Jo Brown - The Amish Christmas Cowboy

Her heart hammered against her ribs as she held the little boy close. He shook, and she cuddled him to her. Maybe he understood how he could have been hurt.

Then she realized he was laughing! He thought the whole thing had been fun. When he squirmed to get out of her hold, she tightened it.

She felt sorry for the four kinder who always were looking for ways to be noticed. Their parents were busy—Mr. Summerhays with his businesses and his racehorses and Mrs. Summerhays redoing her wardrobe and the house every two to three months—and they paid little attention to their kids. Even when one or more acted outrageously, the mischief seldom registered with their busy parents.

Carrying Ethan down the stairs while leading Mia by the hand, Sarah said, “You told me you wouldn’t climb the columns again.”

“We didn’t climb them,” Mia said with the aplomb of a four-year-old attorney arguing a legal loophole in a courtroom. “We got on them up there.”

Sarah resisted rolling her eyes as she put Ethan on his feet. The youngsters nitpicked everything. In the nine months since she’d taken the job as nanny, she’d learned to be specific when setting parameters for them. Apparently, she hadn’t been specific enough.

How her friends in the Harmony Creek Spinsters’ Club would laugh when she told them about this! They were getting together that evening to attend the second annual Berry-fest Dinner to benefit the local volunteer fire department. She wondered if her friends had guessed that she told them less than a quarter of the “adventures” her charges got into each day. She tried to head the kinder off before they were hurt, but didn’t want to hover over them. Being overprotective wasn’t gut for anyone. She knew that too well.

“Sarah!” Natalie stamped her foot. “Did you hear me?”

“Just a minute.” Frowning at the younger kinder , she ordered, “No more getting on the columns anywhere.”

“From floor to ceiling?” asked Ethan.

“And everywhere in between. No getting on the columns. Understood?”

Ethan and Mia glanced at each other, then nodded.

“Sarah!” Natalie crossed her arms over her bright red T-shirt. “Sarah, are you listening?”

Watching the two little ones skipping across the fancy rug that cost more than the farm where she lived with her two brothers, Sarah sighed. She faced the impatient ten-year-old who’d inherited her mamm’s glistening black hair and gray eyes. Someday, Natalie would be a beauty like her mamm , but with her lips compressed, she looked like the kind she was.

“I’m listening.” Sarah smoothed her black apron that had gotten bunched against her dark green dress when she’d kept Ethan from falling. For a moment, she wondered what Alexander, the fourth Summerhays youngster, was up to. She would check once she listened to Natalie. Checking her kapp was in place, she asked, “What’s up, Natalie?”

“Did someone order a cowboy?”

Stunned, she stared at the girl. “Why would you ask me that?”

“Because there are cowboys on the porch.”

She struggled not to frown. The kinder had played plenty of pranks on her when she first began working for Mr. and Mrs. Summerhays. Childish practical jokes like a whoopee cushion beneath her and spiders in her glass. She’d laughed along with them, until they’d stopped. Or she’d thought they had.

When she’d been offered the job, she’d seen it as a gift from God. It provided her with an open window into Englisch lives, allowing her to learn what she’d need to know if she decided to move away from the Harmony Creek settlement. Her stomach clenched. She didn’t want to leave her brothers or the wunderbaar friends she’d made since they moved to northern New York last year, but being baptized meant surrendering her dream of helping others.

That dream had been born the day she went to visit her daed in the hospital after a serious barn accident. He’d lost his right arm, and she guessed he might have given up if it hadn’t been for the nurses and physical therapists who’d believed in him. Watching them, she’d decided she wanted to learn to do such work, but that would be impossible if she became a full member of the Amish church. However, a job like a volunteer EMT might be allowed.

“Natalie,” she began.

“There are cowboys out there!” insisted the girl. “If you don’t believe me, look for yourself.”

Sarah took a quick glance at the top of the wide door to make sure someone hadn’t rigged a bucket of water on it. The fancy door was hinged in the middle, and she kept a close eye on the other side...just in case. The August heat battered her like an open oven door.

“See?” demanded Natalie.

Lowering her gaze from the door’s top, Sarah gasped when she saw who stood on the wide porch.

A cowboy!

A real live cowboy!

She stared in disbelief at his wide-brimmed straw hat that looked as if it’d been plucked out of one of her brother Menno’s Zane Grey novels. Though the day was warm, he wore a long-sleeved light green shirt and denims. His black Western boots had scuffed toes. Sun-streaked brown hair fell forward into the bluest eyes she’d ever seen, bluer than a cloudless summer sky.

“Ma’am, is this Ian Summerhays’s place?” asked another cowboy, who tipped his black hat as he came up the steps. He was older, old enough to be her daed , and his slow drawl came, she guessed, right out of the heart of Texas.

“ Ja... Yes, it is.” She couldn’t pull her gaze from the younger man, who gaped at her in outright astonishment.

Hadn’t he seen a plain woman before? If he hadn’t, he should still have known it wasn’t polite to stare.

Then, realizing she was doing the same, she cut her eyes to the older man and asked, “Are you looking for Mr. Summerhays?”

“Is he around?”

“He’s in his office.” She didn’t add how rare that was. He spent most days at the stables in Saratoga, about an hour’s drive south.

“Can you let him know we’ve got a delivery for him?” The older man gestured toward a large truck with a massive horse trailer behind it.

South Texas Stables was written on the side of the trailer in fading red letters. Through the narrow windows, motions revealed animals were inside. She was relieved to hear the sound of an air-conditioning unit coming on, knowing the animals would be more comfortable than she was in her bed on a hot summer night when the air was still.

“Of course.” She turned to Natalie. “Please go and let your daed know there’s a delivery.”

The little girl glanced at the men on the porch and, for a moment, Sarah thought she would protest.

Natalie grinned. “I told you there were cowboys out here.”

“You did.” Bending, Sarah said, “Mrs. Beebe said she was going to have a treat for you this afternoon.” The cook knew the youngsters were always ready for a snack. “You can check with her if it’s ready after you let your daed know someone wants to talk with him.”

“Okay, I get it. You want to talk to the cowboy by yourself. Don’t let him sweep you onto his horse and ride off with you into the sunset.” She giggled before running inside.

Sarah hoped neither man had heard the girl. Those hopes were dashed when she aimed a furtive look in the younger man’s direction and saw his frown. His light brown brows were lowered like storm clouds over his bright blue eyes. Intense emotion filled them, but she didn’t know why he was distressed.

After Natalie had rushed away to her daed’s office in the left wing of the house, Sarah looked at the men, unsure what to say next. She wished Mrs. Summerhays were there, but the kinder’s mamm was in Europe, buying items in antiques shops in Paris and Rome and Vienna to create her new vision for the house. Should Sarah ask the two men in? No, three men. Another guy with a cowboy hat walked around the trailer. Leaning against it, the dark-haired man lit a cigarette, startling her. Mr. Summerhays didn’t like anyone smoking near the house or stables.