Clean Romance: Loves of Tomorrow (Contemporary New Adult and College Amish Western Culture Romance) (Urban Power of Love Billionaire Western Collection Time Travel Short Stories)

by Unknown

  “Now, tell me the names of the other men who helped you or I’ll have an officer arrest your boy.”

  Abrahams puts his face in his hands and sobs out the names of six men. In time, they will each confess to the role they each played in the conspiracy and plead guilty to murder. But there was a seventh name in the cabal—Garret Aldenkamp.

  *****

  “Father, father, they have found the killer; or killers I should say.”

  “What, what news do you have son?”

  “It was Heir Abrahams who was the ring-leader father. I can hardly believe some of our own would do such a thing to another Amish.”

  “Are you unwell Father?” Fons asks the elder Aldenkamp, who has just fallen onto the kitchen table bench; his faithful wife at his side.

  “I am fine son, just unprepared to hear the news that I feared would come to light. Please sit son, I must tell you something.”

  “First, I am proud of you for the work that you have done with the English Detective. It is good that you have helped to put these killers to justice. But my hands are unclean in this matter.”

  A wave of terror washes over Fons’ face in an instant. He looks to his mother for strength in her but sees that she has already begun to cry and it weakens him all the more.

  “What is it Father, what do you have to confess to me?”

  “You have never told me so, but I have seen you steal looks at Femke Johannsen, and I know in my heart that you have feelings for her. I do not know if she had feelings for you, but of yours I am certain. I am sorry the girl that you love is lost. I promise you that I did not know that they aimed to kill the girl and her family.”

  “But they did not kill Femke Father—she lives! She was not at home when the fire was set.”

  “Oh thank God, this is good news son! When the fire started I knew it was Abrahams and the others. We tried to reason with Johannsen but he would not agree to sell.”

  “Why didn’t you try to do something to keep the men calm Father?”

  “I thought over time the men would continue to try and persuade Johannsen but they never talked about hurting anyone or starting a fire in front of me son. I swear it.”

  “I believe you Father, I can go with you to speak with Detective Price if you like.”

  “Thank you son, but it might not be that easy in the eyes of the English, I may be locked up. If that is so there are some things that I need to say to you. I am very proud of you. I heard how you were one of the men who walked into the flames of hell to look for survivors of the fire. I also learned that I could have lost my only son last night and I have not been kind to you. I am proud of you, my boy, please forgive me.”

  “Thank you Father, I am so happy to hear that I make you proud. It is all that I want to do Father.”

  “I know son. You continue to be a firefighter and saving Amish lives and property. I love you, Fons, I really do.” Garret stood and embraced his son as he hasn’t done since he was a boy, feeling grateful that he had the opportunity to set things straight.

  “Father, I know you were not involved. Abrahams confessed, he gave the names of the others and he said that you tried to convince Johannsen to sell but they did not tell you about the fire because they feared you would blab it to your firefighter son;” the two men shared a hardy laugh over Fons’ words through tears of pain and joy.

  The Aldenkamp family rejoice at their good fortune to have the love of each other restored to what it once was. They agreed that they owe Femke and the tragedy of her family for bringing them closer together. Mr. and Mrs. Aldenkamp are pleased to have her for a daughter-in-law but agree to keep it secret until her mother can be asked for her hand in marriage.

  *****

  “Good morning Sunshine!” The officer says to little Frits as he comes running from the bedroom in the house where the little family is staying. The officers have taken to playing catch and chase with the boys to relieve their bordem and because they enjoy hearing their laughter and screams of joy.

  “We have come to take you home Frits, are you ready to go? Asks Fons, who has ridden with the Police Officer to escort the family to their new home on the farm.

  Not knowing the outcome of the sale of their land to the County, the new house has been moved to a location that would be well away from the highway if it does run through their property.

  “Can I carry anything for you Femke?”

  “I think you have your hands full of Johannsen things right now Fons,” Femke giggles, seeing her little brother squirming and wriggling in Fons’ arms as he plays catch with himself. They all ride happily to the new house. Driving up the driveway, they can see the signs of spring and the blossom of hope all around.

  *****

  With the Spring comes new buds on flowers, trees, and shrubs. Between Femke and Fons, new love is budding too. Getting settled into their new home has been a sad yet exciting time for the little Johannsen family.

  Ilsa is at home with her children, but her psyche is still frail. Femke worries that her mother may never fully recover, but seeing her lovingly play with the boys andhow she has taken to Fons makes Femke’s heart at peace.

  “Mrs. Johannsen, may I speak with you for a moment outside?”

  “Why of course Fons.” Ilsa walks out of the house with Fons in tow, already smiling at the thought of what this very serious young man is about to say.

  “Mrs. Johannsen, I am very much in love with your daughter and I would like to ask you for Femke’s hand in marriage.”

  “Fons, I am so pleased, yes you can marry my daughter, and I know Mr. Johannsen is smiling down from heaven on his future son-in-law. You are a fine young man,” Ilsa said as she kisses Fons tenderly on the cheek.

  “I promise to take care of Ilsa, and if you will allow me, until you remarry again, I shall be a good example of a man for Frits and Faas.”

  “Thank you, Fons, but I shall never remarry, Ferdi is the love of my life, I shall never love another.”

  “Never say never mother, but I shall take care of you also, all the days of your life if you wish,” Fons says, returning Ilsa’s kiss on the cheek.

  “Now I shall go find your lovely daughter and take her on a short walk before dinner if you approve.”

  “Yes Fons, please do, I want to see my daughter’s happy face tonight.”

  Fons is elated as he practically skips into the new Johannsen home. “Femke, your mother said we may have a short walk before dinner this evening. Do you care to walk with me?”

  Fons says as he offers Femke his arm. The couple walks out of the house, passed her mother and brothers and then out into the Spring evening.

  Having walked a respectable distance away, Fons begins to profess his love to Femke once again.

  “Femke I love you and your mother has given her blessings and even said that your Papa would be glad over our match. Will you marry me Femke?”

  “Yes, Fons, I shall marry you and we shall be happy forever Fons, I know we will.”

  The Johannes family spends the rest of the evening in a joyous discussion about weddings, babies, and life with Fons as the head of the Johannesfamily until the boys come of age.

  Life can be funny, when the worst of circumstances are close to us we believe they shall never pass, and we shall always be weighed down by life’s worries. But just like winter never fails to turn to spring, bad times will come, but good times and blessing will always follow. If you ever doubt this is true just remember Fons and Femke.

  THE END

  Another bonus story is on the next page.

  Bonus Story 5 of 10

  Uncle Plats

  “I’ve got no choice. I need to travel out there and arrange this whole thing. Selling a 2,000 acre ranch is hardly a simple task – especially with a lot of livestock, family heirlooms, and other property there” she said and shrugged her shoulders in frustration.

  “Have you ever even been to Colorado, Kayla?” asked her manager – the Executive Vice President of Ope
rations – at her banking company.

  She rolled her eyes. She always felt like he was a young, chauvinist prick who always questioned her reasoning and intelligence. She was surprised he got such an important position at a mere thirty-three years old.

  “Many years ago. It’s been over ten years, but that doesn’t really matter. What difference does that make?”

  He sulked in his chair and blew out a deep exhale. He wasn’t looking forward to replacing his Vice President of Marketing, even if the replacement ended up being only temporary. “How much time do you need off?”

  She shrugged again and flipped up her wrists to face the ceiling. “I really have no idea. I’ve never even done this before. At minimum, I would say two weeks.”

  He clicked the mouse and hit a few keys on his keyboard. “Well, you’ve only got two more weeks of paid time off. Anything beyond that, will not be paid” he gruffly replied.

  She sat in the padded chair in his office and moaned in a soft voice. “Does it even matter that I’ve come to work early probably thirty times so far this year? Especially since I didn’t get paid anything for it?”

  He turned to face her as he was sitting in his swivel chair and smirked. “Nope. You’re salaried. You get paid the same, regardless of how many hours you work.”

  She fumbled her hand around in her pants pocket and located her keys. “Do you need anything else from me?”

  He slightly popped his head from right to left in the negative. “Nope. Just let us know if you need to stay longer. That’s pretty much it.”

  She did three things. She smiled, nodded, and walked out of the room. It was typical corporate America. Would they cut her any slack and not dock her pay? No. Did it a make a difference that she gave them a lot of extra labor? No. Did she get paid for the extra labor? No. Did her boss even say goodbye or wish her luck? No.

  She loved her job, and hated her job at the same time. It sure was nice that she was making close to $200,000 per year. The bad part was that her corporation pretty much owned all of her time and soul. That’s one of the things she didn’t realize would happen when she got her MBA.

  She punched out for the day by scanning her keycard, and she left her large office room. While she walked out to her Cadillac Escalade, she felt the cold, January winter that was nipping at her pantyhose legs.

  “Brr! Maybe it will be warmer in Colorado.”

  Deep down, she knew that was a crock. Colorado is hardly notorious for warm weather. She hadn’t been to her deceased uncle’s Colorado ranch since she was a teen, but she remembered it being very cold.

  She put her truck in reverse and started driving down the ramps of the elevated car garage. In a way, she was surprised that her deceased uncle had left his ranch for her. They only rarely talked, and hardly ever saw each other. They didn’t really have much of a relationship.

  Beyond that, their goals were starkly different. Her longtime goal was to become the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. She still had a way to go, but was making fine progress. He, on the other hand, wanted to have a vast ranch with tons of livestock way out in the country.

  He indeed succeeded in his goal. He had what he called a ‘small’ dairy section, with fifty cows and just a few steers. He had eight horses, a handful of pigs, as well as turkeys and chickens. There were other animals as well, it was a full working ranch.

  She exited the parking garage and drove into her personalized, parking spot just a few blocks from her home. That was another perk that her bank paid for - $30,000 a year for one parking space that only she could use. It sure beat taking the train, though.

  She scanned a keycard to get into her plush apartment lobby, then let herself into her apartment after traveling four floors in the elevator. With a flick of the switch, a drop of her keys on an end table, she was home and almost settled – almost.

  She selected a bottle of Pinot Markund fine red wine, and poured herself a glass. Back in the day, it would have been a can of Guinness, but she was too sophisticated for that at this point. She poured the wine into an ornate glass, and had a seat on her leather couch.

  Sometimes when she got home from work, she would pick an activity that would ease her mind, or release tension. In her 2,000 square foot suite, she had a few exercise machines and a Nintendo Wii that she would sometimes use to exercise. If she really wanted to gear it up, she would go to the local YMCA and push herself.

  Today wasn’t one of those days, though. Her mind was completely distracted and clouded over having to travel to Colorado and arrange a complicated real estate deal to sell off her dead uncle’s land. Ironically, she dealt with mortgage loan issues at her bank, but had never sold a home before, nor did she even have her own mortgage.

  But, for some reason that was unclear to her, she had been chosen to inherit her uncle’s ranch. She didn’t need to sell it, but didn’t see any reason to keep it. She had a good job, nice car, nice home, and a nice life in New York City. Why would she give that up for a ranch in Colorado? Or, why would she keep the ranch and deal with the nightmare of needing to manage and oversee a large farming operation?

  In short, she strongly suggested that she didn’t need to do that. Doing so would be nothing more than silly, if not ridiculous. She’d never lived on a farm before. She’d never ridden a horse before. She didn’t even like farm animals.

  She slowly sipped her wine and set the glass on her mahogany coffee table. As troublesome as the whole matter would be, she knew that she would be able to handle it. It was all a matter of willpower. Her whole life, she had always dealt with great struggles and still come out ahead.

  When she was a little girl, her mother died of ovarian cancer. Her father, thankfully, was a good guy who tried really hard. He worked many hours in a steel mill in order to make enough money to support them. He also got a lot of help from his sister to watch and care for Kayla, while he was at work.

  She dealt with her mom dying by working hard in school and keeping her eyes focused on her life goal – to become a wealthy CEO. In her mind, it’s what she needed to do to make sure that her mom would always be proud of her.

  She slipped off her clothes, slid on her pajamas, and laid in her California king-sized bed. When she was heavily focused on something, or bothered with it, she would often rub her thumbs with her index fingers as she thought of a way to handle it.

  That’s what she was doing in this case. Bottom line – even though she was confident that she could figure it out and work hard with it, she knew it wouldn’t be easy. She also wasn’t very optimistic that it would be enjoyable.

  She snoozed, but only after her near-fanatical, type-A personality kept her up until 1:00 a.m. It was hardly a good thing, since she would have to leave her apartment in the morning at 8:00 a.m. to catch the plane. Then there would be a two hour layover, then a three hour connecting flight to Denver. Even if everything went smoothly, it would still consume most of her day.

  The last thought she had in her mind before she closed her eyes, was a goodbye that she gave to her uncle many years ago. She was a teen, and hugged him tightly and told him that she would miss him, and visit him again soon. She told the truth when she said that she would miss him. She lied when she said she would visit him again soon. Now that he was gone, she knew that was a lost cause.

  *****

  “Welcome to Denver. What kind of car can I get you?” said the handsome young man behind the Hertz counter. He smiled warmly, but that didn’t make a difference for the shrewd and tired Kayla.

  “Just get me something snazzy and comfy.”

  He smiled nervously, in part because he wasn’t really sure what she meant. “What do you mean when you say ‘snazzy’?”

  She opened her arms and pulled them apart, because she had a picture in her head and was trying to illustrate it. “You know, like a Lincoln, Cadillac, Lexus, something like that. Something that is full sized, and will give me lots of space.”

  “Ah. We’ve got an Infiniti J30 here. Would that work?”<
br />
  She liked the Infiniti and nodded with approval. If nothing else, it would at least be comfortable and have enough space. “That’ll do. I assume it has GPS?”

  He smiled and hummed. “Mm hm, it’s built right into the dash. That car has pretty much everything in it. It’s about as modern as they come.”

  For the time being, she cared mostly about whether the car had heat, and whether she could find her hotel – the luxurious Grand Hyatt Premium. That only made sense, because it was only ten degrees outside, and she really wanted to get to her room and relax. She just wanted to chill for a while. It was, after all, a long day.

  “Alright then. After I pay, I just need the keys, and need to know where the vehicle is. I’ll take care of the rest.”

  “Of course. You can pay with either cash or a credit card, then one of my coworkers escort you to the vehicle.”

  She nodded and reached into her small, leather purse, and then pulled out a Visa card. “That’s fine” she said as she handed over her card to the young man.

  Within just a few minutes, she signed some paperwork, got the keys, and made it outside to the where the car was. It looked nice and ‘snazzy’, as she would say. It had mildly tinted windows, a large trunk, aluminum alloy wheels, and a sleek, partially aerodynamic design.

  “Ah! Looks good” she said as she grinned at the car.

  She put her luggage into the trunk and started the car. It fired right up. She took a moment to put her destination address into the GPS, and she took off and sped away. The car was smooth, and didn’t struggle to get good speed.

  She put on the radio and listened to one of her favorite groups – Nickelback. She liked their music because it was upbeat and fun, but it wasn’t overly profane or filthy. She hummed the lyrics to herself and continued to drive.

  She looked around and couldn’t help but notice that the whole area was covered with snow. The snowbanks rose to the side of the road she was driving on, looked like they were about twenty inches high – give or take a few inches. Of course, there were also occasional snowmobile tracks that she spotted off the sides of the road.