An Amish Match Read Online Free

who sat beside the bride and groom throughout their wedding day. It was an honor to be asked, and Lloyd had been thrilled to accept.
    â€œRebekah is almost ten years younger than I am, Mamm .”
    â€œLloyd was your age.”
    â€œAnd she is barely ten years older than Timothy.”
    â€œTrue. That might have made a difference years ago, but now you are adults with kinder . And you need a wife.”
    â€œI don’t need a wife right now. I need someone to watch the kinder .” He held up his hand. “And Rebekah lives too far away for me to ask her to do that.”
    â€œWhat about the housework? The laundry? The cooking? Rose did much of those chores for you, and you eat your other meals here. Deborah can do some of the work, but not all of it. With Esther having to do my chores as well as her own around the house and preparations for the end of the school year, she would appreciate having fewer people at the table each night.”
    â€œ Mamm , I doubt that,” he replied with a laugh, though he knew his sister worked hard at their local school.
    His mamm wagged a finger at him. “True, true. Esther would gladly feed anyone who showed up every night.” As quickly as she’d smiled, she became serious again. “But it’s also true Rebekah Burkholder needs a husband. That poor woman can’t manage on her own.”
    He didn’t want to admit his own thoughts had gone in that direction, too, and how guilty he felt that he’d turned his back on her.
    His face must have betrayed his thoughts because Mamm asked, “Will you at least think of it?”
    â€œJa.”
    What else could he say? Rebekah likely had no interest in remarrying so quickly after Lloyd’s death, but if she didn’t take another husband, she could lose Lloyd’s legacy to her and his kinder . The idea twisted in Joshua’s gut.
    It was time for him to decide exactly what he was willing to do to help his best friend’s widow.

Chapter Two
    E ven as Joshua was turning his buggy onto the lane leading to the Burkholders’ farm the next morning, he fought his own yearning to turn around and leave at the buggy’s top speed. He hadn’t slept last night, tossing and turning and seeking God’s guidance while the loud thunderstorm had banished the humidity. A cool breeze had rushed into the rooms where his three kinder had been lost in their dreams, but he had been awake until dawn trying to decide what he should do.
    Or, to be more accurate, to accept what he should do. God never promised life would be simple. That thought echoed through his head during breakfast and as he prepared for the day.
    Into his mind came the verse from Psalm 118 that he had prayed so many times since his wife died. This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.
    At sunrise on this crisp morning, he’d arranged for the younger two kinder to go to the Beilers’ house, but he couldn’t take advantage of their generosity often. Abram Beiler suffered from Parkinson’s disease, and Leah and her mamm had to keep an eye on him as he went about his chores. Even though Leah had told Joshua to depend on her help for as long as he needed because Leah’s niece Mandy and Deborah were close in age and enjoyed playing together, he must find a more permanent solution.
    His next stop had been to drop off Timothy at his buggy shop at the Stoltzfus Family Shops in the village. The other shops as well as the smithy behind the long building were run by his brothers. He asked the sixteen-year-old to wait on any customers who came in and to let them know Joshua would be there by midday. Even a year ago, he could have trusted Timothy to sort out parts or paint sections of wood that were ready to be assembled, but his older son had grown less reliable in recent months. Joshua tried to give him space and privacy to sort out the answers every teenager wrestled with, which was