Harlequin Love Inspired March 2021--Box Set 1 of 2 Page 12

  “Sarah is growing up to be a wonderful kind young woman,” she said, hoping he’d continue talking.

  “She is that,” he agreed, but the worry in his face hurt her. “I wish I knew what to do. Becky…since her mammi died, she doesn’t want to let me out of her sight. But I’m needed here, not out at the farm. Seems like whatever I do, I’m letting someone down.”

  She’d hoped he would confide in her, but now that he had, she couldn’t seem to find anything to say that would help.

  “I’m sorry,” she murmured, struggling for words. “I think…well, maybe it’s a gut thing. Becky is a smart girl. She’ll understand that this is an emergency. And it sounds as if she is getting attached to Sarah and your mamm.”

  With what seemed a deliberate effort, he wiped away the frown. “You forgot someone.”

  She blinked, not understanding him. “What…”

  “Becky’s getting attached to Aunt Bess, too,” he said. “And you.”

  It didn’t mean anything, she told herself. “I’m attached to her, too,” she said lightly.

  Treat it lightly. Don’t let him guess your feelings.

  It was ironic, she thought. She’d been convinced, after Thomas, that love was too dangerous to be risked. Now that she knew what it was to love, she knew true love was worth the risk. But Simon—Simon didn’t think so, and he probably never would.

  * * *

  Simon was still nursing his coffee when Aunt Bess came down from upstairs. A quick look at her face told him two things—she was tired, and she was determined not to give in to it.

  Lyddy hurried over to her, putting her arm around his aunt’s waist. “What are you doing up so early? I hoped that you would sleep in today after a day like yesterday.”

  “Nonsense. I’m not old and done yet.”

  “Of course not. You’re just like Frank and his friends, ain’t so? Why don’t you join Simon? I’ll bring you a cup of tea, and you can keep him company.”

  Aunt Bess looked as if she’d insist on getting right to work, so he rose and pulled out a chair for her.

  “Komm, sit. We were so busy yesterday we didn’t have time to talk. Looked like you were feeding the multitudes.”

  That made her smile, and she joined him, slumping down heavily as if exhausted already this morning. Over her head, Lyddy gave him a look of thanks and hurried off to return a few minutes later with the promised tea.

  “Yah, we surely did feed a lot of people, what with those who came here and the food we sent over to the shelter.” Aunt Bess coughed and took a deep drink of the hot tea. That seemed to remind her of something. “Lyddy, do we have much left from the freezer? It won’t keep if it’s not cooked.”

  “Don’t worry.” Lyddy paused to pat her shoulder. “We got everything into the refrigerator, and I thought I’d start cooking the meat today. And I hear the church where the shelter is has gas ranges, too, so we’ll use it all up.”

  “Gut, gut.” She paused again, looking at him. “Will you try to get home today?” She studied his face. “You’re worried about Becky.” She made it a statement, not a question.

  “I think, later. I’ll see what’s to be done in town, first. With the water going up until sometime tonight, they’ll need help.” Even as he said the words, he saw Josiah come in, probably looking for him.

  Lyddy saw him, too, and rushed to offer him coffee and shoofly pie.

  Simon had to laugh at his expression. “Josiah’s already stuffed like a turkey, ain’t so?”

  Josiah grinned. “Just about. I’ll come back later for the coffee. Right now we’re needed. They’re going to evacuate another street, just to be on the safe side.”

  “Right.” He rose, handing the coffee mug to Lyddy. “We’ll see you both later.”

  To his surprise, Lyddy walked to the door with them. “I don’t like the way your aunt is coughing,” she said, her voice low. “Did you notice?”

  He nodded. “Was she all right during the night?”

  “I heard her coughing a few times, but she didn’t get up, at least.” He could see the concern in her eyes.

  “You’ll try to get her to rest?” He frowned, wishing he knew how sick she’d been during the winter, and whether he ought to be getting a message to his parents.

  “I’ll do my best, but you know your aunt.”

  “Only too well.” He grimaced, knowing Lyddy was right. Aunt Bess wouldn’t allow herself to rest when there was work to be done. “I’ll stop back later to see how she is.” At least Lyddy was there with her. He was beginning to see just how responsible a woman she’d become.

  He and Josiah headed down to the area where they’re been working yesterday, pausing for a moment to watch the foaming, whirling water pound its way through the very place where they’d stood to carry things out.

  “Bad,” he muttered, knowing it was an understatement.

  “Look at the size of that tree coming down,” Josiah exclaimed. “And that looks like a china closet.” He shook his head. “If we’d been here yesterday, we might have seen Lyddy’s buggy go by.”

  “Don’t even joke about that. I wish—”

  “Now don’t say you wish you could have saved it.” Josiah gave him a light punch on the arm. “You saved Lyddy and the mare. Nobody could ask for better than that.”

  But even as he nodded, he was considering what he might have done. He didn’t have much time for it, as they were quickly rounded up to carry furniture out of a house. The elderly couple who lived there stood watching.

  “No point to that,” the man protested, catching Simon by the sleeve. “We’ve been here fifty years, and the water never has reached us. Besides, if the house is going to go, I’d just as soon go with it.”

  Simon longed to pull his arm away and get on with the task, but he couldn’t. “If it’s not needed, so much the better,” he said. He glanced at the man’s wife, who was tugging at her husband’s arm, trying to get him to leave. “I promise, we’ll bring it all back. And I think your wife doesn’t want you to go down the creek with the house.”

  “That’s right,” she declared, pulling him away. “Come along, you old fool. Let the boys do their work.”

  Simon exchanged a grin with Josiah over being called boys, knowing the scolding tone was a cover for love. He watched them being guided into a car by a volunteer. He understood. Nobody would want to risk losing a lifetime of memories.

  They’d finished that house and moved on to the next when Simon heard someone calling his name. Stepping out into the street, he saw Frank waving at him and hurried to him.

  “What is it? My aunt?” His heart thudded in his chest.

  “Lyddy called the ambulance. She’s on her way to the hospital. I’ve got my car up on Main Street. I’ll drive you.”

  Simon started up the hill at a run and then had to stop, realizing it would do no good to reach the car before Frank. Impatience surged through him. Couldn’t Lyddy have found someone else to send?

  They were soon on the way to the hospital, though, but Frank couldn’t answer any of the questions Simon bombarded him with. He’d gone to take some things to the shelter, and when he came back, Elizabeth was in the ambulance and Lydia climbing in to accompany her. She’d just had time to shout to him to get Simon, so he had.

  So Simon, hands clasped into fists, had to wait, his stomach churning. Aunt Bess was as close to him as his grandmother, maybe even closer, because his grandmother had moved to another community. But Aunt Bess was always there.

  Frank swung to a stop by the emergency entrance. “They won’t let me stay here, so just go straight in. They should be able to tell you where she is. And tell Lyddy not to worry about the shop. We’ll take care of it.”

  Giving a quick nod, Simon jumped out and ran toward the door, then had to stop and identify himself to the nurse who sat behind a glass panel and con
trolled the door. Once he did, she pressed a buzzer and the door opened.

  “The woman who came in with the patient is in the waiting room. She’ll be able to tell you what the doctor is saying.”

  Nodding, he hurried in the direction she indicated. Sure enough, Lyddy sat in a crowded waiting room, hands folded as if she were praying. He strode across to her.

  “What has happened? Tell me,” he demanded.

  “Shh.” She frowned at his tone. “Sit down and I’ll tell you.”

  The man next to her, covered in mud and holding his arm against his chest, obligingly slid over a chair so Simon could sit next to Lyddy.

  “She got worse after you left,” she said quietly. “She didn’t want to lie down, but she finally got so dizzy she couldn’t argue. She tried to sit down, and then she passed out for a few minutes. So I called 911, and…”

  “What has the doctor said?”

  “He hasn’t come out yet.” Her look was full of sympathy. “I’m sure it won’t be much longer.”

  How could he just sit and wait, when Aunt Bess might be dying, for all he knew? “Why didn’t you call sooner?” He growled the question, knowing it was unfair, but couldn’t help himself.

  “Please, Simon.” She put her hand on his arm. “Just wait. It’s all we can do. All anyone can do.” She gestured at the other waiters in the room—people in dirty and sometimes wet clothing, some of them wearing anxious expressions while others seemed numb.

  He subsided, telling himself he wasn’t the only one. The man next to him gave him a nod. “They’re moving pretty fast,” he said, as if hoping to console him.

  Simon nodded, a little ashamed. “How did you get hurt?”

  He grimaced. “Tried to pull a cabinet out the door. Didn’t know my dad was pushing from behind and got caught between the cabinet and the doorframe.”

  “Sorry,” he muttered, feeling small. He’d acted as if he were the only one with problems. And he’d blamed Lyddy, when he knew quite well she’d have done everything she could.

  A man walked out of the emergency area. Wearing a suit and tie, carrying a briefcase, he looked as if he were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  Everyone in the room stared at him as he walked past them and out the opposite door. Simon’s neighbor gave a noise halfway between a snort and a laugh.

  “Clean, ain’t he?”

  As if the words had released a spring, people smiled and started talking to each other. Maybe it didn’t solve their problems, but it eased the tension in the room. Including Simon’s. He smiled at his neighbor and turned back to Lyddy.

  “Sorry,” he said, touching her hand lightly. “I didn’t mean—”

  “I know.” She smiled, but her blue eyes were still watchful. “I know.”

  * * *

  Relief washed over Lydia when she spotted the doctor heading for them. Simon clearly wasn’t very good at waiting in hospitals. Then she realized that it probably made him flash back to Rebecca’s death, and she chided herself for being unfeeling.

  “The doctor,” she murmured to Simon, rising to meet the man.

  “Ms. Stoltzfus?” he asked, fumbling a little over the name. She suspected he wasn’t from around here, or he’d have known how to pronounce it.

  She nodded. “This is the patient’s great-nephew, Simon Fisher.”

  “Ah, good. We always prefer to have a relative. Is there anyone else…?”

  “My parents,” Simon responded. “But they can’t get into town yet. You can talk to me, and I’ll tell them.”

  “Good, good.” He led them a little away from the waiting area. “Your aunt is running a fever and coughing, and I understand from her records that she had pneumonia a few months ago. We’ll be doing X-rays to have a look at her lungs, but I can’t hear anything, so that’s good.”

  Lydia nodded, familiar with the rasping sound in Elizabeth’s chest during her last illness. “Will she have to stay here?”

  “We’ll want to keep her overnight, at least, until all the test results come back. If all is well, then she can leave.” He looked harassed. “She’ll need care, and I’d like to see her out of the flood zone. If the family can’t do it, there are nursing homes—”

  “No,” Simon said quickly, before Lydia could protest. “The family will take care of her as soon as she’s able to be moved. I’m sure of that.”

  Lydia was equally sure, but like everything else in the middle of a flood, it proved to be difficult to arrange. By the time Simon got through to his parents and they contacted the rest of the family, it was several hours later.

  Eventually, it came down to Simon’s parents, who took up the responsibility of Elizabeth’s care. Enos and Mary Fisher, along with Simon’s sister, Sarah, and Becky were all gathered around the table in the kitchen of Elizabeth’s apartment. Mary Fisher had arrived with a basket full of baked goods to supplement their supplies in the shop. With a freshly baked cherry pie in the middle of the table, Lydia couldn’t help but smile. Like virtually every Amish woman, Mary met emergencies with food.

  “We’ve talked to the others,” Enos was saying, “and they’re all agreed that we take Elizabeth to our house, at least for the time being. Now that we’ve opened the old track through the woods, we can get back and forth.”

  Lydia had suspected that was what would happen. Elizabeth had always been especially close to Enos’s family, and the farmhouse was her old home.

  “Jim Foster says he’ll bring her to the house once the hospital lets her go,” Mary said. “She’ll be more comfortable in his truck than in a buggy. About the shop—”

  “Ach, you don’t need to worry about the shop,” Lydia said quickly. “I’ll keep things going here until Elizabeth is well. And until things get back to normal, we’ll just have to carry on the way we are.”

  “You’ll need help.” Mary looked concerned. “You can’t handle it all alone.”

  “I’ll help,” Sarah said promptly. “I can do it.” She glanced from Lydia to her mother. “Honest I can.”

  “I’m thinking Lyddy could handle anything she wanted to,” Simon said, and he seemed to surprise himself as much as he did her. “But it would perhaps be best for Becky and me to move into this apartment for the time being. And Sarah, too, if you’ll let her.”

  “I don’t think…” Lydia spoke before she could think. All her instincts told her that having Simon here full time was far too dangerous for her peace of mind.

  “Lyddy, please.” Sarah reached across the table to catch her hand. “You know how much I’d love to help.”

  “And having Becky here will make her much more comfortable,” Simon added. “She’d just be in the way when you’re nursing Aunt Bess, Mamm, and I don’t like her to deal with any more upheaval. Not that you wouldn’t take wonderful gut care of her,” he added hastily.

  Simon was concentrating on swaying his parents to his way of thinking, Lydia told herself. He wasn’t thinking of her at all. Of course he wasn’t. He had no idea she’d been so foolish as to fall in love with him.

  Mary nodded reluctantly. “I suppose so. But it’s really up to Lyddy, isn’t it?”

  “For sure,” Simon said, turning his gaze on her. “Please, Lyddy?” he said, repeating his sister’s words with a slight smile.

  Her heart seemed to tremble at that smile, and she knew she didn’t have a choice. No matter what it did to her, she had to agree.

  “Yah,” she said. “That will be fine.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  When Lydia got home that night, driving Dolly along the railroad bed with the pony cart Daad had brought in for her, she decided she could handle the challenging days as long as she could get home and sleep in her own bed at night. In fact, when she reached her bedroom to clean up for supper, the bed was so appealing it was all she could do not to slip under her quilt and escape into sleep.
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br />   Selfish, she chided herself. There were still people in town who wouldn’t be able to sleep in their own beds for a number of nights to come. So she splashed some cold water on her face and hurried downstairs to help get supper on.

  Once the whole family was gathered around the table, Daad bowed his head in the sign to begin their silent prayer. It struck her that Daad held the silence longer, and she knew why. They were all praying for whatever would come when Lost Creek crested sometime in the night.

  Food started to circulate around the table. Josiah, heaping a mound of mashed potatoes on his plate, glanced at Daad. “Did you hear that the highway department is talking about running a new road alongside the old one, but farther from the creek?”

  “I heard.” Daad grimaced. “Whatever they do, it’ll take time. We’ll have to get used to using the railroad bed until then. Lyddy, how was it when you drove home?”

  Her mind was several miles away, but she managed to collect herself. “Not bad. It was boggy in one spot, but Dolly got through. She gave me a look about being hitched to the pony cart, though.”

  Josiah laughed. “She’s spoiled, that’s what. If she’d gotten the buggy out of the creek—”

  “Don’t,” Mammi said sharply. “That is nothing to joke about. Just thank the gut Lord for preserving our Lyddy. And Dolly.”

  “Yah, I do.” Josiah looked abashed, and Lyddy gave him an understanding look. They’d both seen so much sorrow in the past days that it was better to joke than to weep.

  “I know the spot you mean,” Daad said, firmly changing the subject. “If I can get a load of gravel, we’ll be able to make that better. We can take it up in the old spring wagon.”

  Josiah nodded. “I’ll help. We could do it in no time. It’d be gut to have it done before they try to bring Elizabeth out to the Fishers’ place.”

  “So Simon and Becky will be moving into Elizabeth’s apartment, I hear.” Grossmammi’s gaze grew thoughtful, and Lydia hoped that wasn’t matchmaking she had in her eyes. “I’m not sure how much help he’ll be in the coffee shop, but it’s better than having the place empty. Or you being there alone, Lyddy.”