An Amish Noel. Patricia Davids

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      Luke grimaced inwardly. He did now, but he hadn’t always been so diligent. An accident in which his oldest brother had been seriously injured made Luke realize how he had failed his family yet again. Now, he took every step of his work seriously. “I try to keep things in working order.”

      Zachariah leaned forward. “I want to get my new hardware store open the Monday after Christmas. It’s almost finished. After that, I want to get this place in order over the winter. I want it ready for a farm sale in the spring. It’s time to get rid of it all.”

      “That’s a tall order.” Zachariah owned numerous sheds and buildings crammed to the rafters with all manner of stuff. Clearing it out would be a monumental task.

      “I know it’s a tall order. That’s why I’m looking for help. My boys and I can’t do it alone. Roy likes machinery and hardware. He has a gift for it. That’s why I want the hardware store finished. He’ll run it one day, but he doesn’t have the skill to get all of my broken-down machinery working. I’d like to hire you to help me for the next few months.”

      “I already have a job.”

      “Surely your father could spare you a few days a week. That’s all I’m asking for. A few days a week to look over what I have and see what can be repaired and fix it if you can.”

      “I think Emma would rather you ask someone else.”

      “Your breakup was a long time ago. It’s water under the bridge to her.”

      Zachariah might see it that way, but Luke wasn’t so sure Emma did. “I don’t think it would be a good idea.”

      Zachariah stared down at his hands for a long moment. When he looked up, Luke saw desperation in his eyes. “I’ve been remiss in not putting money aside for Emma’s dowry. Time just went by too fast. What I get from the sale of my machinery will go to her. She’ll marry soon. I don’t want her going to a new husband empty-handed. I wouldn’t ask you if it wasn’t important. What do you say? Can you give me a hand?”

      Emma was getting married? Luke shouldn’t have been surprised, but he was. Emma was old enough and a fine woman, but it still came as something of a shock. It was hard to imagine her as someone’s wife, but she deserved happiness. He wanted her to be happy.

      Would helping secure her dowry make up in some small way for his treatment of her in the past? If so, then maybe he could finally put away that guilt.

      * * *

      Tears streamed down Emma’s face as she leaned against her bedroom door. She didn’t even like Luke anymore. So why did the thought of him risking his life for a chunk of metal turn her blood ice-cold?

      He had risked his life to save Roy, too, and she hadn’t bothered to thank him.

      His bravery she could admire, but she couldn’t bear his foolhardiness. He hadn’t changed. He would always be the same reckless man who broke her heart.

      Rubbing her eyes with both hands, she faced the sad truth. She still went soft inside when Luke smiled at her. For some unknown reason, he still had a hold on her heart.

      Until she remembered how irresponsible he was. Why couldn’t she get over this silly schoolgirl infatuation with him?

      Sure, he was a fine-looking man with broad shoulders, slender hips and blond hair that curled just enough to make a girl want to comb it into order with her fingers. There were plenty of nice-looking men in her community, but none of them affected her the way Luke did. Her feelings didn’t change the fact that he had gone to prison for dealing drugs after he left the Amish.

      It was wrong of her to hold any man’s past against him, but she couldn’t forget the way he had brushed aside her tender heart when she offered to give up everything and leave with him that night so many years ago. She’d learned a bitter lesson. Luke didn’t care about anyone but himself.

      She thought she loved him then, but it hadn’t been true love. It had been a foolish teenage crush. He had been right to reject her. Now, she knew better than to believe he cared.

      Scrubbing her cheeks vigorously to erase the past and the traces of her tears, Emma paced the confines of her small bedroom and struggled to regain her composure. It wasn’t just Luke. It was everything. Her father’s illness, his desire for her to marry quickly, finding out her brother was ten times more foolhardy than she believed possible—it all added up to a burden too big to carry alone. Luke Bowman’s arrival today was simply the straw that broke the camel’s back.

      And she was a weak camel to begin with. She sat down on the edge of her bed, wishing she could start the day all over again and have it turn out differently.

      A gentle tap at her door proved that wasn’t going to happen. “Emma?”

      “Come in.”

      Her father peeked around the door. “Are you all right?”

      “Nee, I’m not. How can I be after your sad news today?”

      He entered the room and sat down on the chair against the far wall. Leaning forward, he braced his elbows on his knees. “You will be fine. You are so much like your mother. She was a strong woman, too.”

      He was wrong. Emma wasn’t strong, but he was being brave in the face of his illness. She could do no less. She would pretend to be brave. For him. “What are we going to do with Roy? He’s gone too far this time. He could have been killed. Alvin could have been killed. I think you should tell them how ill you are. Maybe that will shock them into behaving.”

      “They will learn of it soon enough. Let them be boys for a few more weeks. Perhaps Roy’s dunking in the river has taught him a lesson.”

      At sixteen, Roy was in his rumspringa, the years between childhood and adulthood when Amish youth were free to experience the outside world before they were baptized. Once an Amish man or woman chose to be baptized, they embraced the strict rules of the Amish faith, rejecting the outside world forever. If they chose to remain a part of the English world before baptism, they would be able to do so without being shunned by her church group, although not all Amish churches were so open-minded.

      Emma had left her rumspringa behind at twenty and joined the faithful that same year. She knew Luke had yet to make that decision. He had been living Amish for a year and a half, ever since his release from prison, but he hadn’t taken his vows. At twenty-five, his family and the congregation would soon begin pressuring him to make a choice. He couldn’t stay on the fence forever. It was time to declare his intentions. Was he going to be Englisch or Amish?

      She forced herself to stop thinking about him. “I pray you are right and Roy has learned his lesson, but he is hardheaded.”

      “Like I was. There’s an old Amish proverb my father was fond of using. ‘Experience is a hard teacher. She gives the test first, then the lesson afterward.’”

      “At least Alvin may not follow him so willingly in the future.” Alvin was a sensitive boy and not prone to troublemaking unless Roy put him up to it.

      “Alvin looks up to Roy as only a younger brother can. It will take more than this incident to tarnish Roy’s image in Alvin’s eyes.”

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