Sarah couldn't quite hide her confusion under her smile as she stepped back and slipped into the house.

Nathaniel shut the door and wandered to the corner of the room, not taking his eyes off the unfinished rocker. All it lacked was a rich, dark stain and a coat of varnish. He nudged it lightly, and it glided back and forth smoothly, the fluid movement a testament to the care he took in crafting it. His finest work, forever unfinished. Forever tainted.

Clutching the back of the rocking chair, he lifted the heavy piece over his head and smashed it into the cement floor. With an earsplitting boom, the joints cracked and groaned but did not break. Again and again he beat the chair into the floor until it finally surrendered to the abuse and exploded into a jumble of slats and splinters.

Purposefully, he gathered up the bigger scraps that refused to be defeated, took them outside, and hurled them haphazardly in the direction of the woodpile. They clattered and banged as they hit the barn, the fence, and the compost bin-everything but the woodpile. The seat, which he couldn't break even with every ounce of his pent-up emotion, he took to the chopping block and reduced to kindling with eight swings of his ax.

Panting heavily, Nathaniel tromped back into his workshop, stormed across the room, and ripped the answering machine from the wall. He refused to listen to one more message from that goldenthroated deceiver. She wanted to relieve her guilty conscience, but he wouldn't be enticed again. Staggering at the thought of how utterly blind he had been, he pounded the thing against his desk until it disintegrated into a mesh of wires and plastic. He scooped up the pieces and tossed them into the garbage.

How had he not even felt an inkling of who Kate really was?

Because he had let her play him for the fool he was.

Mamm and Aaron had tried to warn him, but he had been beguiled by the dream of something that didn't really exist. He remembered telling his mamm that he shouldn't give up chasing his dream because of the pain down the road. How wrong he had been. His life would have been infinitely better had he never known Kate Weaver. The pain of losing her flowed through every blood vessel in his body, throbbed with every beat of his miserable heart. Would the weight of her betrayal crush him in the end?

Too late, he had learned the brutal truth. Kate had been away for two years. It would have been easy for her to fall into the ways of the world. A young, inexperienced girl with hardly any money and no friends would have found safety with a boyfriend. How long would it have taken her to justify sleeping with him to keep him happy? Nathaniel staggered. The thought of Kate cheapening herself sent him reeling.

Nathaniel even felt a little sorry for her. She probably couldn't fathom what she had gotten herself into. He might have been able to find it in his heart to forgive her if the deception hadn't wounded him so deeply.

As distressing as it was that she would become pregnant, it was even more reprehensible to Nathaniel that Kate would be willing to abandon her child to flee to the safety of the Plain community. All those letters she received, the worry in her eyes, were for her child left in who-knows-what kind of care. Kate had not been brave enough to bring the baby home with her and face the consequences of her mistakes. And he had been all too willing to believe her to be sincere and innocent.

Her behavior this summer had a logical explanation. The fresh bruises weren't from fighting off some boy she barely knew, but from an argument with her own abusive boyfriend. She needed a place to escape while things cooled off with the boyfriend. Apple Lake was the perfect solution. Nathaniel, the perfect dupe.

With his strength briefly spent, he sank to the chair at his desk and allowed his breathing to return to normal. A moist, warm sensation propelled Nathaniel's fingers to his forehead. He pulled back his hand, dripping with blood. An errant splinter of sharp wood must have struck him as he destroyed the rocking chair. With his fingers, he explored the wound-a two-inch gash across the edge of his forehead up past his hairline. It would sting for a while.

Good. It felt deeply satisfying to bleed Kate out of his system. Even if he bled himself dry.

Chapter Thirty-Two.

Kate came in from a visit to the mailbox and plopped herself onto the sofa. She sat with her arms folded, staring at the wall. In spite of Maria and Carlos and the baby, she felt so isolated she thought she might scream. Were her parents that busy, that happy to have her away? Why didn't they write one word of encouragement or love? Their silence spoke louder than any scolding ever could.

And was Nathaniel truly having second thoughts, as Aaron had said? Had he learned the truth about Jared and been unable to forgive her? Kate pinched herself to hold back the tears. Maria would worry if she saw Kate crying, especially two days before the custody hearing.

Someone knocked softly. "Kate, it's Shannon," she heard a muffled voice say.

Kate unlocked the dead bolt and opened the door. Shannon stood in the doorway, her pointy-toed boots making her feet appear about three inches longer than they truly were. Kate noticed how Shannon's hair seemed to blow whimsically around her face whether there was a breeze or not, and when she stepped over the threshold in her sky-blue leather jacket, the room brightened considerably.

Inviting herself to sit, Shannon stuffed her phone into her purse and grabbed Kate's wrist. "Well, what did he say?"

"Who?"

"Nathaniel. What did he say?"

Kate sank next to Shannon on the sofa. "I still haven't been able to reach him."

Shannon squinted and frowned in confusion. "No, I saw him on Wednesday. I told him it was about time we heard from him."

"He was here? In Milwaukee?" Kate said.

"He came to the academy looking for you. I sent him to Carlos's place because that's where you usually are on Wednesdays."

Kate's heart hummed in anticipation. "I didn't see him...but I was there." She paused and put her hand over her mouth in dismay. "We went for a walk with Alex. Do you think he came while we were gone?" Kate burst into tears.

Shannon reached into her purse and pulled out a lemon drop for Kate. "Look, you need to call him again. If he won't answer the phone, leave him a very long message. And then, if he's not on the first buggy out here, believe me, you're better off without him."

"I can't do that," Kate said. "His phone has been disconnected."

Shannon gave Kate a quick hug then took out her phone and punched the screen furiously. "What's the name of his business?"

"King's Cabinetry."

Shannon stared at her screen and then her thumbs went wild. "Aha. Here it is. I'm amazing, really." She pulled a sparkly pen out of her purse and wrote a phone number on the back of an old receipt. "Try this one."

Kate sprinted into her bedroom with the phone number firmly in her fist. Then she sprinted back out.

"Here," Shannon said, waving her phone in the air, "use mine."

Back in her room, Kate's hands shook as the phone rang twice.

"Hello? King's Cabinetry."

Her heart leaped to her throat when she heard that deep voice. Oh, how she wanted to return to the safety of his arms!

"Nathaniel," she stuttered.

A long pause on the other end.

"Nathaniel?"

"How did you get this number?"

A sense of urgency drove her forward. "I want you to hear the whole story about Jared."

Another formidable silence.

"I know about what happened with the boyfriend."

Kate's heart raced. "Did Aaron tell you?"

"I forgive you."

Kate had never heard less forgiveness in her entire life. "I want you to hear it from me. I want you to understand."

"It doesn't matter. I forgive you. Do not call me again. I won't answer."

The click on his end of the line was deafening.

Chapter Thirty-Three.

Kate looked in the mirror. Repeated splashing of her face with cold water had no effect on her puffy, bloodshot eyes or her sallow complexion. She buried her face into the soft towel and breathed in the scent of springfresh laundry detergent. Ach, if everything in life could be as utterly lovely as newly washed hand towels and daintily perfumed soaps.

She pressed the towel to her eyes as another wave of despair washed over her. To despair is to turn your back on God, Mamma would say.

No, true despair was when God turned His back on you. And God had truly abandoned her. She clung to the edge of a cliff with her frail faith, the whipping wind on the verge of blowing her into a black abyss.

Her breath came in stutters and spasms, the effects of crying still hanging over her. After the devastating phone call, Shannon and then Maria had slipped into Kate's room to give her comfort, but she had sent them away. It was impossible to share her pain with anyone, and Maria's sympathetic reassurances only made things worse.

Nathaniel. Everything inside her cried out for him.

Despite what he had told her, she knew his unblemished soul must abhor the thought of her taking a life. He could not bear such knowledge, and so he had to cut Kate out of his heart like a cancer.

Would she ever remember what it felt like to be happy?

No longer able to avoid her friends, Kate refastened the pins in her kapp and wandered into the living room, where Maria carried on a hushed conversation with Shannon. Alex sat on Maria's lap, sucking his finger. Both friends looked up expectantly when she entered the room.

Kate folded her arms. "He said he forgives me." With supreme effort, she kept her composure. "And to never call him again."

The ticking of the clock on the wall grew exceptionally loud.

"That jerk," Shannon muttered. Then louder, "That utter and complete jerk. And to think I was nice to him." She slammed her iPhone on the end table with such force that Kate fully expected it to break into a thousand pieces. "I really hoped he would be different."

"He is different. I'm the one who doesn't deserve him."

"Don't you dare blame yourself for this," Shannon scolded. "You deserve much, much better. I'm bringing over a pint of Ben and Jerry's. Chunky Monkey. Eat the whole thing by yourself. That's the only way I know to begin the cleansing process."

"I don't want to cleanse. I want Nathaniel."

Shannon handed her another lemon drop from her purse. "I'm sorry, Kate."

"Just when I thought God had given me an answer, that I knew where I was supposed to be, everything fell apart."

Maria moved to sit next to Kate. "As soon as the hearing is over, we'll get you home and you can sort everything out."

Kate turned her face away and wiped her eyes. Maria didn't understand. There was no home to return to.

Shannon glanced at her phone. "Oh, Kate, I'm sorry. I have to go. I'll bring that ice cream over," she said, before giving Kate a sisterly hug and walking out the door.

"This is all my fault." Maria cradled Alex in her arms and rocked him back and forth. "Right after the hearing is over, I'm coming with you to Apple Lake and explaining things to Nathaniel."

Kate clutched her chest, as if trying to scoop up the pieces of her shattered heart. No use in trying to repair it. She wasn't even the same person anymore. "I must accept what is," she said quietly.

Alarm flickered across Maria's face. "What do you mean?"

"I am the one who must control my life. Not Nathaniel, not the Church, not God."

"We must all surrender to God," Maria said.

"I do not need God interfering in my life. Hasn't He done enough?"

"You expect Him to make things easy for you?" Maria said, with uncharacteristic boldness.

"I don't expect anything from God anymore."

Maria reached out and caught Kate's wrist. "You're confused and upset about Nathaniel, but I believe you will come to see God's loving hand in all of this."

"I'm not going back," she said. "God has made himself perfectly clear. I have a choice, and I choose not to be baptized."

Maria stared at her in dismay.

Kate picked Maria's phone off the table. While she pressed buttons, she slid the pins out of her hair and pulled the kapp off her head. "Hello, Dr. Sumsion? This is Kate. I've changed my mind about the academy. Is the part of Juliette still mine?"

Chapter Thirty-Four.

"Did you ever see Jared Adams hit Miss Trujillo?" asked the judge.

"Twice," Kate said.

The small room was so still, Kate could hear the judge breathing softly as he looked over the documents in his hand. Jared's mother sat with her meticulously manicured hands intertwined in her lap, never taking her eyes from the judge. Her platinum-blond hair seemed out of place, highlighting her aging face. Jared's father, tall and thin, looked as if he would rather be anywhere else in the world. Two attorneys in suits and ties flanked Jared's parents, while Maria's lawyer sat between Maria and Carlos and stared at the papers in the judge's hand.

The judge sat at a conference table face-to-face with Kate. "Did you ever see Miss Trujillo strike Mr. Adams?"

"Yes," Kate said. She sensed, rather than heard, Jared's mother hold her breath. "On April tenth. I was at the apartment. He had called her earlier in the day, wanting to see her, and she told him if he bothered her again she would call the police."

"Did she lure him to the apartment as his family asserts?"