A Hope Springs Christmas. Patricia Davids

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ it really been five years? Sometimes it seemed as if he’d only gone out of town and he would be back any minute. Of course, he wouldn’t be.

      She had tried to convince Janet to let her run the shop until spring, but Janet wouldn’t hear of it. Instead, her boss said, “Enjoy the time off, Sarah. You work too hard. Have a carefree Christmas season for a change.”

      Janet didn’t understand. Time off wouldn’t make the holidays brighter. Six years ago Sarah and Jonas learned he had cancer only a week before Christmas. He battled the disease for months longer than the doctors thought he could. He died on Christmas Eve the following year. A month later, her sister ran away, leaving Sarah, her parents and her brother to grieve and worry. Their father died of pneumonia the following Thanksgiving. Her mother passed away barely a year later. Vernon said they died of a broken heart after Bethany left.

      Bethany had been the light of the family. Her daring sense of humor and love of life were too big for Hope Springs and the simple life of the Amish. It had been two years ago at Christmas when Jonathan Dresher came to tell Sarah that Bethany was dead, too. Since that day, Sarah faced the Christmas season with intense dread, waiting and wondering what the next blow would be.

      She sat up straight. She wasn’t going to spend this winter cooped up in the house, staring at the walls and dreading Christmas. She had to find something to keep the bleak depression at bay. To her list, she quickly added Find Another Job! She circled it a half dozen times.

      The sound of her front door opening made her look up. Like most Amish people, she never locked her doors. Knocking was an English habit the Amish ignored for they knew they were always welcome in another Amish home. A brief gust of winter wind came in with her visitor. Sarah’s mood rose when she recognized her friend and neighbor, Grace Ann Beachy.

      “Gut-n-owed,” Sarah called out a cheerfully good evening in Pennsylvania Deitsch, sometimes called Pennsylvania Dutch, the German dialect spoken by the Amish.

      “Sarah, I must speak to you.”

      Sarah was stunned to see tears in Grace’s eyes. Fearing something serious had happened, Sarah shot to her feet. “Are you okay?”

      “Nee, I’m not. I love him so much.” Grace promptly buried her face in her hands and began sobbing.

      Sarah gathered the weeping girl in her arms. Matters of the heart were often painful, but never more so than when it was first love.

      “There, there, child. It will be all right.” Sarah led Grace to the living room and sat beside her on the sofa. The two women had been friends for years. They were as close as sisters.

      Between sobs, Grace managed to recount her evening with Henry Zook from the time they left the singing party. The whole thing boiled down to the fact that Henry had grown tired of waiting for Grace to accept his offer of marriage. The conversation soon turned to a quarrel. Henry, in a fit of anger, said Esta Barkman had been making eyes at him all evening. Maybe she was ready to settle down and marry.

      Sarah lifted her young neighbor’s face and wiped the tears from her cheeks. “If you love him, why don’t you accept him? Is there someone else?”

      Grace rolled her eyes and threw up her hands. “There’s Levi and the twins and the business. How can I leave my brothers? Levi can’t manage the business alone. He can barely speak to people he knows. He’s terrible at taking care of new customers. They’ll go elsewhere with their business and where will that leave him? You depend on the income from the shop, too.”

      “Your brother could hire someone to replace you. I know Mary Shetler would welcome the chance to have a job in an Amish business.”

      “I’m not sure she would want to work with the twins, knowing what they did.”

      Grace was probably right about that. Mary Shetler had left the Amish and wound up living with an English fellow who turned out to be a scoundrel. Just fifteen and pregnant at the time, Mary had been terrified to learn her boyfriend planned to sell her baby. She had the child alone one night while he was gone. Planning to leave her boyfriend for good as soon as she was able, she hid her infant daughter in an Amish buggy along with a note promising that she would return for her.

      The buggy belonged to Levi Beachy. The twins had taken it without permission and sneaked out to see a movie in another town. It wasn’t until they were on their way home that they discovered the baby. Afraid their midnight romp would get them in trouble if they brought the infant home, they stopped at the nearest farmhouse and left the child on the doorstep in the middle of the night.

      Fortunately, the home belonged to Ada Kauffman. Her daughter Miriam was a nurse. She and Sheriff Nick Bradley finally reunited mother and child but not before Mary suffered dreadfully believing her daughter Hannah was lost to her.

      “All right, Mary was not a good suggestion, but I’m sure there are other young women who could work with Levi.”

      “Maybe, but what about the twins? They could burn the town down or who knows what if someone doesn’t keep an eye on them. I know I haven’t done a great job, but I’m better than Levi. When he’s working, he could be standing in five feet of snow and not notice. I can’t leave knowing no one will look after them.”

      “I’m sorry you feel trapped by your family, Grace. You know I would help if I could.”

      Grace grabbed her arm. “You can.”

      “How?”

      “Help me find a wife for Levi.”

      Chapter Two

      Sarah stared at Grace in stunned disbelief. “You must be joking. How could I find a wife for your brother? I’m no matchmaker.”

      “But you are,” Grace insisted. “Didn’t you convince your cousin Adrian Lapp to court Faith Martin?”

      “Convince him? Nee, I did not. If I remember right, I cautioned Faith against losing her heart to Adrian because he was still grieving for his first wife.” Sarah knew how it felt to mourn for a spouse.

      “And that was exactly the push Faith needed to see beyond his gruff behavior. They married, and they are very happy together. Besides, you’re the one who convinced me to give Henry a chance.”

      “I don’t remember saying anything to you about going out with Henry.”

      “If you hadn’t told me how your Jonas settled down from his wild ways after you were married, I never would have given Henry the time of day. But I did, and now I’m in love with him. I want to marry him. You have to help me. I will just die if he marries someone else.”

      Sarah leveled a stern look at her young neighbor. “That’s a bit dramatic, Grace.”

      Drawing a deep breath, Grace nodded. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what to do. I can’t leave Levi and the boys, but I can’t expect Henry to wait forever, either. I’m caught between a rock and a hard place with no way out.”

      “I hardly think finding a wife for your brother is the answer.”

      “It’s the only one I can come up with. I’m afraid if I ask Henry to wait much longer he’ll find someone else.”

      Sarah took pity on her young СКАЧАТЬ