[Kentucky Brothers 01] - The Journey Read Free

picked up her napkin and wiped the juice from the chicken on her fingers.
     
    “You wouldn’t be bored if you spent more time in the kitchen,” Nelson said. “How are you gonna find a husband if you don’t learn to cook?”
     
    Suzanne glared at him. “Why does everyone think a woman must marry? I personally don’t care if I ever marry.”
     
    “You weren’t sayin’ that last year when you were hopin’ James Beiler would start courtin’ you,” Suzanne’s sixteen-year-old brother, Russell, chimed in. He was the only child in the Yoder family who had Mom’s brown hair and brown eyes.
     
    Suzanne clenched her fork so tightly that her fingers turned numb. She didn’t need the reminder that she’d previously had a crush on Esther’s older brother. For a while, it had seemed like James might be interested in her, too, but then he’d started courting Mary Jane Smucker. Last fall they’d gotten married and moved to Lykens, Pennsylvania.
     
    From across the table, Russell squinted his coffee-colored eyes at Suzanne. “I’ll bet the reason James dropped you for Mary Jane is ‘cause she’s such a good cook. About the only thing you can make is soup and sandwiches, and nobody wants that for supper every night.”
     
    “That’ll be enough,” Mom admonished. “Just eat your supper, and leave Suzanne alone.”
     
    Chad reached for a drumstick and plopped it on his plate. “Sure am glad Mom knows how to cook.”
     
    As much as it hurt to be reminded of her shortcomings, Suzanne knew that her brother was right. Unless she learned to cook, she’d probably never find a man willing to marry her. Well, she wouldn’t worry about that until she found a man she was interested in marrying. Right now she needed to concentrate on finding some way to convince Nelson and Grandpa to let her work in their shop.
     
    Until that day comes
, she thought,
I’ll continue to sneak out to the woodshop when no one’s there and see what I can do on my own
.
     

     
    Paradise, Pennsylvania
     
    “I’m so glad you’re here, and I can’t wait for you to meet my wife, Leona, and our three kids,” Zach said as he, Allen, and Titus made their way across the yard to the picnic tables that had been set up on the lawn.
     
    Allen grinned and draped his arm across Zach’s shoulders. “I’ve wanted to do this for a long time. Just never got around to it until now.”
     
    Titus noticed right away the look of happiness on Zach’s face. He was obviously pleased to be reunited with his childhood friend.
     
    “So what brings you to our part of the country?” Zach asked, raking his fingers through the sides of his sandy brown hair. “The last time we talked on the phone, you said you were real busy at the carpentry shop in Tacoma and didn’t know when you might get away.”
     
    Titus was tempted to jump in and share all that Allen had told him that afternoon, but he figured he’d better let Allen do the talking for now.
     
    Allen moved to one of the wooden benches. “Let’s sit down. While we’re waiting for the rest of your family to show up, I’ll tell you the other reason I’m here.”
     
    Titus took a seat on one bench, and Allen and Zach sat across from him.
     
    “As you know,” Allen began, “after the lumber mill where I worked in Tacoma shut down, I began working for Todd Foster as a carpenter.”
     
    Zach nodded. “That’s what Titus does now. He’s been working for our brother-in-law, Matthew, for the past year.”
     
    “I told him that before you got home,” Titus put in.
     
    “Anyway, while I worked for Todd, I built a home that I thought would be for myself. I even acted as my own contractor.” Allen leaned his elbows on the table and smiled. “Then before I had a chance to move in, someone offered to buy the house from me. So I sold that home and built several others, which I also ended up selling.”
     
    “Is that how you became a full-time general contractor?” Zach