Promise Lodge Read Online Free Page B

think we’ll see new families by the end of June if they can sell their farms quickly.”
    â€œThat’s only a few weeks away,” Deborah murmured.
    â€œWe’ve got a lot of fixing up to do before then,” Laura remarked.
    â€œBut we’ll have plenty of time to chat about our plans for Promise Lodge and show you around while you’re here,” Rosetta said. “How’s your family, Deborah? What’s the news from Coldstream? While we don’t regret leaving some of the recent goings-on behind us, we sure do miss our friends.”
    Deborah swallowed hard, her half-eaten chicken thigh poised in front of her face. No matter which question she addressed, these two women wouldn’t want to hear her answer. “Oh, you know how it is,” she hedged. “Things don’t change a lot in Coldstream from one day to the next.”
    Mattie frowned doubtfully.
    Rosetta raised an eyebrow. “Why is your face telling me something different from your words?” she asked. “Has there been more trouble, Deborah?”
    The bruise on Deborah’s neck throbbed. Before she could reply, Preacher Amos Troyer came in through the back kitchen door, followed by Roman Schwartz, Mattie’s older son. The minister’s bearded face lit up in greeting. “I heard we had a guest,” he said as he headed toward one of the large stainless steel refrigerators. “Welcome, Deborah.”
    â€œAnd thanks for these brownies,” Roman said as he set her tin on the counter. “Too bad we didn’t save enough for you ladies.”
    â€œWe’ve just asked Deborah what’s been happening in Coldstream,” Mattie said as her gaze intensified. “And I’m guessing it’s not so gut .”
    Deborah was cornered. Sooner or later these dear friends would receive the bad news in a letter from someone, so there was no point in stalling. “The um, barn on the Bender home place burned down.”
    When Rosetta and Mattie grabbed for each other’s hands, Deborah sighed. She’d been here less than an hour, and already she’d distressed half the people she’d seen.
    â€œDat built that barn when he and Mamm moved onto the place, when they were first married,” Mattie recalled sadly. “In the winter when the leaves were off the trees, I could see it from my kitchen window, across the fields.”
    â€œ Jah, more than sixty years it sat on our hill, like a guardian angel for the farm,” Rosetta said with a hitch in her voice. “I’m awfully glad our parents weren’t alive to witness this.”
    â€œWhy do I suspect Chupp and his English buddies were involved?” Roman muttered. “Their names came up after Aunt Christine and Uncle Willis’s barn caught fire. And with the new owners not yet living on the Bender farm, those guys probably figured they could hang out there and no one would be the wiser.”
    â€œDon’t go repeating gossip as gospel, Roman,” Mattie said sharply. “It’s one thing to have our suspicions, but another thing to speculate about these fires without knowing the facts.”
    â€œAfter catching Isaac snooping around at my place a while back,” Preacher Amos joined in, “I tend to agree with Roman. And although I stood firm against getting the county sheriff involved when the Hershbergers lost their barn—and the man of their family,” he added with an apologetic glance at Phoebe and Laura, “I felt we gave the bishop a very convenient opportunity to look the other way. Every time his son’s name has been connected to trouble, Obadiah has claimed that Isaac’s in his rumspringa —sowing his wild oats—so he’s exempt from the rules church members must follow . That’s the main reason I left his district.”
    Deborah knew quite well how Obadiah Chupp covered for his errant son. She had also understood why her father,