As they walked over the bridge, Isaac glanced at the buildings on either side of the street. Most near the brook had been damaged during the flood, but only the massive brick factory building remained closed. It was scheduled to open next month, almost a year after Hurricane Kevin had sent a wall of water crashing through the village. To the north, along a slow curve in Washboard Brook, he could see the half skeleton of the covered bridge. It wouldn’t be rebuilt soon because the list of bridges needing repair or replacement in central Vermont was long. Fortunately, the highway bridge in the center of town had been repaired.
When Rachel paused by what once must have been a private home, which was set in the shadow of a huge Victorian with an antique store on the main floor, he saw the plaque announcing the small building housed the Evergreen Corners Medical Clinic. The white cottage had dark green shutters with silhouettes of pine trees cut into them. The front door was a welcoming red and had a wreath decorated with fake thermometers and tongue depressors hanging on it.
Putting her hand on the stroller and drawing it toward the door, Rachel said, “Danki for coming with us, Isaac. You’ve been kind.”
“We help one another.”
She flinched at his answer, and he realized it had been more curt than he intended. How often had his sister warned him he needed to be more aware of his tone when he spoke to others? Abby could discern his true feelings in spite of how his words sounded, but he’d been a part of her life since she was born.
He reached to open the door, and Rachel checked her daughters before she tipped the stroller over the threshold. She couldn’t hide her amazement when he followed her into the office. Had she expected him to leave her with two sick kinder? When she looked away without saying anything, he guessed she’d come to accept that he intended to do as he said.
The doktor’s office appeared empty. No patients waited on the half-dozen plastic chairs arranged along the walls. Posters with health information decorated the light green walls. Opposite the front door, a half wall was topped by frosted glass.
A window in the glass wall slid open. “Can I help you?”
Isaac said, “Go ahead. I’ll watch your girls.”
Rachel hurried along a bright blue section of the tile floor to the half wall. Her voice was hushed as she spoke with the gray-haired woman who sat on the other side of the window.
Rocking the stroller as she had, he listened while Rachel gave her name as well as the kinder’s and explained why she was there.
“Oh, the poor dears,” the woman said. “There’s a nasty bug going around, and it seems to like the little ones the most. The doctor has just arrived from Rutland.” She smiled. “He was delayed by the birth of triplets this morning. Please take a seat, and I’ll call you in as soon as he’s ready to see you.”
Isaac chose a chair and watched as Rachel kneeled next to the stroller. She drew some wet wipes from her black purse and dabbed them along the little girls’ faces. They moaned, and he was glad he’d stayed. It had been the right thing to do.
He knew Glen Landis, the project manager overseeing the plain volunteers in Evergreen Corners, would understand why Isaac was late for their scheduled meeting. Glen would be leaving the town at the end of the year along with most of the aid organizations. A new project manager would be appointed, if necessary. Isaac had heard rumors he would be offered the job, but Glen hadn’t mentioned anything to him.
If offered, would he take it? It didn’t fit in with the plans he had for his life, but how could he walk away when so much remained to be done in Evergreen Corners?
A door to the right of the half wall opened, and a man stepped out. The doktor, who wore a red-and-white-striped shirt and blue jeans under his white medical coat, was a short, rotund man with a pair of gold-rimmed glasses perched on top of his bald head.
“Mrs. Yoder?” the doktor asked with a reassuring smile. “I hear the stomach bug has come to your house.”
“Ja.” She stood and faced him. “Are you ready for us?”
“Whenever you’re ready. Let’s see what we can do to make these two youngsters more comfortable.” When she started toward the door, the doktor looked at Isaac. “Why don’t you come in, too? It’ll be simpler with two sick children to have both parents there.”
“Isaac isn’t their daed.” A bright pink flashed up Rachel’s cheeks. “He’s a... He’s a...”
“I’m a fellow volunteer in town,” Isaac said quickly. “Isaac Kauffman.”
“I see.” The doktor hooked a thumb at the door. “If you don’t mind volunteering right now, Isaac, it’ll make the exam easier for everyone.”
Standing, he nodded. The doktor walked through the doorway, and Rachel followed, pushing the stroller. She didn’t turn her head in time for him to miss her expression. She wasn’t happy about him coming into the examination room. He’d stuck his nose in where it didn’t belong with no more excuse than her kind had thrown up on his boots. He’d have to find a way to apologize later.
The doktor was washing his hands when Isaac joined Rachel and her daughters in the examination room. Like the waiting room, the walls were covered with posters. A table topped by a paper sheet dominated the room, and three plastic chairs were set along the wall.
“I’m Dr. Kingsley.” He dried his hands and walked to the examination table. “What’s wrong with these cuties, Mom?”
“They’re running a slight fever,” Rachel replied. She pointed to each kind as she spoke their names. “Loribeth, the older one, had a temperature of one hundred point two, and Eva had ninety-nine point eight.”
“Any other symptoms? Fussiness? Coughing? Vomiting?”
“All of them.”
The doktor glanced at Isaac, his gaze slipping to Isaac’s boots. “Ah, so I see.”
“I wasn’t quick enough to get out of the way,” Isaac said, annoyed at the doktor’s jesting tone.
“No one can be fast enough to escape every time.” Dr. Kingsley motioned for Rachel to put Loribeth on the exam table and for her to remove the kinder’s dress. Picking up his stethoscope, he said, “My oldest once stood at the top of the stairs and vomited. She hit every step. My wife and I were grateful we’d pulled out the old carpet days before.” After warming the stethoscope between his palms, he cupped it so Loribeth could examine it.
The little girl ignored him, whining and holding up her arms to her mamm in a wordless request for comfort. Rachel soothed the little girl but glanced at the stroller as the other kind began crying. Raising her remarkable eyes, she shot Isaac a pleading glance.
Hoping he remembered the skills he’d learned when his siblings were tiny, he unlatched the straps holding the toddler in the stroller and scooped her up. She retched, and he steeled himself, but she didn’t throw up. He cradled the kind until the doktor had finished examining her sister.
While Rachel held Loribeth, he put Eva on the table and stepped back to let Dr. Kingsley check her, as well. He was pleased to hear the doktor announce the kinder were fine except for the stomach bug. He prescribed something to ease their cramps and help them sleep.
“If they’re feeling better tomorrow,” Dr. Kingsley said, “and I suspect they will be, you can discontinue the medicine. However, they’re contagious. You all are. You should go home and stay away from other people until at least tomorrow. If you don’t have any symptoms by noon tomorrow, you shouldn’t be able to pass along the germs any longer.”
Isaac bit back his groan. He was supposed to be finishing the preparations for a new foundation today. “If I’m working outdoors, will being around other people be a problem?”
“It won’t be a problem as long as you don’t breathe around them or touch anything they touch.” The doktor gave him a regretful smile. “I know it’s difficult, but the best way to avoid this spreading is to stay away from others for twenty-four to thirty-six hours. I suspect we’ll be seeing more children
from the day-care center today and tomorrow.”
Accepting the inevitable, Isaac stood to one side as Rachel dressed her kinder. She thanked the doktor and put the girls into the stroller with Isaac’s help. As soon as they were on the street, she began to apologize again.
“It’s not your fault, Rachel. God decided I need a day off. I’ll spend the time doing the paperwork Glen has been after me to complete. It’s better I skip a day than infect everyone else.”
When he asked if she needed help getting the kinder home, she shook her head and thanked him as she walked away.
He watched her push the stroller along the sidewalk. Odd. He hadn’t paid much attention to her until this morning. He’d noticed her, of course, because she was a lovely woman and a dedicated volunteer.
Maybe he should have looked more closely. He’d turned thirty-five and no longer had the obligations he’d had for the years when his daed had been impaired by alcohol. It was time to find the perfect wife. He wasn’t seeking a great romance. His heart, he knew, was too practical.
He’d escorted plenty of girls home in his courting buggy when he was a teenager. Not once had he been interested—nor had they—in him taking them home a second time. As he grew older, the pool of available women had lessened in their district and the neighboring ones in Lancaster County before his family moved north. His hope he’d find his match waiting for him in northern Vermont hadn’t worked out, either.
He knew what he wanted in a wife. An excellent cook. A wunderbaar mamm for their kinder. A hard worker who wouldn’t hesitate to join him in making the farm he intended to buy a success. Someone who loved animals. A woman of deep faith.
As Rachel crossed the road, heading away from him, he smiled. He’d seen that she fit one of his criteria. She was a dedicated mamm. What about his other requirements for a perfect Amish wife? Did she meet them?
It could be, he decided, time for him to find out.
Copyright © 2020 by Jo Ann Ferguson
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ISBN-13: 9781488060304
His Daughter’s Prayer
Copyright © 2020 by Danielle Thorne
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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His Daughter's Prayer Page 20
