Where Grace Abides Read online

  The RIVERHAVEN YEARS

  WHERE GRACE

  ABIDES

  BJ HOFF

  HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS

  EUGENE, OREGON

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

  Cover by Koechel Peterson & Associates, Inc., Minneapolis, Minnesota

  Cover photos © iStockphoto; Fotolia; Dreamstime; Photos.com

  BJ Hoff: Published in association with the Books & Such Literary Agency, 52 Mission Circle, Suite 122, PMB 170, Santa Rosa, CA 95409-5370, www.booksandsuch.biz.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to events or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  WHERE GRACE ABIDES

  Copyright © 2009 by BJ Hoff

  Published by Harvest House Publishers

  Eugene, Oregon 97402

  www.harvesthousepublishers.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Hoff, B. J.

  Where grace abides / BJ Hoff.

  p. cm.—(Riverhaven years ; bk. 2)

  ISBN 978-0-7369-2419-1 (pbk.)

  1. Widows—Fiction. 2. Ship captains—Fiction. 3. Amish—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3558.034395W37 2009

  813.’ 54—dc22

  2009023852

  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, digital, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

  Printed in the United States of America

  09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 / DP-NI / 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  CONTENT

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  PROLOGUE

  1 THE BISHOP’S RESPONSE

  2 WHEN HOPE FADES

  3 LEAVING RACHEL

  4 A SECRET WANDERLUST

  5 NEW ARRIVALS IN RIVERHAVEN

  6 GATHERING OF DARKNESS

  7 NIGHT SOUNDS

  8 A CALL FOR HELP

  9 AMONG FRIENDS

  10 DARK MEMORIES

  11 CRAVING JUSTICE

  12 GANT’S GIFT

  13 MORE THAN ONE SURPRISE

  14 AN UNEASY NIGHT

  15 LONGING FOR HELP

  16 WHEN DARKNESS CAME DOWN

  17 SEARCHING THE NIGHT

  18 FINDING PHOEBE

  19 A GRIEF SHARED

  20 VALLEY OF SHADOWS

  21 THE ROAD NORTH

  22 BROKEN TRUST

  23 SPECIAL REQUESTS

  24 CONCERN FOR A FRIEND

  25 A MOMENT OF WONDER

  26 CONTINUING GOD’S WORK

  27 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

  28 NIGHT OF RAIN AND FEAR

  29 CARING FOR THE BISHOP

  30 WORDS FROM A FRIEND

  31 WHISPER OF SECRETS

  32 A PROBLEM SOLVED

  33 LEAVING FOR HOME

  34 WHERE GRACE ABIDES

  35 THINGS BEST LEFT UNSPOKEN

  36 THOUGHTS BEFORE A WEDDING

  37 TOGETHER IN ONE PLACE

  EPILOGUE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  GIDEON’S HOPE

  OTHER EXCELLENT FICTION BY BJ HOFF…

  MOUNTAIN SONG LEGACY TRILOGY…

  More fine Amish fiction from Harvest House Publishers…

  Enjoy cooking the Amish way…

  AMISHREADER.COM

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  My ongoing thanks to the entire publishing community at Harvest House Publishers. It takes a surprising number of people to bring a book from its beginning to its release. These faithful folks apply their many and varied gifts to make every book they publish one of excellence and one that brings honor to the God they serve. To all of you and each of you, I am continually grateful for all your efforts to make every book I write the best it can be. If I tried to name each one of you, I’d be sure to leave someone out, but you know who you are—and I hope you know how much I appreciate you. Writing a book can be a long and stressful process. It can also be a lonely process were it not for all the help and encouragement I receive along the way.

  Warmest thanks and appreciation to Nick Harrison, my infinitely patient and supportive editor. I couldn’t begin to count the many contributions you make—and make so cheerfully—to my books. I genuinely wish my readers could somehow be aware of just how much an editor like Nick brings to a novel. I am aware of it on a continuing basis and extremely grateful for it all.

  To Shane White, supreme motivator and tireless encourager—thank you for your unfailing optimism and your faith in your authors. You’re our hero.

  To Janet K. Grant, my patient and long-suffering agent who gives the song “Wind Beneath My Wings” new meaning. I am so grateful for you, and you know all the reasons.

  To Kelly Standish and the geniuses at PulsePoint Design who pray for me, keep me centered, and do all the technical stuff that gives me brain freeze. You are an absolutely incredible team.

  To my family—each precious one of you—for so many years you’ve made what I do not only possible but easier in every way. I am exceedingly blessed, and I never forget it.

  And to my readers, let me say to you again what I’ve said many times before. For every note and email you’ve taken time to write, for every prayer you’ve offered on my behalf, for reading my stories and sharing my heart—God bless you.

  PROLOGUE

  FACING THE TRUTH

  If we could push ajar the gates of life,

  And stand within, and all God’s workings see,

  We could interpret all this doubt and strife,

  And for each mystery could find a key.

  But not today. Then be content, poor heart!

  God’s plans, like lilies pure and white, unfold:

  We must not tear the close-shut leaves apart—

  Time will reveal the calyxes of gold.

  MARY RILEY SMITH

  Amish settlement near Riverhaven, Ohio

  Summer 1856

  The truth weighed upon her heart, as heavy as a river rock.

  Rachel stared out the window at the gloom of early evening drawing in on the meadow, bringing the long, dense shadows that held a hint of coming fall. A lonely quiet fell over the land every day now at this time, broken only by the sound of crickets sawing, an occasional barking of a dog, and in the distance the echo of the river running, always running its solitary way to other places she would never see.

  He had pledged his love to her early in the spring. He meant to find a way to marry her, he’d said. He had asked her if she would be his wife, even going so far as to make her believe he would be willing to become Amish if she would have him as her husband.

  “If you weren’t Amish or if I weren’t Englisch,” he said, “would you marry me?”

  And she had told him she would. Because she loved him. More than life itself, that’s how much she loved Jeremiah Gant.

  For two blissful months, she had actually believed it could happen. She had walked around like a dizzy schoolgirl with mush for brains, finding it nearly impossible to think a thought that didn’t contain something of him in it, equally difficult to not speak of her ever deepening love for him even to her mother.

  Of course, Mamma’s own growing relationship with Dr. Sebastian made it easier than it might have been otherwise for Rachel to keep her silence. At any other time, her mother’s sharp eye for the slightest change in her children almost certainly would have noticed the onset of an uncommon restlessness in her oldest daughter or the nearly giddy happiness
that prompted her to smile when least expected.

  And Susan Kanagy did have her ways of finding out what was going on in the lives of her young.

  Oh, it had been so hard! At times Rachel had to stop herself from crying aloud that she loved Jeremiah Gant and he loved her. For the first time since Eli’s death—going on four years now—she felt alive again, once more living in shining moments rather than in shadowed hours.

  But the Plain People didn’t discuss their courtships or romances, not even with their families, until after the banns were published two weeks before the wedding. Even a conventional courtship between two young Amish people was typically carried on in secret. The couple usually managed to be together only after dark. If their parents or other family members were aware of their trysts, they pretended not to notice.

  Rachel and Jeremiah’s love for each other was anything but “conventional.” Truth be known, Rachel could be put out of the community for loving an auslander. Despite the fact that the People seemed to think highly of the former riverboat captain, if it were known that she had admitted her love for an outsider and allowed him to avow his affections for her—had even welcomed his embraces, chaste though they had been—she would be in deep trouble with the leadership of the church. She would almost certainly face the Meidung—the shunning.

  Plain married Plain, and there were no exceptions.

  Even Mamma and Dr. Sebastian never spoke openly about the near certainty that they would one day wed. Despite the fact that David Sebastian had been the physician to the entire Amish community for years and was treated with the utmost respect and friendship, until he had “proven himself” by living among them, learning their language, and in every way that mattered evidenced his sincere intention to convert to the Amish faith, the moments he and Mamma were able to spend together would be extremely rare and shared in secret.

  But at least Dr. Sebastian’s resolve to become Plain could be seen by all who knew him, and his pursuit of conversion met with the approval of the church leadership.

  Jeremiah was another story.

  Rachel had seen him only once in the past three weeks, at the carpenter shop he’d bought from Karl Webber. But her brother, who worked for Jeremiah, had also been there the entire time. No doubt Gideon believed Rachel had come solely to visit him, and of course she couldn’t dare to tell him otherwise.

  Not that she wasn’t always glad to see her brother, especially since he’d left the Amish community to strike out on his own. Still, she’d been hoping for at least a few minutes alone with Jeremiah.

  And just what did she think she could accomplish if she had managed to speak with him alone?

  She could hardly come right out and ask him if his feelings for her had changed, even though that was exactly what she feared. Certainly he’d done nothing to make her think otherwise. He’d made no move to see her alone, and so far as she knew, he hadn’t taken the first step toward becoming Amish himself—their only hope for ever being together as man and wife.

  He knew she would never leave the People and had promised her he would never ask that of her, acknowledging that he would be the one to change. And yet as far as Rachel knew, he’d done nothing toward that end.

  Was it possible that she was being unfair? After all, Jeremiah knew she was forbidden to be alone with him. Could it be that he was merely trying to protect her by keeping his distance?

  And how could she be so sure that he wasn’t talking with the leadership about the possibility of converting? Perhaps they simply hadn’t given him their answer yet.

  All her efforts to rationalize their situation brought little reassurance. Here it was, coming on to August, and so far nothing seemed to have changed. More than four months had passed, and their relationship remained the same as it had been back in April.

  The questions, the doubts, and the seemingly endless waiting were quickly eroding her early happiness. Moreover, her faith in Jeremiah and his love was rapidly giving way to a sickness of the heart, a canker of discouragement and disappointment.

  Rachel wanted to trust him, longed to believe in him. There had been a time when she’d been almost convinced that God had led him here to Riverhaven. Jeremiah, especially, had seemed so certain they could somehow overcome the obstacles to their being together that she’d found herself desperately wanting to share his belief.

  Now she had to question if she’d simply fallen into the sin of believing that the Lord God’s will was the same as hers. Had she been so eager for someone to fill her loneliness, so needy to love and be loved, that she’d only assumed Jeremiah to be God’s answer to her prayers?

  Shame and a bitter sense of humiliation swept over her. Might she have been so foolish, so naive, as to trap herself in a lie to her own spirit? It was a terrible thing to try to second-guess the Lord God, even worse to assume that because she wanted something to be so, He willed it.

  Would she ever be able to forgive herself if her love and her dreams had been based on nothing more than a flimsy cloud of self-deception?

  More to the point, would God forgive her?

  1

  THE BISHOP’S RESPONSE

  Man’s life is laid in the loom of time

  To a pattern he does not see,

  While the weavers work and the shuttles fly

  Till the dawn of eternity…

  Some shuttles are filled with silver threads

  And some with threadsof gold,

  While often but the darker hues

  Are all that they may hold…

  God surely planned the pattern:

  Each thread, the dark and fair,

  Is chosen by His master skill

  And placed in the web with care…

  The dark threads were as needful

  In the weaver’s skillful hand

  As the threads of gold and silver

  For the pattern which He planned.

  AUTHOR UNKNOWN

  Jeremiah Gant was in a sulk. A bad one.

  In fact, he’d been in a black-water mood for two weeks now, and time, the proverbial healer of such things, had made no difference at all. Nor could he find any reason to believe it would.

  So sour was his outlook this morning that he’d sent Gideon out on a delivery that just as easily could have waited another day or so. He liked Gideon Kanagy. The lad was a hard worker and good at his craft, and Gant had no regrets that he’d kept Rachel’s brother as his employee upon taking over Karl Webber’s carpenter shop. But this morning he needed to be alone. Something about working with wood, and working alone, usually helped him think.

  And Gant needed to think.

  When the bell clanged over the door, he ground his teeth, resenting the intrusion. He looked up from the table he was sanding to see David Sebastian. It was a sign of just how dark his mood really was that even the sight of his friend wasn’t a particularly welcome one.

  The doctor was wearing what Gant had come to think of as his “almost-Amish clothes.” Doc had become a seeker—one in the process of converting to the Amish faith—and these days dressed accordingly in a dark shirt and trousers, suspenders, and a straw hat.

  Normally Gant would be glad for such a visit. He and the physician had struck up a solid friendship over the past few months—albeit an unlikely one, Doc being British and Gant, Irish. But today, seeing the man in his Amish garb and knowing the direction their conversation would almost certainly take, Gant didn’t feel up to feigning even the slightest cordiality.

  Doc was well on his way to finally marrying the love of his life, once his conversion into the Amish church was final. Not only that, but his intended was Susan Kanagy—Rachel’s mother.

  And Rachel was the woman Gant wanted to marry but couldn’t.

  “Very nice,” Doc said, coming to stand at the end of the table.

  Gant shrugged. “It had better be. It’s for Miss Marsh.”

  “Penelope Marsh?”

  Gant nodded.

  “She’s fussy, all right. Obviously y
ou’ve passed muster. Time was, no one but Karl Webber could please her.”

  “My being the only carpenter in town right now except for Gideon might have something to do with it.”

  “Where is Gideon?” Doc said glancing around.

  Gant went on sanding. “Out on a delivery.”

  “Well, I just stopped by to say hello. But you seem busy.”

  Gant heard the tentative note in Doc’s voice. “Not that busy,” he said stilling his hand.

  “I don’t want to keep you—”

  “I said I’m not that busy.”

  Doc regarded him with the eagle eye usually reserved for a patient. Gant recognized the look, having once been his patient.

  “What’s wrong?” said Doc.

  “Nothing’s wrong.” Gant moved to change the subject. “You’re looking pretty Amish these days. When do you grow the beard?”

  “Not until we’re closer to the wedding.”

  Gant pretended to study him closely. “It’ll make you look older, you know.”

  “I don’t care how I look so long as Susan will still marry me. And you can wipe that sneer off your face. You’ll have to go through all this yourself once you hear from the bishop.”

  Gant glanced down at the table and started sanding again. “I heard from him.”

  Doc said nothing for a few seconds. Then, “And?”

  Gant kept his head down. “He said, ‘no.’”

  He heard Doc draw a long breath. “No, final—or no, maybe?”

  “Oh, it was final.”

  “So—what are you going to do?”

  Again Gant stopped his work. “Not much I can do. The good bishop doesn’t deem me a worthy prospect to join the People.”

  Doc caught a breath. “What, exactly, did he say?”

  “Very little, in fact. Just that he has doubts as to the ‘conviction’ of my intentions. In so many words, he fears the only reason I want to convert is so I can marry Rachel, and that’s hardly reason enough.”

  A long, heavy silence hung between them. When the doctor broke it, he seemed to choose his words carefully. “Well…that would be true enough if he’s right.”