The Amish Christmas Cowboy

by Jo Ann Brown

  “Shall we ride in the shell?” asked Sarah. “It’s the ladylike thing to do.”

  He appreciated how she pretended, so he wouldn’t have to worry about his ankle while getting on and off a painted horse.

  She selected the double seat behind where the kinder were perched, so she could keep an eye on them. It was painted bright pink and yellow.

  He bent his head so he didn’t bang it on the edge of the shell, which resembled the froth off a wave. Dropping beside her, he grimaced.

  “You are doing better, you know,” she said.

  “I’d like to be doing gut.”

  “You will be. Last week, you were on crutches. Now you’ve got a cane.”

  He did not want to admit he wished he had his crutches because his right ankle ached on every step. If he complained, he guessed Sarah would cut their day short. He didn’t want that.

  The ride began moving, and Sarah bumped against him. She edged away, and he wished she hadn’t. How easily he could have curled his fingers around her shoulder! To do so would be announcing a commitment he couldn’t offer her, not if he intended to hold on to the life he’d built on J.J.’s ranch.

  Was that the life he wanted?

  He couldn’t recall the last time he’d felt so content. Content was a word he used to despise, but no longer. He wasn’t obligating himself to anything but enjoying the moment with Sarah and four outrageous Englisch kinder.

  Danki, God, for this day and these people.

  The prayer startled Toby. Not that he’d prayed, but that speaking to God seemed wondrously familiar. He’d missed it more than he’d realized.

  Listening to Sarah hum the simple melody coming from the center of the carousel, he found himself doing the same. He wasn’t sure what the name of the tune was, but he thought it might go along with a nursery rhyme. Ahead of them, the kinder were laughing as the horses and alligator rose and fell.

  “Summerhays is foolish to miss this,” he said.

  “I agree.”

  “Why can’t he see how much his kids want to spend time with him and his wife?” He answered his question before she could. “Maybe they’d know if they spent more time with their kinder.”

  “Mia used to disappear, and I’d have to find her because she needed to eat. I would search but had to give up because her sister and brothers needed me. Then I discovered she hides in her mamm’s closet.” Sarah sighed. “The other three vie for their daed’s time, but days go by without them seeing him.”

  “We’ve got to be halfway to his stables in Saratoga.”

  “We are.”

  “It didn’t take half an hour for us to get here, so why can’t he get home to spend time with his family?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve worked for the man for nine months, and I don’t know much about him or his wife. Other than when they hired me, I haven’t spoken with either of them for more than an hour or two total.”

  Toby hid his astonishment and said nothing until the ride slowed to a stop. He got out of the seat while Sarah helped the littler ones from their horses.

  Mia grabbed his hand as they walked down the steps at the exit. Looking at him, she said, “That was fun, ain’t so?”

  “Ja,” he said, glad he could speak from the heart. “And the right speed for a man with a cane.”

  That made the kinder giggle, but his heart focused on the music of Sarah’s laugh. It soared through him, as free and beautiful as an eagle’s flight.

  As the kinder surrounded her, each one asking to go on a different ride, he stepped aside and smiled. Now he couldn’t be alone with Sarah, but he was going to find a way to do so. They didn’t have much time before he had to leave. He wanted to take advantage of every second.

  * * *

  Toby tried not to think of how many eyes were watching his slow progress among the picnic tables. Sarah followed him, and he guessed her hands were outstretched to catch him if he started to wobble. In front of him, Alexander was walking backward, prepared to keep Toby from falling onto his nose.

  “Slow and steady wins the race,” Alexander said in tempo with the bump of the cane and Toby’s footsteps.

  “Do you believe that?” Toby grinned at the boy. “I can’t believe your daed does.”

  “You aren’t a racehorse.” Alexander chuckled. “By the way, it’s Sarah who says that, not my father.” A cloud passed across the boy’s face for a moment as he mentioned his daed. In its wake, Alexander avoided looking at him.

  As soon as Toby was sitting at a wooden table, Ethan held out a plastic cup of lemonade to him. Taking the sticky cup, which warned that Ethan’s attempts not to splash the lemonade hadn’t been successful, Toby thanked him. He guided the kind to where he could sit so more didn’t spill.

  Taking a sip of the lemonade, Toby listened to Sarah chat with the youngsters. He thought of how she’d said Summerhays had spent less time talking to her about his kinder than he had to Toby about Bay Boy and the other horses at the stables in Salem. How could that be? Summerhays must be able to see how much his kinder wanted to spend time with him. Toby had noticed that shortly after he’d arrived at the stables.

  People could train themselves to ignore what they didn’t want to see. His daed had been an expert at that, refusing to believe he was making the same mistakes.

  Toby wasn’t done with his lemonade when Sarah handed a strip of tickets to Natalie. The kinder rushed off to get in line to ride the nearby miniature train.

  “I thought you’d like to sit a little bit longer,” she said to him as she folded her arms on the table.

  “Danki. A few minutes more, and I should be able to walk the length of the midway so they can ride on the snap-the-whip.”

  “We’ll see about that.” She straightened. “Listen to me. I sound like my brothers, always worrying too much. The kids are big enough for that ride.”

  “Your brothers do worry a lot about you.”

  “All the time.” She shook her head and turned toward where fire trucks and other emergency vehicles were parked so the fair-goers could examine them. “Too much. They don’t believe a plain woman should be involved as a first responder.”

  “And you want to?”

  “Ja.”

  “You want to be a firefighter?”

  She shook her head. “I want to train as an EMT. I know it’s ridiculous, but it’s something I feel God is drawing me toward.”

  “It’s not ridiculous.” He shouldn’t have been surprised. She’d been interested in his physical therapy and had asked questions every session. She clearly had plenty of medical knowledge already.

  “Benjamin and Menno think so. They’ve forbidden me from taking the training.” Resentment slipped into her voice. “They said it isn’t an appropriate thing for a plain woman to do.”

  “I’ve lived in plenty of plain communities, and many of them had plain women working with the volunteer ambulance services. In two, plain women served as firefighters.”

  Hope brightened her face. “I should tell them.” The hope seeped away as she added, “Why? They won’t listen to me. They don’t believe Amish women do such things.”

  Shock pierced him. “So are you considering leaving the Amish?”

  She nodded.

  “Is that why you’re working as a nanny? To learn more about Englischers?”

  “It started out as an opportunity to do that, but now I do it because I love the kinder.”

  “If your brothers agreed to let you take the EMT training, would you stay on the Amish side of the fence?”

  “They won’t let me. End of story.”

  “Do you want my opinion?”

  “Ja.” The corners of her lips tilted. “Though I suspect you’re going to give it to me, whether I want it or not.”

  “If you didn’t want to hear it, I’d keep it to myself. As you do
, here it goes. My opinion is Sarah Kuhns can do anything she puts her mind to. You need to figure out with God’s help what that is.”

  * * *

  Sarah blinked the sudden tears in her eyes. Toby couldn’t guess how wunderbaar his words were as they fell like a healing rain on her heart. Someone believed she was capable of following her dreams. Even if she decided to remain among the Amish, this moment would stay with her the rest of her life.

  She replayed his words in her mind through the rest of the day. They visited the exhibits and ate junk food before playing games and standing in ever-longer lines for more rides. Though the kinder were exhausted by the time Hank returned after dark to take them home, she was sure they had enjoyed every part of the fair.

  Letting the youngsters stretch out on the seats, Sarah sat in the rear with Toby. His broad fingers swallowed her smaller hand, and tingles rolled in waves up her arm. She gazed at him, though he was no more than a silhouette in the darkness.

  When he drew her toward him, she stared at his lips that were visible in the light of a passing car. They tilted in a smile, and she couldn’t halt her eyes from following the firm line of his nose. In his warm eyes, sparks of heat teased her closer. He caressed her cheek, eliciting a melody from deep in her heart. As his mouth lowered, she closed her eyes in sweet anticipation. His strong arms enveloped her at the moment his lips found hers. Everything she’d imagined—and so much more—was in that kiss.

  She savored it more because it might be the only one they’d ever share.

  He lifted his mouth away, and she leaned her cheek on his shoulder. For one special moment, she was going to forget the past and not think about the future and savor being close to the man she knew she’d love the rest of her life, whether they were together or not.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Sarah?”

  “Sarah?”

  Hearing her name called a second time—or was it more times than that?—Sarah pulled herself out of the delicious memory of the moment from four days ago when Toby had drawn her into his arms and kissed her while coming home from the fair. She wondered if he would have taken advantage of the shadows among the berry bushes today and kissed her again.

  Toby wasn’t with them. He’d left at dawn to visit the stables near Saratoga today. His doktor had given him permission to spend the day there as long as he did his exercises and put his leg up if his ankle swelled. She hoped Toby was having an amazing time, talking with other trainers and seeing the horses.

  “Sarah, are you listening?” asked Alexander as he came around a black raspberry bush.

  “She’s off in dreamland,” Ethan answered.

  The kinder laughed.

  Natalie said through her giggles, “Sarah, your brain has fled your head.”

  “Sorry.” She gave them a smile. “I was lost in thought. Have you picked a lot of berries?”

  The kinder dumped the contents of their small pails of black raspberries into her larger bucket. The plop of every juicy berry made her mouth water.

  “How many more do we need to get?” asked Natalie.

  Hefting the bucket, she said, “I’d say we’re there. Mrs. Beebe said we needed about six cups of berries for the cobbler she’s going to make for your dessert.”

  The youngsters’ cheers sent a flock of small birds fleeing into the sky.

  Sarah took their pails along with hers and grabbed Mia’s hand as they walked through the field beyond the pastures. She smiled when Natalie took Ethan’s hand without being instructed. Perhaps the older kinder were beginning to understand the joy of helping each other.

  “How will Mrs. Beebe cook our berries?” asked Ethan, always eager for the details.

  “She’ll wash them and mix them with sugar. Next, she’ll make the cobbler with flour and more sugar and butter. After putting the cobbler on top of the berries, she’ll bake it in the oven. You’ll want to eat every bite of your supper so you can have dessert tonight.”

  “What are we having?”

  She struggled to keep her lips from twitching. “Liver.”

  Fervent shouts of “No!” and “You’re kidding!” made her laugh. The kinder knew then she was teasing them. The joking continued as they walked across the road to the drive leading to their home.

  Mrs. Beebe greeted them warmly in the partially finished kitchen. A huge new gas stove sat in the middle of the floor, waiting to be swapped with the slightly smaller one that couldn’t be more than a year or two old. Somehow, the cook continued to make meals for the family and the staff while new cabinets were hung and counters set into place.

  “She’s back,” Mrs. Beebe murmured to Sarah while taking the buckets.

  “She?”

  “Her ladyship.”

  Baffled, Sarah started to ask another question.

  As if on cue, a delicate voice called from the front hall. “I’m home! Where is everyone?”

  Sarah gasped, realizing the cook had been referring to Mrs. Summerhays. The sound was lost beneath excited shrieks from the kinder. They raced toward the front of the house.

  “Like I said, her ladyship’s home,” Mrs. Beebe said in response to Sarah’s unspoken question. “She got here about a half hour after you and the children left.” Stirring a pot on the stove, she smiled. “You’d better get in there and make sure they don’t run roughshod over her.”

  Sarah nodded and hurried out of the kitchen. She’d spoken with Mrs. Summerhays fewer than a half-dozen times in the months she’d been working at the house, because even when the woman was home, she was busy elsewhere.

  When she went into the entry, Sarah watched the kinder greet their mamm. Mrs. Summerhays was willowy. Every motion was so light it seemed to float like a branch on a gentle breeze. She reminded Sarah of a ballerina in one of Mia’s storybooks. As if at any moment, she could rise to the tips of her toes and waft about to music.

  As always, Mrs. Summerhays was dressed in an elegant style that matched the grandeur of her home. Her ivory coat had the sheen of silk. The fancy purse she carried, though Mrs. Beebe had reported Mrs. Summerhays had been home for an hour, was the exact same black as her stilettos. Each heel was no wider than a pencil, but Mrs. Summerhays didn’t wobble. She wore those shoes as she did everything, with a confidence of knowing she looked stylish.

  Sarah watched as Mrs. Summerhays hugged her kinder. She held each briefly, keeping them from putting their cheeks against her coat. No doubt, she didn’t want to chance staining the elegant fabric.

  Tears welled in Sarah’s eyes. What would Mrs. Summerhays say if Sarah told her how much she was missing out on? Each enthusiastic dirty-faced hug and kiss Sarah received from the kinder was precious, because she knew how difficult it’d been for them—at first—to open up to her.

  “Look at how you’ve grown,” their mamm exclaimed. “Mrs. Beebe must be feeding you bean sprouts, because you’re sprouting.”

  The kinder grinned. Those expressions faltered when Mrs. Summerhays stepped away, but the youngsters dutifully cheered when she announced she’d brought them gifts from Europe and put them in Mia’s room. She encouraged them to check out what she’d bought them. For a moment, the kinder hesitated, and Sarah knew they didn’t want to leave their mamm when they’d just said hello.

  “Go! Go!” Mrs. Summerhays made dismissive waves toward the stairs. “I need to go out, but I should be back before you go to bed.”

  Natalie halted. “Mom, we picked black raspberries and Mrs. Beebe’s gonna make cobbler.”

  “You’ve been busy.” She laughed. “Enjoy the fruits of your labors.”

  The kinder glanced at one another, puzzled, but scurried away when their mamm urged them to look at their gifts upstairs. Mrs. Summerhays’s enthusiasm must have rubbed off on them, because the youngsters chattered with excitement, their high-pitched voices reverberating off every corner of the high ceiling
s.

  Mrs. Summerhays smiled at Sarah. “From what Ian tells me, you’ve been keeping them under control, Sarah. You’re just what they need.”

  What they need is their mamm and daed.

  Sarah halted the words before they escaped. Instead, she smiled and replied, “They’ve been looking forward to you arriving home before school starts.”

  “I can’t believe Mia is heading off to school full-time, too.”

  “Mia won’t be attending school until next year.”

  “Oh.” Mrs. Summerhays looked nonplussed; then she composed her face into a smile again. “I meant Ethan. He’s going to school this year, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, he is, and he’s excited. He’ll be glad you’re here for his first day of school.”

  “I hope I will.” She took a step toward the front door. “I’ll know more after this evening’s meeting with other owners’ spouses. Do check on the children. By the way, I left a gift for you in Mia’s room.”

  Then she was gone, the door closing behind her.

  Sarah stared, speechless. She’d delayed too long in finding a way to speak to Mr. and Mrs. Summerhays about spending more time with their kinder. It was time to rectify that.

  Tomorrow.

  For now, she must go and see how the kinder fared.

  As she climbed the stairs, she noticed how a peculiar hush had settled on the house. The youngsters’ exuberant voices were silent. She passed Mrs. Hancock in the upper hallway and sighed when the housekeeper shook her head sadly and hurried to the first floor.

  Sarah paused. Would Mrs. Hancock help her find the best way to approach their boss to discuss what the kinder longed for?

  That discussion was for later. Now...

  She paused by the doorway of Mia’s room. It was a big space with its white-and-pink-striped wallpaper. The room shared a bath with Natalie’s bedroom that was decorated in everything horse.

  Near the wide window, the kinder sat among scraps of the paper that had wrapped their gifts. The gifts themselves were stacked on Mia’s bed. Sarah saw clothing and toys as well as a half-dozen books. Even the books about horses were piled with the others. As she watched, Natalie stood and sighed as she put a ceramic horse that could have been modeled after Bay Boy on the bed before wandering to the window seat and climbing on it so she could see out as she hugged Ethan, whose lower lip was quivering.