Free Huckleberry Hearts by Jennifer Beckstrand Page A

tried again. Three times. Had a burglar come and tied them all up? Or had there been a fire, and they were all out on the front lawn watching their house go up in flames?
    Anna was supposed to be at home, and someone responsible with a phone was supposed to be with her at all times. Where were they? Had they gone to the emergency room and left Cassie’s phone sitting on the kitchen counter?
    Zach stood and paced the room a couple of times before trying the number again. No answer. If Anna were a normal patient, he would have given up by now, figuring she’d call back if she really needed to talk to him. But Anna was not a normal patient. Zach didn’t know enough about the Amish to decide if he should be concerned or not.
    It only took him about ten seconds to make the decision. He’d feel much better if he knew for sure that Anna was all right. Besides, Anna had her heart set on a visit from the doctor. Mom would say it was good karma.
    He shoved his hand into his back pocket and pulled out the ripped corner of the magazine that Anna had written her address on.
    Huckleberry Hill, Park Road, Bonduel, Wisconsin.
    What kind of an address was that? Maybe Huckleberry Hill was an Amish old-folks home. He looked it up on his phone. No listing for an old-folks home in Bonduel under Huckleberry Hill. He hoped this wasn’t a wild goose chase.
    Or a wild huckleberry chase.
    He couldn’t be sure which.

Chapter Six
    â€œDawdi, have you seen my phone?”
    Cassie glanced around the great room. She didn’t really want to spend a lot of time looking for her missing phone. It would turn up. It couldn’t have gone far. She remembered having it when she came into the house. For all she knew, Mammi could be sitting on it.
    Cassie swept the floor as Dawdi washed up the dinner dishes. Her cousin Moses and his wife Lia had been kind enough to bring dinner for them tonight after they came home from the hospital. They had brought fried chicken, green beans with bacon, Jell-O salad, and the flakiest, most buttery rolls Cassie had ever tasted. Lia was a very good cook. She’d made enough for an entire houseful of Amish folks. They’d be eating leftovers for days.
    Mammi relaxed in Dawdi’s recliner with her feet propped up, dozing on and off while Dawdi and Cassie finished cleaning up. A tube dangled from Mammi’s tightly wrapped foot and connected to a small appliance about the size of a toaster. Dr. Reynolds had called it a wound vacuum. It sucked moisture from Mammi’s surgical site to help it heal for a skin graft in three weeks.
    Dr. Reynolds had been so kind at the hospital today that Cassie had almost started to like him. He hadn’t pressed the issue of wanting to go out with her, and he hadn’t tried to make her feel guilty for saying no. However he felt about her, he had treated her with uncommon courtesy and had been more than attentive to Mammi. He hadn’t talked down to her grandparents like some doctors did with old people. Mammi and Dawdi were both still sharp as tacks. Sometimes Cassie felt like they were the only family she had left. She had a soft spot for anybody who treated her grandparents kindly.
    Even Dr. Zach Reynolds.
    Cassie’s lips curled involuntarily when she remembered the look on his face when he requested her phone number that last time. He had been sincerely reluctant to ask. She found his unexpected hesitation kind of cute.
    And what was it about his nose that made his face so attractive? Being a little crooked meant it had probably been broken sometime in the past, but judging by that devil-may-care grin he usually wore, Cassie could just imagine that he’d been doing something wildly reckless and incredibly fun when he had broken it.
    â€œIs everything all right, yet?” Dawdi asked.
    â€œOh, jah, everything is fine. Don’t I look fine?”
    â€œWell,” he said, with a spark of amusement in his eyes, “you’re