room. The clothes locker stood open, empty of her things. A hospital gown lay on the floor.
She couldn’t have left. No way could she have passed him in the hall without his noticing. He sprang toward the door and looked down the hall in both directions. An exit sign beckoned from the end opposite the nurses’ station. Beneath it, a door was just closing. He ran down the hall and shoved the door. When it opened, he saw Hannah stepping into an elevator. “Wait!” He rushed to intercept her, but the elevator doors closed before he could get to them. He caught only a glimpse of her stony face looking back at him.
Where was her obedience, her respect? He jabbed the elevator button several times. “Come on, come on.” When no elevator appeared, he glanced around for the stairs and found the exit. Plunging down the flights, he planned how he would punish her for this. She would be sorry she crossed him. He threw open the first-floor door into a lobby looking out over the parking lot. On the other side of the glass, Hannah was getting into a vehicle—his truck.
“Stop!” He ran through the lobby and out the door. He had his hand on the truck’s door handle when the vehicle peeled away, tires screeching. His wife turned to look out the window at him. It seemed impossible she’d done this to him. How dare she openly defy him? When had she gotten a key made? Had she been planning this in the past weeks when she’d coaxed him into teaching her to drive? She’d said she would sometimes need to take the baby to the doctor. She’d tricked him.
Swearing, he dug his cell phone out of his pocket and called his partner on the police force. She had no place to go but home.
His partner met him in fifteen minutes. They drove at top speed to the apartment and parked on Market Street. Reece bounded up the steps but found only an empty apartment. She’d already been here and left with her suitcase, probably the one packed for the hospital. She’d escaped him, and somehow he knew finding her wouldn’t be easy.
An unfamiliar sensation washed over him, and he touched his eyes. They were wet. He and Hannah belonged together. He knew with certainty they’d be together again.
PART TWO
Five years later
SIX
“The Lonestar Quilt is a reminder that we aren’t created to be loners. The Amish prize family and community above all else.”
HANNAH SCHWARTZ,
IN The Amish Faith Through Their Quilts
Hannah’s gaze wandered the living room of her home, a modern ranch that rambled over a postcard-sized Milwaukee yard. Quilts hung from every wall and also lay draped on quilt racks in every corner. She knew the history of every one, who had made it, the year, the purpose for its creation. They were her children, the only ones she’d ever have. The thought depressed her.
Angie Wang, Hannah’s publicist and assistant, ticked off the items on her list. “You’ve got an interview with McCall’s Quilting magazine at nine. A camera crew from Channel 6 is coming in forty-five minutes. Tomorrow is even busier with packing to fly to New York to film FOX & Friends.” Near Hannah’s age of thirty-two, Angie looked slim and elegant in her gray pantsuit and coordinating shoes. But then, she was always put together.
Hannah nodded. The whirlwind success of her book had stunned and humbled her. And sometimes the demands on her time exhausted her. “But what about the book? And the quilt for the cover? You’ve got to slow down the publicity stuff, Angie, just for a few weeks until I can catch my breath.”
“This opportunity won’t come around again. We have to make hay while the sun shines. You’ll get it done.” Angie dismissed Hannah’s fears with an airy wave of her hand.
“Yes, I know. We have so much to be thankful for, but I’ve got work to do at the office too. I need to figure out how to work it all in without going insane.” She forced a smile in spite of her fatigue.
Angie consulted her notebook. “Interview first. The auction isn’t until eleven. We’ll go in long enough for that. I think the staff is throwing a farewell party for you as well.”
A pang pressed against Hannah’s ribs. The museum had been her family, and she’d miss them all. She’d never guessed that the success of her book, Amish Quilts: a Factual History, would catapult her to such fame. It had been on every major best-seller list for six months, and her publisher was clamoring for the new book’s publication to be moved up. It was like being hit by lightning.
“You’d better get changed.” Angie stepped to the window and glanced outside. “The mail is here. I’ll get it while you change.”
Hannah nodded and dumped Spooky, one of her four cats, off her foot. Black with a white marking at his neck, the cat loved to lay on her feet. She quickly changed into the clothes Angie had laid out, a black skirt and chunky gray sweater with tasteful pearls. Angie had tried to get her to spice up her wardrobe, but Hannah insisted on maintaining her image as an academic, and her publicist eventually quit hounding her. Hannah checked her hair and found the French twist still intact.
When she stepped back into the living room, she found Angie going through the mail. “Anything interesting?” she asked.
“Looks like a personal letter,” Angie said, holding out an envelope.