Plain Promise
Praise for Beth Wiseman’s
Daughters of the Promise series
“
Plain Promise
is Beth Wiseman’s masterpiece. It’s the story of two unlikely friends’ journey toward faith and love. This heart-warming novel brings readers hope and paints a beautiful, authentic portrait of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Her characters are so real that they feel like old friends. Once you open the book, you won’t put it down until you’ve reached the last page.”
— Amy Clipston,
best-selling author
of
A Gift of Grace
“Beth Wiseman’s
Plain Pursuit
is a charming work of fiction that beautifully paints the quaint picture of the simple ways of the Amish lifestyle. This novel, like its predecessor,
Plain Perfect
, really brings home a message of family devotion. This is wholesome entertainment that I can effortlessly recommend without any reservation. What a sweet romantic story.”
— word-up-studies.blogspot.
com
“Wiseman’s Christian romance novel is just ‘plain’ good.”
—
Fayette County Record
,
La Grange, Texas regarding
Plain Perfect
“
Plain Pursuit
’s story line will hit you in the heart almost from page one. As you keep going deeper into the story, it ceases being a “story” and begins to feel like you are an active participant in a group of people’s lives. Learning the history of shunning in the Amish world and trying to justify what they believe in your world where anything would be done to save a child’s life. When you witness where these two worlds collide, there is frustration, awe, and tears. [It] will take you from the thrills of a new love as Noah and Carley explore each other’s pasts together, to the bottom of despair as the life of a child hangs by a thread.”
— The Romance Readers
Connection
“I was kind of dreading reading yet another Amish novel as not too many of the more recently published ones measure up to Beverly Lewis or Wanda Brunstetter. However,
Plain Perfect
is the exception rather than the rule. And I couldn’t help but keep reading the well crafted story. The characters could be real, with real life struggles, and even the Amish had issues to work through.”
— Laura V. Hilton,
lighthouse-academy.
blogspot.com
“Beth Wiseman gives the reader a delightful glimpse into the life of [the] Amish [in
Plain Perfect
]. [Her] writing is truly inspired.”
—
Schulenburg Sticker
,
Schulenburg, Texas
“The importance of finding peace and acceptance, especially within oneself, is a central theme in this book, the second in Wiseman’s Daughters of the Promise series. Well-defined characters and story make for an enjoyable read.”
—
Romantic Times
regarding
Plain Pursuit
“[A] touching, heartwarming story. Wiseman does a particularly great job of dealing with shunning, a controversial Amish practice that seems cruel and unnecessary to outsiders . . . If you’re a fan of Amish fiction, don’t miss
Plain Pursuit
!”
— Kathy Fuller,
author of
A Man of His Word
“[
Plain Pursuit
is] a well crafted story with fully drawn characters and has nice pacing.”
— LibraryThing.com
Plain Promise
Other Books By Beth Wiseman Include:
Plain Perfect
Plain Pursuit
An Amish Christmas
(Contributors: Beth Wiseman, Kathleen Fuller, and Barbara Cameron)
Plain Promise
A Daughters of the Promise Novel
B
ETH
W
ISEMAN
© 2009 by Beth Wiseman
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.
Thomas Nelson, Inc., titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected].
Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wiseman, Beth, 1962–
Plain promise : a Daughters of the promise novel / Beth Wiseman.
p. cm. — (Daughters of the promise)
ISBN 978-1-59554-720-0 (pbk.)
1. Amish--Fiction. I. Title.
PS3623.I83P576 2009
813'.6—dc22
2009027371
Printed in the United States of America
09 10 11 12 13 RRD 5 4 3 2 1
To Rene Simpson, my dear friend who refuses to
settle for anything less than true love.
Contents
Pennsylvania Dutch Glossary
ab im kopp:
off in the head
ach:
oh
baremlich:
terrible
boppli:
baby
daadi:
grandfather
daed:
dad
daadi haus:
a separate dwelling built for aging parents
danki:
thank you
Die Botschaft:
a weekly newspaper serving Old Order Amish communities everywhere
Em Gott Sei Friede:
God’s peace
Englisch
or
Englischer
: a non-Amish person
fraa:
wife
guder mariye
: good morning
gut:
good
haus:
house
kaffi:
coffee
kalt:
cold
kapp:
a prayer covering or cap
kinner:
children or grandchildren
kinskind:
grandchild
lieb:
love
mamm:
mom
mei:
my
naerfich:
nervous
narrisch:
crazy, insane
Ordnung:
the written and unwritten rules of the Amish; the understood behavior by which the Amish are expected to live, passed down from generation to generation. Most Amish know the rules by heart.
Pennsylvania
Deitsch:
Pennsylvania German, the language most commonly used by the Amish
rumschpringe:
running-around period that begins when a teenager turns sixteen years old and ends when he or she is baptized into the Amish faith
schee:
pretty
wedder:
weather
wunderbaar:
wonderful
ya:
yes
THE DEN IN THE OLD FARMHOUSE WAS THE COZIEST room in the house, but a nip still hung in the air. Sadie pulled her sweater from the rack on the wall and tossed another log onto the fire, orange sparks shimmying up the chimney. She walked to the window, raised the green blind, and looked toward the guest cottage about a hundred feet away. She couldn’t help but recall the hours she and Ben had spent restoring it five years ago, painting the whitewashed walls, installing carpet, and making it fit for use by the
Englisch
.
Sadie was glad when Bishop Ebersol allowed her to furnish the cottage with electricity last year for use as a rental property. Her current renter had come all the way from Los Angeles, his long, sleek automobile now crowding the inside of her barn. But she was grateful for the income. It had been difficult to make ends meet with Ben gone, though her Old Order Amish community never let her go without.
This time of year, men in the district made sure she had plenty of firewood and kept the snow cleared from her driveway. In the spring and summer, the womenfolk kept her supplied with fresh peas and corn from the family crops, but Sadie, a fit woman at age thirty, kept a small garden on her own. She grew tomatoes, peppers, strawberries, melons, and the like—produce easy to tend. In the fall, her neighbors brought her lots of potatoes. She also had plenty of meat stored in a locker in town, thanks to her best friend, Lillian Stoltzfus, and Lillian’s husband, Samuel.
Her shop out front gave her a bit more income. She sold handmade Amish goods that fared well with the tourists. Other women in the district added their crafts to Sadie’s, and they took turns tending the store, splitting the profits among them. She turned her head around and checked the clock on the mantel. Nearly seven. She straightened up, tucked loose red ringlets beneath her
kapp
, and bowed her head.
After she thanked the Lord for the blessings of this new day, she grabbed her black cape, bonnet, and gloves. Then she pulled on her calf-high black boots and braced herself for a blast of arctic air. She took a deep breath, swung the door wide, and closed it quickly behind her—gelid wind stinging her cheeks like a thousand tiny needles.
A frosty mix of sleet and snow dusted her cape as she made her trek across the front yard to the shop. How fortunate she was that Ben’s old workshop was near the road and visible to tourists. She had cried when she’d given away her husband’s tools and turned his favorite place into the shop, but her friends had worked by her side to transform the old building. Then, just two months ago, they opened Treasures of the Heart
.
She glanced around at the snow-covered pastures, visions of Ben tending the land still fresh in her mind. Less painful, but still there. It had been four years since the
Englisch
car had sped around a corner of Black Horse Road and into Ben’s buggy. She would never forget their crates of fresh vegetables strewn across the road, patches of red, green, and yellow dotting the black asphalt. She envisioned the toppled buggy, their injured horse, who would later have to be put down, and her Ben . . .
When she’d heard the commotion that day, she had run down Black Horse Road faster than she knew her legs could carry her. Jacob King was squatting beside Ben when she arrived, and she knew by the expression on Jacob’s face that her Ben was gone.
A glimpse of movement to her right pulled her back to the present. She looked toward the cottage and saw her renter, Kade Saunders, retrieving wood from where she had placed it on the front porch. He was sparsely clothed for such weather, denim pants and a short-sleeved, white T-shirt. Sadie watched him hurriedly scoop two logs into his arms, then drop one before making it to the front door.
She heard him grunt loudly and say something that sounded like cursing. She wasn’t sure, but it stopped her in her tracks. She watched him walk backward into the house, cradling the logs in his arms. She couldn’t see his expression, but she waved anyway. He didn’t wave back. Of course, his arms were full. He kicked the door shut and was out of sight. It was the first time she’d seen the man since he’d arrived three days ago.
She tucked her head to avoid the thickening snowfall and continued toward the shop. It was hard not to wonder what Kade Saunders was doing in Lancaster County for three months, so far from where he lived in California. When he had stopped by to pick up the key, he hadn’t looked prepared for the twelve-degree weather—denim breeches, a black overcoat, and white running shoes not fit for two feet of snow. And the man didn’t have a head covering. His wavy, dark hair glistened with icy moisture, and his hazel eyes shone with irritation. Shivering as he spoke, he had declined the maid service included in the rental cost but requested that his automobile be protected from the wintry elements. She could see it through the open barn doors.
She rubbed her hands together and recalled the phone call from Mr. Saunders’s personal assistant. The woman requested the one-bedroom cottage January through March for Mr. Saunders, but only after insisting that his privacy be respected during his stay. Sadie had hesitated. Her previous renters had been couples and families. How would it look for a single man to be occupying the same property as Sadie for three months, even if they were under separate roofs? Would the bishop be displeased?
