A Christmas to Die For by Marta Perry Page B

Christmas. I hope this weekend's guests don't mind our decorating around them."
    "I'm sure they'll want to pitch right in." She hoped. Two couples would be arriving tomorrow, and there was no possibility she'd have everything finished by then. So her idea was to turn necessity into opportunity and invite the guests to join in.
    "I hope so. They might be more enthusiastic than Tyler is, anyway." Grams looked a little miffed. She had suggested that Tyler might want to help them today, but he'd left the house early.
    "Tyler's not in Churchville to enjoy himself, is he?"
    Grams must have read something in her tone, because she gave her an inquiring look. "You're worried about that young man. I've told you—there's nothing he can find about your grandfather that will hurt us."
    "I'm not worried so much about that as about what he's going to do with the property. Jeff Whitmoyer approached him about buying it. Says he has plans to develop it."
    "And you don't want that to happen?"
    Rachel stared. "Grams, surely you don't want that either. He could put up something awful in full view of our upstairs windows. Fake Amish at its worst, if his other businesses are any indication."
    "Oh, well, it won't bother us, and the Amish will ignore it as they do every other ridiculous thing that uses their name." Grams tweaked the ribbon on the newel post as Emma came down the stairs, the quilt folded over her arm.
    Grams didn't seem too concerned, maybe because she didn't understand the possible effects. Their peaceful, pastoral setting was one of their biggest assets.
    Emma unfurled the Star of Bethlehem quilt, and every other thought went right out of her mind. Here was the warmth of Christmas for her, stitched up in the handwork of some unknown ancestor.
    Together she and Emma fastened the quilt to its dowel and climbed up to hang it in place. Once it was secure, she climbed back down and moved the stepstool away, then turned to look.
    The star seemed to burst from the fabric, shouting its message of good news. Warmth blossomed through her. It was just as she remembered. After all those years of trekking around the country with her mother, with Christmas forgotten more often than not, the years when she'd been on her own, working on the holiday out of necessity, she'd longed for Christmas here.
    Now she finally had it, and she wouldn't let it slip away. She had come home for Christmas.
    "Ah, that looks lovely. I don't know why we ever stopped putting it up." Grams smiled. "This will be a Christmas to remember. You here to stay, Cal and Andrea coming home soon—if we could get Caroline to come back, it would be perfect."
    Rachel hugged her. "We'll make it perfect, even if Caro doesn't come."
    Grams patted her shoulder. "It's just too bad Tyler doesn't have any sense of belonging here. I'm afraid his grandfather and mother took that away from him a long time ago."
    As was so often the case when it came to people, Grams had it right. Thanks to a family quarrel, Tyler had been robbed of that. Small wonder he didn't care who bought the land.
    "His grandfather was a bitter man." Emma entered the conversation, planting her hands on her hips. "Turned against God and his neighbors when his wife died, left the church as if we were all to blame."
    Rachel blinked. We? "Are you saying John Hostetler, Tyler's grandfather, was Amish?"
    " Ja, of course." Emma's eyes widened. "Until he came under the meidung for his actions. You mean you didn't know that?"
    The meidung —the shunning. The ultimate act for the Amish, to cut off the person completely unless and until the rebel repented. "How would I?" She turned to Grams. "You knew? But you didn't mention it to Tyler."
    "Well, I just assumed he knew. Everyone in the area knew about it, of course. Do you mean he doesn't?"
    She thought about their conversations and shook her head slowly. "I don't think so." Would it make a difference to him? To what he decided to do with the property?
    She wasn't sure, but he