Landchester Amish Love: Ruth (Amish Romance) (Landchester Amish Love Series Book 2) Read Free Page A

couldn’t help but give him an amused smile.
    “I do. They’re related to me, in a roundabout way.”
    “Right,” Joseph said. And then his courage, seemed to stall.
    “They have a barn raising next week,” Ruth helped him.
    “ Jah ,” he said, smiling with the dimples again. “Are you going?”
    Ruth answered that she would be going a bit more quickly than she meant to, and the two smiled at each other. Then he said he hoped that he would see her there, and made his way out.
    Ruth watched him go, almost absentmindedly tripping over the door threshold of the shop on his way out. He didn’t seem a clumsy mann , which made it all the more charming.
    After he had gone, Ruth sat on the table his father had made, next to the crates of handicrafts.
    Where had he been all this time? Had he really been so close? And, more to the point, why had Katie been hiding him away? She let a little bitterness in that Katie should have heard he be so distraught that there was no one she had met and never suggested that she meet her bruder . But even this couldn’t much bother Ruth at the moment. Probably nothing could.

Chapter 4
    The money in Joseph’s pocket was hard won. It was more than his father had told him to get for it, but it was certainly a fair price, and Joseph was glad he put in the effort to make sure that his father would be fairly paid for his work. Still, he worried his father wouldn’t be pleased, or would think he’d been too greedy.
    It was the little things like this that made Joseph wonder if returning had been the right choice. Among the Englischers , this kind of thing would be praised. They’d call it initiative, and comment how he ought to get a raise. He hadn’t been very well prepared for the world he had encountered on his Rumspringa , not having the education most people expected, and feeling very out of place most of the time. But there towards the end he had been beginning to feel that his skills, and his desires might fit better with their world than his own.
    Out there, there weren’t so many rules. He didn’t have to worry if the thing he was doing would be appropriate, or considered pleasing to Gott or the Ordnung ; he only had to worry about whether it would work out well or badly. And he had let himself think, for a while, that maybe he could pursue cooking the way he’d always wanted to, but had always been discouraged from doing here because it was a woman’s job.
    But it was people like that woman, Ruth, that made him question this urge. If she could be so peaceful here, and so content, then surely he must be missing something. She seemed bright, and as talented as anyone. But she didn’t feel the community and its rules chafing at her the way Joseph had since he’d been back. He wanted to know more about her. Maybe if he did he would understand how she was so happy here, and perhaps it would help him understand how he could be content here, too.
    Of course, there was another reason he would be happy to see her, he thought to himself. Her eyes had been captivating to him. They were a little bit unusual. They were beautiful in their color, but they had also seemed so observant, as though they were always drinking in as much detail about the world around them as possible, all the time. He wanted to know more about what they saw, and he wanted, above all, for them to see him favorably.
    Well, he would see her at the barn raising. The thought made him smile again, as he had like a food when he’d been talking to her. He suddenly felt as though the things he’d said had been woefully unprepared. If there was one thing that he’d learned thus far in his life, it was that taking the time to do the proper research about what you wanted or how you should do it was always worthwhile. Just stumbling in with no knowledge about the girl might have been all right if he weren’t so invested in her already, but as it was he wanted to be prepared.
    How fortunate it was that she was Katie’s