Summer of Secrets Read Online Free PDF Page A

but two years without Jesse had taught her the value of hard work—not just for the income, but for releasing her worries, as well. The solitude of the Sweet Seasons kitchen ... the soothing rhythms and scents of making her pastries while the rest of the world slept around her, were a balm to her soul. Almost like chocolate.
    And if her sister Leah was bringing them a load of zucchini this morning, they’d be processing it to freeze for winter, as well as cooking some for lunch. And there were those two gallons of extra milk Lydia Zook had brought from the store ...
    It felt like a chocolate pie kind of a day.

Chapter 4
     
    “Micah Brenneman, ya haven’t heard a thing I’m sayin’! I don’t know the answers to your questions about Tiffany—or Rebecca—or whoever she is. And I don’t really care!”
    Micah let the reins hang slack in his hand so Rosie, his mare, moseyed along in front of the buggy. He smiled in the darkness. Rachel cared plenty about their surprise visitor, or she wouldn’t be railing at him this way. It was almost worth the tongue-lashing she gave him, to ask her the questions that made her eyes widen so and got her dander up. Nobody in this world stirred him the way Rachel Lantz did, and a fellow always knew where he stood with such an outspoken young woman. “I still don’t understand about her comin’ from Morning Star if she got carried downstream—”
    “Exactly what I said to Mamma!” The girl beside him scooted closer, to take his chin in her hand so there was no missing what she was about to say. “Never underestimate an Englisher’s tricks, Micah! Just ask Tom Hostetler, now that his Lettie’s run off with that fancy man! And him a preacher, too!”
    “ Jah , he’s takin’ the heat for that one.” As he adjusted his hat, Micah thought it might be a welcome diversion from Tom’s troubles to let the grapevine vibrate with talk of Miriam’s long-lost daughter. “But your mamm ’s not gonna let go of this one, Rache. That wild child named Tiffany mighta breezed in and blown right on out, but Rebecca’s the lost sheep the shepherd Jesus rejoices over, even when He’s got the ninety and nine safe in the fold.”
    “And why’re you so all-fired fascinated by her, then? Ya haven’t stopped talkin’ about her since we got to Zooks’.”
    Well, she had him there. Micah clucked to his mare, keeping his arm on the edge of the buggy seat behind Rachel. If he weren’t careful, she’d be giving him what his Mennonite electrician partner called the kiss-off instead of the kisses he’d been hoping for. She’d smiled through tears of joy last week when he’d said he loved her, even though their intentions wouldn’t be published until later this fall—and that wasn’t something a smart man messed with. Especially since he’d soon be twenty-five and had spent his time building his carpentry business with his brothers while most of his friends had wooed the community’s courting-age girls.
    “What’s your answer to that, Micah?” she insisted in a low, tight voice. “If you’re tellin’ me you’d rather chase after that heathen in the indecent black clothes—”
    Well, there was that thought. But he knew better than to take it seriously.
    “—then don’t let me stand in your way, mister!”
    “Rachel!” He dropped the reins to take her pretty face between his two hands. “When I said I wanted you to be my woman—my wife—I meant it.”
    “And surely you can see my family needs a man, Micah. So don’t go breakin’ my heart, lookin’ at that ghouly-girl with the hair lickin’ her head like black flames.”
    He kissed her softly, all the way around her lips, the way she liked it. Rachel was young and sweet, yet impetuous. Not a girl to cower in the face of a challenge. She’d worked hard alongside her mother and Rhoda to make the café a thriving business, ever since Jesse had passed when a spooked stallion trampled him. And one of these days she’d