When Love Returns

By Beth Wiseman

An Amish Homecoming story from bestselling author Beth Wiseman.

Hurricane Harvey forces Sarah Zook to return to the home she fled six years ago when she couldn’t face her stern parents’ reaction to her unplanned pregnancy. Upon her return, Abram King can think of nothing but the pain she caused him—until he meets Sarah’s daughter and realizes that he never really stopped loving Sarah. Sarah and Abram must find a way to face the truth of their past so they can rekindle their first love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Oct 16, 2018
• ISBN: 9780785218333

Beth Wiseman

Bestselling and award-winning author Beth Wiseman has sold over two million books. She is the recipient of the coveted Holt Medallion, is a two-time Carol Award winner, and has won the Inspirational Reader's Choice Award three times. Her books have been on various bestseller lists, including CBA, ECPA, Christianbook, and Publishers Weekly. Beth and her husband are empty nesters enjoying country life in south-central Texas. Visit her online at BethWiseman.com; Facebook: @AuthorBethWiseman; Twitter: @BethWiseman; Instagram: @bethwisemanauthor

Book preview

COPYRIGHT

ZONDERVAN

When Love Returns

Copyright © 2018 by Elizabeth Wiseman Mackey

Requests for information should be addressed to:

Zondervan, 3900 Sparks Dr. SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546

ISBN: 978-0-7852-1833-3 (e-book)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication

CIP data is available upon request.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc™ Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com

Any Internet addresses (websites, blogs, etc.) and telephone numbers in this book are offered as a resource. They are not intended in any way to be or imply an endorsement by Zondervan, nor does Zondervan vouch for the content of these sites and numbers for the life of this book.

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

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.

Printed in the United States of America

18 19 20 21 22 / LSC / 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

CONTENTS

Copyright

Glossary

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Epilogue

Discussion Questions

Acknowledgments

About the Author

To all of the people impacted by Hurricane Harvey

GLOSSARY

ach (also ack): oh

aenti: aunt

appeditlich: delicious

bedauerlich: sad

boppli: baby

brot: bread

bruder, bruders: brother, brothers

bruderskinner: nieces and nephews

bu, buwe: boy, boys

Budget, The: a weekly newspaper serving Amish and Mennonite communities everywhere

daadi: grandfather

daadihaus (also daadi haus, dawdi haus): grandparents’ house, usually a smaller dwelling on the same property

danki: thank you

daed (also dat): dad

Die Botschaft: a weekly correspondent newspaper that includes reports from scribes in many Amish settlements across the nation

dochder: daughter

English, Englisher (also Englisch, Englischer): non-Amish

familye, familyes: family, families

fraa (also frau): wife

freind, freinden: friend, friends

froh: happy

gegisch: silly

geh: go

gern gschehne: you’re welcome

Gott: God

grossmutter: grandmother

Gude mariye: Good morning

gut: good

Gut nacht (also Gute nacht): Good night

haus: house

Ich liebe dich: I love you

jah: yes

kaffi (also kaffee): coffee

kapp: prayer covering or cap

kichli, kichlin: cookie, cookies

kind, kinner: child, children

lieb: love

liewe: love, a term of endearment

maedel, maed: young woman or girl, young women or girls

mamm: mom

mammi: grandmother

mann: husband or man

mei: my

mudder: mother

naut: night

nee: no

nix: nothing

nohma: name

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 Deutsch: the language most commonly used by the Amish. Although widely known as Pennsylvania Dutch, the language is actually a form of German (Deutsch).

Plain: the Amish way of life

rumschpringe (also rumspringa): running-around period when a teenager turns sixteen years old

schee: pretty

schmaert: smart

schtupp: family room

schwester: sister

sohn: son

vatter: father

Was iss letz?: What’s wrong?

wunderbaar: wonderful

ya: yes

yer, yerself: your, yourself

CHAPTER 1

Sarah paid the cabdriver and helped Miriam out of the car. They each slung a backpack over their shoulders, Miriam’s much smaller than Sarah’s. Everything they owned was in those bags.

Where’s the house? Miriam gazed up at her mother with questioning blue eyes, her dark hair pulled up in a ponytail that Sarah had braided on the ride from the airport to Lancaster County.

Sarah squatted in front of her five-year-old daughter, kissed her on the cheek, and pointed down the dirt road that led to Sarah’s parents’ house. It’s about half a mile down that road.

Why didn’t the man in the yellow car take us all the way there? Miriam readjusted the backpack on her tiny body.

Are you sure that’s not too heavy? I can carry it, if it is. Sarah eyed the small brown bag over her daughter’s shoulders with Red Cross etched into the mesh-like material.

Miriam shook her head and smiled.

Sarah stood and blew a strand of hair away from her face, wishing she had another rubber band to pull it back. She only found one in her purse among the few things she managed to grab before the water from Hurricane Harvey flooded their apartment.

Spring is a nice time of year for a walk. And Sarah needed the time to calm her racing heart. She eyed the fields on both sides of them, lush and green, the way she remembered spring in this rural area that felt so foreign now. When I was a little girl, there were all kinds of animals that ran around this area. You might see a jackrabbit or a wild turkey, ducks, or maybe even a bobcat.

Miriam gasped. Will they hurt us?

Sarah put a hand on her daughter’s shoulder and coaxed her to start walking. No, they won’t. Don’t you know by now, silly girl, that I’m never going to let anything hurt you.

I know, Mommy. You saved us from the storm.

Sarah took a few steps, memories flooding her mind, as she took in the silo in the distance, orange hues in the background as the sun began its final descent. It was a slightly upward climb for several yards, but when they reached the top of the slope, Sarah’s family homestead was visible. She swallowed the emotion that had built over the last few days. She hadn’t seen her parents in six years. Or Abram.

The grace of God saved us from the storm, she said softly as a shiver ran the length of her spine. Sarah had tried to evacuate with Miriam before the hurricane slammed into the Gulf Coast, but the water rose too fast, and her small downstairs apartment in Houston had a foot of water inside before she could pack more than a few necessities and some clothes for her and Miriam. No one in the area was prepared for the epic floodwater.

She’d carried Miriam on her shoulders through waist-deep water until a boat came for them. After a week in a shelter, she finally called Big Jake at the hardware store in Bird-in-Hand and asked if he could get word to her parents to call her, and she left the number for the shelter. Sarah was between paychecks, and she didn’t have much in her savings account. The building where she worked had six feet of water inside, and she had no idea when she’d be able to go back. The devastation frightened Miriam.

Sarah’s mother had wired her money, even though she hadn’t seen or talked to her parents since she ran away from home when she was seventeen and two months pregnant. She’d written them three times over the years, and all the letters returned unopened. Sarah had never been baptized in the Old Order Amish community where she’d grown up. According to the Ordnung, she shouldn’t have been shunned. But her parents had practiced a shunning of their own. Sarah wondered if they would have sent money if it hadn’t been for Miriam, the granddaughter they didn’t know they had until the recent phone call.

Sarah would have eventually reached out to her parents again, if only for Miriam’s