Authors: Emma Miller
A Beau for Katie (17 page)
Epilogue
K
atie laughed as bells on the horse's harness jingled and red and blue lights flashed on Thomas's buggy as he drove over the dam and turned into Freeman's lane. Freeman squeezed her hand in the darkness and her pulse quickened. She was so full of happiness that she thought it must be bubbling out of her and overflowing, filling the buggy and spilling out into the yard.
She wanted to pinch herself to make certain that she wasn't dreaming, that this was her wedding day, and that Freeman, sitting beside her in the buggy, was her husband for now and forever, so long as they both lived. The day had been glorious, everything that every Amish bride hoped for: friends, loved ones, good food, fellowship, God's word and the blessings of church and community. She had so much to be thankful for.
She glanced out at the falling snow. Propane lights shone from the house windows, softened by the swirl of white. This was a gentle snow, billowing flakes spinning through the cold November night to frost everything in a glory of pristine icing.
“We're here!” Thomas proclaimed as he jumped down out of the driver's seat and stomped around to the back of the buggy to open the rear door.
“How deep is it?” Freeman asked.
“Three or four inches.” Thomas gazed out into the snow-blanketed barnyard. “But the weatherman forecasted another three before morning.”
“Sara says five more inches at least,” Ellie chimed in from the front seat where she'd ridden beside Thomas. “I think she's right. It smells like more snow to me.”
“It can snow all it likes,” Katie said. Ivy and Uncle Jehu were both staying with friends for the next couple of days, and Katie welcomed the thought of being snowed in with Freeman. How wonderful it would be to have a few days shut away from the world together.
Katie looked out the window. The mill loomed big and black in the distance. Not a single star or hint of moonlight pierced the darkness. The only sound was the crunch of snow under Thomas's boots, the creak of the horse's harness and the snort of the horse.
Freeman climbed out and reached to steady her as she prepared to get down. “Careful,” he said to her. “The step is slippery.” And then to Thomas, he said, “Thanks for getting us here safely.”
“Easy enough,” his friend replied. “No traffic on the road tonight. A few inches of snow is nothing to a good horse and buggy. By morning, Amish farmers will be pulling Englishers' cars and trucks out of ditches. Those who don't have the sense to wait for the snowplows.”
Ellie leaned over the seat back to speak to Thomas. “Still, the sooner we're back to Sara's, the better. You've still got to drive home after you drop me off.”
“Got the basket with the food and wedding cake?” Thomas asked.
“Ya,”
Ellie answered. “Right there.” She pointed to a spot on the floor behind the bench seat. “Plenty to keep Katie from cooking for a few days.”
“No need to get your shoes wet,” Freeman said, looking up at Katie. “Put your arm around my neck.”
Katie did and he swept her into his strong arms.
“Careful of your leg!” she warned.
“My leg is fine,” he assured her as he carried her to the back porch and set her gently on the step. “Thanks,” he said to Thomas. He pushed open the porch door and Katie walked in ahead of him.
“Blessings!” Thomas handed Freeman the basket and headed for the buggy.
“Be happy!” Ellie cried, waving.
Katie smiled and waved back, thinking how fortunate she was to have made such a good friend as Ellie.
“Let's get you inside.” Freeman turned the kitchen doorknob and then stepped back to let her cross the threshold ahead of him. “I guess if we were Englishers, I'd be carrying you all the way in.”
She laughed. The warm kitchen, so familiar and yet so strange, enveloped her. This is our home, she thought as she walked in, mine and Freeman's.
Our woodstove, our gleaming wooden table with the bouquet of holly leaves and berries, our calendar on the wall.
With trembling fingers, she untied her bonnet strings and slipped off the formal black head covering and her heavy black cape.
Freeman took them from her and hung them on hooks beside his own coat and black wool hat.
“Welcome home, wife,” he said huskily. He set the basket of wedding food in the center of the table.
She swallowed, her own words caught in her throat.
“Happy?” he asked.
She nodded, for once at a loss for words. She was just so filled with joy right now; there weren't words for it.
Freeman took her hand in his warm one and held it. “It's been a long journey getting to this point,” he said. “I nearly overturned the apple cart, but I'll try to do better in the future.”
“It was no more your fault than mine,” she managed, gazing up at his handsome face. “My willfulness. Always wanting to do things my way. I've a lot to learn about marriage.”
“Don't we both?” He chuckled. “But we have time and the grace of God to try and get it right.” He leaned down and kissed her, a slow, gentle kiss, his lips fitting perfectly to hers, sending sweet sensations of joy radiating through her heart and body. “I love you, Katie Kemp,” he said.
“And I love you, Freeman Kemp.” She laughed, liking the sound of her new name, and he laughed with her.
“I've a gift for you, darling. Would you like to see it?”
She looked up at him quizzically; it wasn't their tradition for a man and woman to give each other a gift on their wedding day.
“Yes or no?” he teased.
“Of course!”
Taking Katie's hand, he led her through the kitchen and up the staircase. She'd never been further than the linen closet on the second floor of the farmhouse. She knew this was where the bedroom was that they would share as man and wife, but she had never thought it proper that she go there before they were married.
A propane lamp on a Victorian marble-top table lit the wide upstairs hallway. Wide floorboards of yellow pine stretched the length of the passage. Someone had left an arrangement of pine and holly on the deep windowsill. Katie inhaled the crisp scent of fresh-cut greens.
“Close your eyes,” Freeman said as they reached a closed door.
“Should I trust you?” she teased, but did as he asked.
A door hinge squeaked. “Sorry, I'll have to fix that,” he said. “All right, you can open your eyes.”
It took a moment for Katie to realize what she was looking at and slowly a smile spread across her face. “Did you buy this?” She took in the beautiful pine bed with bluebirds and sheaves of wheat carved into the head and footboard. A tall wardrobe and dresser completed the set.
“Ne,”
he answered softly. “I made it. The bed. The other pieces were my great grandmother's. I always liked them and I thought you might.”
“I do.”
“I made the bed just for you, Katie. For no other woman but you.” He sounded almost bashful.
She sighed. “I love it, Freeman. I do.” She looked up at him through teary eyes. “I'll try to be the best wife to you. I promise.”
“And I promise never to expect you to be anyone but yourself.”
She smiled at him as she began to remove, one by one, the hairpins that held her starched white prayer
kapp
in place. “And I'll promise to
try
not to be too bossy,” she whispered. And then she was in his arms and nothing mattered but the new life that they were beginning together, a life blessed by God and shining with hope.
* * * * *
If you loved this story,
pick up the other books in
THE AMISH MATCHMAKER
series
And these other stories of Amish life
from author Emma Miller's previous miniseries
HANNAH'S DAUGHTERS
Available now from Love Inspired!
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Keep reading for an excerpt from
THE TEXAN'S SECOND CHANCE
by Allie Pleiter.
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Dear Reader,
Welcome! I'm always happy to meet new readers and to welcome old friends for a story of romance and faith in the traditional Amish community of Seven Poplars. Once again professional matchmaker Sara Yoder has her task cut out for her with a particularly difficult case. Will independent and outspoken Katie Byler be the girl she can't find a husband for?
Among the Amish, everyone expects to marry and start a new family in the faith. But sensible Katie can't seem to find a beau. She's watched all her friends wed, and now that her brother's brought home a new wife, Katie is desperate enough to consider a match with a Kentucky stranger.
But wily Sarah has another plan. She sends Katie to the home of a prosperous miller, a cantankerous bachelor recovering from a recent accident and an old heartbreak. Freeman needs a temporary housekeeper, a biddable woman who will cook and clean without questioning his authority. Sparks fly when two strong personalities clash. Do opposites attract, or has Sara made her biggest mistake yet?
I hope you'll read this story to find out.
Wishing you peace and joy,
Emma Miller
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by Allie Pleiter
Chapter One
J
ana Powers stared at the truck in front of her. “It's blue.”
Her new boss, Witt Buckton, didn't seem to especially mind. “Yes, it is.”
Jana pushed up her sleeves. She'd tried to dress professionally for this first meeting with her supervisor, wearing her chef's coat, but even in October Austin was still too warm for it. Texas could still hit ninety degrees on a daily basis in the fall. “No, I mean it's
really
blue.” The food truck was, in fact, an alarmingly bright turquoise. Brilliantly blue. One might accurately say “loud.” Uh-oh. Was Witt Buckton one of “those” kinds of restaurant ownersâthe kind who put public relations above everything and cared more about gimmicks than quality?
Keep an open mind. Ellie said this guy was smart and nice
. Then again, this guy was Ellie's cousin, and Ellie was really more colleague than friend.
She stared at the vividly hued truck again. From a marketing standpoint, the color might make senseâit certainly stood out, and was memorableâbut who would want to eat in a glow that intense? She might have to don sunglasses just to work inside the thing.
Please, don't let it be that color on the inside.
“It's a marketing thing.” Jana was glad to note a touch of apology in Witt's voice that hinted maybe his priorities weren't totally skewed toward PR. “The color is a trademark for the Blue Thorn Ranch.”
Jana looked at him. He was part of the Buckton familyâthe clan who had owned the Blue Thorn Ranch for several generations and to which her former coworker Ellie belongedâbut he was a cousin, not one of the immediate family. Still, a long look allowed her to connect the dots almost instantly. Ellie was a Buckton, and her eyes were the same brilliant turquoise as Witt's. If those eyes were a family trait, then she could understand why the ranch had adopted that shade as its trademark. “I get it,” she offered. “Butâ” here she applied her friendliest smile “âdon't you think you went a bit overboard on the paint job?”
Oops
. Witt's eyes went a touch cold, and Jana fought the urge to whack her own forehead.
Not everyone needs to hear every opinion you've got. Especially not your new boss. Remember how much you want this job?
“I told you to meet me at the blue truck,” Witt said in a crisp, mildly annoyed tone. He tucked his hands in his pockets. “Tell me, did you have any trouble finding the blue truck?”
He had her thereâshe saw it from three blocks away. “No.”
“My point exactly. To patronize a food truckâa mobile enterprise by definitionâyou have to be able to find it, don't you?
Jana swallowed her distaste for people who used business buzzwords like
enterprise
.
“True, but a color never sold a hamburger or a steak sandwich.
Food
is what attracts customers. Good, quality food.” Good, quality food was what Jana did best. Let all the fancy chefs have their fusion cuisines and trendy menus. Jana's passionâwhy God put her on the earth, as far as she was concernedâwas comfort food. The ordinary, memory-laden food people turned to when a day had gone bad or a boyfriend had split or life had kicked them in the teeth some other way. Supposedly, that was why the Bucktons had hired her. If it wasn't, best to settle that right now. “You're not expecting adventure-burgers out of me, are you?”
That popped his turquoise eyes wide. “Adventure-burgers?”
Jana started walking toward the truck, eager to confirm that her new workspace wasn't screaming blue on the inside as well as the outside. “You know what I mean. Bison ranches like the Blue Thorn are pretty unusual, which means the bison meat from the ranch is unique enough on its own. I'm not going to invent crazy toppings or obscure ingredients just to draw attention. That's not what I do.”
“And that's not what we want,” Witt assured her. “Blue Thorn produces high-quality, delicious meat that we want to share with the community by way of this food truck. Nobody wants you to hide it under Ugandan spotted goat curd or anything like that.”
She eyed him, surprised he could name an ingredient she'd never heard of.
“Okay, I made that one up,” he admitted. “But you get the point.” He produced a set of keys from his pocket and unlocked the back of the truck. Jana bit back a comment about the vehicle being even brighter at close range.
I won't need coffee to wake upâI'll just stare at this for thirty seconds,
she mused to herself. She braced herself as her new boss pulled open the doors...
To reveal a blessedly white interior, brand spanking new and immaculately clean. “Wow,” Jana gasped involuntarily, struckâin the best possible wayâby the perfectness of it all. Her own kitchen. It didn't matter one bit that it was small, mobile and wrapped in a neon aqua paint job. This would be
her
kitchen, where she finally got to call the shots. A fresh start she very much needed. The thrill of it sparkled all the way out to Jana's fingertips as she touched the gleaming counter.
“Ellie made sure the basics were here, but we're going to go to the restaurant supply place this afternoon so you can pick out whatever else you need.”
Free rein in the restaurant supply store? Jana could think of few things that would make her happier. “Absolutely fine by me.” Her hand went involuntarily to the messenger bag at her side, which not only held the usual purse contents, but her chef's knife setâthe pride, joy and personal treasure of anyone who cooked for a living. The knives seemed ready to climb out of her bag and spread themselves on the counter. She looked back at Witt, hoping the eagerness thumping in her chest showed in her eyes to make up for her earlier crack about the color. “You're off to a good start. This is a really good setup.”
“I thought so.” Witt pulled open the refrigerator under the back counter to reveal several packets wrapped in brown paper. “Today we'll get to try her out. I want to be the one to eat the first burger made in this truck.”
The demand bugged her. Did he expect her to audition for a job she already had? “I have cooked for Ellie and Gunner, you know.” Surely he knew Ellie's brother Gunnerâthe current owner of the Blue Thorn Ranch, and the one who had made the decision a few years ago to switch the ranch from cattle to bisonâhad approved her as chef two weeks ago. Witt had been called out of town that night, which was why today was the first day she met her new immediate boss.
Witt walked around the truck, opening empty cabinets and drawers. “I know, and I'm sorry I missed that. There's no question you're already hired. This is more of an...indulgence.” His face tightened just the slightest bit. “You don't have to do a ton of stuff to the kitchen before you can cook in it, right?”
As confident as he'd been before, defending the decision to paint the truck blue, that's how uncertain he sounded now. He really didn't have a clue about what was involved in running a kitchen, did he? Jana had worked for too many restaurant owners who thought they knew everything about cooking but were really only checkbooks. Lots of owners pretended at expertise and talent, getting in the way of good cooking when all they really needed to do was to play host. Management had its place, but so did cooking. Right now Jana still wasn't sure Witt Buckton recognized the difference.
You don't want to go back to Atlanta. Make this work.
Jana pulled her knife kit from her bag and set it on the counter, the act feeling like a blessing of the space. “I won't need too much at first.”
“You don't think it's weird that I want to give the truck a private inauguration?” His face softened from its “I'm in charge” expression that had dug under her skin. Now it showed just a bit of the anxiety she was already fighting.
He's not like Ronnie.
This business seemed to have heart, and heart was what Jana loved most in cooking. Maybe this gig wouldn't be bad after all. “Nah. I think I'd do the same thing.”
“You will, technically. You didn't think I was going to make you just sit there and feed me, did you?”
Actually, that's exactly what she'd assumed.
“No,” he corrected, “We're going to eat a meal together, you and I.”
Jana had to admit, she liked what his eyes did when he said that. He wasn't wearing a suitâquite the contrary, Witt Buckton wore brown jeans and a light blue chambray shirt that did un-boss-like things to his eyes. His shirt was crisply ironed, but his jeans and boots were more down-home than corner office.
“Oh, wait,” he said as he reached into one of the upper cabinets and pulled out a package. “This first. Ellie said you ought to have one of these, and it couldn't be just any old one.”
Jana pulled open the package he handed to her. What unfolded out of the wrappings was the nicest, most stylish chef's coat Jana had ever seen. Made of a mercifully light fabricâperfect for the hot, tight confines of a food truckâthe coat had three-quarter-length sleeves with a clever row of off-center buttons. Turquoise piping, shoulder panels, buttons and collar gave it just enough of what she now interpreted as the Blue Thorn signature color.
Best of all, the coat wasn't the usual boxy cut, but fitted to a woman's physique. It was, by all accounts, pretty. Feminine, yet serious, right down to the “Chef Jana” embroidered above the stylized “BT” that was the Blue Thorn logo.
“It's fabulous,” she exclaimed, meaning it. “Really, you have no idea. Some of these things can be real sacks. I was expecting an apron or something, but this...” She touched it again, a little bit stunned. She hadn't expected anything like this, especially from a setup as small as Blue Thorn seemed to be. “Wow.”
“Why would you expect an apron? Chefs don't wear aprons. Chefs wear coats. You're not just any old food server, Jana. You're going to be the force behind Blue Thorn Burgers. You will be the only face most people ever associate with everything we're trying to do.”
Jana had learned to be suspicious of guys who laid it on quite so thick. Still, it was better than being dismissed as just the hands holding the spatula. “I'm up for it. I'll build you a following so loyal you'll have to start buses running out to the ranch for tours.”
He laughed. “Ellie would probably love that. Gunner, not so much.” Witt had a nice laugh that made her laugh, as well. “By the way, Ellie said she will deck you out in knitted scarves, hats and fingerless mittsâwhatever those areâto match if the weather gets too chilly in here.”
Hardly a surprise thereâEllie was known for her love of knitting. She'd even turned her hobby into a new career. When they'd first met, Ellie had been working in marketing for a restaurant chain in Atlanta, but it was well-known that she always had a knitting project in her bag. Now that she was settled back in Texas, she worked part time for the Austin Restaurateurs Association, and she also ran a newly developed yarn business for the ranch, branding and marketing knitting yarn made out of bison hair.
Witt fiddled with a stove knob. “Can't really picture it getting cold enough to need a scarf in here. We're more likely to have the opposite problem. It's a good thing we've got almost a year to learn how to cope with how this place will swelter starting in May. What do you say we fire up the engine so we can turn on the air-conditioning?” Buckton held up the keysâon a little buffalo-shaped key chain, no less. “You got your commercial license so you're cleared to drive this, right?”
Jana stowed her bag in a little compartment behind the driver's seat and slipped behind the wheel. “Yes, Ellie told me to take care of that as soon as I moved here.” She looked at her boss. “How'd
you
get it here?”
He grinned. “I got a commercial license, too. I figured it was best if we had at least one person from the company brass who could drive this thing.”
So this “company brass” wasn't afraid to get hands-on. She remembered Ellie saying his branch of the family were ranchers as well, so maybe that wasn't so hard to believe.
Jana twisted the key in the ignition, the truck chugging to life with a solid sound. The wheel felt satisfying in her hands. From inside, she could almost forget the truck's circus color and feel powerful at the helm. She noticedâgladlyâthat he hadn't insisted on driving.
When will you stop thinking all men behave the way Ronnie did?
“I take it we're going to Allen?” she called over her shoulder. The southern part of Austin had one of the best restaurant supply shops in the area. Anyone who cared enough to get that sharp a chef's coat knew enough to be shopping at Allen Restaurant Supply. She'd been known to pore over their website for entertainment.
“Where else?”
Jana smiled, feeling the warmth of it spread right down her throat like a cup of the most excellent coffee on a chilly morning. “Well, then, let's go shopping.”
* * *
What were you expecting
?
Witt stared at the feisty brunette behind the wheel. Whatever he'd been expecting, Jana Powers wasn't it. She was...feminine. He felt ashamed that his cowboy sensibilities had imagined that a burger-food-truck chef ought to be a bit rougher around the edges, and generally much less...what? He couldn't produce the correct adjective, and maybe that was for the best. Witt got the distinct impression that voicing the thoughts currently buzzing in his head might earn him a swift kick in the shins from his new chef. Jana was what Gran would most definitely call a spitfire.
Jana was different, all right. Would that be good? Would the burger crowdâsomething he considered a decidedly male customer baseâgo for someone like her?
Why not? Guys like burgers. Guys like girls. A girlâa womanâwho could cook a great burger?
He couldn't have planned a better public relations platform if he'd tried.