Restless Hearts Read Free

o’clock this morning.
    She had to admit she’d hesitated about buying the place in Crossroads after her experience there the other night. But the house was irresistible, and, in the clear light of day, she had to admit the police officer was just doing his duty.
    Besides, the lure of the place overrode everything else. Home, it kept saying to her. Home.
    Crossroads, she’d learned, was a fairly large area, encompassing several small villages on the outskirts of Suffolk, as well as farmland. Surely a township police officer like Ted Rittenhouse would be too busy with his other duties to bother about her. Or to annoy her.
    She picked up her jacket and slipped it on. October had abruptly turned chilly, at least for the day. Still, anyone who’d grown up in San Francisco was used to changeable weather. That wouldn’t bother her.
    She paused at the dresser, letting her fingers slip across the painted surface of the rectangular wooden box she’d brought with her across the country. It was all she had of the mother she’d never known. How much had that influenced her decision to come here? She wasn’t sure, and she didn’t like not being sure about something so important. When her advisor in the nurse-midwife program had mentioned that his part of Pennsylvania had a growing need for midwives, something had lit up inside her. Some instinct had said that here she’d find what she was looking for, even if she didn’t quite know what it was.
    â€œThat’s a replica of a dower chest,” Nolie spoke from the doorway. “It’s lovely. Did you buy it here?”
    Fiona smiled at her hostess. With her fresh-scrubbed face, blond hair pulled back in a ponytail, jeans and flannel shirt, Nolie Flanagan looked more like a teenager than a busy wife and mother, as well as an accomplished trainer of service animals for the disabled.
    â€œI brought it with me. It was my mother’s.” She hoped the shadow she felt when she said the words didn’t show in her voice. “I hate to show my ignorance, but what is a dower chest?”
    Nolie came closer, tracing the stiff, painted tulips with their green leaves, fat little hearts and yellow stars in circles that decorated the box. “A traditional dower chest is much larger than this—like a cedar chest—for Pennsylvania Dutch girls to store the linens they make in preparation for their wedding. This smaller one was probably for a child to keep her treasures in.”
    It hadn’t occurred to her that Nolie would be a source of information, but her Aunt Siobhan had said that Nolie’s family had lived on this farm for generations. “When you say Pennsylvania Dutch, do you mean Amish?”
    Nolie leaned against the dresser, apparently willing to be distracted from whatever chores called her. “The Amish are Pennsylvania Dutch, but not all Pennsylvania Dutch are Amish.” She grinned. “Confusing, I know. And to add to the confusion, we aren’t really Dutch at all. We’re of German descent. William Penn welcomed the early German immigrants, including the Amish. They’ve held on to their identity better than most because of their religious beliefs.”
    â€œIt can’t be easy, trying to resist the pressures of the modern world.”
    â€œNo. There are always those who leave the community, like your mother.”
    Fiona blinked. “I didn’t realize you knew about her.”
    Distress showed in Nolie’s blue eyes. “I’m sorry—I didn’t pry, honestly. Siobhan mentioned it, when she told us you were coming.”
    Her Aunt Siobhan and Uncle Joe knew about her mother, probably more than she did, of course. During the week she’d spent in their house she’d wondered if they’d talk about her mother, or about the reason her father hadn’t spoken to his brother in over twenty-five years. But they hadn’t, and Fiona was too accustomed to not