Santa's Seven-Day Baby Tutorial

by Meg Maxwell

  But then her dear daed had been killed in a freak farm accident when Anna was fifteen, so she’d put off her rumspringa. She was an only child, rare in the Amish world, but her parents hadn’t been blessed with other children. Two years later, just as Anna was ready to take off her head covering and use, for the first time, the internet via the Grass Creek library’s community computers, her beloved mamm got sick. Cancer. Anna had cared for her frail mother for five years before she passed. Anna was so grief-stricken, so lost without her mamm, that she’d retreated into herself, taking care of the sickly calves, painting the furniture the men of the community had built. And turned down guy after guy, proposal after proposal. Now she was twenty-four and still here. One foot out. One foot in. And not moving. But always wondering. Dreaming.

  “My own rumspringa was a disappointment,” her mother had once told her. “There is almost too much choice, too much technology, too much out there. Here it is quiet and peaceful and you use only what you truly need. It’s a good way to experience the meaning of life, Anna.”

  Anna’s heart squeezed with the thought of her mother, but just then she saw a pair of red pigtails fly past the barn. Spending time with her whirlwind of a cousin always lifted Anna’s mood. The girl was probably hiding from her mamm for a bit.

  Anna was about to enter the barn to find Sadie when a black SUV came down the road, a man behind the wheel. Anna’s house was the first one from the main road, so perhaps he wanted to inquire about furniture or horse training or just gawk at the “plain people.” The man parked the car and got out and looked around, his gaze landing on hers.

  She sucked in a breath. He was tall, over six feet, with a broad chest and narrow hips. He wore a long-sleeved button-down shirt and charcoal pants, and was clean-shaven, with a bit of five-o’clock shadow. His thick dark hair was swept back like the movie stars whose photos she saw on posters at the theater in Grass Creek. And his eyes were green. He was the most handsome man she’d ever seen. And she’d seen her share of Englishers in town.

  He was carrying something in his right hand. She peered more closely to see what it was. A wallet? No—it was a badge.

  She froze. Police? What would an officer of the law want with their community?

  Chapter Two

  As the man approached, Anna could more clearly see the badge. FBI. She felt him assessing her from head to toe, taking in the overalls, the baseball cap.

  “Hi there,” he said, holding up the badge. “My name is Colt Asher. I’m an agent with the FBI’s Houston office. A woman reported seeing an Amish girl with red pigtails take a guinea pig in a cage off the curb in front of Grass Creek Pets about two hours ago. I need to have that guinea pig back.”

  Anna tilted her head. “I thought government agents handled kidnappings and drugs and organized crime.”

  “And stolen guinea pigs when the victim is my boss,” he said with a smile. “It’s his niece’s birthday and Christmas present.”

  Oh, boy. “Did you say the perpetrator had red pigtails?” she asked, hoping she’d misheard but knowing full well she had not. There was only one girl in the village with red hair. Her eight-year-old cousin.

  He took a small leather notebook from his pocket and flipped through it. “Red braided pigtails.”

  Oh, Sadie. Her cousin knew stealing was wrong. The Ten Commandments were printed on a huge plaque in the kitchen of the girl’s house. Lately, Sadie had been full of questions about the English and how they lived. Earlier this afternoon, when they’d been at the market, Anna had watched her cousin studying a girl who was looking at a doll cradle that Anna herself had painted a pretty yellow with tiny white stars. Anna could see the wistfulness in Sadie’s eyes as she’d taken in the girl’s red light-up sneakers with bright orange laces. Orange was frowned upon in their community. Too flashy. Forget about the light-up part. But would Sadie take a guinea pig to have something from the English world? Maybe.

  Anna glanced around. No one in the vicinity. No buggies heading into town or coming back. It was possible no one had seen the car drive in. That was good. Otherwise, there would be questions. Sadie and her family could get in terrible trouble with the bishop if Sadie had indeed taken something that did not belong to her.

  The handsome FBI agent was watching her. She could almost feel him taking her stats, measuring her composure. Suspects had to crack under that pressure.

  “Follow me, please,” she said and led the way into the barn, which was bigger than the house. Three calves, on the mend and ready to be returned to their owners, were chewing at hay, and glanced at her as she entered with the agent. She set her basket lunch on a table near the door.

  The barn was silent. But she had a feeling her cousin was here.

  “Sadie?” she called. “Are you here?”

  “Ja, I am here,” a small voice answered as the girl stepped from behind a pen at the back of the barn. But Sadie didn’t come forward and stood very straight.

  “Sadie, this is Colt Asher. He’s an FBI agent and—”

  Sadie burst into tears. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to take the furry little thing. Well, I did, because I did take him, but I didn’t mean to. He was all alone in the cage on the sidewalk. I thought someone abandoned him. I watched him for ten minutes and he kept twitching his nose at me as though he was trying to say ‘Take me home, Sadie.’ So I picked up his cage and put it into the buggy when no one was looking and brought him here.”

  “Here?” Anna repeated, moving closer, aware that the agent was staying back. “As in our village or here as in my barn?”

  Sadie bit her lip, then moved to the right and pushed aside a hay bale. A small metal cage with a black-and-white guinea pig was on the floor. The rodent, nibbling a lettuce leaf, looked at them and twitched his nose.

  Sadie looked down at her feet. “I’m sorry. I really am.”

  “Sadie,” Anna said, “even if you thought he was abandoned on the sidewalk, you should have asked permission to take him—from the pet-shop owners, from your parents.”

  Sadie hung her head. “I know, cousin. I’m sorry. I’ll wait with the FBI agent so you can get my mamm and daed and tell them what I did.”

  Anna kneeled down in front of her niece and took her hands. “Sadie Miller, I will do no such thing. But I want you to promise that you will never, ever take something that does not belong to you. I am trusting you. And holding you to your word.”

  Sadie looked up at Anna and then threw her arms around her. “I promise, cousin. I promise with all my heart.” She turned to Colt Asher. “Will you take me to jail now?”

  Colt approached Sadie and also kneeled down in front of her. “Nope.”

  Sadie tilted her head. “What is nope?”

  “It’s a nice English way of saying no,” Anna explained.

  “Oh,” Sadie said. “Nope,” she repeated, trying out the word. “Nope. Nope, I won’t ever take anything that doesn’t belong to me.”

  The agent smiled. “You promised and that’s good enough for me. But I do have to bring Sparkles back to his rightful owner. He’s a little girl’s Christmas present.”

  “Sparkles?” Sadie wiped her tears away and smiled. “That’s a good name.”

  “So is Sadie,” he said, standing up. He turned to Anna. “And your name is Cousin?”

  Anna smiled. “No. It’s Anna. Anna Miller. The word for cousin is a bit difficult to pronounce in Pennsylvania Dutch, so Sadie has always called me cousin. Our community is English-speaking, but we always use certain Pennsylvania-Dutch words. The language evolved from German settlers to colonial Pennsylvania, and Amish communities across the country use it. For Mother and Father—Mamm and Daed—for example. Gut for good. Ja for yes.” Why was she rambling? Because the man was so close and so good-looking and green-eyed that her stomach was fluttering. When was the last time a man’s presence had
made her feel anything? Maybe never.

  Sadie handed over Sparkles’s cage to the agent. “He sure is cute.”

  “Ja,” Colt said, and both Sadie and Anna burst into grins. “He is. Looks like you took care of him.”

  “I’m really sorry,” Sadie said again, then threw her arms around Anna for a few seconds and fled.

  The agent watched her run off, then turned back to Anna. “Sometimes, all’s well that ends well.”

  Anna smiled. “Shakespeare. I recently read that play.”

  The sunlight streaming in the open doors of the barn lit the agent’s lush dark hair and his forearms, which were strong and muscular. She could stare at him all day. There was a slight cleft in his chin. “So you’re Sadie’s cousin but you’re not Amish?” he asked.

  “I am Amish.”

  He looked confused, and she realized she was in her barn clothes instead of the usual long dress and head covering. “These are my daed’s old overalls. I wear them when I’m caring for the calves or painting furniture that our community makes to sell at market in Grass Creek.”

  “Ah, now I understand. My line of work doesn’t bring me into contact with the Amish so I don’t know all that much about your culture. I suppose I’m just used to seeing Amish women in long dresses and bonnets.”

  For a moment, they stared at each other. Anna couldn’t take her eyes off the man, and granted, she had earned the unfortunate nickname of Fanciful Anna, but he seemed unable to look away from her, as well. While wearing coveralls and a baseball cap and smelling like the barn? She almost laughed. Fanciful Anna, indeed.

  “Agent Asher, I’m sorry that your time was taken up by this. And I appreciate your kindness to my cousin. I think she was overcome with desire to have something from the English world. Not that I’m excusing her behavior. But I do try to understand Sadie so that I can better guide her.”

  “Colt,” he said. “Well, the moment I return Sparkles, I’m on vacation, so no worries about my time.”

  “Vacation,” she repeated, hearing the wistfulness in her own voice. “Are you going somewhere special?”

  “I haven’t decided. I have two weeks off, so the first ten days or so I plan to spend somewhere amazing, like Rome or Machu Picchu or a Hawaiian island.”

  She sighed. “I would love to eat pasta in Rome.” She imagined herself tossing coins in the Trevi Fountain. Seeing the Colosseum with her own eyes.

  He smiled. “Vacation coming up?”

  She shook her head. “The Amish don’t vacation. It’s not our way to spend money on such things. Sunday is our day of rest and that’s plenty.” She turned to the acres of farmland, which always made her feel connected to the world. Usually. “I’ve never been beyond Grass Creek...well, except for the hospital in Houston. I’ve read about all the places you’ve mentioned, though. Must be hard to come back home from such special destinations.”

  “Well, wherever I go, I am actually looking forward to returning to Texas since I’ll be spending a few days visiting with my twin brother and his family. I was adopted as a baby and just discovered he existed a few months ago. I’m still grappling with it a bit, to be honest.”

  Anna gasped. “I have a cousin I didn’t know existed until a few months ago. She was shunned before I was born and she fled the community. She was only seventeen.”

  “Shunned?” Colt said. “What did she do?”

  Anna shrugged. “No one will talk about it. But it’s not hard to break the rules of our community. It makes me very sad to think about, though. I wonder if she misses us. She must.”

  “I’m sure she does,” he said. “I met my twin brother, just briefly, for the first time back in May. Turns out he didn’t know about my existence until recently, either. I’ve thought about him so much these past few months. I can’t imagine your cousin doesn’t miss all of you like crazy. And she never even got to meet you.”

  Lately, Anna often thought about her cousin Mara. Her aunt and uncle never talked about their niece, but Anna had found some of her things while helping to clear out Kate and Eli’s attic, and her aenti had finally told Anna about Mara.

  “Is your twin brother your only sibling?” she asked to change the subject. She didn’t want to talk about herself. She would much prefer to learn more about Colt Asher.

  “I have a sister. She was also adopted by my parents. She’s married with twin boys herself. They’re seven months old now. Very cute.” He gestured at her painting area in the back corner of the barn. “I see you’re painting a cradle. I bought my sister cribs from the Amish market in Grass Creek.”

  She smiled. “I might have done the finishing. I love working on baby furniture. I have a special weakness for infants. The past couple of months I’ve been helping to care for the Sanderson triplets. Their parents have three young ones and now three babies.”

  “Must be a noisy house. It’s quiet here,” he said, glancing around. From his expression, she could see that he appreciated the quiet and the land. The Amish community stretched for miles in this rural area, and Anna could barely see the roof of her aenti and onkel’s house in the near distance. Sometimes she loved the solitude, when it was just her and her thoughts and her books. But other times, she yearned for conversations like this one, where she’d hear things she’d only read about.

  “Ja. I live alone. My parents are gone. It’s just me now. Do you live in Grass Creek?” She wanted to know everything about him. A glance at his left hand told her he wasn’t married. She wondered if he had a girlfriend. Or a fiancée. Sex before marriage was forbidden in her community, but it wasn’t in his world. Her thoughts traveled in a direction that made her toes tingle and her cheeks flame. His hard chest, flat stomach and muscles were obvious through the shirt he wore.

  “Next door, in Houston,” he said, reminding her that she’d asked a question and shouldn’t be ogling the man. “In a skyscraper condo on the thirty-second floor.”

  She sighed again, this time inwardly. He lived in the sky and chased bad guys for a living. He was unlike anyone she knew. Anyone she’d ever know...here. But he was like her, too. He had close family he didn’t know—his twin brother. Just like she had close family she didn’t know, her cousin Mara. She wished she could talk to him more about that, over coffee. But she couldn’t exactly invite the man inside her home. His car had been parked by her barn long enough that someone must have spotted it. She had no doubt they were being watched by the curious and the worried.

  Ignore them, she told herself. This gorgeous specimen of a man is here, right now, so talk to him while you can.

  “The thirty-second floor,” she said, imagining being in a building that high up, looking out on the lights of a city like Houston. “That sounds wonderful. I’ve always dreamed of seeing the world outside this village, outside of Grass Creek. My aunt, Sadie’s mother, thinks I should take my long-put-off rumspringa—experience life as an Englisher—so I can commit or not to the faith.”

  “Why don’t you?” he asked.

  Before she could respond, one of the calves mooed and she realized she still had one more calf to feed. She could stand here and talk to the agent all day. Stare at the agent all day. But why prolong this? He would leave any minute now and she would never see him again unless she happened to cross his path at the Amish market. Fanciful Anna needed to be realistic, as her aenti and onkel always said. “I’d better feed the little guy or he’ll come charging. Which is good—he’s in perfect health now and ready to go home.”

  The agent nodded—and held her gaze a beat longer than the usual. She wasn’t imagining his attraction to her, coveralls and paint stains and calf poop and all. This interaction with the agent would sustain her a good long time. No matter how unsettled she might be feeling about her life and what she wanted, her thoughts were her own and now they’d be filled with this man.

  “And I’d be
tter get Sparkles back,” he said. “Thank you again for your help. You handled the situation very kindly.”

  Neither of them moved.

  She glanced at Sparkles in his cage. Brought together by a black-and-white guinea pig, she thought with a smile. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to cover the cage from prying eyes.”

  He nodded and she found a large cloth. “Merry Christmas, sweet Sparkles,” she said to the critter, then covered the cage. He took it in his right hand, gave her something of a smile and then held the cage in front of him as he walked to his car. She stood in the doorway of the barn, watching him go. Wishing he could stay. He quickly put the cage in the back, then glanced toward her and held up a hand.

  She held up hers. Then he got inside and drove back up the dirt road, leaving her strangely bereft.

  Any moment now, her entire village would descend on her, curious about what the Englisher wanted with them. She would say it had to do with a missing pet and she’d explain that none of the villagers was missing a pet. Not the truth, exactly, but not a lie.

  She watched the agent’s car disappear up the long drive, then she closed her eyes to commit everything about him to memory.

  * * *

  After dropping off Sparkles with the boss’s relieved wife, Colt was officially on vacation. The muscles in his shoulders relaxed just a bit. He stood in front of the world map in his living room and tried to settle on a destination. Europe? Asia? Stick closer to home? Someplace warm like the Florida Keys, maybe.

  He couldn’t decide because he was distracted. And not by the last case or the deceitful woman who’d managed to con him.

  But by Anna Miller. The Amish woman. Her inquisitive pale brown eyes and pink-red lips, which were unadorned. The long blond braid that fell down past her shoulders almost to her waist. Her curiosity. The way she’d listened so intently.