The Preacher's Son

Book 1: Infamous Amish

by Patricia Johns

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

Synopsis

In this poignant new series, Patricia Johns introduces an Amish family striving to reclaim the promise of love, marriage, and community after a shocking change in circumstance. Her sensitive storytelling and realistically flawed, yet endearing characters bring depth and heart to this tender story about faith and second chances, as a young man and woman.

The Amish residents of Bountiful, Pennsylvania, are stunned when preacher Abe Yoder is imprisoned for fraud. For Abe's son, Isaiah, the news cuts doubly deep. His daet's misdeeds have cost Isaiah his family's land and their good name. To support his sisters, he takes a job in the Glick family's book-binding shop, though it means working alongside a woman who has every reason to resent him. Yet, his attraction to Bethany Glick's beauty and warmth is undimmed...

Isaiah's daet's actions helped drive Bethany's fiancé to the Englischer world, and cost her own father his savings. Their shop is in need of Isaiah's brawn and skill, but if she's to start over after heartbreak, she needs a man she can trust. Not a Yoder. But Isaiah isn't giving up so easily. And when Bethany faces a dilemma, there may be a way for each to find not just redemption, but a joyful new love...

Release date: January 26, 2021

Publisher: Zebra Books

Print pages: 336

Sample

“Her name is Lovina, and she’s twenty years old.” Isaiah fixed the bus station ticket agent with an iron stare. “She’s short—about this high. Blond hair, blue eyes . . . Amish.”

The bus station in Bountiful, Pennsylvania, was located at the far end of Main Street. A fresh busload of Englisher tourists had just arrived, and the people came flooding out of the bus, phones held aloft already—although what they figured was worth recording in a small-town bus station, he had no idea.

“That sounds like half the Amish girls we see,” the man said with an apologetic shrug. “The name doesn’t ring a bell.”

“She’d have taken a bus out—I know that.” Isaiah didn’t have any other information about his sister, only that she was gone. She’d left a note on her neatly made bed that they only found after lunch—two pages, one for them and one meant for Johannes, her steady boyfriend. Lovina said she wasn’t coming back, and that she wasn’t holding Johannes to sharing this life of shame with her. Their daet’s crime and imprisonment was too much for her to handle. He’d been arrested six months ago, gone to trial faster than anyone expected, and two weeks previously, he’d started his three years in prison. It had been horrible for all of them, and Lovina didn’t think she had a place with the Amish anymore. The letter, along with the extra note for Johannes, was still in Isaiah’s pocket.

It wasn’t like Lovina was the only one dealing with that shame—Isaiah had inadvertently helped his daet, not knowing that the charity Abe was collecting for was a sham. How could he have known? How could he have even guessed? And Lovina thought she had it worse than the rest of them? She had the right to leave?

“I’m sorry,” the man said with a shake of his head. “There were about three Amish families who left this morning. I think there were a few young women.”

“She would have been alone,” Isaiah pressed. “I think . . . I’m pretty sure.”

But now that he said it, he wasn’t positive. Even if she didn’t leave with Johannes, she might have left with a friend.

“No one stood out,” the man replied. “Sorry.”

Isaiah sighed, then tapped the counter. “Thanks anyway.”

“Good luck.”

Isaiah needed more than luck. He needed divine intervention, but he wasn’t sure their family even deserved it at this point. Maybe it was only fair that Lovina left like the others. This winnowing of the faithful was only happening because of Isaiah’s father, Abe Yoder. And Isaiah couldn’t help but feel somewhat responsible, too. The police had let him off the hook and hadn’t pressed charges. But the community wasn’t so quick to forgive. His daet had ruined not only the family name, but also Isaiah’s personal reputation.

Isaiah turned from the ticket window and stopped short when he spotted Bethany Glick. Her gaze was locked on him reproachfully.

“Have you seen my sister?” Isaiah asked, winding around some plastic seats until he reached her.

“Have you seen my fiancé?” she retorted bitterly.

“Micah?” He felt like the wind had been knocked out of his chest.

“He left,” Bethany said. “I thought he would have told you.”

“No . . .” His friend had seemed odd the last couple of weeks, but everyone was on edge. “When did he leave? Today?”

“Three days ago,” she said, licking her lips. “But yah. He’s gone.”

Micah leaving—it was unbelievable. But he and Lovina weren’t the only ones . . . there had been at least eight other young people who had jumped the fence since Abe’s arrest. Isaiah’s wasn’t the only life being torn apart, and he met Bethany’s bitter gaze.

“So . . . the wedding?” he asked hesitantly. It hadn’t been formally announced, but Micah had been a close enough friend that Isaiah had known about his engagement to Bethany all the same.

“It would appear that it’s off,” Bethany said, and her chin trembled as she said it. “Which sister is gone—Lovina or Elizabeth?”

“Lovina.” He pulled his sister’s letter from his pocket, but he didn’t hand it over. Her gaze landed on the paper, then slid off of it again. She’d have received a letter of her own from Micah no doubt.

They stared at each other for a couple of beats, and then Bethany nodded toward the counter where parcels were kept.

“I’ve got to pick up a package,” she said, and she gave him a curt nod of farewell, then turned to leave.

“I didn’t know about my daet, you know,” he called after her. “I was tricked, too.”

She didn’t answer. Isaiah had told her daet the same thing when Abe was first arrested. He’d told anyone who would listen to him—the bishop, the elders, friends, family . . . He hadn’t known! But the damage was done.

The Englisher tourists stopped to look at him, and Bethany headed for the counter to take care of her business. He gritted his teeth. The last thing he wanted was an audience with cell phones recording him.

His life had been turned upside down even more than anyone else’s—and that was a daring claim at a time like this. The Amish who’d been defrauded lost money—and so had he, for that matter. The family farm was repossessed to help pay back the victims, as well as their savings. But Isaiah had lost more than money. He’d lost his daet, and their good name.

Across the depot, a female worker hoisted up a large box to the counter, and Bethany hesitated. It would be more than she could comfortably carry—even Isaiah could see that from here. She wanted nothing to do with him, but he couldn’t very well leave a woman to carry that alone either. He sighed and headed over.

“That looks heavy,” he said.

“I’m fine,” Bethany replied.

“Yah?” He stood back. “Okay, then.”

Bethany slid the box off the counter and grimaced as she lifted it. Something different glittered in those dark eyes—something sharper than reproach. Was that hatred he saw?

Bethany headed toward the door with slow, careful steps. The box slipped from her grip once, but she caught it and continued on out of the depot without looking in his direction again.

Isaiah scanned the bus depot one last time. Coming here had been wishful to begin with. He’d hoped that something would have held his sister back, given her pause . . . given him time to get to her before she disappeared from their lives for good.

Isaiah pushed out the front door and the fresh, spring air engulfed him. The town of Bountiful was a farming community that had managed to lure some tourist attention because of the Amish who lived in the surrounding area. Many Amish shops lined the streets—a bakery, two craft shops, a gift shop, several eateries, and a fabric shop. Sandwiched between a gift shop and a craft store there was the Glick Book Bindery, a little specialty shop that served people all over Pennsylvania, thanks to a website that was kept up by an Englisher company that catered to the Amish’s online needs.

Bethany paused a few yards down the sidewalk, hoisting the box once more. It slipped in her hands again, and she set it down, rubbing the small of her back. Isaiah sighed and picked up his pace, catching up with her in a few brisk strides.

“Give it to me,” he said irritably.

“Isaiah, I don’t need—” she started, but Isaiah bent down and picked up the box, hefting it up onto one shoulder. He cast her an annoyed look.

“I didn’t know, Bethany. And the police questioned me thoroughly. If they had reason to think I was involved, I’d be in jail, too, right now.”

“You’re still the one who convinced my daet that stupid charity was a good thing,” she snapped. “I have no idea how my daet is ever going to retire now that the money’s gone. And to make it worse, my fiancé is gone because of your daet. When your father—” Her voice cracked, and she swallowed. “You’re asking a little much of me if you want me to be grateful for the use of your muscles. You could have saved yourself the time.”

Isaiah adjusted the box on his shoulder. “This might not be the right timing, but Micah asked me to look out for you if anything should happen to him.”

“Nothing happened to him,” she said. “He left.”

“Fine. He’s gone. I’m here—let me carry the box!” It may have seemed melodramatic at the time when Micah had mentioned it to him, but a promise was a promise, and Isaiah was nothing if not honest.

Isaiah angled his steps across the street toward Glick’s Book Bindery. Bethany pulled the door open for him, and as he came into the dim shop, he had to pause to let his eyes adjust a moment.

“Ah, Isaiah.” Nathaniel Glick sat in front of a vise that held a book in place. He ran his fingers over the spine and pursed his lips. It wasn’t quite a hello.

“Just carrying the box over for you,” Isaiah said, sliding it onto the counter. He glanced around the shop—it was only Nathaniel and Bethany here, by the looks of it. And Isaiah had been looking for work for over a month now and getting nowhere.

“Right. Thank you,” Nathaniel replied, putting down the book he was working on and heading over. “I would have fetched it myself, but we’ve got an order due by tonight. That looks like a full order of leather. I thought this was the half order—”

“You’re shorthanded,” Isaiah said.

“Yah.” Nathaniel pulled a box cutter out of the pocket in his black work apron and sliced the tape on the top. He pulled back the flaps and fingered a piece of leather. “Micah’s gone.”

Isaiah glanced over at Bethany, and he felt the heat climb his collar. Bethany was watching him, the same pursed lips as her daet.

“I know that my daet’s crime shook the faith of a lot of young people,” Isaiah said. “And I’ve told you before—like I’ve been telling everyone else—that I didn’t know this was a fraud. I thought it was a plan to help Amish families in time of need. It seemed legitimate, and I’d think you’d understand a son not immediately suspecting his own daet of fraud.”

Nathaniel nodded slowly. “I do sympathize there, Isaiah.”

“You aren’t the only ones to have lost someone. Lovina jumped the fence, and we only found her letter after lunch today.” Isaiah licked his dry lips. “But I’m not leaving our community. I’m Amish, and I’m going to trust in our community’s ability to forgive because I don’t have much else to hold on to right now.”

“I told you before that I forgave you.”

In the strictest Christian sense, of course, Nathaniel had. How could a man ask Gott for forgiveness if he wouldn’t forgive his brother? But what Isaiah needed was something a little more tangible.

“I need work,” Isaiah said, his voice low. “As you know, the farm is gone now, and I’ve been finding some bits of work here and there, but no one really trusts me anymore—”

Nathaniel eyed him speculatively. “And you’re staying with your uncle now, right?”

“Yah. My sisters and me. But I’ve got to contribute, and Uncle Mel already has enough help on the farm with his own sons.” Mel had only taken them in because he felt obliged. They weren’t exactly welcome. Isaiah was hoping to do more than contribute—he wanted to get a place where he could support his sisters on his own . . . if Lovina ever came back.

“Why should I trust you if no one else does?” Nathaniel asked bluntly.

“If I had been a part of my daet’s crime knowingly,” Isaiah said quietly, “do you think I’d come ask you for help? I can only face you because I was duped, too.”

Isaiah could feel Bethany’s presence behind him—her anger like the heat from a woodstove—and his own shame rose to match it. He was here, hat in hand, hoping for a job.

Nathaniel heaved a sigh. “I do need someone to help out here. Bethany and I can’t do it all alone, and my sons are off in Indiana at my brother’s farm, so . . .” Nathaniel seemed to be thinking out loud.

“I’ll work hard,” Isaiah said quietly. “I’ll do anything you need around here. I’ll earn back your trust and respect. But I need work, and Mel’s not keen to have me helping out on the farm.”

“Yah, your uncle lost a good amount of money, too,” Nathaniel said quietly. “So I can understand his bitterness right now.”

“I do, too, but my daet’s in prison now, paying for what he did. But I figured we’re connected in this. Bethany was the one who told the police about the conversation she overheard—”

“You can’t blame me!” Bethany erupted behind him.

“I’m not.” Isaiah glanced over his shoulder, the heat creeping up into his cheeks, then he turned back to Nathaniel. “I’m not blaming anyone but my father. I’m just asking for a chance to work.” He swallowed. “I need to take care of my sisters. Please.”

Nathaniel sucked in a breath, then nodded slowly. “You make a point.”

“Daet?” Bethany seemed to want to say more, but she wouldn’t. This was her father’s decision to make, not hers.

Isaiah licked his lips, watching the older man hopefully.

“I’ll try you out,” Nathaniel said after a beat of silence. “For a couple of weeks until we get these orders completed. You’ll have to learn fast and do as I say. I can’t promise more than that.”

Isaiah felt a flood of relief. It was something—and who knew? Maybe he’d prove himself indispensable after all.

“I’m grateful,” Isaiah said quickly. “Thank you.”

“Starting now,” Nathaniel said. “It’s now or I’ll change my mind.”

He had that letter to deliver to Johannes, but a few hours wouldn’t make much difference anyway.

“Yah. Thank you. I’ll start now,” Isaiah said.

“Bethany will show you where to put the leather.”

Isaiah glanced over his shoulder again, and this time he saw Bethany’s full, angry stare directed at him. This was Micah’s job . . . Isaiah knew why this stung her, but he didn’t have much of an option. A paying job with a family who resented him was better than no job at all.

He’d be grateful for a couple of weeks of employment.

Bethany picked up the box of leather, hoisting it with all her strength, and headed toward the back room where they kept their supplies. Isaiah being here was insulting—even if her daet didn’t seem to recognize that. Isaiah hardly deserved this job! Isaiah didn’t belong here—Micah did. And he wasn’t going to slide in and take her fiancé’s place on any level.

“I can help—” Isaiah said as she came past him.

“No, I’m fine,” she said, even though her muscles were screaming.

“Bethany . . .” There was warning in her daet’s tone, and Bethany grimaced. Her daet would insist that they forgive in more than just words. But she wasn’t ready for that.

“Okay,” she said, softening her tone.

Isaiah took the box from her grip, and she led the way through the shop, past the worktables, the book presses with the heavy slabs of metal, around the sewing frame that stood with lines of thread already piercing the spine of a book in progress. She opened the storage room door and stepped in first, letting him follow her.

The back room was lined with aged wooden shelves that lined every wall except for the one that sported a tall window, letting in the bright afternoon light. The shelves held various styles of end sheets, Davey boards in different sizes, bottles of glue, a roll of muslin, rolls of thick binding thread, leather thongs, and large, leather sheets.... There were bottles of dyes, boxes of gold leaf, and various instruments that Bethany had never seen used before, but still had a place on these shelves just in case her father might need them for a specialty project. This was the family business, and the Glicks had been book binders for four generations now.

Bethany gestured to a small, wheeled cart. “You can put the box there.”

Isaiah did as she asked, and she turned her back to him, picking up the last sheets of leather and arranging a tipping pile of Davey boards to make room for the new shipment.

“I can’t believe Micah left,” Isaiah said. “He didn’t breathe a word to me.”

It wasn’t reasonable, but she felt a bit of victory that she was the one Micah had confided in.

“He wanted me to go with him,” she replied, her voice tight.

“Where’d he go?” he asked. “Maybe my sister went to the same place.”

“It’s some Mennonite newcomer housing place in the city. It’s for immigrants, but Amish use it, too,” she said.

“Oh . . .” Isaiah swallowed. “He’s gone English.”

It was a shameful thing to do—escape to the easier path—but Micah wasn’t the only one who should be ashamed of himself.

Bethany turned to face him. “He left because of your father.”

“I know. So did my sister. Micah will come back once he’s had some space to think.”

But Bethany wasn’t so sure about that. When Micah left he’d told her a few of his secrets—he’d been questioning their Amish ways for a couple of years already, and he’d been sneaking out to a Mennonite Bible study in town. He’d been slipping in that direction longer than anyone had suspected. When Abe was sentenced it was all the proof Micah needed that their way of life was in no way spiritually superior to other Christians, and he couldn’t pretend to believe something he no longer did.

“So, he told you he was leaving?” Isaiah asked when she hadn’t said anything.

“Yah.”

“And you didn’t tell anyone to try to stop him?” Isaiah asked. Was that recrimination in his eyes?

“For what?” she asked with a weak shrug. “To keep a man who didn’t want to be here?”

Bethany pulled back the flaps on the box and lifted out the first fifteen or twenty leather sheets. Isaiah followed her lead, and together they began to refill the shelf. There were several different shades of brown, some dark green, and a blood red. She liked the red color best, and she paused, running her fingers over it. It was a color that would never bind an Amish book—too fancy.

“He loves you,” Isaiah said, his voice low.

So Micah had claimed, too, when he held her so very close and promised her that it wouldn’t matter if they did some things before marriage, because his love for her would never waver, and they’d be married in a matter of months anyway....

“Not enough to stay,” she said bitterly.

“I know him—” Isaiah started.

“How well?” she snapped. “He was tempted to jump the fence a couple of years ago before we started courting, but it was your daet’s preaching that changed his mind. So when your daet ended up being a liar and a thief, it changed things for him. So if you knew him so well, why didn’t you see this coming?”

“You were just as surprised,” he countered.

“Of course I was. But don’t go telling me you know what was happening in his heart—none of us knew.”

Isaiah took over in emptying the box, his strong arms nudging hers aside as he pulled out another handful of leather.

“What does your daet say to all this?” she asked.

“I don’t know.” His voice was low and rough.

“Does he claim to be innocent?” she demanded. “Did he believe anything that he preached? Because he was powerful when he spoke. He could boom from the front of a service, telling us how ugly our sins were, and how desperately we needed Gott’s mercy . . .”

Isaiah looked over at her, his eyes filled with misery, but he didn’t answer. There was something in his expression that made the bitterness in her heart seem unnecessarily cruel.

“Yah, I found his preaching to be rather powerful, too,” he said with a weak shrug. “You aren’t the only one who was duped by my daet, too.”

“What does he say for himself?” she pressed.

“I have no idea. I haven’t spoken to him.”

Bethany hadn’t expected that answer, and she eyed him uncertainly. His daet was shunned, but . . . he hadn’t spoken to him about it at all? Not even before the official shunning?

The bell tinkled over the door in the other room, and Bethany brushed past him and headed back out to where her father was working. An Englisher couple came inside, looking around in idle curiosity. They looked middle-aged—a tired-looking man with a receding hairline of gray-tinged hair and his blond wife with fluffy hair and earrings that glimmered beneath it. Jewelry always drew Bethany’s gaze—not because she wanted it, but because it was so out of place in Plain society. It seemed garish, almost.

The door opened again and Tessa Weibe, Micah’s mother, came into the shop behind them. Tessa didn’t look around—she smoothed her hands down her white apron that already had a few dusty streaks on it, and her gaze sought out Bethany. Her stomach dropped—she hadn’t spoken to Tessa since Micah left, and that conversation had been an emotional one for both of them.

“Do you really bind books here?” the Englisher woman asked with a smile.

“Yah.” Bethany’s gaze flickered over the Englisher woman’s shoulder to Tessa. “We do, everything from self-published memoirs to academic theses.”

“Now that’s neat,” the woman said. “How long have you been doing this?”

“We’re the fourth generation,” she replied.

“And you get enough work to keep you all going?” the woman asked, looking around in that curious way Englishers had.

“Yah. We manage.” These were all ordinary questions Bethany fielded on a daily basis. The Englishers were curious, and they liked the idea of work being done by hand, so long as their hands weren’t the ones doing it.

“Can we get a picture with you?” the woman asked, lifting her phone hopefully.

“I’d rather not,” Bethany replied. “But you’re welcome to look around.”

The Englishers moved over to get a better look as Nathaniel ran the bone tool over a leather cover, smoothing down any bubbles of air that might be caught beneath it, and packing down the leather tightly into the creases. The woman took a surreptitious photo with her phone, and Bethany ignored it, moving over to where Tessa stood by the door.

“How are you holding up, Bethany?” Tessa asked quietly.

“I’m . . . okay,” Bethany said. “You?”

“I’m not okay.” Tessa smiled shakily. “Have you heard from Micah yet?”

Bethany shook her head.

“He hasn’t called the neighbor to talk to us, or his daet’s work at the assembly plant. He knows how to reach us, but—” Tessa’s lips quivered. “I thought of all of us, he’d call you. It’s been long enough for him to get to a phone.”

Bethany shook her head again. “No. And I don’t think he will.”

“What about the wedding?” Tessa asked. “What about all your plans?”

“He walked away from them,” Bethany said, her throat tight.

“Did he say that, in so many words?” Tessa pressed. “Daniel and I were talking about that after we saw you last, and we wondered if maybe he hinted that you should wait for him . . . He loves you, Bethany. I know he does! And while a boy might not come home for his mamm, he will come back for the girl he loves.”

“Tessa, I wanted to marry him; I did! I was looking forward to our wedding and starting our life together, but he’s gone! I can’t bring him back any more than you can!”

The Englisher couple turned to look at them in open curiosity, and Bethany realized that she hadn’t kept her voice down. She’d been speaking in Pennsylvania Dutch, though, so the Englishers wouldn’t understand the words.

“Will you wait for him?” Tessa asked, turning her body to afford them a little more privacy.

“He’s left me,” Bethany said, her voice shaking.

“But he might come back yet,” Tessa pressed. “I don’t believe he’ll stay away completely. I think he’s upset, but we raised him well, and I know how he feels about you. I can’t imagine him just walking away from everything s. . .