Seasons of Tomorrow (12 page)

“And you’ve been wrong from the start. Even after all I’ve explained about divination, you’re still set against her?”

“I know what I know, and her
gift
isn’t of God.”

“What makes you so quick to judge? When Mary went to visit Elisabeth, her voice caused Elisabeth to be filled with the Holy Spirit, and
Elisabeth spoke of things that defied what she could possibly know. That tells us gifts of knowing are possible. Because of God’s doing, the same Spirit that rested on Elisabeth’s child also lives in us.”

“What you’re talking about is dangerous.”

“It can be. You’re right about that. But to deny His ability to reach inside us and give us knowledge beyond our understanding is to deny God’s right to be God.”

His Daed pursed his lips. “You have an answer for everything, don’t you?”

“What would you have me do? Simply accept every judgment you speak without giving it another thought?”

His Daed walked out.

Concern for what was ahead for Rhoda, Leah, and Landon wrapped itself around Samuel’s throat. If the new bishop was anything like his Daed, Samuel had quite a battle ahead of him. But he wouldn’t cave, and he wouldn’t walk away from living Amish. It was a faith and a way of life he believed in.

Evening services at Unity Hill would begin in thirty minutes, but Landon had no plans to pick up Leah. He wouldn’t attend either. His goal was to stay as close to the farm as he could without causing any trouble for Leah, and he had the volume on his phone on high. If she called him, he’d do whatever she wanted.

He had hated leaving her there on Friday. What had her weekend been like? Landon couldn’t stand imagining it. Her dad’s anger kept playing over and over again in his mind. Whatever had caused him to accuse Rhoda of witchcraft, Benjamin was beyond reason by the time he learned how his oldest daughter felt about an English man.

Landon sighed and scrolled through Bible passages on the laptop resting on his legs. When Samuel had asked him to leave the farm until Monday, Landon’s temptation to ask Leah to go with him had been unbearable. But he’d fought with himself and walked away. What was the right thing to
do? He and Leah could marry and be done with Benjamin King. Only two things stopped him—

His phone rang. It was the number from the barn office! “Leah?”

“It’s me,” she whispered.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Daed was awful yesterday, but he’s not said a word to me today. Last night before I went to bed, he gave us an ultimatum. Either I return to Pennsylvania with him, or you can quit working for Orchard Bend Farms and give your word you won’t see me anymore.”

Landon’s heart raced, and all he could think of was picking up Leah once everyone was asleep and them running off together.
Think, Landon. Be rational
. But he hated ultimatums. Hated them. The giver of one believed he had all the power. But rarely did one person have
all
the power.

Could he negotiate with Benjamin? It’d be preferable to doing something rash, like breaking ties with all of Leah’s family. Maybe he could get Benjamin to put a time frame on what he wanted, something reasonable like separating them for only a few months. He and Leah could weather that, but if her Daed thought that’s all it would take to break them up, he might agree to it. “He’s actually given us something we can work with.”

“How?”

“We’ll try to—”

Leah gasped. “Daed’s coming this way. I have to go. You’re coming to work tomorrow?”

“Nothing could keep me away.” Although Benjamin could keep the two apart once Landon was on the property.

He heard the distinct click of a phone being put in its cradle. He put his phone down. What did he possess that would cause Benjamin to negotiate?

The front door opened, and his grandmother’s spry steps carried her inside. She tossed in his lap a white bag with a silver apple icon. “Who’d have thought a phone store would be that crowded on a Sunday?”

Landon opened the bag. She’d had to drive more than an hour to get to the phone store. But to get this phone activated today and put on his account, that’s where it needed to be bought. “Granny, thank you.”

“The man had it at the counter, waiting for me, when I arrived. Is it the one you asked to be set aside when you called them?”

“Yes.” He clutched it. “I can breathe again. You did that.”

She moved to her recliner. “From your expression I assume there’s been no change of heart in Benjamin King.”

“He’s given Leah an ultimatum. Either she returns to Pennsylvania, or I leave the farm and never see her again.”

“What will you do?”

“Not sure, but I never imagined all this drama and the threats. What has me baffled is trying to figure out what’s truth and what’s overzealous religion. I think I’d rather try to find a needle in a haystack.”

“She’s his daughter, and you have to respect that.”

“I know. But where’s the line between godly obedience and using God’s Word to get your own way?” Besides, did Benjamin have a clue how much Landon was needed on the farm? Or that Leah was needed just as much? “I gotta figure out what I need to do. Otherwise I’m paralyzed.”

“I’ve yet to hear you say what you want.”

“I want to remain faithful to what Rhoda and Orchard Bend Farms need. I want it to be okay with Leah’s family that Leah and I love each other. But most of all, I want to marry her.”

But none of that addressed the foundational questions: what was right, and what did Leah want? Unfortunately, the priority of those questions came in that order. What was right had to come ahead of what he or Leah wanted.

“What I don’t want is for us to have to marry in a hurry. It’s ridiculous that we’re being forced into a divisive, bridge-burning position.”

He turned his focus to his laptop again and decided to check out the verse of the day on Bible Gateway.“ ‘And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope.’ Romans 5:3–4”

He moaned.

Surely God didn’t expect him to do as Leah’s Daed wanted. How could he walk away from the woman he loved?

ELEVEN

Gray, murky light began to lessen the darkness as Jacob dressed for the day. The Amish family he lived with—Noah, Barb, and their five children—were still asleep. He usually ate breakfast with them, and she fixed him a sack lunch, so he’d leave them a note before he slipped out. But since he was awake early, he’d get a jump-start on his day.

The lumberyard had delivered wood yesterday for making mantels for the new houses. He wasn’t sure why they’d brought it here instead of the construction site, but he needed to get it loaded.

While pulling his suspenders over his shoulders, he knocked a book off the nightstand. He picked it up. A Bible. The tattered leather cover and the coarse, heavy pages indicated it was an old one.

He sat on the edge of the bed and opened it. He couldn’t make out the words—the light was too dim—but he caressed the pages. Regardless of how easy it was to go his own way, he did want to find peace. But answering his brother’s calls or saying
I forgive you
felt impossible.

Was Jacob now as far from doing what was right as he’d been in his teen years? When he’d left the Amish as a teen to travel and support himself by doing construction work, he had no desire to sin. His scrape with the law was more a matter of being fresh off the farm and not understanding what was legal than anything else. When he realized his actions were illegal, he believed he could set everything right while helping a friend. That was his biggest mistake.

He wasn’t the best decision maker, and he was a restless soul, but he wasn’t a bad guy. At least he didn’t think so. He seemed to fall somewhere between not being bad and not doing as he thought God wanted in every circumstance. Instead of landing at the halfway point, causing him to be balanced, it just left him …

Useless.

He laid down the Bible, threw the covers on his bed into place, and left
the room. After writing Noah and Barb a note, he grabbed his coat and tool belt and eased out the back door. Cold air and patches of fog welcomed him. With it being the first of April, highs in the midfifties, and lots of sunshine, even the most stubborn mounds of snow had melted.

He hitched the horse to the wagon, and by the time he had it loaded with the wood and fresh supplies, sunlight was streaming through broken, pink clouds with golden linings. He climbed onto the driver’s seat and headed through town.

Rhoda had helped him find peace. With God. With himself. She’d been his strength and inspiration to get free of his legal issues. After leaving her behind, he’d finished what he’d begun by using the immunity he’d been given and testifying in court. Every trial—criminal and civil—was now behind him.

Odd really. As unrestricted as his life was—no legal authorities chasing him, no fear of his past pinning him to an orchard, no church ministers watching his every move—he’d never felt more imprisoned. So if freedom didn’t make one free, what did? If he knew the answer to that, maybe he wouldn’t feel so restless.

Movement up ahead drew him from his thoughts, and he saw an Amish woman walking down the middle of street. He slowed the rig to a crawl, studying her from afar.

The slight limp was a dead giveaway. Esther.

She hobbled near the area where they’d collided last week, apparently looking for something. Had he not gathered up all her scattered treasures?

His horse whinnied. She looked up, and her eyes grew wide as she stuck out her hand and shook her head, clearly asking him not to run over her.

His laughter caused pigeons on the nearby roofs to scatter into the sky.

After stopping the rig a good fifty feet from her, he got down and tied the reins to a hitching post. At the far end of the block stood a horse and wagon, carrying what appeared to be shutters. While approaching her, he began talking. “Seems to me you’re just asking to be run over again.”

One barely-there dimple deepened with her smile before she returned
her attention to the gutters along the curb. “And it seems to me you’re just itching to do a repeat performance.”

He chuckled. “You did say the accident was the most entertaining event to happen to you in a while, but I thought it best not to indulge you this time.”

A smile crossed her lips. “Denki.”

“For running over you with my horse the first time or for resisting this time?”

Her laughter welcomed him. But when she turned back to searching the gutters, he felt something stir inside. Something he hadn’t felt in a long time. A desire for friendship. It surprised him that he liked her. With the exception of immediate family, he’d never really desired to befriend women. That was part of the reason Rhoda had knocked him off his feet. He’d just turned twenty-three, and she’d been the first woman to hold his interest.

But he was tired of thinking about Rhoda. Tired of rehashing what had once existed between them.

“So just why are we standing in this road looking around?”

With the toe of her shoe, Esther nudged wet leaves out of the gutter. “I’m missing two sets of antique doorknobs.”

He saw a slight flinch and heard an almost inaudible sharp breath.

“Does your knee feel
any
better?”

“Not yet.” She continued walking along the gutter, kicking debris out of the way as she went.

Jacob went with her. “I hate to keep repeating myself, but if your knee still hurts, you should be seen. I’m the one who ran into you, so the bill will be mine, not yours.”

“It’s only been a week today. It’ll be better in a month.”

“Does Ammon realize how much your knee is bothering you?”

She startled, seemingly embarrassed. Was she bothered by the way Ammon treated her in front of Jacob the other day? She shouldn’t be. That was Ammon’s to own, not hers.

But Jacob wished he hadn’t mentioned Ammon’s name. “I’ll tell you
what. Let’s not discuss Ammon. I won’t ask you what he thinks, and I won’t try to force you to go to a doctor. But if you feel you need to see one, the bill is mine to pay, okay?”

She studied him with warm, expressive eyes. “That plan works.”