The Amish Nanny Read online

  HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS

  EUGENE, OREGON

  Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version® NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

  Cover by Garborg Design Works, Savage, Minnesota

  Cover photos © Chris Garborg; Bigstock/Denis Pepin

  The authors are represented by MacGregor Literary.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to events or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  THE AMISH NANNY

  Copyright © 2011 by Mindy Starns Clark and Leslie Gould

  Published by Harvest House Publishers

  Eugene, Oregon 97402

  www.harvesthousepublishers.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Clark, Mindy Starns.

  The Amish nanny / Mindy Starns Clark and Leslie Gould.

  p. cm. — (The women of Lancaster County ; bk. 2)

  ISBN 978-0-7369-3861-7 (pbk.)

  ISBN 978-0-7369-4160-0 (ebook)

  1. Amish—Fiction. 2. Nannies—Fiction. 3. Lancaster County (Pa.)—Fiction. I. Gould, Leslie. II. Title.

  PS3603.L366A85 2011

  813’.6—dc22

  2011007092

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

  Printed in the United States of America

  11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 / LB-SK / 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Epilogue

  Discussion Questions

  About the Authors

  Other Books by Mindy Starns Clark

  Other Books by Harvest House

  AmishReader.com

  If I rise on the wings of the dawn,

  if I settle on the far side of the sea,

  even there your hand will guide me,

  Your right hand will hold me fast.

  PSALM 139:9-10

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Mindy thanks

  My husband, John, for love, support, advice, brainstorming, editing, creating, sharing, and more. From beginning to end, I could never get through the book-creating process—nor, indeed, through life—without you!

  My daughters, Emily and Lauren. Whether here at home or away at college, you are both always there with me every step of the way.

  Author Sicily Yoder for clarification and advice on the Amish, and Aaron Jarvis for help with the German language. Any errors are purely mine.

  Vanessa Thompson, Stephanie Ciner, Kendell Weland, Brian and Tracey Akamine, Brad and Tracie Hall, and Fanus and Mariette Smith.

  Leslie thanks

  Peter, Kaleb, Taylor, Hana, and Thao Gould for their love, support, and encouragement; my siblings, Kathy Fink, Kelvin Egger, and Laurie Snyder; and my father, Bruce Egger.

  Libby Salter and Taylor Cavestri for input in the early stages of the story.

  Tim and Leslie Boettcher for sharing their expertise on traveling in Europe (any inaccuracies are mine), and my cousin Robert Germann for his hospitality in Switzerland years ago. That trip was vividly in my mind through the development of this story, especially the scene in the castle in Thun (although I took some liberties with the timeline of that historical site).

  Mindy and Leslie thank

  Our agent, Chip MacGregor, for his vision; our editor, Kim Moore, for her dedication; and the exceptional folks at Harvest House Publishers for giving such care and attention to every detail of the publishing process.

  Also, thanks to Dave Siegrist for his expertise; the Mennonite Information Center in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, for their invaluable resources; and Erik Wesner, author of amishamerica.com, for his insightful view of the Amish.

  PROLOGUE

  The mailbox was hot, so I yanked the door open and gingerly fished my hand around inside, pulling out three identical square envelopes. That was all. My heart sank. I’d been hoping for a big packet, one containing the acceptance letter and related information about the teaching job at the new school a district away, in Willowcrest.

  Teaching was what I wanted to do, and though my acceptance hadn’t yet been made official, the president of the school board had already assured me that the position was mine. I knew I had the rest of the summer to get ready, but I’d been so excited after he told me that I had come straight home and started planning lessons and activities for my future scholars. I’d also subscribed to Blackboard Bulletin and had even made arrangements to attend my first teacher training class. All that was left now was to receive the official confirmation from the school board. Instead, the mailbox held just three little envelopes, one addressed to my grandmother, one to my parents, and one to me: Miss Ada Rupp.

  My disappointment quickly evaporated once I realized these were from my sister, Lexie. Her Oregon address was on the back, printed in fancy lettering near the top. Slipping my index finger under the flap, I carefully opened it and pulled out the contents: cream-colored paper tied with a pink ribbon to a larger, dark-brown card.

  An invitation.

  Standing there at the mailbox beside the empty highway, my eyes skimmed the elegant printing on the front. It read:

  THE HONOR OF YOUR PRESENCE

  IS REQUESTED

  AT THE MARRIAGE OF

  Alexandra Clarissa Jaegar

  TO

  James Patrick Nolan

  THE FIFTEENTH OF AUGUST

  AT THE FAMILY FARM OF THE BRIDE

  3214 ORCHARD ROAD

  AURORA, OREGON

  RECEPTION FOLLOWING

  PLEASE RSVP BY AUGUST EIGHTH

  So Lexie was finally to marry her one true love, James. Eyes filling with sudden tears, I held the invitation to my face. The paper felt cool against my skin. The ribbon was soft. The smell of the ink was faint but noticeable.

  God’s blessings on you both.

  Blinking away my tears, I looked up the highway in each direction. With not a buggy or car or truck in sight, I began crossing the hot pavement back toward the house, my bare feet sticky against the blacktop.

  Though Lexie had been raised Mennonite, she seemed to do things pretty much the way any Englischer would—which meant as different from here as could be. No doubt her wedding would be nothing like the ones I was used to. For starters, couples in my community wouldn’t send out paper invitations like this.
Instead, following a formal announcement in church, know as a “publication,” guests would be invited verbally.

  At least I was familiar with the term “RSVP” thanks to my cousin Ella, who had found out about Lexie’s engagement a month ago and had chattered endlessly about Englisch wedding traditions ever since. The last time I saw Ella, she had pulled me aside to show me a magazine made especially for brides that she’d bought in town, one with photos of beautiful dresses and handsome grooms and elegant cakes. We had flipped through it together, Ella obviously enthralled with every page, though I wasn’t sure what to think. All I knew was, Amish or Englisch, the sacredness of the commitment was what mattered. My sister was getting married, and more than anything, I wanted to be there with her when she did.

  Reaching the other side of the road, I paused at the head of our driveway, looking again at the words on the invitation and doing the calculations in my head. August fifteenth was four weeks away, plenty of time to make some sort of travel arrangements. Plenty of time.

  But who was I kidding? It would never happen.

  In the field to my right, a hot breeze began to rustle the green, waist-high stalks of corn. Standing there, I watched the thick leaves as they fluttered and swayed, feeling on the inside much like those cornstalks, as if my very soul were rustling and shifting in response to some deep, internal force. I had no word for that force, though I tried several. Want? Need? Hope?

  Desperation, perhaps?

  So much had changed in my life recently. So many things were so completely different than they had been before. Some days, I wasn’t sure who I was or what was to become of me.

  For one thing, there had been changes to my health. Thanks to a medical condition that caused a rare type of anemia, I had spent my life on our farm living under the constant hovering of my worried mother and quiet father, feeling too weak to do much more than get through each day as best I could. But recently we had learned more about my disorder and had taken the needed steps to correct it. Now, thankfully, I was no longer impaired to any real extent, my sick days all but gone.

  There had also been big changes in my family. After years of silence, half-truths, and out-and-out lies, my parents and several other close relatives had sat down in April with Lexie and me and come clean about the circumstances of our births. Lexie had always known she was adopted, but I never knew I had been adopted as well, the two of us raised by different families at opposite ends of the country, completely unaware that the other even existed. All of that information had helped Lexie to find healing, but for me it had done the exact opposite, creating within me new questions and doubts and confusions about who I was and where I belonged.

  Changes had even come to my relationships—well, one relationship in particular. Will Gundy. The handsome young widower with three small children. The man whose glance could set my hands sweating and my heart pounding. All my life I had dreamed of being a wife and mother, but because of my condition I wasn’t sure those were roles I would ever have. Then, once I had come to understand my disorder better and how to manage it, I had begun to feel as if marriage might be a possibility for me after all. I started to dream—not just of marriage, but of marriage to Will. I knew how I felt about him, and I just knew I could be a loving wife to him and a kind mother to his children. I thought he had feelings for me as well, but then I learned through the Amish grapevine that he was courting Leah Fisher, the bishop’s daughter.

  If that was really true, then I had no doubt the battle was already lost. I was no match for Leah and never could be. For one thing, my looks were far too ordinary—flyaway blond hair, angled face, dull brown eyes—especially compared to Leah, who was a striking beauty. More than her glossy hair and red lips and sparkling green eyes, though, was the very vitality of her demeanor, the musical sound of her laughter, the way she flounced around and flirted with almost everyone she met. I couldn’t compete with that, couldn’t even try. Instead, I would quietly bow out. Will and Leah would marry.

  And I would end up alone, after all.

  Suddenly, a sob gurgled from my throat. Pressing a hand against my mouth, I held it there until the urge for tears had passed. In their wake I could feel a familiar, deep ache rising up inside of me, and I knew that eventually my heart would heal and my confusion would be sorted out, but what would remain was this, the ache of yearning that plagued my thoughts and fueled my dreams and sometimes threatened to suck the very breath from my lungs. I was twenty-four years old but, thanks to my medical condition, had done and seen less than most children half my age. Bottom line, I wanted to live, to experience, to explore. Yet here I remained, still on the farm, still utterly sheltered, still sitting on the sidelines of my own life, just as I had sat out nearly every softball and volleyball game throughout my school years.

  I knew without asking that my parents would never allow me to go to Oregon for Lexie’s wedding. Though I was certainly old enough to make such a decision for myself, the truth was that I lived under their authority. Yearnings or not, desperation or not, this decision was theirs to make, not mine.

  Turning away from the cornfield, I looked toward the pasture to my left, where a cluster of Holstein cows was standing near the fence line, calmly chewing their cud. As I stood there watching them, one gazed up at me, still chewing, her moist brown eyes lazy and content.

  Slowly, I began walking up the driveway toward the house, the invitations still clutched in my hand. As I went, images of my long-lost sister filled my mind. Lexie and I had only just found each other last spring. Before then I hadn’t even known she existed. But now that I did know—now that I had met her and come to know her and learned to love her—I wanted more than anything to be at her side on her special day. But how could I ever make my parents understand that?

  Blinking to ward off a fresh threat of tears, I spotted a morning glory vine trying to wind its way up a fence post. Sliding the invitations into the pocket of my apron, I went over to the fence, bent forward, and yanked the vine from the ground. Standing, I wrapped it up in my hand, letting the roots trail along behind me as I continued.

  Ella was no doubt facing this same dilemma across town—or she would be, as soon as her invitation came. Like me, she had grown very close to Lexie, and I knew she would desperately want to go to the wedding, even though she couldn’t afford it, not to mention that she was only sixteen. At least Ella was Mennonite, which meant that her mother, my Aunt Marta, might be more agreeable to the idea than mine would be. As a general rule, Mennonites traveled more than we did.

  But the Amish traveled too, sometimes. Silas Yoder, a boy I went to school with, had been out to Oregon several times with a group and even once by himself. He was planning to go alone again in a month or so. I knew lots of people who had been to Florida. One young couple had gone to California on a wedding trip.

  But then there was my family. Once they moved to Lancaster County from Indiana many years ago, they had never gone anywhere since.

  The pines stirred ahead, the breeze high in their branches. Sweat trickled down the backs of my knees. The front door to the house fell shut, and in the distance I could see my mamm headed toward me. She’d been happier lately than I’d ever seen her, with a little bit of a bounce in her step. It seemed that almost everyone had benefitted from our family’s truth-revealing session last April—everyone except me.

  I stopped on the front lawn, in the shade of the pine trees, and she met me there. Without speaking I handed over her invitation. She opened it and read it slowly. Then she looked at me.

  “I got one too,” I said. “So did Mammi, though I’m sure Lexie knows our grandmother wouldn’t be up to making such a trip.”

  Mamm looked down at the envelopes still in my hand and then back up at my face again.

  “You want to go,” she said, more of a statement than a question.

  I nodded, knowing it didn’t matter what I wanted. Still, I asked, “And you?”

  She shook her head. “No. I need to take care of Ma
mmi.”

  Of course. And now here would come her reasons why I too had no choice but to stay home.

  “It would be expensive,” she added. “For you to go.”

  Expensive, yes. That was one reason, a legitimate one.

  “Then again,” she continued, “Mammi could help out with the cost.”

  I swallowed hard, my eyes wide. What was she saying? That she would actually consider it? My grandmother was occasionally a source of money, if the purpose for it was deemed worthy, but I couldn’t imagine my mother allowing it in this case.

  Her gaze drifted off to the pasture and she bit her lip. Without looking at me she added, “You could take the train.”

  Gasping, I shook my head, not wanting her to say another word unless she really meant it, unless this was an actual possibility. I swallowed again and waited until she met my eyes with her own.

  “I think it would be good for you, Ada.”

  I took a step back, afraid I was dreaming, afraid she would change her mind before I could even respond.

  “What about my teaching?” I whispered.

  “School doesn’t start till September. You would have time to get ready once you got back.”

  “And a chaperone?” Before she could answer, I offered, “How about Silas Yoder? He’ll be going to Oregon in August.”

  She laughed. “Silas is younger than you are, Ada. No, we were thinking of the new couple in our district, Samuel and Lizzie. They are riding the train out to Montana to visit relatives of hers, and they agreed to make—”

  “Wait. What? You talked to them?”

  Mamm grinned, and at that moment I realized this actually might happen, that it wasn’t a dream, that she wasn’t going to change her mind.

  “They agreed to make their trip in August,” she continued, “so that it would coincide with the timing for Lexie’s wedding. They will chaperone.”

  Understanding suddenly flooded my brain. “You knew already.”

  She nodded. “We’ve been talking about it for weeks, trying to decide how it could work. Marta would like to go but can’t because of her patients. Your daed considered it, but he’ll be too busy with the farm. And, like I said, I have to be here to care for Mammi. Given all of that, I think Sam and Liz are the perfect solution, even if they aren’t quite going all the way to Oregon. You’ll only be by yourselves for a day each way. Plenty of youngie travel, and we think it would be a good experience for you. For Ella and Zed too.”