by Meg Maxwell
“And maybe she’ll be overjoyed to hear your name,” he said, surprising even himself.
The smile that lit her face warmed his wary heart.
Colt and Anna wheeled the twins’ stroller over to Hurley’s, and Anna waited on the sidewalk while Colt went up to the porch to deliver the doll to Essie and then pull some wishes from the Santa’s Elves box for himself to fulfill. He took out a raggedly ripped-out sheet of notebook paper, the wish written in black script that wasn’t too easy to read.
My name is Thomas McDougal. I want to propose to my girlfriend but I’m short seventy-seven dollars for the ring I have on layaway. I know this is asking a lot, but if you can spare seventy-seven dollars, you can bring it to Blue Gulch Jewelers and add it to my account. My fiancée is a single mother of two little boys and doesn’t have any jewelry at all so I really want to get her something special. I work full-time as a mechanic at Johnny’s Auto but between rent and bills, I can’t come up with the rest on the ring by Christmas. Thank you.
Was someone cutting onions nearby? Jesus. Straight to the heart. Colt tucked the note in his pocket. He’d definitely take care of the seventy-seven bucks.
He pulled out one more wish from the box.
To Santa. Like you exist. Ha! I’m eleven, not five. I know Santa isn’t real. But if you’re real you can bring my sister another ballerina snow globe because I broke hers by accident even though she said I did it on purpose. She cried for two days. I’ll give up my present so she can have a new snow globe—From: Brady Canby
Been there myself, Brady, he thought, tucking that note in his pocket, too. Oh, hell, maybe he’d pull one more.
But since Anna was waiting and they had a long trip ahead—one that was emotionally fraught—he wanted to get on the road. So he pulled three more wishes and stuffed them in his pocket. He’d read them later.
“Hey, Colt!”
Colt turned around to find his twin and his wife waving as they approached from the opposite direction. Jake had baby Violet in a sling across his chest.
“I’m glad we ran into you,” Jake said. “I wanted to invite you two over for lunch today, if you’re free. My ranch hands are headed to a seminar on spring calving, so it’s just me and Emma.”
“I’ve love to, but I found Anna’s cousin and we’re going to drive to Houston today to see her.”
“That’s great that you found her,” Jake said. “Anna must be relieved.”
“She is. Of course, she has no idea what to expect when we do meet her. So she’s excited and nervous.”
“We’d be happy to babysit the twins if it would be easier to travel without the babies,” Emma said.
Huh. It would be a lot easier. He could focus his attention completely on Anna, and Anna could focus her attention on meeting Mara and what she was feeling, rather than being distracted by the twins. “You’re sure? Double the trouble. Though they are easy babies.”
“We’d love to. Plus, we’ll get to see what our daughter will be doing in about six months.”
Colt smiled. “Okay, but it’s six hours’ travel and a few hours there. That’s all day. You’re sure you want two more babies at the ranch?”
“We’re absolutely sure,” Jake said. “We’ll take good care of them. Go on your trip.” He leaned down and waved at Anna in Jake’s car.
She opened her door and stepped out. “Hi, nice to see you both again.”
“These crazy kids are going to take the twins for the day so that we can focus on our trip,” Colt said to Anna. He took the car seats from the SUV and installed them in Jake’s—the three car seats fit perfectly. With the twins’ bag already packed with everything they’d need for the day, Anna handed that over, too.
“Wow, thank you,” Anna said.
“I really appreciate this,” Colt added. “It’ll make today a lot easier on us.”
Jake smiled. “Of course. That’s what—” Colt thought Jake was about to say that’s what family is for, but if he was, he stopped himself.
Colt shook Jake’s hand. “I’ll text you when we’re on our way back.”
And just like that, he and Anna were baby-free for the day.
As he got back inside his car, he turned to Anna. “Strangest darn thing.”
“What?”
“I trust Jake with my baby nephews. I barely know him, but I trust him one hundred percent.”
It wasn’t like Colt to trust. But he’d had the same feeling about Anna, too. Trust. A sense deep inside that he couldn’t explain. Now he had the same feeling about Jake Morrow.
What the heck was happening to him? In any case, it felt strangely good.
Anna smiled and squeezed his hand. “What wish did you get from the Santa’s Elves box?”
He told her about the engagement ring. About grumbly Brady Canby, who didn’t believe in Santa anymore. About the three other notes he took but didn’t read.
“You’re going to grant five wishes?” she asked. “That’s generous.”
“If I can,” he said, starting the ignition and then pulling away. “If any of the three I picked unread are outrageous and asking for a Lamborghini, that’s something else.”
She smiled, but he could see that she was distracted and nervous.
“You okay?” he asked.
She shrugged. “All these years I’ve been fighting against ‘knowing what to expect.’ It’s one of the reasons why I want to live in the English world. Adventure. Experiences. But suddenly I don’t know what I’ll be facing when we find Mara. I don’t even know if she’ll want to meet me.”
“You’re her cousin,” she said. “You’re family. There’s a connection there. It’s highly likely she will want to meet you. Even I wanted to meet my birth relatives.”
She smiled. “That’s true. I hope you’re right. I can’t imagine leaving home at seventeen—and such a sheltered home—and not seeing your family for almost twenty-five years. I was hoping she’d have her own huge family to make up for it, but you said she was divorced and childless.”
“Could she have come back?” he asked. “You can, why can’t she?”
“I haven’t been baptized into the Amish faith. Therefore, I can’t really break any rules. I can’t be excommunicated if I haven’t been baptized. Though by twenty-five, if you haven’t been baptized, you’ll be pressured to. That has already started with me. But Mara was baptized when she was sixteen. My aunt told me that she had a very short rumspringa, she much preferred the Amish life, and officially joined the church. But then she left the following year. Because she left, she was excommunicated. If she did come back, my family would be expected to shun her.”
Colt frowned. “So her relatives would act like she doesn’t exist?”
“Not as bad as that, but bad. She wouldn’t be able to share the same dining table with the Millers. That kind of thing. Unless, of course, she admitted her wrongdoing at church and publicly asked for forgiveness, the shunning period would be brief.”
Shunning went on in his world, too, unfortunately. Maybe not the church-ordained kind, but there had been plenty of the ol’ cold shoulder in his house as he grew up.
“Was it about a guy?” he asked. “The reason Mara left?”
“I asked my aunt and she said Mara hadn’t been dating anyone. Mara always kept to herself, so perhaps she was dating an Englisher and no one knew it. That was one of the rumors.” She shrugged. “Everyone figured she’d gotten pregnant. But I guess not.”
“Well, we will soon meet Mara and all your questions will be answered.” He hoped, anyway.
She smiled, but turned toward the window, so he gave her some privacy with her thoughts. He wanted to reach out, caress her face, her shoulders, just to let her know he cared, that he was here for her, but perhaps it was better that he kept his hands to himself.
&nb
sp; * * *
As signs for Houston appeared on the highway, Anna felt butterflies fluttering in her stomach. Suddenly she realized how close they were to Grass Creek. Maybe she could catch a sighting of her family at the Amish market. She glanced at her watch. The timing was right. She’d hang back, tuck up her hair in the cute knit hat she’d bought in Blue Gulch this morning, put on the sunglasses she’d gotten from the same store and just soak in the sight of Kate and Sadie. Even Eli would be a welcome familiar sight, she thought with a smile. Seeing her family, the familiar, would help ease her anxiety about meeting Mara. She’d feel a bit more grounded, more...herself.
“Colt, would you mind stopping near the Amish market in Grass Creek? I don’t want to go in and say hello; I just want to hang back and see my family from afar. With my haircut, these clothes and sunglasses, I can stand back and observe. Just get a glimpse of them. I sure would love to lay eyes on Sadie, even for a few minutes.”
Colt nodded and turned off for the Grass Creek exit. En route to the market, they passed a few buggies. The Amish market was at the end of the bustling downtown, a small park near the entrance. Colt parked and Anna took a deep breath.
Anna tucked her hair up inside the pretty red hat, put on her big black sunglasses and stepped out. She took a look around—several buggies were parked near the entrance to the market, but she didn’t see the Millers’. Another two buggies turned the corner and one parked.
“Oh, my goodness, there they are!” Anna gestured with her chin at her uncle Eli getting down from the buggy and going around to the back of the wagon. A pair of red pigtails poked out the back and skinny arms lifted up a pale yellow baby cradle and handed it to Eli. Kate was just visible in the buggy, staying in it while Eli and Sadie each carried two cradles up the path to the market.
Anna watched Sadie stare at an English girl doing cartwheels on the grassy area alongside the path to the entrance. According to the Amish, if you had time for cartwheels, you certainly had time to help with cooking or laundry or cleaning or minding a toddler for a sick mamm. When Sadie and her father returned for another batch of small pieces, Sadie said something to her dad and Eli frowned, but then he nodded and stopped walking. Sadie attempted to do a cartwheel. Anna heard the English girl call out that Sadie had to push off with her arms and keep her legs straight. Eli nodded at Sadie, who gave it another try and did much better. Sadie’s grin lit up her whole face, and Anna missed her little cousin so much. And Eli had surprised her. Anna wondered if her leaving had actually made him soften just a bit where Sadie was concerned, let her have a bit of her curiosity sated instead of scorned. It wasn’t often that Anna felt a surge of affection for her stern uncle, but she did now.
Anna hurried back to the car. “I had good luck here. So I’m going with the notion that I’ll have good luck in Houston when I see Mara.”
He smiled and started the car and they took off, Anna looking back for a last glimpse of the Millers, but she didn’t see them.
“Did seeing your family make you long to go home?” he asked as he took a Houston exit off the freeway.
“I don’t know. I sure do miss them. But there’s a lot I haven’t explored out here in your world. A lot I haven’t experienced,” she added, looking at him as she imagined a second kiss, even more passionate than the first.
She felt herself blush. Did he know what she was thinking? He probably did. He was a face reader. And good at his job, no doubt.
“I mean, how could I even think of returning home when I haven’t experienced Mexican food. Indian food. Or Thai.” That was a quick save, she thought, giving herself a pat on the back.
“I love Thai. Let’s have that for lunch.”
She grinned. And was grateful that if he had known the lascivious turn her thoughts had taken, he’d let her off the hook. Colt was good that way. Anna was discovering that she was the pusher of conversations he didn’t want to have.
As Colt drove, Anna became aware that the area they were in wasn’t as nice. There were boarded-up buildings. Graffiti. Garbage on the street.
“There’s the diner Mara works in,” he said, pointing up ahead. Colt parked and they walked across the street to the diner. The small brick building looked inviting enough. The door was painted bright red. A big sign in the window read:
This is a restaurant where you pay what you can. No one will be turned away for not having enough money for a meal.
Anna stared at the sign, then looked at Colt. “It’s a mission,” she said with a smile. She pulled open the door and they headed in. The diner was tiny with a ten-seat counter and ten tables. There were two waitresses and two cooks visible through the open area to the kitchen behind the counter. Five of the tables were taken, and four seats at the counter.
“Can I help you folks?” asked a waitress.
“Two for lunch,” Colt said. “If Mara’s working today, we’d like a table in her section.”
The woman led them over to a table by the window and handed them each a menu. There were no prices. The cover of the menu said, “Pay what you feel your meal is worth. If you can’t pay, that’s okay, too. Funded by the Houston Together Initiative.”
Another waitress came over. She had blond hair just past her chin and blue eyes. She was tall and slender and wore a bright yellow apron with the words Houston Together Diner on it. Her name tag read Mara. “What can I do for you folks today?” she asked.
Anna sucked in a breath. This was her cousin! She most definitely looked like a Miller. “I’d love to hear a bit about how the diner works.”
“Ditto,” Colt said.
“You’ll see our menu is limited. We generally always have burgers and grilled cheese and egg dishes. With our daily donations, we create a specials board, and today we have three soups. Minestrone, chicken noodle and my personal favorite, Hungarian mushroom.”
“Say no more,” Colt said. “I’ll have the mushroom soup and a burger with the works.”
“Me, too,” Anna said. She handed the menus back to Mara.
Mara smiled, jotted their orders down on her little notepad and headed behind the counter, where she spoke in diner shorthand to the cooks.
She returned with two bowls of steaming soup. “Here you go. Enjoy.”
Anna smiled at her. “Thank you. May I ask—this is a mission, right?”
Mara nodded. “There are many homeless people in this neighborhood who won’t go to soup kitchens or shelters. We’re essentially a soup kitchen masquerading as a diner. We have a band of volunteers to keep the place going. We’re doing pretty well. We’ve been written up in a few local papers about how good our soups and burgers are, so we attract paying customers in addition to those who can’t. We open at four o’clock on Christmas Eve and we’re open all day on Christmas. That way, everyone has somewhere to go.”
“That’s wonderful,” Anna said. As Mara turned to go, Anna said, “Mara?”
The waitress turned.
“My name is Anna Miller. I’m Rebecca and Robert Miller’s daughter. My aenti and onkel are Kate and Eli.”
Mara gasped. “Did you come here specifically to find me?”
“Well, I’m taking a very late rumspringa,” Anna said. “And I’d always wondered what became of you. You left right before I was born. So while I was out and about in the English world, I thought I’d look you up. You were easier to find than I expected. Though it helps to have an FBI agent as a boss.”
Mara looked at Colt, her eyes wide.
Anna explained how she and Colt met, leaving out the part about Sadie taking the guinea pig. “And here I am.”
“Will you go back after your week is up?” Mara asked.
“I don’t know. From Colt’s car I saw Kate and Eli and their daughter at the Amish market before we came here. I miss them so much. Can I ask why you left?”
Mara bit h
er lip. “Give me a few minutes to take care of some customers and I’ll be back.”
Anna watched her cousin pour coffee for two tables and check on the others. Then Mara returned with their burgers and sat down.
“When I was seventeen, I fell madly in love with an Englisher while working at my family stall at the market. I would sneak out to meet him. The bishop’s daughter caught us making out behind the market. I wasn’t her favorite person. She told me that she’d report me and I’d be shunned and no one in my family could talk to me. And that I’d bring shame on them so that I should just leave. I’d been baptized just a few months prior, but I was so in love with the English guy that I decided to leave. My parents were gone and I was living with Eli’s father, who was very strict. So I decided to leave to save everyone trouble.”
“Do you ever want to go back?” Anna asked.
“To be honest, I feel that I can do good work here,” she said. “I run this diner and also a free day care program staffed by volunteers. And every summer I do missionary work across Texas. I love my life. It’s not easy, but I love it. I feel like I’m doing what I was born to do.”
Doing what I was born to do... Anna wondered if she’d ever feel that way. “I’m so glad, Mara. You found your calling.”
Mara nodded. “I am very glad to meet you, though, Anna. It always feels good to connect with a piece of home. Even after all these years.”
“Can we keep in touch?” Anna asked. “I’d love to spend more time together.”
“Of course,” Mara said. “But if you go home and commit to the faith, your life will be there. It won’t extend past the village.”
“Do you ever miss that? How simple and quiet life was?”
Mara nodded. “Definitely. But I feel like myself in the English world.”
“Did you marry that English boy?” Anna asked, hoping that wasn’t too personal.
“I did. It didn’t work out. But I have a terrific boyfriend now. He’s one of the volunteer cooks here. I never expected a highfalutin tax attorney to want to help cook, let alone take care of our books, but there he is, making the best hash browns I’ve ever had.”