An Amish Mother's Secret Past by Jo Ann Brown

Author:Jo Ann Brown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2020-04-08T18:22:36+00:00

Chapter Ten

Raking leaves was backbreaking work, and Rachel’s muscles were threatening to explode from a dull ache into searing pain at any minute. She wasn’t accustomed to such physical work, and she hadn’t guessed what a chore it’d be to get leaves off the grass. There were only two trees in the front yard, but every tree along the street, and most in the woods behind the trailer, had donated to the collection on her lawn. She suspected she could have called her landlord, and he would have sent someone over to get rid of the leaves. She couldn’t, not when he was letting her and the girls stay there while she served with Amish Helping Hands. She must not repay his kindness with demands for a job she could do herself.

The trash-removal company was coming soon to take away any leaves raked to the street, and she wanted as many gone as possible. She hated doing lawn work. It was, she knew, another remnant of her childhood, when mowing the grass and raking the leaves and shoveling the snow had been her tasks. While other young girls had gathered for frolics and had the chance to spend time with young men from nearby districts, she’d had to stay at home and do her chores.

With a laugh, she said aloud, “You know there’s a story about that, Cinderella.”

“Cinderella?” asked Eva, her ears attuned to anything any adult said, as always. “What Cinderella?”

“Not a what, but a who. Cinderella is a girl who needs to do her chores to help her family, and she never complains.” She smiled. Sometimes it was difficult to recall how she hadn’t known much about fairy tales when she was a kind. Most she’d discovered after she’d jumped the fence and had to read them in order to understand references made in her new Englisch life.

Doubt crept into her mind. Were her in-laws right? Was she denying Loribeth and Eva a part of their heritage? As they grew, she planned to share more about Travis and the Englisch life they’d lived before his death. It was impossible to live in two such different worlds, and trying to do so would confuse her daughters. They were at an age when they were willing to accept what she offered them. Would they always be that way? She couldn’t keep from wondering if, when they were older, they’d decide to jump the fence, as she had. Would they come to resent her, and tell her that she’d deprived them of the life they would have had if Travis hadn’t been killed? Or would they come to treasure a plain life, as she did?

Shaking aside the uneasy thoughts, she paused and watched the girls chasing Sweetie Pie around the yard. There were years ahead of them before Loribeth and Eva had to make the decision of how to spend the rest of their lives. What mattered was that they knew she loved them, no matter what they chose.

She smiled when

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