by Marta Perry
“No, Joshua.” She had to stop this notion now, no matter how it hurt. “I don’t know what you saw, but it wasn’t Daadi.”
His small face clouded. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.” Her heart hurt as she spoke the words.
“Please look, Mammi.” He pressed small hands on her cheeks to ensure she paid attention. “Please look in the stable.”
Obviously it was the only thing that would satisfy him. “All right. I’ll go and look. You wash up for supper.”
Josh nodded solemnly. Rebecca stood, giving her daughter a warning look.
“No more talking about this until I come back. You understand?”
Rhoda seemed about to argue, but she nodded as well. After pausing to see them headed for the sink without further squabbling, Rebecca slipped out the back door.
A quick glance told her there was no activity at the barn now. Probably her daad and brother had finished and headed home for their own supper. It wasn’t far across the field to the farmhouse where she’d grown up.
That field would be planted with corn eventually. Daad had mentioned that only yesterday, and she’d thought how strange it seemed that Paul wasn’t here to make the decision.
Turning in the opposite direction, she skirted the garden. The early onions were up, and in a few weeks the danger of frost would be over, and she could finish putting the rest of the vegetables in the ground.
Beyond the garden stood the posts from which the FARM STAY BED-AND-BREAKFAST sign should hang. She’d have to put it up soon. Her first guests were due the end of May, and she had to fight back panic at the thought of dealing with guests without Paul’s support. The bed-and-breakfast had been their dream, and he’d enjoyed every minute of their first season.
Last summer she’d been too devastated by his death to think of opening, but now . . . well, now she owed it to Paul to make their dream come true as best she could.
The stable still seemed raw and new to her even though it had been up for more than a year. They’d gone ahead with the building even after Paul’s diagnosis, as a sign that they had faith he would be well again.
But he hadn’t been. He’d grown weaker and weaker, and eventually she had learned to hate the sight of the stable that had been intended for the purebred draft horses Paul wanted to breed. The stable had stood empty ever since.
Steeling herself, Rebecca swung open one side of the double doors and stepped inside. Dust motes danced in a shaft of sunlight. The interior seemed to echo of lost hopes.
Sucking in a breath, she forced herself to walk through the stable, her footsteps hollow on the wooden floorboards. No one was here. Joshua’s longing for his daadi had led him to imagine what he longed for.
A board creaked behind her and Rebecca whirled, heart leaping into her throat.
A man stood in the doorway. Big, Amish, silhouetted against the light so that she couldn’t make out his face. Then he took a step forward, and she could see him.
For a long moment they stood staring at each other. Her brain seemed to be moving sluggishly. He was tall, broad-shouldered, with golden-brown hair and eyes. He didn’t have a beard, so she could see the cleft in his chin, and the sight stirred vague memories. She knew him, and yet she didn’t. It wasn’t—
“Matt? Matthew Byler?”
A flicker of a smile crossed his face. “Got it right. And you’re little Becky, ain’t so?”
“Rebecca Fisher,” she corrected quickly. So Matt Byler was back home at last. Nothing had been seen of him since his family had migrated out west when he was a teenager.
“You married Paul Fisher, then.” He came closer, making her aware of the height and breadth of him. “You two were holding hands when you were eight or nine, the way I remember it.”
“And you were . . .” She let that trail off. Matt had been a couple of years older than they were, and he’d been the kind of boy Amish parents held up as a bad example—always in trouble, always pushing the boundaries of what it meant to be Amish.
Now Matt’s smile lit his eyes. “You remember me. The troublemaker.”
“I . . . I wasn’t thinking that,” she said. But of course she had been. It was the first thing anyone thought in connection with Matt Byler. “Are you here for a visit?”
Matt didn’t have a beard, so obviously he hadn’t married. That was more than unusual for an Amish man of thirty. Surely his unmarried state wasn’t for lack of chances. A prudent set of parents might look warily at Matt as a prospective son-in-law, but the girls had always been charmed by his teasing smile.
“My uncle needs some help with his carpentry business, and he asked me to give him a hand.”
Everyone knew that Silas Byler had been struggling to keep his business going since his oldest son had so unexpectedly left the community. How strange life was that Isaiah, who’d never caused his parents a moment’s worry, should be the one to leave, while bad boy Matthew came back to take his place.
“I’m sorry about Isaiah. It was a heavy blow to your aunt and uncle, ain’t so?”
Matt nodded with a wry twist to his mouth. “Funny, isn’t it? Everyone was so sure I was the one headed over the fence.”
“You did a pretty good job of making folks think so, the way I remember it,” she said.
“Ouch.” Matt’s teasing grin appeared. “You’ve developed a sharp tongue, I see.”
“I’ve just grown up,” she said. “I have two kinder of my own now. Little Joshua must have seen you here at the stable. He thought it was his daadi.”
His face sobered instantly. “I’m sorry, Rebecca. Truly sorry. My uncle told me about Paul. You have my sympathy.”
“Denke.” She shouldn’t be angry with Matt over Joshua’s vivid imagination, but if she were being honest with herself . . . “Was there something you wanted here, Matt?” she asked abruptly.
He looked a little taken aback by the blunt question. “I’m looking for a building I can use for my furniture business. Onkel Silas told me about the stable and how Paul was going to . . .” He didn’t finish the thought. “Anyway, he said you weren’t using the stable and might be willing to lease it to me.”
Everything in Rebecca recoiled at the thought of putting another person’s business in Paul’s stable. “No.” Her tone was sharper than she’d intended. “I’m sorry. It’s not available.”
Matt’s eyebrows lifted. “It’s standing empty. I can pay you five hundred a month for the space.”
“It’s not available,” she said again, annoyed at him for putting her in this position, and unable to keep from thinking about what she could do with five hundred dollars a month.
Matt studied her face, his eyes intent and questioning. “You don’t like the idea of turning Paul’s stable over to someone else. I can understand that. But you have two little ones to raise. Can you afford to have it sitting empty when it could be earning money for Paul’s kinder?”
The fact that Matt was probably right didn’t make her feel any more kindly toward him. “I don’t think that’s your concern.”
“Maybe not. But it is yours, Rebecca.” He held her gaze for a moment longer, and she felt as if he was looking right into all her grief and uncertainty. Then he took a step back. “I wouldn’t do any harm to the place. Think about it.”
He turned and walked away. He was silhouetted in the doorway for a moment, and then he was gone, leaving Rebecca unsettled and upset.
Photo by Lorie Johnson Photography
A lifetime spent in rural Pennsylvania and her own Pennsylvania Dutch roots led Marta Perry to write about the Plain People who add to the rich heritage of her home state. She is the author of more than fifty inspirational romance novels and lives with her husband in a century-old farmhouse.
Visit the author online at martaperry.com and facebook.com/MartaPerryBooks.
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Marta Perry, Susanna's Dream: The Lost Sisters of Pleasant Valley, Book Two
