Heart in Hand: Stitches in Time Series #3 Read online

  Heart in Hand

  Other books by the author

  A Time to Love, book one in the Quilts of Lancaster County series

  A Time to Heal, book two in the Quilts of Lancaster County series

  A Time for Peace, book three in the Quilts of Lancaster County series

  Her Restless Heart, book one in the Stitches in Time series

  The Heart’s Journey, book two in the Stitches in Time series

  HEART IN HAND

  Stitches in Time Series

  Barbara Cameron

  Heart in Hand

  Copyright © 2013 Barbara Cameron

  ISBN: 978-1-4267-1434-4

  Published by Abingdon Press, P.O. Box 801, Nashville, TN 37202

  www.abingdonpress.com

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, posted on any website, or transmitted in any form or by any means—digital, electronic, scanning, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without written permission from the publisher, except for brief quotations in printed reviews and articles.

  The persons and events portrayed in this work of fiction are the creations of the author, and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Cameron, Barbara, 1949-

  Heart in hand / Barbara Cameron.

  pages cm. — (Stitches in Time Series)

  ISBN 978-1-4267-1434-4 (Book - Paperback / Trade Paperback) 1. Amish women—Fiction. 2. Amish--Social life and customs—Fiction. 3. Amish decorative arts—Fiction. 4. Grandparent and child—Fiction. 5. Widows—Fiction. 6. Widowers—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3603.A4473H43 2013

  813’.6—dc23

  2012041285

  Printed in the United States of America

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 / 18 17 16 15 14 13

  For Eva

  Acknowledgments

  A cousin asked that question recently: Where do you get your ideas?

  It always makes me groan. I’m usually a pretty polite person, but I always want to say something like, “The idea tree in the backyard,” or “I bought this book of them years ago.”

  The truth is there are so many places that writers get ideas. And sometimes we don’t even know where they come from. Some come as niggling little things, and other times, the whole book is just there. Of course, the ones that come full-blown are great! Sometimes it’s even an idea that just won’t let go.

  Once, when my doctor and I were talking about our families, she asked how my then teenagers were doing. Well, they were great kids, but all kids seem to go through challenges at one time or another . . .

  “You’re a writer,” she said. “Bet you could learn what to do if you wrote about it.”

  What an idea. And that is not only how so many projects begin for me—it’s how I end up learning something for myself. One of my favorite times in my life was when I got to stay home for a while with my two children and be a homemaker. I cooked everything from scratch, sewed most of their clothing, and reveled in a role that felt so right. When I was able to sneak time during their naps to write, I felt like the world was perfect.

  As I’ve worked on my Amish books, I’ve learned a lot about forgiveness and inner peace and big themes like that—and I’ve learned about fun activities like quilting and weaving and so on. I found myself yearning for those days sewing and doing so many domestic crafts, so that I visited a quilt shop. I wanted to write about three Amish cousins who are as close as sisters . . . and there, in the quilt shop, the idea of a series about them sewing and quilting and weaving and falling in love with three Amish men began to form. And so I created this series.

  Thank you to Magrieta of Magrieta’s Quilt Shop in St. Augustine for being so gracious to me and answering so many questions and letting me wander the shop. I enjoyed the times I visited so much.

  Thank you, too, to Wendy Ashton, who runs PA-Dutch-Travel and helped me with some research.

  Thank you, as always to Judy Rehm, such a good friend and inspiration to learn more about God and His endless ideas for our lives.

  A thank-you should go to my mother, May, and her twin, June, for teaching me how to sew—seemingly a lost art these days. The memories of working on such simple but necessary things like clothing and creative additions like embroidery warmed my heart so many times as I stitched. I used those memories as I wrote the three books of Stitches in Time.

  My mom was one of nine children, so there are many cousins. Memories of growing up with some of them gave me material for the relationships of the cousins in the books. So thank you to them.

  Thanks, as always, for the encouragement of my editor, Ramona Richards, and all the staff at Abingdon Press who take these ideas of mine and help me turn them into books with such beautiful covers that get sent out there into readerland. I am so grateful for the many readers who write me and tell me they’ve given you a few hours to read of a peaceful place where people still care about each other.

  Blessings to you.

  1

  It felt like dawn would never come.

  When Anna first realized that it was going to be one of those nights . . . one of those awful nights that felt like it would never end . . . she reached for the book she’d been reading and read for a while with the help of the battery lamp on the bedside table.

  Reading didn’t help. Knitting didn’t, either, and knitting always relaxed her. Reaching for her robe, Anna pushed her feet into her slippers and padded downstairs to the kitchen. There was no need for a light for she knew her way from all the dozens—no, hundreds—of nights she’d gone downstairs in the dark.

  Even before the first time she stepped inside this house she knew it like the back of her hand. She and Samuel had drawn the plans, spent hours talking about how he and his brothers were going to build it. As soon as the house was finished, he’d started crafting furniture for it. The final piece he’d made was a cradle for the baby he hoped they’d have soon.

  His sudden illness stopped him in his tracks. Leukemia, said the doctor. One day it seemed he was an agile monkey climbing up the frame of a barn he and other men were raising and just a few days later he could barely get out of bed and she’d joked he’d turned into an old man.

  She’d insisted that he see a doctor, and reluctantly, he’d done so.

  Six months later he was gone, and she’d shut the door to the room with the tiny crib. She buried her dreams the day she buried Samuel.

  She filled the teakettle and set it on the stove to heat. How many cups of tea have I drunk in the middle of the night? she wondered as she reached for a cup and the box of chamomile tea bags.

  Before Samuel had died, she’d heard about the seven stages of grief. She’d been naïve. You didn’t go through them one by one in order. Sometimes you walked—faltered—through them in no certain order. Sometimes they ganged up on you when you least expected them.

  And sometimes—it felt like too many times—no one seemed to understand.

  She couldn’t blame them. The only way she got through the first month, the first year, was to put on a brave face and pretend she was getting through it. There was no way she could get through it otherwise—she’d shatter into a thousand pieces that no one would be able to put back together again.

  Humpty Dumpty, she thought wryly. Then she frowned, wishing that she hadn’t thought of the childhood story. A closed door didn’t keep out the memory of the tiny crib that lay behind it.

  The teakettle’s whistle broke into her musing, its sound so sharp and shrill that she put her hands over her ears
to block it while she got up to take it off the flame. She poured the hot water over the tea bag and took the mug back to the kitchen table and sat there, dipping the bag in and out of the water.

  Finally, she pulled the bag out and set it on the saucer. Sighing, she massaged her scalp and wondered if she should take an aspirin to stop the pain. Then she flicked her hair behind her shoulders and hunched over the cup. In a minute, she’d get up and get the aspirin. Her mind might be awake, but her body felt tired and full of lead.

  As she trudged back up the stairs a few minutes later, she heard something—it sounded like a laugh, a high, excited one that went rushing past her and up the stairs. She watched, tired, leaning against the wall as she saw herself, lifting the hem of her nightgown so she wouldn’t trip, Samuel reaching for her as she flew up the stairs to their room.

  She blinked, not sure if she was dreaming or seeing a ghost of the two of them, so young and in love, so unaware that anything bad could touch them.

  When she reached her room, no one was there. Climbing back into bed, she pulled the quilt around her shoulders and lay on her side facing the uncurtained window. The wedding quilt that her cousins Naomi and Mary Katherine and her grandmother had sewn for her and Samuel lay wrapped in muslin and tucked in a box in the closet of the same room as the cradle. She hadn’t been able to bear lying under it after Samuel died.

  She’d thought she wouldn’t be able to bear living without him in this house they had built, but her grandmother had brought her here after the funeral to pack and she’d found she couldn’t leave it. Somehow it felt like she’d be abandoning everything they’d worked so hard for.

  Her grandmother had understood. She’d done the same thing—continued to live in the house she’d shared with her husband who’d also died too young. She’d continued to stay there for nearly two decades, and only in the last couple of years had Mary Katherine and then Naomi come to stay with her.

  Hours passed. Anna remembered reading that it was always darkest before dawn. She could vouch for that.

  Finally, the sky began lightening. She got up and made the bed before she went to shower. The reflection in the mirror made her wince. She looked tired, with faint lavender shadows under her eyes.

  Funny, everyone said that she and her two cousins who worked with her at Stitches in Time—Mary Katherine and Naomi—all looked so much alike with their oval faces and brown eyes and brown hair. But she felt she just looked like a dull version of them lately. She looked older and more subdued.

  With a sigh she center-parted her hair and began arranging it in a bun, then she placed a starched kapp on her head. She chose her favorite dark blue dress and hoped the color would make her look less pale.

  Her first cup of coffee helped her get moving. The knock on the door startled her as she sat eating her breakfast.

  She opened her door to find Nick standing there.

  “Sorry, I had to come a little early,” he apologized as she invited him inside.

  “It’s okay. I’m ready.”

  He touched her shoulder. “You look tired.”

  “I sure hope you don’t ever say that to Naomi,” she responded testily. “No woman wants to hear that kind of thing.”

  “I’ll remember that.”

  She regarded this man who was engaged to marry Naomi. He had dark hair, angular features, and sharp green eyes. Not as handsome as Samuel had been.

  Nick was quiet and serious and had a heart just as big as Samuel’s. She could trust him with someone as dear as Naomi . . .

  “Want some coffee before we go?”

  He shook his head. “I have a thermos in the car.”

  She took a plastic box filled with sandwiches from the refrigerator and tucked it into a tote bag. A bag of cookies was next.

  Catching Nick’s interest, she pulled another plastic bag from a nearby cupboard and filled it with half a dozen and handed it to him.

  “Oatmeal raisin,” he said with a satisfied sigh. “Will you marry me?”

  “Sorry, the Amish don’t believe in plural marriage.”

  Gathering up her sweater and her purse, she walked to the door with him and locked it behind her.

  After they climbed into the van, Nick set the cookies on the seat between them.

  “You know you’re going to eat them now.”

  “They’re oatmeal,” he reasoned. “Just because it’s not hot and in a bowl . . .”

  “So very logical,” she agreed, trying not to smile.

  “That’s me, logical.”

  She opened the bag so he could slide his hand inside, pull one out, and take a bite.

  “Please give Naomi the recipe.”

  “Are you sure you want to tell your intended that you like my oatmeal raisin cookies better than hers?”

  He considered that. “Maybe not. She wasn’t happy when I complimented Leah’s rolls.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Maybe you’ll sneak me some of these now and then?”

  “Maybe,” she agreed with a grin.

  Nick glanced at his watch and turned the radio on. “I want to check out the weather forecast. We’re certainly having a cool November, aren’t we?”

  Anna nodded as the jingle that announced the news broadcast filled the interior of the van.

  “The forecast is partly sunny and cool in Paradise, Pennsylvania. Chance of afternoon showers,” the announcer said cheerfully.

  “Tell me how it can be partly sunny. It’s either sunny or it’s not.”

  Nick chuckled. “I agree.”

  They listened to the quick news report and then the weather before Nick turned the station off.

  A yawn overtook her. She covered her mouth and shook her head. “Sorry.”

  “S’okay. Rough night?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why don’t you close your eyes and try to get a little shuteye?”

  “Don’t want to be rude,” she said, stifling another yawn.

  “I don’t mind. I might fall asleep in front of you someday.”

  She blinked at him. “Don’t do that when you’re driving!”

  He laughed as he reached for another cookie. “I saw Abe Harshberger asleep as he was driving the other day.”

  “Abe was driving his buggy,” she pointed out. “I heard the horse got him home okay.” She studied him. “How are the lessons going?”

  “The last time I remember being around a horse my mother was putting me up on it for a kiddie ride,” he said with a grin. “I was five. I didn’t really like it very much and never wanted to be around a horse again. Now here I am buying a business where I’ll have to work with horses for hours every day. Feed them, water them, care for them. Hitch them to a buggy, persuade them to walk along a route for me.”

  He glanced at her. “Deal with manure.” He made a face, then patted his steering wheel with one hand. “Big change from this horseless carriage.”

  “It sure is.”

  “Thank goodness I made training me a condition of the sale,” he said.

  “How’s the other instruction going?”

  Nick reached for a third cookie. “Just as hard. I thought I knew what was involved, but there are so many more rules than I thought . . .”

  He began telling her about the lessons he was taking to become Amish. It hadn’t been all that long ago that she’d taken them as every Amish did before joining the church. She found her attention drifting off even as she frowned and wondered why she’d never noticed how Nick spoke in a monotone. Snuggling her cheek against the upholstery of the back of the seat, she heard him chuckle.

  “Am I boring you?” he asked. “I never bore Naomi.”

  “She has to put up with you.” Anna felt her eyelids growing heavy, and she jerked awake once, then twice.

  “You’re chicken-pecking,” he told her. “Relax and shut your eyes. Don’t worry. Your cousins will wake you up.”

  “Let her sleep,” Nick was whispering. “I don’t have to be anywhere for another hal
f hour.”

  “I’m awake,” Anna said, yawning and straightening in her seat. “There’s no need to babysit me while I nap.”

  She saw that they were parked in front of the shop. Turning, she saw Naomi and her grandmother sitting in the backseat, staring at her, concerned.

  “Rough night?” her grandmother asked, her eyes kind and a little sad.

  “Had trouble sleeping.” She unsnapped her seat belt. “I’m fine.”

  Anna stepped out and looked at the shop while her grandmother unlocked the door. The name of the shop, Stitches in Time, was emblazoned on a sign with needles and thread and little quilt squares dancing around the letters. She’d just changed the window display the night before so she stopped to examine it before going inside.

  Everything about the display was designed to say “fall.” Anna had knitted warm woolen mufflers, caps and gloves in earth tones of brown, gold, and green. Cupcake hats for babies featured little pumpkins, owls, and forest animals.

  Naomi’s log cabin quilt had been tucked around Leah’s handmade Amish dolls. A little fireplace complete with a glowing “flame” made a cozy scene.

  Mary Katherine had spent hours weaving placemats and napkins for tables set for holiday feasts. She’d made sturdy woven tote bags to carry home all the fall fruits and vegetables from the farmer’s market and roadside stands.

  Jamie’s contribution was a wall hanging with a scene of the Amish countryside at harvest time. She’d used a traditional image but worked in pieces of bittersweet, pussy willow, and twigs.

  And there were kits for customers to get started on their Christmas gifts.

  She started to go inside and then realized that Naomi still hadn’t gotten out of Nick’s van. There was nothing she liked better than teasing—not just the two of them but particularly them. Marching back to the van, she knocked on the window.

  “Hey, you two, no PDAs!” she called.

  Naomi rolled down the window. “You are so obnoxious! All we’re doing is exchanging a good-bye kiss!”