Read Online Autumn Winds by Charlotte Hubbard - Free Book Online Page A

agreed as her sister spread the quilt on the grass. “He might be the bishop, but it’s time somebody took him down a peg or two, after that stunt he pulled at the Zooks’.”
    Ben heard his own distaste echoed in the sisters’ remarks. He was pleased they were watching out for their mother, but they were right: their presence might have delayed Hiram Knepp’s advances, yet the bishop impressed him as the type who never gave up until he got what he wanted. And wasn’t that a sorry thing to say about a leader in their faith?
    “I left the common meal to think things through,” he explained as Miriam returned to them with the tall coconut cake. “I blew in with the wind yesterday, so I realize ya have no reason to believe—”
    At the clip-clop! clip-clop! of approaching carriages, Miriam turned toward the road. “Let’s see who’s comin’ before ya go on with—”
    “It’s Micah!” Rachel popped up from the quilt to wave her arms at him. Then she smiled at Ben. “Micah Brenneman’s my honey, and we’re gettin’ hitched on the twentieth,” she gushed like a girl in love. “He’s the one who fixed up the apartment above Dat’s smithy for Mamma and Rhoda. A wonderful- gut carpenter, he is!”
    “Is everythin’ all right here?” Micah called out. He stopped the carriage and hopped out. “I wasn’t any too happy about that scene at the meal, Miriam. I was guessin’ the bishop might come over here to—”
    “ Jah , he did,” Miriam replied. “And denki for thinkin’ of us, Micah.”
    The burly blond nodded, removing his felt hat to smooth his hair. He looked back toward the road. “Preacher Tom had the same idea, comin’ to see that you were all right—except the bishop stopped him, to talk. Hiram’s little trick’s got everybody stirred up, for sure and for certain.” As Tom’s buggy rattled down the driveway toward them, Micah parked his rig and put his horse in the pasture.
    After they all settled onto the quilt, Ben accepted a glass of lemonade from Rhoda, noting again how her blue eyes widened as she looked at him . . . wondering just how many fires he’d started by coming to Willow Ridge. Clearly Miriam Lantz and her girls were being watched over by men who cared about their welfare, so maybe they didn’t need him here, shaking up their daily lives.
    Don’t believe that! Ya feel things for Miriam and she sees somethin’ when she looks into your eyes, too. Let this play out. Don’t assume ya have nothin’ to gain by stayin’. Ben took a long sip of sweet, cool lemonade as Preacher Tom stepped down from his buggy.
    “Well now! Looks like I’m bargin’ in on a little picnic—”
    “Got plenty for you, too, Tom. Glad to see ya.” Miriam scooted over to make room for him. “Seems we’ve got a lot to chew on—besides this cake Hiram left behind.”
    “Oh, there’ll be some chewin’, all right. Before I left the Zooks’, Gabe Glick and Reuben told me we needed a meetin’ about this, and just now the bishop was sayin’ he wants to call a meetin’, too,” the preacher replied with a shake of his head. “But I can tell ya, our agenda’s a lot different from Hiram’s, if he thinks we’re gonna go along with the way he’s treatin’ you, Miriam.”
    He looked over at Ben then, his lips twitching. “Why am I not surprised to see you here, Hooley?”
    Ben smiled. Preacher Tom Hostetler wasn’t a very fiery, fascinating speaker, but he was a genuinely nice fellow. If Old Order ways allowed it, the dairy farmer would probably be courting Miriam Lantz himself. He’d poured out his story in the milking barn, about how his wife, Lettie, had left in the night with an English fellow in a fancy car. Lettie had divorced him, but according to the Ordnung , he couldn’t remarry until she died.
    “I was mighty upset when I up and left the Zooks’. Sounds odd, maybe, but I was walkin’ off my temper,” Ben explained. “Got so caught up in my thoughts I didn’t realize my