Fearless Hope: A Novel (30 page)

“So.” Harry glanced at the menu and then laid it aside. “How is the writing going?”

Logan thought his agent sounded nervous. He also knew that he had given him ample reason to be. It felt nice to have good news.

“The last novel in the psychiatrist/stalker series is finished. A week more to polish it and I’ll email it to the publisher.”

“Your two-month extension was a help?”

“A great help. You were right. I was burned out.”

“Is the book any good?” Harry fingered his fork and didn’t look at him.

“I think so. It’s definitely better than the last two.”

Harry breathed a sigh of relief. “And the drinking?”

Logan nodded at the pitcher of iced tea he’d had brought to the table instead of the wine he’d always ordered in the past. “It was a struggle at first. Now I rarely think about it.”

“Good!” Harry did not even try to hide his relief. “I’m almost afraid to ask if you have any new proposals for me to pitch.”

“I do, actually.” Logan reached for his briefcase and pulled out the manuscript of the war novel he’d started at the antiques shop. He laid the carefully typed pages on the table between them.

“You’re kidding,” Harry said. “No one uses hard copy anymore.”

“I do,” Logan said. “At least I did with this one.”

Harry lifted the top page of the manuscript and started reading while they waited to order lunch. Logan remained silent, wondering, waiting. His agent wasn’t always the most encouraging person in the world, but Harry knew good writing when he saw it.

Harry turned the first page facedown on the table and started reading the second page. Logan’s hopes rose. This was a very good sign. Someone as experienced as Harry could tell if a piece was saleable after just one paragraph.

He sipped his tea and waited. Harry kept reading. The waitress took their order, and his agent kept reading. When she brought their salads ten minutes later, Harry laid the page facedown on the pile he’d just finished and glanced up.

“This is not at all like anything you’ve written in the past.”

“I know.”

“This is a wartime love story.”

“It is.”

“People expect a very specific reading experience when they buy a Nate Scott novel and this isn’t it.”

“I know.”

“Publishers aren’t going to want to touch it.” His agent loosened his tie. “It would be like buying a Stephen King horror story and finding out you just bought
Gone with the Wind
.”

“I know.”

“You do realize you’re nuts for wasting your time on this. Right?”

Logan shrugged. “I don’t care.”

It was the first time he had ever seen his agent at a loss for words.

“Here’s the thing,” Logan said. “I’m not trying to sell a million copies of this novel. I’m just trying to make a few very special people happy—and the sooner the better. I’ll publish it under my real name, Logan Parker, instead of Nate Scott, so there will be no preconceived ideas. You can shop it around and take your fifteen percent or I can self-publish, have fifty copies made for my friends, and then let it drop out of sight. It doesn’t matter to me.”

His agent fidgeted with the dinnerware. “You know how good this book is, don’t you?”

“To tell you the truth,” Logan said, “I don’t really care.”

Harry sat back in his chair and gave him a long look. “Living in Amish country is changing you isn’t it?”

Logan broke apart a dinner roll. “You have no idea.”

•  •  •

After leaving his lunch with Harry, Logan elbowed his way through the after-lunch crowd in Manhattan, but all he could think about was how badly he missed Hope and the children. He even missed Simon. He was so homesick that he probably would have grabbed and hugged Agatha if she had walked by.

It was a different culture, a different place, and often felt like an entirely different world. No longer did he feel like he belonged here. He called home to check on Hope and Esther Rose, and Grace told him they were fine and staying with them at the clinic for another couple of days. He was relieved. Hope and the baby couldn’t be in a better place. He left word that if Hope and her children needed a place to live, they could use his place until they found something else. He’d rent a room somewhere.

He realized that he was as nervous about Esther Rose and her mother as a brand-new father, and he wasn’t the father, but he couldn’t help it. He’d lost his heart the moment he held that baby girl in his arms.

His heart was so sick with longing for Hope, and her children, and the life he might be able to have with them, that he actually tried on the idea of becoming Amish.

He could rip out the electricity, buy a buggy, grow a beard, wear suspenders. He had lived in a nonelectric house for several months. He could do it again if it meant having her and her children in his life. He could easily endure a three-hour worship service twice a month if it meant having Hope and helping her raise those children.

He could easily imagine himself sitting on the front porch with Hope thirty or forty years from now, watching grandchildren play in the front yard, hosting church in his house, enjoying close friendships with these decent and gentle people.

In some ways, becoming Amish would be a relief. He longed for the faith he saw in their lives, their acceptance of God’s will. He longed for the decency and goodness he saw in Hope and her family. He admired the simplicity of their lives. If becoming a spiritual man involved studying the Bible, he could do that. If it involved praying daily, he could do that, too.

It wasn’t just Hope. It was a longing to belong to something
bigger and better than himself that was drawing him to this decision.

Even if Hope did not want him . . . he wanted to belong to her people.

Everything within him wanted to jump in the car and go home, but his meeting to complete the sale of the apartment was tomorrow. There was no way he could leave before then. He was taking care of having dinner with his mother tonight, so there would be nothing keeping him from heading home the minute the papers were signed. He couldn’t wait.

•  •  •

“She is such a fine baby.” Thelma Schrock looked fondly into Esther Rose’s tiny face. “She looks like you, but I also see a bit of Titus there as well.”

It was the day after Esther Rose was born, and Hope was grateful to be able to recuperate at the birthing clinic for a few days. It was such a homey place. At the moment she was seated in a padded rocking chair in the kitchen, having a snack of ginger cookies with her mother-in-law and Grace.

“I’m so glad you won’t be working over at your father’s old place anymore,” Thelma said.

“What do you mean?” Hope asked.

“Well, now that the baby is here . . . and after all the damage the tornado did. We heard that it had destroyed everything that you and Simon had built. Certainly you won’t be going back now.”

“I never intended not to go back.”

“But my husband said he told you about getting you that job at the restaurant.”

“I’m not interested in that job.”

Thelma looked hurt and confused. “You would disobey the bishop’s counsel?”

Hope tried to put her feelings into words that would do the least damage. “Bishop Schrock is a good and wise man. He has been an excellent father-in-law, and I could not have asked for a better mother-in-law than you, but I have plans to turn my father’s old place into a productive farm. Logan has already put too much money into seed, equipment, and livestock for me to walk away now. I made a business deal. I gave him my word. It would not be honest or fair to suddenly stop working there.”

“You would honor an
Englisch
man’s financial concerns more than your own bishop’s counsel?”

“Of course not, but I cannot go back on my word.”

She could tell that the idea of having a different opinion than the bishop was mind-boggling to his wife. This, no doubt, had made the bishop’s life much easier.

“I—I should go.” Thelma handed the baby back to Hope and headed out the door as though frightened by their conversation.

“Wow,” Grace said, after Thelma had gone. “You are certainly brave.”

“Not brave,” Hope said. “A little rebellious? Probably. But not brave.”

Grace glanced at the clock. “I have a client coming in a few minutes, but I’d like to ask you something first. Do you mind if I get a little nosy?”

“After all you’ve done for me?” Hope said. “Of course not.”

“Sometimes where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Is there any chance you are interested in Logan Parker romantically? He’s a good-looking guy, and the way he looked at you when he was here makes me think he wishes he had the right to be Esther Rose’s daddy,” Grace said. “It worried me to see that, because I thought he had a wife back in New York.”

Hope knew that her cousin’s
Englisch
wife was not interested in gossip, but was truly concerned.

“Not a wife. A fiancée. He told me yesterday before the tornado came that they have broken up. He is in New York right now selling his apartment. When he comes back, he plans to stay here permanently.”

“That’s very interesting.” Grace busied herself putting away the cookies Thelma had brought. “So, how do you feel about him?”

Hope knew that Grace did not have the same mind-set as the people in her Amish church. She would not judge her harshly for having feelings for Logan. Because of that, she felt free to voice something that made her cheeks grow pink with embarrassment. “If Logan were Amish, I would not mind being courted by him.”

“Ah,” Grace said. “That’s what I was afraid of. Let me ask you this—have you ever considered jumping fence and becoming a Mennonite? Seems to me that might be the easiest solution for everyone.”

“I have given it some thought.”

“If I understand how things work around here, your Old Order Amish church would not shun you as long as you become part of another conservative, Anabaptist church. Right?”

“Sometimes I do wonder what it would be like to have more freedom,” Hope confessed. “But my family and church would be so very disappointed if I left.”

“My husband tells me that Logan is not a nonbeliever. He thinks that there are possibilities there. If both you and Logan were to join, say, Ivan’s church—wouldn’t that solve everything?”

Esther Rose opened her eyes, started to root around. Hope began to nurse her.

“I know that would seem like an easy solution to you, Grace. You were raised
Englisch
. You truly can’t understand what me jumping fence would do to my parents, my brothers, my sisters,
and Titus’s parents. It would break their hearts.” She stroked the baby’s downy head. “And because it would break their hearts . . . it would break mine.”

•  •  •

“Instead of having dinner tonight”—his mother’s voice sounded strained over the phone—“could you meet me at St. Patrick’s in a few minutes?”

“Sure, Mom.” What an odd request. He glanced at his watch. It was only two o’clock in the afternoon. Normally she would be in her office. He’d never known her to go to the cathedral in the middle of a workday. “Is something wrong?”

“Yes, Logan.” There was a long silence. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought he heard her crying. “Something is very, very wrong.”

“Where are you, Mom?”

“Already there.”

“I’m on my way.”

He didn’t bother to hail a cab. It was only a few blocks. He could get there quicker if he ran.

I
t had been a long time since he’d walked up the steps of the famous cathedral. He had been little, and still holding his mother’s hand. Now he took them two at a time.

His mother was sitting in her usual pew. In the right corner, far back. Even though it had only been a few weeks since he’d last spent time with her, she seemed . . . smaller.

He slid in beside her, and grasped her hand. She gripped it hard.

“What’s wrong and why are we here?” he asked.

“I needed courage, and I needed you.” She dabbed her eyes with a tissue.

“Are you ill?”

She nodded and his heart nearly stopped.

“How ill?”

Her eyes, when she turned to look at him, were not only red-rimmed from crying, they were haunted. “Less than a year.”

“Dear God!” His world collapsed. “No!”

“Cancer almost got me over thirty years ago, Logan, and I beat it. Now it’s come back.”

Then she dropped another bomb.

“I’ve had a good run. There’s little I wanted to do that I haven’t done. I can face death. It’s facing you that is going to be hard.”

His mind was whirling. “Courage to face me? I don’t understand.”

“Ever since I left the doctor’s office, there’s been only one thing on my mind . . . and that was you. I don’t know how long I have, and I need to tell you some very important things before I go.”

“Mom, if it’s about finances . . .”

She shook her head. Impatient. “You’ve had power of attorney for years. Everything is in order. I need to tell you about your father. And Logan? It is not going to be easy.”

It had been quiet and peaceful in the cathedral when he arrived, but a tour group had come in and their voices, under the circumstances, grated on Logan’s nerves. “Let’s go back to your apartment, Mom,” he said. “Please.”

“Perhaps that would be best.”

She walked to the sidewalk, then stopped and looked back at the massive building. “I’ve walked here at least once a week for most of my life. Now I think it would be best if you caught us a cab.”

•  •  •

There was an ebb and flow of mothers at Grace and Claire’s clinic and, two days after the birth of Esther Rose, a small crisis when four women arrived and gave birth within hours of one another. Levi brought in a cot and set it up for the fourth mother while Hope got ready to go.

“Thank you for everything,” she said to Claire on her way out the door. “And thank Grace for me. I know she’s a little busy right now.”

At that moment, they both stopped and listened to an angry
wail as Grace ushered a newborn into the world. Another healthy set of lungs. All was well.