Minding the Amish Baby

by Carrie Lighte

  By the time he’d returned, the women were sitting in the parlor, too, and Jacqueline was handing out slips of paper for a game of charades. Hoping he could be on Tessa’s team, Turner set the wood in the bin. “Where’s Tessa?” he asked, looking around.

  “She just left. She said she had to call it an early night.”

  Turner didn’t bother to excuse himself. He bolted out of the house, hurtled down the porch stairs and zoomed down the hill, reaching Tessa just as she was shutting the door behind her.

  Breathless, he choked out the words, “Tessa, please wait. I need to talk to you.”

  She gave him a curious look but opened the door for him to pass through. They went into the parlor and she took a seat on the sofa. He knelt in front of her but she looked down at her hands instead of into his eyes. This time he hadn’t rehearsed what he was going to say; he wanted it to come straight from his heart.

  “Tessa, I am so sorry for the baremlich things I said Friday night. I didn’t mean a word of them. I was so disappointed because I thought I’d missed Jacqueline and I needed to blame someone. So I blamed the Lord and I blamed you—the very ones who faithfully helped me all along. But the truth was, I was the one to blame. I didn’t leave enough time to get to the depot because I kept hoping if I waited long enough, you’d be able to accompany me.”

  Tessa bit her lip and nodded. The delicate tip of her nose was turning pink and it seemed she might begin to weep, but instead she said haltingly, “I understand. And I...I forgive you, Turner.” When she finally lifted her head, her expression was fraught with candor. “I’m sorry I called you judgmental, unappreciative and boring. You’re not any of those things. I never once heard you condemn your sister the way most people in your situation would. You’ve always expressed your appreciation of me, in both word and deed. And I’ve never had such interesting conversations with a man as I’ve had with you.”

  A smile crept across Turner’s face, but he still had more to say. “You’ve helped me so much these past few weeks, Tessa. Now it’s my turn to help you. If you’ll allow me, I’d like to speak to your parents.”

  “And say what?”

  “Say what I should have said as soon as I found out about the letter you received from your mamm. I’ll tell them about Jacqueline and Mercy. I’ll say you’re the most thoughtful, capable, mature woman I’ve ever met. Not only that, but your sense of schpass has lifted my mood when I’ve needed it most. I’ll remind them they asked me to keep an eye out for you, but instead you kept an eye out for me.” Turner paused to catch his breath. “I’ll tell them how much I want you to stay here.”

  Tessa’s eyes glistened. It felt like months had passed since the last time Turner beheld her face. “But why?” she asked. “Jacqueline is home now. You don’t need my help anymore.”

  He swallowed, gathering courage. “I want you to stay because I want to court you, Tessa.”

  She blinked. She blinked again. A smile flickered across her lips, slowly at first, but then spread like wildfire from her mouth to her cheeks to her eyes, until all of her features were illuminated by its brilliance. “I want to be courted by you, Turner.”

  He kissed her then. And then again. When he pulled away he gently traced her exquisite nose with his fingertip.

  “Do you know something?” he asked. “Your mamm is wrong.”

  Tessa knitted her eyebrows. “Wrong about what?”

  “The way to a man’s heart isn’t through his stomach. At least, that’s not the way to my heart.”

  Tessa giggled. “Neh? Then what is the way to your heart?”

  “The way to my heart,” he murmured, pausing to kiss her a third time, “is through your heart.”

  This time, Tessa kissed him. “Happy Valentine’s Day, Turner,” she said.

  Epilogue

  “These cookies are enormous!” Jacqueline exclaimed to Tessa. “Where did you get such a big cookie cutter?”

  “It was Turner’s, if you can believe it,” Tessa answered, winking at her husband before she bit into a heart-shaped confection.

  “It’s a gut thing Mercy’s asleep, or she’d be asking for a bite,” Jacqueline said, looking at Mercy, who had fallen asleep on her lap. She finished the last of her cookie and then slowly stood up, careful not to rouse her daughter. “Denki for supper, Tessa. It was yum-yum, as Mercy would say. I’d better head down the hill now.”

  “I’ll walk with you back to the daadi haus,” Turner offered.

  Last year, after he and Tessa explained the situation with Mercy and Jacqueline to Tessa’s parents, and in light of the fact Joseph restored Tessa’s full-time schedule as well as gave her a promotion, Waneta and Henry agreed to allow their daughter to continue living in the daadi haus. When Turner and Tessa married in the fall, Jacqueline moved into the daadi haus and Tessa moved up the hill.

  “Could you please retrieve the mail, too?” Tessa requested. She hadn’t forgotten to collect it; she’d deliberately left it in the box for Turner to find.

  She was rinsing the last pot when he passed through the kitchen with a stack of wood in his arms. A few minutes later he returned from the parlor, rested his chin on her shoulder and hugged her around the waist from behind.

  “I love you,” he whispered into her ear.

  Tessa wiped her hands on her apron and turned to face him. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she said, “I love you, too.” Eager to have him read the card from her, she barely paused before asking, “Did we get any mail?”

  “One for you, one for me. I must be becoming more social—this is the first time I’ve ever received as much mail as you,” Turner joked, holding a pink envelope above Tessa’s head. “A kiss for the mail carrier first.”

  “Silly,” she said, standing on her tiptoes to kiss him and grab the letter at the same time. “This one looks like it’s from my mamm. Please let me read it before you open yours.”

  They moved to the parlor where Tessa sat beneath a lamp and Turner wiggled close to her on the sofa. The card had a picture of a cupcake on the outside. Printed inside was the message Hope Your Valentine’s Day Is Extra Sweet. Tessa smiled at the irony: the card was store-bought instead of handmade.

  On the back Tessa’s mother had written a note, which Tessa silently read to herself:

  Dear Tessa,

  I trust this letter finds you and Turner well. Please give him warm regards from your father and me.

  As you know, Katie, Mason and little Michael are here for a visit. Your brothers’ children enjoy entertaining their newest cousin with silly faces and chasing him as he crawls around the house. It reminds me of how your brothers and sister used to dote on you when you were a baby.

  To a mother, her children will always be her babies in some way, no matter how old they are. (You’ll understand when you have one of your own.) We all wish you and Turner were here with us. We look forward to visiting you next.

  Your loving Mother

  PS The enclosed recipe for boneless pork roast with vegetables is from Bertha Umble. I think ten cloves of garlic is too much, so I only use half that many and it turns out fine.

  Tessa dabbed her cheek; she was touched by her mother’s sentiments. Even the recipe card made her lonely.

  “Are you okay?” Turner gave her a squeeze.

  “Jah, just a little homesick. Can you imagine—I’m homesick for Shady Valley?”

  “We can go there whenever you want.”

  “Jah, it would be fun to surprise my mamm and daed,” Tessa said. “Now it’s your turn. Open your card.”

  Turner let go of her so he could open his mail and Tessa watched his expression as he pulled the card from its envelope. On the front, she’d used red and white construction paper to form two interlocking hearts. On the inside were three of the same type of hearts. Beneath them she’d written a rhyme:

  Husbands are sweet.
>
  Babies are, too.

  I’ll soon be blessed

  And so will you!

  Turner’s mouth fell open as the meaning of the verse sunk in. “R-really?” he asked.

  “Really,” she confirmed.

  “Oh, Tessa, my Tessa!” he shouted.

  He hugged her so tight she giggled and said, “I can’t breathe.”

  Turner immediately loosened his grip. He slid one hand behind her head and tenderly caressed her cheek with his thumb as he looked into her eyes.

  “I wonder whether Gott will bless us with a girl or a boy. Either way, I’ll be happy. But I do hope our kin inherits your profile,” he said. Then he added, “Your mamm and Katie will be thrilled. So will Jacqueline. But poor Joseph—wait till he finds he’s going to lose his assistant manager!”

  Tessa giggled. “Well, we don’t want to tell anyone about the bobbel just yet. Let’s wait awhile, okay?”

  “Of course,” Turner said. He rubbed his nose against hers and then gave her a kiss. “It will be our little secret.”

  * * *

  If you liked this story,

  pick up these previous books in Carrie Lighte’s Amish Country Courtships series:

  Amish Triplets for Christmas

  Anna’s Forgotten Fiancé

  An Amish Holiday Wedding

  Available now from Love Inspired!

  Find more great reads at www.LoveInspired.com

  Keep reading for an excerpt from A Cowboy in Shepherd’s Crossing by Ruth Logan Herne.

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  Dear Reader,

  I confess Tessa and I share the same perspective about cooking: If I’m the only one eating, why go through the trouble of preparing a full meal? When I was much younger and single, my cupboards were just as bare as Tessa’s were, too. I’ll never forget the time my parents came to visit and my mother marveled at how spotlessly clean my oven was. Little did she know that was because I hardly ever used it. (Actually, she probably did know; mothers are clever like that.)

  Also like Tessa, I make appenditlich lemon squares, if I do say so myself. I’d give you my recipe, but it’s a closely guarded secret—although it’s not nearly as big as the secret Tessa and Turner shared.

  Thank you for reading their story. There are two more books to come in the Amish Country Courtships miniseries and I hope you’ll enjoy them.

  Blessings,

  Carrie Lighte

  We hope you enjoyed this Harlequin Love Inspired story.

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  A Cowboy in Shepherd’s Crossing

  by Ruth Logan Herne

  Chapter One

  The last thing Jace Middleton wanted was to leave the place he loved so well. The place he knew, the town he’d called home for nearly thirty years and the land that beckoned him like a cow calls a calf. But the town had fallen on hard times, and the choices he wanted no longer existed in Shepherd’s Crossing.

  He ran one hand across the nape of his neck as he studied the family farmhouse that had been passed down for three generations. Three generations that ended with him.

  He shoved emotions aside and studied the old house from a builder’s perspective. The faded gray house lacked...everything.

  Not the essentials. The modest one-and-a-half-story home was solidly built, and the mid-twentieth-century addition nearly doubled the first-floor living space, but there was nothing about this house that tempted folks to make an offer anywhere near his asking price. The way Jace saw things playing out, he would be left with two choices.

  Walk away, begin life anew in Sun Valley and let the Realtor handle it. Or fix the place up, except...

  He sighed.

  He couldn’t do it. He was good at tearing apart other folks’ things and putting them back together. The thought made him flex his arms. There was nothing Jace liked better than reconfiguring something old into something new, but every time he went to change something in his parents’ home, he ground to a stop. These were family walls. Family memories. They belonged to him and his younger sister, Justine.

  These walls held all he had left of his parents, Jason and Ivy Middleton. He’d lost one to cancer and the other one to heartbreak, and he couldn’t bring himself to demolish one stinking part of this house, even to increase the resale value. It felt wrong. Plain wrong. But he was slated to begin a new job in Sun Valley by Labor Day, which meant he had a couple of months to get things in order, sell the unsellable house, pay off his sister’s college loans and start fresh. With dwindling jobs, cash and population, there was little left in Shepherd’s Crossing, and things had grown worse over time.

  He needed a fresh start.

  He pretended he didn’t downright hate that thought as a stylish SUV pulled into the nearby intersection. The car started to turn left, then paused.

  It pulled back, onto the main road. Then the driver cranked the wheel in the opposite direction.

  She paused again, looking left, then right, then frowned down at something... A map? A GPS?

  Jace had no idea but every now and again a stormy day messed up satellite signals so he started her way about the same time she banked a sharp left turn and spotted him. She pulled up in front of the house, climbed out and came his way, leaving her car running in the middle of the road. Not pulled off to the edge like normal folks do, but smack-dab in the middle of the road, hogging the northbound lane. Who did things like that?

  Tall, beautiful, well-dressed women who think they own the world, he decided as she crossed the driveway looking way too fine for their humble little town. He’d done a stint with a worldly woman a few years back, and one high-heeled heart-stomping had been more than enough.

  “Your car.” He pointed behind her as she approached. “You might want to move it off the road.”

  “I won’t be long.” Strong. Self-assured. And cucumber-cool. So already annoying. “You’re selling this place?”

  Was she a would-be buyer? If that was the case, she could leave her car wherever she wanted and he’d be crazy polite. “Yes.”

  “What’s the asking price?”

  He told her and she lifted an eyebrow. “How long has it been on the market?”

  Longer than it should have taken, but he wasn’t about to admit that to her. “A few weeks.”

  She waited, watching him, as if she knew he was downscaling the time frame.

  “Six weeks, actually.”

  Her look went from him to the house and back as two cars came down the road. She paid no attention to the cars, or the fact that they needed to get around her car to make it into the intersection. She moved forward, toward the house, th
en paused. “This is your place?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you want advice?”

  “Not if it requires me changing anything.” It was a stupid answer, and he knew it, but he couldn’t bring himself to pretend.

  “I see.” She gave him a smile that was half-polite and half something that wasn’t one bit polite. “Well, best of luck to you.”

  She crossed back to her car, waited at the road while another car buzzed by, then took her place behind the wheel. He thought she was going to put it in gear and go, but she paused. Looked back at him. “I’m going to Pine Ridge Ranch. Do you know where that is?”

  He shoved his cowboy hat back on his head and choked down a sigh.

  He knew all right. He’d spent the last dozen years working there with his friend Heath Caufield. This must be the middle Fitzgerald sister, come to stake a claim on the ranch. He knew that because her sister Lizzie told him she’d be along soon.

  This sister was different, though. Smoky gray eyes, dark curly hair and skin the color of biscuit-toned porcelain, a current popular choice in kitchens and baths. Lizzie failed to mention that her sister thought herself a cut above, so his work time on the ranch just got a little more tedious than it needed to be. “I’m heading there right now. I’ll take lead. You follow.”

  “Or just tell me how to get there,” she replied in a voice that suggested she wasn’t about to follow anyone anywhere.

  So be it. He did a slow count to five before he let her have it her way. “Two miles up the road, give or take, a left turn into a winding drive that heads deeper into the valley. There’s a mailbox that marks the spot.”

  “Great. Thanks.” She put the car into gear and drove off.

  He got into his worn pickup truck, turned it around and followed her, and when he parked the truck at the ranch about five minutes later, her stylish SUV was nowhere to be seen.