The Preacher's Daughter Read online

  IN LOVE WITH THE PREACHER’S DAUGHTER

  “My father ruined us!” she said, her voice shaking. “He ruined our good name, and he preached with such authority about orality and community, and the strength of our Amish faith . . .” Her lips turned downward. “And now he’s coming back, and I’m no longer the preacher’s daughter, I’m . . . his daughter.”

  “And you love him,” Solomon murmured.

  “I love him, and I hate him, and I want him to be safe, but I want him to stay away, and—I’m now the daughter of a criminal!”

  “You’re Lizzie Yoder,” he said, and he tugged her closer, feeling the swish of her skirt against his pants. She had an unnoticed tendril of hair loose again. “You’re not just someone’s daughter, you’re a woman in your own right.”

  “Everyone is someone’s child,” she said. “Everyone.”

  And while Solomon had to agree with her logic, it wasn’t her argument that had his attention. He wanted to soothe her, to protect her, to take this burden from her, but he couldn’t. He tucked the tendril of hair behind her ear, and her free hand fluttered up to touch it.

  “Then be your mother’s daughter,” he said. “You have more than one parent.”

  Elizabeth blinked up at him, her hand frozen at her face, as if the thought were a new one, and he reached out and ran his thumb down her soft cheek. He didn’t know why he was doing this—it was going too far, again, and he knew it. But she didn’t pull away as he traced his thumb along her jawline and brushed it across her lips. . . .

  Books by Patricia Johns

  THE BISHOP’S DAUGHTER

  THURSDAY’S BRIDE

  JEB’S WIFE

  THE PREACHER’S SON

  THE PREACHER’S DAUGHTER

  Published by Kensington Publishing Corp.

  The Preacher’s Daughter

  PATRICIA JOHNS

  ZEBRA BOOKS

  KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  IN LOVE WITH THE PREACHER’S DAUGHTER

  Also by

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  ZEBRA BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2021 by Patricia Johns

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.

  If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the Publisher and neither the Author nor the Publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  Zebra and the Z logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  BOUQUET Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  ISBN: 978-1-4201-5237-1

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4201-5240-1 (eBook)

  ISBN-10: 1-4201-5240-8 (eBook)

  Chapter One

  Solomon Lantz had been given a plastic bag containing his personal belongings on his way out of Forest State Correctional Institution: a pair of jeans, some scuffed-up running shoes, a white T-shirt, a comb, some ChapStick, a pair of suspenders because he never was able to get used to wearing Englisher belts, and his wallet with exactly $107 in cash. He was surprised to get the money back at all but was grateful all the same—it was going to pay his cab fare the rest of the way home. The prison had provided a bus ticket to Bountiful, Pennsylvania, and he was on his own after that.

  His palms were sweaty and his stomach roiled from the movement of the taxicab. Outside the window, July sunlight warmed the rolling, green fields of ripening oats. He knew the area well—he used to walk down this road to get to school every day when he was a kid. They were close . . .

  The car slowed as it moved around a buggy, and Solomon dropped his gaze and sat back. He’d meet people soon enough—after he’d seen his mamm again.

  Solomon hadn’t seen his mamm since her last visit to the prison six months earlier. Mamm, sitting there with a yellowed telephone receiver in one hand, contrasting with her crisp, white kapp, and her teary eyes fixed on him through that thick, prison glass.... She’d been like the first crocus in spring—the first bud on a naked, gnarled tree. But she’d had some choice words for him, the worst of which were, “What would your daet think if he’d lived to see you like this? You’d have broken his heart! He wanted more for you—I wanted more for you. You could be working a good job, finding a wife . . . You could be starting your life properly, but instead you’re in a jail cell, and you have no one to blame but yourself. You knew better, Solomon! I taught you better than this! And me coming here to visit isn’t any help at all. I’m only making it easier for you. So I’m not coming back. You can face your consequences alone.”

  Tears had welled in Solomon’s eyes when his mamm hung up that dingy phone and walked stoically away, her gray shawl pulled close around her and her black shoes squeaking against the polished linoleum floor. He sat there by the glass, his breath stuck in his throat, waiting for her to turn—waiting for her to look back....

  “Are you Amish?” the cab driver asked, pulling him out of his own thoughts. The driver glanced at him in the rearview mirror, and Solomon self-consciously pulled his hand through his short-cropped hair. He didn’t think he looked Amish anymore, but he’d been told more than once he still sounded Amish. He talked more slowly, and his words still had that Dutch roundness to them.

  “I used to be,” Solomon said.

  “Yeah? Are you one of those . . . what do you call them . . . those Amish runaways?” the driver asked.

  “Not really. It’s been too long to call me that. I’m just coming for a visit,” Solomon said.

  A surprise visit. His mamm had no idea he’d been let out early. He wouldn’t let the prison officials notify anyone on his behalf. He wanted to come home on his own terms—and didn’t want to give his mamm a chance to not come pick him up. That would have hurt too much. So he’d decided to come to her instead, and she’d be forced to look him in the face.

  “So what do you like better, regular life or Amish life?” the driver asked.

  Solomon shut his eyes for a moment, looking for patience. “I don’t know.”

  He didn’t care. His mind was already moving toward thoughts of home cooking—his mamm’s brown buttered noodles, and her blueberry crisp, and those little sugar cookies she made when the weather cooled off....

  “Seems like a lot of
work to be Amish,” the driver said. “A lot of extra work for nothing if you ask me. Like, why take a horse and buggy when you can just drive somewhere and be comfortable, you know? I don’t have to feed and groom this car. And why make farming that much harder than it has to be? I don’t get it.”

  “Your car doesn’t breed and give you a free replacement either,” Solomon said.

  “What?” The driver looked back in the mirror at him, then a grin split his face. “Ha! Yeah, you’re right there. Okay, you got me . . .”

  As if it was a joke. Solomon stifled his annoyance—he’d had plenty of experience doing that over the last thirteen months in prison. He was out on good behavior. His full sentence had been two years, and he’d spent half his time in jail hiding behind his big, hardcover Bible. But fighting couldn’t be avoided, even with a Bible in his hands, and he’d learned pretty quickly to start working out in the gym and learn how to defend himself.

  Solomon saw his mamm’s drive coming up. The same old green mailbox sat out front, and behind it, wild raspberries grew up out of the underbrush.

  “Right there, on the left,” Solomon said.

  The cab slowed and turned onto the drive. The two-story house sat on a slight hill, a clothesline stretched from the side porch, out over a length of verdant grass and out to a pole at the edge of a vast garden. The clothesline was decked in fluttering kitchen towels, and as the cab came to a stop, Solomon’s breath was stuck in his throat.

  “That’ll be thirty-four dollars,” the cab driver said.

  Solomon counted out the cash and handed it over, then grabbed his bag and got out. The cab driver gave him a salute and started to pull out when Solomon saw his mammi at the side door. She shielded her eyes with one hand. Bridget Lantz was a short, plump woman with iron-gray hair and a pair of thick glasses she kept pushing up on her nose.

  “Sol?” she called, bewildered. “Is that you?”

  “Yah, it’s me. Hi, Mammi,” he said.

  His grandmother came carefully down the stairs and then hurried across the rocky ground toward him. He bent down to give her a hug, and she clamped her arms around his neck and rocked him back and forth with a strength that surprised him.

  “Are you really here?” she said, pulling back and looking at him tearily.

  “Yah, I’m here,” he said.

  She pulled him back down into another fierce hug, then released him.

  “You look like a fool dressed like that,” she said, gesturing to his clothes.

  Solomon couldn’t help but laugh at that. “I guess it all depends on who you’re talking to.”

  “So . . .” She put her hands on her hips. “Are you here to stay?”

  “I—” Solomon licked his lips. “I was hoping to see Mamm.”

  His gaze moved toward the house again, and this time he saw movement at the door. But it wasn’t his mother’s familiar shape—this was a different woman. She was slim, with brown hair pulled back under her kapp, and wary eyes fixed on him. Was that Lizzie Yoder?

  “Where’s Mamm?” he asked.

  “Your sister, Waneta, just had the triplets,” Mammi said. “Your mother went to help with them. Actually, your mamm left the beginning of March to help out while she was on bed rest. One of the little mites isn’t doing as well, and he’s been in the hospital. It’s to do with his lungs. They weren’t developed enough. So your mamm is helping your sister keep things afloat, what with the babies at home and the other little one in the hospital and all the travel in between . . .” Mammi’s voice faded, and she reached out and touched his hand. “I’m sorry. I know you must be missing your mamm.”

  “Waneta’s okay, though?” he asked.

  “Yah. She’s healing up really well. And the baby in the hospital is almost ready to go home, your mamm said in her last letter.”

  “I’d wanted to surprise her,” he said, trying to sound cheerier than he felt.

  “Yah . . . well . . .”

  “I missed you, too, Mammi,” he said, closing his hand around hers. “And I’m starving.”

  “I imagine you would be!” Mammi said, and a smile broke over her face. “Come inside. Elizabeth made pie this morning—cherry. Oh, I should mention—Elizabeth Yoder is staying with me until your mamm comes back.”

  Solomon looked up again. So that was Lizzie Yoder—all grown up now. She wasn’t the same teenager he remembered, always so prim and proper. Her daet was a popular preacher, and she’d always been proud of that, but trying to hide her pride because it wasn’t properly Amish. But looking at her standing in the doorway, her dark gaze locked on him with a wary look, reminding him of how English he looked right now. She’d be judging that. He looked down at his blue jeans, feeling uncomfortable.

  “Come on,” Mammi said. “Let’s get you inside and fed.”

  Solomon followed his grandmother toward the house, and Lizzie disappeared inside.

  “When is Mamm coming back?” Solomon asked, and his grandmother slowed her steps.

  “As soon as your sister can handle things on her own,” Mammi replied. “Soon. You can write to her and tell her you’re back.”

  Did he want to do that? An image rose in his mind of his mother’s back as she walked away from him. If her own son’s desperation hadn’t changed her mind, another letter wouldn’t either. Maybe even surprising her wouldn’t make a difference.

  “I’m not really good with letters,” he said.

  “Your mother will be glad to see you, Sol,” Mammi said softly.

  But he wasn’t sure about that. He’d already disappointed his mamm almost beyond repair.

  “Maybe I’ll just wait and see what happens when she gets back,” he said.

  Mammi looked up at him sadly. “She loves you.”

  And he knew that his mamm did, but sometimes love was tough. Sometimes love imposed its own shunning. She’d wanted him to come home and be properly Amish again—and he was home now, wasn’t he? He might never be properly Amish, but maybe she’d be able to see that he was trying to mend his ways.

  Solomon followed his grandmother into the house and sat down at the table, where a pie was cooling. Mammi fetched him a plate and a fork, then cut him the first piece. His stomach rumbled as he took a large bite, followed by a second in quick succession.

  “You’re out of prison, then?” Elizabeth said.

  “Yah.”

  “Hmm.” She didn’t say anything else and turned away. He was getting a lot of that lately—people turning their backs on him. But this wasn’t just any woman—he’d known her rather well back when they were teenagers, and he wasn’t about to be pushed around by her, too.

  “Lizzie Yoder,” he said with a small smile. “It’s been a while.”

  She looked back at him over her shoulder. “Yah. A long while.”

  “Have people been talking about me?” he asked. He could only imagine what the gossip about him had been like. He left home at seventeen and went English, then got caught up with the wrong people. They’d been doing some petty theft, and Solomon tried to keep clear of that part of things, until one day they jumped in the car and told him to drive. Legally speaking, that was accessory to a crime.

  “People always talk, and you gave them plenty to discuss.” She met his gaze easily. “You’re home now? Ready to reform?”

  “I’m visiting,” he said. “So you don’t have to worry about me upending everything. I won’t be here long.”

  He caught his grandmother’s gaze locked on him, and he read the disappointment there. She pushed up her glasses on her nose again.

  “For as long as you’re here, you’ll have a bedroom and a grandmother,” Mammi said quietly. “This is your home, Sol. It always was and it always will be.”

  That was what he’d needed his mamm to say—to reassure him that he was hers, no matter what, even if he’d let them all down. That was what he’d come back to hear . . . and while he loved his grandmother deeply, it was his mother who’d turned her back.

  “Thanks
, Mammi,” he said. “Do you mind if I take another piece?”

  Mammi cut another ample piece of pie and dished it onto his plate. At the very least, while he was here with Mammi, he’d eat.

  * * *

  Elizabeth stood by the counter and watched as Solomon took another big bite of cherry pie. His gaze flickered in her direction as he chewed. He looked different now—almost English. His hair was cut short and he looked bigger than regular Amish men looked. That was the kind of muscle that came from a gym, not farmwork. That was the kind of muscle that was for appearances, vanity, and she wasn’t supposed to be appreciating it . . . But she couldn’t help but notice the bulk of his biceps as he lifted another bite to his lips.

  “I’m surprised you came home,” Elizabeth said. It sounded blunt, but she really was surprised. He’d left their community years before he got into trouble.

  Solomon’s chewing slowed. “Why?”

  “It’s been . . . five years? I thought you’d have gone back to your English life. I thought you . . . liked it there.”

  She’d heard a few rumors—some of the local young people had seen Solomon a few times over the years. They always said the same thing—he liked living English. He could do as he liked. There were no elders or bishop to curtail his activities. He’d been a rebel, and they’d all simply accepted that fact.

  “There wasn’t much to go back to,” Solomon said, and he dropped his gaze and scraped his fork across the plate, picking up the last of the cherry filling. “I got caught up with the wrong people. It’s fun while it’s fun, but when things go wrong, they don’t exactly wait for you. A couple of them are in prison, still.”

  Mention of prison brought up goose bumps on her arms and she looked away.