Lost in Plain Sight by Marta Perry

Chapter One
     
    Leah Miller’s brother had dropped her off at the home of Geneva Morgan to work that morning just in time to keep the older woman from scaling one of the apple trees in her orchard. Unlike the other Englisch women for whom Leah worked, who expected their Amish helper to get quietly on with the cleaning, Mrs. Morgan never ceased to surprise her.
    Leah looked with satisfaction at the canning jars filled with applesauce that now lined the kitchen counter.
    “That looks fine, doesn’t it?” Geneva shed the white apron that enveloped her small form, revealing a pair of denim jeans and a flowered top that fluttered when she moved. Her face was lit with the same satisfaction Leah felt.
    “Ja, it does.” Leah wiped her hands on the kitchen towel. “A gut day’s work.”
    “We deserve a glass of iced tea and a jumble cookie.” Geneva ran a hand over her short gray curls, setting her earrings jingling. She had to be older than Leah’s mother, but she was as slight and lively as a teenager, and despite her age and position, she often dressed like one, too. “Do you have time before your brother comes for you?”
    Leah gave the stove a final wipe. Applesauce did stick so when it splattered. “Abe might be late today. He has a lot to do with a new baby in the house.” She smiled at the thought of her first nephew, not even a month old.
    “It’s hard to believe Abe is married and a daadi already,” Geneva said.
    She nodded. “It seems only yesterday we were playing hide-and-seek in the cornfield.”
    “And what about you?” Geneva set a pitcher of iced tea and two glasses on the pine kitchen table. “Do you have a come-calling friend?”
    Leah shook her head, not meeting Geneva’s gaze. “Not yet.”
    Geneva’s eyes were too sharp, and sometimes it seemed everyone in the township, Amish and Englisch, confided in her. She didn’t want Geneva guessing at her secret hopes.
    “I hear Josiah King is coming home after all this time out west.” Geneva’s voice was perfectly innocent. “I’m sure your brother will be glad to see his best friend again.”
    “Ja, he will.” Leah could feel the warmth in her cheeks. Foolish, to cherish hopes that one day Josiah might look at her and see a woman grown instead of his friend’s pesky kid sister.
    Geneva was taking hand-size jumble cookies from the cookie jar on the counter when Leah heard the clop of hooves and the jingle of harness, followed by footsteps on the two stairs up to the back door. They both glanced out the window.
    But it wasn’t Leah’s brother. It was Josiah King.
    “Why don’t you open the door, Leah?” Geneva’s eyes twinkled. “I’ll get out another glass.”
    Leah smoothed her apron down over the skirt of her dress, thankful that she’d happened to put on the green dress and apron that matched her eyes this morning and hoping her hair hadn’t strayed from under the white organdy kapp on the back of her head.
    She swung open the door. “Ach, Josiah, it is you. I didn’t think to see you here at Mrs. Morgan’s house.”
    She had to look up farther than she used to in order to see Josiah’s frank, open face and his deep blue eyes. Broader and taller than when he’d gone as an apprentice carpenter with his uncle’s construction business in Indiana, he seemed to fill the doorway.
    “Little Leah. But you are not so little anymore, ain’t so?” He saw Geneva behind her and snatched off his summer straw hat, revealing sun-streaked brown hair. “Mrs. Morgan, it’s wonderful gut to see you.”
    “Come in, come in.” Geneva’s voice was warm with welcome. “Have you come to pick up Leah?”
    Josiah stepped inside, his arm brushing Leah’s as he moved past her. “Ja, I have. I stopped to see Abe first thing when I got here today, and he was having such a struggle with that reaper of his that I said I’d pick up Leah for him.”
    “You have time for a glass of tea, don’t you?” Geneva was already pouring the iced