The Butterfly Box

By Mindy Steele

When the small town of Miller’s Creek suffers great loss, one band of brothers and a pair of town matchmakers help breath life back into community.

Penny Lapp thought life was done knocking her down, but when the earth shakes the very ground beneath her, she knows life isn’t finished toying with her yet. Everyone she has ever cared for is gone. Now suffering from her own accident while being the sole caregiver to her mother, Penny must find a way to survive the storms God has given her. Giving up would be easier, but when a stranger from the north arrives and refuses to leave, she might just discover she has so much to fight for.

Luke Milford came to Kentucky months ago for his cousin’s funeral. Helping his family with their mounting losses, Luke finds himself drawn to his cousin’s intended. He has never met anyone so fragile, so in need...of him. Penny Lapp needs more than a new roof, and Luke is determined to give her that before he must head back home. What was meant to be simply repaying an old debt for saving his life years ago, has now brought him back to claim what captured his heart.

• Language: English
• Publisher: vinspirepublishing
• Release date: Jan 31, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005546106

Mindy Steele

Raised in Kentucky timber country, Steele has been writing since she could hold a crayon against the wall. Inspired by her rural surroundings, her Amish romances are peppered with just the right amount of charms for all the senses to make you laugh, cry, hold your breath, and root for the happy ever after ending. Mother of five, Steele enjoys coffee indulgences, weekend road trips, and plotting her next story.   

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Praise for The Butterfly Box

The Butterfly Box is a sweet story of love, hope, and new beginnings with engaging characters who are bound to touch the heart and bring a smile.

~ Susan Lantz Simpson, Author

Plainly Maryland Series

Southern Maryland Amish Romances Series

The Christmas Fudge Miracle in Amish Christmas Miracles Collection

The Sweetest Gift in More Amish Christmas Miracles Collection

In The Butterfly Box, Mindy Steele captures the intensity of a devastating misfortune that rocks a small community. A couple of matchmakers and a family of strangers are among those who come alongside the people of Miller’s Creek to help heal the heartache. Steele has crafted a charming story of second chances. Readers of Amish romances will enjoy this new addition to the Miller’s Creek Series.

~ Laurie Stroup Smith, author of The Pocket Quilt Series

Fans of Amish fiction, you're in for a treat! Mindy Steele once again shares her special love for, and her understanding of, the Amish way of life, and we readers are given a special gift. Take a return trip to the small Kentucky community of Miller's Creek and be prepared to smile, laugh, and cry. The Butterfly Box is a touching story with amazing characters, sweet romance, and an encouraging message of hope and faith!

~ Connie Porter Saunders, Book Reviewer & Blogger

The Butterfly Box

A Miller’s Creek Series, Book 2

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Mindy Steele

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Copyright ©2022 Mindy Steele

Cover copyright © 2022 Elaina Lee/For the Muse Designs

Formatting and Interior Design by Woven Red Author Services

First Edition

Printed and bound in the United States of America. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system-except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine, newspaper, or on the Web-without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, please contact Vinspire Publishing, LLC, P.O. Box 1165, Ladson, SC 29456-1165.

All characters in this work are purely fictional and have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

ISBN: 978-1-7363662-4-0

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Matthew 5:4

To my extended family who has proven that even amongst great loss, life can still be beautiful

Chapter One

Goosebumps prickled Penny Lapp’s arms as she twisted the straw hat in her hands. The unraveling, marred rim was evidence enough that this hat belonged to her Amos. She wouldn’t have dared scooped it up if not for that blemish. Thirty minutes ago, she felt the ground shake beneath her thick-soled shoes, as did everyone in Miller’s Bakery. Now here she stood near the ruins of what was left of a five-story building in the heart of the town and somewhere inside, were the men who were building it.

The air was visible, dust clinging to every unseen character. Coughing, Penny weaved between vehicles and neared the gray haze of the gap where men were being rescued. Her gaze shot upward following the groaning sounds of an unstable structure above. Two walls were unsteadily leaning into one another fighting desperately to stay erect. Fear that the structure had not finished claiming more victims, Penny bit into her lip and silently prayed the walls would wait until everyone inside had made it safely out before they too crashed to the earth with the others.

She searched through the many faces of men being loaded in ambulances and trucks and knew her Amos had to still be inside. Another tremble shot through her as her heart continued climbing into an unsteady rhythm. She couldn’t imagine what Amos had witnessed or how he felt in those moments the two walls came tumbling down. He had only started working recently for the construction company, hoping the extra money would help the failing farm his daed left in his care.

Two shadows emerged out of the rubble and dust and she clutched the straw hat tight against her. She’d cling to hope that Amos claimed one of those shadows, but life had taught her that hope seldom delivered. When two sets of legs in dirty denim revealed they were Englisch men, she fought back emerging tears and straightened. Amos would soon follow. He had to. He made a promise.

Amos had always been kind to her, and she cherished their friendship. It was just last night as they sat at the lake as they seldom did that Amos asked her to marry him. Penny said yes, of course, wasn’t like anyone had ever shown an interest in plain and pitiful Penny before. Any looks tossed her way over the years were sorrowful ones. Sorry her daed died of heatstroke when she was thirteen. Sorry her mudder was depressed, forever a hostage to her blue moods. Plain sorry Penny Lapp had a hard life and had to be the sole provider for her house.

Sirens wailed louder, rattling her back to the present. Penny tightened her grip on Amos’s hat, noting a group of Amish women to her left from a neighboring district. They too were waiting.

It felt like August, not the last day of May in Kentucky, air as suffocating as it was. "Please Gott, let my Amos walk out of there." Just muttering the few words filled her mouth with debris, and she spit the gritty taste of uncertainty onto the cluttered ground.

Penny. Penny Lapp, get away from there!

Penny bristled at the sound of Thomas Miller. Miller’s Creek’s new deacon used to be an agreeable sort. Now he was just another thorn in the community who felt Penny’s place was home tending her mudder, not working for Hazel and Rose at the bakery. If daed were here now, he would say a lot more to Thomas Miller and anyone else who thought she should live off the charity of others when she had two strong hands of her own.

Penny stiffened, pretending she hadn’t heard the deacon call out to her. It wasn’t right, ignoring one’s elders, but Penny couldn’t stomach a scolding right now. Thankfully Thomas moved on without giving her a second thought. He would never understand her need to remain steadfast, waiting. Waiting for a future she had longed for. She and Amos courted in private, as was the custom, and neither had shared their recent news with anyone yet. Penny wanted to cling to the joy that had filled her heart when promises were made. Amos was a good man, and his promise of a life far better than the one she had been given was all she could ever hope for. Her lips quivered in the unknowing.

More men rushed into the cloud of gray. Silas Graber, a local widower soon to marry her friend Lydia, and the local sheriff noticed her close to the largest chunks of the fallen walls and crooked metal rods broken and buried within concrete. Neither man ordered her back as Deacon Miller had, but their looks of concern didn’t go unnoticed as they hurried by. Penny remained steadfast, desperate to know her fate.

As the long minutes passed, her focus remained fixed on watching men return either carrying some poor soul with no breath left or one crying out in agony. Her stomach wretched sending acidic bile upward, burning the lining of her throat. It was like nothing she could have ever imagined, even in nightmares, seeing men twisted and broken like that. At the site of an older man, silver-haired, limp, and bloody being carried away, she lost her morning meal. Every fiber in her begged her to flee the scene no one should be witness to. But she couldn’t walk away without Amos, even if the wounded got worse looking by the minute.

***

Four hours disappeared in a handful of blinks, and Penny had all the evidence she needed to know that her life was now completely over. She thought life was over years ago when daed died of heatstroke, but now it was as certain as darkness claimed night. She knuckled away more tears, a sure sign of weakness, as her footsteps smacked harder against asphalt on the quiet road leading towards home.

The local deputy had insisted she had no business looking, but Penny ignored his warnings when something caught her gaze and tugged a familiar nerve under a crimson-stained sheet with brightly colored butterflies. She had to look, to know if those locks of thick dark hair belonged to the man who she was prepared to give her future to. And they had. Her Amos was gone. Like so many, his life was cut short, leaving behind more broken hearts than her one.

Hugging her middle, she walked the full seven miles it took to reach home instead of returning to the bakery. There would be no appetites to serve on this day, no sweets good enough to lift what had fallen. Her tears were not the only tears being shed right now. From one end of Pleasants County to the other, hearts were breaking this day.

She scolded herself for even attempting to peek. Her Amos was handsome, strong, and perfect until now. Now he was faceless and forever burned into her mind that way. She would never see a butterfly again and not think of him like that, not as he was. With empty hands and an empty heart, her tears poured as she walked the edges of asphalt and tall weedy grasses. Peering up, she couldn’t help but note that this far from town the sky turned blue again. Miller’s Creek was a small area with stretched-out farms and babbling brooks, and currently, it looked as if death hadn’t entered here. But death had come, sunk her deep claws in, and planned on staying a spell.

Penny coughed out the dusty effects of waiting, and then sneezed. It would take more than a pan of soap and water to wash off this day. A sudden reality emerged, and she picked up her pace. Nelly would have known what had happened by now, and here her friend was still watching mudder instead of seeing about her own family. Nelly’s daed helped out part-time when John Peachy was short on men to help with construction jobs. Hopefully, Nelly’s daed was safe and sound in the fields out back of their family farm as if it was any normal spring day, and not among the fallen.

Normal, her heart mocked. What was normal, anyway? Normal was so far back in her yesterday, Penny hadn’t a clue what it looked like anymore. It was only last week she found mudder in the barn, pail in hand calling out to Beats. And here their old milk cow had been sold two years prior. Four days ago, Penny had to spoon feed mudder soup just to get her to eat and this morning couldn’t serve her fast enough. That was normal now. No one knew what to expect when they dared open their eyes each morning.

She opened the front door to their small cottage. Penny was blessed to have a roof over her head after losing the home they once had. She even found the small home held a sense of coziness over the common Amish houses built of two stories and airy spaces. Yet, regardless of the four walls sheltering them, how many days had she walked through this very door, nerves taunt?

Eliza Lapp, her mudder, was either in a fog of nothingness or wielding bitter wrath. Today, Penny wasn’t sure she could handle either. Amos had offered to help share this burden with her. His presence would have made all the difference, but the reality was everything rested on her ability to carry on.

Penny, Mudder called from the kitchen where the stench of burning bread wafted out.

Penny sucked in a breath of fouled air, hurried into the kitchen, and pulled the concoction from the oven.

I made supper. Eliza’s green-gray eyes lit up like a child wanting a reward.

Where’s Nelly? Penny peered into the sitting room. The youngie was nowhere to be found.

I told her to go. Eliza’s matter-a-fact tone told that today mudder’s mind would be present and not off in another world. "I need not to be told how to run my haus."

Penny sighed, too upset to argue. It was best to never argue.

"Danki mudder. It looks gut. Penny forced out her appreciation for burnt bread for supper and opened a window nearby. Now you should go rest after all your hard work, and I will call you when I have the table ready for supper." What could she say to mudder almost burning down the house, again?

Well, since your home you might as well do something useful. Eliza groused before marching into the sitting room where the same quilt she started four years ago awaited being toyed with. Eliza’s tongue had somehow been neglected of whatever ailed the rest of her.

Fetching a jar of canned stew from the small pantry, Penny poured it into a pan. She placed it on the stove and turned the burner on low before stepping into her sparse bedroom. Light from the small window filtered in, spreading over the small bed and side dresser. She began removing her soiled clothing. Oh, how she missed the convenience of a shower and the farm that belonged to daed’s family for generations. An old tub and a washcloth was her best option now.

Hopefully, Hazel would come in time this evening so she could attend the town hall meeting. A self-inflicted punishment, Penny knew, but regardless, she owed it to Amos to force herself to stand there and hear his name being read among those who had perished. Love might have not been what brought them together, but they were both confident it would come in time. Amos had needed her in his life as much as she needed him. Another run of unbidden tears fell. Amos would never have the life he longed for.

Two hours later, Hazel Miller knocked on the kitchen door and stepped inside.

"Danki for coming, Penny said, tying on her shoes. I was glad to hear Silas was among the saved."

"We have been blessed, jah, but so many have not. Are you sure you want to go to this reading tonight? I hate to think of you alone there," Hazel said in a concerned voice.

Her gray eyes looked weary above two taunt lips. Hazel knew Penny and Amos had been speaking to one another. She was the one who had a hand in them speaking that first time at Aiden Graber’s tenth birthday gathering after all. Hazel was well-known for her matchmaking skills as much as her talents in a kitchen. She was a widow like mudder. Unlike mudder, Hazel hadn’t sat around letting grief control her days for six years.

I won’t be alone, Penny said, giving her worn-out dress a firm brush of her hands. Many in their community alone would be there, as well as the next Amish community nearby.

Hazel nodded toward the next room. "You know I can take her home to stay with me a spell. Might do her some gut." Hazel whispered.

She and Rose both had made that offer more than once a week. "You and Lydia barely have the room. Mudder is my responsibility." Hazel came up behind her and placed a comforting hand on her shoulders.

You want to talk about today?

That was the last thing Penny wanted to do. She shook her head and reached for her black bonnet hanging on a peg nearby. Another sting of guilt smacked her. She never shared her private home life with anyone, but Penny had given parts to Hazel and Rose. Sometimes they gave her looks that Penny suspected meant that they knew more than what was given. The bakery owners had become surrogates for the mudder she lost to depression. But she had no want to talk about what was currently going through her heart.

Fitting the bonnet over her head, Penny gave her damp hair a second scrutiny, assuring it was secured under her kapp. She quickly opened the door leading outside where no questions or further need for talk about today awaited her.

"I need to get the horse hitched and into town before the meeting starts. Mudder has taken her medicines and will not even know you were here. Danki, for sitting with her. I will hurry." Penny stepped out and quickly closed the door without waiting for Hazel’s response. If she knew Hazel, there was one ready to be given.

Chapter Two

Penny tied her horse next to the others along the wide alley in town. She climbed out of the buggy, a bundle of nerves and a little lightheaded. Maybe she should have eaten something today. Food was the last thing on her mind currently. She grasped her fingers onto the buggy until the moment passed.

Red hues spilled over the streets and the brick buildings walls, signaling the worst day of her life was nearly over. She closed her eyes against the crimson reminder and prayed for strength to keep moving forward. She learned long ago to keep on keeping on no matter what was thrown at you.

Taking a breath of cool evening air, she straightened her bonnet, brushed both hands down to smooth her black apron, and forced herself to walk up the stairs and through the open front doors.

"Kumm Penny, you may sit with us." Edith Swartz, the Bishop’s fraa, cupped her elbow and guided Penny forward. Penny couldn’t make sense of her words with her heart pounding in her ears like they were and let herself be ushered forward. Edith had always been kind and had a bit of habit to be drawn to the downtrodden. Since she couldn’t trust her own legs, it was for the best that Edith took control.

"I hear poor Jenny is still a mess. Her mudder cannot coax her from her room from the heartbreak of it," Mirim Schwartz, a woman from the Walnut Ridge community muttered. Penny turned an ear. She liked Jenny Schwartz as much as she did gossip. Jenny was a few years older, oddly not married despite her beauty, and had a mean streak that ran wider than the fence lines between Penny’s little haus and the Byler’s bigger one next door. Jenny was also the one who nicknamed her Pitiful Penny when they were youngies still in school. Many a night Penny had soaked her pillow with the embarrassment Jenny brought to her.

Poor Caleb might even lose his leg, Edith said, her hands covering her heart.

Penny let the words float away without granting them much attention. She had seen the horrors firsthand, and the last thing she needed was a reminder spurring visions to come again. A shoulder bumped her in the swelling crowd, but no apology was delivered by the older man with a red hat, snarling as he stomped by her. To her left, Penny noticed another stranger, his eyes studying her intently. Wasn’t that the man she heard the sheriff arguing with earlier today? It had caused quite the scene among the chaos already ensued. The man had yelled and screamed at a news lady, cursing her attendance while people pressed saving lives and consoling others. Hadn’t the day been terrible enough that picking a quarrel was unnecessary?

Penny shoved the care aside as she had made her way out of the muck of the disaster earlier today. She had heard a lot of people arguing. She never liked confrontation, even at a distance. Now that she looked around the room, many were passing similar glares in their direction. It was terribly unsettling and made one feel like a rabbit without a hole to run to.

Don’t let it bother you. Many are angry about it all, wanting to place blame. Fear and grief need something to point a finger at. Edith shuttled her closer.

Penny quickly blended into the crowd of women she had found herself clutched among. Becoming a mere shadow came easy. She had plenty of practice.

A few voices raised in the back of the large overly warm room. Something about ridiculous behavior and someone’s poor mother still crying. Heads turned to follow it, but Penny didn’t dare. She had one duty. Hear Amos’s name read aloud as if she was his and he was hers and slip out undetected.

Alright everyone quiet down. Let the sheriff talk. The town mayor’s deep commanding voice filled the room. Penny held both hands in front of her and tried her best not to sway on wobbly legs. She really should have eaten something before coming here.

The sheriff cleared his throat and glanced out over the mingled crowd. "I will make this short and quick. You all have families