Sanctuary by David Lewis

Author:David Lewis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2007-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty

“I DON’T KNOW WHEN I’ve eaten food this delicious,” Melissa noted after the last bite of the noon meal.

“Well, thank you.” Lela, sitting opposite her, smiled. “I wanted to cook up something extra special for you.”

Lela was perhaps one of the sweetest women Melissa had ever known. The fact that the Plain woman was past thirty and not yet married was astonishing. The truth was, the hostess had everything going for her—great cooking skills, gardening talent, a well-kept home. Why hadn’t she married? Any reasonable man would find Lela Denlinger an excellent choice.

But Melissa knew little of the dating and courtship practices in the quiet community, and she wasn’t about to ask. She did recall the blush of embarrassment on Lela’s face, the slightly flustered speech, just yesterday morning. So did she have a man friend after all?

Their conversation turned to Elizabeth and Thaddeus and their little ones. Lela, it seemed, adored her nieces and nephews. She was also quite fond of Elizabeth. “We had the most interesting childhood,” Lela said. “Always together, till school issues separated us. But, nevertheless, we had our evenings … and the summers.”

“What happened at school?”

“Elizabeth began dating Thaddeus, a young Amishman, so she dropped out of higher education, so to speak, preparing to follow in his Old Order ways.” Lela explained that the Amish stop educating their young people after eighth grade. “Since Elizabeth was well past that level, she decided to honor her fiancé.”

“She quit school for Thaddeus?”

“To please him, you know.”

Melissa hadn’t heard of such a thing. Women’s rights had been the top issue in college. The notion of a woman giving up her plans for a man was foreign to her.

“Did Elizabeth ever second-guess her decision?” she asked.

“Never, so far as I know.” Lela paused. “But, then, Thaddeus has always been a good, kind man. He and Elizabeth became the best of friends, even before their marriage. Still are, I suspect.”

Best of friends …

She’d always viewed herself and Ryan that way. And they had been close friends, in spite of their occasional disagreements. The commonalities between them made up for other things. They both loved dogs—Daisy was proof—and they enjoyed their quaint abode on Lord’s Point, the sea, the sailing, and all that the prime cove-front property afforded.

How she missed being there, Ryan at her side. By now he would’ve read her e-mail message, and he would know she was safe and sound. She wondered how he’d reacted. Did he long to return a note to her? Did he …

She couldn’t follow in this vein of thought. Lela was dishing up dessert. Time to continue their visit, try not to think about the phone over there on the counter, the telephone that was much too silent today.

“Would it be possible for me to visit Elizabeth’s little store?” she asked, accepting the rhubarb tapioca dessert and a warm-from-the-oven coconut oatmeal gem—a delicious cookie.

“Oh sure.” Lela beamed, her eyes bright. “We can go over after bit.”

She wasn’t sure how soon “after bit” was, but she would be ready whenever the time came.

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