Rebecca's Christmas Gift. Emma Miller

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СКАЧАТЬ his wife before the smoke had claimed her life. Luck would have been that Dinah and he and Amelia could have built a new home and continued their lives as before. A small voice whispered from the far corner of his consciousness that he asked too much of God, that the blessing had been that his daughter had come out of that inferno alive.

      He did not blame God. The fire that had consumed their farmhouse had been an accident. A gust of wind... A spark from a lamp. The cause was never truly determined, but as Caleb saw it, the fault, if there was fault, had been his. He had not protected his family, and his precious wife had been lost to him and his beloved child.

      “Watch over her,” he ordered the dog. With Fritzy on duty, Caleb was free to check that his horse was safe, that the toolshed doors were locked and that all was secure.

      Flat, green Delaware was a long way from the dry highlands of Idaho and the Old Order Amish community that he’d left behind. After the fire and the death of his wife, Caleb had tried to do as his bishop had urged. He’d tried to pick up his life and carry on for the sake of his child. He’d even gone so far as to consider, after a year, courting a plump widow with a kind face who belonged to his church. But the bitter memories of his past had haunted him and he’d decided to try to pick up the pieces of his life somewhere new. In Idaho, there had been no family ties to hold him. Here, where his cousin Eli lived, things might be better. It had to be good for Amelia to grow up with relatives, and Eli’s wife had six sisters. A woman’s hand was what Amelia needed, he told himself.

      Caleb left the kitchen and walked out into the yard. All was quiet. His house was far enough off the road that he wasn’t bothered by the sounds of passing traffic. There were several sheds and a decent stable for the horse. The old barn, a survivor from earlier times than the house, stood farther back. Caleb was pleased with the work that had been done on it today. Alone, it would have taken him months. There were good people here, people that he instinctively knew he could trust. He prayed to God that this move to Delaware had been the right one for both him and Amelia.

      He walked on a little farther, drawn by the sweet scent of new wood that lay stacked, ready and waiting for the following day. He stood for a moment in the semidarkness and gazed up at the exposed beams. He thought about the laughter and the camaraderie during their work today. Everyone had been kind to him and Amelia, trying to make them feel welcome. And he had felt welcome...but he hadn’t felt as if he was part of the community. He still felt like an outsider, looking in through a glass-paned window, hearing their laughter but not feeling it. And he so wanted to feel laughter again.

      Caleb was about to turn back to the house when he heard a thud and then a clatter from the barn. Something had fallen or been knocked over inside the building. Had some animal wandered in? Or did he have a curious intruder? “Who’s there?” he called as he approached the open front wall.

      “Just me,” came a woman’s voice from high above.

      Caleb stepped inside and looked up to see a shadowy form swaying on a loft floor beam. A sense of panic went through him and he raised both hands. “Stop! Don’t move!”

      “I’m fine. I just—” Her foot slipped and she swayed precariously, arms outstretched, before recovering her balance.

      Caleb gasped. “Stay where you are,” he ordered. “I’m coming up.”

      “I’ll be fine.” She lowered herself down onto the beam until she was kneeling. “It’s just hard to see. Do you have a flashlight?”

      “What in the name of common sense are you doing in my loft, woman?” He ran for the ladder and climbed it at double speed. “Ne! Don’t move.”

      “I don’t need your help,” she said, taking a sassy tone with him. Rising to her feet again, she began traversing the beam toward him.

      “I told you to stay put!” Caleb had never been afraid of heights, but he was all too aware of the distance to the concrete floor and the possibility of serious injury or death if one or both of them fell. He stood cautiously, finding his balance, then stepped slowly toward her.

      “Go back,” she insisted. “I can do this.”

      “Ya, maybe you can,” he answered gruffly. “Or maybe you can’t, and I’ll have to scrape you up off my barn floor with a shovel.” He quickly closed the distance between them, reached out and swept her up in his arms.

       Chapter Two

      Caleb carried Rebecca to the end of the crossbeam and set her securely on the ladder. “You got your balance?”

      Her hands tightened on the rung and she found solid footing under her before answering. “I’m fine. I really could have managed the beam.” She slipped into the Pennsylvania Deitsch dialect that was their first language. “I wasn’t going to fall.” It wasn’t as if she hadn’t climbed the loft ladder in her father’s barn a thousand times without ever slipping. Nimbly, she made her way down the ladder to the barn floor and stepped aside to allow him to descend.

      “It didn’t look like you were managing. You nearly fell off before I got to you.”

      A sharp reply rose in Rebecca’s mind, but she pressed her lips together and swallowed it. Caleb Wittner’s coming to her rescue, or what he’d obviously believed was coming to her rescue, was almost... It was... Her lips softened into a smile. It was as romantic as a hero coming to the rescue of a maiden in a story. He’d thought she was in danger and he’d put himself in harm’s way to save her. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t really in danger. “Danke,” she murmured. “I’m sorry if I caused you trouble.”

      “You should be sorry.”

      His words were stern without being harsh. Caleb was obviously upset with her, but his was the voice of a take-charge and reasonable man. Somehow, even though he was scolding her, Rebecca found something pleasant and reassuring in his tone. He was almost a stranger, yet, oddly, she felt as though she could trust him.

      Meow.

      “Vas ist das?”

      “Ach.” In the excitement of having Caleb rescue her, she’d almost forgotten her whole reason for being in the barn in the first place. “It’s a katzenbaby,” she exclaimed as she drew the little creature out of the bodice of her dress. “A kitten,” she said, switching back to English and crooning softly to it. “Shh, shh, you’re safe now.” And to Caleb she said, “It’s tiny. Probably hasn’t had its eyes open long.”

      “A cat? You climbed up to the top of my barn in the dark for a katzen?”

      “A baby.” She kissed the top of the kitten’s head. It was as soft as duckling down. “I think the poor little thing has lost its mother. It was crying so loudly, I just couldn’t abandon it.” She raised the kitten to her cheek and heard the crying change from a pitiful mewing to a purr. The kitten nuzzled against her and Rebecca felt the scratchy surface of a small tongue against her skin. “It must be hungry.”

      “Everyone has left for the night,” he said, ignoring the kitten. “What are you still doing here?”

      Rebecca sighed. “I forgot my schuhe. I’d taken off my sneakers while...” She sensed his impatience and finished her explanation in a rush of words. “I left my shoes under the tree when I went to serve the late meal. And when I came to fetch them, I heard the kitten in distress.” She СКАЧАТЬ