The Amish Secret Wish

Book 3: Hidden Springs

by Laura V. Hilton

Genres: Amish & Mennonite; Small Town & Rural; Women's Fiction; Clean & Wholesome Romance; Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

Fall in love with an award-winning author's charming Amish romance about a woman with a secret pen pal—perfect for fans of Rachel J. Good and Marta Perry. Waitress Hallie Brunstetter has a secret: she writes a popular column for her Amish paper under the pen name GHB. When Hallie receives a letter from a reader asking to become her pen pal, she reluctantly agrees. She can’t help but be drawn to the compassionate stranger, never expecting him to show up in Hidden Springs looking for GHB . . . or for him to be quite so handsome in real life. But after losing her beau in a tragic accident, Hallie won’t risk her heart—or her secrets—again. If Kiah didn’t already feel so connected to GHB, Hallie would be a perfect wife—and it seems most of Hidden Springs’s would-be matchmakers agree! Though Hallie is peculiarly opposed to uncovering GHB’s true identity, she understands Kiah almost as well as his mystery pen pal. The longer he searches for GHB, the more Kiah finds himself hoping Hallie will be holding the pen that first captured his heart. But will Hallie ever trust Kiah with the truth about her identity . . . and her feelings for him?

Release date: April 27, 2021

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 384

Sample

Chapter 1

God, I don’t know what to do. I wake every morning hoping the darkness will be less oppressive, but each day is as bleak as the one before.

Hallie Brunstetter bent over the lined white paper on the table in front of her, penning her innermost thoughts by the dim flickering light of the candle. She should write the article due for The Budget, and she would, but first she needed to talk to Gott in a physical way. Maybe then He would answer. Besides, she used to love keeping a prayer journal and seeing how and when Gott answered.

She also wanted to write a letter to her pen pal. She loved writing Kiah and sharing her innermost thoughts and secrets, but lately he’d started talking about wanting to meet. Something she couldn’t allow due to district rules.

Besides, it was rather scary. What if she was a big disappointment in person? She’d always felt like she was a disappointment to Toby. He was forever correcting her. She had to discourage her pen pal from coming. Absolutely had to.

The darkness permeated the kitchen, and she squinted. She didn’t dare light the lantern or the gaslight. The brighter beam might wake someone. And she wanted to be alone. Needed to be alone. Mamm and Daed slept right through the open doorway on a full-size bed that was always kept pushed up against the wall in the living room. A visiting preacher and his wife from someplace in Indiana were staying in their bedroom for the weekend. They arrived late last nacht, long after Hallie had gone to bed. She’d heard the low murmur of voices, but rolled over and went back to sleep.

She glanced at the clock, faintly backlit by a battery. Since she’d need to head into work in about an hour, she probably wouldn’t meet them until this afternoon.

She should have time to finish her prayer, though. Maybe the letter to her pen pal if she hurried. She turned her attention back to her letter to Gott and reread the words she’d written. Would it be selfish of her to pray for a special male friend so her loneliness would ease? A special friendship would help. Maybe one with someone like her secret pen pal…Kiah Esh. Someone she felt an immediate connection with, even through the mail. She was more than halfway in love with him just from their letters. They were best friends now; she told him everything. Mostly. What would their relationship be like in person?

He wanted to meet…The reminder flashed again. But, no. Love equaled hurt and eventual loss. She didn’t want to live through that pain again.

Gott, please comfort us. Me. Toby’s family. Send the light.

Light flickered across the page.

Hallie caught her breath and lifted her head. A thin beam from the rising sun filtered through the sheer lace curtain hanging over the window.

Outside, the darkness of night receded, and soon the world would brighten.

Perhaps the same would be true of her life.

Or not.

But for right now, she would cling to hope.

Because if she didn’t, she might not make it through another day.

Creaks came from the bed in the living room as her parents got up, and Hallie quickly slid the paper she’d written on under a few other pages filled with notes for her article, gathered them together, and stashed them in the drawer in the hutch where she kept her writing supplies.

A few minutes later, Mamm shuffled into the kitchen wearing fuzzy bunny slippers. The long, fluffy, pink ears wiggled with movement. Those slippers used to make Hallie giggle. Now…when was the last time she’d smiled at something, other than a polite, forced one?

It had to have been before the off-season tornado destroyed everything, slaying her dreams along with her beau. Eighteen long, painful months ago.

Hallie blinked back the sting in her eyes as Mamm lit the lantern. Daed smiled at her as he went past on the way to the barn, but concern filled his eyes. It always seemed to be there these days. In fact, it had been there every time he looked at her since that horrible day when she got the news.

“Were you writing the post for The Budget?” Mamm asked as Daed shut the door behind him. She extinguished the candle and pushed in the chair Hallie had abandoned.

Hallie grabbed her purple pen and put it away in the mug with the other writing utensils. “Gathering my notes and my thoughts for it.” It was a truth-stained lie. Her notes now waited in the stack of papers she’d put away, and she always prayed before she wrote her weekly article. She tried to think of a way to change the subject. The guests would distract Mamm from discussing what she thought Hallie should write about. “I thought I heard the visiting preacher arrive late last night?”

“Very late, around midnight. He and his wife brought their son along as well,” Mamm said as the door off the newly built attached dawdihaus opened and Hallie’s grandparents came in. They’d lost their home during the tornado and opted to move in with Hallie’s family rather than rebuild.

“Aw, how sweet. I guess I’ll meet him when I get off work.” Hallie glanced from her grandparents to the clock again. “I’ll feed the chickens and gather the eggs, then get ready to go. Unless you think the little boy would like to go out with one of our neighbors’ younger children to see the chickens.”

“I’ll hitch up the horse and buggy for you,” Daadi muttered as he headed out to the barn.

“Our neighbors went to a funeral in Ohio. Remember?” Mamm reminded her. “And he’s not so lit—”

“Good morning.” A strange voice entered the conversation. Male. Must be the preacher. Hallie forced a polite smile and turned to stare at a handsome, beardless man with green eyes and dark blond hair. He held a straw hat in one hand. He most definitely wasn’t a preacher. He’d have her undivided attention if he stood behind a pulpit. Something odd and unexpected pinged her heart. And for a moment—a very brief moment—interest flared. Somehow she knew that this man had the power to melt her heart.

Those beautiful green eyes snagged her attention, and she leaned nearer, caught by the lights flickering off what looked like shards of green sea glass lying in the sunlight. Begging to be gazed at and studied.

His breath hitched, and for a moment, he leaned toward her, something flickering in his expression. Before she could identify it, he frowned, pulling back a little. “What?”

“Your eyes…they are like sunlight on glass.”

An impish smile appeared and he leaned into her space again. “Jah?”

She steeled herself. Despite her crazy unwritten wishes and her prayer, she needed to guard her heart. Especially considering the unexpected flare of attraction.

He looked familiar, as if she’d seen him before. She narrowed her eyes, trying to figure out where. When.

A spark of recognition and something else—interest, maybe—flashed in his baby, uh, greens. So they had met. He smiled. “I remember you. Holly, right? But you said you’re not a Christmas baby.”

“Hallie. Not Holly,” she corrected automatically. But oh. There was only one person who’d asked that question…and he’d been standing in a woodshop at the time. That explained where and when. Her forced smile died. Almost a year and a half ago during the most terrible time of her life. Toby’s funeral.

His smile widened. He winked. “Holly and Hallie sound the same to me. But I would love to help you collect eggs.”

And he was a flirt. Lovely. Just lovely. She ignored Mamm’s not-so-subtle head tilt toward the door that urged her to take the boy, er, man, er, guest—because this specimen was certainly not a boy—out to the barn and to be polite. She didn’t have the patience today. Unfortunately, she’d have to put up with flirts all morning at her waitressing job. Most of them were retired, traveling with their significant other and harmless, but there were always a few she had to watch out for. The ones who reached out to pat, touch, or pinch waitresses in inappropriate places. She shuddered.

The green-eyed man’s smile faded.

“I forgot your name.” She glanced at Mamm, who frowned at her with narrowed eyes while beating batter for pancakes. Right. Message received. Be polite. “I mean, nice to meet you. Um, make that welcome to the area.”

“Danki.” His lips quirked. “Hezekiah Esh, at your service. My friends call me Kiah.”

They weren’t friends in real life. Not even close. But his name…Her heart lurched as she thought of the stack of letters hidden in her locked hope chest upstairs, forwarded to the community scribe—her—by The Budget, all written by Kiah Esh. Letters she’d responded to, using her initials. Maybe they were friends. Secretly. So secret he didn’t even know. At least he didn’t know her in person. But, oh, she was anxious to talk with him…She just couldn’t reveal her identity. That was the first rule in her district regarding the scribe. No one was allowed to know who the scribe was. Unless the bishop revealed it. Because the bishop would take the job away and give it to someone else.

Mammi adjusted her trifocals and tapped nearer with her wheelless walker. She peered into Kiah’s face, reached her hands up to touch his cheeks, and studied him; then she pinched his cheeks before she released him and patted his arm. “So you’re the one who’s going to marry our Hallie.”

“Jah, I mean, no. I mean…” Kiah spluttered, and coughed, his eyes bugging.

Hallie’s face burned. She stared at the floor. At least Mammi had good taste in men. But, oh, what Kiah must think. “I need to go to work.” No point in trying to correct Mammi. She wouldn’t understand. “What about the eggs?” Kiah’s voice sounded somewhat strangled.

“You can collect them with my sister.” Hallie pushed past them.

Her arm brushed against Kiah’s as she passed. Weird sparks shot through her. An electrical charge? She shook her head and went upstairs.

Kiah’s last letter, the one she hadn’t responded to yet, had said he would be coming to Hidden Springs, Illinois, to visit her—the one he was writing to, the one with the initials GHB. Actually, he didn’t know she was her. He’d said that while he only knew her initials, he’d be on a mission to find her. He hadn’t said when. Or where he’d be staying. If only she’d known so she could have been better prepared. She’d planned to discourage him from coming. But too late now. She’d have to make the best of it and ensure he’d never find his mystery girl. She didn’t want to lose her job as scribe.

Because the safest place to hide was in plain sight.

*  *  *

Kiah turned away from the disconcerting mammi and watched Hallie high-tail it for the stairs—the ones he’d just come down.

It was her.

The woman of his dreams.

The unknown woman he’d long intended to marry…

At least until the scribe had written her way into his heart, understanding the pain his ex-girlfriend had caused and his destroyed dreams, and encouraging him to heal, to establish new dreams, and to maybe start over. With her. Though she didn’t say that.

Hallie was a very intriguing girl—and he’d felt sparks when they’d accidentally touched—but now he wasn’t interested. Okay, he was. Actually, he was very interested. She was the one he’d imagined and dreamed of the whole time he was writing, after all. But he held himself back. He’d fallen in love, sight unseen, with the scribe for The Budget. He just had to find out her real name and then convince her she was the one he’d been waiting for. And he was the one she was waiting for.

He’d just wanted her to be Hallie. The woman he’d met and fallen in love with at her boyfriend’s funeral. Love at first sight even though they’d barely exchanged five words in person. But in his thoughts, Hallie was the one he wrote…

Please, Lord, let Hallie be her.

He pushed that thought away. Because as much as he wanted her to be, she couldn’t be GHB. Hallie didn’t start with a G.

The scribe’s real name—would it be Gabby? Gizelle? Gina? Gail? Whatever the G in GHB stood for, he’d find her. And woo her.

Of course, that would be assuming she was young and not married to someone else.

His mamm said it was pure craziness, because the scribe was probably eighty if a day. But the handwriting in her return letters didn’t look old. Daed called it a “wild-goose chase” because if she was available and interested, she would’ve told him her name. And maybe they were right. But he wanted to find out for himself.

He turned back to the kitchen to face the unsettling mammi and the pancake-frying mamm. He cleared his throat. “I’m not on the market, but Hallie seems like a really nice girl.” Really nice. “I’m actually already involved with someone else from this area. Perhaps you know her? She writes for the Amish newspaper, The Budget, and her name starts with a G. GHB.”

Both women stared at him. The mamm’s mouth gaped, her eyes wide, startled. A measure of doubt clouded Kiah’s vision. Maybe G was married.

The troubling and bothersome mammi cackled. “Talk to Hallie,” the older woman said with a gleam in her eyes.

Right. Because she believed he was going to marry Hallie. Then again, maybe Hallie would know where to find G.

And maybe if he and G didn’t hit it off, he would have a chance to explore the sparks he’d noticed between him and Hallie.

A floorboard creaked and Kiah turned to see Mamm and Daed emerging from the hallway. And Hallie coming downstairs, carrying her purse.

“Hi.” Hallie greeted his parents with an overly polite smile. “I don’t mean to be rude but I’m running late for work. I’m looking forward to getting to know you this afternoon.”

Kiah didn’t think she meant it. She’d sounded too sugary sweet. And she didn’t quite make eye contact. He caught her mamm’s frown.

Hallie’s smile faded as she skittered past Kiah, with her head dipped, gaze down, and careful not to brush against him. So she must’ve felt the sparks, too. Interesting. The scent of lavender trailed her.

“My husband’s in the barn,” the pancake-frying mamm said.

Daed nodded. “Come, Kiah. We can make ourselves useful.”

Kiah put his straw hat on and followed Daed and Hallie out of the haus. A small barn stood on the other side of the circular driveway. The air smelled fresh, as if they’d had a heavy dew overnight. There were no noticeable signs of the terrible twisters that’d touched down with destructive damage almost a year and a half ago. A horse and buggy were already waiting, ready to go, in front of the porch. Hallie put her purse on the seat and climbed in.

Kiah stopped beside the buggy, adjusting his hat to better see Hallie. If he wasn’t already so heart-connected to the scribe, he definitely would act on the temptation to get to know the beautiful woman. Or at least accept the challenge to break through her odd reserve around him. But he’d been different ever since the tornado, which led him to write to the scribe in the first place.

He gazed up at her. “Can we talk later?”

She paled. Shifted. Odd response. “I might be working a double shift.”

“Whenever you get home is fine. Your mammi suggested I talk to you about some information I need.”

Her glance darted toward the door and then back. She opened her mouth, hesitated, then shut it. She shook her head and muttered something he didn’t catch. Probably something about her crazy mammi. His heart sank to realize the woman might have steered him in the wrong direction, yet he couldn’t leave a possible avenue unexplored. Hallie clicked her tongue.

The horse slowly took a step forward.

Kiah stepped back to avoid getting run over. “Your mammi thinks you might know someone in this district with the initials GHB.”

Hallie frowned, gazing over his head as if she was thinking. When she glanced at him again, her expression could only be called a smirk. “George Harold Beiler.” She wiggled the reins and drove off.

A man?

Kiah mentally reviewed the handwriting. It was neat. Beautiful. But some men had pretty writing. Kiah’s best friend, Zeke, who’d recently married, had great handwriting. He said it was because he had to read his measurements.

But the writing had looked feminine.

And most of the return letters had used lavender ink. Not a usual male color choice.

Hallie’s daed stood in the wide-open doorway of the barn watching his daughter drive away. His gaze shifted to Kiah, and his head tilted as if he were sizing him up. He gave a tiny nod as if he had passed some pop quiz. “She works as a waitress in town. I’ll give you directions later if you want to go, order a slice of pie and have some conversation.”

Did he think Hallie knew who GHB was, too?

Or maybe he’d made his interest in her a little too obvious if her mammi and daed picked it up.

Or…Kiah cringed. What was wrong with the woman that she needed so many obvious matchmakers?

*  *  *

Sometimes it seemed as if the breakfast crowd never left before the lunch crowd arrived. The Friday morning coffee club had filled every seat in the entire overflow dining section. Hallie refilled coffee mugs innumerable times, dodged the expected and inevitable wandering fingers, and delivered breakfasts, doughnuts, pastries, and pies. Now she was left with messy tables, sticky chairs, and a floor that needed sweeping and scrubbing.

At least the coffee club left good tips.

She filled a gray tub to overflowing with dirty dishes, hoisted it into her arms, and turned to deliver them to the dish room.

And there, in plain sight, was Kiah, legs kicked out under a small table, an infuriating grin on his oh-so-handsome face.

Her heart lurched. Why did he have to be so appealing? Handsome?

His teasing green eyes met hers. “Service, please.” Somehow he managed to infuse the words with enough humor that it wasn’t an order, but more teasing. Teasing like Toby used to do. Except sometimes Toby’s teasing had been mean.

But Kiah didn’t resemble Toby at all. He was light-headed with sandy blond hair and green eyes, while Toby was dark-headed with black hair and black eyes. Those eyes always looked angry. Plus, Kiah was tall and slender and Toby was short and stout. Really, Kiah was much more handsome. Did they have the same sense of humor? Would Kiah’s teasing become unkind? It appeared they shared the same careless ease, and Kiah’s presence rubbed salt on the wounds of her broken heart with the constant reminder of what she’d lost.

However, the man in the letters had revealed an unexpected depth. Was it possible this teasing flirt had actually written those letters? Or was there more than one Kiah Esh in the world? The odds of two men by that name coming to Hidden Springs and asking for GHB were more than slim. Nope. As much as she wanted to deny it, this man was her pen pal.

Her lips quirked before she caught the involuntary movement and stiffened them. She liked his teasing. Liked his boldness. It made a part of her sheltered and barricaded heart come to life, as if his humor had slipped through a crack like that sliver of sun through the curtain. However, she couldn’t allow it to gain any more ground. “This section is closed until the other dining room overflows.” She tilted her head toward the exit.

“When I asked where you were, your boss, I guess, her name is Helga, and her name tag said manager…” He quirked a brow.

Hallie nodded.

“She told me to come back here. She said it was so nice to meet your new boyfriend.”

Boyfriend? She used to have a boyfriend. Not anymore. Had he introduced himself that way or had Helga merely assumed that any young man asking for her must be a boyfriend?

“What’s with all these people matching us up?”

“I don’t know and I don’t like it.” Hallie shifted the heavy tub and sighed. If her boss sent Kiah back here, Hallie had no choice but to let him stay. If she were honest, she wanted him to anyway. She also needed to think up more GHB names to “help” him. If he only knew…“I’ll be right back to take your order.”

“Coffee and a slice of pie for both of us. I don’t care what kind. Your boss said to tell you to take a break. I ordered fifteen minutes of conversation, too.”

He ordered conversation? That could be done? Hallie frowned at him but she could see how he had charmed her near-retirement-age boss into giving her an unscheduled break. That smile? That dimple? Those good looks?

However, she wasn’t in the mood for either coffee or pie. She was in the mood to be contrary. She carried the tub to the dish room and returned with a cup of coffee, a slice of caramel apple pie, a glass of cola with ice, and a bowl filled with grapes, apple and orange slices, and strawberries. She set the coffee and pie in front of him, then set her cola and fruit on the opposite side of the table before sitting across from him.

“Oh, it does feel good to sit down.” If only she could kick off her shoes and socks. “I may not get up again.” Sh. . .