Amish Christmas Twins. Patricia Davids

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      “Shush, shush. Ich bin freind.” He spoke in Deitsh, telling them he was a friend. He quickly climbed over the seatback. An Amish woman lay slumped on the floorboards, her face obscured by the large black traveling bonnet she wore. The reins had fallen out of her hands but not out of the buggy. He glanced out the front and saw the horse was nearly at the bottom of the hill. The highway was less than ten yards away.

      John grabbed the reins and pulled back as he stomped on the buggy brake. The foam-flecked black mare stumbled to a halt and hung her head, her sides heaving as a car zipped past. The poor horse didn’t even flinch.

      John quickly checked the woman on the floor. She was dressed in a heavy black winter coat, gloves and a black traveling bonnet. He could see she was breathing. He tried rousing her without success by shaking her shoulder. He had no idea what was wrong. The girls in back kept crying for their mama.

      After lifting the woman onto the seat, he spoke to the girls again in Deitsh. “What are your names? Do you live near here? What is your papa’s name?”

      They were too frightened or too shy to answer him. As he pulled his arm from behind the woman’s head, he noticed a smear of blood on his sleeve. He untied her bonnet and removed it. Her kapp came off with it and her blond curls sprang free. His breath caught in his throat as he recognized the woman he’d given a lift to several days before.

      What was Willa Lapp doing here?

      The side of her head was matted with dried blood, but the wound under it was only a shallow gash. Had she struck her head hard enough to be knocked unconscious, or had she hurt herself when she fell? He had no way of knowing.

      He asked the children what had happened, but they only stared at him fearfully without answering. He would have to wait until the woman could answer all his questions when she came to.

      Leaving her settled more comfortably on the seat, he stepped forward to check on the horse and noticed a piece of harness hanging loose. It had been repaired with a loop of wire at some time in the past. The wire had snapped, leaving a sharp point sticking through the leather. The flapping piece of harness had been jabbing the mare’s side with each step she took, forcing her to keep moving even as she was close to exhaustion.

      Now what? John pulled on the tip of his beard as he looked around. He couldn’t ask the trembling, exhausted horse to pull the buggy back up the steep hill. He didn’t want to leave two crying children and an unconscious woman at the side of the road until he could return with a fresh horse. The mare had to be walked until she cooled down or she would sicken in this cold. It left him with only one option. He had to take them all together.

      The girls had stopped crying and were huddled behind their mother. She hadn’t stirred. He found a horse blanket beneath the back seat, unhitched the mare and covered her with it. Leading her back to the buggy door, he opened it and held out his hand to the nearest child. “Kumm, we lawfa.”

      She pushed his hand aside. “Bad man. Go away.”

      The other girl patted her mother’s face. “Is Mama sick?”

      He switched to English. “Ja, your mother is sick. I will take you to my house. Come, we must walk there.”

      They looked at each other with uncertainty. He slipped his arms beneath their mother and lifted her out of the buggy. His suspicion that Willa was pregnant proved to be true. Starting up the hill with his burden, he glanced back. The children climbed down and hurried after him, giving a wide berth to the horse he was leading. They reached his side and stayed close, holding hands with each other as they struggled to keep up with his long strides. He slowed his pace.

      One of the girls caught hold of his coat. “Horsey man, wait.”

      He stopped walking. “I’m not horsey man. My name is John, John Miller.”

      “Johnjohn.” She grinned at him.

      “Just John, and what is your name?”

      “Lucy. Is Mama okay?”

      “You are all okay thanks to God’s mercy this day.” He had stopped this woman’s buggy from running into traffic and being hit by a car. Why hadn’t someone stopped Katie May’s buggy before it had been smashed to bits and her life snuffed out?

      Why hadn’t he stopped his wife from leaving that day? It was a question that haunted his days and nights.

      The woman in his arms moaned, pulling his mind from the past. He started walking again. She wasn’t heavy, but his arms were burning by the time he reached the front steps of his house. He dropped the horse’s reins and hoped she was too tired to wander off until he got his unexpected guests settled. This was costing him valuable time away from his forge and wasting fuel. He didn’t like interruptions when he was working.

      He carried her into the living room, laid her on the sofa and then knelt beside her. The little girls pressed close to him.

      “Mama’s sleeping,” whispered the one who’d told him her name was Lucy. The only way he could tell them apart was that Lucy still had her bonnet on. The other sister had taken hers off somewhere between the buggy and his front step.

      He gazed down at Willa’s peaceful face. Her dark blond eyelashes were fanned against fair cheeks framed by golden curls. She was even prettier than he remembered.

      He shook off his unusually fanciful thoughts and gave her injury closer inspection. The gash wasn’t deep, but the fact that she hadn’t roused had him worried. He unbuttoned her coat to check for other injures and found none. He pulled his hands away. He had no idea what to do with an unconscious pregnant woman.

      Lucy tugged on his coat sleeve. “I’m hungry.”

      The other child crossed her legs. “I need to go potty.”

      He sat back on his heels in consternation. Where was his mother when he needed her?

       Chapter Three

      Willa heard voices she didn’t recognize. Were they real, or was she hallucinating? The psychosis wouldn’t start before her baby was born, would it? Her hands went to her stomach. Reassured by the feel of her unborn child nestled there, she opened her eyes. She was in a room she’d never seen before. Where were her girls? She tried to sit up. Pain lanced through her head, sending a burst of nausea to her empty stomach. She closed her eyes, hoping it would recede. She needed to find her children.

      “Take it easy,” a man’s voice said close beside her.

      She turned her head to see someone looming above her. She blinked hard, and he swam into focus. He was a mountain of a man with broad shoulders and a black beard that covered his jawline and chin. He knelt beside her and slipped an arm under her shoulders to ease her upright. His dark brown hair was cut in a bowl style she remembered from her youth. He was Amish or perhaps Old Order Mennonite. The beard meant he was a married man. His eyes were a rich coffee brown with crow’s feet at the corners. She thought she read sympathy in their depths. The longer she looked at him, the more convinced she was that they had met before, but her mind was so fuzzy she couldn’t remember where.

      She clutched his arm as she struggled to get up. “Where are my daughters?”

      His СКАЧАТЬ