Winter of Wishes (10 page)

“I’ll stay right here,” Rhoda insisted. “If the roads are that bad, I don’t want Sheila
comin’ for me. We’re snug as bugs in a rug, Andy. Truly we are.”

“Thank you so much,” he murmured. “Here comes the first ambulance from that bus crash—but
we’ll get you home eventually, Rhoda. We’ll figure it out when I get there.”

In the background Rhoda could hear tense voices and a lot of commotion before Andy
said, “Tell Brett and Taylor there’s no staying up late tonight. The snow’s letting
up and the salt trucks are out, so they’ll have school tomorrow,” he explained. “Stretch
out on the couch if it gets late, all right? You’ve had a long day.”

“You have, too,” she replied as his words set her thoughts to spinning. “Be careful
drivin’ home, Andy. Things get tricky when you’re drivin’ after dark and you’re tired.”

“Thanks, Rhoda,” he breathed. “You’re the best.”

As the phone clicked off, Rhoda tingled.
You’re the best.
When had anyone ever told her that? She returned the receiver to its cradle. “Andy’s
going to be really late,” she told Betty. “A busload of school kids is comin’ to the
hospital, after they got hit by a big semitruck—”

Betty gasped. “Glad . . . our two are home . . . safe. Call your mother, Rhoda.”

Rhoda lifted the receiver again. “After I talk to Mamma, we can cut out the aprons
for your new dresses,” she suggested. “Amazin’ what we’ve accomplished today, Betty!
The snow’s been a problem for a lot of folks, but not for us.”

Andy shut off the ignition and sat in the dark car, rubbing his eyes. While eighteen-hour
shifts would be necessary now and again when he became a registered nurse, he prayed
days like today would be few and far between. He’d been beyond exhausted when they’d
received word about the bus wreck, yet he’d called upon a strength he hadn’t known
he possessed. Even so, the images of those kids, some of them with crushed, mangled
limbs, would live in his memory for a long, long time.

As he glanced at the living room window, however, he smiled: Rhoda had left the lamp
on, so its glow would welcome him home.

Get real
.
She doesn’t want to stumble in a dark house if she gets up from the couch. She’s worn
out, too.

Andy stepped carefully out of the car, grateful to the neighbor who had cleared the
driveway with his garden tractor and blade. Where would he be without good friends
like Milt Rodgers and the Gaines family across the street, who had helped him through
tight spots with the kids while Megan’s presence had been so unreliable? So unpredictable.

You’ll never associate such words with Rhoda
, he thought as he headed for the door.
Rhoda the Reliable. Rhoda the Resilient. Rhoda the—

“That you, Andy?
Gut
to see ya made it home!”

Andy’s thoughts raced like the chaser lights on the house next door: as the porch
light illuminated the falling snow and made Rhoda’s white kapp glow above her warm
smile, it occurred to him that he’d seldom known such a wonderful welcome. His weariness
lightened with each step he took toward the young woman who held the door for him.

“Saved ya back some chicken and noodles,” Rhoda was saying as he came inside. “The
kids and your
mamm
have been in bed for a while. We all had a real
gut
day.”

Andy gazed at her, at a loss for words. How did she perform such magic? How had she
won over his kids and taken his mother under her wing and turned his house into a
comfortable, cozy home within a week? Rather than rhapsodize over the miracles Rhoda
had worked—because his praise would surely cross the line his thoughts had already
ignored—he focused on the matter at hand.

“But if I eat, you’ll be even later getting home,” he reasoned. “And I’ve been wondering
about how to work that situation. I hate to have you call your driver at all hours
of the night, but I’m not allowed to drive you. Am I?”

Rhoda clasped her hands demurely at her waist. “
Jah
, that’s one of the rules. Especially when it comes to me bein’ unmarried and you
bein’ English.”

Oh, but he had stray thoughts about how to fix that situation. He followed Rhoda to
the kitchen, where aromas of seasoned chicken still lingered. As he settled tiredly
into his chair, she took a plate from the fridge and placed it in the microwave. The
countertop was cleared. The sink drainer held no dirty dishes. All was calm, all was
bright.

“You know how to use a microwave?” he asked, figuring it was a safe subject.

Rhoda’s grin tickled him. “Taylor showed me how it works. She did some hand sewin’
today, too. Puttin’ snaps on your
mamm
’s new dresses.”

“Taylor used a needle and thread?”

“
Jah
, she did! We didn’t let a moment get by us today, sewin’ on your
mamm
’s machine,” the young woman said with a smile. She set a plate in front of him that
was loaded with noodles and chunks of chicken, laced with seasonings. Then she took
the chair beside his.

“My God, but this smells wonderful,” he murmured without thinking about it.

“Sounds like the perfect table grace.” Rhoda leaned her head on her hand, gazing at
him. “I think your mother came a long way today, Andy. She’s excited about havin’
two new dresses, and aprons to go over the top of them—like her
mamm
used to wear, she told me.”

Andy had a flash of memory—Grandma Whitney had considered an apron part of her everyday
attire as she’d baked bread and cleaned and kept the household running . . . just
as Rhoda Lantz did in this day and age. Something about that connection of past and
present felt right to him, even as he knew he should concentrate on what this young
woman was telling him. “Let me know what I owe you for that, Rhoda. Mom needs new
clothes, but I’m not so good at taking her shopping—”

“Puh!” Rhoda said as she grabbed his wrist. “It was somethin’ for us to do together—with
Taylor—and she already had the fabric.” She drew back her hand then, her eyes widening
with sudden realization. “It—it was no trouble at all, Andy. Truly.”

Andy took a bite of the creamy chicken and noodles, every nerve ending in his body
a-jangle. Rhoda had touched him. She, too, had felt the jolt of awareness jump between
them. “How am I supposed to get you home without getting you in trouble? I assume
your mother knows you’ve stayed here this late?”

“
Jah
, she does.” Rhoda glanced at the wall clock. “Won’t be but a couple of hours and
she’ll start her day’s bakin’. We Amish are
gut
at seein’ the practical side to what the
Ordnung
says we’re to do—not bein’ sneaky, understand. Just gettin’ things done without makin’
a fuss. So, since it’s all right for us to
pay
English fellas to drive us—and since it’d be wrong to get Sheila outta bed at this
hour—”

“You’re not going to pay me, after the day you’ve put in!”

“
Jah
, I am! Or we’ll have Mamma do it,” she said with a decisive nod. “That way, if our
bishop, Hiram Knepp, gets wind of the situation, you and I kept it all business between
us. Mamma knows about doin’ that, from when Rebecca’s English
dat
bought the café building out from under Hiram last summer.”

His shoulders shook with silent laughter. “I suppose Amish women have to be resourceful
sometimes—”

“
Jah
, that’s Mamma. Resourceful. Smart.”

“—but do you really think it’s all business between us, Rhoda?”

As her eyes widened, Andy groaned. Had he really opened that can of worms? “I’m sorry,”
he rasped. “I’m too tired. I shouldn’t have said that.”

Rhoda glanced away. Then her blue eyes shone with determination in the low light of
the kitchen. “It’s usually the words we try to keep to ourselves that most need sayin’,
ain’t so?” she murmured. “I love bein’ in your home, and bein’ with your kids, Andy.
And I love—”

“Don’t go there.”
He gazed at her more sternly than he wanted to. She couldn’t use that
love
word. If her feelings for him were on the tip of her tongue—if she uttered those
three little words—they’d be in an even stickier situation. “It’s too soon to have
these feelings, and we both know it.”

Rhoda sighed plaintively. “The heart always knows best. Mamma says so herself.”

Andy swallowed. How had he gotten into this pickle? And now Rhoda was in it with him,
and using her mother to validate it.

No,
you
are grasping at straws, trying to justify your feelings. You’re lonely and tired,
and Rhoda’s filling in all the gaps in your life. Get her home. Get over it.

“I have tomorrow off, so you won’t need to come. Meanwhile, let’s get you back to
Willow Ridge.” Andy hoped he sounded honorable rather than peeved at her. Poor Rhoda
hadn’t done anything but answer his ad and connect with his kids and befriend his
mother. Not her fault that in her Plain clothes, without makeup, she appealed to him
with her openness, her candor . . . the absence of schemes and mind games.

“
Jah
. I’m ready.”

Oh, but that innocent response teased at him as they got into the car and started
down the dark county highway. He regretted the silence that hovered like a cloud as
black as Rhoda’s coat and bonnet . . . all because he hadn’t kept his mouth shut.

“Must’ve been hard on ya, seein’ those kids after that bus wreck,” Rhoda said quietly.
She was gazing out into the night as they rolled past hillsides blanketed in ten inches
of snow that glistened in the moonlight. “We Amish believe that everything happens
for God’s own
gut
reasons, but I still hate it when folks get hurt real bad. Especially kids who couldn’t
do anything to help themselves.”

It wasn’t the time to quiz Rhoda about her beliefs—partly because his own faith had
gone by the wayside after Megan left him and their kids. But she had introduced a
safe topic of conversation. It was slow going, even though the plows had been out,
because the black ice was impossible to spot until the car was already fishtailing
on it.

“It seemed as though they came in an endless river of crushed legs and broken arms
and bloody faces,” Andy murmured, trying to maintain an emotional distance from the
vivid images of those kids. “Made it worse that they were from northern Missouri,
on their way home from a school event south of here, where the weather hadn’t been
an issue. Think of all those parents, getting calls late in the night that their kids
were injured.”

“Andy, I’m so sorry.” Rhoda’s whisper filled the car with her sorrow, not to mention
her concern for him. “But think how much worse it would’ve been had ya not been there.
Seems to me you’d be the calm in the storm, the voice of reason in that room full
of pain. Those kids were terrified, but you were there to put them back together.
And what a blessing for their parents, too.”

Andy forced himself to focus on the road. How had Rhoda formed such a noble picture
of him, sketching him as he would
like
to be seen? Especially since she’d probably spent little time in a hospital or at
the scene of a disaster. “Thank you,” he rasped, raw with the terror that had filled
the emergency room.

Rhoda smiled. “We Amish have a real respect for doctors and nurses, on account of
how our members don’t get enough schoolin’ to practice medicine. We have the occasional
midwife among us, but she gets her trainin’ from other midwives.”

It was an intriguing idea. But not a topic to discuss while he was steering the car
along an icy road at a snail’s pace. “It’s sweet of you to say that . . . to be concerned
for the way I’m handling tonight’s crisis,” he said quietly. “Frankly, there were
times I wanted to walk away from it. To ditch nursing and find an easier livelihood.”

“Ah, but when you’re a healer, there’s no turnin’ your back on the misery—or on your
God-given skills, ain’t so?” Rhoda squeezed the hand he’d kept on the gearshift knob
so he could downshift on the hills. “That would be like tellin’ God to go fly a kite.
I can’t see ya doin’ that, Andy. There’s too much love in ya.”

Even through the gloves on her hand and his, he felt compassion pouring out like a
balm to his battered soul. “Rhoda, if you knew much about love, you wouldn’t be saying
that. You’re looking at a refugee from a failed marriage, whose family got split apart
by—”

“How can ya think such a thing?” She sat taller in the passenger seat. “You’re actin’
as God’s healin’ hands on this earth. The Bible teaches that God is love, and that
we’re all His children, which means we’re made of that same love. Can’t be any other
way, as I see it.”

He had no choice but to ease the car to a stop on the edge of the road. They had just
reached Willow Ridge, where the farmsteads and shops lay sleeping beneath their blankets
of snow. The only light was a quarter of a mile away, at the river bridge . . . and
at this hour no one else was out. Rhoda’s hand felt like a branding iron, searing
him with her innocent passion. Her
faith
. Here she was talking about love again, but in a way no man could construe as making
a pass or mistake for feminine wiles. Rhoda Lantz didn’t know about wiles . . . did
she?

As the moonlight shone through the windshield, her face took on an ethereal glow.
Her black bonnet accentuated the pale purity of her skin . . . her sweet, unassuming
features.

As soon as the thought flitted through his mind, Andy dismissed it. Of course Amish
girls didn’t go around kissing—

Andy closed his eyes and tried to think of anything but kissing Rhoda. Sure, she was
in her twenties . . . had a boyfriend, for all he knew. But wasn’t this thundering
in his soul about more than kissing her? From what he’d learned this past week, Rhoda
Lantz was precisely the kind of woman he’d always wanted: a helpmate, a listener,
a mother to his children. A kick in the pants when he needed it.

Before Andy’s hand found Rhoda’s face, she was leaning toward him. There was no explaining
it or preventing it: despite his better judgment he was kissing Rhoda Lantz, in the
middle of the road in the middle of the night.

And yes, Amish girls knew about kissing.

Again and then again he tasted her sweet, eager lips. As he eased away from her, fighting
to regain his sense of reason, Rhoda’s sigh filled the car with the same yearning
he’d known on a daily basis of late . . . the wishes he wanted to come true. The happily-ever-afters
she dared to believe in. “Rhoda, I—”

“
Jah
, not the smartest thing,” she rasped, “but I can’t un-kiss ya now, ain’t so? And
why would I want to? Those were the nicest kisses ever, Andy.”

He exhaled, focusing his frantic thoughts. He would drop her off at her house now.
He’d call her tomorrow, and she would understand why it was best that she not work
for him anymore. Never mind that the kids and his mother would be heartbroken—