Promise Lodge (3 page)

As Noah entered the shadowy structure, where cracks in the weathered lumber allowed some daylight through, his older brother, Roman, looked up from the stanchion he was constructing. When this property had been a church camp, riding horses, tack, and hay had been stored here, so he and Amos were renovating it into a dairy barn for Aunt Christine's Holstein herd. After her husband died last fall, Roman had taken over the milking and the care of the cows.

“Problem?” Roman asked. “By the look on your face, your mouth was open when a bird flew over.”

Noah grimaced. “Deborah's here. Begging for my forgiveness.”

His brother's eyebrows shot up. “And you said—?”

He thrust the canister at Roman and then walked around, checking out the progress on the remodeling. “I told her I wanted no part of courting her again.”

“
Gut
answer! Amos brought five more letters from the post office this morning, from families wanting to come to Promise Lodge,” his brother said in an excited voice. “Three of those families have
daughters
. They're looking for affordable land and fresh bloodlines to marry into. So here we are, brother. The answer to their prayers, right?” Roman pried off the canister lid, inhaled deeply, and then stuffed a brownie into his mouth.

Noah sighed, allowing the thrum of the agitator in the bulk milk tank to fill the silence. Before fall, they needed to construct a separate stable for their horses, and within the next week or two they'd have to build a roadside stand where the girls could sell their produce. So much work, so little time.

“Still can't argue that Deborah's brownies are the
best,
though,” Roman remarked. “Looks like you've eaten a few.”

“
Jah,
they were a peace offering. But once the sugar wears off, you're only hungrier for something more substantial.”

Roman chortled. “That's where these new girls might be just the ticket. But if Deborah has asked you to forgive her, you know Mamm and the aunts will side with her,” he pointed out. “And Preacher Amos'll be reminding you about that seventy-times-seven thing, when it comes to letting go of old grudges. Even if you don't want to marry her anymore, he'll tell you to forgive and forget.”

It was true. Preacher Amos was an admirable man, even if he'd come to Promise Lodge mostly because he was a widower and he had his eye on Mamm. He was more laid-back than Preacher Eli or Bishop Obadiah Chupp, but he insisted on following the rules Jesus had taught. There would be no wiggling out of forgiving Deborah, no crying foul just because she'd jilted him. Forgiveness was the cornerstone of the Old Order faith. They had both joined the church last year, so he couldn't ignore Christ's most important commandment:
Love one another.

But he couldn't forgive Deborah. Couldn't let go of the pain that gave him a reason to get up in the morning. If he was hurting this badly, he was still alive, right? It was proof he hadn't curled up in a ball and rolled into a hole.

He intended to move on. To love again and marry someday.

But Deborah no longer figured into his plans.

Chapter Two

As Deborah hugged Laura and Phoebe Hershberger, her two best friends in the world, the sound of their voices healed some of the pain Noah had inflicted with his tough talk. She had really missed these girls since they'd moved away from Coldstream to make a fresh start with their widowed mother.

“Deborah! What a fine surprise,” Laura said.

“Just yesterday we were talking about you, wishing we could see you again,” Phoebe chimed in, “and here you are! The answer to our prayers.”

They all laughed as Queenie yipped in agreement, prancing in a circle around the three of them. Deborah clutched the girls' shoulders, savoring their togetherness. Why ruin this happy moment by telling them the real reason she'd come to Promise Lodge? There would be plenty of time to share the disturbing news of what was happening in Coldstream. “This is quite a place,” she said. “I can't wait to see it, and to hear about what you've been doing.”

“Oh, we haven't had an idle moment, what with planting the garden plots and fixing up the guest cabins,” Phoebe replied. She was twenty, and her slender face and angular body closely resembled her deceased
dat
's.

“And you can be our first guest.” Laura, the younger of the sisters, had the sunnier disposition. Her blue eyes glimmered as she gestured toward the nearest cabin. “Mamm's finished the curtains and we've put a new mattress on the bed in the cabin closest to the lodge. You showed up at just the right time.”

“Come on inside,” Phoebe insisted. “Mamm and the aunts will be glad to see a face from back home.”

As they stepped up to the lodge's wide front porch, Deborah could tell the building needed some maintenance, yet she knew immediately why her favorite neighbors had fallen in love with the place. Large old trumpet vines grew on either end of the porch, loaded with bright orange flowers. The shade from enormous maple trees felt twenty degrees cooler than the garden, and the homey creak of the screen door welcomed her into a lobby that rose two stories high. Curving stairways framed the spacious room, with sturdy bannisters that joined to form the railing of an upstairs hallway. Above her, a huge chandelier of antlers gave the entryway an aura of rustic elegance.

“Look who's here!” Laura called out as they hurried past a massive stone fireplace. They entered a dining area filled with long wooden tables and chairs—enough to seat nearly a hundred people, Deborah estimated. The lingering aromas of fresh bread and fried chicken reminded her that she'd missed dinner while she'd been on the road. When Rosetta Bender peered out from the kitchen, however, Deborah forgot how hungry she was.

“Oh, but you're a sight for sore eyes!” Rosetta cried as she rushed toward Deborah with a dish towel flapping in her hand. “Mattie and I were just saying that we should write to you and your
mamm
—”

“But hearing the news from you in person is so much better,” Mattie Schwartz joined in from the kitchen doorway. “Did you eat along the way? We've got chicken and some rhubarb cake left—which is a miracle, considering how my boys and Amos are packing away the food these days.”

Once again Deborah gloried in the warm hugs and smiles from friends she'd missed. Both women's aprons were smudged with flour and their cape dresses of brown and gold felt damp from spending time in a hot kitchen, yet their smiles were as refreshing as lemonade on a summer day. Deborah was grateful that Noah's
mamm
and aunt had never seemed to hold their broken engagement against her.

“A piece of chicken would hit the spot,” she replied. She smiled at Laura and Phoebe, who were already fetching her a plate and pulling out the chair at the worktable. “Wow, this must be three times the size of our kitchens back home. I've never seen such big stoves and refrigerators.”

“They're perfect for feeding the families coming to our new colony, and for the apartments I hope to open this fall,” Rosetta replied. She plucked bread from a covered basket and placed it on Deborah's plate. “You'll hear the fellows talk about how decrepit the buildings are, but all these appliances are gas and they work just fine.”

“We're lucky because the church that owned this place left all the utensils, furnishings, and linens, too,” Mattie said. “With time and hard work, we can salvage most of those items and save a lot of money, which we can spend for the repairs and new buildings we'll need.”

Deborah closed her eyes over a crispy chicken thigh that was still warm. Her heart swelled with Mattie and Rosetta's can-do attitudes, the firm belief that they'd made the right decision when they'd sold their farms to start a new life. “Have you had any response to your ad in
The Budget
?” she asked as she buttered her bread. “Some of the folks in Coldstream are still surprised at how quickly you left, saying maybe you leaped before you looked.”

Mattie and Rosetta exchanged a smile that suggested they'd heard this sentiment before. “We Bender sisters have stuck together through thick and thin by the grace of Jesus,” Mattie replied without a moment's hesitation. “He wouldn't steer us wrong.”

“And with Mattie and Christine losing their men, and our parents passing on to their reward last winter,” Rosetta took up the thread, “we all thought it best to look forward rather than letting our losses hold us back. ‘In my Father's house are many mansions,' the Bible tells us. Our lodge and cabins aren't as grand as God's dwelling place, but with His help we'll create a little section of Heaven in this old campground for folks who need to set down new roots.”

That would be me,
Deborah mused as she bit into her chicken again. She was happy to let the two women keep talking so she didn't have to reveal her predicament yet.

“The letters are coming in, from folks interested in buying plots of our land,” Mattie replied as she checked a pan of something in the oven. “Amos has called a few of them, and we think we'll see new families by the end of June if they can sell their farms quickly.”

“That's only a few weeks away,” Deborah murmured.

“We've got a lot of fixing up to do before then,” Laura remarked.

“But we'll have plenty of time to chat about our plans for Promise Lodge and show you around while you're here,” Rosetta said. “How's your family, Deborah? What's the news from Coldstream? While we don't regret leaving some of the recent goings-on behind us, we sure do miss our friends.”

Deborah swallowed hard, her half-eaten chicken thigh poised in front of her face. No matter which question she addressed, these two women wouldn't want to hear her answer. “Oh, you know how it is,” she hedged. “Things don't change a lot in Coldstream from one day to the next.”

Mattie frowned doubtfully.

Rosetta raised an eyebrow. “Why is your face telling me something different from your words?” she asked. “Has there been more trouble, Deborah?”

The bruise on Deborah's neck throbbed. Before she could reply, Preacher Amos Troyer came in through the back kitchen door, followed by Roman Schwartz, Mattie's older son. The minister's bearded face lit up in greeting. “I heard we had a guest,” he said as he headed toward one of the large stainless steel refrigerators. “Welcome, Deborah.”

“And thanks for these brownies,” Roman said as he set her tin on the counter. “Too bad we didn't save enough for you ladies.”

“We've just asked Deborah what's been happening in Coldstream,” Mattie said as her gaze intensified. “And I'm guessing it's not so
gut
.”

Deborah was cornered. Sooner or later these dear friends would receive the bad news in a letter from someone, so there was no point in stalling. “The um, barn on the Bender home place burned down.”

When Rosetta and Mattie grabbed for each other's hands, Deborah sighed. She'd been here less than an hour, and already she'd distressed half the people she'd seen.

“Dat built that barn when he and Mamm moved onto the place, when they were first married,” Mattie recalled sadly. “In the winter when the leaves were off the trees, I could see it from my kitchen window, across the fields.”

“
Jah,
more than sixty years it sat on our hill, like a guardian angel for the farm,” Rosetta said with a hitch in her voice. “I'm awfully glad our parents weren't alive to witness this.”

“Why do I suspect Chupp and his English buddies were involved?” Roman muttered. “Their names came up after Aunt Christine and Uncle Willis's barn caught fire. And with the new owners not yet living on the Bender farm, those guys probably figured they could hang out there and no one would be the wiser.”

“Don't go repeating gossip as gospel, Roman,” Mattie said sharply. “It's one thing to have our suspicions, but another thing to speculate about these fires without knowing the facts.”

“After catching Isaac snooping around at
my
place a while back,” Preacher Amos joined in, “I tend to agree with Roman. And although I stood firm against getting the county sheriff involved when the Hershbergers lost their barn—and the man of their family,” he added with an apologetic glance at Phoebe and Laura, “I felt we gave the bishop a very convenient opportunity to look the other way. Every time his son's name has been connected to trouble, Obadiah has claimed that Isaac's in his
rumspringa
—sowing his wild oats—so he's exempt from the rules church members must follow
.
That's the main reason I left his district.”

Deborah knew quite well how Obadiah Chupp covered for his errant son. She had also understood why her father, Preacher Eli, had decided that her missing
kapp,
her tumble-down hair, and her muddy, scraped knees told of activities too sinful to speak of in front of her younger siblings. So he'd sent her away. . . .

“And what have
you
heard about the fire, Deborah?”

Rosetta's question brought Deborah out of her painful thoughts. How much did she dare reveal? Would these friends accuse her of overstepping the rules—taking matters into her own hands by calling 9-1-1—the way Dat had? Would they send her packing if they knew what Isaac and his redheaded friend, Kerry, had done to her? She didn't want to lie, but she didn't want to humiliate herself again, either.

“It was Isaac,” she murmured.

“See there?” Roman crowed. He grabbed glasses from the cabinet so Preacher Amos could pour them some cold tea. “If we were still living in Coldstream, maybe we'd have caught Isaac with—”

“It's best that we moved on,” his mother insisted, silencing him with a purposeful look. “We thank God that Rosetta's horses, goats, and chickens were out of the barn and here with us, and that the house was spared. It was, wasn't it?” Mattie asked in a strained whisper.

Deborah sucked in a deep breath, hoping the topic of conversation would remain on the Benders' property rather than on her, personally. “
Jah,
the house is fine, and so are the other buildings.”

“And for that we give thanks,” Rosetta replied as she quickly wiped her eyes. “I feel bad for the family who bought our farm, though.”

“Something tells me the men will hold a barn raising for the new owners, like they did for the Hershbergers,” Preacher Amos remarked.

“But how many times will they do that?” Laura blurted. “It's just
wrong
if Isaac Chupp's causing these fires and—and nobody's holding him responsible.”

“You're absolutely right,” Preacher Amos agreed. “We must keep our Coldstream friends in our prayers, asking that God's will be done—and that His justice be carried out, as well.”

Deborah quickly finished her snack. She felt bad for Laura and Phoebe as memories of that fateful night brought grim expressions to their dear faces: the Hershberger family had returned from an uncle's funeral last November to discover their barn in flames. Other men from around town were rushing over to help put out the fire, but as Willis Hershberger was urging his frantic horses outside, one of them had kicked him into the flames. Part of the barn had fallen in on him, and there'd been no way to save him.

“Is this a
gut
time to look around Promise Lodge?” she asked the girls in a hopeful tone. “Or, if you've got work that needs doing, I want to help.”

“But you're company, Deborah,” Laura protested. “Sure, we've got more garden to plant, but—”

“This is
me
you're talking to,” Deborah teased as she rose from her chair. “Those seeds will go into the rows faster with six hands than with four.”

“And maybe if you're out there where Noah can see you, it'll put him in a better mood,” Phoebe suggested as they rinsed Deborah's dishes. “He's been mighty cranky since he left you behind in Coldstream.”

As they headed out the back door, Deborah's brow furrowed. “But
I
was the one who broke off the engagement, remember?” she murmured. “I've already asked for Noah's forgiveness—begged him for a second chance. But he turned me down flatter than a pancake.”

“
Ach,
that's not so
gut,
” Laura stated.

“I thought he was missing your company enough that he'd reconsider,” Phoebe remarked. “He's hardly been talking to anybody. Goes through each day with a black cloud hanging over him.”

Isn't it just like Noah not to talk about what's on his mind?
Deborah thought as they approached the cabin nearest the lodge. A few bright new shingles stood out on its green roof and a new coat of chocolate-brown paint made it appear fresher than the other cabins down the row. It was small, yet she hoped it would be a haven where she could pull her life together again—