The Amish Christmas Cowboy

When he’d shared honest answers, he’d gotten pity or, worse, someone wanting to help him. To accept assistance would mean obligations he didn’t want. He’d created other answers. Not lies, but not the whole truth, either.

“Ja,” he said, letting himself slip into Deitsch for a moment.

“If you’re here on Sunday, you’re welcome at our services,” she replied in the same language before turning to J.J. and asking in English if he wanted more lemonade.

Toby was taken aback at her lack of curiosity. Why hadn’t she posed the questions others had? Was she worried he’d have questions of his own? Was she hiding something like he was?

He’d never know if he left as soon as the horses were unloaded. Guilt clamped a heated claw around his throat. How could he leave her here with someone like Ned, who would see a plain woman as an easy target for his heartless flirtations? Should Toby suggest J.J. take Ned with him and let Toby stay instead?

You’ve lost your mind! The best thing he could do was get out of there as soon as possible. He needed to avoid the faintest possibility of a connection with Sarah, a lovely woman who intrigued him. Maybe it was too late. His determination to keep Ned from breaking her heart proved that. He didn’t want to see her hurt as he’d been many times.

Chapter Two (#ubc44ee9f-cdcd-5677-b51a-ea9bf2c01656)

Sarah had never been so relieved to see her boss as she was when Mr. Summerhays strode into the room. J.J. had been telling an endless tale about people she’d never met in places she’d never heard of. Her polite interruptions to offer lemonade hadn’t stymied him. He would reply that he’d like more to drink; then once again, he’d relaunch into his story. He shared a multitude of events that were, in Sarah’s opinion, barely related to one another. When he mentioned Toby by name, she was surprised to hear him say he was glad to have Toby with him because they could share the driving on long trips.

She wondered if J.J. found Ned overly pushy, too. Instantly, she was contrite. She shouldn’t judge Englisch folks and their ways when she was considering becoming one of them.

“Thank you, Sarah,” Mr. Summerhays said with his easy smile as he entered the room. To look at him, nobody would think he was a wealthy man. He dressed in beat-up clothes and always appeared to be in desperate need of a haircut. He was the complete opposite of his wife, who never emerged from their room without makeup, a perfect hairdo and clothing that had graced the pages of the fashion magazines she read.

Sarah nodded and rose. Thanking God for putting an end to the stilted conversation that felt as if every word had to be invented before she could speak it, she left the lemonade and extra glasses on the table.

As she reached the door, she spread out her arms to halt Ethan and Mia from racing in and interrupting their daed. She quickly realized they didn’t want to see him, but the horses Natalie had told them were in the trailer.

Sarah’s heart grew heavy at the thought that the kinder weren’t interested in spending time with their daed, though they hadn’t seen him for a week. How she wished she could have another few moments with her daed! He’d died before she and her two older brothers had moved to the Harmony Creek settlement. Unlike Menno and Benjamin, Daed had listened to her dreams of finding a way to help others. Her brothers dismissed them as silly, but Daed never had. When she’d suggested she take EMT training when they became volunteers at the Salem Fire Department, her brothers had reminded her that they were the heads of the household.

And they disapproved of the idea.

As one, they told her she must not mention it again and should focus on more appropriate duties. No Amish woman should be giving medical aid to strangers. It wasn’t right.

Neither Benjamin nor Menno was being honest with her. They were worried she’d get hurt if she served as an EMT. Maybe their being overprotective wouldn’t have bothered her if Wilbur Eash hadn’t been the same. When Wilbur had first paid attention to her at youth group gatherings in Indiana, she’d been flattered such a gut-looking and popular guy was interested in her. Before the first time he took her home in his courting buggy, he’d started insisting she heed him on matters big and small. He, like her brothers, seemed to believe she wasn’t capable of taking care of herself.

What would Daed have said? The same, or would he have suggested she find out if Menno and Benjamin—and Wilbur—were right in their assumption that she needed to be protected from her dreams? Daed had always listened to Mamm’s opinion until her death a few years before his. Sarah had heard him say many times Mamm’s insight had often made him look at a problem in another way.

She’d asked her friends if they knew of Amish women taking EMT training. They hadn’t but offered to write to friends in other settlements. So far, no one had received answers to their letters.

“We’ll go ahead and get those horses unloaded,” J.J. said from the room behind her. “Toby, tell Ned to help you.”

“Can we watch?” Ethan asked as Toby hurried out the front door.

“We’ll be good,” his little sister hurried to add.

Sarah didn’t answer as she pushed her uneasy thoughts aside and concentrated on her job. She loved these kinder, but she had no illusions about what rascals they were. Her predecessors hadn’t stayed long, according to Mrs. Hancock, because they couldn’t handle the rambunctious youngsters. With a laugh, Sarah had replied she’d been quite the outrageous youngster herself, which, she acknowledged, was one reason her brothers looked askance at every idea she had. Though she was twenty-seven, they treated her as if she were as young as Mia. She wished they’d give her the benefit of the doubt once in a while and realize she was a woman who yearned to help others.

Just as she needed to offer the Summerhays kinder a chance to show they could be gut. Giving the youngsters a stern look, she said, “I’ll agree to take you outside to watch if you promise to stay with me every second, hold my hand and not get in the way. If Mr. Christner says you have to leave, you must.”

Though the Amish didn’t use titles, even when speaking of bishops and ministers, she wanted to impress on the kinder how vital it was to heed Toby’s instructions while he put the horses in the paddock. Racehorses were high-strung, and she guessed he and Ned needed to keep their attention on the task.

“Can we come, too?” asked Alexander, who was going to be as tall as his daed and maybe broader across the shoulders. He was nine, but the top of his head was two inches higher than Sarah’s.

She’d never figured out how these kinder learned what was going on when she hadn’t seen them nearby. She suspected they put the decorative columns and other architectural elements in the house to gut use.

“Ja,” she said, looking each youngster in the eyes. “You may come, but Ethan and Mia must hold my hands. Natalie, hold Mia’s other one. Alexander, hold Ethan’s. If anyone lets go, I’ll bring you inside right away, and there’ll be no going out until the horses are unloaded. Do you agree?”

The kinder shot wary glances at each other. When she repeated her question, they nodded.

Sarah took the younger two by the hands and watched to be certain Natalie and Alexander did as she’d requested. Leading them onto the porch, she paused as Toby opened the trailer. She breathed a sigh of relief to see Ned sitting in the truck, going through a stack of paperwork. Tossing it aside, he stepped out of the truck and flashed her a wide smile.

She looked away and right at Toby, who stood with one foot on the bumper. Under his straw hat, a faint frown appeared again as his brows drew together. His eyes were concealed by the shadow from the hat’s brim.

Realizing she should have spoken to him before she agreed to bring the kinder outside, she asked, “Is it a problem if we watch you unload the horses?”

“Not if you stay out of the way,” he answered.

“I’ll make sure.”

His only reply was an arch of one eloquent eyebrow. She’d heard cowboys could be men of few words, but this one took being terse to ridiculous lengths.

Herding the kinder to the far side of the pair of linked paddocks in front of the main stable behind the house, she knew they’d have an excellent view of the proceedings. She’d vetoed Ethan’s request to stand on a bench because it was too close to the gate. She wanted the youngsters as far as possible from the animals when they emerged from the trailer and had room to show their displeasure at being transported in close quarters. Sarah was grateful the Texans would be on their way soon. She hadn’t expected to have a gut-looking Amish cowpoke come into her life.

A faint memory stirred, and she remembered a letter she’d read in The Budget, the newspaper printed for and written by scribes in plain communities, about new western settlements that had developed ways that differed from other communities. One in eastern Oklahoma had started using tractors in their fields, because a team of mules couldn’t break the soil. The tractors had steel wheels with no tires and couldn’t be used for anything but fieldwork, but it was a compromise the settlement had to agree upon if they wanted to remain on those farms.

Toby’s settlement in Texas must have made similar concessions to the climate and the land. That could explain why he was allowed to drive the big truck, something that wouldn’t have been allowed in most settlements.

The kinder began to cheer when Ned brought the first horse and Toby went into the paddock. She hushed them as the big black shied when it came off the ramp. She wasn’t sure if her warning or Toby’s scowl silenced them. Either way, none of the youngsters made a peep as Ned guided the horse into the first paddock, shoved the reins in Toby’s hand and, leaving, closed the gate.

Toby began to give the sleek horse a quick examination. “I need to make sure, while the horse was in the trailer, he didn’t injure himself without us noticing,” he said, answering the question she’d been thinking but hadn’t wanted to ask out loud.

She watched how Toby ran his hands along the horse, keeping it from shying away or rearing in fright. He kept his motions to a minimum, and if the horse began to tense, he soothed it with soft words.

Satisfied the horse was fine, Toby led him into the inner paddock and took off the lead rope. The horse galloped, happy to be out of the trailer and able to stretch out his legs.

“Pretty horse,” Natalie said in a wistful tone. The girl was as obsessed with horses as her daed.

The second horse, also dark in color, took his arrival in stride. He pranced into the paddock, dragging Ned with him, and stood like a statue during the examination. When Toby turned him out in the other paddock, he walked in as if coming home.

“That was easy,” Alexander said with a grin. “Too bad they aren’t all like that.”

Toby nodded but didn’t smile in return. Maybe his lips grew a little less taut.

When Alexander looked at her with an expression that asked What did I do wrong? she smiled and said, “Mr. Christner needs to concentrate. I’m sure he’ll be more ready to talk once he’s done.”

She wasn’t sure of that or why she was making excuses, other than she didn’t want Alexander to be hurt. The boy nodded, and she turned as the kinder did to watch the final horse being taken from the trailer.

Even she, who didn’t know much about horses beyond the quiet buggy horse she drove, could tell the bay prancing around Ned was magnificent. Muscles rippled beneath the sheen of his coat, and his black mane and tail floated on the air with each movement.

As soon as the horse was brought into the first paddock, Toby began the same swift examination he’d done with the others. He was squatting, checking the horse’s legs, when a gray barn cat flashed through the paddock. The horse started, whinnied, then reared in a panic.

Sarah tightened her grip on the younger kinder’s hands and called to Natalie and Alexander to back away from the fence. The horrified youngsters froze as the bay’s hooves pawed the air as if fighting off a giant invisible rival.