strolled back toward her. “Could I have a moment of your time? I’ll walk out with you.”
She nodded, saying goodbye to the quilters, and preceded him toward the exit. When the door closed, its bell tinkling, he spoke before she could get a word out.
“I’d say if you want to have an Amish clientele for that practice of yours, you’ll have to stop looking at them like they’re animals in the zoo.”
“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,
