Free Plain Peace (A Daughters of the Promise Novel) by Beth Wiseman Page B

Let’s go in.”
    Is that what it had come to? Now her grandmother was lying to her.
    As Mammi got in step behind her, Anna slowed her pace and turned around to face her grandmother. “What did you do with all the strawberries?”
    “What strawberries?”
    Anna grinned at Mammi’s wide-eyed innocence, then at a bulge in her apron pocket. “What’s in your pocket?”
    “My hands.” Her grandmother scooted around her and hurried to the house.
    Like dealing with a child . Anna shook her head and followed her inside, hoping she wouldn’t venture out again.
    And still wondering what had happened to all the strawberries.

    Marianne slipped quietly back into her bedroom and stashed her nonworking cell phone between the mattresses. Dumb phone .
    She’d gone to Barbie Beiler’s house earlier in the day to charge her new phone. Barbie owned Beiler’s Bed and Breakfast, and the Englisch woman had always been a good friend to the Amish folks. Some of her husband’s kin were Amish. Barbie had helped her set up the phone, but now that she was on her own, Marianne couldn’t remember how to work it. She couldn’t seem to get on the Internet or even tell if she had a signal. Barbie had called the device a smart-phone. Marianne didn’t think it was very smart at all—and it was making her feel dumber by the moment.
    At this point she’d pushed so many different buttons on the screen that she was lost. Barbie was leaving for her annual trip to Florida tomorrow morning, so Marianne was wondering who else she could get to help her.
    Isaac would flip his lid if he knew she’d purchased the portablephone—even more so if he knew how much she’d spent on it. But she’d been saving her money from bakery sales for a long time. Her shopping had been limited because she didn’t have Internet access, but then she’d learned that the newer phones could connect you right to the Internet. She didn’t really understand how that all worked, but she knew it would be faster and easier than catalog orders. So she’d heard. If the phone would work.
    Thankfully, Isaac was still snoring as she crawled underneath the sheet. She appreciated not having to make up something to tell him. When she couldn’t drift off to sleep, she thought back to when she started collecting her little luxury items. Anna had still been quite young. And to tell the truth, she wasn’t sure she could have survived living with Isaac for all these years without her little hobby. But at the end of the day, like now, the deceit still bothered her.
    It occurred to her that maybe that was why sleep never came easy.

    By Thursday morning, Jacob was getting more and more excited about his date with Anna. He’d already cleared using the buggy with his mother. It would take awhile for him to save enough money from his work at the lumberyard to buy his own buggy. In the past, he would have asked his father to help him, but he didn’t ask Daed much of anything these days. And he’d noticed that his father had stayed out late the other night. He hated the way his mother often looked like she’d been crying, with dark circles underneath her eyes. He was resenting his father more and more.
    But today he was trying to focus on something happier—on Anna. She’d let him talk about Leah and listened with compassion instead of trying to pretend nothing had happened the wayCarolyn had. Jacob needed someone to talk to, a friend. And it didn’t hurt that Anna was the prettiest girl he’d ever met. He was looking forward to getting to know her better.
    Mary Jane slowed the buggy in front of Lindemann’s Lumberyard.
    “I’ll see you at three.” Jacob stepped out of the buggy. “Sorry you keep having to bring me and pick me up, but otherwise you all would be stuck without a buggy all day.”
    “It’s okay. I know you’re trying to save money for your own buggy. And you can’t really walk to your job the way Eli can.”
    Jacob waved as he crossed in front of the buggy. He