Lorie's Heart Read Online Free PDF

washed the family’s supper dishes.
    Lorie shot a glance at her sister. She was really too tired for such games. Where Sadie got all the energy was anyone’s guess. “About?”
    â€œI saw you walking with that handsome Englisch bu this afternoon.”
    She shrugged as if it were no big thing and kept on with the task at hand. “It was nothing.” How many times had she said that to herself since she walked away from Zach? She hadn’t even found out his last name. It didn’t matter. It wasn’t like she was ever going to see him again.
    â€œI’m glad,” Sadie continued. “You know how Mamm would feel about you talking to a guy like that.”
    Lorie bit back an exasperated sigh. “I said it was nothing.”
    Sadie raised a brow. “It didn’t look that way to me.”
    â€œI’ll probably never see him again,” Lorie said. “There’s no telling where he lives.” Not to mention he bought two dinners. A boy that good-looking had to have a girlfriend.
    What was she thinking? He was Englisch. She was Amish. There was no future in that. Plus she had Jonah. As soon as she finished her baptism classes they would be married. Stress was doing weird things to her head. Losing her father, finding out he had secrets he’d kept for years. It was a lot to take in.
    â€œYou’re vulnerable right now,” Sadie said. “Just be careful, okay?”
    â€œ Jah. ” Lorie wiped her hands on a dishtowel as she and Sadie finished their chore. But being careful wasn’t really the issue. She would never see Zach with an h again.

Chapter Three
    The following days were spent working in the restaurant and otherwise learning to live with the questions knocking around inside her head. Every night Lorie prayed for understanding and wisdom. She prayed that it be God’s will to have all of her questions answered. She prayed that she was making the right decision in starting baptism classes in the next over district.
    But that decision had always been in question. Not that her father or Maddie knew of the secrets she herself had kept. All the paintings in the second-story storeroom. It was vain and arrogant to think that others would want to see the art she had created. But how was she supposed to live with the pictures in her head calling out for a canvas? Not even Jonah knew of the many paintings she had created and carefully hidden in the storeroom. Only Caroline and Emily knew that she painted when no one was looking, then hid her work out of guilt.
    The bell on the restaurant door dinged out a warning as Lorie wiped down the plastic-covered menus.
    â€œHi.” Emily Riehl waved from the door and made her way over to the waitress station where Lorie stood. “Are you getting off soon?”
    It was three in the afternoon, the time they worked to catch up from the lunch rush and prepare for the dinner crowd.
    â€œIn an hour or so,” Lorie said. Then her shift would be over and she could go home for the day. But she almost wanted to stay. At least at the restaurant the questions that haunted her had to make way for the work she had to accomplish. Still, it was her job to feed her siblings and get them into bed before Maddie came home in the evenings.
    Emily glanced from side to side, then dropped her voice to just above a whisper. “I talked to Luke.”
    Lorie’s heart fell into her stomach at the words. It was what she had been hoping for and dreading all at the same time. “Oh, jah? ”
    â€œMaybe when you’re done here you can come down to the bakery for a while.”
    â€œ Jah. ” She nodded, her mouth suddenly dry. “I’ll be there in a bit.”
    Just over an hour later she entered Esther’s bakery at the end of the block. Esther Lapp had started the bakery after her husband had died and ran it for many years all by herself. Then she had taken Caroline Hostetler under her wing and