The Search Read Free Page B

coming up the drive with a casserole dish in her arms. He set down the coffee cup and went to see what Sallie had in that dish. It had been only a few hours since Bess had left, and he was already tired of his own cooking. And he was lonely.

    Bess was a quick learner. After one buggy ride with her grandmother, she had already figured that she should hold tight to the edge of the seat so she wouldn’t slide off and land on the buggy floor when Mammi took the curves. Her grandmother drove through those country roads like a teenage boy, the buggy leaning precariously to the side. She made a tight right turn and, suddenly, there it was: Rose Hill Farm.
    The farm sat in a gentle valley surrounded by rolling hills, with fields fed by a secluded, spring-fed pond. The farmhouse—a rambling house with white clapboard siding and a brick foundation—was even prettier than Bess remembered. Three years ago, when she was here for her grandfather’s funeral, she remembered being impressed by the neatness of the fields, the trimmed hedges, and the cherry trees that bordered the drive. It was the same today. Her grandmother may be ancient, but she had kept up the farm in good condition, that was plain to see.
    A perfume wafted past Bess, and her eyes traveled to the fields that surrounded the house: acres and acres of blooming roses in what used to be pastures. The roses were at their peak. Pinks and reds and yellows and oranges blurred together to create a collage of color. Bess remembered that her grandmother had written awhile back that she had started a small business selling rose petal jams and jellies. But this —this was more than a small business.
    Mammi stopped the horse under a shade tree next to a hitching rail. “We’d best get to work.”
    Oh no. Bess clutched her forehead. “On my first day here?”
    Mammi lifted a sparse eyebrow. “Es hot sich noch niemand dodschafft.” Nobody ever worked to death.
    Boomer let out an ear-busting woof and leaped out of the buggy to run to the fields. Mammi hopped out of the buggy and reached a large hand to pull Bess forward by the arm. She stopped dead and aimed a stern look at Bess. “A little work might put a little muscle on them bones.”
    There were moments, like this one, when Bess thought it would be simpler to be English. On the bus this morning, a little girl wanted her mother to give her a snack, and when her mother refused she broke down and bawled. That’s just what Bess would like to do right now, break down and bawl. Of course, she couldn’t.
    But oh! she was hot and tired from the bus trip and frustrated at what she had just figured out. She came to Stoney Ridge on a mission of mercy for her ailing grandmother, and the truth was that she was nothing more than another pair of hands—to pick roses. For an entire summer! Her father was right. Her grandmother was sneaky. Bess wished she had just stayed home and worked with her father on their farm. She missed him terribly. Far more than she had expected she would.
    Bess heard Boomer bark again and she looked to see why the dog was causing such a ruckus. Boomer was standing on his hind legs, licking the face of a boy—or was it a young man?—and ended up knocking off his straw hat.
    “That’s Billy Lapp,” Mammi said. “He’s my hired help.”
    The boy pushed Boomer off of him and reached down to pat the dog’s big head. Then he bent down and picked up his straw hat, knocking it on his knee a few times to shake off the dirt. Billy Lapp looked to be about seventeen or eighteen years old. Man-sized. When he stood and his eyes met hers, Bess felt her heart give a simple thump. Clearly Amish by his clothes and haircut, he was tall, broad-shouldered, with curly brown hair and roguish eyes rimmed with dark eyebrows. Hands down, he was the best-looking boy Bess had ever laid eyes on. Her heart was beating so strangely now, she thought she might fall down and faint.
    Things were looking up.

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    By the time Bess