Chapter 1
Magdalena Lapp, or Maggie as her family called her, stood at the kitchen counter peeling apples from the cellar for Christmas strudel. The windowsill was decorated with sprigs of evergreen and candles that stood unlit at this time of day. It should have been a pleasant morning of Christmas baking and chatting with her mother, if it weren’t for the trouble Maggie had gotten herself into. The bishop had come last night, and it wasn’t to help her daet with the repairs after the fire in the barn or to wish them a Happy Christmas. He’d come to tell her that he and the elders knew what she’d been up to—and she’d better stop.
Outside the kitchen window, past the evergreen cover on the windowsill, December snow swirled, the wind whistling past the house. She leaned closer to the cold glass, trying to get a view of the barn. She couldn’t see the part that was blackened by smoke, but Daet had gotten the fire out before it caused too much damage and this morning the men from the surrounding farms had come to help Daet with the repairs.
“You should have been thinking about your future, Maggie,” her mamm said, her tone tight. “You’re twenty-five years old, and you do something like this?”
Maggie looked back toward her mother. Levinia Lapp was a petite woman, slender through the waist and with large, dewy eyes that made her look younger than her sixty years. The something that Mamm referred to was adding to Maggie’s already heavy reputation of being too forward, too opinionated, too brassy, to be marriageable. And at twenty-five, she was playing with a different kind of fire. She’d stopped attending the youth group two years ago when her younger sister got married. Maggie had been the oldest one there, and it was just getting embarrassing. She wouldn’t meet a man there, anyway. They were all too young for her.
“I needed something that was mine—my contribution. Did you think my quilts sold for so much?” Maggie asked, putting down her knife with a click. “That was how I was making the extra money, Mamm. And it was welcome this last year, was it not? With the lost calves and last spring’s drought—”
“I believed what you told me,” Mamm snapped back, and she closed her eyes and sucked in a breath through her nose. She remained motionless for a moment, seeming to gather her self-restraint, then opened her eyes again. “If I’d known where that money was coming from . . . Do you think the Lord needs you to sacrifice your future for a few extra dollars? We would have managed. What will people think?”
What people thought—that was the most important part. Maggie had been writing a column in Morinville, Indiana’s local Englisher newspaper—“Amish Advice for English Problems”—and it had been a hit. People from all over were writing in, looking for her advice on how to deal with their personal issues, and Maggie didn’t hold her tongue. It was a relief to be able to say it like she saw it. She called a sow a sow and gave some solid Amish advice and a few old proverbs thrown in. She didn’t use her own name, of course. They called her Miss Amish and there was no reason why anyone should have found out who Maggie was. After the bishop’s lengthy lecture about the proper meekness of Mary in the Christmas story, he’d let slip that Atley Troyer was the one who had clued them in to her column. . . Atley—the bishop’s nephew who’d broken her heart and moved away. How had he known? Was breaking her heart not enough?
“Mamm, I didn’t say anything that went against the church, or that would embarrass anyone,” Maggie replied. “In my column, I answered their questions honestly, and I said what we believe. That’s it. I have nothing to be ashamed of.”
“It’s not the words you used, but the pride!” her mother said. “Maggie, you put yourself before the eyes of countless Englishers! You made yourself into a . . . a—”
“I used a fake name,” Maggie cut in. “And no one knew who I was, so I wasn’t before anyone’s eyes.”
“And lying about who you were.” Her mother threw up her hands. “That doesn’t improve it. You’re a baptized member of the church.... Oh, no—”
“What?” Maggie picked up the knife and apple again and continued to peel.
“Are you thinking of leaving?” Mamm’s face visibly paled.
“No.” Maggie sighed. “Mamm, I’m an Amish woman, and I love our life. Why else would I write about our ways?”
But she’d written about their Amish ways without church approval, and Maggie knew she’d been wrong there. If she hadn’t been baptized yet, then it would have been different. But she’d made her choice and joined the church—the rules applied to her most strictly.
The writing had been a blessed relief. She’d sat out in the barn, her pen and a pad of paper balanced on her lap as she pored over the letters that were sent to her and wrote out her answer in longhand, her thoughts flowing onto paper. When she wrote, there was no one to answer to, no one to shoot her warning glances. No one to remind her that a man didn’t want a wife who had no control over her own tongue. Maggie’s problem had never been a lack of control over her own words, just a lack of proper Amish meekness that would keep those words inside of her. And at twenty-five with no offers of marriage in the offing, it would seem that the warnings had been right.
“You’re too much like your aunt Ruth,” Mamm said miserably. “You must try harder, Maggie. If you don’t, you’ll end up an old maid, just like her. Alone. Lonely.”
“She’s also smart as a whip and rather funny,” Maggie said, shooting her mother a conciliatory smile.
“Without children,” her mother retorted. “Without a family. Are you really going to argue that she’s better off single?”
No. Maggie wasn’t going to do that, because she knew that her aunt hadn’t wanted to end up this way. It had just happened. There was always someone left over, and when enough harvests went by with the available men marrying other girls . . . Maggie understood it all too well. She was living it.
Boots thunked against the outside steps. The men would come back for lunch soon enough, and they’d have a kitchen filled with hungry stomachs to feed. A man’s work was worth at least the food it took to fuel him, and their neighbors had come out this frigid December morning mere days before Christmas to help them in their time of need. Maggie put down her knife once more and headed over through the mudroom just as there was a knock at the door. She pulled open the door, and when she saw the man on the stoop her heart stuttered to a stop in her chest. He was clean shaven, with wind-reddened cheeks, broad shoulders, and that familiar little half-smile she knew so well.
“Atley,” she breathed.
“Maggie,” he replied. “I’m sorry to just appear on your step like this, but—”
He stopped, not finishing whatever he was going to say. Icy wind whipped into the house, and Maggie stepped back to allow him to enter, shutting the door after him. She crossed her arms under her breasts, eyeing him. He’d left town with his family five years ago, managed to reveal her Miss Amish writing from Bountiful, Pennsylvania, and now was back?
“What are you doing here?” she demanded, then felt the heat hit her cheeks. That was rude. “I mean . . . No, that is what I meant. Atley, why are you here?”
“I came to spend Christmas with my uncle,” he replied. “And when I arrived, my aunt told me that everyone was here. The fire—”
“Yes, the fire. They’re fixing things up now. It wasn’t too bad, which is a blessing.” She swallowed, looking up at him as her mind spun to catch up. “I see you’re not married,” she added. The clean shave made that plain enough, but it mattered. When he’d written her that letter telling her it was over, he’d mentioned another girl in Bountiful—someone more appropriate.
“Not yet.” He licked his lips. “You?”
“No.” Her single status was a sharper jab than his. A man could put off marriage all he wanted—there would be girls enough willing to marry him if he was financially stable. But a woman? No, she hadn’t had another offer of marriage after his. “And I think you know more about me than you pretend, Atley Troyer.”
He dropped his gaze. “You mean the newspaper. I’m sorry about that. If I caused you any trouble—”
“You declared your love, moved away, broke up with me, and then have the nerve to tell your uncle, the bishop, that I have one pleasure left in life. Did it ever occur to you, Atley, that you could have simply kept quiet?”
Atley was silent for a moment; then he sighed. “I’m sorry.”
“Not as sorry as I am,” she retorted.
“I saw the paper, and I thought it was interesting that an Amish woman would write for Englishers. We were all following it. You’re more famous than you think. I finally realized it was you, and I mentioned it to my father. He told my uncle”—he caught her eye and smiled wryly—“and the chain of gossip wasn’t your point.”
“How did you know?” she asked, lowering her voice. “I used a false name, I never breathed a word about it to anyone in our community—”
“It was some advice you gave a girl whose boyfriend wanted more from her than she felt comfortable giving. And you said that she should be careful because a boy from next door could sweep you off your feet, promise to marry you at the celery harvest, and tell you that your fingertips tasted like strawberries”—he stopped, lifted his shoulders—“and it was still possible for that boy to leave you behind, move on to another girl.”
Maggie’s throat tightened. “It was good advice. She needed to hear it.”
“That was me,” he said. “I said that about your fingertips. By the stream. When we’d sit there—” He cleared his throat. “And that’s when I knew that Miss Amish was you. I spoke to my father before I’d thought it through,” he said. “And for that I apologize. You’re right—I should have kept quiet. I came back to celebrate Christmas with my uncle and aunt, but also to see you—”
“Maggie, who is it?” Mamm came into the mudroom and stopped short, her eyes widening. “Atley Troyer.”
Mamm’s voice didn’t sound fully welcoming at first, but after she swallowed and pasted a smile on her face she adjusted her tone. “Atley,” she repeated. “Freulich Kristag. Happy Christmas. Come inside—”
“No, I only came by to say hello,” Atley said quickly. “I thank you, though. I meant to head on over to the barn and lend a hand.”
“It’s kind of you, Atley,” Mamm said, her smile relaxing. “We had no idea you were even here—”
“Maggie can explain,” he said, putting a hand on the doorknob. His dark gaze swung back over to Maggie again, and she noted that he’d changed over the last five years. He was broader, stronger, definitely older. But those eyes were the same, and they still managed to pin her to the spot, whether she liked it or not.
And she didn’t like it. She’d rather resent him than forgive him. She’d rather remember his betrayal than see those dark eyes meeting hers again, bringing up old feelings that she’d buried long ago, stamping dirt over top of them and letting the weeds take root.
Atley opened the door and stepped back outside, the wind whisking past him and making the gooseflesh stand up on her arms.
“We’ll see you at lunch, then,” Mamm said, and she put a hand on Maggie’s elbow, giving her a firm squeeze.
“We’ll see you at lunch,” Maggie echoed, and she watched Atley as he tramped through the spinning snow, back out to his horse and buggy. Another gust of wind took her breath away, and she swung the door shut.
“Maggie?” Mamm said quietly.
“He didn’t have to tell his father anything, or Bishop Graber.” She brushed past her mother and went back to the counter where the apples waited. Atley had known it was her, and he could have simply kept the secret in honor of whatever it was he’d felt for her all those years ago, even if whatever he’d felt hadn’t been enough to keep him.
Atley had betrayed her once five years ago when he broke her heart, and he’d done it again when he exposed her secret and took away the last place she could speak her mind. A good Amish woman might be meek like Mary in the Christmas story, but Maggie hadn’t been doing any harm. And that vent for her thoughts and ideas had been slammed shut on her, and she could already feel the pressure inside of her mounting.
He could have kept quiet!
* * *
Atley dumped the last shovelful of wet ash into the wheelbarrow, knocking against metal with a satisfying clang. The fire had broken out when a kerosene lantern had fallen into a box of feed and several stalls had been burned, and the northwest corner of the barn had been burned black before they managed to put it out. Looking around at the damage, Atley could only think that the Lapps would be grateful it hadn’t been worse.
He’d worked in this barn before . . . years ago, when he had been taking Maggie home from singing every week. He used to help her daet on the farm from time to time—an excuse to see her, mostly. And looking around at the familiar space made sadness well up inside of him. He’d had hopes back then that included Magdalena, even though his parents had been against the match from the beginning.
The other men had gone into the house for lunch, and since Atley’s aunt had fed him a quick meal before he’d headed on over to the Lapp farm this morning, he said he wasn’t hungry and wanted to keep working.
The other men had exchanged a look and didn’t argue it—they knew his history with Maggie Lapp, and perhaps they understood. He’d rather be hungry than face her with an audience. There was too much unsaid between them.
Atley scooped up another shovelful of ash and dumped it into the wheelbarrow. He worked methodically, pausing to sweep up the smaller cinders into a pile before he slid the shovel underneath it. There was a burned hole in the wall, and snow blew inside, melting on the floor as he worked.
His mind wasn’t on the work, though. He was still thinking of Maggie and the fact that she’d been the writer behind that column. He’d been reading it for the better part of a year before he’d realized who was writing it, and in that time he’d grown to appreciate that compassionate yet direct voice from the newspaper. And he wasn’t the only one. The young people from his community liked reading that column, too, and they’d gone so far as to have a new copy of the Morinville Chronicle mailed to them in Bountiful, Pennsylvania, regularly, and it was passed around from house to house as the teens read “Amish Advice for English Problems.”
The writer was sensitive, funny, insightful. She was most definitely Amish—they’d all recognized that right away—but she was compassionate to the Englisher problems, too. She genuinely seemed to care, and reading the column, one couldn’t help but feel that she’d care about any of her readers’ problems. A couple of the Amish teens had even written to her, asking her advice, and she’d answered one of them. It had been a question from a young man about whether or not a girl was interested in him and whether he should ask to drive her home from singing.
Is she kind? Miss Amish had asked. Does she care about your feelings, or does she just wait for you to do things for her? Will she be there for you when you need love and support, or will she expect you to always be perfect to earn her affection? Kindness matters. Only ask to drive her if you are certain about that quality in her character.
It had been a good answer, and her simplicity in breaking down the problem made fans of all of them.
So when he finally made the connection that Maggie Lapp was Miss Amish, he’d been stunned, and the words had just fallen out of him around the dinner table that night. He hadn’t meant to get her into any trouble, but it would seem that he had. But maybe he should have made the connection earlier. Whoever was writing for an Englisher paper had to be a brave woman—a woman unafraid of declaring her opinion to anyone at large—and that didn’t describe very many Amish women.
The barn door opened behind him, and Atley turned. Maggie came inside, a basket over her arm. She shook the snow from her shawl that she’d draped over her head and dropped it down around her shoulders. He stood there watching her, uncertain of what to say, when she met his gaze and gave him a curt nod.
“I told my mother you wouldn’t want to see me, but she insisted that I bring you your lunch.”
Atley smiled wanly at her dry humor. “I didn’t mean to put you to extra work.”
“Sometimes we succeed where we don’t even mean to,” she replied with a small smile.
Atley leaned the shovel against the wall and pulled off his work gloves. She always did have a teasing remark on the tip of her tongue. The barn was cold with the wind whipping in through that charred hole, and he angled around the half-burned stall and met her by the hay bales—thankfully safe from the fire.
“It was nice of you to bring it,” he said, accepting the basket and peeking under the towel. There were some dinner rolls visible and two bowls covered by plates. He could smell the fried chicken, though, and his stomach growled.
“You could have come in,” she said as he sat down on a bale and pulled the plates off the bowls. There was fried chicken, as he’d smelled, and a bowl of Waldorf salad.
“I thought I’d just get more work done.” He didn’t meet her gaze. Instead, he pulled out a fork and cloth napkin, then bowed his head for a silent prayer.
“You’re helping us out,” she said once he’d raised his head. “And that’s worth a meal, at least, Atley.”
“I . . . ” He paused, met her gaze. “I did want to see you.”
Was he wrong to admit to that? He’d willingly come to his uncle’s farm, right next to the Lapp land. He’d known he’d see her, and he’d even been hoping to. He’d been unfair to her five years ago, and he hadn’t been able to let go of the nagging guilt. He hadn’t been able to commit to another woman, and he had to wonder if his reluctance was rooted in his guilt. Maybe God wanted him to make amends with Maggie first.
“Why?” she asked, then shook her head. “You made your choice, and it wasn’t me.”
“I was wrong in how I broke it off,” he said. “I should have talked to you—face-to-face.”
“You were in Bountiful,” she replied. “I didn’t expect it.”
Hadn’t she? She’d written him back, and her letter had torn his heart to shreds. She’d said how she loved him, how she hated him for what he’d done to her, how she’d never love another man like she’d loved him. . . . He’d kept it and read it, reread it. Finally, he’d had to burn it, hoping to put her behind him. It hadn’t worked.
“I’m sorry, Maggie,” he said. “I never meant to become your cautionary tale of men who break the hearts of good girls. I hate that.”
“You are my cautionary tale,” she said curtly. “Not that I need to repeat the story to the girls here. It’s common knowledge.”
“The column, though—” He winced. “You’re a good writer. I didn’t know that about you.”
“Well, now the bishop has ordered me to stop writing for the Chronicle. It’s over.”
“He ordered you—” Atley heaved a sigh. Of course he would. It was untraditional, and Uncle Ben was nothing if not a guardian of the Ordnung. “You are a good writer, though.”
“I’m a woman,” she said, and her voice sounded hollow. “My role is not to write. My role is cook, care for the men, and teach the next generation how to do the same. Your uncle was very clear on that, as were my parents and several of the elders. Maybe I’ll follow in my aunt Ruth’s footsteps and teach school.”
“Will you keep writing?” he asked.
“For who?” She lifted her shoulders weakly. “Not for the Chronicle. That has been forbidden. Not for the Amish—who would listen to me? For my children?”
“You’ll marry,” he said. Look at her—she was beautiful! She always had been, with the fire in her eyes. She’d always been able to make him catch his breath.
“Will I?” She dropped her gaze. “I always thought so, but I’m not meek or gentle. Not enough, at least. I think too much and I talk too much. I’ve tried to be better, but it doesn’t work. If I was to be married, it would have happened by now.”
Wasn’t that what his own father had said about Maggie? Magdalena wasn’t the kind of woman who could find sweet comfort in motherhood and in following her husband’s leadership. She was stubborn by nature, and she was vocal. Marriage was for life with the Amish, for better or for worse. And the choice in wife was one that would follow a man for the rest of his days. Or hers. Maggie would be trouble, Atley’s father assured him. And Atley had grudgingly seen his father’s point. His heart could only take him so far. A marriage without prudence was doomed.
As for Maggie’s marital future, all he knew was that finding her still single had been a wild, irrational relief. And he felt guilty for that, too, because he couldn’t be the one to marry her.
“Your daet asked me to help him a little over Christmas,” he said. “I didn’t answer him yet. I wasn’t sure if you’d want me to.”
“If my daet needs help—”
“Maggie, I’m asking you!” He reached over and caught her hand. It had been by instinct, and as his fingers closed around hers he realized his mistake. It was too personal—they weren’t what they used to be the last time he’d sat in this barn with her. He released her hand and pushed himself to his feet. “I’ve done you wrong, Maggie. I don’t want to make it worse. If you want me to leave your family’s farm alone, I will. I’m sure my uncle will understand. As will your daet.”
“Your uncle has his own farm to run,” she replied. “And we have a barn to repair before Christmas, if possible. Daet needs you.”
That sounded like permission to him, and he eyed her for a moment. “I am sorry, Maggie.”
“For what?” she asked. “For breaking my heart, or stealing my voice?”
For both. He just looked at her.
She gestured to the plates. “Leave the dishes when you’re done eating. I’ll collect them later.”
“Maggie—”
“Atley, you’ve done enough. Help my daet to fix the barn. Then you can go back to your life in Bountiful with a clear conscience.”
She rose to her feet and moved toward the door. She moved briskly, and she didn’t look back.
She’d stifle here in Morinville without her letters and her column. It would be like sucking the breath right from her lungs—he could see that clear as day. And maybe that was proof that she wasn’t the kind of woman for an Amish man to tie himself to. He needed a woman who was stable and sweet, honest and kind, who was satisfied with raising children and keeping a home. He needed the kind of girl she’d described in that letter, who would be the foundation he needed when times were hard.
Maggie disappeared out the barn door, and it clattered shut behind her.
She’d stifle here in Morinville, and that was his fault. Because she wasn’t like the other Amish women and he’d betrayed her secret.