by Amy Clipston
He took her hand, then gave it a squeeze. “Maybe. But I have a feeling she might be right this time.” His expression grew serious. “What do you think? Are you willing to give us another try?”
She knew what he was really asking—whether she was willing to give him her heart. This time she didn’t overanalyze or worry or let fear get in the way of her decision. Instead, she reached up on tiptoes and kissed him, not caring if anyone saw. “I’m more than willing.”
Epilogue
December twenty-third, one year later
As the snow softly fell, Mary waited for Jakob to unlock the oak door. Then when the door gave way, he took her hand. “Ready to geh inside?”
She nodded, filled with excitement. She and Jakob had married a week ago, then visited family and friends as was customary for Amish newlyweds. Now, two days before Christmas, they were finally staying in their own home. Jakob and his father had built it, two houses down from her parents’ place. She and Jakob would join her family tomorrow night for their first Christmas Eve as a married couple, then go visit with his. But tonight they’d be alone.
As soon as she started to step over the threshold, Jakob put his hands over her eyes.
“What are you doing?” she said, letting out a little giggle as he gently pushed her forward from behind. Then she heard him manage to shut the door behind them, she guessed with his foot.
“I want this to be a surprise. Do you smell something?”
She took in a deep breath. “Pine boughs. Cinnamon.” She breathed in again. “Apples!”
He removed his hand, and she gasped as she looked around the living room. It was decorated for Christmas—pine boughs, red ribbon, small packages of potpourri, and a large pine wreath above the simple stone fireplace. A beautiful wood coffee table she’d never seen was laden with cookies, a glass pitcher of apple cider, and a tray of cheese and crackers, and three candles sat on the deep sill of the large picture window. Jakob walked over and lit them.
“I asked mei daed to come over and turn on the gas lamp, but we don’t need it now,” he said. Then he lit a couple more candles placed around the room before turning off the lamp.
They sat down on the couch in front of the table. She turned to him. “You did all this?”
“With Quinn’s help. She wanted to scatter a few glittery ornaments around, but I talked her out of it.”
Mary smiled. “That doesn’t surprise me.”
He poured her a glass of cider. “I know you wanted a Christmas wedding—”
“We got married on the seventeenth. That’s close enough.”
“But it wasn’t Christmas.” He handed her the cider. “Still, tomorrow we’ll be around familye and friends, which I know you enjoy.”
“You do too.”
He nodded. “But I wanted a little special something between us for our first Christmas together.”
As he held her gaze, a shiver traveled through her body. They had spent many Christmases together, but this one was the most special. She took a sip of the cider, then set the glass on the table. “Where did this gorgeous table come from?”
“I just finished it, right before the wedding.” He reached down under it. “I also finished this.”
He handed her a small wooden box with apples carved on the lid. It was a miniature version of the hope chest he’d made for her last year, then given her the day after Christmas. He’d been finishing it when he fell asleep before Quinn’s wedding. That seemed so long ago, when her fear and doubts had clouded her decisions. Now she couldn’t fathom either one in her life.
“Open it,” he said.
She lifted the lid, and inside was a small sprig of mistletoe. “Why is this in here?”
He took it from her. “The Yankees have this custom,” he said, fiddling with the red bow at the top of the sprig. “If someone holds mistletoe over yer head, you have to kiss them.”
“Have to?” she said, smiling.
“It’s mandatory.” He lifted the sprig above them.
She leaned close. “I guess it’s okay, yer being mei husband and all.” She tilted her face to his and kissed him. “Merry Christmas,” she whispered. “I love you.”
“I love you too.” He took her in his arms. “Merry Christmas, lieb.”
A Christmas Prayer
Dedication
For my students
Epigraph
While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.
—Luke 2:6–7
Love is, above all, the gift of oneself.
—Jean Anouilh
1
December 1
Shipshewana, Indiana
Micah was headed home after visiting a friend when the snowfall picked up in earnest. In no time at all, the ground was covered, and he had to lean forward for a good view of the road. Then something stumbled in front of him—white against white and low to the ground. He pulled on Samson’s reins, certain he would hit whatever it was.
But he didn’t.
He sat there in the middle of the blessedly empty road. The last thing he needed was to be rear-ended by another buggy or an Englisch car. But Shipshewana was a small town of barely six hundred residents, and although tourists swelled their ranks to thirty-five thousand at times, on this cold December evening he had the road to himself. Everyone else was snug in their houses.
Something had run across the road, though. What would be out in this storm? Any animal with a lick of sense would be bedded down.
On the other hand, if it had been a child . . .
He craned his neck for a better look at whatever was out on such a night. There it was, at the edge of the streetlight’s glow, headed down into the ditch. Micah whistled once—a short, sharp sound. Four-legged, limping, and nearly the same color as the snow accumulating on the side of the road, a dog turned, then sat and stared at him. Micah’s first inclination was to drive on. The temperature was dropping, and the snow was coming down hard for an early December storm.
He didn’t follow that inclination.
Micah had recently turned sixty. He was tall and thin, with streaks of gray in his hair and beard, and not particularly good-looking. He didn’t mind any of that. As an old bachelor—a widower, to be more accurate—he didn’t really care what he looked like. But his actions? He’d learned the hard way that the wrong choices would most certainly haunt him at night.
Nein, he wouldn’t be leaving the injured animal in the ditch.
He called out to Samson, who tossed his black mane before trotting to the side of the road. The horse stopped, head down, one forefoot stamping three times to convey his displeasure.
“I know, Samson, but we can’t just leave it out here to freeze.”
As he dropped to the pavement, he thought the dog might not come to him, that it might be frightened or bad-tempered or poorly trained. But another whistle from Micah, and it trotted within ten feet of him, then cocked its head and again sat. A female, the dog seemed too well trained to be a stray.
Stepping closer, Micah offered his hand for her to smell. When she didn’t snarl or snap, he squatted, his trouser legs immediately soaking up the snow, then ran his hand down her coat to the offending back leg. His fingers came away red. The wound was bleeding but not vigorously. It must have clotted in the cold. The dog whined softly, looking at Micah with eyes that appeared to understand what a fix she was in.
“Come on, girl. Let’s get you in the buggy.”
Micah slowed when they reached Samson, who sniffed the dog thoroughly, then tossed his head as if to say, Go ahead. Put her in. Then he glanced back at Micah.
“Ya, I know we can’t take her home. You don’t have to look at me that way.”
His house wasn’t an option.
The animal shelter was closed at this hour.
Bishop Simon was out of town for the week. He’d t
aken a bus to visit family in Pennsylvania.
That left only one choice.
Micah checked the road in both directions, then turned the horse back the way they’d come. The drive took less than twenty minutes. He and Samson were both accustomed to the route since they took it five days a week. Rachel King served tea to the Englischer tourists he ferried to and from her house. She was always kind to strangers. He only hoped that kindness extended to the furry kind.
Who was he trying to fool? He thought of Rachel because she was on his mind more often than not. Micah’s wife had died five years earlier. He still missed her, but now his mind brought up only the good memories. And speaking of minds, Inez had never had trouble speaking hers. One of the last things she’d said to him was that he would need to move on. “Don’t sit around feeling sorry for yourself, Micah. Live every day of the life Gotte has given you.”
Did that mean courting Rachel? Did sixty-year-old men court women? Or was it called something different? Regardless, he no longer felt it was unfaithful to have romantic thoughts about another woman, and the only woman he felt that way about was Rachel.
As he pulled into Rachel’s lane, he wondered how he would present the idea of taking in an animal to her, but nothing terribly inspiring came to mind.
“Guess we’ll have to depend on your charm,” he said to the dog, who didn’t respond but did nail him with her large brown eyes. In Micah’s opinion, Labradors could win someone over with only a look.
“Let’s hope Rachel sees you the same way.”
An image of her formed in his mind. She was a good six inches shorter than his six feet and round in the way of older women. Like his, her brown hair had a liberal sprinkling of gray, though he’d seen glimpses of it only once or twice in the two years he’d known her. They both had brown eyes too. Rachel always dressed neat and proper—her dress a conservative color, her apron clean and pressed, her kapp covering her head.
As he parked the buggy, he realized he’d brought the dog here for another reason. Something seemed to be eating at Rachel. She had a layer of sadness about her, just below the polite face she wore for everyone to see. He couldn’t claim to understand women, even though he knew intelligent and kind—and pretty—when he saw them. Rachel was all those things.
He suspected she was lonely now that her elderly parents had passed, with no extended family at all as far as he knew. She’d never been married. She also had no brothers or sisters—no nieces or nephews or grandbabies to remind her of the miracle of new life.
He’d seen the expression on her face when his granddaughter Betty’s brand-new baby was passed around at a recent gathering. Little Nathan had a head full of dark-brown hair, eyes bluer than the summer sky, and a disposition confirming he was a Miller—meaning he was demanding and not afraid to show it. Already he’d won Micah’s heart and the hearts of everyone who’d held him.
But then he saw the look on Rachel’s face when he suggested she hold the infant. Suffice to say, her mask slipped for a moment, and what he saw tore at his heart. Not just loneliness but something like remorse and desire too. They all seemed to be mixed into that one expression.
It didn’t last long. Rachel was good at keeping her true feelings covered.
Then there was the day the week before last. He’d returned to her place because an Englischer had left her cell phone there. Rachel hadn’t answered his knock, so he walked around to the back porch while the woman waited in the buggy. He’d found Rachel sitting in a rocker, staring at a handwritten letter, tears streaming down her face. She insisted it was allergies, but he was pretty sure he could tell the difference.
Perhaps she would let the dog into her home and life, especially since he’d focus on presenting his case as the dog needing her. Despite her reluctance to hold his great-grandson, Rachel was a nurturer. He’d seen it in how she served the tourists, cared for her buggy horse. And he’d heard how faithfully she’d cared for her aging parents.
Hopefully that instinct extended to injured animals.
* * *
Rachel King opened her front door, light spilling out from the sitting room. She was surprised to see Micah Miller standing on the porch. Her surprise switched to alarm when she saw the ragged dog sitting beside him.
“Sorry to bother you.” His hand went to the top of the dog’s head.
“Why are you here?”
“Just rescued this gal, and she . . . well, she needs a place to stay. She seems lost, and she’s injured her leg too.”
“So you brought her to me?” Rachel fought to lower her voice. She prided herself in remaining calm, practical, logical. “I don’t want a dog. I’ve no use for one.”
Micah took off his hat and twirled it in his hands, a sure sign he was at a loss for words. She peered past him, surprised to see how much snow had built up in the last hour. The wind was beginning to blow, and the temperature was dropping. Not a night for man or beast to be out if they could help it.
Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.
The verse slipped into her mind unbidden. Micah wasn’t a stranger, and the dog didn’t look like an angel. Still, the night was terribly cold.
“Come in. No use in your freezing while we figure this out.”
Micah stepped through the doorway, but the mongrel hung back. Rachel looked at the mutt, really looked at it for the first time, and wished she hadn’t. A person could lose their common sense in those brown eyes. As Micah hung up his coat and hat and stomped the snow off his wet shoes, she motioned toward the kitchen with her head, and the dog, limping, quietly padded inside.
“Someone has house-trained it,” she muttered as Micah followed.
“Mind if I put down a bowl with some water?”
“The least we can do.” After pointing to the right cabinet, she went about putting a kettle on the stove, turning on the burner’s flame and adjusting it just so, then slipping decaffeinated tea bags into two mugs. The actions helped calm her. She’d never been the nervous type, but lately she grew flustered when Micah was close. Some days she even heard herself giggle like a schoolgirl, and then she quickly wondered if she’d lost her mind.
She needed to focus on the problem at hand.
Micah liked his tea with cream and sugar, so she set them on the table, where the man had just settled into a chair. While she was pulling cookies from the pantry, she thought of at least half a dozen reasons why she could—and would—refuse him.
She glanced at the dog again, who was definitely a Labrador. She’d curled up next to the stove—head on paws, eyes locked on hers.
“Don’t look at me that way. You’re not staying.”
The dog didn’t even blink.
Micah pulled three gingersnaps off the plate she placed between them, then stuffed one in his mouth before washing it down with the tea. “Hits the spot. Danki.”
“Gem gschehne.” She sipped her own tea, and after setting the mug just so on the place mat she’d sewn and quilted, she forced herself to meet Micah’s gaze. “I can’t keep it.”
“Okay.”
“I don’t know a thing about caring for dogs.”
“There’s not really much to learn.”
“We’re Amish. We don’t keep pets in the house.”
“Some do. Widow Lapp keeps one of those little yippy things in her home. I think it’s some sort of terrier.”
Rachel resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Widow Lapp also knitted sweaters for the little dog. She was growing more eccentric with each year.
“You’d be unique, having a big dog living with you.”
“When we were growing up, such a thing was unheard of. My dat had a hunting dog once, but it stayed outside.”
“I could take her to your barn.”
Rachel dismissed that idea with a flap of her hand. She could count on Micah to try the sympathy card. He knew she wasn’t a coldhearted person, that she wouldn’t put
an injured animal in the barn. She had a heart for lost things. To prove it, she stood and fetched two clean rags. She soaked one in warm water, then set about tending the animal’s leg.
Micah’s knees popped as he squatted beside her. “Looks like it might have been scraped on a fence.”
She caught the scent of snow and under that the soap he’d used. She closed her eyes, breathed deeply, then refocused on the dog. “Why don’t people take better care of their animals? It’s a responsibility, you know. Dogs shouldn’t be running around in the snow with injured legs.”
“No ID tag, no collar, and her ribs are plainly showing. I don’t think anyone has cared for her in a while even if she has an owner. But I’ll check around.”
They were both sitting on the floor now.
Micah held the dog’s head in case it resisted Rachel’s doctoring, but she sat quite patiently while Rachel cleaned and then bound the wound. Once she was done, Micah carried the wet rag into the mudroom to spread it out on the gas-powered washing machine.
Rachel washed and dried her hands, stepped to the refrigerator, and took out a chicken breast she’d planned to eat the next evening, then cut it into small chunks. After fetching the loaf of bread from the bread bin, she cut off a good-sized slice and pulled it into pieces. Then she mixed it in with the chicken. The dog’s tail thumped a rhythm against her floor the entire time. When she set it next to the water bowl, the dog looked at the food, then looked at her and waited.
“Go ahead,” she said softly, which was all the encouragement needed.
The bowl was licked clean in record time.
The dog stood and shook herself before limping over to Rachel. She sniffed her hand once, then returned to her place by the stove. Turning in a circle three times, she flopped onto the floor with a heavy sigh and closed her eyes.
Micah snapped his fingers. “I’ve got it.”
