Family Gatherings at Promise Lodge

Book 6: Promise Lodge

by Charlotte Hubbard

Genres: Amish & Mennonite; Christian Romance; Clean & Wholesome Romance

Synopsis

With two spring weddings to celebrate, friends and family are reunited at the Amish community of Promise Lodge, where nothing—and no one—can derail an unexpected new love when it's part of a glorious plan . . .



In the year since he lost his wife in a tragic accident, Lester Lehman has found healing and purpose—helping construct Dale Kraybill's new bulk store, enjoying the Kuhn sisters' hearty meals, and settling into a tiny, built-for-one lakeside house. Falling in love again is surely not on Lester's mind. Yet despite his firm "no," two available ladies have set their kapps on the handsome widower—in a boisterous rivalry that weaves mayhem among the wedding festivities . . .



A welcome escape comes from a fresh-faced newcomer. Marlene Fisher disarms Lester with her witty quips on his romantic predicament, while her sparkling eyes inspire surprising thoughts of a shared future. But the heartbreak that brought Marlene to Promise Lodge runs deep, and the pretty maidel believes she's not meant to marry. In a season of vows to love and honor, scripture holds the key to building their happiness together: love is kind, and above all . . . patient.

Release date: February 21, 2023

Publisher: Zebra Books

Print pages: 368

Sample

As he tilted his chaise lounge back to stretch out in the afternoon sunshine, Lester Lehman felt like a new man. It was unusually warm for a March day in Missouri, and after spending the winter in his tiny home on the shore of Rainbow Lake, he reveled in the chance to soak up some rays out on his dock. He’d worked hard all morning installing the aluminum siding on Dale Kraybill’s new bulk store—a wonderful addition to the other businesses of Promise Lodge—and he’d enjoyed a nice lunch in the lodge’s dining room with his friends. And now, nothing was going to stop him from doing absolutely nothing.

It felt downright sinful, being this lazy on a Monday afternoon. The gentle lapping of the lake lulled Lester as he reclined full-length on the mesh chaise. He folded his arms beneath his head and let his mind go blissfully blank.

Out-of-town families would start arriving today to attend his niece Gloria’s wedding on Wednesday as well as Laura Hershberger’s wedding on Thursday, when they married the Helmuth brothers, Cyrus and Jonathan—but for now, Lester could revel in the hush of a solitary sunny afternoon. Living alone in his tidy house all winter had taught him a sense of self-reliance that had cleared his soul—had given him an unencumbered sense of freedom he’d never expected. His bobbing dock rocked him like a cradle. He felt far, far removed from the grief and despair that had followed the loss of his wife and son in a Sugarcreek, Ohio, buggy accident—as well as the passing of his brother, Bishop Floyd, here at Promise Lodge—last spring. As Lester eased into a state of semisleep, he knew the true meaning of inner peace.

At long last, all was well with his life. With the help of his family and friends here at Promise Lodge, he was moving forward . . . floating on the fluffy clouds of a nap. . . .

“Yoo-hoo! Lester, honey! Thanks to Delores, I’ve found you!”

Lester jerked awake. Whose voice was that? And why had she implied that his dear, deceased wife had led her here?

When he opened one eye, he saw a pudgy little woman starting across the expanse of grass that surrounded Rainbow Lake. Her brown cape dress fluttered around her thick legs as she hurried toward him. Clutching her kapp with one hand to keep it from flying off her head, Lester’s uninvited guest appeared so excited—and in such a state of overexertion—that he feared she might be bringing on a heart attack. He remained absolutely still, hoping she’d believe he was asleep.

“My stars, here you are at long last!” she blurted out, huffing between phrases. “I’ve ridden all the way from Sugarcreek—for Gloria’s wedding—because with my Harvey gone—Delores has been telling me—for quite some time now—that she wants me to take care of you, Lester! So here I am! Because I know better than to—to ignore heavenly guidance.”

Lester sighed. Agnes Plank, his wife’s best friend, had never known the meaning of silence. She barely drew a breath at the end of one sentence before she shot headlong into her next burst of words. There would be no ignoring her now that she’d almost reached his dock, so Lester reluctantly raised the back of his chaise. All hope for a nap was gone. He felt a headache prickling around his temples.

“I’ve been so excited since our bus arrived about half an hour ago! I looked around, but I didn’t see you anywhere,” Agnes continued as she struggled to catch her breath. “It was such an adventure to come all the way from Ohio—I’ve never been to Missouri before—and our friends are so pleased that Gloria’s found herself a young man to settle down with—and it’s such a joy to attend not one but two weddings while I’m here. All that food and visiting time and—and doesn’t the sense of springtime romance in the air make you feel like you could start all over again, Lester? Don’t you just love weddings?”

I was indeed looking forward to these weddings—until a few moments ago.

“Of course, ever since you Lehmans moved here, I’ve been following Promise Lodge’s weekly reports in The Budget,” Agnes went on as she peered at the land and buildings around them. “I was so tickled when Gloria took over as your district’s scribe and—well, she’s so descriptive, but I had no idea what a lovely settlement you’d come to. And of course, you and your brother, Floyd—God rest his soul—installed the windows and siding on these new homes, and with everything except the lodge building being only a couple years old, it seems like the perfect place to start fresh!

“Before that terrible traffic accident took Delores away from us,” Agnes continued with a brief frown, “all she talked about was coming here to live in the fine new home you’d built for her. Lately she’s been telling me how lonely you’ve been, Lester, and—well, you know me, I just have to help people. The way I see it, Gloria’s wedding is a heaven-sent opportunity.”

Fully awake now, Lester swung his feet to the dock. When he could get a word in edgewise, he needed to deflate Agnes’s high-flying hopes in a hurry, because in her vivid imagination, she was already standing before the bishop with him, repeating her wedding vows. As he opened his mouth to speak, however, another urgent female voice hailed him.

“Lester! Lester Lehman, it’s me—your Elverta! I read about Gloria’s wedding in the paper, and it seemed like the perfect reason to come and see you!”

Lester moaned. His sense of freedom, peace, and unencumbered living had just hit another serious snag.

As the national newspaper for Plain communities, The Budget was a wonderful way to keep track of far-flung friends and kin, but he suddenly wished that Gloria—and Rosetta Wickey, their community’s original scribe—hadn’t been quite so descriptive in detailing the Lehman family’s relocation. The tiny town of Promise, Missouri, was out in the middle of nowhere, yet Agnes and Elverta had apparently followed every line of the newspaper’s weekly reports right to his doorstep.

As Elverta Horst, dressed in deep green, strode toward his dock, her tall, skinny, ramrod-straight body reminded Lester of a string bean. He knew better than to express that opinion, of course, because the woman he’d broken up with to begin courting his Delores had never been known for her sense of humor.

“Wh-who’s this?” Agnes asked him under her breath.

Never one to beat around the bush, Elverta stopped a few yards from the dock. She glanced at Lester before focusing on the flustered woman beside him. “And who might you be?” she demanded with a raised eyebrow.

Lester answered as indirectly as possible, because he knew these women would soon find out every little thing about one another. “Elverta, this is Delores’s best friend, Agnes Plank. She lives down the road from our former home in Sugarcreek,” he explained hastily. “And Agnes, this is Elverta Horst—”

“And I was engaged to Lester before he took up with Delores,” Elverta put in purposefully. “First loves are often the strongest, ain’t so? The flame may flicker through the years, but it never really goes out.”

Immediately Elverta turned to take in the house behind him, pointing her finger. “And what’s this? A storage shed for equipment you folks use on the lake?”

“It’s a tiny house,” Lester informed her. He was accustomed to folks joking about the size of his place, but he suddenly wished he could lock himself inside it until these women went away. “I live here. And I happen to like it just fine.”

“My word, Lester, you might as well live in a blue boxcar,” Elverta shot back.

“But what about the house you built for Delores?” Agnes asked with a puzzled frown. “She described it as having two stories—like a normal place—and said you and Floyd had installed the windows and siding—”

“You’re being funny, right?” Elverta demanded. “Teasing us while you figure out how to send Agnes away so you and I can take up where we left off.”

Lester’s headache was throbbing full throttle now. “Jah, I built a house just up the hill from here,” he explained with a sigh, “and in November I sold it to a couple who needed a place before cold weather set in. The young man who lives just up the hill behind us earns his living building these tiny homes, so he’s letting me stay in this one—”

“I’ll be staying in the lodge,” Agnes put in with an eager smile. “My rent’s paid up for long enough that you could build us another home—”

“I’ve got an apartment, too,” Elverta interrupted triumphantly. “But the lodge is just for unattached women, so I won’t be living there very long. Lester and I go way back, Agnes. You might as well—”

“Puh!” Agnes spat. “I’ll have you know that Delores has been guiding me here for quite some time now, assuring me that I’m destined to take her place. Why do I suspect you’re a maidel, Elverta, without any experience at being a wife?”

Lester nearly choked as his cheeks went hot, but Elverta wasn’t deterred for a second.

“Why would Lester want another man’s leavings? Let alone a confused, befuddled woman who claims she’s getting advice from his deceased wife?” she asked with a scowl. “If folks get wind that you’re hearing voices from beyond the grave, they’ll likely have you committed to the loony bin.”

Agatha sucked in her breath, which puffed her up like a toad. “You have no right to say that about Delores—my very best friend! I bet she’ll find ways to stall you and block your intentions—”

“Oh, if anybody’s blocking me it’ll be you,” Elverta spouted. “But not for long!”

As they moved toward each other, Lester stepped between them with his arms extended. “Whoa! Hold it right there,” he said, looking from one woman to the other. “I’m telling you both right now that I’m not hitching up with either one of you! So instead of having a catfight, you can just head on back to the lodge—and after the weddings, you might as well get back on your buses to Ohio. Save us all a lot of embarrassment and bad feelings, will you?”

“I have nothing to be embarrassed about!” Elverta declared. “And I’m not leaving until she does!”

“Well, I’m not going anywhere until Lester makes his choice!” Agnes blurted out as she stomped her foot. “I was here first, after all.”

“But I’ve known Lester since we were scholars back in the early grades of—”

“Start walking,” Lester said, pointing toward the lodge. “And don’t think you’re going to pester me about this tomorrow, because I’ll be at my job site working. Let’s go.”

As he strode toward the timbered structure across the road, Lester couldn’t recall when he’d ever felt so flustered. Not five minutes after these two women had arrived, they’d gone for each other’s throats—over him. All he wanted was to get Agnes and Elverta out of his sight so he could enlist help from his friends and send the two women packing as fast as possible.

Approaching the lodge’s steps, Lester saw that a couple of big buses were parked over in the Helmuth Nursery’s lot—and folks were still getting out of them, claiming their suitcases. Agnes and Elverta must’ve been in such a toot that they’d each rushed to the lodge and inquired about where he lived and then hurried over before they’d even unpacked. When he glanced back at them, the rivals were a distance behind him, focused on him rather than looking at each other. Even so, they appeared ready to spit nails.

Lester entered the lodge and headed straight for the kitchen, hoping to explain his situation before Agnes or Elverta got the facts twisted. Aromas of sugar, cinnamon, and roasting chickens filled the air, and as he passed through the large dining room he saw that the tables were set to serve dinner to several wedding guests. The visitors would be staying in the extra rooms upstairs as well as in the cabins behind the lodge and with residents who owned homes. He was relieved to see Ruby and Beulah Kuhn, maidel sisters who lived at the lodge, as well as Rosetta Wickey, who owned the building.

“Ladies, I’ve got a real problem,” Lester blurted when they looked up from the pies they were putting together. “The two gals who’re following me have both come to Promise Lodge thinking I’m going to marry them—”

“At the same time?” Beulah teased. “Ooh la la!”

“Why, Lester, you amaze me,” Ruby put in with a catlike smile. “Maybe I should put my hat in the ring.”

He shook his head. These good-natured Mennonite ladies had become his close friends over the past year—and his situation did sound too funny to be true. Almost.

“No matter what they tell you—or what information they try to pry out of you to gain the upper hand—I do not want to hitch up with either one of them,” Lester insisted. “They’ve already worn out their welcome, and we still have two days of weddings to get through—and they’re planning to stay until one of them wins. Just so you know.”

Out in the lobby, the sound of the front door opening warned him that Agnes and Elverta had arrived.

“I’m out of here,” he said, winding his way between the worktables and counters. The lodge kitchen had once been the hub of a church camp, so the industrial-sized ovens, sinks, and refrigerators required a lot of space. “If I think about possible solutions—and if you gals put your heads together—surely we’ll figure out a way to settle this. Please? See you later.”

Lester ducked through the adjoining mudroom and past another big freezer before exiting through the back door. He’d escaped this initial encounter, but neither Elverta nor Agnes would give up easily.

So much for those peaceful, easy feelings and catching the sunshine. Might as well put in another couple hours at the bulk store and work off my frustrations where those biddies can’t find me.

And Delores, I’m not saying you got me into this fix, but if you could help me out of it, I’d be forever grateful, honey. Nobody could ever love me the way you did. I miss you so much.

Rosetta rinsed her floury hands at the sink, shaking her head. “Sounds like Lester’s in quite a pickle,” she murmured as the Kuhn sisters nodded. “Now we know why those two ladies hurried in to rent apartments and then rushed out after they’d asked where he lived. I wish I could’ve warned him first.”

“Jah, their rent money hadn’t even settled on the countertop before they shot out of here,” Ruby recalled.

“Just based on my first impressions,” Beulah murmured, “I can’t picture Lester with either one of those gals. They’re as different as night and day, but—oh, hello there, ladies!”

Rosetta turned, immediately noticing the tension on their guests’ faces. “Let me see, it’s Agnes and—”

“Elverta!” the tall thin one interrupted brusquely. “I’d like to choose my apartment now, before the other wedding guests get over here, please.”

“So would I,” Agnes chimed in. “And if you’ll recall, I paid my rent first.”

Rosetta’s eyebrows shot up. It wasn’t the Plain way to be so aggressive—or so rude. “A couple of other wedding guests from Ohio are already upstairs with Gloria, the apartment manager, so you can come with me. We’ll go up those double stairs in the lobby.”

When the two women turned, carefully avoiding contact, Rosetta followed them through the dining room. Elverta strode quickly along the side aisle as though she might win a prize for reaching the lobby first, while Agnes hurried down the center aisle between the set tables. Rosetta tried to compose her thoughts, to plan how she’d handle these gals if they started in about spending time with Lester, but they were both moving quickly enough that she didn’t have much opportunity to do that.

The lobby was two stories tall with a rustic chandelier of antlers and a gleaming staircase on either side—grandeur that harkened back to the days when Promise Lodge was built. She and her sisters, Mattie and Christine, had acquired this property nearly two years ago when they’d left the Coldstream district and a very oppressive bishop. So much had happened since they’d started out—so many wonderful families had built homes, and their businesses had thrived since then. Several folks had also come alone and had found unexpected love and happiness, including Rosetta and her sisters.

She hoped this tricky situation with Lester’s two lady friends wasn’t about to mark a low point in life at the lodge. As she gestured for Agnes and Elverta to precede her up the stairs, each woman chose a different staircase as though they couldn’t stand to be near one another.

When Rosetta joined them on the second floor, she gestured down the hallway on either side of where they stood. “As you’ll see, several of our apartments have been painted and furnished but now stand empty—and we’ll have wedding guests in most of them for the next few days.”

“What happened to the ladies who lived there?” Agnes asked, as though she feared an ominous reply.

Rosetta smiled. “We’ve gotten married and moved into houses,” she replied before nodding toward the young woman approaching them. “This is Gloria—”

“Well, of course I know Gloria!” Agnes exclaimed as she rushed forward to hug her. “And now you’re to be a bride—all grown up, faster than anyone could believe!”

“Jah, that’s the way it happens, Agnes,” Gloria said with a big grin. “I’ll catch up with you later, all right? I’m helping other guests from Ohio who need blankets for their beds. Welcome to you, too,” she added with a nod at Elverta.

“Well, I’ll be getting married real soon, too, honey!” Agnes called after the young woman. “Your uncle Lester’s going to be a happy man!”

“Jah, because he’ll be hitching up with me,” Elverta put in.

Rosetta swallowed a laugh when Gloria shot her a confused glance—even though the situation might not turn out to be so funny. “We all like to think positive thoughts and plan for happiness here,” she said in a purposeful tone. “Ruby and Beulah—the Mennonite ladies you met in the kitchen—live in the corner to our left, so we’ll start by walking to our right. This apartment in front of us is Gloria’s, and it’ll be vacant after Wednesday when she moves into her new home with Cyrus Helmuth.”

When Rosetta had opened Gloria’s door, Agnes entered behind her and sucked in her breath. “Oh, my! I’ve never seen walls that are dark on the bottom and get lighter up by the ceiling—”

“And the ceiling in here is painted like a blue sky with clouds,” Elverta remarked from the bedroom she’d ducked into. “That’s a little too odd for my taste—”

“It’s only paint,” Rosetta reminded them. “My sister Mattie originally lived in this apartment, until she married Preacher Amos. The next tenant requested the unusual paint scheme—so you can see that our men are gut at fixing up these apartments to suit you. With two weddings coming up, however, it’ll be at least next week before they could start remodeling your places.”

“No sense in doing that for me,” Agnes put in as she headed down the hallway. “I don’t intend to live in my apartment very long, after all.”

“Jah, Lester already knows how I feel about his tiny home,” Elverta said with a shake of her head. “He might as well get started on a real house for me instead of spending his time fixing up my apartment.”

Rosetta suppressed a sigh as they continued down the hall. “My sister Christine lived in this next empty apartment until she married Bishop Monroe. The corner place was originally mine, but I’ve also married, and I now live in the white house on the hill that you can see from the big windows.”

Before Rosetta could say more, Elverta opened the door and hurried into the corner apartment. “Dibs!” she called out when she reached the windows. “I’ll have a great view of the lake, so I can keep track of Lester’s comings and goings.”

As Rosetta entered the room, she cleared her throat purposefully. “If you’ll notice the clothing folded on the bed and the other personal effects,” she pointed out, “you’ll see that this one’s occupied. Irene Wickey, who operates a pie shop in that little white building across the way, lives here. She’s in town shopping for last-minute wedding groceries, or you’d have met her in the kitchen with the Kuhn sisters.”

Elverta’s thick gray eyebrows rose. “What about the apartment next to this one?”

“It’s never been occupied, so it’s a single room that’s been painted, and we’ve added a few basic furnishings,” Rosetta explained. “But the men could open it into the next room, which is also empty—”

Elverta hurried into the hallway and immediately entered the room in question. “I’ll take it as is!” she crowed. “I can see Lester’s boxcar of a house even better from here! I don’t need anything fancy because I’m a short-timer, you know.”

Agnes looked like a puffed-up hen whose feathers had been ruffled—until she resolutely passed the other unoccupied room in the center of the hallway and opened the door to the apartment in the far corner. “Aha! This place is so fresh it still smells like paint—and it has a gut view of the lake, too! I’ll take this one.”

Rosetta wanted to laugh, but the ladies’ attitudes seemed to be getting pettier and more pathetic with each passing moment. “Sorry, but that apartment has just been remodeled for a new tenant who’s moving in tomorrow afternoon. She’s coming from Coldstream, the town my sisters and Amos and I left, and she put her money down way back in December.”

Agnes’s shoulders fell. She came back into the hallway, which overlooked the lobby, and watched Elverta bound down the curved staircase to fetch her suitcases. “Well, I’ll not be living right next door to that one,” she muttered. “What’s on this other side?”

“These rooms are painted and have basic furnishings for when we have out-of-town guests,” Rosetta explained as they looked into each room. “They’re smaller because no one’s ever rented them, and they look out the front side of the lodge, toward the road. Again, you could ask the men to combine two of the rooms, as the rest of us have done.”

Noting no spark of interest on Agnes’s face, Rosetta kept walking. “On the fourth side, which overlooks the cabins and faces toward the nursery where your bus is parked, we also have a couple more unoccupied rooms before you get to the Kuhn sisters’ corner. I think the two guests Gloria was helping have chosen one of those rooms—but they’ll be leaving Friday morning.”

Hearing the steady, determined tattoo of Elverta’s footfalls ascending the stairs, Agnes straightened to her full height—probably all of five feet—before returning to the hallway on the front of the lodge. “I like this yellow room,” she announced loudly. “I’d rather focus on helping Lester design our new house than spend my time remodeling an apartment here. Delores has led me to him, you know—and I bet he already wishes he hadn’t sold the home he built for her.”

Rosetta refrained from rolling her eyes. And I’m betting Lester will hole up in his tiny house with no inclination at all to build another home.

Keeping those thoughts to herself, she smiled at Agnes. “I’ve always liked this yellow room,” she remarked. “Before long, those huge old lilac bushes along the road will be in full bloom. And truth be told,” she added in a lower voice, “we leave the doors to the unoccupied rooms open so they won’t smell stale. If you ever want to look out the windows on the other side, you’ll have that option.”

As Agnes’s face lit up with gratitude, Rosetta hoped she wouldn’t come to regret what she’d just said.

Why am I encouraging Agnes to spy on poor Lester, anyway? These ladies have only been here an hour and they’re already annoying me. No wonder he wants them to leave.

Rosetta didn’t know why, but she felt a little sorry for short, plump Agnes Plank. Compared to Elverta, she seemed to be such an underdog—a dachshund competing against a greyhound in the race to win Lester’s affection.

“Would you like some help with your luggage?” she a. . .