Ties That Bind Read Online Free PDF Page A

Frieda leave? If so, then Quill knew the man—the traitor.
    Wait!
    Realization of what he was saying dawned, and her knees threatened to give way. Quill had apologized because he knew the Nightcrawler was going to take someone else she loved! Maybe Quill was in the area to help the Nightcrawler.
    Thief! Liar! Names for him pummeled her, and tears welled. She choked them back. She’d fallen apart five years ago, begging Quill to change his mind…for all the good it did her. She would maintain control this time.
    Wanting to hide from his prying eyes, she blew out the candle. Faint coils of smoke floated upward and disappeared. Quill volunteered nothing else, and she couldn’t speak for fighting with tears. They just stood there.
    How appropriate—she and Quill at opposite ends of a passageway with nothing between them except darkness and unspoken words.

A bram stared out the window as the work van headed for his home. Roofing houses in August was difficult enough without doing it twelve hours a day, six days a week. But pounding nails on a Saturday had earned him extra money. It was cash he would use to pay bills, go on his first date tomorrow night, and give to Ariana for purchasing the café.
    Not only did Ariana need help getting cash, but she needed extra encouragement right now. The moment his twin had walked into their home, drenched, at three minutes past ten last night, Abram knew something was troubling her. But she acted normally, keeping her tone even and her smile pleasant. After Salome and Emanuel went to the birthing center and everyone else had gone to bed, Abram set his hunting magazine aside, ready for her to tell him what was going on.
    He listened, but he didn’t possess the words to express to his sister what this news did to him. No one had the power to mess with Ariana’s sense of peace the way Quill did. As hard as it was to believe that another Amish person or family wished to steal away like a thief in the night, it was even harder to believe that Quill had stepped out of the shadows to speak with Ariana. Hadn’t he done enough damage already? And what did his cryptic message really mean?
    “This is your stop.” The driver’s announcement startled Abram from his thoughts.
    He grabbed his tool belt from the floor, realizing items from it were strewn. His back was stiff as he bent to gather the stuff.
    The driver pulled onto the shoulder of the road beside Abram’s house. “Well?”
    Apparently Abram was moving too slowly. He figured Mr. Carver was worn-out and grumpy from a week of working in ninety-something-degree weather. Abram had plenty of aches and irritability himself, and he wasn’t pushing sixty years old. The hammer and the handful of nails he’d collected slipped from his hand and scattered across the floorboard again.
    Mr. Carver looked over his shoulder. “Sometime today would be nice.”
    Abram said nothing, and the other men chuckled. The words that fit Abram best were
quiet
and
socially awkward.
Ariana assured him he could will himself out of being so reclusive. Since he wanted to start dating, Ariana had spent a lot of time over the last few months trying to help him become more outspoken, but progress was slow—like trying to make an old, aloof cat behave like a friendly pup.
    As he plucked the last few nails from the crevices of the rubber floor mats, thoughts of Barbie came to him again. He hoped his efforts with Ariana over the last few months would pay off while he was out with Barbie. He was making progress; otherwise, he wouldn’t have managed to ask her out. She’d hardly left his mind for the past three months.
    With everything back in his tool belt, he grabbed his lunchbox and got out of the vehicle. Heat bore down on him as he left the air-conditioned van. He meandered toward the house, hearing the many voices of his family floating on the air.
    As he rounded the side of the house, he spotted Ariana. Despite her congenial demeanor as she served lemonade to