Summer of Secrets by Charlotte Hubbard Page B

Micah followed Hiram outside. He looked like a boy being called behind the woodshed for a spanking.
    “And what’s that about?” Rhoda murmured to Rachel as she carried Nate Kanagy’s loaded plate to the dining room. The girls exchanged concerned looks, and then Rachel hurried through the kitchen. After she glanced out the window, she turned off the big exhaust fan.
    Miriam nearly protested about the heat—until she saw the three bearded men huddling around Micah, near the back of the building where the horses and buggies were hitched. Silently, she and Rachel positioned themselves out of sight as her daughter opened the back door just a crack.
    Hiram Knepp wasn’t a man to waste time on social niceties. “You know what this is about, don’t you, son?” he asked sharply. “You’re fully aware it’s wrong to ride the roads in a car with a young Englishwoman, now that you’ve made your vow to the church. And on a Sunday, no less.”
    Rachel’s face paled. When she looked ready to cry out—or just cry—Miriam pressed a finger against her daughter’s lips because the men would hear anything they said. Her insides tightened. What had possessed Micah to go and find Tiffany? Could it be coincidence that he’d gone to Morning Star yesterday, too?
    “Care to explain to us why ya went?” Preacher Tom asked a bit more gently. “I can tell ya firsthand, it’s not a gut thing when our paths get too crossed-up with outsiders.”
    Micah cleared his throat. His cheeks resembled bright pink geraniums. “You’ve no doubt heard that Miriam’s daughter Rebecca, the triplet washed away durin’ the floods of ’93, came by here last week,” he said in a low voice. “After the way she showed such disrespect to her mamm and upset her sisters—especially Rachel—I felt it my duty to set the girl straight. I’m thinkin’ Jesse woulda done the same, if he were alive.”
    “The way I hear it, you went into the Morning Star pool hall, and then spent a good half hour joyriding in a red sports car with a disreputable-looking young woman,” Hiram countered. “Is that true, Micah?”
    Miriam scowled. While it was the bishop’s place to keep his flock on the straight and narrow, she was touched that Micah had talked with Tiffany on their behalf: an attempt to prevent further conflict. The café had been crowded the day of the surprise visit, yet who else among the People had gone to the trouble of telling Tiffany how she’d offended them with her sass and outrageous appearance?
    Of course, Rachel would never see it that way: Micah had betrayed her trust and risked his standing with the People. The girl stood glued to the wall by the window, hugging herself as though her slender arms were all that kept her from shattering at this revelation. And, truth be told, such behavior could put Micah under the ban, if the bishop chose to make an example of him—especially now that Lettie Hostetler had run off with an Englisher.
    And what would Bishop Knepp do if he learned Miriam had been to Morning Star, as well? And how would Rachel and Rhoda react if they found out their mother had fibbed to cover her secret visit, to learn more about her daughter ... a child she’d lost in a raging storm and who’d now kicked up another kind of storm altogether, merely by showing up again?
    We did what we did for our own reasons, God. Help us all to do Your will now, rather than makin’ a bigger mess of things.
    Even in prayer, Miriam’s pulse and thoughts raced so frantically, she wanted nothing more to do with the conversation outside. She pointed toward the dining room, a signal for Rachel to return to her tables. Then she dished up the double servings of smothered hash browns two English fellows from down the road always ordered when they came to the café.
    “They’re still talkin’ out there?” Rhoda asked quietly as she took the two loaded plates from her mother. Rachel must have told her sister what she’d overheard.
    “ Jah ,