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Baker Publishing Group - Beverly Lewis

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172 pages

English

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Amish Fiction's #1 Author Presents a Touching Story of Perseverance and Second ChancesAmanda Dienner hasn't seen her Old Order family in five years when she receives word that her mother has passed away and left her Lancaster County's most popular Amish bed-and-breakfast. Now an Englisher, Mandy is shocked: Her twin sister should have been the obvious choice! What's more, the inheritance comes with a catch: The farmhouse inn will only truly be hers if she is able to successfully run it for twelve consecutive months.Mandy accepts the challenge even though it means returning to Gordonville and the painful memories she left behind at eighteen. Still, she's determined to prove she is more than capable of running the bed-and-breakfast, no matter that its loyal clientele are expecting an Amish hostess! The inn isn't Mandy's sole test, however. Rubbing shoulders with her married twin sister reopens wounds that Mandy isn't ready to forgive. And an Englisher guest with a difficult past of her own just complicates matters. Can Mandy fulfill the terms of her inheritance? Or will this year in Amish country prove a dreadful mistake?

Informations

Publié par	Baker Publishing Group
Date de parution	05 septembre 2017
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781493411856
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	2 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0461€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Cover
Title Page
© 2017 by Beverly M. Lewis, Inc.
Published by Bethany House Publishers
11400 Hampshire Avenue South
Bloomington, Minnesota 55438
www. bethanyhouse.com
Bethany House Publishers is a division of
Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan
Ebook edition created 2017
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN 978-1-4934-1185-6
Scripture quotations are from the King James Version of the Bible.
This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Cover design by Dan Thornberg, Design Source Creative Services
Art direction by Paul Higdon
Epigraph
Mercy and truth are met together;
righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
Psalm 85:10
Dedication
To Julie Marie,
darling first daughter,
long awaited . . .
one of the great joys of my life!
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Epigraph
Dedication
Prologue
1
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43
Epilogue
Author’s Note
About the Author
Books by Beverly Lewis
Back Ads
Back Cover
Prologue
M y first-ever night away from home, I struggled with sleeplessness, having abruptly left with two other Amish girls. Linda and Vicky Zook had been ousted by their bishop in Ronks, not far from Gordonville, Pennsylvania, where I’d lived all of my eighteen years. I had agreed to split rent on a two-bedroom apartment with them after they encouraged me to join them in their flight to the world, saying they had a friend of a friend living out in western Kansas who knew of a place for the three of us.
And here we were at long last, though I never would’ve considered doing such a thing if I hadn’t been in a hurry to get away. I needed time to think. Just for a while, I told myself. Truth be told, I was furious with my twin sister . . . and heartbroken. It was impossible not to keep replaying the horrid last moments between us. And I knew for sure Dat would be just sick over it, if he were still alive.
Sitting in the small, nearly empty bedroom, I recalled my father’s fondness for Arie and me, and felt terribly alone.
Though it might surprise some, my sister and I had never been treated like twins. Mamma had seen to that. In fact, no one in our immediate family ever referred to us as the twins , like most families of multiples. No one ever said, “Go tell the twins to dress around for Preaching service,” or “The twins are over ice-skating on Uncle Mel’s pond.” Nee , we were called by our given names and, thankfully, weren’t required to wear matching color dresses, not even when we were tiny. From the start, Arie and I were our own persons, each free to have our own interests. Nevertheless, an indescribable bond had connected us. We were more than sisters; we were best friends. Till now.
I got up and paced the floor, staring at the moon through the window. How had it come to this?
Jah , I had plenty of good reasons to put some distance between my sister and myself. And then there were Mamma’s heated words to me, as well.
There was no getting around it, no way to sugarcoat the truth. Arie Mae had betrayed me.
O CTOBER 21: F IVE Y EARS L ATER
Pulling into the parking lot at the Scott City, Kansas, florist where I’d been working for nearly five years now, I couldn’t help but notice the familiar white ornamental windmill near the entrance. The sight brought back visions of dairy farms and milk houses, waterwheels, and real windmills nestled among rolling hills tinted with Lancaster County’s dazzling autumn display.
Leaves are turning in Mamma’s yard right now . . . like flames of fire. I thought of my childhood home, roughly fifteen hundred miles away. For as long as I’d been gone, it was still easy to picture the stand of sugar maples near Old Leacock Road, and Mamma out raking the leaves into big piles with my sister.
“You’re right on time,” Karyn Fry, my employer’s wisp of a wife, greeted me as I stepped inside the small shop. I inhaled the heavenly fragrance of flowers, thankful for this job. Working with flowers was ideal for a young woman raised with hands in the soil, and arranging bouquets of all types and sizes gave me creative freedom.
I reached for my work apron and removed it from the wall hook, noticing today’s date on the wall calendar. Oh, how I dreaded the coming weekend—tomorrow, October twenty-second, would be my twenty-third birthday. Instantly, my heart was tangled with memories of growing up in my family’s sprawling farmhouse turned Amish bed-and-breakfast. “Five birthdays away from Butterfly Meadows,” I whispered, slipping the apron over my head. It felt like a lifetime ago.
“Everything okay, Mandy?” Karyn glanced up from a fresh shipment of coral-colored roses. Her short dark hair revealed the dangling silver earrings she liked to wear.
Sitting down at the shop’s computer, I checked on the latest FTD order and smiled over at Karyn. “Just feeling older,” I said, rising to find the appropriate vase.
“Aren’t we all.” Karyn wrapped three long-stemmed roses in green florist paper. “By the way, Tom asked to meet with you before you leave today.”
Her husband was the one who’d hired me, but meticulous Karyn ran the place. “Okay, I’ll check in with him,” I said, noting the strange, flat tone of Karyn’s voice as I trimmed the thick stems on a few stargazer lilies.

Hours later, I rose from the work stool and stretched. Through the window, I could see a teenage girl riding bareback in the meadow across from the rural shop, her hair flowing behind her like a golden waterfall in the breeze. It stirred up recollections of riding Ol’ Tulip, one of our faithful road horses . . . and later, my father’s attempts to teach me to hitch her to the family carriage. I was just ten years old that first time, and real curious, so while I held the driving lines for him, I had asked what my name would have been if the Lord had seen fit to make me a boy.
My father chuckled and gave me an indulgent look. He knew me well enough to humor me with an answer. “Well, let’s see. Ammon, it might’ve been,” he said, twitching his eyebrows.
I grimaced at the notion. “Really, Dat . . . Ammon?”
His eyes twinkled. “Ain’t ya glad ya were born a girl?”
Real glad, I thought.
“And Arie Mae?” I pressed.
“Oh, prob’ly Aaron.”
“Were ya hopin’ for more boys, then?” I held my breath.
He gave his big shoulders a shrug. “Your Mamma and I s’posed after four sons in a row, we might just get two more.”
I waited for him to add something, but Dat simply leaned down to kiss the top of my head. “I’m glad we figured that wrong, Mandy Sue,” he said with a grin. “After all those boys, it was mighty gut to have daughters.”
Relieved, I beamed all the way back to the house. And later, while Arie and I dusted and mopped the front room, I relayed Dat’s comments and could tell she was pleased, too.
After Dat passed away due to a silo-filling accident, our world became a whole lot less carefree. I felt I’d lost the one adult I could turn to with any question, no matter how fanciful, and always find a patient, good-natured response, despite my tendency to “create drama,” as Mamma sometimes put it. Perhaps too much drama for her liking.
It was ever so hard to say good-bye to Dat. I poured out my heart in a note of loving farewell, and late that night, while his long body rested in the hand-built pine coffin, I snuck downstairs to the gas-lamp-lit front room and slid it under his heavy right arm when no one was around, trying not to cry. It was the hardest thing I’d ever done.

The shatter of glass on the cement floor startled me, and I brushed off the cherished recollection and glanced over at Karyn, who had never once dropped anything during the years I’d worked there. Her eyes were wide with embarrassment, and she shook her head as if to clear the clumsy cobwebs.
What’s bothering her? I wondered.
Without asking, I went to help sweep up the jagged remains of the vase.

At five o’clock sharp, Tom Fry opened the door to his office, having been gone most of the day. He was a clean-shaven man of modest build and graying auburn hair as thick as a horse’s mane, and his rare frown concerned me. I followed him into the small space where he kept the books on his computer.
“Somethin’ the matter, Mr. Fry?” I asked, taking a seat and folding my hands tightly, like Mamma when nervous.
“I’m afraid there is,” he replied, taking a breath and letting it out slowly. “You see, it’s getting harder to compete with the larger florists in Garden City, and since money is tight, I have to cut back.”
My heart beat hard. I needed this job, but I managed to thank him after he said he’d allow me another week’s work before letting me go.
“I’ll give you a good reference,” he added, clearly frustrated at the shop’s predicament.
“Thanks . . . that’ll help.”
Afterward, I trudged out to my car in a daze, wondering how I could make the payments now, let alone cover my rent to Don and Eilene Bradley, reasonable though it was. While I’d tucked away enough to get me through until I found another job, I dreaded the idea of saying good-bye to the Frys. I’d found such pleasure in making bouquets, and sometimes even handling deliveries, bringing joy to various people in the area, seeing the happy expressions on their faces. Someday, once I saved up enough money, I hoped to start my own