An unexpected perfect match...

An Amish single mother with a secret past...

Searching for a fresh start at Christmastime.

Caught up in a scandal in her Amish community, Phoebe Miller moves to her cousin’s farm in Delaware hoping for forgiveness and a second chance. The last thing Phoebe expects is to slowly fall for bachelor Joshua Miller. But Joshua doesn’t know the secret that made her leave her old life behind. Can their blossoming love survive the truth?

EMMA MILLER lives quietly in her old farmhouse in rural Delaware. Fortunate enough to have been born into a family of strong faith, she grew up on a dairy farm, surrounded by loving parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. Emma was educated in local schools and once taught in an Amish schoolhouse. When she’s not caring for her large family, reading and writing are her favorite pastimes.

Also by Emma Miller

The Amish Spinster’s Courtship

The Christmas Courtship

The Amish Matchmaker

A Match for Addy

A Husband for Mari

A Beau for Katie

A Love for Leah

A Groom for Ruby

A Man for Honor

Hannah’s Daughters

Courting Ruth

Miriam’s Heart

Anna’s Gift

Leah’s Choice

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

The Christmas Courtship

Emma Miller

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-09919-6

THE CHRISTMAS COURTSHIP

© 2019 Emma Miller

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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“What was Ginger saying?” Joshua asked.

“She said not to let you monopolize all my time.”

He sighed. “And what did you say to that? Because I was... I was kind of hoping you’d let me walk around and introduce you.”

Phoebe pressed her lips together, not sure how to respond.

She met his gaze. “Do you have a girl?”

He shook his head.

She felt her heart give a little trip. “Sweet on someone?”

He tilted his head. “You could say that.”

Against her will, Phoebe felt an overwhelming sense of disappointment. She looked down at the grass at her feet. “Then you should go be with her.”

He was quiet so long that at last she looked up at him and found him studying her.

“I can’t,” he said very quietly.

She held his gaze, feeling a little light-headed. She remembered this feeling. She’d felt it in those early days and months when she and John had courted. She nibbled on her lower lip. “Why not?” she dared.

He hesitated, then shrugged. “Because I’m already with her.”

For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.

—Matthew 6:14

Dear Reader,

I hope Joshua and Phoebe’s story touched your heart the way it touched mine. Their story reminds me that, as humans, we all make mistakes and that we all can be forgiven and must forgive. In this world we live in today, this is a message of hope for me.

My next visit to the Miller family involves Benjamin’s eldest son, Ethan, who is Hickory Grove’s schoolmaster. Ethan lost his wife years ago and hasn’t been able to find his way out of that darkness. His family is encouraging him to marry again, but no one has come along to tug at his heartstrings. Then a naughty little boy joins his classroom and, at his wits end, Ethan joins forces with Jamie’s widowed mother, Abigail, to improve the child’s behavior. While Abigail and Ethan are at odds at first, they quickly become friends, then fall in love. But love is complicated, and Abigail and Ethan have to make their way through several obstacles to find happiness again.

I’m excited about Abigail and Ethan’s journey. I hope you’ll join me again in Hickory Grove to find out if love really can conquer all.

Peace be with you,

Emma Miller

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Introduction

Bible Verse

Dear Reader

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Epilogue

About the Publisher

Chapter One
Dover, Delaware

At the convenience store that served as the Greyhound bus station, Joshua held open the door for an Englisher. Dressed in a puffy white coat, the elderly woman stared up at him, her mouth agape, as she walked through the doorway. Maybe she wasn’t used to seeing an Amish man in a 7-Eleven, or maybe it was his Ray-Ban sunglasses that surprised her. He offered a half smile and removed them as he walked into the store.

He was looking for his stepmother’s cousin.

He’d seen the bus pull out as he’d secured his horse and buggy to a lighting pole in the parking lot. She had to be here. He scanned the aisles. He spotted a woman and a little boy getting milk from one of the cold cases, and a tall, slender man considering his candy selection. Just Englishers.

He exhaled impatiently. A trip to the bus station hadn’t been on his list of things to do that day. He’d had previous plans. He and his stepsister were supposed to get together this afternoon to talk about their idea of opening a greenhouse and garden shop the following spring. He’d been eager to finally sit down with Bay Laurel and get their ideas on paper. Instead, he was running errands for his stepmother, Rosemary.

Rosemary had married his widower father two years ago, and Joshua couldn’t have been happier. Joshua adored Rosemary and he’d do anything for her. Which was why he was at the bus station on a cold, blustery November day looking for a cousin who was supposed to be here. He didn’t even know what Phoebe looked like. He’d never met her. But how hard could it be to find an Amish woman in a 7-Eleven?

“Need something?” asked an enormous man from behind the checkout counter. He had a beard as long and bushy as any Amish elder’s.

Joshua glanced at the Englisher. “Looking for a girl.”

The man laughed from deep in his belly. “Aren’t we all.”

Joshua didn’t laugh. He didn’t even smile. He wasn’t offended; he just didn’t get Englisher humor sometimes. “An Amish girl. She should have gotten off the bus.” He pointed in the direction of the parking lot.

“Haven’t seen her.”

Joshua hooked his thumbs into his denim pants pockets and sighed with exasperation. He wasn’t sure what to do. He had no idea how to find out if Rosemary’s cousin had actually been on the bus or not. For all he knew, she could have changed her mind and never boarded in Pennsylvania. Apparently, her parents were sending Phoebe to Kent County because she’d been involved in some sort of scandal. Word was she’d have a better chance of finding a husband outside her hometown. Of course, among the Old Order Amish, asking for someone’s secret apple streusel recipe could be considered a scandal, so the idea that the poor girl was coming to them in disgrace didn’t hold much water with him.

Joshua stared at a display of potato chips in front of him, wondering if he should give his stepmother a call. They didn’t have a phone in their house. The Amish didn’t have telephones. It was one of the ways they held themselves apart from others. But his family did have a phone in his father’s harness shop. Most bishops allowed their congregants to have phones for their businesses as long as it wasn’t inside the home. Sadly, more and more Amish needed cell phones for work purposes because more Amish men were forced to work in the Englisher world for financial reasons. But those phones were never left on or carried in pants pockets. They were stowed in pantry drawers and more creative places. One of his neighbors stored his in his chicken house.

Joshua saw no point in calling the harness shop and relaying a message to Rosemary in the house because if the cousin had decided not to come, how would Rosemary know? From what his stepmother had said, Phoebe came from an extremely conservative Amish community in Pennsylvania. She certainly didn’t have a telephone.

Joshua glanced at the man at the cash register again.

He was wearing a camouflage T-shirt and pants, and a bright orange knit cap advertising some kind of sports drink. Despite the clothes, he didn’t look like much of a hunter.

“You sure you haven’t seen an Amish girl?” Joshua asked. “She would have come inside. It’s too cold to wait out there. Probably wearing a black bonnet and long black cloak,” he said, trying to jog the man’s memory.

The guy placed his meaty hands on the counter and leaned forward. “Look, buddy, I haven’t seen any gal in prairie wear today. I know what your people look like. They come in once in a while.”

Debating what to do, Joshua watched the customer who’d been looking over the candy approach the register. He’d gone with the chocolate peanut butter cups. Joshua liked those, too.

A door opened in the back of the store and a woman’s voice caught his attention.

“Atch, you’re so welcome.” She had a Pennsylvania Deutsch lilt to her words. The language, which was equivalent to High German, was what his people spoke.

Joshua turned to see an Amish woman in a black bonnet and black floor-length wool cloak holding a baby bundled in a blanket. There was an Englisher woman with her who was wearing, over her head, a brightly colored scarf that covered her hair.

“I hope your father is here soon,” the Amish woman said to the other woman. Then she raised the little one in her arms and peered into his face. The baby looked to be about five or six months old. “Nice to meet you, Amir. Be a good boy for your mama.” She passed the baby to the Englisher.

“Phoebe?” Joshua called across the store. “Phoebe Miller?”

“Ya?” The Amish woman turned to him, seeming as surprised by Joshua as he was of her.

He’d had a picture in his mind of what Rosemary’s cousin would look like: a meek mouse of a girl, small, plump and plain, with dishwater-brown hair and maybe wire-frame spectacles. He supposed what Rosemary had said about her being sent away by her parents had brought him to those conclusions. But this Phoebe was neither plump nor plain. And she was no mouse of a girl. She was tall, almost as tall as he was, and pretty, with corn silk blond hair and startling blue eyes.

“Where were you?” he asked, walking toward her. His tone came out as curt, more because he was taken off guard by her appearance than because he was annoyed that he hadn’t been able to find her. “I’ve been looking for you.”

Phoebe turned to the young woman with the child and said something he couldn’t hear. The Englisher woman walked away, taking a different aisle toward the front of the store.

“Do you have a suitcase?” Joshua asked Phoebe. Now that he had found her, he was eager to get home. They had to stop at Byler’s on the way out of town to pick up some groceries for his stepmother. If he hurried, he might still have time to talk with Bay before it was time to feed up for the evening.

Phoebe picked up a large canvas duffel bag off the floor and walked toward him. “Who are you?”

“Joshua Miller.” He put out his hand to take her bag, but she pulled it out of his reach. “Rosemary Miller’s son.”

She narrowed her eyes, blue eyes with thick, dark lashes. “Her son is a little boy. Jesse,” she said suspiciously. “And then she has the babes,” she added.

He rolled his eyes, adjusting his wide-brimmed black hat to get a better look at her. That she was awfully pretty being his first conclusion. And spirited was his second. Again, not what he was expecting. It wasn’t his experience that Amish women her age questioned Amish men they didn’t know. “I’m Rosemary’s stepson. She married my father, Benjamin, two years ago. She would have come herself, but she just had surgery on her foot and she’s supposed to stay off it. My little brothers born to Rosemary are Josiah and James. Believe me now?”

“Maybe,” she retorted.

There was something about her tone of voice that nearly made him chuckle. “Anything else you’d like to quiz me on?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

“You’re Benjamin’s son, you say?”

“You know him?” He slid on his sunglasses, wishing he’d put on his good coat instead of the one he usually wore to the barn. This one had a tear on the sleeve. He hoped it didn’t smell like cow dung. He’d milked this morning with his twin brother, Jacob. There was something about the way she looked at him that made him want to impress her. Or at least not give a bad first impression.

“I don’t know Benjamin, but my mother knew who he was when Rosemary wrote to us to tell us she was remarrying.” Phoebe stood there in the convenience store aisle still gripping her bag, now with both hands.

“Are we related?” he asked. “You know, having the same name.” The moment the words came out of his mouth, he regretted them. Of course, she knew what he meant. He’d just introduced himself as Joshua Miller, and she knew who his father was. Of course, she knew they shared the same surname.

“Ne, we’re not related, just the same last name. Lots of Amish Millers.”

He nodded, strangely relieved that they weren’t related by blood. “We’ve got Millers in Hickory Grove we’re not related to. People are always getting my father confused with Al Miller,” he explained. He watched the woman with the baby walk down the aisle next to them. “You know her?” he asked quietly, nodding in the Englisher woman’s direction.

Phoebe glanced in the stranger’s direction, smiled and then looked back at him. “Met her on the bus. Her name is Daneen. She’s from New Jersey, come to Delaware to see her parents. I was just holding the baby for her while she washed her hands.”

It occurred to Joshua that some Amish girls might be uncomfortable helping out, or even speaking to someone who looked so different from them. Most Amish women had very little contact with Englishers...of any sort. He was impressed. And intrigued. And feeling a little out of sorts now because she seemed very worldly to him. Not in a bad way, just more experienced in life. And he was pretty certain she was older than he was.

He cleared his throat. “So, um...you think it’s safe to ride to Hickory Grove with me?” he asked. “Now that you know Rosemary must really have sent me.” He put his hand out for her bag again.

“I suppose so. But I can carry it myself.” She walked past him, headed for the door.

“See you found your girl,” the guy in the camo called to Joshua as he followed Phoebe past the checkout register.

Joshua put his head down and didn’t answer, but the thought went through his head... Maybe I have.

Phoebe stood behind the grocery cart watching Joshua place multiple boxes of cereal in the basket.

“I know this looks like a lot, but my brothers and I, we can eat.” He flashed her a grin as he put two more boxes into the cart. He was up to eight: three boxes of bran flakes with raisins, three boxes of wheat biscuits and two boxes of something with marshmallows. He’d said that his little stepbrother, Jesse, loved marshmallows. “My dat has five boys and one daughter. My sister’s married. She and her husband decided to stay in New York when we moved here two years ago. My twin, Jacob, and I are the youngest. All five of us boys live at home. Then there’s Rosemary’s children. Even with my stepsister Lovey married and living down the road, there are the four girls, then Jesse and the babies.” He tugged at the cart and she gave a push. “That means twelve of us at every meal, plus the two littles, and that’s if Lovey and her husband, Marshall, don’t come by, which they do all the time.” He chuckled. “We had to build a second kitchen table so we could all sit down to eat at the same time.”

Phoebe smiled to herself as he went on. Even though she knew she’d done the right thing in leaving Pennsylvania, she’d still been nervous about coming to Rosemary’s and meeting her extended family. She hadn’t seen her cousin in years, and then to come under these circumstances, it was more than a little overwhelming. And then when it wasn’t Rosemary who came to pick her up, but her son. Her stepson. That had really set Phoebe off-kilter. At the bus stop, Joshua had seemed annoyed with her, at least at first, because he couldn’t find her. But it had been the right thing to do, to hold Amir for Daneen while she used the ladies’ room. Phoebe knew what it was like to try to do day-to-day tasks with a baby in your arms all the time and no one to help you. And she’d only been in the ladies’ room for a few minutes.

Phoebe glanced at Joshua again. She had liked him at once. Despite his irritation with her back at the bus stop, he seemed to be good-natured.

He pulled the grocery cart forward and began to put bags of rolled oats into it. She’d never seen an Amish man grocery shop by himself before. Her stepfather had never stepped foot in a grocery store, let alone shopped on his own.

“...a lot of confusion the first few weeks after we arrived from New York, the twelve of us,” Joshua was saying. “Lovage didn’t come with us, straight off. She stayed to see her mother’s farm sold.” He’d been talking since they left the bus station. Which was fine with Phoebe because then she didn’t have to talk. Not talking meant not having to answer questions.

“But then we found our footing.” Joshua added some granola bars to the cart. “Hickory Grove is a nice place. I think you’ll like it. We do.”

She smiled at him as he went on. He was nice-looking, Rosemary’s stepson. Joshua was around Phoebe’s own age, maybe a little younger. He had reddish-brown hair that curled at the back of his neck beneath his black knit hat and a handsome face, with dark eyes and a strong brow. His face was clean-shaven, which meant he was unmarried. Which of course made sense since he still lived at home. She had known the man Rosemary had wed had children from his previous marriage, but she hadn’t known he had adult sons.

“Ne? Never been?” Joshua asked.

Phoebe looked up, realizing he had asked her a question. She shook her head. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”

He gripped the end of the cart so they were looking at each other, her on one side, him on the other. He had nice hands: strong, with squared-off nails that were clean. “It’s all right,” he told her. “I talk too much.”

“It’s not that at all,” she said.

“Ne, I talk too much. Everyone in my family says so. I talk when I’m nervous and when I’m not. I talk when I’m happy and when I’m sad. When I was little my mother used to say that she put me to bed talking and I picked right up on the sentence come dawn the next day.”

Phoebe struggled to hide a smile. His cheerfulness lightened her heart. He made her hopeful that this move had been the right thing for her to do. “I’m enjoying hearing about your family,” she said. “It sounds like you all get along so well. Your father’s children and Rosemary’s. It can’t be easy making two families into one. It’s not as if you’re little ones.”

“It’s not always easy. Mornings when we have to get out of the house for church can be tense.” He shrugged. “But we’re working on it. Once a week we sit down together and eat a bunch of desserts and talk about whatever’s bugging us.” He shrugged. “Whether it’s my brother Jacob not taking his turn cleaning horse stalls or our stepsister Ginger hogging the upstairs bathroom.”

He turned down the baking aisle, still pulling the cart along. Phoebe followed.

“But my father and Rosemary are so happy together,” he told her over his broad shoulder. “They love each other. So we’re all determined to make it work. All of us,” he said with conviction.

Phoebe smiled at him again, this time making no attempt to hide it.

He knitted his brows. “What?”

She felt her cheeks grow warm. She was tempted not to tell him why she was smiling, but it wasn’t really in her nature not to answer an honest question with an honest answer. “You said your father and Rosemary love each other. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a man say such a thing.”

“Say what thing?”

“Speak of love,” she responded quietly. “It’s not very Amish, is it?”

He thought for a moment. “My father’s a man who doesn’t hide how he feels and he doesn’t mind telling you, good or bad. I guess I take after him.”

Phoebe looked up to see an Amish girl of about twenty with a woman who was likely her mother approaching them. They were each pushing a grocery cart overflowing with boxes of cereal, flour and sugar, and bags and bags of cookies, snack cakes and potato chips.

The younger of the two women caught sight of Joshua, giggled and looked away.

“Joshua?” The older woman acknowledged him and stopped her cart, blocking other customers, Amish, English and Mennonite, from continuing down the aisle. She was a small, round woman with rectangular wire-frame glasses who fluttered her hands, reminding Phoebe a little bit of a bumblebee. “How’s Rosemary doing with the foot? Staying off it, I hope?” She was speaking to Joshua, but she was staring Phoebe down.

“Doing well, Eunice. Had an appointment yesterday with the doctor.” He reached for a ten-pound bag of whole wheat flour. He didn’t seem to notice that Eunice was gawking at Phoebe. “Doctor says surgery went well. Healing fine. Back on her feet in no time, as good as ever.”

Phoebe watched him add another bag of whole wheat flour to the cart. She didn’t recall flour being on the grocery list he’d shared with her on the way from the bus station to the store.

“Who does she see? Dr. Gallagher, is it, or Dr. Parker?”

Joshua shook his head. “I wouldn’t know.” He added yet another ten-pound bag of flour to the cart.

“It’s no wonder she needed that surgery.” Eunice glanced at Joshua and then returned her attention to Phoebe.

The young woman was staring at a box of cereal but stealing glances at Joshua. She obviously found him attractive.

Phoebe was beginning to feel uncomfortable now. It wasn’t that she wasn’t used to people staring at her. She was even used to whispers behind her back. But she hadn’t expected this here. Or at least she had hoped it wouldn’t happen. And at once she wondered how much Eunice knew about her and her circumstances, as her mother liked to put it.

“Chasing after two toddlers at her age.” Eunice made a clicking sound of disapproval between her teeth. “How old will she be come next year?”

Joshua smiled sweetly at Eunice. “I don’t know. You’d have to ask Rosemary.” He leaned around Eunice. “Good to see you, Martha. Visiting your aunt again, are you?”

Martha giggled and pushed her glasses up farther on her nose. “Ya.”

“What are you doing here at Byler’s?” Eunice asked. “None of your stepsisters could make it today?”

“They could.” Joshua added a huge bag of chocolate chips to the cart.

Also not on the list, Phoebe noted.

“But I like grocery shopping,” Joshua said.

Eunice drew back with a harrumph.

Joshua leaned around Eunice again to speak to Martha. “Rosemary’s cousin is visiting, too,” he told the younger woman. “This is Phoebe.”

Martha gave a quick nod, giggled and gave her glasses another push at the bridge of her nose.

Phoebe glanced behind Martha. There was a long line of customers behind her in the aisle now, waiting to get by or move forward.

“Visiting, are you?” Eunice said to Phoebe, her face lighting up with interest. “From where? Rosemary didn’t say she had a cousin visiting. I was just there two days ago at her sickbed. She never mentioned a word.”

“We need to go, Eunice,” Joshua said, intervening in the conversation. “Have to get these things home and we’re holding other folks up.” He nodded in the direction of the customers lined up behind Eunice and Martha and their grocery carts. Then, for good measure, he reached out and gave Eunice’s cart a little push.

Phoebe didn’t know why, but that struck her as funny, and she had to look away so Eunice wouldn’t catch her smiling.

“I suppose you’re right,” Eunice huffed with obvious disappointment. She grabbed the handle of the cart with both hands and gave it a shove. “Tell Rosemary I said hello and for her to stay off that foot. Tell her I’ll be by at the end of the week.”

“Will do,” Joshua said as Eunice passed them, discernibly reluctant to move on. When Martha passed, he nodded to her.

The minute they were gone, Joshua leaned on the end of his cart, drawing closer to Phoebe. “Sorry about that,” he murmured, meeting her gaze.

She placed her hands on the handle and leaned forward, her words meant only for him. “Town gossip?”

“Editor of the Amish telegraph.” Joshua’s eyes twinkled.

He had nice eyes, brown with thick lashes. Expressive eyes.

“No news she doesn’t know and readily share,” he told her. “True or otherwise.”

Phoebe couldn’t help herself. She laughed and then felt self-conscious. People were pushing past them with their shopping carts, some looking with interest at her and Joshua leaning across the cart whispering to each other.

“How’d you know?” he asked.

“Ours is Lettice Litwiller. I think they look alike,” she teased. “She and Eunice.”

He laughed and slapped his hand on the edge of the cart. Then he grabbed a bag of flour from the cart and lifted it out with ease.

“What are you doing?” Phoebe asked, watching him return the bag to the shelf.

“Putting it back. We don’t need flour.” He reached for another bag.

Phoebe picked up the third and pushed it onto the shelf. “Why did you put it in the cart, then?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know.” He returned the bag of chocolate chips, too. “Just because I know it annoys Eunice to no end that Rosemary has no problem getting us boys to sweep a porch or pick up some milk on the way home from town and she can’t get her own sons to pick up their dirty clothes from the floor.” He grabbed the cart and started forward, then halted again. He curled his finger to draw her closer again.

Phoebe knew their behavior bordered on inappropriate. Amish men and women were not generally so friendly with each other and certainly not in public. They didn’t laugh and whisper to each other. And a woman like her, a woman who’d nearly been shunned, definitely had no business carrying on with a man this way.

“That,” Joshua said, his tone conspiratorial, “and I want to see how long it takes to get around the neighborhood that Rosemary had one of her stepsons buy thirty pounds of whole wheat flour and a huge bag of chocolate chips.” He laughed. “Bet she’ll have Rosemary baking cookies for the whole county.” He raised his eyebrows. “Something new for the Amish telegraph.”

Phoebe met Joshua’s gaze over the grocery cart and smiled, not just because she liked his silliness, but because she was pretty certain she’d made her first friend in a very long time.

Chapter Two

Her cousin Rosemary’s home looked just like Phoebe thought it would. It was a rambling white clapboard farmhouse, two stories with multiple additions, rooflines running in several directions and two red chimneys to anchor the proportions. The land was flat, no hills and valleys like home, but beautiful in its own way even in the dry bareness of autumn. There were barns, sheds and small outbuildings galore, painted red, all dwarfed by the enormous old dairy barn that Joshua explained housed Benjamin’s harness shop. There, the family not only made and repaired leather goods like bridles and harnesses, but also sold items like axle grease, horse liniments and other items Amish and English customers were in need of.

“We sell eggs, too,” Joshua said as they drove up the crushed oyster shell driveway, past the parking lot, where there were two black buggies tied to a hitching post, an old pickup and a little blue sedan parked. “My sister Bay—” He glanced at Phoebe, the reins in his gloved hands. “I’m just going to tell you now, we dropped the step part ages ago. So, when you hear one of us say brother or sister or daughter or son, we might mean that we’re not actually related by blood, but we’re all family now.”

“Got it.” She nodded and smiled to herself, happy for them, a little sad for herself. In the home where she’d grown up, her stepfather had never let her forget that she was a stepchild, which had somehow translated to mean she was something less than his own children. Phoebe’s father had taken ill when she was just a baby and died. Her mother had remarried a year later and Phoebe had become the stepdaughter of Edom Wickey, an authoritarian, dogmatic man who easily saw all of the ills of the world but never the good.

“So, anyway,” Joshua went on, pulling Phoebe back into the conversation. “My sister Bay Laurel, we call her Bay, sells eggs and sometimes frying chickens out of the shop. I think they’re adding jams and such. Oh, and she sells our sister Nettie’s quilts, too. Only Nettie doesn’t just do quilts. She makes these hanging things.” He gestured in the air with one gloved hand. “I guess Englishers put them on their walls? Like for—” He seemed to search for the right word in Pennsylvania Deutsch, then switched to English. “Decoration?” He clamped the reins with both hands again. “Don’t get me wrong. They’re beautiful, but I don’t get having something that just hangs there and serves no purpose. They can be beautiful on a bed and more useful, right? She does all kinds of patterns—the old ones like Garden of Eden, Jacob’s ladder, Joseph’s coat. But she’s made some of her own patterns, too. She made this one that looked like a nest but was made of tree limbs that—” He went quiet and lowered his head. “I’m talking too much again.”

“You’re not. Ne, you’re not,” Phoebe insisted, reaching over and touching his arm. The moment she felt his warmth through the thick denim of his homemade coat, she snatched her hand back and gazed out the side window of the buggy.

Amish men and women didn’t whisper and laugh together in grocery stores, and they certainly didn’t touch casually. She could almost hear her stepfather’s angry scolding ringing in her ears.

Suddenly tears welled in her eyes. Hoping Joshua didn’t see them, she blinked them away. She didn’t know why she was suddenly so emotional. She was here in Hickory Grove because she wanted to be. She was here because she knew it was the right thing for her. And for John-John.

“Here we are,” Joshua announced as he reined in the bay and the buggy rolled to a halt. If he noticed she had touched him, or her response, he didn’t show it.

Phoebe glanced up to see two half-grown puppies that were a rich chestnut color bounding down the front porch steps, barking excitedly.

“That would be Silas and Adah. Chesapeake Bay retrievers. My brother Jacob raises and sells them,” Joshua explained.

As the dogs ran around the front of the buggy, Phoebe realized each was missing one rear leg. They appeared to have been born that way. She took in her breath sharply, not because she had never seen an animal with a disability, but because it didn’t seem to hinder their speed or frivolity one bit.

“Ya, only three legs apiece. That’s why Jacob couldn’t sell them. Or wouldn’t.” He wrapped the reins around the brake lever, and the bay danced in its traces. “And he couldn’t stand the idea of seeing them put down, even though our vet said he wouldn’t be unwarranted to do it.” He glanced at her. “My brother named them after these neighbors we had in New York. Silas and Adah Snitzer. They were brother and sister. One was blind, the other deaf. They took care of each other. Led a full, good, Godly life.”

Phoebe knitted her brow. “You don’t think your neighbors would mind having dogs named after them?”

“They passed away a few years ago. Were in their nineties. Died within a day of each other.” He smiled, seeming lost in the memory of them. “But I think they would have liked the idea that Jacob named his dogs after them.” He chuckled and then slammed his thigh. “Well, guess we best go inside and get you settled. That’s my brother Jesse there on the porch. Rosemary’s boy.” He pointed. “Waiting for us, I suspect.”

Phoebe looked over to see a boy of ten or so with neatly trimmed brown hair and a sweet, lopsided smile hurrying across the covered porch toward them.

“I’m warning you now,” Joshua said as he opened the buggy door and climbed down. “He’ll talk your ear off if you let him.” He chuckled. “Not unlike me, I guess.”

Phoebe smiled but didn’t say anything as she opened her door.

“Want to take Toby up to the barn?” Joshua called to his little brother.

Jesse bounded down the porch steps and across the driveway, pulling a black wool watch cap down over his head.

On Phoebe’s side of the buggy, Joshua offered his hand to help her out of the buggy, but instead of taking it, she handed him her canvas bag. “If you could take this? Danke,” she said, feeling as if she needed to avoid making physical contact with him.

“Sure.” Joshua caught the bag as she practically tossed it down. “Jesse, this is your cousin, Phoebe.”

Phoebe climbed down quickly. “Nice to meet you, Jesse.” A gust of wind caught the edge of her cloak and whipped it open. Dry brown and gold and orange leaves blew around her. “Goodness.” She grasped the edges of the heavy wool and pulled her outer garment tightly around her. “I didn’t expect it to be so cold here. I was thinking that because it’s farther south...” She let the sentence go unfinished, feeling now like she was the one who talked too much.

“Cold snap,” Jesse told her. “Nice to have you with us.” His words sounded rehearsed, as if his mother had told him what to say when they met. But his smile was genuine.

Jesse turned to his big brother. “I should take Phoebe inside? I can take her bag, too. We’re having chicken potpie for dinner.” Beaming, he went on faster. “I hope you like chicken potpie. It’s my mam’s recipe. She puts peas in it. Most people don’t, but my mam does. Only Mam didn’t make it ’cause she’s laid up so my sisters made it.”

“See what I mean?” Joshua said to Phoebe. He turned to his little brother. “Ne, I thought I’d take her in. Can you manage Toby? He needs a good rubdown and a scoop of oats.” He handed Phoebe her bag and walked around to the back of the buggy to unload the groceries. “I’ll be up directly to help you with her harness.”

“I got it,” Jesse insisted, grasping the gelding’s bridle. Bags in hand, Joshua closed the back of the buggy and his little brother began to lead the horse away, walking backward so he could still see Joshua and Phoebe. “I’ll be in shortly. I can show you around if you want, Phoebe. Show you where you’ll be sleeping and where the towels are and such.”

“Thank you. I’d like that,” she called to him as he made his way up the driveway.

“I think he likes you,” Joshua said. He led Phoebe up the front steps to the wide porch, the puppies nipping at his heels.

“Some say I have a way with children,” she answered absently, glancing at the door that led into the house.

She was suddenly nervous to see her cousin Rosemary again, to meet the rest of the family. They had to all know why she was there. Know what she had done. Her mother had said that Rosemary Stutzman Miller was as nonjudgmental as a soul could be, but it had been years since the cousins had seen each other. What if Rosemary had changed? That sometimes happened as folks aged. They became more rigid in their beliefs and ways. It had been like that with her stepfather. He hadn’t softened with age. He’d grown more rigid.

Joshua shifted the sacks of groceries in his arms, opened the door and stepped back. “Ne! Get back, you two,” he said, laughing as he caught the pups with his booted foot, blocking their entry into the house. He looked up at Phoebe. “Go on in. If I let these two in again today, Rosemary will have me washing dishes for a week. I already accidentally let them in this morning. They made it through the kitchen, down the hall before Jesse caught them.”

“Really?” Phoebe asked, unable to hide her surprise. “You and your brothers do dishes?” She’d suspected the Miller household was less conservative than her stepfather’s, but the Amish stuck to the old ways, and male and female tasks were laid out very explicitly.

“Ne, not usually.” He laughed again. “We stick mostly to outside chores, but there’s no telling what Rosemary will say if I let these two drag mud through her house again.”

Phoebe nodded, then walked into the mudroom that looked like so many others she’d passed through. It even looked a lot like her mother’s, with rows of denim jackets on hooks, wool cloaks and an assortment of scarves and hats and bonnets on pegboards on the wall. On the floor were piles of boots and shoes in a great array of sizes, some set down neatly, others dropped carelessly. But the moment she stepped into the house, something had immediately felt different about it. Maybe it was her imagination, or maybe it was just the smell of baking apple pie, but Phoebe immediately felt herself relax. Because, somehow, she knew that in this house with its three-legged puppies and chatty little brothers, she would find the acceptance she had never found in her own home.

Talking to the dogs, Joshua closed the door behind Phoebe with his foot. Standing alone in the mudroom, she removed her cloak and black bonnet, found a free hook to hang them on and, travel bag in hand, entered the large but cozy kitchen.

“Goodness, this is hot. Mam, I think we need new pot holders!” a pretty strawberry blonde hollered from the far side of the room, startling Phoebe. Holding an enormous pie in her hands, she tried to close an oven door with her foot.

“I’ll get it.” Phoebe dropped her bag and hurried to help.

“Thank you,” the young woman said, gingerly setting the pie down on a sideboard. She shook her hands, still holding on to the pot holders. “I’ve been telling Mam for weeks that these were worn-out. Someone is going to get burned one of these days.” She grinned. “You must be Phoebe.”

Phoebe nodded.

“I’m Tarragon. Call me Tara.” She dropped the pot holders on the counter and walked to a massive farmhouse sink. “You’re my mother’s cousin.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Which I guess makes us cousins, too.”

Tara smiled again, and Phoebe couldn’t help but smile back. Tara was cute as a button, with green eyes and a small, upturned nose. She was wearing a calf-length pink dress and white apron, with a green scarf covering her hair and tied at the back of her neck. Wispy red tendrils peeked out from the scarf around her ears. On her feet, she wore a pair of denim blue sneakers with athletic socks. She looked like a fluttering little songbird in the bright airy kitchen, and Phoebe suddenly felt like an old crow. She was dressed in a black dress, thick black tights and clunky black shoes. She wondered if it was a mistake to think she could ever belong here, make a home here for herself and John-John.

“Ya,” Phoebe managed. “Cousins.”

“Mam!” Tara hollered, startling Phoebe again. No one ever raised their voice in her house. Words were always spoken softly and soberly.

“Cousin Phoebe’s here! Pie’s done!” Tara continued loudly. “The blue pot holders are going in the ragbag!”

“She’s here?” came a voice from down the hall. “Send her in!”

“Mam just had surgery on her foot. Did Joshua tell you? She’s supposed to be keeping it elevated.” Tara rolled her eyes. “That’s not been easy.” She pointed in the direction of the hall. “She’s in the parlor. She was so excited when your mother wrote to her about you coming to stay with us.”

Phoebe heard the back door open and close, and Joshua’s voice. “Jacob’s going to have to start kenneling those dogs or teach them to mind people better.” He walked into the kitchen carrying the bags of groceries. “See you met Tara,” he said to Phoebe.

“Ya, I was just going into the parlor. To see Rosemary.”

He set the paper bags down on one of the two enormous kitchen tables in the room. “Let me show you the way.”

“It’s just down the hall,” Tara quipped as she crossed the kitchen to dig into the bags. “You get my cereal? And the butter?”

“Ya, ya, it’s all in the bag.” Joshua told his stepsister as he motioned to Phoebe. “Come on. Come say hello to Rosemary.”

Phoebe followed him down the hall, past a staircase leading to the second floor. At a doorway, he halted. “Here we are,” he said to her. “Rosemary, look who I found at the bus station.”

Phoebe walked hesitantly to the doorway.

“There you are!”

It was her cousin Rosemary, seated on a sofa, her foot encased in a black cloth boot, propped on a stool. “What took you so long? I was beginning to worry.” She opened her arms. “I’d come to you, but this one will have a fit.” She pointed to the man seated beside her on the couch. “Benjamin has made me promise I won’t get up again until supper.”

The burly man with dark hair and a reddish beard rose. Dressed in denim trousers and a long-sleeved blue shirt and suspenders, he wore sheepskin slippers on his short, wide feet. “Now, Rosebud, you know you’re not going to heal properly if you don’t stay off that foot.” He nodded to Phoebe as he walked past her. “Velcom to our home. Know our door is open to you and yours always.” He met her gaze, something else Phoebe wasn’t used to among elder Amish men. “I think this will be a good place for you.” He gave her a little smile, his dark brown eyes twinkling. “And will you do me a favor?” he said as he walked past her.

“Ya...” His request surprised her. “Of course.”

“Keep my wife on that couch until supper. Her foot won’t heal if she doesn’t rest. There are plenty of able bodies to keep this household going. To care for our little ones.” He slipped his thumbs beneath his suspenders. “And now she has you to help as well, ya?”

“Ya...yes, of course.” A little flustered, Phoebe returned her attention to Rosemary as Benjamin left the parlor.

Joshua smiled at Phoebe, lifting his hand in a little wave, and went with his father.

“He worries too much,” Rosemary insisted, pointing at her husband as he disappeared down the hall. “Come, Phoebe, give me a hug.” She opened her arms wide.

Cousin Rosemary, who had to be in her late forties, could have passed for far younger with her pretty round face and, beneath her white prayer kapp, chestnut hair that didn’t seem to be graying. Phoebe knew Rosemary had to be nearing menopause because she remembered her mother fussing about Rosemary’s advanced age when they’d learned she and her new husband were expecting a baby. Which turned out to be twins. Phoebe hadn’t said anything at the time when they’d heard the news because it was always easier to get along with her mother if she agreed with her, but she’d remembered saying a silent prayer when she’d heard the news, thanking God for His goodness in blessing Rosemary and Benjamin.

Phoebe hesitantly crossed the cozy parlor furnished with two couches and two easy chairs covered in flax-colored duck. To her surprise, there were pretty denim blue-and-green square pillows scattered everywhere. There were oak ladder-back chairs along the walls ready to be pulled forward to make more seating, as well as several slightly mismatched oak end tables. In one corner sat a small, round kitchen table and chairs with a stack of game boxes on top. A checkerboard was set up as if just waiting for two players. Like most Amish homes, along one wall there were doors that likely opened into the living room behind it, making a good-sized room for church services. The parlor was very Amish in the way that it was obviously set up for utilitarian use, but it was different in the way that it was so pretty and cozy with its throw pillows and the cross-stitches framed on the walls. And hanging partially over the doors that opened into the living room was an enormous quilt depicting a scene from the Garden of Eden with trees and plants and beautifully plumed birds.

“Atch, our Nettie’s quilt,” Rosemary said, seeing Phoebe staring at it. “Beautiful, isn’t it? My daughter has a way with a needle.”

“It’s so beautiful,” Phoebe said softly, leaning down to hug Rosemary. She had intended to give her a quick squeeze, but Rosemary wrapped her arms tightly around Phoebe and she wouldn’t let her go.

“Everything is going to be okay,” Rosemary said quietly in her ear. “Not to worry. God has His plan for you. He has a plan for all of us. We have to be brave enough to be open to it,” she whispered.

Tears sprang to Phoebe’s eyes. She didn’t know if it was her cousin’s kind words, full of hope, or just the feeling of another human being’s touch that overwhelmed her with emotion. There was no hugging in her stepfather’s home. It had been too long since Phoebe had felt someone’s arms around her, and suddenly she felt as if she might break down in tears.

“There, there,” Rosemary murmured, patting Phoebe’s back.

Phoebe sniffed and drew back, pulling a handkerchief from her dress pocket. Embarrassed and not sure what to say, she dabbed at her eyes.

Just then, Tara stuck her head through the doorway. “Apple pie came out nice. I’m going to throw the sweet potato pies in now.” She wiped her hands on her apron. “Dough for the rolls is rising already. Anything else you want me to do, Mam?”

Her back to Tara, Phoebe took a moment to dry her eyes and pull herself together.

“Sounds liked you have everything under control, dochtah.” Rosemary looked up at Phoebe from her perch on the couch. “Wait until you taste Tara’s apple pie. You’ll be wanting to set a piece aside for breakfast tomorrow. You met, Tara, ya?”

“Ya.” Phoebe glanced at Tara and nodded.

“I’m Nettie.” A slightly older girl came to the doorway, giving a shy wave. She was petite and blond, with her sister’s green eyes. In stocking feet, she was wearing a blue dress and a long canvas apron that appeared to be covered with splotches of paint. “The chest of drawers will need just one more coat when I finish this one, and then it will be done, Mam. New knobs and it will be perfect for Phoebe’s room.” She gave a cautious smile. “I’m sorry I didn’t get it done before you arrived. I had two orders for quilts I had to finish before I could start on the chest.”

“Nettie found an old chest of drawers at our local farmers market in Dover,” Rosemary explained. “Spence’s Bazaar is open Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. We’ll take you this week. About anything you want can be bought there—food, produce and all sorts of junk.”

“It wasn’t junk,” Nettie protested, walking over to her mother. She lifted Rosemary’s foot in its black boot to readjust the pillow beneath it. Satisfied with the position of her mother’s foot, she turned to Phoebe. “I only paid seven dollars for the chest of drawers. Wait until you see it. A couple of repairs, a new coat of paint and the handles I found in our barn, and it’s beautiful.”

“Nettie likes strays,” Tara explained. “Stray cats, stray chests of drawers—”

“You were happy enough with that stray baking pan I bought for you for a dollar last week,” Nettie quipped.

Tara wrapped her arms around her waist. “True enough.” She glanced at her mother. “Tea, Mam? For you and Phoebe. I managed to hide a couple of gingerbread cookies from Joshua. He loves gingerbread cookies,” she explained to Phoebe. “I hardly have the tray out of the oven and he’s eaten half a dozen.”

“I’m fine until supper,” Phoebe said.

“Nonsense.” Rosemary shifted her position on the couch. Like her daughters, she was dressed in a calf-length dress, hers blue, and wearing a white prayer bonnet, the ties dangling. “I’m bored. Bring us some of those gingerbread cookies and a pot of mint tea. I gather my own mint and dry it. Makes an excellent tea.” She patted the couch indicating Phoebe should approach. “Sit.” She glanced up at Nettie as Tara headed for the kitchen. “Join us?”

Nettie eyed the wood-cased clock on the wall. It was handmade, as were the end tables. “Tempting, but—Oh, my, look who’s up!” She threw open her arms as another sister Phoebe had not yet met appeared in the doorway. She balanced a sleepy toddler on each hip. “Josiah.” Nettie took one of the little boys who was dressed identically to his father in denim trousers and a blue shirt with tiny leather suspenders. “There’s my Josiah.”

Rosemary put out her arms to take her son from Nettie. “Did you have a nice nap?”

“James was still trying to sleep, weren’t you?” the unidentified sister said to the little boy she was still holding. “But big brother Josiah wouldn’t let you.”

Phoebe saw at once that the little boys who were just over a year old were identical twins.

“You must be Phoebe,” the sister said with a smile.

All of Rosemary’s daughters were pretty, but this one may have been the prettiest of them all. She was a yellow blonde with the same Stutzman green eyes, but she had a perfect heart-shaped face, thick lashes and rosy cheeks.

“I’m Ginger. And this, in case you didn’t know,” she said, looking at the little boy in her arms, “is James. Right?” She tickled the little boy, who giggled. “Are you James?”

The sound of the child’s laughter struck Phoebe as sharply as if someone had plunged a shard of glass into her chest. “Would he come to me?” she asked, her voice catching in her throat. Suddenly she missed her little boy, her sweet son, so much that she physically felt their separation. She opened her arms to James. Her John-John was only two years older than the twins.

“Want to go to Phoebe?” Ginger asked her little brother. She passed him to Phoebe and the little boy gave no protest.

“There we go,” Phoebe murmured, pulling the little boy against her in a hug. He looked up at her with big brown eyes, his father’s eyes. “What a good boy,” she said softly, shifting him onto her hip.

“Joshua around?” Ginger asked her mother.

“Somewhere,” Rosemary responded, offering a little horse to Josiah from a basket of wooden toys beside the couch.

“Need me to watch the boys?” Ginger asked her mother.

“I should finish that coat of paint on the chest of drawers before supper.” Nettie tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “But I can stay and watch the boys.”

“You can both go about your business,” Rosemary insisted. “Phoebe and I can certainly handle two little boys. Can’t we?” she asked her son, and he climbed down from her lap, the unpainted toy still clutched in his tiny hand.

“Mam, the doctor was serious about staying off your foot for a couple more days,” Nettie warned. “Benjamin said—”

“Benjamin worries more than a grossmama.” Rosemary plucked another wood toy from behind the cushion on the couch. This one appeared to be a goat. “Phoebe’s here. She can give me a hand.”

“Ya,” Phoebe agreed, fighting tears. She missed her young son immensely, but somehow holding little James gave her comfort.

Spotting the toy in his mother’s hand, James wiggled in Phoebe’s arms and she reluctantly lowered him to his feet. “They walking yet?” she asked as she set him gently on his feet.

“Ya, since they were ten months,” Rosemary answered proudly. She waved Ginger and Nettie away. “Shoo. We’ll call you if we need you.”

Alone with Rosemary and the toddlers, Phoebe lowered herself to the polished, wide-plank wooden floor. “Would you like that goat, James? What a fine goat,” she cooed as he took it from his mother’s hand.

For a moment the two women were silent as they watched the boys play. The little ones jabbered to each other, but Phoebe could tell how close they were to speaking their first words. Her John-John had babbled the same way, practicing sounds before finding the words.

“You’re missing him?” Rosemary asked softly. “Your son?”

Her tone was so kind that again Phoebe had to struggle to contain her emotion. “Very much.”

“How old is he? It’s John, isn’t it?”

“Ya, John. But I call him John-John most of the time.” James dropped his toy goat, and Phoebe scooped it up and offered it to him, pretending to make it nibble on his chubby hand before she passed the toy to him. “He’s three now,” she said. It felt good to talk about him. About her cherished little boy that her family spent most of their time trying to ignore. Trying to pretend he didn’t exist.

“A happy child?” Rosemary pressed. “Easygoing?”

“Ya, and smart.” She looked up at her cousin, her eyes glistened. “And sweet. He’s already trying to be helpful. Just yesterday I was folding dishcloths and he wanted to help.” She chuckled at the memory. “He made a mess of it of course, but I let him try.”

“It’s the only way they learn,” Rosemary said, chuckling with her.

The women were both silent again for a moment, watching the boys play. Rosemary produced several more hand-carved wooden toys. They were unadorned with paint, but still beautiful and easily recognizable even to a child. There were two chickens, a cow and an animal that took Phoebe a moment to identify.

“Is that...is that a llama?” Phoebe asked, watching Josiah try to push the wooden animal beneath the pillow his mother rested her foot on.

“It’s an alpaca, a cousin of the llama.” Rosemary laughed. “Our vet, Albert Hartman, raises them. Lives over Seven Poplars way. Used to be Mennonite but now he’s Amish. Married to my friend Hannah. Anyway, Benjamin took the twins to see them a few weeks ago and our boys were fascinated. I’m just waiting for a trailer to pull up in the barnyard and for Benjamin to unload a herd of alpacas.”

Phoebe grinned at the idea.

“Apparently, they can be quite profitable,” Rosemary went on. “Or so Benjamin was telling me. I think he was trying to butter me up.”

This time, when the women fell into silence again, it was a comfortable one. All of Phoebe’s apprehensions about coming to Hickory Grove, her fears that her cousin and family would judge her for her past, were suddenly gone. For the first time in a very long time, she felt at peace. She felt God’s nearness and the belief that she was doing what He wanted her to do.

“I want you to know, Phoebe,” Rosemary said slowly, “that Benjamin and I think it was very brave of you to come here.” She met Phoebe’s gaze. “It was the right thing to do for your son.”

Phoebe gazed into her cousin’s green eyes. “It was kind of you to welcome me.” She hesitated. “Considering—”

“Considering what?” Rosemary asked, sounding annoyed with her. “You stumbled. Who of us hasn’t?”

Phoebe looked down at her hands folded in her lap. “It was more than a stumble. What I did was a sin.”

“Did you love the boy’s father?”

Phoebe was surprised by her cousin’s forthrightness, but she probably shouldn’t have been. Rosemary’s family, the environment she raised her family in, was so different than that of her own. “Ya,” Phoebe murmured, tears welling in her eyes, against her will. “I loved him, and he loved me. We had made plans to marry, John and I. He—” Her voice caught in her throat. She took a breath and went on. “He had put a deposit down on a farm. We were going to live near a creek,” she managed, remembering how happy she had been the day he had taken her in his wagon to see the property. “And then he...he died. A cave-in in his father’s silo.” She lifted her hands and let them fall into her lap. “And then I had John-John and that was that.”

“I understand what our preachers speak of, but don’t know that I believe that it’s ever a sin to love,” Rosemary said thoughtfully.

“Ne,” Phoebe argued, taking a toy sheep from the basket and offering it to James. “I sinned. We sinned.”

“And then you confessed before your bishop and your church,” Rosemary countered. “And no more need be said.”

Phoebe looked up and saw that Rosemary’s eyes were misty. And Phoebe knew in her heart of hearts that everything really was going to be all right.

Chapter Three

Joshua looked up from where he was stacking wood in the wood box as his sister walked into the living room. He was on his knees beside the massive redbrick fireplace. With the cold snap, they’d been burning more wood than they would typically, and he wanted to be sure there was plenty for the evening. With their new guest in the house, he imagined that after supper, when the harness shop was closed and the animals settled for the night, the whole family would retire to the living room. Here, Rosemary and her daughters might knit or do some mending while Joshua, his father and brothers looked over seed catalogs or farm magazines. Tara would probably make popcorn, and they’d sit around together and talk. Someone might tell the family about an exciting or funny or sweet story about a customer at the harness shop. Someone else might relate the antics of one of the animals in the barnyard or news from their community. Occasionally their father would read a story from the Bible or relate a tale from his childhood in the wilds of Canada. It didn’t matter what they did or what they talked about—all that mattered was spending an hour or two together as a family. And Joshua wanted Phoebe to be able to experience the comfort of a crackling fire and the sense of wholeness he felt when he sat with his family here in the living room in the evening. Because something told him, something he saw in the depths of her blue eyes, that she didn’t have enough of that comfort in her life.

“I’ve been looking for you.” Bay Laurel stood in the doorway, her hands on her hips.

From out in the kitchen, he could hear the hubbub typical of that time of day. The women were bustling around the kitchen getting supper on the table, and the men were finishing up with chores, coming and going and settling the animals for the night. The house smelled of fresh bread baking and...contentment.

“I see you fetched Mam’s cousin.” She tilted her head in the direction of the kitchen. When he’d entered the house a few minutes ago, his arms full of firewood, Phoebe was helping prepare supper with his sisters. She had been busy opening canning jars of spiced pears and apples. Rosemary’s table was never anything fancy, but the food was always hearty and some of the best he’d ever eaten.

“Ya, I picked Phoebe up at the bus station.” Joshua stacked two more logs in the wood box to the right of the fireplace. He’d chosen apple wood to burn this evening. It had come from one of the trees he and Jacob had cut down from the old orchard in the far northern corner of the property. He loved the smell of apple wood burning. He thought Phoebe might, too.

“Met her, did you? She’s nice,” he went on, not waiting for Bay to respond. “Smart, but not too serious. Not full of herself. And kind. She was helping an Englisher lady at the bus station when I got there. Not all girls would do that. Help a stranger. Did you get a chance to talk to Phoebe? Did you like her?”

“Ya.” Bay drew out the word. “I liked her well enough. Joshua, I was hoping we could get together today. Maybe after supper, once everything is cleaned up?”

He moved the last of the logs from the pile on a piece of tarp on the floor to the wood box, and then scooted over in front of the fireplace. He thought he’d go ahead and start the fire, so it would be burning well by the time the family gathered together in the living room.

“We’ll have to see about that,” he hemmed. It wasn’t that he wasn’t eager to sit down with Bay. He just wasn’t sure that tonight was the night for him and Bay to go off on their own. Not with this being Phoebe’s first night there. It wouldn’t be right for Bay and him not to be with the family. “Might have to be tomorrow. I told Levi that after morning chores, I’d give him a hand clearing out that section of the barn he and Dat are making into a work space for their buggies. But after that...” He gave a nod, indicating there would be time then.

His father had been in the business of making harnesses and other leather goods since he was a young man. That experience had expanded into running a large retail shop here in Delaware. But Benjamin Miller had always had a place in his heart for buggy making. His grandfather had been a buggy maker. Now that he had boys old enough—and trustworthy enough, he teased them—he was interested in trying his hand at building buggies. He planned to build one for his family first, then maybe one for Rosemary’s married daughter, Lovage, whose family was growing. Joshua’s brother Levi was keen on the idea. Though Levi was a hard worker and good with leather, his heart wasn’t in the harness business, so he was eager to get the work space created so he and their father could start their first project.

Bay folded her arms over her chest. “Josh, we need to get all of our hens in a row before we go to your father with our plan. We need to go over the numbers. How much we plan to spend on seeds, how many plants that will yield. What we think we can sell them for—” she ticked off. “Everyone is in the potted plants business. I think we need to consider adding some indoor varieties—indoor plants folks can take in after the growing season. I know there’s a risk...”

Joshua nodded, trying to give his sister his full attention and not let his mind wander. But it was hard. He just couldn’t stop thinking about Phoebe. And not just about how pretty she was, but how much he liked her. How he’d liked her from the moment he first met her, the moment she’d spoken. Something was calming about her voice, something about her manner that just made him feel... He didn’t know how to describe it. She just seemed like no one else he knew. None of the young women he knew, at least. Most girls her age were so flighty and hard to have a real conversation with.

Not that he had a lot of experience with women, not his stepsisters, his age. Sure, he occasionally drove a girl home from a singing, the Amish version of a date. In July he’d taken his friend Caleb Gruber’s sister-in-law home from a taffy pull and then a picnic, but it hadn’t been anything serious. She’d gone back to Kentucky, and he heard she was courting a blacksmith’s son. But none of the girls he’d taken home were as mature as Phoebe. Not that she seemed old to him, though he suspected she was older than him by a year or two. She just seemed wiser than the young women he knew. More levelheaded.

“Do you know how old she is?” Joshua asked suddenly. “Phoebe, I mean.” It wasn’t until he spoke her name that he realized Bay must have still been talking.

The look on Bay’s face left no doubt in his mind. She narrowed her gaze. “If you’re not serious about wanting to build this greenhouse and garden shop with me, Josh, you need to tell me now. You need to—”

“No, no,” he interrupted, getting to his feet. “Of course I’m serious about it. And I want to add the lean-to onto the barn so we can sell our plants, I just...” He grabbed a bundle of kindling and went back to the fireplace.

“You just what?” Bay asked, taking on a stern tone of voice. She sounded like his older sister Lovey now. Lovey’s voice always changed when she became annoyed with someone. “What’s got you so preoccupied?” She lowered her voice. “What’s the reason for all this talk about Cousin Phoebe?”

He knelt on the redbrick hearth and began to stack the larger pieces of kindling on top of the smaller pieces, taking care to leave plenty of open space between them to allow the fire to breathe. “No...no reason,” he said, suddenly feeling self-conscious. He’d never felt this way about a girl the way he thought about Phoebe. Fluttery in his chest. He knew he was attracted to her. He’d been attracted to girls before, but this was different. This wasn’t just about a pretty face.

“You know she came here because she had to,” Bay intoned.

He concentrated on stacking the wood just right so the fire would catch on the first try. “I don’t care about that sort of thing. Men don’t care about gossip the way women do.”

“Joshua, it’s not—” She didn’t finish her thought.

Bay was quiet for a moment, quiet long enough that he glanced over his shoulder at her. She was still standing in the doorway. Her arms were crossed over her chest again. She didn’t seem pleased with him, but he wasn’t exactly sure why. Did she really think he wasn’t serious about wanting to build the greenhouse? Sometimes it was hard to know what women were thinking.

Who was he kidding? He almost never knew.

“Fine,” she said. “We’ll go over the figures tomorrow. Supper’s about ready. You’d best wash up. You know how Mam is about coming late to the table.”

“Just about done here,” he answered, crumpling a piece of newspaper to push beneath the neatly stacked kindling.

He heard her turn to go, then stop in the doorway.

“Joshua,” she said softly. “It would be best if you didn’t—” She went quiet midsentence again.

“Best I not what?” he asked, looking over his shoulder at her.

She shook her head. “Never mind,” she said. “Wash up.”

“Ya,” he answered, getting to his feet. He needed to clean up any mess he’d made, and then if he was quick he’d have time to get upstairs and not just wash his hands, but brush his hair, too. And maybe even put on a clean shirt. Not that his shirt was all that dirty, but there was nothing wrong with a man wanting to look his best at his parents’ supper table, was there?

“You were looking for me?” Joshua walked into the parlor where Rosemary was sitting on the couch, her foot in the black orthopedic boot, propped on a stool. He had a mug of coffee in his hand, the last from the pot that Tara had insisted he take when he’d cut through the kitchen in search of his stepmother. It was Jesse who had said his mam wanted to speak with him.

Rosemary looked up from the sock on her lap that she was darning. “Joshua.” She smiled at him and then snipped a thread that ran between the gray sock and her needle with a pair of scissors. “Come in. Fence ret up?”

After breakfast, his father had sent him to the corner of the north pasture to repair a sagging fence. It was his father’s belief that fences were best mended before the cows got out. It had been cold and windy outside, and Joshua’s hands had gotten stiff even though he’d worn work gloves. But he hadn’t minded tackling the task alone because it had given him some time to think. With such a large family, time alone wasn’t easily found, and he’d welcomed it. He’d spent a bit of time in prayer as he worked, then had run numbers in his head for the plans for the greenhouse. Eventually, his thoughts had drifted to Phoebe. He just couldn’t help himself. This morning she’d come down to breakfast not in the black everyday dress she’d been wearing when he’d picked her up at the bus station, but in a blue dress that looked just like one of his sisters’ dresses. In fact, he was fairly certain one of them had loaned or given it to her. In the blue dress, Phoebe’s eyes had seemed even bluer, her cheeks rosier. And she’d been smiling. Hockmut, or pride in English, wasn’t a good thing among the Amish. He hadn’t thought she was being prideful, only that the pretty, calf-length dress with her white apron made her feel happy. And happiness was never discouraged among their people.

“Fence is standing tall again,” he told Rosemary, reining in his thoughts. “It was bent coming into our pasture, not going out. Deer maybe? Population’s heavy this year and winter has come earlier.”

“Ya, I’ve seen them in the field with the horses at sunset.” She rolled the mended sock into its mate. “Looking for feed, I suppose.”

Joshua sipped from his mug. The coffee had cooled down but was still good. Black and nice and strong the way he liked it. “Ya, corn probably,” he agreed, feeling awkward. Except for church services, the parlor was more the women’s domain than the men’s. Especially since Rosemary had had her surgery. “Thought you were allowed to start walking.” He pointed to her foot.

“Just resting a bit before dinner. Your father thinks I’ve been on it too much. A little swelling, nothing more.” She gave a wave. “He worries too much.” She added the socks to a growing pile on the end table beside her and he watched her fish another pair from a basket at her feet. “I wanted to ask you a favor, Joshua.”

He stood a little straighter, slipping one hand into his pocket. He could smell the aroma of roasting turkey wafting from the kitchen. They were having turkey and mashed potatoes and gravy for dinner. With buttermilk biscuits. He couldn’t wait. “Sure. What do you need?”

“Edna and John Fisher are having a harvest supper for the young, single folks Friday night. Singing after, I hear. Are you going?”

Joshua raised his coffee mug to his mouth, thinking on the matter. “Ya, maybe. I have to see if—”

“Goot,” she interrupted. “Because I want you to ask Phoebe to go with you.”

Joshua had just taken a drink of coffee and the liquid caught in his throat. He coughed, then choked. “I’m sorry—” He covered his mouth with his hand and tried to catch his breath. More coughing followed, and he hoped coffee wouldn’t come out of his nose. That would be embarrassing.

“You all right?” Rosemary asked, looking up, concern in her voice.

“Fine,” he managed, still coughing. He reached for his handkerchief in his pocket. Gripping the mug in one hand, he used the other to wipe his mouth and then his nose—just to be certain. “You want me to—” He cleared his throat.

“Ask Phoebe to go with you, ya.” Rosemary was staring at him now.

“Um...”

“I suspect Tara and Nettie are going. And you know Ginger, she wouldn’t miss a singing where there are eligible young men for all the cake in the county.” She began to thread her darning needle again. “Who can say with Bay. She can be shy around boys her age.” She rolled her eyes. “Has no problem telling a customer what’s what, though, does she?”

Joshua sniffed and slipped his handkerchief back into his pocket. He blinked the tears from his eyes. Not knowing what to say in response to Rosemary’s comment about Bay, he didn’t say anything. It was true that Bay wasn’t much interested in courting, not the way Ginger was. But he figured Bay was like him, just not ready for that in his life. At least that’s what he’d thought until Phoebe arrived. And now...not that he thought she’d ever be interested in him. He’d found out that, as he had suspected, she was two years older than he was. But if she had been interested in him, he could see himself walking out with her. Of course, that would never happen. He kept reminding himself of that.

“Jacob will be going. I hear he’s sweet on Lovey’s neighbor. And Levi. He never misses a chance to eat.” She pushed a beanbag she used for darning into the toe of the sock and began to whipstitch the hole. “It would be nice for Phoebe to be included. You can all ride together.”

“Um...” He hesitated, not knowing what to say. He couldn’t ask Phoebe to go with him to the singing. What if she thought he meant it as a date? Usually, boys asked girls to ride home from singings as a way to spend time alone with them, but what if things were different where she came from? He wouldn’t want Phoebe to think he was interested in her.

Or would he?

“Why...you don’t think, um...one of the girls should invite her?” he asked, feeling completely off balance.

Rosemary looked up from her darning, meeting his gaze. “I asked you because she likes you.”

He held his breath. She liked him?

“She’s comfortable with you. Besides,” Rosemary went on, returning her attention to her darning needle, “I want her to go because Eli Kutz will be there. You know, the widower from Rose Valley. He’s chaperoning.” She smiled. “And I’m thinking he might make a fine husband for Phoebe.”

Phoebe pulled a wet towel from the laundry basket in the muddy grass, gave it a shake and hung it over the clothesline. It was the warmest day they’d had since she arrived in Hickory Grove, and she was glad to have a few moments to herself outside. The sun was shining. The air was crisp with the smell of wood smoke from the house and the fainter smell of apples not yet harvested from the orchard. The downside of the sudden increase in temperatures, however, was that the ice had melted, and it was muddy, meaning she had to take care with the laundry. Anything that touched the grass would be soiled and have to be washed again.

Reaching for a clothespin from the cloth bag hanging on the line, she eyed the woodshed. She’d spotted Joshua going in a few minutes ago, but he hadn’t come out. Once, she thought she’d caught a glimpse of him looking around the corner of the building in her direction, but there was no sign of him now. She wondered what he was doing in the woodshed. Organizing, maybe?

Smiling to herself, she grabbed another wet towel. He was a hard worker, that one. And kind. Particularly to her since her arrival. Everyone in the family had, of course, been welcoming. But Joshua was the one who time and time again made the extra effort to make her feel more comfortable in her new surroundings. He always made sure she knew what was going on in the family and how things were done. He did things like seeking her out to tell her what time family prayer took place. He explained to her that his father and brothers all liked their coffee very strong, preventing her from serving the weak coffee her stepfather preferred. He’d also made an effort to make her feel included in the day-to-day activities of the family, whether it meant inviting her to play checkers in the evening or explaining who was who during a lively conversation between his sisters about a new family who had just bought a farm nearby. He was such a thoughtful young man.

Despite missing her John-John so much that it physically hurt, Joshua was the one who made her feel as if coming to Hickory Grove was the right thing to do. And Rosemary and Benjamin’s twins. For some reason, the little boys had taken to her immediately and begun asking for her. With Rosemary trying to stay off her feet, and James and Josiah being so active, it had seemed only natural that Phoebe become their nanny of sorts. That was an Englisher word Rosemary had explained to her. It meant a woman who cared for another woman’s children. And Phoebe had embraced the job. She had been afraid spending so much time with the toddlers so close in age to her son would make her miss him more, but their sticky hugs and laughter actually eased the ache in her chest for her own child. And reminded her why she was here—to make a better life for herself and for him.

Feeling as if she was being watched, Phoebe looked up to see Joshua standing at the edge of the woodshed. They made eye contact and she smiled. He wasn’t wearing his Englisher sunglasses today so she could see his dark eyes. He hesitated, then started toward her. He was wearing a denim barn coat, a knit cap pulled over his head and shoes that were wet and caked with mud.

Phoebe looked down at the clunky knee-high rubber boots she’d borrowed from the laundry room. Bay had told her to find a pair that fit and wear them. She said she did it all the time. Phoebe grabbed a white bedsheet from the laundry basket. She hoped he didn’t think she looked foolish, but she’d been afraid if she didn’t wear the boots, she might have ended up with mud on the pretty blue dress Tara had given her. Phoebe had never had such a beautiful dress. In her stepfather’s home, the women all wore black even though the men wore colored shirts. She hadn’t been allowed to have buttons, either, not even hidden in her clothing. That was because women, her stepfather had explained, were far more likely to be drawn into the evils of adornment and couldn’t be trusted with blue or green dresses. Or buttons. The idea seemed silly to Phoebe, but no one in their home had ever been interested in her opinions on anything.

That included her belief that wearing a prayer kapp wasn’t always practical in a busy household, mainly because it had to be kept starched and pristine at all times. Evidently, Benjamin agreed with Phoebe because around his house, Rosemary and her daughters often wore a scarf instead of a prayer kapp. A lot of women in their church district did so, Ginger had explained to Phoebe. And then Tara had produced a scarf for indoor use for Phoebe and a heavier wool one for outdoors. The scarf provided modesty, but was also practical.

A sudden gust of wind came up and Phoebe gave a little cry as the bedsheet flew off the line. She grabbed the edge before it hit the grass, but then struggled to get control of it in the wind.

“Need some help?” Joshua called, hustling across the short distance between them.

Phoebe looked up at him through a tangle of white sheet and laughed. “Ya, because I’m determined not to get this one dirty again, else it will have to go back in the wash.”

Standing on the other side of the clothesline from her, he managed to grab a corner, then a second as the sheet whipped in the wind. “Got it!” He pulled his side down over the line and she did the same on her side.

“Danke.” She laughed, taking a handful of wooden clothespins. “A good day for doing laundry with the sunshine,” she told him as she clipped one pin after the other to secure the sheet to the line. “But a little tricky with the wind.”

He just stood there nodding.

“There we go.” She clipped the last clothespin securely.

“There we go,” he echoed.

Phoebe studied him standing only inches away on the other side of the sheet on the line. The same way they had stood on either side of the grocery cart that day at Byler’s store. Joshua was watching her, which made her feel both at ease and uncomfortable all at the same time. Why was he looking at her that way? As if he’d taken a bite of something and he wasn’t sure if he liked it. “Joshua...”

“Ya?” He raised his eyebrows.

“You can let go now.”

“Sorry?” He leaned closer to her.

“The sheet.” She pointed. “You can let go of it now. It would take a plow horse to rip it loose.”

He looked down at his hands resting on the clothesline. “Oh...right.” He pulled back and laughed.

“Good of you to help,” she said, pushing the laundry basket through the grass with her foot. She pulled a pillowcase from the laundry basket, gave it a shake and started to clip it onto the clothesline.

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