Blended Amish Blessings Read online

  “That isn’t fair,” she said with a faint smile.

  “Neither is the fact that my daughter seems more comfortable around you than me. But I do understand how it stings.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to—”

  “Don’t be sorry.” He cut off her words. “My daughter likes you a lot. She thought that Amish women would judge her for being an unwed mother. You showed her kindness and acceptance.”

  “Well, Abigail can see the reality of our community now,” Haddie said. “She can make up her own mind.”

  Paul nodded. “Yah. And I hope she sees reason enough to stay here.”

  Haddie met his gaze, and her eyes softened. “Gott willing.”

  Paul saw Timothy pulling the last plank of wood from the back of his buggy.

  “I’ll go help him,” Paul said. “I have a feeling ten-year-old boys are easier to sort out than seventeen-year-old girls.”

  “Thank you, Paul,” she said softly.

  And for that one expression of thanks, he would have built that boy a whole schoolhouse, he realized. Haddie wasn’t quite so alone as she thought.

  Patricia Johns is a Publishers Weekly bestselling author who writes from Alberta, Canada. She has her Hon. BA in English literature and currently writes for Harlequin’s Love Inspired and Heartwarming lines. She also writes Amish romance for Kensington Books. You can find her at patriciajohnsromance.com.

  Books by Patricia Johns

  Love Inspired

  Redemption’s Amish Legacies

  The Nanny’s Amish Family

  A Precious Christmas Gift

  Wife on His Doorstep

  Snowbound with the Amish Bachelor

  Blended Amish Blessings

  Montana Twins

  Her Cowboy’s Twin Blessings

  Her Twins’ Cowboy Dad

  A Rancher to Remember

  Harlequin Heartwarming

  The Second Chance Club

  Their Mountain Reunion

  Mountain Mistletoe Christmas

  Rocky Mountain Baby

  Snowbound with Her Mountain Cowboy

  Visit the Author Profile page at LoveInspired.com for more titles.

  BLENDED AMISH BLESSINGS

  Patricia Johns

  I found him whom my soul loveth.

  —Song of Solomon 3:4

  To my husband.

  You’re the best choice I ever made.

  Contents

  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

  Epilogue

  Dear Reader

  Special Excerpt from The Inn at Harts Haven by Patricia Davids

  Excerpt from Their Unbreakable Bond by Deb Kastner

  Chapter One

  Haddie Petersheim poured boiling water over the utensils she’d be using later that morning to scald them. Absolute cleanliness was necessary in making fine butter that wouldn’t turn, and Petersheim butter was known all over the Redemption, Pennsylvania, area as the highest quality butter available. Haddie’s late husband, Job, had made sure of that.

  Petersheim Creamery had been Job’s pride and joy. He’d made the butter, and she’d run the front of the store. But after his death, Haddie had to take over all of it—butter making and the sales. Her son, Timothy, helped out after school, too. Haddie’s friend Miriam Lapp drove Timothy into town with her own adopted boys after school each day. Between Haddie and Timothy, they kept the business afloat.

  The front of the store had glass-door refrigerators for the butter available for sale, and it sold quickly to tourists and locals alike. There were loyal customers who only ever bought same-day butter, and Haddie had it fresh and ready to sell when she unlocked the doors each morning.

  Petersheim Creamery was located on a side street, just off Main in downtown Redemption. A massive November snowstorm had left tall banks on either side of the road, winter having made its first serious appearance, and Haddie had been grateful for the men who had dug a path through the snowbank to allow her to get her buggy to the stables behind the shop. What would she do without good neighbors?

  At this time of day, just before eight, Haddie was in the back kitchen preparing to make the day’s fresh butter. It was a job that required more muscle than most people realized, but she’d grown stronger these last couple of years since Job’s death, and churning the butter no longer left her breathless. This shop—every inch of it—was filled with warm and happy memories. But this morning was a difficult day—the second anniversary of Job’s death. She’d hoped to not think about it, but that wasn’t so easy.

  Outside the back window, the sun had just come above the horizon, and golden rays spilled over the floor, adding to the gas heat that pumped into the little kitchen. Her old basset hound, Barnabas, was lying in a pool of sunlight, his long, drooping ears reaching the floor.

  The clopping of horses’ hooves and the sound of Paul Ebersole’s voice told Haddie that the cream had arrived from the Ebersole dairy. Paul came with his delivery every morning, five days a week. She’d known him for years. In fact, as teenagers, he’d even taken her home from singing for a couple of months—that was how far back they went. Nothing ever came of it. Haddie’s father had spotted the problem right away—Haddie was outspoken and Paul wasn’t the kind of man who could handle that. When Paul married another outspoken woman, it had ended in disaster, and Haddie could only breathe a sigh of relief that she’d listened to her daet.

  Haddie covered the metal bowl of utensils with a clean white cloth and headed over to the side door. She opened it just as Paul came up the step, a metal jug of cream on one shoulder, and his opposite hand over a bulge in his coat.

  Paul was a good-looking man—tall, broad, with a thick glossy beard—and since her husband’s death, she hadn’t been noticing such things. But Paul was reassuringly decent. His estranged wife had passed away last year, leaving him single, but Paul was set in his ways...a little like Haddie was these days. It seemed to have cemented their cordial friendship.

  “Good morning,” Paul said with a smile. “You’re my last stop today.”

  The lump in Paul’s coat squirmed, and he adjusted his hand to support it.

  “What do you have there?”

  “This—” the lump mewed “—is a kitten I found in the road all by herself and looking very forlorn.”

  Paul lowered the heavy container of cream to the floor, letting go of the kitten in his coat to do so. It wriggled onto the kitchen floor. She was tiny—just a bedraggled little tabby, her eyes round and scared. She looked like she’d gotten half drowned in a puddle, because her fur was matted with dirt.

  “Oh, poor thing,” Haddie said. “Come on in, Paul. Let’s give her some cream.”

  Barnabas lifted his drooping gaze toward the kitten, his eyes following her with a new interest.

  “You leave that kitten alone, Barnabas,” she warned. “In fact—” She pushed open the swinging door that led into the store. “In there, Barnabas. Go on—shoo.”

  Barnabas cast her a desolate look, but did as he was told. He rose to his feet and plodded through the doorway, flopping himself down right in front of it.

  “Good boy
,” she said, meeting the dog’s offended gaze. “You’re a good boy, Barnabas.” She let the door swing shut.

  Haddie put a little bit of cream into a saucer and placed it on the floor.

  “Thanks, Haddie,” Paul said as he picked up the kitten, then deposited it next to the cream. She immediately crouched down and began to lap it up.

  “What will you name her?” Haddie asked.

  “I think I’ll name her Thimble.”

  “That’s cute.” Haddie smiled. “I suppose the Ebersole farm is about to get a new kitten.”

  “Unless the Petersheim Creamery wants one?” Paul asked hopefully. “She’s very cute.”

  “No, the Petersheim Creamery does not,” she chuckled. “I’ve got Barnabas here, and keeping a cat and dog apart in this shop is something I don’t want to worry about.”

  “Then we’ll have yet another kitten at the dairy,” he said with a rueful smile. “One of the barn cats had kittens a couple of months ago. We’re overrun with them.”

  “And yet, you rescued this one, and named her,” Haddie pointed out.

  “Well...how could I not?” Paul said. “Look at her.”

  Thimble was thin, and her ears looked almost too big for her body. Her eyes darted around the kitchen as she drank.

  “I see your point,” she agreed.

  “How’s business?” Paul asked.

  “Steady,” she said. “I can’t complain. It keeps the bills paid and my son fed.”

  “And how’s Timothy?” he asked. She noticed how his voice softened when asking about her son, and she appreciated that the community worried about Timothy, too. At ten, he’d moved into a rather rebellious phase that she hadn’t been quite ready for.

  “He’s missing his father a lot lately,” she admitted. “It was two years ago today that the Good Lord took him home.”

  “Today?” Paul’s expression fell. “Oh, Haddie...”

  She shook her head quickly, blinking back a mist in her eyes. “Yah, well...what can you do? But it’s hard on Timothy all the same. Being a boy, he doesn’t talk about it much, but I know.”

  “Haddie, it’s hard on you,” Paul said softly.

  It was. She’d loved Job dearly—he’d been older, and had seen something wonderful in her when she’d thought she’d never get married.

  “Yah, but I’m not the one acting up in school,” she said, then sighed. Again, she was saying too much.

  “What’s happening in school?” Paul asked.

  “I didn’t mean to tell you that. It’s private. Timothy is very sensitive about these things lately.”

  “I won’t say anything,” Paul said. “You can trust me.”

  And somehow, she knew she could. Paul was one of those truly decent men, but her son needed to trust her, too.

  “It’s only been one year since your wife passed,” she said, changing the subject. “So I’m sure you understand how hard this is.”

  Paul was silent for a moment, and he nodded slowly.

  “My wife left me eighteen years ago, though,” he said. “It’s not quite the same. I had more time to grieve than most people get. I’d already accepted that our marriage was over, that I’d live alone. So when she passed, I did have another kind of grieving to do—that’s true—but it wasn’t all at once.”

  “Still...” she said.

  “Yah, still,” he agreed with a sad nod. “I understand, Haddie. Losing a spouse is very hard. And for Timothy, losing his daet—”

  “I wasn’t going to say anything about the anniversary of his death,” she said. “I meant to just...remember Job quietly, I suppose.”

  “It’s okay to talk about it,” Paul said.

  “And it’s okay not to,” she replied.

  He chuckled and looked ready to reply when there was a sharp bark and a crash. She whipped around to find the door ajar just a few inches, and the kitten was gone.

  “Oh, no!” Haddie breathed, and ran to the door. She pulled it open to see the kitten scampering across the floor and old Barnabas lunging after her, his long ears trailing out behind him. She could hear his nails as he scrambled across the wooden floor, and everywhere he ran, he knocked something down in his wake. For an old dog, Barnabas had a puppy’s energy right now, and as he whipped past a shelf, he caught a fluttering curtain in his mouth and it came down after him, the curtain and rod together.

  “Barnabas!” she shouted. “No! Bad dog!”

  But Barnabas didn’t seem to care, because as he rounded a corner, the curtain rod caught on a shelf, and the shelf came crashing down against another, and then another, like dominoes, and their contents spilled onto the floor. One was split down the center, and another splintered.

  Haddie’s heart hammered to a stop, and for a moment, she was frozen to the spot.

  “Barnabas, stop!” Paul’s deep voice roared through the store, and the old dog skidded to a stop. “Sit!”

  Thimble was at the top of another curtain rod, and Barnabas’s attention flicked back up toward her.

  “No, Barnabas!” Haddie said.

  “Barnabas, sit!” Paul ordered.

  Barnabas sank onto his haunches, looking over at Paul adoringly. Barnabas had always been Job’s dog, and maybe he just responded better to men, but she’d never gotten that kind of compliance out of the old dog. She’d had to tiptoe around the hound’s feelings.

  “Barnabas, come,” she said firmly.

  Barnabas grudgingly plodded toward her, and she grabbed him by the collar, surveying the damage. Paul went over to the window, reached up high and plucked the kitten from the curtain rod.

  “Oh, what a mess...” Paul murmured, and he stroked Thimble absently as he looked around.

  The word mess was an understatement. Besides the curtain rod torn from the wall and the broken shelves, there were food items scattered across the floor, and broken glass from some shattered jars of cherry jam she was selling—the cherry jam she’d made in her own kitchen.

  And this whole store, from the shelves to the windowsills, had all been lovingly crafted by Job. Today, of all days, to see it torn apart by this big, lumbering dog was just too much.

  Tears rose up inside of Haddie, and she fought them back, but she couldn’t help it when they spilled down her cheeks. Paul turned toward her, and his face paled at the sight of her.

  “Haddie, I’m so sorry,” Paul said earnestly. “I’ll help you get this place fixed up.”

  Haddie shook her head, wiping her eyes with her free hand. Barnabas tried to slink out of the room, back to the kitchen, but she kept a firm grip on his collar. She needed to stay in control—this was not the time to fall apart!

  “How?” she asked.

  “What do you mean, ‘how’?” he asked. “I’ll make you new shelves, that’s how. And we’ll have this place looking brand-new by the time I’m done with it.”

  But she didn’t want new. She wanted everything just as it had been with Job. But that wasn’t going to be possible anymore, and she knew that time had marched forward, even if she’d wanted to keep it at a standstill.

  “It’s not your fault,” she said, wiping her face again. Her tears were about her grief, not about an accident.

  “Well, one of us is to blame,” Paul said, looking at the tiny kitten in his hand. “Either me or Thimble, here, and of the two of us, I’m better with a saw. I’ll take the fall for it.”

  Haddie looked up at him, and Paul looked at her so seriously that she couldn’t help but feel a little better. She pushed open the door to the kitchen and let Barnabas slink through.

  “If you’d be willing to help me,” she said, “I’d be grateful.”

  * * *

  Haddie’s eyes were red, and her face was blotchy. This wasn’t the strong-as-steel woman they all knew so well in Redemption. She’d always seemed so capable, even as a teenager
. She’d had her opinions and stuck to them. She’d never had any trouble telling someone she thought they were wrong, but these tears had just suddenly erupted out of her, and she’d gone from a calm, collected, determined business owner to a vulnerable woman in a matter of seconds.

  And it was Paul’s fault. He’d been the one to bring a kitten into her shop, knowing that she had a dog. He couldn’t believe he’d been so stupid! But he honestly hadn’t thought old Barnabas had it in him anymore to chase a cat!

  “Are you sure you’ll have time?” Haddie asked. “You’ve got a dairy to run.”

  Haddie always had been practical.

  “My teenage nephews are visiting from Ohio,” he replied, “so we’ve got more than enough help on the farm right now. The timing is pretty good, actually. I mean, if the timing is ever good for this kind of damage... But I have the time to put into working on your shop.”

  “Oh...that’s good, then,” she said.

  “And I’m thinking I can do some built-in shelves along your walls—those will be the sturdiest option. And I’ll redo the trim around your windows to match it. I’ll make some deeper shelves to replace these—” he put a hand on a broken shelf “—and they’ll be less easy to topple. But give me two weeks, and I can pull it all together for you. You’ll see—it’ll be brand-new.”

  Haddie averted her gaze, wiped under her eyes again.

  “You don’t want brand-new...” he guessed.

  “Job set up the store,” she said. “It was...a sweet memory.”

  More than a memory. Job Petersheim had been the heart of this place, and everyone who knew him, loved him. And he’d been the one to build the shelves and arrange the shop...it was understandable that his widow might want to keep everything the same.

  “I really am sorry,” Paul said, unsure of what else he could say.

  “I know, I know—” She shook her head, and seemed to rally herself. “I’d have to change something eventually, wouldn’t I? I’m grateful for the help, Paul. Thank you.”

  She was being gracious, and he was thankful for that.