Amish Sweethearts

by Amy Clipston

  Where the Heart Is

  For Joe, Zac, and Matt, with love

  Glossary

  ach—oh

  aenti—aunt

  appeditlich—delicious

  bedauerlich—sad

  boppli—baby

  bruder/bruder—brother/brothers

  bu/buwe—boy/boys

  daadi—grandfather

  danki—thank you

  dat—dad

  Dummle!—Hurry!

  fraa—wife

  friend/freinden—friend

  froh—happy

  gegisch: silly

  gern gschehne—you’re welcome

  grandkinner—grandchildren

  gude mariye—good morning

  gut—good

  gut nacht—good night

  haus—house

  Ich liebe dich—I love you

  kaffi—coffee

  kapp—prayer covering or cap

  kichli/kichlin—cookie/cookies

  kinner—children

  kumm—come

  liewe—love, a term of endearment

  maed/maedel—young women, girls/young woman

  mamm—mom

  mammi—grandmother

  mei—my

  naerfich—nervous

  narrisch—crazy

  onkel—uncle

  sche—pretty

  schmaert—smart

  schtupp—family room

  schweschder/schweschdere—sister/sisters

  sohn—son

  Was iss letz?—What’s wrong?

  Wie geht’s—How do you do? or Good day!

  wunderbaar—wonderful

  ya—yes

  Family Tree

  Featuring Summer Storms novella characters from the Amish Summer Collection

  Marvin m. Roseanne Smucker

  Tobias

  Ariana

  Ira m. Florence Zook

  Nathaniel

  Jesse

  Caleb

  Ammon m. Edna Ebersol

  Mariella

  Susannah

  Barbara

  Chapter One

  Despite the November chill, Tobias Smucker’s hands were clammy as he stood staring at the two-story brick farmhouse owned by his bishop, Ammon Ebersol.

  “Hey, buddy!” the cab driver bellowed from the yellow Prius taxi. “The meter is running. Do you want me to wait or what?”

  Tobias swiveled toward the taxi, where the man had both his palms face up.

  “Are you going to pay me now or do you want me to wait? It’s your choice.” He pointed to the meter. “It’s your money.”

  Tobias bit his lower lip as doubt rooted him in the rock driveway. If Ammon agreed to speak with him, their meeting could take more than an hour. But if he told the driver to leave and then Ammon refused to talk to him, he’d face a three-mile walk in the cold. At least the trek would help him clear his head before facing his parents.

  His parents.

  Dat. He hadn’t seen or talked to his father in five months.

  Will Dat allow me back in the house after I snuck out in the middle of the night? Will he even acknowledge me after I admitted needing help for alcoholism?

  Even though he’d apologized for his behavior in a letter to his family three weeks after he left, neither his sister’s nor his mother’s return letters had given any real indication of how his father would receive him when he returned someday.

  “Hey, kid!” The tax driver’s gruff voice slammed him back to reality.

  Tobias swallowed against his dry throat. “Would you please give me just a minute to see if the owner of the house will speak with me?”

  The man shrugged. “Yeah, sure, but it’ll cost you. I’m going to charge you for every minute I have to wait.”

  “That’s fine.” Tobias adjusted his duffel bag on his shoulder before walking up the driveway and climbing the steps to the house. When he reached the front door, he dropped his bag on the porch with a thud, knocked, and took a deep breath to calm his spiking pulse.

  This was a bad idea. I never should’ve come back to Pennsylvania. I should’ve stayed in Florida.

  The door opened, and Mariella Ebersol, his sister’s best friend, gasped as she stared at him with surprise. He noticed what a deep brown her eyes were. Like chocolate.

  “Tobias! You’re back!”

  “Hi, Mariella.” She seemed friendly. Perhaps she didn’t know anything other than that he’d been away. He forced a smile.

  She opened the screen door wide, and the aroma of what he thought was pot roast wafted over him, causing his stomach to gurgle. “Ariana didn’t tell me you were back.” She stood on her tiptoes and craned her neck as she looked past him. “Is she with you?”

  He shook his head. “No. She doesn’t know I’m back.”

  “She doesn’t?” She tilted her head, and the ties from her prayer covering bounced off her shoulders.

  “No one knows I’m back. I took a cab directly here from the bus station.” His hands were shaking and he jammed his fists into the pockets of his jacket. “I was hoping to speak to your dat. Is he home?”

  “Ya.” She looked past him once again. “What’s the cab driver doing in the driveway?”

  “He’s waiting to see if I need him to take me to my parents’ haus.”

  “Why don’t you tell him to go? Mei dat can take you, or we can call our driver.”

  Tobias made a quick decision. If Ammon rejected him, it was true he could just hire another driver.

  “All right.” Tobias jogged down the steps, paid the fare, and then returned to the porch.

  “Come inside.” Mariella motioned for him to enter the house. “We just finished eating. Are you hungry?”

  His stomach growled again and he nodded. “Ya. I haven’t eaten since lunchtime.” He picked up his duffel bag and stepped into the family room, where he set his bag by the front door.

  “Oh my goodness. It’s almost six. You must be starved. I’ll make you a plate.”

  She took his jacket, hung it on a peg, and then led him through the large family room to the kitchen at the back of the house.

  Mariella stepped into the kitchen, but Tobias halted in the doorway. Mariella’s mother, Edna, was washing dishes, and her younger sister, Susannah, was drying them. Her youngest sister, Barbara, was wiping down the long kitchen table. For some reason, he noted all four women shared the same deep-brown eyes and golden hair Mariella had.

  He lingered in the doorway as doubt again washed over him. Did he have any right to be in the bishop’s home after the way he’d run away from his community? He should leave right now, call a cab, and go back to the bus station. He didn’t belong here.

  Barbara turned, met his gaze, and gasped. Edna and Susannah spun toward him, and all three women began speaking at once.

  “Tobias! It’s so gut to see you!”

  “When did you get back?”

  “How was Florida?”

  Mariella touched his arm. “I’ll go get mei dat. He’s out in the barn.”

  “Danki,” Tobias told her, surprised again by a friendly greeting.

  “Susannah,” Mariella said, “please make Tobias a plate of food. He just got into town, and he hasn’t eaten since lunchtime.” Then she disappeared through the mudroom.

  “I’ll be froh to make you a plate.” Susannah began to flitter around the kitchen. “Barbara, would you please get a plate?”

  While the sisters gathered food, Edna smiled at Tobias.

  “You just got into town?”

  Tobias nodded. “Ya. A taxi brought me here from the bus station.”

  “I’m surprised you came here first. Your parents must be eager to see you.”

  “They didn’t know I was coming.”

  Edna’s blonde eyebrows lifted. “Oh?”

  “It’s sort of a surprise.” He rubbed his clean-shaven chin. Lying was a sin, but he wasn’t exactly telling a fib since his family would be surprised when they saw him.

  “Why
would you—?”

  “Tobias!” Ammon entered the kitchen, interrupting Edna’s question. “Wie geht’s?” He held out his hand, and Tobias shook it.

  “I’m doing pretty well. How are you?”

  “Gut, gut.” Ammon smiled, another friendly greeting. Tobias thought the bishop was, like his own father, in his midfifties, making his graying brown hair and matching beard no surprise. “Mari told me you wanted to talk.” He motioned toward the family room. “Why don’t we go sit in the schtupp?”

  “Okay.” Tobias’s stomach constricted as he stepped toward the family room.

  “Wait,” Barbara said. “What about the food I’m warming up for you in the oven? We have pot roast, broccoli, mashed potatoes, and rolls, and I know you’re hungry.”

  “Danki, but if it’s okay, I’d like to talk to your dat before I eat.”

  “Of course. It won’t be ready for a while.”

  Tobias followed Ammon into the family room and sat down on the sofa as the bishop sank into a wing chair across from him. Where should he start with his confession? It seemed obvious his family hadn’t confided in the bishop, but he had to. He had to tell the truth. All of it. Did he have the right words to apologize for leaving the way he had? To admit his problem with alcohol?

  Memories of the night before he left came back to him in an instant. He’d spent the day at the lake with his youth group. When they arrived back at Mariella’s house, Tobias had started drinking, a decision he’d regretted for the past five months. He crashed his buggy on the way home that night and then argued with his dat. The angry and disrespectful words he’d aimed at his father echoed through his mind.

  “How do you expect to get married and raise a family if you can’t take care of yourself?” Dat had growled. “You need to learn to take responsibility for your actions. Racing buggies in the rain won’t earn my praise. It’s time you started acting like a man instead of an overgrown kind.”

  “I’m going to live my life the way I want to, and I don’t need your permission.”

  “Is that so?” Dat had folded his arms over his rotund middle. “As long as you live in mei haus, you will follow my rules and ask for my permission.”

  “You’ve made that abundantly clear,” Tobias had snapped. “Maybe it’s time that changed.”

  Dat had stood nose to nose with him, fury radiating off him. “I don’t see you moving out anytime soon since you don’t have any means to live on your own.”

  Tobias took a deep, shuddering breath as the recollection dissolved from his mind. He had been a terrible son. He didn’t deserve to be welcomed home. What if Ammon threw him out of his house and told him to never return to the community he’d grown up in?

  “What do you want to talk to me about, Tobias?”

  Please, God, give me the right words to explain why I left.

  “The reason I left the community in June was to get some help,” he said. “I sneaked out of the house in the middle of the night, but I sent a letter to my family in July, explaining where I’d gone and why.”

  Ammon folded his arms over his chest. “I heard you’d gone to Florida, but I didn’t know you needed help. What sort of help?”

  “Rehabilitation for alcoholism. I’d been hiding a drinking problem, and I recalled mei mamm telling us about her younger bruder, Earl. He left the community and went to Florida years ago. I found his address and took a chance that he would allow me to stay with him. I discovered he also struggled with alcoholism, and he helped me get into a treatment program. I’m clean and sober now.” Tobias held his breath while awaiting Ammon’s reaction to his confession.

  Ammon pursed his lips. “Was alcoholism the only reason you left?”

  Tobias shook his head and frowned. “No.”

  “What were your other reasons?”

  “Mei dat and I have a complicated relationship.”

  “What do you mean by ‘complicated’?”

  Tobias ran his sweaty palms down his pant legs, carefully choosing his words. “We argued often, and at the time, I was sure leaving was the best solution. But I know now it was the coward’s way out.”

  “What prompted you to come back?”

  “Mei schweschder wrote and asked me to come back for her wedding next month.” Tobias looked at his duffel bag on the floor. The letters from both Ariana and his mother were tucked in its pocket. He’d reread them over and over when he couldn’t sleep. They’d kept him going.

  “So you’re only here for the wedding?”

  Tobias shook his head. “No. I want to work things out with mei dat.”

  “Why?”

  “I want my family back. I want my community back.” He hated the tremor in his voice.

  Ammon blew out a deep breath as he stroked his long beard. “You’re aware that alcoholism is a sin.”

  Tobias nodded. “Ya, I know. I knew it when I was drinking, and I knew it when I left the community and asked for help.”

  “Because you’re a baptized member of the congregation, you’ll have to publicly confess to make yourself right with the church again. Are you willing to do that? Are you truly repentant?”

  “Ya, I am.”

  “Tomorrow’s a church Sunday. I can call a meeting for baptized members following our service. If they agree you’re ready to come back to the church, the church members will vote on your reinstatement, and then you can confess.”

  Tomorrow. Tobias’s throat went bone dry in an instant. Was he ready to confess his sins in front of his congregation? But wasn’t that what he wanted? A chance to reenter the fold?

  “Is it too soon?” Ammon asked.

  “No. I’ll do it tomorrow.”

  “Gut.” Ammon gave him a nod. “How is your onkel Earl? I went to school with him and your mamm.”

  “He’s doing well. He owns an auto repair shop in Sarasota. I worked there after I finished rehab.”

  “Really? So Earl is a mechanic.”

  Tobias nodded.

  “Did he teach you how to work on cars while you were there?”

  Tobias shrugged. “Not really. I mostly answered the phone and took customer orders. He taught me more about the cash register than cars.”

  Ammon’s loud, boisterous laugh filled the family room. Just as Tobias began to tell him more, Barbara came into the room to say his food was ready.

  Around their kitchen table and between bites, he told the whole family what it was like to live in Florida. The bishop didn’t mention he’d been in a treatment center, and neither did he. His alcoholism would come up tomorrow, and that was soon enough.

  When his plate was empty, Tobias stood. “I should get going. Danki for talking with me.”

  “I’m glad you’re back.” Ammon shook his hand. “We all missed you.”

  “Danki.”

  Tobias carried his dishes to the counter by the sink and then turned to Edna and her daughters. “Danki for supper. May I use your phone to call for a ride?”

  “I’ll take you home.” Mariella popped up from her seat.

  “That’s not necessary.” Ammon started toward the back door. “I’ll just get my hat and hitch the buggy to my horse.”

  Mariella faced her father. “I was thinking of going over there anyway. I can deliver a quilt I finished to Ariana and her mamm. They’ve been waiting for it so they can fulfill an order from one of their customers.” She looked at her mother. “Remember, Mamm? The order was promised for tomorrow, but I only finished it this afternoon because of the difficult stitching.” Her mother nodded.

  “And if I deliver it to them this evening, they’ll be certain they can keep their promise. Besides, they need me to give them some information about the quilt for the customer.”

  Ammon shrugged. “That’s fine. You can go.” Then his expression turned serious. “Just don’t be too late since we have church in the morning. I’ll go hitch up the horse, and you get the quilt.”

  “All right. I’ll take a pie too.” She turned toward Tobias. “I’ll just
be a minute.” Then she rushed out of the kitchen.

  “I’ll help you, Ammon,” Tobias said. “Let me get my jacket and duffel bag.” He retrieved his bag, thanked Edna, Susannah, and Barbara again, and walked out to the barn with his bishop.

  Mariella clutched a queen-size quilt against her chest with one hand and balanced a pie in the other as she made her way toward the horse and buggy.

  Tobias rushed over to her. “Let me help you with those.”

  “Danki.” As she handed him the quilt, their fingers brushed, and heat rushed to her cheeks. She pushed away her embarrassment and looked up at her father as Tobias loaded the quilt and his duffel bag into the back of the buggy. “I won’t be long, Dat.”

  He lowered his voice. “Don’t forget, his family hasn’t seen him yet. They may need some time alone to talk.”

  She nodded. “I understand.”

  “Are we ready?” Tobias stood by the buggy and motioned toward the horse.

  “Ya.” She smiled. “Do you want to guide the horse?”

  “Ah, well . . .” He rubbed his chin. He was adorable.

  “Do you remember how to guide a horse?” she asked, and her father chuckled.

  “I think I do.” Tobias grinned, and her heartbeat fluttered.

  “Why don’t you give it a try?” She climbed into the passenger side and rested the pie plate on her lap.

  “Be safe,” Dat called before heading back into the house.

  Tobias took his spot in the driver’s seat, flipped on a Coleman lantern, and took the reins.

  “Do you need me to explain how to guide the horse?” she offered.

  He turned toward her and raised one of his dark eyebrows. “Are you enjoying teasing me?”

  “Ya.” She laughed.

  “Before you ask, I do remember how to get to my parents’ haus.”

  “Oh gut. That was my next question,” she said, joking again as she settled back in the seat. “I guess that means I can relax now.”

  Tobias was the man she remembered, but at the same time something about his appearance was different. He still had the same gorgeous dark-brown hair and deep-brown eyes, but as she’d studied him at their kitchen table, she realized he looked even more handsome than she remembered. Perhaps it was because he looked healthier than she recalled. His skin was pink, and his eyes were bright and intelligent.