Rebecca's Return (The Adams County Trilogy 2) Read online

  Rebecca’s

  R E T U R N

  J E R R Y S. E I C H E R

  HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS

  EUGENE, OREGON

  All Scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

  This is a work of fiction. Characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to events or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover by Dugan Design Group, Bloomington, Minnesota

  Cover photos © Alan Becker / Riser / Getty Images; Joan Kimball / iStockphoto; Author photo by Brian Ritchie

  REBECCA’S RETURN

  Copyright © 2009 by Jerry S. Eicher

  Published by Harvest House Publishers

  Eugene, Oregon 97402

  www.harvesthousepublishers.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Eicher, Jerry S.

  Rebecca’s return / Jerry Eicher.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-0-7369-2636-2 (pbk.)

  1. Amish—Ohio—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3605.I34R43 2009

  813.'6—dc22

  2008041618

  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

  09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 / RDM-NI / 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  About Jerry Eicher…

  Other fine fiction from Harvest House Publishers

  CHAPTER ONE

  John Miller knew he loved Rebecca Keim, and yet he was afraid.

  In the predawn darkness, John walked across the graveled parking lot of Miller’s Furniture, digging in his pocket for his keys. Even with his glove off, his fingers still kept fumbling, his mind on Rebecca. Why hadn’t she returned yet?

  There had been no word, no phone call, and no letter. Miller’s Furniture had a phone in the building just outside the backdoor, and its ringing could usually be heard from the front desk. Was he expecting too much that Rebecca should call him? But then where would she have called from since Leona, Rebecca’s aunt, could hardly be expected to have a telephone close to her home.

  Even so, she surely could have found a way—and that was what bothered him.

  They had become engaged right before she left to help care for her aunt’s family in Milroy while Leona gave birth. That was only a few weeks ago, but to John it was an eternity. He had seen her only once since their engagement. That was on the night she told him she was leaving for Indiana to help with the newly arriving baby. It had been a sudden decision made by her mother, Leona’s sister, and according to Rebecca, it was a surprise to her also.

  That was a reasonable explanation, but did Rebecca need to seem so happy about leaving? Wouldn’t she miss him? And yet, going to help an aunt with a new baby was a good thing and a sign of trust and status.

  He was sure there was something more going on with Rebecca. The gnawing fact hung around him like a sweat fly in the summer. Like the fly, the thoughts of trouble would land on him, and he would swat them away, but they always seemed to find a place to land again, and he would swat again.

  Was he afraid of somehow losing Rebecca? But why would that happen? The idea had no basis. Yet the doubt persisted.

  Had the baby come already, he wondered. There was really no way of knowing unless he asked Rebecca’s family on Sunday, but he would feel awkward doing that.

  What was he to do? Walk up to Lester, Rebecca’s father, after church and ask, “Has Leona’s baby been born?” Maybe he could get his mother, Miriam, to ask Rebecca’s mother.

  No, he wouldn’t do either of those things. Surely Rebecca would contact him soon. He tilted his brimmed hat sideways to keep it from blowing away in the wind. There was no snow expected today, for which he was glad. Even though he worked inside most of the time, both as a sales person and all-around handyman, winter always came too soon for him.

  With his fingers finally around the keys, he pulled his hand out of his pocket and transferred the ring to his other hand. Placing his glove back on the exposed hand, his fingers warmed quickly in the fur lining. Pausing at the door, he brushed the frost from the knob and inserted the key.

  As he walked through the door, the warmth of the store welcomed him. The outdoor furnace could burn all night on low when well-stocked with wood. Now though, the furnace would be in need of fresh fuel.

  John’s uncle Aden was already in his office, light from a gas lantern shining out into the main room. When John glanced in, Aden said without looking up, “Fire needs making.” He was reading from the current issue of the Adams County Crossroads, an official visitor’s guide to Adams County, Ohio, in which Miller’s Furniture and Bakery was prominently featured.

  “It’s pretty warm still,” John said. “The furnace keeps up the heat, even on cold nights.”

  Aden, his brown eyes framed by black hair and a dark beard that came down over the first button on his shirt, glanced up and answered, “Ya, it’s a good furnace. Does pretty good unless we get subzero weather. I have to come out during the night once or so to add wood.”

  “How cold is too cold in here before there’s damage to the furniture?” John asked, curious.

  Aden wrinkled up his face. “Don’t really want to find that out but maybe below forty. Just to be safe, fifty or so.”

  “Sales are pretty good this year,” John said.

  “The Lord has blessed us, especially our year-end sales,” Aden agreed, not looking up from his Adams County Crossroads. With Christmas only two weeks away, business was brisk. Even the slowing economy seemed not to have affected the tourists from Cincinnati, a bastion of conservatism and old money.

  These were people who valued the Amish traditions, admired their industriousness and the quality of the finished product to the extent that they readily passed up names like Widdicomb and Lane to invest in the unname
d brands created by the Amish. In a sense, Amish was itself the brand, produced in little shops and crannies of the various Amish communities located in Ohio, Indiana, and Pennsylvania.

  Here on Wheat Ridge, there was no Christmas sale, as there were no Sunday sales, in deference to the sacred nature of the holiday. There was a year-end sale though, serving the same purpose but avoiding the impropriety.

  “I’d better see to the furnace,” John said, stepping out of the office and following the hallway to the outside door where the garage-type structure housed the furnace.

  Stacks of wood lined the north wall. More was outside, now snow-covered. John calculated that there was enough inside, high and dry, until a thaw arrived and allowed more wood to be moved in. If not, then the snow-covered wood could be moved inside and stored until it dried from the heat of the furnace.

  Opening the large steel door, he stirred the embers with the long fire rod. Under the rod’s encouragement, the ash filtered down into the ash box below. The embers left on top glowed with a red intensity. John removed the sliding ash box, took it a distance away, and carefully spread the ash on the ground.

  John took care to keep the pile of ash thin enough, so it would cool fairly rapidly. Piled thick, the coals could be kept alive for days under the ash. If a wind arose at night and blew the ash off the top, the live coals could start a fire where it was not wanted.

  With the ash box back in the furnace, John piled the chamber full of wood, setting the last two pieces in vertically in front. He then went to the thermostat and set it to its normal setting for daytime comfort.

  When John returned to the office, Aden was still reading his Adams County Crossroads.

  “What’s on the list to do before we open?” John asked.

  “The lists of shipments from yesterday’s sales are on the counter, left side,” Aden said. “Those need to be packed up. Roadway comes at one.”

  “Is Sharon coming in?”

  “Yes, around nine or so. She’ll dust the furniture and take care of the customers.”

  “I wouldn’t want to do the dusting anyway.”

  Aden chuckled. “Neither do I, but we do what we have to do.”

  “You’re right on that,” John agreed.

  “Say, how’s that girl of yours?” Aden asked, without looking up.

  “Same as always, I guess,” John said, hoping the conversation would end there. With Rebecca absent and no word from her, John felt uneasy when asked about their engagement. And then too, there were those nagging doubts about Rebecca.

  “She’s still taking care of her aunt’s baby in Milroy?”

  “Yes.”

  Aden shrugged his shoulders. “Ought to be back soon, eh?”

  John said nothing, which just made things worse.

  “Oh, you don’t know?” Aden asked, surprised. “She hasn’t called?”

  “She probably didn’t have time,” John said, convincing no one.

  “Maybe she has someone she’s seeing in Milroy? Someone you should know about?” Aden’s twinkle was gone.

  “Why would she?” John snapped. “We just got engaged.”

  “You ever ask her?”

  After a hesitation, John said, “Yes.”

  “What’d she say?”

  “There’s no one else.”

  “Was she telling the truth?”

  “You know something I don’t?”

  “No, just asking.” Aden shrugged his shoulders. “They came from the old community. Did you ever talk to anyone from there about her past?”

  “No,” John replied, “it didn’t seem necessary.”

  “You going by your own feelings then?”

  “Yes.”

  “Not the best choice, especially when you like the girl.”

  “Well, I do.”

  Aden turned to his nephew. “Well, don’t lose your head just because you’ve lost your heart.”

  “But she’s…” John said, searching for words, “wonderful.”

  “Wonderful is as wonderful does,” his uncle said gravely. “Like the good book says, ‘Beauty is vain, but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised.’”

  John numbly nodded his head in agreement, then reached for the stack of invoices to begin the packing.

  CHAPTER TWO

  How am I to figure that one out? Is my uncle right with his concerns about Rebecca? Why has she not contacted me from Indiana? When is she coming home? John pondered the situation, the invoices in hand. Noticing that his uncle was watching him, John walked toward the storeroom to begin the packing.

  He hoped to be finished by opening time, but if the packing took longer, perhaps he could continue it between waiting on customers. John got to work, forcing himself to stop worrying about Rebecca.

  At exactly five till nine, time for the first customers to show up, a dull thud was heard from the direction of the highway. It was a solid sound, a boom as if a barrel were covering it.

  Pausing from securing a rail-backed oak dining chair in its cardboard crate, he stood up straight and listened.

  “You hear that?” John hollered to Aden, who was still in his office.

  The muffled answer was unintelligible, at least from where John stood.

  John finished the wrapping on the inside of the crate, making sure there was no room for movement that could break the delicate spines on the chairs.

  Hearing the door open, John glanced up. It was Sharon, Aden’s sixteen-year-old daughter and his cousin. She was tall for her age and had blue eyes that twinkled in the same way her father’s did…but they weren’t twinkling now.

  She stood in the doorway holding the exterior door open, the vapor from the outside cold wrapping itself toward the ceiling. “There’s been an accident on the highway,” she said, clearly shaken. “They need help.”

  “How bad is it?” Aden asked, coming out of the office.

  Sharon’s blue eyes flashed with concern. “I don’t know. I just saw it as I was coming in. The car is off the road and in the trees.”

  “I’d better call it in,” Aden said. “John, you can go on down to see if you can help. Sharon and I will stay here to watch the store.”

  Sharon held the door open for John. “There’s no use me going,” she said. “I can’t do anything.”

  “Have you got your buggy blanket?” he asked. “The blanket might keep the people warm, if they’re hurt.”

  “Yes, it’s in my buggy, on the seat.”

  Walking quickly John gathered up the blankets from both his buggy and Sharon’s and ran out the driveway. Halfway there he heard the cries for help coming from the car, hidden out of sight over the slight knoll toward Highway 41.

  It was clearly a woman’s voice, and John quickened his pace. As he came to the blacktop, he quickly looked for tire or skid marks on the pavement but noticed nothing unusual. In the ditch though, a single set of marks disappeared over the knoll. Apparently whoever it was had not tried to stop.

  Following the sound of the cries, he went to the ditch and jumped across to avoid the slush at the bottom. Cresting the knoll, John saw the car off to the side in a clump of trees. The trees’ barks were peeled away, and the blue, four-door Chevy Impala lay where it had fallen beside them. Still upright, its front bumper nearly pushed halfway into the engine compartment, the driver’s side door was crushed inward.

  The woman was clearly disheveled and frantic with fear. Her head was thrown back against the top of the seat. She saw John and cried, “Please help me…Please. Please help me.”

  He approached, uncertain what to do. The English were very particular about accident scenes, he had heard. A person could get into real trouble trying to help or move injured persons without the proper training.

  “Please help me,” the woman cried again, her eyes glazed with fear.

  John had never seen anything like this and searched his mind for solutions. Carefully he examined the woman’s condition, while standing close to the car door. There was no blood, al
though the woman was obviously trapped. John could see that it would be impossible for him to open that crushed door. The only other way out was through the passenger side door on the other side, and that was out of the question because it was lodged against a tree.

  With the woman’s eyes on him, looking through him as if he were not there, John spoke quietly, “There’s help on the way. They will get you out of here.”

  “Oh, help me…Please help me. Somebody help me. I’m going to die.” The woman’s voice was raspy by now.

  “You have to breathe,” John said, seeing that her breath was coming in short jerks, her body shivering. “Here’s a blanket.” He unfolded one of the blankets and offered it through the broken window. The woman made no effort to take the blanket, so John reached in and laid it gently over her. She closed her eyes, pressing her head back against the headrest, drawing in deep breaths.

  “What’s your name?” he asked. Cars were stopping along the road now. John could hear their tires crunching to a halt, but the sound he was listening for was not yet wailing in the distance.

  “Cindy,” she told him weakly, trembling under the blanket.

  “What happened?” John asked, wanting to keep her conscious. The woman’s breathing was slowing down and she looked like she wanted to drop off to sleep. What that meant, he wasn’t sure, but it couldn’t be good.

  “I fell asleep. Up too late last night,” Cindy said through drooping eyelids.

  That would explain the lack of skid marks. Hearing someone behind him, John turned around. Two people were standing on the knoll, and a woman was approaching.

  “I’m a nurse,” the woman said. “Let me talk to her.”

  John was more than glad to step away from his spot by the window. “Her name is Cindy.”

  “Help is on the way, Cindy,” the nurse said soothingly. “Is there someone you would like us to call?”

  “Yes, call Maggie,” the trapped Cindy said.

  “Is she family?”

  “Just a friend.”

  “Can you give me that number?”