Amish Lily Read online

  Amish Lily

  Amish Love Blooms Book 4

  Samantha Price

  Amish Romance

  Copyright © 2016 by Samantha Price

  1st Edition

  Copyright © 2017 Samantha Price

  2nd Edition

  All Rights Reserved

  * * *

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Scripture quotations from The Authorized (King James) Version. Rights in the Authorized Version in the United Kingdom are vested in the Crown. Reproduced by permission of the Crown’s patentee, Cambridge University Press.

  This is a work of fiction. Any names or characters, businesses or places, events or incidents, are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Lily looked over at her twin sister, Daisy, who was staring into the eyes of Bruno as they sat at the wedding table in the yard of the family home. Most Amish weddings took place in the bride’s family home and this one was no different. There were over three hundred wedding guests in the yard seated at long rows of tables, and the low buzz of many conversations was getting on Lily’s nerves.

  “They’re sickening the way they’re looking all moony-eyed at each other.”

  “It’s not sickening,” Violet said, shaking her head at Lily.

  Daisy and Bruno had just gotten married and Lily tried to be happy for them, but she couldn’t muster any joy. Not when Bruno was taking her twin sister away from her. She’d never been apart from her twin and they’d only ever had one large disagreement in all their years.

  Lily turned back and looked across the table at her slightly younger cousins, Willow and Violet, when she heard her youngest cousin’s squeaky voice.

  “Don’t you want to be in love someday, Lily?” Willow asked her.

  “I’d have to give it some serious thought.” Lily leaned closer and whispered, “Are you still going to help me with what we talked about before?”

  “Were you serious about that? I told Willow you were only joking.”

  Lily shook her head and cackled at Violet looking so serious. “I’ve never been more serious.”

  Daisy and Bruno were staying at the Yoder family home that night, the night of their wedding, before traveling to Ohio the next day for Daisy to meet the rest of Bruno’s family. From there, Bruno was taking Lily to visit other communities to see all his other relations, and then after that, they planned to stay in Ohio some more.

  Lily’s wicked plan was for them to short-sheet the wedding bed and, to aggravate Daisy and Bruno further, sprinkle sugar through their bed. There wouldn’t be a lot of sugar—only enough so they wouldn’t notice the annoyance at first. Lily thought it was a marvelous idea, and if the cousins weren’t on board with it, she’d have to go solo on this one.

  “Well, are you going to help me or not?” Lily stared at the cousins, wondering if they were going to be too goody-goody to help.

  Violet shook her head. “I couldn’t have anything to do with it. If Daisy tells your Mamm it might start something between our mudders again. They’ve only just started being nice to one another. And you know how Aunt Nancy can be.”

  Willow puffed out her chubby cheeks. “If Violet won’t do it then neither will I.”

  Under the table, Lily’s fists clenched so hard her fingernails dug into her palms. If her younger cousins listened to her they might have some fun, but they were too scared of the trouble they’d get into. She wished the cousins had never come to stay. Aunt Nerida had a broken leg and that’s why Lily had been burdened with the cousins’ visit, which looked as though it would be a lengthy one. Surely the girls were old enough to look after their mother and themselves. And then there was their father, Uncle John. Who was looking after him when he came home after a hard day’s work? It seemed to Lily that Nerida wanted a holiday from her two girls and now Lily could see why—the two of them were as dull and boring as a gray sky on a summer’s day.

  Lily brightened up when she saw three young men approaching the table. Quickly realizing the younger cousins were in the way, she knew she had to get rid of them. “You two should sit somewhere else if you’re not going to follow my plans.” She folded her arms and stared at Violet and Willow.

  Violet drew her eyebrows together. “You don’t have to be like that, Lily.”

  In reply, Lily spat, “Don’t be so high ’n’ mighty. Earlier, you thought doing all those things would be fun and you said so yourself.”

  “Jah, fun to think about, but I didn’t think you would actually do it.”

  Willow added, “I just don’t want to get into trouble.”

  Boring as well as stupid, Lily thought. “I’ll do it all myself then, but don’t you breathe a word of it, and don’t blame me if anyone asks you. Just say you don’t know anything about it. Now I need the two of you to go because I’ve got some boys coming this way to see me. Scat!” When they stared at her blankly, she said through gritted teeth, “Do you understand? Scram! Get!”

  “Come on, Willow. She doesn’t want us around.”

  “You got that right,” Lily said under her breath.

  Violet slipped her arm through her sister’s and together they stood up. They walked away just as the three young men reached the table. There was nothing Lily liked better than the adoring attention the young men were giving her of late.

  * * *

  Nancy was happy that her third daughter was married and married to a good man, but her remaining daughter, the normally bubbly Lily, had changed into someone she didn’t recognize. Now that Daisy was married, Lily was alone for the first time in her life. Daisy had her husband, but Lily, grieving from the loss of her twin, had to adjust to a totally different life—the life of a singleton. Lily had been thrust into a situation that would take some adjusting and somehow, she knew the next few months weren’t going to be pleasant for her.

  “Are you happy?”

  Nancy looked at her husband, who was sitting next to her at one of the main wedding tables. “I am.”

  “We’ll have to keep a close eye on Lily,” Hezekiah said, nodding toward Lily as she sat at one of the wedding tables.

  “Why?” She knew it too, but wondered if her husband thought the same as she.

  “You know how she is. She thinks she has all the answers. She’s impulsive and not completely trustworthy. I’m not saying that to be cruel, I’m only saying it out of concern for her. Lily doesn’t care what we think and she doesn’t listen to the cautions we give her.”

  “You’re not telling me anything I don’t know already,” Nancy said.

  “Are you still worried about her attraction to Nathanial Schumacher?”

  Nancy looked over at Nathanial, who was one of the three boys jostling to talk to Lily. Lily only seemed to have ears for whatever Elijah Bontrager said.

  “Nee, I’m n
ot worried about him. She seems to have turned her attention in another direction.”

  “Jah, I can see exactly who you mean.”

  Nancy giggled. “But then again, I’ve always liked Matthew Schumacher.”

  “Me too.”

  “It’s odd how cousins can be so different.” Nancy took a sip of ginger beer.

  “I know. I don’t think you can judge people by their families sometimes. I know you think you can, but people can be born with their personalities set in stone. I’ve seen it before.”

  Nancy nodded. Since her husband was the deacon, many people came to him with their problems, and he was often at the bishop’s house sorting out personal issues between people.

  With her outgoing attitude where men were concerned, Lily had attracted more male attention than Daisy and her other two sisters. Nancy would be happy if Lily were to marry either Elijah Bontrager or Matthew Schumacher. Elijah was just slightly ahead of Matthew at the moment in the race for Lily’s affections, in Nancy’s opinion.

  Lily and Elijah had become close in circumstances that had been entirely coincidental. Lily and Daisy were having the first fight they’d had and an accident involving a metal bucket and one of the windows in the front of the house had given Elijah cause to visit. Nancy was certain she’d never heard the true story of how the window came to be broken. Elijah was Ed Bontrager’s oldest son and they were the local Amish glaziers. Ed had sent Elijah out to measure up the window to replace the glass.

  Since then, Nancy had encouraged their relationship by often having Ed Bontrager and his boys over for dinner. Ed had been a widower for quite some time and the boys welcomed a chance to sample someone else’s cooking. Ed had told Nancy that now the boys were teenagers they took it in turns to cook the meals at home.

  Lily was the one doing all the talking, Nancy noticed, as she glanced back over at Lily and Elijah. As she studied Elijah’s face, she noticed light and excitement in his eyes as he smiled and chatted with Lily. It was the youthful anticipation that young people had when they were convinced that they had life and the world all figured out. He had an enthusiastic glow of exuberance; the hard knocks of life hadn’t yet had a chance to dull his confidence.

  Nancy left her husband and hurried back to the kitchen to check on where the ladies were up to with the food. The second sitting of the meal was about to take place. The day had been unseasonably cold and they had cleared and cleaned the barn just in case the weather changed and they had to have it under cover.

  * * *

  Lily still wasn’t used to the idea that she’d lost her twin. If only Daisy had been patient they would’ve found and married twins like they’d always said. That idea had gone out the window as soon as Daisy had met Bruno. Daisy had cast that idea aside just as easily as one would discard a peel from a piece of fruit.

  Lily would’ve thought she’d be more important than a man, but Daisy had made her choice and now she’d be gone for months. Lily had a suspicion that Bruno would persuade Daisy to live in Ohio. He hadn’t sold his business like he’d told Daisy he would to help pay off the small home they’d purchased.

  After Lily had expressed her concerns to Daisy, Daisy had stopped talking about their plans with Lily. In the past months, they’d grown apart. Daisy had drifted away and it was all because of Bruno. Lily had never even imagined that a man could come between them.

  Lily knew she could get married as soon as she wanted. There were a few men who were interested in her and it would only take a small amount of encouragement before one of them would ask her to marry them, but there was no point in getting married in a hurried and mindless way. The way Daisy had been acting in the past months had put Lily off the idea of marriage all together. With marriage would come giving up part of herself and Lily was not willing to do that. In the past, Daisy would’ve never gone anywhere else to live, but now Lily was certain it wouldn’t take much for Bruno to convince Daisy to live in Ohio, far away from her family.

  Mrs. Walker, who owned a wholesale flower business, had previously offered Lily the opportunity to take over the job of selling flowers at the markets from Lily’s sister, Rose. Right there at the wedding Lily found Mrs. Walker and finally accepted the job. Mrs. Walker was pleased and wanted her to start the very next day and Lily agreed. The sooner, the better.

  The extra money and responsibility would give Lily a sense of empowerment that she’d never before experienced. And she was pleased about getting away from her mother and her two cousins.

  Lily wondered whether marriage was really the answer for a happy life. She’d grown up to think that it was a milestone to be reached. Grow up, get married, have babies, have grandchildren—but was that all life was? There had to be more to life than to marry, have children, and then wait to die.

  I’m going to have a different life. One that is not boring! Lily decided.

  Chapter 2

  It had been a long boring night of cleaning up after the wedding. Lily slipped upstairs to bed before the others since she had to get up for her new job early the next morning.

  She’d already carried out her plan for the marital bed and laughed to herself about it before she closed her eyes. Her job was a perfect excuse to get away from the house early that morning.

  Will Daisy and Bruno mention it to anyone? she wondered.

  Hopefully, they’d remain quiet about it and by the time Lily came home from work the next day, Daisy and Bruno would be long gone on their journey to Ohio, having not mentioned anything to anyone.

  Just as she was drifting off to sleep, she heard her bedroom door open. She opened one eye slightly to see the silhouette of someone coming into her room. It was a small slender woman and had to be Daisy because the cousins were shorter and chubby. Lily froze. Daisy had found out about the short-sheeted bed and the sugar. Lily pretended to be asleep so Daisy couldn’t get mad at her.

  Daisy leaned over and shook her shoulder.

  Lily pretended to wake up. She looked at Daisy, who was still in her mid-blue wedding dress, white cape, and white organza prayer kapp. “You gave me a fright.”

  “Sorry to wake you, but you didn’t say goodbye to me or Bruno.”

  Phew, she hasn’t been to bed yet, she thought. “You’ll be coming back here, won’t you?”

  “Jah, we will, but not for a few weeks.”

  “Goodbye, and tell Bruno goodbye as well.”

  Daisy let out a sigh. “Why are you being like this?”

  “Like what? You came here and woke me up and you know I’ve gotta get up early for work tomorrow. If you care to know what’s happening in my life, I’ve just accepted the offer to work at the flower stall—Rose’s old job.”

  “That’s great.”

  “Jah, it is.”

  “You’ve been weird to me for weeks. Are you jealous of Bruno?”

  Lily snorted. “Jah, that’s right. I’m jealous of Bruno. Is that all? Can I go back to sleep now?”

  “Why don’t you say what’s troubling you, Lily?”

  “The only thing troubling me is you. I want to go to sleep and you’re stopping me from doing that. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll try to get back to sleep—if I can.” Lily turned away from Daisy and put her head back on the pillow with her back now facing Daisy.

  “Goodbye, Lily. I’ll miss you.”

  “Please close the door on your way out.” Lily lay quiet and still until she heard the door close. She hadn’t meant to be rude to Daisy and she wouldn’t have been if Daisy had just left her alone.

  * * *

  Lily got up extra early the next morning to avoid everyone. Her mother woke just as she was leaving the house.

  With her hand on the front door handle, she heard her mother’s voice behind her. “Lily, are you leaving for work already?”

  Lily swung around. “I am. I’ve got a busy day ahead.”

  “It’s too early. The market won’t be open yet.”

  “I’m having breakfast out before I start.” Lily reached
for her black cape at the front door and slung it around her shoulders.

  “Don’t you want to stay and see Bruno and Daisy off? They’ve got an early start. You could say goodbye to them and still get to work on time.”

  Lily shook her head. “I said goodbye to them last night. Don’t worry so, Mamm. It’s all good.” Lily smiled brightly, hoping her mother wouldn’t make a fuss.

  “Okay.”

  Once her mother nodded, Lily headed out the front door to hitch the horse to the buggy. The morning was bitterly cold, and the buggy her father allowed her to take had no heating system like some of the others had.

  As her buggy clip-clopped along the roads toward town, Lily was wrapped in two blankets to keep out the cold. That morning, she’d put on two under-vests and two pairs of extra thick black tights. Her dress was of a heavier fabric much warmer than her summer ones.

  * * *

  Nancy didn’t like to see Lily leave so early without bothering to say goodbye to Daisy. Daisy and Bruno were leaving in a taxi at eight to head to the local train station to begin their trip back to Bruno’s home in Ohio.

  After Lily had left, Nancy made breakfast for her husband and then waved him off. As soon as Nancy closed the door, she saw Daisy heading down the stairs.

  “Morning, Mamm. Have I missed Lily?”

  “Jah, she left very early, before your vadder.”

  “Dat’s gone too?”

  “You only just missed him, and Lily went a little before that.”