The Amish Heiress (The Paradise Chronicles Book 1) Read online




  The Amish Heiress

  Patrick E. Craig

  Copyright Information

  The Amish Heiress

  Copyright © 2015 by Patrick E. Craig

  All rights reserved as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the publisher.

  First Edition eBook: 2015

  First Edition Paperback: 2015

  ISBN (ePub): 978-0-9965334-1-6

  ISBN (Paperback): 978-0-9965334-0-9

  Published by P&J Publishing

  Caldwell, Idaho

  In cooperation with NCC Publishing (www.nccpublishing.com)

  Cover by Garborg Design Works, Savage, Minnesota

  Cover Photos © Chris Garborg, Bigstock / Voy

  Author Photo by William Craig, Craig Prographica

  This is a work of fiction. While set in a real town in Pennsylvania, the names, characters, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  20150720

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to my mother, Cora Jean Hilbert Craig, for her untiring support of my creative endeavors and her delight in all things lovely.

  Acknowledgements

  To my wife, Judy, for her tireless efforts in proofing and editing The Amish Heiress.

  To Lindsay A. Franklin for her great substantive editing and advice with this book.

  To Ray Ellis and Michael and Debbie Sloane at NCC Publishing for their terrific help in getting this book ready for publication.

  A Note from Patrick E. Craig

  When I first started writing Amish fiction, I had a short story in mind about a master quilter from Apple Creek, Ohio who found God, a little lost child, and a new life in the heart of a snowstorm. When I showed the story to my agent, he encouraged me to turn it into a full-length series of three books. Now, three years later, the last of those books, Jenny’s Choice, has been released and I am still telling the story of the Hershbergers and the Springers. The setting has moved from Apple Creek to Paradise, Pennsylvania, but the characters and the stories are part of an ongoing thread that has captured my heart and kept me busy since 2010.

  When I was writing the Apple Creek Dreams series, I was going to tell the stories of Jerusha Springer, her adopted daughter, Jenny, and then Jenny’s daughter, Rachel. But I fell in love with the character of Jenny, and then there were two books about Jenny where I had only planned on one.

  Now I finally get to tell Rachel’s story. It’s a different kind of story, but then I’m not exactly known in Amish circles as someone who writes a typical Amish novel. I think that’s because I read too many Zane Grey books when I was a kid. His books had adventure, mystery, and danger, and for those of you expecting a typical light-hearted romance dressed in Amish clothing, you will certainly find far more than that in this story, so be prepared. But Grey was also one of the best romance writers that ever put pen to paper, and in the end, good Amish fiction has to have romance and plenty of it.

  So sit back and enjoy The Amish Heiress, and remember, in the end, stories should be about love: love between people and ultimately, they should be about the love our God had for us when He sent His own son to solve the dilemma of the ages and bring peace and joy to our hearts. And that is the greatest story ever told.

  Part One

  The Key

  Rachel, my darling girl, how can I tell of the joy you give me. In the dark days when we thought we had lost your papa, I was adrift in my grief but you were my ray of sunlight, and precious memories were bound into your very being. In all those years when Jonathan was gone, you were my rock, the one person I could turn to that always had an uplifting word or a loving gesture. I know your heart ached as mine did, but somehow you held yourself above the pain and were always there for me. And for such a long time, you were the one who believed your papa would come home someday.

  That is why it surprised me when it was so hard for you when your papa did come home. You were fourteen, you were becoming a woman, and Jonathan had missed such a big part of your life. You and your papa were at odds for a long time. I think that you had finally reconciled yourself to Jonathan being dead—you had moved on. And then when he came home, you had to learn that relationship all over again. We were so close, the two of us and then there was another person in the house, a man who in many ways was a stranger to us both, especially on his “bad” days. I think you felt like he came between us. So when the opportunity came for you to go, you were ready, too ready...

  Rachel – From The Journals of Jenny Hershberger

  Chapter One

  Trouble in Paradise

  “I won’t do it!”

  “You will do what I say!”

  “I’m eighteen, Papa, and my own person. You can’t make me do anything anymore!”

  “Rachel, Jonathan, please stop shouting at each other.”

  The cacophony of voices pushed out the open front door of the house like a symphony orchestra with every instrument out of tune. A girl stood in the doorway pointing her finger back at someone inside. She spoke again and this time her voice was low and icy.

  “Mama, I hate him. Ever since he came back, my life has been...hell!”

  The word crashed down like an avalanche of rocks and then there was silence.

  “Dochter, you don’t mean that. Please, apologize to your papa.”

  “I won’t apologize to someone that’s...that’s verrückt!”

  “Rachel!”

  “So, I’m crazy, am I? Well, we’ll see. Go on. You want to leave, just go. Get out of my house.”

  “Your house? Your house? I’ve lived here longer than you. You come back into our lives and think you can just take over and order me around. Papa, I don’t even know you. I’ll go, I’ll go, and maybe I won’t come back!”

  With that, Rachel swung around and stomped out onto the porch, slamming the screen door in the face of the man who was following her out. She ran down the steps and out onto the lane and was gone before her papa could catch her.

  Jonathan Hershberger opened the door and stood, watching his daughter run through the field next to the house. His wife, Jenny, came out behind him and watched their daughter go. Jenny’s face was pale and her eyes were red.

  Jonathan put his hand to his head. “My head hurts, Jenny. Help me inside.”

  Jenny dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief. “You know you are not supposed to get angry. The doctor warned you that you could have a stroke.”

  “I know, Jenny, but I can’t seem to help myself. I don’t want to be angry with Rachel, but there is something in her that just pushes me over the edge.”

  Jenny put her arm on Jonathan’s shoulder and led him back inside. “In her, Jonathan, or in you?”

  *****

  It was a cold and wet March day in Paradise. Spring had not yet arrived with her palette of vivid hues, and the predominant color was brown—brown stubble, brown earth, dead grass in the front yard. The small swale beyond the pasture fence was filled with runoff from the winter snowmelt, and a few solitary white ducks floated on the surface of the temporary pond, casting their reflections on the leaden surface that drearily mirrored the gray clouds gathered above the Hershberger farm.

  Rachel Hershberger trudged down the path that led away from the house. Her feet sank inches into the soft mud, and the edges of her dress bore the stains of her ill-advised trail breaking. Her face was red, and a sing
le tear had coursed its way down her cheek. She spoke out loud to no one in particular, and her outburst roused the ducks from their peaceful repose to flutter a few feet across the pond and then settle back again. “Why did he have to come back? Everything was fine without him.”

  Now the tears began to flow freely down her face. She wiped them away, but others that seemed eager to mar the loveliness of her face quickly replaced them. Her dark auburn hair was held tightly in a bun beneath her kappe, and the wool jacket she wore over her plain dress kept the March chill from her skin. But it did nothing to ease the chill in her heart.

  The squishing of her boots in the mud mixed with an occasional sob and the rippling sound of the little creek that ran through the cottonwoods, off to her right, played a strangely discordant concerto that jarred against the serenity all around her. Finally, she came to the gate out onto the main road. As she walked disconsolately down the asphalt, Rachel was absorbed in her sorrow and did not pay attention to the soft clop of the horse’s hooves behind her until the small buggy pulled up next to her.

  “A bit chilly for a walk in the mud, isn’t it, Rachel?”

  Rachel looked up into the kindly face of Daniel King, her friend from the neighboring farm. He sat on the buggy seat with a quizzical look on his face.

  “Go away, Daniel. I don’t need your indefatigable good nature right now.”

  “Indefatigable! Ja, now there’s a fifty-dollar word. Come on, Rachel, I’m your friend, and you look like you could use one right now. Hop in and I’ll take you wherever you’re going and keep you tidy at the same time.”

  Rachel stopped and looked up at Daniel. His handsome, beardless face smiled at her from under the black hat, and he sat straight and tall on the seat. Rachel’s shoulders dropped and she gave a sigh of resignation. She really wanted to be by herself, but her hike through the mud had worn her out. She climbed up on the seat next to Daniel.

  “You and your papa fighting again?”

  “Yes, if it’s any of your business!”

  “Look, Rachel, don’t go there. You have spoken with me many times about Jonathan, so it’s not like I’m prying into your secrets. What was it this time?”

  Rachel slumped down in the seat. “I signed up for another class at the Junior College—a class in animal husbandry. I...I want to be a veterinarian, but my papa told me to drop the class.”

  “Why, because Amish girls are supposed to stay home after eighth grade and learn to be obedient little servants to the men?”

  Rachel looked at Daniel in surprise. “Something like that.”

  She looked again. Daniel wasn’t smiling. He was staring straight ahead, and his face was set in a stern mask.

  Rachel suddenly realized that she might have an ally in this handsome young man. He was usually so...so traditional. “Why, Daniel, you surprise me. I wouldn’t expect anything like that out of you.”

  Daniel shook the reins over the back of the horse and relaxed. The smile returned to his face, and he looked over at Rachel. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me. I’d be more than willing to share it with you if...if you’d let me court you.”

  Rachel turned away abruptly and stared out at the brown fields of Paradise, Pennsylvania. “Don’t, Daniel. We’ve talked about this before. You’re my friend, but that’s all I feel for you. Besides, I don’t want to get married. I have...other plans.”

  Daniel didn’t let the barbed remark ruffle his calm demeanor. “So what are you going to do, Rachel? Run away to the big city and become an animal doctor? Wouldn’t you find more work around here?”

  Rachel turned back to Daniel, and now there was excitement in her voice.

  “Don’t you see? It’s not the 1800s anymore, even for the Amish. It’s 1990. There’s so much out there, so much more to life than a little farm in Paradise, Pennsylvania. There’s music and art and museums—the whole country and even the whole world to see. I want to float down the Nile and see the pyramids. I want to go to the Louvre and stay there for weeks. I want to torment the guards at Buckingham Palace and see if I can make them smile. Daniel, don’t you ever want to go, to see, to do?”

  Daniel looked down at the reins in his strong hands. “All I want is to stay here and work with my papa, and then when it’s my time, take over the farm and raise the finest saddlebred horses in Pennsylvania.”

  Rachel gave an exasperated sigh. “And that’s why we could never be together. I want to be part of a much bigger world, and in order to do that I...I...”

  “Can’t stay Amish?” asked Daniel softly.

  Rachel looked at him without speaking. The answer lay heavy between them in a silence broken only by the soft clopping of the horse’s hooves on the road.

  *****

  When Rachel banged back through the door, Jenny was sitting on the sofa in the front room. Her face was soft and sad. She lifted her finger to her lips.

  Rachel pulled off her coat and hung it on the hook by the door. “Where’s Papa?”

  “He’s sleeping, Rachel. He got a bad headache when he got so angry. You know that it hurts him physically when you fight with him.”

  Rachel looked down. She felt bad, but she wasn’t going to back down. “Mama, is he the only one who lives here? Why do we have to tiptoe around and make everything easy for him all the time?”

  Jenny motioned for Rachel to come sit beside her. Rachel hesitated and then plopped down stiffly beside her mama. Jenny’s arm circled Rachel’s waist. She pushed through the stiffness and pulled her daughter up close. It took a minute, but Rachel finally relaxed and put her head on Jenny’s shoulder. Soft sobs began to shake Rachel’s body. Jenny reached over and stroked her daughter’s forehead as Rachel began to calm down.

  “I know it’s difficult...to have Jonathan home. He still struggles with the disaster on the boat and the injuries he sustained. He watched his parents die and it hurt him so.”

  “I know, Mama, and I feel sorry for him, but he’s so hard to live with.”

  Jenny turned Rachel’s face toward her. “Rachel, your papa was a different man for eight years. He completely lost any memory of being Jonathan Hershberger, of being an Amish man, of you and me and our home here in Paradise.”

  “I know, Mama, but—”

  Jenny put her fingers softly on Rachel’s lips. “Let me finish. When your papa converted to the Amish faith before we were married, he came from a background that was very worldly. He was an atheist, or at least an agnostic. He had tried drugs and different religions. He thought he was going to be a famous musician, and if he hadn’t met me, he probably would have been. When he lost his memory, he went back to what he intuitively knew—playing music. He became famous out there in the world and made a lot of money.”

  Rachel stirred. “I know the story, Mama, but it still doesn’t explain why he’s so strict with me.”

  Jenny sighed and put her hand to her face. An errant tear had attempted to run down her cheek and she brushed it away. Rachel saw the involuntary movement and her heart softened.

  This really hurts my mama. She also wishes things were not this way.

  Rachel’s arms crept around her mama. “Oh, Mama, I’m sorry. I know all this makes you sad.”

  “Yes, dochter, I am sad. I am sad for the years we missed, you and I, with your papa. I am sorry for the pain that your papa went through, and I am sorry that you and he are not close like you once were. But I am also very grateful. I thank du lieber Gott every day that Jonathan came back to me...to us. I thank Him for the amazing miracle He performed when my heart was broken beyond hope. You must know that your papa and I were made for each other. We are two lives and one heart. It is a very special thing that Gott does for people. That is His plan for marriage, and someday I hope you will find the same joy. Jonathan and I had ten wonderful years together. It was especially joyful after you were born. When he disappeared and I thought he was dead...”

  Jenny paused and dabbed her eyes. “Rachel, when your papa came home, he did not really
know who he was. He still goes back to being Richard Sandbridge from time to time, and I think that is what confuses you. One minute he is a strict Amish man and the next he is a very easy-going musician. I know it’s been hard. The only thing that has saved your papa is the Ordnung. He clings to them like a life preserver, because some days that is the only way he knows who he is. And he is so dependent on them that he forgets the Ordnung don’t save us. And so he tries to live by them as best he can to stay grounded in our world. That’s why he is so strict. My papa went through the same thing when he came back from World War II. He was so devastated by his experience in the Pacific that he swore he would come back to the church and keep the rules with all his heart. He believed that keeping the Ordnung would make him all right with Gott. It took a terrible tragedy to make him see differently.”

  Rachel took her mama’s hand and put it to her cheek. She kissed it. “I’m sorry, Mama. I don’t understand this sometimes, but I do love Papa. I’ll try to do better.”

  “And I love you and will try also, dochter.”

  The women looked up to see Jonathan standing in the doorway. He held out his arms and Rachel rose and went to him. His strong arms enfolded her and she saw the love in his eyes. She held onto him and hid her face against his chest.

  I hope so, Papa. I truly hope so.

  Chapter Two

  A Longing

  Rachel was unhappy. Even though the sun was shining and the muddy fields around her were beginning to dry up, and the first faint breath of spring touched the air around her with a promise of the fragrance to come, for Rachel, it might as well have been snowing. In the trees along the road, bright yellow acacia blossoms were blooming, interspersed with the beautiful pink of the early plums, but Rachel didn’t notice. The weather had changed for the better, but it hadn’t changed the gloom in her heart. She pushed her scooter down Leacock Road, headed for the Old Philadelphia Turnpike. It was three miles from the farm, but she didn’t care—she just wanted to get away, to get out, to be gone.