Emma Miller - Johanna's Bridegroom

Will You Marry Me?

Bold widow Johanna Yoder stuns Roland Byler when she asks him to be her husband. To Johanna, it seems very sensible that they marry. She has two children, and he has a son. Why shouldn’t their families become one? But the widower has never forgotten his long-ago love for her; it was his foolish mistake that split them apart. This could be a fresh start for both of them. Until she reveals she wants a marriage of convenience only. It’s up to Roland to woo the stubborn Johanna and convince her to accept him as her groom in her home and in her heart.

Silence stretched between them. Should she say something to him about what she’d been thinking?

Normally, if a girl and a boy wanted to court there was talk back and forth, between their friends at first, then the girl and boy. But she and Roland weren’t teens anymore. They didn’t really need intermediaries, did they? She looked around. No one was within hearing distance. If she was going to say something, she had to do it now, before she lost her nerve.

“Roland?”

“Ya?”

“I want to talk to you about—”

Johanna took a deep breath and clasped her hands so that Roland wouldn’t see how they were shaking. “Roland?” she began.

In his gray eyes, color swirled and deepened. “Yes, Johanna?”

She took another breath and looked right at him. “Will you marry me?”

EMMA MILLER

lives quietly in her old farmhouse in rural Delaware amid fertile fields and lush woodlands. Fortunate enough to be born into a family of strong faith, she grew up on a dairy farm, surrounded by loving parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. Emma was educated in local schools, and once taught in an Amish schoolhouse much like the one at Seven Poplars. When she’s not caring for her large family, reading and writing are her favorite pastimes.

Johanna’s Bridegroom

Emma Miller

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy,

it does not boast, it is not proud.

—1 Corinthians 13:4

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Epilogue

Dear Reader

Questions for Discussion

Excerpt

Chapter One

Kent County, Delaware

June

Johanna kissed her sister’s newborn and inhaled the infant’s sweet baby scent before gently placing her into the antique walnut cradle. It was midafternoon, and Johanna, Anna, Rebecca and Grossmama were gathered on the screened-in back porch of the Mast farmhouse, enjoying cold lemonade and hulling a bounty of end-of-the-season strawberries to make jam.

Johanna stood over the cradle, gazing down at the baby’s long thick lashes, her chubby, pink cheeks and the riot of red-gold curls peeping out from under her antique, white-lace bonnet. Tiny Rose sighed in her sleep, opened one perfect hand, pursed her perfectly formed lips and melted Johanna’s heart. Tears blurred her vision. She’s so precious.

It wasn’t that she coveted Anna and Samuel’s gift from God. She didn’t. But it seemed so long since her own children had been newborns. Jonah, at five, was now old enough to be a real help in the garden and barnyard. And, as he reminded her at least three times a day, he’d be starting school in the fall. Even her chatterbox, Katy, now three, had outgrown her baby smocks and become independent overnight. She was always eager to sweep the kitchen floor with her miniature broom, gather eggs and pick strawberries in the wake of the bigger children.

I want another baby, Johanna admitted to herself. My arms ache for another child, but having one means marrying again. And after her unhappy marriage to Wilmer Detweiler, and the tragedy of his suicide, she wasn’t certain she had the strength to face that yet.

She knew that the children she had, especially Jonah, needed a father. She and Jonah had always been close, but there were so many things that only a man could teach him—how to plow and trim a horse’s hooves, when to cut hay, how to mend a broken windmill. And while Wilmer had been kind to Katy, he’d shown only stern disapproval and constant criticism of Jonah. For all his energy and warm heart, Jonah desperately needed a loving father’s guidance. Without it, Johanna feared that Jonah would never fully understand how to grow into a man. And she wasn’t the only one who had come to that conclusion. It had been two years since Wilmer’s death, and members of the community and her family had been hinting that it was time she remarry. Johanna prayed every night that she would know when the time was right and that God would bring a good man into her life.

“She’s adorable, Anna.” Beautiful, she thought, but she didn’t say the word out loud. Physical beauty wasn’t something the Old Order Amish were supposed to dwell on. Better a child or an adult have grace and a pure spirit within than a pleasing face.

“And such an easy baby,” Grossmama said. “Like my Jonas. A gut baby.” She capped a large crimson strawberry and popped it in her mouth. Closing her eyes, she chewed contentedly, savoring the sweet flavor.

Anna looked up from the earthenware bowl in her lap and smiled with barely contained pride. “Rose is a good baby, isn’t she? Poor Samuel can’t believe it. He keeps getting out of bed at night to make certain she’s still breathing.”

Grossmama’s eyes snapped open, and she nodded so hard her bonnet strings bounced. “Happy mudder, happy kinner. And such a quick delivery. Pray that Martha has such an easy birth when her time comes.”

“It’s Ruth who’s expecting,” Rebecca gently reminded her grandmother. “Not Aunt Martha. Our sister Ruth.”

Johanna tried not to smile at the thought of Aunt Martha, older than her mother, having a new baby. Grossmama’s physical health had been good, and she seemed happier since coming to live with Anna, but her memory continued to fail. Not only was she convinced that Anna’s husband, Samuel, was her dead son, Jonas, but she mixed up names and people so often that one had to constantly think twice when one had a conversation with her. Only yesterday, Grossmama had been certain that Bishop Atlee was her new beau, come to take her to a frolic. Johanna couldn’t help wondering what the English at the senior center, where Grossmama taught rug making several days a week, thought of their grandmother.

“Are these the last of them?” Rebecca asked. Two brimming dishpans of ripe strawberries stood on the table, waiting to be washed and crushed before being added to the bubbling kettles on the stove.

“No,” Johanna said. “I think there’s one more flat. I’ll go—” She broke off as the pounding of a horse’s hooves on the dirt lane caught her attention. “It’s Irwin!” She snatched open the screen door and hurried down the wooden steps, wondering why he was in such a hurry.