As they pulled off the main road, Sarah breathed a heavy sigh. “I’m not sure Caroline is really up to teaching right now. I think she needs another year to recover from her accident. I’m glad your onkel and the school board decided to assign you to drive her wherever she needs to go and to work at the school. They feared that making her wait another year to teach might break her morale. She’s already lost so much. All she has left is that teaching job. Poor Caroline.”
Yes, poor Caroline. Ben remembered what she was like before the accident. Confident, vivacious and happy. The single Amish men from miles around had flocked to her side, vying for her hand in marriage. But not him. He had nothing to offer her except a tainted reputation. With her sweet nature and pretty face, she could marry anyone she wanted. As a proper Amish girl, she wouldn’t be caught dead riding around with a savage man like him. In fact, he was surprised the bishop would assign him to accompany her wherever she needed to go. Being near him could sully her reputation. But with the bishop’s sanction, no one would dare challenge him. Not even Caroline. So she was pretty much stuck with him, whether she liked it or not.
“Once the bad weather sets in, she’ll need your help more than ever. And until she can walk better, you’ll even have to drive her to and from school,” Sarah continued.
Ben nodded but didn’t speak. He wasn’t surprised that Sarah knew about his new task. Last night the bishop had explained in great detail what he wanted him to do. Ben just hoped Caroline wasn’t overly upset about the assignment.
“This might be just what the two of you need. You’ve both been hurt and seem like kindred spirits. With all the time you’ll be spending together, maybe you can become gut friends,” Sarah said, her voice filled with hope.
Ben forced himself not to laugh out loud. He doubted Caroline would ever consider him a friend. Not if he was the last person on earth.
They drove past the one-room schoolhouse, a red log building that inhabited one corner of the bishop’s eastern hay field. All of the Amish fathers had built the house from a kit they’d ordered from a local manufacturer here in Colorado. The schoolyard included a spacious dirt area where the kids could play baseball outside. An outhouse stood in the back, along with a small barn for stabling ponies and horses until the children were ready to go home in the afternoon. And twining past the property, the sparkling waters of Grape Creek glimmered in the sunlight with clutches of wild purple iris and cattails growing along the grassy embankments.
It was a lovely place to go to school, though it definitely needed some playground equipment. They’d recently purchased a swing set, teeter-totter and tether ball equipment, and it would be one of Ben’s jobs to put it all together and install it securely on the playground. At least he’d have something to do during the daytime while he waited to accompany Caroline home each afternoon.
Ben thought about how different Caroline had been since the accident that had interrupted her teaching career last year. Gone was the confident gleam in her eyes. Instead of walking with a bounce in her stride, she could barely shuffle across the street without getting run over. He was happy to help her. Though he’d come here to flee his shadowed past, he had deserved what he got. But not Caroline. She’d done nothing to deserve the angst and pain she’d been forced to suffer.
“Are you allrecht?” Sarah asked as they pulled into the graveled driveway of his uncle’s farmyard.
“Ja, why do you ask?”
She laid a hand on his arm and met his gaze. “I know how hard life has been for you since you lost your parents, Ben. I’m sure what happened to Caroline today has upset you, too. But remember to turn the other cheek. It’s what Jesus taught us to do. If you trust in Gott, everything will work out fine. You just need to have faith.”
Hmm. If only it were that easy.
With one last pat on his hand, Sarah turned and climbed out of the buggy. As she walked toward the house, Ben stared after her, feeling a bit shocked by her words. Did she think he might retaliate against Rand Henbury for what he’d done to Caroline today? Of course he wouldn’t. He knew vengeance belonged to Gott alone. It would profit him nothing to retaliate against Rand. And yet, because of Ben’s past, people still doubted him. One big mistake had almost ruined his entire life.
As he drove the horse to the barn and unhitched the animal from the buggy, Ben’s mind was filled with turmoil. Both him and Caroline were victims of violence. She’d been treated brutally and now was struggling to recover from what someone else had done to her. And Ben had become that which his people detested more than anything else. A brute. A killer of the most heinous kind.
He’d been taught from his youth to turn the other cheek. But he’d failed. And now he silently yearned for redemption. If only God could forgive him for what he’d done.
If only he could forgive himself.
Copyright © 2020 by Lora Lee Bale
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ISBN-13: 9781488060366
Falling for the Innkeeper
Copyright © 2020 by Meghann Whistler
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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Falling for the Innkeeper Page 19
