A Husband For Mari (The Amish Matchmaker 2) by Emma Miller Page B

of the back of the buggy, she couldn’t helping wishing the house was hers and Zachary’s, and that she was coming home. The man in the doorway was a shadow, but he wasn’t the attraction. And for an instant she was seized by the old desire to belong somewhere.
    She glanced at James and felt a heaviness in her chest that she couldn’t identify. A longing. She glanced back at the house.
    Coming home. It was a dream that she cherished, a dream she didn’t know would ever come true.
    * * *
    “Are you sure you won’t come with us?” Ellie asked Mari the next morning. She and Sara were dressed for church, and Hiram had brought the buggy around to drive them all to Johanna and Roland’s place. “You know that everyone would be happy to have you.”
    Mari nibbled on her lower lip in indecision. All night she’d wrestled with the dilemma of what to do about church. Sara and Ellie wanted her to go. And James had asked her to go, too. In their letters back and forth Sara had mentioned church, and relayed Bishop Atlee’s invitation to attend, but Mari hadn’t committed because she honestly hadn’t known how she felt about it. Now that she was here, a part of her wanted to go, but part of her was afraid. What if she liked it? She’d told Zachary they would be in Seven Poplars until they got their feet back under them. They’d never really discussed staying. She hadn’t even considered it... Had she?
    She hesitated and then said to Sara, “I don’t know. I’m not sure Zachary would want to—”
    “I’ll go!” Zachary declared excitedly. He was standing at the kitchen sink putting silverware in a pan of soapy water to be washed come Monday. When he turned so quickly to them, he sprayed little drops of water.
    “You’ll go to church?” Mari asked in surprise.
    “J.J. asked me to come. He said we just have to be quiet for a little while. He said it’s fun and his aunt Anna is bringing pies.” He glanced at Sara. “If Mom doesn’t want to come, can I go with you, Sara?”
    Sara met Mari’s gaze. “I don’t mean to put you on the spot. We all just think...you’d enjoy the experience.”
    Mari knew she shouldn’t make the decision based on wanting to please her friends, or worse, to please James. Because at some point in the middle of the night, she realized she did want to please him. And that was dangerous. There couldn’t be anything between her and James, and she needed to remember that. He was Amish and she wasn’t, and even if that wasn’t so, James didn’t like her that way.
    “Please, Mom? ’Kota won’t be there. He goes to another church, but all the other guys will be there. J.J. says it’s fun.”
    “Just to visit,” Sara said softly. “To see how you feel about it.”
    “ Ya , just come as a visitor,” Ellie suggested as she tied her black bonnet over her kapp .
    Mari watched Zachary dry his hands on a kitchen towel. “I can be ready in a minute, Mom. I promise I’ll be good. Please?”
    Mari smiled. How could she say no to her son when he was asking to go to church? And what harm would it do? It wasn’t as if she had to decide on any lasting life changes today; like Sara said, she could go just to see how she felt about it.
    So Mari went. And she sat on a bench with the other women, dressed in her long, navy blue skirt and scarf over her head, and she enjoyed the service far more than she anticipated.
    When the final sermon and closing prayers of the service were finished, the younger men moved the benches and set up the tables for the communal meal. The women were equally busy removing food from baskets and containers and serving. As no work was done on the Sabbath, most of the meal was cold, but thanks to Johanna’s advance planning, there were kettles of thick broth and vegetable soup simmering on the stoves. As Johanna and Roland’s house was not a large one, the meal was served buffet-style, with tables reserved for the oldest and youngest members of the flock, while others