A Love for Leah Read online

  Jamie turned his eyes to the darkened ceiling. How many times had he prayed for the boy to find peace? Every day since that fateful winter night. It gave a whole new meaning to pray without ceasing. Every day he gave thanks. Every day he asked for peace and joy for the child. Every day he waited. But his faith was strong. God’s will was beyond their understanding, but he could accept it. What he was having trouble swallowing was that there was nothing he could do to help Peter. One look at the boy and anyone could see the hurt and fear in his eyes. Jamie longed to take that from him, to give him back some joy in this earthly realm. Joy that would see him through until he was with his family once again.

  He should have never made that deal with Sally’s parents. It added another layer onto his stress. Now if Peter didn’t talk by the end of three months, then Sally’s parents were to take back over Peter’s care. It was a devil of a bargain, but it was done now.

  Ever so softly, he leaned over and planted a small kiss on the top of Peter’s head. He loved the boy as if he were his own. It was the last piece of Joseph that he had. “Good night,” he whispered. “I’ll make it right again. Somehow, someway. You will be whole again.”

  Chapter Two

  Madness. That was the only thing Leah could say about the grand opening. She had expected a soft opening with a few people wandering in off Main just to see what was happening. But the waitresses at the Boondocks Grill had put up a flyer in the window, and their steady lunch crowd had become Leah’s stream of lookers.

  She sold plenty as well. There were a number of junk shops and antique stores down Main. Hers was the only one she had seen with clothing and everyday housewares. But her goal had been to open, let the community know what the shop was about, and let God handle the rest. Evidently God had a few plans of His own.

  And then there was the accident. Not that it was as major as that sounded. The shelf holding all the baskets of socks and other accessories fell. It could have been a lot worse. The only casualty was one of the baskets. It was crushed when the shelf fell on it. They had cleaned up the mess and set the baskets on a low table near the clothing section, but she still needed to have the shelf repaired. Since it was part of the original construction in the building, she decided to have all the shelves checked out, and as soon as possible.

  “I think it’s going good, don’t you?” Brandon propped his hands on his hips and looked around the shop.

  “Jah,” she said.

  “Why do you do that? Use the Dutch word? You’re not Amish any longer.”

  Leah smiled and shook her head. “A person can’t just stop being Amish. You are either Amish or ex.”

  “That still didn’t answer my question.”

  “Because there is no one answer.” She gave a small shrug. “Habit. Being back here. Comfort.”

  “It’s comfortable?” Brandon shook his head. “That’s weird.” He continued to wag his head from side to side as he moved toward the back of the store to help a young couple get a baby toy off the top shelf.

  Of course it was weird to Brandon. He was fifteen. Everything was weird to him. But Leah hadn’t even realized she had used the Pennsylvania Dutch word for yes. It had simply come out of her mouth without any prompting from her brain.

  She nudged the thought from her mind and moved behind the counter to ring up the next customer in line.

  * * *

  The day continued in the same vein until Leah was certain she wouldn’t be able to get out of bed come tomorrow. Her feet ached, her leg muscles burned, and her brain was tired. It seemed that the worst part of running a secondhand shop was that people had a tendency to treat it like a garage sale and want to negotiate the price . . . on everything. Still, all in all, it was a gut day.

  Oh, great, now Dutch words were invading her thoughts. Unlike most Amish children in the area, she and her siblings had learned English at home simultaneously with Pennsylvania Dutch. When she was younger her thoughts were a tangle of Dutch and English, but since moving out and living with the Mennonites for the last ten years, English had dominated her thoughts.

  “Hope you’re hungry,” Brandon called as he came through their apartment door. The scrumptious aroma of Chinese food wafted in behind him.

  “Starved.” She slid onto the floor from her place on the couch as Brandon set their supper on the large, square coffee table. She didn’t have a dining table, but no matter; she didn’t have a dining room.

  Brandon sat down across from her, accustomed to eating while sitting on the floor. He began to unpack the to-go bag of goodies. “Are you sure you don’t want me to teach you how to use chopsticks?”

  “Maybe another time.” When she wasn’t this tired . . . and hungry.

  Brandon shrugged as if to say Suit yourself, unwrapped his chopsticks, then rubbed them together to smooth them out.

  Leah fished a plastic fork out of the sack and dug into her orange chicken.

  “What’s the deal with that guy?”

  “What guy?”

  Brandon shrugged again, a sure sign he was hiding something. “The one who was at Mammi’s last night.”

  She stopped searching for the perfect piece of chicken and eyed her nephew. She had almost forgotten about Jamie Stoltzfus. Almost. “Why?”

  He shrugged. That was the third time. Definitely up to something. “I dunno. Did you know him before? You know, before you left?”

  “Of course not.”

  Brandon mumbled something into his container of beef and broccoli.

  “What was that?”

  “Then why did he make you so angry?”

  Why indeed? “I guess some people just aren’t destined to get along.”

  “But that’s not what Pastor Joel said last Sunday.”

  Now he decided to remember a church sermon. Why couldn’t it have been the lesson on respecting elders or keeping up your personal appearance? “I don’t recall.” She sniffed.

  Brandon stopped. “You were taking notes.”

  It was Leah’s turn to shrug.

  “He said we are going to have personal differences in our lives. We’re going to meet back up with people who have hurt us, but we need to learn to forgive.”

  So he had. “What does this have to do with Jamie Stoltzfus?”

  “That’s why I asked if you had known him before. I thought maybe he had broken your heart long ago.”

  “Hardly.” There was no way she would have been friends with someone as stuffy as Jamie Stoltzfus. That’s not true. Back during her rumspringa, she had been the conservative one, while Hannah had been more . . . adventuresome. It was her sister’s feisty spirit that had made Hannah want to see what was out there beyond the limits of Pontotoc, Mississippi.

  “Then why did he make you so angry?”

  She didn’t have the answer to that. At least not one she wanted to share with Brandon. How could she tell him something she didn’t quite understand herself? She had worked hard to find her place outside the Amish faith, and to have someone criticize that was too much. “It’s been a long week, a long month, trying to get ready for the shop to open. I guess I was just a little hypersensitive.” Even to her own ears it sounded weak, but it would have to do.

  “That’s good to know, because Dawdi hired him to come fix the shelves tomorrow.”

  * * *

  The first thing on her to-do list was to reorganize the boxes of donated Amish clothing in the back room of the shop. No, the first thing was to talk to her father about jumping in and making decisions that he had no business making, and the second was to reorganize the donation boxes. But since her father was at home today, she would have to put that conversation off for a bit.

  Leah stood and stretched the kinks out of her back. She had been trying to devise a system that allowed the district members to look at the clothing without it taking up too much space in her storeroom. It was a decent size, and she didn’t keep much in the back, but when she figured in two or three racks of clothing, the space disappeared quickly.<
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  “I need to pay you for this.” Mary Yoder reached into her purse and pulled out her wallet. “How much? There’s no tag.”

  Leah shook her head. “There’s no charge.”

  “How are you going to make a living?”

  “I’m selling the stuff out front.”

  Tears filled Mary’s eyes. Her husband had recently died, leaving her alone to raise twin daughters. She was struggling, making jams and pickles to help supplement her fledgling bakery business. But that sort of thing took time, leaving her fewer opportunities to sew clothes for her family. People like Mary were the very reason Leah had opted for a free Amish clothes exchange. There wasn’t a great deal of money in their community. Most relied on farming to earn their wage. When that was taken out of the equation, money got even tighter.

  “I can’t thank you enough. I’ll repay you.”

  Leah gave her a small smile. “Just bring in some of Susan and Elizabeth’s clothes when they outgrow them. I’m sure someone in the district could use them.”

  Mary nodded. “I will, Leah. I will.”

  Leah packed the clothing into a recycled plastic sack and sent Mary out the back door.

  It might be the most satisfying transaction of the day. This was what it was all about. This was what made all her hard work worthwhile.

  “Leah?” Brandon called from the doorway of the stockroom. “Jamie’s here.”

  And just like that, her good mood took a nosedive.

  * * *

  It was something else, what a man would do for money. Jamie grabbed his leveler and placed it on the shelf. Perfect. Only two more and he could be done with this job and away from the piercing gaze of Leah Gingerich.

  She had been staring at him since he had arrived. Watching him as if she suspected he’d run off with the family fortune. Not that he thought there was one. The Gingeriches seemed to be like everyone else in Pontotoc: hardworking, loyal, and down-to-earth. But not Leah. Well, she was hardworking, and she seemed loyal enough, but down-to-earth? Just the fact that she had left the Amish to turn Mennonite had him wondering where her heart lay. What was so wrong with her family and her friends that she needed electricity and a car to make her life better? Or maybe it was the clothing. Had she wanted to wear different styles and be more modern like the Englisch girls? He might not ever know, but there was something about her that chafed him.

  He handed the leveler to Peter, who set it to one side. Without being asked, he handed Jamie the tape measure.

  Jamie measured the spot for the next shelf and marked it with a carpenter’s pencil. He turned back for the screwdriver, but Peter was already holding it out for him. All the while, he was more than aware of Leah’s gaze following his every move.

  He had asked if she wanted him to come after hours, but she said the shelves needed to be repaired as soon as possible. So here he was on a Saturday morning trying to finish the shelves before her ten o’clock opening time. Shouldn’t she be dusting things and straightening the merchandise and not merely leaning up against the counter and watching him like a hawk follows prey?

  The set of brackets went up without a fuss, and Jamie reached for his leveler again. Peter had it at the ready.

  “That’s quite a helper you’ve got there.”

  The words sounded loaded, like an intro into something more. “Jah,” was all he said. Any more and she might feel obligated to tell him what was on her mind. And if it was anything like the other night at her parents’ house, then he didn’t want to know. Leah Gingerich was nothing if not strong and opinionated—two qualities that didn’t always go together in the Amish world.

  Perhaps that was why she had left. She was too opinionated and had had to leave because she—

  He shook his head at himself. He didn’t care why she had left. He didn’t care one bit.

  “What is it?” she asked. “Yes or no?”

  “Jah. Yes, he is a gut helper.”

  Peter didn’t even crack a smile at the compliment. It just wasn’t natural, this lack of emotion coming from him. And it worried Jamie more and more. Jah, it had been nearly six months, time enough for the burns on his neck and hands to heal. The ones on his legs had been more severe and had required surgeries and grafts to repair. But even those wounds were now faded to scars. The doctors had told him that the muscle tissue had been damaged and would never be the same. Peter would always limp, and quite possibly might have to have special shoes made to keep his gait even. Chances were greater that his left leg would grow at a normal rate, but the right leg, which had sustained most of his injury, might end up shorter as time went on. Jamie prayed about it every night. The Lord’s will would be done, but it didn’t hurt putting in a word or two, just in case.

  Leah fell silent, and Jamie went back to hanging the next shelf. Wasn’t it ten yet? He could use some reprieve from her glacial stare.

  The third shelf was firmly in place when another voice sounded behind him.

  “Looking good, don’t you think?”

  Brandon McLean. Jamie had met Brandon at supper the other night, but how he fit into the Gingerich life equation, he didn’t know. Jamie hadn’t asked anyone, but just being in small-town Pontotoc, people were talking. He knew that Brandon was Hannah’s son. Her husband had died in an accident recently, and she had returned to Pontotoc. How her son had ended up Englisch, Jamie might not ever know. Now, Hannah was marrying her long-ago sweetheart, Aaron Zook. As far as Jamie could gather, the wedding was to take place the following year.

  “Yeah.” Leah’s answer was reluctant.

  Was it him? Or men in general? Had she turned into one of those feminists like the Englisch had, those women who were always marching for equal rights? He shuddered at the thought. A Mennonite feminist. That was a new one.

  “Almost done,” Jamie tossed over his shoulder as he began work on the next-to-last shelf. He couldn’t be finished soon enough.

  “Doors open in ten minutes,” Leah said. “Think you can handle it?”

  “Of course,” Brandon replied. “Where are you going?”

  “To the back,” Jamie heard Leah say. “I won’t be long.”

  Jamie let out a small sigh of relief. At least she hadn’t told Brandon to stare at him as she had been doing. It was much easier to work without someone scrutinizing his every move.

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw Brandon move toward the front of the store to ready it for opening. They had already had a few people stop and peek in the windows, pointing out certain items as they passed. Whatever it was, it seemed that Leah’s shop was on its way to being a success.

  The last two shelves went up much quicker than the first ones. Or maybe because Leah was no longer following his every move, it just seemed faster. Whatever it was, he had the shelves all hung and the mess cleaned up before the first customers came through the doors. All except for the tools. Peter was currently loading those into the handled toolbox.

  “Here we go.”

  Jamie turned at the sound of her voice, fully expecting her to hand him a check or maybe an envelope containing the payment for today’s work. Instead, she was carting a cardboard box filled with . . . clothes?

  “What’s that?” he asked, his voice dropping an octave. Was she trying to pay him in goods?

  Leah glanced quickly at Peter, then trained her gaze on Jamie once again. The shift had been so quick that he might not have seen it at all if he hadn’t been staring at her the whole time.

  “Let’s . . .” She nudged him toward the back of the store.

  Against his better judgment, Jamie followed behind. “Jah?” He tried to keep the skepticism out of his voice, but it was hard. He was trying to make ends meet—they all were—and he might even accept clothing as payment if that were the original agreement. But he needed money for groceries. Not someone else’s castoffs.

  “Your check is in this envelope. I have an account at the bank just down on Main. If you take it in there, they’ll cash it for you.”

 
“And the rest?” He nodded toward the clothes.

  “For Peter.”

  His hands started to tremble, and he wanted to drop the box like a hot rock. Instead, he thrust it back at her. Surprise flashed in her eyes before she caught it, fumbling a little as he let go. “We don’t want your charity.” He barely got the words pushed between his clenched teeth.

  “It’s not. I mean . . .”

  She couldn’t even come up with a lie about it.

  “Peter and I are just fine. There’s no need for—” He waved around a hand instead of finishing his sentence. Lord knew, it was easier that way. He had never been so angry, so insulted, in all his life. “Come on, Peter,” he called to the boy.

  Peter jumped to his feet and took ahold of the toolbox handle. The thing was almost as big as he was.

  “Now hold on a minute. This isn’t charity. This is a loan. Peter can wear these clothes until he outgrows them, and then you can bring them back and swap them for ‘new’ ones.” She made a weird hand gesture as she said the word new.

  He wasn’t about to answer. He spun on his heel and started for the back door. That was the way he came in, and it would be the way he would go out.

  Then a hand on his arm stopped him. “What do you think charity is? A handout? Helping one’s neighbor? The entire Amish way of life is built on helping your fellow man, and you think a couple of pairs of pants and a few shirts is too much?”

  When she put it that way, she had a point, but he wasn’t about to tell her that. His pride got in the way. It stuck in his throat and refused to budge. No other words could get out.

  Peter caught up just as Leah thrust the box toward Jamie once again. “You need these.”

  He shook his head. “Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven,” he quoted before storming out the back door.

  * * *

  The nerve of that man!

  Leah fretted over Jamie’s words until she was able to close the shop and head upstairs. She wanted to look up his quote in the Bible. Why she needed the chapter and verse, she didn’t know. She wanted it, that was all.