The Forgiven Read Free Page A

dreams.
    Sucking in a breath, Rebecca forced herself to walk all the way to the back wall, her footsteps hollow on the solid wooden floorboards. No one was here. Joshua’s longing for his daadi had led him to imagine what he hoped for.
    A board creaked behind her and Rebecca whirled, heart leaping into her throat.
    A man stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the light so that she couldn’t make out his face. But Amish, judging by his clothes and straw hat, so not a stranger. The man took a step forward, and she could see him.
    For a long moment they simply stared at each other. Her brain seemed to be moving sluggishly, taking note of him. Tall, broad-shouldered, with golden-brown hair and eyes. He didn’t have a beard, so she could see the cleft in his chin, and the sight stirred vague memories. She knew him, and yet she didn’t. It wasn’t—
    â€œMatt? Matthew Byler?”
    A flicker of a smile crossed his face. “Got it right. And you’re little Becky Lapp, ain’t so?”
    â€œRebecca Fisher,” she corrected quickly. So Matt Byler had returned home to Brook Hill at last. Nothing had been seen of him among the central Pennsylvania Amish since his family migrated out west when he was a teenager.
    Matt came a step closer, making her aware of the height and breadth of him. He’d grown quite a lot from the gangling boy he’d been when he left. “You married Paul Fisher, then. You two were holding hands when you were eight or nine, the way I remember it.”
    â€œAnd you were . . .” She let that trail off. Matt had been a couple of years older than they were, and he’d been the kind of boy Amish parents held up as a bad example—always in trouble, always pushing the boundaries of what it meant to be Amish.
    Now Matt’s smile lit his eyes, and a vagrant shaft of sunlight made them look almost gold. “You remember me. The troublemaker.”
    â€œI . . . I wasn’t thinking that,” she said. But of course she had been. It was the first thing anyone thought in connection with Matt Byler. “Are you here for a visit?”
    Matt didn’t have a beard, so obviously he hadn’t married. That was more than unusual for an Amish male of thirty.
    Surely his unmarried state wasn’t for lack of chances. A prudent set of parents might look warily at Matt as a prospective son-in-law, but the girls had always been charmed by his teasing smile.
    â€œMy uncle needs some help with the carpentry business, and he asked me to give him a hand.”
    Everyone knew that Silas Byler had been struggling to keep his business going since his eldest son had so unexpectedly left the community. How strange life was that Isaiah, who’d never caused his parents a moment’s worry, should be the one to leave the Amish while bad boy Matthew returned to take his place.
    â€œI’m sorry about Isaiah. It was a heavy blow to your aunt and uncle, ain’t so?”
    Matt nodded with a wry twist to his mouth. “Funny, isn’t it? Everyone was so sure I was the one headed over the fence.”
    It was an echo of what she’d been thinking. “You did a pretty good job of making folks think so, the way I remember it,” she said.
    â€œOuch.” Matt’s teasing grin appeared. “You’ve developed a sharp tongue, I see.”
    â€œI’ve just grown up. I have two kinder of my own now.” Rebecca hesitated, but she couldn’t help but resent what he’d made Josh imagine, however inadvertently. “My little boy, Joshua, must have seen you here at the stable. He thought it was his daadi.”
    Matt’s face sobered in an instant. “I’m sorry, Rebecca. Truly sorry. My uncle told me about Paul. You have my sympathy.”
    â€œDenke.” Too abrupt, but she couldn’t seem to help it. “Was there something you wanted here, Matt?”
    He looked a little taken aback