A Plain and Sweet Christmas Romance Collection

by Lauralee Bliss

  Then they’d all grown up.

  Emil met his gaze. Neither man spoke in the silence, but when his friend’s eyebrows slid up into a question, Will knew that he recognized her.

  Will glanced toward Jacob near the end of the table. Jacob’s wife and Sophie had once been the best of friends. Did Jacob know that Sophie was visiting? He probably did, but he didn’t know how utterly lovestruck Will had been with her in their youth.

  Both Conrad and Emil knew how much Will cared about Sophie. Once, when he was nineteen, he’d tried to tell Sophie about his growing, almost overwhelming, affection for her, but she had laughed at his attempt, thinking that he was teasing her like he’d done when they were children.

  He’d never gotten another opportunity to express his sentiments. Conrad, with his courage and confidence, had beaten him to it. A year later his friend and Sophie were married.

  Pining.

  That’s what Emil used to call his bouts of despondency, even after Conrad and Sophie married. But Will didn’t pine anymore. He’d grieved when the terrible news arrived in Amana last year that Conrad had died in a train accident between Council Bluffs and Des Moines. He’d prayed for Sophie and her daughter, of course, but it had been a detached type of prayer. Not from his heart.

  He didn’t want Sophie to have any part of his heart again.

  After he set down his fork, he filled his tin with coffee again.

  Why had she returned to the colonies?

  And the most important question of all—when would she go back to Des Moines?

  Chapter 3

  Meredith Keller,” Liesel exclaimed as she burst through the door. “You are just as beautiful as your mother.”

  Liesel quickly crossed the room, a blue kettle of coffee swinging from one hand, a bulging basket of food in the other. “I’m told you’re as smart as her, too.”

  Sophie closed the book in her lap, her eyes almost as big as her daughter’s as Meredith tried to figure out what this sprightly woman was doing, rushing into their hotel room a few minutes after noon.

  Meredith elbowed her way up on the sea of pillows, her mouth drooping open as Liesel rounded the walnut posts on the bed and pushed back the gingham curtains until sunlight soaked every corner of their small room.

  “It is a spectacular day outside,” Liesel explained. “Sunny and warm enough to melt most of the snow and warm us all up in the process.”

  Liesel grinned down at Meredith, wide and welcoming. Sophie knew her daughter wished she could fold herself back up into the blue flannel sheets and wine-colored comforter, sink deep into the feather tick, losing herself again.

  Meredith hadn’t left their hotel room since they arrived in Amana on Monday. Three days past. She’d slept, stared at The Wonderful Wizard of Oz pictures, watched the snow that fell most of yesterday. Sophie had brought her meals from the hotel dining room, but Meredith only wanted to drink the milk. At Sophie’s insistence, she’d taken a bite of food at each meal, but it wasn’t enough to sustain her.

  Early this morning, after she ate breakfast at the kitchen house, Sophie had told Liesel about her growing fears for her daughter. It seemed like Meredith no longer cared about the realities of life.

  Or perhaps she cared too much and the burden of it all confined her to bed.

  Either way, Sophie had spent most of her hours since they’d arrived reading quietly as she watched over her daughter.

  Liesel had agreed with her—something must be done to rouse Meredith from this stupor.

  “I have a job for you,” Liesel told Meredith as if she were offering her the greatest gift in the world.

  Meredith stared at Liesel, her wide eyes beginning to narrow again. Sophie knew her daughter thought Liesel was crazy, but her friend wasn’t deterred. Reaching into her basket, she began laying out pastries, watermelon pickles, bratwurst, Süsskäse—a soft white cheese—and a small loaf of bread on the stand beside the bed. As she worked, she continued to talk.

  “Before you start working, you must eat,” Liesel said as if Meredith had already agreed to her proposition.

  Then again, Liesel hadn’t given her an opportunity to agree or disagree.

  “My Cassie comes every afternoon after school to help at the kitchen,” she explained as she sliced the sausage with a knife. “Today we need your help, too.”

  Meredith shook her head, her gaze focused on the pastries. “I don’t know anything about working in a kitchen.”

  “Cassie is so excited to see you,” Liesel continued. “She’ll show you exactly what to do.”

  Meredith glanced over at Sophie, her eyes pleading for help, but this time Sophie decided an afternoon in the kitchen house might be the best way to help her.

  Liesel studied Meredith’s nightdress. “You can’t wear that in the kitchen.”

  Standing, Sophie crossed the room to the large wardrobe near the door. Folded inside were six different dresses for Meredith, all of them waiting to be worn. Sophie lifted up the plainest one her daughter owned, a pale rose dress with lace around the collar and waist. She’d still stand out in the village but less so than if she was wearing ruffles, ribbons, or pleats.

  Liesel took the dress from Sophie’s hands. “This is lovely,” she said before smoothing it out on the bed. “I have an apron for you to wear over it in the kitchen.”

  “But—” Meredith started to protest again.

  Liesel pointed at the array of food. “Eat up,” she said. “You’ll need your strength to work.”

  Sophie wrung her hands together. She’d been idle for too long as well. “Can I help, too?”

  A shadow crossed Liesel’s face. It disappeared quickly, the easy smile returning, but Sophie knew there were others in the community who didn’t trust her. She’d left the Amanas to be with her husband, but in their minds, she’d abandoned the entire community.

  In the Amana Colonies, work was a privilege, so different from the elite in Des Moines who viewed work with disdain. Here you had to earn your right to work.

  Sophie glanced out at the sunshine. “Actually, I think I will take a walk on this lovely afternoon so Meredith and Cassie can enjoy their time together.”

  Liesel nodded and then looked back at Meredith. “I’ll need you in the next half hour.”

  With that, her friend turned, winked at Sophie, and then breezed out the door as quickly as she’d arrived.

  Sophie broke off a small piece of the iced pastry, filled with blackberry preserves, as she prepared herself for a fight. When Meredith refused to go work, she would have to decide whether or not to make her leave their room.

  Conrad was always the strong one when it came to confronting their equally strong daughter. And their daughter always respected his strength.

  Meredith leaned back against the headboard. “Do they really need me?” she asked.

  Sophie almost choked on the pastry. “I suppose they do.”

  Meredith looked down at the bedcovers then up at the window before her gaze landed again on the spread of food.

  Sophie wanted to tell her daughter she needed to eat, like she’d been doing since they’d arrived. She wanted to tell her daughter to get out of bed, dress herself, and go down the street to work at the kitchen. But something stopped her. It was that same quiet voice she used to hear during the silent prayer meetings in the Saal.

  “Wait.”

  The word was as clear to her as the word home had been when they arrived.

  Instead of urging Meredith to leave, Sophie decided not to say anything at all.

  Quietly she took her coat from the hook by the door and buttoned the front. Then she kissed Meredith’s forehead. “I’ll meet you at the kitchen house for supper.”

  “You’re leaving?”

  She nodded. “I’m going to take a walk while it’s warm.”

  Meredith crossed her arms. “I don’t know how to cook a meal.”

  Sophie had tried to protect her daughter from working too hard in her childhood, wanting her to
enjoy her youth instead by reading the books she loved, attending school, and spending time with her friends. But perhaps she had robbed Meredith in the process.

  Sophie had labored hard when she was younger. She remembered being bone-tired at night, but she never remembered being unhappy. “Liesel will teach you exactly what you need,” she said.

  With that, Sophie turned and walked out the door.

  She didn’t go far though. Standing across the street, she waited beside the Glockenhaus, her back against the stone wall, praying that Meredith would emerge on her own.

  Next to her, snow clung to the eaves on the house where she and Conrad had lived when they first married. She’d admired Conrad since they were both nine years old, learning how to knit scarfs together in elementary school. He was never harsh, but he was confident in his ideas, even when they clashed with the elders in their community.

  In those early days of their youth, Conrad had loved to debate. He could present an argument about anything from the type of yarn to use for their socks to whether or not the Amana men should be permitted to fight in their country’s wars or even play baseball. Sophie didn’t enjoy verbal volleying like her husband, but he’d always valued her opinion.

  Back in 1894, the Amana elders had wanted Conrad to continue his work dredging the millrace instead of becoming an attorney, but Conrad hated the drudgery of manual labor. When Meredith was a newborn baby, Sophie and Conrad had left the Amana village and the people they loved so he could pursue his dream of practicing law. The work satisfied him, but they both missed the simplicity and community of their childhood.

  Conrad didn’t miss the communal living in Amana enough to give up his career, so they carved out a new life for their little family in Des Moines. Sophie had learned quickly about Gibson girl fashion, how to style her hair into a soft pompadour, how to step into her new role as a hostess in a large home. Instead of helping manage a kitchen alongside her friends, she managed paid servants to cook and clean for her family. They were respectful to her, but she wouldn’t consider them to be friends.

  She missed those hours in the kitchen, working alongside her Amana friends. Liesel had truly given Meredith a gift by inviting her to join them in their work. As she waited, she prayed again that her daughter would accept it.

  After a half hour had passed, she feared that Meredith had gone back to sleep, but then the door of the hotel opened, and she watched her daughter glance both ways before stepping onto the wooden sidewalk.

  Meredith didn’t see Sophie hiding between the tower and house, but Sophie could see her. After an Amana woman pointed Meredith to the kitchen house, Sophie stepped out onto the sidewalk and watched her daughter stroll slowly down the sidewalk until she reached the kitchen house. Meredith stopped again, hesitating at the front door, then went inside.

  With a loud sigh, Sophie released the air she’d been holding in her lungs. Finally Meredith was out of the hotel, and Sophie hadn’t had to force her to leave.

  She prayed silently that her daughter would enjoy her time with Cassie. That she would find healing among her work with the Amana women.

  Sophie moved back up the hotel steps, into their room. The tray that once towered with food was empty. There weren’t even crumbs from the pastry left behind on the tray.

  Smiling, Sophie turned back around to take a walk following the path along the millrace that led outside town.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Will punched his leather mitt as Jacob pitched the ball to the opposing team. Mud coated the boots of all the players, making it hard to run, but no one seemed to care. The sun was shining, and they were all outside instead of stuck in the mill.

  “Strike!” George Beyer yelled from behind the base.

  Their team was winning, three to two. Not that he was keeping score.

  The elders had begun letting the Amana men play baseball just a year ago—as long as they kept the competition friendly and it didn’t distract from their work—but a group of them had been playing for more than a decade without permission. When they played during the summers, at this field along the millrace, a small group always gathered to watch, but it was too cold this afternoon for a crowd.

  They shouldn’t be playing baseball now, even with the sunshine, but two of the mill’s carding machines had stopped working this morning. He figured the machinery was just as tired as all the workers right now. While the millwright was fixing them—and the sun was shining—he decided to take Jacob up on his proposition to play ball.

  “Strike two,” George shouted as Emil tapped the bat on home base.

  Will punched his mitt again. On one side of the field was the canal built for the mill. On the other was a Schulwalder—a pine grove planted by the children when he, Sophie, Liesel, and Conrad were in school. Their winter green color reminded him of the dress Sophie had worn to the kitchen house on Monday. He’d tried to press the image of her out of his mind—and he’d been eating at another kitchen house for the past two days—but he couldn’t seem to escape it.

  Was Sophie still in Amana, or had she returned to Des Moines?

  He could ask Liesel after prayer meeting tonight, but if he mentioned Sophie, Liesel would start asking questions that he didn’t want to answer.

  The crack of the wooden bat echoed through his thoughts, but he failed to react in time. The ball flew right over his head.

  “Kephart!” Jacob cried.

  “Got it,” he shouted back.

  Growling at himself, he turned and sprinted toward the grove of trees. He should have been focusing on the game. Not on Sophie and her dress.

  The ball dropped into the forest, and he quickly thrashed through the cone-studded arms of pine to retrieve it.

  On the other side of the tree was a woman, dressed in a navy blue overcoat and white scarf. He blinked, his eyes widening as if he were seeing a ghost. Sophie was here in the forest, just like she’d been in days gone by, watching them play ball.

  She held out the leather baseball, dripping with mud, and he took it from her.

  “What are you doing out here?” he demanded, words clipped.

  “I’m staying in Amana for a few weeks,” she said, her blue eyes sparkling in the sunlight. “And I needed a walk.”

  Her gaze traveled out toward the field behind him. In the distance he heard shouting, the men screaming, but he didn’t move.

  When she looked back at him, her eyes widened. “Will?”

  He squeezed the ball in his mitt, nodded his head. “All grown up.”

  “William Kephart.” She drew out his full name as if she couldn’t believe it either. “It’s been years.”

  “Fourteen.”

  “Kephart!” Jacob shouted his name again in the background.

  Sophie pointed her soiled glove back at the field. “You’d better hurry.”

  He held up the mitt. “Thanks for the ball.”

  He turned, but his feet were weighted down by the mud.

  Emil rounded third base, but as he pushed toward home plate, he slipped in the mire. As Emil struggled to stand, Will threw the ball to Jacob, who tossed it in to home.

  George’s arms flew wide. “Out!” he cried.

  When Will finally jogged back onto the field, Jacob clapped him on the back, but Will didn’t feel the enthusiasm. Nor did he dare a glance back at the pine trees.

  These colonies were his home, and yet for a moment he wished he could run far away. Like Conrad and Sophie had done long ago.

  Chapter 4

  Will Kephart.

  The name of her old friend tumbled around in Sophie’s mind as she walked toward the kitchen house, along with the image of his handsome brown eyes looking back at her, swollen with surprise when he’d found her hiding in the pines.

  She’d seen the same questioning in some of the women’s eyes when she’d taken her meals at Liesel’s kitchen house. The wondering why she had returned after all these years.

  She hadn’t thought about Will in a long time, but the mem
ories of their friendship began to return. The way he used to tease her when they were kids and make her laugh. How he’d brought her wildflowers when they’d grown older and sometimes candies like the pink and white marshmallows obtained with the coupons they used to procure things at the general store.

  He’d always been a good friend to her until Conrad stole her heart. Once Conrad announced their plans to marry, Will seemed to disappear.

  Fifteen years had passed since they’d laughed together. So many changes.

  Who had stolen Will’s heart?

  Hopefully, he’d married a woman who enjoyed laughter as much as he did. They would be living now in an apartment in one of these sandstone homes around her. After a long day of work, they probably read and laughed together in their rooms, not worrying one whit about social engagements or finding a place to belong.

  She tried to fight back the tangling vines of envy that tightened around her heart.

  In the years before his death, Conrad had rarely spent the evenings with her and Meredith at home. At the time, she understood his need to work and the importance of attending a host of society events alongside his clients, but looking back, she wished they’d had more time together as a family. If they’d only known what the future held…

  But they hadn’t known. And slogging through the past wasn’t helpful at all. She needed to focus on her future—their future—for Meredith’s sake.

  Reaching into her pocket, she felt the piece of paper with a message from John Hoffman. He’d telephoned this afternoon while she was on a walk, asking her to return his call tonight.

  Since John had been working in the District of Columbia when she left Des Moines, she’d written him a letter explaining that she and Meredith were going to spend Christmas in Amana. Now that he had returned to Des Moines, the telephone message said he wanted them to come back home for the holidays instead.

  But Des Moines didn’t feel at all like home.

  She wouldn’t stay in Amana much longer if Meredith was miserable here. And the truth was, she was getting edgy herself. Part of what she missed about the Amana Colonies was working with others, and she hadn’t done a lick of work this week. At least back in Des Moines, she could lose herself again in the busyness of the season.