A Ready-Made Texas Family

by Angel Moore

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  Dear Reader,

  Grief is always eased in the presence of love.

  Charlotte’s responsibilities seem unmanageable for someone so young, but she’s a determined soul. And it shows as she overcomes one obstacle after another. Nathan’s help is a godsend. Together they create a life and home that will serve their family for generations to come.

  God does the same for His children. I can’t count the times I’ve been at my wit’s end only to be rescued by God’s provision—or intervention. When the battles seem the heaviest and our pain is raw, He brings comfort and grace.

  Thank you for taking the time to read A Ready-Made Texas Family. The lessons of grief are real and personal. I didn’t know that I’d lose my beloved sister, Lisa, weeks after I turned the book over to my editor. I can say from experience that the hope of heaven eases the pain of loss and enables us to look to the eternal future.

  I’d love to hear from you. You can reach me through my website at www.angelmoorebooks.com, where you’ll find links to all my books, the latest news, and ways to connect with me on social media. You can also sign up for my newsletter on the home page.

  May God bless you with the strength, wisdom, and determination to overcome everything life brings your way.

  Angel Moore

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  Convenient Amish Proposal

  by Jan Drexler

  Chapter One

  LaGrange County, Indiana

  May 1934

  Bethany Zook paused and stood at the top of the porch steps, the rag rug still quivering in her hands from the hard shake she had given it. What was that sound? Turning her head, she tried to catch it again. There! Was it a cat’s cry? She turned again and heard something like a bird call.

  Draping the rug over the porch rail, Bethany followed the sound and stopped when she reached the gravel road, dusty in the late May sunshine. When she heard the sound this time, it was laughter. A child’s laughter. And the sound was coming from the Yoders’ farm. Bethany crossed the hot road quickly, trying not to step on any sharp stones, and picked her way along the shady edge toward the Yoders’ farm lane. The family had moved to Iowa four years ago, and the place had been empty ever since.

  Bethany paused. Squatters often took over abandoned houses, she had heard. Ever since the hard times began a few years ago, men had gone on the road to find work. Even whole families. She glanced toward the safety of the house she had just left. Daed and the boys were working out in the fields, too far away to hear her call for help if she ran into a stranger. But then the laugh came again. A child wasn’t dangerous.

  The giggling child came closer, as if she was running down the lane toward the road. Right toward Bethany.

  “Mari!” a man’s voice called. “Where are you!”

  Bethany reached the end of the lane at the same time as the little girl, who collided with her skirts. Bethany caught the sight of deep blue eyes rimmed by long dark eyelashes, and then the toddler turned and ran back toward the house. A man came rushing from the back of the long-empty farmhouse and swooped the girl into his arms, nearly crushing her as he clasped her to him.

  Taking a step back, Bethany couldn’t believe her eyes. Andrew Yoder. The last time she had seen him, she had watched the wagon disappear as his family left Indiana behind four years ago. Four years. It might as well have been a lifetime.

  Squirming in his arms, Mari pointed a finger in Bethany’s direction. “Who’s that? Daed, who’s that?”

  Too late, Bethany thought of hiding, but Andrew’s sky-blue eyes had already followed Mari’s finger. “Bethany?”

  She swallowed. He was still as handsome as ever, with his beard giving him a maturity he had never had during the years they had been neighbors, friends and rivals. The only thing missing was his smile. He shifted Mari onto one hip and headed in her direction.

  “Bethany? It is you, isn’t it?”

  She nodded.

  “I didn’t think I would see you.”

  She forced a smile. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again, either.” But then I wasn’t the one who moved away. Shifting her gaze to the child in his arms, she took in the girl’s light brown curls covering her head. She wore an apron...but no dress. The child’s mother was certainly lax in the care of her daughter. The child’s mother...

  Bethany forced her smile to continue, ignoring the possessive way Andrew held Mari. “When did you get home?”

  He stopped at least ten feet away from her, his eyes shuttered. “I...we just arrived today.”

  Bethany had always been able to tell when Andrew didn’t want to tell her something, but if she pushed, he would never reveal what she needed to know. This time she wanted to know where Mari’s mother was. She looked past him toward the house. All was quiet.

  “You’re moving back here?”

  He nodded. “Daed never sold the farm. He couldn’t, even after we had moved to Iowa. I think he always planned on coming back here.” He ran one hand over his face. “He never got the chance. And the rest of the family is settled out there.”

  Andrew’s father had passed away? Bethany drew closer. “I’m sorry about your daed. You must miss him.”

  Andrew nodded again.

  “So, what brings you back to Indiana?” Bethany bit her lower lip. Did she really want to know?

  Lifting his eyebrows, Andrew looked at her. “Things...changed. I wanted to make a new start.”

  Things changed? She watched Mari squirm in Andrew’s arms. They certainly had.

  Andrew shifted the little girl to his other hip. “How is Peter?”

  “Peter who?”

  Andrew frowned. “Peter Schwartzendruber. Your husband.”

  Bethany took a step closer. Now she was only a few feet away from him. “Why do you think I’m married to Peter?”

  “Dave Zimmer and I have been keeping in touch. A few months after we had arrived in Iowa, he wrote that you and Peter were getting married.”

  She would have laughed at the idea if it hadn’t been so ridiculous.

  “You know I would never marry Peter.”

  His face went white as he set the restless girl on the ground and took a step toward Bethany. “Dave said—”

  “Peter asked me, and then he spread the news around that we were planning a wedding before I had the opportunity to say no.” Beth
any moved another step closer to Andrew. His face was pale. “Did you really think I was married all this time?”

  He nodded.

  Bethany glanced at Mari, digging in the soft dirt with a stick. “So that’s why you never wrote to me.” Now it was her turn to feel sick. Then her queasy stomach stilled. The evidence of Andrew’s rejection looked like she was almost three years old. “How long did you wait before—before you got married?”

  Andrew rubbed at the back of his neck. “When I found out about you and Peter, I reckoned there was no reason to come back to Indiana, and when I met Lily, well...” His voice trailed off as his shoulders shrugged the end of his thought.

  In a recent sermon, Bethany had been struck by a phrase Preacher John had used. Something about girding up your mind to face the trials to come. She lifted her chin and straightened her shoulders, bracing herself for the reality of meeting this Lily. The woman Andrew had chosen to be his wife.

  “I would like to meet her.” She managed a smile. “I’m sure we’ll be good friends, since we’re to be neighbors.”

  His eyes shuttered once more before he shifted his gaze to his daughter. “I...we lost her. Just a few weeks ago. There was an accident—”

  Bethany leaned forward and placed a hand on his arm. “Andrew. I’m so sorry.”

  He lifted his gaze to meet her eyes, and for the first time, Bethany felt like she was seeing the real Andrew. Then his expression grew hard once more.

  “Denki.” The reply was automatic. He bent down to pick up his daughter again, closing out Bethany. “I have to get back to work. I’m glad you stopped by.”

  Bethany chewed on her lower lip. She should be neighborly, even if the neighbor was Andrew Yoder. And if he had just moved from Iowa, he couldn’t have brought much with him. What was he planning to prepare for his meals?

  “Would you like to have supper with us tonight? Daed and the boys would be happy to see you.”

  Andrew brushed some dust off of Mari’s apron. “Not today. It’s been a long day already, and Mari will need to get to bed early.” He half turned. “Another time, though. Maybe in a few days, after we get settled.”

  “Ja, for sure.” Bethany spoke the words as he carried Mari back to the house. “Another time.”

  * * *

  Andrew kept his wiggling daughter in his arms until he reached the washtub behind the house. He didn’t blame her for wanting to get down and run through the soft grass. Lily wouldn’t let her play in the sparse, dusty grass in Iowa, and Mari’s grandmother didn’t let her go outside at all, in case another dust storm blew up.

  For the first week, Lily’s mother had cared for her while Andrew was still coming to grips with the fact that his wife was gone and had left him behind to raise their daughter. Before long, though, Andrew could tell that Rose’s clean, orderly farmhouse was the wrong place for Mari. Rose Bontrager had her own regimented way of raising children and thought her way was the only way. But when Andrew had caught a glimpse of his daughter at the church meeting the week after the funeral, he hardly recognized her. She had stared at him with sad eyes, looking lost and abandoned, even though she was safe in her grandmother’s arms.

  He had gone to bring Mari home that afternoon, with Rose’s protests ringing in his ears. And while he had been thinking of returning to Indiana for months, it was Rose’s threat to send the bishop to talk to him that cemented his decision to bring Mari home, out of Rose’s reach.

  Now that he was back on the family farm, though, he still couldn’t let her run free. She had disappeared so quickly a few minutes ago! How far would she have gone if Bethany hadn’t been there to stop her at the end of the lane?

  Bethany. Before his mind could dwell on what it meant to see her again, Mari pushed against his chest.

  “Daed, let me down. I want to play.” Mari patted his cheek to get his attention, then grinned when he looked at her. She had started talking at an early age, according to Lily, and hadn’t stopped since. She also had a stubborn streak that he knew very well. It ran in the Yoder family without fail.

  “I need to wash our clothes and I can’t risk you running away again.”

  She squirmed. “Won’t run away. I see flowers. I want to smell them.”

  Andrew glanced at the bed of lilies Mamm had nurtured while they had lived here. Now, after being neglected for four years, the orange flowers had spread to cover half the old garden space. Lily would have loved them. But the bed trailed away toward the stream and the old springhouse, a spot that would prove irresistible to his curious daughter. How did parents with several children keep them safe? How had Lily gotten any work done with Mari to take care of? Then he spied the length of clothesline he had found in the house. He set Mari down and tied the end of the rope around her waist. It might not be what Lily would have done, but at least she couldn’t get into too much trouble.

  “You can go smell the flowers, but when you feel the rope get tight, then you know it’s time to come back toward me.”

  Mari fingered the rope. “So I won’t get lost?”

  “That’s right.” Andrew tied the other end of the rope to his own waist. “And I can wash our clothes and not worry about you.”

  He watched her run to the first flower, bury her little nose in it and then sneeze.

  “Be careful, there might be bees in the flowers.”

  Mari grinned at him, then looked carefully into the next deep blossom. Her profile, so much like Lily’s, made his breath catch. How could he hope to raise Mari alone? He had so much work to do to bring the farm back to what it had been, and he would never get that work done and take care of Mari at the same time. But he couldn’t give her to Rose, either. Lily had told him how stifled she had felt growing up under her overbearing mother, and he couldn’t let his bright, happy daughter grow up the same way.

  He turned back to his washing, scrubbing the stain on Mari’s only dress. With his mother-in-law pressuring him to let her raise Mari, he’d had to leave Iowa before he could make arrangements for someone to make new dresses for her. A two-year-old grew faster than a long-legged colt, and she needed new clothes for the warm months ahead.

  As he scrubbed the fabric, he noticed a small tear in the front of the little dress. Holding it up, he could tell that the tear was just the beginning. The entire skirt was threadbare and nearly transparent in places. He dropped the dress into the rinse water and leaned heavily on the washtub. Sighing, he glanced at Mari as she pulled one of the flowers from its stem.

  Before Lily died, he hadn’t had any worries. He worked the fields, hoping that the drought they were experiencing would pass soon. Lily took care of the house and Mari, and each evening they thanked the Good Lord for their life together. That last morning Lily had told him that she suspected another little one might make his appearance in the winter. They had talked of adding a room onto the house, and Andrew had gone to the barn with dreams of a blessed future. But in one instant, everything had changed. A dark, boiling line had appeared on the horizon, pushing dry thunder ahead of it. Lily had run to gather the eggs before the dust storm came...but she hadn’t reached the chicken coop. A stray bolt of lightning had destroyed her and their dreams. A single instant, and Lily was gone.

  He bowed his head, not even trying to form his questions into words. He had prayed himself dry over the past few weeks, and he was exhausted. No one could tell him why it had happened. No one could give him any hope for the future. If it wasn’t for Mari, he would have nothing to pull him out of bed in the morning.

  Andrew shook his head to clear his vision. He had to keep Mari with him. Living here in Indiana was the only way to keep her safe and out of Rose’s clutches.

  The next morning, just after Andrew finished his breakfast of lumpy oatmeal, a knock sounded at the door. Through the dusty window, Bethany’s face appeared. She held up a basket as he approached the door.

  “I thoug
ht you might need some clothes for Mari,” she said. Walking into the kitchen, she put the basket on the table and held up a small dress and apron. “I had some dresses left from Mamm, so I used the skirt fabric to make a dress. I hope it fits her.”

  Mari stood on her chair and reached a sticky hand toward the blue dress. “Pretty?”

  “Wait, Mari.” Andrew took the damp dishrag and wiped her hands. Then he dared to look at Bethany. Her smile as she showed the dress to Mari lit up the room.

  “Are you done with your breakfast?” Bethany looked at Mari’s bowl still partly filled with cold oatmeal.

  “Ja, I’m done. It’s cold.”

  “But are you still hungry?”

  Mari nodded, rubbing her stomach. “I want some bacon.” She grinned at Bethany. “And hotcakes.”

  Bethany took Mari’s bowl and stirred the oatmeal. “We don’t have any bacon or hotcakes, but I can warm up your cereal for you.”

  As Andrew watched, ignored by both of them, Bethany took some hot water from the kettle on the stove and stirred it into the pasty oats until the cereal was warm and smooth. Then she reached into her basket and took out a package of raisins, putting a few in the cereal.

  “What’s that?” Mari asked as Bethany set the bowl in front of her again and helped her sit down.

  “Raisins help make the oatmeal sweet. I thought you would like them.” Bethany took a jar of cream from her basket and poured some over the cereal. “There. Now try it.”

  Mari took a small bite, then nodded her head as she dug her spoon in for another bite.

  “Did you bring your whole kitchen over in that basket?” Andrew couldn’t keep from smiling as he watched Mari eat.

  “Ne, but I brought some things I knew you wouldn’t have been able to get yet.” She took more items out and set them on the table as she named them. “Butter, eggs, some potatoes and a slice of ham for your dinner.”

  Mari’s eyes brightened when she saw the ham.