by Jo Ann Brown
“What is going on?” demanded a woman from behind her.
Beth Ann wanted to groan when she heard Deana’s question. Knowing she had to give the social worker a quick and honest answer, she wondered if there was any way to salvage the situation.
Gladys appeared out of the crowd. “You’re the children’s social worker, aren’t you? Come with me, young lady, and I’ll explain everything to you.” She steered Deana away before the social worker could ask a single question.
“Our social worker?” asked Crystal. “Why is she here?”
“Is she taking us away?” Dougie winced as he spoke.
“Take us away?” Tommy began to cry. “No, no, no!”
“We want to live with you, Beth Ann,” Crystal said with the passion of an eight-year-old who saw no shades of gray. “Don’t send us away. Please, don’t.”
“I never would send you away, but—”
The EMT said, “I’m sorry to interrupt, but we need to get Dougie to the hospital to have X-rays.”
“Can I go with him?” Beth Ann pleaded.
“Yes, but only one parent can ride in the ambulance.”
Robert curved his hand along her cheek. “Go! After you get home, we need to talk.”
“I know.” As she was handed up into the vehicle and shown where to sit beside the gurney, she couldn’t pull her gaze away from Robert’s until the door closed. Folding Dougie’s hand between hers, she forced herself to focus on the present. She had no idea what the future would bring, but feared it wouldn’t include either Robert or the children.
* * *
Tony Whittaker brought Beth Ann and Dougie back on freshly plowed roads to Evergreen Corners as the sun set beyond the Green Mountains. The mayor’s husband helped her tote the boy up the stairs after a single glance revealed Robert wasn’t steady on his feet. Dried blood on his hair marked where debris had glanced off his head, but he’d already taken a couple of ibuprofen and felt better.
Abby sent supper, and Dougie was asleep before dessert was over. Beth Ann shared in furtive whispers what Dougie had told her at the hospital. The sock, which now contained less than thirty dollars, had been the way Dougie had paid for most of the groceries to be delivered to the apartment. He’d used a computer in the school library to place the order and then hidden the money for the deliveryman. That explained why, once the children were homeschooled, the deliveries halted.
Beth Ann tucked each child in with Robert’s help. She’d expected them to be wired because they’d have presents in the morning, but the day had left them exhausted. Soon they all were asleep.
She cleared the table and washed the dishes, telling Robert to sit so she didn’t have to worry about him falling. That he complied told her his head must have been aching more than she’d guessed.
As she wrung the dishrag, he said, “We never finished our conversation earlier.”
“No, but I’ve had plenty of time to think about what you said.” She faced him and leaned against the counter. “If the job in Rutland is a good one, you need to take it, Robert. The children will be gone in a couple of weeks, so there’s no reason for you to stay.”
“Do you think the children are the only consideration?”
“No, but you need to think about your future.”
“My future shouldn’t include kinder.”
His words, spoken with regret, shocked her. “You’re great with the kids. If you’re talking about your temper, when have you lost it with them?”
“I almost lost it today and the other night I almost—”
“Listen to yourself, Robert! I almost lost it. But you didn’t. You controlled your temper.”
“Barely.”
“Don’t you see? God doesn’t ask us to do anything but our best, and you’ve done your best to keep your temper in check.”
“I might not always be able to control it.”
“You aren’t your father. You know the pain and degradation of abuse.” She sat beside him. “You and Rachel are both wonderful with children.” Stroking his cheek, she said, “Take the job. We’ll figure out the future one day at a time.”
“So you’ve decided what you want?”
“Yes, I want what I have here. A place where I can feel as if I belong with people who care about me and whom I care about. I came to Evergreen Corners because I thought I’d have a chance to think about what I wanted, but I’ve come to realize I’ve got everything I want and everything I need.” She took a deep breath. “I’ll use the money my aunt left me to buy Mrs. Weiskopf’s store and a home in Evergreen Corners. I plan to fight to keep the children and to talk to Isaac about being baptized Amish.”
“What?” His eyes became as round as a cereal bowl. “You’d have to give up your car and your phone and—”
“It’s not about what I’d give up. It’s what I’d gain. A loving faith family and a community where I know I belong.” She raised her gaze to meet his and whispered, “And a chance to be with the man I love.”
“You love me?”
She laughed. “Of course I do, you silly man! I don’t go around kissing random guys.”
When he dropped to his knees beside her and clasped her hands in his, he said, “I love you, too, but I suspect you already know because you seem to know everything I’m thinking.”
“I’ve prayed that you loved me.” She leaned her forehead against his. “I asked God to put me on the path He wanted me to walk, and He brought me to you.”
Muted giggles came from the doorway. She saw the three children, Dougie propped up by his sister and brother, grinning at them.
Her face was tilted toward Robert’s as he said, “Let’s give our eavesdroppers something worth listening to. Beth Ann, will you have an unemployed, broke Amish man for your husband?”
“I can’t think of anyone I’d rather marry.” As he stood, drawing her to her feet and into his arms, he bent to kiss her. The joyful dance of her heart matched the children’s cheers.
Epilogue
How fast a year passed when surrounded by loving family and friends! As Beth Ann packed what she’d need at her sister-in-law’s house for Christmas Day, she edged past the excited kinder in their comfortable house at the edge of the village. It wasn’t far from where the other Amish families lived and close enough so she could walk to the general store. The store that she bought with her inheritance, the store that made her happy because she could stay in Evergreen Corners and had found a way still to help others.
Dougie rushed past her to grab his black hat. He seemed to grow another inch every day, and he was the first to brag about the kitchen skills she’d gained in the past year, though she and Robert reminded him that boasting wasn’t acceptable for a plain family. Dougie just gave them one of his grins. One day, he’d challenge Robert’s height, and Beth Ann had to let down the hems on his trousers almost every week. His little brother, celebrating his sixth birthday today, was a scholar at the new Amish school along with the older two. Tommy had mastered Deitsch more quickly than his siblings, a fact he never let them forget.
“Don’t forget these, Mamm,” said Crystal as she handed Beth Ann three bottles for the boppli who was asleep in the basket on the sofa.
“Danki, liebling.” She thanked the Lord for the three older kinder who were as dear to her as little Lena.
Since Lena had arrived more than a month early the week before Thanksgiving, Beth Ann had split her time between home and the hospital. Finally, last week, the boppli had been released to come home. Even before Beth Ann and Robert had married as soon as she was baptized, they’d worked with DCF to keep Dougie, Crystal and Tommy.
First, there had been the paperwork signed by Kim, after she returned to rehab and stayed there long enough to get clean, to give up custody of her kinder. Her sister had remained in Las Vegas where she’d found a gut job and was trying to convince Kim to j
oin her far away from the environment that had led to her addiction.
With the kinder available for adoption, Beth Ann and Robert had arranged for a home study. The same week it’d been finished, she’d discovered they were going to have a boppli.
Two days after Lena’s arrival, the adoption paperwork had been signed and Dougie, Crystal and Tommy became Yoders, happily embracing a plain life. Her family—her Amish family—was her dream come true.
“All set?” Robert picked up the basket with little Lena. His steps were the light ones of a man who had everything he wanted in his life.
In the past year, he’d learned it was okay to get angry, because he was in charge of his feelings, not the other way around. It was also okay to be happy, which he’d had more trouble accepting. That had turned around when the purchase of the general store was completed, and Beth Ann showed him the storeroom where he could have his woodworking shop.
He hadn’t been able to start right away, because he’d been hired to supervise the rebuilding of the covered bridge once Gladys procured the special funding she’d sought. In October, on the second anniversary of the devastating flood, the first cars had driven across it. The following day, Yoder’s Woodworking hung out its shingle on the store’s porch. Robert had, through his hard work and amazing skills, earned enough to pay off the last of his daed’s debts.
“We’re set,” Beth Ann said, motioning for the kinder to head out the door and get in the buggy for the short journey to their aenti’s and onkel’s house. She couldn’t wait to see the kinder’s faces when they discovered that Kim, now free of drugs and living in a halfway house, was joining them for supper.
“Merry Christmas,” he murmured before he kissed her. “The happiest one yet.”
“Ja.” She slipped her hand onto his arm. “Because I have received the greatest gifts anyone could want. My family and my husband and my wunderbaar home and friends.”
“Just what you wanted?”
“Ja.”
He tapped her nose as if she were no older than Crystal. “Me, too.”
* * *
If you enjoyed this story,
don’t miss these other books
from Jo Ann Brown:
The Amish Suitor
The Amish Christmas Cowboy
The Amish Bachelor’s Baby
The Amish Widower’s Twins
An Amish Christmas Promise
An Amish Easter Wish
An Amish Mother’s Secret Past
Find more great reads at www.LoveInspired.com
Keep reading for an excerpt from The Rancher’s Holiday Arrangement by Brenda Minton.
Dear Reader,
Isn’t it interesting that when we’re not sure what we’re supposed to do next in our lives, the answer can be unexpected? As I neared the end of college, unsure what I wanted to do next, being commissioned as an officer in the US Army wasn’t on my radar, but when the opportunity came, I took it. Finding which door God will open for us next is exciting, isn’t it?
The Mennonite Disaster Service is a real organization established seventy years ago. MDS volunteers come from the US and Canada and have helped rebuild homes and lives after disasters, usually weather-related or due to wildfires.
Visit me at www.joannbrownbooks.com. This is the final book in Evergreen Corners, Vermont. I hope you’ve enjoyed your visit. My next series will be set in the new Amish community on Prince Edward Island.
Wishing you many blessings,
Jo Ann Brown
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The Rancher’s Holiday Arrangement
by Brenda Minton
Chapter One
Mercy Ranch during the holidays sometimes overwhelmed Joe Lawson. He tended to be a solitary person. Not a loner, he just liked quiet and appreciated his own company. That said, he would never turn down an invitation to join Jack West, founder of the ranch for wounded veterans, his family or his housekeeper, Maria, who happened to be one of the best cooks in the state of Oklahoma.
Once dinner was over and everyone started socializing, Joe made his way out the door with the appropriate comments. Thank you. See you later. Yes, that mare is about to foal. No one asked where he was heading off to. They probably knew he needed to clear his head.
Sometimes a man just needed to be alone.
He headed for his truck, stopping to pet the brown standard poodle that followed him across the lawn as he headed for his truck that he’d left by the barn. If a person could call the building that housed offices, stalls and an indoor arena a barn.
“See you later, pup.” He gave the dog a final pat on the head and climbed behind the wheel of his truck. He planned on driving west, about three miles to the other side of Hope. He’d noticed that a local ranch had come up for sale. The land was rolling hills, good stands of trees and a fairly new house.
He knew he’d come to a crossroads in his life. If he intended to stay in Oklahoma, he needed his own place. If he planned on going back to Connecticut, he needed to make a decision. Soon.
Unlike other pivotal moments in his life, this time he knew better than to be impulsive. He might have plans, but he also knew God in a way he hadn’t before. Unlike his teens and twenties, Joe in his thirties was a praying man. A man of faith.
A mile outside of Hope, a truck pulled out from a paved county road, spinning gravel as it took off in front of him. Joe slowed to avoid hitting the other vehicle, then he kept his distance as the truck swerved from the shoulder to the opposite lane.
“Texting and driving,” he muttered as he hit his horn, hoping to get the attention of the other driver. The person needed a reminder that he wasn’t alone on this stretch of road.
For a brief moment the truck straightened out and managed to stay between the lines. Joe relaxed until the truck jerked to the shoulder, hit the grass and then swerved across the center line as the driver made an overcorrection.
He watched, unable to do a thing as the truck swerved into the path of an oncoming vehicle, clipping the front and sending the small SUV careening off the road, down an incline.
The truck sped off. Joe pulled to the side of the road, grabbing his phone to call 911 as he jumped from his truck and hurried across the road and down the embankment. The sound of young children crying reached him, filling him with equal parts terror and relief. If they were crying, they had to be okay, right?
The dispatcher on the other end asked questions. Location. Types of vehicles involved. Specifics about the crash and victims. He gave what information he could, but he was impatient to get to the people in that SUV.
“A blue truck, mid-eighties model and with obvious damage to the front driver’s side. Hit and run. I don’t know how many people in the vehicle, but I know there are children.” He ended the call and hurried down the side of the hill, saying a prayer as he went.
As a volunteer for the local fire department, he’d worked more than his share of accidents. He knew he’d never get used to this, hurrying toward a wreckage, hearing children crying, hearing the frantic voice of a parent. But voices were preferable to silence. That much he knew.
The vehicle had rolled, but it had come to rest wheels down.
As he drew near the wreckage, a woman’s voice rose above the cries that he now realized were babies. Babies with frantic, plaintive cries.
“We’re going to be okay. Shhh, it’s going to be okay.”
Joe could hear the thread of panic in her voice, but their cries diminished somewhat as they listened to her soothing voice. He hurried to the driver’s side of the vehicle, which appeared to have
taken the brunt of the accident. The top and side were pushed in. The driver was pushing at her door, trying to get out.
“Hold on. I’m going to help you,” he yelled as he rounded the vehicle to the passenger side. No way would the driver’s side door open.
The passenger side wasn’t much better. He moved to the back.
“Hey in there. I’m going to try to find a way to get you out,” Joe assured her as he looked for the latch on the back hatch. “Are you all okay?”
“We’re okay.” Her voice sounded weak. “We need to get out of here.”
“I’m working on it.”
The babies were crying again. She sounded as if she might be about to cry herself. Joe’s insides tensed. He had to get them out of the vehicle. Now.
“Unlock the doors and I’ll see if I can pull the back hatch open.”
He heard the click and he pulled on the hatch, wishing he had two good arms and maybe a crowbar. He didn’t have either. He had one good arm and a mighty God. With a whispered prayer he gave the hatch another hard pull. The door creaked open. He reached under and pushed it the rest of the way up, giving him room to crawl into the back, amid the jumble of chaotic luggage, to the sound of crying babies and the woman trying to comfort them as she worked to get out of her seat and crawl through the back.
Crawling, he made it to the middle row of seats where the babies were strapped in to car seats, upset but seemingly uninjured. He did a double take, looking at the redheaded, blue-eyed little girls. Twins. And from the looks of them, identical.
“Well now, aren’t you a couple of cuties,” he interjected mid-chorus. Big tears rolled down round cheeks as blue eyes overflowed.
The driver had climbed through and placed herself in front of the car seat on his left. Joe’s gaze collided with silver-gray eyes. Those molten gray eyes could only belong to one person, with a tangle of dark hair framing a face he remembered well.