Her Amish Suitor's Secret (Amish 0f Serenity Ridge Book 3)

by Carrie Lighte

  Sometimes the truth comes at a cost.

  Can she forgive him

  when she learns his true identity?

  Posing as an Amish groundskeeper at Rose Allgyer’s lakeside cabin retreat, Englischer Caleb Miller is determined to clear his brother’s name of theft. But as he’s drawn to Rose’s good nature, the burden of his ruse gets heavier—especially after learning Rose was deceived by her ex-fiancé. Still guarded, will Rose trust Caleb with her heart when she discovers he isn’t who he claims to be?

  “Isn’t it quiet where you live in Wisconsin?”

  “It’s not this quiet. This peaceful. There’s something about being here, where sometimes the loudest sound I hear is water lapping the shore… It makes me feel so calm. I feel like that when I’m working in the fields, too. Probably because when I was young I used to escape to the garden when—”

  “When what?” Rose pressed.

  Over the past couple of weeks while chatting with Rose, Caleb had occasionally forgotten to guard his Englisch identity, but until now he’d always guarded his emotions, especially those concerning his upbringing. But opening up to her seemed to happen naturally. So, he continued, “My mamm and daed argued a lot and it helped to go outdoors to get away from them. Tending to Gott’s creation made me feel...tranquil.” Kind of like how I feel right now.

  Caleb slowly let his breath out. He dipped his paddle into the water and Rose did, too. As they journeyed he thought about how amazing it felt to confide in her. Maybe he wasn’t being honest about the facts of his life, but tonight he’d been honest about his emotions.

  Carrie Lighte lives in Massachusetts next door to a Mennonite farming family, and she frequently spots deer, foxes, fisher cats, coyotes and turkeys in her backyard. Having enjoyed traveling to several Amish communities in the eastern United States, she looks forward to visiting settlements in the western states and in Canada. When she’s not reading, writing or researching, Carrie likes to hike, kayak, bake and play word games.

  Books by Carrie Lighte

  Love Inspired

  Amish of Serenity Ridge

  Courting the Amish Nanny

  The Amish Nurse’s Suitor

  Her Amish Suitor’s Secret

  Amish Country Courtships

  Amish Triplets for Christmas

  Anna’s Forgotten Fiancé

  An Amish Holiday Wedding

  Minding the Amish Baby

  Her New Amish Family

  Her Amish Holiday Suitor

  Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com.

  HER AMISH SUITOR’S SECRET

  Carrie Lighte

  Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:

  But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:

  For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

  —Matthew 6:19–21

  For my nieces—my youngest readers—and in loving memory of my great-aunt Marce.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Epilogue

  Dear Reader

  Excerpt from The Nanny's Amish Family by Patricia Johns

  Chapter One

  “You want me to pretend I’m Amish?” Caleb Miller repeated in a hushed whisper. He’d come from Madison, Wisconsin, to the Chicago suburbs to visit his brother, Ryan, and six-year-old nephew, Liam, who was asleep in the next room. “I can’t do that.”

  “Why not? You loved living on that Amish farm when you were in college,” his brother reminded him.

  Caleb recalled the experience fondly. As a college student, he was a German language major with a minor in anthropology. His professor had strong ties to the Amish community, and for three summers in a row, Caleb had lived with an Amish family on a soybean farm in Pennsylvania, not far from where he went to school. “That was ten years ago. I’ve probably forgotten almost all of the Deitsch I learned,” he protested.

  “C’mon, you’re a German language professor! You’ll pick it up again in no time,” Ryan countered. “You’ll blend right in.”

  “I’m an adjunct faculty member. And I’m not concerned about blending in. I’m concerned about being deceptive. What you’re suggesting is unethical. It wouldn’t be fair to the Amish community. Posing as someone I’m not is... It’s fraud. I could lose my job!”

  “Tell me about it,” Ryan muttered, closing his eyes and pressing his fingertips to his temples. In mid-May Caleb’s brother had been suspended from his position as an archivist at the city museum after an inventory audit revealed nearly a million dollars of rare coins was missing. Two other employees had access to the collection, but the card reader indicated only Ryan had opened the storage area since the previous audit. That was almost a month ago and Ryan was losing hope of ever being reinstated. His eyes watered as he dropped his hands and looked squarely at Caleb. “I appreciate there’s a risk—a very small risk—that if you do this and the university finds out, you could lose your job. But if I go to prison, there’s a very high probability I’ll lose my son.”

  Caleb winced at the thought. After a lengthy separation, Ryan’s wife, Sheryl, had recently filed for divorce. She often held the threat of petitioning for sole custody of Liam over Ryan’s head. Ryan was an excellent father, so there had been virtually no chance of the court agreeing to the request. But once the FBI investigated him and his standing at work was jeopardized, Ryan began to worry his parental rights were on shaky ground, too. He told Caleb his fear of being incarcerated was secondary compared to his fear of losing Liam. The possibility was agonizing Caleb, too, since he was crazy about his nephew, who was probably the closest Caleb would ever come to having a child of his own.

  His resolve wavering, he argued feebly, “The FBI said they found no evidence of the coins at the cabins. No evidence anyone connected to the crime had been there, either.”

  The first week in June, Ryan received in the mail a flyer from a small Amish lakeside camp in Serenity Ridge, Maine. The sender had circled a line of text reading: “If you can’t find what you’re looking for within walking or canoeing distance of your cabin, it isn’t worth finding.”

  At first Ryan thought the anonymous message was nothing more than a marketing campaign or a hint from a colleague that he needed to take a vacation. But on the other side of the flyer someone had scrawled “Matthew 6:19–21.” Ryan was familiar with the Bible verse reference, which said, “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

  Ryan deduced the message was related to the stolen artifacts and he turned the note over to the FBI, who thoroughly searched the cabins and the property. Agents also interviewed the camp’s owners, who were reluctant to get involved, not solely because they were Amish but also because the law enforcement’s presence on-site was disruptive to their business. The FBI was e
qually frustrated with their record-keeping process, which amounted to little more than taking reservations by cell phone and writing the customers’ last names and dates in a notebook. Furthermore, because they were Amish, the owners only accepted cash, check or money orders from their guests, which meant several of their customers were practically untraceable.

  In the end, the FBI found no credible evidence to suggest the coin theft from the museum was linked to the Amish camp or its guests. The agents proposed someone with a grudge against Ryan or someone who wanted to send the FBI on a wild-goose chase had deliberately provided the false tip. They also questioned whether Ryan had convinced someone to forge the note and mail it from Maine. The suggestion was outrageous—it meant Ryan still wasn’t above suspicion and left him feeling depressed.

  “Just because they didn’t find any evidence doesn’t mean it’s not there,” Ryan insisted. “The detective I hired said it was possible the thief changed his mind. Maybe he heard about the FBI’s investigation and figured selling the coins would be too risky.”

  “If that was true, wouldn’t he have simply abandoned them? Why send a note hinting they’re hidden near the camp in Maine?”

  “The Bible verse makes me think he had a guilty conscience. The Amish don’t typically evangelize, but you’ve said the way they put their faith into practice can be inspiring. Perhaps something the camp owners said or did made him decide he couldn’t keep stolen property.”

  “Then why wouldn’t he tell you exactly where the coins were hidden? Why just give you a vague clue?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe he was buying time so he could get to Canada first. Maybe another note is coming—”

  Caleb interjected, “You sound a little crazy right now, Ryan.”

  “I am a little crazy right now. I can’t think. I can’t sleep or eat. I’d go to Maine myself if I wasn’t prohibited from leaving the area while the investigation is ongoing. And I can’t afford the detective I hired any longer—I’m supporting two households as it is. If I end up being arrested, I’ll need every penny I have for a decent lawyer.” Ryan’s pallid face contorted into a grimace. “Please, Caleb. I need your help.”

  “Couldn’t I just stay at the cabins as a guest?”

  “I already called and they said they’re booked for the season. That’s how I found out they need a handyman—the lady made a joke about hoping I was calling about the advertisement in The Budget for a resident groundskeeper. Don’t you see? The timing is providential. It has to be.”

  Caleb grunted. He wasn’t so sure about that. Although he’d been a Christian since he was a young boy, lately his relationship with God amounted to little more than attending church on Sunday and saying grace before a meal, if he remembered. But whether it was God’s will for him to go to Maine or not, one thing Caleb did know for certain: his brother needed him. His nephew needed him. They were the only family he had and he couldn’t let them down. “I might as well go. It’s not like I’m doing anything else this summer,” he said wryly.

  At thirty-one, Caleb had already declared himself a confirmed bachelor. When the academic year ended each spring, he spent more time cultivating his vegetable garden than he spent cultivating personal relationships, especially with women. Having grown up in a home where his parents bickered from sunrise to sunset—eventually divorcing when Caleb was in his senior year of college—he had no desire to marry. Sure, he’d had several short-term relationships over the years, but the minute a conflict arose, Caleb broke up with the woman. He’d rather be lonely than wind up as miserable as his parents had been. Or as his brother was now.

  “Are you being serious?” Ryan asked.

  “Yeah, I’ll go.”

  “Woo-hoo!” Ryan yelped, and practically crushed Caleb’s shoulders in a bear hug until Liam padded into the room.

  “What’s wrong, Daddy?” he asked, bleary-eyed.

  “Nothing, son. I was shouting because Uncle Caleb told me good news. He’s going away this summer. On a nice long vacation.”

  “You are? But you just got here.” Liam looked as if he was about to cry. He’d become very clingy since Ryan moved into an apartment and saw him only on the weekends. “Can we come, too?”

  Caleb winced at his plea. “It’s not going to be a real vacation, Liam. I’ll be working. I’ll tell you what—next time I come back, you and I can go camping together. How’s that?”

  Liam nodded slowly. “Okay. But when will you get back?”

  “Soon,” Caleb promised. “Just as soon as I can.”

  * * *

  “I hope everything goes smoothly for you and the girls while we’re away,” Rose Allgyer’s aunt Nancy said at the end of Rose’s second week helping run Serenity Lake Cabins.

  “I’ve owned and managed a restaurant in one of the busiest tourist areas in Lancaster County, so don’t worry about us,” Rose said. “You’ve got enough on your mind.” Rose’s aunt and uncle were traveling from Maine to Ohio to participate in an eight-to ten-week clinical trial for patients with renal cell cancer and wouldn’t return home until the last week in August.

  “Gott willing, this treatment will be exactly what Sol needs.” Nancy angled her face toward the lake. It was the third week in June and the temperatures were already in the mideighties, but a cool breeze stirred the water and drifted up the hill to where they were relaxing on the porch. “It will be so gut to see my schweschder and her familye in Ohio again. It’s been almost ten years since we moved away. I love it here, but I do miss everybody back home.”

  A couple of years after relocating from Ohio to a new Amish settlement in Serenity Ridge, Maine, Nancy and Sol had purchased the Maine camp. They earned their living by selling produce and renting the cabins to fishermen, young families, older couples and artists and writers who enjoyed solitude and simplicity. And good cooking—Nancy and her sixteen-year-old twin daughters, Charity and Hope, along with one other staff member, served a full breakfast and supper and a light lunch in the main dining hall every day except Sunday.

  As Rose had discovered during the past two weeks, harvesting produce and cooking for that many people, as well as cleaning the cabins and washing linens on Saturdays, was hard work. But, as she told her aunt, the guests here were generally less demanding than the Englischers she encountered at the restaurant in Pennsylvania.

  “Jah, our guests are very respectful of the property and each other’s privacy. Many of them have been coming here every year since we opened. That’s why I regretted the tumult I told you about with the FBI at the start of the season. It was so disruptive to all of us. You can’t imagine how intrusive some of the agents’ questions were. And they went through our record keeping with a fine-tooth comb.”

  If only I’d gone through my business records with a fine-tooth comb, perhaps I wouldn’t be broke right now, Rose thought bitterly. Earlier that spring she’d discovered her fiancé, Baker Zook, had been taking money from the restaurant she owned. The small eatery originally belonged to Baker’s mother, but when she passed away two years ago, Rose became the new proprietor. Baker, a horse trainer by trade, had been handling the accounting successfully until that time, and Rose saw no reason to hire anyone else once she took over the business. During the course of the following year, her professional relationship with Baker developed into a romantic courtship and the pair had planned to get married in the upcoming autumn wedding season.

  That was before she learned Baker had been skimming money from the restaurant’s account to buy and resell racehorses. He admitted his wrongdoing only when one of the most expensive horses he’d invested in strained its suspensory ligament, rendering it incapable of competing. Unable to hide the financial loss, Baker confessed to the church leaders and apologized to Rose. The deacons had helped him devise a bimonthly repayment schedule, but it would be another two years before Rose would be fully recompensed. Meanwhile, she had defaulted on a business loan and had
to forfeit the lease on her restaurant.

  The irony is that I was drawn to Baker because, unlike any suitor I ever had, he seemed to respect that I was an independent business owner. In retrospect Rose realized Baker probably only valued her professional success because it funded his equine wheeling and dealing. She felt utterly humiliated she’d been bamboozled, and her embarrassment was compounded by her family, who hadn’t wanted her to buy the restaurant in the first place.

  “If you had gotten married when you were young like your sisters did, you wouldn’t be in this predicament now,” her mother had lectured. “You’re twenty-nine, and you have no husband and no income. Who is going to provide for you once Daed and I are gone?”

  Trying to convince her family she’d been better off without a man in her life and that she could take care of herself was futile, so she decided she’d have to show them instead. Rose set her sights on leasing a small café when she returned to Pennsylvania at the end of the summer. However, even though the salary her aunt and uncle were paying her was generous, it still wasn’t enough for her to be able to afford the initial rent and deposit for the new location.

  “Would you and Onkel Sol mind if I come up with a way to bring in extra income on my own time while I’m here?” she asked Nancy. As a business owner herself, Rose’s aunt had been one of the few people who had supported Rose’s endeavors with the restaurant.

  “Of course not, as long as it doesn’t hinder your service to our guests or disrupt their privacy. And don’t wear yourself too thin. Charity and Hope are gut workers, but as you’ve probably noticed, Eleanor sometimes talks quicker than she works,” Nancy warned.

  Rose chuckled. She had noticed that Eleanor Sutter, the twenty-one-year-old woman who came in the late afternoon to help prepare and serve supper, was a real chatterbox.

  “Once Caleb Miller arrives, he’ll take over the upkeep of the fields and the two of you can work together on harvesting the produce. Sol usually manages the finances, but I’d rather not assign that to Caleb, since we don’t know much about him, except he said he’s a distant gschwischderkind of the Miller familye in Blue Hill, Ohio, where I grew up. And any relative of theirs is a friend of mine. Do you feel confident handling the accounting?”