Romance at the Amish Bakery

By Samantha Collier

Rachel wants desperately to leave her Amish community. She finds it all boring, stifling and looks forward to a life in the Englisch world. She does not want to become like her sister who works in the family bakery and is content to do that with the rest of her life. Rachel is all set to leave until her father hires a handsome Englischer to work in the bakery. Rachel then rethinks her decision and begins to think that life in the Amish bakery isn't so bad at all

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trellis Publishing
• Release date: Jul 3, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201374075

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ROMANCE AT THE AMISH BAKERY

SAMANTHA COLLIER

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ROMANCE AT THE AMISH BAKERY

EMMA’S QUIET AMISH TOWN

Rachel felt her prayer kapps slipping as she hurried along the street, back towards the bakery.  She had been trying to hurry; she knew that her father would frown and glance at the clock on the wall as soon as she walked through the door.  Twenty minutes, he had told her.  But now, it was closer to forty as she pushed the door open, causing the bell over the door to tinkle.

Her sister, Mary, was busy serving a customer as Rachel hurriedly walked behind the counter, straightening her kapps as she walked.

Thank you, Mr Lapp. Mary smiled broadly, taking the money and putting it in the till.  Mr Lapp, a regular, tipped his hat at them both and left.  Mary turned to her sister.

You are lucky that Daed had to leave, Mary whispered.  Otherwise, you would be in trouble.  Why can’t you ever mind the time, Rachel?

Rachel pouted.  It was a refrain that she had been hearing forever.  While Mary was sweet and biddable, and always eager to please, Rachel was always in trouble. No one knew how hard it was for her to smile sweetly and do as she was told.  Especially as an Amish woman.  All Amish women knew their place, and seemed happy to be in it.  Why couldn’t she?

Mary had picked up a cloth, and was wiping down the counter.  There is a tray of cinnamon buns out the back, she said to Rachel. Could you get them, and put them in the display?

Sighing, Rachel walked out to the back of the store.  She didn’t see the pained look that Mary gave her as she turned her back.

As soon as she was in the back of the store, Rachel stopped and leant against the large work bench that dominated the room.  There were vestiges of flour still on it, from where her father had recently kneaded bread.  It was a familiar sight to Rachel; she had been coming into this store, her family’s bakery, ever since she could remember.  And ever since she could remember, she had been told that one day she would work in this bakery, alongside all her family.  She had no other choice in life.

Scraping some flour onto her thumb, Rachel tried to pinpoint the moment when she had realised that she didn’t want to do that.  Had there been a definitive moment? No. The realisation had crept up on her gradually.  She started to drag her feet when she had to work.  She found it difficult to concentrate, so that she had to ask customers what they wanted again. While Mary skipped through her work, Rachel always found excuses to leave the store.

She had told herself that it was just a phase.  Indeed, that was the word that she had heard her mother tell her father. Rachel’s just going through a phase, Mrs Mast had told her husband. She’ll grow out of it.  Except that she hadn’t grown out of it.  If anything, the longing to leave the bakery and live her own life, out in the English world, had grown stronger over time. It hadn’t lessened.

She had tried to fight it.  When she had gone on her rumspringa she had tasted the English world, and then returned home and told herself that she was glad that she had gotten it out of her system.  Except that she hadn’t.  She kept dreaming of all the fun that she had had; the things that were denied to her, being Amish.

But she didn’t want to lose her family,