Amish Country Box Set: Restless Hearts\The Doctor's Blessing\Courting Ruth (4 page)

“I didn’t!” But she probably had. “I was just surprised, that’s all. I didn’t realize anyone was back there.” How did the man always manage to put her in the wrong?

“Uh-huh.” He managed to infuse the syllables with such doubt that her embarrassment was swallowed up in anger. She certainly wasn’t going to tell him what had precipitated her behavior.

“Excuse me. I have things to do.” She turned, but he stopped her with a hand on her arm.

“Don’t you even want to know what I had to tell you?”

She gritted her teeth. Be polite, Fiona. “Of course. What is it?”

“The carpenters will be coming around in an hour or so. Try to get over your feelings about the Amish before then, will you?”

Before she could respond, he walked off across the street.

* * *

“Well, it’s not exactly what I expected.” Fiona cradled the cell phone against her ear with one hand and continued scrubbing the kitchen sink with the other. She might have to rub all the enamel off to get it clean.

“Better or worse?” Tracy Wilton, her closest friend from midwife training, sounded as if she were in the next room instead of three thousand miles away. “You could always come back, you know. They haven’t filled your job here yet.”

“I’m not sure whether it’s better or worse, but it’s definitely different.” She thought of Ted’s obvious doubt that she’d stick it out. “I’m staying, though. I’ll make it work.”

“I bet you will. Listen, if your practice gets too big for one person, just give me a call. Especially if you’ve found any great-looking men among those Pennsylvania Dutch farmers of yours.”

Fiona pushed an image of Ted Rittenhouse from her mind. “I’m not looking for any. Trust me. Getting my practice up and running is enough to occupy me for the moment. All I’m worried about right now is whether my money will hold out that long.”

A rap sounded on the front door, and she headed into the hallway. “Listen, Tracy, someone’s here. I’ll give you a call later, okay?”

“Okay. Take care.”

Fiona snapped off the phone as she swung the door open and saw what appeared to be a whole congregation of Amish men in black trousers and dark shirts filling her
porch. She blinked against the late-afternoon sunlight and realized there were only four, surveying her silently.

What on earth?—and then she realized they had to be the carpenters Ted had said he’d send. The oldest man, his beard a snowy white, nodded gravely.

“I am Mose Stetler. Ted Rittenhouse said as how you are wanting some carpentry work done. Said you needed it in a hurry.”

“Yes, he told me he’d talked to you. I’m Fiona Flanagan.” She nodded to the men and held the door wide. “Please, come in. I’m glad you were able to come so soon.”

And a little surprised Ted hadn’t told them to forget about coming after their exchange earlier.

“Oh, we had to.” He jerked his head toward the youngest of the men, hardly more than a boy, with rounded cheeks above a rather straggly beard. “Young Aaron, here, he’ll be needing your services before long, won’t you, Aaron?”

The boy blushed, his prominent ears reddening. “My Susie…” He stopped, apparently embarrassed to actually say that his wife was expecting.

“Well, then, all the more reason to get my practice up and running. But I’ll be happy to talk to your wife anytime, even if my office isn’t ready.” She started to say the woman could phone her, and then realized that she couldn’t. “Just have her send a message if she’d like to talk.”

He bobbed his head, flushing when one of the other men said something to him in what sounded like
German. She didn’t understand the words, but the teasing was obvious.

“So, now.” Mr. Stetler rubbed callused palms together. “You show me what you want done, and I will figure out a price.” His eyes twinkled. “A fair price. You’re one of us, after all.”

She blinked. Surely he couldn’t be referring to her mother. No one knew except the Flanagans. “One of you?”

“A resident, not a tourist,” he explained. Apparently tourists were fair game, but not someone who planned to live here.

She showed them over the downstairs, explaining what she needed. Mose made several helpful suggestions for the arrangement that she hadn’t thought of.

Finally he took out a stub of pencil and a scrap of paper and figured a price. She looked at the paper with a sense of relief. It was high, but she’d known it would be, with the cost of materials, and it was well within her budget.

“Fine. We have a deal. When can you start?”

Stetler beamed. “Right away. We do some measurements now, and then be back here at eight o’clock tomorrow morning.”

“Excellent.”

By the time they’d finished up the measurements and were heading out the door, they were on a first-name basis, even with Aaron, the shy expectant father. She was just assuring him that he wasn’t going to feel a thing when one of the other men said something that made them all double over with laughter.

“He said unless Aaron’s wife hits him for getting her into that predicament.”

Somehow she wasn’t surprised to see Ted Rittenhouse standing by the porch, one large boot propped against the front step and a grin on his face.

“I’ll protect him,” Fiona shot back, her gaze challenging his. She’d let him see that she was getting along perfectly well with his Amish friends.

Ted nudged at the step with his boot. “Hey, Mose, you’d best put fixing this step at the top of your list.”

Mose nodded gravely. “Before you put your big foot through it, yes.” For some reason, everyone thought that was funny, and they all trooped off, laughing, toward the wagon and its patiently waiting horse.

She was very aware of Ted, standing silent beside her. When he didn’t speak, she realized there was something she had to say. She turned toward him, and found him watching her.

“Thank you very much for sending Mose and his crew over. I’m so relieved to have the project underway.”

“They’ll do a good job for you. And they’ll be honest about the price, too.”

She nodded. “I’m sure they will.” She hesitated, and then decided she’d better say the rest of what she’d been thinking. “You know, I thought maybe you’d change your mind and tell them not to come.”

He looked surprised. “Why would I do that?”

“Well, you weren’t exactly happy with me earlier.”

“That doesn’t mean I’d make things difficult for
you. Maybe you have something to learn about folks around here.”

Those words might have been said snidely, but she couldn’t detect anything other than genuine concern in his voice. Concern, and perhaps even kindness.

“Maybe so.” She struggled to speak over the sudden lump in her throat. “This move is a big change in my life. I know I have to adjust some of my attitudes if I’m going to make a go of it here.”

His lips twitched in a slight smile. “You’ll be fine. You have something to offer. Just give yourself a chance. And give us one, too.”

The gentleness in his voice drew her. She looked up to find his intense gaze so focused on her face that it seemed to generate warmth. She couldn’t look away, couldn’t even seem to draw breath. Was it the afternoon sunlight dazzling her eyes, or was it the man?

And then he took a step back. It was hard to tell with that stolid face of his, but she had a feeling he felt just as shocked as she did.

Chapter Three

H
er mother’s box now sat on her brand-new dresser in her own bedroom in the house in Crossroads. Fiona touched it, smiling a little at the sound of hammering from downstairs.

She’d moved in yesterday, in spite of Nolie and Gabe’s repeated urging to stay with them until the work was completely finished. Much as she’d appreciated their kindness, she’d given in to the need to be here, on the spot, supervising the renovations.

She had a bedroom and a kitchen—at the moment she didn’t need anything else. Once she’d found time to paint the room that was going to be her living room, to say nothing of getting some furniture in it, she’d be ready to entertain. She could invite her Flanagan cousins over.

The past few days had been busy ones, notable only for the absence of one person. Ted hadn’t dropped by again. Maybe he was occupied with township business.
Or maybe he’d been as shocked by that moment of rapport as she had been.

In any event, it was fine that he hadn’t been around. She’d been able to write the incident off as nothing—just a random flare of attraction that she could quickly forget. She had nothing in common with a man like Ted Rittenhouse, and even if she’d wanted it, she had no time in her life for romance.

Making a success of her practice had to be the only thing on her mind now, and she’d already made a good start. An invitation had been relayed by Aaron from his wife and had resulted in her first visit to an Amish home.

The simple, painted interior with its large, square rooms and handmade furniture had charmed her. When she’d commented on the beauty of a hand-carved wooden rocking chair, young Susie had shrugged off the compliment, saying the chair was “for use, not for pretty.”

She’d been surprised to find Susie already in her thirty-fourth week, but she learned that the couple had only recently returned to the family farm after living in an Amish community in Ohio where Aaron was apprenticed to a master carpenter. Susie was healthy, happy and eagerly looking forward to the birth, and especially to having her baby at home. Fiona had come away with a sense of satisfaction that she would provide the kind of birthing experience the couple wanted.

And happy that she was wanted and needed—she couldn’t deny that. It was a step toward belonging. And another step might be—

She lifted the lid on the box, her fingers touching the perfectly matched corners. Here was all she had of the mother she’d never known. An Amish cap and apron, put away never to be worn again. A white baby gown, edged with delicate embroidery. And the patches for a quilt, each one sewn with stitches so tiny they were practically invisible.

She carried the pieces to the spool bed which was her latest purchase and spread them out, not sure how they were intended to fit together. Each piece was a rectangle composed of smaller square and rectangular pieces in rich, solid colors. The deep pink shade that predominated made her wonder if her mother might have intended the quilt for a daughter. If so, she’d never know.

But she could have the quilt. She didn’t have the skill to put it together, but the quilters at Ruth’s store did. She could imagine it gracing her bed, symbolizing her ties to her new community.

She gathered the pieces, slipped them into a bag and went quickly down the steps, greeting the carpenters, amazed as always by how much they’d accomplished. The rooms were taking shape before her eyes, and her dream was closer to reality every day.

She hurried over to the general store, eager now to set this project in motion. Ruth looked up when the bell tinkled, but she was busy with a customer, so Fiona waved and went on through to the workroom. Emma Brandt greeted her with a smile, while two older women
she hadn’t seen before glanced up, nodded and bent over the quilt frame again.

“Emma, I’d like to show you something.” She approached the quilt frame slowly. It wasn’t too late to change her mind, but Emma was nodding. Waiting.

“Yes?”

For a moment her hand held the bag shut. This would be the first time she’d shown the quilt squares to anyone, and she felt an odd reluctance to have them out of her possession. Shaking the emotion off, she drew out the fabric squares.

“I have these quilt pieces, and I wondered if you’d be able to put them together for me.”

Emma pushed her glasses into place and took them, turning them slowly in her capable hands. “A log cabin design,” she said. “The colors are lovely. This will make a fine quilt for your new bed.”

She was getting used to the fact that everyone seemed to know everything about her. It seemed the rumor mill was always grinding in Crossroads. Emma could probably tell her where she’d bought the bed and how much she’d paid for it.

“That’s what I thought, although I don’t even know how the squares fit together.” She may as well admit her ignorance up front.

Emma quickly moved some of the blocks together. “The traditional manner would be to arrange them like this, so that the darker colors make diagonal lines across the surface.”

The quilt seemed to come to life under her hands, and Fiona could visualize it on her bed. Maybe she could find curtains in one of the solid colors.

“That would be perfect. Do you have time to finish it for me?”

“I’m sure we can.” Emma picked up one of the pieces, examining it closely. “The workmanship is very fine, uh-huh. Did you make it yourself?”

Fiona shook her head. “It’s all I can do to sew a button on. These were given to me. I was told that my mother made them.”

“Ah.” Emma’s look of sympathy said she understood. “Then very special the quilt will be for you.”

“Yes.” She willed away the lump in her throat. “It will be very special.”

One of the older women rose from the quilting frame. She walked toward them, her faded blue eyes magnified by the thick glasses she wore. She reached for the quilt pieces, turning them over in work-worn hands.

Emma said something in the low German that Fiona had learned was the common tongue of the Amish. For a moment the older woman stood frozen. Then she said something that made Emma give an audible gasp.

Their expressions startled Fiona. “Emma, is something wrong?”

Emma shook her head, not looking up. Then, so quickly Fiona hardly understood what was happening, all three women folded up their work and scurried away without a word.

* * *

By evening, Fiona was feeling thoroughly exasperated with all things Amish. Ruth had had no explanation for what happened and seemed as mystified by the women’s behavior as Fiona. She’d promised to talk to Emma and try to smooth things over as soon as she could.

But that hadn’t been the worst of it. The carpenters had left for lunch as usual, but they hadn’t come back. They hadn’t sent word, either. They were just gone, with tools left lying where they’d put them down.

Clearly she’d offended someone, but how, she didn’t know. She’d have been happy to apologize for whatever it was, but since she couldn’t get in touch with any of them that was impossible.