“I’m glad you came,” Amanda said. “I thought you’d wait until you got your new buggy.”

  “Of course I came. I started looking at buggies, and I can’t wait until I have the new one to show up in.”

  “Good.” She cast him a smile.

  “I said I would come see you. I’ll always keep my word, Amanda.”

  As they went up the drive and out of sight of Daet and Tabitha, Amanda leaned back in the seat. Menno was silent as he steered them onto the road.

  “I couldn’t do this without your father’s blessing,” Menno said. “And he gave it.”

  “You’re very proper, Menno,” Amanda said with a low laugh. “Did you need his permission to take me out for a drive?”

  “I need his blessing to court you.” Menno looked over at her, and his gaze softened. “I don’t want to waste time here. I’m not just taking you for a drive to get to know you. You know that. I want to court you properly, Amanda. I love you. I’ve never felt like this before, and I know that you’re the one for me. I want to marry you.” His voice broke then, and he looked away quickly.

  The horse’s hooves clopped at a steady rhythm, and another buggy passed them, but Amanda didn’t even look to see who it was. Her heart hammered in her chest.

  “My mamm came back,” he added, and Amanda’s mind tumbled over the sudden change of topic. He wanted to marry her, and . . .

  “She did? Is she at your farm?” she asked.

  “No, she didn’t stay, but she came to see me, and we talked.”

  “How do you feel about all of it?” she asked. Perhaps their talk of marriage could wait a minute or two.

  “I’m okay.” He gave her a warm smile. “It was good to see her. She’ll come back again, and maybe given time, she’ll even come back to being Amish.”

  “She’s Englische now?”

  He nodded, and maybe that wasn’t a surprise. Linda Weaver had endured a lot.

  “But after seeing her again, I realized that I don’t want to waste time. I want to build a life with you, and I want to get married. I want to do this right—put some joy and happy memories into that old house.”

  “You want to marry me?” Amanda wanted to hear that part again, just so she could treasure it later.

  “Yah. If you’d have me. Do you love me like I love you?”

  “I do,” she whispered.

  He adjusted the reins into one hand and reached out to tug her closer against his side. She leaned into him, and it felt so very right.

  “I’ll keep our home private just for us,” Menno said. “I’ll get your daet and the rest of the community to help me with my brothers. I’ll work hard, and I’ll even be more social and go to the community events with you. I’ll do whatever it is that will make you happy, if you’d just agree to be mine.”

  He took her fingers in his calloused grip, and her breath caught.

  “What do you need to say yes?” he asked.

  What did she need to be happy with this man? Suddenly, looking into those soft brown eyes, all of her previous fears faded away. Except for one.

  “I need you to promise that we’ll always talk things through,” she said.

  “That’s it? Because that’s easy.”

  Amanda cast about inside of herself, looking for some other key to the marriage she longed for, but there was nothing else.

  “My sister and Aaron really struggled because they weren’t hearing each other. They were battling each other. But they talked it out. I just don’t want to get to that point before we talk things through. I want us to be open and say what we’re feeling. That’s what I want.”

  “Okay.” Menno smiled. “You got it.”

  “Oh, and one more thing, we never sleep a single night away from each other. Not a single night. Unless one of us is in the hospital or something. But not by choice.”

  A mist came up in Menno’s eyes, and he nodded, his chin trembling slightly. “Not a single night. You have my word.”

  “So . . .” She’d never done this before. She’d heard the stories girls told of how they’d gotten engaged, but they all seemed to know how this worked. Amanda and Menno were both a little awkward about it. “What does this mean?”

  “I think it means we’re getting married,” Menno said, and he squeezed her hand. “Yah?”

  “Yah.” She smiled, relief, happiness, and a wave of love flooding through her.

  Menno leaned over and caught her lips in a kiss, but he couldn’t linger and keep his eyes on the road. He straightened, and a shiver of happiness swept through her body.

  “Do we tell my family when we get back?” she asked.

  “Of course. It would hardly be official otherwise,” Menno replied. “Besides, you need to plant more celery for wedding soup. I noticed your garden doesn’t have nearly enough.”

  Amanda leaned her cheek against his shoulder, and suddenly a life with Menno didn’t seem frightening at all. He was certainly worth all the work that marriage would entail. Because Amanda would be his, and Menno would be hers, and she could feel her heart closing around their future together in Shepherd’s Hill.

  With this man at her side, she’d found both the future she’d longed for and a deep, settling peace at the same time.

  My cup runneth over.

  Epilogue

  That fall and winter, Menno worked his own farm, but he came down some evenings and helped Amanda’s daet out with his chores too. Amanda knew he used it as an excuse to see her in the middle of the week, and she’d have fresh hand pies waiting for the men when they came back inside—made with love.

  That time between Menno and her father seemed to do something for both men. Daet became more confident in his daughter’s choice of husband-to-be, and Menno became more confident in his role as an Amish man in the community.

  He started talking with the men more openly, and he told jokes that left them all in stitches. He was funnier than anyone realized, and with the support of Amanda’s father, he seemed to be flourishing.

  Normally, couples married in the fall, right after harvest. But Daet agreed that waiting to get married in the spring made sense so that they would have more time to prepare and more time for the families to adjust, namely Simon. So their banns were announced on a Service Sunday in April, and the Schrock farm was put in order for a wedding.

  Menno had invited his mamm to the wedding, and she’d agreed to come. Amanda had met her twice over the winter, and both times she’d liked Linda Weaver a great deal. She even gave Amanda some Amish recipes she used to cook for her boys, and Amanda sensed the love and good intentions in the gesture.

  So on the first Tuesday morning of May, Amanda stood in her bedroom—soon to be just a guest room here in her father’s house—and adjusted the pins in her blue wedding cape dress in front of a mirror.

  This morning, she missed her own mother a great deal. Her aunts had been standing in for Mamm’s absence, but it wasn’t the same.

  Amanda leaned closer to the mirror to get a better view of the pin, when there was a tap on the door.

  “Come in,” Amanda said past another pin she had pressed between her lips.

  The door opened with a familiar creak, and she looked up to see Tabitha in her newehocker pink dress.

  “Do you need help?” Tabitha asked.

  “Yah, this pin—” She let her sister adjust it for her, and then Tabitha stood back.

  “You look lovely, Amanda,” she said.

  “Danke.” She smoothed her hands over her new starched apron.

  “Menno is a good man,” Tabitha said. “You’re going to be very happy.”

  “I know.” She had no doubt of that. Over the last few months of their courtship, Menno had proven again and again how much he loved her. “Danke for coming home, Tabitha. I don’t think I would have had the courage to do what I did if it weren’t for you coming back.”

  “When you and Menno start a family, just remember that you’ve got a sister who needs to dote on your kinner a whole lot, okay?” Tabitha said, tears in her eyes.

  “Of course!”

  Outside the window, Amanda could see more guests arriving. There was a big tent set up for the ceremony, and the young men and boys were arranging benches as if it were Service Sunday. Everyone knew what to do, and all a bride had to take care of was her own fluttering heart.

  Her newehockers were all dressed in matching pink. Her sisters were standing in the role of bridesmaids for her wedding, along with a few of her friends. Out the window she spotted Katherine rushing past her field of view in a blur of blue cotton, chasing after a toddler. Life went on. There was another tap on the door.

  “Amanda?” It was Rose this time. She was in her newehocker pink, too, and it brought out the blush in her cheeks. “Are you in there?”

  Rose opened the door and poked her head inside. “Come on now, it’s almost time to start. Time to come down.”

  Amanda sucked in a wavering breath. “Okay . . . Okay . . .”

  “You look beautiful,” Tabitha said.

  “Come on,” Rose said. “Let’s go. People are getting seated. Menno’s in the kitchen waiting for you.”

  Outside the window, Amanda heard the sound of voices rising a cappella in a hymn, but it was mention of Menno that calmed her nerves. He was waiting for her . . . and she wanted to be nowhere else but right by his side.

  “I’m ready,” Amanda said, and she meant that in every way possible. She was ready for all of it—the love, the adventure, the home together, the children, the mountain peaks, and the valleys.

  Amanda headed for the staircase and for the man she adored. Today began the rest of their lives together, and the deepest prayer of her heart was answered.

  Discussion Guide

  When Tabitha returns to the Amish faith, she has to stand in front of the church community and confess her mistakes. How hard do you think it would be to tell everyone your biggest mistakes? Would you be able to do it?

  When Tabitha left the community and the faith, her decision deeply affected Amanda’s ability to get married and start her adult life. Was this really Tabitha’s fault? How much responsibility for this should Tabitha take? And how much was because of Amanda’s own choices?

  Amanda decides to pursue Menno when she learns that he’s looking for a wife. This is considered shocking in their community. Would you have taken such a daring step? How would you have handled it in her position?

  Menno has a difficult past and comes from a problematic family. How cautious do you think Amanda should be considering those things? What questions do you think she should ask before letting her heart get involved with Menno?

  Abram and Nathaniel have been feuding for years. It isn’t Christianly, but because they haven’t caused trouble for anyone else, no one has sat them down and forced them to make peace. Do you think the community should have stepped in earlier and insisted the men made up? Or is it understandable to let grown men sort themselves out?

  Tabitha returns to Shepherd’s Hill as a full veterinarian. If she hadn’t left the faith, she never would have been able to fulfill this lifelong desire. And she’s good at her job and good for the community. Do you think it was God’s will that she leave the community for a time? How do you reconcile this?

  Tabitha’s job as a veterinarian is considered a man’s job to the Amish community. Have you ever worked a job in a male-dominated industry? What was your experience?

  Tabitha wants to help Amanda find a husband, in part because she feels responsible for Amanda’s single status. Have you ever tried to set a couple up before? What are the pitfalls?

  Rose has been married for two years, and she’s struggling to find happiness in her marriage. Have you ever experienced a tumultuous time in one of your relationships? What advice would you give to Rose?

  Abram doesn’t want to interfere in a young married couple’s relationship. Do you think that Abram was right in his position that married couples require privacy?

  Tabitha must live a single life in her community. Do you think this is fair? Do you think second chances should apply to people in her position too?

  1

  Friesen Lake was still and deep, nestled with the quietness of a prayer in the middle of the treed hill country on the far edge of Shepherd’s Hill Amish church district. Chilly water lapped the rocky shore, and the pebbled lake bottom sank down in quick decline into the water, disappearing into crystal depths. At ninety feet at its deepest, where an underground spring fed the lake, even the summer heat never completely warmed the water, but that vast, sparkling expanse was tempting all the same, and Beth Peachy longed to swim.

  In her many visits to see her grandmother in Shepherd’s Hill, Beth had never been permitted to swim in this lake. Not when the weather was sweltering hot in the middle of August. Not when the Englischers in the cabins farther down the lakeshore were paddling around by the wharf, their laughter surfing the breeze. Mammi had forbidden swimming in this lake. Beth’s daet had supported the rule, and no one in her family explained.

  But that was what this family did—they kept secrets. Daet had never spoken about his childhood here, and there was no explanation for that either. Beth had been plying her mother with questions since Daet’s death, though Mamm knew very little. But why? That question had plagued Beth since her father’s passing last year. Why all the silence and secrecy surrounding their family?

  Farther along the lakeshore, there was another Amish home nestled in next to the old ice house. Decades ago, the ice house used to provide ice for Amish ice boxes. They would harvest the ice in the winter and keep it in the insulated ice house all summer. But those days were past, and their community now used propane-powered refrigerators and freezers for their families’ needs. The Lapp family owned those cabins beside the lake, where Englischers liked to stay, and they had recently renovated the old ice house into an attractive little cottage too. Beth could make out both the two-story house and the newly whitewashed cottage from here.

  Beth shaded her eyes. Did Danny Lapp still live there with his parents? They had been friends, but Beth hadn’t been to Shepherd’s Hill in about three years—Mammi had come to them in Strasburg instead—and a lot could change in that amount of time.

  Goldie barked hoarsely from the yard behind her. She was a twelve-year-old golden lab. Her face was white, and her torso was thick. She plodded around the property with the gate of a regal old woman. Mammi said that at their age, neither of them could be expected to have waistlines anymore.

  “Beth?”

  Beth turned back to wave at her grandmother, who bustled out the back door of the house. Mammi was as portly as Goldie was, with a round face and eyes that squinted so that they almost disappeared when she smiled. But she wasn’t smiling now.

  “Beth!” Mammi puttered over the grassy lawn, beckoning toward Beth. “Come away from there, Elizabeth. Come away. Come, come.”

  Mammi flapped her hands at Beth as if she were one of her chickens. Beth grinned but cooperated all the same. She’d arrived this morning to help her grandmother with housework and chores for the summer. Now in her late seventies, Mammi was starting to struggle with more than just the physical work. She’d been getting more forgetful lately, and she’d been having bouts of confusion. Beth’s mother had told her that their family was looking for a grandchild to help Mammi, and Beth had volunteered for the task. It would provide Beth with some space and time to make her own decisions too.

  “Mammi, I’m twenty-one,” Beth said, crossing the rocky shore and heading back up to the grass. “I’m not a little girl anymore.”

  Surely those rules about swimming wouldn’t apply now.

  “The lake doesn’t care how old you are,” Mammi said. “Come sit on a chair on the lawn. You can see the water from there. It’s a very nice view.”

  As Beth’s feet touched the grass, a smile returned to her grandmother’s weathered face, and the old woman turned around and bustled past a pair of white Adirondack chairs that sat in the shade of two cherry trees. Mammi had a large garden, too, and at only the beginning of June, her rows of vegetables were already flourishing.

  “I’m a strong swimmer, you know,” Beth said. “You don’t need to worry about me, Mammi.”

  She’d brought her homemade bathing dress with her. It had a high neckline, short sleeves, and shorts underneath the knee-length skirt, so she was modestly covered. Her bishop back home in Strasburg had permitted them, as long as boys and girls weren’t swimming together. Besides, no one from the Lapps’ section of the beach would see what she was wearing once she was in the water.

  “It’s not safe,” Mammi said.

  “That’s all you’ve ever said about it,” Beth said. “But my daet taught me to swim.”

  Mammi silently met her gaze for a moment, pursing her lips.

  “There are people who have drowned in that lake who were never found,” Mammi said finally. “That lake holds more secrets than you can imagine. While you are here, Beth, you need to listen to me, or I will send you straight home. If you really are so grown up, then you’ll understand that life is fragile, and it’s prideful to take unnecessary risks. You are not less mortal than anyone else.”

  Beth looked at her grandmother in surprise. That was the most her grandmother had said about the lake in Beth’s hearing. Ever.

  “You’d send me home, Mammi?”

  “If I have to.” Mammi crossed her arms over her chest.

  Beth cast the glistening lake one last look of longing, then put an accommodating smile on her face. She was here to help Mammi, not upset her.

  “All right, Mammi. I won’t swim.”

  “Danke.”

  She followed her grandmother back in through the side door of the big three-story house. Goldie plodded after them, her back legs looking stiff. The dog stopped a couple of yards from the door, and when Beth bent down to give her a pet, Goldie yipped and shied away.

  “Careful with her back end,” Mammi said. “The poor girl is awfully sore these days.”