Rebecca Kertz - A Secret Amish Love

“I can be there,” Nell said. She turned toward her father. “I’ll have my morning chores done before I go.”

“Ja, I have no doubt of that,” Arlin said.

“Do you need a ride?”

Arlin narrowed his gaze. “She will take the family buggy.”

He nodded. “Danki,” he said.

“James!”

He glanced over and beamed as his mother approached. “I’m happy you could make it,” she said.

He regarded her with affection. “I’m happy I’m here.” His gaze flickered over Arlin and Nell who were standing next to him. “My staff is out, and Arlin has agreed to allow Nell to fill in for them next week.”

His mother’s eyes crinkled up at the corners. “You can rest easily with this one,” she told Arlin. “He’s a gut soohn.”

James felt a momentary unease. He didn’t feel like a good son. He’d left his family and his community to attend veterinary school and had little contact in the years that followed.

As if sensing his discomfort, his mother squeezed his arm. “He’s moved back into the area to be closer to us,” she said as she regarded him affectionately.

He did move to Lancaster to be close to his parents for he had missed his family greatly. The tension left him. Despite his past, he was determined that he would be a much better son and brother from this point forward.

Chapter Four

Monday morning, Nell steered her carriage down Old Philadelphia Pike toward Pierce Veterinary Clinic. She viewed the day with excitement. She’d learned a lot from just one day working with James. Imagine what she could learn in the next five!

When the clinic came into view, Nell felt a moment’s dread. Learning from James was a benefit of working with the clinic, but working with the man could cause her complications she didn’t need in her life. He was handsome and kind, but her attraction to him was wrong and forbidden.

Focus on what Dat said. Her father wanted her to marry. He’d find her a husband if she didn’t find one on her own.

Nell knew that she just had to remember that although James had an Amish family, he was an Englisher. She couldn’t allow herself to think of him as anything but her dog’s veterinarian—and this week, as her employer.

When she pulled her buggy up to the hitching post in the back, Nell was surprised to see James’s silver car parked near the back door. She’d arrived early. It was only seven thirty. She was sure she’d arrive before him and that she’d have to wait for him to show up.

She tied up Daisy, then went to ring the doorbell. Within seconds, the back door opened, revealing James Pierce dressed in a white shirt and jeans.

Nell stared and suddenly felt woozy. She swayed forward and put a hand out to catch herself on the door frame, but James reacted first by grabbing her arm to steady her. Seeing James looking so like Michael, her late beau, had stunned her.

“Nell?” he said with concern. “Are you all right?”

She inhaled deeply. “I’m fine.” Like James, Michael, an Englisher, had favored button-down shirts and blue jeans. She’d met him in a grocery store before she’d joined the church and still had the option of choosing an English or Amish life. She’d chosen a life with Michael but she’d never had the chance to tell him before he died.

James still held her arm, and she could feel the warmth of his touch on her skin below the short sleeve of her dress. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

Nell managed to smile. “I’m well. Danki.” She bit her lip. “Thank you,” she corrected.

James let go and gestured for her to come inside. “Is the day getting warm?”

“A little.” But the heat wasn’t to blame for her wooziness.

“Come on in. I’ll turn up the air conditioner so we’ll be comfortable.”

The impact of the man on her senses made her feel off-kilter. Nell blushed at her thoughts as she followed him into the procedure area. Fortunately, by the time James faced her, she had her feelings under control again.

“I’m glad you came,” he said. “We have a serious case today. Mrs. Rogan is on her way in with Boots. Her Lab’s eaten something—she’s not sure what, but she believes he has an intestinal blockage.”

“Ach, nay!” Nell breathed. “What will you do? Surgery?”

His handsome features were filled with concern. “I’ll do X-rays first to see if I can tell where the blockage is.”

“How can I help?”

He studied her intently. “Are you squeamish?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think so. Did I seem squeamish yesterday? If you’re worried that I’ll faint at the sight of Boots’s insides, don’t be. I was in the room when my mam gave birth to Charlie, my youngest sister.” She smiled slightly; the memory wasn’t the most pleasant. “No one else was home.”

He raised his eyebrows. “How old were you?” he asked.

“Nine.”

He jerked in surprise. “You were only nine when you helped your mother deliver?”

“Ja.” Nell’s features softened. “I was scared. I can’t say I wasn’t, but once Charlie was born, I felt as if God had given us this wonderful new life. Charlie doesn’t know that it wasn’t the midwife who helped bring her into the world.”

“Why not?”

“It’s not important. What is important is that she is a healthy, wonderful young woman of fifteen.”

She wondered if James was doing the math to realize that she was twenty-four. She saw him frown. Was he thinking that at the age of twenty-four most Amish women had husbands and at least one child, if not more?

“I’m glad you’re not squeamish,” he said. “Boots will be here any minute, and I’m going to need you by my side.”

Even though she knew she shouldn’t, Nell liked the sound of his words, of her and James working as a team.

* * *

After hearing Nell’s story about delivering her youngest sister, James quickly did the math and was relieved to know her age. Then he frowned. Why did he care how old Nell was? It shouldn’t matter as long as she did her job, which so far she’d been doing well. He wondered why Nell wasn’t married.

Or was she? He’d never thought to ask. To do so now would seem...intrusive. He feared there was a story there, and one he wasn’t about to ask her about.

James found he liked the thought of having her at his side while he did the surgery. And why wouldn’t he, when after only one day she already had proved her worth?

“I’ll be ready,” she said. “I’ll hand you the instruments you’ll need. Maybe you can show me what they are now before Boots arrives? I don’t want to hand you the wrong thing.”

“Certainly.” He moved toward the machine on the counter. There were several packaged sterile instruments in the cabinet above it. “This is an autoclave,” he explained, gesturing toward the machine. “I put certain metal instruments in here to sterilize them.”

She nodded. “What are those?” she asked of the two packets he’d taken from the cabinet shelf.

James proceeded to tell her what they were—a scalpel and clamps. Then he pulled out a tray of other types and sizes of the same instruments as well as others. “You don’t have to be concerned,” he said. “I’ll pull out everything I need, and then I’ll point to the instrument I want on the tray. You don’t have to know all the names, although I imagine you’ll learn a few as we use them.”

He had just finished explaining the tools when he heard a commotion in the front room. “Boots is here,” he announced. He was aware that Nell followed closely behind him as he went to greet the concerned woman and her chocolate Lab.

Nell helped him x-ray Boots while the dog’s nervous owner sat in the waiting room. It turned out that Boots had swallowed a sock. After James relayed his diagnosis to Mrs. Rogan, he and Nell went to work. He encouraged Mrs. Rogan to go home, but the woman refused to leave until she knew that her dog was out of surgery and in recovery.