Free Harvest of Blessings by Charlotte Hubbard Page B

hadn’t missed seeing Hiram Knepp in the doorway, smiling smugly when Dat had shoved her aside. And then Hiram had helped Dat go home. Who knew what he might have told her parents about what she’d paid for the house, or what other damning details he’d shared with them?
    “All right, fine,” she called out, hoping that was the end of the conversation. She had nothing more to say to the former bishop.
    She slit the tape on the box of kitchen towels with a paring knife and then stiffened. The screen door creaked. Footsteps echoed in the entryway.
    Hiram poked his head into the kitchen. He smiled slyly as he took in her Plain attire. “It’s good to see you’ve not let the incident at the café defeat you, Nora,” he declared. “I figured you’d handle it—that you’d lick your wounds and try again. You’ve always been a survivor.”
    Where does this guy get the nerve to just walk in ? Nora nearly told him to leave, but she sensed it was a bad idea to unleash her frustration. She’d heard that Knepp was adept at using incriminating evidence when it would most affect the person he was trying to control. “Yeah. Thanks.”
    Hiram walked toward the sink, as though the wildflowers were a magnet. “You should be careful of the company you keep, however,” he continued in a sinuous voice. “You don’t realize it yet, but the Hooleys have taken over this town. Ben’s gotten himself selected as a preacher, while his aunts, Nazareth and Jerusalem, have insinuated themselves into two bishops’ lives—Tom’s, as well the fellow from Cedar Creek.”
    Nora frowned, thinking back. “Tom’s wife died? Her name was Lettie, wasn’t it?”
    “She ran off with an English fellow, and then got killed in a car crash,” Hiram replied. “Nazareth Hooley was waiting in the wings to latch on to Tom, just as Ben wasted no time in claiming Miriam. But more to the point, the younger brothers who live next door to you came here from Lancaster County under . . . suspicious circumstances,” he went on with the rise of one eyebrow. “They left a couple of young ladies in the lurch. And if Ben had to finance the building of the mill—for men of Luke’s and Ira’s age—their ability to run a business seems doubtful, as well.”
    Hiram paused to let all these details sink in. “I phoned some of my family in that area of Pennsylvania, as part of my responsibility to the souls I was shepherding here in Willow Ridge at the time,” he explained matter-of-factly. “What my kin said about the Hooleys wasn’t very complimentary.”
    Nora’s thoughts whirled faster. She found it ironic that Hiram was coming down on the Hooleys, yet he’d been relieved of his position as bishop—which had never happened in any other Amish settlement that she knew of, because bishops were ordained for life. Hiram’s insinuations didn’t have a lot of bearing on her , but what if Millie was unaware of Ira’s past?
    “And your point would be?” she asked archly. For all she knew, Hiram was making this stuff up. She was getting more annoyed with every tick of the kitchen clock.
    Hiram smirked. “I’d hate for Luke to pull the wool over your eyes while you’re in such a vulnerable state, Nora. I was aghast when he began dating my Annie Mae—she was only seventeen while he was pushing thirty. As a parent, I’m sure you’re just as concerned about Ira being alone with your naive young daughter. You’re well aware of how that can play out,” he added quickly.
    Nora’s cheeks flared. Hiram was insinuating that someone she’d been dating had caused her fall from grace—but no one knew all of those details, because she hadn’t revealed them. The man who’d taken advantage of her had promised she’d go straight to hell if she told his name, and she’d been terrified enough to believe him. In the years that had followed, she’d learned that hell wasn’t necessarily a place where lost souls suffered torment after they died. They could