A Second Chance for Christmas
“Rob is here?”
Trudy’s smile turned into a wide grin. “Aha! I knew there was something between the two of you! Are you two close friends?”
Once, they were. Once, they were so much more than that. “I don’t know.”
Some of the excitement that had been shining in Trudy’s eyes dimmed. “Well, he came to see you. Do you wish to see him? You don’t have to, you know.”
Nine months ago, she’d broken his heart. Nine months ago, she’d told him they didn’t have a future. And after he’d turned around and walked away, she’d realized she’d made the biggest mistake of her life.
“Jah, I do,” she said softly, looking at the door. “Please, send Rob on in.”
ALSO BY SHELLEY SHEPARD GRAY
His Promise
ALSO BY PATRICIA JOHNS
The Bishop’s Daughter
ALSO BY VIRGINIA WISE
Where the Heart Takes You
An AMISH SECOND CHRISTMAS
SHELLEY SHEPARD GRAY
PATRICIA JOHNS
VIRGINIA WISE
KENSINGTON BOOKS
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Compilation copyright © 2019 by Kensington Publishing Corp.
“Their Second Chance” © 2019 by Shelley Shepard Gray
“His Amish Angel” © 2019 by Patricia Johns
“An Heirloom Christmas” © 2019 by Virginia Wise
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ISBN-13: 978-1-4967-1784-9 (ebook)
ISBN-10: 1-4967-1784-8 (ebook)
Kensington Electronic Edition: October 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4967-1783-2
Table of Contents
A Second Chance for Christmas
Also by
Title Page
Copyright Page
Their Second Chance
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Epilogue
His Amish Angel
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Epilogue
An Heirloom Christmas
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Teaser chapter
Their Second Chance
SHELLEY SHEPARD GRAY
This story is dedicated to librarian director Shelen Stevens
and the Inspirational Book Club at the
Weston Public Library.
I’ll never forget the day y’all asked for me to please
share what happened to Hannah and Rob.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I wrote this story for you.
Look up to the skies. Who created all these stars? He leads out the army of heaven one by one and calls all the stars by name. Because He is strong and powerful, not one of them is missing.
—Isaiah 40:26
God adds to the beauty of His world by creating true friends.
—Amish proverb
Chapter 1
The brush of a very wet, very cold nose against her throat woke her up.
“Nee, Daisy,” Hannah groaned as she pushed away her overgrown boxer. “Go back to sleep. It’s not Christmas morning yet.”
But instead of listening, Daisy whimpered and nudged her again. Then, for good measure, pawed her arm.
Though she’d recently trimmed Daisy’s nails, they still scratched against her cotton nightgown, snagging the delicate fabric. And that nose! Ack, it might as well have been a cold sponge dabbing her skin. “Daisy . . . halt, wouldja?” she grumbled as she attempted to flip over on her side.
Daisy responded by barking, pawing at her again, and then licking her cheek for good measure.
Those three things were enough to wake Hannah up completely. Her sweet rescue dog had never woken her up in the middle of the night before. She was also a gut hund. Rarely did Daisy not mind her new mistress’s directives. Propping herself on her elbows, she reached out and rubbed Daisy’s side. “What’s wrong, girl?”
Daisy barked again.
Persuading Hannah to at last come to her senses, and thank the good Lord, too. So much was very wrong. The air was thick with smoke and she could hear a suspicious, strange crackling sound. A noise that sounded an awful lot like fire.
Bolting into a sitting position, she cried out. The small kitchen alcove of her one-room apartment was on fire. Flames were climbing the walls. She and Daisy needed to get out. That minute.
But for some reason, her body couldn’t seem to move.
Daisy whimpered again.
“I . . . I know,” she murmured. Though it was doubtful that the dog could even hear her, the buzzing in the room was so loud. But maybe that was really the buzzing in her ears?
Feeling as if her head were occupying someone else’s body, Hannah continued to stare in wonder at the flames licking the set of cookbooks on one of her makeshift shelves. Noticed that a new line of fire was inching its way toward her. Was this what Paul had seen in the moments before he died?
All at once, it seemed as if every nightmare she’d ever had about her fiancé’s last moments in the explosion and fire at the Kinsinger lumber mill had come to life. All she could seem to do was stare at the fire and feel the pressure of all the fear and debilitating sadness that had overpowered her in those first few months after his death.
She’d thought her state of mind was so much better. Obviously, she’d only been fooling herself.
Daisy whined, grabbed hold of the fabric of her gown, and pulled. It ripped.
That small thing at last jolted her out of her daze. It was time to stop dwelling on the past and get them both to safety.
As she crawled out of bed, Hannah feared she’d waited far too long. The room had grown hot and that smoke was so thick she could hardly see. Only a thin foot of clear air lingered near the floor.
Grabbing the dog’s collar, she started running to the back door. Intent on negotiating the path, she tripped over a piece of singed wood that had fallen from the corner of the ceiling. Awkwardly attempting to right herself, she reached ou
t a hand....
Before she fell, a sharp pain searing through her temple made her cry out. And inhale a thick band of smoke. Her eyes watered; whether from pain, frustration, or the very fact that she was hurting and running out of air she didn’t know.
All she did know was that the door now seemed so very far away.
Daisy barked and nipped at her. Pulling herself to her knees, Hannah forced herself to crawl toward the door. She couldn’t think of anything beyond getting Daisy to safety.
At that moment, nothing else—not even her own fate—seemed to matter.
* * *
The dog’s shrill barking confirmed their worst fears. The house was occupied. The four men and one woman surrounding the ladder truck tensed and listened intently for instructions.
“Rob, you with me. Now,” Brendan, his captain, ordered into his microphone, his usual staccato speech ringing loud and clear in Rob Prince’s ear.
Rob didn’t bother to reply, just checked his equipment one last time and followed close behind his captain. Around them, there was a cacophony of sounds and lights. Two fire trucks, an ambulance, and a number of sheriff vehicles had arrived. Each person was moving in sync with the others, illustrating the benefits of their many hours of training.
It was almost as if his body knew what to do before his mind did.
Ahead of the captain, Jerry used the ax to break down the door. They stood back, cautiously making sure the fresh addition of oxygen didn’t create an explosion.
Luckily, though, only a thick band of smoke filtered out, followed by the loud, spooked bark of a dog.
Cap cursed under his breath. “I hate dealing with dogs.”
Rob knew why. Dogs panicked, and the men entering their home in bulky uniforms looked both foreign and threatening. No, their turnout gear didn’t usually create a sense of calm for any of the people or animals they attempted to rescue. Then, too, their captain had shared once that he had a terrible allergy to dogs. He had no experience with them.
But Rob did. He knew dogs, thanks to Rose, his Rottweiler.
When he saw that it was a white boxer and she was both whimpering and growling at both Jerry and Brendan, he pushed his way through.
“Let me help.” As the other men stepped aside, he reached out a glove to the dog’s neck, murmuring nonsense words as he did so. Immediately the dog’s stance softened and she looked up at him with big, brown eyes.
Causing his gaze to lower and see the woman on the ground.
His heart almost stopped. Was that . . .
No, surely it couldn’t be Hannah Eicher . . . could it?
While he continued to stare at her prone form, Jerry moved around his side. “I’ve got her. You get the dog.”
Hardly able to take his eyes off the body in Jerry’s arms, Rob bent down, murmured, “Gut hund,” something his almost girlfriend used to say to Rob’s dog, Rose.
Still in a daze, he picked up the boxer and rushed her out to safety. He was vaguely aware of his captain and two other firemen searching the house for more people or bodies.
But Rob could have told him that they wouldn’t find anyone else. As far as he knew, Hannah Eicher lived alone. By her choice, not his.
As he walked back outside, holding an eighty-pound boxer in his arms, he knew that if he’d had his way nine months ago Hannah wouldn’t have been living alone at all.
She would have been sleeping in his house, in their bed, as his wife.
But that had been his dream. Not hers.
Chapter 2
“You are being dikk-keppich, Hannah,” Daed said as he gazed down at her from the side of her hospital bed. “Jah, mighty stubborn. You need care and family right now. You need to come home.”
She loved her parents, but Hannah knew most certainly that of all the things she needed, she did not need to “come home.” Things between them hadn’t been good for a while and she knew their relationship would only get more strained if she moved back into her old bedroom. “I’m sure I am being stubborn, but it canna be helped. I’m stubborn by nature. You’ve told me that time and again. Ain’t so?” She smiled to take the sting out of her words.
But her father’s expression didn’t lighten one bit. Instead, he continued to silently study her. Then, as if he couldn’t look at her another second, he turned to her mother. “Claire, do something.”
“I would if you’d but move, Samuel.”
Hannah closed her eyes and counted to seven while her parents switched places. As if her mamm weren’t about to start saying the exact same thing.
This was a familiar dance, and one she’d once thought rather amusing. But as she’d gotten older, her patience with their attempts to lovingly manipulate her ebbed. Now, on her best days? She was mildly exasperated. On her worst, such as today? More than a little irritated by their performance.
Though she loved them, she no longer wanted much to do with their bossy, interfering ways. She especially did not want to be bullied while sitting in a hospital bed.
“Hannah,” Mamm began in a sweet, lilting voice, “you must realize that you ain’t thinking straight. No doubt the smoke you inhaled has made you addled.”
“I am not addled.” She was in pain, had a fierce headache, and was worried about her dog and how many—if any—of her belongings had survived the fire. But she was most definitely not addled. “I do not want to go to your haus.”
“It’s not our haus; it’s your home, Daughter.”
“Nee, my home burned down last night.”
Mamm’s eyes filled with heavy tears. Ever so slowly, she raised a hand and wiped one away.
The motion was filled with no small bit of drama, and when Hannah was a young teenager it had worked like a charm. All it took were two or three tears and she’d be besieged by guilt.
But now? Now Hannah knew that the tears were all for show.
She sighed.
Mamm blinked. Two seconds later, her bottom lip trembled. “I canna believe you are acting so cold and uncaring. It’s like we hardly know you anymore.”
Her father stepped closer. Wearing a heavy frown, he loomed over her mother’s shoulder. After a pause, he folded his arms over his chest. With his graying hair and long beard, he looked much like an irritated barn owl. “You should be more respectful of your mother’s needs, child.”
Oh! Oh, for heaven’s sake! She was in the hospital recovering from a fire! Yet, once again, her parents had neatly turned the tables so they could focus on their own pain and suffering.
At least Hannah knew now that it did no good to ask them to concentrate on her needs instead of their own wants. They’d simply stare at her in confusion, protesting that they actually were thinking only of her.
If she tried to explain her point of view, they’d accuse her of being disrespectful and things would become even more strained among the three of them.
It was far better to simply send them on their way. “Danke for visiting, but I am verra tired. I think I need to rest.”
“Don’t be like this, Hannah,” Mamm chided.
“I’m afraid I canna be ‘like’ any other way. You are leaving me no choice. Please, can’t we talk later?” She hated to sound so difficult and rude, but experience had taught her that giving in to them meant losing so much more than just a minor disagreement.
Her mother’s tears multiplied. “Oh, Hannah. How could you?”
It was self-preservation, through and through. Her mother had perfected the art of crying a long time ago and had used it to her benefit often. And like a trigger, it forced the same reaction that it usually did. Shame and regret.
But then Hannah remembered what those tears had encouraged her to do. Nine months ago, not ten minutes after Rob Prince had driven away from their home, her parents had gone on the attack. For weeks, they’d pressured her to stop seeing him. They’d used every tactic in their arsenal, too. Threats about how they would disown her. Tales of the dangers that beset Amish folks who lived among the English. When neither of
those things worked?
Her mother softly insinuated that a wealthy, successful man like Rob would never be happy with a sheltered Amish girl.
Oh, that had hurt.
Then, when she began to doubt herself, they’d added a healthy dose of guilt.
As she recalled that time, her resentment sprouted—at both the things they’d done and the way she’d allowed herself to believe them. She wished she’d been braver and not let her fears overrule her heart.
“I really need to sleep, Mamm. I’m exhausted and I think the nurse is going to come in soon to change my bandages.”
“Let’s go, Claire,” Daed said. “We can return tonight.”
Her mother took one step back before turning to Hannah again. “Are you sure you don’t want us to stay? The hospital is a lonely, scary place,” Mamm said.
“I’m sure. I’ll try to handle being here for a few hours by myself.”
“We’ll be back soon,” he replied, not catching a bit of the sarcasm in her comment, which was really a good thing.
After they turned and walked out, she closed her eyes and leaned back against her hard pillow. Wishing for the peace she used to take for granted.
Before Paul had died in the Kinsinger Mill disaster. Before she’d met Rob and felt something new and fierce. An attraction that had made what she’d felt for Paul seem bland in comparison.
The door opened again. Trudy, her nurse—and her onetime classmate—entered. All smiles.
“You, my dear, have two choices.”
“Let me guess—I get to have either my blood pressure taken or my bandages checked?”
“You make me sound so evil!” One of Trudy’s dimples appeared. “I actually have two much better options for you.”
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