Seek Me With All Your Heart

PRAISE FOR BETH WISEMAN

“
Wiseman’s voice is consistently compassionate and her words flow smoothly.”

—
Publishers Weekly
review of
Seek Me

With All Your Heart

“In
Seek Me With All Your Heart
, Beth Wiseman offers readers a heartwarming
story fil ed with complex characters and deep emotion. I instantly loved Emily and eagerly turned each page, anxious to learn more about her past—and what future the Lord had in store for her.”

— Shel ey Shepard Gray, best-sel ing

author of the Seasons of Sugarcreek

series

“Wiseman has done it again!
Beautiful y compel ing,
Seek Me With All Your Heart
, is a heart-warming story of faith, family, and renewal. Her characters and descriptions are captivating, bringing the story to life with the turn of every page.”

— Amy Clipston, best-sel ing author of

A Gift of Grace

“
Seek Me With All Your Heart
by Beth Wiseman is a heart-stirring story of second chances and learning to trust God in difficult circumstances. You won’t want to miss the start to this new Amish series!”

— Col een Coble, best-sel ing author of

The Lightkeeper’s Bride
and the

Rock Harbor series

OTHER BOOKS BY BETH WISEMAN

The Daughters of the Promise series

Plain Paradise

Plain Promise

Plain Pursuit

Plain Perfect

Novel as found in:

An Amish Christmas

An Amish Gathering

Seek Me

With All Your Heart

A Land of Canaan Novel

Beth Wiseman

© 2010 by Beth Wiseman

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Thomas Nelson books may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected].

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are from HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONALVERSION®. ©1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Wiseman, Beth, 1962–

Seek me with all your heart : a land of Canaan novel / Beth Wiseman.

p. cm. — (Land of Canaan ; 1)

ISBN 978-1-59554-824-5 (pbk.)

1. Amish—Fiction. 2. Colorado—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3623.I83S44 2010

813'.6—dc22

2010033439

Printed in the United States of America

10 11 12 13 14 RRD 5 4 3 2 1

To Natalie Hanemann

Pennsylvania Dutch Glossary

ab im kopp
—off in the head

Aamen
—Amen

ach
—oh

aenti
—aunt

boppli
—baby or babies

The Budget
—a weekly newspaper serving Amish and Mennonite

communities everywhere

dumm
—dumb

daadi
—grandfather

daed
—dad

danki
—thanks

dochder
—daughter

Englisch
—a non-Amish person

fraa
—wife

Frehlicher Grischtdaag—
Merry Christmas

gut
—good

guder mariye
—good morning

hatt
—hard

haus
—house

kaffi
—coffee

kapp
—prayer covering or cap

kinner
—children or grandchildren

lieb
—love

maedel
—girl

mamm
—mom

mammi
—grandmother

mei
—my

mudder
—mother

nee
—no

onkel
—uncle

Ordnung
—the written and unwritten rules of the Amish; the understood behavior by which the Amish are expected to live, passed down from generation to generation. Most Amish know the rules by heart.

Pennsylvania Deitsch
—Pennsylvania German, the language most commonly used by the Amish
rumschpringe
—running around period when a teenager turns sixteen years old

schtinkich
—stinks

wunderbaar—
wonderful

ya
—yes

Contents

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

One

EMILY STOOD BEHIND THE COUNTER OF HER FAMILY’S country store, watching as the tal man walked down each aisle, the top of his black felt hat visible above the gray metal shelving. First thing that morning, he’d strol ed in and shot her a slow, easy smile, white teeth dazzling against bronzed skin. He moved slowly, sometimes glimpsing in her direction.

Emily twisted the strings on her apron with both hands and tried to slow down her breathing. Her heart pulsed against her chest as she glanced out the window toward her family’s farmhouse in the distance.
Where is Jacob?
Her brother knew she didn’t like to be left alone in the store, and he’d promised to be right back.

Their community was smal , and al the members in the district knew each other, which was the only reason Emily agreed to work in the shop. But this Amish man was a stranger. And Amish or not, he was stil a man.

Emily jumped when the man rounded the bread aisle toting a box of noodles in one hand and a can in the other. With the back of one hand, he tipped back his hat so that sapphire blue eyes blazed down on her. As he approached the counter, Emily clung to her apron strings and took a step backward.

“How come everything in this store is messed up?” Tiny lines creased his forehead as he held up a can of green beans with a large dent in one side.

Then he held up the box of noodles. “And this looks like it’s been stepped on. It’s mashed on one side.” He dropped them on the counter, then folded his arms across his chest and waited for her to answer.

He towered over her. Emily stared straight ahead, not looking him in the eye. The outline of his shoulders strained against a black jacket that was too smal . Her bottom lip trembled as she turned her head to look out the window again. When she didn’t see any sign of Jacob, she turned back to face the stranger, who looked to be about her age—maybe nineteen or twenty—which didn’t make him any less threatening. His handsome looks could be a convenient cover up for what lay beneath. She knew he was not a married man since he didn’t have a beard covering his square jaw, and his dark hair was in need of a trim.

He arched his brows, waiting for her to respond, looking anything but amused. Emily felt goose bumps on her arms, and chil s began to run the length of her spine, even though Jacob had fired up the propane heaters long before the shop opened that morning.

“This is—is a salvage store.” Her fingers ached as she twisted the strings of her apron tighter. “We sel freight and warehouse damaged groceries.”

She bit her lip, but didn’t take her eyes from him.

“I can’t even find half the things on my list.” He shook his head as he stared at a white piece of paper. “What about milk and cheese?”

“No, I’m sorry. We mostly have dry goods.”

He threw his hands in the air. Emily thought his behavior was improper for an Amish man, but raw fear kept her mouth closed and her feet rooted to the floor.

“Where am I supposed to get al this?” He turned the piece of paper around so she could see the list.

Emily unwrapped the strings of her apron and slowly leaned her head forward. She tucked a loose strand of brown hair underneath her
kapp
.

“What’d you do to your hand?”

Emily glanced at her hand, and a blush fil ed her cheeks when she saw the red indentions around her fingers. She quickly dropped her hand to her side and ignored his comment. “You wil have to go to Monte Vista for most of those things. People usual y come here to save money, just to get a few things they know we’l have for a lesser price.”

“That’s a far drive by buggy in this snow.” He put both hands on the counter and hung his head for a few moments, then looked up as his mouth pul ed into a sour grin. With an unsettling calmness, he leaned forward and said, “Just one more thing I can’t stand about this place.”

Emily took two steps backward, which caused her to bump into the wal behind her. “Then leave,” she whispered as she cast her eyes down on her black shoes. She couldn’t believe she’d voiced the thought, and when she looked back up at him, the stranger’s eyes were glassed with anger.

“Please don’t hurt me.” She clenched her eyes closed.

DAVID COULDN’T BELIEVE what he’d heard. “
What?
Hurt you? What are you talkin’ about?” He’d never hurt anyone in his life. He walked around the counter and reached his hand out to her, but she cowered against the wal .

“I’m sorry. Whatever I did, I’m sorry. Please, don’t cry.” He touched her arm, and she flinched as a tear rol ed down her cheek. He pul ed back and said softly, “Please. Don’t cry. Look . . .” He showed her his palms, then backed up and got on the other side of the counter. “I’m leaving. Don’t cry.”

He rubbed his forehead for a moment and watched her trying to catch her breath to stop the tears from flowing. She swiped at her eyes and sniffled, then looked up at him. He noticed a scar above her left brow. A deep indentation that ran nearly to her hairline.

The bel on the front door chimed, and David looked away from the woman and toward the sound. An Amish fel ow around his own age stepped inside.

He glanced at David, then took one look at the woman against the wal and hastily rushed over to her. He brushed past David, almost pushing him, and touched the woman on the arm.

“Are you al right?”

“I didn’t do anything, I promise.” David watched the young man wrap his arm around her and whisper something in her ear. “I mean, I guess I acted like a jerk, but I never meant to . . .”

The fel ow waved a hand at him and shook his head before turning his attention back to her. “Go on back to the
haus
.”

David’s eyes fol owed the young woman as she scurried out the door, her chin tucked. Through the window, he saw her trudge through the snow toward a white house on the other side of a picket fence, her brown dress slapping at her shins as she hugged herself tightly. David pointed to a black wrap hanging on a rack by the door. “She forgot her cape,” he said and looked out of the window again. He wondered what exactly had just happened.

“I’m Jacob.” The man walked closer and extended his hand to David, who forced a smile.

“I’m David, and I’m real sorry. I came in here in a bad mood, and I guess I must have scared her or something.” He dropped his hand and shook his head. “But I sure didn’t mean to. Real y. I’m just real sorry.”

Jacob peeled off a snow-speckled black coat, walked to the rack, and hung it beside the forgotten cape. He turned to face David. “It’s not you. My sister just gets like that sometimes. I try not to leave her alone, but I heard one of the horses in the barn kicking at the stal , and I was gone longer than I should have been.”