Home from the Storm

Book 4: A Johns Mill Amish Romance

by Laurel Blount

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

Synopsis

In this stirring Amish romance about love and second chances, a shunned man returns to protect the wife he left behind—and falls in love with the family he never knew he had.

After a senseless loss, hotheaded Caleb Hochstedler left his Amish faith and his young wife to seek justice. Two years later, he tracks his parents’ killer back home to Johns Mill, where he’s astonished to learn he’s the father of twins. Now he's determined to protect his children and the woman he still loves—if she’ll let him.

Her new husband’s abandonment broke Rhoda Lambright’s heart and proved her father, the bishop, right. Such a stubborn man could never be happy among the peaceful Amish. When Caleb unexpectedly returns, Rhoda is caught between her rock of a husband and a very hard place.

Her church forbids divorce and requires forgiveness, so Rhoda lets Caleb back into their home. But can she ever let him back into her heart? One thing’s for certain sure. This second chance will take all the faith they can find.

Release date: December 26, 2023

Publisher: Berkley

Print pages: 352

Sample

Chapter One

Caleb Hochstedler hadn't prayed for more than two years, but here on a secluded Florida beach, on this windy June morning, he figured he'd give God one last chance.

Gott, let Trevor Abbott be in this house. That's all I'm asking. I'll take it from there.

He sensed no particular answer, heard nothing but the steady crash of the waves behind him. Not surprising. He and God weren't exactly on speaking terms.

Caleb squinted up at the wooden house, set high on stilts, windows glowing in the last darkness before the dawn, and he set his jaw.

Truth was, he didn't much care what God had to say anyway. If the coward who'd murdered his parents was holed up inside this house, Caleb would drag him all the way back home to Johns Mill, Tennessee, and toss him on the courthouse lawn, trussed up like a hog ready for the butcher.

He moved up the steep steps soundlessly, the way Milt Masterson had taught him. Technically, he wasn't supposed to be moving at all. Milt had made himself very clear.

"I'll circle around and come up on the place from behind," the bounty hunter had said before they'd parted company. "Try to act like you've got some sense and keep out of sight until I give you the go-ahead. You hear me, Amish?"

Caleb had nodded. He'd heard just fine. But as Daed had often pointed out, hearing and listening were two different things.

Caleb respected Milt because the man was a legend in this business, but he was in his late fifties, a good thirty years older than Caleb, and the shrapnel he'd caught in his leg in Afghanistan slowed him down more than he liked to admit. The old wound troubled him more as the years went by, and that was the only reason he'd hired Caleb to tag along and help out with jobs. Milt was tough as nails, and Caleb had learned a lot from him, but the criminals they brought in were usually thieves or drug addicts who'd skipped bail.

Not killers.

In any case, hunting Trevor Abbott was Caleb's personal mission, not a paid job. He didn't want Milt to get hurt, and besides, he wanted-he needed-to deal with Trevor himself.

Trevor had destroyed everything that had mattered in Caleb's life. There was nothing he could do about that. Not now. All he could do was see to it that Trevor didn't go unpunished.

And he would see to it. Whatever it took. Because when all the light in Caleb's world had flickered into darkness, one lone spark had kept burning.

Justice. He wanted justice. It was the closest he could come to making things right. It wasn't near enough, but it was the only hope he had left.

He'd made it to the top of the steps, and he paused, scanning the windows. They were veiled with filmy curtains, and although lights were on, he saw no movement. Likely, Trevor was still in bed, and he'd just left the lights burning.

Wasteful and lazy. Ja, that sounded like Trevor.

Caleb crossed the deck, putting his heel down first, then rolling his foot forward as Milt had showed him. His heart was pounding, his fists clenched and ready. According to the information Milt had gleaned from his collection of under-the-table sources, Trevor had been hiding out here for weeks. The black car parked underneath the raised house was the make and model they'd been told to expect.

All signs were looking good.

Except one.

Caleb froze as his gaze zeroed in on the front door. It was ajar.

His blood chilled. Trevor might be lazy and wasteful, but he wasn't careless. If he was inside this house, that door would have been closed and locked tight.

Which meant Caleb's quarry had slipped through his fingers. Again.

Fury washed over him. Abandoning stealth, he strode the rest of the way to the door and kicked it wide open. It blammed against the wall, the noise echoing through the empty cottage.

A muffled protest came from somewhere below the house. Milt wasn't happy, but at the moment, Caleb couldn't have cared less. He stepped inside and scanned the room.

Somebody had left in a hurry. The house was what his mamm would have called "out at the elbows." Nothing was in its rightful place.

Doorways offered glimpses of a kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom. The rooms were decorated in calming shades of blue and green, but every surface was cluttered with debris. Somebody had been holed up here awhile, all right.

Just not quite long enough.

Caleb made a frustrated noise and punched the wall beside him. His fist went through the Sheetrock, leaving a jagged hole.

"Settle down!" Milt barked from behind him. The older man limped across the deck, breathing hard and scowling. "How many times I got to tell you? Temper fits don't solve nothing."

Caleb shot him a startled look. In a strange way-for just one fleeting minute-Milt had sounded a lot like Daed.

"He's not here," Caleb said.

"I figured that out about five seconds before you kicked this door in. Your boy's switched vehicles. Another car was parked down below, gone now. Can't tell much about it, because thanks to the wind and that rain we had, the tracks ain't clear. But the fact that there's anything left to see at all means he ain't been gone long. I'd say we missed him by a whisker."

Caleb clenched his jaw. Knowing that only made it worse. "He knew we were coming."

"Seems so. You run your mouth to somebody?"

"No," Caleb answered shortly. He knew better. Besides, other than Milt, he didn't have anybody to talk to these days.

"Well, I ain't, either, but somehow he found out we were closing in."

"What about the people you've been getting your information from? Could one of them have tipped him off?"

Milt shrugged. "Most of 'em ain't exactly model citizens, so that's a possibility. But I'd say it was unlikely. It's in their best interests to stay on my good side. If you're done punching walls, let's go through the house and see can we get any idea where this guy's headed. We spooked him, and he tore out in a hurry. Could be he left something behind he didn't mean to. You start here, I'll search the bedroom." Milt brushed past him into the house.

Left alone in the living room, Caleb took a minute to examine the damage he'd caused. The hole was the least of it. The drywall had split along its seam, leaving a crack the height of the wall. He tested the edge of the split with his finger, noting how easily it moved. Poor workmanship. Whoever had built this house had cut corners and skimped on screws. Not smart on a rental property. When he'd worked construction back home, he'd done plenty of repair work on rentals. Englischers didn't take such good care of what didn't belong to them. Sometimes they didn't even take care of what did.

Caleb didn't hold with that. Daed had always said that a wise man looked after what was his.

The memory jabbed at his conscience, as memories of his father often did. He was trying to live up to that teaching, in his own way, as best he could, but one thing was for sure. Nobody back home thought of him as wise. Far from it. When he'd left Johns Mill to track down Trevor, Caleb's Plain community had all shunned him, even his own family.

Even . . .

He cut that thought off short, but not before pain stung him like a wasp.

Every now and then, the lonely ache of his memories kept him up at night, wondering if maybe he'd been wrong to leave, like she . . . like they all . . . believed. Then he would think of his parents, imagining their last terrified moments, and his resolve would stiffen.

No, he'd see this through. Somebody had to stand up for the gentle people of the world. And since he'd never been the gentle sort himself, that job had fallen to him.

It had come at a high cost, though, and not just for him. He'd done what he could to make up for that, even after . . . everyone . . . had turned their backs on him. He had a stack of returned letters and uncashed checks to prove it.

It proved something else, too. He didn't have as much back home belonging to him as he'd once hoped.

Pushing that train of thought aside, he estimated the cost of the repair to the wall in his head. He pulled out his wallet and stacked a pile of twenties on a nearby table, anchoring them down with the base of a seahorse-shaped lamp.

There. Done.

All of life's fixes should be so simple.

"Pills in here," Milt called from the bedroom. "Looks like a prescription, but no name on the bottle. I'll take a picture and we'll see what it is. Whatever it is, he ain't taking it. Bottle's still near full, and he left it behind."

Milt resumed searching the dresser drawers. He'd likely be finished soon, so Caleb had better get busy himself.

He made short work of the living room and the kitchen, sifting through nondescript piles of trash. Fast-food wrappers and pizza boxes, a half dozen empty beer bottles, some discarded change, and a few wadded-up dollar bills.

He leaned one shoulder against the doorframe, scanning the rooms and trying to think the way Milt had trained him to.

Trevor had been here awhile. Some of the stuff in the pantry and fridge was expired.

He wasn't hurting for money. The discarded cash and car told him that, and the rental itself backed it up. A private place on a beach like this would be pricey, more proof that Trevor's wealthy parents were secretly sending money to their fugitive son.

Stephen Abbott was a lawyer, a smart one, so probably he'd left no trail. Even if he had, Caleb doubted it would've made much difference. Abbott had powerful friends and deep pockets.

He'd take a look in the bathroom. Maybe-

"Amish?" Milt stood in the bedroom doorway, an odd expression on his face. "This Trevor fellow. He killed your parents because he was obsessed with your sister. Ain't that what you told me?"

"That's right. My twin sister, Emma. She worked at my parents' general store, and she made the mistake of being nice to him."

Emma had always been too softhearted. She'd felt sorry for Trevor, and he'd latched on to her with the dangerous desperation of a drowning man. When Daed had gently discouraged him, Trevor had returned to the store and shot both Daed and Mamm in front of Caleb's terrified younger sister, Miriam.

"Yeah." Milt scratched his jaw and sighed. "You better come look at this."

Caleb followed Milt through the bedroom, glancing around. Not a large room, and mostly dominated by a queen-size bed, its covers rumpled. A big window overlooked the ocean, the waves glinting with the morning sunlight.

Milt halted in front of a closet with folding louvered doors. He shot a warning look in Caleb's direction.

"Keep a lid on that temper, now," he cautioned. Then he folded the doors open.

Caleb's heart lurched. The back of the closet was papered with photos of a young Amish woman. He leaned inside, his eyes moving from picture to picture, his mind unwilling to believe what he was seeing.

The woman wasn't looking at the camera and didn't seem aware her picture was being taken. The images weren't very good, but they were clear enough. His gaze lingered on the neat, dark hair smoothed under the kapp, the smooth curve of her cheek, and the sweet tilt of her head.

During the happiest time of his life, he'd seen this face every day. That had been a long while ago. Seeing her unexpectedly now, here, made so many feelings and memories rise up and wash over him that he couldn't think straight.

Hard on the heels of that came fear, sharp and ice-cold. Because in each photo, a circle had been drawn around the woman's face with a red marker.

"I take it that's your sister," Milt said grimly.

It took Caleb a minute to answer.

"No," he said. "That's my wife."