A Wedding for Julia Read Online Free Page B

Amish farming ways. He’d stuck with it for more than a year, which was longer than most. That piece of land also included a smaller house. Caleb hadn’t seen it himself, but Aaron had told him about it once.
    Pebble Creek ran behind the entire property, to the north, and he was surprised to find he could actually make out the rooftops of a few of Aaron’s cabins.
    “I didn’t realize the Plain Cabins were so close.”
    “Sometimes I can hear children playing and laughing.” Julia met his gaze before glancing away. “It’s one of the reasons I thought a café would be a gut idea. The cabins are doing well, and I think Aaron’s customers would like a place nearby that serves gut healthy food.”
    “And you want to provide that here at your home?”
    “The house is ridiculously large.” Julia waved at it with a hand that said more than her expression. “ Mamm and I hardly need two floors and nine rooms.”
    “You’d need help.”
    “I would, but you know as well as I there are always Amish girls looking for work. I spoke with David, and he has several tables and chairs ready to purchase.”
    Caleb closed his eyes and walked back through the house in his mind. The sewing room would nicely hold two tables, two more in the breakfast area, and three or four in the living room. She had the space to do what she was describing.
    “You’d have the café downstairs and live upstairs.”
    Julia waited to answer until he had opened his eyes. “ Ya . Of course, we would eat downstairs, but there’s plenty of living space upstairs. We hardly use it now.”
    “And you have enough money saved to get started?”
    “I do, from my baking and our produce stand. And my customer base is right across the creek. I feel I need to start now, though, while everyone is coming to see the fall colors.”
    “Why didn’t you do it this summer?”
    Julia glanced back out over the property. “ Dat had been sick for several years. Selling off the land to the Elliotts wasn’t difficult for me. We hadn’t been able to farm it for the last five, maybe six years.”
    She turned to him and looked him full in the face. Once again Caleb had that sensation of the ground shifting, of falling. For some unknown reason, his mind flashed back to Lois, to when he was young and didn’t have control over his emotions.
    “That was my dat ’s vision, to farm the land and make it productive. I suppose it’s every Amish man’s dream.”
    Caleb nodded, more to keep her talking than because he agreed with her. He’d never been much of a farmer himself. He knew how. He’d helped often enough back home, but it wasn’t where his heart lay.
    “When he could no longer work the land, he was happy to help me with the garden. That’s part of the reason it’s so large.” Julia ran her hand along the metal rail they leaned against. “So we sold the land to the Elliotts to help with the taxes and expenses, and none of us missed it much. Dat was too sick by then to do more than nod his approval. Mamm quoted something from the Psalms, fifty-five I think.”
    “Fifty-five?”
    “Give your burdens to the Lord…It’s one of her favorites. Anyway, I didn’t miss it. The land wasn’t something I could use, and the other house was a constant reminder that—”
    She cut herself off, as if she’d said too much.
    “I didn’t miss it,” she repeated. “And the Elliotts seem like nice folks.”
    “ Ya . They do.”
    The silence stretched between them until Caleb again became aware of Red, waiting patiently beside them. He’d finished his bucket of oats and was nudging the weeds that grew next to the barn.
    “I don’t know when the idea of a café first sprouted in my heart, but I do know I waited the first year or so because dat was sick and the timing seemed poor. When he died last March, I felt I should wait through summer. But this morning, when I looked out my window and saw the leaves turning to gold and red and brown, I knew today was the day I