“Is that why he pushed you down?” I ask.

Yoder steps closer. “I didn’t—”

“I saw you.” I stand my ground, and he doesn’t come any closer.

“We were just playing around,” Yoder says. “Ain’t that right, Marie?”

I make eye contact with the girl. She looks down at her shoes. “We were just playing.”

A little voice inside my head warns: Be careful.

“Who are you?” The third boy, in his late teens with strawberry-blond hair, looks at his friends, emboldened by them. “I ain’t seen your face around here before.”

“Yeah.” The dark-haired boy moves closer, stops a few feet away, looks me up and down. “You’re not even from around here and you think you can tell us what to do.”

Under any other circumstances, the last thing I’d do is give up ground, literally or figuratively. These young men are up to no good, and the cop inside me would like nothing better than to shove their bad attitudes down their throats. But I need to maintain the persona of a newly relocated, recently widowed Amish woman. Dropping my gaze, I take a step back. “I’m Kate Miller,” I tell him. “I heard this girl call out, and I thought she needed help.”

“Well, she don’t need any help,” Yoder tells me. “From you or anyone else.” He grins at the girl. “She likes it rough. Ain’t that so, Marie?”

I look at the girl. For the first time I notice the red welt on her cheek. The anger and humiliation simmering in her eyes. I wonder if she has other marks in places no one can see.

“I could use some help loading my things into the buggy,” I tell her. “Would you give me a hand?”

For an instant, she looks torn. She doesn’t want to be here, and yet she doesn’t want to acquiesce in front of these boys. I turn my attention to Yoder. “You can help, too, if you’d like.”

No one moves. No one replies. I look at Marie, sending a silent communication that she should come with me. She gives me nothing in return. Nodding at the boys, I turn and take a few steps toward the barn. When I glance back, I see the girl following.

Raucous laughter chases us as we wend through the trees and take the path toward the barn. Neither of us speaks until we reach the outhouses.

“What was that all about?” I ask as we step onto the stone walkway.

“We were just goofing off,” she mumbles.

I motion toward her cheek. “Is that how you got that mark on your face?”

“I did that on a tree branch.” She stops walking and gives me a who-the-fuck-are-you-anyway look. “Why do you care? I don’t even know who you are.”

“I just moved here.” I jab a thumb in the general direction of the boys. “I didn’t like what I saw back there.”

She stares at me, her expression set and stubborn. “You don’t know what you saw.”