A Taste of Faith

By Kelly Long

The Amish kitchen is the heart of the home – and the ideal setting for stories of love and hope.
Fern Zook has a green thumb for growing healing herbs, but longs for love to bloom in her life. Then the next-door neighbor's oldest son, Abram, comes running into Fern's kitchen seeking help for his little sister. The crisis soon leads to a promise of romance—until mistrust threatens to end the growing attraction.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Dec 19, 2023
• ISBN: 9781401689445

Kelly Long

Kelly Long is a nationally bestselling author of Amish Fiction who enjoys studying the Appalachian Amish in particular. Kelly was raised in North Central Pennsylvania, and her dad's friendship with the Amish helped shape Kelly's earliest memories of the culture. Today, she lives in Hershey, Pennsylvania, with her three children and is a great proponent of autism spectrum and mental health needs. Visit Kelly on Facebook: Fans-of-Kelly-Long and Twitter: @KellyLongAmish.  

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© 2012 by Kelly Long

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, Inc., titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail [e-mail].

Scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

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

Long, Kelly.

An Amish kitchen / Kelly Long, Amy Clipston, Beth Wiseman.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-1-4016-8567-6 (trade paper)

ISBN 978-1-4016-8944-5 (e-single)

1. Amish—Fiction. 2. Kitchens—Fiction. 3. Christian fiction, American. 4. Love stories, American. I. Clipston, Amy. II. Wiseman, Beth, 1962– III. Title.

PS3612.O497A83 2012

813'.6—dc23 2012033925

Printed in the United States of America

12 13 14 15 16 QG 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

Acknowledgments

Dedication

Glossary

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Reading Group Guide

Amish Recipes

An Excerpt from Sarah’s Garden

Acknowledgments

I would dearly like to thank my fellow authors in this collection; my editor, Natalie; my copy editor, LB Norton; and my agent, Natasha Kern. Thank you to my family, to Brenda Lott, and to my dearest husband, Scott Long. I would also like to thank Dean Westler for his humor and insight.

Kelly – For my Gram

Glossary

ab im kopp – off in the head, crazy

ach – oh

aenti – aunt

appeditlich – delicious

ausleger – undertaker

bauch – stomach

boppli – baby

bruder – brother

The Budget – a weekly newspaper serving Amish and Mennonite communities everywhere

buss – kiss

buwe – boy

daadi – grandfather

daed – dad

danki – thank you

dat – dad

Derr Herr – God

dochder – daughter

dumm – dumb

dummkopp – dunce

Englisch – non-Amish person

fater – father

fraa – wife

freind – friend

freinden – friends

fremm – strange

froh – happy

gegisch – silly

Gern gschehne – You’re welcome

Gott – God

grandkinner – grandchildren

grank – sick

guder mariye – good morning

gut – good

gut nacht – good night

hatt – hard

haus – house

hiya – hello

Ich liebe dich – I love you

kaffi – coffee

kapp – prayer covering or cap

kichlin – cookies

kind – child

kinner – children or grandchildren

kumme – come

lieb – love

maed – young women, girls

maedel – girl

mamm – mom

mammi – grandmother

mei – my

mudder – mother

narrisch – crazy

nee – no

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.

rumschpringe – running-around period when a teenager turns sixteen years old

schee – pretty

schtupp – family room

schweschder – sister

sei se gut – please

sohn – son

Was iss letz? – What’s wrong?

wedder – weather

Wie bischt? – How are you?

Wie geht’s – How do you do? or Good day!

willkumm – welcome

wunderbaar – wonderful

ya – yes

Chapter One

July 3

Paradise, Pennsylvania

The light of the waning summer day filtered through the unadorned glass and played amid the profusion of plants in coffee cans that lined the windowsills. Twenty-year-old Fern Zook liked the way her silhouette blended and appeared to lengthen with the multitude of shadowy leaves and stems as she stretched to make sure each container took a few drops from the watering pot.

She reached a tender fingertip to the face of a pansy and murmured to the plants, as was her custom. If only a man could be grown among you all. It would be much easier than trying to find one in Paradise. But then, God made man in a garden, so maybe . . . She closed her eyes and indulged in her favorite fantasy . . . that of a tall, dark, handsome man, someone with a frame large enough to find her generous curves . . . interesting, instead of unappealing. Someone who—

Hiya! Anyone in there?

Fern spun from the plants to see the materialization of her reverie standing outside the kitchen screen door. She blinked when he hollered again.

Can’t you hear? I’ve got a sick little girl here!

Fern sighed. It was Abram Fisher, the twenty-three-year-old eldest son of her grandmother’s next-door neighbors. Tall and handsome, ya. He was broad-shouldered and lean-hipped, and his tousled chestnut-brown hair brushed overly long at the collar of his dark-blue shirt, which matched the color of his eyes. Darkly brooding and big, for certain. She’d passed Abram solemn and sure at church and seen him working in the fields, his strong forearms straining at some task or another, his large hands easily managing a team of four horses behind the plow. And apparently those same hands could cradle a little girl with abject tenderness as he was doing now with his sister, Mary. But Fern doubted he even knew she was alive; he certainly had never paid attention to her growing up. And now he was a dyed-in-the-wool bachelor, married to the land, who’d never given her a passing word until this moment.

Hey!

I’m coming, she said in a calm voice and went to open the door. As he brushed past her, carrying Mary, his elbow grazed her dress, setting her heart to miss a curious beat.

Forcing her mind to the matter at hand, Fern assessed the red face of the fretful child. Sunburn . . . but not sunstroke, not by the way the child was moving about and fussing. Fern breathed a sound of relief when she laid her hand against the little red forehead and felt for a moment, sliding her hand gently to the sides and back of the child’s neck. She could tell there was no fever, just the external heat from the sun exposure.

"Let’s take off her kapp. A lot of heat escapes through the head, and she needs to cool down." And so do you, Abram Fisher . . .

The man was positively radiating tension from his big body. She was used to dealing with anxious parents, but not upset older brothers who looked like they could be models in an Englisch magazine.

She searched out the pins holding the prayer kapp on the tightly braided mass of brown hair and then threaded her fingers through the braids.

"That feels gut." Mary half-smiled.

I’m glad. Fern peered down into the child’s face, then looked back up to catch Abram’s eyes. Didn’t she have her sunbonnet on?

His blue eyes, which she fancied could make a girl forget herself if she wasn’t careful, were as cold as the sea and met hers with a suppressed fury. "Nee, he snapped. I thought that it wouldn’t hurt to let her play in the creek with the boys a bit. She had her dress off and just her underclothes on. I was wrong, all right?"

"Ya, you were, Fern murmured. The man certainly had an easily aroused temper. She turned from the table. Well, it’s not sunstroke. She’s moving around fine, and I can feel no fever. I’ll brew some tea."

He blew out a breath of what could only be disgust. "Nee, thanks. I have no time for tea."

Fern flushed. Not to drink, she said patiently. The tannin is a soother to the skin; it will help the burn cool and heal it faster.

"Ach, he grunted. All right then."

She turned away and went to gather tea leaves to brew; it would take a few minutes and then have to cool. She had no idea what they’d talk about while they waited. She fussed at the stove awhile, then went back to lean over Mary, deciding that ignoring Abram might be the best course of action. She wasn’t adept at talking to men unless it concerned her work and their immediate ailments.

Would you like a peppermint stick? she asked the little girl.

Mary’s smile brightened her red face. "Ya."

Me too! An excited boy’s face appeared at the screen door, and Fern had to laugh.

I think you have company, she remarked, going to open the door. A mass of boys tumbled in, and she didn’t miss Abram’s faint groan.

"Matthew, I told you to keep the kinner at