Summer of Secrets Read Online Free PDF Page B

days in the outside world, she’d heard, and once more she felt ever so thankful for the Old Ways that kept families in Willow Ridge together.
    Well, except for the Hostetlers. Now there was a sad sight: Tom slinking into the café these past few mornings to eat in the back corner, as though his friends wondered what he’d done to make his wife run off. Miriam could well imagine the talk that had caused in the quilt shop next door, where Mary Schrock and her husband’s biddy aunts kept abreast of such situations. Recently widowed Priscilla, and Eva, a maidel as starchy as the doilies she crocheted for dresser scarves, had nothing better to do than speculate about how Lettie Hostetler had carried her suitcases out to the road under cover of a moonless night, to be whisked away by a man in a fast, flashy car. As Mennonites, the Schrocks were a little freer with their activities—and their imaginations. But she’d be forever grateful for the way Mary had partnered with her, providing the electricity and equipment the health department required, so she and the girls could run the café.
    Miriam blinked. Listened for the noise out front to repeat itself as she stood here alone in the kitchen. Who would be coming into the café in the wee hours?
    “That you, Miriam?”
    She let out the breath she’d been holding. “Micah? Come on back, dear,” she called. “But what brings ya here at this late hour?”
    “ Early hour, ya mean.” He peered around the side of the tall stainless steel fridge, taking the straw hat from a full head of dark blond hair that made him resemble the picture on a Dutch Boy paint can. “Close as this place sits to the road, ya might wanna lock up when you’re here by yourself. Saw your light. Everythin’ all right?”
    Miriam smiled at her best friend’s middle son. No need to ask why her Rachel had been crazy for this one since they’d first sat in the schoolroom together. “When I need to sort through my thoughts, I bake. Lots better than rollin’ around in that lonely old bed—”
    She flushed and quickly resumed pressing the buttered graham cracker crumbs into pie pans. “More than ya wanted to know. Sorry.”
    Micah shrugged. He opened the fridge and pulled out a pan with the two last pieces of lemon icebox pie in it. “Anybody’s name on these?”
    “Yours, now. How was Katie’s birthday party?”
    He smiled over the wedge of pie he’d crammed into his mouth. “Heavy on the girl side, but Jonah and I survived it.” Micah swallowed, as though considering how best to continue. “Your girls had a lot to talk about tonight, what with their sister showin’ up outta the blue. Must’ve been a shock to your system, too, but—but I’m real happy ya got to see her, Miriam.”
    Miriam rested her sticky fingers on the edge of a pie pan to take in what he’d just said. “ Denki ,” she murmured. “It’s troublesome to the girls, I think, but—”
    “It’ll work out.” He lifted the pie to his lips again, closing his eyes over the huge, sweet mouthful as though he’d gone days without eating. Then he focused on her intently. “Got a secret, and I think you’re the one to keep it for me. Got a big favor to ask, too—but if it ain’t to your likin’, I want ya to tell me straight-out!”
    What could he be asking of her? Micah’s quiet voice and the way he talked so freely to her felt encouraging, yet her insides fluttered with nerves.
    “A while back I overheard ya sayin’, after a Sunday meetin’ when ya sat amongst your women friends, that ya might live in the loft above the smithy once your girls got hitched, and—” The young man’s suspenders stretched over his broad shoulders as he shoved his hands into his pants pockets. “Well, maybe I shouldn’t’ve been listenin’, but it struck me as a mighty promisin’ situation. If I were to remodel your upstairs there, in the evenin’s after my shop work, would ya consider lettin’ Rachel and me—”
    “So