Redeeming Grace. Emma Miller

giggled. “A sister.”

      “Thank you,” Grace managed. “Thank you all.” She looked at the women and the boy, all looking at her.

      Exactly what she was going to do now?

      * * *

      Grace hadn’t thought she’d be able to sleep a wink, but she’d drifted off to the sound of rain falling against the windowpanes and the soft hum of Dakota’s breathing. And when she’d opened her eyes, it was full morning, the rain had stopped and the sun was shining.

      My father is dead, she thought. She’d come all this way, only to find out that he was as lost to her as Trudie. She felt numb. What was plan B? Where did she go now? What did she do?

      “I’m hungry,” Dakota said, interrupting her thoughts.

      “Can I have more cookies?” He popped his thumb in his mouth.

      “No cookies this morning,” she said.

      No one had said a thing about Dakota’s dark skin the night before, but she’d be ready for their questions. When Hannah and her sisters asked, and Grace was sure they would, she’d tell the truth—that Dakota’s father had been Native American. Marg had said that the Amish were backward, old-fashioned and set in their ways. Grace hoped that didn’t include judging people by the color of their skin, because if they couldn’t accept Dakota, then she wanted no part of them.

      But they hadn’t seemed to care.

      Grace looked down at Dakota’s little face as her mind raced. Plan B. She had to have a plan B. But maybe...maybe plan B should be the same as plan A. Or close. Why couldn’t it be? Hannah had been so nice to her. So welcoming.

      “Cookies aren’t for breakfast,” she told her son as she got out of bed and put her arms out to him. “But I’m sure Miss Hannah will be able to find something for you in her kitchen.”

      Just thinking of that kitchen made a lump rise in Grace’s throat. It was exactly the kind of kitchen she’d expected to find in her father’s house, only better. It was big and warm and homey, all the things that the kitchens she’d known in her life weren’t. And the Amish she’d met last night, even suspicious Aunt Jezzy and tough Johanna, were right for Hannah’s kitchen.

      What would it have been like to grow up here? she wondered. To belong to a world as safe as this one? To be part of a family who could welcome total strangers into their home and feed them and give them a place to sleep without asking for anything in return?

      It all seemed too much. She’d just do what she’d always done when things got scary or uncertain. She’d do what was most important first and worry about the rest later. And now, finding something to feed her hungry child was what mattered. Plan B could wait.

      She tidied the two of them up in the bathroom, took Dakota by the hand and, heart in her throat, led him back to the spacious kitchen.

      Grace could smell coffee, bacon and other delicious odors coming from the kitchen as she walked down the hall. “Now, you be a good boy,” she whispered to

      Dakota as she led him by the hand. Nervously, she slicked his cowlick back and tried to pat it down. “Show all these nice people just how sweet you are.”

      Hannah, two of the sisters that she’d met the night before and Aunt Jezzy were gathered at the kitchen table.

      “Miriam’s taking my place at the school this morning,” Hannah explained. “You’ll meet her, Ruth and Anna later. And this...” She waved toward a thirtyish brown-haired man in a blue chambray shirt and jeans sitting at the head of the table. “This is our friend John Hartman. John, this is Grace.”

      Grace nodded. He didn’t look Amish to her. His hair was cropped short, almost in a military cut, and he had no beard. Definitely not a cowboy type; he was nice-looking in an old-fashioned, country way.

      John rose to his feet, nodded and smiled at her. “Pleased to meet you, Grace.”

      “He’s having breakfast,” Susanna explained as John sat down again. “He eats breakfast here a lot. He likes our breakfast.” She picked up Dakota and sat him next to her on an old wooden booster seat in a chair.

      “I stopped by to check on one of Johanna’s ewes that got caught in a fence and Susanna caught me and...forced me to the table.”

      Grace wanted to ask if he was a farmer; it sounded as if he knew something about animals. She liked animals, especially dogs, and she’d always felt more at ease around them than people. The best job she’d ever had was working at a kennel where she cleaned cages and took care of dogs boarded there while their families were on vacation. Trying not to say the wrong thing in front of her new family, though, she decided that the less she said to a strange man, the better.

      Susanna laughed. “You’re silly, John. You said you were sooo hungry and Mam’s biscuits smelled sooo good.”

      “I did and they do,” he agreed.

      “He wanted to get married with Miriam,” Susanna happily explained, offering Dakota a cup of milk. “But she got married with Charley.”

      John’s face flushed, but he shrugged, and looked right at Grace. “What can I say?” He grinned. “Always a bridesmaid, never a bride.”

      The others were laughing, so Grace forced a polite smile. John seemed like a stand-up guy, a real gentleman. As she accepted the cup of coffee Hannah handed her, Grace couldn’t help wondering why her half

      sister had turned John down. If a man as good-looking as John, who had a job he could work when it rained, asked her, she’d marry him in a second.

      Chapter Three

      John finished off two slices of scrapple, two biscuits and a mound of scrambled eggs, but as much as he normally enjoyed Hannah’s cooking, he may as well have been eating his uncle’s frozen-in-a-box sausage bagels. He couldn’t take his eyes off the attractive, almost-model-thin redhead, wearing the strangest Plain clothing he’d ever seen on a woman.

      Her name was Grace. A pretty name for a pretty girl. He knew he would have remembered her if he’d ever seen her before. She was obviously related to the Yoders; she looked like Hannah’s girls. From the attention she was giving the boy, she was probably his mother or at least his aunt. He didn’t look like the Yoders, though. And the two of them sure didn’t look Amish. So why had they spent the night here?

      John was Mennonite, and among his people, staying in the homes of total strangers who shared the same faith was commonplace. Mennonites could travel all over the world and always be certain of a warm welcome from friendly hosts, whether it was for a weekend or a month. But the Amish were a people apart and rarely mingled socially with outsiders, who they called Englishers.

      “‘Come out from among them and be separate.’” 2 Corinthian 6:14. It was a verse that John had heard quoted many times since he’d come to join his uncle’s and grandfather’s veterinary practice. Because he specialized in large farm animals, many of his clients were Old Order Amish. Mennonites and Amish shared many of the same principles, and because he’d come close to marrying a Yoder daughter, he’d gotten to know the Amish in a way that few Englishers did.

      Who was this mystery woman with such a haunting look of vulnerability? And what was so important about Grace’s visit that Hannah—who never missed school—had taken the day off from teaching? John couldn’t wait to get one of the Yoders alone and find out.

      He lingered as long as he could at the table, having more coffee, eating when he wasn’t really hungry and trying his best to engage Grace in conversation. But either she didn’t answer or gave only one-word responses to his questions, intriguing him even further.

      Eventually, he ran out of excuses to sit at Hannah’s table and glanced at his watch. “I hate to leave such good company,” he said, “but I have an appointment out at Rob Miller’s farm.” Repeating his thanks and wishing the others a good day,