Bookends Read online

  “Liz Curtis Higgs’s Bookends is witty, charming, delightful—this book will keep you up all night laughing.”

  DEBBIE MACOMBER, NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR

  “Delicious as Moravian Sugar Cake! Bookends has all of award-winning Higgs’s warmth, wit, and charm. Brimming with fun and overflowing with Christian encouragement, Bookends has it all. Readers will love it.”

  LORI COPELAND, AUTHOR OF ROSES WILL BLOOM AGAIN

  “Bookends is proof that Liz Curtis Higgs’s name will be indelibly written across the field of fiction. I am smitten with the way Liz dips her pen into the inkwell of her humor and her heart and spells out such captivating characters. Bookends is a delightful reason to declare a holiday and cozy up with this engaging novel.”

  PATSY CLAIRMONT, AUTHOR OF I LOVE BEING A WOMAN

  “Bookends hooked me from chapter one and continued to reel me in to the end. I want fiction filled with snappy, well-crafted dialogue, natural humor, and could-be-real characters. I want suspense, romance, and scenes that make me think deeply and spur me to grow in my faith. I want plausible struggles without easy, pat answers. I’ll admit I demand A LOT when it comes to fiction. The brilliant Miz Liz delivered it all, and more!”

  BECKY FREEMAN, AUTHOR OF REAL MAGNOLIAS

  “While this book may not replace antibiotics, it’s a sure cure for sagging spirits and listless hearts. Liz has done it again: created real, likable characters in a warm, cozy town, sprinkled the mix with romance and history and color, and topped it off with a recipe for fun and delicious sugar cake! You won’t want to miss Bookends—it’s a little bit of stardust and a whole lotta fun!”

  ANGELA ELWELL HUNT, AUTHOR OF THE NOTE

  “Bookends is such fun! It’s a book rich in character, setting, and spiritual dimensions. Liz has given us a wonderful, thoughtful, yet humorous treat.”

  GAYLE ROPER, AUTHOR OF WINTER WINDS

  “From the Moravian sugar cake to the rich, spiritual heritage that Higgs shares, her second fiction novel is as good as it gets. A great story with believable characters, realistic situations and a sprinkling of Higgs’s humor make for a wholesome love story that will keep the pages turning.”

  K-LOVE NEWS & REVIEWS

  “Liz Curtis Higgs has done it again! Bookends is a well-written, delightful concoction of romance, humor, tenderness, and fun. You’ll want to savor it during your midday cup of tea, but may find yourself partaking of its delights whenever a spare moment arises. It’s that good.”

  LISA SAMSON, AUTHOR OFTIGER LILLIE

  “From the first page, Liz Curtis Higgs draws you into a warm, wonderful world of small-town charm, Moravian culture, faith, and romance. She delivers the kind of characters you’d like to count as friends and creates the kind of setting you dream of visiting. This is a story you’ll want to read again and again. Heartwarming and absolutely delightful!”

  ANNIE JONES, AUTHOR OF SAVING GRACE

  “Bookends is a triumph! Laugh-out-loud humor coupled with moments that will turn your knuckles white as you grip the book. Liz has created characters so real, you’ll swear you know them. Outstanding job by a novelist on her way.”

  SUZY PIZZUTI, AUTHOR OF RAISING CAIN AND HIS SISTERS

  PEOPLE LOVE MIXED SIGNALS!

  “One of the most delightful surprises I’ve had all year—a first novel that moved me to both laughter and tears!”

  SUSAN WIGGS, USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR

  “A true home run … warm, cozy, truthful, compelling, and encouraging. Good messages about the God who rescued us, loved us without limit, and gave us a second and sometimes third chance.”

  VIRELLE KIDDER, AUTHOR OF DONKEYS STILL TALK

  “Christian fiction isn’t known for humorous books, so this title is a special joy. This bouncy romantic tale of a devout Christian woman looking for love should please most readers searching for a fun read. Recommended.”

  LIBRARY JOURNAL

  “I thoroughly enjoyed Mixed Signals. It had everything—great laughs, good solid story, surprises and twists, and great characters. I cared about all of them, even craggy, cranky Frank—all perfectly wonderful.”

  FRANCINE RIVERS, BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF REDEEMING LOVE

  “Mixed Signals absolutely blew me away! The prose was incandescent, each character fully realized and unforgettable, and it fully captured the magic of falling in love. Bravo!”

  TERESA MEDEIROS, NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  BOOKENDS

  published by Multnomah Publishers, Inc.

  © 2000 by Liz Curtis Higgs

  All Scripture quotations are taken from

  The Holy Bible, New King James Version

  © 1984 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.

  Multnomah is a trademark of Multnomah Publishers, Inc., and is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The colophon is a trademark of Multnomah Publishers, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission.

  For information:

  Multnomah Publishers, Inc. • Post Office Box 1720 • Sisters, Oregon 97759

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Higgs, Liz Curtis.

  Bookends/by Liz Curtis Higgs.

  p.cm.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-78887-0

  1. Real estate developers–Fiction. 2. Women historians–Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3558.I36235 B66 2000 99-057369

  813′.54–dc21

  v3.1

  In memory of my mother,

  who made every living thing around her bloom,

  including me.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Hugs and kisses, blessings and thanks, to the following individuals whose hearts and lives have touched mine and enhanced the pages of this novel.…

  Peggy and David Jones, who kindly allowed Emilie to reside in their historic home on Main Street and prayed for this book from day one.

  Jane and Don Rannels, friends and encouragers since my Girl Scout days, who welcomed Beth and company to live in their charming Spruce Street home and offered valuable information on Moravian matters.

  Debbie Boehler of the Lititz Moravian Congregation, who compiled, faxed, and mailed more information about the church than one writer should require, and provided ongoing encouragement from the moment I walked through her office door one chilly December.

  Dorothy Rutbell and Bruce Carl, birders both, who helped me keep our feathered friends straight.

  Betty Siegrist, who truly did say she wouldn’t mind having a golf course in her backyard.

  Sharon Brown of the Moravian Book and Gift Shop in Winston-Salem for her guidance concerning Moravian music.

  Margaret Bucher of Moravian Sugar Cake fame, for sharing her recipe with our Helen and her heart with so many for so long.

  Bonnie Dills of Home Moravian Church, Winston-Salem, who walked me through a Moravian New Year’s Eve Watchnight Service—the Home Church way.

  Sharon Shaich and Tilly Shouten, for sharing their skills in the art of Scherenschnitte.

  Richard Johe of Salem College, who kindly responded to a most unusual request from a stranger.

  Donna Hammond of the Lititz Public Library who—bless her—keeps not only my books on her shelves, but lots of other authors’ books, too.

  Jim Hess of the Heritage Map Museum for kindly explaining survey maps and land draughts.r />
  Nancy Sauder of the Moravian Mission Gift Shop in Lititz, whose enthusiasm for the Lord Jesus is positively contagious.

  Stephanie Brubaker of the Humane League of Lancaster County for her cheerful answers to my many questions about animal adoption.

  Jeanine Gehman, aesthetician, and Donna Stover, owner of Shear Sensations, who helped me experience a Grand Spa Escape over the telephone.

  Glenn B. Knight, former Web master of www.LititzPA.com, for knowing the answer to everything about Lititz and then some.

  Courtney Yartz, for his expertise about irrigating golf courses and such.

  Jane Clugston, book buyer for the Moravian Book Shop in Bethlehem, for helping me locate enough Moravian resource material for a dozen novels (and don’t think I’m not tempted!).

  Karen Ball, my dear editor, and Sara Fortenberry, my literary agent, two angelic creatures who made the whole process fun.

  My hubby, Bill Higgs, for his own heroic efforts on behalf of our family, day in and day out.

  Gloria Looney, office assistant, and Gayle Roper, novelist and wondrous writing teacher—two of the best “first readers” a writer could find.

  Leesa Gogel, proofreader and kind supporter.

  And finally—always—to a precious sister in writing, Diane Noble, my best friend and encourager, who keeps my heart on my work and my eyes on the Lord.

  Thank you, one and all!

  You will show me the path of life;

  In Your presence is fullness of joy;

  At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

  PSALM 16:11

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Epigraph

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Reader’s Guide

  Other Books by This Author

  One

  Success. Inform press. Home Christmas.

  ORVILLE WRIGHT

  It isn’t possible!

  Emilie Getz peered into the window of Benner’s Pharmacy, amazed to find every detail exactly as she’d remembered. The soda counter where she’d sat as a child and ordered cherry colas, the stout glass jar stuffed with locally-baked pretzels, the racks of colorful greeting cards, the customers—regulars, no doubt—perched on vinyl-covered stools. Gazing out at her, gazing in.

  She pushed open the door and found herself stepping into a time warp, like Alice falling through the rabbit hole into another world. Except Emilie knew this world—knew it inside and out, even after eighteen long years of self-imposed exile.

  Home.

  A tentative smile stretched across her features as she reached for the local paper, fresh off the press earlier that December day.

  “Thirty cents,” the clerk behind the counter said, then amended the price when Emilie added the latest issue of Victoria, one of her few monthly indulgences. On many a rainy Carolina evening Emilie basked in the magazine’s artful depiction of life at its loveliest, then closed her eyes and thought of England and how splendid it would be to take a handful of her more mature history majors there.

  Someday.

  For the next six months, though, she was firmly planted in Pennsylvania soil, on a mission that could make a visit to merry old England—financially speaking—a distinct possibility. Who knew? The newspaper she’d just purchased might include an article about her arrival in town this very week.

  “Merry Christmas,” the clerk called out as Emilie gathered her reading materials and hurried down the steps. Slowing when she reached the icy sidewalk, she headed in the direction of her temporary lodging half a dozen doors east.

  The cozy white cottage, built to last by John William Woerner in 1762, greeted her warmly. The town cooper, bleeder, and tooth drawer had left a solid legacy in the little house. Already it felt like home, even with stray boxes left to unpack and potted plants waiting for new landing spots. Emilie fixed herself a light supper of cheese and fruit, then unfolded the newspaper with guarded anticipation. Keeping one eye on the clock, she brushed stray wisps of hair out of her face as she scanned each page, hoping to discover a warm welcome there as well.

  What she found was less than encouraging. Her momentous homecoming resulted in two short paragraphs, buried on page sixteen of the Lititz Record Express. The headline, set in modest type, simply announced: “Local Scholar Returns.”

  “Local scholar?” Nothing more? The story that followed offered little in the way of fireworks: “During her six-month sabbatical, Dr. Emilie Getz will write a commemorative book for the Moravian Congregation’s historic 250th anniversary.”

  That was the whole of it.

  Not a word about her being commissioned by the church or singled out from her peers for this honor.

  No box around the story, either. No boldface type. No photo.

  A tightening sensation crawled along her neck. Oh, honestly, Em! Swallowing with some difficulty, she snapped the newspaper shut as if to scold the editor for so easily dismissing seven years of doctoral work in eighteenth-century American history.

  The weekly paper landed on a nearby drop-leaf table with a disappointing slap. “All things come round to him who will but wait,” she reminded herself, her clear voice punctuating the evening stillness. As usual, Longfellow offered the perfect antidote to her blue mood. The Christmas Eve vigil, less than an hour away, would dispel any lingering melancholy.

  Working her way through the house, snapping off lights and turning on small electric candles, Emilie reminded herself that there would be substantial headlines in much bigger newspapers soon enough if all went as planned. And it will. It must. She’d worked too hard, too long, to allow any other outcome.

  The fact was, the Record Express didn’t know the whole story. Couldn’t know—not yet—or it would ruin everything. Her research on the original Gemeinhaus—“common house”—was strictly off the record until her suspicions about the location could be verified. It would take hard evidence—remnants of a foundation or identifiable artifacts—to ensure that her ideas were based on fact.

  In 1746 when John George Klein donated part of his farm property for a building that would serve as school, meetinghouse, and parsonage, it was raised on a bluff on the south bank of a small stream.

  A finished Gemeinhaus stood there by May 1748, no doubt.

  But not the first one. If her painstaking research was correct, the first building—completed but never consecrated—was raised on a plot of land farther southeast than its later counterpart, and finished a full year earlier.

  Now she had to find it. She had to prove it, if only to convince those confounded men in Salem College’s history department that a woman—a younger woman at that—could play their game and win.

  No mistakes this time. No hasty conclusions.

  This would not, could not, be another incident like Bethabara, an academic disaster of epic proportions for her. She, who always triple-checked things, had missed a critical bit of information that sent an entire archaeological crew on a fruitless dig in the old Moravian village outside Salem, North Carolina.

  The Bethabara dig had yielded nothing except sore backs and hot tempers. And a foundation stone that boldly proclaimed her mistake to the academic world: 1933. Not a 1753 site,
as she’d insisted it would be. “Getz’s Blunder,” they called it when they thought she wasn’t listening.

  It hadn’t cost her tenure; it had cost her pride.

  She would succeed this time, of that Emilie was confident. Not a single soul in her academic circle knew about her Lititz Gemeinhaus research. If she kept her nose to the grindstone, she might pull this one off without undue embarrassment. The endless hours she’d spent squinting at ink-spotted diaries and faded antiquarian maps were about to bring her the recognition that she’d waited far too many years to receive.

  It was her turn. Her turn, mind you.

  A glance at the hand-hewn clock mounted in the wall assured her that, if she left in the next minute, she would arrive at church at precisely seven o’clock, in plenty of time to choose a seat to her liking. Emilie stepped out the front door onto east Main Street and inhaled the frosty air, pulling her scarf more tightly against her neck. The temperature had already dropped a few more chilly degrees.

  History swirled around her feet as surely as a hint of snow eddied about the tall lampposts standing guard over the busy intersection of Cedar and Main. Five-pointed Christmas stars framed the old glass globes with red and white bulbs, just as they had every December in memory. Across the street stood the Rauch house—its pretzel ovens still in the basement—and the corner house that once featured Lancaster County’s first drugstore.

  Home.

  The slightest shiver of expectation ran down her neck.

  Her parents were spending the evening delivering baskets for the needy in Lancaster, leaving her on her own until tomorrow. Solitude never bothered Emilie—in fact, the peaceful, orderly nature of living alone suited her perfectly.

  Emilie locked the wooden door behind her, ventured down the steep brick steps, then turned right to pass the post office, keeping an eye out for icy spots. The evening was cold and starless, with a stout enough breeze to send her scarf waving like a flag on the Fourth as she hurried toward the church one block away. It would be good—wouldn’t it?—to walk through those narrow wooden doors again. Long overdue, really, though she’d only been in Lititz for two days, all of which she’d spent unpacking enough resource materials to keep her busy through June.