The Winnowing Season
Read The Winnowing Season Online
Authors: Cindy Woodsmall
Praise for
The Winnowing Season
“Cindy Woodsmall weaves a page-turning plot in
The Winnowing Season
, featuring the mysterious Rhoda Byler and a supporting cast of other complex characters. This story grabbed my heart and kept on tugging—long after I’d read the last word. I can’t wait for the third book in the series!”
—L
ESLIE
G
OULD
, author of
Courting Cate
“Cindy Woodsmall creates Amish characters in a way no other author does. Her obvious love for and intimate knowledge of the Amish allow the reader into the characters’ lives aside from the religious aspect of the community. They laugh, and I laugh with them. They hurt, and so do I. Add to the characters a compelling plot and a girl with an unusual gift, and the book is impossible to put down.”
—T
RACEY
B
ATEMAN
, author of
The Widow of Saunders Creek
Praise for
A Season for Tending
“Woodsmall honors the Amish through her well-researched story, with a heartfelt romance and lovable characters.”
—Romantic Times
“I have to say that I love this book. The characters in the story are dimensional and interesting. Woodsmall has created families, situations, and places that are believable, geared toward modern-day life with current challenges … It makes both families more endearing. I look forward to the next book in the series.”
—
www.thechristianmanifesto.com
“Cindy’s well-developed, multidimensioned characters cause readers to care about them, their lives, and their problems. Their choices and decisions that carry the story forward also reveal biblical wisdom without preaching. I’m sure this new series will add many new readers to Cindy’s growing fan base.”
—
www.midwestbookreview.com
“
A Season for Tending
is the first in Woodsmall’s new series, Amish Vines and Orchards, and her characters will leave you missing friends when the last page is read. Book 2 can’t come soon enough!”
—CBA Retailers and Resources
B
OOKS BY
C
INDY
W
OODSMALL
A
DA
’
S
H
OUSE SERIES
The Hope of Refuge
The Bridge of Peace
The Harvest of Grace
S
ISTERS OF THE
Q
UILT SERIES
When the Heart Cries
When the Morning Comes
When the Soul Mends
A
MISH
V
INES AND
O
RCHARDS SERIES
A Season for Tending
N
OVELLAS
The Sound of Sleigh Bells
The Christmas Singing
The Scent of Cherry Blossoms
N
ONFICTION
Plain Wisdom: An Invitation into an Amish Home and the Hearts of Two Women
THE WINNOWING SEASON
PUBLISHED BY WATERBROOK PRESS
12265 Oracle Boulevard, Suite 200
Colorado Springs, Colorado 80921
All Scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version.
The characters and events in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual persons or events is coincidental.
eISBN: 978-0-307-73005-3
Copyright © 2013 by Cindy Woodsmall
Cover design by Kelly L. Howard; cover photography: girl by Kelly L. Howard; background by Hans L Bonnevier/Johnér
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Published in the United States by WaterBrook Multnomah, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House Inc., New York.
WATERBROOK and its deer colophon are registered trademarks of Random House Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Woodsmall, Cindy.
The winnowing season : a novel / Cindy Woodsmall. — First edition.
pages cm. — (Amish Vines and Orchards; 2)
1. Amish—Fiction. 2. Christian fiction. I. Title.
PS3623.O678W56 2013
813′.6—dc23
v3.1_r1
To our precious niece
Tammy Ann Miller
While on a date with her uncle, I met this girl in her teens
,
Lovely and warm like a gorgeous Southern spring
.
As the years marched forward, it continued to ring true:
She was giving and talented with a loyal God-view
.
And in every life she’s encountered, she’s left an indelible mark
.
In all the years since, I’ve never met another with her kind of spark:
Resilient beyond measure, never one to cower
.
She recently faced a nightmare encounter: a rare and fierce cancer
.
It’s tried to extinguish her fire
.
But she and her Savior walk hand in hand
,
Saying, the enemy can never take over my land
.
She was born to fight in a Southern woman way—
Where warm smiles and gracious love belie the challenges of the day
.
She’s won against every opponent she’s met, but when the day comes
,
(And we pray it’s not before she’s ninety), she’ll not succumb
.
In the same way she joined us, she’ll rise above
Wrapped in God’s love
.
Contents
Amish Vines and Orchards Series
Main Characters in The Winnowing Season
Amish Vines and Orchards series
The story so far …
In
A Season for Tending
, Rhoda Byler, a twenty-two-year-old Amish girl, struggles to suppress the God-given insights she receives. Her people don’t approve of such intuitions. Because of their superstitions and fears, Rhoda spends most of her time alone in her bountiful fruit and herb garden or with her assistant, Landon, canning her produce for her business—Rhode Side Stands. Although she lives with her parents, two married brothers, and their families, Rhoda is isolated and haunted by guilt over the death of her sister two years ago.
Thirty miles away, in the Amish district of Harvest Mills, three brothers—Samuel, Jacob, and Eli King—are caretakers of their family’s apple orchard. Samuel has been responsible for the success of Kings’ Orchard since he was a young teen, but due to Eli’s negligence, one-third of their orchard has produced apples that are only good for canning. If Samuel doesn’t find a way to turn more profit on those apples, he’ll have to sell part of the orchard, resulting in even smaller harvests in the future.
When Samuel and Rhoda meet, they see eye to eye on very little until she shows him her fruit garden. He soon realizes that her horticultural skills are just what he needs to restore the orchard, and her canning business could provide an established outlet for their apples—if he can convince her to partner with them. Without telling his girlfriend, Catherine, he asks Rhoda to work with Kings’ Orchard.
Rhoda declines … until someone maliciously destroys her garden and her livelihood. She gives her land to her brothers and commits to partnering with Kings’ Orchard. Before long she and Jacob begin courting, and Samuel severs his relationship with Catherine.
Just as they begin to harvest the apples, a tornado destroys most of the
orchard and almost costs Samuel his life. In an effort to make a new start, Jacob, Samuel, Rhoda, Landon, and others decide to buy an abandoned apple orchard in Maine that they can restore. As the families commit to establishing an Amish community in Maine, Samuel realizes he’s in love with Rhoda.
For a list of main characters in the Amish Vines and Orchards series, see
this page
.
ONE
Rhoda shoved her to-do list into the hidden pocket of her apron and slipped out of the summer kitchen. A brief glance assured her no one was around to see her. She needed a few minutes, however fleeting, without anyone tugging at her. Her shoulders and arms ached as she walked into the orchard.
She breathed in, and the heady scents of fall and ripe apples helped soothe her frayed nerves. After nearly two months of nurturing the tornado-ravaged orchard, she found the view both uplifting and disheartening. Despite their long, hard days of cleaning up felled trees and mending broken ones, the once-vibrant orchard looked like a battlefield strewn with injured, defeated soldiers. Would all of her and Samuel’s tending restore the wounded trees? Or simply prolong their dying?
How strange that she found comfort in walking among these wounded trees. Much of the orchard lay dormant, waiting for late winter, when new trees would be planted.
But she wouldn’t be here for that.
A ladder rested against a tree where she and Samuel had grafted tree limbs from storm-damaged trees into healthy ones, hoping their grafts would take. It wasn’t the right time of year for such work, but they were giving this orchard their all before leaving it behind tomorrow.
A wavering, misty image stepped out from behind an apple tree.
Emma
.
The vision appeared real enough, but it wasn’t actually her little sister. Emma had been with God since the day she was murdered, since the day Rhoda all but sent her teary-eyed sister to that convenience store by herself at exactly the wrong time. Emma often formed in a visible way, as if Rhoda’s
guilt over her death was burned so deeply into Rhoda’s soul that she would see her sister the rest of her days.
And maybe she would, but Rhoda dared to hope the move to Maine would end the haunting reminders.
Emma held out her arms, and Rhoda wished her little sister were truly here to embrace, but all Rhoda could do was watch. And pray.
Not long after she met Samuel King of Kings’ Orchard last summer, he asked if she’d partner her canning business with his family’s apple farming business. When she finally agreed, she did so hoping for several things to come from the agreement. One desire was for the aberrations to remain at home in Morgansville, some thirty miles away—and where all memories of Emma had been made.