Love’s Journey Home
Read Love’s Journey Home Online
Authors: Kelly Irvin
HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS
EUGENE, OREGON
Scriptures are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version
®
, NIV
®
. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011, by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan.
All rights reserved worldwide.
www.zondervan.com
Cover by Garborg Design Works, Savage, Minnesota
Cover photos © Chris Garborg; Cathy Yeulet /
123rf.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, 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.
LOVE’S JOURNEY HOME
Copyright © 2013 by Kelly Irvin
Published by Harvest House Publishers
Eugene, Oregon 97402
www.harvesthousepublishers.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Irvin, Kelly.
Love’s journey home / Kelly Irvin.
p. cm. — (The Bliss Creek Amish; bk. 3)
ISBN 978-0-7369-5318-4 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-0-7369-5319-1 (eBook)
1. Widows—Fiction. 2. Widowers—Fiction. 3. Sons—Fiction. 4. Amish—Fiction. 5. Domestic
fiction. I. Title.
PS3609.R82L68 2013
813'.6–dc23
2012026968
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.
To Tim, Erin, and Nicholas
Love always
Be still before the L
ORD
and wait patiently for him
.
P
SALM
37:7
We also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;
perseverance, character; and character, hope.
And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our
hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us
.
R
OMANS
5:3-5
CKNOWLEDGMENTS
To be given the opportunity to write this third story in the Bliss Creek series is
a gift from God, but it’s also the result of the hard work and faithfulness of the
folks at Harvest House Publishers. I want to give a special shout-out to the sales
and marketing staff. Thanks to Brad Moses and all the behind-the-scenes movers and
shakers who get these books into the stores and online sales venues so that readers
may be entertained, encouraged, and edified by them. I’m in awe of the personal attention
and caring these folks have shown for the Bliss Creek series. As always, I owe a debt
of gratitude to my editor, Kathleen Kerr, and to my agent, Mary Sue Seymour. None
of this would be possible without the support of my family and friends—you know who
you are. It goes without saying—but I’ll say it anyway for the record—I owe everything
to my Lord and Savior, who writes these stories on my heart.
The Bliss Creek Amish:
An Interview with Author Kelly Irvin
H
elen Crouch squeezed by a couple busy scolding a small boy who appeared to have a
green lollipop stuck in his golden curls. Smiling, she angled her way through the
growing crowd along the parade route. She could remember when Edmond had been that
age. He’d been so sweet and anxious to please as he rummaged for eggs in the chicken
coop or helped her pluck weeds in the garden. Ten years and a
rumspringa
later she could see little of that child in her only son. Inhaling the mingled aromas
of popcorn and cotton candy, she held her hand to her damp forehead to block out a
July sun that peeked through glowering clouds overhead. Maybe Edmond had slipped into
the crowd to find Emma and Thomas for her.
Not likely, given a recent spate of disappearing acts by a sixteen-year-old apparently
bent on squeezing every last drop from his running around.
“
Mudder
, look, funnel cakes.” The note of entreaty in Naomi’s voice told Helen her oldest
daughter wanted to ask, but knew better. Their egg and jelly money wouldn’t stretch
to treats—not this month. “They smell so good.”
“Not as good as chocolate-marshmallow cookies.” Helen patted her daughter’s shoulder.
The cookies were Naomi’s favorite, which was why Helen had thought to pack them in
the basket along with the sausage, cheese, and biscuits. “Let’s find Emma and Thomas.
They’ll have saved a space for us.”
“Helen, over here!” As if she’d heard Helen’s words, Emma Brennaman’s high voice carried
over the many citizens of Bliss Creek who’d gathered, despite the threat of an impending
thunderstorm, to see the Fourth of July parade of area high school marching bands,
cowboys on decked-out horses, John Deere farm implements, and fancy cars from the
dealership on I-35. “It’s getting crowded already. We managed to save a shady spot!”
“We’re coming.”
After glancing back to make sure her two younger daughters were keeping up with Naomi,
Helen dodged a knot of
Englisch
teenagers who crowded Bliss Creek Park’s edge. They were busy examining a bag of
firecrackers, looks of delight on their acne-dotted faces. She stubbed her toe in
the crack of the sidewalk and stumbled. One of them grinned, his braces glinting in
the sun. She forced a return smile. “So sorry. Can we get around you?”
The sea parted and they trotted through.
Why did she apologize? Habit? In another habit she’d never been able to break, Helen
looked beyond Emma to make sure Thomas accompanied his wife. Her friend’s husband
stood in the shade of a stout elm, his back turned. He talked to another man, equally
tall and lean. Helen picked up her pace and narrowly missed colliding with a double
stroller and its occupants—rosy-cheeked twins dressed in matching red, white, and
blue sundresses and bonnets. “Sorry. So sorry.”
Her daughters tried to hide their giggles behind their hands, as they tended to do
when she made a blunder. “Mudder!”
“Hush, girls.” She turned to Emma, glad Thomas hadn’t seen her latest misstep. As
if it mattered. He seemed engrossed in a conversation that held words like
harvest
and
wheat
and
rain
and something about a well having gone dry. Indeed, Thomas had his hands full, it
seemed. Helen focused on Emma. “Have you seen Edmond?”
“He’s not with you?” Emma ran one hand over a crisp apron that did little to hide
her swollen belly while she grabbed little Caleb with the other to keep him from escaping
into the street. “Don’t worry. Knowing Edmond, he won’t want to miss the fried chicken,
homemade potato chips, and pecan-chocolate-chip cookies we brought to share with y’all.
How’s your mudder doing? It’s too bad she couldn’t have come along.”
“She’s doing better, but crowds don’t suit her. What about Annie? Didn’t she come?”
Helen glanced at the quilts strewn in the grassy strip between the sidewalk and the
street. No Annie. “When I dropped off my jams and jellies at the bakery yesterday,
she promised me she would come—that she would try to come.”
“
Ach
, if only it were so.” The customary happiness in Emma’s face since her marriage to
Thomas and Caleb’s arrival fled for a second. “She isn’t ready. She decided at the
last minute she didn’t want to come. Couldn’t come, I reckon. She can’t seem to bring
herself to celebrate anything yet.”
“She’ll get out when she’s ready.” Helen knew this from experience. The deep wound
of loss took time to heal and could be ripped open by the simplest thing. A smell
or a taste that reminded one of a person forever gone. “With time, she’ll find her
way.”
“It’s been a year. It’s time for her to begin again.” Emma’s tone was kind, but firm.
“She’s young and she should marry again. Noah needs a father. She needs a husband.”
“A year isn’t so long.”
Helen said the words at the same time as the man who stood next to Thomas, one hand
propped on the tree’s trunk. He’d turned at Emma’s statement and his gaze met Helen’s.
In his expression, she saw a fellow sojourner, someone who’d experienced the rocky,
meandering road that follows the death of a loved one. Who had he lost?
“Not so long at all,” the man added, his dark eyes filled with a sadness that quickly
fled, replaced with a polite blankness. “All things considered.”
Helen intended to agree, but instead she remained mute. The man had been cut from
the same cloth as Thomas, sewn with the same careful stitch. He could’ve been a twin,
except older, at least forty. Threads of silver and gray shot through his dark beard
and the unruly hair that escaped from under his straw hat. His eyes were large and
the color of tea allowed to brew all afternoon in Kansas’s summer heat. His leathery
bronze skin spoke of years spent working outdoors. Crow’s feet around his eyes told
the story of squinting against the broiling afternoon sun. Or laughing.