The Amish Bride
Authors: Mindy Starns Clark,Leslie Gould
HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS
EUGENE, OREGON
Scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible and from The Holy Bible, New International Version® NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
www.Zondervan.com
.
The authors are represented by MacGregor Literary, Inc. of Hillsboro, Oregon.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to events or locales, is entirely coincidental.
Cover by Garborg Design Works, Savage, Minnesota
Cover photos © Chris Garborg
THE AMISH BRIDE
Copyright © 2012 by Mindy Starns Clark and Leslie Gould
Published by Harvest House Publishers
Eugene, Oregon 97402
www.harvesthousepublishers.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Clark, Mindy Starns.
The Amish bride / Mindy Starns Clark and Leslie Gould.
p. cm. — (The women of Lancaster County ; bk. 3)
ISBN 978-0-7369-3862-4 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-0-7369-4282-9 (eBook)
1. Amish—Fiction. 2. Lancaster County (Pa.)—Fiction. I. Gould, Leslie, 1962- II. Title.
PS3603.L366A77 2012
813'.6—dc23
2012005745
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.
Mindy:
For my aunt, Fanny Lynn Starns,
my own personal hero of the faith and lifelong friend,
and
Leslie:
For my sister Laurie Snyder,
for showing what it means to live out
heaven’s hope on earth.
“I sing in the shadow of your wings.”
P
SALM
63:7
A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS
Mindy thanks
My husband, John, whose input on this story was invaluable. You are my story-shaper, my love, and my best friend.
Our daughters, Emily and Lauren, who help in ways too numerous to count.
Vanessa Thompson, Stephanie Ciner, and Helen Styer Hannigan, the best office support team a writer could ask for.
Leslie thanks
My husband, Peter, who was the first reader of this story, even though he was commanding a field hospital in Afghanistan at the time. (I can’t imagine life without you, more so now than ever.)
Our children: Kaleb, Taylor, Hana, and Thao, for their endless support.
Laurie Snyder and Tina Bustamante, for reading the manuscript in its early stages and offering invaluable advice and support, and Libby Salter for reading later in the process.
My writing group members: Kelly Chang, Melanie Dobson, Nicole Miller, and Dawn Shipman. Jenna Thompson for insightful ideas into this story. And Kylie Naslund for sharing her passion for all things culinary.
Jeff Kitson, executive director of the Nappanee, Indiana, Chamber of Commerce, for his assistance and direction; the many good people of Elkhart County that I encountered while researching this story; and the staff of the Menno-Hof Amish/Mennonite Information Center in Shipshewana, Indiana for an outstanding experience.
Mindy and Leslie thank
Our agent, Chip MacGregor, for his vision for this series; our editor, Kim Moore, for her dedication to our stories; and the exceptional folks at Harvest House Publishers for giving such care and attention to every detail of the publishing process.
Also, thanks to Dave Siegrist for his expertise; the Mennonite Information Center in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, for their invaluable resources; Erik Wesner, author of
amishamerica.com
, for his insightful view of the Amish; and Georgia Varozza for mouthwatering inspiration through her book
The Homestyle Amish Kitchen Cookbook.
ROLOGUE
M
y grandmother was stalling like a little kid at bedtime. I bent down to kiss her a second time. “
Mammi
, I really need to go. Ezra’s waiting for me.” He was at the end of the lane on his motorcycle.
“But I have something for you.” She forced her recliner down and struggled to a standing position. “It’s important.”
Afraid she might fall, I hurried to her side. “Tell me where it is,” I said. “I’ll get it myself.”
She plopped back down into her chair. “Let me see…it’s a book…”
Oh, boy. This wasn’t a good time for
Mammi
to start on a new topic. I sent Ezra a quick text as she spoke, telling him to give me another minute, knowing it was bound to be even longer than that.