Their Amish Reunion

Shunned but not really shunned.

Alone in the middle of the world he’d loved and left.

Longing for a woman he’d loved and left.

Dear Father, I don’t think I can do this.

“Jeremiah?”

He whirled, hoping.

But it wasn’t Ava Jane walking toward him with a tall glass of lemonade. His sister, Beth, came up to the fence he’d been working on. “I reckoned you’d be thirsty.”

“Ja.” He took a long swig of the cool tart liquid. “Denke.” His little sister gave him the curious expression he remembered so well. “Is there something else you need to say, Beth?”

Beth watched as the big Belgian geldings munched on their evening hay. “You stayed out here all day. You must be exhausted.”

“I’m used to hard work.” He glanced back toward the house.

“They have left, Jeremiah. You can come inside now.”

“I’m used to being outside, too,” he replied. “It’s nice to be back on the land.”

Again, that curious stare. “What was it like, Jeremiah? Out there, I mean.”

His gut clenched. He didn’t talk about such things. None of them ever did. For one thing, his team members were trained to stay quiet about their missions. But then, how could he explain it to innocent, pure Beth? Or anyone for that matter. The brutality of being in such a secretive, demanding career changed some men in ways that could never be explained. But he had refused to let it change him.

He did not want to talk about it either.

Instead, he did a scan of the landscape, his gaze hitting the big creek where he’d frolicked and played with Jacob, with Ava Jane sometimes watching from the shore or the bridge. “What happened to Jacob?” he asked.

Beth shot him a disappointed frown. “Did you not hear? I thought I told you in one of my letters.”

“No. I didn’t even know she...Ava Jane...was a widow. You never mentioned that in your letters.”

“I did try to contact you, but later I tried not to mention her in my letters,” Beth replied, guilt coloring her pretty eyes. “I didn’t want you to think of a married woman, and then I only wrote about our family, since I didn’t want to gossip or hurt you.”

“I thought of her every day,” he admitted. “Now, tell me what happened to Jacob.”

Beth swallowed and held on to the weathered fence post. “He drowned down in the creek.”

Jeremiah flinched and closed his eyes. “How? He was a fair swimmer.”

“He went in after a trapped calf and, from what the sheriff could put together, he must have fallen and hit his head. They found a deep gash over his left temple. He was knocked out and went underwater. Just a foot or so of water.”

Jeremiah hit a hand against the fence, causing the old wood to crack. Beth stepped back, shock in her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he said in a gravelly whisper, his heart rate accelerating. “I...I had to learn to swim one thousand yards in twenty minutes and to hold my breath for at least two minutes underwater. I mastered scuba diving, underwater demolition and swimming for miles at a time. I could have... I could have saved him.”

Beth’s expression filled with shock at what he’d blurted out, but she shook her head, a hand on his arm. “You weren’t here, Jeremiah. And even if you had been, the fall caused him to go underwater. No amount of training or ability can change that.”

“I should have been here,” Jeremiah said, the rage at what he’d done bubbling up inside of him. “I should have been here.”

He tried to move away but Beth held him still. “If you had been here, you would have been married to Ava Jane, and Jacob would have been somewhere else that day.”

“Ja,” he said, nodding in a rapid-fire gesture of anger. “Exactly.”

Then he did pull away, leaving his confused, frightened sister to stare after him.

If he’d been here, everything would have been different.

But now that he was back, so many things had changed forever.

Chapter Five (#u7f8207f7-8e09-5d31-91c1-3b2dd1a882ef)

A week later, Jeremiah stood in the hardware aisle at Hartford’s General Store when Ava Jane came in, carrying a basket of muffins. Everyone praised her muffins and pastries, and he noticed Mr. Hartford kept a supply in stock at the store, which meant she was earning money by selling them there. Jeremiah had bought a couple. Good, sturdy muffins full of oatmeal, nuts and fruits. Carrot muffins, banana muffins, pumpkin, too. He even got ahold of a zucchini one and he didn’t even like zucchini.

No fancy cupcakes for Ava Jane. She believed in hearty, stick-to-the-ribs food.

He watched now as she smiled shyly while Mr. Hartford bragged about her cooking skills to a couple of giggly female tourists out for a day of “experiencing all things Amish.”

Ava Jane listened and smiled and answered their questions with grace and patience. After the women bought a bagful of the baked goods right out of her basket, Mr. Hartford took the rest and placed them near the register.

Then Ava Jane turned to shop, her eyes meeting Jeremiah’s, her serene smile fading into a wisp of air.

He caught up with her in the produce aisle, where tender seedling plants lined the bins near the fresh produce. “Hi.”

“Hello, Jeremiah,” she said, her dainty hand patting her bonnet. “How are you?”

“Gut,” he said. “Just gathering some supplies to fix things around the place.”

Sympathy colored her eyes a sad blue. “It must be hard, seeing your daed like this. He was such a fine, strong man. I’m so sorry.”

Jeremiah had to swallow the lump in his throat. “He hasn’t woken once since I’ve been home. I talk to him but...”

“He hears you,” she said, something shifting in her attitude, her eyes softening, almost as if a wall had crashed down around her. “He hears you. It’s gut you came home.”

“Is it?” he asked, wishing it so. Wishing he could have come home to friendly greetings and a welcoming community. Everyone tolerated him, but Jeremiah wasn’t sure he’d ever belong here again. The bishop and the ministers and the deacons were all probably shaking their heads about what to do with him.

He had to stay on course, stay on the straight and narrow. Surprisingly, his military training was coming in handy. He could focus. He could go into a zone and see things through to the finish. Because he wanted this now as much as he’d wanted that then.

He prayed every night. He prayed while he sat with his father. He prayed when he looked into Ava Jane’s eyes.

Ava Jane looked shocked at his question. “It can be good, ja. Isn’t that why you came back? To make things right again?”

He nodded and wished he could snap his fingers and fix everything. But the bishop had warned him this would be a long, hard journey. “I have a lot of work to do yet,” he said. “I guess I’d better get going.”

“Not all of your work will be out in the fields, Jeremiah,” she said. Could she see into his heart?