The Amish Nurse's Suitor and The Nanny's Amish Family
Yazar
Carrie Lighte
Okur
18,4K
Bölüm
33
Chapter One
“Toby probably didn’t think I was ambitious or smart enough for him,” Rachel Blank told her roommate, Meg.
It had been nearly two weeks since her boyfriend had broken up with her—the same amount of time Meg had been away on vacation—and by this point Rachel was more angry than sad.
“Not ambitious or smart enough?” Meg’s voice rose with incredulity. “What else would he call someone who started out with an eighth-grade education but later earned her GED, her BSN, and is going to school to become a nurse practitioner?”
“He doesn’t know I applied to the MSN program, and I haven’t actually been accepted into it yet, either,” Rachel protested feebly. Meg didn’t seem to hear. She was pacing in front of the sofa, counting on her fingers as she reeled off Rachel’s accomplishments.
“You’ve learned to drive, you’ve learned to swim and you’ve mastered more technology than many people who’ve grown up surrounded by it. Not to mention you’re fluent in three languages—English, German and Deitsch. If the tables were turned, Dr. Toby Grand wouldn’t last a week living like an Amish person.”
Rachel appreciated her roommate’s impassioned defense of her, but she was uncomfortable with her praise. When she left her Amish community and family ten years ago, they’d accused Rachel of hochmut. High-mindedness. Pride. They said her pursuit of higher education was, among other things, an attempt to draw attention to herself. The implication stung so deeply that even now at twenty-eight she resisted it when anyone pointed out her accomplishments. Which, fortunately for her, Toby had rarely done. Instead, he’d pushed her to reach more difficult goals, which was one of the reasons Rachel hadn’t told him she’d applied to an MSN program; she didn’t want to disappoint him if she was rejected.
“Well, those weren’t his exact words. But even if they were, I suppose I understand why he wants to date Brianna. She’s a doctor, too. I’m only a nurse.”
“Only a nurse?” Meg stopped pacing and thrust her hands on her hips. Meg was also a nurse, although she worked in a hospital, whereas Rachel worked at a clinic in the suburbs.
“Neh, neh, neh, I’m not saying I think nurses are inferior.” Rachel sometimes accidentally reverted to Deitsch when she was flustered. “That’s what Toby thinks. He says Brianna has more in common with him than I do.”
“Yeah. They’re both sneaks.”
Toby had only broken up with Rachel after he’d been on several dates with Brianna, the practice’s newly hired doctor. That’s what vexed Rachel most—the betrayal.
“They probably thought it would be easy to pull one over on the naive Amish girl. And they were right. I had no idea Toby and Brianna had been seeing each other.”
“That’s not because of your Amish background. It’s because you’re an honest person who extended trust to someone you loved.”
Did I love Toby? Rachel asked herself. During the ten months of their relationship, she’d definitely developed stronger feelings for him than for any man she’d dated, and she’d thought those feelings were reciprocated. In fact, when Toby came over to break up with her, his expression had been so somber she’d suspected he was about to propose. The ironic thing was, she wasn’t sure how she would have answered. Afterward, as devastated as she was by the circumstances of their breakup, a small part of her felt relieved he hadn’t asked her to marry him.
Meg shook a finger at Rachel. “You’d better not ever take him back.”
“I doubt he’d ever want to come back, but no, I absolutely wouldn’t go out with him again. He crossed a line that can’t be uncrossed,” Rachel assured her friend. “With God’s grace I’ll forgive him eventually, but right now, it’s hard enough to even look at him at work.”
Regardless, each day she held her head high and made a point to greet him and Brianna with a big smile, knowing the kind of office rumors that would erupt if she gave any indication of how deceived or miffed she really felt. She wouldn’t give her coworkers the satisfaction. Maybe I have more hochmut than I care to admit, she mused.
“You should take a vacation. Maybe go to Maine for a few days...”
Rachel recognized Meg was hinting she should visit her family. Her roommate was one of the few people Rachel had confided in about how much she missed them sometimes. But missing them and visiting them were two different matters. Rachel hadn’t been baptized into the Amish church before she left for the Englisch world, so she wasn’t in the Bann, but in some ways, she felt like she might as well have been.
Both of her parents had passed away before she left her Amish community in Serenity Ridge, Maine. Rachel had two older married brothers, Colin and Albert, and one younger brother, Ivan, a bachelor. Initially her family members had been understandably hurt, disappointed and angry when Rachel told them she was moving to Massachusetts to pursue an education in nursing. Colin’s wife, Hadassah, claimed she spoke for the entire family when she told Rachel unless and until she returned to Serenity Ridge and the Amish for good, she shouldn’t bother to return at all.
Rachel thought in time they’d come to accept her decision even if they disagreed with it. Yet her monthly letters went unanswered, except by her youngest brother, Ivan, who wrote twice a year—at Christmas and Easter. But Easter had passed a week ago without a note from him, either. She was beginning to accept that although she’d never stop praying for or loving her family, the same might not be true for them.
“I’ve had enough rejection for the time being.”
“Then you should go somewhere fun.” Meg snapped her fingers. “A Christian singles’ cruise! Wouldn’t Toby and the people at work faint if you came back from the Bahamas with a new boyfriend? That would shatter their assumptions about you.”
As well as Rachel had adapted to the Englisch lifestyle, she couldn’t picture herself going on a singles’ cruise, even if she were desperate to meet a man, which she most definitely was not. If she’d made it through the heartache of leaving her family behind at eighteen, she’d make it through life without a boyfriend at twenty-eight. Her faith, career and friendships were all she needed to be fulfilled. In fact, the breakup couldn’t have come at a better time, since she’d soon have to devote herself to furthering her education. “No, I’m saving every cent I have for tuition. If I get in to the MSN program, I’ll be too busy studying to have time for a relationship.”
“First of all, it’s not if you get in to the MSN program, it’s when. Secondly, you’ll be too busy for a relationship? Wow. You sound more Englisch than I do!”
Rachel chuckled again, but the truth was, she didn’t feel particularly Englisch. Nor did she feel Amish. She felt...alone. No—she felt independent. And that suited her just fine.
Arden Esh had stacked so much mail on the little desk in the workshop the pile slid like an avalanche onto the floor. He stooped to pick up the envelopes. Sooner or later he was going to have to open them. He hoped they were bills and not customer orders; he and his business partner, Ivan Blank, needed all the sales they could get. They’d sunk every spare cent into advertising their shed-building business, and after three years of barely profiting, this spring they hoped to see an increase in revenue.
Arden couldn’t imagine how, exactly, that was going to happen with him manning the shop alone. Not that money was the most important matter at the moment—Ivan’s recovery was. He’d been sick for almost two weeks, and two days ago he wound up in the hospital.
Last evening when Arden visited him there, Ivan had barely opened his eyes. Arden had chatted about the shed he’d just finished. He didn’t even know if Ivan was awake until Ivan pulled aside his oxygen mask and rasped, “Would you write to Rachel? Ask her to kumme as soon as she can. She’ll help you in the shop. Don’t...” He was having difficulty breathing. “Don’t tell anyone, though.”
Initially, Arden had been taken aback by the request. Ivan often spoke fondly of his sister, who’d left the Amish a decade ago to become a nurse. They’d kept in touch, but Ivan had confided that his sister-in-law Hadassah made it clear Rachel wasn’t welcome to visit. Arden felt a pang of guilt, aware that Ivan wouldn’t have subjected his family to the tension of a reunion if he believed Arden could manage the shop—specifically, the paperwork—by himself. Long ago the two men had come to an unspoken understanding about the division of their responsibilities. For lack of a better expression, in many ways Ivan was the brains of the operation and Arden was the brawn.
Considering Ivan’s family hadn’t supported his business venture from the beginning, Arden understood why Ivan was reluctant to ask one of his brothers for help with administrative tasks during his illness. Ivan said Rachel was a very intelligent, capable woman who’d often expressed her desire to see him again. But her presence would undoubtedly create controversy. Regardless, Ivan was the one who had founded the business, so even though Arden had eventually become an equal partner in it, he deferred to Ivan’s judgment in the matter.
Now, as Arden searched the desk for Ivan’s address book, a disturbing possibility occurred to him: Ivan wanted Rachel to visit because he believed he was dying and wanted to say goodbye. The very thought stopped Arden cold. He immediately dropped to his knees. Dear Gott, if it’s Your will, please heal Ivan. Give those caring for him wisdom and fill him with a sense of Your loving presence. Amen. Then, knowing no request was too small or too big for the Lord, he added, And please help me find that address book.
He stood, brushed the knees of his trousers and lifted a stack of catalogs. Beneath them was a blank piece of paper with the salutation Dear Rachel scrawled at the top, and beneath the stationery was an addressed, stamped envelope. Ivan must have begun writing his annual Easter letter to his sister—he was nothing if not conscientious—but he had been too sick to finish it. Silently thanking the Lord for the unexpected way He’d answered his prayer, Arden cleared a space at the desk, sat down and picked up a pen.
As he stared at the blank page, his hairline beaded with perspiration and his tongue tasted sour. This was why Ivan handled virtually all of the paperwork while Arden compensated by doing whatever heavy lifting Ivan’s slighter frame couldn’t handle. It wasn’t that Arden couldn’t read or write—it was that it took him so painfully long because the letters often seemed to jump around and didn’t make any sense. It had been that way for as long as he could remember, and although his schoolteacher had thought he’d outgrow it if he practiced more or tried harder, he never did. The only thing more daunting to Arden than a page filled with text was a completely blank sheet of paper. He threw down the pen and strode to the other side of the workshop to pick up a hammer. Now this was a tool he could use as deftly as if it were an extension of his own arm.
How could Ivan ask me to write to his sister, of all people? When Ivan spoke of Rachel, there was nothing except admiration and affection in his voice. But there were others in Serenity Ridge whose opinions of Rachel weren’t as high; they indicated she thought herself a tad superior to those in her family and community. If their assessment of her character was correct, Arden expected she’d have a good laugh about the “ignorant” Amish man’s spelling.
No, Arden couldn’t write to her. As he drove a nail into a floor joist, he thought, If I can find that address book, I’ll look up her phone number and call her instead. But by the end of the day, he’d turned the desk upside down and inside out and come up empty-handed. He was going to have to face the page. Maybe his mother or his younger sister, Grace, would proofread the letter. No, I can’t show it to them. Ivan said not to tell anyone else he wants Rachel to kumme.
He took a deep breath and stared at the stationery. What should he say? “Your brother is in the hospital with pneumonia”? He doubted he could get the spelling right for the word hospital, much less pneumonia. One thing he’d learned over the years—when it came to writing, reading and speaking, shorter was better. With his hand shaking as much as if he’d just downed four cups of coffee, Arden positioned his pen under the words Dear Rachel and inscribed:
Your brother is very ill. Please come soon if you can.
Signed,
Arden Esh
Arden chewed the end of the pen. Had he spelled signed correctly? Words that were spelled differently than they sounded gave him the most trouble. But if he crossed it out, it would look too messy and he’d have to start over with a new sheet. The prospect made him shudder. He folded the paper in quarters, slid it into the envelope and carried it to the mailbox at the end of the long driveway.
Even though he was doing exactly what Ivan had asked him to do, Arden couldn’t escape the feeling he was letting him down. If only Arden didn’t have such difficulty with words, he could take care of the paperwork himself. Of course, if Arden didn’t have such trouble with words, he never would have moved to Maine, because he would have been able to get through an interview and secure a factory job in Indiana. I’d probably be married with two or three kinner by now, too.
Arden was glad Serenity Ridge’s Amish community was small with very few single women; it gave him a plausible excuse for not courting anyone. The couple of times he’d walked out with anyone in Indiana had been utterly discouraging. His verbal difficulties had made him more nervous than usual, rendering him speechless. The women must have construed his silence as disinterest or else thought he was stupid, because none of them walked out with him for long.
It’s just as well, he consoled himself, remembering. Courting is intended to lead to marriage, and marriage leads to bobblin. Arden’s father had suffered the same problem as Arden, but to a lesser degree. Assuming the issue was hereditary, Arden couldn’t knowingly subject his offspring to a lifetime of the kind of shame, frustration and struggles he’d faced. He’d decided years ago not to torment himself—or disappoint a woman—by engaging in courtship when he knew it wouldn’t progress to marriage.
Just because I can’t be a husband or a daed doesn’t mean I’m not responsible for making the most of the opportunities Gott has given me, including supporting my schweschder and mamm, he thought. So I’ve got to do whatever it takes to keep the business afloat during Ivan’s illness. Even if that meant working side by side with Ivan’s condescending Englisch sister.
“You got in so late last night I didn’t get to ask how Ivan is,” his sister said to Arden later over a supper of bottboi, an Amish version of pot pie made with chicken and noodles.
“He was resting well.” Arden didn’t want to worry Grace. She had her hands full taking care of their mother, Oneita, who was experiencing a severe flare of lupus symptoms.
As supportive as their community in Maine was, Arden frequently regretted he’d had to relocate his mother and sister so far from their beloved district in Indiana. Since he couldn’t get a factory job and there was a surplus of carpenters in the area, Arden had moved to Maine some three years ago when he heard about the shed-building opportunity with Ivan. Shortly afterward, Arden’s father had died, so Arden had brought his mother and sister out to live in Serenity Ridge, as well.
“I wish I could visit him,” Grace said. “So he knows how much I—we—care about him.”
Arden appreciated his sister’s sentiment, but she couldn’t leave their mother alone in her current condition. Even if Grace wanted to go to the hospital after Arden returned home for the evening, cab fare was an expense they could scarcely afford. “I told him you were praying.”
“Jah, but I want to do something tangible, the way other people do for Mamm when she’s ill. Maybe I could make meals to put in his freezer for when he comes home.”
“He’d probably wilkom that,” Arden agreed. He forced himself to dismiss his niggling fear about Ivan’s health declining even further.
“I can clean the haus for him, too. Make sure he has fresh sheets and do the dusting and window washing. I’ll do it when Jaala comes over to visit Mamm tomorrow.”
“That’s a wunderbaar idea.” Arden figured even if Ivan didn’t get out of the hospital for a while, at least Ivan’s sister would appreciate arriving to a clean house.
On Thursday evening Rachel described to Meg how mortified she’d been when she walked in on Brianna and Toby kissing in the break room that day. She’d quickly grabbed her lunch from the fridge and eaten it in her car, which would have been enjoyable because the weather was so warm, but her allergies caused her eyes and nose to run. When she returned to the office, her coworkers assumed she’d been crying over Toby and Brianna’s break-room canoodling.
“Unbelievable,” Meg empathized. “But it might brighten your day to know you have mail on the hall table.”
Was it news from the university? Even though she knew it was immature, Rachel couldn’t wait until Toby found out she’d been accepted into the program. Countless times since he’d broken up with her she’d imagined his stunned expression when she oh-so-casually told her coworkers she was resigning to get her MSN... Unless she didn’t get into the program. At the possibility, Rachel’s stomach twisted into a knot. Then she remembered she would receive the decision via email, not regular post. When she retrieved the letter, she noticed the address was written in her brother’s familiar cursive.
“It’s from Ivan!” she announced, chagrined that she’d doubted he wanted to keep in touch. But when she scanned the letter, her knees wobbled and she dropped into a chair. “Oh neh.”
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
Rachel extended the paper to her roommate. “My bruder is sick.”
It only took a second for Meg to read the message. “This is upsetting, but I’m sure everything’s going to be okay,” she said, giving Rachel a hug. “C’mon, I’ll help you pack so you’ll be ready to go first thing in the morning.”
Following her, Rachel fretted, “Ivan’s so ill he couldn’t even write to me himself. I can’t believe my other brothers didn’t contact me sooner. What if he’s dying? What if I’m too late?”
Meg twirled around and placed her hands firmly on Rachel’s shoulders. “You won’t know how sick Ivan is until you get there. It’s not helpful to imagine the worst-case scenario.”
“That’s true,” Rachel hesitantly concurred.
Meg pulled a suitcase from the closet and opened it across the bed. “Do you think you’ll be calm enough to drive? If you need me to take you, I will.”
Meg was the closest person Rachel had to a sister and she loved her for her generosity and support, but Rachel knew she’d used the last of her PTO to go on vacation. “Thanks, but I’ll be fine. And you’re right—I can’t let my imagination get the best of me.”
But as she lay awake in bed an hour later, Rachel’s apprehension about Ivan’s health returned. Very ill, the note had said, but what did that mean? Ivan always described his business partner in glowing terms, but Arden must have been quite dense not to have provided more details. Or maybe he was deliberately terse; it was possible he only wrote the note because Ivan pressed him to write it since no one else would. Either way, Rachel hoped their paths wouldn’t cross too often while she was in Serenity Ridge. After Toby broke up with her, Rachel had made up her mind to stay as far away from thoughtless, insensitive men like him as she could.
Leaving early the next morning, Rachel prayed during most of the three-and-a-half-hour drive from Boston to Maine, but the closer she got to Serenity Ridge, the queasier she became. Not only was she anxious about Ivan’s health, but she was uneasy about the reception she’d get from her family. As she crested the long hill leading to her old home—the house Ivan, the youngest boy in their family, had inherited according to their Amish tradition—her hands were clammy on the steering wheel. Would she find her brothers in the yard? Maybe her sisters-in-law would be in the kitchen, making soup for Ivan.
On first glance she didn’t spot any buggies when she pulled up in the driveway, nor did she see anyone as she crossed the lawn and climbed the porch stairs. It seemed strange to knock on the door of the place she’d once called home, but Rachel rapped twice and waited, stealing a look around the front yard. When no one came, she knocked again, louder. No response. Like most of the Amish in Serenity Ridge, the Blanks didn’t lock their doors, so Rachel pushed it open.
“Ivan? Hello?” She timidly crossed the threshold. “Anyone home?”
She passed through the kitchen and stuck her head into the living room—no one was there, either. Then she went upstairs, announcing her presence. If her brother was sleeping, she didn’t want to startle him by bursting into his room. “Ivan, it’s me, Rachel.”
His room was empty, the bed made. This was where Ivan slept as a boy—now that he has his choice of rooms, he probably moved into the bigger one at the end of the hall. But he wasn’t there, either. As she darted to check the other two bedrooms, Rachel noticed the unmistakable scent of vinegar—someone had recently washed the windows. In fact, the entire house had been scrubbed clean. It was immaculate, as if no one had ever lived there. That could only mean one thing—the women from church had cleaned Ivan’s house, as was their practice when someone died. It was a way of caring for the family of the bereaved, who were expected to host the community after a funeral. Rachel collapsed onto the bed in her old room and sobbed, her worst fear realized: she was too late.
Arden stopped hammering. He thought he’d heard a vehicle pull up the lane, so he waited for the customer to enter the workshop. When no one did, he resumed pounding until a couple of moments later, when he realized maybe it was Ivan’s sister who had arrived. He set his hammer down and blew a curly lock of hair from his forehead. Meeting new people, especially Englischers, wasn’t something he relished or excelled at doing.
Outside he noticed the little green sedan had Massachusetts plates, so Arden ambled slowly toward the house and pushed open the door. Taking a deep breath, he mentally prepared to say hello, but Rachel wasn’t in the kitchen. Figuring she was in the bathroom, he waited for her to come out, but after a few minutes he concluded she wasn’t in there, either.
“Hello?” he called as he entered the living room. “Hello?”
There were footsteps on the staircase, and then a young, slender Englisch woman dressed in a long green skirt and black top appeared in the doorway of the living room. Her auburn hair hung to her shoulders in soft layers. She must have either had a cold or else she’d been crying, because she dabbed her red-rimmed nostrils with a tissue.
“Hello,” she murmured, glancing up at him. She had the same broad forehead and narrow jaw as her brother, although her almond-shaped eyes were hazel instead of brown, and now that he looked into them, Arden was convinced he had indeed caught her weeping. As if an introduction were necessary, she said, “I’m Ivan’s sister, Rachel Blank.”
“I’m Arden Esh, the one who wrote to you. I’m your brother’s business partner.”
Rachel nodded solemnly. “Ivan told me about you. He was very...” There was a catch in her voice. “He was very appreciative of your skills.”
“Denki,” Arden muttered. He wasn’t used to receiving compliments from a woman, nor was he accustomed to chatting with someone who was clearly fighting back tears. Generally speaking, the Amish were less demonstrative about their emotions than the Englisch.
Rachel broke eye contact and took a seat on the sofa. She smoothed her skirt as she spoke. “Denki for writing to me. When did Ivan...how did he...”
As her chin dropped to her chest, her hair made a curtain obscuring her face, but from the way her shoulders were quivering, Arden could tell she was crying. Whenever he’d interacted with medical professionals, they came across as calm and collected, no matter how severe an injury or bleak a diagnosis, so Rachel’s behavior caught him off guard.
“I’d, uh, I’d say it was about ten or twelve days ago when he came down with a bad case of bronchitis. But it turned out it wasn’t really bronchitis—or maybe it started out that way, but then it developed into—” Arden paused, afraid he’d stumble over the word pneumonia. It was easier to describe the symptoms instead. “Each day it became more and more difficult for him to breathe. But then yesterday his condition, uh, took a turn...”
Rachel lifted her head to look at him, and Arden knew his cheeks were flushed. “It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me anything else right now,” she said tearfully.
He thought learning that her brother was improving would have made her happier. “Do you want tea?” he suggested, hoping she didn’t so he could go. “Or to lie down upstairs?”
“No, thanks. I’d rather not. Too many memories. I’ll book myself into a hotel.”
Arden expressed his surprise. “Oh. I think Ivan hoped you’d stay here. You know, to care for the animals and keep an eye on the haus. But I can continue doing that if you’d rather not.”
She slowly shook her head. “No. If that’s what Ivan wanted, I’ll honor his request. It’s only for a few days. I imagine the livestock will go to Colin or Albert after the funeral, right?”
“The funeral? Whose funeral?”
Rachel’s mouth gnarled into a frown. “Whose do you think? Ivan’s funeral,” she sobbed.
The room tilted as it usually did when he panicked, and Arden couldn’t find the words fast enough to explain. He couldn’t find them at all, not with Rachel bawling into her hands like that, her shoulders convulsing, and Arden knowing he was somehow the cause of her distress.
“Your—your—your bruder isn’t ha-having a funeral,” he stuttered. Then he clarified bluntly, “Ivan’s not dead.”
Rachel’s shoulders lifted and dropped a few more times before she turned her head toward him, still bent forward, her arms crossed against her chest, her face red. “What did you say?”
“Ivan’s not dead. He’s in the hospital. He has pneu-pneu-pneum...” The word wouldn’t come out, but it didn’t matter anyway. Rachel shot from the room and within seconds Arden heard her retching in the bathroom. He pushed his hand through his hair and circled the braided rug, wondering whether he should check on her.
Before he could decide, she flew back into the room, her eyes blazing. “What is wrong with you?”
Humiliation scalded Arden’s face and reduced him to being a schoolchild at the chalkboard again, struggling to solve what should have been a simple word problem. What is wrong with me was a question he’d asked himself countless times since then, and he still didn’t know the answer.
“How could you send me a note like that? How could you stand there and tell me about my bruder fighting to breathe and his condition taking a turn, especially since I came here to find the house empty and immaculate? You had to have known I thought Ivan died!” She gasped and then pressed a hand against her lips and the other against her heart, as if to quiet them both.
She was right; the misunderstanding was his fault. He should have expressed himself better. He had no defense; all he could do was apologize. “I’m sorry. It was a miscom-commun-communication.”
“That’s putting it mildly,” Rachel uttered, but the fight had gone out of her voice, and her shoulders drooped, too. She wiped beneath her eyes and stated more than asked, “Ivan’s still alive?”
“Jah. He’s in the hospital, but he’s getting better.”
Rachel sniffed, nodding. Then she said, “I think I need a glass of water.”
“I’ll get it.” Arden was relieved to have an excuse to leave the room. When he returned, Rachel was perched in a straight-backed chair on the opposite side of the coffee table. He handed her the glass and reluctantly lowered himself onto the sofa. After apologizing again, he told her he’d be too busy filling orders to manage the administrative side of their business, which was why Ivan had requested Rachel come to Serenity Ridge.
“I’m surprised he didn’t ask Colin or Albert or their wives. Or someone else from the district.”
“Our community is still relatively small, and spring is planting season. Your brother Albert and his wife went to Ontario because her mother is sick. As for Colin, his roofing business picks up at this time of year, too. Ivan didn’t ask Hadassah because she’s, uh...”
“Too bossy?”
Arden suppressed a chuckle. Ivan had mentioned Hadassah’s habit of giving him unsolicited advice, but that wasn’t the only reason he hesitated to involve her in their business. “She’s, uh, with child. Twins, apparently. She tires easily.”
“Oh, so Ivan didn’t have any choice other than to ask me.”
“Neh, neh. That’s not why. I’m sure it’s because of how schmaert and competent you are.” His response brought a sliver of a smile to Rachel’s lips.
“I’m glad to help for as long as I’m needed,” she replied.
“Ivan will be relieved to hear that,” Arden said. But not half as relieved as I’ll be when it’s time for you to go.
Sitting across from Rachel with his large hands resting on his knees as he squeezed his legs into the space between the sofa and the coffee table, Arden appeared as tentative as a young boy who’d just been scolded and was afraid to move for fear of further punishment. Pale blue eyes and a mass of curly, dirty-blond hair contributed to his youthful appearance, but given his manly physique and the faint crinkle of skin at the corners of his eyes, Rachel figured he was about thirty-one or thirty-two years old. His thick, level brows emphasized the rectangular shape of his forehead, but it was his mouth that captured her attention—she wondered what it would take to put a smile on those broad lips.
I suppose it’s my fault he looks so grim. It’s possible I overreacted. Before Rachel could think of a way to lighten the mood, an approaching vehicle interrupted the silence.
Rising, Arden said, “That might be a delivery. I should get back to the workshop.”
Rachel stood, too, subconsciously estimating Arden’s height at six-one or six-two as she walked him to the door. She watched as he hurried down the stairs and across the driveway. She knew men in the Englisch world who spent hours at the gym trying to develop a similar physique: small waist, broad shoulders and biceps so muscular she could see their outline beneath his cobalt-blue cotton shirt. That must have been what Ivan meant when he jokingly wrote one of Arden’s strengths was his strength, which was a good thing, because one of Ivan’s weaknesses was his weakness.
My poor bruder is probably weaker than ever right now. Keenly aware that pneumonia severe enough to be hospitalized sometimes could be a touch-and-go condition, Rachel thanked the Lord that Ivan was still alive and after ten years, she was finally about to see him again.
