Mary Davis - Courting Her Amish Heart

A doctor or an Amish wife?

She can choose to be only one...

In this first book of the Prodigal Daughters series, Kathleen Yoder comes home after fourteen years in the Englisher world. Practicing medicine means sacrifice—no Amish man will want a doctor for a wife. Widowed Noah Lambright offers a cottage as her new clinic, seeing how much Kathleen’s skills can help their community. But as their friendship deepens, could love and family become more than a forbidden dream?

MARY DAVIS is an award-winning author of more than a dozen novels. She is a member of American Christian Fiction Writers and is active in two critique groups. Mary lives in the Colorado Rocky Mountains with her husband of thirty years and three cats. She has three adult children and one grandchild. Her hobbies are quilting, porcelain doll making, sewing, crafts, crocheting and knitting. Please visit her website, marydavisbooks.com.

Also By Mary Davis

Love Inspired

Prodigal Daughters

Courting Her Amish Heart

Love Inspired Heartsong Presents

Her Honorable Enemy

Romancing the Schoolteacher

Winning Olivia’s Heart

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

Courting Her Amish Heart

Mary Davis

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-08240-2

COURTING HER AMISH HEART

© 2018 Mary Davis

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.

Version: 2020-03-02

Before you start reading, why not sign up?

Thank you for downloading this Mills & Boon book. If you want to hear about exclusive discounts, special offers and competitions, sign up to our email newsletter today!

SIGN ME UP!

Or simply visit

signup.millsandboon.co.uk

Mills & Boon emails are completely free to receive and you can unsubscribe at any time via the link in any email we send you.

For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.

—Galatians 1:10

“I already spoke to your father.”

Kathleen cocked her head to one side. “About what?”

As he’d told her, he should just say it. “Courting you. And he gave his permission.”

Her sweet expression turned to confusion. “You what? Why would you do that?”

“Don’t tell me you didn’t expect this?”

With her feet, she pushed the swing back away from Noah until she stood with the seat at her back. “You had no right to ask him.” She untangled herself from the ropes.

“But he already gave his permission. What will I tell him?”

“I don’t know. Don’t you understand? I can’t court you.”

“Why not? Is there someone else?” The thought of someone else courting her twisted his insides.

“I can’t court anyone because I’m never going to get married.”

“Never? Why not? You’re still young.”

“Because God called me to be a doctor. If I marry, I won’t be able to be a doctor. It’s a sacrifice I made a long time ago.”

Dear Reader,

Ahhhh, romance! I love romance. If there is a specific gene connected to romance, I must have it.

I hope you enjoyed the first of the Prodigal Daughters. Before starting to write an Amish romance, I had to get to know them a little. Like a lot of people, I had preconceived notions of who the Amish were. The more I researched, the more I fell in love with the Amish. I learned things I never imagined and discovered a vibrant people.

I had so much fun coming up with Amish women who didn’t follow the traditional path for an Amish woman. So I thought, What’s something Amish almost never do? Go to school beyond eighth grade. So what would propel an Amish girl to defy her culture, religion and way of life. I discovered it was because of those things she went against the rules. She loved her people so much, she was willing to sacrifice and endure ridicule to serve them.

I loved getting to know Kathleen and Noah. Though Kathleen might not have thought of herself as strong, she was strong indeed. She gave up her dream of her own family to go against hundreds of years of tradition and rules to provide her fellow Amish with medical care. Kathleen’s prodigality was for a noble cause and not a selfish act.

Kathleen is dear to my heart not only because I admire her strength, but because I named her after my wonderful oldest sister.

Until next time, happy reading!

Blessings,

Mary

Dedicated to my awesome sister Kathleen Shogren.

Aller Anfang ist schwer. “All beginnings are hard.”

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Bible Verse

Introduction

Dear Reader

Dedication

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

Extract

Chapter One

Kathleen Yoder stood in front of the motel room mirror, fussing with her hair. She had to look just right. She needed to be viewed as a proper Amish woman if her community was going to welcome her home. She pulled the pins from her hair and started over. What did the English say? Third time’s a charm.

Even though all through her medical training she had continued to dress Amish and put her hair up, she hadn’t had another Amish woman to measure her ability against. It wasn’t gut to compare oneself to others, but she could gauge if she had been getting her clothes and hair put right. Iron sharpens iron. Had the fourteen years in the English world whittled away at her Amish standards? Probably. However, she would quickly fall back into Amish life.