Christmas at Promise Lodge Read Free

starts.”
    â€œYou poor, starving things,” Mattie teased as she started up the walk toward her sons. “Deborah deserves a wedding day away from the stove.”
    â€œOr you could get by on bacon, eggs, and toast like I do,” Preacher Amos teased as he strode across his small, leaf-covered yard. He stopped a few feet away from Mattie to take in her new dress—and the plate in her hand—with an appreciative smile. He lowered his voice before Roman and Noah reached them. “Of course, if you married me, Mattie, I wouldn’t be threatened by starvation or depression or any of those other maladies a man alone endures.”
    â€œ Jah , so you’ve told me,” Mattie teased as she removed the napkin that covered her plate. “Maybe someday I’ll feel sorry enough for you to give up my cozy apartment in the lodge.”
    The moment her sons joined them, the three sandwiches were snatched up. With a welling-up of love, Mattie watched Noah eat. Although he was twenty-one, it seemed like only yesterday when he’d been born. He and Deborah had known each other all their lives, had become sweethearts in school, had gotten engaged—until Deborah broke off their relationship, claiming Noah didn’t communicate with her or have a concrete plan for their future. The nasty incident involving Isaac Chupp had brought Noah out of his shell, awakening his protective feelings for Deborah, and all of them at Promise Lodge had breathed a sigh of relief when the young couple reconciled this past summer.
    â€œI’m proud of you, Noah,” Mattie murmured as she stroked his unruly brown waves. “I wish you all the happiness that marriage and your faith in God can offer.”
    Blushing, Noah eased away from her touch. “ Denki , Mamm. I think Deborah and I have figured out how to stay together now,” he said as he offered his dog the last bite of his biscuit.
    Mattie shared a smile with Preacher Amos. “When you’re my age, son, you’ll look back to this day and realize how young and innocent you were,” she murmured.
    â€œAnd clueless.” Amos laughed. “We fellows like to believe we’ve got everything figured out and under control—until life starts tossing monkey wrenches into our well-laid plans. I’m a different kind of man than I imagined I’d be when I was your age.”
    â€œDid folks hitch their rigs to dinosaurs back then?” Roman teased. He, too, fed the last bite of his sandwich to Queenie and then rubbed between her black ears.
    â€œPuh! I didn’t have much money when I married,” the preacher reminisced, “but I drove fine-looking retired racehorses. Not that my bride always appreciated my priorities,” he admitted. “I hope you’ll give a thought to Deborah’s needs before you devote the household budget to your own whims, Noah. I had a spendy streak—”
    â€œBut all the girls liked what they saw and thought you’d be a fine catch back in the day, Amos,” Mattie cut in with a chuckle.
    â€œBack in the day?” he challenged. The way he held her gaze made Mattie’s cheeks prickle. “Might be a little snow on the roof, but there’s still a fire down below.”
    â€œAnd with that, I’m going to finish getting dressed,” Roman announced, pointing toward the rigs coming through the camp entrance. “We’ve got guests arriving. I hope you two won’t be gawking at each other all during the service, embarrassing us all.”
    Mattie smiled, watching her two sons and the dog enter Noah’s white frame house. “I’m so glad we came to Promise Lodge,” she murmured to Amos. “So glad we risked buying this property so we’re no longer living in Obadiah Chupp’s shadow. If I’d still been shackled to that farmhouse in Coldstream, I couldn’t have given my boys plots of land where they could lead lives of