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“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.
