Buch lesen: «Courting The Amish Nanny»

Chapter One

“If you go to Maine now, you’ll miss hochzich season here,” Sadie Dienner’s stepmother, Cevilla, protested as she mixed water with flour to thicken the juice of a roast into gravy.

Jah, that’s exactly my plan, Sadie thought. “I’m happy for Sarah and Rebekah, but we aren’t exactly close friends,” she said. “It’s not as if I’m a newehocker in either hochzich.”

She hardly expected to be asked to be a wedding attendant; the brides were each four years younger than twenty-five-year-old Sadie and she rarely saw them except at church. Sadie’s closest friends had been married for years and she was painfully aware that once Sarah and Rebekah married their suitors this fall, she’d be the only single woman in Little Springs, Pennsylvania—with the exception of Elva Wyse, a ninety-two-year-old widow. And Elva had been married three times, so it wasn’t as if she was considered a spinster.

“What about Harrison? Won’t he be hurt if you don’t attend his hochzich to Mary?”

Not nearly as hurt as I was when he told me he was marrying her. The news had come as a shock to Sadie, who had long imagined marrying Harrison herself. In fact, he was the primary reason she wanted to flee Little Springs during wedding season. Not because she still entertained any romantic feelings toward him, but because her pride was wounded and the prospect of attending his wedding was too humiliating to bear.

Sadie cringed to remember what a fool she’d made of herself after Harrison and Mary’s wedding was “published,” or announced in church, a few weeks back in mid-October. The Old Order Amish youth in her district fiercely guarded their courtships, keeping them as secret as possible, so Sadie had assumed Harrison was interested in her and no one else. Come to find out, she was wrong on both counts.

“I didn’t know you were courting someone from another district! All this time I thought—I thought you liked me,” she’d wailed to him at work the Monday after his wedding was announced.

Perplexed, Harrison furrowed his brows. “I do like you. We’re friends. I consider you a gut pal.”

“A pal?” Sadie spit out the word.

“Jah. In some ways, I like spending time with you more than with Abe or Baker,” Harrison had said with a grin, as if Sadie should have felt complimented she outranked his other buddies.

“But what about all the times you gave me a ride home from work?” Sadie sniffed, half enraged and half heartbroken, astonished he didn’t return her romantic affections.

“What about it? We live in the same part of town. I’d do that much for anyone.”

“Wh-what about the gifts?” The catch in Sadie’s voice meant she was dangerously close to tears.

“Gifts?” Sadie could practically see the light dawning across his features. “Oh, you mean the Grischtdaag gift last year?”

“As well as the birthday present in March,” Sadie reminded him, referencing the leather-covered diary Harrison had given her. The same diary in which she’d written all her dreams about him marrying her. “I thought those gifts meant something.”

“They did. They were a reflection of how much my familye and I appreciate your work at the shop. Listen, Sadie, you’re a valuable employee and—”

“Not anymore I’m not!” Sadie shot back. She already felt pitiful enough; she couldn’t stand to listen to a consolation speech about the merits of her productivity at his family’s furniture store when she’d hoped to hear declarations of love.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I’m quitting,” she declared. Her mouth made the decision before her mind thought it through, so she added, “You’ve said sales are waning and you’ve been struggling to pay two clerks. Sereta Miller is supporting her eldre and suh. She needs the job more than I do, so I volunteer to have my hours eliminated. Would you like to tell your eldre or do you want me to tell them?”

Harrison shook his head as if Sadie was speaking gibberish. “It’s only a temporary lull. We expect business to pick up again in December. There’s always a surge after Thanksgiving.”

“By then, you’ll be married and I’m sure your new wife will be glad to help out at the store,” Sadie said with a shrug. At that point, she couldn’t quite bring herself to acknowledge Mary by name.

That was nearly a month ago. Since then, Sadie had ruminated long and hard about how she had misinterpreted Harrison’s gestures. She had convinced herself he was interested in her romantically but was too shy to ask to be her suitor. What a joke that was! He apparently hadn’t been shy about asking Mary to become his wife.

Why isn’t any man ever so enamored of me that he can’t wait to ask for my hand in marriage? Sadie silently groused. This wasn’t the first time a man had indicated, in so many words or actions, he thought of Sadie as a friend and nothing more. Something similar had happened with Albrecht Smoker and with Roy King, both of whom had actually walked out with her before deciding they weren’t interested in continuing a courtship. Having grown up with seven brothers, Sadie wondered if there was something about her personality that caused men to feel comfortable around her but not drawn to her as a romantic prospect.

Either way, she regretted exposing her unrequited emotions to Harrison and she’d finished out the week at the furniture store feeling ridiculous in his presence. They’d stopped eating lunch together and she’d walked four miles home in the dark rather than accept a ride from him again. Not that he’d asked. He must have thought she was pathetic, because he’d gone as far out of his way to avoid her as she had to avoid him ever since. The way Sadie saw it, she’d be doing them both a favor by not attending his wedding.

“Harrison will have so many relatives there I doubt he’ll even notice my absence,” Sadie told her stepmother, retrieving a stack of plates from the cupboard. “Besides, ever since I qu—I agreed to give my hours at the shop to Sereta, you’ve been telling me I need to find another job.”

“Jah, but I meant a job in Little Springs.”

“Your cousin’s nephew needs help. And it’s only temporary.”

Cevilla chewed her lip and Sadie knew she’d made a good point. Her stepmother’s cousin’s nephew Levi was a widower with four-year-old twins. He owned a Christmas tree farm in Maine, where his mother had been minding the children for him, but she’d passed away in July. Apparently, the other nannies he’d employed hadn’t worked out and now he was coming into his busiest season. After Christmas he was moving back to Indiana so his in-laws could help raise the twins, but until then, he was in desperate need of someone to care for them.

“I suppose that’s true,” Cevilla reluctantly admitted. “Besides, you’re old enough to choose what you want to do.”

“I want to go,” Sadie firmly stated. “I really do.”

Cevilla nodded but added, “Your brieder will miss having you here.”

Sadie had three older brothers, who were married and lived locally in Pennsylvania, and four younger brothers at home, whom she doted on. “Tell them not to worry, I’ll be back with their gifts just in time for Grischtdaag,” she joked, but Cevilla was serious.

“I’m going to miss you. Maine is so far away,” she said. “You’ve never even left Lancaster County.”

That was because even when she’d had the opportunity, Sadie hadn’t wanted to leave. But now she felt like she couldn’t get far enough away. She set the last plate near her place at the table and crossed the kitchen to embrace Cevilla.

“I’ll be back before you know it,” she assured her stepmother. And by then, hochzich season will be over and I’ll be able to hold my head up in front of Harrison again.

Levi Swarey firmly grasped the hands of his four-year-old twins, Elizabeth and David, as they skipped along beside him on the way to his mother’s daadi haus across the lawn from his own home. Her death had hit him hard and he’d rarely been inside her house since she’d passed away in July. Afterward, the women from his church district had visited to collect her clothes for donation and give the place a good scrubbing down. They’d said they washed all the linens and stowed them away in the closet, so Levi figured that besides making up a bed there was little for him to do before Sadie moved in, but he wanted to double-check that she had everything she would need.

“I can smell Groossmammi,” Elizabeth announced tearfully moments after they entered the empty house. “I want her to kumme back.”

“Groossmammi can’t kumme back. She’s in heaven with the Lord and with Mamm,” David said solemnly, repeating the explanation Levi had given the children countless times since his mother died.

Levi said, “Jah, and all three of them would want you to wilkom Sadie, so we need to make sure the daadi haus is cozy and clean. It looks pretty nice in here to me, what do you two think?”

“There’s a big spiderweb in the corner.” David pointed to the wall above the thickly cushioned armchair. “Sadie might be afraid of spiders.”

“That’s not a spiderweb. It’s a cow web,” his sister corrected him.

“You’re right, it is a cobweb,” Levi agreed. “I’ll get the broom.” He headed toward the kitchen. The broom wasn’t hanging on its nail beside the refrigerator. Neither was it in the pantry, so he checked the bedroom, where he found it propped against the wall. He returned to the living room to discover David balanced on the back of the sofa. The boy jumped up and swiped at the cobweb with a doily he must have removed from an end table.

“Absatz!” Levi shouted for him to stop as he lunged forward and grabbed his son from the sofa. “How many times have I told you not to climb on furniture?”

David’s lower lip quivered and tears bubbled in his eyes. “I was only trying to help wilkom Sadie, Daed.”

“And he took his shoes off so he wouldn’t get the couch dirty,” Elizabeth defended him.

Levi picked David off the sofa and set him on the floor. Settling onto the cushion so he could be eye to eye with his son, Levi said, “I understand you wanted to help, but you could have fallen and broken your leg. And that would have broken my heart.”

David’s expression was one of anxiety as much as contrition and Levi knew he was overreacting. Again. He couldn’t seem to help himself. As Levi sat there in his mother’s house, it was almost as if he could hear her scolding him, What happened to Leora was a baremlich thing, suh, but it’s time you started trusting the Lord.

He did trust the Lord. But trusting the Lord didn’t relieve Levi of his responsibility to keep his children safe. He hadn’t been able to protect their mother—on the contrary, it was his carelessness that had led to her death when the children were toddlers. He wasn’t going to make that mistake with his children, no matter who thought he was overly protective.

And plenty of people did, which was why he’d lost the four nannies he’d had since his mother passed away. Levi’s mother was the only person other than himself he trusted with their care, and he even caught himself looking over her shoulder, especially as the twins grew older and became more mobile.

“I know you’re sorry,” he told David. “But remember the rhyme I taught you?”

The twins duly chorused, “Keep safe and sound with both feet on the ground.”

He insisted on this rule because of Leora’s accident three years ago. She had been cleaning the windows when she must have lost her balance. After falling and cracking her skull on the stone hearth behind her, she’d suffered a subarachnoid hemorrhage and died. Although Levi’s mother had come to live in the daadi haus by the time, on that particular day she had been out of town. Leora and the children had been home alone. But the Lord had been merciful; a neighbor happened to stop by for tea and discovered Leora sprawled across the floor, a kettle screaming from the stove and the twins wailing in their cribs. Even now it horrified Levi to consider what else might have happened if no one had come by before then. He’d never forgiven himself for failing to return Leora’s stepladder to its spot in the pantry. He had used it the day before when he was trimming dead limbs from the apple tree at the back of the house and then he’d forgotten it there. Leora must not have wanted to leave the babies while they were napping, so instead of fetching the solid stepladder, she’d stood on a chair from the kitchen. Borrowing household items and not returning them was one of Levi’s habits that had nettled his wife to no end, but until then, he had never imagined his carelessness would result in tragedy. What kind of spouse was so thoughtless about his wife’s needs? Levi came to believe he hadn’t deserved to be a husband, and sometimes he wondered why the Lord had entrusted him with children. But as long as they were his, he would do everything he could to keep them safe.

The twins might not have understood the origins of the rule about keeping their feet firmly planted, but they understood they were meant to obey it. “I won’t do it again, Daed,” David promised.

“How about if you and Elizabeth take turns sweeping and I’ll open the windows to air out Groossmammi’s place a little?”

“So her smell doesn’t make us sad anymore?” Elizabeth wondered.

If only it were that simple. Levi swallowed the lump in his throat. His children had lost so much at such a young age. They’d hardly known their mother, their beloved grandmother had died of congestive heart failure, and although they didn’t know it yet, they were about to have to bid their home and community goodbye, too.

Given his mother’s death and the lack of suitable nannies in the area, Levi had realized he had little choice but to move back to Indiana, where Leora’s parents would help provide Elizabeth and David with the kind of stability and long-term care they needed. As grateful as he was for their help, Levi was concerned about how difficult the relocation would be for the children—and he had his own qualms about moving in with Leora’s family, as well. He hadn’t been especially close to his wife’s parents when she was alive, and after she passed on, Levi sensed they blamed him nearly as much as he blamed himself for her death. Not that he had ever told them—or anyone—about his part in his wife’s accident, but Leora’s parents had been terribly nervous when he and their daughter had ventured off to Maine. After Leora died, Levi imagined they felt their fears had been justified.

Nevertheless, he’d begun making all the necessary relocation preparations, and he already had two prospective buyers who were very interested in the house and farm. As for employment in Indiana, he planned to take a job in an RV factory or work construction again. But first things first: Levi had to make it through Christmas season. After seven years, the trees were finally ready to harvest. If all went well and sales were what he expected them to be, Levi would have enough money to repay the loan on the land he and Leora had bought back when they were young newlyweds in love and thought they had their entire lives together spread out before them.

“Jah.” Levi finally answered his daughter’s question, but he could have been talking to himself. “It’s better not to be reminded of things that make us sad. If we open the windows, the scent of the trees will waft inside.”

“Then the haus will smell like Grischtdaag. And Grischtdaag is a happy smell,” Elizabeth said.

“Jah,” David agreed. “That’s because Grischtdaag is when wunderbaar things happen, isn’t it, Daed?”

In response, Levi smiled wanly and tousled his son’s hair. Holidays weren’t the same after Leora had died. Since his mother had also passed on, Levi didn’t even know how they’d spend Thanksgiving Day. The thought of celebrating Christmas felt overwhelming to him. He’d be so busy selling trees beforehand and then selling the house shortly afterward he felt like he wouldn’t have any time for festivities. But knowing the children were looking forward to the holidays gave him a boost of motivation. We’ll have joy again in our haus before we move if it’s the last thing we do, he decided.

Sadie leaned her head against the window of the van. Although traveling by vehicle made her nauseated, she knew the older Englisch couple who’d transported members of her district for years were cautious drivers, and she shifted into a more relaxing position.

It was a long trip from Little Springs, Pennsylvania, to Serenity Ridge, Maine. She’d begun the day excited to see sights she’d only read about—the scenic Pocono Mountains and Hudson River; cities like Allentown, Hartford and Worcester; and Englisch neighborhoods with houses spaced so close together it seemed the residents could stick their hands out their windows and touch each other’s fingertips. It was dusk by the time the van crossed the bridge linking Maine and New Hampshire, and the closer they got to their final destination, the more densely forested the land became. No wonder they nicknamed this the Pine Tree State, she thought.

That was one of the few facts Sadie knew about Maine. As for the Amish community in Serenity Ridge, it was one of a handful of settlements that had been established in Maine in the past two or three decades. The families there hailed from places as disparate as Canada, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Missouri and Tennessee. Some were drawn to the area because the land was less expensive than in their home states; others came in pursuit of new opportunities or to escape the Amish tourism industry. The Maine settlements were still growing, and from what Sadie heard, Serenity Ridge only had about fifteen small Amish families in residence.

That will be gut. The fewer people, the less chance of there being any hochzichen while I’m there, she thought.

For the umpteenth time, Sadie inwardly chastised herself for acting so rashly and quitting her job. Harrison probably thought he’d really broken her heart, when actually she was over him within a week. That’s because I wasn’t truly in love with Harrison, she’d written in her diary when the realization struck her. I was infatuated with infatuation. From now on, I’m putting those notions out of my head. Romance isn’t everything after all. Confident a change of scenery would reinforce her new perspective, Sadie pushed any lingering embarrassment from her mind and quietly hummed the rest of the way to Serenity Ridge.

Once they arrived at the daadi haus, the driver carried her luggage to the porch and wished her the best. Sadie pushed open the door, which Levi had indicated would be unlocked when he left the address and a brief voice mail on the machine at the phone shanty.

He must have turned up the gas heat for her, because the kitchen was toasty and so was the small living room. The daadi haus also contained a bathroom and two cozy bedrooms. To Sadie’s surprise, her host had even made both beds up and set extra quilts at the foot of each one. What a thoughtful thing to do. He must have known I’d be exhausted. Deciding there’d be time enough for unpacking before she went to Levi’s house to meet him and the twins tomorrow, Sadie fell into bed.

Her deep sleep was punctuated only by a morning dream about Christmas trees that was so real it seemed as if she was woken by their fragrance. But no, it was a rapping on the door that forced her to open her eyes and jump out of bed. It took a moment for her to recognize her surroundings before she cloaked her shoulders in a quilt and shuffled to the mudroom.

“Guder mariye.” The rangy man who greeted her had a slightly crooked nose, a shock of dark hair and thick eyebrows framing his doleful green eyes. But it was his facial hair that really caught Sadie’s attention; not only was he sporting the usual Amish beard men wore after marrying, but he had a neatly trimmed mustache, too.

Suddenly remembering her manners, she replied, “Guder mariye.”

He must have noticed her gaze, because he pointed to his face and said, “Here in Maine, we do things a little differently. Mustaches aren’t forbidden. They’re not required, either.”

Sadie was so caught off guard by his forthrightness and so embarrassed he’d noticed her staring that she pulled back and stuttered, “I—I—”

Fortunately, the children interrupted. “My name is Elizabeth,” lisped the chubby girl with a missing tooth.

“I’m David,” the boy piped up. He was the spitting image of his father, although his nose was smaller and straight.

“I’m four years old. Almost five,” Elizabeth proudly announced.

“Me, too,” David informed Sadie, as if she wasn’t aware they were twins.

Smiling, she replied, “Guder mariye. I’m Sadie Dienner.”

“Denki for coming to help us on such short notice,” Levi said. “I’m Levi, by the way.”

“Hello, Levi. It’s my pleasure to be here. Not that I’m glad about the circumstances, of course, but I’m... I’m—” Sadie stopped herself midsentence. She was babbling and probably blushing, too.

Levi acted as if she hadn’t misspoken. “Sorry to wake you so early after your long trip, but we brought you millich and oier. And we thought you’d want to ride to church with us. It’s almost time to leave, so while you’re, um, getting dressed, we’ll bring the buggy around front.”

Back in Little Springs, today would have been an off-Sunday, meaning Amish families worshipped in their own homes instead of gathering as a group at a designated house. But not all districts followed the same schedule. Sadie pushed her long, light brown ringlets over her shoulder, suddenly aware she wasn’t wearing a prayer kapp, and accepted the basket with one hand while still clutching the blanket tight around her with the other.

“Denki. I’ll be ready in just a few minutes.” Before closing the door with her foot she stole another glance at the hair above Levi’s lip. Although it took a moment to grow accustomed to the sight of it, she had to admit it was becoming to him.

The old Sadie might have been tempted to imagine a courtship with him, but the new Sadie isn’t going to give it a second thought, she resolutely decided.

Levi was expecting a younger woman, maybe seventeen or eighteen at most. Until this morning, he and Sadie hadn’t actually spoken. They’d only left a couple of sparsely detailed messages on the machines at each other’s phone shanties. All Levi knew was Sadie was the stepdaughter of a distant relative, that she’d helped care for her four younger siblings and that she was willing to come to Maine right away. He’d never thought to ask how old she was. Not that it mattered; it was just that he was surprised someone her age wasn’t married and didn’t have a family of her own.