A sweet and heartwarming Amish romance where no disaster can conquer true love. Dairy farmer Abe Stoltzfus wants to propose to Lavinia Fisher, the beautiful young woman he’s been dating, but being a traditional Amish man, he worries about how he can provide for her. Farming can be uncertain enough with weather conditions, crops not doing well, all manner of uncertainties. And after a bad summer storm and a serious injury from a rooftop tumble, Abe wants to wait until both he and his farm are back on their feet.
Lavinia is relieved when Abe survives the fall, yet it seems like it’s only the start of events that threaten their future together. But Lavinia is not only a talented Amish crafter, she’s also the daughter of a farmer. She knows what the life of a farm wife is like and remains optimistic things will turn around. And when Abe continues to drag his feet, Lavinia makes him an interesting proposal. Will Abe be able to resist it—and her?
Release date:
April 26, 2022
Publisher:
Grand Central Publishing
Print pages:
368
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Abe took off his straw hat, wiped the sweat from his forehead with a bandanna, and settled the hat back on his head. Summer wasn’t the best time to be walking around on the roof of his house—especially midafternoon—but it had rained last night and a leak had sprung in it, so he had to take care of it now.
Nothing like being woken up by a cold stream of water falling on your face in the middle of the night, he thought irritably. This on top of a bad day when two of his cows had gotten sick and needed the vet. Then his buggy had broken down on the way into town and needed a wheel replaced.
It had been one thing after another lately, until he’d begun to feel like Job. He’d stayed up late last night going over his books, trying to figure out how he was going to pay his taxes and other expenses with milk prices continuing to fall. Well, he supposed it was better to be up here doing a roof repair in summer than in the middle of a Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, winter.
Movement caught his eye. He watched as Bessie, one of his older dairy cows, walked slowly through the pasture, her tail twitching at flies. His gaze swept over the land spreading out around the farmhouse and barn. The dairy farm had been in the familye for generations, and like other successful Amish farms here in Lancaster County, the farmhouse had been added on to as the familye grew larger.
The familye. It wasn’t going to get bigger if things kept going on as they were. Abe knew his eldres wondered when he’d get married and start a familye. But he was just twenty-four, and Amish couples were waiting to get married at a later age, just as he’d heard Englisch couples were these days.
But he had recently begun dating a maedel—Lavinia Fisher, with her lovely hazel eyes and the way she had of listening to him and making him feel everything was going to work out allrecht when he spoke to her about his worries.
Abe sighed. Later sections of the house had newer roofing, but sadly the original part of the house had a patchwork of shingles done through the years. He bent and studied the place where he figured the leaking was happening and nodded. He’d do more patching up and hope he could replace this section of roof soon.
With a sigh, he forced himself to look away from the depressing reality of a roof long past its prime—and the expense it would be to repair it—and focused on a positive. His herd of dairy cows was healthy, except for the two yesterday. That was what he needed to remember. When it came time to replace the roof, schur, he’d have to pay for the supplies, and they didn’t come cheap. But many of the men in his community would spend the day helping him, and the women would serve them all a meal, and it would be a time to come together.
But a frown creased his brow as he watched his herd in the pasture. What was he going to do if milk prices continued to fall?
Who’d have ever thought people would stop drinking cow milk as much as they had? Why would anyone call something milk when it was made of almonds or rice or whatever? Milk came from cows like those in the pasture, not from nuts or grain. Why, he’d been drinking milk since he was a boppli, and look how strong and healthy he was. Drinking milk made your bones strong, helped you grow. What could be better than cow’s milk?
He shook his head and bent to examine a shingle he figured was located right about where the leak had sprung inside the house. Schur enough, it had worked loose through all the years of bad Pennsylvania weather. He pried it off and tossed it down, then did the same with a few around it. Leaks never came from just one bad shingle.
Working steadily, he replaced a good-sized section of shingles, then told himself he needed to stop and take a break. He straightened and pulled out the bottle of water he had in his tool belt, but it slipped from his fingers and rolled down the roof to fall to the ground below.
He sighed and pulled off his hat to wipe away the sweat from his face again. Maybe he’d climb down the ladder and drench himself with water from the hose before he started the afternoon milking chores with Wayne, his part-time helper.
A rumble of thunder made him look up. He realized he’d been so absorbed in his worries and his work that he hadn’t seen a storm approaching. He turned and started down toward the ladder leaning against the roof, when his foot caught on a loose shingle he hadn’t seen when he’d climbed up.
His arms flailed as he felt himself slipping and sliding down the roof. He fell off the side and watched as the ground rushed up at him.
* * *
Lavinia saw Abe working on his roof as she drove her buggy toward his house. She frowned. She knew he’d patched it several times this past year. It had rained last night, so the fact that he was up there meant that the roof had leaked again.
Poor Abe. Things schur seemed hard for him right now. They’d talked so often lately about how worried he was about the farm he’d taken over when his dat developed health problems.
She pulled up in the driveway and sat there for a moment. The house looked a little sad. It needed a fresh coat of paint and some new shutters. But it wasn’t likely Abe would be painting it anytime soon. A gut roof would take precedence over things like a paint job.
A clap of thunder startled her as she got out of the buggy and walked up the lawn. She stopped and looked up to see the clouds swarming gray and menacing above.
A water bottle came sailing down from the roof and hit the ground with a splat.
And then she watched in horror as Abe fell off the roof and landed in a heap just feet away from her on the front lawn.
Lavinia screamed and rushed up to him. He lay so still, twisted on his side, one arm bent at a terrible angle. She knelt and touched shaking fingers to his throat. There, she felt it—a pulse. Weak, but it was there. She let out the breath she’d been holding. He was still alive.
Help. She had to get help. But she didn’t own a cell phone, and even if Abe had one in his tool belt, as she knew he always did, it was underneath him now, and she didn’t dare move him to get it.
Frantic, she jumped up and ran to the road to wave down a car. The Englisch driver slammed on the brakes, pulled over to the side of the road, and got out.
“Are you crazy?” he yelled. “I almost hit you!”
“Call nine-one-one!” she cried. “Abe fell off the roof!”
Once she saw him pull out his cell phone and make the call, she ran back to Abe and knelt again beside him. He hadn’t moved and appeared to be barely breathing. Tears sprang into her eyes. His face was turned to the side and bone white.
“They’re on their way,” the driver told her when he rushed up to her. “The dispatcher said don’t move him.”
She nodded as she used her hands to wipe tears from her cheeks. “I haven’t moved him. I knew not to.”
“We need to keep him warm, keep him from going into shock. I have a blanket in the car. I’ll be right back.”
“Thank you,” she said when he returned with it. She tucked the blanket around Abe and prayed he wouldn’t leave her. This man had become too important to her these past few months.
“He’s going to be all right,” the Englisch man said, giving her a reassuring smile.
She shook her head and fought back panic. “He fell so far. And he hasn’t moved, hasn’t made a sound.”
“I’ll pray for him,” he told her.
She dragged her gaze from Abe and stared at the man. This stranger who looked to be barely in his twenties had stopped to offer not only help but also hope.
It seemed like hours before she heard the wail of a siren.
“Help’s here,” she told Abe. “Hold on. Don’t leave me, Abe.”
Paramedics raced up, carrying equipment bags. Lavinia rose and backed away to give them room to work.
“I need to get some information from you,” one told her.
She nodded and mechanically gave him Abe’s full name, but when he asked if Abe had any medical issues she shook her head. “I don’t think he has any. He’s healthy. He’s never sick.”
Another paramedic brought a gurney, a long plastic board, and a neck brace. They worked carefully to put the brace around Abe’s neck and a splint around the arm that was bent at such a contorted angle, then inserted the board under him.
The process seemed to take forever, but the paramedic who’d taken the information from her explained quietly why they moved so slowly. A broken bone could tear tissue and cause internal bleeding. Moving his spine could cause permanent damage. They didn’t want to injure Abe more, he said. Numb, she nodded and tried to listen but could only hear her heart beating loudly in her ears.
The Englisch stranger approached her and held out a business card. “I wrote my cell phone number on the back. I want you to call me if there’s any way I can help.”
She stared at the card, then at him. He had such kind eyes. “You helped so much calling them. I don’t know what I’d have done if you hadn’t come along.”
“Someone else would have come and helped. You take care. Your man is going to be fine.”
“Thank you.”
Then she was distracted as the board Abe had been placed on was laid on the gurney and then wheeled to the ambulance. When she looked up, the stranger’s car was gone.
“Ma’am? You want to ride along with us.”
It was a statement, not a question. She started to say she wasn’t Abe’s fraa, was just a friend who’d begun to hope she was more…but his eldres were off visiting their other sohn in Ohio, and there was no one else.
Surely it wasn’t wrong to walk alongside the gurney and climb into the ambulance when they got Abe safely inside. She told herself that as she took a seat on the bench inside and watched as they hooked him up to all sorts of things she didn’t understand and called the hospital and said even more things she didn’t understand.
All she knew was she had to pray harder than she’d ever done in her life.
* * *
The staff at the emergency room had more questions about Abe that she tried her best to answer. One nurse showed her to the waiting room, and when she walked inside and saw the phone, she made a beeline for it and called her mudder at her Amish arts-and-crafts shop in town.
To her relief, her mudder picked up on the second ring. “Mamm, Abe fell off the roof! I’m at the hospital with him.”
“Slow down. Is he going to be allrecht?”
“I don’t know. They have him in the emergency room and they had me go to a waiting room. I’m calling you from there. Do you know how to get in touch with his eldres?”
“I don’t have my address book here at the shop, but I can call the bishop and see if he can help.”
“Address book?” Lavinia thought for a moment. “No, wait on that, Mamm. I’ll ask the nurses if Abe had his cell phone. He always puts it in his tool belt whenever he climbs up on the roof. If he still has it and it isn’t broken, maybe the number for his eldres would be on it.”
“Gut thinking.”
“It’s about time. I haven’t been able to think. He fell just as I got to his house.”
“I’m schur it was horrible to see him fall like that.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever forget seeing it.” She closed her eyes, shook her head. “Oh, Mamm, the buggy. Our buggy is still in front of Abe’s house. I just got in the ambulance when the paramedic said I could come with.”
“I’ll see if I can get your dat to take care of it. I can join you at the hospital as soon as I close the shop.”
“That would be wunderbaar. I don’t feel right leaving Abe here all by himself.”
“I’m schur the bishop will go there as soon as I call him.”
“Let me see if I can find a number for his eldres first and I’ll call you back.”
“Allrecht. You call me if you need me.”
“I will.”
“Try to stay calm, lieb.”
“I will. Danki, Mamm.”
“It’ll be allrecht, Lavinia.”
Her mudder’s words reassured her as the stranger’s had. She hung up and found herself pulling the card from her pocket. Jason Halliday. Web Developer. Innovative Computer Solutions. There was a business address and phone number on the front, and he’d written another phone number on the back.
She wouldn’t call him for anything, but she’d write him a thank-you note later. It was the least she could do in return for him not only stopping to help but also calming her. Offering to pray for Abe.
A man dressed in scrubs appeared in the door. “Mrs. Stoltzfus?”
Lavinia knew it was wrong to act like Abe’s fraa, but she had to know how Abe was. If the bishop came, she’d talk to him, tell him what she’d done, and let him handle things. But for now she had to know how Abe was doing. Be of any help to him that she could.
“Yes.” She stood, but he waved her to her seat and sat opposite her.
“I’m Dr. Patterson, the ER doctor. I thought I’d give you a quick run-down of your husband’s condition. I understand he fell off a two-story house?”
She nodded.
“He’s got some serious injuries. We’ve done a CAT scan, and he’s got some severe spinal bruising, but he didn’t break his back, so that’s good news. He’s got a concussion, and his left arm is broken. We’re doing tests to determine if he has any other injuries.”
Her heart sank. “That sounds horrible. How can he survive all that?”
“He’s young and healthy, and that’ll count for a lot. They’re taking him up to surgery to deal with the arm injury now. Don’t expect to hear anything for a couple hours.” He rose. “A nurse will come in as often as she can to give you an update, but this isn’t going to be quick. He may be in surgery for at least a couple of hours.”
She gulped and nodded. “Thank you for coming to tell me. Oh, do you know if Abe had his cell phone on him? He always puts it in his tool belt when he goes up on the roof.”
“He did have it. I’ll have a nurse bring it to you.”
“Thank you. Thank you so much for everything.”
“The next few hours are going to be critical, but I can assure you he’s in the best of hands.”
He left her, and she thought, Ya, he is. Abe’s in His hands.
A few minutes later, a nurse came in with Abe’s phone. “The doctor said you were asking about this. It was in your husband’s tool belt, just like you said. It’s cracked, but it might still work.”
Lavinia thanked her, said a quick prayer, and then began fiddling with the phone. She didn’t own a cell phone, so she didn’t have much experience with them, but she must have done something right because it turned on. She looked in the address book. Schur enough, she found a number for Abe’s eldres.
She took a deep breath. Time to call Waneta and Faron and tell them what happened.
Chapter Two
Lavinia, there you are.”
She jumped up and hugged her mudder. “Mamm! You came!”
“I remembered Emma was helping at Hannah’s today. I called Hannah to see if she could spare her, and she said of course. Emma rushed right over. Said I should be here with you.”
Lavinia nodded. Emma would feel that way. Her dat had had a heart attack last year and she’d sat with her mudder at the hospital.
“How is Abe?”
“He’s in surgery to fix the arm he broke in the fall. The doctor warned me it could take at least two, maybe three hours,” Lavinia told her, and she looked at the clock on the wall. “I don’t expect to hear anything for at least another hour. The doctor seems to think he has a gut chance of having a full recovery since he said Abe is young and healthy. But Mamm, I saw him fall off the roof. It was horrible. And he never woke up in the ambulance.”
“We’ll pray,” Rachel said, and she clasped Lavinia’s hand as they bowed their heads.
A nurse walked in. “Mrs. Stoltzfus? Abe is still doing well. I’ll be back when we have another update.”
She was gone before Lavinia could ask when that would be.
Then she realized that her mudder was staring at her thoughtfully.
“They assumed Abe was my husband when we came in,” she explained, feeling guilty. “I didn’t stop them because I knew they wouldn’t tell me anything if I wasn’t married or related to him. He doesn’t have anyone else here.”
She looked at the cell phone she clutched in her hands. “I called his eldres, and his dat said they’d start back as soon as they could. He and Waneta were visiting their older sohn in Ohio.”
Rachel nodded. “Gut. I’m not going to lecture you about not telling the truth under the circumstances. And I have eyes. I can tell when two young people are more than friends.”
Lavinia blushed.
“I sent your dat over to help Wayne with the afternoon milking and chores,” she said. “I’ll call the bishop, and he’ll arrange for other men in the church to take care of things while Abe is in the hospital.”
“He’ll be grateful to hear that when he wakes up.” She refused to believe he wouldn’t wake up. She had to believe he would be allrecht.
An hour passed. Her mudder told her a funny story about John, Emma’s little bu she’d brought to work at the quilt shop that day. John was a regular fixture there and popular with the customers. After Emma had rushed over to take charge of the shop, John had entertained her while Rachel waited for a ride to the hospital.
Lavinia knew her mudder was trying to cheer her up, and she tried to smile.
Her mudder fixed them a cup of tea. “Did you have lunch?”
Lavinia shook her head. “I was taking lunch over to eat with Abe since I had the afternoon off from the shop. The picnic basket is sitting in the buggy.”
“Amos has probably discovered it and eaten everything in it.”
She managed to smile. “Knowing Daed, I’m schur he has.”
“Mrs. Stoltzfus?” A doctor appeared in the doorway. He was dressed in scrubs like the other doctor but pulled off a mask as he entered the room.
“Yes?”
He sat in the chair opposite her, looking very tired. “I’m Dr. Hamilton, head of surgery.”
“Hello. This is my mother, Rachel Fisher.”
The doctor nodded at her. “Your husband came through the surgery and he’s in recovery now. We had three main areas of concern when he was admitted: a concussion, some spinal injury, and a broken arm. The orthopedic surgeon has set the arm. His back isn’t broken, but there’s some bruising and severe swelling we’re going to be watching for the next few days.” He took a breath and met Lavinia’s gaze. “I don’t want to alarm you, but we’re concerned about the head injury and—”
“Are you saying he’s in a coma?”
His tired face took on an expression of compassion. “No. Right now he’s in recovery and hasn’t woken up from the anesthesia. We won’t know the full effects of the head injury until the anesthesia has worn off. But in layman’s terms, a coma means a patient is unresponsive, not reacting to voices and activity around him. It’s often a way for the brain to sort of take a rest when it’s been severely injured or shocked.” He waited a moment, then continued. “I also need to talk to you about his spinal injury. He may experience some paralysis.”
“Paralysis?” Her blood ran cold. “Abe is paralyzed?”
“We don’t know if he is or if it’d be permanent,” he said quickly. “But I need to warn you that when Abe wakes, he’ll be concerned if he can’t move his legs.”
It was all too much to absorb. Her heart felt like it was going to beat out of her chest and she felt cold. So cold. She heard her mudder asking questions and tried to calm herself. How would Abe feel when he woke and couldn’t move? How would he take care of his dairy farm if he couldn’t walk?
“It’s important to stay positive and wait for his body to recover from the shock of the fall,” the doctor said. “And the surgery. He’ll be in our intensive care unit for a time, and we’ll monitor him carefully.”
“When can I see him?”
“A nurse will come for you soon. You can see him for a few minutes. Then I suggest you go home.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “This is going to be a long journey, and you’ll need your rest. I don’t expect your husband to wake until morning. Do you have any questions?”
She shook her head.
“I know it’s a lot to take in and it’s scary. But in most cases the paralysis is temporary. His body nee. . .
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