Jacob's Return

JACOB’S RETURN

by

ANNETTE BLAIR

www.sinfulmomentspress.com

Published Internationally by Sinful Moments Press

RR # 1, Dunrobin, Ontario

Canada K0A 1T0

Copyright © 1999 Annette Blair

Exclusive cover © 2011 Laura Givens

Inside artwork © 2011 Louise Clark

All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written consent of the publisher, Lachesis Publishing, is an infringement of the copyright law.

First published in print edition in 1999 by Zebra Books,

an imprint of Kensington Books, New York City.

2011 editions (e-book and trade paper) by

Sinful Moments Press, an imprint of

Lachesis Publishing, Dunrobin, Canada.

Newly revised and edited for 2011 publication.

A catalogue record for the print format of this title is available from the National Library of Canada

ISBN 13: 978-1-897562-85-7

A catalogue record for the Ebook is available

from the
National Library of Canada

Ebooks are available for purchase from

www.lachesispublishing.com

ISBN 13: 978-1-897562-84-0

Credit: Joanna D’Angelo – Copyeditor

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any person or persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Dedication

In memory of Nancy Bulk and Dorie Hitchen.

With years of love to:

RHODE ISLAND ROMANCE WRITERS

The best little writing group in the world.

Special friends, super support.

Kind words, shared knowledge.

Lots of laughs.

You Rock!

Coming Soon

Butterfly Garden

Annette Blair’s second Amish Historical Romance

Reviews for Jacob’s Return

“This story has all the warmth and beauty of an Amish quilt. It's a tale of love, commitment, and family ties, told with tenderness and sensitivity.”

Susan Wiggs
,
New York Times
Bestselling author of
Marrying Daisy Bellamy
(The Lakeshore Chronicles)

“Absolutely wonderful! This is one of the best romances I have ever read — the writing is so good that I understood what it felt like to be Amish, almost even wanted to be Amish! And Jacob is so sexy. There's even a great secondary romance. Lots of funny lines too. This is a keeper!”

Eloisa James
,
New York Times
Bestselling author of
When Beauty Tamed the Beast

Four stars
from
Romantic Times

“Ms. Blair cleverly takes the reader inside a community typically painted as peace-loving and contented and breaks open that myth with strong characters and believable human failings. Rachel does not react passively, but strives to become self-sufficient and strong.
Jacob’s Return
[originally
Thee, I Love
) is certainly an enlightening reading experience. SWEET.”

RT Book Review
(Cyndie Dennis-Greer), October 1999

JACOB’S RETURN

Chapter 1

Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, June 1885

Jacob Sauder drove his buggy toward the home he left four years before, never intending to return. Same old dirt lanes bisected greening patchwork fields and plain Amish farms, untarnished by time. But despite the landscape, time had passed. Life had changed. And unlike the panorama that quickened his heart, Jacob Sauder had been tarnished.

Uncertainty had dogged him since his decision to return, but this sense of anticipation — this was a surprise.

Jacob stopped the buggy at the top of Hickory Hill and scanned the valley. Lancaster looked the same, yet different, trees taller maybe, grass greener surely.

Home. He had come home after all.

But would they let him stay?

He flicked the reins setting Caliope to a trot. Right before he left this place — at his mother’s funeral, no less — he told everyone, God and the Bishop included, to go to hell. Then he’d turned from Mom’s open casket, and the dirt hole waiting to swallow her, climbed into his buggy, and never looked back.

He’d tried to become English, which his people called anyone not Amish, and broke every rule he’d been taught, some as slight as wearing buttons on his coats … others, much, much worse. And he might have gone on that way, if fate had not taken a hand.

Anticipation skittered his heart.

Dread weighed him down.

How would his father feel about his unexpected return? How would Rachel feel? She who’d filled his empty soul when his twin sister, Anna, had died. Rachel who became, somehow, his missing half. Rachel Zook.
Mudpie
– he called her. His brother’s wife.

How were Datt and Rachel? Had they changed?

Jacob slowed when he spotted thirty or so Amish buggies outside the Yoder barn. His heart skipped as he turned into the drive. A good sight, these buggies. “You are home, they said, and welcome.”

If only he believed it.

“You are not welcome here!” came a familiar voice.

Well, his brother, Simon, had not changed, not in looks, certainly not in disposition. Jacob shook his head. “Missed you, too.”

“Go back to where you belong,” Simon said, approaching with an angry stride.

Jacob climbed from his buggy. “This is where I belong.” It tickled him to skin Simon’s knuckles, especially with faulty sentiment.

Simon’s thin lips firmed, his eyes narrowed. “You would come on Church Sunday, especially this one.” He straightened his frock coat and raised his chin. “I am to be ordained Deacon this morning.”

Jacob was taken aback by the news, but it explained Simon’s solitude; he was waiting to make an entrance. His brother would be a stern, humorless deacon, but some people needed that, Jacob supposed. “You must be pleased.”

“I am pleased to do God’s will. Unlike you.” Simon walked away. “Just go,” he said, and disappeared into the barn.

Very unlike me, Jacob thought, as he made his way around his buggy, raised the back flap … and grinned. After all these weeks, he still could not get over the sight of them, his two-year-old twins, now snuggled in sleep like newborn pups. “Come, Pumpkins,” he said. “Up we go.” What a surprise they’d been. What a joy, despite the fact that he deserved no joy. He held them, one in each arm. He was getting good at this, he thought, considering he’d only had them a short time. Two sleepyheads, one kapped, the other hatless, nuzzled his neck.

Good. They felt good there.

When Jacob walked into the Yoder house after four silent years and carrying two small children, whispers grew, then, “Shh, Shh, Shh.”

Suddenly, not a sound could be heard save the chafing of his new black broadfall pants rubbing one leg against the other. Rough they were and itchy, not smooth and comfortable like the buckskins he’d worn when he pretended to be English.

He stopped and stood in the middle of the group, the sight familiar yet foreign. Row upon row of men sat ramrod straight on simple backless benches. In the opposite room, facing the men, sat rows of women, on matching benches, the folding doors between the two rooms open for this purpose. The women were white-kapped, the men bearded, marking them Amish.

Jacob’s own beard had been shaved daily during his sojourn into the English world, with only three weeks growth now to show for his decision to return. This marked him a rebel. And a liar. Only married men let their beards grow.

He saw old friends, nodded at a few. Some smiled back, but not many. This should not anger or surprise him, but it did. Emma sighed in her sleep, reminding him of his plan to raise his babies here. Knowing that a bad attitude could make for a bad beginning, Jacob swallowed his urge to declare that he was not sorry he left.

His father was not to be seen, but Ruben Miller, fellow rebel, grinned a true welcome. Jacob grinned back.

 Where should he sit? He belonged in the men’s section. The babies belonged in the women’s. Unheard of, this, a man raising his babies alone. He would be expected to court a mother for his children soon. But how could he, when the woman he loved....

He saw her watching him and was jolted.

Rachel was more beautiful than he remembered, but she looked....

She buried her anger — he saw the effort it took — and came to him. “They’re yours?” she asked.

Drinking in the sight of her, he could only nod.

“Their mother?” she asked.

Gave them life with her last breath, he thought, but he shook his head, his remorse too great for words.

“What are their names?”

Jacob swallowed his yearning, and his regret, and found his voice. “Emma and Aaron.”

Rachel opened her arms. “I’ll take them.”

“I can’t ask you—”

“Oh, please,” she said, her maple-syrup eyes wide and pleading – revealing a different kind of anguish.

And Jacob knew within the deepest part of himself that Rachel longed to hold his babies with an ache as acute as his own had been these many years to hold her.

He’d almost forgotten this ability they shared — to feel each other’s emotions, as if each lived inside the other. It had happened often to them as children, less as they grew older.

But this, just now, had been powerful. Except that she should be holding her own babies. “Thank you,” he said. “Sit first. It’s tricky when you’re standing.”

They held everyone’s attention, he knew … the prodigal and the woman who’d tossed him away, passing babies back and forth, her marriage to his brother like a cloud between them.

Jacob sat in the back of the men’s section. Everyone opened the
Ausband
and turned to the hymn named. As always, the
Vorsinger
began the chant. The High German song soothed him, their blended voices the only music. The words and chant had been passed from one generation to the next. The same song sounded different in other settlements. Better here.

With an ordination, service would be longer than the usual three hours, but he’d already missed the vote for Deaconate candidates. Simon, by the grace of God — according to Amish belief, not Jacob’s — had obviously been the candidate to choose the Bible with the slip of paper naming him Deacon. And from what Simon said, the ordination and laying-on of hands was yet to come.

When it began, Simon was in his element, eyes downcast, brought high in his humility for all to see.

During the ceremony, Jacob could not keep from watching Rachel, his babies asleep in her arms, her slim fingers gentling them. He closed his eyes and imagined the lips that touched Emma’s tiny forehead, touching his.