Read Online Safe Hearts (Amish Safe House, Book 3) by Ruth Hartzler - Free Book Online

he had probably come for a
reason.
    “ I wanted to tell you
something,” he said. “About Jeremiah.”
    “ Oh,” Kate said, stopping
working for a moment, and turning her head to look at Ryan. “Is he
okay?”
    “ Yes,” Ryan said.
“Actually, we released him.”
    “ Oh, that’s good news!”
Kate was overjoyed.
    “ His prints were nowhere to
be found on the bottle of poison.”
    “ I should think not,” Kate
said. “I knew he didn’t have anything to do with this whole
mess.”
    “ Well, you were right,” the
cop said with a smile. “As always.”
    “ I am right a lot, aren’t I?” Kate said,
teasing him.
    “ You are. I admit it,” Ryan
said. “You’d make a good cop.”
    Kate laughed. If only Ryan knew the
truth about her. She wasn’t exactly a cop, but she had more in
common with that world than she did with the Amish one.
    “ A witness came forward as
well, someone who saw someone at the cafe, a different man. He
didn’t fit Jeremiah’s description at all. Anyway, we’ve put out an
APB out on him. Oh, that’s an all points bulletin; it just means
that law enforcement needs to be looking for him.”
    Kate nodded, as if this was news to
her. Of course, she knew what an APB was, but she couldn’t let Ryan
know that. “So that guy, whoever he is, he’s here? In
town?”
    Ryan shrugged a bit as he reached over
for one of the potted plants. He held the new plant by its stem
near the soil, and gently tugged it free of the dark green, plastic
pot. He quickly transferred it to the soil, sliding it into one of
the holes they had dug together. He began patting the loose soil
around the stem down, and Kate reached over to help him. Her hand
brushed his. Both of them suddenly stopped.
    They both had felt it, Kate knew, that
electric shock of attraction, when their fingers had brushed
against one another's. They looked at one another, and Kate felt
like a young girl in high school again. She blushed and turned her
head away, getting back to digging a hole. Her attention lapsed,
and she brought the somewhat sharp edge of her trowel down onto the
side of her index finger.
    “ Ow!” she said, dropping
her trowel and bringing the wound to her lips.
    “ Are you all right?” Ryan
asked.
    “ I just cut my hand. I was
careless, really,” Kate said.
    “ Let me see it,” Ryan said,
reaching out for her hand. He took it and pulled it away from her
mouth. “That’s a pretty bad cut. You might be right all of the
time, but you sure are clumsy.”
    Kate laughed. “There are some bandages
inside,” she said, as she stood.
    Ryan stood as well, bending to knock
the dirt away from the knees of his uniform. “I’ll help, and then I
should be going,” the cop said softly. They went into Beth’s house
together.
    Kate went to a small cabinet near the
corner of the living room. She opened the door to reveal three
small shelves. She pulled out a clear, plastic bottle of alcohol
and a white box of bandages. “I can handle it myself, though,” she
said with a smile.
    “ I know, but I’m a police
officer. Protect and serve and all that. I didn’t protect you, so
now I’ll serve.”
    “ What would you have
protected me from?”
    “ Your own clumsiness,” Ryan
joked.
    Kate put on an angry face, but she was
only kidding, and it only served to make Ryan laugh. “You don’t
look very tough; I’m sorry to say,” he said.
    If only he
knew , Kate thought. Aloud she said, “I’m
pretty tough. Looks can be deceiving; isn’t that what they
say?”
    “ I suppose so,” Ryan said.
“You’re a lot of things, but tough isn’t one of them. Well, you may
be tough; I should say intimidating isn’t one of them.”
    “ I can be plenty
intimidating,” Kate said, inwardly smiling at the irony, as she
moved to the back of the cabin and into the kitchen.
    “ Oh yeah?” Ryan asked,
following her.
    “ Are you going to help me
with this or not?” Kate asked.
    “ Of course,” the sheriff
said, coming forward and