Finding Hope by Janice Kay Johnson

Author:Janice Kay Johnson [Johnson, Janice Kay]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2021-06-29T00:00:00+00:00

Oh, yes, she needed the reminder. She greatly feared she’d never feel the same about her mother again, but she had to find forgiveness in her heart.

Chapter Fourteen

Gideon forked a bite of scrambled eggs into his mouth, Zeb and Rebekah doing the same. He swallowed before, without a word, reaching for the saltshaker. Pepper, too, he decided. His scrambled eggs did not taste like Hannah’s. She’d spoiled him. Not only him, he saw, watching his kinder push their eggs around on their plates with an obvious lack of enthusiasm.

Mondays had become his least favorite day of the week, he thought, and not for the first time.

Fortunately, Hannah had baked enough bread Saturday afternoon to keep them until tomorrow. He reached for a buttered slice of toast, certain to be good.

“Daadi?”

He smiled at his daughter. “Ja?”

“I liked seeing Hannah Sunday. Is she Amish now?”

“No, she was only visiting. She has been dressing plain out of respect for Samuel and the rest of her family.”

“And us.” Zeb lifted his chin pugnaciously.

“Ja. And us.” Although he had no idea whether that was true. “You know she only plans to stay for a couple of months. I should start looking for someone to replace her.”

“No!” Tears filled Rebekah’s eyes, and she scrambled off her chair. “I don’t want anyone else! I want Hannah!” She ran for the stairs, her breakfast barely touched.

Gideon shoved back his chair. “Rebekah!”

Upstairs, a door slammed.

He bent a warning stare on Zeb, who resumed eating.

It was a mistake not to go after Rebekah—but her distress was real. She never caused him trouble. Being hungry this morning at school would be consequence enough.

His interest in his own breakfast had waned, but he made himself continue eating. Unlike the kinder, he could slip back to the house for a sandwich after he walked them to school, but he didn’t like to dump food in the compost bin, and there was nothing wrong with what was in front of him.

“Hannah is really going to leave?” Zeb asked in a small voice.

“So she said. She warned me when I hired her that she could only stay for a month or two. You knew that. It’s been a month already.”

“Maybe she changed her mind.”

Gideon wished he felt as hopeful as Zeb sounded.

Maybe he should ask her.

And maybe it would be better if she left soon. He’d never anticipated his kinder getting so attached to her. The feelings she stirred up in him put him in danger of forgetting who and what he was. He couldn’t let those feelings lead him into temptation, even if her generosity, her warmth, her vulnerability, and, ja, her slim, strong body with a woman’s curves had captivated him from the beginning.

“She’s a kind woman and a good cook,” he told his son, “but she’s not one of us. We can’t forget that.”

Zeb nodded, but he didn’t meet his father’s eyes. Instead, he picked up his plate and took it to the sink.

Gideon ended up scraping food from three plates into the kitchen waste container.

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