Restless Hearts. Marta Perry

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      “What do you have in mind to do with the house?” Ted asked.

      Fiona pointed up the stairs. “My living quarters will be up there. The old parlor will make a perfect waiting room, and I’ll partition the other rooms to be an exam room, an office, and maybe space for birthing classes, if there’s a demand for them,” she said.

      “I wouldn’t be surprised if there was,” Ted said. “Plenty of Amish women prefer home births. You should be able to build a good practice, if you stay.”

      “If?” Her eyebrows shot up. “I’m not going through all this trouble with the intent of leaving. I’m not going anywhere.” She stroked the intricate carving of the newel post. “This is home.”

      Her voice trembled with emotion on the last word, touching him. It made him want to know what lay behind that emotion. But he didn’t figure he had the right. Not yet.

      MARTA PERRY

      has written everything, including Sunday school curriculum, travel articles and magazine stories, in twenty years of writing, but she feels she’s found her home in the stories she writes for Love Inspired.

      Marta lives in rural Pennsylvania, but she and her husband spend part of each year at their second home in South Carolina. When she’s not writing, she’s probably visiting her children and her beautiful grandchildren, traveling or relaxing with a good book.

      Marta loves hearing from readers and she’ll write back with a signed bookplate or bookmark. Write to her c/o Steeple Hill Books, 233 Broadway, Suite 1001, New York, NY 10279, e-mail her at [email protected], or visit her on the Web at www.martaperry.com.

      Restless Hearts

      Marta Perry

      And we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to His purpose.

      —Romans 8:28

      This story is dedicated to my granddaughter,

       Estella Terese Johnson, with much love from

       Grammy. And, as always, to Brian.

      Contents

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Chapter Twelve

      Chapter Thirteen

      Chapter Fourteen

      Chapter Fifteen

      Chapter Sixteen

      Questions for Discussion

      Chapter One

      She was lost in the wilds of Pennsylvania. Fiona Flanagan peered through her windshield, trying to decipher which of the narrow roads the tilted signpost pointed to. Maybe this wasn’t really the wilds, but the only living creature she’d encountered in the last fifteen minutes was the brown-and-white cow that stared mournfully at her from its pasture next to the road.

      Clearly the cow wasn’t going to help. She frowned down at the map drawn by one of her numerous Flanagan cousins, and decided that squiggly line probably meant she should turn right.

      She could always phone her cousin Gabe, but she shrank from having to admit she couldn’t follow a few simple directions. Both he and his wife had volunteered to drive her or to get one of his siblings to drive her, but she’d insisted she could do this herself.

      The truth was that she’d spent the past two weeks feeling overwhelmed by the open friendliness offered by these relatives she’d never met before. She’d spent so many years feeling like an outsider in her father’s house that she didn’t know how to take this quick acceptance.

      The pastures on either side of the road gave way to fields of cornstalks, yellow and brown in October. Maybe that was a sign that she was approaching civilization. Or not. She could find her way around her native San Francisco blindfolded, but the Pennsylvania countryside was another story.

      The road rounded a bend and there, quite suddenly, was a cluster of houses and buildings that had to be the elusive hamlet she’d been seeking. Crossroads, the village was called, and it literally was a crossroads, a collection of dwellings grown up around the point at which two of the narrow blacktop roads crossed.

      Relieved, she slowed the car, searching for something that might be a For Sale sign. The real estate agent with whom she’d begun her search had deserted her when he couldn’t interest her in any of the sterile, bland, modern buildings he’d shown her on the outskirts of the busy small city of Suffolk. But she didn’t want suburban, she wanted the country. She had a vision of her practice as a nurse-midwife in a small community where she’d find a place to call home.

      Through the gathering dusk she could see the glow of house lights in the next block. But most of the village’s few businesses were already closed. She drove by a one-pump service station, open, and a minuscule post office, closed. The Penn Dutch Diner had a few lights on, but only five cars graced its parking lot.

      The Crossroads General Store, also closed, sat comfortably on her right, boasting a display of harness and tack in one window and an arrangement of what had to be genuine Amish quilts in the other. And there, next to it, was the sign she’d searched for: For Sale.

      She drew up in front of the house. It had probably once been a charming Victorian, but now it sagged sadly, as if ashamed of such signs of neglect as cracked windows and peeling paint. But it had a wide, welcoming front porch, with windows on either side of the door, and a second floor that could become a cozy apartment above her practice.

      For the first time in days of searching, excitement bubbled along her nerves. This might be it. If she squinted, she could picture the porch bright with autumn flowers in window boxes, a calico cat curled in the seat of a wicker rocker, and a neat brass plate beside the front door: Fiona Flanagan, Nurse-Midwife.

      Home. The word echoed in her mind, setting up a sweet resonance. Home.

      She slid out of the car, taking the penlight from her bag. Tomorrow she could get the key from the reluctant real estate agent, but she’d at least get a glimpse inside in the meantime. She hurried up the three steps to the porch, avoiding a nasty gap in the boards, and approached the window on the left.

      The feeble gleam of the penlight combined with the dirt on the window to thwart her ability to see inside. She rubbed furiously at the glass with a tissue. At a minimum she needed a waiting room, office and exam room, and if—

      “What do you think you’re doing?” A gruff voice barked out the question, and the beam of a powerful light hit her like a blow, freezing her in place. “Well? Turn around and let me see you.”

      Heart thudding, she turned slowly, the penlight falling from suddenly nerveless fingers. “I was just 1-looking.”

      Great. She sounded guilty even to herself.

      The tall, broad silhouette loomed to enormous proportions with the torchlight in her eyes. She caught a glimpse of some metallic official insignia on the car that was pulled up in front of hers.

      The man must have realized that the light was blinding her because he lowered the beam fractionally. “Come down off the porch.”

      She scrabbled for the wandering penlight, grabbed it