by Karen Harper
Because Josh was sitting at the table with them. Because Mamm had accepted him as Lydia’s come-calling friend at last, mostly, so far, because he had saved her from the pond. Somehow nearly dying there had made Mamm accept Sammy’s death at last. After all, Mamm had slipped past Daad to get to the pond just the way Sammy had sneaked past her.
After dessert, Mamm said, “At least that Leo Lowe was released since you didn’t testify against him, Lydia, but I hope they are feeding Gid Reich on bread and water in jail today. After his trial for murdering your friend Sandra, he’ll have years of prison time, even though they still say Victoria Keller’s death was an accident. But to think he was taking money from the store, too. I am struggling to forgive him. Forgiving people and myself, that’s what I’m working on.”
Lydia and Daad exchanged glances. After the barn fire, which, thank the Lord, had burned only the wing of the barn that Josh was planning to redo anyway, she and Daad had finally had their talk. He’d agonized for years, he’d said, for not telling her the truth about her past, but his promise to the bishop, Bess and Mamm, kept him quiet. But, he confided, he’d intended to tell her anyway when he gave her the quilt, however afraid he was that Mamm would never forgive him. But now, perhaps that would change, too, especially because she’d accepted the lovely centerpiece on the table.
“Lydia,” Mamm said, “you be sure to thank Senator Stark for that decoration she sent over with Connor. I’m afraid it’s just for pretty, which we don’t do, but it smells good, and you tell her I put it on the table.”
Lydia glanced from the pine bough, cone and candle arrangement to Mamm’s face. Not smiling but kind, almost sweet. And offering an olive branch in exchange for a pine bough to Bess as well as to Daad.
“I’ll tell her, Mamm. Let me help you clear the table and wash up while Daad and Josh chat a bit.”
“Ya,” Daad said. “I want him to see my quilting loom, but first he can help me bring in Liddy’s Christmas gift. I know the big day is tomorrow, but I can’t wait,” he said, and winked at Josh as if he was already in on this.
From Daad’s quilting room, the two men carried in a stunning cedar hope chest and put it on the floor next to Lydia.
“Oh, it’s lovely!” she cried and fell to her knees to open it. The clean scent wafted out, and there lay the Christmas quilt.
“We’ll soon have more than that in there,” Mamm said, stepping closer to put one arm around Lydia’s waist. “You’ll need sheets and towels and more quilts in case someone asks to marry you real soon.”
Daad had already announced at the table that he would train a new man to take Gid’s place so that, although Lydia would inherit the store someday, she would not have to work there anymore in case she found other interests. Right now, Daad just beamed, Mamm nodded, Josh grinned, but Lydia was so overcome with happiness she cried.
* * *
“I’m so glad you stopped in!” Bess greeted Lydia with open arms. Connor’s wife, Heather, stepped forward to hug Lydia, too, and Connor shook hands with Josh, though he only nodded at her. In the awkward welcome, Bess said, “Come in, come in, both of you.”
They sat in the living area where Aunt Victoria’s coffin had lain only a month ago. To think that her aunt had lived next door where she could have visited her, however ill she was, made Lydia sad. So much had happened, she thought.
She sat next to Josh on the white leather sofa while Connor sat on the floor with the twins where they’d evidently been playing a board game called Battleship. Heather hovered near Bess, who sat in the big chair across a coffee table from them.
“I know you said you were eating at home,” Bess said, “but can we offer you anything? Hot cider?”
“We’re fine,” Lydia said. “Too full. Oh, and Mamm thanks you for the pretty centerpiece.”
Bess didn’t take her eyes off Lydia but she tilted her head toward Connor. “Your brother picked the pine boughs and cones himself.”
Connor looked up. “Not spray painted, either. I’m paying a fine for that.”
“And—not because of that,” Bess said, slapping her hands on her knees, “I’m thinking of keeping the important job I have now in the Ohio senate and not reaching higher, not yet. And then I can spend more time here, at home—with my extended family.”
“Aw, Gran,” Blair put in, “Brad and me thought it would be way cool if you were the president, and we could visit the White House.”
“Perhaps I can arrange that, anyway. Enough of Battleship right now,” she told them. “Go ahead and ask Mr. Yoder your question.”
Both boys stood and came over to Josh. Wiping his hands nervously on his pants pockets, Blair said, “Mr. Yoder, we know you got the Beiler boys to help you, but we’d like to see your animals more and when we’re not in school, I mean in the summer—”
“Or,” Brad put in, “even after school if we get all our homework done.”
“—can we work for you—not even for money but just for fun?” Blair finished for them.
“That would be great,” Josh replied. “I could use the help and Lydia would be a good one to teach you about the camels especially.”
The boys beamed and glanced at their father as if for more support when he surely had given them his permission for this already.
“I know they’ll work hard to help,” Connor said, getting to his feet. “But in the holiday season, they’re going to have to split their time, or else you get one and the tree farm gets the other because they have to learn this business, too. Shake hands with Mr. Yoder, boys, to seal the deal. And,” he added, clearing his throat and coming closer to put a hand on Lydia’s shoulder, which she covered with her own hand, “it’s fine if they work with their aunt Lydia.”
She bit her lower lip, smiled up at Connor and fought tears again. His words were so sweet she might as well have heard the angels sing.
* * *
“It came upon a midnight clear,” Josh sang to Lydia as he helped her down from his buggy at the front door of the animal barn. It was nearly midnight, almost Christmas Day. They were going to check on the menagerie, he’d said, before he took her home. Hand in hand, they strolled past the pens where most of the animals slept, though their lantern occasionally caught the reflection of a watchful, liquid eye. Even the mules and camels kept quiet.
“Let’s look at the sky,” Josh said, and, leaving the lantern on his desk, they went out through the camel door together. His voice was a bit shaky, as if he, too, had been swept away by all the emotion they’d shared tonight.
It was cold outside, but the stars were brilliant and the quarter moon seemed to slant a smile down at them. They stood, arms around each other, gazing at the endless heavens above the Home Valley.
“Lydia,” he whispered so low the breeze almost blew his words away, “I hope you know how much I love you. We’ve been through a lot to get to this point, and I would be honored if you would consider being my wife.”
He’d never looked so serious, almost scared, she thought as she gazed up at his handsome face, bathed in starlight.
“I would love to share my life with you—and the Yoder zoo.”
“I can’t imagine my life without you.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I even want you enough to have two mothers-in-law, both of them a challenge.”
Upon that winter’s night, Lydia laughed, threw her arms around him and kissed him hard.
* * * * *
Author’s Note
I love to write about Amish country and its people. I guess that’s pretty evident since this is my ninth Amish romantic suspense novel. The earlier ones include a stand-alone, DOWN TO THE BONE. Then came the trilogy DARK ROAD HOME, DARK HARVEST and DARK ANGEL. Most recently I wrote the HOME VALLEY TRILOGY consisting of FALL FROM PRIDE, RETURN TO GRACE and FINDING MERCY. I also contributed a Home Valley novella for the anthology DARK CROSSINGS, entitled THE COVERED BRIDGE. And here we are with this seasonal story, UPON A WINTER’S NIGHT, also set in the
fictional—but very real to me—Home Valley.
In these stories, it has been so fulfilling to follow the lives of young Amish women who find danger but also the loves of their lives. And, in the most recent books, to see Ray-Lynn’s trials and triumphs—and how she finally married Sheriff Jack Freeman—has been great fun, too. Who of us wouldn’t like to be friends with such interesting heroines and to get Ray-Lynn’s glimpse into the fascinating world of the Plain People? I hope these books have given my readers this look into their lives.
Special thanks to my talented and insightful MIRA Book editors, Miranda Indrigo and Nicole Brebner, for traveling with me through these Amish novels.
A quick note about cell phones. Most Old Order Amish are holding the line against these devices despite the fact that cell phones work without the forbidden phone lines coming into their homes. This intrusion by the outside world has been a major problem in the past. Still, most Amish are permitted to use them at their places of employment. Before committing to the church, Amish young people sometimes have these phones, which they must give up later. However, on our most recent trip to Ohio Amish country, my cell phone would not work because there were no towers in the rural, hilly areas. I was also told that I had the “wrong kind of phone,” because only one carrier works “around here.” When we drove out of that immediate area, the phone worked fine again.
Special thanks goes to Lance White, managing editor at the Daily Record newspaper in Wooster, Ohio, who filled me in on how the paper stores its old clip files. The Daily Record helps to sponsor the excellent, longtime Buckeye Book Fair every year in Wooster where I’ve been able to sign many books and meet many readers. Some Amish also attend, and it’s been enlightening to talk to them.
Amish furniture, which is beautifully crafted, features prominently in this story. I have visited such stores and purchased a lovely dining room table and chairs set from a place much like the one the Brands own. If you would like to see the vast array of Amish-built pieces, two websites I found useful are www.furnitureheartland.com and www.AmishFurnitureGuide.com. Now that farmland is so expensive and the Plain People continue to have large families, more Amish men are turning to various crafts. Some work in the stores, some work at home and buggy their pieces in.
Amish friendship bread is no doubt similar to other such “yeast starter” recipes, but the best online site I found for the Amish recipe is www.armchair.com/recipe/bake002.html. I also have the recipe on my website www.KarenHarperAuthor.com with some other Amish recipes that figure in earlier books. You might have noted that Mamm did not share the recipe and yeast starter, as is traditional, but preferred just to give only the bread, perhaps since she felt it was all she had to offer and she didn’t want others making her specialty. However, in the spirit of Christmas, and since she is now dealing with her problems, I think she will give people the recipe and the starter as well as the bread, so that they may “pass it on.”
As Sandra told Daad when she met with him in the story, Christmas always puts us in a kind of time warp. The past becomes the present again as we remember Christmases past and the dear ones who have gone on before us. Like life, the holiday season for many is a mixture of sadness and happiness. But I hope your celebrations and memories will be joyous.
Karen Harper
All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.
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Published in Great Britain 2013.
MIRA Books, Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road,
Richmond, Surrey, TW9 1SR
© Karen Harper 2013
ISBN 978-1-4720-5469-2