Her Secret Amish Child

  An Amish Second Chance

  Newly widowed Lizbeth Mullet has a secret: she’s never told anyone the true identity of her son’s father. Not even now that she’s come home to Pinecraft and the man in question is her new landlord. Fredrik Lapp may not know Benuel is his son, but the two soon form an unmistakable bond. And seeing Fredrik again stirs feelings Lizbeth had worked hard to bury. With Fredrick’s affections resurfacing, too, the burden of Lizbeth’s secret is only getting heavier. Revealing the truth could mean a lifetime of happiness together—or the loss of her second chance at forever.

  “I appreciate your help, but I can clean the rest myself,” Lizbeth assured him.

  One of the ladies tossed him a new trash bag. He squatted and began to work on the pile of trash under the steps. “This is my fault,” he said, glancing up and grinning at her in the goofy way he had when he was a boy. The memory made her heart skip a beat.

  “But I made the mess.” She picked up a half-eaten apple off the step and tossed it into the bag.

  Fredrik’s grin spread into a full-blown smile. “Ya, but I was supposed to fix that raised nail this morning before it could cause someone trouble.”

  The past fell away and she was a girl of seventeen again, looking into the sparkling blue eyes of the young Fredrik Lapp. He continued to hold her gaze. She pulled her eyes away. The man was having too much fun at her expense. She didn’t have a clue what to do about it or the emotions churning in her stomach. But she knew she couldn’t let herself grow too close to him. Not this time. Too much was at stake.

  Cheryl Williford and her veteran husband, Henry, live in South Texas, where they’ve raised three children, numerous foster children, alongside a menagerie of rescued cats, dogs and hamsters. Her love for writing began in a literature class, and now her characters keep her grabbing for paper and pen. She is a member of her local ACFW and CWA chapters, and is a seamstress, watercolorist and loving grandmother. Her website is cherylwilliford.com.

  Books by Cheryl Williford

  Love Inspired

  Pinecraft Homecomings

  Her Secret Amish Child

  The Amish Widow’s Secret

  The Amish Midwife’s Courtship

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  HER SECRET

  AMISH CHILD

  Cheryl Williford

  Fear not, for I am with you; Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, Yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.

  —Isaiah 41:10

  I dedicate this book to my husband, Henry, who endures endless hours of backstory and plot. To my two daughters, Barbara and Susan. You make me want to succeed. And to God, who gave me writing when I needed a clear and untroubled path. God bless ACFW’s Golden Girls critique group. Nanci, Liz, Shannon and Jan…you dear, talented ladies make my job so much easier.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Epilogue

  Dear Reader

  Excerpt from The Cowboy's Easter Family Wish by Lois Richer

  Chapter One

  Pinecraft, Florida—a midsummer afternoon

  Had she made yet another mistake?

  “Don’t touch that seat again,” Lizbeth Mullet said, stretching across her son’s extended legs to wedge their carry-on bag in front of his small brown shoes, hoping to block his incessant movement.

  Three times in the past hour Benuel had slapped or kicked at her when she’d scolded him. Each time she hadn’t known what to do, how to change the overactive four-year-old boy’s behavior. She knew what she wanted to do, what felt like the right thing to do, but her built-in insecurities held her back, forced her to doubt her abilities as a single parent. A torturous night without sleep and little to eat added to her misery.

  “Pinecraft, Florida,” the bus driver announced. With the flick of his wrist he turned the bus’s steering wheel and headed off the highway to his designated stop.

  Several people milled around the parking lot of the Pinecraft Tourist Church, waiting for loved ones to arrive. With her father running late, no one would be waiting for her and the boy. They’d left Ohio in secret, telling no one except her father they were leaving or where they were going. There would be no going back. Her late husband’s family could not hurt them now.

  The Amish and Mennonite people scattered throughout the Pioneer Trails bus began to reach under seats for bags and wake up sleeping children.

  Memories of the quaint little resort town she once called home beckoned. Pinecraft Park was on her right, and her father’s prosperous chicken farm a few miles down the road, on the outskirts of the small town of Sarasota. She had grown up in this community of Old and New Order Amish people. This is where she belonged. Gott willing, she would heal and regain her strength here, around the people who knew her best and loved her.

  Scrambling to gather up their belongings while trying to keep Benuel from climbing over her legs and escaping, Lizbeth tucked his bag of toys under her arm and scooped up their satchel from the floor.

  “I want my car,” he demanded, grabbing for the toy sack.

  Standing, Lizbeth put out her hand and forced a smile she didn’t feel. “Not now, soh. When your Grossdaddi comes for us I’ll find it for you.”

  “I’m thirsty.” Tall like her and lightly dotted with ginger freckles across his nose, he allowed her to take his hand after a moment of debate and shuffled by her side to the front of the bus. He touched each seat as he passed, counting aloud. “One, two, three.”

  “That’s very good,” Lizbeth encouraged. Early on Benuel had showed signs of being slow with numbers and letters. Perhaps his developmental delay had been caused by the long, painful labor she’d endured, but she noticed he’d come out of his shell some since her husband Jonah’s death and was beginning to respond to her positive encouragement.

  Taking the bus driver’s extended hand, Lizbeth stepped down into the sultry heat of the cloudless summer day. She had missed the smell of the sea.

  Benuel hopped down each step. His eyes darted around, the enthusiasm in them making her grin. He’d spent too many hours on the farm and was seldom with children his age. Seeing only her husband’s family had left him shy and unsocial and sometimes angry, but today he looked different, ready to conquer the world.

  “Do you have more bags on the bus, ma’am?”

  Lizbeth nodded and let go of Benuel’s hand as she dug through her purse for the silver ticket she’d been given when she’d relinquished their larger suitcase back in Ohio. Blond hairs escaping from her crushed prayer kapp blew around her face. “Yes. A small one, but I’d like to pick it up a bit later when my daed arrives, if that’s all right. He warned me he’d be run
ning late.”

  “Sure. You hold on to that ticket and come get it inside the church when you’re ready.” He tipped his head. “Thanks for riding Pioneer Trails.”

  She turned to make sure Benuel was at her side, found him gone and held back a groan. He was nowhere to be seen. Twisting back and forth, she searched the remaining cluster of people standing close by and then saw movement near a row of picturesque shops on her right. Her heart began to pound against her breastbone. It was Benuel, and he was running.

  Forgetting to breathe, she chased after him, her black lace-up shoes slapping hard against the hot pavement. Fear pushed her forward. She had to catch him before he made it to the street and oncoming traffic. He had no fear of roads. His experience with the small-town streets of Iris, Ohio, could be counted on one hand. Someone had always been holding on to him, directing his path. But not now.

  “Benuel James, stop!”

  Startled by her shout, a swarm of shiny black grackles took flight and made their way to treetops across the street.

  She quickly crossed the shop’s parking lot and pushed off the curb, fear building and twisting her stomach into knots. She couldn’t lose Benuel, too.

  Her son rushed on, laughing, his reddish-blond hair blowing in the breeze, blissfully unaware of the danger he was in.

  Crossing the road, Benuel’s body mere inches from her grasp, she glanced both ways as she sprinted close behind him.

  Sunrays reflected off the silver scooter approaching. Her heart skipped a beat, uncertain she could reach Benuel before it was too late. She ignored the blast of the scooter’s horn and lunged forward, desperate to reach her son before the speeding scooter. Bent forward, she stumbled, but managed to grasp the back of Benuel’s shirt as she went down.

  Dread grabbed her by the throat. Hot, sticky air filled her lungs as she gasped for breath.

  Please, Gott, please. Don’t let us be hit. She pulled his squirming body close to hers and rolled.

  The whirr of the scooter’s motor and the screeching of the tires braking caused Lizbeth’s body to tense. She held tight to her son and squeezed her eyes closed.

  The raw sounds of scraping metal enveloped them and then stopped.

  The fast-paced beat of her heart hammered in her ears, her chest, ticking off the seconds.

  Close by, birds squawked high in the trees lining the road, and then all was silent.

  What had happened?

  Afraid to look, she slowly opened her eyes.

  Heat shimmered off the deserted two-lane road where they lay. She scrambled up and searched her son’s body for injuries.

  A startled expression widened Benuel’s sky blue eyes. She hugged him close and whispered, “You’re fine. Don’t be frightened, soh.” He seemed unharmed, with the exception of an insignificant graze on his left elbow, no doubt caused from being pulled down on the hot asphalt.

  Her breath came fast. She had to force herself to calm down. The boy didn’t need to see her fear. He’d had enough trauma in his young life. He was her only living child and so precious to her. What if Gott had snatched him away, too? How would she have lived?

  She placed him on his feet and watched for signs of pain, but saw none. Relieved, she crushed him to her and cooed as if he were a baby. “My sweet boy. Mamm loves you.”

  “You’re hurting me,” Benuel squealed, the flat of his hands pushing her away.

  Lizbeth sighed with relief. She was upset. Not her son. It had been an adventure to him. “I’m sorry, liebling. I didn’t mean to squish you.” She forced a smile, tried to look normal.

  The midday sun beat down on them, penetrating her starched white kapp. Sweat beaded on her upper lip. The wrecked scooter had to be somewhere close by.

  She grabbed Benuel’s wrist and urged him out of harm’s way, to the side of the road where a ragged palm tree’s fronds rustled in the breeze.

  A few feet away, a row of blossoming bushes nestled against sturdy privacy fencing. She scanned under them, and then along the curb where several cars and adult tricycles were parked. The silver scooter had to be nearby. I know what I heard.

  But there was nothing. No scooter. No rider.

  “Look at that man, Mamm,” Benuel said. “He’s sleeping on the ground.”

  Lizbeth glanced in the direction her son pointed. “Oh, no.” Hidden behind a parked car, a ginger-haired man dressed in traditional Amish clothes and black boots lay sprawled across the sidewalk a few yards away. The silver scooter teetered on its side a foot from him, its back wheel still spinning.

  Benuel’s hand clasped firmly in hers, she hurried over, pausing long enough to instruct her son in a trembling voice, “You stay right here.”

  His bottom lip puckered. “But I want to see.”

  Releasing his hand, she said, “I know you do, but stay put, please.” Dreading what she might see, she fell to her knees in front of the man’s prostrate body and gave him a quick once-over, searching for twisted limbs and blood. He groaned and then stirred, his single status clearly stated by his clean-shaven chin that scraped the rough sidewalk as his head turned in her direction. Dirt and grit smudged his face and neck.

  Why is there no one left on the street? I need help, Gott.

  “Lie still. You may have broken something,” she instructed.

  His hand moved and then his arm. Blue eyes—so like her son’s—opened to slits. He blinked at her. A shaggy brow arched in question. Full, well-shaped lips moved, but no words came out.

  She leaned back in surprise. She knew this face as well as she knew her own. The man on the ground was Fredrik Lapp, her brother’s childhood friend. The last man in Pinecraft she wanted to see. “Are you all right?” she asked, bending close.

  His coloring looked normal enough, but she knew nothing about broken bones or head trauma. She looked down the length of his body. His clothes were dirty, but seemed intact.

  The last time she’d seen him she’d been a skinny girl of nineteen, and he’d been a wiry young man of twenty-three, with shaggy auburn hair and blue eyes the color of a summer sky. Unbaptized and not yet a member of the church, he’d had an unruliness about him, a restlessness that kept his mamm and daed worried for his future, and the rumor mill turning with tales of his latest wild escapades.

  Now he was a fully matured man, with a thick neck and neatly trimmed hair, cut in a traditional Amish style to his ears. A man who could rip her life apart if he learned about the secret she’d kept all these years.

  She leaned in and eyed his clean-shaven chin. Why is he still unwed and living in Pinecraft? There were no significant scrapes on his face, with the exception of a small cut above his left eyebrow.

  The sidewalk under him had to be uncomfortably hot. She jerked a length of attached quilt squares from her bag and squatted, carefully slipping the soft folds under his head.

  He coughed several times and scowled as he drew in a deep breath.

  “Do you hurt anywhere?” Lizbeth used her clean handkerchief to wipe away the blood slowly oozing from the small cut above his left eye.

  “Ouch!” He twisted his head out of her reach.

  She jerked her hand away and rose. “I thought the blood might blur your vision.”

  “Is the kinner all right?” Fredrik’s voice sounded deeper and raspier than it had years ago. He coughed, and with a grunt braced himself with his arms and struggled into a sitting position.

  Lizbeth glanced Benuel’s way. He was looking at them, his young face pinched with concern. Her heart ached for the intense, worried child.

  “Ya, he’s fine,” she assured him, and tried to hold Fredrik down as he started to move about. “Please don’t get up. Let me get some help first. You might have really hurt yourself.” He had no family left in the area. Why had he come back?

  He ignored her direction an
d rose to his feet, dusting the long legs of his dark trousers down, and then bent to pick her fabric off the ground. He handed her the bundle after doing his best to refold the length of colorful cotton squares. “I got the wind knocked out of me, that’s all.” He laughed.

  He peered at his bleeding arm, shrugged his broad shoulders and rotated his neck as she’d seen him do a hundred times as a boy.

  “That was a foolish thing you did,” he muttered, his brow arched.

  “What was?” she asked, mesmerized by the way his muscles bulged along his freckled arm. It had to be wonderful to be strong and afraid of nothing.

  He gestured toward the boy. “Letting your soh run wild like that? He could have been killed. Why didn’t you hold his hand while you crossed the road?”

  She took exception to Fredrik’s sharp tone, the disapproving expression on his face. The knot in her stomach tightened and grew. She pushed the ribbon of her prayer kapp away and then wiped sweat from her top lip, her frustration growing. She may not know how to properly raise an energetic, belligerent boy, but she was learning and doing the best she could. How dare he chastise her like Jonah and his family had done so many times? “I know we could all have been killed.”

  Her face grew warm. If only she had been more careful, grabbed Benuel’s hand as soon as she’d handed over the ticket to the bus driver. She knew what the boy was like lately. Acting out, not listening to anyone. She looked toward the curb. Benuel’s head was turned away, no doubt watching the birds peck away at bugs in the short tufts of grass a few feet away.

  With a grunt of frustration, she stuffed the bloodied handkerchief back into her apron pocket and dusted down her skirt. She hadn’t been back in Pinecraft a full hour and already was involved in a situation with Fredrik. She had plans for the money she had on her, like paying for somewhere to live. If Fredrik blamed Benuel for the crash, repairing the scooter could leave her totally dependent on her father, and she could not allow that to happen.

 
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