An Amish Holiday Family by Jo Ann Brown

Author:Jo Ann Brown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-08-12T15:54:06+00:00

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Beth Ann had planned to keep the children home the next day. Dougie and Crystal were thrilled to play hooky, but Tommy was annoyed because the day care kids were working on ornaments to be shared with the residents of a nursing home on the west side of Evergreen Corners. She gave each of the older two a book to read and cautioned them not to touch anything in the kitchen while she took Tommy to the church to join his friends in Gwen’s class.

The anxiety that had kept her awake continued to flicker through her head as she and Tommy crossed the village green. Someone had been working on the gazebo, repairing the damage left by the flood. The repair probably had been done by an Amish volunteer, seeing a problem and taking care of it.

That was what the plain community did, both Mennonite and Amish. Yet there seemed to be a tighter sense of belonging among the Amish than she’d known growing up Mennonite.

Maybe they acted like one big family, she thought to distract herself from her roiling thoughts, because so many are related to one another.

It was impossible for her to ignore how, when she and Robert had been discussing the problem Dougie was having at school, Michael had stepped in with a quick and reasonable solution. Unlike Englischers would have, Michael hadn’t said he had to check with his wife. He’d known she, like anyone else in the Amish community, would agree in order to help someone in need.

She sighed as she and Tommy reached the church. Going downstairs with him, she gave Gwen a smile and told them both to have a nice day. She hurried away before she could be drawn into a conversation. She was too perplexed by her own thoughts to pay attention to anyone else’s.

Heading toward the green again, she wondered how it would be to live Amish. No Amish person ever had to feel lonely as she had after her grandmother died and the clinic closed. Every event in an Amish life happened among family and friends. Births, marriages, deaths. Each brought everyone together. It was a well-ordered life, nothing like the chaos of her own.

She only had to look as far as Robert. He’d been separated from his sister for two decades, but she’d welcomed him back into her life and inspired him to be part of Amish Helping Hands. Neither of them acted as if their actions were anything out of the ordinary.

They weren’t for the Amish.

“Hey!” came a shout an instant before a strong arm swept around her arm and pulled her backward.

The leap of her heart told her the arm belonged to Robert. Before she could ask why he was grabbing her, she saw a car race past her, less than a foot away. She backed up and bumped into the hard wall of his chest.

Sensations exploded through her, wiping her mind clear of anything but the thought of his strength surrounding her. Bouncing in her chest, her heart urged her to soften against him as she savored the cool, fresh smell of him.

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