Patricia Davids - Plain Admirer

Love Is Only A Letter Away

So what if Joann Yoder’s Amish community deems her a spinster? She’s content to stay single. In the meantime, she’s working hard to finally buy her dream house. So it’s problematic when she’s fired from her job to make room for the nephew’s owner, Roman Weaver. His blue eyes aside, she simply can’t stand him! Good thing she has the secret letters she’s been exchanging with a mystery man to keep her going. But who is writing her letters? And could she possibly fall for him in real life, too?

“My buggy is just around the corner. Would you care to share a ride?” Roman asked.

There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. He had no reason to offer her a lift today. “It doesn’t look like rain.”

“I thought since we were going the same way…” His voice trailed off. He cocked an eyebrow and waited.

It was a long walk after a long day, but she’d rather crawl home on her hands and knees than spend another minute in his company. Thankfully, Joann managed not to blurt out her opinion. “I have errands to run. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Tomorrow would arrive all too quickly.

“Suit yourself.” Without another word, he walked away and turned the corner.

Had he actually sounded disappointed?

PATRICIA DAVIDS

After thirty-five years as a nurse, Pat has hung up her stethoscope to become a full-time writer. She enjoys spending her new free time visiting her grandchildren, doing some long-overdue yard work and traveling to research her story locations. She resides in Wichita, Kansas. Pat always enjoys hearing from her readers. You can visit her on the web at www.patriciadavids.com.

Plain Admirer

Patricia Davids

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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And God blessed them, and God said unto them,

Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish

of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

—Genesis 1:28

This book is lovingly dedicated to my father, Clarence—a man who can look at any stretch of water and tell just where the fish are. Thanks for teaching me, my daughter and my grandchildren to bait our own hooks. Love you. Let’s go fishing soon.

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

Dear Reader

Questions for Discussion

Chapter One

“This isn’t easy to say, but I have to let you go, Joann. I’m sure you understand.”

“You’re firing me?” Joann Yoder faced her boss across the cluttered desk in his office. For once, she wasn’t tempted to straighten up for him. And she didn’t understand.

“Ja. I’m sorry.”

Otis Miller didn’t look the least bit sorry. Certainly not as sorry as she was to be losing a job she really needed. A job she loved. Why was this happening? Why now, when she was so close to realizing her dream?

She’d only been at Miller Press for five months, but working as an assistant editor and office manager at the Amish-owned publishing house was everything she’d ever wanted. How could it end so quickly? If she knew what she had done wrong, she could fix it. “At least tell me why.”

He sighed heavily, as if disappointed she hadn’t accepted her dismissal without question. “You knew when you came over from the bookstore that this might not be a permanent position.”

Joann had moved from a part-time job at the bookstore next door to help at the printing shop after Otis’s elder brother suffered a heart attack. When he passed away a few weeks later, Joann had assumed she would be able to keep his job. She loved gathering articles for their monthly magazine and weekly newspaper, as well as making sure the office ran smoothly and customers received the best possible attention. She dropped her gaze to her hands clenched tightly in her lap and struggled to hang on to her dignity. Tears pricked the back of her eyelids, but she refused to cry. “You told me I was doing a good job.”

“You have been. Better than I expected, but I’m giving Roman Weaver your position. I don’t need to tell you why.”

“Nee, you don’t.” Like everyone in the Amish community of Hope Springs, Ohio, she was aware of the trouble that had visited the Weaver family. She hated that her compassion struggled so mightily with her desire to support herself. This job was proof that her intelligence mattered. She might be the “bookworm” her brothers had often called her, but here she had a chance to put her learning to good use. Now it was all being taken away.

She couldn’t let it go without a fight. She looked up and blurted, “Does he really need the job more than I do?”

Otis didn’t like conflict. He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his broad chest. “Roman has large medical bills to pay.”

“But the church held an auction to help raise money for him.”

“He and his family are grateful for all the help they received, but they are still struggling.”

She’d lost, and she knew it. Only a hint of the bitterness she felt slipped through in her words. “Plus, he’s your nephew.”

“That, too,” Otis admitted without any sign of embarrassment. Family came only after God in their Amish way of life.

Roman Weaver had had it rough, there was no denying that. It was a blessing that he hadn’t lost his arm after a pickup truck smashed into his buggy. Unfortunately, his damaged left arm was now paralyzed and useless. She’d seen him at the church meetings wearing a heavy sling and heard her brothers say the physical therapy he needed was expensive and draining his family’s resources.

Her heart went out to him and his family, but why should she be the one to lose her job? There were others who worked for Miller Press.

She didn’t bother to voice that thought. She already knew why she had been chosen. Because she was a woman.

Joann had no illusions about the male-dominated society she lived in. Unmarried Amish women could hold a job, but they gave it up when they married to make a home for their husband and children. A married woman could work outside the home, but only if her husband agreed to it.

Amish marriage was a partnership where each man and woman knew and respected their roles within the Ordnung, the laws of their Amish church. Men were the head of the household. Joann didn’t disagree with any of it. At least, not very much.

It was just that she had no desire to spend the rest of her life living with her brothers, moving from one house to another and being an unwanted burden to their families. She’d never had a come-calling boyfriend, although she’d accepted a ride home from the singings with a few fellas in her youth. She’d never received an offer of marriage. And at the advanced age of twenty-six, it wasn’t likely she would.

Besides, there wasn’t anyone in Hope Springs she would consider spending the rest of her life with. As the years had gone by, she’d begun to accept that she would always be a maiden aunt. Maybe she’d get a cat one day.