With All Her Heart (Amish Calling #3)

Chapter 1

Humming “Amazing Grace,”

Elijah Miller stuck a box filled with wooden toys into the back of his buggy next to a rocking horse, a doll’s cradle, a tiny table with four matching chairs, and a child-size wooden push lawn mower toy.

The humming and that particular hymn took his mind off what was coming.

He brushed his hands together.

“That’ll do it.”

Slowpoke barked once and proceeded to race around the buggy.

The gangly pit bull mix, who seemed certain he was still a puppy, had a serious case of the zoomies.

The dog knew how to make Elijah laugh just when his owner needed it.

Chuckling, Elijah shoved his straw hat back.

He clapped twice.

“Hey, are you going with me or what?”

Slowpoke, who was anything but slow, flung himself into the buggy.

Panting, his pink tongue hanging out, he plopped down on the passenger side of the bench and smiled at Elijah as if to say, “Ready when you are.”

“I guess that answers my question.”

Slowpoke’s company would help.

His antics would keep Elijah from obsessing about the reason for his trip to Lee’s Gulch.

He’d practiced his speech at least a dozen times in the workshop he built for himself behind his family’s house.

All he had to do was drive into town, park in front of Homespun Handicrafts Shop, walk in, show the owners his wares, and convince them to sell his pieces on consignment.

A walk in the park.

For anyone in the world except Elijah.

Despite a brisk breeze this cool April morning in Virginia, his palms were damp at the thought.

So were his armpits underneath his blue work shirt.

The owners were three Plain women he’d known most of his life.

His brain’s thoughtful reminder didn’t help one iota.

Talking to women was even harder.

Sweat ran between his shoulder blades down his spine.

He had to do it.

Now or never.

Elijah heaved a breath and put one foot up to climb into the buggy.

“Elijah! Elijah, wait!”

Ducking his head, Elijah closed his eyes and opened them.

He settled his boot back on the ground, turned, and faced his father.

Charlie Miller’s cheeks were red and his usual smile missing.

“Didn’t you hear me calling you, Suh?”

“I guess I was thinking.”

“Daydreaming more likely.”

His father tromped across the gravel road until he reached the buggy.

“Toby says you told him you’re not going to Richmond with us tomorrow.”

“I thought I’d pass on this trip.”

Elijah forced himself to straighten and meet his father’s gaze.

His brother Toby was in charge of the day-to-day tasks of running their auctioneering business that covered five states.

That included what he called staff scheduling.

“I’m trying to get my business up and running.”

His business.

His father had agreed to the artisan wood-crafting business as long as it didn’t get in the way of the family business.

Miller Family Auctioneering needed all its menfolk to make it work.

His grandfather Silas had started the business as a young man.

When he retired, Dad took over. His strong suit was working with his hands, not reading, writing, and numbers. He’d learned pretty quick to delegate the scheduling and such to his sons. He expected all five of them to share the load. “Why did you wait until the auction season kicked off to do that?”

Being on the auction circuit all of March had encroached on the time Elijah needed to build up his inventory.

But that wasn’t the real issue.

It had taken him that long to summon the nerve.

“I wanted to have my best work to show to the shop owners in town.

My very best work.”

“I understand you don’t feel like you’re suited for auctioneering.

You’re twenty-six.

It’s long past time for you to get over it.”

His tone softening, Dad treaded closer.

“You took the classes and got certified.

You’ve practiced.

Once you’re on the platform, it’ll come to you.

You’ll get over the stage fright. I did. Your brieder did. You’ll see.”

Toby loved being center stage.

He loved auctioneering.

So did Jason.

Declan had too, until his throat cancer took away his most important tool—a strong voice.

Emmett was eighteen, and he was chomping at the bit to have his turn.

The images whirred in Elijah’s brain.

Walk up the steps.

Walk across the platform.

Pick up the microphone.

Face the crowd. A wave of nausea washed over him. His throat went dry. His heartbeat surged. His hands shook. “I can’t,”

he whispered.

“I wish I could, but I can’t.”

That was a white lie.

Fine, a lie.

Forgive me, Gott.

No way Elijah’s father would understand.

Working in the shop, taking a piece of wood and turning it into a horse or a herd of cattle or a wagon. Birds, possums, foxes, raccoons. No audience. No noise except the robins chattering outside the open windows, the leaves rustling on the maple, redbud, and white oak trees, and the crickets serenading him—that was enough. More than enough.

“With Declan not able to call auctions anymore, we really need you.”

Dad jerked his thumb toward the road that led to the highway and Lee’s Gulch.

“Go. Take your toys into town.

See what you can get for them.

But when you get back, you best pack your bag. You’re going with us tomorrow.”

Elijah’s toys.

Like making toys and children’s furniture didn’t amount to a suitable occupation for a Miller son.

Not really a job.

Elijah could make full-scale furniture.

But seeing his nieces and nephews playing with their little farm animals, pretending to be farmers, happy in their make-believe, it was the best job ever. “Dat—”

“We need you to spot bids and help with the inventory if you’re not going to get on the platform.”

Dad might be trying to hide his disappointment, but he wasn’t doing a very good job.

“Understood.”

Whistling tunelessly, Elijah’s father strode toward the business office down the road from the house.

Message delivered.

“Well, that’s that.”

Elijah climbed into the buggy and picked up the reins.

Slowpoke had curled up on the seat with his snout resting on his mammoth paws.

He opened one eye, closed it.

Elijah snorted.

“A lot of help you were. Some friend you are.”

Slowpoke yawned so widely that his tonsils wiggled.

Dogs had tonsils, didn’t they? His stinky doggy breath rolled over Elijah, along with the pungent smell of something that had been dead awhile.

“Ach, you stink.

If I didn’t need you to listen to my spiel, I’d leave you here.

Wake up, sit up, and make yourself useful.”

Slowpoke’s good ear, along with the one that had been torn half off when Elijah found the dog, ribs showing, snout bloodied, shivering in the cold as he scavenged for food in the family’s trash barrels, perked up.

He had slunk away when Elijah yelled at him but paused on the road, head down, tail wagging.

Now Slowpoke unfurled his long, muscular body and sat up on his haunches.

Declan claimed that Slowpoke was the ugliest dog he’d ever seen.

Who could look at that ugly face and not feel bad? Slowpoke might be a cross between a German shepherd and a pit bull.

It was impossible to say.

He had grayish-brown short fur, long legs, and a pit bull–shaped face.

Kids were scared of him at first. But his insistence at joining their play—whether it be basketball or hide-and-seek—won them over.

Slowpoke had never met a person he didn’t like.

He made a good friend.

“Here we go.”

For the next hour, Elijah practiced his sales pitch.

Toby had said he needed a sales pitch.

Elijah couldn’t simply stroll into a store and expect them to gaze upon his made-with-love toys and fall for them.

Store owners were businesspeople.

They made decisions based on existing inventory, customer demographics, and proven sales records. Since taking over managing the family business, Toby had acquired a vocabulary that boggled the mind.

All too soon Elijah arrived in downtown Lee’s Gulch, a town of about seven thousand that swelled to three times that size with college students in the fall and spring.

In the summer months, tourists swarmed local Civil War–era attractions that included a museum and a thirty-one-mile trail that followed the path of Confederate General Robert E.

Lee during the war.

It was a busy place, which boded well for local artisans like Elijah.

Hopefully.

At the moment, the three-block stretch of Main Street dotted with Plain-owned businesses and tourist-driven English businesses was quiet.

Only a few cars occupied the angled parking slots.

Elijah pulled the buggy into the space designated for it and stopped in front of Homespun Handicrafts Shop.

The sweat under his arms was back.

His hands were slick on the reins.

“Maybe I should wait until I have more doll cradles.

They sell a lot of Plain dolls and Raggedy Anns here.”

Elijah glanced at Slowpoke.

The dog’s ears went up, then flopped down.

The doggy version of a shrug.

“I know.

I’m not a coward.”

Even if his dad might think so.

“What if they say no?”

What if they didn’t? His dad would never be convinced that Elijah could earn a living making toys and kids’ furniture.

“Here goes nothing.”

Elijah hopped down and headed to the back of the buggy.

Slowpoke joined him.

“Are you going in with me?”

The dog trotted up the long wheelchair ramp that led to the wood-frame-and-glass door, turned, and glanced back with an inquiring face.

A wreath of bound straw, daisies, sunflowers, and purple asters covered the window under a painted wood sign that said Welcome! And underneath it Bewillkumm!

“I’m coming, I’m coming.”

Elijah gathered up the box of toys and headed for the door.

It swung wide just as he attempted to balance the box on his knee so he could open it.

“Hallo, hallo, bewillkumm.

It’s nice to see you, Elijah.”

Bonnie Yoder, one of the shop’s co-owners, had one hand on the door, the other on her walker.

Her smile grew as Slowpoke pranced in ahead of Elijah.

“And you too, sir.

I assume you’re with Elijah.”

Slowpoke woofed softly and kept going.

“I hope it’s okay if Slowpoke comes in.

He sees himself as my business partner.”

“Mr.

Slowpoke is certainly welcome, as long as he minds his manners.

I suspect he’ll do a better job than some of our two-legged customers.”

Smiling, Bonnie pointed toward a basket of baby quilts.

An enormous, cream-colored, fluffy cat slept in it.

The cat raised its head, opened one eye, then went back to snoozing.

“Puff is officially employed here as a mouser, but she likes to think she owns the place.

As long as Slowpoke doesn’t bother her, she won’t bother him.”

“Slowpoke’s indoor manners are better than a lot of people’s.

That’s for sure and for certain.”

Elijah shifted the box and leaned his shoulder into the door.

“I’ve got the door.

I don’t want you to fall.”

“My balance isn’t that bad.”

Bonnie’s smile faded.

“My legs aren’t so weak I can’t hold the door for a customer.”

“I’m not a customer.”

Elijah cringed inwardly.

If he was bad at making conversation with people in general, he was at his worst with women.

Even ones like Bonnie whom he’d known since first grade.

Especially pretty, soft-spoken Bonnie, who didn’t have a mean bone in her body.

She would never tease a shy kid. And she had warm caramel eyes and chestnut curls that often refused to stay under her prayer covering. Not that he’d noticed. “Wh-what I mean is, I mean, it’s, these are . . .”

Stutter, stumble, stuck.

That was him.

Bonnie grabbed her walker, which had wheels, which meant it was probably called something else, and moved away from the door.

“Regardless, it’s always nice to see a familiar face.

What brings you by?”

“I . . .”

Elijah’s sales pitch, so earnestly memorized, disappeared.

Frantic, he searched his memory.

The overwhelming scents of cinnamon, blueberry, vanilla, lemon, and a potpourri of other smells emanating from homemade candles and soaps assailed him.

His head hurt.

Slowpoke woofed from the spot he’d commandeered as his own near the window display of Plain dolls. I know, I know. Heat billowed. Elijah’s face burned. “I . . .”

His mind had gone blank.