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“Martha. I know who helped her escape.”
Ethan opened the shower door and poked his head out. “You’re kidding. Who?”
“Sarah Myers.”
That surprised him. “The burn victim?”
“One and the same.”
“That isn’t like her. She’s too passive and faithful and…I don’t know, cowed.”
“Apparently, those still waters run deeper than we’d guessed.”
“That’s a pity.” He flung his dripping hair out of his eyes. “I always liked her. How’d you find out?”
“Scott Renson was at the gate.”
“Didn’t you check with him before?”
“Of course. He lied to me.”
When he noticed Bart’s fixation on his nudity, Ethan straightened. Last night was real, all right. “For Sarah? How do they even know each other—more than casually, I mean?”
“They don’t. But her scars affect people.”
“He feels sorry for her?”
“That’s what he told me. He said he didn’t want Sarah to get in trouble, because she’s been through enough in her life. He saw her shielding Martha during the commotion, pushing her toward the gate, and let her through so Sarah wouldn’t fight him over it and wind up getting shunned.”
“Does Sarah realize he knows it was her?”
“Of course. But she hasn’t spoken to him about it. She didn’t stick around to thank him, either. She just shoved Martha toward the gate and, once she saw her slip through, ran back to the group.”
Ethan leaned against the cold tile. “Well, what do you know…. What finally made him come forward?”
“We had a staff meeting this morning. I told all the guards that they’d be given only bread and water until I learned the truth. Someone with keys, or access to keys, had clearly let her through, right? Knowing that others would be penalized for his mistake, he cracked almost immediately.”
“You do know how to get what you want.”
The smile that curved Bart’s lips made Ethan smile in response. He felt like a kid experiencing his first crush.
“I can be patient when necessary, but my patience in this matter was growing thin.”
“What did you do to him?” Ethan asked.
“I banished him to a tent of his own and put him on bread and water rations for a week.”
“He accepted that?”
“He endangered the whole church with his actions. Of course he accepted it. He even thanked me for being forgiving and for not making his punishment worse. So did his parents.”
Ethan adjusted the water temperature. The air-conditioning pumping through the vent above Bart’s head made him cold. “What about Sarah?”
Bart’s bad eye drifted. “I have a different plan for Sarah.”
“Which includes…”
“I’ll explain later. Right now I need your permission to have Sister Maxine call her to the Enlightenment Hall to clean up or something.”
“Clean up? How is that punishment for helping Martha?”
“It isn’t. I’m going to speak with her but I want the contact to seem like a coincidence. I don’t want her to suspect I know the truth.”
Ethan scowled. “You’re being very clandestine.”
“You trust me to do my job, don’t you?”
“Are you going to punish her?”
Bart’s eyebrows went up. “What do you think? She put you at risk. That means she’s going to pay.”
Nate fixed the broken skirt on the trailer while Rachel bathed. He didn’t want to be inside when she had her clothes off. But tinkering in the hot sun probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do. He’d washed up before she’d returned from her run, but now he needed to bathe again.
Letting the door slam when he went inside, he stood directly beneath the swamp cooler.
“We’re out of water,” she called. “I barely had enough to get my hair washed.”
She’d heard him come in, as he’d intended. But he wasn’t too pleased to learn they were out of water. He’d have to go to town without washing up. And knowing they didn’t have any more water immediately made him thirsty. “I’ll throw the cans in the back of the truck. We’ll have lunch at the café while we’re in town and pick up some fencing material, too.”
“Why do we need fencing material?”
“For the dog pen.”
“The what?” she called in apparent confusion.
“The dog pen. It’s broken.”
“And you plan to fix it.”
“Why not?”
“Because we don’t live here, Nate.”
“We do for now.”
“But we don’t have a dog!”
“So? I enjoy fixing things.” Inanimate objects were certainly easier to patch up or improve than people. He spent most of his days sending bad guys to prison, but most of the offenders he dealt with returned to a life of crime once they got out. What he did was necessary, but not always effective in the long term.
“Whatever,” she grumbled.
He shot a dark look at the bathroom door. “Quit trying to make it sound as if what I want to do doesn’t make sense.”
“It doesn’t make sense. You’re nuts.”
“Yeah, well, you like me that way.”
She came out of the bathroom wearing nothing but a towel. She was walking to her bedroom to dress but paused to frown at him. “No, I don’t.”
Desire coiled in his groin as he studied the cle**age showing above the knot in her towel. One tug and that towel would be on the floor…. “You’re sure?”
“No question.”
She started for the bedroom again, but he caught her and pressed her against the wall with a hand on either side of her head. “You said you loved me, Rachel.” The reminder made her flush a bright red, almost as red as when they were running earlier, but he didn’t care. He needed to be clear.
“I didn’t know you well enough to make that decision,” she said with a scowl.
“And now you do.”
“Now I do.”
“Then I could take you to bed and it wouldn’t be any big deal.”
“I wouldn’t go to bed with you. I’ve told you that already.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Because you’re a cocky son of a bitch.” She was suddenly angry, frustrated.
