Jo Brown - The Amish Suitor

A Family Comes Courting…

The Amish Spinster Club series begins!

With his orphaned nephew depending on him, Amish carpenter Eli Troyer moves to Harmony Creek Hollow to start over. And when schoolteacher Miriam Hartz offers to teach Eli, who is hard of hearing, how to read lips, he can’t refuse. Spending time with Miriam forges a bond between them. Can two wounded hearts overcome their pasts to make a family together?

JO ANN BROWN has 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

Love Inspired

Amish Spinster Club

The Amish Suitor

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

The Amish Suitor

Jo Ann Brown

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-08427-7

THE AMISH SUITOR

© 2018 Jo Ann Ferguson

Published in Great Britain 2018

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.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

“The more we work together, the quicker you will learn.

Kyle must learn to face you and enunciate when he speaks.”

“Enough what when he speaks?”

“E-nun-ci-ate. To say something clearly.”

Eli nodded, flustered he’d misunderstood Miriam.

She touched his face. Startled, he froze.

“Eli, do not be embarrassed. Even people with perfect hearing miss words.”

Was his pain emblazoned there? The last thing he wanted was her pity.

He realized how he’d misread her when she said, “Your hearing loss is nothing to be ashamed of.”

“I know.”

“You say that. But you do not act that way. It will get easier.” She smiled as if he were one of her scholars.

Was that how she saw him? That was what he was, but when she touched him on his arm to get his attention, he couldn’t think of her as anything other than a charming woman.

She was his teacher—and his neighbor. Nothing else. He was being a fool. He wasn’t going to invite more pain into his life. Not when he’d come to Harmony Creek to start over.

Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the Lord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.

—Deuteronomy 31:6

Dear Reader,

Have you ever met a person who was completely happy with his/her appearance or some aspect of their personality? We’re all a work in process. Some of us have visible challenges, as Eli does with his hearing aids. Others have invisible ones—for example, Miriam with her lack of self-esteem. Eli and Miriam needed to believe God put these roadblocks in their paths for a reason. They—and we—must accept that by meeting such challenges with perseverance and prayer, each of us becomes stronger in our faith.

Visit me at www.joannbrownbooks.com. Look for my next story coming soon from Harlequin Love Inspired, the next in my series set in Harmony Creek Hollow.

Wishing you many blessings,

Jo Ann Brown

For Gary Rubin the “younger man” A dear friend for longer than either of us wants to admit! Do you still remember the parade in Hop Bottom with one marching band and nineteen fire engines?

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

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

Chapter One

Harmony Creek Hollow, New York

The bottle of spaghetti sauce at the top of the pyramid swayed.

The three bottles below it rocked.

The whole stack quivered.

Eli Troyer leaped forward and hooked an arm around his nephew. He yanked the six-year-old away from the grocery store endcap. Kyle let out a shriek. Whether it was shock or a forewarning, everyone within sight in the small grocery store froze.

But not the bottles. The stack began to crumble.

Just as the wall had.

Irrational terror swelled through Eli, clamping talons around his windpipe. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t move. Sounds erupted in his mind. The memory of an earsplitting crack from a wall that couldn’t stand any longer. A man’s horrified shout, a woman’s scream, crashing stone, pain...silence.

Always the silence.

Knowing he had to protect the little boy, Eli put out a hand in a futile effort to stabilize the bottles, to keep the display from crumbling. Too late. Just like before. In a slow-motion avalanche, the tower collapsed. He bent over Kyle, keeping himself between the little boy and disaster. Time escalated again when the first jar hit the concrete floor and shattered. The rest followed. Some bounced and rolled, but most exploded in a spray of marinara sauce. The sharp sounds resonated through his hearing aids as if he stood in a giant hailstorm.

Shouts, loud enough so he could hear them, though he couldn’t pick out words, rang through the store. His fear faded into knowing he must deal with what had happened in Salem’s only grocery store. He fought the yearning to flee as a different panic burst out in a cold sweat. After four years of staying out of the limelight, eyes were focused on him. It was the moment he dreaded, the moment he’d hoped wouldn’t come.

Someone was going to talk to him. Ask him questions. Expect him to understand what they’d said and then answer.