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neighbors he barely knew and rarely saw. He’d avoided going to church in spite of Roseanne’s occasional urging and invitations. It wasn’t much of a life when he looked at it that way. Except for the flying. When he was in the clouds he was happy.
    He closed his eyes. The smell of baking bread and pot roast filled the air. He thought back to the food his mother used to make. Roast beef and pork, fried chicken, schnitzel with sauerkraut, served piping hot from her wood-burning stove with fresh bread and vegetables from her garden.
    As a kid, he never gave a thought to how much work his mother did without complaint. All he’d thought about was escaping the narrow, inflexible Amish way of life. Had it really been so bad?
    I must be sick if I’m longing for the good old days.
    He sat up and motioned the waitress over. Before he could place his order, the outside door opened and his cousin Adam walked in. Their eyes met for a long second. Adam looked away first. He walked past Gideon without so much as a nod of recognition. Gideon didn’t expect the snub to hurt as much as it did.
    Adam was being true to his faith. It was his duty to shun a wayward member, to remind Gideon he had cut himself off from God as well as from his family. Gideon had known for years that he would be shunned if he returned unrepentant, but he had never experienced the treatment firsthand.
    Years ago, his mother explained to him that shunning was done out of love, to show people the error of their ways, notto punish them. It didn’t feel that way at the moment. Gideon’s newfound appetite deserted him.
    Adam stepped behind the counter and took over the cash register. The waitress beside Gideon’s table asked, “Have you decided what you’d like?”
    “What kind of soup do you have?”
    Her eyebrows shot up in surprise at his hoarse whisper. “We’ve got homemade chicken noodle soup today. I’ll bring you a bowl. You sound like you need it,” she said with a sympathetic smile.
    He folded the menu and tucked it between the sugar jar and the ketchup bottle. “That’ll be fine.”
    His soup arrived at the same moment Rebecca walked in.
    She stood poised in the doorway to the inn with her cane in hand. She tilted her head slightly, as if concentrating on the sounds of the room. A smile lit her face and she moved ahead to a booth by the window. It was then he saw her aunt seated with several older Amish women. They greeted Rebecca warmly and made room for her to sit with them.
    He was impressed that she had been able to pick out her aunt’s voice in the crowded room and locate her without assistance. She moved with a confidence he admired. If being at the inn made her uncomfortable it didn’t show at the moment.
    Gideon slowly stirred his soup and unobtrusively watched her.
     
    Was he in the room?
    Rebecca wished she could ask her aunt or her friends if Booker was in the café. She didn’t, because she knew it would seem odd. The last thing she wanted was to draw attention to her preoccupation with him.
    It was bad enough that she had this preoccupation with a total stranger. She didn’t need to share her foolishness with anyone else.
    “Nettie, how are Katie and Elam these days?” Vera asked.
    “My boy is over the moon with his new sohn. Katie is a fine mudder and a strong woman. Little Rachel doesn’t quite know what to make of her new bruder. She is used to being the apple of her daed’s eye, you know.”
    Emma said, “I have some news that I have been dying to share.”
    When she didn’t say anything else, Nettie prompted, “Well, what is it?”
    “Adam and I are expecting.” Her voice brimmed with barely contained excitement. “Congratulations. That’s wunderbaar. ” Rebecca was truly delighted to hear that her friends were to become parents.
    Vera echoed Rebecca’s congratulations and said, “To think you were considered an old maid until a year ago.”
    Naomi, Emma’s mother, chuckled. “When Adam moved to town,