Accidentally Amish (49 page)

He laid a tremulous hand against her cheek. “I knew you were beautiful sleeping in the hay. I knew I admired your spirit, even if you didn’t know what you stumbled into. I knew I thought about you all night.”

“Rufus.” Annie wrapped her fingers around the hand at her cheek. “Let’s figure out what this is.”

“You are still
English
,” he murmured.

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I know.”

“In the
English
world, this is where the kiss comes,
ya
?”

“Ya.”

“In the Amish world, too.”

She stood expectant yet hardly daring to hope.

“Perhaps being certain is not necessary at every moment,” Rufus said.

He bent to meet her, and she tasted his first sweet, lingering, freely given kiss.

This particular project brings me joy, because through it I have been able to explore my own family history. I am a descendant of Jakob Beyeler through the first son of his marriage to Elizabeth Kallen. The research process yielded certain historical hooks on which to hang a story, such as the passenger manifest of the
Charming Nancy
, the oath Jakob had to take in order to step onto a new continent, the property description of black oak that defined Jakob’s property, the slaughter of the nearby Hochstetler family, Jakob’s will describing his wishes for his surviving wife with particular detail. From there I imagined much of the story—what might have happened with my own ancestors and the choices they made that determined future generations. As I researched, I became mindful of the power of choice, and the contemporary story took form around that theme. Three hundred years after my ancestors arrived in Pennsylvania, the choices that shape our lives come in updated packaging, but they are essentially the same. We have the ability to say yes to what brings meaning and joy to our lives. May you embrace that choice on a daily basis.

Olivia Newport’s
novels twist through time to find where faith and passions meet. Her husband and two twentysomething children provide welcome distraction from the people stomping through her head on their way into her books. She chases joy in stunning Colorado at the foot of the Rockies, where daylilies grow as tall as she is.