The Promise Box (25 page)

“Some things are worth dying for,” Gideon whispered the words. “I was worth dying
for.”

M
ore than anything, Gideon wished he could spend the day with Lydia. After leaving
the cemetery with Dave yesterday they’d spent the whole day together…and he hadn’t
gotten enough of her. She’d been by his side as he worked with Blue. She’d watched
him hitch the horse up to her dat’s buggy for practice.

Gideon took a sip of his coffee and smiled at his own surprise. Lydia had fallen in
love with Blue, almost as much as she’d fallen for him. She’d be overjoyed to discover
he’d bought the horse for her as a special wedding gift. But first he needed to figure
out the best way to ask for her hand. Last night, instead of his thoughts dwelling
on the past, he’d been thinking about the future. A future with Lydia. Was she considering
him as she stitched a quilt with some of the other ladies from the area? As she shared
news of the community, did she plan a wedding quilt for them in her mind?

He glanced at the clock, wishing the hours would move faster. Lydia asked him to come
that afternoon. He couldn’t wait to see her, hug her, and maybe even sneak a kiss.

It was nearly lunch at the restaurant, and Gideon was about
to order a piece of pie to go when he saw a woman park a red convertible outside the
front door and stride up the porch steps in bright-red leather boots. She had straight
black hair and an outfit that looked like something you’d find in the city. The woman
didn’t fit in. Not even close. Gideon ordered another cup of coffee and settled back
in. What was this about?

She walked into the store. Edgar welcomed her with a howdy, but she barely glanced
his direction. Instead she headed straight to the restaurant area. A group of women
were seated there—both Amish and
Englisch
. She scanned the crowd, frowned, and then set her eyes on Marianna Stone and hurried
toward her.

“Excuse me, I was looking for Lydia Wyse.”

“
Ja
, I know Lydia.” Marianna glanced around. “We all know Lydia. How can we help you?”

“I need to talk to her. It’s very urgent. I have an offer…Well, it’s one she won’t
refuse.”

“An offer? Like for another teaching job?”

“A job…of sorts.” The woman’s words trailed off. Then she glanced around. “Wow, it’s
amazing. This place is just as she described. I haven’t been here for two minutes,
but I already feel as familiar and comfortable here as my grandmother’s living room.”

Then she scanned the faces of the women and pointed a finger. “I’d guess you to be
Marianna. So pretty, and you’re not wearing a
kapp
. She turned her attention to Mrs. Sommer next. “And I’d guess you to be Ruth. Your
daughter has your lovely features. And with your gray eyes—both of you—I’d recognize
you anywhere.”

“Wait a minute.” Millie Arnold stood, brow furrowed. “What’s going on here? How do
you know my friends?”

Laughter spilled from the woman’s mouth. “You have to
be Millie—an older Calamity Jane if I’ve ever seen one. Not my words, of course, but
Lydia’s.”

Gideon couldn’t sit back and watch any longer. The tension was evident on his friends’
faces. Seeing the women’s anxiety tightened his own chest. He stood and approached
the woman.

“Excuse me, ma’am. Can I help you?”

She was already smiling as she turned. And…were those tears in her eyes? “Oh, Gideon.”
A hand covered her mouth. “Dear sweet man. I am so sorry you feel that man’s death
is your fault.”

Her words felt like a physical slap.

“Excuse me. How did you know about that? What’s going on? Where did you come from?”

“How silly of me. Laura Fletcher from New York. I’m here to acquire Lydia’s book.
I’ve never done this—in all my life I’ve never traveled to meet an author. I’ve never
gone out of my way like this, but I had to come. I had to discover if the place Lydia
talked about was real.”

“Book? What book?”

“She’s calling it
The Promise Box
, but I thought a more catchy title would be
Amish Homecoming
. Anything with ‘Amish’ in the title brings bigger sales.”

“Lydia is writing a book? She’s writing about…us?” It was Marianna’s voice. Gideon
looked to her. Color had drained from her face. It looked the color of a cloudy Montana
sky. Marianna glanced around. “All of us?”

“Oh.” The woman’s lips circled up. “I didn’t think of this.” She pulled out a log
chair and sat. “I just assumed she would have talked to all of you. You mean she hasn’t
asked permission?”

“
Ne
. No one has asked permission.” Mrs. Shelter stood and turned to the door as if she
were going to stalk off and find Lydia herself.

“This must be some mistake.” Gideon took a step toward the woman, towering over her.
“Lydia would have talked to me.”

“She should have, that’s for certain. But I can see now why she didn’t. It would have
ruined everything.” The woman pressed her hand to her forehead.

“Everything?”

“Oh, yes.” She twisted a strand of silky black hair around her finger. “Everything
would be different—you would have acted differently—if you knew Lydia was writing
down your every word. If you knew that her sole purpose for being in this community
was research for a book she’s always wanted to write.”

Pain hammered into Gideon’s heart.
Her sole purpose?

The woman peered down her nose at them. “If you knew that she had no intention of
staying Amish, then you wouldn’t have welcomed her into your lives so easily.”

The woman’s words were like a fist to his gut. Gideon had never wanted to harm a female
before, but this woman was different. It took all his restraint not to lift her to
her feet, to turn her toward the women seated there, and to point out the obvious
pain she was causing with her thoughtless words. Then again…why was he blaming this
stranger? She didn’t know any better. She’d assumed Lydia had gotten permission. Any
decent writer would have.

No. It can’t be the truth
. Lydia’s smiling face came to mind. He thought of the woman with wild red hair that
had driven into town and how—in just a few weeks’ time—she had returned to her Amish
ways. She’d once again dressed in her Amish clothes. In two weeks’ time she’d gone
from driving a car to acting as if she’d been Amish every day of her life.

Gideon thought of a phrase he’d heard one
Englisch
man say to another once: “If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.”

He sank into the chair and lowered his face into his hands. Voices rose around him,
but he couldn’t make out their words. He had come to Montana for the truth…and he
thought he’d found love in the process. Now he knew it was a lie. Not only Lydia’s
love, but all she claimed to be.

Her mem’s kitchen smelled like apples and cinnamon, just like it used to when Mem
was feeling well and making Dat’s favorite desserts. Lydia hummed along to one of
her favorite
Civil War
songs playing through her head. Out of all the things she’d given up in returning
to the Amish, her radio—her favorite bands—was the thing she missed most. That and
flipping a light switch instead of having to light kerosene lanterns.

She had a good time at the quilting bee and had arrived home eager to see Gideon.
She’d started baking right away. Was the saying “The way to a man’s heart is through
his stomach” true? Lydia already had his heart, but some tasty food would never hurt.

She pulled the second apple pie out of the oven and a smile filled her face. The crust
looked perfect and in the center of the dough she’d used a cookie cutter to cut out
the shape of a heart. She hoped her message was clear. He had her whole heart.

She heard the
clip clop
of a horse’s hooves. Gideon approaching on Blue. She thought about setting the pie
on the hot pad on the counter, but she couldn’t wait to show him—couldn’t wait to
see him.

Lydia rushed out the door. “Look at you!” she called. “You’re riding Blue! You’ve
come so far!”

His head was lowered, but she still held out the pie. “Look,
Gideon, I made this for you. There’s a message in this pie. Can you see it?”

He halted the horse and swung his leg over, dismounting. He dropped the reins and
strode forward with quickened steps. When he pulled off his hat and lifted his head,
Lydia expected a smile. But instead anger flashed in his gaze.

“Gideon, is something wrong?” Lydia took a step back and placed the pie on the wooden
bench by the front door. “Did something happen? You look…mad.”

“Mad is an understatement, Lydia.” He paused before her, gazing up to where she stood
on the steps. “How could you do it?”

“What are you talking about? What do you mean?”

He ran a hand through his hair, then shook his head. “I should have known better.
I knew you were up to no good the first moment I saw you driving down the road. It
was too good to be true when you decided to become Amish again. Now I know it was
just a lie.”

“A lie? How could you say that? You were there when I took my oath and was baptized
into the church. It wasn’t something I took lightly.”

“I thought that,” he spat, “but now I know the truth. Out of all people…”

He paused and turned.

“What? Out of all people, what?”

“Out of all people, you should know how much it hurts me when people withhold the
truth.”

She touched her fingertips to her forehead, trying to make sense of his words. There
was nothing she’d hidden from him. Nothing, unless…her book had gotten into the wrong
hands.
Dear Lord, no
.

“Gideon, please, you aren’t making any sense.” She hurried
after him. Her stomach lurched, and she was sure she was going to be sick. “I don’t
know what you’re talking about. Can you please just tell me what’s going on?”

“There was a woman, a publisher from New York, who came into the restaurant today.
She told me you were writing a book about the Amish in West Kootenai. She said you’d
returned to the Amish to get the inside scoop. She knew things about us—all of us,
Lydia. Things only you knew. Things I never wanted to tell a soul outside of the folks
in West Kootenai. To hear a stranger talk about things—secret things.”

“Bonnie, how could you?” Tears sprang to Lydia’s eyes. “My boss. She must have shared.
I sent her my story to have it typed up. I hate the computer. I told her to make two
copies. One copy was supposed to be for you and the other for Dat. I never dreamed
she would send it on to a publisher.”

“If that was the truth, why didn’t you tell me? You told me before your greatest dream
was to have a book published. And yesterday when I asked you if you’d rather be with
me or have a book published, you paused—as if you were uncertain. Now I know why.”

“I was pausing because I was trying to decide if I should tell you then about what
I’d written. But I didn’t. I wanted it to be a surprise.” Her lower lip quivered and
her knees felt as if they were made of jelly. She took a step toward Blue, but even
he snorted and took a step back. “I made a mistake, a big one. I should have told
you about the book. I should have talked to my friends about it—the parents about
it—but honestly it’s not the reason why I returned and got baptized into the church.”

Gideon cocked his head. Did he believe her?

“I mean, I did love writing about my returning, but it was my own journey. One I only
wanted to share with a few people.
Besides, we wouldn’t even be standing here if I hadn’t become Amish. My love for God
is true, Gideon, and…”

“And?”

“And I knew it was the only way a good Amish man would look twice at me. I knew even
if I loved God and chose to live for Him it wouldn’t matter to you. You wouldn’t have
even gotten to know me unless I was Amish.”

“So you were trying to lure me with lies?”

“I didn’t think of it like that.” Her heart felt crushed. “I honestly had good motives.”

“I tried to believe that. I really did. I forced myself to believe that. But when
you told me about the teaching job—how you had wanted it while you were still
Englisch
—I struggled. I wanted to believe you, but I could tell from your eyes that you weren’t
being completely honest. I pushed away the doubts that told me your change had more
to do with what you
wanted
than what you
believed
.”

Lydia’s jaw dropped. “I don’t believe you just said that.”

“So no part of your returning had to do with making a name for yourself as a writer?
About holding a book with your name in your hands? When were you going to tell them,
Lydia? When their names were in print and you had yer books in a fancy bookshop?”

She covered her mouth with her hand, attempting to hold back the sobs. “It was never
about that. That was never my plan.”

“I love you, Lydia, I really do. But I’ve spent too many years living with pain from
my parents holding back the truth. Can you imagine making a commitment to each other
but saying, ‘I promise to tell you everything. Well, almost everything.’ Every time
I brought up your writing you changed the subject. You could have told me you were
writing about your journey—you
were keeping a journal or something. Would that have been so hard? Isn’t hiding the
truth just as bad as lying?”

Gideon lowered his head, pain evident on his face.

“I can’t think anything worse than coming home and looking into my wife’s eyes and
wondering what she’s keeping back from me that day—whether it’s a big deal, or if
it’s just something small like she spent more at the grocery store than she’d planned
on.”

“It wouldn’t be like that. I usually tell the truth. I’ve told you…”

“I know you didn’t mean to hurt me, but you did. I also think before you can be truthful,
you need to discover the truth—the truth of your mem.”

“I don’t think that’s fair to her, to bring up that.” Lydia swiped at her eyes. “Why
would I want to do that to her, go to her and demand to know more? It’s better to
just let her forget.”