In Plain View Read Online Free Page B

come from Amish families, but the rest have come through the antiques shop. Mrs. Weichert doesn’t mind if I take them.”
    “Are they all about the Beilers?”
    Annie shook her head. “Most of them are not. I’ve gotten interested in the whole idea of tracing the generations back in any family.”
    Brad pulled a slim black binder off the shelf and opened it. “Is this the book you found in our basement?”
    “Yep. That’s your Byler roots, going all the way back to Jakob Beyeler in 1737.”
    “I thought it had a spiral binding,” Myra said.
    “I figured it would hold up better in a notebook with page protectors.”
    “That’s a nice thought.”
    “That red volume is all about the Bylers of North Carolina.”
    “Are we related?”
    “I’m pretty sure. I’d like to spend more time studying the family lines than I have.”
    Brad chuckled. “I’ll let you give me the abbreviated version, but I admit I find it fascinating that my mother’s family may be related to the very people you’ve become so attached to here.”
    “Me, too.” Annie covered a yawn. “Sorry.”
    “We’re all tired.” Myra stood and picked up the coffeepot and creamer. She disappeared into the kitchen, still talking. “We’ll pick you up for breakfast. Not too early, though. How about eight thirty?”
    “Sorry, Mom. Mrs. Weichert is going to an estate sale in the morning. I have to be in the shop.”
    “Will it matter if you’re late? How many customers do you get, anyway?”
    Annie had to admit traffic was slow most days, but Saturday was likely to bring weekend lookers. “I promised her, Mom. She’s counting on me.”
    “Well all right, then. We can have lunch in that quaint bakery down the street before we head back to town.”
    “Let’s figure that out tomorrow.” Annie stifled another yawn.
    “Will you have your phone on?” Myra looked as if she already knew the answer.
    Annie wondered why her mother insisted on pressing the question. “I’m sure I can get a message to you at Mo’s. I’ll use the phone in the shop.”
    “But you’ll definitely go home with us as soon as you’re free?”
    “Mom, I do want to see Penny. I’m just not sure about tomorrow.”

Four
    October 1774
    P ush!”
    At her mother-in-law’s command, Katie Byler grunted and bore down.
    In the other room, Jacob heard the urgency in his mother’s voice and the resolve in his wife’s guttural response. It would not be long now.
    Jacob soothed one of the twins by jiggling the child on his knee. He welcomed the other to lean against his leg. At two, the twins were too young to know what caused their mamm to make those sounds, and he saw terror in their round, ruddy, silent faces. At seven and five, their older brothers, Jacob Franklin and Abraham, remembered the twins’ arrival and were less concerned about the event.
    Four boys, all of them sturdy and healthy. Katie wanted a girl this time. A little sister.
    Jacob’s own sister was supposed to come from Philadelphia to help, but Katie had gone from uneventfully stirring the morning porridge to digging fingernails into his arm in the space of four minutes—three weeks earlier than anyone imagined. All the boys had been tediously late, even the twins. So with or without Sarah’s presence, this baby was coming. It was all Jacob could do to send seven-year-old Jacob Franklin sprinting across the acres to fetch his grandmother from the big house. Soon after her arrival, Elizabeth Byler pronounced the child would appear before lunch. Jacob could not see how it was going to take even that long. Katie’s scream melded into the wail of the new baby protesting an abrupt arrival into the chilly room.
    “A girl!” Jacob’s mother called.
    Jacob stood and thrust the reluctant twins toward Jacob Franklin. He had to see for himself that Katie was all right.
    At the bedroom door, he stopped and smiled. Katie was already grinning. She eagerly caught his eye.
    “A girl,” she said.
    “A girl!”