Morning Star Read online

  “WOULDN’T THIS MAKE A GREAT PLACE FOR SOME SHOPS?” JO BLURTED OUT.

  “You Helfings could sell your homemade noodles, and Mamm and I would have more space to display our bakery stuff and our summer produce—and we could get other local folks to rent spaces, and—and it’s on the main highway! Think of how much more business we’d attract here than we do at the roadside stands in our yards.”

  Her friends stared at her as though she’d sprouted a second head.

  “Are you talking about us running such a place?” Lydianne asked with a frown. “How would we pay for the property, much less the repairs it needs?”

  “And what makes you think a handful of maidels could manage a bunch of shops?” Marietta chimed in again.

  Jo planted her fists on her hips, grinning despite her friends’ very reasonable objections. “What makes you think we couldn’t?” she challenged. “We manage quite well without husbands, ain’t so? We’ve been supporting ourselves for years, so we certainly have the smarts to keep a joint business afloat. I think it would be great fun to run a marketplace!”

  Don’t miss any of Charlotte Hubbard’s other Amish romances

  A Mother’s Gift

  A Mother’s Love

  Seasons of the Heart series

  Summer of Secrets

  Autumn Winds

  Winter of Wishes

  An Amish Country Christmas

  Breath of Spring

  Harvest of Blessings

  The Christmas Cradle

  An Amish Christmas Quilt

  Promise Lodge series

  Promise Lodge

  Christmas at Promise Lodge

  Weddings at Promise Lodge

  New Beginnings at Promise Lodge

  Light Shines on Promise Lodge

  Simple Gifts series

  A Simple Vow

  A Simple Wish

  A Simple Christmas

  Morning Star

  Charlotte Hubbard

  ZEBRA BOOKS

  KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  “WOULDN’T THIS MAKE A GREAT PLACE FOR SOME SHOPS?” JO BLURTED OUT.

  Also by

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Matthew 22:37–39 (KJV)

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Teaser chapter

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ZEBRA BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2020 by Charlotte Hubbard

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales, or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.

  If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the Publisher and neither the Author nor the Publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  Zebra and the Z logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  BOUQUET Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  ISBN: 978-1-4201-4512-0

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4201-4515-1 (eBook)

  ISBN-10: 1-4201-4515-0 (eBook)

  In memory of Aunt Verna, the independent, free-thinking, fun maidel of the Hubbard family

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  To God be all the glory!

  As I begin another new series, I’m grateful to my editor, Alicia Condon, and my agent, Evan Marshall, for shepherding the ideas for these books and for making them happen. It’s a joy to work with both of you!

  Thank you, thank you, Vicki Harding, my research assistant in Jamesport, Missouri, for answering my questions so quickly—and for keeping your finger on the pulse of Amish life there. Blessings on you and your family, Joe Burkholder, as you pursue a faith path that has been more rewarding but hasn’t been easy.

  Matthew 22:37–39 (KJV)

  Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

  Chapter One

  Spring had painted the Missouri countryside with a palette of vibrant greens and gentle pastels only God Himself could have created. The pastures were lush with new grass, and the dogwood and redbud trees added splashes of pink, cream, and fuchsia to the untamed landscape. Jo Fussner and her four maidel friends were on their usual afternoon walk on a visiting Sunday, soaking up the midday sunshine. An occasional car passed as they strolled alongside the county highway, but otherwise, Morning Star seemed to be nodding off for its Sunday nap.

  As they reached the edge of town, Jo gazed at a dilapidated white stable that sat back from the road, surrounded by a few acres of land. The plank fence around it was also in a sorry state of disrepair. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d seen horses in the pasture, or any sign of the English folks who owned it. The harsh winter hadn’t done the stable any favors, and Jo thought the place looked sadder than usual as the April breeze riffled some of its loose shingles.

  The wooden sign posted on the fence alongside the gate startled her. “Did you know this place was for sale?” Jo blurted. “I haven’t seen this sign before.”

  “Me, neither,” Molly Helfing replied. She glanced at her rail-thin twin sister, Marietta, who was recovering from chemo treatments. “Last I knew, that Clementi fellow who owned this property died in the nursing home—”

  “And his kids have been squabbling over the estate,” Marietta put in. Despite the spring day’s warmth, she pulled her black cloak more closely around her. “I still haven’t figured out how the English can bear to put their parents in places like the senior center. It seems so cruel, separating older folks from their families.”

  “Jah, Mamm exasperates me, but I could never shut her away in a care facility—especially now that Dat’s passed on,” Jo agreed. An idea was spinning in her head—an adventurous, totally impractical idea—as she gazed at the long white stable with its peeling paint and missing bo
ards. Her longtime friends would think she was ferhoodled, yet her imagination was running wild with possibilities.

  “The kids must’ve decided to sell the place rather than keep it in the family,” redheaded Regina Miller remarked. “I can’t think it’ll bring much, though, run-down as it is.”

  “Anybody who bought it would have to invest a lot of money to make it usable as a stable again. And replacing the slat fence would cost another small fortune,” Lydianne Christner said with a shake of her head. “Folks around town have been hoping the family will just tear this eyesore down—”

  “But wouldn’t it make a great place for some shops?” Jo blurted out. “You Helfings could sell your homemade noodles, and Mamm and I would have more space to display our bakery stuff and our summer produce—and we could get other local folks to rent spaces, and—and it’s on the main highway! Think of how much more business we’d attract here than we do at the roadside stands in our yards.”

  Her friends stared at her as though she’d sprouted a second head.

  Molly’s brow puckered. “How could we run a store on this side of town—”

  “—while we were making our noodles in our shop at home?” Marietta finished doubtfully.

  Regina appeared more positive, yet she shook her head. “Would Bishop Jeremiah allow that? He’s always preaching about how we should keep our businesses to a manageable size. When some of our men have talked of expanding their shops, he’s reminded them that bigger isn’t better.”

  “Are you talking about us running such a place?” Lydianne asked with a frown. “How would we pay for the property, much less the repairs it needs?”

  “And what makes you think a handful of maidels could manage a bunch of shops?” Marietta chimed in again.

  Jo planted her fists on her hips, grinning despite her friends’ very reasonable objections. “What makes you think we couldn’t?” she challenged. “We manage quite well without husbands, ain’t so? We’ve been supporting ourselves for years, so we certainly have the smarts to keep a joint business afloat—especially since Lydianne’s a bookkeeper. I think it would be great fun to run a marketplace!”

  “Puh! Your mamm would never go along with that!” Regina teased.

  “Jah, I can already see Drusilla shaking a finger at you,” Molly agreed as she shook her own finger. “And I can just hear her saying, ‘No gut will ever come of such an outrageous idea, Josephine Fussner! Who ever heard of unhitched women doing such a thing?’”

  Jo laughed along with her friends at Molly’s imitation of her widowed mother. “You’ve got her pegged,” she said, even as she gazed wistfully at the stable. The weather vane on the center cupola had lost its rooster, and enough boards were missing that she could see daylight on the structure’s other side. Even so, she could imagine the building glowing with fresh paint. She could hear the voices of shoppers who’d be delighted to discover the products Plain folks from the Morning Star area would display in their tidy open booths.

  “We’ve got our homes and our work—not to mention the Gut Lord and our church family to sustain us—and we get by just fine,” she continued in a voice that tightened with unanticipated emotion. “But haven’t you ever wanted to do something just for the fun of it? Something new? Whatever happened to sayings like ‘Where there’s a will there’s a way’—and Bible verses like ‘With God, all things are possible’ and ‘I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me’?”

  Her friends got quiet. The four of them stood beside her in a line along the fence, gazing at the forlorn stable and the pasture covered with clumps of green weeds, yellow dandelions, and the occasional pile of dried horse manure.

  Regina finally broke the silence. “You’re really serious about this.”

  After a few more moments of contemplation, Lydianne squeezed Jo’s shoulder. “I can see how opening shops might be fun, but—”

  “It sounds crazy and impossibly expensive,” Jo admitted, “and it would take an incredible amount of carpentry work and elbow grease and commitment and organization, but I just thought... ”

  As her voice trailed off into a frustrated sigh, Jo gazed at the long barn with the three cupolas along the top of its roof. “Without a house on the property, I can’t think many folks will want to buy this place. It would be such a shame to tear the stable down—”

  “We know plenty of men who could fix it up,” Regina said, “but why would they want to?”

  “—and maybe it’s just me,” Jo continued softly, “but come springtime, when Mother Nature puts on her pretty, fresh colors, I wish I could take on a whole new appearance, too—like the rebirth Bishop Jeremiah preached about on Easter Sunday. When I turned thirty last year, I accepted that I’ll never have a husband or kids, but some days I long for something different. Something more. You know?”

  Her four closest friends did know. For one reason or another, each woman believed marriage wasn’t an option for her. Jo didn’t regret her unwed state, yet the way Marietta sighed when Molly hugged her angular shoulders, and Regina gazed into the distance, and Lydianne pressed her lips together told Jo that sometimes they, too, grew weary of their solitary state . . . and a future that held little opportunity for change.

  Even though Plain maidels enjoyed a few more freedoms than their married friends, their faith placed limitations on them. They weren’t allowed to train for careers or travel to faraway places or break out of the mold of conformity. Amish women who’d been baptized into the Old Order knew their place—and they were expected to stay there.

  Jo turned to continue on their walk. “Well, it was an interesting thought, anyway.”

  * * *

  For the next few days, however, Jo couldn’t let go of the idea of a marketplace. She was so engrossed in her vision—even thinking up possible names for the new shopping area—that she planted rows of onion sets where Mamm had intended to put the hills for the zucchini and other summer squash.

  “Josephine Fussner, what’s gotten into you?” her mother demanded in exasperation. “You might as well be living on another planet, for all the response I’ve gotten from you lately!”

  After she endured a talking-to about the garden chart Mamm had drawn, Jo headed into town to do the week’s shopping—and to pay a visit to Bishop Jeremiah Shetler. If the leader of their church district refused to go along with her idea about refurbishing the old stable, she would put it out of her mind and move on. It was a big stretch, thinking the property could ever be brought up to the glowing images she’d seen in her daydreams.

  And yet, as they sat in wicker chairs on his front porch, Bishop Jeremiah listened patiently as Jo described her ideas for shops—and about how she and her four friends would manage the place. She hadn’t exactly gotten full agreement from Lydianne, the Helfings, or Regina, but she felt the bishop would be quicker to approve if she presented an organized business plan, which she’d devised over the past few days.

  “Wouldn’t it be something if we transformed the Clementi stable into shops where local folks could sell what they make?” Jo began excitedly. “It would take a lot of work, but can’t you imagine Amish stores along three of the walls, with an open central area where shoppers could gather at tables and enjoy homemade refreshments? With some fixing up and a fresh coat of paint—maybe some colorful shutters and flower boxes at the windows—it could become a big attraction for Morning Star, don’t you think? If we rented out the shop stalls, we could make money for our church district.”

  The bishop sat forward, as though Jo’s last sentence had snagged his attention. “Jah, I saw that the Clementi place was up for sale,” he said, “and I can tell you’ve given your idea a lot of thought, Jo. Who do you suppose might want to rent space in this new marketplace?”

  Jo blinked. Instead of waving off her dream as something only a silly, impractical maidel would come up with, Bishop Jeremiah was nodding as he listened to her. He was a patient, forward-thinking leader—younger than most bishops, with dark brown hair, e
xpressive brows, and a matching beard. His deep cocoa eyes seemed to search the soul of whomever he was talking to.

  Jeremiah’s steady gaze made Jo answer carefully. “The Helfing twins could sell their homemade noodles. Mamm and I could expand our baking and produce business—and sell those refreshments I mentioned—”

  “And what does your mother say about this?”

  Jo laughed when she caught the twitch of the bishop’s lips. “Well, Mamm doesn’t know about it yet. I figured if you wouldn’t go along with our idea, there was no reason to mention it to her.

  “But think about it!” she continued brightly. “We have a lot of local folks who make toys and furniture and such! Maybe Anne and Martha Maude Hartzler would want to sell their quilts, and maybe the Flauds would put some of their furniture in a booth—and we could advertise for more Plain crafters from this area! We could have the marketplace open only on Saturdays, so nobody would have to mind a store all during the week. That would really cut into a family’s daily life.”

  Bishop Jeremiah stroked his closely trimmed beard. “What about the land? There’s about five acres with the stable, and we’d have to maintain it somehow.”

  Jo hadn’t thought about the pasture, but she hated to admit that when the bishop seemed sincerely interested in her idea. “What if we used it for our annual mud sale to benefit the volunteer fire department—or even for big produce auctions in the summer, like other Amish districts have?”

  This was an all-or-nothing proposal, so Jo gathered her courage as she presented the idea that would make it or break it. “Truth be told, I’m hoping our church district will use the land somehow, because while we maidels could organize the shops, we have no way to pay for the property or for rebuilding the stable. Maybe the church would help with that part, too.”