Santa's Seven-Day Baby Tutorial. Meg Maxwell

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СКАЧАТЬ tell. Sadie’s eyes were as big as saucers.

      “I accept your offer,” Anna said. She wouldn’t think about it. She wouldn’t ask her aenti and onkel for their opinions. She was being offered a very good way to have her rumspringa, years late, and she would take it.

      “Anna, I don’t know,” Onkel Eli said, rubbing his beard. “We don’t know this Englisher.”

      She was taking this job whether overprotective Eli liked it or not. But she could see genuine concern in the man’s eyes. “Onkel, Colt Asher is an FBI agent in Houston. I will be safe with him.”

      Colt took his badge from his pocket and showed the Millers, then put it away.

      “I think Anna should take the job,” her aenti said. “This is her opportunity to have her rumspringa. To experience life in the English world. Either she will return to us and commit to the Ordnung and be baptized in the faith. Or she will not.”

      Her onkel frowned again, but nodded. He extended a hand toward Colt, and Colt shook it.

      “The job starts immediately,” Colt said. “Or at least I hope it can. I barely survived fifteen minutes on my own. I think I could handle one baby okay. But two? Nope.”

      “Nope,” Sadie repeated with a grin.

      One quickly raised eyebrow from her mother let Sadie know that nope was not to be added to her vocabulary.

      “It’s very nice of you to take on the bopplis for your sister,” Kate said.

      Colt tilted his head, and Sadie said, “Boppli is Amish for baby.”

      “Boppli,” Colt repeated, smiling at Sadie. He looked at Eli and Kate. “Well, I may not be much of a boppli-sitter, but I’d do anything for my sister.”

      Anna glanced at her aenti and could tell the woman liked that response. Both Millers seemed more comfortable by the second with the idea of Anna riding off in a car with a stranger to take a weeklong job.

      Except the strain on her aunt’s face told Anna that Kate knew her niece might not return. That was the very purpose of this rumspringa. To finally know where she belonged. Here? Where she’d been born and raised and lived and worked? Or in the English world, a place and culture she’d only truly experienced in books and magazines?

      “Let’s help Anna pack quickly,” Kate said to Sadie. “We should get her ready to go before the little ones awaken.”

      Sadie put her hand in Anna’s, and the three headed into the house.

      What Colt Asher and her onkel were talking about outside, Anna could only guess. Furniture. The village. Anna’s farm. She would have to make arrangements for the three calves to be moved to their owners; they were ready to be returned anyway.

      Anna led the way upstairs to her bedroom. She pulled her suitcase from the closet and set it on her bed, flipping open the top. For a moment Anna just stared at it, the empty suitcase lying open, her entire life about to change.

      “Are you sure, Anna?” Kate asked.

      Anna nodded. “I’m sure.” She looked in her closet. She had many dresses, several inherited from her mamm. Her father’s two overalls. She had no idea what to pack. Three dresses would do for the week. She moved to her bureau for her undergarments and head coverings and pajama gowns. Would she wear these things while in the English world, though? She had no other clothes.

      The suitcase packed in less than a minute, Anna turned to Kate. “Thank for always supporting me, Kate.” She hugged her. “You’ve been wonderful to me.”

      Kate hugged her back tightly. “I want you to be happy.” Then she whispered, “I want you to know where you belong.”

      Me, too, Anna thought.

      “I’ll send you postcards, Sadie,” Anna told her cousin, kneeling down in front of her.

      “Oh gut! Danki,” Sadie said. “I’ll miss you so much, Cousin Anna.” The little girl wrapped her arms around her. “You’re so brave.”

      For a brave woman, she sure was shaking inside. But she’d never been so excited in her life.

      * * *

      Anna barely knew Colt Asher, but she was pretty sure she detected relief on his handsome face as she got inside his car. He closed the passenger door, then rounded the vehicle. In the rearview mirror, she saw three sets of worried eyes looking at the car. She’d said her goodbyes and it wasn’t like the Amish to stand around.

      Were the Millers nervous that Anna was leaving? Or that she might not return? Both, most likely. And concerned for little Sadie, who adored her “different” cousin. No matter what happened at the end of the rumspringa, Anna would need to take care with the girl.

      Colt opened his door and got inside, and once again she could feel him taking her in the way law enforcement officers did. The pale shapeless blue dress with long sleeves and a hem to almost her ankles, the white bonnet, her flat brown boots with laces. She could almost see the notes in his head. No jewelry. No makeup. Looking straight ahead, ready to go. And she was ready.

      “Not your first time in a car,” he remarked, noting that she’d buckled her seat belt. “I hope that’s not a ridiculous comment. I have to admit I don’t know all that much about the Amish and your practices.”

      “I’ve been in a car before. Only a few times. When my daed had his accident, my mamm used the community telephone to call 911 for an ambulance. We rode with him to the hospital in Houston. I did the same when Mamm fell ill. I took taxis back and forth to visit. At first she fought the cancer with chemotherapy, but after a while, there was no hope and she came home.” All of it seemed so long ago now.

      He started up the long dirt drive to the service road. “I’m sorry. I lost my parents when I was twenty-two. My sister was twenty and in college. For a while it was just the two of us, but then she married and had the little scamps asleep in the back seat. So our family has grown again.”

      She smiled. “And it’s grown even more since you discovered you have a twin brother you never knew existed until just a few months ago. Looks like I’ll be getting to know him, too.”

      “Jake Morrow. He’s a rancher in Blue Gulch. He married a woman—the cook at the Full Circle—who recently had a baby, so he’s become a father.”

      “All the boppli give the two of you a nice common ground,” Anna said. “Even if you’re as different as night and day, you’re both giving kinder bottles.”

      He nodded. “That’s true. I hadn’t even thought of that. We’ll be on the same wavelength right now, for sure.”

      Would she be on their wavelength?—that was the question. She hoped so. So far, she and the Englisher talked very easily. “Was your boss relieved to have Sparkles back?”

      He laughed. “He was so grateful he added another week to my vacation.” But Colt wasn’t sure he wanted to be away from the field for too long. Work was his life.

      “What my aunt said was true—it’s very gut of you to spend your vacation caring for your nephews.”

      “Well, СКАЧАТЬ