Santa's Seven-Day Baby Tutorial
Meg Maxwell
Just for Christmas?Pretty, proper Anna Miller has all the makings of a respectable Amish housewife. But the outside world has always beckoned. So, when a handsome FBI agent needs help caring for his infant twin nephews right before Christmas, Anna jumps at the opportunity. Maybe she can finally discover where she truly belongs.Special agent Colt Asher lives for his job. So, he's surprised when an unexpected week as a hands-on uncle fills his life with meaning. Of course, it helps that the babies' gorgeous nanny is unlike any woman the love-'em-and-leave-'em lone wolf has ever known. But Anna's taste of freedommight send her straight back to her village. Or, if Colt lets her, Anna might just be his Christmas wish come true…
JUST FOR CHRISTMAS?
Pretty, proper Anna Miller has all the makings of a respectable Amish housewife. But the outside world has always beckoned. So when a handsome FBI agent needs help caring for his infant twin nephews right before Christmas, Anna jumps at the opportunity. Maybe she can finally discover where she truly belongs.
Special agent Colt Asher lives for his job. So he’s surprised when an unexpected week as a hands-on uncle fills his life with meaning. Of course, it helps that the babies’ gorgeous nanny is unlike any woman the love-’em-and-leave-’em lone wolf has ever known. But Anna’s rumspringa might lead her straight back to her village. Or, if Colt lets her, Anna might just be his Christmas wish come true...
“Colt?”
“Hmm?” he asked, sitting down at her desk chair.
“I have something to tell you.”
“Okay.” He stood up, and she could tell he was bracing himself.
“I want to say this in the cold light of day. When we’re just standing around, living our lives, going about our business. Not during a romantic moment, like a kiss you’ll say was a mistake afterward.”
He stared at her, waiting.
“I’m going to use the computer in the parlor. But before I go, I want you to know that I’m in love with you. I want to be with you. That is all.”
“Oh, that’s all?” he said, quirking a smile that faded. He closed his eyes. “Forget I said that. You caught me off guard.”
“In a bad way?”
“There’s really only one way to catch someone off guard,” he said.
Ouch. She tried for a neutral expression. “Right. Well, now you know how I feel. I said it. It’s out there.” She headed to the door. “I don’t expect you to say anything now, Colt. I just wanted you to know.” She could feel her cheeks flaming. “Okay, so…bye.”
She quickly opened the door and ran out, her heart pounding.
* * *
Hurley’s Homestyle Kitchen: There’s nothing more delicious than falling in love…
Santa’s Seven-Day Baby Tutorial
Meg Maxwell
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
MEG MAXWELL lives on the coast of Maine with her teenage son, their beagle and their black-and-white cat. When she’s not writing, Meg is either reading, at the movies or thinking up new story ideas on her favourite little beach (even in winter) just minutes from her house. Interesting fact: Meg Maxwell is a pseudonym for author Melissa Senate, whose women’s fiction titles have been published in over twenty-five countries.
Dedicated with appreciation to my readers.
Thank you.
Contents
Cover (#u8c86c012-f223-5d75-8363-26481884cd5a)
Back Cover Text (#u25587795-e49b-5969-8b3a-31cbbf3bef69)
Introduction (#u86f3a138-19a7-51bc-99b8-5573c238a714)
Title Page (#u4890c203-15aa-5956-9d97-116ee10e28dc)
About the Author (#u50ff6191-3239-5412-bc53-0695e4e3878a)
Dedication (#u773f324b-a376-5a28-a40b-81ca585f4b3d)
Chapter One (#u57818c6d-2e3a-5f36-9f5e-4d7178a82a35)
Chapter Two (#u2c9d4f41-acc8-550e-91e2-cb3766388a65)
Chapter Three (#uc86fe63f-1c83-5aa4-ba90-27b86570a78f)
Chapter Four (#ucb3ed11a-4748-5d05-b7cc-607bd2709199)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#u05527b76-a99b-5378-93be-f83d97a23ea7)
FBI agent Colt Asher’s new mission: infiltrate an Amish village and recoup a stolen black-and-white guinea pig named Sparkles.
What Colt should be doing right now was planning his vacation, some much-needed R & R, maybe on the Gulf of Mexico or a trip to New Orleans for some beignets and good bourbon. Or he could dust off his passport and take off for France. Italy. Germany. Practice his Spanish in Madrid. Instead, late in the afternoon on the day before his two-week vacation would start, his boss, Harlan Holtzman, had called Colt into his office with a special request.
Yesterday, Harlan had taken his eight-year-old niece out to lunch for her birthday in their hometown, Grass Creek, a suburb of Houston, where the FBI office was located. On the way to the pizzeria, the girl had spotted a black-and-white guinea pig in the window of the pet shop and wistfully said her birthday and Christmas wish combined was to have that guinea pig for her very own and she’d name it Sparkles and take good care of it. Harlan, the old softy, planned to surprise the girl. So this afternoon he’d gone back to the pet shop and bought the critter and a bunch of whatever guinea pigs needed, like a cage and wood shavings and hidey tunnels. He then set down Sparkles in his new cage on the curb near his pickup while he went back in the store to collect the huge bag of shavings and guinea-pig pellets. A clerk had then talked his ear off about proper care of the critter and got him to add a book called Caring for Your New Guinea Pig to the bundle.
“A twenty-four-dollar Christmas present ended up costing me over one hundred and fifty bucks!” Harlan muttered.
Bigger problem: when Harlan finally came out to the truck with the shavings and pellets and book, Sparkles and his cage were gone. A guinea-pig thief in Grass Creek? Most unusual. The boss asked around, and one woman reported that she did see an Amish girl with red pigtails take the cage off the curb and put it in her buggy sometime before it moved on, but the woman hadn’t realized she was witnessing a theft. According to her statement: I mean, the Amish don’t steal, right?
Apparently, they did. Or this one girl did, anyway.
What wasn’t unusual was seeing Amish folks in Grass Creek. The Amish community was about ten minutes away from the large town with its bustling center, where Amish folks had a very popular indoor market to sell their baked goods, wares and handcrafted furniture. Though Colt lived fifteen minutes away in Houston, he’d gone to the Amish market for all the tables in his condo, and last spring, when he wanted to buy two cribs for his then pregnant-with-twins sister, he wouldn’t have shopped anywhere else. The craftsmanship was impeccable. Colt also never passed the stall with the Amish-baked lemon scones and sourdough bread without buying enough to stuff his freezer. There were always several Amish buggies around Grass Creek every day. He’d never been to the Amish community itself. But if there was one thing Colt knew from ten years as an FBI agent, it was that anyone, even an Amish girl with red braids and a bonnet, was capable of anything. Colt had arrested men who looked like bad guys in action movies and he’d arrested the most angelic-looking women who you’d never suspect of a thing.
Guard up, always. That was Colt’s motto. It had to be.
His guard hadn’t been up on his last case. He needed this vacation to clear his head, to forget what had happened. But there was something he’d never forget: that one of those angelic-looking women had managed to con him and betray him and it would never, ever happen again.
“I wouldn’t ask you to drive out there, Colt,” Harlan said. “But Jones and Cametti just left on the gun-running case, and I’ve got that damn fund-raiser dinner I can’t get out of, and since your vacation technically doesn’t start until you leave tonight, I can ask you while you’re still here and not feel that guilty.”
Colt laughed. “No problem, Harlan. I’ll have Sparkles at your house in a couple hours.” A drive out to all that farmland and fresh air was probably just what he needed. A perfect start to R & R.
“Appreciate it, Colt. Thank you.”
He’d drive to the Amish village, flash his badge around and ask about a red-haired girl who’d been to town today, recover the guinea pig and drop him off at Harlan’s, and then he’d pack his bags and throw a dart at the world map hanging in his living room. Where it landed was where he’d go to forget that disaster of a last case...and remember.
* * *
As Jordan Lapp’s buggy came around the curve in the road, Anna Miller glanced up from the calf she was bottle-feeding in the barn of her farmhouse and sent up a prayer: Please, please, please do not be here to propose.
She was twenty-four. And unmarried. Spinster age for an Amish woman. Over the past five years, she’d turned down ten potential suitors and the eight marriage proposals that had come anyway. Some of those proposals were more about her being the right age and not married. Some of the men had truly liked her. One had loved her, and she’d broken his heart, which had broken hers.
Anna had always hoped that the undeniable fact that she was “different” would make her unappealing to the men of her community. It hadn’t. She was outspoken. She talked too much about what she read in novels and nonfiction. She didn’t understand why cooking and laundry were “women’s work.” She wore overalls instead of dresses to do her barn chores and paint the handcrafted furniture their community produced. Orphaned when her mother passed away two years ago, she lived alone, unusual for the Amish, but her onkel Eli preferred she live in her family home and not with him and her aenti Kate because Anna was a “bad influence” on their eight-year-old daughter, Sadie.
Her matchmaking onkel had promised a few of her would-be suitors a horse or furniture to sell if they would propose to Anna. The man was a well-meaning busybody, but Anna knew he was operating more out of love for his wife, who worried about Anna incessantly, than out of a need to control his niece. All the proposals had been turned down, infuriating her uncle, irritating her aunt and earning an “unacceptable” respect from her young cousin, Sadie.
“Cousin Anna is her own woman,” Sadie had said with pride in her voice over lunch one afternoon, her new favorite novel, Anne of Green Gables, on the table beside her sandwich.
Sadie’s mother had raised an eyebrow but had said nothing, which was telling. Anna was her own woman. Consequence: Anna was also alone. Sadie’s mother would allow her young daughter to see for herself how Anna’s choices affected her. Anna admired that about her aunt, even if Kate was making a point. Of course, Sadie was being raised Amish and attended church and followed the Ordnung, the rules of behavior. But Sadie read widely, just as Anna always had. Her cousin’s heart—and head—would guide her, just as Anna’s had.
Jordan emerged from the buggy. Uh-oh: he was in his church clothes, a black jacket and pants, a black straw hat. He stopped in front of her, patted the calf, and smiled nervously. “Anna, here’s the thing. The past couple of months, I’ve sent my brother and a cousin to ask you if you’d date me. You told them no. So I’m going against tradition here to cut to the chase. Will you marry me?” He pulled a miniature wooden clock from his jacket pocket. He likely made the clock himself, for this very purpose. The Amish did not propose with diamond rings.
Her heart plummeted. She liked Jordan. He was kind and had beautiful blue eyes. She hated to hurt his feelings or his pride or even deny him whatever it was her onkel may have promised him. “Jordan, you’re a very gut man, but I’m sorry that I must turn down your kind proposal. I’m not looking to marry.”
Jordan frowned. “What else is there? Are you just going to nurse the sick calves and paint furniture until you’re old? Who will love you? Care for you? You’ll have no children.”
She did want children. She also wanted a husband. She just wasn’t so sure she could commit to an Amish man, which meant committing to being Amish, to living here for the rest of her life. There was a big world out there. Or even just the town of Grass Creek—a world of difference from their Amish village.
“I don’t have all the answers,” she said. “I’m sorry, Jordan. Were I looking to marry, you would make a wonderful husband.”
He sighed. “Well, if you change your mind by day’s end, let me know. Otherwise I’ll date Abigail. She speaks her mind as you do. I like that.”
She smiled. Good for him. “I won’t change my mind. Go date Abigail.” Her friend from childhood had a crush on Jordan and would be very happy to date him with the unspoken intention of marriage. That was how it worked in the Amish community. You liked who you liked and if you started dating it was because you planned to become engaged.
“You won’t tell her I proposed to you?” he asked.
“Of course not.”
He nodded, put the clock back in his pocket, and left.
Anna watched his buggy round the bend and heard a twig snap on the other side of the barn. Someone had been eavesdropping.
“Anna Miller, your mother would not approve.”
Drat. Her aenti was here. And apparently had heard the entire exchange.
The calf’s bottle empty, Anna stood up just as Kate Miller rounded the barn with a basket in her hand. Her dear aenti often brought Anna lunch when she made the afternoon meal for her family.
“Chicken soup, sourdough bread and strawberry preserves,” Kate said, handing over the basket. She frowned at the sight of Anna in her denim overalls and baseball cap, paint stain on one thigh. Kate wore the traditional calf-length modest dress and a black bonnet, which symbolized that she was married. Single women in their village wore white bonnets. Anna’s baseball cap was blue.
“Thank you, Aenti,” Anna said, the aroma of the soup and fresh-baked bread making her stomach growl.
“Is Sadie here?” Kate asked. “She ran off after we returned from Grass Creek but I didn’t see her as I walked over.”
Anna glanced out the barn doors for a sight of her young cousin. “I haven’t seen her, either. Shall I send her home if I do?”
Her aenti nodded. “I have some sewing chores for her.”
It was no wonder her cousin had run off for a little freedom while she could get it. Anna’s aunt believed that idle hands made for a wayward mind, so she tried to keep the eight-year-old occupied with chores so that young Sadie wouldn’t be able to spend too much time with her cousin Anna.
“Anna, I try to understand you,” Kate said. “But it’s been two years since your mamm passed. You won’t date anyone. You turn down good marriage proposals that come anyway. You are meant to be a wife and mother, Anna—if you are Amish.”
If. If. If. Anna had not yet been baptized in the faith.
“I don’t want to make you feel bad, Anna. But you’re setting a terrible example for the kinder. There are only eleven families in our village and lots of kinder. Including your very impressionable cousin. Sadie said just this morning that she wants to be just like cousin Anna when she grows up. Imagine if your onkel had heard that!”
Sadie would likely not be allowed to go to Anna’s house anymore at all.
Her aenti lifted her chin. “I think you should leave, Anna.”
Anna gasped. “What?”
“Take your long-put-off rumspringa,” Kate said. “You didn’t have the chance when it was customary. Discover once and for all if you want to be Amish or not.” With that, her aunt turned and headed back up the road to her home, a quarter mile away.
Her rumspringa. All during her childhood, Anna had watched the boys and girls of her village reach fourteen, fifteen or sixteen and have their rumspringa, the time when Amish teenagers could experience life as an “Englisher” with no consequences for their behavior and choices, to a degree, of course, and then commit—or not—to their Amish faith. It was then that they would be baptized into the faith, committing to the Amish lifestyle and Ordnung. As a girl, Anna had lived for that time to come, anticipating, waiting, dreaming. Whenever she’d gotten a chance to go into Grass Creek, she’d watch the Englishers—so named for the language they spoke, as opposed to the Pennsylvania Dutch of the Amish—studying how they dressed, the shoes they wore, the jewelry, all forbidden to the Amish, that decorated their necks and wrists and ears. Earlier this afternoon, when Anna had gone to Grass Creek with her family to deliver new furniture to their market stall, a woman approached wearing bright red lipstick and long dangling silver earrings, and Anna had been mesmerized by the glamour—the very opposite of plain, as Amish were supposed to be.
She’d rarely been in cars, except for taxis and ambulances. She’d never listened to music through the earphones she saw so many people wearing, never held a cell phone or looked up anything on the internet. She’d never seen Gilmore Girls or Casablanca or The Simpsons, shows and movies she only knew about through magazines she’d flipped through in town and books, which were her lifeline, along with people watching and listening. There was a great big world out there. And during her rumspringa she’d get to experience it all.
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 (#u05527b76-a99b-5378-93be-f83d97a23ea7)
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 better 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.
His intercom system buzzed, jarring him out of his thoughts. His doorman informed him his sister and her husband were on their way up. That was weird. Cathy and Chris lived just a few miles away and weren’t the “stop by” kind of people. The parents of seven-month-old twins, they were regimented to a fault—they planned, made lists and scheduled their lives around sleep times.
The doorbell rang and he opened the door; his sister wheeled in the twins in their double stroller, while her husband carried a small suitcase and a huge tote bag. The two of them looked harried. Thirty-year-old Cathy seemed on the verge of tears, and Chris looked exhausted, like he’d been up all night with babies. Probably had been.
“Remember when we spoke this morning, you mentioned you hadn’t picked a vacation destination yet and had no tickets booked anywhere?” Cathy asked, a small glob of what looked and smelled like peach puree on her shoulder.
He narrowed his eyes at her. “I remember.”
“Our nanny just canceled on us!” Cathy said, tears glistening in her eyes. “She had the dates of our cruise wrong and now she can’t watch the twins for the week. She’s wonderful—not just a neighbor we’ve known for years, but a loving, fun grandmother with so much experience.”
Oh, God. He was beginning to see where this was going.
“We haven’t been away from the boys in seven months,” Cathy said. “The cruise is our Christmas present to each other and we board in three hours. We’ll have to cancel unless...”
He stared at Cathy. He stared at Chris.
No. No, no. This couldn’t be happening. He loved his nephews, but his experience at babysitting had been limited to an hour here and there while visiting so his sister could get some treadmill time or watch a TV show and his brother-in-law could tinker with his car. Watching the twins in their family room, all baby-proofed and set up with foam pads and crawling areas and toys, when their parents were screaming distance away, was a piece of cake.
But Cathy was asking him to babysit two seven-month-olds for an entire week.
It was almost funny.
“Pleeeease,” Cathy begged.
“Please. God, please,” his brother-in-law added.
Colt’s stomach twisted. He glanced at Noah on the left side of the stroller. The very cute tyke was chewing some kind of cloth-like book with pictures of monkeys. Nathaniel, equally adorable on the right, was picking up what looked like Cheerios from the tray table and examining them. He flung one and giggled.
Cathy stepped in front of the stroller, blocking them and their criminal ways. “It’s just seven days, Colt. You’ll still have a solid week left of your vacation to recuperate.”
Just seven days. Just seven days?
“Merry Christmas?” his sister said, pleading with her eyes. He had a mental montage of all the times his sister had been there for him from the time they were little. She and her husband needed a break, he had the time and so that was that.
“Merry Christmas,” Colt said on a sigh.
The relief on his brother-in-law’s face almost made Colt smile. Chris dropped the suitcase and tote on the floor near the stroller and gave his shoulder a good rotation.
“We left the car seats in the lobby with the doorman,” Cathy said. “And everything else you need is in there,” she added, pointing to the bags. “Plus their schedule and all the pertinent information. They’re fed, changed and ready for a nap, so at least your vacation will start sort of restfully.” She spent a good five minutes going over what to do in an emergency, which was also detailed in a list in the tote bag. Finally, she threw her arms around him. “I owe you,” she added, then she and Chris booked out before Colt could even say “bon voyage.”
“Well, guys,” Colt said to the twins, one still chewing his book, one now alternating between eating his Cheerios and throwing them. “It’s just the three of us. For a week.”
He could handle this. He was thirty-two years old. He was an FBI agent with ten years’ experience under his belt. He’d taken down ruthless criminals. He’d found a missing guinea pig in record time. He could take care of two cute babies, his own nephews, for a week.
Noah, older by one and a half minutes, started fussing, his face crumbling into a combination of discomfort and rage. Uh-oh. He flung his little book and started wiggling his arms. Colt unbuckled his harness and took him out of the stroller, praying the tyke would smell like his usual baby shampoo and baby lotion, and not like a baby who needed to be changed.
He hoisted Noah in his arms and the baby squeezed his chin. “Good grip, kid,” he said, trying to sound soothing, the way his brother-in-law always did. He bounced Noah a bit and the baby seemed to like that. He visited his nephews once a month or so, dropping by with little gifts, but never stayed very long. He really had no idea how to take care of a baby, let alone two, but he could follow directions.
He carefully kneeled down with Noah in one arm to open the tote bag. He saw bottles and formula and diapers and ointment and pacifiers and teething toys and little stuffed animals. In the suitcase was clothing and blankets. He found the schedule, which was a mile long. Lots of baby lingo. This wasn’t going to be easy.
He pulled out his phone and called his sister. “Cathy, I’ve got the schedule in my hand. Are you sure I can do this?”
“Absolutely,” his sister said with conviction. “Don’t worry, Colt. If you’re confused, just remember that they’ll tell you what they need.”
“Um, Cathy? They don’t talk.”
“Yes, but they cry. And if they cry, they’re either hungry, need changing, are tired, want their lovies, want their pacifiers or want to be picked up. Or they want to crawl.”
“And how do I know what cry means what?” Colt asked, eyeing the baby in his arms. Noah was now examining Colt’s ear, giving the lobe little tugs.
“Trial and error. In a few hours, you’ll just know. Oooh, Colt, we’re at the ship! ’Bye now!”
Noah’s fascination with his uncle’s ear stopped suddenly. He began fussing and wiggling. His face crumpled. Then the wailing started. Man, that was a loud sound from such a tiny child. A sniff in the direction of the baby’s padded bottom told Colt he didn’t need changing. His sister had said they were fed right before they’d left home. He tried bouncing him a little, but that made the little guy fuss harder. He was stretching out his little arms. Should he set him down to crawl? On the hardwood floor?
Suddenly, an earsplitting shriek came from the stroller. Nathaniel was holding up his arms, his little face angry.
Well, he couldn’t pick up Nathaniel with Noah in his arms. He put Noah back in the stroller and reclined the seat, then handed Noah a pacifier. The baby immediately settled down, his big blue eyes getting droopy. Success! Except that his brother’s cries were going to keep him from his nap. Colt quickly took Nathaniel out of the stroller, bounced him against his chest for a few minutes until the baby quieted, then settled him back in the stroller, reclined the seat, popped a pacifier in his mouth and his eyes began drifting shut, too. He remembered from a visit to his sister’s house that the boys liked falling asleep to their lullaby player, so he poked around the tote until he found it and hung it on the stroller, Brahms’s Lullaby playing softy.
The knots were back in Colt’s shoulders. He’d handled this okay, but what about when they woke up and both needed changing. Feeding. Burping. And all that other baby stuff. How would he know what to do and when? He could hire a nanny, a baby nurse, to help out for the week. He sat down at his desk in front of his laptop and typed “nanny services” into the search engine and a bunch popped up. After calling several he learned that no one had anyone available on such short notice and especially so close to Christmas. One service had a trainee available with no experience, but that was Colt himself, so little good that would do.
He was going to need help. Suddenly, the Amish woman’s pretty face popped into his mind again. Hadn’t she said she loved babies? Hadn’t she been helping to take care of infant triplets for the past two months? Add to that the way she’d been so kind to her little cousin when that could have turned out very differently for the girl. And the way Anna had listened to him talk about his life, as though it was the most exciting thing she’d ever heard, though it probably was.
The way she dreamed of experiencing life outside her village. Perhaps being his nanny could be her...what had she called it? Rumspringa. She’d get to live as an “Englisher.” He’d get a homespun nanny.
He grabbed his phone and then realized he didn’t have a telephone number for her, and he was pretty sure the Amish didn’t have telephones in their homes. Which meant a drive back to the Amish village.
Now he just had to manage to get Noah and Nathaniel in their car seats without waking them up. The odds were not in his favor.
Chapter Three (#u05527b76-a99b-5378-93be-f83d97a23ea7)
Just over two hours after her conversation with Colt Asher, Anna still could not stop thinking about him—his handsome face, the thick, silky dark hair, his green eyes, the slight cleft in his chin and how tall and fit he was. She and her aenti, onkel and young cousin were in the barn, Kate and Sadie wrapping the painted furniture that Anna and Eli were loading into the pony wagon parked outside. Thinking of the FBI agent in his condo in the sky made the chore of lugging furniture much more enjoyable.
As Anna and her onkel carried the bureau, a black SUV came down the long dirt drive into their village.
Colt was back. Goose bumps rose on every bit of her body at the idea of seeing him again.
But why was he here? Was there a problem with the guinea pig? Had he changed his mind about Sadie’s lack of punishment? A flash of fear crawled inside her.
“Is he the same Englisher who was here earlier?” her onkel asked as they finished loading the bureau into the wagon.
“Ja,” she said, spotting his unforgettable face through the windshield. “I wonder what he wants.”
As the FBI agent parked, her aenti and cousin emerged from the barn, Sadie wide-eyed.
Colt got out of his car, the engine still running, the windows lowered halfway. “Anna, I was hoping to speak to you.”
“About?” her onkel asked, stepping forward. “I’m Eli Miller, Anna’s uncle.”
To the Amish, men were heads of the household, but this was Anna’s house and she ran her own life. Something her onkel didn’t forget but ignored. Still, she wouldn’t show disrespect to Eli in front of a stranger. But later, she would let him know she would speak for and answer for herself.
“A job offer,” Colt said, his gaze on Anna.
While Anna stared at him, she could see out of the corner of her eye that her cousin and aenti were looking at each other with wide eyes.
“A job offer? What do you mean?” Anna asked, stepping forward next to her onkel.
“If you come over to my car, you’ll see,” Colt said, gesturing all of them over to the black SUV.
They all looked at one another, then followed him to the car.
Anna peered in. The front seats were empty. In the back were two car seats, rear-facing. She moved to the back of the car so she could look at the babies. They were about six months old, she’d say, and not identical but did look a lot alike. Both had wispy dark hair and big cheeks. Both were also fast asleep, with little stuffed animals on their laps. One baby had his toy clutched in his tiny fist.
Colt was married? A father? Had she been fantasizing about a married man? He didn’t wear a wedding ring, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t married. Disappointment and shame hit her hard in the stomach.
“Your children are beautiful,” Anna said, forcing herself not to sound disappointed.
He smiled and shook his head. “They’re not mine. Noah and Nathaniel are my nephews. My sister and her husband were scheduled to leave for a cruise today but their nanny had the dates wrong and couldn’t watch the twins. That leaves me as the babysitter.”
All four Millers gawked at him. “You’re the babysitter?” Sadie said with a grin.
“I am. But I could use some help. I would like to hire you, Anna, to be the twins’ nanny for the seven days.”
Anna was so gobsmacked she could hardly think, let alone speak.
“Not in your home,” Onkel Eli said to Colt, lifting his chin.
Her aenti nodded. “That would not be proper.”
“Not in my home,” Colt said. “Now that I’m on baby duty, my plan is to visit my twin brother and his wife, who have a newborn. They live in Blue Gulch, a few hours’ drive from here. I would book two rooms at an inn downtown, one for me and one for Anna. I will pay her well for her time and expertise.”
Onkel Eli was frowning. Aenti Kate was thinking—Anna could 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, to be honest I was steamrollered into it. But I really would do anything for my sister. And I don’t think I could last more than a few days on a beach, diving into waves or sightseeing around a city. The twins will keep me occupied. I need to work and be busy.”
“Very Amish,” she said with a smile.
He turned to grin at her, and his smile lit up his entire face. “We should get along fine, then.”
He was so good-looking, so close, so...hot, as the magazines put it, that she had to turn away to collect herself. As they passed through Grass Creek, Anna glanced out the window, noting how the women were dressed. All differently, but in modern clothes. English clothes. Jeans. Skirts. Pants. Brightly colored sweaters. She glanced down at her shapeless blue dress. “I guess when we arrive, everyone will immediately know I’m Amish.”
He glanced at her. “You are Amish.”
“Yes, but I just realized I’d like to start off this rumspringa as the person I feel like inside. And this dress and these boots and the head covering...they’re all familiar and comforting in a way, I suppose, but they don’t make me feel like...” She trailed off and looked down.
“Like?” he prompted.
“Like myself. I’m not entirely sure who that is, though. I have no idea what ‘my style’ would be.”
“Ah. I understand. Well, how about this—my sister stays over my place sometimes and has a bunch of stuff at my condo. You’re welcome to borrow some clothes and whatever else you want.”
Once assured that his sister wouldn’t mind, Anna accepted the offer. Which meant going to Colt’s condo. She’d been in an elevator before, at the hospital. But she’d never gone thirty-two flights up in the sky. She smiled, happy goose bumps popping up on her arms. Everything about working for this man for the next week would be new and incredibly exciting.
As Colt drove past the exit for Grass Creek, Anna’s heartbeat felt like it was going faster than his car. She couldn’t wait to see where he lived, the tall buildings and crowds and the city lit up at night.
“This is it, up ahead,” he said, and she stared up at the huge glass building. He pulled into a garage attached and drove up and around several floors, then parked in a reserved spot. He opened her door and she got out, surrounded by parked cars. Not a buggy in sight.
Colt got the stroller from the trunk and pulled it around to the back passenger-side door, rousing a groggy baby into the stroller. He was gentle, soothing, and said, “Hey, little buddy, we’re at my place,” then settled the boppli—Anna wasn’t sure who was who just yet—into the stroller. The baby was fully awake now, the strange surroundings holding his attention. Colt wheeled the stroller to the other side and repeated his actions with his twin, who started to cry.
Anna got out of the car. “I’ll take him,” she said, scooping up the little one from the car seat. She held him against her chest, gently rocking him, and he quieted.
“A pro. Exactly what I need.”
She smiled. “You’re pretty good yourself, Colt.”
“The novelty hasn’t worn off,” he said.
Novelty? She supposed that as a single man, an FBI agent living in a big city, he wasn’t exactly surrounded by babies. But taking care of others, seeing to their needs, whether a baby or an adult, wasn’t something that wore off. She wanted to ask him what he meant, but now the other baby was fussing.
“Noah may be a little jealous,” Colt said, glancing at the baby in her arms.
Anna smiled. “I’ll bet you’re right. And so you must be Nathaniel,” she said to the little one she carried. “Let’s put you in the stroller next to your twin.”
Noah still fussed, so Anna picked him up and rocked him in her arms, letting him stretch a bit. He calmed down, but the moment she tried to put him back in the stroller, he let out a wail. “Okay, little one. My arms, it is.”
Colt pushed the stroller with a satisfied Nathaniel, who was biting on his little chew toy.
A couple emerged from an elevator with a little boy, and as the boy ran full speed ahead right toward them, the mother called out, “Don’t crash into the nice family!”
Anna froze and she could feel Colt do the same beside her. She recovered first, smiling at the boy who darted past. The couple apologized for their speed demon and moved on.
Colt continued pushing the stroller toward the elevator bank, his entire demeanor...changed. Now he seemed tense. Unsettled. Because of the woman’s comment? Because she’d mistaken them for a family? Even in her Amish clothing, her white bonnet, Anna had seemed believable to the woman as the wife of this gorgeous Englisher in his black leather jacket.
Though, with a baby in her arms, and Colt pushing another in the double stroller, they did look like a family. Despite Colt’s discomfort, Anna felt a secret thrill at the notion that they were a family. This ridiculously sexy Englisher, her husband. She smiled, the idea so exciting and preposterous that she laughed.
“What did I miss?” he asked, eyeing her as they reached the elevators.
“That woman took us for a family. Can you imagine, an Amish woman, albeit on rumspringa, as wife of an FBI agent in Houston?” She couldn’t even wonder what that life would be like. When she was little she’d asked her mother if English wives did the same things as Amish wives—the cooking and cleaning and raising of kinder, and if they had glamorous jobs or not so glamorous jobs, how they managed everything. Her mother had told her that in the English world, it took a community to help out just the same as in their world. No one could do it all alone.
“This FBI agent can’t imagine having any wife,” Colt said, pushing the button for the elevator.
Her smile faded and she stared at him. He looked dead serious. “You don’t plan to marry?”
He shook his head. “I’m fine on my own. I live for my work. In January, I’ll be heading up a task force to take down an organized crime ring that’s been building in Houston. Getting those thugs off the street and behind bars—that’ll take everything I’ve got. If I had a wife or children, my attention would be split.”
She gaped at him. “Split? But your heart would belong to your family completely.” Wouldn’t it? Jobs were important, of course. Money was necessary to live. But family was the most important thing in this life. Family came first.
The silver elevator doors opened and Colt pushed the stroller inside. Anna stepped next to him, Noah playing with the string of her bonnet.
“I would hope so,” he said, running a finger across Noah’s big cheek. “But since my heart belongs to my job, I’m sticking with that.”
Unsettled, Anna shifted Noah in her arms and pressed her own cheek to his head. She wanted her own family so badly. “Not badly enough that you’ll say yes to a gut man who loves you,” her aenti Kate had said more than once. “Not badly enough that you’ll commit to being Amish and spending your life as a wife and mother in our village.”
She’d even said no to her best friend, Caleb. Handsome. Kind. Loyal. They’d grown up together, but even when she was a girl she didn’t dream of marrying Caleb Yoder. She dreamed of what was up the road beyond her sights. She dreamed of hiding in Grass Creek so that the buggies would leave without her. And last year, when Caleb had said he’d waited long enough and had given her an ultimatum, agree to be his wife or he would ask someone else, Anna’s heart had broken in two as she’d sobbed that she was sorry but she couldn’t marry him.
“If you can’t marry Caleb, your best friend, who can you marry?” her onkel Eli had asked as he’d dropped off a crib for her to paint. “Who will ever be the right man if not him?”
Those words had gotten inside her and scared her like nothing had. She couldn’t say yes to anyone until she knew what life was like outside their village. If she was meant to be Amish. If she was meant to be English. If she was meant to be an Englisher’s wife, as she believed deep in her heart.
Maybe not this dashing, 007-type Englisher, who hunted mobsters and vacationed in Macchu Pichu.
Definitely not this Englisher. Who wasn’t looking for a wife anyway.
Maybe she would meet her soul mate while in Blue Gulch, and she would know, instantly, that he was the one, that she was meant to be in the English world.
But how could she feel more attraction for any man than she felt for Colt Asher without spontaneously combusting? When she looked at Colt, she felt what she never had when she’d looked at Caleb, who was very good-looking. Who’d sat with her to look up at the stars. Who’d brought her wildflowers. But who didn’t really wonder what was beyond their village. He was an Amish man with a wonderful sense of humor and a sparkle in his dark eyes, but he was content. Anna had never been. For the past year, when she ran into Caleb, he would be polite, but unusually reserved, and make an excuse to walk the other way. He was seriously dating someone now, but still hadn’t proposed to her, a fact that made her feel guilty. She wouldn’t flatter herself to think he was waiting for her. But part of her did wonder if he was waiting to see what happened, if she would leave and return disappointed, the way her mother had when she’d taken her own rumspringa at age sixteen.
Would Anna want to go home at the end of her time away? She really had no idea. How many times had her aenti and onkel told her she was romanticizing the English world and that a week out there would show her how wonderful and simple life was at home?
You’ll know soon enough, she told herself as the elevator doors opened. But so far, every moment of this rumspringa felt like Christmas morning.
And in moments she would be inside Colt Asher’s home. A whole new world.
Chapter Four (#u05527b76-a99b-5378-93be-f83d97a23ea7)
The elevator opened and they emerged into a vestibule. Colt opened a door leading into a pale gray hallway with lovely artwork on the walls. They passed seven doors on both sides, and finally at the end of the hall, Colt stopped to open number 32-8.
Inside his condo, Anna didn’t know where to look first—the view of the city out the wall of windows, or the large living room with the stone fireplace, the dark brown leather couches and gorgeous rug and artifacts on the tables and paintings on the walls. On the side of the couch was a big playpen with a few toys inside. Above a couch was a gorgeous framed painting of a world map.
“The guest room is in there,” Colt said, pointing to an open door. “In the closet and dresser, you’ll find my sister’s things. Help yourself.”
“Okay on your own with the twins?” she asked.
“I can handle ten minutes,” he said, taking off his leather jacket. “Maybe fifteen.”
She laughed, but then realized he was serious. Hmm, perhaps I’ll spend this week showing your uncle how to care for kinder so that he’ll be able to handle a half hour. Or even a whole day. What do you say? she silently asked adorable Noah as she set him down in the playpen. Colt put his brother beside him, and the two began shaking their brightly colored little toys.
Without his jacket, she could once again see the muscles at work beneath Colt’s shirt, how the shirt disappeared into the waistband of his dark gray pants. There were fit Amish men, their muscles honed by construction work, but Anna had never seen anyone as sexy as Colt Asher.
He was staring at her—and she realized it was because she was staring at him. Eek, she thought, dragging her gaze away from his amazing body.
“Well, I’ll be quick then,” she said and disappeared into the room he’d indicated. She was grateful to have a moment alone, to collect herself. She was acting like the love-starved, romance-starved and, yes, let’s just put it out there, sex-starved woman she was. Oh, God, did Colt Asher know she was a virgin? He must know. But then again, he’d said he didn’t know much about Amish culture.
Sex before marriage was against their faith. Once, she and Caleb had come very close, and to be honest, she very likely would have had sex with him but he’d called a halt to things. “If I’m not the one for you, Anna, then don’t give yourself to me. I don’t want to cause you trouble down the road.”
She’d cried at that. That was how much he’d cared about her. But the supposed trouble down the road would only matter in the Amish world, if she chose to marry an Amish man. She didn’t tell Caleb that English men didn’t expect their wives to be virgins. At least they didn’t in the books she’d read. Women had boyfriends and lovers and varying levels of experience. Apparently, it all depended on the woman and how she felt about such matters. An English woman could have a different lover every day or a serious boyfriend or wait until marriage. Anna liked that. She would do what felt right to her. That was all she could go on.
She took a look around the guest room, which was nicely decorated. A bed with a blue-and-white quilt with stars embroidered. A bureau with a mirror, which she also recognized from her village’s marketplace in Grass Creek. She opened a drawer. T-shirts and sweaters.
She pulled out a soft cropped-to-the-waist V-necked red sweater and held it up against her in the mirror. There was a thin cotton camisole and she took that, too, then looked in the closet for pants. There was a black jersey wrap dress, a pair of black pants and two pairs of jeans. Luckily, neither was the “skinny” kind that she couldn’t imagine being able to breath in.
She took off her dress and put on the camisole, then the sweater, soft and fuzzy against her arms. She put on a pair of jeans, which did not fit like her daed’s overalls. They weren’t too tight but they certainly weren’t baggy. Or modest. She zipped up the zipper, something that was forbidden on Amish clothing, and snapped the snap.
She stared at her reflection in the mirror.
Her mouth dropped open.
She looked...like the women she saw in Grass Creek. She looked like an Englisher! The sweater and jeans showed off every curve she didn’t really know she had. The Amish didn’t have mirrors, which were viewed as promoting vanity, and so Anna only caught her reflection in shop windows in Grass Creek, or in mirrors in the stores she’d explore if there was time on market days. But she’d never seen herself in clothing like this. Clothing that made her feel...sexy.
She took her long hair out of the bun and let it fall.
There was a pair of heels and a pair of sneakers in the closet. Anna took off her boots and tried on both pairs. They fit! Anna kept on the comfortable navy blue sneakers, then once again stood before the mirror. As she stared at herself, a shadow crept where her joy had been.
“I don’t know this person,” she whispered to her reflection. She bit her lip and turned away. She started to take off the sweater and find something more...Amish. Even a big, button-down shirt would do, but then Anna looked in the mirror again. For the next week, you are this new person. And sometimes it’s not going to feel comfortable. Or familiar. That’s okay. That’s how you discover what does feel right. That’s how you discover who you really are.
And if after the week it doesn’t feel right? You put back on your high-necked dress that goes down to your ankles. You braid your hair and cover your head. And you go home.
She took a deep breath and stepped out, her suitcase now full of his sister’s belongings and her own Amish things. Colt was kneeling by the playpen, watching his nephews play. “I think that was just fifteen minutes.”
He turned toward her and stood up, staring, his mouth slightly open. “Anna. You’re...breathtaking.” He glanced down for a moment as though he hadn’t meant to say that.
She beamed, so happy, so excited that she didn’t even feel herself blush. “I feel like a completely different person.”
Dressed this way, she was a person who wanted to rush over to the man who’d just called her breathtaking and kiss him. She had no doubt that one kiss from Colt Asher would rock her entire world and make her knees truly weak, the way she’d read about in books.
He walked toward her and for a moment she wondered if he was going to reach for her and look deeply into her eyes and kiss her. Did that happen in real life? She was sure it did. Was he about to—
He pulled his phone from his pocket and held it up. “My sister also texted the schedule for the babies,” he said. “Just in case. So dinnertime is right now. Both boys are on solid foods—jarred baby food.”
So much for the hot kiss. The weak knees. Colt Asher was not looking to marry, but she was sure he had relationships. Sex. He would likely not lay a finger on her, though. If she wanted a hot English affair with the FBI agent, she would have to make the first move.
Not that she was ready for that. It was one thing to fantasize. It was another to do it. And she had no idea what she could handle emotionally. Could she have an affair with Colt Asher when it would lead to nothing? Perhaps that was the point of a weeklong, scorching-hot English affair. Wild sex. Then it was over.
Except then what? She wasn’t necessarily going home after. Or staying in the English world. She didn’t know where she belonged. Until then, she should take care with herself. And her heart. And her body.
It was good that the Englisher was talking about baby food and schedules.
“Do you have groceries?” she asked.
“Of course,” he said.
“I thought maybe you were one of those bachelors who didn’t cook.”
“I have a limited range, but I can certainly open a jar of baby food. And make an omelet and a steak. And pasta. Is there anything else anyway?”
She laughed. “There really isn’t. I could eat pasta every day for the rest of my life.”
“One day you’ll have tortellini in Rome,” he said.
She was touched he remembered that from their very first conversation outside her barn, that he’d been listening. “Maybe one day I will.”
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