In Plain View.

(Valley of Choice).

Olivia Newport.

For Sonja.

Acknowledgments.

It is hard to know how to say thank you to all the people who helped bring this book into being. My agent, Rachelle Gardner, believes in me, which probably spurs me on more than she knows. How blessed I am to call her friend as well!

I have no doubt about Barbour's commitment to make the book the best it can be. After all, they had the good sense to connect me with Traci DePree to work as editor on the Valley of Choice series.

My husband is always game to gallivant off somewhere with me, literally or cyberly, in search of information. Every writer should be so lucky.

And Sonja. What can I say?

Sometimes writing feels like a lonely enterprise, but when I lift my eyes from the screen I see a host of people cheering me on. I am thankful for each one.

One.

Annie Friesen had a lot to learn about how to ride a bicycle in a dress that brushed her ankles.

The late-April day slushed with spring snow vacillating about whether to melt. Temperate Colorado mountain air beckoned a population sick and tired of huddling indoors all winter, Annie among them. Five miles stretched between her and the Beiler farm, five miles she was determined to traverse without depending on Rufus Beiler and his buggy to pick her up. She could walk or she could bike from her house in Westcliffe to the Beiler home, where Rufus's family expected her for supper, and she would surrender herself to their long arms of hospitality and acceptance. the moment to begin the walk and arrive on time had passed thirty minutes ago, though.

Annie turned the bicycle around in the narrow, century-old garage and assessed its readiness for the first outing of the spring. The tires seemed acceptable, the pedals spun appropriately when she kicked at one, and the brakes squeezed when cued. she walked the bike into the sunlight and laid it down on the ground while she heaved the garage door closed. Then she situated herself on the seat, straightened the heavy wide-knit navy cardigan she wore, and hiked up the skirt of her deep purple dress as far as a good Amish girl dared.

Annie was not a good Amish girl. At least not yet. She did not even always wear Amish clothing. After eight months of friendship with the Beilers and regular attendance at the district's worship services, she would have to rate her German as pitiful. She understood more every week, but she could not get her mind and tongue to cooperate in speaking. Private lessons were some help, though she often left more frustrated than when she arrived. Singing hymns from the Ausbund might as well have been reading a census listing, which meant she had a lot to learn about both patience and devotion. The Ordnung was a mystical obscurity she wished someone would translate to bulleted points in plain English. The hairstyles seemed severe-but only when she looked in a mirror, which she did less and less these days. The ties to her prayer kapp annoyed her whether she tied them or let them hang loose on her shoulders.

But she was trying. For one thing, she had given up driving her own car, which was up on blocks in her parents' garage in Colorado Springs.

Annie checked the strap on her helmet-a promise she made to her mother when she gave up driving-then put her weight on the top pedal and leaned into the bike's forward movement. The streets in town were wet but friendly enough for cycling. Once she got to the highway, though, Annie scowled at the sludge passing vehicles sprayed at her. She knew what the drivers were thinking because she used to be one of them. What kind of idiot rides a bike on a high-speed road? If they can't go the speed limit, they should get off the road. She was lucky if drivers moved three inches toward the center of the two-lane highway when they whizzed past her.

Rufus had offered to pick her up. All winter long he fetched her when she needed to venture beyond the confines of Westcliffe, where she worked on Main Street and lived on a side street. But Annie did not want to depend on Rufus for her every move until she learned to care for a horse and drive a buggy of her own. The promise of spring allowed independence, as far as she was concerned. Milder weather meant she could come and go as she wished, as long as she did not mind the rigors of riding or walking at high elevation. This first ride of the season made her want to lengthen her stride and let her feet hit pavement in heart-pumping rhythm. Did good Amish girls run cross-country?

By the time Annie turned into the long Beiler driveway, she was refusing to shiver in her damp sweater, and the sodden hem of her skirt was slapping against drenched stockings. The best she could hope to do was keep her headpiece on straight. The Beilers had taken her into heart and hearth as she was, but she still wished she could arrive without looking a mess once in a while.

Seven-year-old Jacob was the first to spot her, as he always was. He loped down the wide porch steps and across the yard with one hand holding his straw hat in place and his black winter-weight wool jacket flapping open. Annie checked to be sure he was at least wearing shoes, knowing that as soon as The ground dried up he would leave his boy-sized brown work boots neatly under his bed.

"Annalise!" The boy flung himself into her arms even before she could properly dismount. The bicycle tumbled on its side and she let it go in favor of his enthusiasm against her torso. Jacob knocked her slightly off balance, and her cell phone spilled from a sweater pocket. Jacob squatted to scoop it up. "Do you ever miss your old phone? I liked your old phone."

Her iPhone had been her lifeline to another world-e-mail, texting, Internet, Facebook, Twitter. She had done it all on her phone, and she never turned it off. She ran her whole company from that phone sometimes.

"I would trade a thousand phones just to know you." Annie wrapped her hand around the simple flip-style phone. This one was not even turned on. So far, in the last six months, Annie managed to avoid any emergency calls. Otherwise she only turned it on for her weekly calls to her mother, a compromise that helped keep the peace. Her parents had the number Rufus used for his woodworking business, so if one of her parents had a true emergency, they could reach her.

Annie glanced toward the house, ready for her pulse to quicken at The sight of Rufus.

"The Stutzmans are here." Jacob took her hand and tugged.

"Who?"

"The new family."

Annie managed a smile for Jacob's sake. She was expecting supper with only the Beiler family. They knew her well and patiently guided her through the path of learning Amish ways. The presence of another family, especially a new one, took the edge off her anticipation of the evening-and immediately she felt remorse at her ungenerous thought.

When Rufus Beiler heard the screen door slam behind his little brother, he lifted his eyes to the big window that looked out the front of the house. As it often was, Annalise's kapp was cockeyed, an unintended habit that made him smile.

"Excuse me," he said to Beth Stutzman, who hardly broke her chatter to breathe. "I'll be back shortly."

On his way out the front door, Rufus grabbed his coat off the rack. He met Annalise and Jacob halfway down the driveway.

"I told Annalise the Stutzmans are here," Jacob said.

"Thank you, Jacob." Rufus tilted his head toward the house. "Maybe Mamm needs your help."

"I hope she's all out of beets from the cellar."

"Jacob!"

"I'm sorry." The boy huffed. "I will be thankful for whatever is put in front of me to eat."

Rufus watched his brother start to kick the dirt beneath his boot and then think better of it. As the little boy clomped up the porch steps, Rufus laid his coat around Annalise's shoulders. She had, as she nearly always did, underdressed for the spring temperatures.

When she turned toward him and lifted her face in thanks, he wanted to kiss her right there. She was so lovely. Bits of moisture clinging to her face shimmered in waning sunlight. He barely kept himself from smoothing her blond hair back into place under her kapp.

"Stutzmans?" Her wide gray eyes questioned.

" 'Fraid so." He straightened the jacket around her.

"I'm not cold, you know." Her eyes smiled even if her lips were turning blue.

"So you often tell me." He would never admit he hung his coat around her so her scent would be on it when he wore it next.

"Anyway, Stutzmans," she reminded him.

"Just moved from Pennsylvania to join the settlement here."

"Did you know them in Pennsylvania?"

"Quite well. They are second cousins of my brother Daniel's wife and had a farm only four miles from ours." He paused and put his hand on her elbow.

"Oh. That's nice."

He heard the disappointment in her tone. "If you don't feel up to meeting new people tonight, I can take you home."

"Don't be silly. I'm here. The Stutzmans are here. I'm sure we'll get along famously."

Rufus was not so sure.

Instead of making a dripping entrance through the front door, Annie asked Rufus to walk her to the back door. She could slip into the kitchen and up the back stairs to dry off and straighten herself out. When she glanced in the small mirror in the bathroom, she rolled her eyes. Why did she seem to be the only Amish woman-well, almost Amish-who could not seem to wear a prayer kapp properly?

Under her thick sweater, the dress was surprisingly dry. She could do little about the hem of her skirt, which had plunged through one puddle too many. It would have to dry in its own time.

Downstairs, the table was extended to its full length and Jacob was rounding up the last of the extra chairs from around the house. Eli and Franey, Rufus's parents, shared their home with five of their eight children. In between their eldest son, Rufus, and youngest son, Jacob, were Joel, Lydia, and Sophie, all teenagers.

Hospitality oozed out of Franey Beiler's bones, a trait that first brought Annie into the house last summer. Franey would not blink twice at accommodating seven extra people for dinner.

She suggested the Stutzmans sit where they pleased and the Beilers-and Annalise-would fill in. Annie's stomach heated as the tallest Stutzman daughter took the chair directly opposite Rufus. Annie pressed her lips together and took another chair. As Eli Beiler presided over the silent prayer at the beginning of the meal, Annie could not help but wonder about one empty seat. Joel Beiler was missing.

Ike and Edna Stutzman's daughters-Beth, Johanna, and Essie-seemed to Annie close enough in age that she would not be surprised to discover a set of twins among them. She guessed they were between nineteen and twenty-two. The boys-Mark and Luke-were younger, perhaps recently finished with eighth- grade formal schooling.

They were loud. Laut. Jacob had taught Annie that word.

Annie could not summon a more polite description that remained honest. The entire family spoke as if they were addressing a deaf grandfather, and one on top of the other. They were full of news of former neighbors in Pennsylvania, and Franey and Eli lit up in gratitude for stories of people they had lived so long among, including their own two married sons.

For Annie's sake, the Beilers often spoke English. The Stutzmans, however, made no such effort, beyond initial introductions. Pennsylvania Dutch flew around the table too fast for Annie to keep up with much of the conversation. Jacob sat beside her, as he always did when she came to dinner. Occasionally, he leaned toward her and offered a brief translation, which helped Annie to smile and nod in appropriate lulls.

Annie did not need translation to see that Beth Stutzman directed many of her remarks at Rufus in a way that forced him to respond. She must be the eldest, Annie decided. Johanna and Essie made no effort to compete with their sister but instead sat quietly, observing the conversation and smiling benignly. Beth would have been finishing the eighth grade when Rufus left Pennsylvania, when he was a grown man already. But now she was grown up-and quite pretty, Annie had to admit. Had Beth Stutzman swept into town and thought she would snag Rufus Beiler on her first evening?

Jacob leaned toward her and whispered. "The Stutzmans are going to stay with us for a while. They want to paint their house before they move in. I hope they will let me help paint."

Annie smiled. "I'm sure you're a very good painter."

"No one ever gives me a chance to try."

Annie reached over and scratched the center of his back then laid her arm across the top of his chair, angling toward Rufus as she did so.

Despite the decibel level and Beth's brazenness, the evening was drenched in friendship going back generations. Annie could see for herself that these were not like the unfamiliar families in Colorado Springs who intersected each other's routines at swim classes and soccer matches for three years until someone transferred to a new job. They shared each other's days and nights, and various branches of their families had intermarried. Ike and Edna had come west for many of the same reasons Eli and Franey had come six years earlier. Unlike the Beilers, though, the newcomers had a community ready to welcome them and give them aid.

Even after six months of living as plainly as she could, and despite her dress and kapp, Annie felt very much the English. And she had been at the Beiler table enough times to feel the undercurrent that grew between Eli and Franey as conversation rose and fell and Joel failed to appear. Annie glanced at Rufus, catching his eye in a fleeting connection before Beth launched into another story meant for Rufus's benefit. The evening was nothing like what Annie craved when she had started out on her bicycle.

Eli's eyes, Annie noticed, moved between the clock and the front door.

Joel was going to have some explaining to do.

Two.

Johanna Stutzman and her brother Mark sat on either side of Joel's empty seat. As the meal progressed, both seemed to absorb a share of the available space, as if they no longer expected someone would arrive to occupy the chair.

Annie regretted putting so much food on her plate. She felt left out of the rapid, reminiscent conversation in the language she still struggled to learn, and whenever she looked at Eli, her anxiety for Joel heightened. Both factors dimmed her appetite.

This was not the first time Joel had been late for dinner, she knew. That only made things worse. Had he not known the Stutzmans would be there? If he had, would he have made an effort to be present?

The creak of the front door's hinges raised eyes around the table. Joel entered and closed the door carefully behind him. A still-growing seventeen-year-old, his trousers inched off his ankles as he turned to face the gathering at the table.

"Ah, Joel." With just two words, Eli's voice bore through the chatter.

"I'm sorry, Daed." Joel moved toward the table, his back erect. He brushed a bookcase, and a cell phone clattered to the polished wood floor.

"Hey, that's just like Annalise's." Jacob clambered out of his chair and picked up the phone.

"Jacob, get back in your seat." Eli's eyes remained on Joel. Jacob handed the phone to Joel and obeyed his father.

"It's Carter's phone." Joel took his own seat. "I forgot he gave it to me to hold."

"We'll talk later," Eli said. "Just turn it off and put it away."

Annie winced on Joel's behalf. She saw Joel reach under the table and fiddle with the phone, which was indeed on. Eli was not going to embarrass Joel in the presence of guests-even old family friends-but even if the phone was not Joel's, Eli would want to know what his son was doing with it.

"Carter is the son of Tom Reynolds." Speaking English, Rufus deftly explained. "You'll want to meet Tom as soon as possible. He does a fair bit of taxiing and hauling for our people, and he doesn't mind the distances involved in our district."

"That's good to know." Ike Stutzman's voice was deep and commanding. "I heard that because of the distances, your district allows the use of telephones."

Oops. Annie caught Rufus's eyes and saw the flicker of dismay that his effort to deflect the conversation had been short lived.

"That's true," Eli said, "but the concern is for safety, not convenience or amusement."

His expression was not lost on Annie, so she had no doubt that Joel understood perfectly.

"Carter's dad was out looking at the new recreation area," Joel said. "He took some pictures."

Oops again. Not the best topic of conversation Joel could have introduced to take the heat off himself.

"No one has made any decisions about the use of that property," Eli said.

"What property is that?" Ike's inquiry sounded idle enough.