Winter of Wishes (30 page)

“Please, Rhoda, don’t go! We’ll make Mom understand—”

Tears erupted from her eyes and all Rhoda could do was lean toward the little girl
and lightly touch her face. “Pray hard, honey-girl,” she whispered. “We’ll get this
figured out and then—”

“Out!”
Megan ordered as she threw open the door.

Blinded by her tears, Rhoda scurried outside and past a big van in the driveway, as
fast as the slippery patches on the pavement allowed her to go. Her coat flapped around
her body and the wind made her wet face feel like it was freezing, but she continued
frantically down the block. At the intersection where Andy’s street met the county
highway there was a gas station with a convenience store. She rushed inside.

“Please, may I use a phone?” she gasped as the store’s warmth enveloped her. “Got
an emergency at the Leitner place.”

“Your cell dead?” the man behind the cash register asked gruffly.

“Don’t have one.
Please
—”

The attendant scowled but placed the store’s telephone up on the counter for her.
“Don’t be long,” he groused. “If my boss finds out you’re making personal calls, I’m
in big trouble.”

Rhoda closed her eyes, desperately trying to recall Andy’s cell number. After her
fingers punched the numbers, she waited breathlessly while it rang. Her pulse was
thundering in her ears and she felt so afraid, but what could she do? Megan was the
children’s mother . . . and that would never change, no matter how much Rhoda loved
Andy and he loved her. And if the tall, pretty blonde had shown up out of the blue
today, what would keep her from intruding on their lives anytime she chose to?

Or would Andy change his mind about becoming Amish now? Rhoda squeezed her eyes shut,
resigning herself to leaving a voice mail. Either he had his phone shut off during
his shift or . . .

“
Jah
, Andy, ya better head home, soon as ya get this message,” she rasped. “Megan showed
up at the house, and well—she ordered me to get out, and—just please hurry! She told
the kids to pack up so they could leave with her.”

Rhoda hung up, ignoring the doubtful expression on the attendant’s face. Before he
could take the phone back, she punched in Sheila’s number and prayed her driver wasn’t
out with another customer, not answering her phone while she was behind the wheel.

“Sheila?” she said. “Can ya come get me?” She told her English friend where to pick
her up, thanked the attendant, and then stood in the front window to wait.

She felt as though Jack the Belgian had kicked her in the chest: she couldn’t breathe.
She couldn’t begin to think, what with her mind racing even faster than her heartbeat.
Had she done the wrong thing, leaving the kids with that hateful, uninformed woman?
Andy would be devastated if his ex-wife disappeared with his kids before he could
get home . . .

If it came to his choosing between getting his children back and marrying her, Rhoda
had no doubt what Andy’s decision would be. And this storm was blowing up the day
after he had decided to start his clinic with Rebecca as his partner—after Bob Oliveri
had already committed to buying the building for them. So many hopes were going to
be ruined . . .

When a familiar van pulled into the station’s driveway, Rhoda stepped out into the
wind. The door opened and Rhoda swung herself up into the front seat beside Sheila,
still so shaken she didn’t know what to say.

“What on earth happened, Rhoda?” her driver asked in a concerned voice.

Rhoda heaved a sigh, hugging herself. “I don’t rightly know. Andy’s ex-wife got a
message that his kids were bein’ hornswoggled into joinin’ a cult, on account of how
their
dat
’s takin’ instructions to become Amish. She ordered me out,” she added with a hitch
in her voice. “If—if this is God’s way of tellin’ me I’m not to become part of their
family, well . . . I don’t know what I’m gonna do, Sheila. I just don’t know.”

“Mom, slow down.” The hospital cafeteria was a noisy place to talk on a cell phone,
so Andy covered his other ear to hear more clearly. “I can’t understand what you’re
. . . no, Mom, think again,” he insisted, now concerned about her mental state. “Megan
left us. She got married and went to live on the California coast with—”

“N-no! She’s here,” his mother insisted in a low voice. “She . . . sent Rhoda away
and—and she told the kids . . . to pack their bags. Andy, come home!”

A sudden rush of anger made him swear under his breath. Why, after all this time of
minimal communication with him and the kids, would Megan come back? And why was she
ordering Taylor and Brett to pack without letting him know?

“All right, Mom, I’m on my way,” he said as he hurried away from the table with his
lunch tray. “Be careful. I’ll get there as fast as I can.” He clicked End and then
noticed a voice mail waiting for him . . . heard the terror Rhoda was trying to mask
as she left a message similar to his mother’s. She didn’t deserve whatever insults
or accusations his ex had hurled at her, but Rhoda could take care of herself. He
had to hurry if he was going to keep his kids safe.

Dr. LaFarge was seated a few tables over and Andy was grateful that his supervisor
understood the gravity of this emergency. Down the hallways and out the door he raced.
He cranked the cold engine of his car and sped along the side roads, hoping to avoid
a speeding ticket. How should he handle this totally unexpected situation?

His kids must be so upset and confused after watching Megan send Rhoda away. Megan
had always looked down her nose at the Plain folks who lived nearby. She considered
them a nuisance when their buggies didn’t move off the pavement quickly enough, and
she smirked at their old-fashioned clothing.

As he rounded the corner of his street, he tromped on the gas and pulled into the
driveway to block the exit of the cargo van idling there. Megan had opened its doors
and was urging the kids to get in, while Brett pitched a fit and Taylor stood stiffly
off to the side, crying.

Andy shut off the ignition and leaped from his car. “And what is
this
about?” he demanded. Thank God both kids rushed toward him when he opened his arms.
They clung to him as he figured out what to say next to the sleek blonde whose sunglasses
masked her expression. “You signed over all responsibility for these children when—”

“That was before you began indoctrinating them into a cult,” Megan replied coldly.
“Oh, I met your little shoofly pie–maker, Rhoda. Sent her on her way so I could restore
some sanity to my children’s lives.”

“But, Mom, Rhoda loves us!” Taylor cried as she clutched Andy’s leg. “When you left
us, we didn’t even know you were going. Didn’t even get to say good-bye.”

“Rhoda cooks for us and—and she wants us to be her kids,” Brett wailed from Andy’s
other side. “You’re gonna leave us again—aren’t you? And now that you’ve sent Rhoda
away, who’s left here to love us?”

Andy closed his eyes against the emotional wallop his kids’ words packed . . . the
sting of their accusations. But they hadn’t said one thing that was incorrect or exaggerated.

Megan’s smirk told him this was going to get even uglier. He leaned down to the children
and spoke quietly. “Get in my car. Don’t unlock the doors for anyone but me, got it?”

They nodded eagerly and clambered into the front seat. As Andy clicked the locks shut,
he heard sirens in the distance, but right now he couldn’t be concerned with someone
else’s catastrophe. He had his own fire to put out, and there was no doubt in his
mind that someone was about to get burned.

“So what’s this about, really?” Andy repeated. When Megan grabbed for his car keys,
he stuffed them in the deep pockets of his scrubs as he stepped away from her. “And
why would you care what we’re doing? You took off with a guy who provided a much classier
lifestyle than a mere teacher could give you. No running the kids to activities. No
cooking dinner or dealing with their—”

“What’s with the turquoise pants?” she asked with a smirk. “Don’t tell me you’re a
veterinary assistant or a—”

“I’m a registered nurse, thank you very much,” he retorted. “Rhoda’s family is proud
that I’ve become a healer—”

“Oh,
please
. Ever the idealist, figuring out what to be when you grow up. Going to school again
instead of settling into a career that’ll make you any money,” she derided him. “I
can’t believe a perpetual student like you would deny your children access to advanced
education by making them become Amish. It really is time for me to reclaim my kids.”

“Brett and Taylor may choose not to be baptized into the Amish faith when they’re
of age, and I’ll totally understand that,” he replied stiffly. “What brought this
on, Megan? You didn’t just take a notion to fly in from the coast—”

Andy’s words were interrupted by the sirens that had been coming closer. He jumped
aside when an ambulance raced up the driveway toward the house, closely followed by
a fire truck and a police car that stopped at the curb. What on earth was going on
here?

Megan shook with her anger. “If you called these people here to—”

“Hey, what’s going on?” Andy asked as the paramedics hopped from the ambulance. They
were the same guys he’d worked with when Josh and Joey Knepp had wrecked their sleigh,
and that restored a bit of his sanity.

“Got a call from this address,” the driver said beneath the blare of the fire truck’s
siren. “Somebody named Betty. Older lady who said she was having a stroke.”

Mom! In the heat of his discussion with Megan, he’d forgotten about her. And here
came Officer McClatchey, too, along with the guys from the fire truck.

“We’d better get inside,” Andy said as he rushed toward the door.

“But there are kids in this car—”

“And they’re right where they need to be,” Andy said with a pointed look at the policeman.
“I’ll fill you in on that situation once we’re sure my mother’s all right. This way,
guys.”

Once again Andy’s heart throbbed too hard. What if the shock of Megan’s return had
traumatized his mother? “Mom? Mom, where are you?” he hollered as he entered the house.
“Are you OK?”

“Yup,” came a quiet answer.

He led the emergency crew into the kitchen and then stopped abruptly. His mother sat
calmly at the kitchen table, eating one of Rhoda’s sugar cookies. She smiled, a dab
of yellow frosting on her upper lip.

“Mom, when I heard the sirens, and then the ambulance and the fire truck came
here
—”

“We had an . . . emergency with Megan. So after I talked to you I . . . called 9-1-1,”
she replied with a lopsided grin. “Thanks for . . . coming so fast, fellows.”

A nervous laugh escaped him as he looked at the EMS crew and Officer McClatchey. Andy
wrapped his arms around his mother’s shoulders. “Mom, you’re brilliant,” he whispered.
“The kids are fine. Just stay in here, OK?”

She nodded. Took another bite of her cookie.

“So you’re all right, ma’am?” the ambulance driver reconfirmed. “Not having chest
pains or dizziness or—”

“Not anymore. It’s that . . . other woman you need to . . . be concerned with,” she
replied, gesturing toward the doorway.

Andy went along with his mother’s lead. “Actually, Officer McClatchey, we do have
a domestic dispute in progress,” he said. “Mom called me home from work because my
ex-wife has flown in unannounced. I was granted full custody when she divorced me,
yet she was loading my kids into her van when I arrived a few minutes ago.”

“And don’t think for a minute that I’ll let this discussion continue as though I’m
not here,” Megan snapped as she entered the kitchen.

The ambulance driver looked at his crew and the firemen. “If there’s no fire and no
one needing medical attention, we’ll be on our way then,” he said. Each of them took
a cookie from the plate his mom offered, thanking her. Then it was just the policeman
who stayed behind to set this situation straight.

“Shall we go into the living room? Your mom seems very comfortable here.” McClatchey
eyed Megan, motioning for her and Andy to precede him. He sat down on the couch so
he could take notes on the coffee table, motioning for them to take seats, as well.
“And for the record, ma’am, your name is—?”

“Megan Zylinsky,” she replied stiffly.

“And why exactly did you return to Missouri? If Andy and his mother believe you were
planning to take his children—”

“They’re my children, too, you know!” Megan’s cheeks turned very pink. “And when I
got a couple of calls informing me that Andy had taken up with some Amish girl—”

When the policeman glanced his way, Andy quietly said, “Rhoda Lantz.”

“—and then received a letter informing me that he intends to join the Amish church
and expose the children to such—such a backward, uneducated cult,” Megan continued
in a rising voice, “well, can you blame me for wanting to protect them?”

“Who called you?” Andy demanded. “Surely you didn’t believe just anybody—”

“May I see the letter you’ve spoken of?” McClatchey asked coolly. “Documentation will
help us sort out this situation. And it’s only fair for Andy to be on the same page.”

Megan’s eyebrows rose. “I see no reason to disclose my source. I’m Brett and Taylor’s
mother, and that supersedes any—”

“Not if you don’t have custody, it doesn’t.” The officer shrugged. “If this matter
goes to court, the judge will insist on having this document, so you’ll save everyone
a lot of time and expense if you’ll show it to me, Ms. Zylinsky.”

Megan looked from the policeman to Andy, stiffening. “I see how it is. You’re siding
with Andy. You men will stick together to—”

“No, ma’am, I happen to know Rhoda Lantz and her family. They’re among the finest
citizens in the county,” McClatchey replied. He leaned his elbows on his thighs, fixing
his gaze on Megan. “Rhoda’s the reason two little boys got proper care after a nasty
sleigh accident a couple weeks ago, because she called Andy to the scene. I can’t
believe your children are in any danger whatsoever, and I would trust her implicitly
with my own children’s welfare. Now let’s see that letter, or we’ll need to go to
the station to finish this discussion.”

Megan’s face fell. She looked ready to protest further, but then dug through her purse
and thrust an envelope at the policeman.

“How many calls did you receive? And from whom?” he asked as he unfolded the single
page.

Megan cleared her throat. “I . . . he spoke with such authority. Knew enough about
my kids to be the real deal. And having lived here in New Haven, around Amish people—”

“You don’t know who called you? But you believed a total stranger instead of asking
me
?” Andy rasped. This was more than he could tolerate. But McClatchey had the situation
under control, so he settled down . . . wondered how much of this nonsense Rhoda had
endured before she’d been sent away. If Megan had told her anything that had set Rhoda
against him, he would—

“—I knew exactly what he was talking about. I don’t want Brett and Taylor sacrificing
themselves to that religion,” Megan finished in a huff.

McClatchey read the letter in his own good time, his expression closed. “And do you
recognize this signature?” he asked. “I find it odd that someone would type the letter
without also typing his or her name beneath such an illegible signature. Unless this
person knows you personally.”

Again Megan clammed up, looking miffed.

“May I show this to Mr. Leitner?”

“What
ever
,” Megan snapped. She crossed her arms, looking around the living room as though gathering
further evidence that her children shouldn’t be living here.

Except for a few boxes of Christmas decorations that hadn’t been taped shut, however,
the house looked immaculate. Andy silently thanked Rhoda for that as he looked at
the letter, hoping it didn’t rattle in his hands as he held it.

Andy thrust the letter away as though the words were burning holes in his eyes. Suspicions
were coming to a rapid boil in his mind, but expressing his exasperation would only
give Megan more fuel for her arguments. “This is absurd,” he muttered.

“Any notion of who wrote it?” Officer McClatchey asked.

“I have a pretty good idea, yes.” Andy exhaled with a hiss.

“Are the writer’s allegations true?”

How much should he reveal? His answers would infuriate Megan further . . . but what
did he have to hide? He and Rhoda had addressed the issue of that kiss in his car
and had moved forward, so he had no reason to hedge. “Rhoda and I plan to marry after
I have taken my instruction to become Amish,” he replied, taking strength from the
image in his mind of Rhoda’s lovely smile. “It’s common knowledge around Willow Ridge
that I’ll be opening a small clinic, offering my medical assistance to Amish and English
alike. My children
adore
Rhoda,” he added emphatically. “We—we’re delighted that she and her family have welcomed
us into their lives.”