The Letters Read Online Free PDF Page B

scribbled down a list of things Rose would need to do to make the basement ready for company. He started a new page with a list of people he thought she should talk to, including his sister in Indiana who had started a bed-and-breakfast. When he was finished, he handed Rose back the paper. There was something fundamentally reassuring about how he took her idea seriously, and she was touched. Rose felt an excitement for the future she hadn’t felt in months. Years, maybe.
    “You’re doing a lot for a neighbor,” she said.
    He held her gaze. “A friend, you mean.” He walked to the door, then turned to her. “Of course, you’ll need to run this all past Bishop Elmo.”
    Rose noticed how smudged and dirty the windows were. She could get the boys working on that this very afternoon.
    “Rose? Did you hear me? I think you should talk to Bishop Elmo.”
    She glanced up at him. “Dean used to say that it was easier to apologize later than to ask for permission first.”
    Galen’s dark eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Wammer eppes oft dutt, waert mer’s gewehnt.” Do a thing often and it becomes a habit.

    She gave him a sharp look. Was that Galen’s way of commenting on Dean’s character? Or lack of. He had known Dean for many years, but Rose didn’t realize that he understood his nature too. One more thing she had underestimated about Galen.
    He kept his eyes fixed on her. “I find it hard to believe that Vera would go along with this idea.”
    “I haven’t quite . . . told her yet.” Galen opened his mouth to say something, but Rose beat him to the punch. “I know. I know. I will tell her. I just wanted to sort a few things out first.”
    Galen let out a puff of air. “Good luck with that.”

3

    B ethany rolled up her spare clothes and stuffed them in her cubby, pinned her prayer cap into place, then slipped out the kitchen door of the Stoney Ridge Bar & Grill. She had to hurry. She needed to get to the post office before the mail went out at three. She had received a letter from Jake Hertzler yesterday and wrote one back, immediately.
    Jake wrote, regularly at first, then with less frequency. Sometimes, when weeks had gone by with no word from him, Bethany would get angry and tell herself that she was going to end it and move on with her life. After all, they were only about an hour apart and he had never come to visit her, not once, despite her many invitations. But about the time she told herself it was over, a letter from Jake would arrive full of apologies, explanations, and the endearments she longed to hear, and she would forgive him yet again. She let out a sigh. Jake was lucky to have her. Not many girls would be as patient and understanding as she was.
    She needed to drop by the farmers’ market and pick up a bag of Brussels sprouts from the Salad Stall to take home later today. She paid the young man, Chris Yoder—whom shehappened to know was courting her friend, M.K. Lapp—for the Brussels sprouts and retrieved the scooter she hid behind the market dumpster each morning. Her sister, Mim, didn’t like any green vegetables, but lately she was willing to try Brussels sprouts, if smothered in fried bacon. Two weeks ago, it was broccoli. Mim’s finicky eating habits were beneficial to Bethany. Bringing things home from the farmers’ market served as a beneficial decoy.
    Rose was under the impression that Bethany worked at the farmers’ market five days a week, and Bethany didn’t feel any compulsion to correct that impression. She couldn’t remember how that impression got started—maybe, when she told Rose that she had applied for a job at the farmers’ market. But the only job Bethany was offered came from the Stoney Ridge Bar & Grill. So she took it. And on a dare one day from another waitress, Ivy, she wore English clothing. Her tips doubled that day. Tripled the next. Since then, Bethany kept spare English clothing in her cubby and changed into them each day. The good thing was that no