An Amish Bride

Book 2: Joyful River

by Rosalind Lauer

Genres: Amish & Mennonite; Christian Romance

Synopsis

In Joyful River, Pennsylvania, the faith-filled Amish community lives side by side with the English world, healing problems and overcoming hardship with compassion, love, and abiding trust in Gott's plan.



For Sam Lapp, every day spent working on his family's dairy farm is a reminder of Gott's bounty and goodness. And he's found the person he wants to share that life with. Sam remembers the exact moment he stopped seeing Sadie Beiler as just his sister's best friend, and saw instead the graceful, loving woman she's become. If only he had seen it before Sadie began courting someone else . . .



When Sadie first caught the eye of a handsome auctioneer, she felt blessed, hopeful that marriage would provide an escape from her troubled home. But as months stretch on without a proposal, Sadie discovers a worrying new side to her beau—and a growing kinship with Sam. Thoughtful, hardworking, kind to his visiting English cousins and to her, Sam shows Sadie that real love is just a stone's throw away. But when an unexpected obstacle forces a separation between them, can steadfast faith make Sadie an Amish bride at last?

Release date: February 22, 2022

Publisher: Zebra Books

Print pages: 304

Sample

That morning, the day of her oldest daughter’s wedding, Miriam Lapp was up with the mice, as her grandfather used to say. There were cows to be milked and children to be fed before anyone arrived. And although most of the duties of today’s festivities fell on the shoulders of volunteers, Miriam could hardly stay in bed while others were up and about tending fires, cooking, and setting up. She stepped into her bedside slippers and felt her way to the dresser.

A match flared in the darkness as she lit the kerosene lamp and glanced back at the bed, not wanting to wake her husband too soon. Lo and behold, his side of the bed was empty. He must have slipped out before she even stirred, that man of hers. A hard worker if ever there was one.

Miriam went to the window, opened the shade, and peered through the chilly glass. Two lights bounced in the dim shadows of the near meadow. Headlamps. Someone was bringing the cows in for milking. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she noticed a third light and recognized her husband calling to the cows as he guided them toward the milking barn. The tall, lean figure opening the barn door was no doubt their oldest son, Sam. By all rights, twenty-one-year-old Sam should have been married and on his own by now. She knew it bothered him to see his sister marry first, and she suspected that Sam had held a young woman in his heart for some time now. But that wasn’t something a young man wanted to talk about with his curious mem. Still, she wondered. What was the holdup?

She closed her eyes and prayed for patience. Gott made everything happen in its right time! Sometimes it was hard to accept that when you were a mother waiting for love to come to one of your children.

The low croon of a cow brought her attention back to the yard below. The girl in a swinging skirt dress and high black boots was sixteen-year-old Annie. Their second daughter had never met an animal she didn’t love and respect, and her contributions in the barn helped to offset the girl’s dislike of women’s work in the house. That girl would spend all night in the barn nursing a sick horse, but good luck to anyone trying to get her to spend ten minutes making a bed!

Which reminded Miriam . . . there would be hundreds of guests in the house today. Well, they were as ready as they’d ever be. In the past two days most of the furniture had been cleared away from the downstairs rooms, and last night they’d finished setting up benches from the church wagon. After the ceremony was held in their house, the crew of volunteers would move the benches to the buggy barn, where tables for the wedding dinner were covered with red and green tablecloths and set with table settings and china from the wedding wagon.

Thank you, Gott, for this fine day, she prayed silently as she quickly made her bed and washed up. Thank you for our loving family and friends . . . so much love! And thank you for the marriage vows you will bless today.

On the way back from the bathroom, she stopped at the boys’ room and peeked inside to find the twelve-year-old twins, Pete and Paul, still sleeping lumps in their bunks. She let them be for now.

The girls’ room was full these days, since the arrival of her Englisch nieces last summer. Miriam lowered the lantern light and stepped inside to the sound of sweet breathing, a symphony of life. The eighteen-year-old twins, Serena and Megan, were asleep in their bunks, as was their sixteen-year-old sister, Grace. Good girls, the three of them, but so wounded by the death of their mother from that terrible disease, cancer. Over the past few months Miriam had seen sure signs of healing, as well as growth. At times she’d caught glimpses of her younger sister Sarah in their demeanor—stubborn, spirited Sarah—moments of memory that had taken her breath away. Miriam missed her sister, but in many ways she’d lost her years ago when Sarah had left the plain life behind.

Essie was turned to the wall. The covers had been thrown back on Annie’s empty bunk when she went out. Two dark heads popped above the comforter in eleven-year-old Lizzie’s bed. On closer inspection, Miriam saw that the second sleeping girl was five-year-old Sarah Rose, who must have crept out of the nursery and slipped into the comfort of her sister’s bed during the night. She folded back the comforter covering Sarah Rose’s face and marveled at both girls’ perfect lips, pink as spring rosebuds. She kissed them each on the forehead.

Her heart was full of love for these children and young people. How she cherished having a houseful!

“Mem?” whispered a voice from behind her.

Miriam turned and saw Essie sitting up in bed, her dark hair falling in a braid over one shoulder. This would be the last night Miriam would find her eighteen-year-old daughter waking up in a bunk in the girls’ room. Their lives would be changing with the prospects of future celebrations, different households, and grandchildren. Oh, but wonderful changes.

“Is it time to get up?” Essie asked.

“You can sleep a bit more,” Miriam whispered, sitting at her daughter’s bedside. “It’s just after four, but I wanted to get some coffee going and check on the cooks in the wedding wagon.”

Essie rubbed at one eye. “I can get up . . .”

“No. Stay.” She squeezed her daughter’s hand. “Such a big day ahead.”

“I’m so excited. Our dresses turned out so well. All the girls will be beautiful, and did you see the buggy barn last night?” Dozens of volunteers had cleared out the extra farm tools and buggies to set up a dining hall for the wedding. “It looks so Christmassy with the red and green tablecloths.”

“I did take a peek, and it reminds me of the season of Christ’s birth. It was a good choice, Essie. I’m sure the wedding will go well.”

Essie gave a knowing smile and lifted her mother’s hand. “And . . . what else? I can tell you have something important to say.”

“Just that the most important part of the day will come this morning. Your sacred vows.”

“I know that.” Essie squeezed her mother’s hand. “It might seem that I’m all caught up in the trappings of the wedding, but I know what matters, Mem. Gott’s blessing on our marriage will start our lives together as a couple. That’s what’s important. That’s what warms my heart, and scares me a little, too.”

“Now, what do you have to be afraid of?”

“Being a wife. I love Harlan, but what do I know about being a wife and running a household?”

“Essie, you just helped clean this house from top to bottom, and you’re a wonderful cook. There’s not much more than that to running a household.”

Essie shook her head. “You’ve always managed everything, Mem. You make it look so easy, so effortless. You never make mistakes.”

“Ach! I goof things up all the time, and you know it.”

“I never noticed.”

“Because I make the most of each situation. If I make the pancake batter too thin, I call it a breakfast crepe. When I make a mistake and cut fabric for Sarah Rose’s dress too small, I turn the cloth into squares for a quilt.”

“Sewing has never been your specialty,” Essie admitted.

Miriam chuckled. She was a terrible seamstress. “That’s right, but I’ve found that a smile and a positive outlook can cover mistakes like icing on a cake. We do our best and ask for forgiveness, and with Gott’s grace the people who love us learn to accept our faults.”

Essie nodded, her gaze steadfast in the lantern light. “I’ll do my best.”

“And I’ll be here if you ever need help.”

“I love you, Mem.”

Miriam reached down to wrap her daughter in a hug. “You know I love you, my girl.” If she could stop time, Miriam would have hugged Essie for hours, breathing in the flowery scent of shampoo mixed with lemon from the recently waxed furniture. But the morning was tick-ticking away. “Now close your eyes for a spell and pray for Gott’s blessings upon your marriage.”

“I will. Denki, Mem.”

Moving silently from the room, Miriam felt a mixture of sadness and joy for Essie. There was a tinge of regret that her oldest daughter would be leaving them, but it was tempered by joy for the new phase of Essie’s life. The Bible said to everything, there was a season. For Essie, childhood was moving behind her and the season of marriage and motherhood had arrived. How wondrous it would be to see what life brought Harlan and Essie as a couple!

Back in her room, Miriam pinned up her hair and covered the brunette twist with a white prayer kapp. Then she dressed in her church clothes, the dress a deep blue hue that made her think of summer skies. No one would be noticing her dress today, with Essie and her attendants wearing new dresses sewn with loving hands in the past few weeks. What a whirlwind it had been, preparing for this December wedding, the last of the season! Cleaning and painting the house. Lining up volunteers to cook and serve. Organizing bakers and getting to market for the food, which included one hundred and fifty pounds of chicken and two fifty-pound sacks of potatoes. Fortunately the cook wagon and bench wagon had arrived on time, and setup had commenced two days ago so that the cooks could get started cutting up the chicken and potatoes, chopping celery and toasting endless loaves of bread to make the stuffing for the traditional roasht, a casserole of chicken, bread cubes, celery and egg. Yesterday cousin Ginny and her husband Floyd had started roasting the chicken on a huge outdoor grill, and their helpers had made good use of the three stoves and ovens in the rented wagon. Such a wonderful team!

Seeing all the preparations firsthand, Miriam marveled at how families pulled it off these days. The invite list for Amish weddings needed to include distant family as well as everyone in the church community. For Essie and Harlan’s wedding, that entailed over three hundred guests! Late last night, when they realized they needed to add portable heaters to the buggy shed, they’d had to take down a row of tables and switch the dinner plan to accommodate two separate seatings. If she’d been hosting this on her own, Miriam might have fretted, but she was blessed to have organizers and cooks who had pulled off a dozen weddings, and they weren’t worried at all! Amish weddings brought the church community together, and it was only because of the many helpers that Miriam could feel free to move down the stairs, light as a feather, on this special day.

Down in the kitchen, Miriam started a large pot of coffee and put paper cups, milk, and sugar on the kitchen table so that anyone passing through could help themselves. Most likely the volunteers already had an urn of coffee made in the wedding wagon, but on a day like this, you could never get enough! She was fetching a spoon for stirring when she noticed the wooden plaque hanging over the calendar. Funny how you can see something so frequently in your daily life that it stops registering.

As a newlywed, Miriam had seen the motto in a gift shop and had asked Alvie to carve it onto a wood placard. He’d done a wonderful good job. It read: “Marriage may be made in heaven, but man is responsible for the upkeep.”

“Amen!” she said aloud. After weeks spent trying to think of a wedding gift for Essie and Harlan, she’d found the perfect solution. She took the sign down, blew at a duster feather clinging to its edge, and set it on the table to wrap. Not yet dawn, and already one problem was solved!

Sam Lapp pulled on his hat as he wove through the gaggle of wedding guests that had spilled out of the heated barn and house. Most of the younger guests had eaten and were consequently gathering outside on the crushed stone path and frozen lawn near the paddock. Although he was an attendant in his sister Essie’s wedding, the ceremony had been over for hours, the first seating of lunch was complete, and Sam figured he was nearly done with his official duties as brother of the bride. Now he could take a moment to pursue his own crazy idea. Although women were wrapping themselves in shawls and many had coats, mufflers, and mittens, Sam wore no jacket over his black Sunday clothes. The cold air was refreshing, and he needed a pick-me-up as he searched for the young woman with glimmering green eyes and a heart-shaped face.

Where was she? One minute, he’d been called away from the eck, the corner table where the bride, groom, and their attendants sat, to help one of the servers transport a heavy tray of dishes. The next minute, he’d turned back to the eck to find Sadie gone—disappeared—along with the bride and groom. And here he’d barely finished his roasht, a traditional casserole of moist bread stuffing and chicken. He’d grabbed two more buttery bites before leaving the barn in search of Sadie.

His gaze lingered on each young woman who wore the emerald green dress of his sister’s side-sitters, the wedding attendants who doted on Essie as if she were a queen bee. Where was she? Since he’d been paired up with her for the day, he figured this might be his last chance to let her know how he really felt.

A hand clamped on his shoulder, stopping him in his path. He paused, caught by his Englisch cousin Meg, a solid young woman with wise brown eyes and toffee-brown hair cut shorter than that of most Amish boys. Megan wasn’t the girl he’d been looking for, but in the past few months they’d become unlikely friends, and Sam felt more comfortable talking with her than with any of his sisters.

“Are you looking for Essie?” she asked. “I think she’s over by the cook wagon.”

“Is that so?” He glanced off the question, not wanting to admit it wasn’t Essie he was looking for. Sam skimmed the crowd, which mostly consisted of young folks who had eaten lunch in the first sitting and were now roaming outside. All around him young people gathered in friend groups to talk and joke, undaunted by the cool nip in the December air and the dusting of snow that still clung to the distant rolling hills. Everyone loved an Amish wedding. Sam wished he shared their joy in his heart. The small puffs that burst into the air as they laughed aloud. The smiles that lit their faces. He was happy for his sister, but joy rang hollow in an empty heart.

“I saw her head in that direction with Harlan,” Meg said. “They seem really happy. Essie’s bubbling over like a pot of jam on the stove. I’ve never seen her so pleased.”

“I guess that’s what marriage will do when you’ve met the right one.” Sam couldn’t help the cool note in his tone as the words slipped out. Sour grapes? Probably.

He kept his eyes on the young people filing out of the barn, not wanting his cousin to see the raw emotions that had been churning inside him today. Bad enough that he’d had to keep a stiff upper lip and force a smile these past few weeks when wedding preparations for his younger sister had turned the whole household upside down. He wished Essie well. He really did. But couldn’t she have waited another year to marry Harlan? Although there was no hard and fast rule, it was traditional for the oldest sibling to be married first. Sam should have been first, but since it didn’t happen that way, he was now left to fend off the jokes from his friends and the sympathetic looks from relatives who’d traveled to Lancaster County from far and wide to celebrate the marriage of Harlan and Essie Yoder.

If that humiliation wasn’t enough, Sam had to contend with his sister’s cluelessness when it came to his feelings for Essie’s best friend, Sadie Beiler. “You two have known each other since grade school, and there’s nothing there,” Essie had told Sam.

Nothing there? Maybe back when they were children, ten or eleven, and Sadie had spent every summer day and night at the Lapp farm, helping with the milking and chores, eating at the table elbow to elbow with Sam, splashing him as the children walked through the shallows of the river or splattering him with a water balloon on a hot summer day. Back then, when they were young, they’d been like siblings. But recently, the ease between them had fled.

Last summer, when the family had been engaged in a water balloon battle, Sam had taken aim at Sadie and paused, his arm cranked back in midair, as he took in the sight of her: black apron cinched around her slender waist and full curves; round green eyes; skin tanned lightly from the summer sun.

A beautiful woman.

When had Essie’s scrawny, quiet friend grown up to be a bright, graceful flower?

That sunny summer afternoon, he had seen the woman Sadie had become.

Hesitating with a cold, slippery balloon in one hand, Sam had been caught staring by Sadie, who had tilted her head, a look of curiosity in her moss-green eyes. Had she realized Sam’s new awareness of her as a woman? Not just the quiet girl who’d always shadowed his sister, but a flesh-and-blood woman?

He couldn’t tell. Who could know the mind of a woman?

But one thing was for sure as her brows rose and her arm lifted to take aim at him. Little Sadie Beiler had grown into a fine young woman. And when nineteen-year-old Sadie launched the balloon and sent an explosion of water running down the front of his shirt, Sam’s heart was lost forever.

But somehow, sister Essie hadn’t noticed any of this. And so she had matched Sam up as if he were a trusted gelding hitched up to pull her bridal party along.

“I paired you with Sadie for the day, since Sadie’s beau gets jealous easily and everyone knows you and Sadie are like brother and sister. I was going to put you with Laura, but she’s interested in Saul Esh, Harlan’s friend from the Amish furniture factory, and Annie will be paired with a boy she’s fond of. So anyway, you’ll be with Sadie for the day. Sorry I couldn’t find a real match for you.”

Sam had nodded, even as he’d tried to swallow back the multitude of feelings that had tangled within. The joy he felt in Sadie’s presence. The flare of annoyance and distrust for her beau, Mark Miller. The embarrassment and annoyance with himself for having waited too long to make a move and letting her slip through his fingers.

As if she’d ever been his to hold.

And now here he was at the celebration of his younger sister’s wedding, still smarting over the jokes about how he’d better find a wife soon before all his siblings married and put him to shame.

“Penny for your thoughts, Sam.” Megan’s expectant look brought him back to the present.

Sam knew he could trust Megan. Having spent many hours walking the fence line with his cousin and teaching her how to coax and spur the dairy cows along, Sam had learned that not much escaped the scrutiny of Megan’s big brown eyes. Everyone said that she looked exactly like her twin sister, Serena—save for her toffee-brown hair, which had been cropped short, just covering her ears in slight curls. But Sam knew better. While Serena had her head in the clouds, her constant chatter floating in the air like soap bubbles, Megan was rock-solid, strong, swift as the wind, and observant. If Serena was the sugar in a pie, Megan was the salt in a stew.

“You’re a million miles away,” Megan went on.

Sam looked down and tapped his chest with both hands. “Feels to me like I’m right here.”

“So literal,” Megan said. “I can tell when I’m getting the brush-off.”

“Don’t be that way.” Sam felt his resolve soften. He knew Megan was a fish out of water here, and it was up to him to let her know she belonged. He looked around for eager ears and was glad to see most of the guys and girls his age were gathered by the paddock. “Truth is, I was looking for Sadie.”

Her eyes flashed with recognition as she nodded. “Your partner for the day.”

“Yah. Because Essie didn’t want to burden any other poor girl with me.”

“That’s so not true.” Megan lowered her voice. “Have you had a chance to talk with Sadie?”

Sam shook his head. “That’s why I was looking for her. Not a lot going on until after all the lunches have been served. I thought it might be a good time to talk.”

“I’ll let you know if I see her,” Megan promised, looking to her right to scan the young people passing by. It was her first Amish wedding, and she had admitted earlier that she didn’t know what to expect. “So what comes up after they finish serving lunch?”

“The servers will cut the cakes and pass around sweets.”

“More food, the staple of Amish love.” Megan cocked her head to one side. “Why am I not surprised?”

“And then we’ll take a break before dinner. There’ll be youth singing in the afternoon, and some time for games if the weather holds. Volleyball, or maybe some of us will get out on the ice.”

“Now we’re talking. I’m finally getting used to skating on ice that hasn’t been smoothed by a Zamboni.”

He wasn’t sure what that meant, but he had noticed Megan’s quick improvement at skating. Just last week, when the pond had frozen through and everyone had wanted to be outside, Megan had laced up a pair of Essie’s old skates and hit the ice. After a slow start, she was skating circles around most girls out there. Swift and controlled and agile as a cat, Megan had proven herself as an all-around athlete. “That’s my cousin,” Sam had reminded the other guys, young Amish men who’d never seen a girl command the ice that way.

“Promise me you’ll let me know if you’re doing a pickup hockey game,” Megan said.

“You’d best stick with volleyball or field hockey,” he advised. “Round here, Amish girls don’t play ice hockey.”

Megan shrugged. “No skin off my teeth. You keep forgetting I’m not Amish.”

Loud voices and laughter rose from the area near the paddock. Both Sam and Meg turned to take a look at the young Amish folks starting to gather there.

“What’s the commotion about?” Meg asked.

“I’m not sure.” Sam rubbed his knuckles against his clean-shaven jaw as he squinted over at the group. A couple of the guys were grabbing at Joe Fisher, who dodged them, pushing them off and escaping to the perimeter of the crowd.

“We’ll get you, Joe,” someone called after him. “Before the day is up, you’ll be going over.”

“Not if I’m quick,” Joe shouted as he continued to back away.

Sam gave a chuckle as he nodded toward the group. Antics like this were the best part of a wedding. “Come. You’ll want to see this.”

“See what?”

“A prank, sort of. A wedding tradition for the groom.” The crowd shifted suddenly as the young men pounced on someone else. Ephraim Kraybill, who had been a groom just last month when he married Suvilla.

Sam chuckled. “Looks like Ephraim is the first to go.” Sam and Megan cut around groups of chatting girls as they headed toward the paddock. “It’s perfect for today, since this is probably the last wedding of the season. Time to send the newly married men over the fence.”

“Over the fence to where?” Megan asked, scrambling to catch up with Sam’s quick strides.

Sam shrugged. “To the other side!” he said abruptly before pressing into the group of young men.

“You don’t have to do this!” Ephraim was complaining, but there was a smile on his face.

“Yah, we do!” Sam reached down into the fray of men and managed to grab hold of Ephraim’s left calf.

On someone’s count of three, they worked together and lifted Ephraim up until he seemed to be floating at eye level amid laughter and some groans.

“You know what they say,” Sam’s friend Isaac called out. “You’re not really married till you’re tossed over the fence.”

“Okay, then.” Ephraim turned his head toward the wooden post-and-rail fence, and the motion knocked his hat to the ground. “Give me the old heave-ho!”

Moving like a giant centipede, the cluster of men held Ephraim high as they struggled closer to the fence. All around them girls were gasping and squealing and folks were laughing and cheering.

“Go easy on me, fellas!” Ephraim pleaded in a giddy voice. “Think of me as your mammi’s favorite hen!”

Sam could barely keep from laughing at the silliness of it all.

“Ach! Don’t be so chickenhearted,” someone answered.

“Here we go!” On the count of three, Sam put his weight into the toss as they sent Ephraim sailing over the fence.

For a brief, satisfying moment, the young man’s body floated through the air like a football.

Fortunately, there was a substantial group of bearded Amish men standing on the other side of the fence with their arms open to catch him. Once over the fence, the young man landed in their arms, no worse for the wear. The crowd let out a roar of approval, a big “Yeah!” as the catchers tipped the man and righted him inside the paddock, feet on the ground, and finished his voyage with a few hearty claps on the back.

That done, Sam clapped his hands together and scanned the crowd of young people in search of other recently married men. He checked the faces under the brims of dark hats, knowing there had to be more grooms among the party guests. “Next?” If he couldn’t spend time with Sadie, tossing guys over the fence was the next best thing.

“The green of that dress truly brings out the green in your eyes,” Amy Troyer told Sadie as they walked together down the lane.

Sadie Beiler cast a curious look at Amy, not quite sure how to handle a compliment from the bishop’s daughter. It was wrong to be prideful about beauty or physical appearances, but Sadie couldn’t help but feel warmed by the compliments she’d received from various wedding guests today. Yah, pride was wrong, but it felt good to be noticed. Gott had given her these green eyes, this bountiful shiny brown hair, and a strong body, and she was grateful for that.

“Denki,” Sadie said with a modest smile. “But you know that Essie chose the color as a celebration of Christmas. It’s only a few weeks away.”

“And everyone loves Christmas. Do you think it will snow?” Amy asked.

“It’s sure cold enough.” Sadie pulled her bulky hand-me-down coat closed at the neck as she kept stride with Amy on the uneven gravel drive. She hated to cover up the pretty emerald dress, one of a handful that had been sewn for Essie’s attendants to wear, but her throat was throbbing, and she couldn’t shake these shivers. The December afternoon had grown cold, and Sadie knew it would be a long trek to the parked buggies, where Amy had left the cupcakes she’d made for dessert. “I’m so happy for Harlan and Essie. They’re such a good couple,” Sadie added. “Their ceremony was so moving, wasn’t it? I cried a little when they took their sacred vows.”

It was Sadie’s first time as a side-sitter, and she had found the weeks of preparation energizing. Each and every task, whether hemming dresses or addressing invitations, had been a labor of love for all involved. Today, in the culmination of all the planning,. . .