Shield of Faith: Lancaster County Amish Grace Series, #2

Shield of Faith

Lancaster County Amish Grace – Book 2

by

Rebecca Price

This is Book 2 of the Lancaster County Amish Grace series. If you enjoy this book, please look over the other Christian books from Global Grafx Press, and other great books from Rebecca Price.

Published by Global Grafx Press, LLC. © 2015

The Pennsylvania Dutch used in this manuscript is taken from the Revised Pennsylvania German Dictionary: English to Pennsylvania Dutch (1991) by C. Richard Beam, Brookshire Publications, Inc. Lancaster, PA 17603

The Bible quotations used in this manuscript are either taken from the King James Bible or the English Standard Bible.

Copyright © 2015 by Rebecca Price

All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including scanning, photocopying, or otherwise without prior written permission of the copyright holder, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Shield of Faith

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

SPIRITED CHILD

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ALSO BY REBECCA PRICE

Chapter 1

It was just after the beginning of September, and the Amish district of Ephrata was moving into autumn preparations and activities. School at the Ephrata District school had resumed, with Katie Bender standing at the front of the schoolroom and teaching some thirty-five scholars.

Scott Adams, Katie’s beau and intended husband, continued working on his carpentry apprenticeship with Amos Lantz, now his closest friend. Scott’s baptismal studies were nearing their end and he was eagerly anticipating taking his Kneeling Vow the following month.

***

In a tiny town about four miles outside the Ephrata Amish district, Jim Malone cursed his wife Misty, slapping, pushing, and punching her around their decaying one-story house. It was four in the afternoon, and Jim had taken a half-day off from driving his bus to make his eye-doctor appointment. Of course he'd stopped at the bar after. In his words, he’d earned it, after all, dealing with the jerks on the bus and his lazy, shiftless wife at home.

No matter what Misty did to please him, it was never enough.

Who were you talking to?″ Jim kicked the laundry basket off the sofa. All the clothes Misty had folded so carefully landed in a disheveled heap on the floor. ″You were talking to your cheating boyfriend, weren’t you? Tell me the truth! Jim looked much older than his given age of thirty: heavy-set and flabby from lack of exercise and the excess calories he drank every day, but the sight of his red face and slitted eyes still filled Misty with fear. See why I don’t let you get a job? You’d only pick up new boyfriends and sneak off with them!

"I wasn’t talking to anyone!″ Misty pleaded, throwing her arms over her face as Jim punched at her again, his massive fist slamming into her forearm. The impact jarred her bone and numbed her fingers. She backed away. ″I'm sorry,″ she whimpered, as though apologies ever solved anything with Jim when he was in this state.

″I saw you looking at the neighbor—making eyes, isn't that what they call it?″ Jim sneered. He kept advancing, forcing her into the coffee table, a granite-top monstrosity of odd angles and sharp edges Jim's grandmother had given them for their wedding. His breath stank of malt liquor and rotting teeth. ″I'll make your eyes so black you won't be able to see to look at another man, oh, yes, I will!″

″I was hanging out the clothes, that’s all!"

Jim shoved her. Misty staggered back, her calf slamming into the corner of the coffee table. She stumbled, clutching her leg and crying. ″I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.″

″You promised to be faithful.″

″I was. I am.″ Misty dropped to her knees. One of these days, he would kill her. She knew it. Helpless, she stared up at him, snot and tears running down her face. Would today be that day?

″Faithful.″ Jim spat, and the warm liquid slapped Misty on the cheek and mingled with her tears. His eyes shone with a cruel glee. ″Women are always so faithful. So sweet.″ He was swaying now, and his voice lowered, becoming even more cold and vicious. ″I know what you're doing with him when I'm not here, and I’m going to make you pay.″

Before Misty could move, he kicked out, his boot hitting her squarely in the left arm. Horrible pain shot through her, and she cried out. Jim kicked her again, this time in the ribs. Misty screamed.

The beating continued until Misty was curled on the ground, her body one big, throbbing bruise. Her breath rattled in her chest, sending a sharp needle of pain radiating from her left side. Jim passed out on top of her, snoring, his arm flung over her chest. His fingers uncurled in a parody of affection.

Misty, choking from the foul odor of sour booze, struggled out from under Jim’s fleshy weight. Blood seeped from the wounds beneath her clothes, gluing the fabric to her skin as she struggled to stay conscious. She had to get away before he woke.

″Come on, Misty, you can do this,″ she told herself.  Clutching her left side, she rocked to her feet. Her upper body had borne the brunt of the beating, so at least she was able to stand without using her hands.

The drink had always brought out the monster in Jim, but he'd never beaten her so severely before. Before today, he’d always stopped when she cried. When he'd first started to hit her, just before their wedding, he'd fall to his knees after, grabbing at her legs and begging her to forgive him. Then he would take her to their bedroom, lay her down, run a wet rag tenderly over her, washing the blood away. Somehow, this display of sweetness and sorrow had made the beatings worth it. She'd deluded herself into believing that the pain would end, that the man who said he loved her after was the real Jim. But as the years passed, and she had failed to give him a baby, his anger had only grown. Misty had sworn a vow until death, and Misty kept her word. She had been faithful, completely, and none of it mattered. 

To have and to hold, Misty mouthed now, standing over his unconscious body. Jim coughed, and her heart seemed to stop. Even asleep, what he was capable of terrified her.

Misty wiped the tears from her cheeks. Till death do us part,″ she whispered. The day you kill me."

Once upon a time, she had believed in a fantasy: a husband who loved her and the children they would raise together. She'd dreamed of a life without Jim's drinking, and a God who cared enough to protect her and her husband from his addiction. Three years later, her dreams lay crushed on the floor. Her life had been reduced to a simple choice: stay and die, or leave and lose everything.

Misty pulled at her wedding ring. It slipped off with surprising ease. She debated throwing it at him, but then realized she might be able to sell it, so instead she slipped the ring into her pocket.

With this much drink in Jim, and the effort he'd spent in beating her, he shouldn't wake up for hours, but Misty still tiptoed around his prone body. If he realized she was leaving him, he'd finish the job he'd started.

I'm leaving him, Misty realized. The finality of the decision made her hands shake. I’m really doing it.

Each step was agony, fire racing through her as she tried to gather the things she would need. She took a backpack from the closet and stuffed it with underwear, socks, clean T-shirts, and a nightshirt. In the bathroom, she quickly grabbed her toiletries and threw them on top of her