Jo Brown - An Amish Christmas Promise

Will she jeopardize her family secret for love?

Secrecy kept her family safe...

Will she risk it all for a chance at love?

Carolyn Wiebe discarded her Amish roots to hide her niece and nephew from their violent father. Yet when a hurricane crashes into their isolated Mennonite life, she can no longer keep the world at bay. With Christmas approaching, Amish carpenter Michael Miller wants to help her rebuild her home. But can their burgeoning love withstand the rising storm of her secrets?

Green Mountain Blessings

JO ANN BROWNhas always loved stories with happily-ever-after endings. A former military officer, she is thrilled to have the chance to write stories about people falling in love. She is also a photographer and travels with her husband of more than thirty years to places where she can snap pictures. They have three children and live in Florida. Drop her a note at joannbrownbooks.com.

Also By Jo Ann Brown

Green Mountain Blessings

An Amish Christmas Promise

Amish Spinster Club

The Amish Suitor

The Amish Christmas Cowboy

The Amish Bachelor’s Baby

The Amish Widower’s Twins

Amish Hearts

Amish Homecoming

An Amish Match

His Amish Sweetheart

An Amish Reunion

A Ready-Made Amish Family

An Amish Proposal

An Amish Arrangement

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

An Amish Christmas Promise

Jo Ann Brown

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-0-008-90064-9

AN AMISH CHRISTMAS PROMISE

© 2019 Jo Ann Ferguson

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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Text to speech

“Are the kinder okay?”

Uncomfortable with his small intrusion into her family, Carolyn said, “Kevin had a bad dream and woke us up.”

“Because of the rain?”

“It’s possible.”

“Rebuilding a building is easy. Rebuilding one’s sense of security isn’t.”

“That sounds like the voice of experience.”

Michael sighed. “My parents died when I was young, and both my twin brother and I had to learn not to expect something horrible was going to happen without warning.”

“I’m sorry. I should have asked more about you and the other volunteers. I’ve been wrapped up in my own tragedy.”

“At times like this, nobody expects you to be thinking of anything but getting a roof over your kinder’s heads.”

He didn’t reach out to touch her, but she was aware of every inch of him so close to her. His quiet strength had awed her from the beginning. As she’d come to know him better, his fundamental decency had impressed her more. He was a man she believed she could trust.

She shoved that thought aside. Trusting any man would be the worst thing she could do.

Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ. For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself. But let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another. For every man shall bear his own burden.

—Galatians 6:2–5

Dear Reader,

Sometimes, the worst events bring out the best in people. We met many of our new neighbors when a hurricane swept through our town, and we were outside cleaning debris. Those who were able stepped up without fanfare to help those who weren’t, and within a week, our neighborhood looked just as it should have. But we had a new camaraderie that lasted far longer than the scars of damage.

The Mennonite Disaster Service was established seventy years ago when a group of young people wanted to help others. MDS volunteers, who are both plain and Englisch , come primarily from the US and Canada and have helped rebuild homes and lives after disasters, usually weather related or due to wildfires.

Visit me at www.joannbrownbooks.com . Look for my next book, again set in Evergreen Corners, Vermont, coming soon.

Wishing you many blessings,

Jo Ann Brown

For Amanda, who keeps us looking good

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Introduction

Bible Verse

Dear Reader

Dedication

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

Epilogue

Extract

About the Publisher

The bus slowed with a rumble of its diesel engine.

Michael Miller opened his eyes. A crick in his neck warned him that he’d fallen asleep in a weird position. The last time he’d ridden a bus was when he caught one to the train station in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Then he’d traveled with his twin brother and Gabriel’s bopplin to their new farm in Harmony Creek Hollow in northern New York.

Now he was on a bus on a late October day because he needed time away, time with peace and quiet, to figure out the answer to one vital question: Should he remain in their Amish community, or was the future he wanted beyond a plain life?

Today Michael was in Vermont, on his way to Evergreen Corners. The small village was at the epicenter of powerful flash floods that had accompanied Hurricane Kevin when the massive storm stalled over the eastern slopes of the Green Mountains last week.