“I wouldn’t choose a different path...”

  Adel’s voice was quiet. “It’s more fulfilling than I ever dreamed to be a part of things this way. I don’t want to take on another husband or his children. You’re right. I don’t want it. I want to see what Gott has on this path He set me on.”

  “Maybe you’ll end up being Redemption’s official matchmaker,” Jake said.

  “Maybe. But I’m not a snob.”

  “You’re not a snob,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry I said it.”

  “Thank you.”

  “But this isn’t going to be a one-way street, either,” he said with a smile touching his lips. “You’ll be digging into my life, but I’m going to figure you out, too, Adel.”

  Adel rolled her eyes. “You can try, but we’re better off keeping to our mission.”

  The grin he shot her suggested that he’d just accepted a challenge, and somehow she doubted it was only about finding his wife.

  Were all bachelors this difficult?

  If her goal was to become the matchmaker around here, she might be taking on more trouble than she ever imagined...

  Patricia Johns is a Publishers Weekly bestselling author who writes from Alberta, Canada. She has her Hon. BA in English literature and currently writes for Harlequin’s Love Inspired and Heartwarming lines. She also writes Amish romance for Kensington Books. You can find her at patriciajohns.com.

  Books by Patricia Johns

  Love Inspired

  Redemption’s Amish Legacies

  The Nanny’s Amish Family

  A Precious Christmas Gift

  Wife on His Doorstep

  Snowbound with the Amish Bachelor

  Blended Amish Blessings

  The Amish Matchmaker’s Choice

  Montana Twins

  Her Cowboy’s Twin Blessings

  Her Twins’ Cowboy Dad

  A Rancher to Remember

  Harlequin Heartwarming

  Amish Country Haven

  A Deputy in Amish Country

  Visit the Author Profile page at LoveInspired.com for more titles.

  THE AMISH MATCHMAKER’S CHOICE

  Patricia Johns

  I have taught thee in the way of wisdom; I have led thee in right paths.

  —Proverbs 4:11

  To my husband and our son.

  Thank you for your support as I write.

  I love you both more than anything!

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Epilogue

  Dear Reader

  Excerpt from Their Pretend Courtship by Carrie Lighte

  Chapter One

  Jake Knussli sat on the couch next to Bishop Glick, his palms damp. The windows were cranked open, letting in a whisper of breeze, and Jake adjusted his suspenders over his shoulders. It wasn’t just the hot July day that brought sweat to his brow. The bishop had an ulterior motive to suggesting the Draschel Bed and Breakfast for him to stay in while his uncle’s farmhouse was fumigated.

  “So you need a wife,” Adel Draschel said. She looked as cool and neat as a spring day, and she regarded him with a distanced, thoughtful expression as if he were some unknown entity instead of someone she’d grown up with.

  Adel was exactly his age, thirty-seven—they’d gone to school together in that one-room schoolhouse as kinner. The years had been kinder to her than they had been to him, he thought. With her soft figure and creamy skin, set off by auburn hair, tucked under a silky white kapp. There were a few lines around her eyes, but she looked more youthful than he did with the gray working its way into the stubble on his chin. Adel bent over a tray, pouring tea, one finger on the teapot’s lid to keep it in place.

  “Yah, I do need a wife,” Jake replied.

  “If Jacob is going to inherit that farm, then we have to find someone quickly,” Bishop Glick added, stroking his wiry salt-and-pepper beard with one hand.

  “You mentioned it was rushed,” Adel said, passing a teacup to the bishop. “Why now? He’s been back for a few months now.”

  “I needed to come back properly,” Jake said. “I had other things to worry about, like getting baptized.”

  “How much time do we have now before the will runs out?” she asked.

  “Two weeks,” the bishop replied.

  Adel blew out a breath. “Two weeks!”

  She turned that skeptical stare back onto Jake, and he suppressed the urge to squirm. He wasn’t asking her to marry him. The bishop thought she could act as matchmaker. Granted, it was a short period of time to secure a marriage match, but she didn’t need to look at him like it was quite that impossible, either.

  Jake fiddled with one side of his suspenders across his shoulder where his shirt was getting damp from sweat. He was still wearing his straw hat, and he pulled it off his head and scrubbed a hand through his hair, which was still growing out that last bit from an Englisher style.

  “What did the will say exactly?” Adel asked, politely and rather pointedly ignoring his attempt to smooth out his appearance.

  “It said that if I was to inherit the family farm from Uncle Johannes,” Jake said, dropping his hat onto his knee, “then I needed to be both Amish again and married within six months of his death.”

  “But why did Johannes do that?” she asked, shaking her head. “Do we know? He didn’t have any kinner of his own, and Jake, you are the logical one to inherit that land. I can understand asking that you be Amish again to inherit, but married, too? Why make it difficult?”

  Jake exchanged a look with the bishop. He and Bishop Glick had discussed this for a couple of hours the night before. Why would Johannes have made those stipulations in his will? Because it felt like his uncle was being obstinate, even in death.

  “I think he wanted to bring Jacob home,” Bishop Glick said. “And a home grows roots with marriage. I didn’t know the specifics of his will until after his death, but I did pray with him before his passing. Johannes knew his time was close, and he wanted to be right with Gott. He spoke about wanting to make up for past wrongs. Maybe this was an attempt to do just that.”

  “If he wanted to make up for some wrongs, this setup seems to be creating a few new ones,” Adel said, and Jake smiled in response to her wry perspective.

  The bishop took a sip of his tea but didn’t say anything.

  “So if you aren’t legally married in two weeks, then what happens to the land?” Adel asked.

  “It goes to my cousin Alphie,” Jake replied.

  Adel leaned back in her chair, then she turned to the bishop. “And if we don’t find anyone for him to marry? What then?”

  “Jacob?” the bishop said, turning toward him.

  What choice would Jake have? He’d been quietly looking around ever since he returned, hoping to find someone the natural way, but it was harder than he thought. If his cousin Alphie was very kind, he might let Jake run the farm with him, since it would go to him if Jake’s quest to find a wife by the will’s deadline failed. But it would only ever be a job, not his own property in that case. Their family dynamic had been a difficult one—nowhere near the Amish ideals.

  “If we can’t find me a wife, then I will thank you for trying and for the time you put into it, and I will accept that Gott has other plans,” Jake said.

  Adel nodded somberly, exhaling slowly. “And what do you have to offer a wife, Jacob?”

  Jake met her gaze, and he felt a smile tickling the corners of his lips.

  “You’re acting like I’m a stranger, Adel. I used to pull your kapp strings when we were kinner. You know me.”

  “I knew a boy,” Adel said, her cheeks pinking. “This is a grown man in front of me. And a little tease who used to pester us girls isn’t exactly going to recommend you to the marriageable women in our area.”

  “Point taken,” he replied, sobering. “I’m a hard worker. I have a nice little nest egg in the bank, and if I’m married in time, you can add a paid-off farm to that. I’m in relatively good condition for my age, but you’d have to be judge of that.”

  Adel looked away, annoyance flashing in her blue eyes, but he couldn’t help himself. He wasn’t the stranger she was pretending he was.

  “And I don’t drink, smoke or gamble,” he added.

  “That’s a relief,” she replied wryly. “But for my own conscience, I need to ask a few questions. I hope you don’t mind.” Her gaze flickered toward the bishop.

  “Go ahead,” Bishop Glick said.

  Just for a moment, Adel’s perfect poise cracked, and he saw a flicker of the girl he used to know all those years ago—opinionated, fiery—and he felt a rush of satisfaction at finally getting through that prim-and-proper reserve of hers.

  “Jacob, why are you back? Before, it seemed like you were ready to come home again.” Her cheeks flushed slightly. “But now I find out that there is a will involv
ed that was pushing you to it. Are you back just for the land?”

  Jake smiled faintly. “You think that’s the only reason I’m here?”

  “Are you?” she asked.

  “No, I’m not. I’d been thinking about coming home for a long time, but when my daet passed away, Uncle Johannes and I weren’t exactly on good terms. There were hard words between us, and there was always some reason or other to put it off another year.”

  Alphie, who was actually a second cousin once removed, had filled him in on the continuing bitterness here at home whenever he got together with his cousin for a coffee. He’d known what was waiting for him.

  “Will you stay Amish now?” she asked.

  “Yah. I will stay living the Amish way. If I marry an Amish woman, I’m not going to leave the Amish life and I will stay on the farm I inherit, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m asking.” She pressed her lips together and put her teacup down next to her. “If I set you up with someone, I need to be able to tell her that she can trust you to be a good and Amish husband.”

  “I understand,” he said.

  “That is a very big thing for me to tell a woman,” Adel said. “She would be taking my word that your character is marriageable within that short of a period of time. That is a lot to ask of me. She’d be well and truly married within a week upon my say-so.”

  “It’s a big step,” he said seriously. “It’s a lot to ask of any woman. I do understand that.”

  Adel sighed. “The bishop speaks for you, and that should be enough.” Somehow he got the sense that it wasn’t, though. “And I won’t be setting you up with anyone under twenty-five, for the record,” she added, giving him a pointed look.

  “I’m not looking to marry someone that young,” Jake countered. “I’d much rather be with a woman closer to my own age.”

  “Good, because a woman any younger than that has other prospects still,” Adel replied.

  He felt the sting of those words. “Ouch.”

  “Sorry.” Adel winced. “But asking someone to marry that quickly, she’d have to have good reason to be willing to take the risk. This is the rest of her life we’re talking about, and I’m afraid that a very young woman wouldn’t be able to fully understand what she was getting herself into. That would be...cruel.”

  “I have to agree with that.” He met her gaze. Did she think he wanted some young eighteen-year-old? Because he didn’t. “And I’m not marrying just anyone, either. I have a few requirements on my list, too. But for a chance to have the family farm again, I’m willing to try to find a match.”

  “Good. I’m glad you’ve been thinking about it,” she said. “What are you looking for?”

  “We have to find each other mutually attractive,” he said. “Marriage is for life, and I want to wake up to a woman I find beautiful in spirit. And I want her to see something attractive in me, too.”

  “A good point,” she said. “What else?”

  “Like we agreed—no one too young, or too old, for that matter. I’d like a woman who is age appropriate for me. I’ll trust your opinion with that.”

  “That’s fair. What else?”

  “She has to be real,” he said.

  Adel frowned.

  “Authentic,” he clarified. “She has to be open and comfortable.”

  “Okay.” Adel nodded. “Anything else? Are you looking for a good cook? Does it matter if she has children?”

  “Uh—” He exhaled slowly. “I think it would depend on the woman.”

  “Good.” Adel nodded. “It’s good that you’re staying here at my bed-and-breakfast, since it will make it easier for us to save time. My sister and I sleep here in the house, and the dawdie house is set up for our guests. You’ll be very comfortable.”

  “I’m sure I will be,” he agreed.

  “I’m going to pray on this,” Adel said. “And I’ll do my best.”

  The bishop spread his hands. “The Lord works in mysterious ways, Adel. Perhaps He has something to achieve here. The Good Book does tell us that it isn’t good for a man to be alone. I think that we can extrapolate that it is the same for women. I do enjoy seeing people married for that very reason. Two are stronger than one.”

  The bishop looked at Adel meaningfully, and her cheeks colored again. This conversation seemed to be expressly between the two of them. Obviously, it was a subject that had come up before.

  “I have my sister here, Bishop,” she said with a good-humored smile. “I’m not alone, and I have no interest in getting married again. I haven’t changed my mind.”

  “Of course.” The older man pushed himself back to his feet. “Call me sentimental, but I keep on trying to find you a match, Adel. I’ll consider myself a success when I finally do. Well, I will leave you to get your guest settled in. Thank you for helping, Adel. I trust your insight.”

  Adel nodded. “As Mark used to say, some things take a man’s leadership, and others take a woman’s intuition.”

  “He was a wise man.” The bishop and Adel both nodded soberly. Then the bishop headed for the door. “Jacob, I will leave you to Adel’s care. Let’s see what Gott provides. I’ll be praying, too.”

  Everyone would be praying, it seemed, including Jake. While the main concern seemed to be for the poor woman who was stuck with him, Jake had the most at stake here. And they’d need all the blessing and guidance they could get. Jake rose to his feet and went to the door to grab his duffel bag that he’d left on the porch, waving to Bishop Glick as he headed back out to his buggy.

  Then he turned back to Adel, who was still eyeing him with an uncertain look on her face, her cup of tea balanced on a saucer in front of her.

  “Now that it’s just the two of us, you can be brutally honest with me,” he said. “What are my chances of finding a wife?”

  “I have a few ideas.” A smile lifted the corners of her lips. “We’ll see what we can do.”

  * * *

  Adel heard the sound of the bishop’s buggy rolling back down the drive. Bishop Glick had been a good, personal friend of her late husband’s. The two men had discussed various community issues together, late into the night, and there were times that they’d called her in from the kitchen to get her perspective, as well.

  “My wife is a discerning woman,” Mark used to say. “And she’s discreet. I’d like to hear what she thinks.”

  After her husband’s death, the bishop still came to her from time to time, asking her opinion on issues that might relate to the women of their community, or the young people. Adel had married Mark when she was eighteen, and she hadn’t been a frivolous young woman at all. She’d prayed that Gott would use her, and His answer had been in her deacon husband. Gott hadn’t blessed them with kinner of their own, but Adel still felt needed and valued. The fact that Bishop Glick came to her for sensitive community issues like this one meant more to her than most people realized.

  Adel gathered up the tea things to bring them back into the kitchen.

  “Let me show you to your room, Jacob.”

  “My friends call me Jake,” he said.

  His friends...the Englisher ones? They’d never called him anything but Jacob here in Redemption. She stole another look at Jacob. He was tall, muscular, fit. His face was shaven, as was proper for a single Amish man, but she could make out the gray in the faint stubble on his chin. His face was tanned, and there were lines around his dark eyes that still held a certain playfulness that he’d retained since his youth. He was handsome—there, she’d just admitted it. But she wasn’t crossing any lines with him. She wouldn’t be calling him Jake.

  “Your friends can call you anything they like, but your matchmaker calls you Jacob,” Adel replied.

  Jacob laughed, the sound low and warm, and she felt goose bumps rise up on her arms at the sound of it. She cast him a faint smile and led the way into the kitchen with the platter. He followed her, his bag in one hand and his hat in the other, and when she placed the platter on the counter, she turned back toward him.

  “This is the kitchen, obviously. I always keep some pie, muffins and a few other snacking foods on the counter. No need to ask, just eat what you like. My sister and I have meals ready for a seven o’clock breakfast, twelve noon lunch and a six o’clock dinner.”