A Christmas Visitor

by Amy Clipston

  Finances were tight. If anyone understood that, he did. “Then let me take you up to the Cotters. It’s closer than home. Mrs. Cotter will have first-aid supplies. You can get cleaned up, and we can decide if that will do it, or if you need more medical attention.”

  She touched a finger to her forehead, winced, and drew it away. The sight of the blood seemed to give her the answer she needed. “Home. We have first-aid supplies too.”

  “The Cotters are right down there at the end of the road. It’s much faster. You’re bleeding.”

  She shook her head. “I’m fine.”

  “You’re not fine.”

  Their gazes locked. She looked away. “Fine. The Cotters.”

  A lifetime of letting men take the lead couldn’t be overcome in a day. Rocky would never take advantage of her upbringing, but in this instance, he felt relief. She needed his help. “Let me help you up.”

  “I can do it.”

  Stubbornness definitely ran in the family.

  Abigail scrambled to her feet, slipping in the mud, then managing to hoist herself upright. Her knees buckled. Rocky caught her before she went down again. “There’s no shame in letting a person help you.”

  “I know. It’s good of you to stop.”

  Something about the emphasis on you puzzled Rocky. Was it because he was an Englisher or because he was Rocky Sanders, the man trying to steal her niece away from her family?

  “Of course I stopped. Who wouldn’t?” He lifted her into his buggy—surprised to find she weighed not much more than a child—and settled her on the seat. “Tuck this blanket around you. You’re shivering. I’ll take a quick look at your horse.”

  Even though her expression could only be described as dubious, she pulled the scratchy, stinky wool blanket up to her chin without a word.

  He took two minutes to unhitch the Morgan and tie him to a nearby tree. It wouldn’t do to have him take off and get hit by a semi on the highway. Adding another expense to the repair of the buggy. If it could be repaired.

  “All set.” He climbed into the buggy and picked up the reins. “What happened?”

  She clutched the blanket tighter. Her teeth chattered. Shock. “A deer ran across the road and spooked Brownie. I couldn’t get him under control.”

  “That would do it.”

  “I should’ve been able to handle it. I don’t know if the buggy can be repaired.”

  And they couldn’t afford to replace it. “It would’ve happened to anyone. Especially when it takes you by surprise like that. Leroy and his boys are excellent at buggy repair. I have no doubt they’ll give it their best shot.”

  “Jah.”

  “What were you up to?” Maybe conversation would take her mind off her predicament. “Going into town?”

  Women didn’t usually go alone.

  “Mordecai had to fix the shed. The wind blew off some of the roof overnight.” She swiped at her face. Her sleeve came back with a trail of blood. The distinct sound of her teeth chattering filled the pause. “He’d promised a box of jams and jellies to Belle Lawson—the one who has the This and That antique store. I told him I was quite capable of taking a box of jellies into town.”

  A hint of tears tinged her attempt at a laugh.

  “It could’ve happened to anyone,” Rocky repeated.

  After that his dogged attempts at small talk were met with monosyllabic responses. She allowed him to help her from the buggy when they arrived at the Cotters’ farmhouse, but she moved away when he attempted to put an arm around her to hold her up on the walk to the front door.

  A book in one hand, Mrs. Cotter answered the doorbell on the second ring. She took one look at the two of them through thick dark-rimmed glasses that made her look like a horned owl and shooed them in.

  “Goodness gracious, whatever happened to you?” She drew Abigail into the living room made cheery by a fire in the fireplace and pretty Tiffany lamps on either side of two recliners that faced the pine bookshelves that filled one entire wall. The room smelled of coffee and mesquite. “Sit, sit. It’s Abigail King, isn’t it? I’m Lorraine. Lorraine Cotter. You probably don’t remember me. I stop by the store for honey and jam all the time now that I’m too lazy to make my own homemade jams.”

  At seventy-five the woman didn’t have a lazy bone in her body, as evidenced by the pristine cleanliness of her house.

  “Jah—yes, I remember you.” Abigail still clutched the blanket, which stank a bit of wet horse, with one hand as she edged toward the fire. The other hand stayed limp at her side. “I’m sorry to barge in like this. Rocky said—”

  “She’s had a buggy accident. I thought we might use your first-aid kit.”

  “Absolutely. Of course.” Mrs. Cotter dragged an oak rocking chair across the thick, evergreen carpet toward the fireplace. “You sit here and we’ll be right back. You need a good cup of coffee to warm you up or would you rather have hot chocolate? I’m a bit partial to hot chocolate, as Richard will tell you.”

  Mrs. Cotter always called him Richard. She said Rocky reminded her too much of an aging action-film star.

  “Don’t trouble yourself. I’m fine.”

  Again with the fine. Rocky shook his head. One stubborn woman. “Have some hot chocolate. You know you want to.”

  “Fine, hot chocolate would be fine.”

  He followed Mrs. Cotter down the long hallway to the kitchen and watched as she bustled about, filling a basket with medical supplies and a warm washcloth. “Are you sure she doesn’t need a doctor?”

  “No, but she wouldn’t let me take her.”

  “No money?”

  “I reckon.”

  “You know what to do?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Part of my recreation training. Sports injuries and such.”

  “Good, skedaddle in there and figure out if it’s something we can deal with. I’ll bring the hot chocolate. After we get her warmed up, we’ll let her fix herself up in the bathroom. She’ll feel better once she gets cleaned up.”

  He felt better already. “Thanks, Mrs. Cotter, you’re a peach.”

  “I keep telling you, call me Lorraine.”

  He’d like to call her Grandma. He’d never had one of those. His mama’s mother had been gone by the time he was old enough to remember. His father’s mother had never been in the picture, as far as he could tell. “She’s not going to want me to touch her.”

  “I’ll be right behind you with her hot chocolate. I understand their need for propriety, but it’s no different than having a doctor tend to her wounds with a nurse present. Go on.”

  He scooped up the basket of medical supplies and headed to the door.

  “Rocky.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “She’s the aunt of your Frannie?”

  He’d spilled the beans about his reason for coming to south Texas over the very first supper of ham, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, and coconut cream pie what seemed like years earlier. “Yes.”

  “Things have a way of happening for a reason, don’t they?”

  “God caused that deer to run across the road in front of Abigail’s buggy?”

  Mrs. Cotter chuckled and shook a long, bony finger at him. “I wouldn’t go that far, but it’s possible He placed the right person there to help her out when she needed it.”

  Fortified by that thought, Rocky settled the basket on an end table and tugged it closer to Abigail. She’d smoothed her hair. The kapp was exactly where it should be now. She looked almost asleep with her blanket tucked around her and the wood
crackling and popping in the fireplace. Shock did that to a person. He hated to bother her. “Abigail?”

  Her eyes opened and she peered up at him. She sat up straighter. “Jah.”

  He pulled up Mr. Cotter’s fancy cushioned footstool and plopped down in front of her. “Can I see your arm, please?”

  She drew back. “It’s fine.”

  “Don’t start with the ‘fine’ again.” His tone was sharper than he intended. “I mean—”

  “It’s okay. I’m being silly.” She extended her right arm and took a sharp breath. “Is it broken?”

  With as tender a touch as he could muster, Rocky pushed up her long gray sleeve and began to probe and bend. She pressed her lips together but didn’t cry out. He smiled at her in what he hoped was his best reassuring manner. “I think it’s just a sprain. No broken bones. What I’m going to do is wrap it in an Ace bandage. If you were anybody else I’d suggest ice, but in this case, you’ll rest it for a couple of days, swallow some ibuprofen, and let the girls take care of business around the house until it heals.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  That was Abigail. “You’ll be there to oversee their work.”

  “True.” She sounded less snappy.

  He slipped the stretchy beige bandage around her wrist and began to wrap toward her elbow. “It could’ve been so much worse. When I rode up on that buggy tumbled by the side of the road, I . . . I don’t know. I didn’t know what to think.”

  “You were afraid it was Frannie and relieved it was only me. That’s human.”

  “That’s harsh. And not true.” He picked up the washcloth and dabbed at her forehead. She jerked back. “Try to relax, I need to clean it. Yes, I was relieved it wasn’t Frannie, but I wasn’t relieved to see it was you.”

  “Sorry. Clean it.” A pulse throbbed in her jaw. “Don’t fib. It would only be human, especially considering I haven’t been very nice to you.”

  “I’m not fibbing.” He picked through the bandages in the basket until he found one that would cover the gash on her forehead. Better dab on some antiseptic ointment first. “I understand your concerns, but you have to believe me when I say I never want to do anything to hurt Frannie or take her away from her family. If I’m not accepted into your community, I will leave here without her. That’s a promise.”

  Tears welled in the woman’s eyes, whether from pain or emotion, he couldn’t say. “I only want to do what’s right for her. I promised her parents that. After what happened with my Leila, I know what pain the wrong choice will cause them. Not seeing my daughter is a hard cross to bear, but it’s worse knowing she might not have eternal salvation, which is even more important.”

  “I understand.” Rocky smoothed the bandage over her cut and leaned back to survey his work. Leila still worshipped, she still had her deep faith, from what Frannie had told him, but he wouldn’t argue with a mother’s fear. “I don’t want Frannie to spend her life apart from her family or from God. But being with me doesn’t have to mean either of those things . . . if everything goes as planned. Nothing is more important to me than Frannie’s eternal salvation, as you put it.”

  She ran her fingers across the bandage. From her high cheek-bones to her neck, her skin was stained red. Rocky figured his was the same color, what with having such a personal conversation with a woman so important to his future. “Staying with her family, being baptized, living her faith, marrying a Plain man, and being a mother, that’s what is best for her.”

  “Agreed, but love’s also important. You married for love, didn’t you?” He held up his hand. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be so personal. It’s none of my business.”

  The red deepened to scarlet. “She told you . . . about me?”

  “It’s obvious whenever you and Mordecai are in the same room.” They had a look about them, like newlyweds, that he tried hard not to covet. “You still get that glow I imagine you had on your face the day you married the man.”

  “In this case, there’s more to be considered. Even if you stay, if you are accepted into the faith, how do we know it will work out?” Her voice quivered, but her gaze stayed on his. “It almost never does. It’s too hard for your kind to give up all the things that make your life easier.”

  “Easier or more cluttered and difficult to navigate?”

  “If anyone can do it, Richard can.” Mrs. Cotter carried a tray filled with three huge mugs of hot chocolate topped with dollops of whipped cream. “I’ve never seen anyone more determined. He never turns on the TV or the DVD player or even the radio in the bunkhouse. He’s showered us with gifts of his cell phone, his laptop, an iPad. He’s turned the place into a workout room instead, with barbells and such. Of course, we don’t know what to do with most of that electronic stuff. We just turn it over to the grandkids, being fairly simple folks ourselves.”

  She couldn’t have done better if she were writing him a job recommendation. Rocky shot her a quick look of thanks. “Besides keeping in shape, I’ve been reading books in the evenings instead of watching TV.” He pointed at the Cotters’ extensive library on the nearby shelves. “Being a jock through high school and college, I missed out on a lot of good books while I was on the road playing whatever sport was in season.”

  Abigail looked at him as if he spoke Greek. To her, he probably did. She nodded slowly. “Mordecai reads.”

  Which was how he knew so much about so many things. “We have that in common then.”

  Among other things. Like concern for Frannie’s well-being.

  The silence held for a full thirty seconds.

  Mrs. Cotter placed the tray on the other end table with a soft thud. “Now, let’s get some hot chocolate in you and get you warmed up. There’s nothing that chocolate doesn’t help, is there?”

  “Will it fix the buggy?” Abigail’s tone was tart, but she smiled at the older lady as she accepted the mug. “Your kindness is appreciated.”

  Her gaze moved to Rocky. “Yours too.”

  CHAPTER 10

  Nothing like a good game of softball to get the blood circulating. Frannie hoped it would give her brain a jump start. Susan managed a blooper into center field over second baseman Hazel’s head. The six-year-old was so short it wouldn’t take much. Frannie hitched up her dress and raced for third. The kinner screamed for her to head for home. Why not? Her legs were strong and her lungs stronger. Sally Glick hurled the ball with a much better arm than most boys. It smacked into catcher Jacob King’s mitt seconds after Frannie crossed the plate, letting her momentum carry her toward the school porch.

  “Woo-hoo! We win, we win!” she shouted in glee, even though she knew no one was keeping score. A fact that would’ve made Rocky crazy. She shooed the thought away. She hadn’t seen him since the auction. Aunt Abigail’s story of his rescue after the buggy accident had warmed Frannie’s heart, but she saw nothing in her aunt’s face to indicate she’d changed her mind about the man. Her aunt continued to try to invite Joseph to supper, even though he’d found a variety of excuses to turn her down. “Good hit, Teacher, good hit.”

  Susan laughed and two-stepped away from the old rug that served as first base. “Too bad it’s time for recess to be over.”

  “Nee, nee.”

  The chorus of scholars’ voices couldn’t have been more in unison.

  “One more batter, Teacher, one more,” Caleb called from his shortstop position. “Let Frannie hit again. She hits good.”

  “She hits well or she’s a good hitter.” Ever the teacher, Susan corrected with firmness. She made the kinner practice their English at recess when she played games with them. They seemed to find it a good trade-off. Everyone wanted her on their team. “One more hitter, t
hen it’s time for Englisch. We need to practice our grammar.”

  “Let Sally hit. I’m old and tired.” Not old, but tired. Frannie hadn’t been sleeping much, and when she did, her dreams were filled with an aching sadness over unborn babies and people who were invariably lost to her. Her parents roamed the fields looking for her. Her little sister Hannah cried at the supper table, her hand patting the empty chair next to her. “Go on, it’s not fair. You know I’ll get a hit.”

  Sally picked up the scarred wooden bat, leaving Frannie to slip down the makeshift first-base line to where Susan hopped on and off the base as spry as a kindergartner. Uncle Mordecai’s sister was a shorter, rounder version of her brother with the same dark-brown eyes and unruly black hair trying its best to escape from her kapp. Give her a beard and they’d be twins. The thought made Frannie giggle. She hadn’t giggled much lately.

  “So what are you doing here?”

  “Huh?” Frannie kept her gaze on pitcher Luke Hostetler, who kept peeking over his shoulder as if he expected thirty-something Susan to steal second base. “Aenti Abigail made an extra big batch of fry pies. She thought it would be a nice treat for the kinner so I offered to bring them over. I thought it would be fun to visit, and it gets me out of Aenti Abigail’s hair for a while.”

  Her aunt had been unusually quiet since the buggy accident. She didn’t wear the bandage on her wrist anymore, but the wound on her head seemed to be taking its time healing. She had bruises up and down her right side from shoulder to ankle. Most were now an ugly yellow and green color. Frannie had been on her way for a cup of kaffi this morning when the sight of Onkel Mordecai kissing his fraa’s forehead in the kitchen had caused her to slip back to the front room. Her uncle’s love for her aunt was written on his face every day. Theirs was a second chance at love, yet it seemed as strong and as sweet as any Frannie had ever seen. She longed for a tenth of what they had.

  Which brought her back to the school yard and her reason for wanting to escape such a lovely scene.

  “I know better. You couldn’t wait to get out of the schoolhouse a few years ago.” Susan edged from the base, her skirt hitched up around her shins. “The only time you come around is for the Christmas pageant. And then it’s for the cookies.”