Czytaj książkę: «The Amish Bachelor's Baby»

Chapter One
Harmony Creek Hollow, New York

“Don’t you dare eat those socks!”

Annie Wagler leaped off the back porch as the sock carousel soared on a gust and headed toward the pen where her twin sister’s goats were watching her bring in the laundry. The plastic circle, which was over twelve inches in diameter, had been clipped to the clothesline. As she’d reached for it, the wind swept it away.

Snow crunched beneath her boots, and she ducked under the clothes that hung, frozen hard, on the line. She despised bringing in laundry during the winter and having to hang the clothing over an air-dryer rack inside until it thawed. She hated everything to do with laundry: washing it, hanging it, bringing it in and folding it, ironing it and mending it. Every part of the process was more difficult in the cold.

Pulling her black wool shawl closer, she ran toward the fenced-in area where Leanna’s goats roamed. She wasn’t sure why they’d want to be outside on such a frigid day, but they were clumped together near where Leanna would feed them later. Annie sometimes wondered if the goats were one part hair, hooves and eyes, and three parts stomach. They never seemed to be full.

And they would consider the cotton and wool socks a treat.

Annie yanked open the gate, making sure it was latched behind her before she ran to collect the sock carousel. She had to push curious goats aside in order to reach it. One goat was already bending to sample the airborne windfall.

“Socks are for feet, not for filling your bottomless stomachs,” Annie scolded as she scooped up the socks that would have to be washed again.

The goats, in various patterns of white, black and brown, gave her both disgusted and hopeful glances. She wasn’t sure why her identical twin, Leanna, liked the creatures, especially the stinky male.

Leanna had established a business selling milk and had begun experimenting with recipes for soap. Her twin hoped to sell bars at the Salem farmers market, about three miles southwest of their farm, when it reopened in the spring. As shy as her twin was, Annie wasn’t sure how Leanna would handle interacting with customers.

They were mirror twins. Annie was right-handed, and Leanna left-handed. The cowlick that kept Annie’s black hair from lying on her right temple was identical to Leanna’s on the other side. They had matching birthmarks on their elbows, but on opposite arms. Their personalities were distinct, too. While Leanna seldom spoke up, Annie found it impossible to keep her opinions to herself.

How many times had she wished she was circumspect like her twin? For certain, too many times to count. Instead, she’d inherited her grossmammi’s plainspoken ways.

Annie edged toward the gate, leaning forward so the socks were on the other side of the fence. She needed to finish bringing in the laundry so she could help her grossmammi and Leanna with supper. Her younger siblings were always hungry after school and work. She’d hoped their older brother, who lived past the barn, would bring his wife and kinder tonight, but his six-year-old son, Junior, was sick.

Keeping the sock carousel out of the goats’ reach, she stretched to open the gate. One of the kids, a brown-and-white one her twin called Puddle, butted her, trying to get her attention.

Annie looked at the little goat. “If you weren’t so cute, you’d be annoying, ain’t so?”

“Do they talk to you when you talk to them?” asked a voice far deeper than her own.

In amazement, she looked up...and up...and up. Caleb Hartz was almost a foot taller than she was. Beneath his black broad-brimmed hat, his blond hair fell into eyes the color of early-summer grass. He had a ready smile and an easy, contagious enthusiasm.

And he was the man Leanna had her eye on.

Her sister hadn’t said anything about being attracted to him, but Annie couldn’t help noticing how tongue-tied Leanna was when he was nearby. He hadn’t seemed to notice, and maybe Annie would have missed her sister’s reactions if Annie didn’t find herself a bit giddy when Caleb spoke to her. Before Caleb’s sister, Miriam, had mentioned that Leanna seemed intrigued by her brother, Annie had been thinking...

No, it didn’t matter. If Leanna had set her heart on him, Annie should remind him how wunderbaar her sister was. She’d do anything to have her sister happy again.

“Gute nammidaag,” Annie said as she came out of the pen, being careful no goat slipped past her.

“Is it still afternoon?” He glanced toward the western horizon, where the sun touched the mountaintops.

“Barely,” she laughed. “I’ve been catching up with chores before working on supper. Would you like to eat with us this evening?”

“Danki, but no.” Caleb clasped his hands behind him.

Annie was puzzled. Why was he uncomfortable? Usually he chatted with everyone. While he traveled from church district to church district in several states, he’d met with each of the families now living in Harmony Creek Hollow and convinced them to join him in the new community in northern New York.

“What can we do for you?” she asked when he didn’t add anything else.

“I wanted to talk to you about a project I’m getting started on.”

Curiosity distracted her from how the icy wind sliced through her shawl, coat and bonnet. “What project?”

“I’m opening a bakery.”

“You are?” She couldn’t keep the surprise out of her voice.

A bakery? Amish men, as a rule, didn’t spend much time in the kitchen, other than to eat. Their focus was on learning farm skills or being apprenticed to a trade.

“Ja,” he said, then grimaced at another blast of frigid air. His coat was closed to the collar, where a scarf was edged with frost from his breath. “I stopped by to see if you’d be interested in working for me. The bakery will be out on the main road south of the turnoff for Harmony Creek Hollow.”

She set the sock carousel on a barrel. “You want to hire me? To work in your bakery?”

“I’ve had some success selling bread and baked goods at the farmers market in Salem. Having a shop will allow me to sell year-round, but I can’t be there every day and do my work at the farm.” He shivered again, and she guessed he was eager for a quick answer so he could return to his buggy. “Miriam told me you’d do a gut job for me.”

His sister, Miriam, was one of Annie’s best friends, a member of what they jokingly called the Harmony Creek Spinsters’ Club. Miriam hadn’t mentioned anything about Caleb starting a business.

“It sounds intriguing,” Annie said. “What would you expect me to do?”

“Tend the shop and handle customers. There would be some light cleaning.”

“Will you expect me to do any baking? I’d want several days’ warning if you’re going to want me to do that.”

He frowned, surprising her. It’d been a reasonable request, as she’d have to rearrange her household obligations around any extra baking. Asking Leanna would be silly. Her sister could burn air, and things that were supposed to be soft came out crunchy and vice versa. Nobody could quilt as beautifully as her twin, but the simplest tasks in the kitchen seemed to stump her.

“You’ve got a lot of questions,” he said.

Don’t ask too many questions. Don’t make suggestions. She doubted Caleb would treat her as her former boyfriend had, deriding her ideas until he found one he liked so much he claimed it for his own.

His frown faded. “I may need you to help with baking sometimes.”

“Will you expect me to do a daily accounting of sales?”

“Ja. Aren’t you curious how much I’m paying you?”

She rubbed her chin with a gloved finger. “I assume it’ll be a fair wage.” She smiled. “You’re not the sort of a man who’d take advantage of a neighbor.”

His wind-buffed cheeks seemed to grow redder, and she realized her compliment had embarrassed him.

Apologizing would cause him more discomfort, so she said, “Ja, I’d be interested in the job.”

“Then it’s yours.” His shoulders relaxed. “If you’ve got time now, I’ll give you a tour of the bakery, and we can talk more about what I’d need you to do.”

“Gut.” The wind buffeted her, almost knocking her from her feet as she reached to keep the sock carousel from sailing away again.

“Steady there.” Caleb’s broad hands curved along her shoulders, keeping her on her feet.

Sensation flowed out from his palms and riveted her, as sweet as maple syrup and, at the same time, as alarming as a fire siren.

“Danki,” she managed to whisper, but she wasn’t sure he heard her as the wind rose again. It made her breathing sound strange.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

When she nodded, he lifted his hands away and the warmth vanished. The day seemed colder than before.

Somehow, she mumbled that she needed to let her twin know where she was going. He wrapped his arms around himself as another blast of wind struck them.

“Hurry...anna...” The wind swallowed the rest of his words as she rushed toward the house.

She halted in midstep.

Anna?

Had Caleb thought he was talking to her twin? She’d clear everything up on their way to the bakery. She wanted the job. It was an answer to so many prayers, for God to let her find a way to help her sister be happy again, happy as Leanna had been before the man she loved married someone else without telling her.

Leanna was attracted to Caleb, and he’d be a fine match for her. Outgoing where her twin was quiet. A well-respected, handsome man whose gut looks would be the perfect foil for her twin’s. But Leanna would be too shy to let Caleb know she was interested in him. That was where Annie could help.

God, danki for giving me this chance to bring joy back to Leanna’s life. I won’t waste this opportunity You’ve brought to me.

As she was sending up her grateful prayer and rushing to the house, she reminded herself of one vital thing. She must be careful not to let her own attraction to Caleb grow while they worked together.

That might be the hardest part of the job.

* * *

One task down, a hundred to go...before he started tomorrow’s list.

Caleb glanced at the lead-gray sky as he moved closer to the heat box on the buggy’s floor, shifting his feet under the wool blanket there. The clouds overhead were low. Snow threatened, and the dampness in the air added another layer of cold. He hoped the Wagler twin wouldn’t remain in the house much longer. If he wanted to get home before the storm began, the trip to the bakery would have to be a quick one.

He hadn’t been sure when he went over to the Wagler farm if he’d get a ja or a no to his job offer. He had to have someone to help at the bakery.

But is she Annie or Leanna?

He hadn’t been sure which twin he was talking to. His usual way of telling them apart was that Annie talked more than Leanna, but without both being present, he hadn’t known. Not that it mattered. He had to have someone help at the bakery because he had his farmwork, as well.

After almost two years of traveling and recruiting families for the Harmony Creek settlement, he finally could make his dream of opening a bakery come true. He’d turned over the community’s leadership when the Leit ordained a minister and a deacon. It’d been the first service of the new year, and the right time to begin building the permanent leadership of their district.

He smiled in spite of the frigid wind as he glanced toward the white two-story farmhouse. Miriam had suggested he ask a Wagler twin to work for him. It had been a gut idea. The Wagler twins made heads—plain and Englisch—turn wherever they went. Not only were they identical with their sleek black hair, but they were lovely. The gentle curves of their cheekbones contrasted with their pert noses. Most important, they seemed to accept everyone as they were, not wanting to change them or belittle their dreams as Verba Tice had his.

His hands tightened on the reins, and his horse looked back as if to ask what was wrong. Caleb grimaced. It was stupid to think about the woman who’d ridiculed him. Verba was in Lancaster County, and he was far away. And...

He pushed the thoughts from his head as the back door opened and a bundled-up woman emerged. Her shawl flapped behind her as she hurried—with care, because there were slippery spots everywhere—to the buggy. He slid the door on the passenger side open, and she climbed in, closing it behind her. The momentary slap of wind had been as sharp as a paring knife.

“Sorry to be so long,” she said from behind a thick blue scarf. “My grossmammi asked me to get some canned fruit from the cellar.”

“It’s fine.” Which twin was sitting beside him? Too late, he realized he should have asked straightaway by the goats’ pen.

How could he ask now?

Giving his brown horse, Dusty, a gentle slap of the reins, he turned the buggy and headed toward the road. He tried to think of something that would lead to a clue about which Wagler twin was half-hidden behind the scarf. He didn’t want to talk about the weather. It was a grim subject in the midst of a March cold snap. What if he talked about the April auction to support the local volunteer fire department? The Englisch firefighters found it amusing when the plain volunteers called it a mud sale. He wondered if the ground would thaw enough to let the event live up to its name.

“Caleb?”

He wanted to cheer when she broke the silence. “Ja?”

“You know I’m Annie Wagler, ain’t so?”

“Ja.” He did now.

“I wanted to make sure, because people mix us up, and I didn’t want you to think you had to give me the job if you’d intended to hire Leanna.”

She was plainspoken. He prayed that would be gut in his shop, because he wasn’t going to renege on his offer. It could be embarrassing for her, and him, and the thought of the humiliation he’d endured at Verba’s hands stung.

And one thing hadn’t changed: he needed help at the bakery. It shouldn’t matter which twin worked for him.

Who are you trying to fool? nagged a tiny voice inside his head. The one that spoke up when he was trying to ignore his own thoughts.

Like thoughts of how right it had felt to put his hands on Annie’s shoulders as he kept her from falling in the barnyard. He didn’t want to recall how his heart had beat faster when her blue-green eyes had gazed up at him.

He must keep a barrier between him and any attractive woman. Getting beguiled as he had with Verba, who’d claimed to love him before she tried to change everything about him, would be stupid.

“Do you and your sister try to confuse people on purpose?” Caleb asked to force his thoughts aside.

“We did when we were kinder. Once we realized people couldn’t tell us apart, we took advantage of it at school. I was better at arithmetic and Leanna excelled in spelling, so sometimes I’d go to the teacher to do Leanna’s math problems as well as my own. She’d do the same with spelling.”

“You cheated?”

“Not on written tests or desk work. Just when the teacher wasn’t paying attention.”

He laughed, “The other scholars never tattled on you?”

“They wouldn’t get any of Grossmammi’s delicious cookies if they did.”

“I didn’t realize we had a pair of criminal masterminds in our midst.”

“Very retired criminal masterminds.” She smiled. “Our nice, neat plan didn’t last long. A new teacher came when we were in fourth grade, and she kept much better track of us. Our days of posing as each other came to a quick end.”

“So you had to learn to spell on your own?”

“And Leanna did her arithmetic problems. She realized she had a real aptitude for it and surpassed me the following year.” Annie hesitated, then said, “I’m sure the whole thing was my idea. Leanna always went along with me.”

He glanced at her. She was regarding him as if willing him to accept her words. He wondered why it mattered to her. For a moment, he sensed she was struggling with something big.

Again, he shut down his thoughts. Annie was his employee, and it’d be better to keep some distance between them.

“So you’re now the better speller?” Caleb asked, glad his tone was light.

She laughed, “I don’t know. We haven’t had a spelling bee in a long time.”

“Maybe we should have one. I read somewhere that Englisch pioneers used to hold spelling bees for entertainment.” He gave her a grin. “Something we could do in our spare time.”

“When we get some.”

Miriam had told him how much fun she had with the Wagler twins, but he hadn’t known Annie possessed a dry sense of humor. She wasn’t trying to flirt with him, either, and he’d heard several of the community’s bachelors saying Leanna was eager to marry. Maybe asking Annie instead of her twin hadn’t been such a mistake after all.

When they reached the main road, Caleb held Dusty back. Traffic sped past. Most cars were headed to ski resorts in Vermont, and the drivers couldn’t wait to reach the slopes. Local drivers complained tourists drove along the uneven, twisting country roads as if they were interstates.

Two minutes passed before Caleb felt safe to move onto the road. They didn’t have to go far before he signaled a left turn. He held his breath as a car zipped by him, heading east, but he was able to make the turn before another vehicle, traveling as fast, roared toward Salem.

“Everyone’s in a hurry,” Annie said as she turned her head to watch the car vanish over abandoned railroad tracks.

“I hope they slow down before they get hurt.” Pulling into the asphalt parking area behind the building where ghosts of painted lines were visible, he said, “Here we are.”

“Your bakery is going to be here?”

“Ja.” He was still amazed he’d been able to buy the building in October.

It had served as a supply depot for the railroad until the mid-1960s. The parking area and the pair of picture windows on the front were perfect for the shop he had in mind. Its wide eaves protected the doors. The building needed painting, but that had to wait for the weather to warm. As a few stray snowflakes wafted toward the ground, he couldn’t help imagining how it’d look in May, when he planned to open.

“Why a bakery?” she asked.

“My grossmammi taught me to bake when I was young, and I enjoyed it.” He didn’t add he’d been recovering from an extended illness and had been too weak to play outside.

She glanced at him, and he suspected she wanted him to explain further. He didn’t.

Walls. Keep up the walls, he reminded himself. Getting close was a one-way ticket to getting hurt again. He wasn’t going to do something that dumm again.

Not ever.

* * *

The wind tore at Annie’s coat and shawl when Caleb opened the door on his side and got out. When she reached for her door, he called to her. She had to strain to hear his voice over the wild wind.

“Head inside. Don’t wait for me.” He grabbed a wool blanket off the floor. “I’ll tie up Dusty. I want to put this over him to keep him warm while I give you the nickel tour.”

She nodded, but she wasn’t sure if he saw the motion because he’d already turned to lash his horse to a hitching rail. The building would provide a windbreak for the horse.

After hurrying through the back door, she paused to cup her hands and blow on them. She wore heavy gloves, but her fingers felt as if they’d already frozen.

It was dusky inside. Large boxes were stacked throughout the cramped space. She wondered what was in them. Not supplies, because the room didn’t look ready for use. Paint hung in loose strips between the pair of windows to her left.

She stood on tiptoe to look for writing on the closest box. She halted when she heard a quiet thump.

It came from beyond the crates. She peered around them. A door led into another room.

Was someone there?

Should she get Caleb?

A soft sound, like a gurgle or a gasp, was barely louder than her heartbeat. If someone was in trouble in the other room, she shouldn’t hesitate.

God, guide me.

She took a single step toward the other room, keeping her hand on the wall and trying to avoid the big crates. Her eyes widened when she saw a silhouette backlit by a large window. She edged forward, then froze as a board creaked beneath her right foot.

The silhouette whirled. Something struck the floor. A flashlight! It splashed light around the space. A young woman was highlighted before she turned to rush past Annie.

“Wait!” Annie cried.

A boppli’s cry echoed through the building.

“Stop!” came a shout from behind Annie.

Caleb!

“There’s someone here,” she called as she spun, hoping to cut off the woman’s escape.

She ran forward at the sound of two bodies hitting each other.

Caleb yelled, “Turn on the lights.”

“Lights?”

“Switch...on the wall...by the door.” He sounded as if he was struggling with someone.

She flipped the switch and gasped when she saw the person trying to escape from Caleb.

It was a teenage girl, holding a boppli. Blonde and cute, the girl had eyes the same dark green as Caleb’s. The boppli held a bright blue bear close to his cheek and squinted at them in the bright light.

Annie started to ask a question, but Caleb beat her to it when he asked, “Becky Sue? What are you doing here?”