by Jenna Mindel
“Well, you should be.” Becky’s round cheeks were even rosier than usual, and her brown eyes snapped with indignation. “The Keims have only lived here less than two years, and he thinks he should tell everyone else how to live Amish. How he even got on the school board is a mystery to me.”
Shrugging, Susannah closed the grade book she’d been working on when the Keims had appeared at the end of the school day. “Komm, Becky. You know as well as I do that folks don’t exactly line up to volunteer to be on the school board. James Keim was willing, even eager.”
“That’s certain sure.” Becky’s flashing eyes proclaimed that she was not going to be talked out of her temper so easily. “He was only eager to serve because he wants to make our school into a copy of the one where they lived in Ohio. All I can say is that if he liked Ohio so much, he should have stayed there instead of coming here and bothering us.”
“Becky, you know you shouldn’t talk that way about a brother in the faith. It’s not kind.”
Becky was irrepressible. “But it’s true. You of all people know what a thorn in the side he’s been. Ach, you know I wouldn’t say these things to anyone but you.”
“It would be best not to say them at all. James Keim has his own ideas of what an Amish school should be like. He’s entitled to his opinion.”
Based on his disapproving comments, Susannah suspected that Keim’s previous community had been more conservative than Pine Creek, Pennsylvania. Amish churches varied from place to place, according to their membership and their bishops. Pine Creek, being a daughter church to Lancaster County, was probably a bit less stringent than what Keim had been used to.
“You’re too kind, that’s what you are,” Becky declared, planting her fists on the edge of the desk. “You know perfectly well that he’d like to see his daughter Mary take your place as teacher, so he could boss her around all he wanted.”
Susannah shook her head, but she had to admit there was some truth to what Becky said. As a thirty-year-old maidal who’d been teaching for a dozen years, Susannah wasn’t easily cowed, at least not when it came to her classroom and the young scholars who were like her own children. Young Mary would probably be easily influenced by her father’s powerful personality.
“I don’t think Mary Keim has much interest in teaching, from what I’ve seen,” she said, determined to deflect Becky’s ire. Picking up the cardboard box that held Christmas program materials, Susannah set it on the desk. “If we’re going to work on the program this afternoon, we’d better get started.”
Becky shook her head gloomily. “Mary might not want to teach, but she’d never stand up to her daad. You’re not going to let her help with the Christmas program, are you? She’d just be spying on you and reporting back to him.”
“I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it,” she said. “Maybe she won’t offer.” Susannah pulled the tape from the box lid, sure that would divert Becky’s attention.
“Just one more thing, and then I’ll stop, I promise,” Becky said. “You’re not to pay any heed to Keim’s nasty comment about you not understanding the kinder because you’re unmarried, all right?”
“All right.” That was an easy promise to make. One thing she’d never had cause to question was her feelings for her scholars.
“After all, it’s not as if you couldn’t have married if you’d wanted to.” Becky dived into the box and pulled out a handful of paper stars. “Even after Toby left—” She stopped abruptly, her cheeks flaming. “Susannah, I’m sorry, I—”
“Forget it.” Susannah forced her smile to remain, despite the jolt in her stomach at the mention of Toby’s name. “I have.”
That was a lie, of course, and one she should repent of, she supposed. Still, the gut Lord could hardly expect her to go around parading her feelings about the childhood sweetheart who had deserted her a month before their wedding was supposed to take place.
“Have you? Really?” Becky clasped her hand, her brown eyes suddenly swimming with tears.
“Of course I have,” she said with all the firmness she could muster. “It was ten years ago. My disappointment has long since been forgiven and forgotten. I wish Toby well.”
Did she? She tried to, of course. Forgiveness was an integral part of being Amish. But saying she forgave hadn’t seemed to mend the tear in her heart.
“Well, I wish Tobias Unger was here right now so I could give him a piece of my mind,” Becky declared. “He left so fast nobody had a chance to tell him how ferhoodled he was being. And then his getting married out in Ohio to someone he barely knew… Well, like I said, he was just plain foolish.”
News of Toby had filtered back to Pine Creek after he’d left, naturally, since his family still lived here. Everyone knew he’d married someone else within a year of leaving, just as they’d heard about the births of his two children and about his wife’s death last year. His mother had gone out to Ohio to help with the children for a time, and she’d returned saying that Toby and the kinder really ought to move back home.
But he hadn’t, to Susannah’s relief. She wasn’t sure how she’d cope with seeing him all the time.
“Forget about him,” she said. “Let’s talk about how we’re going to arrange the room for the Christmas program. I have some new ideas.”
“You always have ideas,” Becky said, apparently ready to let go of the sensitive subject. “I don’t know how you keep coming up with something new every year.”
“Ach, there’s always something new to find in Christmas.” Susannah felt a bubble of excitement rising in her at the thought of the much-loved season. “Maybe because we all feel like kinder again, ain’t so?”
“I suppose so. Thomas and the twins have been whispering together for weeks now. I think they’re planning a Christmas surprise for me.” Becky smiled.
“Of course they are. That’s what Christmas is, after all. God’s greatest surprise of all for us.” Susannah swung away from the desk, looking around the room. “What do you think about making the schoolroom itself surprising when folks come in? Maybe instead of having the scholars standing in the front, we could turn everything sideways. That would give the kinder more space.”
She walked back through the rows of desks, flinging out her arms to gesture. “You see, if the audience faced this way—”
The door of the one-room school opened suddenly, interrupting her words. Susannah’s heart jolted, and she felt as if she couldn’t breathe.
Surely she was dreaming it. The man standing in the schoolhouse doorway wasn’t…couldn’t possibly be…Toby Unger.
*
Toby found himself standing motionless for a little too long, the words of greeting he’d prepared failing to appear. He’d known he would see Susannah, after all. He shouldn’t be speechless.
William, holding on to his left hand, gave him a tug forward, while little Anna clung to his pant leg. Toby cleared his throat, feeling his face redden. He could only hope Susannah would think his flush was from the chill December air.
“Susannah. It’s nice to see you after so long.”
Susannah’s heart-shaped face seemed to lose its frozen look when he spoke. She glanced from him to the two children, and a smile touched her lips.
“Wilkom to the school, Toby. These are your kinder?” She stooped to Anna’s level. “I’m Teacher Susannah. What’s your name?”
For an instant, he thought his daughter would respond, but then she hid her face against his leg, as she always did with strangers these days.
“This is Anna,” he said, resting his hand on her shoulder. “She’s six. And this is my son, William.”
“I’m eight,” William announced. “I’m in third grade.”
“You’re a big boy, then.” Something about the expression in Susannah’s green eyes made Toby wonder if she was seeing him at that age. People often said William was very like him, with his gray-blue eyes and the chestnut-colored hair that was determined to curl.
When Susannah returned
her gaze to his face, there was no longer any trace of surprise or shock in her. Her heart-shaped face had maturity and control now, although her soft peachy skin and the delicate curve of her cheek hadn’t changed in the ten years since he’d seen her last.
“How nice that you could come to visit,” she said. “I’m sure your mamm and daad are happy to see you and the kinder, especially since your father has been laid up with that broken leg from his accident.”
Of course that was what she’d assume—that he was here to visit, maybe to help out after his father’s fall from the barn loft. He’d made his decision so quickly there wouldn’t have been time for word to spread, even though the Amish grapevine was probably still as effective as ever. Which meant he had to tell her the news that he assumed Susannah would find very unwelcome.
“We’re not here to visit.” He sent a quick, reassuring glance at the kinder. “We’ve come home to Pine Creek to stay.”
“You’re moving back?”
The question came from behind Susannah, and Toby belatedly realized there was someone else in the schoolroom. He must have been so absorbed in seeing Susannah again that he hadn’t looked beyond her face. It took him a moment to recognize the woman who came quickly toward them.
“Becky Mast.” He might have known that’s who it would be. Becky and Susannah had been best friends since the cradle. He could just imagine how furious Becky had been at him for jilting her dearest friend all those years ago.
“I’m Becky Shuler now.” She stood glaring at him, hands planted on her hips. Becky wasn’t as good as Susannah at hiding her feelings, it seemed. “Are you serious about moving back to Pine Creek? Why would you?” The edge in her voice made no secret of her opinion.
“That means I’ll have William and Anna in my classroom,” Susannah said quickly, sending a warning look at her friend. “I’ll be wonderful glad to have two new students in our school.”
Becky, apparently heeding the stern glance from Susannah, seemed to swallow her ire. She smiled at the kinder. “Anna, are you in first grade? My twin girls are in first grade.”
Anna didn’t speak. He didn’t expect her to. But she nodded slightly.
“The twins will enjoy having a new friend,” Susannah said. “You can sit beside them, if you’d like. Their names are Grace and Mary.”
“Where do the third graders sit, Teacher Susannah?” William pulled free of Toby’s restraining hand. “Are there lots of boys?”
“Third graders sit right over here.” She led him to a row of desks somewhere in size between the smallest ones for the beginners and the almost-adult-sized ones for the eighth graders. “We have three other boys in the third grade and four in the fourth, so you’ll have lots of boys to play with at recess.”
William grabbed one of the desks and lifted the top. Before Toby could correct him, Susannah had closed it again, keeping her hand on the surface for a moment.
“That is someone else’s desk. We don’t look through other people’s things unless they say we may.” Susannah’s quiet firmness seemed to impress William, because he nodded and took a step back.
The confidence of her response startled him. The Susannah he remembered hadn’t been capable of correcting anyone. But they were both ten years older now. They’d both grown and changed, hadn’t they?
“I hope it’s not a problem to add two new scholars into your classroom in the middle of the year,” he said.
His mind wandered to the things he’d have to tell Susannah about the kinder, sooner or later. Things that had made him return home, seeking help and stability from his parents.
There was William’s talent for mischief making. And Anna’s shyness, which seemed to be getting worse, not better. But something in him balked at the thought of confessing his failings as a parent to Susannah, of all people.
With her hand resting on the nearest desk, Susannah seemed very much at ease and in command in her classroom. “Becky, would you mind taking William and Anna out to join the twins on the swings? I have some papers their daadi must fill out.”
Becky nodded and held out her hands to the children. “Komm. I’ll show you the playground.”
To his surprise, Anna took Becky’s hand and trotted alongside her with only one backward glance. William, of course, raced ahead of them. After a pause at the door to allow Becky to grab a jacket against the winter chill, they went outside.
“Denke, Susannah.” He turned back to her. “I wanted a chance to talk without the children overhearing.”
“Of course.” Her tone was suddenly cool and formal. She walked to the teacher’s desk and retrieved a folder from a drawer, not speaking. Then she turned back to him. “Here are some forms you can fill out and return when you bring the kinder to class. Will you want them to start tomorrow?”
He nodded as he took the papers, hesitating in the face of her frosty demeanor. It was as if all Susannah’s gentle friendliness had left the room with his kinder.
Still, he could hardly expect her to welcome him back, not after what he’d done. Groping for something to say, he noticed the Christmas stars strewn across her desk, and the sight made him smile.
“Is it time for the Christmas program already? Some things never change, ain’t so?”
Susannah nodded, her expression brightening. “It wouldn’t seem like Christmas if we didn’t have the school Christmas program to look forward to. Becky and I were just saying that the challenge is to come up with something new every year.”
“It’s not possible, is it?” He felt a sudden longing to keep her smiling, to keep her from thinking about their past. “Except that someone usually makes a new and different mistake each time.”
Susannah leaned against the desk, her face relaxing just a little. “I seem to remember a few mistakes that might have been intentional. Like a certain boy who mixed up the letters in the word the class was supposed to be spelling out, so that our Merry Christmas greeting didn’t make any sense.”
He grinned at the memory. “Don’t mention that to William, or he’ll try to outdo my mischief making.”
“I’ll keep your secret,” she said, the corners of her lips curving, making the words sound almost like a promise.
For a moment they stood looking at each other, and he felt as if they were sixteen years old again, knowing each other so well they hardly needed words to communicate. How was it that the past ten years had disappeared so quickly and the link between them still remained?
“Susannah, I hope—” He stopped, not sure he wanted to go on with what he’d impulsively begun.
“What?” Her eyebrows lifted, her green eyes open and questioning, just like they used to be before he’d given her cause to regard him with wariness and suspicion.
He sucked in a breath, determined to get the words out before he lost his courage. “I just hope my return isn’t…well, difficult for you…after the way we parted.”
After the way he’d panicked as their wedding date grew closer, bolting in the night with only a short note left behind to explain himself.
All the vitality seemed to leave Susannah’s face. She turned, taking a step away from him. The moment shattered as if it had never happened.
“Of course not.” Susannah’s voice was colorless, her voice that of a stranger. “I’m sure everyone in Pine Creek will be happy to wilkom you home.”
Toby carefully smoothed the papers he’d clenched in his hand. Susannah didn’t need words to spell out what she felt. It was only too clear.
She hadn’t forgotten, and she hadn’t forgiven.
Copyright © 2014 by Martha Johnson
ISBN-13: 9781460342336
His Montana Homecoming
Copyright © 2014 by Harlequin Books S.A.
Special thanks and acknowledgment to Jenna Mindel for her contribution to the Big Sky Centennial miniseries.…
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