Home to Paradise. Barbara Cameron

to admit that she worked hard to get her way when she wanted something.

      Or someone. First John. Then Peter. Now John again.

      But if you were doing things with the best of intentions it was allrecht, right? She loved John, and she just wanted them to be together. She wanted him to come back to her. To come back to his life in their community. To come back to his faith, his church.

      She wanted him home.

      “Most couples find a way to work together, don’t you think?” Kate was saying.

      “Yes, if they get to be a couple,” Rose Anna muttered.

      “Ah, so that’s the problem. I always thought it was an advantage that the Amish grow up in a community and know each other for years before they date and get married. We don’t usually get to know each other for that length of time in my community. Malcolm and I knew each other for about a year before we got married, and that was a long time compared to some of my friends.”

      She checked her rearview mirror and ran a hand through her short swing of brown hair. “I know people are still wondering how we got together—I mean, who’d have figured, the cop and the con—but it works for us. We have two beautiful kids and a mortgage, and we just celebrated our anniversary last week. We’re doing just fine.”

      Rose Anna knew the story. Kate had been a police officer when Malcolm Kraft came to Paradise looking for Chris Matlock, a former buddy of his in the military. But he wasn’t looking to renew their friendship. Chris had testified against him for a crime he’d committed, and Malcolm was out for vengeance.

      He’d followed Chris to Paradise where Chris was visiting Jenny Bontrager. Chris and Jenny had met briefly when they’d both been recuperating from injuries suffered overseas and kept in touch. Her stories of her life as a convert to the Amish church and how much she loved Paradise had inspired Chris to come here. Malcolm confronted Chris and, in the confusion of it all, accidentally shot Jenny’s sister-in-law, Hannah. Kate had been the first officer on the scene. Hannah had forgiven Malcolm and asked Kate to help make sure he got probation and the rehabilitation and counseling he needed instead of prison. One thing had led to another. Two opposites—a con and a cop—had married and, as Kate said, it was working very well indeed.

      Rose Anna and John were such a different story, she thought as she helped Kate carry boxes of crafts to the store.

      She and John had known each other all their lives. They’d gone to schul together, played and learned and fought and worshipped together. They’d been in and out of each other’s homes for years and now shared families as well since their siblings had married each other.

      She’d thought John might decide to stay in the Amish community when he’d moved back with his bruder Sam, but after Sam married her schweschder Mary Elizabeth, and they bought their own farm, that hope was dashed. John had refused their offer to stay with them and moved back to town, and now Rose Anna felt she was back to square one. An Amish maedel didn’t visit a single man’s home without a chaperone, so the only way she could see him was if he visited their mutual relatives.

      And she knew with the way he didn’t get along with his dat that visits to Lavina and David’s haus would be infrequent.

      Carrie smiled at them as she bagged a purchase for a customer, handed it to her, and told her to come again.

      “How nice to see you two,” she said, coming out from behind the counter. “New stock! Can’t wait to see what you have for us.”

      The three of them pulled crafts from the boxes, and Carrie got excited about the Christmas tree ornaments made from yo-yo circles. Carrie set aside the pricing guide that was included in the box and said she’d be putting things out that afternoon.

      “So did you hear? I’m working full-time here,” Carrie told them, bubbling with excitement. “Who’d have thought things would turn around this much since I had to live at the shelter?”

      “You’re one of their success stories,” Kate told her.

      “Thanks to you and Pearl. Listen, I’ll go tell Leah you’re here.”

      “Don’t bother,” Kate said quickly. “I haven’t been in for two weeks, so I want to look at the new fabric.”

      As they walked through the entranceway that connected the shop to Stitches in Time, Rose Anna heard Kate sniff. She glanced at her. “Are you okay?”

      “Fine. It’s just allergies.”

      But Rose Anna watched her surreptitiously wipe away a tear.

      “It makes you feel good, doesn’t it?”

      She nodded, took a deep breath as they walked down aisles of fabric bolts. “Makes up for all the times you don’t make a difference.”

      It must be like being a mudder, Rose Anna thought as she stopped at a table to look at a particularly pretty blue fabric. She remembered how her schweschder Mary Elizabeth had bought yards of a similar color and silky texture for her wedding dress and kept it in her closet for a long time when Sam had left her not long before she’d expected to get married. Rose Anna and their mudder had been so happy to help her sew it when Mary Elizabeth and Sam had finally gotten married.

      She stroked the fabric and thought about buying it for a wedding dress. As it got closer to harvest, other Amish maedels would be buying fabric for their weddings and it would get scarce. Many favored blue for their wedding day.

      “That would be pretty on you. Are you going to make yourself a new dress?”

      Rose Anna glanced up and felt herself blushing as Leah came to stand next to her. “Oh, hi.”

      She glanced down at the fabric. Maybe it was early to buy it for a wedding dress, but suddenly she wanted it. She and John would be married. She was convinced of it.

      “Why not?”

      Leah picked up the bolt and carried it over to the cutting table. Rose Anna gave her the order for the number of yards she’d need and watched her begin cutting the dress length.

      She’d take it home and tuck it away on the top shelf of her closet for her wedding day.

      Kate brought two bolts over for Leah to cut. “I’m going to have to find a way to sneak this into the house,” she told Rose Anna as Leah unfolded the fabric on the table and cut it. “Malcolm bet me I can’t go without buying fabric for a month, and there’s still another week to go. I’m hoping he’s not home yet.”

      So both of them would be keeping secrets, she thought. There was no way she could show the fabric she’d bought—or at least she wouldn’t want to say she bought it for her wedding. She didn’t care to have her schweschders make comments about that.

      “Well, that was a nice end to the morning,” Kate said as they walked out to the car. She put her package in the trunk before she got into the driver’s seat. “Do you have time for lunch? It’ll be my treat.”

      “I’d love to have lunch, but there’s no need to treat me. When Leah rang up my fabric, she gave me more orders for quilts. I’d say I—well, my mudder and schweschders—had a very nice ending to the morning.”

      “I insist. I’m in such a good mood. I was so happy to see Brooke in the class even for a short time. It’s progress.”

      Rose Anna nodded, and as they left town she found herself wondering when she would see progress on her own goal.

      It was time to take the next step.